The Business of Life with Dr King
Dr Ariel Rosita King brings on a variety of International guests from various countries, cultures, organisations, and businesses to talk about turning
problem into possibilities! Let's turn our challenges in opportunities together!
The Business of Life with Dr King
When Silence Isn't an Option: Standing Up for the Most Vulnerable Dr. Renee Fredrickson (USA)
Dr. Renee Fredrickson's life journey exemplifies courage, resilience, and reinvention. From her humble beginnings in a small Minnesota town, she describes how formative experiences like Model UN and Girl Scouts opened doors that would have otherwise remained closed. These opportunities propelled her into a psychology career where she bravely confronted the darkest aspects of human behavior—working with infant and childhood sexual abuse victims for over three decades.
With remarkable candor, Dr. Fredrickson reveals the profound challenges of advocating for vulnerable children when powerful forces resist exposure. "It takes a village to abuse a child," she notes, explaining how fear, helplessness, and our own unresolved traumas often lead society to turn away from children's suffering. Despite facing 32 years of harassment and stalking from those she confronted, she stood firm in her conviction that "sometimes there's not two sides to every story"—a powerful reminder that moral clarity sometimes outweighs cultural pressures toward false equivalence.
The conversation takes an unexpected turn as Dr. Fredrickson shares how pandemic isolation led to finding love with physicist Jim Coates and discovering his revolutionary water purification technology. Their "reverse diffusion" innovation operates at the molecular level, removing contaminants from water using minimal energy—the equivalent of powering a flashlight. The potential applications span from household use to agriculture, shipping, and even space exploration, with particular potential to transform life for marginalized communities worldwide. "Every person I've talked to about climate change has some feelings about it," she observes, "but when you bring up water and microplastics and chemicals, people's faces change." Her vision of "global greening" offers hope that solutions to our most pressing environmental challenges may come not just from policy changes, but from applied physics brought to the everyday level. Join us for this inspiring conversation about reinvention, courage, and the power of believing in possibilities—both in ourselves and in science.
Music, lyrics, guitar and singing by Dr Ariel Rosita King
Teach me to live one day at a time
with courage love and a sense of pride.
Giving me the ability to love and accept myself
so I can go and give it to someone else.
Teach me to live one day at a time.....
The Business of Life
Dr Ariella (Ariel) Rosita King
Original Song, "Teach Me to Live one Day At A Time"
written, guitar and vocals by Dr. Ariel Rosita King
Dr King Solutions (USA Office)
1629 K St, NW #300,
Washington, DC 20006, USA,
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Dr Ariel King and welcome to the business of life. Today we have a very special guest, dr Renee Fredrickson. Hello, dr Fredrickson, welcome.
Dr. Rene Fredrickson (USA) :Hello Dr King, Thank you.
Dr Ariel R. King:Wonderful, could you please tell us? Thank you. Could you please tell us a little bit about yourself?
Dr. Rene Fredrickson (USA) :I'm a former psychologist. I was a psychologist for many years. I had a clinic really incredible and became interested in water and climate and helping bring this his, his work, to the, to the world which is water for everybody.
Dr Ariel R. King:That's truly fantastic. So you've done so many different things in your career well, so have you and I wanted to tell.
Dr. Rene Fredrickson (USA) :I wanted to tell you about your work with children, youth and children. I know, growing up in a little town in Minnesota with a mom who was a cook and a stay-at-home mom and a dad who was a truck driver, I would not have gotten out of that little town if I had not had opportunities like you're creating for young people in the world, had opportunities like you're creating for young people in the world Getting out to the Model UN, even Girl Scouts and Brownie Scouts early on, getting out, getting into speech, going to places where I could learn to be a leader, learn to speak, learn what other things are happening in the world. That was invaluable to me. And when I saw what you were doing, I knew she's doing what got me out into the world, so thank you for that. And working I saw what you were doing, I knew she's doing what got me out into the world, so thank you for that. And working with infant and early childhood sexual abuse I know we both love children and you know. Thank you.
Dr Ariel R. King:What a compliment. Thank you so much for that compliment. You know, I really would love to know more about the mentors that you had in your life. Could you tell us a little bit more about, if not, individual mentors, like some of the mentors that you had in your life? Could you tell us a little bit more about, if not, individual mentors, like some of the programs that you said that really made a difference in your life as a young person?
Dr. Rene Fredrickson (USA) :Well, because I've just started to look at working globally.
Dr. Rene Fredrickson (USA) :I'm really focused on the time I went to the Model UN and it was just fascinating and I got assigned a little tiny country and I remember feeling just so mad that I was from a little tiny country and I didn't have one of the bigger countries that got to talk, and so you know, I wanted to do something.
Dr. Rene Fredrickson (USA) :So I said that we should try to have a protest so that we could have smaller countries represented at the Model UN. And that didn't go so well. So we staged a walkout and I thought that was the first revolutionary act I ever did. But it also taught me that everybody wants recognition, even tiny countries or tiny people, that they feel resentful of being cut out of the picture, you know. And so that was a program that really mattered to me, and speech and traveling around the state for competitions like that, for girls athletics, that kind of thing I know you're doing those things leadership, you know, National Honor Society, things like that. There were programs that just brought me out of that world and into the larger world and I wouldn't be comfortable there without that training.
Dr Ariel R. King:That's truly interesting. I think that was the same for me as a young person. You know having those avenues. For example, I also did brownies and this is within the United States Girl Scouts and brownies and you know group leaders and learning various things with other young people, going to camps, for example, learning how to swim in lakes.
Dr Ariel R. King:I really believe that all of those experiences really we had, for example in sports. In debate I'm talking about outside of the quote unquote, educational school setting. What do you think about children today and the opportunities they have or don't have, and perhaps how does that affect them?
Dr. Rene Fredrickson (USA) :and their future. I think it isolates children. I think that when we isolate people, we cut them off. It's like cutting off a part of yourself, choosing not to be in touch with your emotions or your legs or whatever part of your body. And I think it's important that we also diversify. I mean, I was facing small town judgments and bias and I was facing female bias. I wasn't facing people of color, indigenous people, even extreme poverty. We were poor but not hungry, and there's a big difference and I think those people being able to reach them. It not only helps individual people, but it releases to the world an energy that would have been lost, an energy that gets turned toward building the world.
Dr Ariel R. King:So that's what I think that makes a big difference. That makes a big difference. That makes a big difference. And today, with so many young people turning and families turning to technology television, gaming, ipads, iphones or phones and so on and so forth I'm having trouble hearing you Excuse me With iPads and iPhones and televisions and others. Do you think that young people are missing something? I think so.
Dr. Rene Fredrickson (USA) :I'm afraid you cut out.
Dr Ariel R. King:It's okay, so tell us more about your. Tell us more.
Dr. Rene Fredrickson (USA) :I'm sorry, can you hear me? Not, if you can hear me, can you hear me?
Dr Ariel R. King:Tell us more about your childhood.
Dr. Rene Fredrickson (USA) :I can't hear you for everything. And so I, of course I jumped on that and I don't even know if we would have had the wherewithal to apply to colleges if they hadn't come and put a red carpet out. And that just opened up a whole world. And I studied to be a research psychologist until one day somebody said to me did you hear? There's a new group going on at Macalester and it's about feelings. They talk about feelings and it was like, ah, like feelings went back then. Feelings it was a word you just used rarely, certainly everyone lived in an isolated emotional world and no one talked to each other, and that was a real opening.
Dr. Rene Fredrickson (USA) :And I went on from there to work with infant and early childhood sexual abuse, which was amazing and very difficult. And I think you only have to work with babies and infants who have been badly abused to know that sometimes there's not two sides to every story, sometimes there's one. Sometimes it's not everybody's fault, it's one person's fault. Although I truly believe it takes a village to abuse a child, I do believe that A lot of people turn their backs.
Dr Ariel R. King:So why do you think people turn their backs why?
Dr. Rene Fredrickson (USA) :I think it's profoundly disturbing to be helpless in the face of a child's pain. That's one thing, and it's very frightening to speak out for a child because we all sense that the people who are invested in this, the predators and those who enable and profit from them, are going to come after you. You sense it and they do. People get families throw you out, friends turn their backs, whatever. And I also think a lot of that's about the denial of our own childhoods, the pain we have, most of us felt in some way victimized in our childhood, and many were profoundly victimized and some of us face it and some of us don't. And that makes us want to deny other people's experiences when they're experiences we deny in ourselves. So that's three things that I think make that happen.
Dr Ariel R. King:That makes all the difference. How can people find courage? That makes all the difference. How?
Dr. Rene Fredrickson (USA) :can people find courage? Well, I keep thinking of when we used to joke denial is the better part of valor. Sometimes you can find courage by just putting on blinders and saying I'm going to do what's right. And sometimes people find courage by getting angry. Anger is, you know, don't be angry, don't be angry, but anger organizes and motivates. I encourage by getting angry, angry. Anger is, you know, don't be angry, don't be angry, but angry organizes and motivates. And sometimes we find courage because, I don't know, it's the grace of God, something comes over you and you just know. You have to stand firm in faith, the face of what is coming at you. And believe you me, people who abuse little tiny children can throw a lot of bad stuff at you. They're painful.
Dr Ariel R. King:Can I ask what life lessons have you learned from that? Are there life lessons that you've learned, and how do you apply them today? Oh my goodness.
Dr. Rene Fredrickson (USA) :Oh, I certainly did. I learned about I wanted to say I learned about the wonder of children. I mean, they're just amazing. And one of my favorite quotes I'm going to paraphrase it is it is no small wonder that they, who are so fresh from God, should love us. And when you get opened into that world and you find even infants who are hurting, are trying to tell you something and need your help and find ways to communicate, it's very moving and that spirit, every human comes into the world with that spirit. They may get wounded, they get twisted. It's good you know, but it's there.
Dr. Rene Fredrickson (USA) :And once you know that, you can never not know it. You can never not see that in a person. The other thing is going up against people who killed children, who abused them, who organized, who made pictures, who sold, who wanted me dead, facing that and living with that for 32 years of active harassment, stalking, blah, blah, blah. That taught me when to dig in your heels, no matter how frightened you are, that sometimes you just have to Resilience, nelson Mandela. That makes all the difference. Resilience, nelson Mandela.
Dr Ariel R. King:That makes all the difference. You know, yeah, resilience, I mean the children that you worked with, also resilience.
Dr. Rene Fredrickson (USA) :Yes, amazing resilience, yes, and they speak with such truth, you know when they're little, and you're here today and know when they're little.
Dr Ariel R. King:And you're here today and you're still standing.
Dr. Rene Fredrickson (USA) :Bravo, Thank you, yes, I am, yes, I am, yes, I am, in spite of a lot of people's. But you know, I always said science and history will prove one side right and one side wrong, and I'm pretty confident what side I'm on. So, and then I retired and met my husband one night during the pandemic. This is pretty amazing.
Dr Ariel R. King:Tell us about that, that. Tell us about that part of your life which is, which is quite unusual, to retire and then to meet your husband.
Dr. Rene Fredrickson (USA) :Well, to meet the love of your life, to get married and then to start in a second kind of career well, I uh was sitting here during the pandemic and I saw I'd been on a dating app matchcom, whatever and it said somebody had contacted me. I thought who, what? I didn't even know. This was active. Who's trying to contact me in the middle of a pandemic? And I went and looked and it was just a type sentence. And it said they had his name and he put his telephone number and he said call me if you want. And I was like who would say that? And I didn't even have a picture actually. So I went and looked at his photo and he didn't say anything except where he was from and that he was a physicist. Well, I love physics. And I dialed that phone so fast and we talked for hours and I said you're so lucky. I called. I said that was the barest hook set into the sea of love that's ever been, you know and you caught somebody.
Dr. Rene Fredrickson (USA) :So that was pretty interesting and I really feel blessed to have that happen to me at this point in my life. He's a pretty wonderful man and then about a year later I found out I think he's like a genius. I mean, he's amazing in what he's done with physics, trying to help the world.
Dr Ariel R. King:That's really amazing. So tell us a little bit about the water project that you're now involved in with your husband.
Dr. Rene Fredrickson (USA) :Okay, Well, before I married him we're still getting to know each other he said to me he's kind of a shy Wyoming physicist cowboy and he said I invented this thing. I said what and he told me what it was. I said what and he told me what it was. And it's a way to clean water, to desalinate and decontaminate water, using physics to do the heavy lifting. And so working at a molecular level rather than trying to move things through a pipe, is transforming particles and it's called reverse diffusion. And if you look at salt in a solution, it doesn't take very much energy for that salt to dissolve, it just doesn't. But you can't reverse that process because of something known as the Helmholtz layer.
Dr. Rene Fredrickson (USA) :Well, jim, my husband, jim Coates, found a way to manipulate the Helmholtz layer so that he could reverse that diffusion which, since diffusion, takes very little energy.
Dr. Rene Fredrickson (USA) :It also took a very tiny amount of additional energy to make the reverse happen and that, in very simple terms, is what his water desalinator, reverse diffusion was about. But how it did it was it takes out just bear with me this will sound kind of nerdy but asymmetric, charged, distributed particles, which most of the world's substances are made of. So that means not only will this take out salt, it will take out microplastics, pfas, nuclear waste in water, anything you know pharmaceuticals, pharmaceutical waste manufacturers. As long as it's not a lump, it can't take out lumps, but if it's, you can get it to flow through it's continuous flow. Very little energy. The energy for two water for two people for one day is the energy to turn on a flashlight, and that's a tremendous step forward. And condensed waste, no downtime because there's no members, it just membranes or filters, just flows through and I saw the potential in that. If we could get that to everyone everywhere all at once, what a world it would be.
Dr Ariel R. King:That's really fantastic. Yes, mary asked has it been used at all and, if so, where has it been used so far? Where have we seen the success of it and, if not, where will it be used in the future?
Dr. Rene Fredrickson (USA) :Okay, well, jim worked for 20 years on it and we're now at the. He and his son, who's also a physicist, patented it and now we have a prototype, but we're at the optimization stage. And so Colorado School of Mines I don't know if you've heard of it, but engineers have Colorado School of Mines I don't know if you've heard of it, but engineers have. It's a premier engineering school in Colorado. I have an innovation center and they've offered their staff and students to help do the optimization. And so we're in the fundraising stage, letting people know Jim and his partner had this and they weren't trying to sell it to anybody. They weren't.
Dr Ariel R. King:People came to them right, they're scientists, exactly, they were just trying to make things work. The engineers too.
Dr. Rene Fredrickson (USA) :I love it Right, yeah, so I realize. May I ask is there a?
Dr Ariel R. King:vision? Oh no, Pardon me for interrupting. Is there a vision to? Oh no, Pardon me for interrupting. Is there a vision to where this can be used, especially where there is no clean water and we have issues with all kinds of health problems as a result of not having clean water?
Dr. Rene Fredrickson (USA) :Absolutely. It does really need to go everywhere, but it's the people that have less, who are marginalized, who are going to benefit the most and we will benefit from it the rest of us who have because those people will plant and the energy that's going to be released from not having to get water, clean water, you know, nurse, sick people, children and adults who got sick from dirty water all of that that's going to make a tremendous impact on the world and I think, especially the planting, I think also the applications are enormous. We got approached by an accelerator program and they said the first thing we'll do with you is help you narrow down to what is your first market, because the markets are endless. Ships in the Navy, they need fresh water. It's terrible. Outer space, industrial, agricultural all of us need water.
Dr. Rene Fredrickson (USA) :Every person I've talked to about climate change has some feelings about it, but when you bring up water and microplastics and chemicals, people's faces change and when I say we've got something that can fix that, I see relief. I don't see that emotional connection right now. People, the air, dr King, energy, water and food three big things we absolutely need and we need to only solve one of them, to take care of the other two because they're so interdependent. I called it global greening. You know like where? If we could, if it could, if it is disruptive technology like a cell phone, if it could just go everywhere all at once, what a change that would make, what we would have a real chance to do something different with our world.
Dr Ariel R. King:So that's my vision I love it Two people, who are two people, coming together, not just in love and putting their lives together, but literally working for the good of humanity through making water, clean water, basically available anywhere and everywhere for everyone. That's pretty amazing. That's pretty amazing, you know. I love the fact that you know. People talk about reinventing themselves, but the truth is you didn't really reinvent yourself as a curious person. What you did is you found something else that is so positive that you can actually do.
Dr. Rene Fredrickson (USA) :Well, and you know, once you grasp the concept, it's just so exciting. I mean, one of our slogans that I want to have is better living through physics. Because when I first heard this like you're taking physics out of the you know the atmosphere and bringing it down to our level. In 50 years we'll be brushing our teeth with physics. And now I just read the Japanese have a molecule you put in your mouth and it destroys all the plaque in your mouth. It's just a molecule. They're in clinical trials already, so it didn't even take 50 years. I think applied physics people are all excited about AI. That's great, but I think applied physics is going to bringing it down and helping with the problems we have. Out of math, you can do the math.
Dr. Rene Fredrickson (USA) :I really love that. Can't see the implications, you know.
Dr Ariel R. King:Right, and some of applied physics. I guess it also means a bit of chemistry, doesn't it? I mean, Absolutely Applied physics really also has to do with and I like you and the science stuff. Most people don't know that, but I love physics and chemistry.
Dr. Rene Fredrickson (USA) :So this is quite exciting, I always feel I shortchange the chemists because they are big in this too. But it's hard to say chemists, physics and chemists, because because they are big in this too, but it's hard to say chemists, physics and chemists.
Dr Ariel R. King:You know, get them both in at once but it's, it's a partnership, it's together, it's together. Bravo, this is quite exciting, um, can I ask you, know you've, you've lived so much of life, you've done so much, what kind of advice would you tell, I would say, your 15 year old self about life?
Dr. Rene Fredrickson (USA) :oh, but it it touches me, it makes me sad, because that was one one broken up girl. I would say don't listen to them. Believe in yourself, believe every person who tells you something good. Believe them, it's different than what was before. Just believe every person who tells you something good and just shake off those who tell you something else. And that's what I would tell her. Shame is always a lie, always. So that's what I would say.
Dr Ariel R. King:I love that. That's so positive, isn't it?
Dr. Rene Fredrickson (USA) :Bravo, and sometimes I think I would say sometimes I think I would say don't work with child sexual abuse, just kidding, but that was a tough role. That was a tough role to hold. That was tough.
Dr Ariel R. King:Right, but I was going to say, you know, I think what you probably have not been told and you don't realize yet is you're like those who have come before you. You know, now within some parts of the of the world celebrating martin luther king day and he was a gentleman that came before or even, um, if you have people who really didn't really need to defend or stick up for, or even look after anyone else but themselves, but, for whatever reason, decided that they were going to walk that path, so I put you in the category of all these amazing men and women that walk the path of courage and decide that they are going to walk that path, no matter how difficult it is, and they're going to keep walking it, no matter what's the threat. So I honor you and I thank you for everything that you've done for children, and I know that there are multiple generations alive and doing well because of you, so I want to thank you for that.
Dr. Rene Fredrickson (USA) :You're welcome. Well, thank you for doing it too. And then you know those heroes that you mentioned. They kept me going, you know, especially being stalked for 32 years. I clung to Nelson Mandela because he was in prison 30 years. It was like he came out. He's okay, you know, just be that way. Well, thank you so much. That's very touching and very fulfilling my pleasure, my pleasure.
Dr Ariel R. King:Thank you so much for being with us. I'm so grateful and I want to thank our audience today for being with I and Dr Renee Fredrickson. And remember, if I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, when am I? If not now, then when? That was Hillel. And for me I say if not me, then who? Thank you so much for joining us at the Business of Life.
Dr. Rene Fredrickson (USA) :Thank you.