1
00:00:10,240 --> 00:00:14,240
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Drilled. I'm Amy Westerveldt. Today we're digging

2
00:00:14,280 --> 00:00:17,320
Speaker 1: into one of the big reasons fossil fueld companies can

3
00:00:17,360 --> 00:00:20,480
Speaker 1: get away with bad behavior, the story they tell about

4
00:00:20,480 --> 00:00:23,520
Speaker 1: how critical they are to our quality of life. One

5
00:00:23,560 --> 00:00:27,440
Speaker 1: researcher has been doing a lot to debunk that idea recently.

6
00:00:27,200 --> 00:00:32,800
Speaker 2: Julia Steinberger, Professor of Social ecology and ecological economics at

7
00:00:32,800 --> 00:00:34,120
Speaker 2: the University of Leeds.

8
00:00:34,640 --> 00:00:38,840
Speaker 1: Doctor Steinberger has had a few really interesting papers published

9
00:00:38,880 --> 00:00:41,120
Speaker 1: in the last few months. You might have seen the

10
00:00:41,120 --> 00:00:44,000
Speaker 1: coverage of her study that found that wealthy people have

11
00:00:44,120 --> 00:00:47,599
Speaker 1: the largest energy footprints. Maybe that's no surprise, but there

12
00:00:47,600 --> 00:00:50,240
Speaker 1: were some really interesting findings in terms of how those

13
00:00:50,360 --> 00:00:54,160
Speaker 1: energy footprints get to be so big, mainly because they

14
00:00:54,200 --> 00:00:59,160
Speaker 1: spend more on transport, cars, boats, planes, vacations, all the

15
00:00:59,160 --> 00:01:02,840
Speaker 1: most energy in tensive things. Another key finding in that

16
00:01:02,880 --> 00:01:06,119
Speaker 1: study was around an equality in a nutshell, the energy

17
00:01:06,160 --> 00:01:10,399
Speaker 1: inequality gap grows even faster than the wealth gap. That

18
00:01:10,440 --> 00:01:12,720
Speaker 1: feeds into the study we're going to focus on today,

19
00:01:12,880 --> 00:01:16,000
Speaker 1: which found that fossil fuel use has very little impact

20
00:01:16,080 --> 00:01:19,520
Speaker 1: on life expectancy. All of it contradicts a lot of

21
00:01:19,520 --> 00:01:22,839
Speaker 1: the narrative's Big Oil has been telling for the past century,

22
00:01:23,000 --> 00:01:25,759
Speaker 1: and points to the fact that a redistribution of energy

23
00:01:25,880 --> 00:01:29,399
Speaker 1: consumption would be good for both the planet and human health.

24
00:01:30,360 --> 00:01:33,399
Speaker 1: We'll hear more from doctor Steinberger about all of that

25
00:01:34,240 --> 00:01:37,119
Speaker 1: after a quick message from this episode's sponsor.

26
00:02:08,400 --> 00:02:10,440
Speaker 2: So, if there's an economic growth here, they're like, we

27
00:02:10,480 --> 00:02:13,640
Speaker 2: need more cars, more automotive capacity, and more roads because

28
00:02:13,919 --> 00:02:16,720
Speaker 2: we're preparing for growth. You need us to be ready

29
00:02:16,720 --> 00:02:19,680
Speaker 2: for what's coming, right, and the economic downturn, It's like,

30
00:02:19,760 --> 00:02:22,880
Speaker 2: you need to pour money into our industry because we're

31
00:02:22,960 --> 00:02:26,320
Speaker 2: the industry that's going to restart the economy. And the

32
00:02:26,400 --> 00:02:28,640
Speaker 2: reality is they will die if there's no growth. The

33
00:02:28,720 --> 00:02:31,519
Speaker 2: underlying reality is they want more subsidies all the time.

34
00:02:31,800 --> 00:02:34,040
Speaker 1: One of the fossil fuel industry's key talking points is

35
00:02:34,080 --> 00:02:37,959
Speaker 1: that removing fossil fuels is basically an attack on the poor.

36
00:02:38,080 --> 00:02:40,079
Speaker 1: So I'm curious that to have you sort of talk

37
00:02:40,160 --> 00:02:43,600
Speaker 1: through the ways that this research sort of challenges the

38
00:02:43,680 --> 00:02:48,960
Speaker 1: idea that you can't tackle climate change without disadvantaging the poor.

39
00:02:49,560 --> 00:02:52,640
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the way I came across this research topic

40
00:02:52,720 --> 00:02:55,239
Speaker 2: was a bit by accident, because I was really researching

41
00:02:55,280 --> 00:02:56,800
Speaker 2: what a lot of people do, which is, can we

42
00:02:56,840 --> 00:02:59,960
Speaker 2: decouple economic activity and economic growth from fossil fuel use?

43
00:03:00,600 --> 00:03:03,200
Speaker 2: And when I was just looking through international data, one

44
00:03:03,200 --> 00:03:05,240
Speaker 2: of the pieces of international data that was available at

45
00:03:05,240 --> 00:03:07,239
Speaker 2: the time going back I was interested in, like several

46
00:03:07,360 --> 00:03:10,800
Speaker 2: decades back, it was the Human Development Index, and that

47
00:03:10,840 --> 00:03:14,840
Speaker 2: has GDP and life expectancy and education indicators in it,

48
00:03:14,919 --> 00:03:16,560
Speaker 2: and so I basically use that, but I sort of

49
00:03:16,560 --> 00:03:19,440
Speaker 2: broke it apart, and what I found was that for

50
00:03:19,480 --> 00:03:23,399
Speaker 2: the different components, GDP was decoupling quite slowly, but these

51
00:03:23,400 --> 00:03:26,359
Speaker 2: other components were decoupling very fast. And that was really

52
00:03:26,400 --> 00:03:30,680
Speaker 2: interesting because that wasn't reflected anywhere, including in discussions around

53
00:03:30,760 --> 00:03:33,360
Speaker 2: what the economy is doing. There's always this assumption that

54
00:03:33,400 --> 00:03:36,480
Speaker 2: what the economy is doing is contributing to the general good,

55
00:03:36,960 --> 00:03:40,160
Speaker 2: that an average GDP per capita contributes to the general good,

56
00:03:40,360 --> 00:03:43,400
Speaker 2: And so I decided to look into that more. And

57
00:03:43,440 --> 00:03:46,200
Speaker 2: what we're seeing is that other things play a huge role,

58
00:03:46,320 --> 00:03:49,720
Speaker 2: so that it's not just the amount of energy that's

59
00:03:49,760 --> 00:03:52,520
Speaker 2: consumed or the number of dollars circulating in the economy

60
00:03:52,960 --> 00:03:55,480
Speaker 2: that is really what the purpose of that is, And

61
00:03:55,920 --> 00:03:59,680
Speaker 2: even more importantly, what are the social policies in terms

62
00:03:59,680 --> 00:04:04,640
Speaker 2: of social welfare, protection, guarantees of sanitation, clean water, all

63
00:04:04,680 --> 00:04:06,320
Speaker 2: of that stuff. Those are the things that are really

64
00:04:06,320 --> 00:04:08,840
Speaker 2: the bedrocks that underpin this. And so what we see

65
00:04:08,880 --> 00:04:12,440
Speaker 2: is we see the effects of good public policy and

66
00:04:12,680 --> 00:04:16,800
Speaker 2: health measures over time are much more important than what

67
00:04:17,080 --> 00:04:20,680
Speaker 2: either the economy or bulk energy are doing. And so

68
00:04:21,240 --> 00:04:25,000
Speaker 2: that very much goes against one of the main justifications

69
00:04:25,000 --> 00:04:27,760
Speaker 2: that the fossil fuel industry uses to sort of prop

70
00:04:27,839 --> 00:04:31,960
Speaker 2: up its itself. So it's an industry that, as you've

71
00:04:32,000 --> 00:04:34,840
Speaker 2: been talking about a lot, cares very much about its

72
00:04:34,839 --> 00:04:39,279
Speaker 2: public persona because its public persona has very bad aspects

73
00:04:39,320 --> 00:04:42,920
Speaker 2: to it. So it's bad for labor rights, it's bad

74
00:04:42,920 --> 00:04:45,680
Speaker 2: for environmental justice and the communities that lives close to

75
00:04:45,680 --> 00:04:48,919
Speaker 2: its facilities and infrastructure. It's bad globally in terms of

76
00:04:48,920 --> 00:04:52,520
Speaker 2: planetary destruction. It's bad locally in terms of places where

77
00:04:52,520 --> 00:04:55,600
Speaker 2: different disasters happen. It's bad locally in cities where people

78
00:04:55,600 --> 00:04:59,400
Speaker 2: suffer from air pollution. So it has a whole raft

79
00:04:59,440 --> 00:05:02,600
Speaker 2: of negative is at all different kinds of scales and

80
00:05:02,680 --> 00:05:05,520
Speaker 2: types of effects around the world. But it's trying to

81
00:05:05,560 --> 00:05:09,080
Speaker 2: present a positive view of itself as propping up the

82
00:05:09,160 --> 00:05:14,159
Speaker 2: economy as being the grubby, dirty giant that's upholding all

83
00:05:14,240 --> 00:05:17,640
Speaker 2: of our activities. And when it turns out that that's

84
00:05:17,680 --> 00:05:19,840
Speaker 2: not true either, you know that that thing that they

85
00:05:19,839 --> 00:05:21,560
Speaker 2: have to cling onto, which is the last thing that

86
00:05:21,560 --> 00:05:23,640
Speaker 2: they can cling onto, is we are holding up the

87
00:05:23,680 --> 00:05:26,760
Speaker 2: fort for all of you turns out not at all

88
00:05:26,839 --> 00:05:28,839
Speaker 2: to be as true as they make it out to be.

89
00:05:29,440 --> 00:05:32,800
Speaker 2: And if I'm not mistaken, we don't know this yet,

90
00:05:32,920 --> 00:05:35,880
Speaker 2: but we always learn these things too late. They might

91
00:05:35,960 --> 00:05:38,159
Speaker 2: very well have the science and their own evidence that

92
00:05:38,279 --> 00:05:41,560
Speaker 2: shows that fossil fuels are not necessarily for well being,

93
00:05:41,600 --> 00:05:44,359
Speaker 2: social function, or quality of life. They might already have

94
00:05:44,440 --> 00:05:47,320
Speaker 2: that information. So for them, you know, they've been ahead

95
00:05:47,320 --> 00:05:49,080
Speaker 2: of the game and climate, they've been ahead of the

96
00:05:49,080 --> 00:05:53,480
Speaker 2: game and lots of different arenas of you know, scientific

97
00:05:53,560 --> 00:05:56,560
Speaker 2: knowledge of what their industry does and doesn't do. They

98
00:05:56,640 --> 00:05:58,000
Speaker 2: might be ahead of the game here as well. But

99
00:05:58,080 --> 00:05:59,440
Speaker 2: this is one of the stories that they've still been

100
00:05:59,440 --> 00:06:02,080
Speaker 2: able to cling up because nobody's really been putting the

101
00:06:02,080 --> 00:06:04,400
Speaker 2: pieces together to say, no, this isn't true. And so

102
00:06:04,480 --> 00:06:05,680
Speaker 2: that's one of the things we're trying to do with

103
00:06:05,680 --> 00:06:09,240
Speaker 2: his research, to say, okay, what's a good life, what's

104
00:06:09,279 --> 00:06:12,120
Speaker 2: necessary to live well? How does energy? How do fossil

105
00:06:12,120 --> 00:06:14,560
Speaker 2: fuels contribute to it? And the answer is really not

106
00:06:14,600 --> 00:06:16,440
Speaker 2: that much, and it falls out of the numbers. So

107
00:06:16,440 --> 00:06:19,080
Speaker 2: I've been attacked a lot by people saying, oh, you're

108
00:06:19,120 --> 00:06:22,760
Speaker 2: just wrong, you're just presenting your biases. But honestly, this

109
00:06:22,880 --> 00:06:25,520
Speaker 2: result falls out of the data. And I don't care

110
00:06:25,520 --> 00:06:28,680
Speaker 2: if you're left, right, center, pink or purple or anything.

111
00:06:28,920 --> 00:06:31,160
Speaker 2: You can't see a different result come out of the data.

112
00:06:31,480 --> 00:06:36,880
Speaker 1: Fossil fuels have been connected to GDP, and then you

113
00:06:36,880 --> 00:06:40,640
Speaker 1: know you're showing that GDP is only responsible for most

114
00:06:40,760 --> 00:06:45,839
Speaker 1: twenty nine percent of life expectancy improvement. So, Julia, are

115
00:06:45,880 --> 00:06:50,120
Speaker 1: you questioning trickle down economics?

116
00:06:50,920 --> 00:06:52,760
Speaker 2: No, exactly, And so I think that this is one

117
00:06:52,800 --> 00:06:54,279
Speaker 2: of the things that was really it's one of the

118
00:06:54,320 --> 00:06:56,840
Speaker 2: most shocking results to me, and it was keeping me up,

119
00:06:57,160 --> 00:06:59,440
Speaker 2: and I tried every which way, and we tried multiple

120
00:06:59,440 --> 00:07:02,760
Speaker 2: different methods, but it's there, which is, depending on how

121
00:07:02,760 --> 00:07:05,039
Speaker 2: you measure, you get a completely different result. We see

122
00:07:05,040 --> 00:07:08,440
Speaker 2: a completely different results come out if you measure internationally

123
00:07:08,440 --> 00:07:10,920
Speaker 2: traded GDP, which is the stuff we normally measure market

124
00:07:10,960 --> 00:07:14,520
Speaker 2: exchange rate. So if you're trading dollars on the international exchange,

125
00:07:14,520 --> 00:07:16,440
Speaker 2: how much is your economy worth, how much is your

126
00:07:16,480 --> 00:07:21,160
Speaker 2: income worth? That plays a much smaller role threety percent.

127
00:07:21,240 --> 00:07:24,000
Speaker 2: That way of measuring GDP plays a much smaller role

128
00:07:24,320 --> 00:07:29,040
Speaker 2: in explaining life expectancy increases then purchasing power parity GDP,

129
00:07:29,480 --> 00:07:32,400
Speaker 2: and the two are different for developing economies. Mainly by

130
00:07:32,400 --> 00:07:34,920
Speaker 2: the time your economy is industrialized, there's pretty much no

131
00:07:35,000 --> 00:07:38,520
Speaker 2: daylight between the two. So we're seeing the dollars that count,

132
00:07:38,520 --> 00:07:40,840
Speaker 2: which are the dollars that allow poor people in their

133
00:07:40,840 --> 00:07:43,400
Speaker 2: own countries to buy stuff matter a lot that can

134
00:07:43,440 --> 00:07:46,280
Speaker 2: explain about half of it. Then the dollars that are

135
00:07:46,320 --> 00:07:49,440
Speaker 2: the dollars that are making the global economy go for

136
00:07:49,480 --> 00:07:53,920
Speaker 2: the purpose of rich people. So it's not trickle down economics.

137
00:07:53,920 --> 00:07:58,240
Speaker 2: What we're seeing is certain types of industries being associated

138
00:07:58,280 --> 00:08:01,920
Speaker 2: with certain types of international trade and profit making which

139
00:08:02,000 --> 00:08:05,760
Speaker 2: benefit a few multinational corporations, and you see the profits

140
00:08:05,760 --> 00:08:07,880
Speaker 2: sort of going to the top, right, So this is

141
00:08:07,920 --> 00:08:11,200
Speaker 2: the circumstance by with wealth accumulation. You know, as oxiom

142
00:08:11,200 --> 00:08:15,720
Speaker 2: has showed upwards of eighty percent of the international economic

143
00:08:15,760 --> 00:08:19,200
Speaker 2: growth accrues to the top two percent of wealth owners.

144
00:08:19,480 --> 00:08:23,360
Speaker 2: So that economy that the fossil fuel industry is participating

145
00:08:23,400 --> 00:08:26,440
Speaker 2: in is the economy where the wealth accrues to the

146
00:08:26,440 --> 00:08:29,640
Speaker 2: top and the benefits do not reach everybody else. The

147
00:08:29,640 --> 00:08:34,480
Speaker 2: growth in fossil fuels can explain three quarters of the

148
00:08:34,559 --> 00:08:38,320
Speaker 2: increase in that GDP, so they're contributing to that, not

149
00:08:38,360 --> 00:08:40,120
Speaker 2: to life expectancy.

150
00:08:39,679 --> 00:08:41,959
Speaker 1: Right, Okay, And then I want to talk about the

151
00:08:42,040 --> 00:08:45,920
Speaker 1: residential electricity use. So you point out in this paper

152
00:08:45,960 --> 00:08:49,960
Speaker 1: a few ways to decouple carbon based energy from residential

153
00:08:50,320 --> 00:08:54,600
Speaker 1: electricity in the form of renewable energy, energy efficiency, and

154
00:08:54,679 --> 00:08:57,800
Speaker 1: shifts in consumption patterns. If I were like a fossil

155
00:08:57,880 --> 00:09:01,400
Speaker 1: fuel comms guy looking at this, I would glom onto

156
00:09:01,440 --> 00:09:04,760
Speaker 1: this residential electricity thing and see like, aha, we are

157
00:09:04,880 --> 00:09:08,840
Speaker 1: important to well being. But what you're saying here is

158
00:09:08,880 --> 00:09:14,560
Speaker 1: that residential electricity does not mean necessarily carbon based energy,

159
00:09:14,640 --> 00:09:18,079
Speaker 1: nor does it even have to be the same level

160
00:09:18,080 --> 00:09:19,880
Speaker 1: of consumption that it is today.

161
00:09:20,120 --> 00:09:22,079
Speaker 2: And that's another part of the research I'm doing. We're

162
00:09:22,080 --> 00:09:25,760
Speaker 2: actually looking at the energy requirements of decent living standards.

163
00:09:25,880 --> 00:09:29,680
Speaker 2: This is based on work by Narasimirau, professor at Yale University.

164
00:09:29,760 --> 00:09:31,360
Speaker 2: So very much based on his work. The idea is

165
00:09:31,400 --> 00:09:34,319
Speaker 2: to say how much energy is required for decent living standards,

166
00:09:34,559 --> 00:09:37,000
Speaker 2: especially in developing countries or there's a lot of deprivation,

167
00:09:37,120 --> 00:09:39,400
Speaker 2: but even in the UK or in the US there

168
00:09:39,400 --> 00:09:41,440
Speaker 2: are people living in energy poverty. So what is necessary

169
00:09:41,440 --> 00:09:44,240
Speaker 2: to live comfortably and in a healthy way, and then

170
00:09:44,320 --> 00:09:46,760
Speaker 2: try to understand what the technologies and infrastructures that would

171
00:09:46,760 --> 00:09:49,320
Speaker 2: allow that to happen at a low energy use level

172
00:09:49,320 --> 00:09:52,040
Speaker 2: would be. Because the point here is that we distinguish

173
00:09:52,040 --> 00:09:55,679
Speaker 2: in our analysis between the energy you pay for at

174
00:09:55,679 --> 00:09:58,920
Speaker 2: the energy meter and the energy services you get for it.

175
00:09:59,200 --> 00:10:02,120
Speaker 2: So the energy services would be, for instance, a comfortable

176
00:10:02,280 --> 00:10:04,720
Speaker 2: environment in terms of not too hot, not too could,

177
00:10:05,000 --> 00:10:08,200
Speaker 2: normal comfort. Right, that's an energy service. But you can

178
00:10:08,240 --> 00:10:11,840
Speaker 2: achieve thermal comfort by just having the building that's well designed,

179
00:10:12,240 --> 00:10:14,560
Speaker 2: so you can get a long way without using any

180
00:10:14,679 --> 00:10:18,040
Speaker 2: energy whatsoever if you use the right kind of surroundings

181
00:10:18,040 --> 00:10:21,360
Speaker 2: and infrastructure and technologies, and so that's one of the

182
00:10:21,400 --> 00:10:23,160
Speaker 2: things that we're looking at. So right now we have

183
00:10:23,200 --> 00:10:24,800
Speaker 2: a global model where we do that. This is not

184
00:10:24,840 --> 00:10:28,320
Speaker 2: published yet, but the point is you can achieve decent

185
00:10:28,400 --> 00:10:32,520
Speaker 2: living energy at a fraction of the energy use currently

186
00:10:32,840 --> 00:10:37,080
Speaker 2: being used, especially in countries like the US, but also globally,

187
00:10:37,720 --> 00:10:39,839
Speaker 2: So then it becomes a question of what is the

188
00:10:39,920 --> 00:10:41,679
Speaker 2: right technology to use. And the point here is these

189
00:10:41,679 --> 00:10:45,000
Speaker 2: are not fossil fuel technologies at all. These are technologies

190
00:10:45,120 --> 00:10:50,400
Speaker 2: like LED lights or housing installation, or making sure that

191
00:10:50,440 --> 00:10:53,400
Speaker 2: people's south facing windows have plenty of shade, or that

192
00:10:53,480 --> 00:10:55,160
Speaker 2: the shade can be removed if it's winter and they

193
00:10:55,160 --> 00:10:58,800
Speaker 2: need more heat in their house. So these are absolutely

194
00:10:58,800 --> 00:11:01,360
Speaker 2: not fossil fuel technology. They don't have to be made

195
00:11:01,360 --> 00:11:04,319
Speaker 2: with fossil fil materials like plastic either, and they can

196
00:11:04,360 --> 00:11:07,320
Speaker 2: really enable people to live very high quality, very healthy

197
00:11:07,360 --> 00:11:10,160
Speaker 2: lives with no fossil fuel us whatsoever. The other thing

198
00:11:10,200 --> 00:11:13,079
Speaker 2: we really challenge in my research and the research that

199
00:11:13,160 --> 00:11:15,640
Speaker 2: other colleagues are doing, is this idea that we need

200
00:11:15,679 --> 00:11:19,720
Speaker 2: to be comparing renewable energy at the primary energy level. So,

201
00:11:19,760 --> 00:11:22,280
Speaker 2: I don't know, if you're familiar with energy accounting, you

202
00:11:22,360 --> 00:11:26,120
Speaker 2: probably are. The fossil fuel companies have really insisted on

203
00:11:26,240 --> 00:11:30,040
Speaker 2: being compared at the level where they look good primary energy,

204
00:11:30,040 --> 00:11:33,200
Speaker 2: which is the energy extracted from the environment. Now it's

205
00:11:33,240 --> 00:11:37,320
Speaker 2: been eighty percent practically since I've been alive, huge, huge

206
00:11:37,360 --> 00:11:40,120
Speaker 2: fraction of the primary energy we use globally, which is

207
00:11:40,160 --> 00:11:43,600
Speaker 2: growing all the time, is eighty percent fossil fuels. But

208
00:11:44,080 --> 00:11:48,400
Speaker 2: the problem with that that basically anybody in energy studies knows,

209
00:11:48,840 --> 00:11:51,640
Speaker 2: is that that's a crap level way of looking at

210
00:11:51,800 --> 00:11:55,240
Speaker 2: energy use for social benefit or for economic benefit, even

211
00:11:55,800 --> 00:11:59,840
Speaker 2: because of two reasons. One is, fossil fuels are massive,

212
00:12:00,600 --> 00:12:04,079
Speaker 2: massively inefficient. Almost every single use of fossil fuels in

213
00:12:04,120 --> 00:12:10,680
Speaker 2: the economy has this huge loss between extraction and actual

214
00:12:10,720 --> 00:12:14,040
Speaker 2: final energy delivered, like electricity, So fossil fuelings typically have

215
00:12:14,440 --> 00:12:17,240
Speaker 2: two thirds losses before they can be transformed into something

216
00:12:17,240 --> 00:12:22,760
Speaker 2: we actually want like electricity. And yeah, so of course

217
00:12:23,000 --> 00:12:24,840
Speaker 2: the fossil fuel companies want to be compared at that

218
00:12:24,960 --> 00:12:28,000
Speaker 2: level as opposed to the level of the stuff we

219
00:12:28,040 --> 00:12:32,640
Speaker 2: actually use, which is you know, electricity or petrol use

220
00:12:32,679 --> 00:12:37,800
Speaker 2: in cars or diesel use in cars. Massively massively inefficient technology. Again,

221
00:12:37,840 --> 00:12:40,800
Speaker 2: it's around a third of the energy burned up that

222
00:12:40,960 --> 00:12:45,000
Speaker 2: makes it into motive power for the car. So we're

223
00:12:45,040 --> 00:12:51,720
Speaker 2: talking about very very inefficient ways to translate energy from

224
00:12:51,760 --> 00:12:53,960
Speaker 2: what they take out of the ground into what we

225
00:12:54,040 --> 00:12:59,960
Speaker 2: actually use. And interestingly, renewable technologies and electricity based technologies

226
00:13:00,360 --> 00:13:03,600
Speaker 2: do not have these inefficiencies at all. So a lot

227
00:13:03,640 --> 00:13:08,240
Speaker 2: of renewable based technologies just deliver immediately electricity. Now, on

228
00:13:08,320 --> 00:13:11,680
Speaker 2: that basis, they're going to look bad from a primary

229
00:13:11,760 --> 00:13:14,840
Speaker 2: energy perspective because they're not bulked up by this two

230
00:13:14,840 --> 00:13:17,480
Speaker 2: thirds waste factor. But on a final energy basis, they

231
00:13:17,480 --> 00:13:20,480
Speaker 2: look great because they're just delivering electricity directly, or they're

232
00:13:20,520 --> 00:13:23,840
Speaker 2: delivering heat directly, or they're delivering motive powers to cars

233
00:13:23,840 --> 00:13:26,840
Speaker 2: directly through electrification through electricity batteries. So one of the

234
00:13:26,880 --> 00:13:29,079
Speaker 2: things we're doing here is we're really trying to start

235
00:13:29,160 --> 00:13:31,000
Speaker 2: doing this research where we say, actually, we're not going

236
00:13:31,080 --> 00:13:33,040
Speaker 2: to play on your field anymore. We're going to play

237
00:13:33,040 --> 00:13:35,600
Speaker 2: on the field of what actually matters to people. Electricity

238
00:13:35,640 --> 00:13:38,680
Speaker 2: and electricity in houses matters to people. You're not going

239
00:13:38,760 --> 00:13:40,600
Speaker 2: to get twice the benefit if used twice as much

240
00:13:40,600 --> 00:13:43,200
Speaker 2: electricity in your house, but having some and consuming a

241
00:13:43,200 --> 00:13:45,400
Speaker 2: reasonable amount that's going to matter. It doesn't have to

242
00:13:45,400 --> 00:13:47,559
Speaker 2: come from fossil fuels at all. So the point is

243
00:13:47,600 --> 00:13:50,880
Speaker 2: that the renewable energy that can replace fossil fuels in

244
00:13:50,960 --> 00:13:54,880
Speaker 2: delivering sufficient electricity is a fraction of what the fossil

245
00:13:54,920 --> 00:13:57,760
Speaker 2: fuel use for electricity is and that's one of the

246
00:13:57,760 --> 00:14:01,560
Speaker 2: reasons we see this huge disconnect between fossil fuels, which

247
00:14:01,559 --> 00:14:05,120
Speaker 2: are measured as carbon emissions in my study, and you

248
00:14:05,160 --> 00:14:09,520
Speaker 2: know outcomes as life expectancy compared to electricity. It's because

249
00:14:09,559 --> 00:14:12,400
Speaker 2: they're massively inefficient. There's a huge disconnect there, and you

250
00:14:12,440 --> 00:14:14,680
Speaker 2: can make electricity any number of other ways that are

251
00:14:14,760 --> 00:14:16,360
Speaker 2: much more efficient and much cleaner.

252
00:14:16,480 --> 00:14:18,760
Speaker 1: There was this line in the intro, and I think

253
00:14:18,840 --> 00:14:21,240
Speaker 1: in the conclusion of the paper too, that a strong

254
00:14:21,280 --> 00:14:24,680
Speaker 1: correlation between emissions and human development at one point in

255
00:14:24,720 --> 00:14:28,120
Speaker 1: time does not imply that their dynamics are coupled in

256
00:14:28,160 --> 00:14:30,440
Speaker 1: the long term. Can you talk a little bit bit

257
00:14:30,480 --> 00:14:34,720
Speaker 1: about times where the correlation was strong and you know

258
00:14:34,800 --> 00:14:37,600
Speaker 1: how long it's been since there was such a period.

259
00:14:37,960 --> 00:14:41,560
Speaker 2: It's more contrasting than that the correlation is always strong. Now,

260
00:14:41,600 --> 00:14:43,760
Speaker 2: there might come a time when the correlation is not strong,

261
00:14:43,840 --> 00:14:45,920
Speaker 2: but we're not there yet. If you take a snapshot

262
00:14:45,920 --> 00:14:49,080
Speaker 2: of the world and you compare you know, living standards

263
00:14:49,120 --> 00:14:53,360
Speaker 2: life expectancy with energy use primary indy use, even the

264
00:14:53,400 --> 00:14:59,200
Speaker 2: correlation is decent, it's it's relatively good, but that doesn't

265
00:14:59,240 --> 00:15:02,920
Speaker 2: mean that one causes the other. Because you know, we

266
00:15:03,000 --> 00:15:06,040
Speaker 2: have all these examples and statistics, like you know, the

267
00:15:06,120 --> 00:15:09,720
Speaker 2: number of pirates versus squirrels is highly correlated. But are

268
00:15:09,720 --> 00:15:13,280
Speaker 2: the pirates? Are the squirrels bringing pirates? You know, you

269
00:15:13,320 --> 00:15:16,640
Speaker 2: have all these things that are spurious correlations because you know,

270
00:15:16,720 --> 00:15:19,120
Speaker 2: maybe they both come out on sunny days and that's

271
00:15:19,160 --> 00:15:22,200
Speaker 2: why they're correlated. In this case, I would argue that

272
00:15:22,240 --> 00:15:27,080
Speaker 2: the correlation is in a historical legacy that the countries

273
00:15:27,080 --> 00:15:31,840
Speaker 2: that got started kept going in both directions with sort

274
00:15:31,920 --> 00:15:35,160
Speaker 2: of an advance, and so they kept going together. But

275
00:15:35,320 --> 00:15:37,920
Speaker 2: what you see when you look at what can cause

276
00:15:38,000 --> 00:15:41,640
Speaker 2: what over time, and again, we can't prove causation because

277
00:15:41,840 --> 00:15:45,560
Speaker 2: just from a statistics perspective, there's some methods where you

278
00:15:45,560 --> 00:15:49,520
Speaker 2: can prove causation, they're very rare. We can't, but we

279
00:15:49,560 --> 00:15:52,280
Speaker 2: can certainly disprove it. So what we can do is

280
00:15:52,280 --> 00:15:56,880
Speaker 2: we can conclusively put in a coffin, bang the lid

281
00:15:56,960 --> 00:16:02,680
Speaker 2: shut with big old nails, saying fossil fuel use does

282
00:16:02,720 --> 00:16:09,200
Speaker 2: not contribute significantly to improvements in life expectancy. So causation

283
00:16:09,440 --> 00:16:14,120
Speaker 2: is disproven. So the idea that there's this industrial underpinning,

284
00:16:14,240 --> 00:16:16,680
Speaker 2: you know, this idea of the grubby titan who's sort

285
00:16:16,680 --> 00:16:18,960
Speaker 2: of you know, holding up the industrial basis for the

286
00:16:19,000 --> 00:16:21,960
Speaker 2: rest of us. That is disproven by this study. We

287
00:16:22,040 --> 00:16:26,400
Speaker 2: do not lie on fossil fuels for improvements in our

288
00:16:26,440 --> 00:16:30,200
Speaker 2: living standards. And there's several reasons for that that you

289
00:16:30,200 --> 00:16:32,720
Speaker 2: could think of. One is because we have alternatives, so

290
00:16:32,800 --> 00:16:35,560
Speaker 2: there is an alternative actually and several. The other is

291
00:16:35,560 --> 00:16:38,960
Speaker 2: we have in several cases built up infrastructure, Like we're

292
00:16:38,960 --> 00:16:40,520
Speaker 2: not like in the early days of the Roman Empire

293
00:16:40,520 --> 00:16:41,960
Speaker 2: and we don't have any roads. We have things like

294
00:16:42,040 --> 00:16:43,720
Speaker 2: you know, roads and train tracks and stuff. We have

295
00:16:43,800 --> 00:16:47,040
Speaker 2: legacy infrastructure, right, So that's one reason. And the third

296
00:16:47,040 --> 00:16:49,640
Speaker 2: reason is because technology is improving on the demand side,

297
00:16:49,840 --> 00:16:52,040
Speaker 2: So on the demand side we can now get a

298
00:16:52,080 --> 00:16:54,680
Speaker 2: lot more for a lot less, which again means that

299
00:16:54,720 --> 00:16:58,400
Speaker 2: the industrial reliance we have is more on high technology.

300
00:16:59,400 --> 00:17:03,120
Speaker 2: It's more on information technology or things like that that

301
00:17:03,200 --> 00:17:06,000
Speaker 2: allows us to manage things more efficiently and on things

302
00:17:06,000 --> 00:17:09,679
Speaker 2: like LED lighting, you know, other stuff, than it is

303
00:17:09,840 --> 00:17:14,399
Speaker 2: on these particular fuels. So these particular fuels you just

304
00:17:14,440 --> 00:17:15,919
Speaker 2: can't really see the effect anymore.

305
00:17:56,960 --> 00:17:59,840
Speaker 1: That's all really important to keep in mind in the

306
00:18:00,080 --> 00:18:03,919
Speaker 1: context of the current situation. Oil and gases in. This

307
00:18:04,080 --> 00:18:07,159
Speaker 1: is an industry in need of a bailout, but it

308
00:18:07,240 --> 00:18:11,760
Speaker 1: makes less and less economic sense every month. It's had

309
00:18:11,800 --> 00:18:14,919
Speaker 1: a lot less positive impact on the public than it

310
00:18:15,000 --> 00:18:17,520
Speaker 1: pretends to have had, and it's setting us on a

311
00:18:17,520 --> 00:18:21,080
Speaker 1: collision course with extinction. In an upcoming episode, we'll talk

312
00:18:21,119 --> 00:18:24,879
Speaker 1: about how the industry has inflated its jobs numbers for years,

313
00:18:25,440 --> 00:18:29,000
Speaker 1: so that popular narrative also turns out to be a lie,

314
00:18:29,359 --> 00:18:33,000
Speaker 1: and the oil industry will eventually leave the public with

315
00:18:33,080 --> 00:18:37,120
Speaker 1: the mess of thousands of abandoned wells and drill sites.

316
00:18:38,160 --> 00:18:40,960
Speaker 1: It's the public that needs bailing out, really, not the

317
00:18:41,000 --> 00:18:53,840
Speaker 1: oil industry. That's it for this time. Thanks for listening,

318
00:18:53,920 --> 00:18:57,480
Speaker 1: and we'll be back later this week with another episode

319
00:18:57,640 --> 00:19:03,840
Speaker 1: tracking some of the many, many examples of industry looking

320
00:19:03,920 --> 00:19:08,439
Speaker 1: for regulatory rollbacks or subsidies under the cover of the

321
00:19:08,560 --> 00:19:13,720
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen pandemic. We've started a tracker for these proposals

322
00:19:13,760 --> 00:19:18,080
Speaker 1: and policy changes on our website that's at drillednews dot com.

323
00:19:18,280 --> 00:19:20,600
Speaker 1: There's a map there with all of them and a

324
00:19:20,680 --> 00:19:24,440
Speaker 1: list so you can read through what's happening so far.

325
00:19:24,520 --> 00:19:28,440
Speaker 1: That list has two dozen examples on it. I'm sure

326
00:19:28,440 --> 00:19:30,520
Speaker 1: there will be more by the end of the week.

327
00:19:31,200 --> 00:19:34,159
Speaker 1: If you'd like to support that work, Our Patreon is

328
00:19:34,280 --> 00:19:38,719
Speaker 1: Patreon dot com slash drilled. You can also sign up

329
00:19:38,720 --> 00:19:43,840
Speaker 1: for our newsletter at drillednews dot substack dot com. We

330
00:19:43,880 --> 00:19:47,440
Speaker 1: put out a weekly roundup of climate accountability news, and

331
00:19:47,480 --> 00:19:50,879
Speaker 1: we will soon be launching a paid newsletter with extra

332
00:19:51,000 --> 00:19:54,240
Speaker 1: reporting in it. Both of those options will also get

333
00:19:54,280 --> 00:19:59,720
Speaker 1: you add free episodes of the podcast and preview episodes.

334
00:20:00,119 --> 00:20:05,119
Speaker 1: We are actually working on two upcoming narrative investigative seasons,

335
00:20:05,359 --> 00:20:08,000
Speaker 1: which we've figured out a way to do even if

336
00:20:08,040 --> 00:20:11,000
Speaker 1: the quarantine continues for several months, so we'll be getting

337
00:20:11,040 --> 00:20:13,639
Speaker 1: those to you over the next few months as well,

338
00:20:14,000 --> 00:20:19,240
Speaker 1: and again subscribers and Patreon members will get a first

339
00:20:19,320 --> 00:20:22,159
Speaker 1: peek at those seasons, So if that's something that you

340
00:20:22,160 --> 00:20:25,920
Speaker 1: can do right now, we appreciate it. Our latest Patreon

341
00:20:26,320 --> 00:20:33,000
Speaker 1: members are Stephanie cass Battally Fouber, Roman Sanakov, Daniel Stubbs,

342
00:20:33,600 --> 00:20:39,520
Speaker 1: Heather Coleman, Mari Miller, Caro Leopold, Matthew Erickson, Zane Selvin's,

343
00:20:39,800 --> 00:20:43,960
Speaker 1: Christopher Round and Marcy Beck. Thank you, guys for your support.

344
00:20:44,200 --> 00:20:47,280
Speaker 1: It really means a lot. It's literally enabling us to

345
00:20:47,359 --> 00:20:51,800
Speaker 1: do the reporting that we're doing, so very much appreciated. Okay,

346
00:20:51,920 --> 00:21:08,159
Speaker 1: that's it and we'll see you next time. Drilled is

347
00:21:08,200 --> 00:21:12,919
Speaker 1: produced and distributed by Critical Frequency. The show is reported, written,

348
00:21:12,920 --> 00:21:16,120
Speaker 1: and produced by me Amy Westervelt. Our music for the

349
00:21:16,119 --> 00:21:20,200
Speaker 1: There Will Be Fraud season is by Martin Wissenberg. Our

350
00:21:20,320 --> 00:21:24,439
Speaker 1: editorial advisor is Rika Murphy. You can find Drilled wherever

351
00:21:24,480 --> 00:21:27,280
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, and please remember to leave us

352
00:21:27,280 --> 00:21:30,760
Speaker 1: a rating or review. It does help us find new listeners.

353
00:21:31,040 --> 00:21:34,920
Speaker 1: There will be two new episodes of the Heated Miniseries

354
00:21:35,040 --> 00:21:38,439
Speaker 1: podcast this week too, so look for those on Wednesday

355
00:21:38,480 --> 00:21:41,840
Speaker 1: and Friday in your feed. You can follow us on

356
00:21:41,880 --> 00:21:45,480
Speaker 1: Twitter at we are Drilled and find more reporting on

357
00:21:45,520 --> 00:21:57,720
Speaker 1: our website at drillednews dot com