Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking. Hey there, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the
Speaker 1: podcast that looks at the future and says, Oh, the
Speaker 1: weather outside is frightful. I'm Jonathan Strickland, I'm Lauren local Bon,
Speaker 1: and I'm Joe McCormick. And uh, we're going to pick
Speaker 1: up our conversation about climate change and what is what
Speaker 1: can we possibly do about it to help mitigate it
Speaker 1: or because in the previous episode we talked a lot
Speaker 1: about how um global warming is real and that it
Speaker 1: could have detrimental effects on everything stuff in the future. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that it's being somewhat powered by the stuff what
Speaker 1: we do. In other words, people are causing a rapid
Speaker 1: acceleration of a more rapid acceleration, a more rapid acceleration
Speaker 1: of the warming trend of the Earth, and therefore we
Speaker 1: could we could be in some deep water because of
Speaker 1: sea level rises. So we wanted to talk about what
Speaker 1: we could possibly do to help them address this. Well, Um,
Speaker 1: so people are talking are having this public discussion about
Speaker 1: whether humans are actually causing climate change. Uh, let's assume
Speaker 1: this argument just does not get resolved enough to stop
Speaker 1: us from adding more and more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere,
Speaker 1: and or that the way that society works, it's really
Speaker 1: hard for us to cut our dependency on things that
Speaker 1: create carbon dioxide emissions, like cars, power. I like electricity
Speaker 1: a lot myself personally. All those things, Yeah, they add
Speaker 1: to the problem. So, uh, what happens if we get
Speaker 1: way down in that hole? Is there any way for
Speaker 1: us to get out? All right? So this is a
Speaker 1: great question to ask because I have seen in the
Speaker 1: past people who where I are climate change deniers, if
Speaker 1: you want to use that term, or they were. They
Speaker 1: didn't deny that climate change was happening, but they denied
Speaker 1: that there was anything realistic that we would do because
Speaker 1: they didn't want the impact for it to be, you know,
Speaker 1: a negative economic impact or negative impact to lifestyle. In
Speaker 1: other words, they didn't want their lives to be compromised
Speaker 1: by the fact that there's this massive thing going on.
Speaker 1: So they said, I'm not worried because science will fix it.
Speaker 1: Technology will fix it. There's also a little bit of
Speaker 1: research that's been done into the economics of climate change
Speaker 1: and global warming, and people have said that in developed
Speaker 1: countries at any rate, um the innovations needed to deal
Speaker 1: with the warming weather will create um more jobs and
Speaker 1: more money. Well and there in those specific areas. There's
Speaker 1: also the economic argument about how developed countries can have
Speaker 1: the luxury of investing in tech anologies that would remove
Speaker 1: a dependence upon carbon emitting technologies, whereas developing countries would
Speaker 1: not necessarily have that same luxury, and denying an entire
Speaker 1: huge segment of the world's population access to the same
Speaker 1: sort of comforts that we enjoy in other parts of
Speaker 1: the world seems harsh when you remember that carbon contains
Speaker 1: a lot. You know, you can get a lot of
Speaker 1: energy out of carbon. In fact, that's why we depend
Speaker 1: upon it so much. So to tell an entire huge
Speaker 1: part of the world, hey guys, I know you're not
Speaker 1: where we are right now, and you would really like
Speaker 1: to be able to I don't know, eating stuff, but
Speaker 1: stop using this thing that has all this power in
Speaker 1: it and uh and and deal with that. That's that's
Speaker 1: a denical reality, right. Yeah. So so a lot of
Speaker 1: people they think, well, maybe we can turn to some
Speaker 1: sort of like uh, crazy solutions to reverse engineer the problem, right, So,
Speaker 1: for example, carbon capture, I've heard of that. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: carbon capture and sequestration. What what is that? Is that
Speaker 1: where where you you get like a net and you
Speaker 1: uh andfferent net. Sorry, I thought we were doing a
Speaker 1: beach blanket bingo thing here for a second. No, it's
Speaker 1: not where you get a net and you capture carbon
Speaker 1: and you drag it off kicking and screaming. Uh. It
Speaker 1: really is talking about putting in systems in uh, in
Speaker 1: places where a lot of carbon dox i gets released
Speaker 1: in the atmosphere normally, so things like power plants, you know,
Speaker 1: anything that's like a coal firing power plant would be
Speaker 1: an example. Two capture the CEO two being given off
Speaker 1: in that in that system, which could be a different
Speaker 1: approach depending upon the actual system you're talking about. In
Speaker 1: some cases you might get almost pure CEO two being admitted,
Speaker 1: depending upon again what what it's coming from, in which
Speaker 1: case capture would be a little easier. If the CEO
Speaker 1: two is actually in a mixture, then you have to
Speaker 1: figure out how are you going to deal with all
Speaker 1: of this. But the idea is that you capture that,
Speaker 1: you then put it someplace where it's not going to
Speaker 1: get into the atmosphere. And the two big choices of
Speaker 1: just capturing it and then putting it somewhere else. Are
Speaker 1: either to pump it into the uh the ocean, deep
Speaker 1: into the ocean, like deep undersea or underground. And by underground,
Speaker 1: I mean you know hundreds of meters underground. You're you're
Speaker 1: trying to pump c O two into a porous rock
Speaker 1: formation that hopefully has a non porous formation above it,
Speaker 1: which will block the c O two from filtering back up,
Speaker 1: and the c O two will become trapped underground. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's actually room for giga tons of c O two
Speaker 1: underground in this way. And in fact, this is a
Speaker 1: technology that oil companies already use when they're exploring for oil.
Speaker 1: They'll pump c O two down in order to try
Speaker 1: and find oil deposits. So the technology, the basic technology
Speaker 1: to do this is already there. It's not being used
Speaker 1: in this application, but the actual tech exists. Uh. But
Speaker 1: but wouldn't putting a whole crap ton that's the scientific
Speaker 1: term of c O two down into a place that
Speaker 1: didn't already have it change? Well, if you're talking about
Speaker 1: strata under the earth that's hundreds of meters below, it's
Speaker 1: gonna change things in a way that doesn't really affect
Speaker 1: us in any way, the same sort of thing as
Speaker 1: if you were to find a natural gas deposit or something.
Speaker 1: So if we're talking about the ocean, we're actually there
Speaker 1: are some concerns here obviously. For one thing, in our
Speaker 1: last podcast, we discussed the fact that c O two
Speaker 1: and seawater can combine in a way that ends up
Speaker 1: lowering the pH of sea water. So pumping a lot
Speaker 1: of c O two into the ocean could end up
Speaker 1: affecting the pH levels of at least the region around
Speaker 1: wherever it is you're pumping the the c O two
Speaker 1: into that has a potential for affecting an entire ecosystem
Speaker 1: under the water. So obviously that is something that would
Speaker 1: have to be studied in depth before we were to
Speaker 1: roll that out on any kind of wide scale basis,
Speaker 1: because you don't want to end up removing c O
Speaker 1: two from the atmosphere, pump it into the ocean, and
Speaker 1: just create a brand new set of problems. So that's
Speaker 1: one possibility. I think that the one about essentially shoving
Speaker 1: an underground is something that could at least in theory,
Speaker 1: takes some of the burden of CO two emissions uh
Speaker 1: out of the picture. Although obviously we don't have a
Speaker 1: way of doing that for things like personal vehicles. You know,
Speaker 1: we we're talking about these massive plants and manufacturing facilities.
Speaker 1: That would be a big benefit, but it's only part
Speaker 1: of the equation. Can I ask you a question? Sure,
Speaker 1: go ahead? This process sounds energy intensive, especially if we're
Speaker 1: already what we're trying to do is offset the carbon
Speaker 1: we're putting into the atmosphere creating energy. Well, at least
Speaker 1: the pumping creating the pumping carts certainly would require its
Speaker 1: own energy. I mean, capturing is you could you could
Speaker 1: potentially create a mostly passive system to capture c O two,
Speaker 1: but it wouldn't you know, I would imagine a power
Speaker 1: system would be more efficient. But when you're talking about
Speaker 1: pumping CEO two under the ground, that's gonna require energy.
Speaker 1: So you have to figure that out exactly. You know,
Speaker 1: you can't. Are you just gonna have a massive petroleum
Speaker 1: burning generator that's that's just releasing more c O two
Speaker 1: into the atmosphere while you're pumping. Now, grant, you know
Speaker 1: you're talking about different scales here too. The amount of
Speaker 1: c O two omitted by a like a power company
Speaker 1: coal burning plant is way higher than than yeah, a
Speaker 1: pump exactly. So, um, you know you're looking at a scale.
Speaker 1: You're talking about reducing c O two emissions. You're certainly
Speaker 1: not talking about eliminating them. But that's that's one suggestion
Speaker 1: of using technology to try and fight this off. But
Speaker 1: there are a couple of other ideas, you know, like like,
Speaker 1: what's this geo engineering thing I see on our outline,
Speaker 1: Joe geo engineering. Um, there's there's a lot of exciting
Speaker 1: stuff in this one. Oh boy, some route words. Okay.
Speaker 1: So if y'all like the plots the bad guys come
Speaker 1: up with in James Bond movies, oh do I you'll
Speaker 1: like geo engineering. You don't look like blow Feld for
Speaker 1: you know, just out of look you look like Donald Pleasant.
Speaker 1: Thank you. But between between aggravating James Bond being chased
Speaker 1: by Michael Myers, my book is full. Go ahead. Uh
Speaker 1: so you've got one about about reforestry, I believe, Well,
Speaker 1: see that's a tough one. Okay. So there are all
Speaker 1: these ideas about how we could make major changes to
Speaker 1: the planet Earth that would help offset the either the
Speaker 1: heating effects of of global warming or the atmospheric carbon
Speaker 1: situation that causes or in a few that I'm going
Speaker 1: to talk about the radiation itself that's reaching near Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: so to one way or another change the planet to
Speaker 1: help offset the bad effects of this or to keep
Speaker 1: it from happening in the first place. Um And and
Speaker 1: they say, well, okay, so we know there's gonna be
Speaker 1: a lot of carbon out there, so just what are
Speaker 1: we going to do about it? One idea has to
Speaker 1: do with plants. Okay, so forests and plants they create
Speaker 1: energy by photosynthesis. So they take in carbon dioxide from
Speaker 1: the atmosphere and nutrients from the soil, and energy from
Speaker 1: the sunlight and they use all that to turn that
Speaker 1: carbon into plant matter. Um. And they create cellulose and
Speaker 1: release oxygen and stuff. Yeah and so so wait this
Speaker 1: sounds great. So it's taking all the carbon out and
Speaker 1: it's releasing where's the problem. Some people have said, hey,
Speaker 1: I know, we'll use this kind of principle, this plant
Speaker 1: based principle in the ocean. And this is this idea
Speaker 1: of ocean fertilization. If you heard of this, pray tell
Speaker 1: what is this ocean fertilization that I would like to
Speaker 1: talk about. Ocean fertilization by way of anecdote parable all right,
Speaker 1: go ahead, okay. So there is a Guardian article from
Speaker 1: two twelve that tells the story of an American businessman
Speaker 1: from California named Russ George. Um, and he had an idea.
Speaker 1: He said, okay, well, plankton like iron. Um a lot
Speaker 1: of iron in the water that they use this as
Speaker 1: a new trient. They gobble it up in the population
Speaker 1: is bloom. Well, so they are photosynthetic, and that means
Speaker 1: plankton absorbed carbon dioxide like trees do. The idea of
Speaker 1: ocean fertilization is you put the iron in the water, um,
Speaker 1: the plankton gobble it up, and they gobble up C
Speaker 1: O two. They die, and then they take the c
Speaker 1: O two to the bottom of the ocean with them
Speaker 1: when they sink. So that's sort of like a natural
Speaker 1: way of like sequestering the carbon dioxia, getting rid of it,
Speaker 1: putting it somewhere else. They put it in their bodies,
Speaker 1: they sink to the bottom, then they've got it down
Speaker 1: there out of our hair. Right. Well, it turns out
Speaker 1: it's not that simple. So Mr Russ George he went
Speaker 1: off the west coast of Canada and dumped about a
Speaker 1: hundred tons of iron sulfate in the water. According to
Speaker 1: this article, that sounds like a lot. Yeah. Um, and
Speaker 1: it spawned a plankton bloom as large as ten thousand
Speaker 1: square kilometers. Um. Now you may have heard before of
Speaker 1: blooms in the water being related to actually not so
Speaker 1: wonderful effects. Well, anytime that you're changing an ecosystem like that,
Speaker 1: if you've got too much of something at the bottom
Speaker 1: of the food chain, what's that going to do to
Speaker 1: the rest of it? Yeah, there are all kinds of
Speaker 1: questions about whether this uh well, number one, whether it's safe,
Speaker 1: and number two, whether it even works in the first place.
Speaker 1: So scientists are still not sure whether this iron fertilization
Speaker 1: process will actually keep the carbon locked and sequestered at
Speaker 1: the bottom of the ocean, or if it's only a
Speaker 1: temporary thing. And then also they raised all these uh,
Speaker 1: you know, concerns about how it affects ecosystems in the water,
Speaker 1: about how it can produce um chemicals in the water
Speaker 1: that are toxic and you know, so in other words,
Speaker 1: you're doing more harm than good. Yeah, And in fact,
Speaker 1: I think some people think that this can actually worsen
Speaker 1: global warming in fact, Nature, the journal of Science Nature
Speaker 1: published a paper about how ocean fertilization should be completely abandoned.
Speaker 1: They published that back in two thousand nine, and uh,
Speaker 1: in fact, I can I can quote a little bit
Speaker 1: from it is it is already commonly accepted that ocean
Speaker 1: iron fertilization should not be rushed into as a mitigation strategy.
Speaker 1: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change regards it as supported
Speaker 1: by neither appropriate assessment of environmental side effects nor a
Speaker 1: clear institutional framework for implementation. Similarly, last year to United
Speaker 1: Nations Conventions path resolutions restricting large scale ocean iron fertilization activities,
Speaker 1: citing concerns about the environmental risks and lack of a
Speaker 1: scientific basis on which to justify such activities, concerns that
Speaker 1: have been recognized for some time. A Royal Society report
Speaker 1: released this month emphasized that the technique has a relatively
Speaker 1: small capacity to absorb carbon and comes with quote probably
Speaker 1: deleterious ecological consequences end quote. Yeah. So, uh, here's our
Speaker 1: first major geoengineering scheme thumbs down down. I think I think, uh,
Speaker 1: I think I gotta go with nature on this one. Well,
Speaker 1: I've got a I've got a question, Um, so if
Speaker 1: the Earth is getting hotter, maybe we can't do anything
Speaker 1: about the carbon. Maybe it's just gonna be there and
Speaker 1: it's gonna trap this, you know. So radiation comes down,
Speaker 1: it comes back up, but it doesn't escape the atmosphere.
Speaker 1: What if we could reduce the amount of radiation coming
Speaker 1: in in the first place? Right There are a bunch
Speaker 1: of ways that scientists, mad or not are trying to
Speaker 1: solve that problem. There's there's a the concept of cloud
Speaker 1: reflectivity or cloud brightening, which says that and and no
Speaker 1: one's really sure exactly what affect clouds have on climate
Speaker 1: right now in terms of I mean, because they they're
Speaker 1: going to reflect sunlight from the sun, but they also
Speaker 1: do absorb some of the radiation coming back up from
Speaker 1: the earth. So is it a net loss? Is it?
Speaker 1: Is it just do you break even? And we're not
Speaker 1: questioned about that, and we're not sure. But there's a
Speaker 1: concept that if we can create more low reflective clouds,
Speaker 1: that that could be awesome. Um. One idea for this
Speaker 1: is that we could get these boats out onto the
Speaker 1: ocean that are shooting seawater and therefore a salt high
Speaker 1: into the air, creating large bright clouds with the help
Speaker 1: of the salt, because adding particles to the air creates
Speaker 1: more smaller water droplets, which creates clouds with a greater
Speaker 1: surface area for reflecting sunlight. Um. I mean you know,
Speaker 1: we could We could even put wind powered boats out
Speaker 1: there that would drag propellers through the water to generate
Speaker 1: the electricity to create the spray. So other than creating
Speaker 1: the boats, this could be a pretty green adventure. I
Speaker 1: just imagine all these fish flying up into the atmosphere
Speaker 1: like that poor frog photo in a great some kind
Speaker 1: more sushi for me. It's just called the killing floor.
Speaker 1: There's really a sluice there. Um. However, this could potentially
Speaker 1: lead to drought in areas down wind if if you,
Speaker 1: because these clouds would be more rain resistant than normal clouds,
Speaker 1: and so therefore it might be bad for already drought
Speaker 1: potential areas. Gotcha. So again, another another potential solution that
Speaker 1: could end up having unintended negative consequences. Absolutely, and since
Speaker 1: we're not sure about clouds, roll and everything in the
Speaker 1: first place, it's a pretty big question mark right now. Um.
Speaker 1: No I had mentioned salt in the air helping create
Speaker 1: these reflective clouds. That's technically an aerosol, which are which
Speaker 1: is just solid particles of matter in the air. And
Speaker 1: now different air sels can reflect or absorb some light.
Speaker 1: We talked about this in the previous podcast I believe,
Speaker 1: you know, for example, carbon tends to absorb radiation and
Speaker 1: keep it in Earth's atmosphere, whereas things like sulfates and
Speaker 1: nitrates will reflect. So there's an idea to inject sulfates
Speaker 1: into the stratosphere to provide more of that reflection. Um,
Speaker 1: there's there's a lot of potential here. According to NASA
Speaker 1: models estimate that air sels have had a cooling effect
Speaker 1: that has counteracted about half of the warming caused by
Speaker 1: the build up of greenhouse gases since the eighteen eighties,
Speaker 1: which is significant. However, you know, there's you know, a okay,
Speaker 1: a model from the University Washington said that this will
Speaker 1: never fully offset climate change. And furthermore, the idea of
Speaker 1: just toss and stuff up into the air could have
Speaker 1: serious I mean, obviously could have serious impacts on your ecology.
Speaker 1: You have if you have chemicals combining in ways that
Speaker 1: you had not anticipated, then you could end up with
Speaker 1: things like acid rain or certainly different rain rain that
Speaker 1: perhaps environment is not used to Um. There's another one,
Speaker 1: and this is my favorite, and that is space mirrors.
Speaker 1: Mirrors in space like a compact for the Earth or
Speaker 1: or I'm really picturing this is the most James BONDI
Speaker 1: of all of these, I think, um and okay, so
Speaker 1: as Mr Burns, Yes, I think Mr Burns is really
Speaker 1: a failed Bond villain if only he could cross cross
Speaker 1: platforms there um. Now. Scientists have estimated that you'd only
Speaker 1: have to deflect about one percent of incoming solar radiation
Speaker 1: to completely offset climate change. That sounds cool, um right,
Speaker 1: except for the part where that would require maybe six
Speaker 1: hundred thousand square miles of mirror or many mirrors put together,
Speaker 1: which which is a bunch and probably expensive. There there
Speaker 1: are two different leading ideas for space mirrors right now.
Speaker 1: One is to launch um launch one out in between
Speaker 1: the Earth and the Sun at a gravitationally stable point
Speaker 1: about four times away from Earth is the Earth is
Speaker 1: to the Moon. If that just made SENSEI um. And
Speaker 1: the other is to create a network of stable mirrors
Speaker 1: in orbit around the equator, so it would be like
Speaker 1: a swarm of mirrors. It would be like a like
Speaker 1: a ring like we would have our own ring around
Speaker 1: the planet. Yeah, a, this is this is a huge
Speaker 1: expensive project, and be especially that that ring of mirrors
Speaker 1: could create some really weird weather effects, uneven global temperature changes,
Speaker 1: causing droughts in some places like for example, the America's
Speaker 1: and northern Eurasia, which happens to be where a lot
Speaker 1: of things get grown. So yeah, so well, hey, hey, hey,
Speaker 1: I got I got a solution for you guys. Nanotechnology.
Speaker 1: Put a period in it. We are done. I love
Speaker 1: how nanotechnology is the illusion of everything. It's a magic
Speaker 1: wand isn't it. You know, in the future, they'll they'll cue,
Speaker 1: they'll cue, they'll cure chronic elbow pain with the nanotechnology.
Speaker 1: Hey hey, nano robots in my blood are going to
Speaker 1: do that, so they might. So nanotechnology is it's a
Speaker 1: legitimate field. So even though we're joking right now, it
Speaker 1: is very much legitimate field and there's some amazing science
Speaker 1: coming out of it. But again, I think some people
Speaker 1: point to nanotechnology like it's a cure all automatically, somehow
Speaker 1: knowing how to make very very tiny things will solve
Speaker 1: all of our scientific problems. It's like it's like people
Speaker 1: use the idea of quantum in like science fiction or healing,
Speaker 1: or or just using the word science. But you say,
Speaker 1: so is this for real? Nanotech? Nanotech for real can
Speaker 1: give us very helpful ways of of of dealing with
Speaker 1: this situation. But so now, technology as a platform, it's not,
Speaker 1: it's are It's not just a platform. It's not just
Speaker 1: like nano technology is. You know, you wouldn't go into
Speaker 1: a scientific laboratory and just see a big vat that
Speaker 1: says nanotechnology and like I need some of that. Uh No,
Speaker 1: we're actually talking about making improvements to existing technologies through
Speaker 1: the discoveries we make in nanotechnology. For example, solar cells.
Speaker 1: So one of the issues we have with solar cells.
Speaker 1: You know, these are of course the cells that we
Speaker 1: use in solar panels to collect solar energy and converted
Speaker 1: into electricity. One of the problems you have is efficiency.
Speaker 1: How much of that energy are you actually harnessing and
Speaker 1: being able to convert into electricity usually tends to be
Speaker 1: somewhere in the neighborhood. You know, you have laboratory conditions
Speaker 1: that can get up higher than that, but in general
Speaker 1: they're they're pretty lows. That means you're you're losing of
Speaker 1: that energy. Uh, and that's one of the arguments against
Speaker 1: using solar energy in various applications, saying that it would
Speaker 1: be more expensive than alternatives, there's a higher startup cost,
Speaker 1: it's not as efficient. Then you have all these other
Speaker 1: issues you have to worry about. Well, nanotechnology is one
Speaker 1: of those things that has taught us a lot about
Speaker 1: nanostructures and the way that light behaves in nanostructures, and
Speaker 1: but designing specific nanostructures, we can actually direct more light
Speaker 1: down to hit the solar cell, so you lose less
Speaker 1: of it in reflection and and that way you can
Speaker 1: make the solar panels more efficient. So by making that
Speaker 1: more efficient, you make get a more viable alternative to
Speaker 1: fossil fuels. So that would take some of the demand
Speaker 1: from fossil fuels off and put it into a renewable
Speaker 1: energy source. Now I feel like you're talking in a
Speaker 1: more feasible right. Well, when you say something like material science,
Speaker 1: that's a little bit more. You know, on similar terms,
Speaker 1: if you so, if you have better roads than all cars,
Speaker 1: whether they're electric or not, are going to be more
Speaker 1: energy efficient. But the you know, creating the infrastructure to
Speaker 1: create better roads requires a lot of cement. Cement is
Speaker 1: really energy inefficient to create. So if we could build
Speaker 1: a better cement exactly, or you could use is nanotechnology
Speaker 1: again to design lighter but strong materials and build vehicles
Speaker 1: out of that. That means you need less fuel to
Speaker 1: move those vehicles around. So again, this is one of
Speaker 1: those things where nanotechnology can help in sort of an
Speaker 1: indirect way, but they can make you know that that
Speaker 1: discipline can help make other technologies more efficient and uh
Speaker 1: and less let me put less of a burden on
Speaker 1: us and when it comes to energy. So this brings
Speaker 1: it full circle for me because I think, uh, it
Speaker 1: sounds like, well, maybe we could do something with carbon sequestration,
Speaker 1: carbon capture and sequestration that may help maybe, Um, most
Speaker 1: of these other plans sound kind of mad scientist, not
Speaker 1: very feasible, maybe making things worse. What's the real way
Speaker 1: to deal with this? Bottom line, it's you've got to
Speaker 1: go back to the stuff we've already heard about. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's what seems like it's going to work. Reducing and
Speaker 1: and and relying on reducing your your consumption and general
Speaker 1: and relying on alternatives to fossil fuels in general as well.
Speaker 1: So those would be the two main things, right as
Speaker 1: reduce your consumption and and shift as much of your
Speaker 1: consumption to renewable forms of energy as you possibly can't,
Speaker 1: Like just your average electronics are consuming power even when
Speaker 1: you're not using them. Unplugging your television can have a
Speaker 1: huge effect on your power bill and also on your
Speaker 1: just energy consumption. Yeah, because stuff you've heard a million
Speaker 1: times before. Turn your lights off when you leave the house,
Speaker 1: just you know, walk places when you can, or ride it,
Speaker 1: buy some and we've done we've done full podcasts on
Speaker 1: a few of these topics. So well we'll try and
Speaker 1: we'll try to link them up when this publishes. But
Speaker 1: you know, I mean or or we talked a few
Speaker 1: weeks ago about food, um, you know, vegetarian eating and
Speaker 1: the effect that you know, meat has a huge carbon
Speaker 1: footprint print. Well, you know what, there's one thing we
Speaker 1: didn't talk about, which are the idea of carbon credits
Speaker 1: and carbon credit economies. This is gonna work, well we
Speaker 1: should explain so, so essentially, what what's happening here is
Speaker 1: that here, here's the problem from an economic standpoint, at least,
Speaker 1: this is what some people would argue. They would argue
Speaker 1: that it costs less money to depend upon fossil fuels
Speaker 1: than it would to shift to an alternative, at least initially.
Speaker 1: You might be able to argue in the long term
Speaker 1: that you would have a benefit, but that's a tough
Speaker 1: sell for any company. Well, the alternatives are new technology now,
Speaker 1: so they're more expensive. They're more expensive, and some would
Speaker 1: argue unproven, some would say they're not efficient, so that
Speaker 1: would cause other changes in production. It would mean possibly
Speaker 1: passing the costs down to you, so that essentially, ultimately
Speaker 1: the consumer ends up footing the bill for whatever the
Speaker 1: changes are. There a lot of arguments against it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a hard sell. Well, carbon credits, the idea is
Speaker 1: to make it less of uh, give give less incentive
Speaker 1: to using carbon when you are a giant company, like
Speaker 1: a manufacturing company. So basically the idea is you put
Speaker 1: a cap on how much carbon you are allowed to
Speaker 1: release into the environment in a given year. You have
Speaker 1: a certain amount and beyond that you are not allowed
Speaker 1: to go. So you have to figure out how to
Speaker 1: work within that cap if you absolutely have to do
Speaker 1: business beyond like if your business requires that, you're going
Speaker 1: to have to emit more carbon than what you are allowed.
Speaker 1: You can then purchase the right to emit carbon, or
Speaker 1: you can trade, depending upon the way the the economy
Speaker 1: is set up. But the idea is that at auction
Speaker 1: you could purchase carbon emission allocations. You could you could
Speaker 1: be allowed to admit a certain amount of carbon for
Speaker 1: a certain amount of money. The government, in turn would
Speaker 1: take the revenue generated from these these auctions and pour
Speaker 1: that into research and development for clean energy alternatives, uh
Speaker 1: and trying to do some sort of public good with
Speaker 1: that money. In theory, anyway, that's what would happen. So
Speaker 1: the idea is that economically you would have the incentive
Speaker 1: to move away from carbon because if you stayed with it,
Speaker 1: you'd have to start paying for it, and one way
Speaker 1: or another, you would either have to ramp down production
Speaker 1: so that you worked within the parameters that were given
Speaker 1: to you, or you have to pay money so that
Speaker 1: you work within the ones you were accustomed to. Either way,
Speaker 1: it's an incentive for you to move off of that
Speaker 1: and find some alternative. UM. The whether it works or not,
Speaker 1: that's a good question, because in the United States it's
Speaker 1: been struck down every time it's come up. It's one
Speaker 1: of those things where, UH, it requires, It requires legislation
Speaker 1: with teeth in it. You have to have the authority
Speaker 1: to say, like, if you're doing business within this country,
Speaker 1: these are the rules you have to follow. And if
Speaker 1: you don't do that, if you just make it a suggestion,
Speaker 1: then obviously very few companies it will adopt that if
Speaker 1: it means that would affect the bottom line. So, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, would it work. There's some question about whether
Speaker 1: or not it would be a huge benefit, but it
Speaker 1: would at least given incentive to companies to try and
Speaker 1: explore alternatives, while theoretically also pouring more money from the
Speaker 1: government into UH sustainable clean energy alternatives. UH. A lot
Speaker 1: of the arguments I've read are that the private industry
Speaker 1: just it's just not enough to to allow for these
Speaker 1: clean energy alternatives to really get a strong foothold, in
Speaker 1: part because the United States government, along with other governments,
Speaker 1: subsidizes fossil fuels. So with fossil fuels getting a subsidy,
Speaker 1: then they already have an advantage. And so you know,
Speaker 1: you're playing against a stack deck. So that's that's the
Speaker 1: general idea. Now. I think personally that a carbon credit
Speaker 1: economy set up fairly, you know, the way it was
Speaker 1: intended to be, and UH, with the added incentive to
Speaker 1: move into more clean energy, would at least be a
Speaker 1: good way to transition UM, particularly for a developed nation. UH.
Speaker 1: And we discussed earlier. It's it's complicated issue because you
Speaker 1: can't just demand the entire world shifts to this when
Speaker 1: there are large parts of the world that are struggling
Speaker 1: for basic UH supplies that all the rest of us
Speaker 1: just tend to take for granted. UH. It's it's a
Speaker 1: very complicated issue. But I think that this sort of
Speaker 1: thing would really help. I just unfortunately, I don't think
Speaker 1: that carbon credit is something we're going to see, at
Speaker 1: least in the United States anytime really soon. I just
Speaker 1: think that it's too hard to sell politically to have
Speaker 1: it happen UM. So that that's kind of where we
Speaker 1: get a lot of people saying, you know, we're hoping
Speaker 1: that technology can help get us out of this, because
Speaker 1: I don't see another way that's going to happen anytime soon.
Speaker 1: So fun times, you guys want to add anything happy
Speaker 1: and and silly before I go any any mole reptilians
Speaker 1: that we need to talk about. I could help, okay, RoboCop,
Speaker 1: so I think nano RoboCop could help Nano RoboCop, So
Speaker 1: we have to go to Nano Detroit. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: So we'll go to Nano Detroit and go to the
Speaker 1: Nano Wonderbread factory that's been turned into a Nano casino
Speaker 1: and uh, we'll we'll get help there. No, no, I
Speaker 1: think I think that all of this is I mean,
Speaker 1: we've talked about some things that that are not going
Speaker 1: to work probably ever, but the fact that people are
Speaker 1: thinking about it and putting research into it is absolutely
Speaker 1: val valuable, even even if only to prove that, yes,
Speaker 1: you should turn the lights off in your room when
Speaker 1: you leave it. All right, So, guys, if you have
Speaker 1: any comments you would like to share, or you just
Speaker 1: want to join the conversation, go to f W Thinking
Speaker 1: dot com. That's the website where we've got all the
Speaker 1: blog posts, podcasts, videos, articles. You can join the conversation there,
Speaker 1: or you can let us know what you think on
Speaker 1: social media and you can find us at Twitter and
Speaker 1: Facebook and Google Plus. Just search for f W Thinking.
Speaker 1: They'll find us there if we want to hear from you,
Speaker 1: and we will talk to you again really soon for
Speaker 1: more on this topic. In the future of technology visit
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