1 00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:02,520 Hey, thanks for listening. This is Ross Kenyon. 2 00:00:02,520 --> 00:00:04,880 I'm the host of Reversing Climate Change, the podcast you 3 00:00:04,880 --> 00:00:06,640 are listening to right at this very moment. 4 00:00:07,040 --> 00:00:10,040 Before we get into the bulk of today's show, I'd love to tell 5 00:00:10,040 --> 00:00:13,920 you about our sponsors, Absolute Climate and Philip Lee LLP. 6 00:00:14,480 --> 00:00:16,160 I've made great radio with both of them. 7 00:00:16,160 --> 00:00:18,800 They should be familiar to you if you listen to this show, but 8 00:00:18,800 --> 00:00:21,240 I want to tell you about why you should learn a little bit more. 9 00:00:21,680 --> 00:00:23,960 The first sponsor is Absolute Climate. 10 00:00:24,240 --> 00:00:30,280 I did a show with their founder Peter Miner few months back and 11 00:00:30,280 --> 00:00:34,160 a lot of people love that show. I was asking a question of can 12 00:00:34,160 --> 00:00:38,040 registries design their own methodologies for carbon markets 13 00:00:39,360 --> 00:00:41,320 without it being a conflict of interest? 14 00:00:41,680 --> 00:00:45,760 An absolute climate's thesis is no, they shouldn't be in the 15 00:00:45,760 --> 00:00:48,200 business of doing that. We actually need to disintegrate 16 00:00:48,200 --> 00:00:50,760 functionality within carbon markets even further. 17 00:00:51,280 --> 00:00:54,680 They are literally the only independent standards body for 18 00:00:54,680 --> 00:00:59,160 carbon removal that exists. Their name is very well chosen. 19 00:00:59,680 --> 00:01:02,080 I think they are some of the most aggressively idealistic 20 00:01:02,080 --> 00:01:04,920 people within carbon removal. It's come up on reversing 21 00:01:04,920 --> 00:01:08,720 climate change so many times about how and why there's 22 00:01:08,720 --> 00:01:11,880 tension between commercial teams and science teams within carbon 23 00:01:11,880 --> 00:01:14,720 markets. There's some fundamental tension 24 00:01:14,720 --> 00:01:18,760 between the rules of running a business, or I should say the 25 00:01:18,760 --> 00:01:21,040 rules of running a profitable business is maybe a better way 26 00:01:21,040 --> 00:01:25,040 to put that and climate impact. And I think Absolute is one of 27 00:01:25,040 --> 00:01:28,480 those companies that, at least from my experience of what I 28 00:01:28,480 --> 00:01:31,800 know of them over there, I think they're going to be some of the 29 00:01:31,800 --> 00:01:36,240 staunchest holdouts just trying to make sure that there can be a 30 00:01:36,240 --> 00:01:40,840 justified true belief that a ton purchase is a ton truly removed. 31 00:01:41,320 --> 00:01:43,920 They're betting big on not compromising. 32 00:01:45,080 --> 00:01:47,840 It's a bold strategy. I respect the absolute hell out 33 00:01:47,840 --> 00:01:50,680 of that. Absolute is very much doing 34 00:01:50,680 --> 00:01:55,760 things their own way, and they stand out to me and I will never 35 00:01:55,760 --> 00:01:58,160 mistake them in a lineup. Go check them out. 36 00:01:58,840 --> 00:02:02,200 I really am endlessly fascinated by what they're doing. 37 00:02:02,400 --> 00:02:05,560 And that's also true of our other sponsor, Philip Lee LLP. 38 00:02:05,720 --> 00:02:09,280 In fact, I told him to pitch me on some weirder legal shows. 39 00:02:09,280 --> 00:02:10,840 I really like doing shows about the law. 40 00:02:10,840 --> 00:02:14,680 I think the law is such a fascinating part of our shared 41 00:02:14,680 --> 00:02:17,800 social life. It structures so much of it. 42 00:02:18,000 --> 00:02:20,200 It's badly understood by most people. 43 00:02:20,640 --> 00:02:24,480 Just structuring deals within carbon removal is hard. 44 00:02:24,800 --> 00:02:27,200 I'm talking grown up deals here, like when you're trying to put 45 00:02:27,200 --> 00:02:32,120 together an enormous package, complicated structuring, a lot 46 00:02:32,120 --> 00:02:34,840 of money, changing hands, The stakes are high. 47 00:02:35,160 --> 00:02:37,240 You really do need a good lawyer. 48 00:02:37,440 --> 00:02:39,880 I'm sorry to tell you that if you are a startup out there in 49 00:02:39,880 --> 00:02:43,120 carbon removal, you're going to probably pay a fair amount of 50 00:02:43,120 --> 00:02:45,200 money to lawyers. There's just no way around it. 51 00:02:45,280 --> 00:02:48,640 Your choice is basically do you get a bad lawyer or a good 52 00:02:48,640 --> 00:02:50,680 lawyer. One really cool thing I can say 53 00:02:50,720 --> 00:02:56,000 on Philip Lee LL PS behalf. Well, one Ryan Covington and I 54 00:02:56,000 --> 00:03:00,960 did a very fun show about how basically no one except for an 55 00:03:00,960 --> 00:03:03,520 elite few really know what bankability and project finance 56 00:03:03,520 --> 00:03:06,400 even mean. And he lays it out very clearly. 57 00:03:06,400 --> 00:03:08,560 If you'd like to go listen to that show, it's awesome and it's 58 00:03:08,560 --> 00:03:11,360 LinkedIn the show notes. And also we end up talking about 59 00:03:11,440 --> 00:03:15,440 Ernest Hemingway for him not to. So it keeps with the tradition 60 00:03:15,440 --> 00:03:18,720 of reversing climate change. One also really cool thing is 61 00:03:18,720 --> 00:03:22,040 that they just won Environmental Finances VCM Law Firm of the 62 00:03:22,040 --> 00:03:24,160 Year. They put it three years in a 63 00:03:24,160 --> 00:03:29,040 row, 2023-2024 and 2025. It's the only award for legal 64 00:03:29,040 --> 00:03:32,120 teams operating in the VCM, and they have offices in the US, 65 00:03:32,120 --> 00:03:35,240 Europe and the UK. You should check out Philip Lee 66 00:03:35,240 --> 00:03:37,080 LLP. Thank you from the bottom of my 67 00:03:37,080 --> 00:03:39,160 heart for listening to this and thank you to our sponsors. 68 00:03:39,440 --> 00:03:43,040 You really make this so that it's something that in a busy 69 00:03:43,040 --> 00:03:45,760 life with lots of competing priorities, I'm able to keep 70 00:03:45,760 --> 00:03:48,120 coming back and making more Reversing Climate Change. 71 00:03:48,520 --> 00:03:51,520 Thanks so much for what you do. And now here is the show. 72 00:03:59,360 --> 00:04:03,440 Hello, this is Ross Penyon. I'm the host of the Reversing 73 00:04:03,440 --> 00:04:07,000 Climate Change podcast. I just returned from New York 74 00:04:07,000 --> 00:04:09,280 Climate Week. It was a lovely time. 75 00:04:10,560 --> 00:04:15,440 It was genuinely joyful to see so many people who care so much 76 00:04:15,440 --> 00:04:20,000 about climate and carbon removal that they've chosen to do very 77 00:04:20,000 --> 00:04:24,840 nearly impossible things. It's a bizarre space to work in, 78 00:04:25,280 --> 00:04:27,480 especially as a commercial entity. 79 00:04:28,480 --> 00:04:33,760 Why those same people don't go try to do some agentic B to B 80 00:04:33,760 --> 00:04:40,280 sass play instead, I don't know. We're all called to the work of 81 00:04:40,280 --> 00:04:46,200 our lives, I suppose, and while I found that experience to be a 82 00:04:46,200 --> 00:04:51,960 positive, connecting, and fulfilling experience, I'm 83 00:04:51,960 --> 00:04:55,400 harboring more doubt about the future of humanity than I have 84 00:04:55,400 --> 00:04:58,640 previously. Many of the conversations I've 85 00:04:58,640 --> 00:05:02,320 been having, and it's possible the call is coming from inside 86 00:05:02,320 --> 00:05:04,400 the house and I'm having these conversations because I'm 87 00:05:04,400 --> 00:05:06,360 initiating them. There's a fair amount of that in 88 00:05:06,360 --> 00:05:10,080 the mix, but a lot of the conversations tend to be 89 00:05:10,080 --> 00:05:15,480 gravitating away from carbon removal itself and deeper into 90 00:05:15,840 --> 00:05:19,120 concerns about adaptation and resilience, about global 91 00:05:19,120 --> 00:05:22,480 cooling, about which kinds of geoengineering climate 92 00:05:22,480 --> 00:05:26,640 interventions are we going to make or fail to make, and what 93 00:05:26,640 --> 00:05:29,560 that means for us. The reason why we're hearing 94 00:05:29,560 --> 00:05:32,520 more conversations about those things, at least as far as I can 95 00:05:32,520 --> 00:05:37,320 see, is that we've all taken for granted that overshoot is built 96 00:05:37,320 --> 00:05:39,640 in at this point. We're definitely not getting to 97 00:05:39,640 --> 00:05:44,360 1.5. How far up we go, it's unclear. 98 00:05:45,640 --> 00:05:48,040 We can still pull it back, We can still make choices. 99 00:05:48,320 --> 00:05:52,640 But it's concerning. My particular intellectual 100 00:05:52,640 --> 00:06:00,280 advice is that I tend to look for rationality when other 101 00:06:00,280 --> 00:06:08,400 people merely see venality, cruelty, stupidity, wickedness. 102 00:06:09,280 --> 00:06:12,560 And while it's tempting to go to those places and assume for the 103 00:06:12,560 --> 00:06:17,560 worst, and it may even satisfy Occam's razor to assume for some 104 00:06:17,560 --> 00:06:22,560 of those more devilish aspects of the human spirit. 105 00:06:23,120 --> 00:06:25,960 And I've had enough economics training where I am looking for 106 00:06:25,960 --> 00:06:29,520 rationality, people making decisions under constraints, 107 00:06:30,120 --> 00:06:33,320 people trying to maximize output within systems. 108 00:06:34,400 --> 00:06:38,080 And one way to interpret the clean energy rollback that's 109 00:06:38,080 --> 00:06:42,600 happening in the US right now at the federal policy level is that 110 00:06:43,240 --> 00:06:45,640 these people don't believe in climate change. 111 00:06:46,720 --> 00:06:50,520 They're not concerned by it. They think the US might be a 112 00:06:50,520 --> 00:06:53,280 global winner and climate change is is real. 113 00:06:54,480 --> 00:06:58,480 They just don't care. They want to, you know, they're 114 00:06:58,480 --> 00:07:00,840 riding the bomb at the end of Doctor Strangelove. 115 00:07:01,160 --> 00:07:04,640 Like, those are all explanations that I've heard people bandy. 116 00:07:06,040 --> 00:07:09,600 But I think one of the explanations that treats people 117 00:07:09,600 --> 00:07:13,880 as rational agents, and thus maybe more explanatory, is that 118 00:07:13,880 --> 00:07:17,640 of the ducidity trap, which people poke at it. 119 00:07:17,640 --> 00:07:22,120 I did a show with Sarah Godek on geopolitics that we talked about 120 00:07:22,120 --> 00:07:26,840 Kevin Allison, the former PM of Australia's retort book, that 121 00:07:26,840 --> 00:07:30,640 tried to correct some of the ducidity trap logic here. 122 00:07:32,000 --> 00:07:36,120 The argument goes that when there's a rising power, the 123 00:07:36,120 --> 00:07:41,680 established dominant power has a narrow window to cut this rival 124 00:07:42,160 --> 00:07:44,760 ascending power back down to size. 125 00:07:45,800 --> 00:07:49,040 And so that whenever there is a potential upstart coming up, 126 00:07:49,280 --> 00:07:53,880 there's a natural tendency, the argument goes, for the dominant 127 00:07:53,880 --> 00:07:55,680 power to act while they still can't. 128 00:07:56,960 --> 00:08:00,800 And I think what the clean energy rollback signifies is 129 00:08:00,800 --> 00:08:06,360 that the US is showing up its domestic energy production 130 00:08:06,760 --> 00:08:10,800 because it's looking to a future of conflict, of war. 131 00:08:11,600 --> 00:08:16,280 And perhaps there will be war with China or others in the next 132 00:08:16,280 --> 00:08:18,880 few years. And the goal is to be resilient 133 00:08:18,880 --> 00:08:24,240 in the face of that. If that is the case, I think 134 00:08:24,240 --> 00:08:28,120 hope for climate progress during a time of great power conflict 135 00:08:28,320 --> 00:08:32,360 is extremely limited. You know, when there's rivalry, 136 00:08:33,919 --> 00:08:37,000 there may be jockeying for future technological leadership 137 00:08:37,360 --> 00:08:41,559 that might drive climate commitment and progress, but 138 00:08:41,559 --> 00:08:44,920 we're not seeing that. Moreover, if we get to the point 139 00:08:44,920 --> 00:08:49,320 where there is open conflict, emissions will be generated and 140 00:08:49,320 --> 00:08:53,400 money in the famous guns and butter equation, it's going 141 00:08:53,400 --> 00:08:57,120 towards gun and not the butter of climate change, adaptation, 142 00:08:57,680 --> 00:09:03,800 mitigation, anything. And when I am in climate spaces, 143 00:09:04,400 --> 00:09:07,160 there is at least a sense that we're here doing this work 144 00:09:07,160 --> 00:09:14,680 because we're called to do it. Win, lose, or draw, the work 145 00:09:14,680 --> 00:09:18,440 needs to be done, and we are in a particular position to do it. 146 00:09:20,880 --> 00:09:23,760 And independently of the outcome, the work is worth 147 00:09:23,760 --> 00:09:25,920 doing. I think that's a spiritual 148 00:09:25,920 --> 00:09:28,720 understanding of vocation of Labor. 149 00:09:30,200 --> 00:09:34,840 It's good to keep that in mind, but I'd be lying if I said I 150 00:09:34,840 --> 00:09:38,600 wasn't staring into the abyss a fair amount of the time. 151 00:09:39,600 --> 00:09:43,040 I used to feel so optimistic about the future. 152 00:09:44,640 --> 00:09:47,840 I would look towards the rate of technological advance and think 153 00:09:48,160 --> 00:09:53,160 we were headed towards more bounty, more freedom, more 154 00:09:53,160 --> 00:09:56,280 happiness. And often when I look to the 155 00:09:56,280 --> 00:10:01,440 future now feels like we may not have as much privacy. 156 00:10:01,440 --> 00:10:05,680 In the future, AI will know everything about us and be able 157 00:10:05,680 --> 00:10:10,800 to make predictions about us that we'll feel intrusive and 158 00:10:10,800 --> 00:10:15,680 probably just will be intrusive. I've mentioned this on a recent 159 00:10:15,680 --> 00:10:20,400 show I'm watching the war in Ukraine and this is just the 160 00:10:20,400 --> 00:10:25,840 beginning of how AI and drones will be used in warfare. 161 00:10:26,200 --> 00:10:30,600 In fact, I saw Zielinski speak at the UN recently and and say 162 00:10:30,600 --> 00:10:36,960 as much that this is basically the first war were weapons that 163 00:10:36,960 --> 00:10:43,160 were used in this way. And we haven't really seen much 164 00:10:43,400 --> 00:10:46,480 AI powered worker yet as far as I know. 165 00:10:47,680 --> 00:10:52,920 But I think this conflict is very much the historical moment 166 00:10:53,280 --> 00:10:56,520 that after the next war, and there probably will be a next 167 00:10:56,520 --> 00:11:00,920 war, we'll look back on and say, wow, that was just we didn't 168 00:11:00,920 --> 00:11:02,880 even know how drones were going to be used yet. 169 00:11:02,920 --> 00:11:04,720 And that was such a quaint usage of them. 170 00:11:07,560 --> 00:11:11,880 And in the future, there will be autonomous drone swarms that 171 00:11:11,920 --> 00:11:14,240 will be making decisions about who lives and who dies. 172 00:11:15,280 --> 00:11:18,520 And if you're an optimist, you might think AI will have much 173 00:11:18,520 --> 00:11:21,160 better discretion than an individual soldier. 174 00:11:22,520 --> 00:11:24,960 And there's a part of that that's sensible. 175 00:11:25,000 --> 00:11:28,320 I understand why people say that, but do you trust it? 176 00:11:29,400 --> 00:11:30,480 I don't. Especially. 177 00:11:31,520 --> 00:11:34,960 Are we living in a golden age? Is everything about to get so 178 00:11:34,960 --> 00:11:37,400 much better? I don't expect it to. 179 00:11:38,600 --> 00:11:42,200 I've been focusing more on adaptation and resilience, and 180 00:11:42,200 --> 00:11:44,600 I'll explain why in a future episode. 181 00:11:45,720 --> 00:11:49,440 And even though that's important, I think basically 182 00:11:49,480 --> 00:11:55,040 every broad family of climate action is important. 183 00:11:57,240 --> 00:12:00,400 Focusing on adaptation means making peace with the fact that 184 00:12:00,600 --> 00:12:03,120 we're not going to get there, and we need to be making 185 00:12:03,120 --> 00:12:06,360 investments now to make sure people are as comfortable, 186 00:12:06,840 --> 00:12:12,520 happy, alive as possible in a future where warming is baked 187 00:12:12,520 --> 00:12:15,040 in. And that's really weird for me. 188 00:12:16,120 --> 00:12:19,000 Carbon removal has an inherent optimism to it. 189 00:12:19,400 --> 00:12:21,480 So does mitigation. There's a sense that there's a 190 00:12:21,480 --> 00:12:25,840 problem and we can solve it either now or in the future, but 191 00:12:25,840 --> 00:12:28,880 we can do it before it gets really quite bad. 192 00:12:30,640 --> 00:12:33,160 Adaptation is saying that we're probably not going to do that, 193 00:12:34,400 --> 00:12:36,280 or at least there's going to be a period of time where it's 194 00:12:36,280 --> 00:12:38,080 going to be bad before we pull it back. 195 00:12:39,800 --> 00:12:42,560 And depending on who you ask, inside of the broad global 196 00:12:42,560 --> 00:12:45,560 cooling movement of those focusing on ice shelf 197 00:12:45,560 --> 00:12:49,480 stabilization or marine cloud brightening, solar radiation 198 00:12:49,480 --> 00:12:52,120 management, the whole fleet of potential technologies that may 199 00:12:52,120 --> 00:12:56,400 or may not be deployed, There's either a sense that this will 200 00:12:56,400 --> 00:12:59,360 buy us more time for mitigation and carbon removal to take 201 00:12:59,360 --> 00:13:05,880 place, or we're just heading into a future of overshoot and 202 00:13:05,880 --> 00:13:07,960 we're not going to pull back, or we're not going to be able to 203 00:13:08,080 --> 00:13:10,320 pull back. We're going into a future of 204 00:13:10,320 --> 00:13:14,600 global conflict, which may require what now seems like 205 00:13:14,600 --> 00:13:19,240 extreme climate interventions to prevent catastrophe. 206 00:13:20,280 --> 00:13:23,240 In fact, there's even a potential for some of these 207 00:13:23,240 --> 00:13:25,960 technologies to be weapons of war. 208 00:13:27,120 --> 00:13:30,440 There's a future where sulfur dioxide or other appropriate 209 00:13:30,440 --> 00:13:33,880 gases for solar radiation management are deployed in order 210 00:13:33,880 --> 00:13:38,600 to kill the South Asian monsoon system and disrupt that. 211 00:13:39,720 --> 00:13:43,760 Weather modification will potentially be seen not as 212 00:13:43,760 --> 00:13:48,320 something that helps us keep people alive when we can't focus 213 00:13:48,320 --> 00:13:50,000 on more costly climate interventions. 214 00:13:50,400 --> 00:13:54,600 It might actually be a way to punish those who oppose the 215 00:13:54,600 --> 00:13:57,200 world order of the wielder of that technology. 216 00:13:58,400 --> 00:14:00,840 Carbon removal right now doesn't have the possibility to be a 217 00:14:00,840 --> 00:14:03,200 weapon of war. I mean, there is a lot of talk 218 00:14:03,200 --> 00:14:06,880 of dual use and companies are looking to how did they go to 219 00:14:06,880 --> 00:14:11,360 market in an environment for which federal policy is absent 220 00:14:11,760 --> 00:14:15,880 with few exceptions like 45 Q for direct air capture, carbon 221 00:14:15,880 --> 00:14:19,680 capture technology. As far as I know, I can't think 222 00:14:19,680 --> 00:14:22,200 of any way that carbon removal technology can be used 223 00:14:22,200 --> 00:14:26,320 offensively, but that's really not the case elsewhere in 224 00:14:26,320 --> 00:14:30,040 climate action. I hope I'm wrong, by the way. 225 00:14:30,400 --> 00:14:34,480 I'm not always feeling this way. I describe my relationship to 226 00:14:35,320 --> 00:14:41,240 climate doom or climate triumphalism as a sine wave, and 227 00:14:41,240 --> 00:14:43,440 sometimes I'm in the through and sometimes I'm not. 228 00:14:46,200 --> 00:14:50,560 And right now, all of those things together are putting me 229 00:14:50,560 --> 00:14:53,840 in the through. And I'm thinking about what 230 00:14:53,840 --> 00:14:56,680 predictions do I make for business? 231 00:14:56,880 --> 00:15:00,480 What predictions do I make for my family, given that that may 232 00:15:00,480 --> 00:15:05,680 be the future state of affairs? What does one do if you have 233 00:15:05,680 --> 00:15:09,280 those feelings? I hope I'm wrong, but if I'm 234 00:15:09,280 --> 00:15:12,040 not, there's a bit of a Cassandra effect here too. 235 00:15:12,760 --> 00:15:16,440 You know, the curse of Cassandra is to be a prophet that no one 236 00:15:16,440 --> 00:15:20,080 listens to. I don't have a big enough 237 00:15:20,080 --> 00:15:21,960 podcast for everyone to to listen to me. 238 00:15:21,960 --> 00:15:25,320 That's fine. But there's always a risk when 239 00:15:25,320 --> 00:15:28,000 you do something this early or make a declaration or prediction 240 00:15:28,000 --> 00:15:30,160 this early that you look foolish. 241 00:15:31,440 --> 00:15:34,800 You're ahead of the curve here and people are laughing at it or 242 00:15:34,800 --> 00:15:37,600 just think you're overreacting until you're not. 243 00:15:37,600 --> 00:15:41,080 That can be a little bit lonely. I've had I had a couple 244 00:15:41,080 --> 00:15:43,480 conversations at Climate Week where I brought up some of these 245 00:15:43,480 --> 00:15:46,960 thoughts and I could tell the people were interested because 246 00:15:47,960 --> 00:15:52,800 this is get talked about in this way very often, but it is a 247 00:15:52,800 --> 00:15:56,280 downer of a topic. It's hard to obscure that fact. 248 00:15:57,520 --> 00:16:01,000 And when I am in the through and maybe sometimes you find 249 00:16:01,000 --> 00:16:04,240 yourself in the through of climate belief too. 250 00:16:04,800 --> 00:16:09,280 I like to ask myself, put myself in the thought experiment of 251 00:16:09,800 --> 00:16:13,120 what would happen if I lost everything. 252 00:16:14,280 --> 00:16:18,720 You're in the position of joke. If your family's taken away, 253 00:16:19,200 --> 00:16:24,160 your wealth is all gone, your body is diseased, you wander the 254 00:16:24,160 --> 00:16:28,440 earth as a Wretch, do you imagine that you could be happy 255 00:16:28,440 --> 00:16:33,200 under those circumstances? Could your own mind, your own 256 00:16:33,200 --> 00:16:37,720 spirit, keep you enough company to keep you alive in those 257 00:16:37,720 --> 00:16:43,080 moments? And the answer for me is yes. 258 00:16:45,320 --> 00:16:51,360 I think there's enough there to know that even in the face of 259 00:16:51,360 --> 00:17:02,330 great calamity, I could continue with only the smallest mustard 260 00:17:02,330 --> 00:17:09,410 seed of faith. There's always an ability to 261 00:17:09,410 --> 00:17:16,290 start over, to revisit hope, and to have faith that we can 262 00:17:16,290 --> 00:17:20,849 rebuild. And when you can make peace with 263 00:17:21,960 --> 00:17:25,880 having nothing, losing your career, your possessions, maybe 264 00:17:25,880 --> 00:17:28,520 even your reputation, but still having your mind and your 265 00:17:28,520 --> 00:17:32,520 spirit, you're also preparing yourself for death. 266 00:17:35,560 --> 00:17:40,240 To prepare yourself for death means accepting a return, 267 00:17:41,360 --> 00:17:45,600 potentially to nothingness, potentially to pure spirit, 268 00:17:46,760 --> 00:17:53,520 where all you have are your tally of actions and perhaps the 269 00:17:53,520 --> 00:17:57,400 space to reflect upon them. Depending on your spiritual 270 00:17:57,400 --> 00:18:04,320 tradition, Maybe you're judged for what you did, and punishment 271 00:18:05,440 --> 00:18:11,880 or prize is offered to you in proportion to how well you lived 272 00:18:11,880 --> 00:18:16,600 life. And what can you control in all 273 00:18:16,600 --> 00:18:22,840 of this turbulence? Essentially only the status of 274 00:18:22,840 --> 00:18:29,360 your own soul. How lightly you step upon the 275 00:18:29,360 --> 00:18:37,360 earth, how kind you were, and what you did when the Abyss 276 00:18:37,360 --> 00:18:43,600 stared back into you. Many traditions come back to 277 00:18:43,600 --> 00:18:46,200 this. You know, I'm freestyling right 278 00:18:46,200 --> 00:18:52,520 now, but I can think of several. There's an amazing Marcus 279 00:18:52,520 --> 00:18:56,040 Aurelius meditation on this that I'll put in the show notes if 280 00:18:56,040 --> 00:18:59,040 you'd like to read it. I sometimes feel down on 281 00:18:59,040 --> 00:19:02,040 stoicism because I think it allows tech people to avoid 282 00:19:02,040 --> 00:19:04,000 their feelings more than they really need to. 283 00:19:04,960 --> 00:19:07,440 People use it in a way that I think is inappropriate. 284 00:19:09,520 --> 00:19:14,000 I like Nietzsche's focus on eternal return, of what would 285 00:19:14,000 --> 00:19:17,360 happen if a demon appeared to you and appeared to curse you 286 00:19:18,000 --> 00:19:22,600 with having to relive every moment of your life forever, and 287 00:19:22,600 --> 00:19:26,600 how would you feel in every moment of that eternal return? 288 00:19:28,080 --> 00:19:31,360 Perhaps the most quoted line from all of reversing climate 289 00:19:31,360 --> 00:19:36,680 change is from Dostoyevsky, who said something paraphrased 290 00:19:37,440 --> 00:19:40,600 prayer doesn't exist to change the mind of God, it exists to 291 00:19:40,600 --> 00:19:46,360 change the person praying, acknowledging the transients of 292 00:19:46,360 --> 00:19:50,080 all things of your inability to control moving water. 293 00:19:50,600 --> 00:19:53,360 Our ideas that intersect with several Eastern religious or 294 00:19:53,360 --> 00:19:57,880 spiritual traditions. So at least for me, when I posed 295 00:19:57,880 --> 00:20:00,840 that question to myself, how would I feel if I lost 296 00:20:00,840 --> 00:20:04,960 everything, but I have the strength to continue on. 297 00:20:07,080 --> 00:20:14,880 Would I keep going if my reputation, possessions, 298 00:20:15,360 --> 00:20:18,840 relationships? We're all obliterated. 299 00:20:20,480 --> 00:20:27,320 I think as long as I had possession of my mind, I would 300 00:20:27,320 --> 00:20:29,280 be able to to continue doing that. 301 00:20:29,280 --> 00:20:36,440 I like to think that I would, and I'm thinking that it helps 302 00:20:36,440 --> 00:20:39,040 me relax my expectations for the future. 303 00:20:41,600 --> 00:20:45,760 It doesn't make the grief any less, or the theoretical grief 304 00:20:46,880 --> 00:20:50,240 of an I'll future. It does help somehow. 305 00:20:53,920 --> 00:20:57,200 What is it like to live life when you don't expect the future 306 00:20:57,200 --> 00:21:03,080 to be better than the past? What is it like when you expect 307 00:21:03,600 --> 00:21:09,520 calamity? Can you still be joyful under 308 00:21:09,520 --> 00:21:13,080 those circumstances? I'm not sure. 309 00:21:13,200 --> 00:21:15,760 I wonder if I'm being idealistic about myself. 310 00:21:16,120 --> 00:21:23,120 Self knowledge is a deceptively challenging thing to master. 311 00:21:24,960 --> 00:21:28,200 I was recently visiting family in Lithuania and whenever I go 312 00:21:28,200 --> 00:21:35,680 to Lithuania I always become re obsessed with Eastern Europe. 313 00:21:35,920 --> 00:21:39,560 The Holocaust, the Yiddish civilization that was 314 00:21:39,560 --> 00:21:44,360 obliterated there. My intellectual attention just 315 00:21:44,360 --> 00:21:46,840 spotlights. It's so hard and it's hard for 316 00:21:46,840 --> 00:21:51,160 me to think of anything else. Eastern Europe is one of those 317 00:21:51,160 --> 00:21:55,960 places that people think of as boring. 318 00:21:56,160 --> 00:21:59,440 They think of Stalinist brutalist apartment blocks. 319 00:22:00,600 --> 00:22:07,720 They think of just potatoes and bad food and and mean people. 320 00:22:08,000 --> 00:22:10,720 Eastern Europe has a bad reputation, which is why most of 321 00:22:10,720 --> 00:22:12,640 Europe, even the eastern portions of it, called 322 00:22:12,640 --> 00:22:14,880 themselves Central Europe. I'm not sure if you've noticed 323 00:22:14,880 --> 00:22:17,880 this, but it's a very clever change because they point to the 324 00:22:17,880 --> 00:22:20,400 Ural Mountains and say that's that's the East. 325 00:22:21,400 --> 00:22:24,040 Basically anything in the EU is at least central. 326 00:22:24,880 --> 00:22:28,040 But Eastern Europe wasn't actually always like that. 327 00:22:28,080 --> 00:22:34,080 Eastern Europe was a place where there was tremendous value on 328 00:22:34,280 --> 00:22:39,200 freedom. The polls valued freedom so much 329 00:22:39,560 --> 00:22:45,600 that they created a a veto system called the Lee Barum veto 330 00:22:46,200 --> 00:22:49,600 that made it basically impossible for meaningful 331 00:22:49,600 --> 00:22:53,960 political action to take place. Anyone member of their 332 00:22:54,160 --> 00:22:58,160 parliamentary body could veto anything, which is a beautiful 333 00:22:58,160 --> 00:23:01,040 notion of freedom and consent and the consent of the governed. 334 00:23:01,600 --> 00:23:03,400 That made it really hard to do anything. 335 00:23:04,080 --> 00:23:08,280 We talked about this in the episode of the show that I did 336 00:23:08,760 --> 00:23:12,680 with the amazing video game makers at 11 Bit Studios. 337 00:23:13,320 --> 00:23:14,520 I'll put a link in the show notes. 338 00:23:15,040 --> 00:23:18,920 The Jews were pushed out of much of Western Europe in the Middle 339 00:23:18,920 --> 00:23:23,680 Ages and came to the Polish, Lithuanian Commonwealth and just 340 00:23:23,680 --> 00:23:27,720 the areas of the East because there was relative tolerance and 341 00:23:27,720 --> 00:23:32,040 freedom for them. Obviously there's intergroup 342 00:23:32,040 --> 00:23:35,600 conflict and not everyone gets along and, and at different 343 00:23:35,600 --> 00:23:38,280 points, the Poles, the Ukrainians, the various 344 00:23:38,280 --> 00:23:44,000 religious factions, the classes, they argue with each other, they 345 00:23:44,000 --> 00:23:45,760 quarrel. There's pogromps. 346 00:23:45,760 --> 00:23:50,840 It's not a perfect life, nothing is, but it mostly gets along and 347 00:23:50,840 --> 00:23:56,120 it develops an immense amount of wealth and diversity and it's 348 00:23:56,120 --> 00:23:57,280 amazing. I read a book, I'll put it in 349 00:23:57,280 --> 00:24:00,280 the show notes too. They're they found right before 350 00:24:00,280 --> 00:24:03,560 the invasion of Poland on September 1st, 1939, there was a 351 00:24:03,640 --> 00:24:08,920 Yiddish contest for youth to submit autobiography as a way of 352 00:24:08,920 --> 00:24:13,080 cataloging the diversity of of experience that happened in this 353 00:24:13,080 --> 00:24:15,240 entire Yiddish civilizational zone. 354 00:24:15,280 --> 00:24:19,840 It's basically western Ukraine, eastern Poland, all the way up 355 00:24:19,840 --> 00:24:22,400 to Lithuania, down to the Black Sea. 356 00:24:22,400 --> 00:24:25,600 Like there's, there's a millions and millions of people that are 357 00:24:25,600 --> 00:24:29,560 part of this Jewish Yiddish civilization and just catalogued 358 00:24:30,440 --> 00:24:32,920 the variety of lifeways of people that were, were living 359 00:24:32,920 --> 00:24:34,720 during those times. You know, and they just recently 360 00:24:34,720 --> 00:24:38,240 found documents that were hidden in Vilnius for a long time and 361 00:24:38,240 --> 00:24:40,040 unearthed them. And then someone did an amazing 362 00:24:40,040 --> 00:24:44,320 job illustrating them and bringing them to life. 363 00:24:44,320 --> 00:24:45,480 I'll put a link. I've heard the name of the book 364 00:24:45,480 --> 00:24:48,440 right now, but it's, it's a wonderful graphic novel, really 365 00:24:48,440 --> 00:24:51,440 cool. And when you look at how much 366 00:24:51,440 --> 00:24:54,440 diversity there was in this Yiddish civilization, it's a 367 00:24:54,440 --> 00:24:58,120 nation without a state, with millions of people living in it. 368 00:24:58,560 --> 00:25:02,840 You know, some of whom are sort of like charismatic religious 369 00:25:02,840 --> 00:25:07,880 figures, like the Hasidic folks. Some of them are like the the 370 00:25:07,880 --> 00:25:14,280 Vilna gone, who are like intensely intellectual rabbinic 371 00:25:14,280 --> 00:25:18,520 figures who are just scholars of the the Mishnah, the Talmud. 372 00:25:18,800 --> 00:25:23,240 They know everything and are making fascinating intellectual 373 00:25:23,240 --> 00:25:25,880 arguments and developing a highly intellectual yeshiva 374 00:25:25,880 --> 00:25:29,000 culture. There's also young socialists 375 00:25:29,000 --> 00:25:31,720 and Zionists and some socialists are Zionists and some Zionists 376 00:25:31,720 --> 00:25:34,360 are socialists, but also there are some who are neither. 377 00:25:34,880 --> 00:25:38,640 There's so much happening here. And of course, if you read a 378 00:25:38,640 --> 00:25:43,320 book like Bloodlands by Timothy Snyder, it documents just what 379 00:25:43,320 --> 00:25:46,400 it's like being between the Germans and the Russians in 380 00:25:46,400 --> 00:25:48,480 World War 2. So I'm I'm skipping ahead from 381 00:25:48,480 --> 00:25:50,520 the partitions of Poland. There's three of them. 382 00:25:51,160 --> 00:25:54,880 It destroyed the Polish state and it got, you know, 383 00:25:54,880 --> 00:25:57,800 incorporated into all of its neighbors essentially. 384 00:26:00,120 --> 00:26:02,920 But once Poland is an independent state again after 385 00:26:02,920 --> 00:26:06,080 World War 1, and especially after the Molotov Ribbentrop 386 00:26:06,080 --> 00:26:10,680 Act, which you know, the Nazis and the the Soviets split Poland 387 00:26:12,040 --> 00:26:17,520 in 39 after Poland was invaded, you just have this push pull 388 00:26:17,520 --> 00:26:20,720 where Poland is being ruled by the Soviets who don't trust 389 00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:24,160 people who have their own political or religious 390 00:26:24,160 --> 00:26:26,800 commitments or basically anyone with any initiative at all. 391 00:26:27,120 --> 00:26:30,040 And of course, the Germans who are trying to create this 392 00:26:30,040 --> 00:26:34,040 racially pure hinterland where they can have their own, like 393 00:26:34,400 --> 00:26:36,040 they were starved during World War One. 394 00:26:36,040 --> 00:26:39,600 So they're trying to essentially create their own independent 395 00:26:39,680 --> 00:26:42,640 food supply so that they can stay alive in a in a land war. 396 00:26:42,720 --> 00:26:45,360 Like, if they have a massive land empire, they don't need to 397 00:26:45,360 --> 00:26:47,880 be worried about the British Empire cutting them off with 398 00:26:47,880 --> 00:26:50,160 shipping. Because I'm gonna start again. 399 00:26:51,320 --> 00:26:53,520 Oh, OK. Those are the big moving parts 400 00:26:53,520 --> 00:26:56,920 of history. And there's so much that will be 401 00:26:56,920 --> 00:26:59,240 out of one's control during those moments. 402 00:27:00,400 --> 00:27:04,040 It's brutal on all sides. The Soviets, terrible Nazis, 403 00:27:04,040 --> 00:27:07,240 terrible. The partisans also put 404 00:27:07,360 --> 00:27:09,600 individual people and communities to hard decisions, 405 00:27:09,600 --> 00:27:12,880 put them in very hard spots. It's it honestly just seems like 406 00:27:12,880 --> 00:27:17,520 hell everywhere you turn. It's bad. 407 00:27:17,680 --> 00:27:21,000 If you collaborate with one group to survive, the next group 408 00:27:21,000 --> 00:27:23,320 is not sure if they can trust you and will likely kill you. 409 00:27:24,400 --> 00:27:26,760 It honestly feels like the closest to hell on earth that 410 00:27:26,760 --> 00:27:29,280 there was the Eastern front in World War 2. 411 00:27:29,440 --> 00:27:31,680 It's it's high up there you don't want to be there. 412 00:27:31,680 --> 00:27:35,680 It's, it's horrible, but there's also so many stories that come 413 00:27:35,680 --> 00:27:39,480 out of reading about that time period where people chose to be 414 00:27:39,560 --> 00:27:44,440 kind, who knew that they were headed into the abyss, but still 415 00:27:44,440 --> 00:27:48,640 acted with integrity that didn't do whatever it took to save 416 00:27:48,640 --> 00:27:54,200 their own lives in a way that would have put their souls, if 417 00:27:54,200 --> 00:27:57,480 you buy that concept into a precarious spot. 418 00:27:57,480 --> 00:28:05,600 And when you read stories like that, there's a tendency to 419 00:28:05,600 --> 00:28:08,720 think that you would have that amount of grace under pressure. 420 00:28:09,200 --> 00:28:15,280 That you would be one of the ones who would hide A family 421 00:28:15,280 --> 00:28:21,040 fleeing their own deaths. That you would be the one to 422 00:28:21,040 --> 00:28:23,040 choose to die in someone else's place. 423 00:28:25,360 --> 00:28:29,960 That you would fight for the partisans and be brave, even if 424 00:28:29,960 --> 00:28:32,200 it meant that once it was known that you had joined the 425 00:28:32,200 --> 00:28:36,120 partisans, your entire family might be tortured and killed. 426 00:28:38,000 --> 00:28:40,040 That one's perhaps a bit more ethically charged. 427 00:28:41,080 --> 00:28:44,080 But for every case there is that's inspiring, that shows 428 00:28:44,080 --> 00:28:49,760 people capable of amazing dignity and sacrifice, there are 429 00:28:49,760 --> 00:28:54,360 also cases that you can read of selfishness that did not age 430 00:28:54,360 --> 00:28:56,800 well. You will die at some point. 431 00:28:59,880 --> 00:29:03,240 Do you want to do whatever it takes to not die sooner? 432 00:29:07,240 --> 00:29:10,080 There's stories in that book that are horrifying during the 433 00:29:10,080 --> 00:29:13,560 whole lot of more the Ukrainian famine in the late 20s and early 434 00:29:13,560 --> 00:29:20,480 30s of cannibalism, cannibalistic gangs like in the 435 00:29:20,480 --> 00:29:25,120 Road hunting people, trying to stay alive, killing innocent 436 00:29:25,120 --> 00:29:32,720 people to eat their flesh. Are you willing to do that to 437 00:29:32,720 --> 00:29:37,200 survive a little bit longer? Those questions sound scary. 438 00:29:37,280 --> 00:29:42,160 Weirdly enough, I find them to be clarifying and you should be 439 00:29:42,160 --> 00:29:45,280 asking these questions of yourself right now. 440 00:29:47,680 --> 00:29:50,480 I hear stories sometimes from the world of carbon removal. 441 00:29:54,000 --> 00:30:01,560 Everyone starts off talking a good game about integrity, but 442 00:30:01,560 --> 00:30:04,520 any commercial enterprise puts you in a position to 443 00:30:04,520 --> 00:30:09,800 occasionally make choices between science and commercial. 444 00:30:13,200 --> 00:30:16,280 I've heard many stories of people who felt pressure for 445 00:30:16,280 --> 00:30:20,320 their jobs beside in favor of commercial at the expense of 446 00:30:20,320 --> 00:30:25,640 integrity. You might argue that on net, 447 00:30:27,240 --> 00:30:30,480 being perfect is going to result in a less good outcome than 448 00:30:30,800 --> 00:30:37,120 merely good, and that trying to be perfectionistic and having 449 00:30:37,120 --> 00:30:40,640 super high integrity here is going to set us back and not put 450 00:30:40,640 --> 00:30:42,000 us in a place that we want to be. 451 00:30:43,400 --> 00:30:45,800 And I used to buy that. I did. 452 00:30:46,120 --> 00:30:48,720 And I still see the logic in it. And I can respect if you're 453 00:30:48,720 --> 00:30:52,160 listening and you do, but I don't think that's what I want 454 00:30:52,160 --> 00:30:56,280 to do for myself. Granted, it's easy for me to say 455 00:30:56,280 --> 00:30:58,320 because I do not have a full time position somewhere that is 456 00:30:58,320 --> 00:31:03,000 making these demands of me. I have the luxury of sitting on 457 00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:09,040 my high perch here, you know, laying out life lessons for all 458 00:31:09,040 --> 00:31:10,640 the sinners. My God, I think that's an Always 459 00:31:10,640 --> 00:31:17,000 Sunny line, and I think I have enough self knowledge to know 460 00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:21,760 that some part of this is wishful thinking, some part of 461 00:31:21,760 --> 00:31:27,520 this is vanity. But I think you should have a 462 00:31:27,520 --> 00:31:30,640 line. Many of those moments in 463 00:31:30,880 --> 00:31:35,200 business or elsewhere, it's very easy to move the line. 464 00:31:37,960 --> 00:31:41,880 A good opportunity will come up. Maybe there's some parts of it 465 00:31:41,880 --> 00:31:47,040 you don't like, but you overrule it. 466 00:31:48,480 --> 00:31:51,280 It only takes a few of those until you're somewhere very 467 00:31:51,280 --> 00:31:52,960 different than you thought you might be. 468 00:31:57,600 --> 00:32:01,920 I made a very elliptical Link when I was at Climate Week. 469 00:32:01,920 --> 00:32:05,000 I was having dinner with some friends and I was talking about 470 00:32:05,000 --> 00:32:08,840 this tension between science and commercial and basically any 471 00:32:08,840 --> 00:32:10,600 company. I'm not even, I'm not pointing 472 00:32:10,600 --> 00:32:12,800 at anyone specifically. I think this is just true of 473 00:32:13,120 --> 00:32:15,080 capitalism. I think it's just true of what 474 00:32:15,080 --> 00:32:16,840 it's like to be in the climate business at all. 475 00:32:19,040 --> 00:32:21,600 And I was thinking about the movie The Bridge on the River 476 00:32:21,600 --> 00:32:25,640 Kwai, which if you haven't seen it, that's wonderful. 477 00:32:25,680 --> 00:32:28,120 In fact, even just talking about it, I think it's time for a 478 00:32:28,120 --> 00:32:32,600 rewatch. It always makes those AFI best 479 00:32:32,600 --> 00:32:35,400 films of all time. It's terrific. 480 00:32:35,400 --> 00:32:38,840 And also you get to see Obi Wan Kenobi in a different role. 481 00:32:39,600 --> 00:32:42,520 You have Allied soldiers in Myanmar, then, you know, then it 482 00:32:42,520 --> 00:32:46,360 was called Burma, building a railroad through the jungle. 483 00:32:46,960 --> 00:32:51,920 The commander of the imprisoned Allied troops is Alec Guinness, 484 00:32:51,920 --> 00:32:56,560 Obi Wan Kenobi, and is trying to keep morale high by having the 485 00:32:56,560 --> 00:32:59,480 men focus on a goal, which is building this bridge for the 486 00:32:59,480 --> 00:33:01,880 Japanese so they can better fight the Allies. 487 00:33:03,200 --> 00:33:06,880 And there's a sense of keeping them focus on the goal, but also 488 00:33:06,880 --> 00:33:09,200 trying to undermine the Japanese too. 489 00:33:09,200 --> 00:33:11,000 They don't actually want to build this bridge because it 490 00:33:11,000 --> 00:33:14,320 will allow them to much more effectively fight their comrades 491 00:33:14,320 --> 00:33:19,160 in arms. But also not having a goal, not 492 00:33:19,160 --> 00:33:23,160 having a purpose, just languishing in the jungle is 493 00:33:23,160 --> 00:33:26,600 going to kill these men or it's going to make the Japanese feel 494 00:33:26,600 --> 00:33:30,800 that these people are just to borrow a phrase from the Nazis, 495 00:33:30,880 --> 00:33:35,160 useless eaters and kill them. So there's, there's these 496 00:33:35,160 --> 00:33:36,840 tensions here. Like what are you trying to do 497 00:33:36,840 --> 00:33:39,120 exactly? Are you trying to motivate the 498 00:33:39,120 --> 00:33:40,960 men and, and have a purpose for the Japanese? 499 00:33:40,960 --> 00:33:43,520 Are you trying to sabotage the Japanese war effort? 500 00:33:44,400 --> 00:33:47,800 And the movie concludes. This movie's like 100 years old. 501 00:33:47,800 --> 00:33:50,320 It's almost 100 years old, 80 years old, 90 years. 502 00:33:51,040 --> 00:33:53,000 It's 70 years old or something like that at this point. 503 00:33:53,000 --> 00:33:56,080 So I think I'm allowed to talk about it openly here. 504 00:33:56,240 --> 00:34:01,960 The conclusion of the film is that they build the bridge and 505 00:34:01,960 --> 00:34:03,760 some of the men want to blow it up. 506 00:34:05,280 --> 00:34:12,000 And Alec Guinness stops it because he got so invested in 507 00:34:12,000 --> 00:34:18,639 this smaller goal that he lost sight of what the bigger purpose 508 00:34:18,639 --> 00:34:24,800 of what his collaboration or sabotage or mix of both was 509 00:34:24,800 --> 00:34:27,280 meant to be serving. You make all these little 510 00:34:27,280 --> 00:34:31,280 compromises trying to do things, and then by the end, he has a 511 00:34:31,280 --> 00:34:35,239 moment where he stops the bridge from being destroyed after it 512 00:34:35,239 --> 00:34:38,719 was built. That's my God, what have I done? 513 00:34:39,320 --> 00:34:43,800 And just this moment of, of terror of, of like the wrong 514 00:34:43,800 --> 00:34:50,960 decision being made, the wrong thing being prioritized, and I 515 00:34:50,960 --> 00:34:54,639 just don't want to be in a position of, of my God, what 516 00:34:54,639 --> 00:34:58,400 have I done? I don't think this is uniquely 517 00:34:58,400 --> 00:35:01,400 true about carbon removal. I don't think it's uniquely true 518 00:35:01,400 --> 00:35:04,760 about climate. I think it's just part of what 519 00:35:04,760 --> 00:35:08,280 it's like trying to believe in anything. 520 00:35:09,960 --> 00:35:12,360 And the rule makes it very hard to believe in things. 521 00:35:13,680 --> 00:35:18,120 And we have phrases that we we use to comfort ourselves that 522 00:35:18,120 --> 00:35:21,560 the world is inherently disappointing and difficult. 523 00:35:23,280 --> 00:35:26,240 Don't make the perfect the enemy of the good. 524 00:35:29,640 --> 00:35:32,320 It's a fancy way of saying you should lower your expectations. 525 00:35:33,840 --> 00:35:36,800 Just be happy for what you've got, which is fine. 526 00:35:36,800 --> 00:35:39,320 There's some wisdom in there. I can respect that. 527 00:35:40,640 --> 00:35:46,480 But if we are pointed at the abyss, if the future is as bleak 528 00:35:46,480 --> 00:35:50,560 as I sometimes feel it is, how does that affect your decision 529 00:35:50,560 --> 00:35:55,200 making? Do you want to be like Alec 530 00:35:55,200 --> 00:35:57,680 Guinness and the bridge on the River Kwai? 531 00:35:57,680 --> 00:36:02,320 Do you want to be someone who maintained their dignity and 532 00:36:02,320 --> 00:36:06,240 humanity while being marched to a mass grave in Ukraine or 533 00:36:06,240 --> 00:36:11,000 Lithuania? Is that even something that you 534 00:36:11,000 --> 00:36:13,920 can decide ahead of time? This is after all a thought 535 00:36:13,920 --> 00:36:18,080 experiment and not even asking you to draw any specific 536 00:36:18,080 --> 00:36:21,680 conclusion here, but to ask yourself how it makes you feel 537 00:36:22,760 --> 00:36:27,400 and what kind of person you would like to be when this is 538 00:36:27,400 --> 00:36:30,680 asked of you. Because it very well might be. 539 00:36:34,040 --> 00:36:36,840 They can be small things like are you expected to make 540 00:36:36,840 --> 00:36:40,440 compromises at your business to get a deal done even though the 541 00:36:40,440 --> 00:36:42,880 climate action is less than is typically supposed? 542 00:36:42,880 --> 00:36:48,400 It could be a big thing. And how do you even ask this 543 00:36:48,400 --> 00:36:53,200 question without glorifying yourself or expecting that you 544 00:36:53,200 --> 00:36:57,960 would always choose the most noble of things to do? 545 00:37:01,720 --> 00:37:06,720 And I think the only way to do that is to be OK with the fact 546 00:37:06,760 --> 00:37:10,280 that you will lose everything and you will ultimately die, 547 00:37:13,440 --> 00:37:18,760 because otherwise one will make decisions that will try to 548 00:37:18,760 --> 00:37:23,680 preserve your expectations. But if your expectations are 549 00:37:23,680 --> 00:37:30,720 that low, or maybe I should say that realistic, maybe it will 550 00:37:30,720 --> 00:37:33,640 help you make better decisions for the future. 551 00:37:36,600 --> 00:37:41,000 By way of a postscript, I find the literary value of ghosts to 552 00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:46,080 be instructive here. The most common phrase that 553 00:37:46,080 --> 00:37:49,280 everyone associates with ghosts, and you can say it with me, is 554 00:37:49,280 --> 00:37:56,440 unfinished business. Ghosts are often those who don't 555 00:37:56,440 --> 00:37:57,800 even realize that they're ghosts. 556 00:37:59,080 --> 00:38:02,960 They're so caught in their own selfishness and their own self 557 00:38:02,960 --> 00:38:07,520 absorption and their own pain and their own greed, they've 558 00:38:07,520 --> 00:38:08,720 forgotten that they've even died. 559 00:38:09,680 --> 00:38:12,440 They walk the halls of a building that used to live in or 560 00:38:12,440 --> 00:38:16,280 work in or angry about the people. 561 00:38:16,280 --> 00:38:19,800 They're moving their stuff, not realizing that they're not alive 562 00:38:19,800 --> 00:38:26,360 to do anything anymore. I think that's such a beautiful 563 00:38:26,520 --> 00:38:31,040 literary device. There's also a Contra Passo in 564 00:38:31,240 --> 00:38:34,440 Dante's Divine Comedy that I've talked about in the podcast, but 565 00:38:34,440 --> 00:38:36,760 it's been several years. I love it, though. 566 00:38:37,240 --> 00:38:43,680 There are these figures that Dante encounters that are so 567 00:38:43,680 --> 00:38:49,240 caught up in Florentine politics that all they want to talk to 568 00:38:49,240 --> 00:38:54,440 Dante about is which family is he from which side of the great 569 00:38:54,440 --> 00:38:58,640 rivalry of the families of Florence did he take sides in? 570 00:39:01,520 --> 00:39:07,320 And it's a funny scene because these men are literally being 571 00:39:09,240 --> 00:39:17,480 held in hell to great suffering and they can't even focus on 572 00:39:17,480 --> 00:39:23,000 that or find a way to make peace with the fact of where they are 573 00:39:23,720 --> 00:39:25,600 because of their failure of self knowledge. 574 00:39:28,080 --> 00:39:31,200 They're so wrapped up in Florentine politics that even 575 00:39:31,200 --> 00:39:35,600 though they have a living man in front of them, they still are 576 00:39:35,600 --> 00:39:37,560 obsessed with what bothered them in life. 577 00:39:38,320 --> 00:39:42,240 They could not let go of it. They're stuck there. 578 00:39:42,480 --> 00:39:45,240 They're unfinished business is their torment. 579 00:39:46,360 --> 00:39:49,960 I think much of this unfinished business is an expectation that 580 00:39:49,960 --> 00:39:53,400 you might have, an expectation of the way things can be, should 581 00:39:53,400 --> 00:39:56,160 be. And releasing that expectation 582 00:39:56,160 --> 00:40:03,720 is something that could in fact liberate you, allow you to make 583 00:40:03,720 --> 00:40:07,480 better decisions. Allow you to increase the amount 584 00:40:07,480 --> 00:40:12,160 of humanity in your life. If you've been listening to 585 00:40:12,160 --> 00:40:15,120 these shows too, by the way, and you connect with them in any 586 00:40:15,120 --> 00:40:19,560 way, you should know that I am not some spiritual genius or 587 00:40:19,560 --> 00:40:21,600 anything. Me talking about any of this 588 00:40:21,600 --> 00:40:24,560 stuff is because I think I'm like among the crappiest people 589 00:40:24,560 --> 00:40:27,280 to be enacting any of this out there. 590 00:40:27,640 --> 00:40:32,160 I think about it, but it mostly stands to make me aware of my 591 00:40:32,160 --> 00:40:36,280 own hypocrisy. Being graceful, loving, and 592 00:40:36,280 --> 00:40:41,480 forgiving in this way is, I think, the greatest challenge 593 00:40:42,000 --> 00:40:44,200 that presents itself to a human on earth. 594 00:40:46,840 --> 00:40:49,480 And my being interested in these ideas does not mean that I'm 595 00:40:49,800 --> 00:40:55,120 even halfway decent at it. But it helps me. 596 00:40:55,400 --> 00:41:01,280 It helps me to Orient my expectations, to release them. 597 00:41:02,720 --> 00:41:06,960 I tried to point myself in a direction that I can be proud 598 00:41:06,960 --> 00:41:11,440 of, that if ghosts are real, I don't die with unfinished 599 00:41:11,440 --> 00:41:16,240 business of expectations unfulfilled, and I'm able to 600 00:41:16,240 --> 00:41:22,560 gracefully pass into the great beyond in a way that I can be 601 00:41:23,240 --> 00:41:27,200 welcomed to as someone who learned how to live. 602 00:41:27,200 --> 00:41:34,800 It's more of an aspiration than a reality, but maybe. 603 00:41:36,480 --> 00:41:38,640 But maybe I'll get there, and maybe you will too. 604 00:41:39,760 --> 00:41:45,440 Good luck. How's that for a New York 605 00:41:45,440 --> 00:41:50,560 Climate Week's reflections post? Not nearly as chummy as many of 606 00:41:50,560 --> 00:41:53,160 the other ones. Thanks for listening. 607 00:41:53,160 --> 00:41:58,360 I hope you have a wonderful day. Hopefully you can take some of 608 00:41:58,360 --> 00:42:03,160 these ideas with you and use it to change your relationship to 609 00:42:03,160 --> 00:42:07,840 life, to death and the decisions you have to make every day in a 610 00:42:07,840 --> 00:42:12,000 life which is extremely fraught. Bye for now.