WEBVTT - Kim Stanley Robinson imagines utopia in 2025 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:05.119 Welcome to Zero. I am Akshatrati this week imagining Utopia 0:00:05.280 --> 0:00:22.200 in twenty twenty five. I love reading science fiction, and 0:00:22.239 --> 0:00:24.200 one of the sci fi writers who has had an 0:00:24.239 --> 0:00:27.720 impact on me in recent years is Kim Stanley Robinson. 0:00:28.600 --> 0:00:31.680 Stan is perhaps best known for his Mars trilogy, published 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:34.920 in the nineteen nineties, but Zero listeners are likely to 0:00:34.960 --> 0:00:37.839 know him for his writings over the past decade on 0:00:37.960 --> 0:00:41.360 what climate futures here on Earth might look like. Be 0:00:41.479 --> 0:00:44.839 it the underwater metropolis he imagined in his novel New 0:00:44.920 --> 0:00:48.520 York twenty one forty, or how a United Nations agency 0:00:49.040 --> 0:00:52.400 and its dark wing of eco terrorists tackle the climate 0:00:52.479 --> 0:00:57.280 crisis in his book The Ministry for the Future. Stan 0:00:57.360 --> 0:00:59.480 has been a guest on Zero before, but I wanted 0:00:59.480 --> 0:01:02.600 to speak with him again because that book, The Ministry 0:01:02.600 --> 0:01:06.880 for the Future has been on my mind recently. Although 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:09.600 it was published in twenty twenty, The story in the 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:12.920 book kicks off in the year twenty twenty five, and 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:16.640 well here we are. The book opens just after a 0:01:16.720 --> 0:01:20.040 fictional COP twenty nine summit, as a deadly heat wave 0:01:20.440 --> 0:01:24.000 hits India. The plot follows the choices faced by United 0:01:24.080 --> 0:01:27.600 Nations officials in a new department called the Ministry for 0:01:27.640 --> 0:01:31.199 the Future, as they try to cope with the spiraling 0:01:31.240 --> 0:01:35.120 impacts of a warming planet. With twenty twenty five upon us, 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:37.360 I wanted to see how Stan was feeling about the 0:01:37.400 --> 0:01:40.560 book's version of this timeline and find out what he 0:01:40.640 --> 0:01:44.120 thought about the unpredictable direction real life events have taken 0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:47.520 since he wrote it. We talked about the value of 0:01:47.520 --> 0:01:49.920 science fiction as a way to see into the future, 0:01:50.120 --> 0:01:53.720 as well as sci fi's dangers, and why a writer 0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:58.280 who admires science and technology so much still remains enamored 0:01:58.560 --> 0:02:01.360 with the unglamorous work of a body like the Yuan. 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:16.360 Welcome to the show. 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:18.040 Thank you, Aukshott. It's good to be back. 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:20.880 So I listened to our conversation from a couple of 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:23.800 years ago, and I have to say you sounded optimistic, 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:26.840 and in twenty twenty three there were good reasons to 0:02:26.880 --> 0:02:30.840 be optimistic. We talked about how after the Paris Agreement, 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:33.440 when the world was headed towards maybe four or five 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:38.120 degrees celsius of warming, we had these forces come together, 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:42.560 including the US turning around and having a climate law passed, 0:02:43.160 --> 0:02:47.200 and there was a general sense of coherence in the 0:02:47.240 --> 0:02:51.440 world trying to do something about climate change at a scale. Finally, 0:02:52.120 --> 0:02:54.200 So now here we are sitting at the start of 0:02:54.240 --> 0:02:57.919 twenty twenty five, the exact time period when the Ministry 0:02:57.919 --> 0:03:01.880 for the Future sort of gets started on his journey, 0:03:02.200 --> 0:03:05.520 and I thought it might be interesting to just revisit 0:03:05.960 --> 0:03:10.800 and update our outlooks of where we are, sort of 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:13.480 a check in. We are in the future you were 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:16.240 imagining today it is here. 0:03:16.320 --> 0:03:19.440 How are you feeling well? I want to say first 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:22.880 that you're in a better position to judge the situation 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:25.840 than I am, given your work, and that you're talking 0:03:25.840 --> 0:03:29.520 to everybody, and I'd be very interested to hear your impressions. 0:03:30.040 --> 0:03:34.400 As for me here in Davis, California, just looking out 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:39.600 at the world, I have this sense that everything is accelerating. 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:42.760 And that was already true in twenty twenty two. I 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:44.960 had realized that the dates that I had put in 0:03:45.000 --> 0:03:48.720 Ministry for the Future were all wrong, and that I 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:51.560 had set things out happening in the far future of 0:03:51.680 --> 0:03:53.960 a few decades from now that were going to happen 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:57.440 one way or another in the twenty twenty So the 0:03:57.520 --> 0:04:01.800 acceleration seems to stay. You'll be speeding up, and I 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:05.160 mean by this, both bad things and good things. And 0:04:05.240 --> 0:04:08.080 I suppose I should address what looks to be the 0:04:08.120 --> 0:04:12.880 big reversal, which is the unexpected reelection of Donald Trump. 0:04:13.320 --> 0:04:15.600 At least it wasn't expected by me. I had it 0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:19.479 called exactly backwards. And I'm still shocked and dismayed. But 0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:22.680 I'll point out that my novel Ministry for the Future 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:26.200 was written during Trump years. I was very angry then, 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:29.760 and it postulated a world in which the United States 0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:33.239 was not a major player in dealing with climate change. 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:36.040 It was really the other nations of the world driving 0:04:36.080 --> 0:04:39.479 the process out of necessity, and the United States being 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:44.320 a somewhat big rich kid and narcissistic child in the background, 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:47.920 being dragged along into the adult world of reality. And 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:51.800 maybe that's again a little bit true. But a lot 0:04:51.800 --> 0:04:55.360 of things happened between twenty twenty and twenty twenty four 0:04:56.080 --> 0:04:59.640 that are now path dependent in their own good way. 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:03.040 The good things have been speeding up as well as 0:05:03.120 --> 0:05:07.799 the bad things. It's simply cheaper to build new clean 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:12.280 energy than old dirty energy, and this is crucial in 0:05:12.320 --> 0:05:16.760 a capitalist world that every source of investment that isn't 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:19.760 government is looking for some kind of highest rate of return, 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:23.400 and if there is a higher rate of return that 0:05:23.520 --> 0:05:26.800 can come to doing a green project rather than a 0:05:26.839 --> 0:05:31.720 dirty project, then it will get done. So some guardrails 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:34.679 have changed a little. The I rebuild that the Biaden 0:05:34.680 --> 0:05:38.000 administration got pasted was very important because it shows that 0:05:38.680 --> 0:05:41.920 it's not just a matter of carbon quantitative easying of 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:44.839 the central banks and the government's cooking up new money, 0:05:44.880 --> 0:05:47.920 which I think is important and really needs to happen, 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:51.719 but also simply legislation that legislators of the world, when 0:05:51.720 --> 0:05:56.520 they vote in climate action, economic activities, and investments in 0:05:56.680 --> 0:06:00.000 private businesses in their nation, states that good things can 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:01.440 happen and that they multiply. 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:05.240 I think you're right in that, yes, clean energy has 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:10.200 become cheaper than dirty energy, and that fact has sunk in. 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:13.839 But there are ways in which dirty energy is made 0:06:13.920 --> 0:06:17.840 cheaper artificially to keep its life going, and we're going 0:06:17.880 --> 0:06:20.159 to see a lot more of that. But I just 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:22.719 wanted to come back to the ministry because to me, 0:06:22.920 --> 0:06:26.440 it is a good framework to start from. The climate 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:31.640 problem is a problem created of inequality, and there is 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:35.680 no way to solve it without bringing more equality to 0:06:35.800 --> 0:06:38.839 bear on the planet. That is in the form of 0:06:39.360 --> 0:06:44.600 wealth transfer, in technology transfer, in creating a carbon space 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:50.599 for developing countries to use, and COP meetings are the 0:06:50.680 --> 0:06:55.160 place where that conversation around inequality comes to bear, and 0:06:55.480 --> 0:06:58.919 the ministry for the future is created through the COP framework. 0:06:59.200 --> 0:07:02.839 As you imagine. And you've been a regular listener of 0:07:02.960 --> 0:07:06.640 this show, and I'm guessing you've followed the coverage of 0:07:06.680 --> 0:07:10.120 what happened at COP twenty nine. How do you think 0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:13.960 this year's COP stacks up against what you imagine cops 0:07:14.000 --> 0:07:14.520 to be doing. 0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:20.040 Well, it's pretty in line with the previous cops and 0:07:20.640 --> 0:07:23.200 with what I portrayed in my book, which is a 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:26.440 process that is you might call necessary but not sufficient, 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:30.520 or a set of public promises in a society of 0:07:30.520 --> 0:07:34.400 the spectacle where at least it gets discussed every years 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:37.680 in a way that the world pays attention to. So 0:07:38.000 --> 0:07:41.840 I still think the COP process is crucial, but it's 0:07:41.920 --> 0:07:46.520 not enough because it's built on a consensus model, so 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:51.480 it's necessarily glacially slow. So necessary but not sufficient. And 0:07:51.520 --> 0:07:53.679 the other things have to happen that we're all doing 0:07:53.920 --> 0:07:57.440 in individual nation states and in the internationally, just in 0:07:57.560 --> 0:08:02.080 terms of trade and international relations that are more tangible 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:05.160 than the promises made at COP and their good things 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:08.080 can happen. Now, I want to point out that in 0:08:08.120 --> 0:08:10.960 my Ministry for the Future, it starts as a tiny, 0:08:11.040 --> 0:08:14.920 little functionary agency that is trying to rally year round 0:08:14.960 --> 0:08:19.600 support to get COP promises adhere to. And in a way, 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:23.400 it's kind of an invention that creates a point of 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:26.840 view for a novel that is legible in that there's 0:08:26.920 --> 0:08:30.920 characters with a plot. But at the same time, last September, 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:34.960 the UN out of the Secretary General's Office, issued a 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:38.840 Pact for the Future during their Summit of the Future, 0:08:38.920 --> 0:08:42.560 which was their name for Climate Week last September. And 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:46.079 they're appointing an Envoy for the Future. 0:08:46.600 --> 0:08:49.760 So well, you know that that sounds a lot like 0:08:50.040 --> 0:08:53.080 the Ministry for the Future run by the UN in 0:08:53.160 --> 0:08:57.120 your book. So did the book inspire this pact? 0:08:57.640 --> 0:09:00.959 Yes, they tell me that it did it. They thought, oh, 0:09:00.960 --> 0:09:03.280 what a good idea. And I have to say that 0:09:03.559 --> 0:09:07.640 the UN's story is weirdly, you know, in some senses 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:12.640 the secret masters of the Universe in their black helicopters 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:15.360 and ultra powerful and then also at the same time 0:09:15.480 --> 0:09:20.440 and maybe more accurately, another place of promises where all 0:09:20.440 --> 0:09:23.680 the nation states go to talk to each other without 0:09:23.760 --> 0:09:27.120 any power in particular of its own. The UN has 0:09:27.160 --> 0:09:29.680 a lot of consensus, but it also has the post 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:34.320 World War two structure that means that it is not 0:09:34.920 --> 0:09:38.719 a gigantically effective agency. So a novel that says, oh 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:40.760 my gosh, we got something done in the world by 0:09:40.800 --> 0:09:43.880 something coming out of the UN. Naturally, my novel is 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:49.560 popular there amongst those young diplomats, and they're feeling like 0:09:49.920 --> 0:09:52.040 the world is spinning out of their control, like all 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:54.760 of us, feel they're doing the best that they can, 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:57.560 and they think this is maybe one tool to focus 0:09:57.600 --> 0:10:01.040 on the future, to focus on the narrative of the 0:10:01.200 --> 0:10:05.840 member states nation states becoming member states in something larger 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:10.840 that manages to cope successfully with climate change. So yes, 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:14.320 by telling that story from that point of view, I 0:10:14.480 --> 0:10:17.480 have inspired that particular group of people. 0:10:18.160 --> 0:10:21.000 And fiction does have real consequences. We talked about some 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:25.040 of them in our last conversation. Another one that happened 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:29.400 is that Oxford University launched the Ministry for the Future 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:34.319 at Hartford College. There's supposed to be some real life 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:38.360 efforts being put underneath that. What do you hope those 0:10:38.400 --> 0:10:41.199 can accomplish well? 0:10:41.440 --> 0:10:44.120 It's a wonderful thing for me to see because Oxford 0:10:44.320 --> 0:10:48.520 is a very powerful collection of smart and energetic people 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:51.000 who are very devoted to the cause of trying to 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:54.040 help the world. So an Oxford Ministry for the Future 0:10:54.120 --> 0:10:57.600 is kind of a gathering space. It's not quite a 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:01.560 research center, not quite a think tank, series of public events, 0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:07.079 and what I hope is that it will workshop ideas 0:11:07.120 --> 0:11:11.640 for how to create a new political economy that's adequate 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:14.880 to coping with climate change. So they want it to 0:11:14.920 --> 0:11:18.080 be a place of public outreach, of changing hearts and minds, 0:11:18.120 --> 0:11:21.520 of explaining the story, of organizing the narrative and repeating 0:11:21.559 --> 0:11:24.280 it and over and over again. It's not exactly a collaboration, 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:27.439 but I am a sort of senior advisor, instant le emeritus. 0:11:28.200 --> 0:11:31.679 I'm hoping to a push to make sure that we 0:11:32.000 --> 0:11:34.480 make it something that is of interest to the audiences 0:11:34.480 --> 0:11:35.959 who come to it or hear about it. 0:11:36.960 --> 0:11:42.199 So, as a science nerd, I have always seen technology 0:11:42.360 --> 0:11:47.720 growth as a way to imagine futures, not just near futures, 0:11:47.720 --> 0:11:50.840 but long futures. And that's why I love reading science fiction. 0:11:51.280 --> 0:11:53.600 That's why I love reading the work you've put out 0:11:53.640 --> 0:11:56.960 over the years. But there is a side of me, 0:11:57.080 --> 0:11:59.440 as a journalist who sort of focused on the now, 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:02.200 who is to think about the near future because that's 0:12:02.240 --> 0:12:06.840 my job that I'm noticing. Maybe it is politics, maybe 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:08.679 it is social media. Maybe it is the way we 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:14.199 consume media in general. That we as a people are 0:12:14.400 --> 0:12:18.520 imagining the future less and less, or we are imagining 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:22.600 the future much nearer, that our horizons are not as 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:26.120 far as they used to be. Is that a perception 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:28.760 that is accurate or is it just in my mind? 0:12:29.640 --> 0:12:34.040 I think climate change, since the pandemic is at least 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:38.720 ten times more prominent in everybody's minds, the world mind 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:43.520 than it was before. If a pandemic can punch us 0:12:43.600 --> 0:12:46.640 in the nose, kill one out of every thousand persons, 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:49.520 and that's a success because it could have been far worse. 0:12:49.559 --> 0:12:53.280 But we organize quickly to make up these vaccines. Climate 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:56.719 change could do that and make it even worse. It's 0:12:57.000 --> 0:13:00.199 the poly crisis, as Adam Tooz calls it, all of 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:04.839 the crises of pollution of pandemics coming out of the 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:09.840 natural world, and then also the various political complications of 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:14.600 our own making. So there's a poly crisis. Well, I 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:19.000 feel like attention to that in the twenty twenties is 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:23.480 such that the farther futures are and this is finally 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:26.400 getting to answer in your questions. You don't think about, oh, 0:13:26.400 --> 0:13:28.400 what will happen when we go to the stars, which 0:13:28.440 --> 0:13:30.800 is always impossible. You don't even think about, oh, what 0:13:30.880 --> 0:13:33.120 about the greatness that will happen when we all live 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:35.640 two hundred and fifty years and it's the year twenty 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:38.760 four hundred? Who can think that? When we are having 0:13:38.840 --> 0:13:41.960 trouble thinking our way through the twenty first century. So 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:45.840 science fiction has collapsed to near future science fiction is 0:13:45.880 --> 0:13:46.679 one way to call it. 0:13:47.280 --> 0:13:51.640 And that difficulty of having sort of the world mind 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:55.280 or so many pieces of information held together to try 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:59.960 and make sense of the moment often collapses for individuals 0:14:00.440 --> 0:14:03.800 in sort of the vibe, the emotion that is driving you, 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:06.760 and one that I think can be classed as the 0:14:06.800 --> 0:14:09.480 emotion of twenty twenty five is we are starting off 0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:13.240 on a bleak note. So is there a way if 0:14:13.280 --> 0:14:16.000 I were to force you to imagine a utopia? Because 0:14:16.000 --> 0:14:19.600 I know you do that sometimes for twenty twenty five? 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:22.840 What could it be an interesting question? And I think 0:14:22.880 --> 0:14:29.200 it's possible there will be a realization that you can't 0:14:29.360 --> 0:14:33.720 count on the leadership of the United States, and I 0:14:33.800 --> 0:14:36.440 mean by that the leadership of the United States in 0:14:36.480 --> 0:14:38.880 the world, but also the leadership of the United States 0:14:38.920 --> 0:14:41.760 in terms of the incoming administration, which is looking to 0:14:41.800 --> 0:14:44.960 be a kind of clown show. What would be the 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:49.640 utopian story is how there's always been idiots at the 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:52.840 top of the system and the governments of the world, 0:14:52.880 --> 0:14:57.400 the bureaucrats, the technocrats, the scientists, the teachers. Society is resilient. 0:14:57.600 --> 0:15:01.880 Civil society is real in which we help each other 0:15:01.920 --> 0:15:07.200 out in daily life, transcend fools at the top shouting 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:09.640 and trying to wreck the system. So we have a 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:14.000 soap opera, But is the soap opera actually wreaking the 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:18.200 damage that it pretends that it wants to wreak. Everybody 0:15:18.240 --> 0:15:22.000 actually wants their daily life to continue as best it 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:26.200 can in a positive direction. Everybody's stressed out, everybody's in 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:28.880 the precariat. The last thing you need is for the 0:15:28.920 --> 0:15:32.040 soap app that the talk to actually be meaningful. And 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:36.000 if life goes on for everybody in their ordinary daily existence, 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:40.200 substantially the same. Because of the path dependencies of all 0:15:40.240 --> 0:15:44.400 of our systems and the kind of resiliency of civil 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:48.120 society that in itself will be a victory. And I'm 0:15:48.120 --> 0:15:50.040 not saying it's a sure thing by any means. This 0:15:50.120 --> 0:15:52.800 is sort of an experiment. And how strong is the 0:15:52.840 --> 0:15:55.800 American system If there is a group at the top 0:15:55.880 --> 0:15:58.760 trying to wreck it, deliberately trying to wreck it, we'll 0:15:58.760 --> 0:16:02.640 see we are in a corrupt political system and there's 0:16:02.880 --> 0:16:06.400 huge challenges to democracy. On the other hand, votes are 0:16:06.440 --> 0:16:09.880 still votes, and it's not entirely possible to buy them. 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:15.239 So it's a mix, right, It's a you can't actually 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:21.600 give up. You can't actually start celebrating. The twenty twenties 0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:24.480 were always going to be a kind of crux in 0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:27.440 human history, and they still are. And it might be 0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:31.000 that the crux goes on for a decade longer than that. 0:16:31.320 --> 0:16:33.200 It's not at all inevitable that things are going to 0:16:33.200 --> 0:16:35.760 be all right, given the tendency of the forces of 0:16:35.800 --> 0:16:41.760 disordered rising. But the situation is not impossible either, And 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:44.720 I guess you know is that the utopian statement the 0:16:44.720 --> 0:16:46.600 good result is not impossible. Yet. 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:51.160 We've sort of talked about some of the things that 0:16:51.200 --> 0:16:54.680 are big in front of our minds and on the 0:16:54.720 --> 0:16:58.400 front pages of headlines. But they're also smaller things that 0:16:58.440 --> 0:17:00.680 could become big that I would like to touch on. 0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:03.360 So one that I know both you and I have 0:17:03.480 --> 0:17:08.520 been interested in is Colombia's efforts to try and move 0:17:08.560 --> 0:17:13.439 away from fossil fuels. Now, Columbia extracts coal and oil 0:17:13.560 --> 0:17:17.280 and gas, and its economy has been dependent on it 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:20.160 for quite some time. But it is the first sort 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:23.320 of big and it's not very big, but it's still 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:27.480 a big ish producer of fossil fuels that has signed 0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:30.840 up to the Fossil Fuel Non Proliferation Treaty. We had 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:35.479 Minister Susanna Muhammad, who has the Environment Ministry under her 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:38.879 talk on this podcast. And I know you've been thinking 0:17:38.960 --> 0:17:42.480 about how this is going to play out, you wrote 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:44.959 to me after listening to that episode. So when you 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:47.199 try and imagine a future where a country has to 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:52.800 build its entire economy anew to move away from the 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:56.760 old stuff because the old stuff just can't continue at 0:17:56.760 --> 0:18:00.000 current pace, how do you think that happened? 0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:02.840 Well, thank you for that. I'm really interested in it. 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:08.080 The Petro states, those nations that depend on more than 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:11.080 fifty percent of their income on selling their fossil fuels. 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:14.200 They have also signed the Paris Agreement, and so they're 0:18:14.240 --> 0:18:16.840 in a double bind. They are on the one hand 0:18:16.840 --> 0:18:19.440 promising to stop selling fossil fuels. On the other hand, 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:22.600 that will bankrupt them and they could become failed states. 0:18:23.040 --> 0:18:26.240 And we're talking about well more than a billion people 0:18:26.280 --> 0:18:30.840 these petro states. What happens then we can't afford in 0:18:31.280 --> 0:18:34.720 social senses to have failed states left right and center. 0:18:34.800 --> 0:18:38.159 They need help. How could it come? Well, there's the 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:40.800 Loss and Damage Fund, there's a Paris Agreement itself, and 0:18:40.880 --> 0:18:45.520 this Fossil Fuel's Non Proliferation Treaty is really important as 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:49.200 a framework that if a nation like Columbia, who is 0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:52.080 a great example because they're the fifth biggest coal producer 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:54.560 on Earth, if they say we want to stop, help us. 0:18:54.800 --> 0:18:57.760 Help needs to come. So at that point you need 0:18:57.800 --> 0:19:01.520 a system that is arranged sort of like the cop 0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:05.520 processes Lost in Damage or like the International Monetary Fund's 0:19:05.920 --> 0:19:09.880 Special Drawing Rights, which is a mechanism to help countries 0:19:09.920 --> 0:19:12.320 that are in trouble in paying their debts to get 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:16.000 them the money that they need. And so this system 0:19:16.040 --> 0:19:18.880 would have to have these aspects of it that I've 0:19:19.000 --> 0:19:22.000 considered and I throw it out there for others to consider. 0:19:22.359 --> 0:19:25.200 It would need to be a discounted compensation. They can't 0:19:25.240 --> 0:19:27.200 be paid as much as they would be for fossil 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:30.239 fuels as they stand on the market now that's like 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:34.080 one six hundred trillion dollars. What you would need is 0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:37.280 a discounted system. They take a haircut. Also, it would 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:40.160 have to be amortized so that they get paid out 0:19:40.200 --> 0:19:42.520 over a century like it would have been if the 0:19:42.560 --> 0:19:45.879 fossil fuels had been burned, and then every country that 0:19:45.960 --> 0:19:49.520 signs on would be getting a steady payment that would 0:19:49.560 --> 0:19:53.920 also be entailed. You'd be signing something like the Extractive 0:19:54.280 --> 0:20:01.840 Industry's Transparency Initiative eiiti that already exists, just like the 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:05.560 Fossil Fuels Non Proliferation Treaty and the IMF Special Drawing 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:08.440 Rights and the cop Loss and Damage Fund that three 0:20:08.520 --> 0:20:12.200 hundred billion dollars was just promised into. When a nation 0:20:12.359 --> 0:20:14.679 signed on that line, they would then have an income 0:20:14.760 --> 0:20:19.000 stream that they had promised to keep from being corrupted, 0:20:19.440 --> 0:20:21.840 and that it would be devoted to green projects and 0:20:21.880 --> 0:20:24.520 the clean transition. And that way there would be a 0:20:25.000 --> 0:20:29.040 a financial inducement for signing the Fossil Fuels Non Proliferation 0:20:29.119 --> 0:20:33.320 Treaty and then also the physical and financial help to 0:20:33.560 --> 0:20:37.040 make that transition possible and save these countries from falling 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:42.119 into dysfunction by way of bankruptcy and social disorder. It 0:20:42.200 --> 0:20:45.280 seems to me it has to happen. And I've talked 0:20:45.320 --> 0:20:48.520 to people about it at OECD and in other places, 0:20:48.640 --> 0:20:53.000 other venues, other people in places of power, including the UN, 0:20:53.359 --> 0:20:57.440 and I have to say it usually gets a cool 0:20:57.480 --> 0:21:01.280 response or a visible shutter of oh my god. You know, 0:21:01.480 --> 0:21:04.200 the Saudi's suggested something like that, even though they're rich 0:21:04.240 --> 0:21:07.439 as creases, et cetera. Well, none of the past is 0:21:07.480 --> 0:21:11.400 really relevant now in this respect, We've got seventy five 0:21:11.440 --> 0:21:13.960 percent of the fossil fuels on this earth owned by 0:21:14.160 --> 0:21:18.320 nation states that have governments that are responsible to their people, 0:21:18.840 --> 0:21:22.320 and accommodation simply must be made. And when the question 0:21:22.400 --> 0:21:25.280 then follows, oh, well, where could that much money come from, 0:21:25.840 --> 0:21:29.119 you just answer quantitative easing. You point to two thousand 0:21:29.119 --> 0:21:31.280 and eight, you point to twenty twenty. At the start 0:21:31.280 --> 0:21:35.760 of the pandemic, trillions were generated. I'm gonna say out 0:21:35.760 --> 0:21:39.280 of thin air, because the mechanisms involved are complicated, but 0:21:39.400 --> 0:21:43.080 in fact, federal governments, central banks make up new money 0:21:43.080 --> 0:21:46.720 all the time. The money can be made. And I'll 0:21:46.840 --> 0:21:50.480 end with this, John Maynard Keynes really the most important 0:21:50.600 --> 0:21:54.080 economists for our current moment. I would say, anything that 0:21:54.119 --> 0:21:56.160 we have to do, we can afford to do. 0:22:05.920 --> 0:22:08.680 After the break, more of my conversation with sci fi 0:22:08.720 --> 0:22:11.640 writer Kim Stanley Robinson. And by the way, if you've 0:22:11.640 --> 0:22:14.120 been enjoying this episode, please take a moment to rate 0:22:14.160 --> 0:22:17.080 and review the show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. It 0:22:17.200 --> 0:22:26.119 helps other listeners find the show. Well. There is a 0:22:26.240 --> 0:22:30.040 yearning in the politics today of the past, of a 0:22:30.119 --> 0:22:36.240 period where I don't know, gender, racial, wealth, hierarchies were enforced. 0:22:36.960 --> 0:22:41.360 And it feels contradictory to me because you know, if 0:22:41.400 --> 0:22:43.399 I were to be born anytime in history and I 0:22:43.400 --> 0:22:45.720 had the choice, I would be born today because it's 0:22:45.760 --> 0:22:47.840 a pretty good time to be born. You have a 0:22:47.840 --> 0:22:50.520 whole set of diseases that we know how to defeat. 0:22:51.040 --> 0:22:55.920 You have the ability to be able to travel across continents, 0:22:56.000 --> 0:22:58.119 you have the ability to be able to speak to 0:22:58.160 --> 0:23:01.680 anybody in any corner of the world for almost free, 0:23:02.359 --> 0:23:05.920 and yet there is this yearning for the past. How 0:23:05.960 --> 0:23:08.480 do you make sense of this yearning for the past 0:23:08.520 --> 0:23:12.120 where none of these good things existed. 0:23:12.920 --> 0:23:16.840 Well, it's a kind of a mistake. It's nostalgia, the 0:23:17.320 --> 0:23:20.560 ache of the lost home, nostalgia in Greek. Nostalgia is 0:23:20.560 --> 0:23:22.920 a very powerful feeling. I feel it myself, but it's 0:23:22.920 --> 0:23:27.520 almost always a category error. What are you regretting your youth? 0:23:28.400 --> 0:23:32.000 Your childhood? The world itself was just as messed up then, 0:23:32.000 --> 0:23:33.800 and as you point out, it was often in many 0:23:33.880 --> 0:23:37.840 material ways, much worse than now. But you don't know that. 0:23:38.040 --> 0:23:41.280 Your lived experience is when you were younger, you were healthier, 0:23:41.560 --> 0:23:43.800 Your life lay before you as a set of open 0:23:43.840 --> 0:23:47.600 possibilities or a struggle to be had. But in any case, 0:23:47.880 --> 0:23:51.919 nostalgia for the past is always a kind of delusion 0:23:52.040 --> 0:23:56.840 that one has because the future is scary. Individually, you're 0:23:56.880 --> 0:23:59.840 going to end up falling apart somehow and dying. The 0:24:00.040 --> 0:24:03.680 future never looks particularly good for the individual. For the collective, 0:24:03.840 --> 0:24:07.199 you can imagine that things will go on for our descendants, 0:24:07.240 --> 0:24:08.879 and that they will be in a better world, and 0:24:08.920 --> 0:24:13.760 that's the solace of being human. I myself am very 0:24:13.840 --> 0:24:16.080 much in love with science right now. I should be 0:24:16.119 --> 0:24:19.120 dead at this point. Medical science has saved me now twice. 0:24:19.600 --> 0:24:24.160 I'm very grateful. I'm very cognizant that science is a 0:24:24.200 --> 0:24:26.760 force for good, is a Utaon'tian effort in the world 0:24:26.760 --> 0:24:29.159 that is making us all of our necessities and all 0:24:29.200 --> 0:24:33.240 of our toys, and that when people are anti science, 0:24:33.359 --> 0:24:36.120 when they speak against it, when they get sick, they'll 0:24:36.200 --> 0:24:39.320 run to a scientist. So it isn't real. It's another 0:24:39.720 --> 0:24:42.960