1 00:00:04,440 --> 00:00:06,600 You're listening to the Reversing Climate Change podcast 2 00:00:06,600 --> 00:00:09,080 by the team at NORI, the Carbon Removal Marketplace. 3 00:00:09,560 --> 00:00:11,720 This is a show about the innovators and entrepreneurs 4 00:00:11,720 --> 00:00:13,560 developing solutions to climate change. 5 00:00:15,430 --> 00:00:17,950 Hello, and welcome to the Reversing Climate Change podcast 6 00:00:17,950 --> 00:00:19,590 with Nori. I'm Ross Kenyon. 7 00:00:19,590 --> 00:00:21,950 I'm one of the cofounders of Nori, which is a carbon removal 8 00:00:21,950 --> 00:00:24,710 marketplace based in Seattle. Today I have with me Jeff 9 00:00:24,710 --> 00:00:27,950 Goodell, contributing editor of Rolling Stone, author of The 10 00:00:27,950 --> 00:00:31,190 Water Will Come and his latest, The Heat Will Kill You First, 11 00:00:31,350 --> 00:00:33,350 Life and Death on a Scorched Planet. 12 00:00:33,550 --> 00:00:34,550 Welcome to the show, Jeff. Hi. 13 00:00:35,750 --> 00:00:36,790 There. Thanks for having me. 14 00:00:37,430 --> 00:00:39,630 Happy to have you. I really liked your previous 15 00:00:39,630 --> 00:00:42,480 book. The Water Will Come and now 16 00:00:42,480 --> 00:00:44,000 you're doing fires. He did one on water. 17 00:00:44,000 --> 00:00:45,960 When on fire. Are you going to do a tour of 18 00:00:45,960 --> 00:00:50,120 the Greek elements? Well, this is not exactly fire. 19 00:00:50,120 --> 00:00:52,480 This is heat, which is a little bit different than fire. 20 00:00:53,320 --> 00:00:54,840 That's true. They're they're related. 21 00:00:54,840 --> 00:00:57,480 But it's interesting that fire actually doesn't make that much 22 00:00:57,520 --> 00:01:00,160 of an appearance in here. Is there much of anything about 23 00:01:00,160 --> 00:01:02,080 fire? In here, A little bit about it, 24 00:01:02,080 --> 00:01:04,000 yeah. You know about it. 25 00:01:04,959 --> 00:01:09,000 About how more extreme heat dries up. 26 00:01:09,790 --> 00:01:12,670 Landscapes and dries and stresses trees and makes them 27 00:01:12,670 --> 00:01:16,750 more prone to these larger, hotter wildfires like we've been 28 00:01:16,750 --> 00:01:21,630 seeing and some of the air pollution consequences of that 29 00:01:21,630 --> 00:01:23,870 from the, you know, the wildfire smoke and things. 30 00:01:24,230 --> 00:01:26,030 So I talked about it a little bit, but I don't really go into 31 00:01:26,030 --> 00:01:29,270 it a lot. One thing that caught my 32 00:01:29,270 --> 00:01:33,590 attention in your latest is that when I read The Water Will Come. 33 00:01:33,590 --> 00:01:36,950 So much of that is about how the US military is preparing for 34 00:01:36,950 --> 00:01:38,190 climate change and what they're doing. 35 00:01:38,230 --> 00:01:40,510 They're practical people. They want to make sure bases 36 00:01:40,510 --> 00:01:42,990 don't flood, that their readiness is is up as up as it 37 00:01:42,990 --> 00:01:45,710 can be. But that didn't seem to be as 38 00:01:46,190 --> 00:01:49,950 prominent in a story about Heat. But given their theaters of 39 00:01:49,950 --> 00:01:52,430 operation, you would expect heat to figure into military 40 00:01:52,430 --> 00:01:55,110 calculations. But is it not happening, or are 41 00:01:55,110 --> 00:01:56,910 you just not tracking that one as closely? 42 00:01:57,750 --> 00:01:59,510 Yeah, I just, I mean it's happening a lot. 43 00:01:59,510 --> 00:02:03,790 A lot of the research on heat impacts on human bodies and 44 00:02:03,790 --> 00:02:09,150 things comes from military researchers and the military has 45 00:02:09,150 --> 00:02:13,990 done a lot on heat. Several of the scientists, the 46 00:02:13,990 --> 00:02:17,230 physiologists that I talked to in the book are former military 47 00:02:18,390 --> 00:02:22,630 researchers and physiologists. The whole idea of a what's 48 00:02:22,630 --> 00:02:26,430 called a wet bulb standard, which is a a a more accurate way 49 00:02:26,430 --> 00:02:29,400 of. Measuring temperatures, the 50 00:02:29,400 --> 00:02:35,360 actual effects on on a person, including sun, sunlight and, you 51 00:02:35,360 --> 00:02:39,560 know, solar radiation and humidity and air temperature and 52 00:02:39,560 --> 00:02:43,240 wind speed and all that kind of stuff, it's a it's a very 53 00:02:43,240 --> 00:02:46,160 accurate measurement that is used by heat researchers called 54 00:02:46,280 --> 00:02:48,600 wet bulb temperatures that was developed in the military. 55 00:02:48,600 --> 00:02:51,960 But yeah, I don't have as much about it in this book simply 56 00:02:51,960 --> 00:02:55,610 because. Heat was and is an immense 57 00:02:55,610 --> 00:03:02,370 topic, and I just sort of felt like I had done as much as I 58 00:03:02,370 --> 00:03:04,450 could. And like, you know, I mean, I 59 00:03:04,450 --> 00:03:06,650 could have kept working on this book for another 12 years. 60 00:03:08,130 --> 00:03:11,970 So I had to draw some limits. Yeah, fair enough. 61 00:03:12,130 --> 00:03:14,850 There is a lot covered here. There's lots of great reportage 62 00:03:14,850 --> 00:03:17,010 to where it's, you know, heavily vignetted. 63 00:03:17,010 --> 00:03:18,730 There's lots of stories of people. 64 00:03:18,970 --> 00:03:20,530 It's surprising. I've had heat related 65 00:03:20,530 --> 00:03:23,210 experiences too, one hiking to the river and back in the Grand 66 00:03:23,210 --> 00:03:25,330 Canyon, I went too late in the season one year. 67 00:03:25,650 --> 00:03:28,570 And but by the time we were like a mile or two out from Indian 68 00:03:28,570 --> 00:03:30,370 Wells or Indian Springs or whatever it's called, I was 69 00:03:30,370 --> 00:03:34,290 like, I need water right now or I feel physically endangered. 70 00:03:34,810 --> 00:03:37,940 And then last year I played disc golf in Arizona during the 71 00:03:37,940 --> 00:03:39,500 shoulder season. It wasn't like I was there in 72 00:03:39,500 --> 00:03:41,060 the summer. I think I was there like early 73 00:03:41,060 --> 00:03:44,060 fall and I had to stop. I was getting nauseous about 74 00:03:44,060 --> 00:03:46,580 halfway through just because I couldn't continue. 75 00:03:47,020 --> 00:03:51,300 And I don't think I realized how imperiled I was with both of 76 00:03:51,300 --> 00:03:54,780 those, where you have stories of reasonably physically fit people 77 00:03:55,260 --> 00:03:57,900 just dying from heat and just like that. 78 00:03:59,060 --> 00:04:02,760 I mean, you know, I. I, as you know in the book, tell 79 00:04:02,760 --> 00:04:05,400 story of my about myself climbing a volcano in Nicaragua 80 00:04:05,400 --> 00:04:08,160 on a humid day. This was before I started the 81 00:04:08,160 --> 00:04:12,560 book and wasn't. I knew nothing about the risk of 82 00:04:12,560 --> 00:04:17,079 heat and you know, I felt part way up this hike. 83 00:04:17,079 --> 00:04:19,680 All of a sudden, you know, my heart started pounding. 84 00:04:19,680 --> 00:04:24,560 I started getting really dizzy. I started sweating in a in an 85 00:04:24,560 --> 00:04:27,320 uncontrollable way. It was just like water pouring, 86 00:04:27,320 --> 00:04:29,720 pouring off me and I had no idea what was happening to me. 87 00:04:29,720 --> 00:04:32,260 I I. I had no idea. 88 00:04:32,260 --> 00:04:35,300 And luckily some of the people who were with me did have some 89 00:04:35,300 --> 00:04:38,580 idea. But you know, like most people, 90 00:04:38,580 --> 00:04:43,460 I was terribly under educated or uneducated about the risks of 91 00:04:43,460 --> 00:04:45,820 heat. And, you know, it was a similar 92 00:04:45,820 --> 00:04:48,940 walk like that in Phoenix a few years later when I was thinking 93 00:04:48,940 --> 00:04:52,180 about what to do for a next book, when I had to walk just 12 94 00:04:52,180 --> 00:04:56,420 blocks and got dizzy and and, you know, felt my heart pounding 95 00:04:56,420 --> 00:04:59,940 that I thought, OK, there's. People don't understand, 96 00:04:59,940 --> 00:05:02,540 including myself, don't understand the risks of extreme 97 00:05:02,540 --> 00:05:04,260 heat and what it does to the body. 98 00:05:04,820 --> 00:05:07,860 And that's sort of where this book was really born out of what 99 00:05:07,860 --> 00:05:10,740 it did to me and my understanding that I didn't 100 00:05:10,740 --> 00:05:12,420 understand what it was doing to me. 101 00:05:13,580 --> 00:05:15,820 Yeah, I think I remember that from that Phoenix walk. 102 00:05:15,820 --> 00:05:18,820 Were you like down by the convention centers and and the 103 00:05:18,820 --> 00:05:21,460 ballpark and stuff in Phoenix? Yeah, it's all concrete and it's 104 00:05:21,460 --> 00:05:24,460 just so reflective and it's harsh. 105 00:05:25,120 --> 00:05:27,560 Yeah, it's brutal. And you know, the air 106 00:05:27,560 --> 00:05:31,560 temperature that day was 115 or so and it was probably 140 107 00:05:31,560 --> 00:05:34,360 degrees there because of the reflective heat. 108 00:05:34,360 --> 00:05:39,200 And you know, this urban heat island effect is well known 109 00:05:39,200 --> 00:05:42,120 phenomenon in every city and in in Phoenix, especially in that 110 00:05:42,120 --> 00:05:46,240 area, it's particularly bad. The most striking I've ever seen 111 00:05:46,240 --> 00:05:49,520 the difference in shade coverage is in Mexico City where you land 112 00:05:49,520 --> 00:05:52,320 at the airport and you're at like a NASA, like on the east 113 00:05:52,320 --> 00:05:55,530 side and there's no trees, it's just concrete baking. 114 00:05:55,530 --> 00:05:58,090 And then if you go to Condesa and Roma, like like everyone on 115 00:05:58,090 --> 00:06:00,610 Instagram is right now, it's nothing but trees. 116 00:06:00,610 --> 00:06:04,810 And it's, you know, 2 digit degrees cooler everywhere you 117 00:06:04,810 --> 00:06:07,130 go. And how does that add up over 118 00:06:07,130 --> 00:06:10,250 time and result in different life experiences and how that 119 00:06:10,250 --> 00:06:12,330 might affect people's health overall? 120 00:06:14,050 --> 00:06:16,090 Well. You know, I mean. 121 00:06:18,810 --> 00:06:22,330 He doesn't have a cumulative effect on one's body, right. 122 00:06:22,330 --> 00:06:26,170 It has a, I mean it doesn't have a cumulative effect in the in 123 00:06:26,170 --> 00:06:30,090 the like daytoday thing, but it it doesn't have a cumulative 124 00:06:30,090 --> 00:06:33,330 effect sort of year to year. So I mean basically what it 125 00:06:33,330 --> 00:06:38,410 means is that you know, people who live in wealthier shaded 126 00:06:38,410 --> 00:06:41,650 areas and shade is very much correlated throughout the world 127 00:06:41,650 --> 00:06:45,530 with with wealth. I feel it here in Austin, TX 128 00:06:45,530 --> 00:06:49,190 where I live. I felt it in Mexico City also. 129 00:06:49,190 --> 00:06:53,310 I wrote about it in Mexico City. You know it. 130 00:06:53,470 --> 00:06:56,990 It's just simply a much more hospitable place. 131 00:06:57,190 --> 00:07:01,110 And, you know, trees require space and money to maintain and 132 00:07:01,110 --> 00:07:04,710 everything. And they, you know, poor 133 00:07:04,710 --> 00:07:06,430 neighborhoods simply don't have them. 134 00:07:06,430 --> 00:07:09,950 They have just, you know, in Mexico City or here in Austin, 135 00:07:09,950 --> 00:07:14,830 their concrete sidewalks, you know, lack of trees sometimes. 136 00:07:15,910 --> 00:07:19,550 You know, there's tree planting campaigns that go on here and in 137 00:07:19,550 --> 00:07:22,630 Houston and other in Phoenix to where they attempt to put in 138 00:07:22,630 --> 00:07:26,190 trees and they do. But, you know, it's really easy 139 00:07:26,190 --> 00:07:30,510 to gather up a bunch of people and get some money to plant some 140 00:07:30,510 --> 00:07:34,990 trees, but it's a lot harder to keep them alive, especially in 141 00:07:34,990 --> 00:07:38,510 these kinds of hot places, and to keep them watered and 142 00:07:38,510 --> 00:07:39,790 everything. And so the. 143 00:07:40,220 --> 00:07:43,860 The longterm life expectancy, I think the the life expectancy of 144 00:07:43,860 --> 00:07:46,020 St. Tree in Phoenix is 7 years, 145 00:07:46,060 --> 00:07:49,660 which is just nothing. And especially when you think 146 00:07:49,660 --> 00:07:53,180 about what were you really need are you know sort of large large 147 00:07:53,180 --> 00:07:56,820 canopy trees. And I think of Phoenix too. 148 00:07:56,820 --> 00:07:59,900 I think of Palo Verde and things that are, you know, trying to 149 00:07:59,900 --> 00:08:02,740 limit water loss so they don't have large, like deciduous 150 00:08:02,740 --> 00:08:04,220 leaves. Right. 151 00:08:04,700 --> 00:08:07,140 So they're not giving as much shade as you would get from some 152 00:08:07,140 --> 00:08:08,500 place like in Seattle where I am. 153 00:08:09,220 --> 00:08:10,390 Right. Yeah. 154 00:08:11,590 --> 00:08:14,830 But we also have Seattle's cutting down trees right now. 155 00:08:14,870 --> 00:08:18,670 There's there's conflict over the density versus trees and 156 00:08:18,670 --> 00:08:20,670 like how much we're actually able to plant right now. 157 00:08:20,670 --> 00:08:24,870 And then also there's not that many different varieties of 158 00:08:24,870 --> 00:08:27,230 trees that are planted here. So there's also concern about 159 00:08:27,270 --> 00:08:29,030 pests. And as the range of these change 160 00:08:29,030 --> 00:08:31,830 with with heat changes, what should cities be doing right 161 00:08:31,830 --> 00:08:33,030 now? I feel like a lot of these 162 00:08:33,030 --> 00:08:36,350 problems have a lot of different facets to it, and it's not clear 163 00:08:36,350 --> 00:08:37,669 how cities are going to react to this. 164 00:08:38,950 --> 00:08:40,190 Yeah. And you know and every city is 165 00:08:40,190 --> 00:08:42,830 different and you know the requirements of different cities 166 00:08:42,830 --> 00:08:45,350 are different. But to take St. 167 00:08:45,350 --> 00:08:51,270 Trees as an example I mean you know they the one of the 168 00:08:51,270 --> 00:08:54,550 problems is now that because they're our climate is changing 169 00:08:54,550 --> 00:08:56,750 so fast. Is that a tree that you plant 170 00:08:56,750 --> 00:09:02,030 that works well today is probably going to be a very that 171 00:09:02,030 --> 00:09:04,430 same environment is going to be very different in 20 years and 172 00:09:04,430 --> 00:09:06,550 that tree is not going to do so well in 20 years. 173 00:09:06,550 --> 00:09:09,680 So there's. A lot of urban arborists and 174 00:09:09,680 --> 00:09:12,760 tree planting organizations are thinking about, you know, 175 00:09:12,840 --> 00:09:16,880 planting the tree for 20 or 25 years from now, which means a 176 00:09:16,880 --> 00:09:20,720 different tree than than you would plant if you believed that 177 00:09:20,720 --> 00:09:23,280 the climate were going to stay the same, Which of course it's 178 00:09:23,280 --> 00:09:26,280 not. So you know, but I mean tree 179 00:09:26,280 --> 00:09:30,520 planting is just one aspect of what cities can be do be doing 180 00:09:30,520 --> 00:09:34,320 and you know are beginning to do here in Austin, they're starting 181 00:09:34,320 --> 00:09:38,580 an experiment of. Painting the streets white in 182 00:09:38,580 --> 00:09:41,420 some neighborhoods in order to increase reflectivity. 183 00:09:41,620 --> 00:09:43,340 Has that already started? Is that already under? 184 00:09:43,380 --> 00:09:44,780 Yeah, there, there. Yeah. 185 00:09:44,780 --> 00:09:48,300 It's only, it's only you know maybe a 20 block area right now, 186 00:09:48,580 --> 00:09:52,380 but it's happening. LA has been doing it, Vegas has 187 00:09:52,380 --> 00:09:54,420 been doing it, Phoenix is doing it. 188 00:09:55,580 --> 00:09:57,500 You know it's it's helpful on the margins. 189 00:09:58,020 --> 00:10:01,220 There's a lot of white roof initiatives around the world, 190 00:10:01,220 --> 00:10:03,980 lots of different cities. That's a very easy way to. 191 00:10:05,650 --> 00:10:10,450 Increase reflectivity and lower the sort of urban heat, you 192 00:10:10,450 --> 00:10:14,890 know, limiting vehicles from downtown and and creating more 193 00:10:14,890 --> 00:10:17,650 green spaces, you know, is a big thing. 194 00:10:17,970 --> 00:10:22,610 Paris is doing a great job of that of, you know, bringing sort 195 00:10:22,610 --> 00:10:26,730 of nature back into cities and and turning, you know, these 196 00:10:26,850 --> 00:10:31,570 parking Oasis into kind of green Oasis that helps a lot. 197 00:10:31,610 --> 00:10:33,930 So there are, you know, there are a lot of things that cities 198 00:10:33,930 --> 00:10:37,780 can do to. Help cool off and give people 199 00:10:38,340 --> 00:10:41,100 access to cooler places in public spaces. 200 00:10:41,660 --> 00:10:45,540 But it's takes a while. And cities are, you know, took 201 00:10:46,140 --> 00:10:47,940 hundreds of years to build these cities. 202 00:10:47,940 --> 00:10:51,740 It's going to take a long time to kind of reimagine them in a 203 00:10:51,740 --> 00:10:55,100 way that is suitable for our rapidly changing climate. 204 00:10:56,620 --> 00:11:00,100 How bad do you and the scientists working on this thing 205 00:11:00,260 --> 00:11:03,140 heat is going to be? I worry about some place like 206 00:11:03,140 --> 00:11:05,660 Phoenix potentially becoming uninhabitable. 207 00:11:05,660 --> 00:11:08,860 I have a lot of faith in human adaptation and ingenuity, but 208 00:11:09,980 --> 00:11:13,020 you can't fight the wet bulb effect to some degree either. 209 00:11:13,020 --> 00:11:15,500 Like how how much room is there for us actually to figure this 210 00:11:15,500 --> 00:11:16,860 out? Or what places will have to be 211 00:11:16,860 --> 00:11:20,420 abandoned? Well, you know, when you ask, 212 00:11:20,420 --> 00:11:22,460 you know, will places become uninhabitable? 213 00:11:23,220 --> 00:11:27,540 You know, the first response to that is like uninhabitable for 214 00:11:27,540 --> 00:11:30,820 who and at what cost, right? I mean obviously. 215 00:11:31,650 --> 00:11:36,250 We can live on Mars if we have enough infrastructure and enough 216 00:11:36,250 --> 00:11:39,890 money and you know, the right kind of rockets and all that 217 00:11:39,890 --> 00:11:42,130 kind of thing. You know, I'm just reading a 218 00:11:42,130 --> 00:11:46,050 book right now about these submarines that are voyage down 219 00:11:46,050 --> 00:11:49,290 to the deepest parts of the ocean trenches. 220 00:11:49,370 --> 00:11:51,850 You know, I mean, we can survive in all kinds of extreme 221 00:11:51,850 --> 00:11:54,170 climates. It's just for how long and who 222 00:11:54,170 --> 00:11:59,090 and what cost. So, you know, Phoenix is. 223 00:11:59,550 --> 00:12:02,790 And has been a boom town because it's a place with cheap real 224 00:12:02,790 --> 00:12:05,990 estate, low taxes. Everybody wants to go there and 225 00:12:05,990 --> 00:12:08,070 hang out in their shorts and their flip flops. 226 00:12:08,070 --> 00:12:11,630 And, you know, it's sort of there's something, you know, 227 00:12:11,630 --> 00:12:13,630 kind of everybody likes warm weather. 228 00:12:13,630 --> 00:12:16,310 Well, not everybody, but most people prefer warm weather. 229 00:12:16,310 --> 00:12:18,470 It's it's. So there's a lot of virtues to 230 00:12:18,470 --> 00:12:21,670 it. But those virtues very quickly, 231 00:12:21,950 --> 00:12:25,030 you know, get reversed when temperatures get too high. 232 00:12:25,070 --> 00:12:27,470 You know, once. It's one thing to be hanging out 233 00:12:27,470 --> 00:12:29,350 in Phoenix in 100 degree weather. 234 00:12:29,710 --> 00:12:32,710 It's another thing to be hanging out in Phoenix in 120 degree 235 00:12:32,710 --> 00:12:34,870 weather. And it's one thing to be hanging 236 00:12:34,870 --> 00:12:38,390 out in Phoenix in 120 degree weather if you have plenty of 237 00:12:38,390 --> 00:12:40,910 money and you can afford to air condition your place and you 238 00:12:40,910 --> 00:12:42,590 don't care about the electricity costs. 239 00:12:43,070 --> 00:12:46,510 It's another thing if you're working as a waitress in a 240 00:12:46,510 --> 00:12:49,190 restaurant, you've got three kids and you're trying to, you 241 00:12:49,190 --> 00:12:52,670 know, feed your family and then you've got, you know, $600.00 242 00:12:52,670 --> 00:12:54,270 electric bill because your electric. 243 00:12:55,070 --> 00:12:58,590 Your air conditioner is, you know, ancient and inefficient 244 00:12:58,630 --> 00:13:00,830 and you can't afford to run it very often. 245 00:13:01,590 --> 00:13:05,390 So you know, it's a different thing if you're working in a 246 00:13:05,390 --> 00:13:09,750 construction crew and you're outside than it is if you're 247 00:13:09,750 --> 00:13:12,310 working inside, you know, as a lawyer or something. 248 00:13:12,350 --> 00:13:16,030 So these questions of uninhabitability really depend 249 00:13:16,070 --> 00:13:20,230 on who you're talking about and and and at what cost. 250 00:13:20,230 --> 00:13:23,630 But you know, it's very clear that in these. 251 00:13:24,410 --> 00:13:28,650 As these temperatures continue to rise, the Phoenix that people 252 00:13:28,650 --> 00:13:32,010 know and love, or Vegas or Austin for that matter, that 253 00:13:32,010 --> 00:13:36,250 people have known and loved or is going to be very different in 254 00:13:36,250 --> 00:13:40,770 the future. So in a case like Southern 255 00:13:40,770 --> 00:13:43,810 Florida, maybe where are we going to adapt to that? 256 00:13:43,970 --> 00:13:46,930 Are people just going to keep pumping water out or will they 257 00:13:46,930 --> 00:13:49,450 have to leave? Is is flooding in that way maybe 258 00:13:49,450 --> 00:13:53,010 even more severe because it will require urban abandonment? 259 00:13:53,050 --> 00:13:54,850 Or are we just going to double down on all these things and 260 00:13:54,850 --> 00:13:57,330 keep innovating and adapting to all of these changing 261 00:13:57,330 --> 00:14:00,210 environments? Well, again, I don't think it's 262 00:14:00,210 --> 00:14:02,690 an either or thing. You know, there will be places 263 00:14:02,690 --> 00:14:04,610 that will adapt better than others. 264 00:14:04,610 --> 00:14:08,090 You know, you can adapt to rising seas. 265 00:14:08,090 --> 00:14:12,330 There's things that you can do. You know, Miami, Tampa, all 266 00:14:12,330 --> 00:14:14,730 those places. New Orleans, you know the whole 267 00:14:14,730 --> 00:14:18,970 Galveston here in Texas, all of these place Norfolk on the East 268 00:14:18,970 --> 00:14:22,700 Coast. Are all hugely at risk with 269 00:14:23,380 --> 00:14:26,540 rising seas. And you know, on one level 270 00:14:26,540 --> 00:14:29,860 rising seas can be dealt with by elevating structures and 271 00:14:29,940 --> 00:14:31,700 changing building codes and things like that. 272 00:14:32,300 --> 00:14:36,660 But you know other parts of it can't or are much more 273 00:14:36,660 --> 00:14:38,980 difficult. Like changing where airports are 274 00:14:38,980 --> 00:14:43,780 for example, that are often on low lying places, changing 275 00:14:44,620 --> 00:14:48,340 septic systems that are dependent upon water levels for, 276 00:14:48,340 --> 00:14:52,790 you know, sanitation. Just even elevating roads and 277 00:14:52,790 --> 00:14:55,230 things like that. I mean at certain point the cost 278 00:14:55,270 --> 00:14:59,150 of, I mean could you engineering wise, could you elevate all of 279 00:14:59,150 --> 00:15:02,790 Miami 3 feet, 4 feet, 5 feet, Yes, you could. 280 00:15:03,030 --> 00:15:05,710 You know it would cost bazillions of dollars and why 281 00:15:05,710 --> 00:15:08,590 would anybody want to do it? But you certainly could. 282 00:15:09,510 --> 00:15:12,790 And so there will be places that spend more and more money on 283 00:15:12,790 --> 00:15:15,510 adaptation, sea walls and things like that and. 284 00:15:16,040 --> 00:15:20,640 They will become islands of, you know, habitation in these in 285 00:15:20,640 --> 00:15:25,240 these higher sea level zones and then there will be vast swaths 286 00:15:25,240 --> 00:15:29,200 of places that are just deemed not worth putting the money into 287 00:15:29,200 --> 00:15:32,320 and abandoned. And it'll it'll have a varied 288 00:15:32,320 --> 00:15:34,520 the coastline will be. It will look very different than 289 00:15:34,520 --> 00:15:41,040 it does now. Which places do you see changes 290 00:15:41,080 --> 00:15:45,210 likely to happen? One potential I saw was labor 291 00:15:45,210 --> 00:15:48,090 laws around heat. Is that going to become much 292 00:15:48,090 --> 00:15:51,770 more regulated moving forward? You have stories, one particular 293 00:15:51,770 --> 00:15:55,010 out of Oregon, about a nursery worker dying. 294 00:15:55,010 --> 00:15:56,810 Is there going to be action on that? 295 00:15:56,810 --> 00:15:58,290 Is that something that's likely to change? 296 00:15:59,650 --> 00:16:04,410 Well, you would hope because it's not expensive way to save 297 00:16:04,410 --> 00:16:07,690 lives, right? All you require is, you know, 298 00:16:08,730 --> 00:16:13,850 small things like requiring shade and water breaks every. 299 00:16:14,370 --> 00:16:20,170 You know, hour for 10 or 15 minutes during when heat levels 300 00:16:20,170 --> 00:16:23,650 get high is not, is not, doesn't seem like it would be difficult 301 00:16:23,650 --> 00:16:26,570 thing to do. But, you know, OSHA has been, 302 00:16:26,570 --> 00:16:29,130 you know, the Department of Labor has been working on 303 00:16:29,130 --> 00:16:32,010 federal regulations for heat standards for seven years now. 304 00:16:32,010 --> 00:16:35,010 And they still can't manage to do it because all the 305 00:16:35,010 --> 00:16:38,770 corporations complain that it'll hurt their productivity if they 306 00:16:38,770 --> 00:16:41,850 have workers, you know, hanging out under a tree for 15 minutes 307 00:16:41,850 --> 00:16:46,370 and drinking water. Here in Texas, two weeks ago, 308 00:16:46,370 --> 00:16:50,330 during the height of the heat Dome here when it was, you know, 309 00:16:50,330 --> 00:16:55,490 112 degrees, 113 degrees here in Austin, the mayor, I mean the 310 00:16:55,490 --> 00:17:00,410 governor of of Texas, Greg Abbott, signed legislation 311 00:17:00,410 --> 00:17:07,010 prohibiting any city or county in Texas from instituting any 312 00:17:07,010 --> 00:17:09,490 laws requiring water or shade breaks. 313 00:17:09,609 --> 00:17:12,700 And again in the. Idea that this was going to hurt 314 00:17:12,700 --> 00:17:17,060 productivity and stuff. So, you know, I don't know where 315 00:17:17,060 --> 00:17:18,940 this is going to go. You would think if it were a 316 00:17:18,940 --> 00:17:21,380 rational world that yes, there would be increased heat 317 00:17:21,380 --> 00:17:26,180 standards and you know that there would be laws that keep 318 00:17:26,660 --> 00:17:29,620 workers from dying while they're on their jobs. 319 00:17:30,140 --> 00:17:32,860 But you know, that may not be the world we live in right now. 320 00:17:34,220 --> 00:17:37,900 It's been remarkable to see how much action has occurred since 321 00:17:37,900 --> 00:17:42,620 the Delta lawsuit over policy representing offsets that they 322 00:17:42,620 --> 00:17:44,900 were buying. Like how much movement that has 323 00:17:44,900 --> 00:17:46,900 had in the voluntary carbon market space. 324 00:17:47,180 --> 00:17:49,740 Wouldn't surprise me if there was a torcious claim from or 325 00:17:49,740 --> 00:17:52,380 even a class action lawsuit against some set of employers 326 00:17:52,380 --> 00:17:55,260 for heat related injury and death that would maybe create 327 00:17:55,260 --> 00:17:58,180 the regulation just through the common law, just through the 328 00:17:58,180 --> 00:17:59,980 courts. It wouldn't surprise me if that 329 00:17:59,980 --> 00:18:00,500 happened. Maybe. 330 00:18:00,500 --> 00:18:01,900 Maybe for you. Would that surprise you? 331 00:18:04,590 --> 00:18:06,950 No, it wouldn't. I mean I think lawsuits are of 332 00:18:06,990 --> 00:18:10,350 all of all sorts on these issues are gaining a lot of power. 333 00:18:10,350 --> 00:18:18,670 You know I'll note that the a county in in in Oregon. 334 00:18:19,150 --> 00:18:22,270 The County of the Portland is located in is is suing. 335 00:18:22,270 --> 00:18:26,230 It has filed a class action lawsuit against big oil 336 00:18:26,230 --> 00:18:30,990 companies for the heat wave that killed 1000 people in the 337 00:18:30,990 --> 00:18:35,670 Pacific. Northwest in in 2021, suing for 338 00:18:35,670 --> 00:18:38,910 damages and loss. You know, it's one of the 339 00:18:39,190 --> 00:18:45,630 cascading number of these sorts of lawsuits around the world 340 00:18:45,630 --> 00:18:49,830 that we're basically arguing that the fossil fuel industry 341 00:18:50,030 --> 00:18:54,950 has known for a long time with the consequences of their of the 342 00:18:54,950 --> 00:18:58,470 continuing to burn fossil fuels has been that they've waged A 343 00:18:58,470 --> 00:19:01,510 disinformation campaign very effectively about that. 344 00:19:02,390 --> 00:19:08,390 And that they are in some way to be determined by the courts, you 345 00:19:08,390 --> 00:19:11,950 know, liable for the losses and damages that are related to 346 00:19:11,950 --> 00:19:14,030 this. And you know, and I've been 347 00:19:14,030 --> 00:19:18,510 covering climate change for 20 years and there's no question 348 00:19:18,510 --> 00:19:21,430 that it just in the last five years the momentum on these 349 00:19:21,430 --> 00:19:26,470 lawsuits has really accelerated. And you know, it's been, it's 350 00:19:26,470 --> 00:19:30,230 been pushed along by these revelations that have come out 351 00:19:30,230 --> 00:19:33,130 about. Exxon Mobil's modeling and how 352 00:19:33,130 --> 00:19:38,610 good it was in the 70s on on on warming related to CO2 and on 353 00:19:39,250 --> 00:19:42,570 what's called attribution science, where climate modelers 354 00:19:42,570 --> 00:19:47,730 can now say with virtual certainty, as they did with the 355 00:19:47,730 --> 00:19:50,170 Pacific Northwest heat wave, that it would not have happened 356 00:19:50,170 --> 00:19:52,290 without elevated CO2 in the atmosphere. 357 00:19:52,370 --> 00:19:56,330 So it's not all events can be attributed that clearly 358 00:19:56,330 --> 00:19:59,090 sometimes you know like there was an extreme. 359 00:19:59,960 --> 00:20:03,600 Flooding event in Pakistan last year that they looked at also 360 00:20:03,600 --> 00:20:06,480 for attribution and they basically decided that no this 361 00:20:06,720 --> 00:20:09,000 we can't. This you know may well have 362 00:20:09,000 --> 00:20:11,480 happened without the elevated CO2. 363 00:20:11,480 --> 00:20:15,400 We can't describe describe it ascribe it specifically to that. 364 00:20:15,960 --> 00:20:20,240 But with heat waves are particularly are are easier to 365 00:20:20,400 --> 00:20:24,800 to attribute and not every heat wave can they directly can. 366 00:20:24,800 --> 00:20:27,280 They say this would not have happened without. 367 00:20:27,750 --> 00:20:29,510 See you too. But a number of them they've 368 00:20:29,510 --> 00:20:32,190 been able to, and the Pacific Northwest heat wave was one of 369 00:20:32,190 --> 00:20:35,670 them. That was surprising to me that 370 00:20:35,670 --> 00:20:38,830 that level of attribution is even possible or getting getting 371 00:20:38,830 --> 00:20:40,390 better over time. Because this is one of the 372 00:20:40,390 --> 00:20:42,630 things that I saw people fighting over the the broad 373 00:20:42,630 --> 00:20:44,750 details of climate science about. 374 00:20:45,110 --> 00:20:47,350 Oh well, there's just more monitoring stations, people live 375 00:20:47,350 --> 00:20:49,510 more places. Of course there's more damages 376 00:20:49,710 --> 00:20:52,750 that are crew over time because people live more places they're 377 00:20:52,750 --> 00:20:55,500 living, so. Is that really are there really 378 00:20:55,540 --> 00:20:58,540 more extreme weather events or bigger ones or is it just for 379 00:20:58,540 --> 00:21:02,140 better at measuring them now? This is sort of the anti climate 380 00:21:02,140 --> 00:21:05,060 change is a real threat camp arguing this. 381 00:21:05,260 --> 00:21:06,860 It seems like progress has been made. 382 00:21:07,020 --> 00:21:11,540 People can say there is a relationship between this CO2 383 00:21:11,540 --> 00:21:15,620 levels and an extreme climate event or extreme weather event. 384 00:21:16,540 --> 00:21:21,830 Yeah, I mean and like I said, not every event and you know can 385 00:21:21,830 --> 00:21:24,470 they because what they basically do is they have very 386 00:21:24,470 --> 00:21:28,670 sophisticated models that allow them to run a counterfactual. 387 00:21:28,670 --> 00:21:31,510 They can run the model, you know, they can program into the 388 00:21:31,510 --> 00:21:36,190 model like what happened and then they can run the same model 389 00:21:36,190 --> 00:21:40,310 with lower levels of CO2 and see if they get a similar or same 390 00:21:40,310 --> 00:21:45,750 result. And it's, it was very new 391 00:21:45,750 --> 00:21:48,990 science 10 years ago, but it's gotten really, really good 392 00:21:48,990 --> 00:21:51,510 recently. And the lawyer, I've talked to 393 00:21:51,510 --> 00:21:55,910 some lawyers about it and people who had been skeptical and you 394 00:21:55,910 --> 00:21:57,910 know, they're basically saying, yeah, this is good enough to 395 00:21:57,910 --> 00:22:02,310 hold up in court. So you know, the day will come 396 00:22:02,310 --> 00:22:07,030 very soon when we can point to a extreme event, not all extreme 397 00:22:07,030 --> 00:22:11,990 events, but some extreme events and say this was caused by 398 00:22:12,670 --> 00:22:16,380 elevated CO2 levels, which means basically it was caused by 399 00:22:16,380 --> 00:22:19,500 burning fossil fuels. I mean, that would be a game 400 00:22:19,500 --> 00:22:22,700 changer. I remember watching the Trump 401 00:22:22,700 --> 00:22:26,380 indictment stuff and even if there's a men's raya 402 00:22:26,580 --> 00:22:29,300 intentionality component to it, where like he would have wanted 403 00:22:29,740 --> 00:22:33,500 a coup to happen, The idea that you could say like his ideas, 404 00:22:33,500 --> 00:22:36,460 his words led to a onetoone relationship between what 405 00:22:36,460 --> 00:22:38,500 happened after that is super hard to prove. 406 00:22:39,340 --> 00:22:41,500 But if you could prove that, that's that's the whole thing. 407 00:22:41,500 --> 00:22:44,420 You have intentionality and you have the action that occurred. 408 00:22:44,850 --> 00:22:48,450 But climate change may be at the point of of having that. 409 00:22:49,290 --> 00:22:51,050 Yeah. Again, not for every event and 410 00:22:51,050 --> 00:22:53,810 not in all cases, but in a lot of events. 411 00:22:53,810 --> 00:22:56,450 And I I would encourage anyone who's interested in this. 412 00:22:57,650 --> 00:23:01,370 I have a whole chapter in my book about this about the whole 413 00:23:01,370 --> 00:23:05,370 history of attribution science, and it's a chapter called 414 00:23:05,610 --> 00:23:09,820 Anatomy of a Crime Scene Man. It focuses on one climate 415 00:23:09,820 --> 00:23:12,780 researcher who's particularly well known in this field named 416 00:23:12,780 --> 00:23:18,940 Frederica Otto and who is in in the UK and her work is really 417 00:23:18,940 --> 00:23:21,660 phenomenal. And in fact, her recent report 418 00:23:21,700 --> 00:23:26,940 about these heat domes in the US that was just released like a 419 00:23:26,940 --> 00:23:29,540 week ago was on the front page of the New York Times and most 420 00:23:29,540 --> 00:23:33,180 of other newspapers around the world and again pointed to these 421 00:23:33,180 --> 00:23:36,850 heat waves and saying, yes, these were caused by elevated 422 00:23:36,850 --> 00:23:39,970 CO2 levels. And so this is not some kind of 423 00:23:39,970 --> 00:23:44,650 fringe hocus pocus. See, you know, science, some kid 424 00:23:44,650 --> 00:23:46,650 modeling stuff in the basement at MIT. 425 00:23:46,650 --> 00:23:51,850 This is really serious, mainstream stuff that I think 426 00:23:51,850 --> 00:23:57,570 can have a dramatic implications on both the legal and the sort 427 00:23:57,570 --> 00:24:03,160 of moral status of this relationship between fossil 428 00:24:03,160 --> 00:24:05,560 fuel, fossil fuel companies and climate damages. 429 00:24:07,280 --> 00:24:09,560 Yeah, that relationship really tightens up pretty quickly if 430 00:24:09,560 --> 00:24:12,240 you have all those elements. It certainly caught my ear. 431 00:24:12,280 --> 00:24:15,640 And listen to this and in my eye and reading this, one of the 432 00:24:15,640 --> 00:24:18,960 thing that caught my attention is the importance of naming heat 433 00:24:18,960 --> 00:24:22,440 waves in the fights over that. Can you retell that story here? 434 00:24:24,010 --> 00:24:28,090 Well, I mean, one of the difficult things about heat 435 00:24:28,090 --> 00:24:31,450 waves and about understanding heat in general is that there's 436 00:24:31,450 --> 00:24:35,770 no visual component to it. So unlike a hurricane, where you 437 00:24:35,770 --> 00:24:40,130 look out your window and if the wind's blowing 5 miles an hour, 438 00:24:41,130 --> 00:24:43,530 it looks very different than when the wind is blowing 70 439 00:24:43,530 --> 00:24:45,570 miles an hour. And you can just tell very 440 00:24:45,570 --> 00:24:49,090 quickly what's going on. You know, I'm looking at my 441 00:24:49,090 --> 00:24:53,160 window right now here in Austin. And, you know, I know that it's 442 00:24:53,160 --> 00:24:56,120 107 degrees, but it doesn't look any different looking out the 443 00:24:56,120 --> 00:24:58,000 window than it would if it were 70 degrees. 444 00:24:58,640 --> 00:25:03,320 And so visually, we have a very hard time understanding the 445 00:25:03,320 --> 00:25:06,160 risks of heat. And so there's a group of 446 00:25:08,320 --> 00:25:13,470 meteorologists and A and a nonprofit group called the 447 00:25:13,470 --> 00:25:16,030 Adrienne Arsht Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center, 448 00:25:16,030 --> 00:25:20,550 who's really been pushing this idea of naming heat waves 449 00:25:20,550 --> 00:25:25,750 similar to the way that we name storms, with the idea that it 450 00:25:25,750 --> 00:25:28,990 helps people communicate in shorthand about the risk. 451 00:25:29,150 --> 00:25:33,950 And like, if we know, you know, Hurricane Katrina is coming and 452 00:25:33,950 --> 00:25:38,190 then everyone can kind of get that idea and it just, it 453 00:25:38,190 --> 00:25:42,680 becomes a kind of communication shorthand for weather casters 454 00:25:42,680 --> 00:25:44,840 and others to communicate the risks of this. 455 00:25:45,440 --> 00:25:50,280 And there's a lot of controversy about it because unlike unlike 456 00:25:50,280 --> 00:25:53,440 hurricanes, for example, which are rated strictly on wind 457 00:25:53,440 --> 00:25:57,960 speed, you know, 80 miles an hour, I don't remember the exact 458 00:25:57,960 --> 00:26:02,960 category, which category 123, where the wind speed rank is, 459 00:26:02,960 --> 00:26:05,080 but they're ranked by wind speed, wind speed. 460 00:26:05,600 --> 00:26:08,720 You can't do the same thing with temperature because you know 100 461 00:26:08,720 --> 00:26:12,500 degrees in Phoenix is very different than, you know, 100 462 00:26:12,500 --> 00:26:19,020 degrees in, you know, Bangor, ME and what people are used to how 463 00:26:19,020 --> 00:26:20,340 wet. You know there's a big 464 00:26:20,340 --> 00:26:21,940 difference between dry heat and wet heat. 465 00:26:22,140 --> 00:26:26,740 You know the the dangers are different depending on how 466 00:26:26,740 --> 00:26:30,660 prepared buildings are, how many people have air conditioning, 467 00:26:30,660 --> 00:26:33,700 all that kind of thing. But anyway, it's an attempt to. 468 00:26:33,860 --> 00:26:38,510 This idea of naming heat waves is an attempt to help make them 469 00:26:38,510 --> 00:26:41,350 visible, you know, and there's all this informal naming going 470 00:26:41,350 --> 00:26:42,550 on. You know, they're they now. 471 00:26:42,550 --> 00:26:44,590 Right? Literally in the papers 472 00:26:44,590 --> 00:26:51,070 yesterday in the in the Times, there was a story about these 473 00:26:52,310 --> 00:26:56,750 environmental groups or climate activist groups in Europe naming 474 00:26:56,830 --> 00:26:59,190 these heat waves that are hitting Italy right now after 475 00:26:59,190 --> 00:27:03,150 oil companies, you know, and in order to connect them more 476 00:27:03,150 --> 00:27:07,070 clearly. And so I I think it's kind of 477 00:27:07,070 --> 00:27:10,470 inevitable that we will have a kind of some kind of formal 478 00:27:10,470 --> 00:27:14,190 naming system for heat waste because we need to do something 479 00:27:14,190 --> 00:27:16,230 to do a better job of communicating about them. 480 00:27:18,670 --> 00:27:22,950 I imagine the surprise many people experience your book with 481 00:27:22,950 --> 00:27:23,710 too. Is my reaction. 482 00:27:23,710 --> 00:27:26,590 Pretty common where they're just like didn't realize this was as 483 00:27:26,590 --> 00:27:30,230 big a deal as it is now. And it's a Do we need to do all 484 00:27:30,230 --> 00:27:31,870 this now? Do we need to start naming these 485 00:27:32,350 --> 00:27:34,350 heat events? Am I? 486 00:27:34,760 --> 00:27:37,040 Am I alone in thinking this? Yeah. 487 00:27:37,040 --> 00:27:41,880 I mean it's a new idea for sure. And you know whether we need to 488 00:27:41,880 --> 00:27:44,400 start naming them now, I I don't even know. 489 00:27:44,520 --> 00:27:46,880 I mean I think there's a lot of people who who think it's a 490 00:27:46,880 --> 00:27:51,840 really good idea. I I I think that, you know I 491 00:27:51,840 --> 00:27:54,320 think it's a good idea too. But I don't think it's like job 492 00:27:54,320 --> 00:27:57,440 one. I think you know the a more 493 00:27:57,440 --> 00:28:00,280 important idea is simply some kind of a ranking system. 494 00:28:00,280 --> 00:28:03,240 So if people are because people get stuck on, like what should 495 00:28:03,240 --> 00:28:06,000 we name them and should we name them after Greek gods? 496 00:28:06,000 --> 00:28:07,440 Should we name them after oil company? 497 00:28:07,440 --> 00:28:09,160 Should we do them alphabetical? Should we? 498 00:28:09,600 --> 00:28:11,800 There's all kinds of politics in naming. 499 00:28:12,320 --> 00:28:17,120 And I think that you know, just getting better at ranking and 500 00:28:17,120 --> 00:28:20,240 messaging about them and having weathercasters talk about them 501 00:28:20,280 --> 00:28:22,400 is, is what's kind of really important. 502 00:28:22,400 --> 00:28:25,560 And whether that is just a ranking system like red, yellow, 503 00:28:25,560 --> 00:28:29,080 orange, you know, something like that or numerical system or 504 00:28:29,080 --> 00:28:32,960 naming something that helps people communicate about the 505 00:28:32,960 --> 00:28:36,320 kind of risk that is coming with this heat wave. 506 00:28:36,320 --> 00:28:38,240 And. And to prepare for it. 507 00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:39,960 Right. To check in on people to make 508 00:28:39,960 --> 00:28:43,040 sure that you're, you know, if you have air conditioning you 509 00:28:43,400 --> 00:28:45,600 that it's working and all that kind of thing that you have. 510 00:28:45,880 --> 00:28:49,640 If you don't, you have access to cooling centers not to go 511 00:28:49,640 --> 00:28:51,560 outside at certain times of the day. 512 00:28:51,560 --> 00:28:54,180 All these kinds of simple precautions that people take to 513 00:28:54,260 --> 00:28:56,700 stay safe during extreme heat events. 514 00:28:57,660 --> 00:28:59,740 I haven't read one of your earlier books about 515 00:28:59,740 --> 00:29:03,460 geoengineering, but you do tell a story about cross country 516 00:29:03,460 --> 00:29:06,820 skiing across Baffin Island with David Keith, which is a great 517 00:29:08,260 --> 00:29:09,700 yeah. Wasn't on my bingo card for this 518 00:29:09,700 --> 00:29:12,260 podcast about this book. Didn't expect that to happen. 519 00:29:12,580 --> 00:29:16,920 But you were covering this beat. A long time ago, about carbon 520 00:29:16,920 --> 00:29:19,800 removal, about geoengineering, when those things were much 521 00:29:19,800 --> 00:29:21,640 closer than they are now. I feel like they're very 522 00:29:21,640 --> 00:29:25,200 distinct, or at least often people in the carbon removal 523 00:29:25,200 --> 00:29:27,600 camp like them to be distinct categories. 524 00:29:28,360 --> 00:29:30,600 How's this change since you first wrote that book, which was 525 00:29:30,640 --> 00:29:32,120 I think 2010? Is that when you're 526 00:29:32,120 --> 00:29:34,120 geoengineering? Yeah. 527 00:29:35,520 --> 00:29:38,960 So much has happened, yeah. So much has happened since then, 528 00:29:39,840 --> 00:29:44,970 You know, obviously, you know the solar, the solar 529 00:29:44,970 --> 00:29:49,410 geoengineering part, which is the idea of putting particles in 530 00:29:49,410 --> 00:29:55,650 the stratosphere to sort of reflect the way heat is, still 531 00:29:56,250 --> 00:30:00,810 remains a kind of taboo subject. There's nobody doing it, they. 532 00:30:00,810 --> 00:30:03,530 Still, there's a startup that was doing it. 533 00:30:03,530 --> 00:30:05,890 They got a bunch of attention. I don't know if you saw that 534 00:30:06,640 --> 00:30:09,080 they weren't actually doing it. I mean they were trying to do 535 00:30:09,080 --> 00:30:11,720 little science, little experiments, but I mean no one's 536 00:30:11,720 --> 00:30:15,400 doing it in the sense of flying airplanes around and actually 537 00:30:15,400 --> 00:30:19,120 trying to manipulate the, you know, the Earth's climate. 538 00:30:20,080 --> 00:30:27,240 So it's still a a kind of, you know, last ditch nobody wants to 539 00:30:27,240 --> 00:30:31,160 talk about, but we may have to do someday kind of ideas. 540 00:30:31,320 --> 00:30:36,560 And so it's that's kind of where it was 10 years ago, 13 years 541 00:30:36,560 --> 00:30:39,600 ago when I wrote the book. It's advanced a little bit, but 542 00:30:39,640 --> 00:30:42,800 it's still on the fringes of science. 543 00:30:43,320 --> 00:30:46,720 Carbon removal, as you know, is completely different now. 544 00:30:46,760 --> 00:30:50,320 You know, I was with I remember visiting David Keith when he was 545 00:30:50,320 --> 00:30:54,400 building his sort of little first carbon removal device in a 546 00:30:54,600 --> 00:30:56,760 engineering Bay at University of Calgary. 547 00:30:56,760 --> 00:30:59,480 And it was basically look like it, you know, looked like it was 548 00:30:59,480 --> 00:31:03,440 made out of, you know, Silly Putty and toilet paper rolls. 549 00:31:03,480 --> 00:31:07,240 I mean, it was, it was really a primitive thing. 550 00:31:08,120 --> 00:31:12,360 And now, of course, Carbon Engineering is a big company of 551 00:31:12,360 --> 00:31:15,560 companies like Occidental Petroleum, you know, saying 552 00:31:15,560 --> 00:31:17,960 they're going to be the Tesla of carbon Removal. 553 00:31:18,520 --> 00:31:21,200 You know, it's getting involved in the offset markets. 554 00:31:21,200 --> 00:31:23,840 You know, airlines are really, I mean it's taken off in a big 555 00:31:23,840 --> 00:31:27,960 way, you know. And so yes, they really have 556 00:31:28,040 --> 00:31:33,810 sort of split in their in their acceleration into the future. 557 00:31:34,290 --> 00:31:39,690 These two different ideas that 15 years ago were were lumped 558 00:31:39,690 --> 00:31:41,690 under the same idea of geoengineering. 559 00:31:43,170 --> 00:31:46,170 David Keith is probably the best illustration of that, who is 560 00:31:46,290 --> 00:31:50,650 like firmly a godfather of both and so involved there. 561 00:31:51,250 --> 00:31:54,490 I see many people, I don't want to out anyone in particular, but 562 00:31:54,810 --> 00:31:57,850 many of the carbon removal people that I've spoken to 563 00:31:57,850 --> 00:32:00,990 recently. That solar radiation management, 564 00:32:01,390 --> 00:32:04,910 at the very least needs to be well understood, and many of 565 00:32:04,910 --> 00:32:07,670 them think it's likely to be necessary even if we don't want 566 00:32:07,670 --> 00:32:09,750 it. Do you think that's that's true? 567 00:32:09,750 --> 00:32:12,510 Should we be supportive of more research and maybe even get 568 00:32:12,510 --> 00:32:14,150 comfortable with the idea of deploying it? 569 00:32:15,510 --> 00:32:17,350 Well, I don't actually don't think we should get comfortable 570 00:32:17,350 --> 00:32:20,550 with the idea of deploying it. I think it's, you know, 571 00:32:21,190 --> 00:32:23,790 something we don't want to do unless we have to do it. 572 00:32:23,790 --> 00:32:28,120 But, you know, I think the idea that it's taboo to talk about, 573 00:32:28,240 --> 00:32:33,080 that it's taboo to do any kind of principled research on, you 574 00:32:33,080 --> 00:32:35,120 know, I think that we need to know. 575 00:32:35,120 --> 00:32:38,600 I still think we need to even, and this is even this is very 576 00:32:38,600 --> 00:32:42,400 controversial because a lot of people think that we should. 577 00:32:42,400 --> 00:32:47,640 This should just be you know like one of those taboo areas of 578 00:32:47,640 --> 00:32:50,960 science that nobody should tread into at all because the 579 00:32:51,040 --> 00:32:54,160 potential consequences of fucking it up are so huge. 580 00:32:54,700 --> 00:33:00,300 But I do think that you know we need to know more about about 581 00:33:00,300 --> 00:33:02,220 the real life consequences of it. 582 00:33:02,220 --> 00:33:08,140 And you know there's David and others have supported the idea 583 00:33:08,140 --> 00:33:11,500 of small scale research where you actually, you know put part 584 00:33:11,500 --> 00:33:14,940 some particulates in the atmosphere very, very small 585 00:33:14,940 --> 00:33:17,700 amount that you know rains out almost immediately. 586 00:33:17,700 --> 00:33:20,860 But just to get a real world distribution idea of how they 587 00:33:20,860 --> 00:33:23,470 work. And you know, I I think more 588 00:33:23,470 --> 00:33:26,990 knowledge is good in this context and I kind of support 589 00:33:26,990 --> 00:33:33,990 the idea of of a well structured, well regulated, well 590 00:33:33,990 --> 00:33:40,710 run scientific research project on this because there is some 591 00:33:40,710 --> 00:33:47,510 sort of you know, tragic inevitability about this in the 592 00:33:47,510 --> 00:33:51,120 sense that I think that it's the way we're going. 593 00:33:51,120 --> 00:33:54,760 At some point somebody's going to try it and and the more we 594 00:33:54,760 --> 00:34:01,520 know about it the better. But you know, I, I, I, I don't 595 00:34:01,520 --> 00:34:06,800 know how you exactly structure that program and how you get the 596 00:34:06,800 --> 00:34:11,040 rules in place and it's a very very, as you know and probably 597 00:34:11,040 --> 00:34:16,719 most listeners know, it's an incredibly divisive and 598 00:34:17,360 --> 00:34:22,370 emotional discussion whenever you bring up Geo engineering, 599 00:34:22,370 --> 00:34:25,770 solar Geo engineering. I was surprised that I heard 600 00:34:25,889 --> 00:34:30,610 people recently speaking with such comfort or it was almost 601 00:34:30,610 --> 00:34:34,409 taken for granted, that it may just become inevitable at some 602 00:34:34,409 --> 00:34:36,409 point that we will not decarbonize as fast. 603 00:34:36,730 --> 00:34:38,929 You have multiple sections in your book where you just said we 604 00:34:38,929 --> 00:34:40,290 need to stop burning fossil fuels. 605 00:34:40,290 --> 00:34:41,530 That's the main thing we have to do. 606 00:34:41,690 --> 00:34:43,929 Are we going to do that? And if not, we should prepare 607 00:34:43,929 --> 00:34:46,969 ourselves for, you know, much more extreme measures to be 608 00:34:46,969 --> 00:34:48,530 taken. But I don't think any of us. 609 00:34:49,040 --> 00:34:51,679 Would choose that freely. Probably some people, but it's 610 00:34:51,719 --> 00:34:55,440 unlikely that many would. Yeah, No, you'd have to be 611 00:34:55,440 --> 00:35:00,200 insane to say, you know, we should just keep burning fossil 612 00:35:00,200 --> 00:35:03,560 fuels and we're just geoengineer our way out of this. 613 00:35:03,560 --> 00:35:07,160 I mean, that's that's insane. That makes no sense whatsoever. 614 00:35:07,640 --> 00:35:11,680 But you know, the fact is, is we're not doing a very good job 615 00:35:11,680 --> 00:35:15,940 of eliminating fossil fuels. And yes, renewable energy is 616 00:35:16,220 --> 00:35:18,660 cheaper virtually everywhere in the world for new builds. 617 00:35:18,660 --> 00:35:22,420 We're building a lot of it. But you know, the the scale and 618 00:35:22,420 --> 00:35:27,020 speed that we have to do to really deep decarbonize, you 619 00:35:27,020 --> 00:35:31,140 know, our power system is just enormous. 620 00:35:31,140 --> 00:35:35,740 And so, you know, even though we're building a lot of 621 00:35:35,740 --> 00:35:38,580 renewable power around the world, we're still, you know, 622 00:35:38,580 --> 00:35:41,630 we're still burning a lot of fossil fuels. 623 00:35:41,630 --> 00:35:45,590 When you look at the only metric that really matters which is the 624 00:35:45,590 --> 00:35:52,590 CO2 levels in the Mauna Loa in a graph of of of CO2 in the 625 00:35:52,590 --> 00:35:56,670 atmosphere, the the curve is just going up and up and up and 626 00:35:56,670 --> 00:36:00,110 up. And so, you know, as long as 627 00:36:00,110 --> 00:36:04,110 that curve keeps going up, as long as we keep adding CO2 into 628 00:36:04,110 --> 00:36:06,430 the atmosphere, it's going to keep getting hotter. 629 00:36:06,630 --> 00:36:10,400 And as it keeps getting hotter, we're seeing more and more of 630 00:36:10,400 --> 00:36:14,760 these kinds of consequences. You know, that we didn't 631 00:36:14,760 --> 00:36:19,040 anticipate and the risks we see even with these extreme heat 632 00:36:19,040 --> 00:36:22,560 events now we're seeing how dangerous it is just at this 633 00:36:22,560 --> 00:36:25,080 level. And when you think about, you 634 00:36:25,080 --> 00:36:28,160 know, a kind of doubling of this, of the amount of heat that 635 00:36:28,160 --> 00:36:31,920 we've added to the atmosphere over the next of the rest of 636 00:36:31,920 --> 00:36:36,760 this century, that's really alarming as to what that would 637 00:36:36,760 --> 00:36:40,950 mean for our lives and the lives of every living thing on this 638 00:36:40,950 --> 00:36:45,110 planet. So, you know, we got to figure 639 00:36:45,110 --> 00:36:48,430 something out. I, I, I, I don't know what the 640 00:36:48,430 --> 00:36:53,590 answer will be, but we're, we're doing it once a great job of 641 00:36:54,790 --> 00:36:58,550 changing the economic equation on renewable power. 642 00:36:58,630 --> 00:37:02,830 You know, 15 years ago everybody was saying, oh, you got to build 643 00:37:02,830 --> 00:37:07,110 coal and gas plants because we need to get cheap power to poor 644 00:37:07,110 --> 00:37:12,190 people because, you know, energy is the the way is the engine of 645 00:37:12,190 --> 00:37:14,310 development and we need to and we need development. 646 00:37:14,310 --> 00:37:17,790 And that was sort of always true. 647 00:37:17,790 --> 00:37:20,870 And then, you know, now that's flipped though. 648 00:37:20,870 --> 00:37:24,190 If you want to get cheap power to people, the best way to do it 649 00:37:24,190 --> 00:37:27,390 is renewable power, solar panels, winds and things like 650 00:37:27,390 --> 00:37:29,550 that. So it's not an economic argument 651 00:37:29,550 --> 00:37:31,750 anymore. Now it's now it's, you know 652 00:37:31,750 --> 00:37:34,630 we've slipped into this sort of cultural argument stuff where 653 00:37:35,230 --> 00:37:40,040 you know, do you believe what these people are telling you 654 00:37:40,040 --> 00:37:42,560 about climate change? Do you believe science? 655 00:37:43,080 --> 00:37:47,560 You know or do you or do you not, do you believe these you 656 00:37:47,560 --> 00:37:51,600 know, elites are trying to run the world and you know George 657 00:37:51,600 --> 00:37:57,600 Soros is is, you know in this conspiracy with Bill Gates to 658 00:37:58,240 --> 00:38:01,080 control our energy systems. And it's just like these. 659 00:38:01,720 --> 00:38:05,210 It's gotten entrenched and culture wars in a way that it 660 00:38:05,210 --> 00:38:08,450 hadn't or it wasn't 10 years ago, and that's a very different 661 00:38:08,450 --> 00:38:12,770 political dynamic. Really strange too, because 662 00:38:13,010 --> 00:38:16,810 being dependent upon a couple big oil companies versus having 663 00:38:16,810 --> 00:38:19,610 your own homestead generated power. 664 00:38:19,610 --> 00:38:23,210 I feel like that's that back to the land smallscale 665 00:38:23,490 --> 00:38:25,330 conservative, especially if you're like a populist 666 00:38:25,330 --> 00:38:27,530 conservative of not being dependent upon the elites, 667 00:38:27,530 --> 00:38:30,290 that's that's pretty powerful. You even see things like in 668 00:38:30,290 --> 00:38:32,810 Texas, where renewables in certain parts of Texas have. 669 00:38:33,330 --> 00:38:35,770 Surprisingly done quite well, and at least the reportage that 670 00:38:35,770 --> 00:38:38,930 I've read about it and it apparently that's an economic 671 00:38:38,930 --> 00:38:40,250 thing. It doesn't even get to the level 672 00:38:40,250 --> 00:38:42,490 of culture. It's just about is this cheaper 673 00:38:42,530 --> 00:38:45,130 and easier and less polluting. It's kind of just a simple 674 00:38:45,130 --> 00:38:50,090 equation at that point, yeah. Well, you know, logic and 675 00:38:50,090 --> 00:38:54,450 evidence and simple facts and things are are not a big part of 676 00:38:54,450 --> 00:38:59,210 the discussion right now. But, you know, it's absolutely 677 00:38:59,210 --> 00:39:01,090 true. I mean, I'm here in Austin, TX 678 00:39:01,130 --> 00:39:04,930 and you know, it's the belly of the fossil fuel beast and you 679 00:39:04,930 --> 00:39:08,330 know, nobody talks about it here or they don't talk about it 680 00:39:08,330 --> 00:39:09,810 enough. But you know, Texas is the 681 00:39:09,810 --> 00:39:11,930 leader in wind and solar in this country. 682 00:39:11,930 --> 00:39:16,810 You know, during these extreme heat waves of the last couple of 683 00:39:16,810 --> 00:39:20,570 weeks, we've been getting up to 30% of the power on the grid 684 00:39:20,570 --> 00:39:22,530 from renewables, which is amazing. 685 00:39:22,650 --> 00:39:25,810 And and not only that, it's cheaper. 686 00:39:26,220 --> 00:39:29,020 And not only that, the reason we've be getting so much 687 00:39:29,020 --> 00:39:31,100 renewables on the grid is because a lot of the thermal 688 00:39:31,100 --> 00:39:34,740 plants have been going down because these thermal plants 689 00:39:34,740 --> 00:39:37,420 have, you know, they're much more mechanical, right. 690 00:39:37,580 --> 00:39:42,580 And it's a natural gas plant has a lot more moving parts that a 691 00:39:42,580 --> 00:39:45,780 solar panel does. And these moving parts in this, 692 00:39:46,620 --> 00:39:51,100 these, these the the mechanisms of thermal plants are much more 693 00:39:51,100 --> 00:39:54,030 vulnerable to heat. So they go, they are more likely 694 00:39:54,030 --> 00:39:57,430 to go offline during these extreme heat events, whereas 695 00:39:57,870 --> 00:40:01,030 renewables thrive in this kind of climate. 696 00:40:01,030 --> 00:40:07,310 And so Texas is proving the case that, you know, not only are 697 00:40:08,190 --> 00:40:11,870 renewal is a renewable grid cheaper, but it's also more 698 00:40:11,870 --> 00:40:14,910 reliable in these kinds of extreme conditions. 699 00:40:15,500 --> 00:40:18,620 And for a place like for that to be happening in a place like 700 00:40:18,620 --> 00:40:21,220 Texas is, I think a real landmark event. 701 00:40:21,260 --> 00:40:25,540 And you know, in a rational world would be a real turning 702 00:40:25,540 --> 00:40:27,500 point. But you know, we don't live in a 703 00:40:27,500 --> 00:40:31,900 rational world. Jeff, about two years ago I 704 00:40:31,900 --> 00:40:35,540 watched your debate. Can Carbon Removal bring us to 705 00:40:35,540 --> 00:40:37,340 Net Zero? Do you remember that event? 706 00:40:38,100 --> 00:40:40,540 Yeah. Why did it go so poorly? 707 00:40:40,700 --> 00:40:43,580 It was one of the worst carbon removal discussions I've ever 708 00:40:43,580 --> 00:40:45,880 seen. It would. 709 00:40:46,240 --> 00:40:48,720 I feel like the the terms were not well defined. 710 00:40:48,760 --> 00:40:52,360 People look at this Julio and Elizabeth Young. 711 00:40:52,360 --> 00:40:54,920 Pierre Julio Friedman was the other discussant. 712 00:40:55,440 --> 00:40:58,320 I feel like they were talking past each other and I think 713 00:40:58,360 --> 00:41:01,560 Carbon removal people worried that's the future where carbon 714 00:41:01,560 --> 00:41:05,240 removal gets tied up with carbon capture and in oil and gas and 715 00:41:05,240 --> 00:41:07,960 are not well understood. Environmental justice people are 716 00:41:07,960 --> 00:41:10,760 concerned, justifiably so, that Carbon Removal is going to 717 00:41:10,760 --> 00:41:13,280 ignore their interest and create another cancer alley kind of 718 00:41:13,280 --> 00:41:16,150 situation. Like petrochemical or just oil 719 00:41:16,150 --> 00:41:18,550 and gas infrastructure generally causes. 720 00:41:19,390 --> 00:41:20,790 Yeah, sorry to put you on the spot about that. 721 00:41:20,790 --> 00:41:21,910 I know it wasn't wasn't your fault. 722 00:41:21,910 --> 00:41:23,430 I probably got out of hand. But why? 723 00:41:23,430 --> 00:41:25,670 Why was that such an intense carbon removal debate? 724 00:41:27,230 --> 00:41:34,190 Well, yeah, I I don't really know why it was. 725 00:41:36,550 --> 00:41:41,190 You know, I think that Julio and Elizabeth came at this from 726 00:41:41,510 --> 00:41:50,360 entirely different perspectives. It it was an example of how far, 727 00:41:50,680 --> 00:41:56,400 you know, the sort of two polarized parts of the climate 728 00:41:56,400 --> 00:41:58,960 movement, energy movement really are, even though they're 729 00:41:58,960 --> 00:42:03,680 ostensibly on the same side, you know, they don't understand each 730 00:42:03,680 --> 00:42:09,490 other very well. There's a lot of confusion about 731 00:42:09,490 --> 00:42:13,250 carbon removal, geoengineering, carbon capture. 732 00:42:13,250 --> 00:42:18,250 You know, all of this stuff is very new to a lot of 733 00:42:18,330 --> 00:42:21,650 environmentalists and environmental activists. 734 00:42:21,650 --> 00:42:25,090 They don't really understand the difference in the what they're 735 00:42:25,090 --> 00:42:28,330 talking about. And there's a been a lot of 736 00:42:29,450 --> 00:42:35,140 distrust sowed by the oil and gas industry who have done a lot 737 00:42:35,140 --> 00:42:38,820 of greenwashing over, you know, obviously over the decades. 738 00:42:38,820 --> 00:42:44,300 And to some extent their embrace of of of this has not helped, 739 00:42:44,780 --> 00:42:48,580 even though it has helped in the sense of moving it along 740 00:42:48,900 --> 00:42:51,860 financially and engineering wise. 741 00:42:51,860 --> 00:42:57,220 And, you know, there's a lot of virtues in, you know, a big 742 00:42:57,220 --> 00:42:59,300 company like Occidental Petroleum or something like 743 00:42:59,300 --> 00:43:03,070 that, really staking a claim on this. 744 00:43:03,070 --> 00:43:08,310 But, you know, there's just this enormous gulf of distrust and 745 00:43:08,310 --> 00:43:12,390 disinformation between these sort of various wings of the 746 00:43:14,430 --> 00:43:18,270 environmental and climate movement that I think was on 747 00:43:18,270 --> 00:43:20,310 display there. And then there was also just 748 00:43:20,550 --> 00:43:24,950 personality stuff that you know, some people get along and 749 00:43:24,950 --> 00:43:28,430 communicate better than others and the other sometimes people 750 00:43:28,430 --> 00:43:31,750 are just on different wavelengths entirely. 751 00:43:34,230 --> 00:43:37,910 I imagine you're at the very least, you're very curious about 752 00:43:37,910 --> 00:43:40,830 carbon removal, and you have been for a long time. 753 00:43:42,590 --> 00:43:46,390 Do you think that we're doing the right thing, or by focusing 754 00:43:46,390 --> 00:43:50,630 our careers on carbon removal? Is that a good place to focus 755 00:43:50,630 --> 00:43:53,470 right now? Do you think it's a sideshow? 756 00:43:53,510 --> 00:43:55,350 Some combination? What do you, what do you think 757 00:43:55,350 --> 00:43:58,560 about carbon removal? Well, I mean I think it's 758 00:43:58,560 --> 00:44:01,080 obviously a really important technology long term. 759 00:44:01,080 --> 00:44:05,960 I think you know there's no question in my mind that you 760 00:44:05,960 --> 00:44:08,880 know we're going to develop technologies that let us kind of 761 00:44:08,880 --> 00:44:12,000 modulate carbon levels. It's a that's a really important 762 00:44:12,000 --> 00:44:20,560 idea you know and and so in that sense I I I think it's fabulous 763 00:44:20,560 --> 00:44:25,680 and I think that all of this progress that I've seen in the 764 00:44:25,680 --> 00:44:29,120 last decade around it is very encouraging and inspiring. 765 00:44:29,600 --> 00:44:35,680 I think the problem is when it gets to be seen as or used as a 766 00:44:35,680 --> 00:44:40,120 way just to continue burning fossil fuels, a way to extend 767 00:44:40,120 --> 00:44:45,600 the life of oil and gas companies, a way to say, you 768 00:44:45,600 --> 00:44:48,630 know, we don't have to worry about climate change because we 769 00:44:48,630 --> 00:44:51,550 have these machines that can suck CO2 out of the atmosphere. 770 00:44:51,550 --> 00:44:57,630 And people don't grasp this scope and scale of this project 771 00:44:57,630 --> 00:45:00,430 to to really take meaningful amounts of CO2 out of the 772 00:45:00,430 --> 00:45:03,310 atmosphere. How enormous this, you know, 773 00:45:03,310 --> 00:45:06,830 scaling up has to be. And you know, the simple fact is 774 00:45:06,830 --> 00:45:11,590 we are in a climate emergency right now and you know, 775 00:45:12,590 --> 00:45:16,620 technologies that will make a difference in 70 or 80 years on 776 00:45:16,980 --> 00:45:19,540 at scale, You know, that's great. 777 00:45:19,540 --> 00:45:23,900 But we need to do stuff now and we need to like stop burning 778 00:45:23,900 --> 00:45:26,500 fossil fuels now. We need to get off of fossil 779 00:45:26,500 --> 00:45:29,340 fuels now. We need, you know, this. 780 00:45:29,340 --> 00:45:32,780 We need to do both the shortterm, immediate emergency 781 00:45:32,780 --> 00:45:37,940 stuff and the longterm, you know, thinking about technology, 782 00:45:37,940 --> 00:45:41,380 thinking about stuff like carbon removal and stuff. 783 00:45:41,660 --> 00:45:49,000 So I think that that sort of time scale gets confused and I 784 00:45:49,000 --> 00:45:52,000 think that a lot of people feel that the amount of money that is 785 00:45:52,000 --> 00:45:56,600 being poured into carbon removal is, you know, could be better 786 00:45:56,600 --> 00:45:59,320 used in other ways. You know, it's very easy to see 787 00:45:59,320 --> 00:46:01,280 how you can make money in carbon removal. 788 00:46:02,680 --> 00:46:07,080 It's very hard to see how you can make money in adapting 789 00:46:07,080 --> 00:46:11,880 cities to, you know, better weather, climate extremes. 790 00:46:11,880 --> 00:46:14,510 You know you don't make it. You're not going to get make 791 00:46:14,510 --> 00:46:20,150 billions of dollars building better bus stops for for people, 792 00:46:20,350 --> 00:46:21,230 right? Or. 793 00:46:21,790 --> 00:46:25,230 House company that does it do pretty well, yeah. 794 00:46:25,390 --> 00:46:30,030 Or planting trees or being a building cooling centers or. 795 00:46:30,030 --> 00:46:34,790 I mean, there's just a lot of things that we need to do in the 796 00:46:35,510 --> 00:46:43,690 near term to keep people alive and to help our world adapt and 797 00:46:43,690 --> 00:46:45,850 to move more quickly away from fossil fuels. 798 00:46:45,850 --> 00:46:51,170 And I think a lot of people see carbon removable as a kind of 799 00:46:51,170 --> 00:46:55,250 brain and money drain away from these more urgent measures seen. 800 00:46:58,050 --> 00:47:01,410 A little bit of a sea change in carbon removal recently, where I 801 00:47:01,410 --> 00:47:04,770 previously used to hear people say things like. 802 00:47:05,260 --> 00:47:08,020 We should work with oil and gas because they have the 803 00:47:08,020 --> 00:47:12,380 infrastructure and expertise to run the system in reverse, and I 804 00:47:12,380 --> 00:47:16,300 don't hear that as much anymore. I think things like the Oxy CE 805 00:47:16,300 --> 00:47:18,700 O's comments that happened recently saying that direct air 806 00:47:18,700 --> 00:47:20,700 capture is going to extend fossil fuel infrastructure's 807 00:47:20,700 --> 00:47:25,140 lifespan for decades. I think carbon removal companies 808 00:47:25,140 --> 00:47:29,180 are increasingly skeptical about becoming a concubine to oil and 809 00:47:29,180 --> 00:47:30,780 gas. You're nodding very 810 00:47:30,780 --> 00:47:32,780 affirmatively. You think this is we should stay 811 00:47:32,780 --> 00:47:35,620 away. I think that's a very dangerous 812 00:47:35,620 --> 00:47:42,860 place to be because within the climate movement, you know, and 813 00:47:43,020 --> 00:47:47,420 I mean there's just they are not a, you know when I say they 814 00:47:47,500 --> 00:47:50,180 there's obviously all different kinds of actors in this world, 815 00:47:50,180 --> 00:47:51,980 just as there are different kinds of people. 816 00:47:51,980 --> 00:47:54,540 And by saying they you're painting with a very broad 817 00:47:54,540 --> 00:47:57,940 brush. But, you know, they are have 818 00:47:57,940 --> 00:48:02,460 proven themselves very well over the years to be, you know, not 819 00:48:02,460 --> 00:48:09,160 good actors, right. That they have pulled political 820 00:48:09,160 --> 00:48:13,760 levers, spent billions on disinformation, political 821 00:48:13,760 --> 00:48:19,200 manipulation. There's a huge gulf of distrust 822 00:48:19,240 --> 00:48:22,840 around, you know, when you look at the, what I don't even 823 00:48:22,840 --> 00:48:26,520 remember the number now, what was it? 824 00:48:27,240 --> 00:48:29,920 More than a trillion dollars in profits last year? 825 00:48:30,080 --> 00:48:33,810 You know, I mean the enormous, you know, profits that they're 826 00:48:33,810 --> 00:48:36,210 making during these extreme times. 827 00:48:36,210 --> 00:48:42,210 And you know, there's just a lot of reasons to think that they 828 00:48:42,210 --> 00:48:48,850 are not, you know, the best people to buddy up with in in at 829 00:48:48,850 --> 00:48:54,130 a moment like this, both for the larger public good and even for 830 00:48:54,130 --> 00:48:59,570 the good of people who are really, you know, engaged in in 831 00:48:59,570 --> 00:49:04,730 Carbon Removal and who and I and I and I'm not dissing Carbon 832 00:49:04,730 --> 00:49:06,450 Removal. I think it's a really important 833 00:49:06,450 --> 00:49:08,650 technology. I just think it's a question of, 834 00:49:09,250 --> 00:49:11,770 you know, where it fits into the larger movement and where 835 00:49:11,770 --> 00:49:14,450 resources are sort of deployed, right? 836 00:49:16,330 --> 00:49:20,570 Never really wanted an industry as powerful as that to be backed 837 00:49:20,570 --> 00:49:23,890 into a corner where their only options are to be stranded or 838 00:49:23,890 --> 00:49:27,410 nationalized or something like that, and hopefully having. 839 00:49:27,770 --> 00:49:32,890 An honorable pivot available to them may be seized upon at some 840 00:49:32,890 --> 00:49:36,330 point, but I'm increasingly comfortable with the idea that 841 00:49:36,330 --> 00:49:39,690 I'm being naive, and maybe that is not forthcoming. 842 00:49:40,250 --> 00:49:42,730 You don't You think they would just fight it all the way? 843 00:49:42,730 --> 00:49:45,210 But I think you don't want to back them into the corner, do 844 00:49:45,650 --> 00:49:46,690 you? Shouldn't they have, like, a way 845 00:49:46,690 --> 00:49:49,570 out? Well, I mean, no one's talking 846 00:49:49,570 --> 00:49:52,170 about shutting them down. There's no, like that's not 847 00:49:52,170 --> 00:49:54,610 going to happen. You know, it's just a question 848 00:49:54,610 --> 00:49:59,440 of like for example, you know, stopping new exploration, right, 849 00:49:59,440 --> 00:50:03,120 saying you know we're not doing more exploration, we're not 850 00:50:04,320 --> 00:50:07,120 giving you more permits to drill in the North Sea, We're not 851 00:50:07,120 --> 00:50:10,320 giving you more permits to drill in the petroleum reserve in 852 00:50:10,320 --> 00:50:13,520 Alaska. You know there is a finite end 853 00:50:13,520 --> 00:50:17,840 and we are and you know you need to, we're going to sort of 854 00:50:17,840 --> 00:50:21,080 enforce that, right. And from a government point of 855 00:50:21,080 --> 00:50:26,620 view, you know, I I think that this is pretty obvious that the 856 00:50:26,620 --> 00:50:30,860 strategy of oil and gas industry in general and again there are 857 00:50:31,780 --> 00:50:36,100 good actors and bad actors in there, it's not monolithic. 858 00:50:36,100 --> 00:50:39,820 There are certainly people who are doing a much more, a much 859 00:50:39,820 --> 00:50:41,940 better job and are much more progressive and sort of 860 00:50:41,940 --> 00:50:46,020 trustworthy than others. But you know, the basic idea and 861 00:50:46,020 --> 00:50:50,700 as you just said with, you know, the comments about carbon 862 00:50:50,700 --> 00:50:54,470 removal, is to extend this as long as possible, right to to 863 00:50:54,510 --> 00:50:58,150 slow this transition down to renewables and to the 864 00:50:58,150 --> 00:51:02,030 elimination of fossil fuels as long as possible for all kinds 865 00:51:02,030 --> 00:51:06,670 of obvious balance sheet reasons, stranded assets, all 866 00:51:06,670 --> 00:51:10,190 kinds of things. So to the degree that carbon 867 00:51:10,190 --> 00:51:13,790 removal has become seen is become seen as just a tool to 868 00:51:13,790 --> 00:51:19,750 extend that slow transition. That is a very bad place to be 869 00:51:19,750 --> 00:51:23,600 politically for this technology because you're just going to be 870 00:51:23,600 --> 00:51:31,040 seen as a tool for these larger interests and not as a solution, 871 00:51:31,120 --> 00:51:35,440 but just as a tool. And that that is, I think, a bad 872 00:51:35,440 --> 00:51:40,560 place to be. It's very strange to me too, 873 00:51:40,560 --> 00:51:44,400 because if oil and gas companies were forced to pay for their 874 00:51:44,400 --> 00:51:48,080 emissions to be truly negated with permanent carbon removal, 875 00:51:49,600 --> 00:51:51,700 it would. Very radically change the 876 00:51:51,700 --> 00:51:55,500 economics of oil and gas in general, like the price would go 877 00:51:55,500 --> 00:51:59,700 up quite a bit and would hopefully encourage them to 878 00:51:59,700 --> 00:52:02,420 decarbonize faster or to switch to being renewable energy 879 00:52:02,420 --> 00:52:04,140 companies. I hope. 880 00:52:04,380 --> 00:52:06,140 But I also. Yeah, I'll go ahead. 881 00:52:06,140 --> 00:52:08,420 Yeah. Well, I just want to under score 882 00:52:08,420 --> 00:52:10,780 that, you know, there are a lot of people working in the Carbon 883 00:52:10,780 --> 00:52:14,540 Removal space who I like have huge respect for. 884 00:52:14,660 --> 00:52:18,150 You know, you mentioned Julio Friedman before, a well known 885 00:52:18,150 --> 00:52:21,350 figure in this space. I think he's fantastic. 886 00:52:21,670 --> 00:52:25,910 I've known him for years. He's just fantastic. 887 00:52:25,990 --> 00:52:27,710 I think David Keith is fantastic. 888 00:52:28,350 --> 00:52:32,470 I think David Keith cares more about the planet and the climate 889 00:52:32,470 --> 00:52:38,470 and the what the right strategy is and how to manage all of this 890 00:52:38,470 --> 00:52:43,310 than almost anyone I know. So you know, I think that 891 00:52:43,310 --> 00:52:52,260 there's a lot of really smart thoughtful people engaged in 892 00:52:52,260 --> 00:52:56,220 this and and you know, so I I hesitate talking about it in a, 893 00:52:56,220 --> 00:52:58,340 in a in a kind of broad kind of way. 894 00:52:58,340 --> 00:53:04,180 But you know and at a certain at a certain point there's no, 895 00:53:04,460 --> 00:53:10,980 there's no like you know how you control the technology is beyond 896 00:53:10,980 --> 00:53:14,420 anyone's kind of reach, right. I mean these, for one thing, 897 00:53:14,420 --> 00:53:17,580 these oil and gas companies have a lot of money and a lot of 898 00:53:17,580 --> 00:53:22,820 money comes with a lot of power and you know, they can do with 899 00:53:22,820 --> 00:53:26,860 this what they want. One proposal I've seen is to say 900 00:53:26,860 --> 00:53:29,820 that carbon removal can be used for legacy emissions that 901 00:53:29,820 --> 00:53:31,700 shouldn't be used for current emissions. 902 00:53:31,700 --> 00:53:34,860 That might address a fair amount of the problem, Yeah. 903 00:53:35,020 --> 00:53:36,100 And you know, I have to say that. 904 00:53:36,100 --> 00:53:39,300 I mean, I wrote my book about all this thirteen years ago. 905 00:53:40,220 --> 00:53:42,140 My this book we're talking about now. 906 00:53:42,140 --> 00:53:45,620 The Heat Will Kill You First is took up four years of my life. 907 00:53:45,700 --> 00:53:47,740 The book before that was about sea level rise. 908 00:53:48,740 --> 00:53:55,820 And so I I do not want to like in any way advertise myself as 909 00:53:56,220 --> 00:54:00,900 UpToDate on the latest proposals and sort of dynamics in the in 910 00:54:00,900 --> 00:54:03,660 the carbon removal business because I am certainly not. 911 00:54:04,860 --> 00:54:06,220 Oh, certainly not. Yeah. 912 00:54:07,840 --> 00:54:09,640 That's a lot of beats to cover. There's too many things 913 00:54:09,640 --> 00:54:12,840 happening in climate these days to to really cover all those 914 00:54:12,840 --> 00:54:15,000 beats. Well, but the interesting things 915 00:54:15,000 --> 00:54:16,520 for me. So, so like we're talking about 916 00:54:16,520 --> 00:54:19,000 carbon removal. And you know, as I mentioned a 917 00:54:19,000 --> 00:54:22,280 few minutes ago, I remember David Keith's first carbon 918 00:54:22,280 --> 00:54:26,320 removal device made of, like I said of, you know, Silly Putty 919 00:54:26,320 --> 00:54:30,120 and toilet paper rolls in the engineering base. 920 00:54:30,120 --> 00:54:35,330 So it gives me a really interesting perspective on these 921 00:54:35,410 --> 00:54:37,850 the movement of these technologies and and the 922 00:54:37,850 --> 00:54:42,250 movement of the sort of climate and energy world in general. 923 00:54:42,250 --> 00:54:47,450 You know, I mean, like I said, the economic change in how we 924 00:54:47,450 --> 00:54:51,610 produce energy is so dramatic in the last, you know, 15 years. 925 00:54:51,610 --> 00:54:55,370 And just this whole conversation, you know, shifting 926 00:54:55,370 --> 00:54:59,790 away from, you know, the, the economics being reversed is such 927 00:55:00,430 --> 00:55:03,910 an enormous deal that I think a lot of people just haven't 928 00:55:03,910 --> 00:55:07,270 grasped yet. And you know, here in Texas, you 929 00:55:07,270 --> 00:55:10,790 know, I moved here four years ago and you and you really feel 930 00:55:10,790 --> 00:55:16,790 the sort of fossil fuels sort of legacy power, you know that they 931 00:55:16,790 --> 00:55:20,720 have a lot of the institutions here that including the 932 00:55:20,720 --> 00:55:23,440 government and state government but also universities, 933 00:55:23,520 --> 00:55:26,920 philanthropic, philanthropic groups and all that are funded 934 00:55:26,920 --> 00:55:30,680 by oil money. And there's a lot of cultural 935 00:55:30,680 --> 00:55:34,240 and political inertia behind keeping that alive, even though 936 00:55:34,240 --> 00:55:36,720 the economics don't really make sense anymore. 937 00:55:37,280 --> 00:55:41,520 And so it's a really interesting kind of dynamic watching that 938 00:55:41,520 --> 00:55:45,880 shift, you know, and watching these new energy, clean energy 939 00:55:45,880 --> 00:55:50,720 entrepreneurs rising and and then, you know, Elon Musk moving 940 00:55:50,720 --> 00:55:53,560 the Tesla Gigafactory here. And you know, Elon's a whole 941 00:55:53,560 --> 00:55:57,920 other, you know, nightmare of paradox and contradictions. 942 00:55:57,920 --> 00:56:02,600 But it's just so there's some advantage in being just having 943 00:56:02,600 --> 00:56:05,880 been around long enough to watch a lot of these changes play out 944 00:56:05,880 --> 00:56:08,410 over the landscape. Yeah. 945 00:56:08,410 --> 00:56:12,450 What a, what a purview you've had and also listening to and be 946 00:56:12,450 --> 00:56:13,890 like, wait, can I hear that right. 947 00:56:13,890 --> 00:56:15,530 Is that, is this the same David Keith? 948 00:56:15,530 --> 00:56:17,770 I'm like, oh, you're going on a month long vacation with David 949 00:56:17,930 --> 00:56:20,290 Keith. You're as plugged in as anyone 950 00:56:20,290 --> 00:56:22,330 to the latest in climate just by that much. 951 00:56:22,330 --> 00:56:24,770 David Keith FaceTime. You're good, Jeff. 952 00:56:25,410 --> 00:56:30,130 Yeah, in a little tent on ice in the middle of nowhere for six 953 00:56:30,130 --> 00:56:33,250 weeks yet. I know, I know David very well 954 00:56:34,220 --> 00:56:37,660 and and I can, I can only tell you that this trip and all the 955 00:56:37,660 --> 00:56:42,100 things we went through and the many much hardship and 956 00:56:42,100 --> 00:56:45,300 difficulty only increase my respect for him. 957 00:56:46,380 --> 00:56:48,860 Yeah, it's very cool to hear. Well, the book is great. 958 00:56:48,860 --> 00:56:50,900 If you're listening, you should definitely pick up a copy of The 959 00:56:50,900 --> 00:56:53,140 Heat Will Kill You First. I very much enjoyed it And also 960 00:56:53,140 --> 00:56:56,260 The Water Will Come is great. It's a great book because. 961 00:56:56,760 --> 00:56:58,920 The work on the military preparedness angle that we 962 00:56:58,920 --> 00:57:00,720 started the show with is fascinating. 963 00:57:00,880 --> 00:57:03,280 I think people assume that the right left dynamic is going to 964 00:57:03,280 --> 00:57:05,720 play out in the same way, and it doesn't When it comes to sea 965 00:57:05,720 --> 00:57:07,080 level rise. It's super interesting 966 00:57:07,080 --> 00:57:08,840 Reportage. Check out that one too. 967 00:57:08,840 --> 00:57:10,000 I need to catch up on your old books. 968 00:57:10,200 --> 00:57:13,120 Maybe next time we speak, I'll have all of them under my belt 969 00:57:13,120 --> 00:57:16,000 and I'll be fully, fully ready for for your next one. 970 00:57:16,600 --> 00:57:17,920 OK. Sounds good. 971 00:57:18,240 --> 00:57:19,280 Well, thanks for being here, Jeff. 972 00:57:20,340 --> 00:57:21,940 Thanks for having me. It's a great conversation. 973 00:57:24,340 --> 00:57:26,740 Thank you so much for listening. If you could please subscribe 974 00:57:26,740 --> 00:57:29,340 and give us a great rating and review on Apple Podcast or a 975 00:57:29,340 --> 00:57:31,740 rating on Spotify, that'd be much appreciated. 976 00:57:32,060 --> 00:57:33,900 It helps us get our content out to more people. 977 00:57:34,260 --> 00:57:36,340 You can sign up for our newsletter at nori.com. 978 00:57:36,540 --> 00:57:38,940 Follow us on social media. We will catch you next time.