Speaker 1: Welcome to zero. I'm Akshatarati. This week choices, controversies and
Speaker 1: carbon footprints. There are plenty of controversial things about climate change,
Speaker 1: that it is not happening is not one of them.
Speaker 1: The science is clear humans burning fossil fuels is the
Speaker 1: primary reason behind heating the planet, and cutting those emissions
Speaker 1: to zero will stop the rise in global average temperature.
Speaker 1: Where the legitimate controversies lie is on how we get
Speaker 1: to zero. That's because there isn't one solution, or even
Speaker 1: one set of solutions that will help achieve that goal
Speaker 1: in every country on the planet. There's plenty of good
Speaker 1: debate to be had about why one solution is better
Speaker 1: than the other and what are the best ways to
Speaker 1: deploy those solutions. There are also legitimate concerns around who
Speaker 1: should be responsible for those solutions, corporations, governments, or individuals. Today,
Speaker 1: we're going to delve into understanding the agency that individuals
Speaker 1: have to affect change. While it's clear there's no way
Speaker 1: to get to zero without systemic changes, it's also true
Speaker 1: that there's a growing role that individuals can play as
Speaker 1: consumers or as agents of systemic changes. However, often the
Speaker 1: conversation around individual action on climate starts off on a
Speaker 1: controversial metric, carbon footprints.
Speaker 2: The very idea of any individual feeling accountable to this
Speaker 2: is something that the oil companies, who are far more accountable,
Speaker 2: would like you to believe. It's a proxy for talking
Speaker 2: about blame. Like, let's break down numerically the degree to
Speaker 2: which you are to blame for this problem, and no
Speaker 2: one is like, yeah, sign me up.
Speaker 3: I'd love to hear about that.
Speaker 1: This is Kira Bindram. She helped launch the Greener Living
Speaker 1: vertical for Bloomberg Green last year, and she's recounting the
Speaker 1: typical butttle to caring about a carbon footprint. And even
Speaker 1: if you're listening and nodding along with Kira, I bet
Speaker 1: you still do quite a few things in the name
Speaker 1: of the environment. Today. I want to talk to you
Speaker 1: about that very tension that even if we understand carbon
Speaker 1: footprints are a distraction as a conscious citizen, we are
Speaker 1: still thinking about the measure and what we can do
Speaker 1: about it. To make this conversation a little fun, I
Speaker 1: asked Kira if you would let me calculate her carbon footprint,
Speaker 1: and she was game. We discuss what the numbers mean
Speaker 1: and what the limits are on doing something about reducing them.
Speaker 1: We also discuss why people love reading about electric cars,
Speaker 1: why d growth is an idea that fails to take off,
Speaker 1: and how to find joy in your carbon footprint. Kira,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1: Now, this is a show about greenert living and we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about lots of things to do with
Speaker 1: carbon footprint. And I should just note that you're sitting
Speaker 1: in New York in a studio. I'm sitting in London
Speaker 1: in a studio and thanks to magical technology, we're able
Speaker 1: to talk without having to put out a carbon footprint
Speaker 1: to be in the same physical place to do.
Speaker 3: This, it would have been weird to fly here to
Speaker 3: just have this conversation.
Speaker 1: Correct, Now, you have been editing Greener Living for a year.
Speaker 1: What were your trepidations coming into launching a vertical and
Speaker 1: what have you learned.
Speaker 2: I think there's when you're just a person existing in
Speaker 2: the world and you're not sort of close to climate coverage,
Speaker 2: there's sort of two dueling narratives in your head around
Speaker 2: climate change. One of them is that there's nothing you
Speaker 2: can do that this is all companies, this is all governments,
Speaker 2: this is all systemic problems, and you as a person
Speaker 2: are just sort of a bystander, hoping and praying that
Speaker 2: your values aligned with what the companies and the governments
Speaker 2: are going to do, and good luck, you know, but
Speaker 2: going like God. And then the other is that it's
Speaker 2: all you. You know, it's your carbon footprint. If you
Speaker 2: are flying, if you are buying stuff, if you are
Speaker 2: eating hamburgers, you are part of the problem. And if
Speaker 2: you're not changing those things right now, you're even more
Speaker 2: part of the problem. And I think there is a
Speaker 2: way to an important way to sort of thread the
Speaker 2: needle between those two narratives, which is, yes, it is
Speaker 2: primarily companies and governments, and these are systemic problems, and
Speaker 2: your footprint and your accountability to them is small relative
Speaker 2: to those other larger forces. But that doesn't mean that
Speaker 2: there's nothing you can do, and it doesn't mean that
Speaker 2: there's not power in feeling and taking agency when you're
Speaker 2: dealing with a problem this vast. And so I think
Speaker 2: that was both what excited me about doing greener living
Speaker 2: and what made me nervous about it is I think
Speaker 2: there's truth to both of the other narratives, but there's
Speaker 2: value in the one that sort of threads the needle
Speaker 2: between them.
Speaker 1: So now let's just talk through some of the stories that,
Speaker 1: if you were to look back in the past year,
Speaker 1: stick out in your head as stories you're really prouder for,
Speaker 1: stories you didn't think you would end up doing, but
Speaker 1: really were fun stories a day. Did that reaction that
Speaker 1: you didn't expect.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like there are kind of types of
Speaker 2: stories that really resonate with me when I'm working with
Speaker 2: reporters or looking at pitches, and that seem to do
Speaker 2: well as greener living stories. The first kind would be
Speaker 2: a story that kind of reframes the way I think
Speaker 2: about something or changes my assumption about it. So we
Speaker 2: had a story around a P and G, which is
Speaker 2: a big consumer company, wanted to sell more dishwasher fluid,
Speaker 2: and so they were trying to trot out the statistic,
Speaker 2: which is true that twenty percent of people in the
Speaker 2: US at least don't use their dishwashers because they think
Speaker 2: that they are more intense on the environment, and they're wrong.
Speaker 2: They're actually like much it's much better to using your
Speaker 2: dishwasher than washing your dishes by hand. And I love
Speaker 2: this idea that people were doing something that they thought
Speaker 2: was sustainable and it actually wasn't, just because it reminds
Speaker 2: you that you know, your assumptions about things are always
Speaker 2: worth interrogating a little bit. I love stories that put
Speaker 2: validity to or commiserate with people around a shared experience.
Speaker 2: So we recently did a story. I think the headline
Speaker 2: was literally, why so many EV chargers in America don't work?
Speaker 3: And that just resonated.
Speaker 2: Immediately with so many people whose experience of evs so
Speaker 2: far is Okay, I got the car, and I trust
Speaker 2: the car. We'll go three hundred miles, but I am
Speaker 2: not confident that I will find a charger that will work.
Speaker 2: And it doesn't mean we shouldn't transition to EV's, Like
Speaker 2: I think you have to highlight these growing pains to
Speaker 2: normalize them.
Speaker 3: These transitions are going to be tricky.
Speaker 2: But it was something that like immediately resonated with a
Speaker 2: lot of people.
Speaker 1: That's my first time experience too. I recently got a
Speaker 1: driving license and took a trip in the American Southwest
Speaker 1: in an EV and literally anything that wasn't a Tesla charger.
Speaker 1: Luckily we rented a Tesla did not work. It is
Speaker 1: a big problem.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's one of those things that no one
Speaker 2: is dropping the ball necessarily, like this is a new technology,
Speaker 2: it has to sit out in the open and extreme weather.
Speaker 2: A lot of it is software updates, Like there's all
Speaker 2: of these totally valid reasons that it is not easy
Speaker 2: to make tons and tons of EV charger. Public ev
Speaker 2: chargers across the United States work perfectly, so it's nice
Speaker 2: to sort of unpack that for people.
Speaker 1: And among the many things that add up to a
Speaker 1: person's impact on the emissions problem, electric cars tend to
Speaker 1: get a ton more people reading those stories. Even though
Speaker 1: road transportation is a buick portion of a person's emissions,
Speaker 1: especially if they're in America, where car and driving culture
Speaker 1: is a big part of living. It's not that big.
Speaker 1: You know, food matters, whether you fly or not matters.
Speaker 1: All the things that you purchase matter. But why is
Speaker 1: it that there is just so much interest in electric
Speaker 1: car stories?
Speaker 2: It jibes with another story type that I think resonates
Speaker 2: with people, which is I call it green future fomo
Speaker 2: fear of missing out.
Speaker 3: I think there's this.
Speaker 2: Idea that again that we have two choices that either
Speaker 2: we keep doing what we're doing and the planet burns,
Speaker 2: or we sacrifice. Sacrifice sacrifice and that is the way
Speaker 2: we get to zero emissions. And for me, nothing epitomizes
Speaker 2: this more than the paper straws that everyone saw the
Speaker 2: paper straws and was like, this is awful? Is this
Speaker 2: what it's going to be like? And evis are the
Speaker 2: oppos they're the anti paper shows. It's an example of
Speaker 2: where like the culturally relevant thing happens to be clean
Speaker 2: energy versus that everyone is so hyped on clean energy.
Speaker 2: So you don't need to be someone who pays attention
Speaker 2: to clean energy or cares about climate change or even
Speaker 2: believes in climate change to maybe be at a point
Speaker 2: where you are interested in electric car coverage because you
Speaker 2: have a car. Car content is a big, big sector,
Speaker 2: and I really do think and hope that a lot
Speaker 2: more sustainable technology, sustainable ideas enter that space. Cultural relevance
Speaker 2: and the cool factor is a big part of this
Speaker 2: and needs to be versus just banking on the climate claim.
Speaker 1: And so a lot of the stories that you end
Speaker 1: up doing, which is not just greener living but broadly
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Green, are solutions oriented, and the more climate as
Speaker 1: a problem is getting attention, the more people want to
Speaker 1: come to you with solutions. So What is it that
Speaker 1: you do to try and avoid green washing or falling
Speaker 1: for solutions that sound good but may not work. What
Speaker 1: is it that you're asking reports to look out for
Speaker 1: when they write these stories.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there are some questions that any reporter
Speaker 2: can and should ask when you're interrogating some of these ideas,
Speaker 2: and they're kind of the same as the questions that
Speaker 2: any consumers should ask if they're sort of thinking about
Speaker 2: what changes they could make in their lives. If a
Speaker 2: company is out there talking about solving a problem at
Speaker 2: which many of these companies are, and the problem is
Speaker 2: climate change, the things that you can do or interrogate
Speaker 2: the scope of the problem that they're trying to solve.
Speaker 2: If it's textile waste, how big is textile waste, how
Speaker 2: much is that factoring? And how scalable their solution is.
Speaker 2: If it's something that they made five shirts out of
Speaker 2: mushrooms like that is great, but it's not necessarily something
Speaker 2: that will translate to combating fast fashion or something like that.
Speaker 2: What kind of money is involved are these sustainable business ideas?
Speaker 2: And then lastly, how is it being marketed? And this
Speaker 2: gets into greenwashing, which I think we'll see a lot
Speaker 2: more of incoming years, not just companies doing it, but
Speaker 2: also regulatory action against it. And I do think and
Speaker 2: hope that consumers will develop a more sophisticated understanding of
Speaker 2: what they should be watching out for. And that's something
Speaker 2: that we're trying to help them with to show these
Speaker 2: examples or show the words that you need to look
Speaker 2: out for in add campaigns and things like that. These
Speaker 2: are words like carbon neutral or biodegradable, or when you
Speaker 2: see a claim that they're going to be net zero
Speaker 2: by blank date but not compared to some other date,
Speaker 2: things like that.
Speaker 1: One big solution to all these problems is obviously the
Speaker 1: things that we buy need to be greener. But a
Speaker 1: big solution could also be just consuming less. So what
Speaker 1: is it that you do to try and figure out
Speaker 1: writing stories that help people think consuming less is a
Speaker 1: solution one that they may want to embrace.
Speaker 2: So I am perennially of two minds about this, and
Speaker 2: one of them is sort of my lizard brain mind,
Speaker 2: which is de growth or less consumption is such a
Speaker 2: hard sell with people, Like climate change is a big problem,
Speaker 2: but getting people to buy less that's a really big problem.
Speaker 2: And then the others that of course, that's the simplest solution,
Speaker 2: and it's one of the things that you can tell
Speaker 2: people to do. So I think the way to navigate
Speaker 2: between those two ideas is to not be so on
Speaker 2: the note about it. If I wrote a story with
Speaker 2: the headline, you know what you could do to help
Speaker 2: climate change?
Speaker 3: Buy less stuff? No people, six people and click on.
Speaker 2: That story because it's obvious and it's not something people
Speaker 2: want to hear, like they know that objectively on some level.
Speaker 2: And it's a tough thing to have every day, especially
Speaker 2: when you feel and see the impacts of climate change
Speaker 2: happening now and they're happening unequally around the world and socioeconomically,
Speaker 2: but it's not going to change the facts on the ground,
Speaker 2: which is that people are people, and it goes back
Speaker 2: to you sort of need to find a way to
Speaker 2: meet them where they are. And then the last thing
Speaker 2: I'll say, I think there are two things that do
Speaker 2: not show up in your carbon footprint in the way
Speaker 2: that I fly or I have a house where I
Speaker 2: drive a car, which is voting. The number one thing
Speaker 2: you can do to affect change on climate is to
Speaker 2: vote for people in office that are focused on it,
Speaker 2: and that have policies that align with solutions, so please
Speaker 2: be doing that. And then the other is where you
Speaker 2: store your money. I think a lot of people forget
Speaker 2: that banks are heavily invested in fossil fuel companies, and
Speaker 2: so where you have your bank account, where you have
Speaker 2: your retirement These are also things that are relevant that
Speaker 2: are not day to day changes, but are things that
Speaker 2: you can look into.
Speaker 1: One aspect of Bloomberg Green that I love is that
Speaker 1: Bloomberg News has a global footprint and we have colleagues
Speaker 1: covering all the major economies in the world, covering every
Speaker 1: time zone greener living. On the other hand, though most
Speaker 1: reporters are either in the US or in Europe. Was
Speaker 1: that a conscious choice?
Speaker 3: Yes and no.
Speaker 2: I think when you're talking about tactics or methods that
Speaker 2: exist to reduce energy consumption or change production methods or
Speaker 2: consume less, I think you can find those stories pretty
Speaker 2: much anywhere in the world, Like there are countries where
Speaker 2: that way of life is extremely normal and actually we
Speaker 2: could learn a lot, And there are places where, you know,
Speaker 2: we'll do a story on an Italian startup that is
Speaker 2: recycling wool in a way that has lessons for modern
Speaker 2: textile production, like those stories are everywhere.
Speaker 3: But when you're.
Speaker 2: Talking about people and who should who is in a
Speaker 2: position to change things in their lives socioeconomically that would
Speaker 2: help the planet, And who is in a position where
Speaker 2: the things that they change would disproportionately help the plant
Speaker 2: it because they are already over emitting. It makes a
Speaker 2: great deal of sense to be talking to Americans and Europeans,
Speaker 2: and especially wealthy or upper income Americans and Europeans. If
Speaker 2: you live in Connecticut in a big house with three
Speaker 2: cars and fly six times a year and eat a
Speaker 2: ton of Hamburgers, like I'm going to come to you.
Speaker 2: I'm going to knock on your door with some ideas
Speaker 2: and some suggestions before I'm going to go to someone
Speaker 2: in Pakistan or in Indonesia. And that's just logical, And
Speaker 2: so yes, there is an intended or intentional conceit in
Speaker 2: greener living that we should be talking to people who
Speaker 2: are in a position to make changes while finding inspiration
Speaker 2: and stories from all over the world.
Speaker 1: And then going back to the start of this conversation,
Speaker 1: there is a polarization when it comes to an individual's
Speaker 1: contribution to climate change, and one reason why some people say, oh,
Speaker 1: it's all the system, and you know individuals don't have
Speaker 1: power to change that system, versus others who say, well,
Speaker 1: unless individuals do anything, nothing's going to happen. Is down
Speaker 1: to being able to measure our carbon footprint. It's a
Speaker 1: thing that you can do now increasingly. As part of
Speaker 1: this conversation, Kira, you shared a bunch of numbers with
Speaker 1: me and how very soon I will reveal what I
Speaker 1: believe is your carbon footprint.
Speaker 3: I'm so scared.
Speaker 1: But before we get through that, what is it about
Speaker 1: carbon footprints that get so many people riled up?
Speaker 2: I think it depends on how close you are to
Speaker 2: the topic. For a climate journalist, they will be very
Speaker 2: quick to tell you that the idea of carbon footprint
Speaker 2: was originated by BP, the oil company. Then it was
Speaker 2: this big campaign and it was extremely successful, and so
Speaker 2: they'll sort of argue, not unfairly, that the very idea
Speaker 2: of any individual feeling accountable to this is something that
Speaker 2: the oil companies, who are far more accountable for emissions
Speaker 2: and for warming, would like you to believe. It's a
Speaker 2: proxy for talking about blame. And I think that's hard
Speaker 2: for people fairly, which it's sort of like, let's break
Speaker 2: down numerically the degree to which you are to blame
Speaker 2: for this problem, and no one is like, yeah, sign
Speaker 2: me up.
Speaker 3: I'd love to hear about that.
Speaker 2: So I think it's all of those things, Like it
Speaker 2: just activates the feelings that people have, which is this
Speaker 2: shouldn't be on me, and if it is on me,
Speaker 2: on us collectively, Like I don't want you to point
Speaker 2: the finger literally at me and the things that I'm doing.
Speaker 2: And we all have these little narratives that we tell
Speaker 2: ourselves of how we don't do the thing that we
Speaker 2: probably know we could be doing to improve emissions.
Speaker 1: But you volunteered to be shamed for this podcast, so
Speaker 1: thank you, and you sent me a response to many
Speaker 1: of the questions I had about your consumption. And so
Speaker 1: after the break, I'll go through your carbon footprint. So
Speaker 1: there are two ways in which I think we can
Speaker 1: measure carbon footprints pretty easily. One is an average figure
Speaker 1: which is very easy to find. So if you just
Speaker 1: google per capita emissions of somebody living in the UK,
Speaker 1: then number is roughly five point two tons of carbon dioxide.
Speaker 1: Barrier do that for the US and the number is
Speaker 1: fourteen point two tons of carbon dioxide. So from the
Speaker 1: get go, Kira, You're sitting in New York. I'm sitting
Speaker 1: in London.
Speaker 3: I'm starting at a disadvantage.
Speaker 1: You do start at a disadvantage. So the shame game
Speaker 1: has begun. But obviously what an average number gives you
Speaker 1: obscures a lot, and so to try and get down
Speaker 1: to a more refined figure, I asked you to give
Speaker 1: me a number of data points. So you very kindly
Speaker 1: shared with me how many flights you take every year,
Speaker 1: which is not a lot. How much meat you eat
Speaker 1: every week. I should have really asked you about cheese too,
Speaker 1: because it counts. But anyway, how much meat do you
Speaker 1: eat every week, which amazingly you had the exact numbers
Speaker 1: because you track your meals. How much electricity do you consume?
Speaker 1: That's easy enough. Our bills come with a kilo what
Speaker 1: our figure on them, and so we should be able
Speaker 1: to find that. How much do you drive, which is
Speaker 1: not at all, which is very interesting for an American,
Speaker 1: but I suppose a New Yorker it's probably not that unusual.
Speaker 1: And then how much do you buy? So of all
Speaker 1: those things, the hardest I found to figure out carbon
Speaker 1: footprint for is emissions tied to purchasing. There are some
Speaker 1: dodgy figures available, but I feel not very confident about it,
Speaker 1: and so I'm not including that in the calculation. Maybe
Speaker 1: we can give it a rough number, but I can
Speaker 1: walk through the rest of it.
Speaker 2: Okay, I feel like I'm going to like come out
Speaker 2: easy because we're discounting my Amazon habit and my cheese habit.
Speaker 3: So this is really already working out for me.
Speaker 1: I think we'll just add a round number at the end, right.
Speaker 3: For cheese and Amazon combined.
Speaker 1: Yes, so we started with a comparison of just per
Speaker 1: capita US versus UK, and that is fourteen point two
Speaker 1: tons versus five point two tons. Now I'm going to
Speaker 1: do it by sections. So you said you don't fly
Speaker 1: that often, but if you were to average it out,
Speaker 1: roughly one New York London flight might be the most
Speaker 1: you would do in a year. So that comes out
Speaker 1: to be the easiest number to find, which is about
Speaker 1: one point seven tons of carbon dioxide. Because you were
Speaker 1: so precise on the meat options again.
Speaker 2: Also the variety of meats, which I know well I
Speaker 2: admired in myself.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you admired reading my list.
Speaker 1: Yes, well I should list them out chicken, pork, seafood, turkey, ham, bison,
Speaker 1: and beef. And the fact you should remember is keyra
Speaker 1: at least last week eight more bison than beef. Turns
Speaker 1: out bison is about half the carbon footprint of beef,
Speaker 1: so you're also doing better on that front. But you
Speaker 1: add all of that up, and I've just taken your
Speaker 1: last week's meals as the sort of fifty two week
Speaker 1: meal plan, and that comes out to two point three tons.
Speaker 1: So one point seven tons plus two point three tons
Speaker 1: is four tons. Electricity is very interesting. The New York
Speaker 1: State grid is about twice as carbon intensive as the
Speaker 1: UK grid. I knew the UK grid is going to
Speaker 1: be cleaner. We have a lot more wind over here,
Speaker 1: but I didn't realize that difference would be that much.
Speaker 1: And so taking that into consideration, your electricity consumption comes
Speaker 1: out to be about one point five tons of c
Speaker 1: or two emissions, so that's five point five tons. You
Speaker 1: live like a European in America.
Speaker 3: That's so exciting. Can I get it on a T
Speaker 3: shirt or something.
Speaker 1: If we are generous and we add the cheese and
Speaker 1: the purchases and give you another ton, you're still much
Speaker 1: closer to a European than an American.
Speaker 2: But largely because I mean, which would you say is
Speaker 2: the factor that most differentiates me?
Speaker 3: Driving?
Speaker 1: Yeah, in the case of other American average Americans, driving
Speaker 1: makes the biggest difference because people drive a lot in America.
Speaker 1: You know, many people drive two hours a day and
Speaker 1: that's a lot of driving. So yeah, I think the
Speaker 1: biggest difference would be driving and flying. My biggest problem
Speaker 1: is flying.
Speaker 2: Well, it's going to ask did you do your own
Speaker 2: calculation so we can compare notes and then shame each other.
Speaker 1: So yes, I mean the problem with me was, you know,
Speaker 1: on a vegetarian diet, like the carbon footprint is so
Speaker 1: low that it doesn't matter, Like it literally is zo
Speaker 1: point to one to two tons, you know, when you're
Speaker 1: eating lentils and grassy food. I suppose rice would probably
Speaker 1: be the thing that contributes more. Rice has a carbon
Speaker 1: footprint because in the production of rice you do generate methane.
Speaker 1: So I didn't actually do my own because I don't
Speaker 1: do meal tracking, so there was no easy way for
Speaker 1: me to calculate my food habits.
Speaker 3: Sure, these are the excuses that people come up with.
Speaker 1: Okshod well, I think, But to me, it's for me.
Speaker 1: It's a very simple answer.
Speaker 3: Flyless.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my flight emissions because I have to travel for work.
Speaker 1: I have family in India, so I'm doing at least
Speaker 1: one trip to India every year. That in itself just
Speaker 1: counteracts all the other things that I And that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean I shouldn't keep doing those things. You know, when
Speaker 1: I went for a driving trip, I took an electric car.
Speaker 1: When I fly, I don't fly business because businesses twice
Speaker 1: the emissions of a normal economy flight. So there are
Speaker 1: ways in which I can be conscious. But just a
Speaker 1: sheer fact of flying means my emissions are high.
Speaker 3: How do you think about that?
Speaker 2: As I mean, like this is the question, right, I
Speaker 2: think flying is a really good example of something where
Speaker 2: like the obvious answers right there, just take less flights.
Speaker 2: But practically that's not practical or you know, you have
Speaker 2: to do it for work, you have to see your family,
Speaker 2: so you know going forward, this is going to be
Speaker 2: the thing that knocks you out disproportionately in terms of
Speaker 2: your individual footprint.
Speaker 3: How do you like reconcile that in your mind?
Speaker 1: So flying is one thing that to me from the
Speaker 1: very first flight I took, which was not until I
Speaker 1: was fifteen years old. Was a joyous experience. I still
Speaker 1: am mad if I don't get a window seat. I
Speaker 1: am always amazed, even now after having taken I don't
Speaker 1: know one hundred flights by now, by the sheer fact
Speaker 1: that we are flying in a tin can thirty thousand
Speaker 1: feet above the earth. To me, it's amazing that I
Speaker 1: can sit in a plane and in a few hours
Speaker 1: I'm in a different country with a different culture, with
Speaker 1: different cuisine. And I would like humanity to be able
Speaker 1: to fly without having to worry about the carbon footprint.
Speaker 1: What can I do personally about it? Not very much.
Speaker 1: We had venkat Visvanathan, a professor of batteries, on this
Speaker 1: podcast earlier to talk about how electric planes could be
Speaker 1: coming soon and that will help at least short haul
Speaker 1: flights become greener. There is a big movement around making
Speaker 1: sustainable aviation fuels happen. So if you can figure out
Speaker 1: ways in which the fuels that we do burn in
Speaker 1: planes can be low carbon, then we've got a way
Speaker 1: to cut carbon emissions. But fundamental physics of flying means
Speaker 1: that we are going to have to rely on some
Speaker 1: form of liquid fuels that are carbon based, so technology
Speaker 1: has to come and help us deal with the flying problem.
Speaker 1: But we should also recognize flying as a whole is
Speaker 1: still about two to three percent of global emissions. So yes,
Speaker 1: on a personal level, flying probably is eighty percent of
Speaker 1: my emissions, but on a global level, flying is still
Speaker 1: a small portion of emissions.
Speaker 2: That was the most journalist answer then you've given me,
Speaker 2: But I think you accidentally gave me the regular person answer,
Speaker 2: which is, you have a behavior that you know is
Speaker 2: disproportionately contributing to your individual carbon footprint. You also know that,
Speaker 2: like on a grand scale, it's not the thing that's
Speaker 2: going to move the needle, and you can't stop doing it.
Speaker 2: What do you do, and what I'm hearing you say
Speaker 2: is pay attention to the way in which it's evolving
Speaker 2: a lot of these things are changing over time, and
Speaker 2: it's just not there yet the sort of cleaner version.
Speaker 3: And so watch it.
Speaker 2: Try where you can. I'm sure you're not. I hope
Speaker 2: you're not fling from London to Paris on the regular.
Speaker 2: Maybe take trains when you can, or you know, like
Speaker 2: do things that mitigate a little bit in the meantime.
Speaker 3: And then the last one, I've never heard you say,
Speaker 3: which I love, which is joy.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you're familiar with Marie Condo to
Speaker 2: sort of like find the joy and throw out the
Speaker 2: things that aren't giving you joy. I love the idea
Speaker 2: of like sort of a Marie Condo for your carbon vices,
Speaker 2: that if you are going to do something that is emitting,
Speaker 2: it better be something that brings you a lot of joy,
Speaker 2: and it should not be Oh, I didn't care, So
Speaker 2: I got the plastic forks that the takeout like it
Speaker 2: should be that you really love that thing and that
Speaker 2: you feel present and engaged with it in that moment.
Speaker 2: And I think that is actually kind of a high
Speaker 2: bar that I haven't been applying. That is interesting to
Speaker 2: think about applying as someone's trying to move forward in
Speaker 2: this moment.
Speaker 1: You have just done what anybody listening should realize a
Speaker 1: good editor does of a reporter. They take the mass
Speaker 1: of information in their head and allow them to see
Speaker 1: what the real story is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what I heard you say is it's a classic.
Speaker 2: A classic editor moved for sure.
Speaker 1: And so if I turn the tables to you and
Speaker 1: and say, if there was one thing you could do
Speaker 1: to cut your carbon emissions, what would.
Speaker 2: That be I'm in kind of a similar position as
Speaker 2: you in that the things that I could change most
Speaker 2: effectively are not the things that would necessarily move the
Speaker 2: needle on a grand scale. So, as we were talking
Speaker 2: about consumption, the things you buy, it's sort of nebulous
Speaker 2: what that's doing. But I don't need to dig into
Speaker 2: the numbers to know that ordering things on Amazon is
Speaker 2: just like not always the necessary thing. I buy clothing
Speaker 2: much more often than I need to, and I fully
Speaker 2: get sucked into this sort of mentality that, like, you
Speaker 2: should be constantly getting new stuff. So for me, I
Speaker 2: think there's a mindset shift that if I stepped away
Speaker 2: from newness as an idea, as something that I valued
Speaker 2: as much, that I would find myself quite naturally buying
Speaker 2: a lot less stuff. And that goes back to the
Speaker 2: sort of cultural shifts that it's not always about a
Speaker 2: specific productor or it's not always about telling people like,
Speaker 2: just buyline stuff, but helping them see that, oh, you're
Speaker 2: placing value on something that is actually not the most
Speaker 2: important thing, and so cutting back on those types of
Speaker 2: purchases would probably be up there for me.
Speaker 3: I won't give my meat is the issue I.
Speaker 1: Think in the largest scheme of things. People who do
Speaker 1: have children who I've talked to, have thought about this.
Speaker 1: In a world that's going to be warming, whether bringing
Speaker 1: children to experience that world is a good thing. That's
Speaker 1: an ethical question. If we were to just count our
Speaker 1: lives in carbon, having children does make the children have
Speaker 1: a carbon footprint. So you have created a consumer that
Speaker 1: is going to be burning carbon and those emissions kind
Speaker 1: of come back to you. So how do you think
Speaker 1: about children as an equation in the nebulous concept of
Speaker 1: a carbon footprint?
Speaker 2: Yeah, for me personally, it's not the climate is not
Speaker 2: a factor. It's about keeping my Amazon and cheese habit going, really,
Speaker 2: But I hear from my friends who are parents who
Speaker 2: are thinking about becoming parents that is absolutely something they
Speaker 2: think about in terms of the emissions footprint. Like I
Speaker 2: just to go back to our conversation about the growth
Speaker 2: or consumption, Like in the realm of things that you
Speaker 2: can tell people or can't tell people to just stop doing.
Speaker 2: It feels very impractical to me to tell people to
Speaker 2: stop perpetuating the species. So I just feel like people
Speaker 2: are going to have kids is a foregone conclusion and
Speaker 2: we should start from that place. And it is a
Speaker 2: really personal decision with a lot of other factors. I
Speaker 2: would go back to the thing that we were talking
Speaker 2: about when we were talking about your flying habit or
Speaker 2: my consumption habits. Learn try joy right, like learn about
Speaker 2: the best ways to be you know, I'm doing air quotes,
Speaker 2: you're sustainable parent, all of these products, all of these
Speaker 2: things that you need to do or buy. There are
Speaker 2: options there that are better than other options. Try the
Speaker 2: best you can with what you have available to you,
Speaker 2: and find joy in the things that you're doing. And
Speaker 2: I really hope that everyone who has kids, I'm sure
Speaker 2: they're not thinking about them in the terms of their
Speaker 2: emissions put from all the time, but when they do, like, inarguably,
Speaker 2: this is something that brings you so much joy and
Speaker 2: is so important to you and critical to your life
Speaker 2: that it is worth it to have those trade offs.
Speaker 2: The other side of that equation in terms of how
Speaker 2: you reconcile the world we're in and what's going to
Speaker 2: happen in the next twenty thirty years with raising a
Speaker 2: kid that I don't know, I mean, I am not
Speaker 2: a parent. I do not envy them that challenge. I
Speaker 2: also think kids will lead this conversation they're going to
Speaker 2: be really close to it in a way that their
Speaker 2: parents weren't. I know we say that about every generation,
Speaker 2: but it's increasingly true. And I think they're going to
Speaker 2: force change in a way that then maybe we didn't.
Speaker 2: So it is a quintessential example of these things are
Speaker 2: nuanced and there aren't easy answers, and they're emotional, and
Speaker 2: it is unrealistic to talk about them in black and
Speaker 2: white terms, or to talk about them as pure value
Speaker 2: judgments on people if they're not making decisions purely from
Speaker 2: an emission standpoint, because to do so would not only
Speaker 2: be impractical for all of us, but it's not something
Speaker 2: any of us are really doing except for maybe a
Speaker 2: very very very tiny percentage of people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and a metapoint here, which is that there is
Speaker 1: a tendency to feel like when we talk about these
Speaker 1: topics there needs to be a neat answer that Okay,
Speaker 1: you talked about it at length, now tell us yes
Speaker 1: or no. And there just doesn't need to be that
Speaker 1: pressure on a question of this kind because it's a
Speaker 1: very personal question. And b because even if you did
Speaker 1: all the math, there is actually no right answer. That's
Speaker 1: because children that do come into being at this time,
Speaker 1: are just going to be much more informed. You know,
Speaker 1: I learned about climate change as a student in high school,
Speaker 1: but didn't really think that much about it until I
Speaker 1: was in college. And so when one of our colleagues
Speaker 1: came up and asked me the question whether you know
Speaker 1: she should have children or not, my answer was, well,
Speaker 1: I know that your kids will know what climate change
Speaker 1: is and how to work on solutions, and we need
Speaker 1: more of those kids. So never think about climate as
Speaker 1: a problem for whether you should have children or not.
Speaker 3: I agree with that.
Speaker 2: I also think they will live in a world where
Speaker 2: the lens of climate change is applied to everything in
Speaker 2: a way that like we just don't we're starting to
Speaker 2: feel that now, but I just think it'll be different.
Speaker 2: And some of that be the normalization of things like
Speaker 2: you know, extreme heat days in addition to snow days,
Speaker 2: or just little things that kids will experience, And some
Speaker 2: of it will be the normalization of new behaviors, Like
Speaker 2: I think anyone who's a kid today will think it's
Speaker 2: insane that we drove gas cars.
Speaker 3: Will be like, what do you mean you put.
Speaker 2: Liquid gas into your car with your hands, Like they'll
Speaker 2: just think it's stupid. And I think that there will
Speaker 2: be a lot of examples of that too, where behaviors
Speaker 2: that are changing or technologies that are changing will feel
Speaker 2: quite normal. And some of these culture wars or the
Speaker 2: tendency we have to hold on or cling to the
Speaker 2: old thing, it will be irrelevant because to kids it
Speaker 2: won't make a difference. So I think they will be
Speaker 2: surrounded by this conversation for better or worse, and can
Speaker 2: engage with it in a really productive way.
Speaker 1: So one thing for me as a journalist covering climate
Speaker 1: change for the past seven years has been that every
Speaker 1: year has been different. The topics that I focused on,
Speaker 1: that the world focuses on changes, how we talk about them,
Speaker 1: to what depths we talk about them has changed. Whether
Speaker 1: we think one thing is good and another bad changes,
Speaker 1: and so it's been a fascinating subject to cover. Having
Speaker 1: done greener living for the past year, what is it
Speaker 1: that you've learned and what have you changed your mind about?
Speaker 2: I don't know that I've changed my mind about things.
Speaker 2: I think in a way because you are often closer
Speaker 2: to the technology and the science, like the things are
Speaker 2: changing rapidly, and some of green are living is that,
Speaker 2: but some of it is sort of dealing in the
Speaker 2: universal truths, which is people are more likely to make
Speaker 2: changes that are convenient for them or cheaper for them
Speaker 2: or cooler for them, and applying that framework to all
Speaker 2: kinds of different products. I think the thing that I've
Speaker 2: actually changed the most is the way that I talk
Speaker 2: about climate change when I'm with my friends or I'm
Speaker 2: outside of a bloomberg green setting, which is I used
Speaker 2: to and I think a lot of people do this.
Speaker 2: You bring the topic up almost apologetically in advance. You
Speaker 2: sort of know you're being a Debbie downer, and you're like,
Speaker 2: I gotta raise this thing, and everyone goes want well,
Speaker 2: sort of looks at you like that, and I think
Speaker 2: that is actually a more insidious default behavior for a
Speaker 2: lot of us then we realize. When the wildfire smoke
Speaker 2: was happening in New York, we wrote a story where
Speaker 2: we talked to the head of the Climate Emergency Fund,
Speaker 2: which funds a lot of these big activism groups, and
Speaker 2: she talked about the spiral of silence, the idea that
Speaker 2: you sort of see everyone around you normalizing something like
Speaker 2: the sky is orange and we can't breathe, and they're
Speaker 2: not talking about climate change, so you're like, Okay, well,
Speaker 2: I guess we're just rolling with the punches here, and
Speaker 2: you all do it, and you keep doing it, and
Speaker 2: you sort of keep going, and I think we have
Speaker 2: to live in a world where simultaneously, of course, you're
Speaker 2: keeping going, like we're not going to stop every time
Speaker 2: something's happening, but you're still having the conversation, and you're
Speaker 2: taking these moments and using them as inflection points to
Speaker 2: raise the conversation and not apologizing for raising the conversation
Speaker 2: because it's important and it's okay to be emotional and
Speaker 2: angry and frustrated about it. So I think that's one
Speaker 2: of the things that I've learned from myself is that
Speaker 2: I'm sure my friends expect me as a climate editor
Speaker 2: to come in and bring up climate change, and I'm
Speaker 2: doing it and I'm not apologizing for it, and I
Speaker 2: think more of us should be doing that.
Speaker 1: That speaks very well to a shortcut that I've had
Speaker 1: whenever people have asked me what should I do to
Speaker 1: try and tackle climate change, and my list of things
Speaker 1: to them is usually number one, talk about climate change.
Speaker 1: Number two, vote for the right politician, number three, fly less,
Speaker 1: number four eat less meat if you can do those
Speaker 1: four things, almost everything else that you could be doing
Speaker 1: will get greener because of the first four things that
Speaker 1: you've done.
Speaker 2: If it wouldn't be bad for the environment, I would
Speaker 2: suggest we put that on tote bag or something, but
Speaker 2: we'll just keep it.
Speaker 3: In our minds.
Speaker 1: Well. Thank you, Kira, Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: This was great.
Speaker 1: One thing that listeners should know is Kira is our
Speaker 1: podcast editor in a way, because she's the one who
Speaker 1: we all go to when we are in crisis or
Speaker 1: we need to check whether something should be published or not,
Speaker 1: and she just makes our lives and this podcast so
Speaker 1: much better.
Speaker 3: Thanks action.
Speaker 1: I feel very fortunate to have Kira as my editor
Speaker 1: and that she's also someone I can talk to about
Speaker 1: climate change pretty casually. It makes a huge difference, and
Speaker 1: I hope that you have someone like that too. If
Speaker 1: you want to check out all the great articles that
Speaker 1: Kira mentioned, they are linked in the show notes. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for listening to Zero. If you liked this episode,
Speaker 1: please take a moment to rate and review on Apple
Speaker 1: Podcasts or Spotify, send it to a friend, or send
Speaker 1: it to someone who you want to talk to about
Speaker 1: climate change. Get in touch at zero pod at Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: Dot net Zero's producer is Oscar Boyd and senior producer
Speaker 1: is Christine Driskell. Our theme music is composed by wonderly
Speaker 1: special thanks this week to Jilda Decarli and as always,
Speaker 1: Kira bindram I am Akshatrati back next week