WEBVTT

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Who's that going With all that?
Ask not what your country can do for

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you, Ask what you can do
for your country. Mister Gorbutschoff, Tear

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down this wall, read my lips. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Peter Robinson

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and me, James Lawleix and Stephen
able De sitting in to Peter Robinson,

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and we're going to talk to Bjorn
Lambert, the skeptical environmentalist about twelve things

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we can actually do. So let's
have ourselves a podcast. A short time

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ago, an American aeroplane dropped one
bomb on Hiroshima, then destroyed its usefulness

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to the enemy. That bomb has
more power than twenty thousand tons of t

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n T. Now I am become
death, the destroyer of worlds. Welcome

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everybody. This is the Ricochet Podcast, Episode number seven thousand, four hundred

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and thirty two. NAS And I
think I got it wrong last week.

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I think I said something in the
three hundreds which was which was presidential elections

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ago decades ago? It seems no. This is six five four in the

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waning portion of the beautiful Summer,
in the Year of Our Lord, twenty

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twenty two, kidding twenty twenty three. I'm James Loleys here in Minneapolis,

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joined by Stephen Hayward was sitting in
for Peter Robinson, who will be back?

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Peters? You know it's it's not
like we're getting letters with cut out

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pieces of words from newspapers magazines demanding
and ransom. No, he's we know

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where he is and he's coming back. Rob Long will be along shortly.

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Stephen, how are you on this
fine summer day. I am just staying

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dry in a rare summer rainstorm out
here in California and wondering exactly where Peter

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is stashed in the Witness Protection program
because I'm right well, we'll see him

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like Henry Hill waving from the door
in Arizona somewhere as he picks up the

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newspaper. I did hear the distinctive, inimitable chuckle of Rob Long, rob

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Are you got? I am here? Thank you, James. I was

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just briefly like not visible, but
I'm now visible and rizzible. As they

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say, rizzible is one of those
words I don't I don't use it because

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I'm never sure if I'm using it
correctly. So I'm turning to Steve now

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and saying, Steve, is it
it's like bad. Right, Yeah,

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it's like bad in a sense,
like it's not risible, is it's not?

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I don't look this up, but
I'm right with you. I write

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the words, sometimes I usually don't
say it because I'm never I mean,

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I think rizzible is the correct pronunciation, but I always want to say riseable,

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which I think is quite wrong.
And but it doesn't mean it's worse

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than bad though. I mean,
you would never say, well, you

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would say this is a bad piece
of pie. You know, it's dried,

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it's overcooked, it's favor. You
would never say a rizzible piece of

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pie, unless you meant that the
cook was so incompetent or deliberately trying to

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give you a bad piece of pie. I don't know if that mean I'm

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just making this up off the top
of my head, but you and I

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just looked it up. It means
provoking laughter. Oh yeah, it's a

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ridiculously bad That's also another one,
right, it's so you would like John

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Kerry as our climate negotiator. That
that's a risible spectacle. That's a risible

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president. President Joe Biden, that's
a risible president. Yes, okay,

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all right, that gets you know, the one word I do like to

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use all the time because I love
pronouncing it properly is error to err.

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Yeah, And I just like that
because I just feel, always feel very

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very smart when I say, well
that I don't I don't mean to err

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in that respect, And then people
like oh, I thought, oh yeah,

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yeah, that was the great weird
George H. W. Bush.

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You know he had. He was
very very in many ways a very admirable

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person, but he wasn't used to
talking to people, and especially on a

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campaign trail, and so he would
almost always when he would answer questions,

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answer using the concluding sentence of the
briefing paper. So when people say,

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well, you know, you know, mister vice president, he's running.

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You know, you have a history
of being sort of pro choice on abortion,

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and now you see your pro life, so could you explain it?

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And he and his response would be
like, err on the side of human

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life, which, if you like, like what does that even mean?

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Like you had that was like the
tenth step of the proof he was trying

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to use, and it was always
baffled people. So I but I still

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like using the word error. But
I did want to instead of erring since

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we brought up the topic. I
think I don't even know what the iset

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bounced off by our by our office
wi fi here. The next thing I

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know, Rob is talking about erring
as opposed to erring when you're human life.

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It's like, oh, we made
a mistake. Nobody's dead. And

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how do you and Rob, how
do you handle an error text as the

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as the academic error text to you? Right? Exactly, so, speaking

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of er to erring on the side
of human life. Ohio is one more

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state that is kind of fundamentally conservative. Ohio, along with Missouri or Kansas,

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that have when they when the voters
have given been given the option to

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restrict abortion laws or the proxy option. I guess because Ohio was sort of

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a you know, it wasn't a
direct vote, it was sort of a

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proxy vote. They have opted in
conservative places to preserve abortion rights. Steve,

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how much trouble is the prolect movement
in at this point? I mean,

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they got what they wanted, right
they a rov Wade is overturned,

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but it seems like part two they
didn't have that quite worked out. It's

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like the marijuana It's like the marijuana
legalization parties. Now, what do we

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doing Minnesota, we have a marijuana
legalization party. There's looking around. I

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mean, they're gonna be like the
March of Dives. They're gonna assume,

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you know, well we cured that, so we'd better disband. Now we

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had all this fundraising stuff going,
Let's figure out something else to do.

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Anyway, Steven, go ahead.
Yeah, Well, I think I think

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you overstated maybe a little bit,
Rob. I mean, I think that

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the pro life movement has misread public
opinion. There's a large group in the

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middle who are they don't like late
term abortion. They're open to some restrictions

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like a fifteen weeks or something like
that, but also I don't think they

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they're comfortable writing it into state constitutions. And so actually, you know,

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you live in California for a long
time, there's always a built in bias

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for a no vote, especially for
a measure that would lock something in a

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state constitution. And so this vote
was like, you know, sixty forty

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almost rejecting changing the threshold for voters
to make a change the state constitution of

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sixty percent. That's because for listeners
who may not be following, there's an

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initiative that's been put on the boat
in the fall. I think by the

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approach choice folks that would right into
the constitution, very sweeping abortion rights that

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are it was radical as ROVERSUS way. You know, abortion right up to

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the point of birth, and it
only needs fifty percent plus one vote to

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pass under the current system. I
think a lot of voters. My prediction,

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Rob is that that vote when it
comes in November will be closer than

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the vote we saw this week.
I think that I'm not sure that the

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pro life community won't win at the
end, but they do have to make

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arguments, and that's something that Republicans
were totally unprepared to do after the Dob's

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decision last year. It's really a
shocking failure to anticipate what would come next.

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I mean, we had the decision
leaked as we know, so they

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ought have been gearing up right.
Nobody seems to have done that. But

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can I ask you another question,
do you think there's something is there something

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odd about this where you know,
whatever they do polls. I don't mean

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just at Poles in the United States, but Poles could in Europe. Yeah,

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everyone kind of comes down to abortion
rights first term, big fat question

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mark. Second term pretty much an
X on the third term. That's kind

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of where that's where some people who
to insist that they are pro choice are.

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That's where some people who insist they
are pro life are. Neither one

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of those positions, Neither one of
those positions pro choice of pro life really

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embraces that big, wide middle American
argument. Who's going to get there first?

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I mean, who's going to get
to the to where normal Americans are

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first? Because it seems like the
pro life movement keeps talking about conception and

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contraception, and the pro choice movement
keeps talking about, well you should be

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able to apport that kid a few
days before you know, elementary school,

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Like when when it when? Who's
going to read the American public correctly first?

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If I had a hunch, but
it's I don't know, I have

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to take odds on it. I
think Republicans will, although it's going to

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be difficult, and only because you
know, look the Democratic Party today.

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You know, it's an amazing thing. I'd like to point out the people

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that within our lifetime, a Republican
presidential candidate named George McGovern had two pro

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life running mates, you know,
the first Tom Eagleton and then Sergeant driver.

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And by the way, McGovern,
you know, he was stigmatized as

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the cast the candidate of asset amnestyin
abortion McGovern's view in nineteen seventy two.

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Now that was before Row. This
is a matter for the states to decide.

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That's the Republican position or the you
know, the post Row legal position.

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And as we know the Democratic Party
now is that is the litmus test

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if you even want to speak at
a republic a Democratic national convention. And

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so I think that they're dug into
the extreme abortion position because of their the

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fanaticism of the feminists and others in
their party. Republicans have more running room,

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but it's difficult because the you know, the pro life community is very

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strong in the Republican Party, and
you know in places like Florida with a

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six week band and other places.
I think they are out of step with

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majority opinion, and they're gonna persuade
people if they're gonna want to have restrictions.

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That's significant. Yeah, that was
sort of a big blunder I think

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for Governor de Santis. I was
talking to my old dear friend and culture

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and sometimes Ann we'll just start yelling
at me and I'm not really sure what

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she's yelling about. And she was
yelling about the Santist the six to six

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week rule or whatever what it was. And I kept couldn't figure out why

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she was yelling at me because I'm, as you know, I'm not the

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governor of Florida just quit a habit
with her and start yelling at But then

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I realized, oh, no,
she's making a political argument. She think

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that was very foolish that he could
have He could have set the actual pro

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life movement or the abortion restriction movement
back by being that draconian. I'm not

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sure I believe that, but I
thought it was an interesting argument. Yeah,

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I don't know. I don't know
exactly the sequence of events there,

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because remember it was a bill.
The letter just lat your past, and

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he has a lot of sway with
the legislature, and could he could have

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told them that's too severe, but
vetoing that bill would have been I think

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equally damaging to him politically. Yeah, he was caught in a tough spot,

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and I'm not sure if he was
paying attention or just what that was

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about. Well, I think now
we can probably positive that he might not

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have been paying attention. He doesn't. He's he's not quite the killer candidate

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that I was hoping for. Nope. I mean he's got time to turn

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around. As I'm not making any
prognostications, but I'm disappointed in his performance.

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No, in the future, he
will be seen as one more element

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that led to the inevitable assumption of
Gavin Newsom as President of the United States.

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So, and that'll be fun.
Hey, from abortion, let's switch

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to something that's a little less contentious. Global warming, climate change, all

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the rest of these things. But
you know, you can either talk to

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an idiolog about it, or you
can talk about somebody passionate about the case

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and knowledgeable and not running around with
hair on fire. And that brings to

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mind, of course, your Lomborg, president of the Copenhagen Consensus Center,

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author of the skeptical environmentalist False Alarm, and most recently Best Things First,

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the twelve most efficient solutions for the
world's poorest and our global STG That would

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be sustainable Development Goals, promises to
them. Gardon, welcome back to the

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show. Oh, thank you,
it's great to be back. Well,

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you know, the obvious thing is
to say, we don't want to hear

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all twelve solutions, because we have
to leave something for people to get when

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they get the book. But let's
pick a few solutions that because the solutions

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that are always being fed to us
are always a sort of a morphous but

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dire. We have to stop doing
certain things immediately. We have to stop

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driving our cars. We have to
stop eating hamburgers, we have to stop

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getting on planes, a variety of
things that most people reject out a hand

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because essentially they're being told that their
life has to constrict down to a little

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dot and they can't move more than
sixteen blocks. That's not what you're talking

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about some of these solutions, then, of the twelve, give us a

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few off the top of your head. Yes, James, So thanks a

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lot, and it's great to be
back. I should probably just preface this

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with saying that what the best things
first book is about is all the other

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problems in the world. So what
we're trying to look at is, remember

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everyone in the rich world, we'll
be talking about climate change because that's you

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know, that's what left when your
kids are not dying from easily curable infectious

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diseases, and you kind of fix
nutrition and all these other issues. But

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the reality is when you look across
the globe. We promised a lot of

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things. The UN and that means
also the US and everybody. Every other

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country in the world has actually promised
to pretty much deliver everything by twenty thirty.

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It's something called the Sustainable Development Goals. We promised to fix poverty,

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and fix hunger, and fix education
and fix pretty much anything you can come

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up with. So we're also going
to stop wars, We're going to end

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corruption, we're gonna end uh global
warming and everything else in between. We're

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also going to get organic apples and
community gardens to everyone. So we've literally

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promised everything to everyone. What we
try to do with this book is to

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say, look, if you actually
want to do good, where should you

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start? Because we're failing badly in
all of these promises. And so these

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twelve things that we're talking about here
are not climate change, because it turns

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out it's really expensive to do just
a tiny bit about climate change, but

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it's incredibly effective to do something about
very simple things. So I'm going to

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give you a few examples. Two
of them would be maternal in newborn health

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and education. So the first one
this blew my mind and I didn't know.

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I'm pretty sure you didn't know either, that it's still incredibly dangerous for

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most women around the world to give
birth. So about three hundred thousand moms

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die each year, and perhaps depressingly, two point three million kids die in

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the first twenty eight days of their
life. So this is not rocket science.

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They basically die because a lot of
these things could have been avoided at

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very very low cost. Let me
give you one example. So about seven

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hundred thousand kids die each year because
they don't start breathing when they're when they're

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being born. This happens in rich
countries as well. But we have a

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very simple technological pick so that eighty
percent of all kids that are born come

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out fine, start breathing. Fifteen
percent need to flap in the back that

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you know you get when you just
get born and then you start breathing.

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The last five percent need positive air
pressure. They basically need a mask on

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top of their mouth, get some
air in there, and then they go.

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Then they go and they're ready to
go. We need to get that

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out. So we need to get
women into facilities around the world, and

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we need to have very basic things
like the church and antiseptics, and we

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need to have these uh these medical
masks. They cost sixty five dollars and

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they can say about twenty five lives
over the next three years of the lifetime.

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So what we estimate is by focusing
on maternal and newborn health for about

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five billion dollars a year. It's
not nothing, but you know, in

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the big scheme of things and certainly
everything else we're talking about, it really

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is couter change. Five billion dollars
a year. We could save one hundred

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and sixty six thousand moms from dying
each and every year, and we could

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say one point two million kids each
and every year. That translates into every

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dollar spent will deliver eighty seven dollars
worth for good. That's just a fantastic

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thing. It's one of those things
we should be doing. It's one of

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those things we don't talk about,
but we should be doing it. I'm

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dying to know because this is fascinating, and I do want to know the

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other things you have to mention.
But who is responsible We set up this

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goal then, right, and nobody
sits down to figure out how we can

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achieve the end that you just spoke
about. Who would be responsible, who

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would be who is responsible for doing
the things that you're talking about, And

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if they're not doing it, what
instruments should we use to make sure that

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this happens because it seems simple and
obvious. So when everybody in the world

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comes together in New York and promises
to do all good things, of course

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nobody is really responsible. Everyone is
responsible. We've just all made these amazing

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problems, which is one of the
reasons why we've just made all of the

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promises, because yeah, why wouldn't
you If you're already getting going, you

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might as well just promise everything.
And so the reality is it's both third

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world government, so you know,
the poor country governments that should be investing

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in these things, and they're not
sufficiently. One of the reasons, for

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instance, in hospitals is if you're
a doctor, do you really want one

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more of those masks that will resuscitate
children? Well, yeah, in principle,

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of course you would like that,
but you'd much rather have the MRI

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machine. That's more fun and sort
of you know, the machine that says

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playing if you know, the Monty
pipe done skid right. So the idea

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here is to say it's about those
boring, slightly odd things that really care

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all much about. Those are the
kinds of things. So yes, development,

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developing governments should be focused on this. Philanthropists should be focusing more on

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this. And again it doesn't have
the cachet of doing something grand, but

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it happens to just save a lot
of lives or USA idea and other development

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spending. We've still spend about one
hundred and almost two hundred billion dollars a

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year on development spending. We should
focus some of that money on those particularly

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effective ways, so we all share
that responsibility. But what I'm trying to

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do with this new book, The
Best Things First, it's basically to get

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everybody to focus on their twelve amazing
things that for very little money to do

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amazing good. Why don't we do
more of that? So that's truly the

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basic idea. The other one,
let me just give you one on education,

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because it's you know, everybody sort
of agrees that education is incredibly important.

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But the problem is we've managed to
get almost all kids into school with

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technically teaching them to learn, so
they've become literate, so they've actually learned

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to sort of identify the individual words. But when you So we have about

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a third of a billion kids in
school and the poor half of the world,

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and we estimate the eighty percent of
them are failing really really basic things.

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Let me just give you one of
those examples. They ask ten year

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olds, so they give them a
sentence to read. The sentence, go

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V J has a red hat,
a blue shirt, and yellow shoes.

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What color is the hat? The
answer is red? Right, But unfortunately,

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wait a minute, they want to
you want to word it a mathematician,

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but I'll take your word for it. Yeah. The terrible thing is

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eighty percent can't answer this question.
And the simple point is you have learned

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to identify the individual words, but
you can't string together into a sentence.

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And of course that means you're not
going to be very product when you grow

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up to be an adult. That's
one of the things that education helps you

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with that you actually become proficient and
you become productive. So what we estimate

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is if we could make kids more, learn more, learn better, they

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could become more productive. They would
help both their societies and of course themselves

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and their families become richer in the
future. There are some really, really

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good ways to do this. There
are also some really bad ways to do

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it. So a lot of people
will argue, we should have more teachers,

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we should pay teachers more than that's
all well and good, but actually

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turns out Indonesia did this. So
they promised to double the spending on teachers.

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They have one of the lowest class
ratios in the world. They doubled

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the spending on teachers. And because
of the way they did it, and

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they did in different regions at different
times, you could actually do a pseudorandomized

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control trial study and one of the
most famous papers is called double for Nothing.

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It basically investigate that, yes,
you double the pay of teachers.

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It made the teachers more appy,
by the way, not surprisingly, but

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it didn't actually change the impact on
the students. There is no learning impact.

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The way you should do it,
and we know this very very well,

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is to teach the individual student at
his or her level. So imagine

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a class of fifty. You know
the kids at are far ahead of the

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teacher, and there are kids that
are struggling terribly. The teachers should teach

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each one of those at his or
her own level. But of course you

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can't do that if you have fifty
kids. But what you can do is

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to put them in front of a
tablet one hour day. The tablet has

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educational software, and that tablet very
quickly finds out exactly your level and teaches

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you at that level. What happens
if you do this one hour day.

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You're only doing it one hour day
because you have to share this tablet with

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many other kids. But if you
do that one hour day, at the

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end of that school year, you've
had seven hours of still boring, not

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very effective teaching, and then one
hour of tablet you have actually learned what

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you would normally learned for three years. So you've just gotten much much better.

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Now. Remember it's still not terribly
well, but it means that these

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kids will become much more productive in
their in their adult life. We estimate

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this will cost about ten billion dollars
in total. But the benefit so the

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poor part of the world, will
be that they will be about six hundred

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billion dollars better off each and every
year. This is just an astounding so

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you know about sixty five dollars back
the long So, but I think of

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you as an environmentalist because that's the
most important problem that we face. Because

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I read the newspaper and I watched
television and keep up with the news.

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And Hawaii is on fire and there
are wildfires everywhere and the weather is getting

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worse. Morris, Morris, and
climate change is going to destroy the world

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very soon. Fact, it's depending
on who you talk to, it's it's

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overdue. It's the destruction of the
world and the destruction of our oceans is

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is running late. It should have
happened a few years ago. And it

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just soaks up all the attention,
all of these little kind of what do

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you want to give everybody an iPad? All this stuff is like, so

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what, man, the world is
on fire? Why are we Why are

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you trying to get me to get
an iPad for some kids in ind in

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each I don't get it. And
moreover, you're talking about more kids surviving,

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which means overpopulation, and you're telling
you Abo, you're getting here ahead

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of me. There, James about
to nail them on that too. And

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more productivity, which is more earth
destroying. Better, we have fewer people,

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they don't do anything. Yeah,
those are very good points, and

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I think a lot of people have
them in their heads. Uh, And

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so I should just say I've never
just been the environmentalist more than for more

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than twenty years. I've run the
Cohagen Consensus when, which is really as

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center where we work with more than
the three under the world's top economists and

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seven noble lords and trying to tess
where can you spend an extra dollar and

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00:24:02.519 --> 00:24:04.400
do the most good. Now,
one of the things you should spend money

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on, because we're rich civilization and
we can you know, walk into gum

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is fixed in climate change smartly.
But there's also a lot of other issues.

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If you ask most people around the
world, they actually not surprisingly care

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about the fact that their kids might
die tonight from malnutrition or from easily curable

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infectious decision. That's their main concern. And you know, we would be

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the exact same thing if we were
at that point. So but wait,

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let me just took it. But
isn't it just just can I just gonna

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Isn't that what the environmental movement is
trying to do. They're trying to get

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the emergency on the ass as a
track imminent emergency number one. I mean,

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if you read the paper, they
are basically trying to convince you that

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your children aren't going to die tonight. If you don't, I don't know.

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Put your plastic recycling bin. Yes, and I think that's systemably,

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that's systemably wrong when you talk about
the world is in fire. I just

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recently pointed out that the NASA satellite
studies actually showed that. So we haven't

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had satellite will put that links a
great pace journal. We're going to put

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that link in. Yes, you
go to the thank you. So since

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00:25:15.759 --> 00:25:19.319
two thousand and one, we've had
satellites covered the entire world being able to

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pick up where is the world and
fire where is it not? It used

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to be about three percent of the
world in the early two thousands was in

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fire. The last year in twenty
twenty two, it was at two point

355
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two percent. It's never been that
low. Now this doesn't mean that obviously

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00:25:36.160 --> 00:25:40.720
the two point two percent of the
world that did burn, that's terrible for

357
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those places. But it's still much
much better than three percent burning. And

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00:25:44.799 --> 00:25:48.920
we need to recognize that why this
is happening mostly because people actually don't like

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fire, and so we take active
measures to make sure that it doesn't burn.

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This is smart. Sometimes it's a
dumb lake in California if you don't

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actually make put script of fire as
you've build up of fuels, and there

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00:26:00.559 --> 00:26:07.400
are lots of you know, bad
political arguments and bad so called solutions to

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this, but the fundamental point is
to recogn this is not a world that's

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getting worse and worse or spinning out
of control. This is a world where

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mostly where lived longer, we're better
and better health than we have many many

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different benefits. And when you're talking
about these things, for instance, on

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fire, you need to look at
the global stated. Just like when you

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look at how many people die from
climate related to disasters like bloodstrout storms and

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wildifius, turns out that one hundred
years ago, about half a million people

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died each year. Last decade,
about ten thousand people died each year.

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We've seen a reduction of ninety eight
percent. Again because when you're rich,

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you're more resilient. So okay,
I know Steve wants to get into this

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before, and I used have one
more because I always ask myself, you

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know, whenever I'm confronted with almost
any question like what would Thomas Soul say?

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I feel like that's good. And
the one mess one phrase that that

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00:27:00.799 --> 00:27:04.599
Soul uses all the time, and
it's it's in my life. I can't

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00:27:04.640 --> 00:27:10.160
get rid of it. It's there
are no solutions, There are only tradeoffs.

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The solution to emissions, people think
are electric cars which run on batteries

379
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which use cobalt, and cobalt is
now dug in Africa by children their fingers.

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It's a it's I mean to say, Dickensian is not even approaching the

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00:27:30.200 --> 00:27:37.079
misery of the the child labor happening
to dig cobalt out of the earth.

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00:27:37.559 --> 00:27:41.799
And you know, in a phone
battery it's a tiny amount of cobalt.

383
00:27:41.960 --> 00:27:47.519
In an EV battery, it's a
huge amount of cobalt. More evy batteries

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00:27:47.599 --> 00:27:49.680
means more misery off screen, we
don't have to see it. We can

385
00:27:49.680 --> 00:27:56.759
still drive around on our fancy EV
cars and that is a tradeoff. But

386
00:27:56.759 --> 00:28:00.039
people don't ever think of the tradeoffs. So your argument is, well,

387
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you know, let's let's let's do
what we can around the edges, make

388
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life better for more people in the
most efficient way, and and like we'll

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tackle climate change. So if I'm
talking to a climate change activists, I

390
00:28:12.559 --> 00:28:15.240
say, well, I just supposed
to be on lumboard at we'll get to

391
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that. In like, I think
I think the argument is more hopeful than

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that. So, first of all, we're rich and smart civilization. As

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00:28:27.839 --> 00:28:30.599
as I mentioned, we can walk, can chew gum, we can actually

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both be working smartly on climate.
But instead of maybe spending one point two

395
00:28:36.839 --> 00:28:41.119
trillion dollars as we're spending right now
mostly in buying solar panels and UH and

396
00:28:41.279 --> 00:28:45.799
wind turbines that are not terribly effective, we should be spending much less money

397
00:28:45.839 --> 00:28:51.599
but much smarter on green energy R
and B. So fundamentally, if we

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00:28:51.720 --> 00:28:55.920
can make green energy cheaper than fossil
fuels, we can make everyone switch,

399
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not just rich, well meaning Americans
and Europeans, but also the rest of

400
00:28:59.640 --> 00:29:02.640
the world, which of course is
China, Indian Africa, which is going

401
00:29:02.720 --> 00:29:06.920
to be the vast amount of emissions
in the twenty first century. So that's

402
00:29:06.960 --> 00:29:11.079
the way you go. You know, they're constant arguments that maybe we've cracked

403
00:29:11.559 --> 00:29:15.640
fusion. I would still hold off
on buying the stocks yet, but you

404
00:29:15.720 --> 00:29:19.039
know, but if we can actually
make that happen, we're fine. We

405
00:29:19.240 --> 00:29:26.039
have plenty of energy for the entiret
civilization at very little or no environmental impact.

406
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That's how you solve problems. That's
how the US became the biggest reduction

407
00:29:30.440 --> 00:29:36.559
in certainly over the last decade in
greenhouse gas emissions, not because of Obama

408
00:29:36.680 --> 00:29:41.440
or Trump, but because you had
fracking, and fracking basically meant that gas

409
00:29:41.519 --> 00:29:45.759
became much cheaper than coal. So
you switched a lot of your especially electrician

410
00:29:45.839 --> 00:29:48.559
production, from coal to gas.
And since gas emits about half as too

411
00:29:48.599 --> 00:29:53.400
much too two for energy unit,
you reduced your emissions dramatically, not because

412
00:29:53.839 --> 00:29:59.440
that was the main point, but
simply because green innovation made it cheaper.

413
00:29:59.680 --> 00:30:03.559
But at the same time, we
can also and you you mentioned tink around

414
00:30:03.599 --> 00:30:07.039
the edges. I actually think this
is a little more. So just give

415
00:30:07.079 --> 00:30:11.799
you the blunt, sort of basic
bottom line of the book. The best

416
00:30:11.839 --> 00:30:17.119
things first, the twelve amazing things
the world can do. We estimate the

417
00:30:17.240 --> 00:30:21.559
total cost of all these twelve things. There's about thirty five billion dollars a

418
00:30:21.680 --> 00:30:25.799
year. Admittedly I don't have that. I don't think any of you have

419
00:30:26.000 --> 00:30:30.559
that amount of money. But yeah, Steve's got it. In the big

420
00:30:30.640 --> 00:30:36.400
scheme of things, this really is
couch change right for the world. Thirty

421
00:30:36.480 --> 00:30:41.160
five billion dollars a year could save
and this is the astounding thing, It

422
00:30:41.240 --> 00:30:45.200
could save four point two million lives
each and every year. That's not tinkering

423
00:30:45.279 --> 00:30:48.440
at the edges. That's you know, sort of every seventh stath and the

424
00:30:48.480 --> 00:30:51.880
poorer part of the world that we
could avoid. And it can make the

425
00:30:52.119 --> 00:30:55.440
poorer part of the world. So
the four billion people in the world,

426
00:30:55.680 --> 00:31:00.759
it can make them one point one
trillion dollars richer each a year. That's

427
00:31:00.880 --> 00:31:03.880
almost one dollar per person per day. For the four billion fourth people in

428
00:31:04.000 --> 00:31:10.480
the world, we could basically spend
thirty five billion dollars and do on average

429
00:31:11.160 --> 00:31:15.359
about fifty two dollars worth of good
with that for every dollar spend. That's

430
00:31:15.400 --> 00:31:19.519
just astounding. So we should certainly
be addressing climate change, but do it

431
00:31:19.599 --> 00:31:25.039
smartly, and that leaves tons of
money to actually do all these other things

432
00:31:25.119 --> 00:31:27.640
that for most people I'm much more
important, I would argue, certainly morally

433
00:31:29.000 --> 00:31:33.279
is also an important thing to do. So instead of telling you your environmental

434
00:31:33.400 --> 00:31:34.799
friend, you know, no,
no, we'll get to climate change in

435
00:31:34.880 --> 00:31:40.000
thirty years, it's saying, let's
fix climate change smartly, but let's make

436
00:31:40.079 --> 00:31:44.000
sure it doesn't soa got so much
of the oxygen that we don't also address

437
00:31:44.960 --> 00:31:48.599
many other issues that are actually much
more important. So born it's Steve Hayward

438
00:31:48.640 --> 00:31:52.799
out in California. Great les see
you again. I forgot to wear my

439
00:31:52.920 --> 00:31:59.319
black biorn lawnborg T shirt blue color
blind. The last time we were together,

440
00:31:59.400 --> 00:32:01.960
I addressed listeners just like beyond to
look like, except I don't have

441
00:32:02.039 --> 00:32:06.720
the h I want to continue in
this climate thing for just a moment.

442
00:32:06.759 --> 00:32:08.759
I mean, of course, we
weigh shocking amount some money. We're going

443
00:32:08.839 --> 00:32:13.519
to spend four hundred billion dollars on
green energy in the US. That's more

444
00:32:13.599 --> 00:32:16.319
than ten years of your budget for
making the world a better place, right

445
00:32:16.599 --> 00:32:21.559
and get very little for it.
On the other hand, I wonder if

446
00:32:21.599 --> 00:32:23.880
we're not and of course climate hysterius, you know, ratchet it all the

447
00:32:23.880 --> 00:32:28.119
way up to eleven and beyond.
I wonder if we might not be at

448
00:32:28.160 --> 00:32:30.839
a turning point right now, happening
in real time in front of us.

449
00:32:31.519 --> 00:32:35.279
But what I mean by that is, you know, the UN, the

450
00:32:35.319 --> 00:32:37.400
head of the UN, said we
now live at a time of global boiling.

451
00:32:38.200 --> 00:32:40.680
But then, and I bet you
caught this, the new head of

452
00:32:40.720 --> 00:32:45.160
the IPCC, the inter Governmental Panel
on Climate Change, he said, when

453
00:32:45.200 --> 00:32:47.759
he was a week or two ago, said you know, we need to

454
00:32:47.880 --> 00:32:52.960
cool it with the climate panic.
Cool it. By the way, the

455
00:32:52.079 --> 00:32:54.759
title of one of your books a
few years back, taking your advice.

456
00:32:55.400 --> 00:33:00.880
And then the other thing I notice
is all around the developed world governments are

457
00:33:00.960 --> 00:33:04.960
trying to gracefully back away from some
of their net zero by twenty fifty commendments.

458
00:33:05.000 --> 00:33:07.599
It's happening all over Europe. Both
parties in Britain are trying to back

459
00:33:07.599 --> 00:33:12.400
away from it gracefully. And then
the other thing I notice is, you

460
00:33:12.480 --> 00:33:15.279
know France last week, France for
a while said we're going to move to

461
00:33:15.440 --> 00:33:20.160
wind and solar as our nuclear power
plants age out. Well they just announced

462
00:33:20.240 --> 00:33:23.240
no, actually we're going to do
a whole new generation nuclear plants handed up.

463
00:33:23.359 --> 00:33:28.960
Just yesterday announced that they may restart
a power plant they closed down ten

464
00:33:29.079 --> 00:33:32.079
years ago. And here in the
US we finally turned on our first significant

465
00:33:32.160 --> 00:33:37.279
nuclear power plant, first one in
forty years. I'm starting to think that

466
00:33:37.440 --> 00:33:40.839
realism is finally overtaking the rhetoric.
And I don't know what's your sense of

467
00:33:40.920 --> 00:33:45.680
things. Are you optimistic that with
all the foolishness we have to put up

468
00:33:45.720 --> 00:33:51.119
with, that reality is finally starting
to gain the upper hand. So I'll

469
00:33:51.160 --> 00:33:54.119
say this much, Steve, You're
absolutely right that when governments are faced with

470
00:33:54.240 --> 00:33:59.559
the realization that this is going to
cost literally trillions of dollars. Remember,

471
00:34:00.599 --> 00:34:05.119
a net zero by twenty fifty is
going to cost the world at least five

472
00:34:05.200 --> 00:34:08.000
point six trillion dollars each and every
year. So that's more than five percent

473
00:34:08.039 --> 00:34:10.920
of global GDP. That's more than
what we spend on education. It's more

474
00:34:12.000 --> 00:34:15.360
than what we spend on most things
in the world. And remember, you

475
00:34:15.400 --> 00:34:20.320
know, it assumes that India would
spend nine percent of its GDP. It

476
00:34:20.440 --> 00:34:22.800
assumes that the world would spend about
a third of its global tax and take.

477
00:34:23.199 --> 00:34:28.280
And this is in the most optimistic
case that's never going to happen.

478
00:34:28.440 --> 00:34:30.880
So fundamentally, you're right to say
this is not going to happen. I

479
00:34:31.119 --> 00:34:35.760
worry though, that the sentiment still
seems to be all right. So we're

480
00:34:35.800 --> 00:34:38.199
not actually going to achieve what we
promised, but we are going to try

481
00:34:38.239 --> 00:34:43.960
to spend as much money as we
possibly can get away with within the green

482
00:34:44.119 --> 00:34:47.239
conversation. Uh and and and again, you know, from an efficiency point

483
00:34:47.239 --> 00:34:52.559
of view, and certainly recognizing that
there are no solutions that are only trade

484
00:34:52.599 --> 00:34:57.519
offs, we really need to understand
that if we spend a truckload of money

485
00:34:57.559 --> 00:35:00.679
on green and especially if we do
it as way we done right now,

486
00:35:00.880 --> 00:35:06.280
which delivers fairly little at very high
cost. We're basically throwing away an opportunity

487
00:35:06.360 --> 00:35:09.239
to do so much more good and
also be more efficient with the money that

488
00:35:09.320 --> 00:35:14.559
we should be spending on climate.
So my worries, yes, there's you

489
00:35:14.639 --> 00:35:17.039
know, things are not quite as
bad as they could have been. But

490
00:35:17.119 --> 00:35:22.559
I think if you ask most people, they think, when they see this

491
00:35:22.760 --> 00:35:27.320
constantly on the news, here's another
fire, here's another flood, here are

492
00:35:27.400 --> 00:35:30.599
more heat waves, We're all going
to be killed, We're all going to

493
00:35:30.039 --> 00:35:34.199
be doomed. We need to spend
as much money as is necessary. Oh

494
00:35:34.280 --> 00:35:37.280
wait, actually I don't want to
spend all that much, but spend almost

495
00:35:37.360 --> 00:35:40.079
all of it. That's not a
good sign of anything. And of course

496
00:35:40.159 --> 00:35:45.760
what we really forget. I was
just this morning, I was on one

497
00:35:45.800 --> 00:35:52.719
of the Indian CHET twenty meetings in
Mumbai virtually, and you know, they

498
00:35:52.000 --> 00:35:55.519
care a lot more about all these
other things that we just talked about.

499
00:35:55.519 --> 00:35:59.840
But because you know, if you're
not as rich, you have other and

500
00:36:00.039 --> 00:36:04.679
more significant priorities. So I think
we need to recognize we're not going to

501
00:36:04.719 --> 00:36:08.239
get most of the world on board
with our sort of very elaborate and very

502
00:36:08.320 --> 00:36:15.599
expensive policy. We need to spend
smarter and cheaper, but we're not there.

503
00:36:15.840 --> 00:36:17.800
So I would argue there's two parts. One is the climate bit,

504
00:36:19.079 --> 00:36:22.599
where you start getting people to realize
you think this is the end. We've

505
00:36:22.639 --> 00:36:25.880
heard a lot about heat waves,
and absolutely it is to be expected.

506
00:36:27.199 --> 00:36:30.119
As temperatures rise because of global warming, we will see more heat waves and

507
00:36:30.280 --> 00:36:35.400
those will be more deadly unless we
make sure that people can actually afford to

508
00:36:35.480 --> 00:36:38.719
have air conditioning and turn on the
power when they need so. Remember in

509
00:36:39.159 --> 00:36:45.440
the FEEDIX the Financial Times that study
in this and pointed out that there are

510
00:36:45.599 --> 00:36:52.119
a lot of people dying from up
with four hundred people dying in FEEDIX from

511
00:36:52.440 --> 00:36:57.039
from heat. Most of these people
were homeless, many of them, most

512
00:36:57.079 --> 00:37:00.800
of them were drug addicts. It's
unclear to what it's there was a strong

513
00:37:00.920 --> 00:37:07.079
or small open lap on those None
of them died if they had access and

514
00:37:07.159 --> 00:37:09.800
could afford to turn on their air
conditioning, because you don't die from these

515
00:37:09.880 --> 00:37:14.800
things. Similarly, of course,
you need to recognize that many more people

516
00:37:14.920 --> 00:37:17.719
around the world, both rich and
poor countries, many more people die from

517
00:37:17.760 --> 00:37:22.960
cold. So about nine times as
many people die in cold globally in India

518
00:37:23.199 --> 00:37:28.360
it's still seven times as many.
We have this idea that heat is really

519
00:37:28.480 --> 00:37:30.880
dangerous. Yes, you should certainly
take care in the heat, but cold

520
00:37:31.039 --> 00:37:36.760
globally much much more dangerous. And
again you need this cheap energy. So

521
00:37:36.960 --> 00:37:39.920
we should make people aware this is
not the end. There are problems,

522
00:37:39.960 --> 00:37:44.880
there are also benefits because we actually
see less cold waves and that means a

523
00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:49.159
lot fewer people actually die from cold. This should be welcomed and we should

524
00:37:49.199 --> 00:37:52.719
be celebrating that. And at the
same time, of course, we need

525
00:37:52.760 --> 00:37:55.679
to remember for the four billion pours, there are many other issues. And

526
00:37:55.800 --> 00:37:59.920
what I'm trying to do with the
with the book is really try to get

527
00:38:00.079 --> 00:38:02.719
people enthusiastic about Look, it's not
just that there are a lot of problems.

528
00:38:02.719 --> 00:38:07.280
There are a lot of really really
cheap solutions. There are things that

529
00:38:07.360 --> 00:38:10.280
we can do that cost compared to
most of the things we're talking about,

530
00:38:10.880 --> 00:38:15.800
pittance and would do an amazing amount
of good. I would love to see

531
00:38:15.880 --> 00:38:20.159
us not just you know, wallering
and in the world is ending kind of

532
00:38:20.199 --> 00:38:22.559
thing, but actually saying there are
a lot of things we can do,

533
00:38:22.960 --> 00:38:25.480
and not just for climate. You
know, you're right, You're right,

534
00:38:27.239 --> 00:38:32.239
but there is there's there's an attitude
amongst the misanthropist, small enthusian element that

535
00:38:32.360 --> 00:38:37.480
regards humanity as a virus, as
a plague, as as an imposition on

536
00:38:37.559 --> 00:38:40.639
this earth, an unnatural imposition that
the more we have of people, the

537
00:38:40.760 --> 00:38:45.440
worst off the world is going to
be. And that's why when you talk

538
00:38:45.480 --> 00:38:47.239
about things like nuclear power, and
I'm sure you've seen the stories this week

539
00:38:47.239 --> 00:38:51.840
about nuclear fusion right at a little
bit more hint, you know, it's

540
00:38:51.840 --> 00:38:55.400
always the greatest power source that's not
quite there yet, but they're getting closer.

541
00:38:57.159 --> 00:39:00.960
And there's the sense that if we
unlock a key and we have unlimited

542
00:39:00.360 --> 00:39:06.400
cheap energy, too cheap to meter, that there has become this sort of

543
00:39:06.639 --> 00:39:13.639
moral halo that surrounds the idea of
reducing consumption and reducing it and reducing all

544
00:39:13.719 --> 00:39:17.679
the things that we do, that
it's almost detached from the actual perils that

545
00:39:17.719 --> 00:39:23.239
we may follow. That that there's
this moral construct that is, even if

546
00:39:23.280 --> 00:39:27.639
you had the cheapest power in the
world, that they still would say we

547
00:39:27.679 --> 00:39:31.559
shouldn't consume that we are that we
that and and that's the difficult idea that's

548
00:39:31.599 --> 00:39:35.679
taken seems to have taken written the
culture that needs to be dislodged, written

549
00:39:35.719 --> 00:39:39.039
branch says me. But but I
think it's taking root for a very long

550
00:39:39.119 --> 00:39:43.960
time. And I love this expression
that I didn't come up with it,

551
00:39:44.000 --> 00:39:46.119
so I can say that. But
you know, it seems always to be

552
00:39:46.440 --> 00:39:51.000
that when people say there are too
many people, it's you know, just

553
00:39:51.320 --> 00:39:54.079
enough of me, too many of
you, Right, that's that's really good

554
00:39:54.119 --> 00:39:59.360
with this conversation, and and and
and you know that that that I think

555
00:39:59.519 --> 00:40:02.920
is really hard to defend morally for
most people when you push them on it.

556
00:40:04.639 --> 00:40:07.880
And of course it also has absolutely
no purchase for most part of the

557
00:40:07.920 --> 00:40:10.519
world. They're not going to say, oh, yeah, I'm sorry,

558
00:40:10.599 --> 00:40:14.440
I have too many kids. And
of course, remember one of the things

559
00:40:14.519 --> 00:40:17.159
that happened when you actually start saving
people is that you get fewer kids,

560
00:40:17.400 --> 00:40:22.599
you get fewer more people. Were
not in a situation where this is a

561
00:40:22.719 --> 00:40:28.760
runaway sort of the world is it's
going to be hugely overpopulated. Probably most

562
00:40:28.880 --> 00:40:31.360
parts of the world is going to
be worried about us being too old and

563
00:40:31.440 --> 00:40:37.000
having too few kids towards the end
of the century. But the second part

564
00:40:37.719 --> 00:40:40.960
the idea of worrying about well,
maybe it's maybe it's good that we don't

565
00:40:42.039 --> 00:40:45.280
have all that much. We should
start talking talking about d growth and all

566
00:40:45.320 --> 00:40:47.639
those kinds of things. Again,
first of all, I think it's worth

567
00:40:47.840 --> 00:40:52.800
pointing out this is just no purchase
for most people. Uh, you know,

568
00:40:52.039 --> 00:40:54.760
certainly not in the poorer part of
the world, but really not in

569
00:40:54.840 --> 00:40:59.199
the rich part of the world either. It's it's a few academics who,

570
00:40:59.320 --> 00:41:02.960
funnily enough, you know, fly
into conferences in nice places and talk about

571
00:41:04.000 --> 00:41:09.119
how everyone else needs to degrow.
But but but I think fundamentally what we

572
00:41:09.280 --> 00:41:14.480
have to recognize is that we saw
the very same thing back in nineteen eighty

573
00:41:14.559 --> 00:41:16.239
nine. I don't know if you
remember, there was a brief out of

574
00:41:16.400 --> 00:41:20.920
where everybody believed there might be cold
fusion. It was called back then,

575
00:41:21.440 --> 00:41:28.440
uh, and so Los Angeles reporter
called the environmentalists and said, let's assume

576
00:41:28.559 --> 00:41:30.400
that this is actually true. It
turned out not to be true. Let's

577
00:41:30.440 --> 00:41:34.920
assume that this is clean. What
do you think? And they were all

578
00:41:34.960 --> 00:41:37.599
against it. Yeah, this is
back in eighty nine. They were like,

579
00:41:37.679 --> 00:41:40.920
oh, that's you know. The
argument is, but a green bulldozer

580
00:41:42.079 --> 00:41:45.000
can can fell trees just as well
as a as a as a dirty one,

581
00:41:45.599 --> 00:41:50.039
and you know, it's like Paula
Erlick was, it was like giving

582
00:41:50.079 --> 00:41:53.559
an idiot child a machine gun.
Uh yeah. And what that tells you

583
00:41:53.760 --> 00:41:58.119
is that, yes, these people
are going to object no matter what,

584
00:41:58.239 --> 00:42:01.280
and some sense that seems to indicate
that this is something entirely different. It

585
00:42:01.719 --> 00:42:07.519
is the world where they want to
focus a lot more on having enough and

586
00:42:07.760 --> 00:42:10.880
you know, finding out what's the
meaning of life with yourself and not having

587
00:42:10.920 --> 00:42:14.920
a lot of extra stuff with it
and stuff like that. That's great.

588
00:42:15.079 --> 00:42:17.920
Hey, I'm happy if they want
that, but they're not going to foster

589
00:42:19.079 --> 00:42:21.760
on the rest of us, and
I don't think most people are going to

590
00:42:21.800 --> 00:42:25.239
allow them. So again, my
argument is it's much much better to keep

591
00:42:25.280 --> 00:42:29.639
this on a positive point, to
say, look, there's a real problem.

592
00:42:29.679 --> 00:42:31.599
We go a before, and it's
not really as bad as what you're

593
00:42:31.639 --> 00:42:35.840
telling us, but it is a
problem and we should try and fix it.

594
00:42:35.920 --> 00:42:38.639
But we should fix it smartly instead
of stupidly as we've done for the

595
00:42:38.760 --> 00:42:44.519
last thirty years, which is basically
wasting trillions of dollars and achieving almost nothing.

596
00:42:45.000 --> 00:42:47.960
But that doesn't mean that there's not
a lot of other issues as well,

597
00:42:49.320 --> 00:42:55.000
like kids not being educated well enough, like these all these diseases.

598
00:42:55.599 --> 00:43:00.760
Increasingly, we're also looking at chronic
diseases. For instance. Remember most people

599
00:43:00.880 --> 00:43:07.760
die not from infectious diseason or climate, but from from heart disease or cardiovascal

600
00:43:07.920 --> 00:43:12.719
disease and cancer. It turns out
the cancer is pretty expensive. Tod with

601
00:43:13.320 --> 00:43:17.360
heart disease is incredibly cheap. It's
basically about getting people hypertension drugs. We

602
00:43:17.599 --> 00:43:22.159
know this. It works well in
the rich world. That's why we dramatically

603
00:43:22.199 --> 00:43:27.639
reduced the cost of of of high
potension and the deaths from hypertension. We're

604
00:43:27.840 --> 00:43:30.000
estimating that we could do the same
in the poorer part of the world.

605
00:43:30.079 --> 00:43:35.119
We could say one and a half
million people, mostly older people, so

606
00:43:35.239 --> 00:43:37.480
we would save them on an average
about five or six years. But that's

607
00:43:37.480 --> 00:43:42.599
still incredibly good. That's really worthwhile. And what we find is, yes,

608
00:43:42.880 --> 00:43:45.079
this you know, there's a lot
of chronic disease. It will cost

609
00:43:45.119 --> 00:43:47.639
about four point four billion people dollars
a year, but it would say one

610
00:43:47.719 --> 00:43:52.760
point five million people from from dying
from chronic diseason. There are a lot

611
00:43:52.840 --> 00:44:00.079
of these smart things. Let's emphasize
those amazing smart a solution. So hey,

612
00:44:00.559 --> 00:44:04.480
I'm now referring to this week and
last week, we had Mary and

613
00:44:04.480 --> 00:44:07.559
two beyond last week who wrote a
book called Superabundance, And so this week

614
00:44:07.599 --> 00:44:10.280
and last week, I mean,
these are obviously very different books, but

615
00:44:12.000 --> 00:44:15.159
they are kind of positive. I
mean, this is sort of good new

616
00:44:15.320 --> 00:44:17.199
good news two weeks we've had,
right. I mean, all the other

617
00:44:17.239 --> 00:44:21.480
news I don't know if you've noticed, is really really lousy, but you

618
00:44:21.639 --> 00:44:28.079
guys seem to be giving us good
news. I guess what I would say

619
00:44:28.159 --> 00:44:32.159
is that I'm looking at all the
things that you say are kind of wrong

620
00:44:32.559 --> 00:44:36.639
that would be easy to fix or
not easy to fix, but could we

621
00:44:36.719 --> 00:44:43.239
could fix sooner? Yeah, and
we don't do it. And so part

622
00:44:43.280 --> 00:44:46.320
of me is optimistic because it seems
like you've set up very concrete problems that

623
00:44:46.400 --> 00:44:52.800
have very concrete solutions that are actually
kind of well within our wallet, and

624
00:44:52.920 --> 00:44:59.760
we don't do it. So my
question is, are you optimistic about possibility

625
00:45:00.119 --> 00:45:05.840
but pessimistic about what might happen?
Are you optimistic about both things? Because

626
00:45:05.920 --> 00:45:08.960
it's very easy for me to read
your book and say, man, here's

627
00:45:09.000 --> 00:45:15.079
what we ought to do, and
then realize that we're never going to do

628
00:45:15.119 --> 00:45:19.760
it. Are we never going to
do it? When did we When did

629
00:45:19.840 --> 00:45:23.920
it work? When did this kind
of thing work? So two things,

630
00:45:24.079 --> 00:45:28.639
I think. First of all,
there's all all of the things that we

631
00:45:28.800 --> 00:45:32.360
look at are well proven things that
you can do. And again, we're

632
00:45:32.440 --> 00:45:37.599
not assuming that people will be magically
phenomenal at doing this. We're assuming that

633
00:45:37.719 --> 00:45:40.280
people will be incompetent and they will
be corrupt just like they normally are.

634
00:45:40.679 --> 00:45:45.400
And even then with all the you
know, yes, some of these iPads

635
00:45:45.440 --> 00:45:47.039
are going to get stolen, some
of these teachers want you some right,

636
00:45:47.760 --> 00:45:51.880
some of the kids are not going
to actually pay attention. All that stuff

637
00:45:52.199 --> 00:45:57.360
that's all included in the estimates of
what we find is such an amazing opportunity.

638
00:45:57.639 --> 00:46:00.760
So these are these are proven things
that we know we can do.

639
00:46:00.960 --> 00:46:04.679
And look, they've happened in a
lot of places. So, uh,

640
00:46:05.239 --> 00:46:07.760
we're working with Malawi, one of
course countries in the world. They're actually

641
00:46:08.039 --> 00:46:14.400
rolling out iPads to all of their
primary students across the country right now.

642
00:46:14.760 --> 00:46:21.800
So these things are happening. We're
just trying to push push this uh a

643
00:46:21.880 --> 00:46:24.360
little further. U is all of
it going to happen? I think that's

644
00:46:24.679 --> 00:46:29.119
that's your real question. I would
love to be able to say yes,

645
00:46:29.519 --> 00:46:32.519
the true answer, of course,
is no. What we're trying to do,

646
00:46:34.039 --> 00:46:37.800
we have saying in my organization is
uh, it's not about getting right,

647
00:46:37.880 --> 00:46:42.239
although I would love that's about getting
it slightly less wrong right. We're

648
00:46:42.360 --> 00:46:45.159
trying to move the world a little
bit towards being smarter about this. I

649
00:46:45.239 --> 00:46:49.239
actually find that a lot of people
pick up on this and say, yes,

650
00:46:49.920 --> 00:46:52.800
these are the kind of very pragmatic, very simple things that we can

651
00:46:52.960 --> 00:46:58.719
all agree on. I think that's
also an important part. I mean,

652
00:46:58.760 --> 00:47:00.039
as you just be a little bit
of a shrink and we gotta let you

653
00:47:00.079 --> 00:47:05.280
go. But why do we as
a culture and maybe as a people,

654
00:47:05.880 --> 00:47:12.960
why are we always gravitating towards the
the armageddon, towards the the end time

655
00:47:13.199 --> 00:47:17.000
scenario, towards the giant disaster rather
than and I have my own theory,

656
00:47:17.119 --> 00:47:20.800
right, which is that it's much
easier, in a weird way, to

657
00:47:20.920 --> 00:47:25.039
think about this huge tidal way of
the misery that's going to hit us than

658
00:47:25.079 --> 00:47:28.679
it is to say, well,
actually, you know, if you roll

659
00:47:28.760 --> 00:47:30.519
up your sleeves here and you do
this, this and this and this,

660
00:47:32.079 --> 00:47:37.119
I mean, it's harder work to
do what you're talking about than it is

661
00:47:37.239 --> 00:47:40.760
for me to sit and complain and
to march and yeah, sort wrap up

662
00:47:40.840 --> 00:47:47.719
question from Bob rob along there,
which is like hours of discussions. So

663
00:47:47.960 --> 00:47:51.880
yeah, I mean, I'm not
going to be able to tell you the

664
00:47:51.920 --> 00:47:54.639
shrink answer, but I think that
it just simply has a lot more sort

665
00:47:54.639 --> 00:47:59.480
of commercial appeal. It has more, much more interest appeal to talk about

666
00:47:59.480 --> 00:48:01.400
all this stuff that bad. That's
why you constantly see this. This is

667
00:48:01.440 --> 00:48:07.119
just clickable in a totally different way
than positive news is. Just to give

668
00:48:07.119 --> 00:48:09.480
you one example, there's a study
where you gave people a pile of good

669
00:48:09.519 --> 00:48:14.840
news and a pile of bad news, and you ask people beforehand which one

670
00:48:14.920 --> 00:48:16.280
do you want to read, and
everybody said the positive news, and then

671
00:48:16.320 --> 00:48:20.800
of course, in actual facts,
we all end up reading the bad news

672
00:48:20.920 --> 00:48:23.639
because it's more fun. So the
truth is, yes, we have the

673
00:48:23.880 --> 00:48:29.119
terrible sort of negativity bias. One
of the things that I think is totally

674
00:48:29.199 --> 00:48:34.679
overlooked and really is the argument that
we need to emphasize us. If you

675
00:48:34.760 --> 00:48:37.760
look up the last twenty five years, each and every day, the world

676
00:48:37.920 --> 00:48:42.519
has lifted one hundred and thirty eight
thousand people out of Polly. Each and

677
00:48:42.599 --> 00:48:45.519
every day of the last twenty five
years. Every newspaper in the world could

678
00:48:45.559 --> 00:48:50.639
have had this in their front page
every day for twenty five years, last

679
00:48:50.719 --> 00:48:52.960
twenty four hours, one hundred and
thirties eight thousand people who are lifted out

680
00:48:53.119 --> 00:48:58.079
of poverty. You never heard it
because it just happened every day. And

681
00:48:58.440 --> 00:49:01.199
so that says we need some time
to sort of take a step back and

682
00:49:01.360 --> 00:49:06.800
realize, yes, there are lots
of problem but fundamentally we are actually civilization

683
00:49:06.880 --> 00:49:10.159
that solves more problems than we create. That doesn't mean we shouldn't fix climate

684
00:49:10.280 --> 00:49:14.719
change. It doesn't mean we shouldn't
do all these great things that you've never

685
00:49:14.800 --> 00:49:17.039
heard of, you know, with
moms and kids dying, uh, and

686
00:49:17.400 --> 00:49:22.559
something we can do something about incredibly
cheaply. But we should take our time

687
00:49:22.840 --> 00:49:28.159
to not just wallow in the self
pity and this terribleness and actually say we

688
00:49:28.280 --> 00:49:32.000
can make an incredible change. That's
what you know. Best things first is

689
00:49:32.000 --> 00:49:35.239
about I man, grant, I
know we got to run, but do

690
00:49:35.519 --> 00:49:43.199
you think that psychologically we need to
make our peace and embrace prosperity because the

691
00:49:43.280 --> 00:49:51.320
prosperous nations love to complain about it. When you tell progressive to make people

692
00:49:51.360 --> 00:49:57.519
in Africa are are are being lifted
out of poverty, They're not, or

693
00:49:57.599 --> 00:50:02.079
India especially thrill about that as they
should be, right, I don't know.

694
00:50:02.199 --> 00:50:06.679
I'm not going to bet against human
nature. I just somebody think it

695
00:50:06.840 --> 00:50:10.000
is what it is. But what
we need to do is to tell people,

696
00:50:10.119 --> 00:50:13.239
look, every once in a while, I'm glad you had to be

697
00:50:13.400 --> 00:50:15.960
on last week. Every once in
a while, let's take a step back,

698
00:50:16.159 --> 00:50:20.840
realize things actually going much better,
and then say, all right,

699
00:50:21.119 --> 00:50:23.559
this doesn't mean I'm not tomorrow.
I'm still going to consume a lot of

700
00:50:23.719 --> 00:50:29.119
bad news, but at least I
should recognize that there are some very concrete

701
00:50:29.159 --> 00:50:30.840
things that I can do if I'm
smart about it. If I'm just going

702
00:50:30.880 --> 00:50:34.960
to wallow in this self pity,
I'm gonna do dumb things. Why don't

703
00:50:34.960 --> 00:50:37.880
I do a little less dumb things
and a little more smart things. So

704
00:50:37.039 --> 00:50:40.599
fix climate changed effectively by focusing on
R and D, greening on R and

705
00:50:40.679 --> 00:50:45.719
D, and then fix on these
twelve simple, smart things that would make

706
00:50:45.760 --> 00:50:51.199
the world amazingly much better. That's
the problem, simple and smart. Because

707
00:50:51.199 --> 00:50:53.880
we like to wallow in grand visions
of apocalyptic nonsense, because we're bored.

708
00:50:54.199 --> 00:50:59.920
We're bored, and we're comfortable,
and we fear somehow that we are deserving

709
00:51:00.199 --> 00:51:00.960
come up and say it. We'll
come in the form of these things.

710
00:51:01.239 --> 00:51:04.800
And you're right about the sensational news
that people will choose. But it used

711
00:51:04.800 --> 00:51:09.280
to be the sensational news that people
read was man bites dog Now the news

712
00:51:09.480 --> 00:51:15.880
is dog bites are up global warming
climate change to blame experts suggest, I

713
00:51:15.920 --> 00:51:21.079
mean, so it's a new religious
doctrine into which they can plug all these

714
00:51:21.159 --> 00:51:23.840
things. Best things first, though, is what we best consider, and

715
00:51:24.000 --> 00:51:29.800
that's Bjorn Lornberg's latest book, The
Twelve Most Efficient Solutions for the World's Poorest

716
00:51:29.840 --> 00:51:35.039
and our Global Sustainable Development Goals promise. Oh oh, here's the problem.

717
00:51:35.079 --> 00:51:37.480
How do the answer Rob's everybody else? How do we get them to go

718
00:51:37.559 --> 00:51:39.400
along with it? We tell the
people who are doing these programs, Look,

719
00:51:39.679 --> 00:51:43.559
these are gonna have noticeable effects.
These are gonna be really effective,

720
00:51:44.079 --> 00:51:46.639
and they may actually solve some problems
for good. But don't worry. You

721
00:51:46.840 --> 00:51:52.119
guys will all still have your jobs. I think once they're assured that even

722
00:51:52.159 --> 00:51:54.199
after we solve problems, they'll have
their jobs, they'll be on board because

723
00:51:54.239 --> 00:51:59.639
as long as they're still problems.
The money flows as always a great pleasure.

724
00:51:59.679 --> 00:52:00.800
We learn so much and there's so
much more we can talk about.

725
00:52:00.840 --> 00:52:06.880
So we will have you back as
soon as possible. Thank you, Thank

726
00:52:06.920 --> 00:52:08.840
you for rapping up. Good news, August. Yes, that's what it's

727
00:52:08.880 --> 00:52:15.800
been. Good news, August.
Gentlemen. Interesting thing here in terms of

728
00:52:15.599 --> 00:52:21.119
energy consumption and and the like.
Rob right now, he's trying to figure

729
00:52:21.119 --> 00:52:22.840
out if I'm going to a commercial. I'm not. I kind of am.

730
00:52:23.760 --> 00:52:29.480
I'm searching through the rundown. See
what the hell is. It's probably

731
00:52:29.519 --> 00:52:32.960
a dynamic insert, as we call
it in the business. Now I am

732
00:52:34.079 --> 00:52:38.199
on that. She said. That's
what she said. Battery good thing.

733
00:52:38.280 --> 00:52:45.639
Peter wasn't here. He blushed so
hard. He's fun. Peter can stay

734
00:52:45.639 --> 00:52:50.199
out for a while. We have
some jokes. It'll be good news working

735
00:52:50.280 --> 00:52:52.199
Blue, August, oh man,
if this if this room worked, Blue,

736
00:52:52.280 --> 00:52:59.679
who you have no idea? I
know, I know I'm on battery

737
00:52:59.760 --> 00:53:00.960
part, which is interesting, and
I can't get any of my chords to

738
00:53:01.039 --> 00:53:05.519
work here. I lost Wi Fi
before having all these technological situations. So

739
00:53:05.559 --> 00:53:07.280
I'm looking at a countdown ticker here
that says I'm going to be out of

740
00:53:07.400 --> 00:53:13.480
business shortly. The good thing is
I got new time enough here for rob

741
00:53:13.639 --> 00:53:17.280
A to tell you about the necessity
of meeting up in person, in the

742
00:53:17.320 --> 00:53:20.840
flesh with the Ricochet people. Yeah, you're going to be as blue as

743
00:53:20.920 --> 00:53:22.800
you want, and then also to
discuss the other issue of the day,

744
00:53:23.039 --> 00:53:27.719
which we'll get to, he said, promoting it in a second. So

745
00:53:28.440 --> 00:53:31.840
I do have to say to reworking
Blue if you do go to one of

746
00:53:31.880 --> 00:53:37.440
the Ricochet meetups, they are fun
and you know, there's as you know,

747
00:53:37.559 --> 00:53:42.039
we have a very strict dress code
for comments and posts on Ricochet.

748
00:53:42.119 --> 00:53:44.440
We try to keep it clean,
and that's what that's kind of what we

749
00:53:44.519 --> 00:53:46.719
try to do with Ricochet. You
know, you you join Ricochet and be

750
00:53:46.800 --> 00:53:52.039
a member, and you know that
you're going to have a good civil debate

751
00:53:52.760 --> 00:53:55.760
or conversation or even civil small talk
either way. But when you get together

752
00:53:57.000 --> 00:54:00.360
in real life irl with members and
you have a couple of cocktails, it

753
00:54:00.480 --> 00:54:02.480
gets salty and it's a lot of
fun. And I don't think I don't

754
00:54:02.480 --> 00:54:06.159
think it got any saltier than it
did when we were in New Orleans.

755
00:54:06.199 --> 00:54:09.039
But that seems that's the place when
in Rome, right, So if you

756
00:54:09.800 --> 00:54:15.159
love Ricochet, and please go and
check us out and see if they want

757
00:54:15.159 --> 00:54:19.199
to go to a meet up.
If you are listening to this podcast you

758
00:54:19.280 --> 00:54:21.760
think what is all this Ricochet stuff, go to ricochet dot com. We

759
00:54:21.840 --> 00:54:23.039
would love to have you join our
club. The reason we want you to

760
00:54:23.079 --> 00:54:27.639
have you join is because we keep
it civil. And I say this all

761
00:54:27.679 --> 00:54:29.280
the time, or I used to
say it all the time, but it

762
00:54:29.360 --> 00:54:31.800
bears repeating that if you pay a
little money and very little money every month

763
00:54:32.159 --> 00:54:36.039
to join the club, you have
skin in the game. And that's one

764
00:54:36.039 --> 00:54:38.880
of the ways we keep the conversation
civil, interesting, lively, and fun.

765
00:54:38.960 --> 00:54:43.079
To join, and you get you
get such great stuff. I don't

766
00:54:43.079 --> 00:54:45.079
know if you saw in them.
The member feed is not just a bunch

767
00:54:45.119 --> 00:54:47.320
of people to be, you know, conventioning about this or that. Jenna

768
00:54:47.480 --> 00:54:52.880
s wrote just a great piece about
American graffiti and American culture and the rest

769
00:54:52.920 --> 00:54:53.679
of the time, whether or not
we're still capable, et cetera, et

770
00:54:53.719 --> 00:54:57.599
cetera. It's it's something that I've
read in various forms over the years.

771
00:54:58.079 --> 00:55:04.360
But she is, she's a member, she's a mom, she works a

772
00:55:04.440 --> 00:55:08.559
job, she doesn't make her living
putting words together but she's like better at

773
00:55:08.599 --> 00:55:13.880
the eighties seven ninety four percent of
the pig that you do embarrassingly, yes,

774
00:55:13.920 --> 00:55:15.880
which which I just love. And
you can find these people on Ricochet

775
00:55:15.880 --> 00:55:19.840
anyway, going ahead, R yeah, so yeah, absolutely. And also

776
00:55:19.920 --> 00:55:22.599
when when things happen in uh,
in the world, I mean, you

777
00:55:22.679 --> 00:55:28.079
know, there's a whole bunch of
very very smart military members who are giving

778
00:55:28.119 --> 00:55:31.719
us info when things happen in construction. Whenever thing has happened, there's members

779
00:55:31.760 --> 00:55:36.840
of Ricochet kind of joining the conversation
there. But that's online. We also

780
00:55:36.920 --> 00:55:39.119
meet in person, I RL.
If you want to meet up with us,

781
00:55:39.320 --> 00:55:42.800
we would like to meet up with
you, so please join Ricochet.

782
00:55:43.159 --> 00:55:46.280
The next meetup, well, the
next scheduled meetup that I knew about was

783
00:55:46.360 --> 00:55:50.519
in Cookville, Tennessee, Labor Day
weekends there one to four. Go to

784
00:55:50.599 --> 00:55:52.000
rickchet dot com, go to member
feed and check that out. We'd love

785
00:55:52.079 --> 00:55:57.119
to see there. But this just
popped up, which is August twenty eighth

786
00:55:57.400 --> 00:56:02.639
in Montgomery, Alabama. Paul Ray, who is a long time rick Strut

787
00:56:02.679 --> 00:56:08.400
contributor. Wonderful guy, brilliant guy
uh and kind of a weird rye sense

788
00:56:08.440 --> 00:56:15.800
of humor, character, very kind
of sly like very funny guys, also

789
00:56:15.920 --> 00:56:22.320
brilliant, like you know, a
brilliant presidential story and brilliant American historian and

790
00:56:22.880 --> 00:56:25.639
constitutional scholar. He's giving a lecture
at the Air War College in Montgomery on

791
00:56:25.679 --> 00:56:30.280
August twenty eight, and so some
members are thinking of a meeting up before

792
00:56:30.440 --> 00:56:34.039
or after Paul Race lecture. If
they are the Rick Schet members that I

793
00:56:34.199 --> 00:56:37.159
know and love, they will be
beating up before and after, and so

794
00:56:37.519 --> 00:56:40.199
if you like to join, join
them. And Montgomery, by the way,

795
00:56:40.199 --> 00:56:44.639
if you have been, has a
couple amazing things to see. Uh,

796
00:56:44.760 --> 00:56:47.519
if you're a Hank Williams fan,
that's his birthplace and there's a beautiful

797
00:56:47.519 --> 00:56:52.400
statue of him sort of in the
center town and a museum for his him,

798
00:56:52.440 --> 00:56:58.440
and there's also the uh it's and
this is I'm I'm mispronouncing it.

799
00:56:58.519 --> 00:57:02.920
I'm not calling it what it is. It's the National Memorial for Peace and

800
00:57:04.079 --> 00:57:07.360
Justice, which sounds very vague,
but that's it's really, it's really the

801
00:57:07.480 --> 00:57:12.320
Lynching Museum, and it's it's moving, but it's incredibly fascinating. It's beautiful,

802
00:57:12.559 --> 00:57:20.639
and it's kind of very sobering but
not it's exactly how America really should

803
00:57:20.679 --> 00:57:24.320
be acknowledging the past in a way
that isn't an accusatory and scream me and

804
00:57:24.440 --> 00:57:30.440
yelling, and you know, marching
the streets sober, thoughtful and beautiful,

805
00:57:30.480 --> 00:57:35.000
physically beautiful. And Montgomery is a
beautiful town and it's really worth visiting.

806
00:57:35.079 --> 00:57:37.199
So I would mean I would go
for Paul right, I'd go for Paul

807
00:57:37.239 --> 00:57:42.760
Ray, stay for Hank Williams,
and for the Ricochet meet up. And

808
00:57:42.760 --> 00:57:45.320
that's August twenty eight, and those
are the meetups we have for till the

809
00:57:45.440 --> 00:57:49.119
end of the summer, and they'll
be more in the autumn. If these

810
00:57:49.519 --> 00:57:53.519
appeal to you, please show up
and join and say hi if they if

811
00:57:53.559 --> 00:57:57.039
the idea feels for you. But
that's the wrong time, the wrong place.

812
00:57:57.440 --> 00:57:59.599
Here's what you do. You join
Ricochet, You post something out the

813
00:57:59.599 --> 00:58:02.719
member of you say hey how about
here and and then and people will show

814
00:58:02.800 --> 00:58:07.320
up because Ricochet members will show up. Oh yeah, it's like adding water

815
00:58:07.400 --> 00:58:12.159
to see monkey powder. They just
need go, you know exactly. We're

816
00:58:12.199 --> 00:58:14.760
going back and forth on Slack a
little bit about the apocalypse thing here,

817
00:58:14.840 --> 00:58:19.639
and Stephen said we're hardwired for apocalypse
and Perry, who's behind the boards was

818
00:58:19.679 --> 00:58:23.880
saying, apocalypse makes us feel instantly
interesting and leaves responsibility win win. That's

819
00:58:23.920 --> 00:58:27.920
true. We we do love this
and it brought to mind, I mean

820
00:58:28.599 --> 00:58:32.280
hardwired for it could be just being
chased by saber tooth tigers and Willy mammliss

821
00:58:32.320 --> 00:58:35.519
and the rest of it, and
just right thinking that's the end of the

822
00:58:35.519 --> 00:58:38.199
world. It's built into us.
But I saw Oppenheimer and I'm not gonna

823
00:58:38.199 --> 00:58:42.719
give you review, so it's it's
a it's a good, solid, impressive

824
00:58:42.760 --> 00:58:45.920
piece of cinema. I think the
fifth hour drags a little, but the

825
00:58:46.000 --> 00:58:52.280
people man and Api and he was
a communist, he was he was a

826
00:58:52.320 --> 00:58:55.239
comm Sorry, but it's it's it's
what I think. I was one of

827
00:58:55.239 --> 00:58:59.920
the few people in the movie theater. And I don't say this to buff

828
00:59:00.039 --> 00:59:02.960
myself up, but you probably agree. It's like, yes, Edward Teller,

829
00:59:05.960 --> 00:59:09.760
it's good old sweaty edge. But
at the end of it, we're

830
00:59:09.760 --> 00:59:14.519
supposed to walk out of that movie
feeling horrible and feeling miserable and all the

831
00:59:14.599 --> 00:59:20.920
rest of it. But the apocalypse
that it prefigures is not with us yet.

832
00:59:21.119 --> 00:59:23.119
It's not off the table. But
I did not come out of that

833
00:59:23.199 --> 00:59:30.719
movie feeling incredibly depressed because the end
scenes are imaginary, and we used that

834
00:59:30.920 --> 00:59:36.800
thing and it brought a conflict to
a close fairly quickly. So the debate

835
00:59:36.800 --> 00:59:38.480
about it has been interesting. Subsequently, they're on Twitter. A lot of

836
00:59:38.519 --> 00:59:43.039
people were complaining that for a movie
about that, it centered the white men

837
00:59:43.119 --> 00:59:45.440
and there was absolutely nothing about the
Japanese people, who the people, you

838
00:59:45.519 --> 00:59:51.960
know, the people who who became
apparently a put upon ethnic minority in the

839
00:59:52.039 --> 00:59:55.400
context of the Oppenheimer movie. There's
story if I can interrupt James there.

840
00:59:55.440 --> 01:00:00.360
The last complaint yesterday in Nature magazine
is not enough of the women men who

841
01:00:00.400 --> 01:00:02.440
worked at Los Alamos are depicted in
the film, So you know we're getting

842
01:00:02.440 --> 01:00:07.679
we're getting the whole spectrum. Okay, yeah, all right, well good,

843
01:00:07.400 --> 01:00:13.159
so I brought that up. Only
I guess that this is going to

844
01:00:13.199 --> 01:00:15.079
stand as a fascinating rob you can
get into this here because you're a writer

845
01:00:15.199 --> 01:00:17.719
and you guys are in strike,
right, is that this is going to

846
01:00:17.760 --> 01:00:21.960
stand as an interesting summer with two
cultural bookends, the likes of which I

847
01:00:22.000 --> 01:00:24.000
don't think we've seen it. Which
the culture actually the over culture of the

848
01:00:24.000 --> 01:00:31.639
pop culture. Everybody made a point
of binding together Barbie and Oppenheimer. There's

849
01:00:31.719 --> 01:00:36.719
no better way to book and the
culture. And it's and it's great because

850
01:00:37.079 --> 01:00:39.840
the Barbie movies we talked about last
week is not a stupid, vacuous,

851
01:00:40.000 --> 01:00:44.239
vapid movie is if you want it
to be, but it isn't. So

852
01:00:44.840 --> 01:00:47.920
this is a really interesting cultural moment
that I think is pretty interesting and and

853
01:00:49.559 --> 01:00:52.280
good and salutory. I just don't
have the perspective that people will have in

854
01:00:52.320 --> 01:00:55.679
twenty forty three to tell me how
it all turned out. So that's my

855
01:00:55.760 --> 01:00:59.039
statement, sticking to it. Don't
even know what I said. Rob.

856
01:00:59.199 --> 01:01:02.079
You may nor what I said and
go on something completely different, or restate

857
01:01:02.159 --> 01:01:05.760
my point and make it as your
own. No I will. I would

858
01:01:05.800 --> 01:01:08.800
like to do the last the ladder
U. I would just say that they

859
01:01:08.840 --> 01:01:14.559
you know, I'm you know,
everybody's wondering about media. What happens,

860
01:01:14.599 --> 01:01:15.880
what happens? What happens? What
happens is it all gets busted up.

861
01:01:16.880 --> 01:01:21.360
It always is, and then you
know, and then the companies, the

862
01:01:21.400 --> 01:01:23.159
big companies kind of you know,
they have to break themselves up and get

863
01:01:23.280 --> 01:01:27.000
spot and sold and to be some
corporate sharks coming in M and A.

864
01:01:27.679 --> 01:01:30.320
But what happens is not going to
change the business. People like movies,

865
01:01:30.360 --> 01:01:31.480
and I like TV shows. They
want to laugh, they want to enjoy,

866
01:01:31.559 --> 01:01:35.639
they want to get They like stories. Right, So everybody who writes

867
01:01:35.679 --> 01:01:38.280
stories or acts and stories is gonna
be fine. The people who are investing

868
01:01:38.320 --> 01:01:43.280
in these companies are probably not going
to be as fine, which is okay.

869
01:01:43.440 --> 01:01:47.559
That's called capitalism. That's perfectly legitimate. I would just say, if

870
01:01:47.599 --> 01:01:52.719
I were giving advice to studio heads
and media investors, which I attempt to

871
01:01:52.760 --> 01:01:55.039
do all the time, and they
never listen because they're stupid, they should

872
01:01:55.079 --> 01:01:59.079
listen to me, I would just
ask them to cast their minds back the

873
01:01:59.199 --> 01:02:01.480
Summer's path. Now, I'm sure
Barney is a great movie, and I'm

874
01:02:01.480 --> 01:02:06.320
sure Openheim is a great movie.
I can't probably, but in the Summer's

875
01:02:06.360 --> 01:02:07.760
past, I mean, I write
comedy, so I focus on that.

876
01:02:08.519 --> 01:02:14.000
I remember two or three or four
or ten comedies coming out one every weekend

877
01:02:14.719 --> 01:02:19.280
Loud Noisy, Adam Sandler, Ben
Stiller, John Canny, John Canty.

878
01:02:19.360 --> 01:02:22.840
Yeah, that was like really well, but like you know, Will Ferrell,

879
01:02:22.960 --> 01:02:25.559
Anchorman. I mean, the summer
had these big, fat, funny

880
01:02:25.639 --> 01:02:29.840
comedies and they you would go and
you'd lap and they were crazy. I

881
01:02:29.840 --> 01:02:32.400
remember seeing Anchorman and thinking this is
this, well, this doesn't make any

882
01:02:32.440 --> 01:02:37.800
sense, and it was hilarious.
I remember seeing Zoolander in a crowded theater

883
01:02:37.239 --> 01:02:44.920
and there's this ridiculous these models,
these male models are like dancing around a

884
01:02:45.079 --> 01:02:49.559
gas station having a water fight with
gasoline. It's so crazy and it's hilarious.

885
01:02:50.280 --> 01:02:55.480
And where's that comedy? Where are
those you're sitting in Hollywood? Yeah,

886
01:02:55.559 --> 01:03:01.519
if you're either for comedy. Yeah, Well, although I think you

887
01:03:01.559 --> 01:03:05.519
guys haven't seen either movie yet?
Is that? Am I correct in that

888
01:03:05.639 --> 01:03:07.840
I have? I've seen them both. Okay, well i've seen them both

889
01:03:07.880 --> 01:03:12.760
too, James So, and I
think that I think a lot of Barbie's

890
01:03:12.760 --> 01:03:15.079
got some really funny stuff in it. Now it's not passed as a comedy,

891
01:03:15.119 --> 01:03:17.519
it's it's a whole lot of things. I do think that a lot

892
01:03:17.559 --> 01:03:22.440
of people on our team have overreacted
to Barbie in the way the patriarchy is

893
01:03:22.480 --> 01:03:27.360
overdone, in the same way that
the left can't get Blazing Saddles, right,

894
01:03:28.480 --> 01:03:32.000
I think they can't get it today. Back then, back then,

895
01:03:32.599 --> 01:03:35.800
when I went there as a liberal
kid in high school, I thought it

896
01:03:35.840 --> 01:03:39.840
was the funniest thing I've ever seen
because it freed a liberal approach to culture

897
01:03:39.960 --> 01:03:45.840
and humor and everything else, freed
us all from the old strictures of racism

898
01:03:45.039 --> 01:03:47.719
and the rest of it, and
we could enjoy it for what it was,

899
01:03:49.119 --> 01:03:52.000
for all the times it had poked
a thumb right in the front.

900
01:03:52.159 --> 01:03:55.039
But now produce it down to identity
politics, it's completely forbidden. Yeah,

901
01:03:55.079 --> 01:03:59.400
well I think, I mean it's
longo is body change the whole thing.

902
01:03:59.840 --> 01:04:03.519
I mean, I thought the whole
patriarchy business in Barbie was so over the

903
01:04:03.599 --> 01:04:08.159
top that you had to realize it
was mostly satire and couldn't take it seriously.

904
01:04:08.280 --> 01:04:12.840
But on Oppenheimer, so a quick
story. I was at the Reagan

905
01:04:12.960 --> 01:04:15.039
Library for a long conference about Reagan
last weekend, and one of the panels

906
01:04:15.119 --> 01:04:18.719
was about the day after remember that
thing on ABC? You know, right,

907
01:04:19.079 --> 01:04:23.400
you know that that had like,
you know, super Bowl level of

908
01:04:23.519 --> 01:04:26.559
viewership. Oh my god, it
was a big political problem. And boy,

909
01:04:26.599 --> 01:04:28.800
if you see it today, you
can find clips on YouTube. It's

910
01:04:28.840 --> 01:04:31.800
really clunky. I think Oppenheimer was
less apocalyptic. I mean, yeah,

911
01:04:31.880 --> 01:04:34.559
it's implied here it has to be
with nuclear weapons, I think, James,

912
01:04:34.679 --> 01:04:38.920
but it's a little more open ended. And that brings me back to

913
01:04:39.039 --> 01:04:42.800
just one point about the apocalypse,
and I'll shut up. Which is the

914
01:04:42.920 --> 01:04:46.639
problem with the modern and I'll put
it this way secular apocalypse is they lack

915
01:04:46.920 --> 01:04:51.519
the hope you have in the end
times of any major religion, right,

916
01:04:51.760 --> 01:04:57.239
the apocalypse in the Bible and another
faiths is always hopeful, it's going to

917
01:04:57.280 --> 01:05:00.039
be the redemption of the earth and
the redemption of humanity. The environmental apocalypse

918
01:05:00.119 --> 01:05:05.719
from the beginning has always been hopeless. Uh. And you know that's why

919
01:05:05.719 --> 01:05:11.000
I think it ultimately doesn't work.
They don't offer any kind of redemption or

920
01:05:11.039 --> 01:05:15.760
hopefully the redemption comes from saving the
earth. The redemption comes in becoming selfless

921
01:05:16.159 --> 01:05:21.039
christ like figures who are willing to
expire so that an undistribed, verdant paradise

922
01:05:21.079 --> 01:05:26.320
can spread and and and and sustain. And that's why sustainability is again.

923
01:05:26.400 --> 01:05:30.599
Sustainability is the version of being saved, is the version of entering grace.

924
01:05:30.280 --> 01:05:32.840
It has all the same terms,
it has all the same satisfactions, but

925
01:05:32.960 --> 01:05:38.119
it has none of the transcendent human
moral emotional qualities that we ascribed with the

926
01:05:38.159 --> 01:05:43.679
great religions. It's just it's paganism
with the with the with the self hatred

927
01:05:43.719 --> 01:05:45.480
of humanity, build baked right into
it. And I say, it's spinach

928
01:05:45.519 --> 01:05:51.000
into hell with it. I would
just like to the one of the one

929
01:05:51.000 --> 01:05:55.480
of the most important or meaningful books
to me that I read long, long

930
01:05:55.519 --> 01:06:00.480
time ago is by Paul Fussell,
who one of them class and anyone wonderful

931
01:06:00.519 --> 01:06:05.280
book essays called Thank God for the
Adam Bomb. And I was looking for

932
01:06:05.480 --> 01:06:11.559
it, and I was trilloking for
this one quotation because he talks about people

933
01:06:11.920 --> 01:06:15.280
having second guessing the dropping of the
Adam bomb, and he talks about John

934
01:06:15.320 --> 01:06:17.000
Kenneth gall Brith, who at the
time was the wartime economist, and he

935
01:06:17.119 --> 01:06:21.880
was persuaded the Japanese would have surrendered
surely by November without an invasion, and

936
01:06:21.960 --> 01:06:27.119
so the A bombs were unnecessary,
unjustified because the war was ending anyway.

937
01:06:28.360 --> 01:06:30.119
It meant, you know, at
most two or three weeks. Of course,

938
01:06:30.159 --> 01:06:31.880
there was no indication that we're gonna
do that at the time. And

939
01:06:31.960 --> 01:06:35.719
of course ALEC casually was running over
seven thousand per week, so two or

940
01:06:35.760 --> 01:06:40.599
three weeks is fourteen thousand, and
this is this is, this is,

941
01:06:40.760 --> 01:06:43.599
this is one of his big paragraphs
that I remember reading when I was I

942
01:06:43.639 --> 01:06:47.039
think twenty or twenty one. Two
weeks more means fourteen thousand more killed or

943
01:06:47.079 --> 01:06:50.559
wounded. Three weeks more twenty one
thousand. Those weeks mean the world if

944
01:06:50.559 --> 01:06:54.239
you're one of those thousands are related
to one of them. During the time

945
01:06:54.239 --> 01:06:57.719
between the dropping of Nagasaki bomb on
August nine and the actual surrender on the

946
01:06:57.800 --> 01:07:00.840
fifteenth, the war pursued it a
customed course. On the twelfth of August

947
01:07:00.920 --> 01:07:05.199
eight captured American flyers were executed,
their heads were chopped off. Fifty first

948
01:07:05.320 --> 01:07:11.480
United the fifty first United States submarine
Bonefish was sunk and all the board drowned.

949
01:07:11.760 --> 01:07:15.119
The destroy at Callahan went down the
seventieth to be sunk, and the

950
01:07:15.199 --> 01:07:18.280
destroy Escort Underhill was lost. That's
a bit of what happened in the six

951
01:07:18.400 --> 01:07:23.639
days of the two or three weeks
posited by Gaulberg is what we should have

952
01:07:23.679 --> 01:07:27.199
been waiting. What did he do
during the war. He worked in the

953
01:07:27.280 --> 01:07:31.239
Office of Price Administration in Washington.
I don't demand that he was experienced,

954
01:07:31.320 --> 01:07:35.639
that he experienced having his ass shot
off. I merely note that he didn't.

955
01:07:36.159 --> 01:07:40.880
And because Fussle was at that point
training on Iwuijima for the invasion of

956
01:07:41.440 --> 01:07:46.159
the mainland. My father was a
Navy air flyer operating out of the Philippines

957
01:07:46.519 --> 01:07:50.840
at in July and August of nineteen
forty five, and he's a flyer of

958
01:07:50.880 --> 01:07:55.000
the whole war, mostly out of
Australia and the other islands. And he

959
01:07:55.199 --> 01:08:00.920
said the last six weeks of air
operations were the big losses of the entire

960
01:08:00.000 --> 01:08:04.719
war. Lost almost half a squadron. You know, they had not stop

961
01:08:04.880 --> 01:08:08.880
fighting, right, and we forget
all that. Yeah, yeah, No,

962
01:08:09.039 --> 01:08:11.599
my dad was on that ship in
the Pacific as well, headed there

963
01:08:11.840 --> 01:08:15.480
to fight. Uh. He was
machinist made but a battlestation with manning a

964
01:08:15.519 --> 01:08:18.319
gun on the deck. So yeah, my daughter and I were having this

965
01:08:18.399 --> 01:08:21.600
conversation and she was just I mean, she was not she was just exploring

966
01:08:23.439 --> 01:08:26.479
morality of the whole thing, as
one does when one is young, and

967
01:08:26.520 --> 01:08:29.079
I just had to pull you know, the unfair mard. Well, you're

968
01:08:29.680 --> 01:08:32.760
you're here, probably because it happened, ye would, But in a sense

969
01:08:32.840 --> 01:08:35.079
it's not unfair because it's a choice
that we all have to make. We

970
01:08:35.199 --> 01:08:42.359
all have to say, would I
sacrifice my existence for this? For object

971
01:08:42.479 --> 01:08:46.680
X for historical act X for this
thing you know before you know, as

972
01:08:46.800 --> 01:08:50.920
as as the quote that Bjorn had
more you know, the problem is me

973
01:08:51.359 --> 01:08:56.039
more of me, but less of
you. However, we want more of

974
01:08:56.239 --> 01:09:00.520
you, and we want more of
you to go to app will give us

975
01:09:00.560 --> 01:09:02.560
five stars, and we want all
of you to come to Ricochet very soon

976
01:09:02.600 --> 01:09:05.640
and see what five point always going
to be a liking. For those of

977
01:09:05.680 --> 01:09:09.159
you who are saying I am sorry, I don't get it, you got

978
01:09:09.199 --> 01:09:13.720
it. Nailed it perfectly with four
point Oh did these perfection itself? Who's

979
01:09:13.760 --> 01:09:17.399
saying that? I know? Well, they like to invest the usable straw

980
01:09:17.439 --> 01:09:20.560
man that I invent for such things. Just that it was a person that

981
01:09:20.600 --> 01:09:23.920
I was arguing with in the shower
and I won that this morning too.

982
01:09:23.960 --> 01:09:26.600
So that same person is now saying, how can Ricochet get any better?

983
01:09:26.680 --> 01:09:29.920
Well, just you wait, show
up and you'll see it. Ricochet five

984
01:09:29.960 --> 01:09:31.760
point oh. Stephen, great as
ever, Rob great as ever. We

985
01:09:31.880 --> 01:09:34.560
thank our guest, and we thank
you for listening, and we'll see everybody

986
01:09:34.600 --> 01:09:40.199
in the comment, said Ricochet.
Four for now point no next week,

987
01:09:40.640 --> 01:09:46.840
next time, Hi, guys,
Ricochet, join the conversation