Speaker 1: I know that if we don't do this, we're flirting
Speaker 1: with disaster. But what I really think we should focus
Speaker 1: on is we can build the most beautiful future that
Speaker 1: anyone can imagine too. Yeah, of course we're trying to
Speaker 1: avoid this huge problem, but really what we're trying to
Speaker 1: do is build this incredible future better than anybody's ever lived,
Speaker 1: than humans have ever had it in the history of
Speaker 1: the planet. That's what we're really trying to create is
Speaker 1: a fantastic future.
Speaker 2: Oh fucked.
Speaker 1: Hi.
Speaker 3: I'm Chris Turney and this is I'm Fucking the Future,
Speaker 3: a show about a climate crisis and what we can
Speaker 3: do about it. The future can sometimes seem bleak, so
Speaker 3: every episode we'll talk to someone with a big idea
Speaker 3: for turning things around. I believe it. Together, we really
Speaker 3: can on fuck this. Let's get started.
Speaker 2: We fucking the future.
Speaker 3: There are a lot of ways you can fight global heating.
Speaker 3: You can eat less meat, you can drive an electric car,
Speaker 3: or you can try to become president of the United States.
Speaker 3: That's what our guest today decides to do. His name
Speaker 3: is Tom Steyer.
Speaker 1: Here.
Speaker 3: He is one of the Democratic primary debates Back in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty.
Speaker 4: Rachel I'm the only person on this stage who will
Speaker 4: say that climate is the number one priority for me.
Speaker 4: Vice President Biden wrong say it. Senator Warren won't say it.
Speaker 4: It's a state of emergency, and I would declare a
Speaker 4: state of emergency on day one. I've spent a decade
Speaker 4: fighting and beating oil companies, stopping pipelines, stopping fossil fuel plants,
Speaker 4: ensuring clean energy across the country.
Speaker 1: I know that we have to do this. I also
Speaker 1: know that we can do this.
Speaker 3: Tom doesn't fit a profile of your typical climate activists,
Speaker 3: because Tom is a wildly successful businessman who made his
Speaker 3: fortune in part by investing in fossil fuel companies. Here's
Speaker 3: Tom on CNN talking about his time in the private sector.
Speaker 1: Our company invested in every part of the American economy,
Speaker 1: including oil and gas and coal, and I realized as
Speaker 1: we were doing it, I basically thought, the American government works.
Speaker 1: If there's a big problem, the American government will solve it.
Speaker 1: And somewhere around fourteen or fifteen years ago, I thought,
Speaker 1: this doesn't seem to be working. There's this huge, unintended
Speaker 1: consequence of having a fossil fuel economy, which is climate
Speaker 1: change and I started to do whatever I could to
Speaker 1: try and solve this problem.
Speaker 3: Then the climate crisis is a direct result of industrialization
Speaker 3: of runaway business development. But Tom has come to believe
Speaker 3: that one way we can fight against global heating is
Speaker 3: through the power of business and industry. In twenty twenty one,
Speaker 3: Tom founded Galvanized Climate Solutions. It's a financial firm but
Speaker 3: only invests in companies making a positive climate impact. How
Speaker 3: did Tom go from fossil fuel investor to climate advocate,
Speaker 3: I asked him. So, I think a lot of people
Speaker 3: are having their are harr moment, that oh fuck climate
Speaker 3: change is real moment for me. I remember I was
Speaker 3: a nerdy teenager. It was back in nineteen eighty seven
Speaker 3: at the weather station and a hurricane hit London, and
Speaker 3: just a year later British Prime Minister Margret Factor was
Speaker 3: given these powerful speeches about climate change and we're going
Speaker 3: to do something about it. So what is your aha,
Speaker 3: oh fuck moment?
Speaker 1: Basically I had spent a summer when I was twenty
Speaker 1: four up in Alaska. I had an office job, but
Speaker 1: I basically spent every weekend out in the woods, climbing, fishing, canoeing,
Speaker 1: everything I could think of to get as far deep
Speaker 1: into the woods as I could. Incredible summer. And then
Speaker 1: I went back with my family, including four kids, to
Speaker 1: give them the same appreciation that i'd have show them
Speaker 1: how incredibly fertile and wild America was, you know, the
Speaker 1: huge fish, the incredible animals, the birds, just how incredibly
Speaker 1: rich the country is. And basically we got up there
Speaker 1: and we did see that, But what we also saw
Speaker 1: inescapably was well, this place is melting.
Speaker 3: Okay, let's pause here for a segment we like to
Speaker 3: call holy fuck.
Speaker 1: Fuck.
Speaker 3: When Tom says for Alaska is melting, he means literally melting.
Speaker 3: The average temperature across Alaska has increased by up to
Speaker 3: six degrees fahrenheit over the last forty years. That's more
Speaker 3: than three times for warming of the rest of the country.
Speaker 3: This has led to a dramatic melting of glacier across
Speaker 3: the state. It's a trend that's set to continue, with
Speaker 3: at least half of Alaska's remaining ice expected to disappear
Speaker 3: in the coming years. This matters for two reasons. First,
Speaker 3: the melting of glaciers in Alaska and across the Arctic
Speaker 3: are one of the biggest causes of rising sea levels today. Second,
Speaker 3: this heating is also melting Arctic sea ice, which you
Speaker 3: can think of as a world's air conditioner. This is
Speaker 3: a thin layer of the Earth's surface that's totally frozen,
Speaker 3: and since sea ice is mostly white, it reflects sunlight,
Speaker 3: which pushes at heat off the Earth's surface and back
Speaker 3: into space. And if that ice isn't there, then the
Speaker 3: sunlight gets absorbed into the ocean, warming the waters and
Speaker 3: melting more ice. It's a vicious cycle, and it's one
Speaker 3: of those facts that just stops in your tracks and
Speaker 3: makes you say, holy fuck.
Speaker 1: Fuck.
Speaker 3: Okay, back to Tom, seeing all this change in Alaska change,
Speaker 3: what was happening so fast, was shocking to him.
Speaker 1: And you know, we had as a family, both my
Speaker 1: wife's side of the family and my side of the family,
Speaker 1: hundreds of years of going into the woods in North America.
Speaker 1: And so it wasn't like going to Disneyland. It was
Speaker 1: going to this place that Americans have gone, well Native
Speaker 1: Americans for thousands of years and immigrants like us for
Speaker 1: hundreds of years to find meaning and spirituality and beauty
Speaker 1: and incredible natural wealth.
Speaker 3: Tom saw how in just one generation, so much of
Speaker 3: Alaska's landscape had changed, and like a lot of people,
Speaker 3: Tom at first looked to the government to solve a
Speaker 3: climate crisis. He supported politicians and causes that were pro climate,
Speaker 3: and eventually he took a stab at running for office himself.
Speaker 3: Tom's presidential platform was heavily focused on climate action. Here's
Speaker 3: one of his ads.
Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Tom Steyer. I'm running for president, and I'm
Speaker 1: committed to creating a sustainable future for all Americans. Our
Speaker 1: planet is at a crossroads. Wildfires are taking lives and
Speaker 1: destroying communities. Prolonged heat waves and extreme storms are putting
Speaker 1: the vulnerable at risk. We can't continue to deny science
Speaker 1: and roll back environmental protections. We must treat the climate
Speaker 1: crisis with the urgency it demands. That's why, on day
Speaker 1: one of my presidency, I will declare the climate crisis
Speaker 1: a National Emergency.
Speaker 3: Tom helped make climate a more central focus in the election,
Speaker 3: but ultimately he didn't manage to win the presidency, and
Speaker 3: so he decides to shift gears. Tom had spent a
Speaker 3: lot of time trying to convince people that fighting the
Speaker 3: climate crisis was for riving to do, but he thought,
Speaker 3: what if he could appeal to people more pragmatic interests.
Speaker 3: What if doing the right thing for the climate was
Speaker 3: also the right thing for their bank accounts. It's an
Speaker 3: idea Tom calls movement capitalism.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, capitalism scales, profitability scales. It's somewhat cynical
Speaker 1: of me to say, but unfortunately, I think it's realistic
Speaker 1: for me to also say altruism doesn't scale.
Speaker 3: Right, or it scales less. I mean, we see more
Speaker 3: and more consumers choosing to buy from climate conscious companies,
Speaker 3: but it's not moving a needle in the way that
Speaker 3: would incentivize other companies to do the same.
Speaker 1: Right, we need to have these changes be profitable so
Speaker 1: that people can make the decisions in their own self interest.
Speaker 1: And so it's not that I think capitalism is by
Speaker 1: definition good, it's capitalism can be good. Capitalism is basically,
Speaker 1: we're going to produce what you want, so you pay
Speaker 1: us money. That's capitalism. Like, you tell us what you
Speaker 1: want and we'll produce it if you'll pay us for it. Okay,
Speaker 1: And the idea is okay, So my self interest is
Speaker 1: to produce something you want yours. You're just going to
Speaker 1: get whatever you want, you tell me, and I'll make it.
Speaker 1: And so in this if society decides we need to
Speaker 1: do things that take into account the cost of pollution,
Speaker 1: then we're just going to say we're going to produce
Speaker 1: all the things you want, but we're not going to pollute.
Speaker 1: And if you think about it, there's nothing wrong with oil.
Speaker 1: Oil is this incredibly powerful energy source. People did it
Speaker 1: as a way of moving cars, moving ships, moving planes.
Speaker 1: They weren't trying to destroy the world. They were basically
Speaker 1: giving people exactly what they wanted energy. It just turned
Speaker 1: out there was this unintended consequence that in burning the
Speaker 1: oil and burning the natural gas and burning the coal,
Speaker 1: we were going to basically heat up the planet in
Speaker 1: a way that was going to cause all kinds of
Speaker 1: problems for human beings and all the other eight million
Speaker 1: species on the planet Earth. And so all we're saying is, okay,
Speaker 1: let's give people what they really want, which is all
Speaker 1: of that capability for them to move around and to
Speaker 1: fuel the things that they like in a way that
Speaker 1: doesn't have this unintended consequence that basically burns clean And
Speaker 1: if we can do that, then we're basically producing what
Speaker 1: people want. And for that to really happen in a
Speaker 1: big way, then we need to build big businesses that
Speaker 1: hire people and paying them competitive wages and really give
Speaker 1: an incentive for this thing to grow.
Speaker 2: Weird fucking the future. Weird fucking the future.
Speaker 3: For years, a big obstacle in getting people to switch
Speaker 3: to renewable energy sources was cost. Solar and wind was
Speaker 3: just too expensive compared to oil and coal. But in
Speaker 3: the past few years that's all changed. Clean energy is
Speaker 3: now far cheaper than fossil fuels. Fa'st creates a lot
Speaker 3: of demand, and that in turn is to an explosion
Speaker 3: of investment by the private sector. It's one example of
Speaker 3: a positive alignment of business interests and climate interests.
Speaker 1: Well, a ton of things have changed in terms of
Speaker 1: making it possible for the private sector and step up.
Speaker 1: If you just look at the amount of money that's
Speaker 1: being invested in climate solutions, that's being invested in clean
Speaker 1: energy versus fossil fuel for the first time. Last year,
Speaker 1: I think more money was invested in clean energy to
Speaker 1: possi fuels. So there's no question that relatively the private
Speaker 1: sector is stepping up. I think the costs have crossed
Speaker 1: in terms of electricity generation, whether it be solar or
Speaker 1: wind or batteries. I think the costs of evs electrical vehicles, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: are going to be a lot lower, both in terms
Speaker 1: of how much it cost to buy, but how much
Speaker 1: it cost to maintained much it cost to fill up
Speaker 1: than internal combustion engines. You know, we're seeing really the
Speaker 1: tipping points in multiple technologies where basically you're not asking
Speaker 1: someone to make a sacrifice, that we're in this place
Speaker 1: where it's like, this is just the smart thing to do.
Speaker 1: And you know, as we see that those really rapid
Speaker 1: adoptions around the world, we're going to see that be
Speaker 1: the dominant technologies and that really we're going to see
Speaker 1: the end of the fossil fuel layer.
Speaker 3: Oh no, I can't wait for that. I mean, that's
Speaker 3: just an amazing headline, isn't it. The amount of investment
Speaker 3: in this space is extraordinary, and just seeing the changing costs.
Speaker 3: But why things got so much cheaper, Tom, I mean,
Speaker 3: what's actually driving out change?
Speaker 1: If you think about when I first went to work
Speaker 1: forty years ago, the computer that would fill a room
Speaker 1: now would have a tiny fraction of the capability of
Speaker 1: your iPhone because that multiplication of capabilities every single year.
Speaker 1: And so we see that kind of technological advancement, which
Speaker 1: is increasing productivity and reduced cost in every one of
Speaker 1: these technologies, whether it's solar or wind, or batteries or evs. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, in solar, I think the way that people
Speaker 1: think about it is that every doubling of solar capacity
Speaker 1: in the world leads to a twenty four percent drop
Speaker 1: in price for the equivalent amount of energy. So as
Speaker 1: that goes on, it's like it just goes down inexorably.
Speaker 1: And so if you're selling oil and gas, like there's
Speaker 1: no doubt next year your competitor is going to be
Speaker 1: a lot cheaper, and the year after that, by the way,
Speaker 1: they're going to be a lot cheaper.
Speaker 3: A game change, isn't it.
Speaker 1: And so that's not true of fossil fuels. You know,
Speaker 1: fossil fue mules become harder to find, more remote, more
Speaker 1: difficult to reach. The price of oil has gone up
Speaker 1: about two percent a year, you know, forever. So in fact,
Speaker 1: you've got one technology that's going up very gradually but continuously,
Speaker 1: and one that's going down very steeply. If you look
Speaker 1: at the cost of a kilowatt hour of energy, and
Speaker 1: whether you look at coal or natural gas or wind
Speaker 1: or solar wind and solar by farther too.
Speaker 3: Cheapness, fast, incredible change for world, and you see it happen.
Speaker 3: This speed is scale, that's just amazing.
Speaker 1: You know, China is the biggest car market in the world.
Speaker 1: China is scheduled to have eighty percent car sales be
Speaker 1: evs by twenty thirty. Eighty percent eight zero percent. Those
Speaker 1: cars do not need to fill up. So when this happens,
Speaker 1: Once the sales move like that, then the percentages of
Speaker 1: the fleet just in egg changed and you can see
Speaker 1: the end of the fossil fuel era.
Speaker 3: We're already seeing this happening around the world. Here's a
Speaker 3: news clip from a recent cast show in China.
Speaker 5: Foreign automakers, including American brands, are now playing attention to
Speaker 5: Chinese players like bud It's number one in China and
Speaker 5: the competition is now so intense it sparked an EV
Speaker 5: price war. Here.
Speaker 3: From a climate perspective, an EV price war is exactly
Speaker 3: what we want to see. As EV's become more affordable
Speaker 3: to buy, it incentivizes consumers to buy greener cars, which
Speaker 3: in turn incentivizes companies to build more and better electric vehicles.
Speaker 3: It's the power of capitalism.
Speaker 1: I drive electric Mustang and so you know, did I
Speaker 1: buy it because I wanted to have no emissions? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I really only considered an electric car last time time
Speaker 1: before I a plug in hybrid. But honestly, it has
Speaker 1: amazing pickup. It has way better pickup than any car
Speaker 1: I've ever done drive. I mean, it's like being in
Speaker 1: a rocket, you know. I think we're going to see
Speaker 1: this is going to enable a lot of things where
Speaker 1: you go. It's not just that we have clean air,
Speaker 1: safe water, normal temperatures, normal seasons. It's also a great ribe.
Speaker 3: In twenty twenty one, Tom took this concept of movement
Speaker 3: capitalism a step further. He found in a business called
Speaker 3: Galvanized Climate Solutions. It's an investment firm with two goals.
Speaker 3: Make a positive climate impact and make investors a lot
Speaker 3: of money. So you're helping investors find those opportunities, those
Speaker 3: amazing opportunities to decarbonize economy, builviss and our cities, our communities.
Speaker 3: But I'm curioused to know are they really aware of
Speaker 3: what they're doing? I mean, are the investors aware of
Speaker 3: the rest of economic system if they don't take action
Speaker 3: on global heating and is that a motivator for them.
Speaker 1: So I think that our investor have two motivations. One
Speaker 1: is they want to get and we must deliver good returns.
Speaker 1: Market returns are better. Our goal is to have the
Speaker 1: highest returns in the world. And we believe that the
Speaker 1: need for this change is a really huge demand generator
Speaker 1: revenue generator for these businesses. But I think everybody who's
Speaker 1: investing explicitly in galvanized climate solutions knows we will only
Speaker 1: invest in things that have positive climate impact.
Speaker 3: So what kind of investments can actually have a positive
Speaker 3: climate impact. We're going to spend a few minutes talking
Speaker 3: about free areas where Toms's opportunity, real estate, information technology,
Speaker 3: and something called sequestration. Let's start with the first one,
Speaker 3: real estate. How can investing in real estate have a
Speaker 3: climate impact?
Speaker 1: We're doing a fund to do net zero real estate
Speaker 1: and basically what is mean? That means generating electricity differently
Speaker 1: reskinning the building using heat pumps, and to do this
Speaker 1: in a way that gets better returns. And why is
Speaker 1: it important to do this? Eighty percent of the buildings
Speaker 1: in the US that exist right now will still be
Speaker 1: in use in twenty fifty.
Speaker 3: Those buildings are carbon super producers. A lot of the
Speaker 3: infrastructure around us today was built at a time when
Speaker 3: sustainable architecture wasn't at the top of people's minds. The
Speaker 3: result is pretty astounding. Across the world, buildings makeup as
Speaker 3: staggering thirty nine percent of all greenhouse gas emissions thirty
Speaker 3: nine percent. Most of that comes from what we do
Speaker 3: in those buildings, think heating and cooling the units we
Speaker 3: live and work in. So yes, some of it is
Speaker 3: due to how much energy we used to build them,
Speaker 3: but these emissions could be greatly reduced if we made
Speaker 3: small changes to how we run them. So all of
Speaker 3: that is to say, of these buildings are powered matters
Speaker 3: a lot in our fights to combat the climate crisis.
Speaker 1: We have to reformat these buildings, and we have to
Speaker 1: do it in a way that makes the landlord's richer,
Speaker 1: because if that isn't true, they ain't going to do it.
Speaker 1: So we have to do it and prove it and
Speaker 1: develop the kind of you know, the recipe to do it,
Speaker 1: so everybody goes like wall, Chris is doing it. If
Speaker 1: Chris is doing it, I can do it.
Speaker 3: For Tom and his partners. It's not just enough to
Speaker 3: find companies that have an innovative business plan or a
Speaker 3: cool new technology, it has to be something that works
Speaker 3: in the real world. Sometimes when we imagine a green future,
Speaker 3: we think of a world in which all the old
Speaker 3: polluting technology has been wiped away and replaced with something
Speaker 3: shiny and new. But real estate is a perfect example
Speaker 3: of why that doesn't work. We can't tear down every
Speaker 3: home in the world and replace it with a most
Speaker 3: climate friendly alternative. It would take decades and cost an
Speaker 3: absolute fortune, not to mention, of course, construction itself has
Speaker 3: a climate impact.
Speaker 1: I mean, two of the things I'd say about this
Speaker 1: are one is we're not going to be able to
Speaker 1: rebuild all the industry, the industrial plants, manufacturing plants either
Speaker 1: one of the questions, and this is a real question
Speaker 1: for technology. Let's say you have a cool technology, but
Speaker 1: it means we have to rebuild every plant in the world. Okay, sorry,
Speaker 1: We're going to have to take your technology and figure
Speaker 1: out how to do it within the footprints of the
Speaker 1: existing plants in a way that makes those owners richer,
Speaker 1: because that's why they're going to do it. And you know,
Speaker 1: we're looking at some technologies which just from an efficiency standpoint,
Speaker 1: if they had no CO two impact at all, make
Speaker 1: people multiples of their money in the first year. That's
Speaker 1: what we need.
Speaker 3: That's a complete noe brainer.
Speaker 1: Isn't it. Yees. So it's like you sit here and
Speaker 1: go like, Okay, I'll do that. I'm glad it does
Speaker 1: the CO two thing, but I'm doing it for the money.
Speaker 1: That's one thing that's really true is within the footprint
Speaker 1: of the existing building or situation.
Speaker 3: Okay, let's move on to Tom's second big investment opportunity,
Speaker 3: information technology. As he sees it, one of the big
Speaker 3: challenges in creating a cleaner future is that we don't
Speaker 3: actually know how much we're actually polluting.
Speaker 1: And when we think about how we're going to solve
Speaker 1: this problem, people think about all of these gadgets, solar
Speaker 1: wind batteries, electric vehicles, things you can touch. But if
Speaker 1: you're going to manage that, you have to know the information.
Speaker 1: If you're going to change your carbon footprint, you have
Speaker 1: to know what your carbon footprint is, you have to
Speaker 1: know where it's going to come from. So I always
Speaker 1: say to people, Okay, what's the carbon footprint of my sweater?
Speaker 1: I don't know, and neither does anyone else. But until
Speaker 1: the people making the sweater know, and until I know,
Speaker 1: how are we going to change our carbon foot right?
Speaker 1: How do I not buy the sweater that's made the
Speaker 1: wrong way if I don't know how they're made. So
Speaker 1: a lot of this is going to be about information,
Speaker 1: transparency and holding people accountable to what they're doing.
Speaker 3: Do you know the climate impact of all the choices
Speaker 3: you make? Can you tell if one sweater is better
Speaker 3: for the environment than another? In most cases, the answer
Speaker 3: is probably no, And that's in part because measure the
Speaker 3: climate impact of something is a lot more complicated than
Speaker 3: you might think. It brings us to a concept known
Speaker 3: as scope free and a segment we like to call
Speaker 3: what the fuck are you talking about?
Speaker 1: What the fuck are you talking about?
Speaker 3: When businesses want to measure their environmental impact, they use
Speaker 3: something called the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. This piffy title is
Speaker 3: an international standard for how we classify where emissions are
Speaker 3: coming from, and, confusingly, these classifications are known as scopes.
Speaker 3: Scope one emissions are the direct pollution produced by a company.
Speaker 3: To stick with Tom's sweater example, imagine you run a
Speaker 3: sweater making factory. The emissions from your company vehicles transporting
Speaker 3: the sweaters are scope one Scope two emissions are created
Speaker 3: by the power your factory uses, So these are the
Speaker 3: emissions from a secondary source. The power plant that supplies
Speaker 3: your electricity is your sweater factory run by a coal
Speaker 3: powered plant or by a wind farm. And finally, scope
Speaker 3: free emissions are all the other pollution linked with a
Speaker 3: company's activities. Your sweater factory uses yarn that you bought
Speaker 3: from somewhere. How much pollution did the yarn factory create?
Speaker 3: Your employees are commuting to work each day? Are they
Speaker 3: driving bicycles or monster trucks? When you try to add
Speaker 3: all these up, enough to make your head spin. And
Speaker 3: it's why scope free emissions are the hardest to measure
Speaker 3: and why they're almost always for biggest source of emissions
Speaker 3: for a business. But if we really want to understand
Speaker 3: our climate impact, we have to be able to measure
Speaker 3: scope free emissions. And this is something that Tom can
Speaker 3: help with by investing in information technology. And that's what
Speaker 3: the fuck we're talking about? What the fuck? Okay, back
Speaker 3: to Tom. You'll be shocked to hear most businesses hate
Speaker 3: the idea of measuring scope free emissions. It shows that
Speaker 3: their products are much dirtier. But if they just measured
Speaker 3: scopes one and two.
Speaker 1: You know, the Chamber of Commerce is dramatically opposed to
Speaker 1: it would be a huge problem for companies, and I
Speaker 1: believe once people know what's going on, that's going to
Speaker 1: put immense pressure on those companies to get their emissions
Speaker 1: under control. As long as you don't know what you're doing,
Speaker 1: you have plausible deniability and you can't be expected your honor.
Speaker 1: I had no idea it was true. As soon as
Speaker 1: I found out it was true, I acted on it.
Speaker 1: So the longer I don't know it's true, the longer
Speaker 1: I have plausible deniability and you know, and no one
Speaker 1: can really come after you. So that's why the truth
Speaker 1: in this and the measurement of this is so important,
Speaker 1: because basically, people are polluting for free and they love
Speaker 1: it because, you know what, who wants to pay for
Speaker 1: their pollution? Nobody. So they're like, we've never paid for it,
Speaker 1: it's free. Why should we suddenly have to pay for
Speaker 1: our pollution just because that pollution might ruin the world.
Speaker 1: It's like, well, that seems like a pretty good reason.
Speaker 3: Given all of this, why would any business measure its
Speaker 3: scope free emissions? Simply put, the government is going to
Speaker 3: make them do it. They have are multiple laws and
Speaker 3: policies being debated as we speak that would have this effect.
Speaker 3: The big business is it's already allure in California. So
Speaker 3: if every company is suddenly required to measure their scope
Speaker 3: free emissions and you are in the technology that does
Speaker 3: for measurement, that seems like a pretty good business to me.
Speaker 3: But besides being a cool business idea, Tom thinks the
Speaker 3: environmental impact could be huge because given the choice, people
Speaker 3: prefer to buy stuff that doesn't destroy the planet.
Speaker 1: That's been polled just you know, Chris, if you go
Speaker 1: around the world, seventy six percent of consumer's claim that
Speaker 1: they would take environmentalism into account when making consumer decisions. Now,
Speaker 1: do I believe that mostly No, Most people by the
Speaker 1: cheapest best thing they can find, regardless of how it
Speaker 1: was produced. But in the United States of America, the
Speaker 1: estimate is from also detailed polling data that's something like
Speaker 1: eighteen to twenty percent the people really will take it
Speaker 1: into account? I would, but I believe if twenty percent
Speaker 1: of Americans are willing to take it into account in
Speaker 1: making their purchase decisions, that is a huge companies.
Speaker 2: We're fucking the future. We're fucking the future.
Speaker 3: That brings us to Tom's third and final investment idea
Speaker 3: for today. It's something called sequestration.
Speaker 1: One of the big verticals which is going to be
Speaker 1: a trillion dollar industry that doesn't exist right now is sequestration.
Speaker 1: And sequestration is simply somehow taking CO two or methane
Speaker 1: out of the atmosphere and somehow sequestering it or sticking
Speaker 1: at someplace where it's going to stay.
Speaker 3: Obviously, the reason we have global heating is burning a
Speaker 3: lot of dirty fossil fuels, and the emissions are floating
Speaker 3: around in our atmosphere. Sequestration companies pull the carbon out
Speaker 3: of the air and pump it underground or store it somewhere.
Speaker 3: And here's the thing, it doesn't matter where you store it,
Speaker 3: as long as that carbon is out of the atmosphere.
Speaker 3: And that's where Tom sees big opportunity.
Speaker 1: One of the points that's true about that is a
Speaker 1: ton of CO two sequestered in Kenya is worth every
Speaker 1: bit as much as a ton of two that's sequestered
Speaker 1: in Brisbane or Berlin or Iowa. And so if it
Speaker 1: can be done less expensively, in Kenya, and if the
Speaker 1: money that's paid for it is exactly the same as
Speaker 1: in any of those other three spots around the world,
Speaker 1: but that money means a lot more relative to the
Speaker 1: annual average income in Kenya than it does in Germany,
Speaker 1: Australia or the US, then that's a gigantic opportunity for
Speaker 1: the people of the world. It's a gigantic opportunity for
Speaker 1: the people of Kenya, and it's a real way to
Speaker 1: redistribute and build capability around the world and reallocate money
Speaker 1: to the tune of at least a trillion dollars year.
Speaker 3: At trillion dollars.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: So these are some of the opportunities that Tom believes
Speaker 3: are out there. We're doing the right thing for the
Speaker 3: climate can be big business.
Speaker 1: I mean, if we're producing goods and services that are cheaper, better,
Speaker 1: faster and cleaner, they're going to get adopted. I mean,
Speaker 1: for hundreds of years, new technologies have come in and
Speaker 1: replaced old technologies, and they've done it in the form
Speaker 1: of an s where that takes a long time to
Speaker 1: develop them, the costs finally change and then there's rapid
Speaker 1: adoption over a period of time. So that's happened. I mean,
Speaker 1: I doubt Chris that you've been using that much whale
Speaker 1: oil recently.
Speaker 3: No, that is true.
Speaker 1: But if private sector can prove that doing the right
Speaker 1: thing is cheaper and easy to adopt, than governments can
Speaker 1: do other things to support it and make it ubiquitous. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: So it's this interactive thing of Okay, we need to
Speaker 1: do this. How can we make it possible for the
Speaker 1: private sector to do it and to scale? Okay, now
Speaker 1: that they've proved it's cheaper and better, how do we
Speaker 1: make it not a good solution but basically ubiquitous solution,
Speaker 1: so that we just move all the way. If you
Speaker 1: miss this, you're missing the boat.
Speaker 3: It's so important for people to have that vision that's
Speaker 3: positive for the future, something that's actually really empowering.
Speaker 1: Look, I think that this is just a huge tailwind
Speaker 1: for companies that are are behind this change, and it's
Speaker 1: going to be that if you go back and look
Speaker 1: over the last ten or twenty years, people have dramatically
Speaker 1: underestimated the speed and size of this change, and they
Speaker 1: are going to continue to underestimate it.
Speaker 3: I'm completely inspired. I'm sure our listeners are too.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, Chris, Thank you very much, really enjoyed
Speaker 1: it so much fun.
Speaker 3: I have to say I didn't expect to feel so
Speaker 3: inspired by a conversation about real estate investing. But Tom
Speaker 3: is pointing a way towards something we in the environmental
Speaker 3: community we often overlook. We sometimes think about businesses and
Speaker 3: corporations as our adversaries. I mean, after all, industrialization is
Speaker 3: what has caused this climate crisis, but harnessed in the
Speaker 3: right way, these same forces can also be our partners
Speaker 3: in the fight against global heating. And the truth is,
Speaker 3: if we're going to unfucked things, we're really going to
Speaker 3: need their help. So in this episode, we've talked a
Speaker 3: lot about climate friendly investments, but what can you do
Speaker 3: if you're not a venture capitalist? To answer that question,
Speaker 3: I'd like to bring in my friend Maggie bed for
Speaker 3: a final segment this week, something we call what the
Speaker 3: fuck can I Do?
Speaker 2: What the fuck can I do?
Speaker 3: Hey, Maggie, Well, Tom Stad's interview was all about using
Speaker 3: a power of capitalism to fight global heating, but not
Speaker 3: all of us are billionaire venture capitalists, So what can
Speaker 3: we do?
Speaker 6: Well, you may not be a billionaire yet, but you
Speaker 6: might have, say a savings account, maybe you have a
Speaker 6: retirement account through your work or something, and so one
Speaker 6: thing you can do is make sure that whatever money
Speaker 6: you have, it's not going to support the burning.
Speaker 1: Of fossil fuels.
Speaker 7: It's a strategy that is known as devestment. So make
Speaker 7: sure that you don't own any stocks in fossil fuel companies,
Speaker 7: either directly or through any mutual funds or other funds
Speaker 7: you might have in a retirement account or or something similar.
Speaker 7: And there are lots of funds from big banks like
Speaker 7: Fidelity that anyone can invest in instead that are specifically
Speaker 7: pro climate. So check with your financial advisor or whomever
Speaker 7: you really trust for financial advice, but tell them that
Speaker 7: this matters to you. And lastly, make sure that your
Speaker 7: bank is climate friendly. We've put a link in the
Speaker 7: show notes to a site that has great lists of
Speaker 7: pro climate banks. Take a look and make sure your
Speaker 7: bank isn't propping up fossil fuel companies.
Speaker 3: Thanks Maggie, that is so important, isn't it.
Speaker 7: Thank you?
Speaker 3: And for everyone listening out there. That's what the fuck
Speaker 3: you can do to help?
Speaker 2: What fuck can I do?
Speaker 1: Oh? We're fucked.
Speaker 3: That's all for this episode. Next time on the Fucking
Speaker 3: the Future, psychologist, doctor Lisa van Susteren will talk to
Speaker 3: us about how climate is impacting our mental health and
Speaker 3: what we can do about it.
Speaker 8: Oh, it's even desirable, frankly to be outraged and angry.
Speaker 8: Many studies show that that is the prelude to taking action,
Speaker 8: that it is protective to be angry and outraged. They
Speaker 8: are healthy emotions to an unhealthy.
Speaker 3: Condition until then, I'm Chris Turney signing off from Sydney, Australia.
Speaker 3: Thanks for joining me in I'm Fucking the Future.
Speaker 2: Weird Fucking the Future.
Speaker 3: I'm Fucking the Future is produced by Imagine Audio and
Speaker 3: Awfully Nice for iHeart Podcasts and hosted by me Chris Turney.
Speaker 3: The show is written by Meredith Bryan. I'm Fucking the
Speaker 3: Future is produced by Amber von Schassen and Rene Colvert.
Speaker 3: Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Carl Welker and Nathan Chloke are
Speaker 3: the executive producers from Imagine Audio. Jesse Burton and Katie
Speaker 3: Hodges are the executive producers from Awfully Nice. Sound design
Speaker 3: and mixing by Evan Arnette, original music by Lily Hayden
Speaker 3: and producing services by Peter McGuigan. Sam Swinnerton wrote our theme,
Speaker 3: and all those fun jingles. If you enjoyed this episode,
Speaker 3: be sure to rate and review Unfucking the Future on
Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts or whether you get your podcasts