Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2: From the most trusted journalist at Comedy Central is America's
Speaker 2: only sorts for news. This is the Daily Show with
Speaker 2: your host Michael Costa.
Speaker 3: Show him, Michael Fast. We have so much to talk
Speaker 3: about tonight. Trump shows he's unqualified the comfort Nation, all
Speaker 3: his nominees are unqualified for their jobs, and Lewis Black's
Speaker 3: qualified to start drinking. So let's get to the latest
Speaker 3: news on the Trump administration. In another edition of the
Speaker 3: Second Coming of Donald J. Trump, I'm going to common
Speaker 3: Trump's been busy these last few days, signing orders, reinstalling
Speaker 3: the diet coke button, grabbing Panama by the canal, but
Speaker 3: it was only a matter of time until he had
Speaker 3: to start presidenting for real. This morning, he held a
Speaker 3: press conference to address the tragic plane crash in Washington,
Speaker 3: DC last night. And remember, one of the most important
Speaker 3: things a leader can do in a rapidly developing difficult
Speaker 3: situation is to calm people down, stick to the facts,
Speaker 3: and keep your uninformed opinions to yourself.
Speaker 4: We did not know what led to this crash, but
Speaker 4: we have some very strong opinions and ideas, and I
Speaker 4: think we'll probably state those opinions now.
Speaker 3: I mean, or we can just speculate wildly.
Speaker 5: Why not.
Speaker 3: I get a little bit nervous when Trump has a
Speaker 3: strong opinion, you know, it's it's never something unifying, like
Speaker 3: sunsets are beautiful or love is the answer. But this
Speaker 3: is a new term and he's only a few days in,
Speaker 3: so let's give him the benefit of the doubt. What's
Speaker 3: Trump's opinion about what happened in DC?
Speaker 4: The FAA's diversity push, A big push to put diversity
Speaker 4: into the FAA's program, the agency's guidance and diversity hiring,
Speaker 4: the fas diversity and inclusion hiring plant.
Speaker 3: Damn you, diversity initiatives. Why are you responsible for every
Speaker 3: historical tragedy? The fires in Los Angeles d EI, the
Speaker 3: bridge collapse in Baltimore, d e I, the Irish potato
Speaker 3: famine d EI, Slavery d e I. Did you ever
Speaker 3: notice how many minorities were at slavery?
Speaker 5: It's all DI Just.
Speaker 3: To be clear, mister president, you have evidence that diversity
Speaker 3: initiatives are responsible for this tragic crash. Saying this right right.
Speaker 6: I'm trying to figure out how you can come to
Speaker 6: the conclusion right now that diversity had something to do
Speaker 6: with this crash because they have common sense.
Speaker 3: There you go, No, no, no, there you go, there you go.
Speaker 3: Here's common sense. It's just a coincidence that his common
Speaker 3: sense happens to align with his long held prejudices. So
Speaker 3: let's spin the big wheel of blame to see which
Speaker 3: minorities are responsible for this crash. Who will it be
Speaker 3: this time? Black people, lesbians, trans Armenians.
Speaker 4: The FAA is actively recruiting workers who suffer severe intellectual disabilities,
Speaker 4: psychiatric problems, and other mental and physical conditions under a
Speaker 4: diversity and Inclusion hiring initiative. They include hearing, vision, missing extremities,
Speaker 4: partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, and dwarfism.
Speaker 3: Dwarfism. I can't believe it's only day ten and Trump
Speaker 3: is already this far down his list of scapegoats. He's
Speaker 3: blown past race and gender and now he's hitting dwarfs.
Speaker 3: Is he really suggesting there is a plane crash because
Speaker 3: someone with dwarfism worked in air traffic control? Does Trump
Speaker 3: think they couldn't see the control panel and they were
Speaker 3: just reaching up and pushing bump and buttons hoping it
Speaker 3: would work out. Hold on, I just want to say
Speaker 3: that people with dwarfism are just like everyone else. In fact,
Speaker 3: they're penises are normal size, which means proportionally they're huge.
Speaker 3: So in a way you could say that I'm the
Speaker 3: one looking up to them.
Speaker 1: That's a thinker.
Speaker 3: That's a thinker. Lot of different layers in there. You
Speaker 3: might be thinking, well, that's progress. You know, he used
Speaker 3: to blame everything on past administrations, but don't worry, he
Speaker 3: got them in there too.
Speaker 4: We had a very good policy, and then Biden came
Speaker 4: in and he changed it. And Biden went by a
Speaker 4: standard that's the exact opposite the FAA, which is overseen
Speaker 4: by Secretary Pete Buddhachek, a real winner. You know how
Speaker 4: badly everything's run since he's run this Department of Transportation. Obama,
Speaker 4: Biden and the Democrats they put politics at a level
Speaker 4: that nobody's ever seen. I changed the Obama standards from
Speaker 4: very mediocre at best to extraordinary.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry you're blaming Obama, the guy from three presidents ago.
Speaker 3: Forget blaming a fart on your dog. This is blaming
Speaker 3: the fart on your dog that died when you were eight.
Speaker 3: And still think about you, Henry such stinky farts. You look,
Speaker 3: mister president. I know you're scared that people might hold
Speaker 3: you responsible now that you're president. Because you're the president,
Speaker 3: mister president, and it's time to just be a man. Okay.
Speaker 3: Real men don't point fingers. Real men find solutions, real
Speaker 3: men show leadership, real men moisturized guys. You got to
Speaker 3: take care of your skin. You got to take care
Speaker 3: of your skin.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The skin is the biggest organ on the body unless
Speaker 3: you're a dwarf, and it's the second builder. Ye got
Speaker 3: to it. All right, Let's move on, okay, because while
Speaker 3: Trump is demanding meritocracy in government, he's trying to fill
Speaker 3: his cabinet with a whole bunchh of just real geniuses. Today,
Speaker 3: the Senate held hearings for Cash Bateel, who Trump wants
Speaker 3: to lead the FBI because of qualifications like this.
Speaker 7: My name is Cashptel, and I have written the first
Speaker 7: ever children's Russiagate book. It's called The Plot Against the King.
Speaker 7: It is a fantastical telling by me, the Russiagate chief investigator.
Speaker 3: Wow. I mean, that's a great reason to not teach
Speaker 3: your kids to read. At the same time, the Senate
Speaker 3: held hearings for Tulci Gobberd, who Trump wants as Director
Speaker 3: of National Intelligence, even though she's friendly with dictators like
Speaker 3: Bashar al Assad and looks like the head of the
Speaker 3: Galactic Council in a bad sci fi movie. For more
Speaker 3: on those Senate confirmation hearings, we go to Jordan Klepper,
Speaker 3: Desi Leidik, and Josh Johnson.
Speaker 5: Let's go first. Let's go first to Jordan. Let's go
Speaker 5: first to Jordan.
Speaker 3: Jordan, you've been covering the Cash Fattel hearing. How did
Speaker 3: he come across?
Speaker 8: How do you think Costa Patel's a conspiracy theorist who
Speaker 8: believe the twenty twenty election was rigged, follows QAnon, and,
Speaker 8: most shockingly, thinks toddlers want to read a pop up
Speaker 8: book about Russia. Gates, I mean, just listening to him
Speaker 8: speak gave me brain damage so much that I think
Speaker 8: listening to him speak gave me brain damage. Clearly, Cash
Speaker 8: Patel is the least qualified of all of Trump's nominees.
Speaker 9: I'm sorry, but can I just can I butt in here?
Speaker 3: Yes? Does you're covering the Tulsa Gobert hearings? How did
Speaker 3: she come across?
Speaker 9: How do you think Costa I haven't been that uncomfortable
Speaker 9: since Klepper asked if I liked his haircut. She wants
Speaker 9: to be Director of Intelligence. Have you seen her friends?
Speaker 9: Bashar Alisad, Vladimir Putin, Justin Baldoni, heartburn, upset, stomach diarrhea.
Speaker 9: It's too much. She is clearly the least qualified Trump nominee.
Speaker 8: What are you talking about, Desi? First, my head looks fantastic,
Speaker 8: and Tulci was at least in Congress. She spent time
Speaker 8: in the government. The only thing Patel has spent time
Speaker 8: in is the comments section of the Pizzagate subreddits. He's
Speaker 8: the most unqualified.
Speaker 9: No, no way, you cannot trust Tulsi with state secrets.
Speaker 9: I wouldn't even trust her with secret brand deodorant. CBS
Speaker 9: blocked it up now because of her.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry. Can I hop in here? Yes, Josh, you're
Speaker 3: covering RFK Junior's hearing. Yeah.
Speaker 10: And obviously he is the least qualified candidate because he
Speaker 10: is r F K Junior. He wants to run the
Speaker 10: Department of Health and Human Services. He's not qualified for health.
Speaker 10: He's barely qualified for human all right. He's basically a
Speaker 10: leather bag full of coughs for someone who might be
Speaker 10: in charge of all the drugs. He acts like someone
Speaker 10: in charge of all the side effects nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset, stomach, diarrhea, Baldoni.
Speaker 8: No, no, look, my guy wrote a children's book about
Speaker 8: Russia Gate. The only reason you write a children's book
Speaker 8: about Russia Gate is you can't write an adult book
Speaker 8: about Russia Gates. He used more exclamation points than a
Speaker 8: white woman's email.
Speaker 11: I deleted that.
Speaker 9: And Tulsi is the least qualified. She couldn't be more
Speaker 9: of a Russian mole if she was dangling from resputant's back. Josh,
Speaker 9: do you really think RFK is less qualified than Tulsi?
Speaker 10: Does a bear carcass get dumped in the Central Park woods?
Speaker 8: Cash Pattel, if you're watching a bear is the one
Speaker 8: that goes girl?
Speaker 3: Please?
Speaker 9: Tulsi makes cash Pattel look like Stephen Hawking.
Speaker 8: Yeah, current day Stephen Hawking, because cash Pattel is brain dead.
Speaker 3: At least they have brains.
Speaker 10: RK Junger's brain got eaten by a war.
Speaker 3: In his head. Hey, guys, guy's hey, why are we
Speaker 3: fighting over this? Okay, they're all unqualified. Why does it
Speaker 3: matter who the least qualified?
Speaker 8: Is Michael because the reporter covering that specific hearing gets
Speaker 8: the right to use a somber but serious Pulitzer contending
Speaker 8: voice when they say, in the opinion of this reporter,
Speaker 8: Cash Pattel is the least qualified nominee in American history.
Speaker 11: No no, no, no no no.
Speaker 9: Tulci Gabbert is the least qualified nominee in American history.
Speaker 3: You're both wrong. RFK Junior is the least qualified.
Speaker 10: Nominee in an American Ah, in American history.
Speaker 3: Josh are you? Josh, are you putting in contacts?
Speaker 10: I don't have glasses, but I need to look smart. God,
Speaker 10: I never touched my eye before this.
Speaker 2: Look.
Speaker 3: I don't think. I don't think any of you are
Speaker 3: qualified for this job. Jordan, Desi and Josh everyone. When
Speaker 3: we come back.
Speaker 1: Lewis Black, we'll try not to drink it all the
Speaker 1: right by.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to the Davis. When our news story falls
Speaker 3: through the cracks and Lewis Black catches it for a segment,
Speaker 3: we call back in Black.
Speaker 11: Ah Alcohol, It's why I get up in the morning,
Speaker 11: how my mom made it through her pregnancy, and why
Speaker 11: I'm not allowed within fifty feet of a horse. Booze
Speaker 11: is the committed relationship I'll ever have. But some people
Speaker 11: know nothing about commitment.
Speaker 9: Dry January, the challenge of giving up drinking for the
Speaker 9: first month of the year, is growing in popularity.
Speaker 11: Happy Dry January.
Speaker 9: It's the month where folks ditch the booze and go
Speaker 9: alcohol free. One report found that twenty five percent of
Speaker 9: American adults completed dried January last year.
Speaker 1: A lot of people are going to be doing dry January.
Speaker 5: I have done dry January every year now for or
Speaker 5: three years.
Speaker 11: Well, goody, goody for you. It must be nice to
Speaker 11: have the luxury of giving up booze while the rest
Speaker 11: of us are trapped in reality wildfires, bird flu, crippling,
Speaker 11: dambling debts. If you're not blacking out every single night,
Speaker 11: you're not paying attention. And by the way, why are
Speaker 11: we giving up alcohol in January? It's colder than Jack
Speaker 11: Frost's debts. All your fat friends are posting Jim selfies,
Speaker 11: and it gets dark faster than Justin Trudeau's face on Halloween.
Speaker 3: Oh please.
Speaker 12: Me.
Speaker 11: I'd much rather give up booze in May. The weather
Speaker 11: is warm and I'm already coked up for Sinka Demayo.
Speaker 11: But for those of you not sure about dry January,
Speaker 11: don't worry. There's something even dumber.
Speaker 12: For some people that looks dry.
Speaker 13: For others, it might look damp. A damp January would
Speaker 13: mean only drinking on special occasions, adding more dry days
Speaker 13: to your month, or consuming fewer drinks in each Sitting
Speaker 13: damp January?
Speaker 3: Are you shitting me?
Speaker 11: Damp January sounds like someone I paid for a lap
Speaker 11: dance in the eighties. Just say drinking less. Not everything
Speaker 11: needs a label. I'm an a shoe a team situationship. No,
Speaker 11: you got a hand job from a co check girl,
Speaker 11: Now move on with your life.
Speaker 3: Quitting booze may seem.
Speaker 11: Like a good idea today, but once TikTok goes away,
Speaker 11: you're gonna be getting hammered at Dave and Busters with
Speaker 11: me and Pete hegxitt. Fair warning, I tend to shit
Speaker 11: my pants on Dance Dance Revolution.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 11: I get it some of you don't like fun. But
Speaker 11: if you're out with your dipshit friends and you can't
Speaker 11: drink booze, surely there must be something you can drink.
Speaker 1: During dry January.
Speaker 13: People zip on mocktails, cocktails without any alcohol content.
Speaker 9: There are great non alcoholic wines, fears, and spirits that
Speaker 9: are on the market.
Speaker 10: Today, global sales of no and low alcohol products reaching
Speaker 10: more than thirteen billion dollars.
Speaker 12: Last companies are casting into stars releasing non alcoholic products
Speaker 12: like Katie Perry's boot free beverage line, d Slaw a
Speaker 12: Great Time and Tom Holland's non alcoholic beer Company Bureau.
Speaker 3: This is from Proxies. This is their Bubbly Rose.
Speaker 2: Couldn't you add alcohol if you wanted to?
Speaker 12: You could?
Speaker 3: You could.
Speaker 11: Wowy an alcohol free drink that you can add alcohol too.
Speaker 11: If only Thomas Edison were alive to see this.
Speaker 3: Look.
Speaker 11: If I ever order an Elderberry Hibiscus Fizz, be sure
Speaker 11: to garnish it with a loaded gun. These drinks sound
Speaker 11: almost as fun as getting an ammo enema, which, by
Speaker 11: the way, you can also add alcohol too. It's called
Speaker 11: booping come coect.
Speaker 3: But listen.
Speaker 11: If the eighth best spider Man can cash in on
Speaker 11: the mocktail boom, so can I introducing Lewis Black's Dry
Speaker 11: January Vodka. It's just regular vodka and you can sit
Speaker 11: in the corner and watch me drink it. It even
Speaker 11: comes with a blanket to throw over me once I
Speaker 11: pass out. Now that's what I call a situation ship.
Speaker 3: Wow, Louis Lewis Black every long when they come back,
Speaker 3: it's visor we're going to be on the show.
Speaker 1: We don't go along.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to the the other show. My guest tonight
Speaker 3: is an award winning journalist and author whose latest book
Speaker 3: is called Power Metal For the Resources that Will Shape
Speaker 3: the Future. Please welcome Vince Biser for us Power Metal.
Speaker 1: Yes, power Metal.
Speaker 3: You sure this isn't a book about metallica.
Speaker 1: Or you know, going for the broadest audience I can get.
Speaker 3: What is power Metal?
Speaker 1: So what it's about is, uh, it's about the terrible
Speaker 1: paradox of electric vehicles and renewable energy.
Speaker 3: That's all the time we have for tonight, Please continue,
Speaker 3: all right. So the paradox is this.
Speaker 1: So we are moving towards those things, right, evs and
Speaker 1: renewable energy, which is great because we need those things
Speaker 1: to avoid climate change, which is the biggest threat that
Speaker 1: we face. But there's a catch. Yeah, and the catch
Speaker 1: is metal because build all those things. To build all
Speaker 1: those there's millions of electric vehicles, solar panels, wind turbines
Speaker 1: and by the way, all of the digital gadgets that
Speaker 1: we all rely on our phones and our laptops. Everything
Speaker 1: about the phone has metal in it. Your phone has
Speaker 1: metal in it, my friend, I don't know about your
Speaker 1: phone personally.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I actually have a wooden phone with a row. Okay,
Speaker 3: so even our everybody here has metal on themselves right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So we need billions of tons of those metals.
Speaker 1: So there's a worldwide rush on to get those. They're
Speaker 1: called critical metals, the same basket of metals that we
Speaker 1: need for renewable energy and for digital tech.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: And as a result of that, we are cutting rainforests
Speaker 1: to the ground. Children are being put to work in minds.
Speaker 1: Oligarchs are going.
Speaker 3: Fine with the children, but the rainforest stuff, you know.
Speaker 1: So are you thrown out a list?
Speaker 3: Are you? Are you telling me honestly, I have young
Speaker 3: kids and I would love for them to have a job.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's like, that's funny because of you know,
Speaker 3: we know my kids are a okay, But when you
Speaker 3: see the footage and you read about these minds, it's
Speaker 3: it's really fixed up. It's really really and it's even
Speaker 3: more when you go, oh, I might be contributing to
Speaker 3: that in a way.
Speaker 1: You might the the cobalt that those kids mind might
Speaker 1: be in your pocket right now, not yours because your
Speaker 1: phone is wooden.
Speaker 3: Right, but everyone else you're essentially saying there's no such
Speaker 3: thing as clean energy? Correct, What liberal friend you're trying
Speaker 3: to piss off?
Speaker 1: Well, I'm just you know, I'm a journalist. So my
Speaker 1: job is to just try to tell the truth as
Speaker 1: best as I can, and there is you know, renewable
Speaker 1: energy is much better than the fossil fuel power energy,
Speaker 1: but it comes with its own cost has its own
Speaker 1: serious downsides. Which is not to say that you know,
Speaker 1: you shouldn't buy an ev that we shouldn't be turning
Speaker 1: onto renewables. We should be. We have to understand they
Speaker 1: come with serious costs and we have to do what
Speaker 1: we can to minimize those costs.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about China a little bit, because every single
Speaker 3: chapter of your book shows up, are they better than us?
Speaker 3: With I say us meaning North Americans, with their mining,
Speaker 3: with their let me start over, let me let me
Speaker 3: ask a better question. Sure, China go. It's such a
Speaker 3: big topic because it's a big country. It's hard to
Speaker 3: really pinpoint.
Speaker 1: So in a nutshell, what's happened is so every single
Speaker 1: one of these metals that we're talking about that we
Speaker 1: absolutely need for evs, for renewables, and for digital tech.
Speaker 1: China dominates the entire supply chain of these things from
Speaker 1: when they're from digging them out of the ground to
Speaker 1: refining them into metals, to building the actual to manufacturing
Speaker 1: them into the actual you know, car batteries and digital
Speaker 1: gadgets and all the rest of it. That is a
Speaker 1: big problem because it gives them enormous geopolitical leverage. Right,
Speaker 1: They've really got us over a barrel with this stuff.
Speaker 3: You tell a great story. You follow a man around
Speaker 3: Vancouver who essentially scraps metal and what did we talk
Speaker 3: what are the more valuable metals that are around? Cobalt nickel?
Speaker 1: Cobalt nickel yep, so for copper. So for a guy
Speaker 1: like Steve Nelson, who's this scrapper that I did have
Speaker 1: followed around in Vancouver, Canada, I think.
Speaker 3: My pieces were tough. I mean, you're literally in Vancouver
Speaker 3: following a guy in a dumpster picking up metal, sexy stuff.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right, that's the glamorous world of journalism
Speaker 1: in the front.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So for those guys, copper is the most valuable thing.
Speaker 1: But Steve is a guy. He's a super entrepreneurial guy
Speaker 1: who has basically been spending the last twenty years or
Speaker 1: so just digging through dumpsters in the back alleys of
Speaker 1: Vancouver for any kind of metal that he can find
Speaker 1: and sell and recycling. Not just like raw metal, but
Speaker 1: like old toasters, old light fixtures. He can look at
Speaker 1: practically any you know, electronic thing and tell you, oh,
Speaker 1: there's going to be you know, this much aluminum. There's
Speaker 1: probably about six ounces of copper. I can get two
Speaker 1: bucks for it at today's price. He carries it all
Speaker 1: on his bicycle. He's got a little cart hooked up
Speaker 1: to his bike, and he just rides around collecting all
Speaker 1: this metal and then taking it to a scrapyard.
Speaker 3: I don't think about metal every day. I don't think
Speaker 3: I want to, But now I think I have to.
Speaker 3: Metals should be more on the forefront of our brains.
Speaker 3: Should we be more concerned with reusing or refurbishing the
Speaker 3: American consumer, this doesn't seem to match up. There's only
Speaker 3: so much metal we can use right there.
Speaker 1: Turns out there's pretty much no limit to how much
Speaker 1: stuff we can buy and use exactly exactly. But this
Speaker 1: is where we get into how we can do things better.
Speaker 1: So we need metals, right, that's what our so much
Speaker 1: of our civilization depends on. But we can be way
Speaker 1: more efficient with how we use. We can do a
Speaker 1: lot more recycling, which is exactly what a guy like
Speaker 1: Steve is doing. We can also be reusing and repairing
Speaker 1: our gadgets, right, Like, for a long time, all these
Speaker 1: the manufacturers have deliberately made their things difficult to repair.
Speaker 1: So now there's a movement on too worse them to
Speaker 1: basically make Apple and Samsung and everybody else to make
Speaker 1: it easier to fix their stuff so that it lasts longer.
Speaker 1: And you know, as consumers, we can also take some responsibility, right,
Speaker 1: You don't have to get a new iPhone every single year. Well,
Speaker 1: you've got that wooden one.
Speaker 3: I understand. You need to recycling, man, is recycling perfect?
Speaker 3: The way we have it now? I throw it in
Speaker 3: a blue bin. I'm a hero. I don't have to
Speaker 3: think about it ever again. But talk a little bit
Speaker 3: about the depth you go in on how it what
Speaker 3: it costs, and the resources it takes to recycle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so recycling too turns out to have some serious
Speaker 1: downsides to it. It's really energy intensive, it's really polluting,
Speaker 1: and it's often done on the backs of the poorest
Speaker 1: people in the world. So one of the places I
Speaker 1: went was Legos, Nigeria, the biggest city in Africa, and
Speaker 1: I spend some time there with guys who are recycling
Speaker 1: digital junk right our old cell phones, laptops. These are
Speaker 1: guys sitting around with hammers and screwdrivers, just cracking open
Speaker 1: those things like walnuts and picking out the little bits
Speaker 1: of metal.
Speaker 3: Can you tell a story about people burning standing around
Speaker 3: burning electrical wire to be able to later dig into
Speaker 3: the metal that's in the all those charging courts.
Speaker 1: Exactly all our cables. You know, they've got plastic and
Speaker 1: rubber outside and copper inside. They want the copper, they
Speaker 1: burn the rest of the stuff. And these guys are
Speaker 1: just standing around this incredibly like thick, toxic oily reaking smoke.
Speaker 1: And you know, I asked one of them, I was like, well,
Speaker 1: aren't you worried? I mean, these guys are just like
Speaker 1: in flip flops and T shirts, no safety equipment, nothing,
Speaker 1: And I asked one of them, aren't you you know,
Speaker 1: aren't you worried about breathing in all this smoke, and
Speaker 1: he just said, like, you know, it's a job. I'm
Speaker 1: living in Nigeria. This is the only job I've got.
Speaker 1: And I said, well, how long have you been doing it?
Speaker 1: He said since I was eight Jesus, I said, how
Speaker 1: old are you now? He was thirty five years old.
Speaker 3: Right, man, I have a drawer at home that has
Speaker 3: one hundred wires in it, six iPhones. And don't judge
Speaker 3: because you have the same drawing. We all have this
Speaker 3: draw I don't know what to do with the phone.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Right, this is such an North American problem, right, but
Speaker 3: it is a rich guy problem. Well it is.
Speaker 1: It's a real problem for the world, right because all
Speaker 1: that stuff is just going to waste. Right, we should
Speaker 1: be we could be recycling it, right, But the problem
Speaker 1: is there just isn't an easy way to do that.
Speaker 1: So the good news is like actually, in places like
Speaker 1: Nigeria and the developing world, turns out they're way more
Speaker 1: efficient at it. They recycle something like ninety percent of
Speaker 1: their e waste, whereas here one out of only one
Speaker 1: out of every six cell phones gets recycled, recycled gets junked.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot we can learn from those places.
Speaker 3: You know, it's an easy punchline Trump wanting to take Greenland.
Speaker 3: Then I read your book. Then I read about Greenland's
Speaker 3: vast resources of minerals and metals, and I go, oh,
Speaker 3: this might not be a joke. Is this what America
Speaker 3: has to do to keep up so we can all
Speaker 3: get the new iPhone? All the time, it's do you
Speaker 3: support Trump taking over Greenland through military form?
Speaker 1: I do not because I'm from Canada. My friend and
Speaker 1: I know we're next after Greenland.
Speaker 3: No, you you wrote like a Canadian, this has hope
Speaker 3: and sympathy and.
Speaker 1: It's color with a yeah, this.
Speaker 3: Might not be a joke about Greenland. We need these metals.
Speaker 1: There's things we need these metals for sure, yea, And
Speaker 1: Greenland does have an awful lot of them. There are
Speaker 1: there are other places in the world we can get them.
Speaker 1: So the thing about Greenland, though, it's chock full of
Speaker 1: especially a bunch of metals called rare earths, which we
Speaker 1: need for wind turbines, We need them for electric car motors.
Speaker 1: We also need them for our cell phones. The color
Speaker 1: red in your cell phone is thanks to one particular
Speaker 1: metal called europium.
Speaker 3: No europium.
Speaker 1: No red in your cell phone anyway? What Yeah, europium europium.
Speaker 3: That's so funny. Now that sign makes sense that said
Speaker 3: europium free self on for sale. No, I've never seen
Speaker 3: such a thing.
Speaker 1: Anyway. But Greenland.
Speaker 3: Editors, please edit out that entire set.
Speaker 1: So problem that there are a lot of these metals there,
Speaker 1: but number one really hard to get them. Greenlands really
Speaker 1: far away. The weather's incredibly harsh. Also, the people living
Speaker 1: in Greenland aren't really that hard on the idea. They've
Speaker 1: already shot down one rare earth. Mind that folks tried
Speaker 1: to open up there because they didn't want all the
Speaker 1: you know, all the environmental chaos that comes with that.
Speaker 3: There was a few things in this book that were
Speaker 3: promising to me. One of them was that there have
Speaker 3: been successful communities that have pushed off or fought off mining.
Speaker 3: At least that you mentioned. You might have been lying
Speaker 3: some really cool things, like experimenting with plants that absorbed metals.
Speaker 3: And then also this whole idea of someone mining in space.
Speaker 3: This was some cool shit. Which one of those you
Speaker 3: want to talk about, Well, let's talk about the plants,
Speaker 3: because I love if plants are the answer to all
Speaker 3: of us. Isn't that a great? That is so cool?
Speaker 1: So I absolutely love this. It's one of the many,
Speaker 1: you know solutions that I talk about. And basically there's
Speaker 1: there are several dozen kinds of plants which suck up
Speaker 1: different kinds of metal, nickel and other stuff from the soil.
Speaker 1: And in theory, like who knew, right.
Speaker 3: Who know?
Speaker 1: But so in theory, you can plant a bunch of
Speaker 1: these plants in a place where we have that metal,
Speaker 1: especially like places that are already like polluted, like where
Speaker 1: there used to.
Speaker 3: Be a mine or whatever.
Speaker 1: They draw it up and then you like burn the
Speaker 1: plants or you somehow pull the metal out of the plants,
Speaker 1: and it can be done. There are a couple of
Speaker 1: startups and a couple of research labs working on it.
Speaker 1: I love the idea so far. Sad to say, it's
Speaker 1: a long way from you know, any kind of commercial scale.
Speaker 3: And you talked about how that was planted somewhere and
Speaker 3: then the plant took over and screwed up the whole arm.
Speaker 3: So that's a bummer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's always always a downside somewhere.
Speaker 3: How would we mine in space? And how is this
Speaker 3: not a movie yet?
Speaker 11: Yeah?
Speaker 3: But there is someone trying to mine in space.
Speaker 1: There are some there are quite a few people trying
Speaker 1: to mine in space.
Speaker 3: Glad, do you hate your family if you're like, honey,
Speaker 3: I got this new idea. I'm going to mine in space. Okay,
Speaker 3: last question, how can I how can you be a
Speaker 3: better consumer? So I can't take on a mining company,
Speaker 3: but how can I do this better? I mean, this
Speaker 3: is really scary shit you're talking about here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So, I mean, so all those things we've been
Speaker 1: talking about, which is really what you know, most of
Speaker 1: the second half of the book is about. But also
Speaker 1: the number one thing that we as individuals can do is,
Speaker 1: if possible, don't buy a car.
Speaker 3: I know that was that was a that was a
Speaker 3: heavy sentence I read. I know, as a man who
Speaker 3: has six cars and nine motorcycles, that's not true. Why
Speaker 3: why should we not buy a car?
Speaker 1: Well, because cars are by far the most material and
Speaker 1: energy intensive thing that most of us own, unless except
Speaker 1: for your house, if you own a house. And I'm
Speaker 1: not saying you're a bad person if you own a car,
Speaker 1: even if you own nine cars. I own a car myself.
Speaker 1: What I am saying is we need to get to
Speaker 1: a place we need to reduce the number of cars
Speaker 1: that are out there, because if we swap all one
Speaker 1: billion gas cars that are already out there for one
Speaker 1: billion electric vehicles, we're gonna swap one set of problems
Speaker 1: for another. Much better is we got to reduce the
Speaker 1: number of cars by giving people the freedom to choose
Speaker 1: whether or not to have a car. Because right now,
Speaker 1: most places in America, you've got to have a car,
Speaker 1: you need one. But if we can promote things like bicycling,
Speaker 1: public transit, getting around by foot so that fewer people
Speaker 1: need to own cars, so that more people can choose
Speaker 1: whether or not they want to own a car, we'll
Speaker 1: all be much better off.
Speaker 3: Thank you for writing a great book. It's a great power.
Speaker 3: Metal is a bail of one out Vince Biser. We're
Speaker 3: gonna take a quick break. We'll be right back after this.
Speaker 3: Thank you. That's our show for today. But before we go,
Speaker 3: this Sunday, I'm headed to Asheville, North Carolina, to participate
Speaker 3: in a charity tennis event support Hurricane Helen relief efforts
Speaker 3: in western North Carolina. You can support this cause by
Speaker 3: going to the link below to make a donation or
Speaker 3: bid on great auction items like even an autograph book
Speaker 3: from me available now now here. It is your moment
Speaker 3: of zen Chair You're a wise man, mister chair Thank you,
Speaker 3: mister Chairman, mister Chairman, before we go to the leash, Chairman, Yes,
Speaker 3: what do you want?
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