WEBVTT - S8 Ep7 | The Global Oil Rush 0:00:02.040 --> 0:00:05.640 We've been focused on Guyana this season, and for good reason. 0:00:05.920 --> 0:00:09.119 It's on track to become the world's largest oil producer 0:00:09.240 --> 0:00:12.680 per capita in the next decade. But it's also important 0:00:12.720 --> 0:00:16.760 to note that what's happening in Guyana is pretty illustrative 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:20.400 of what's happening all over the world right now. There 0:00:20.480 --> 0:00:23.919 is a global oil rush and it's hitting the Caribbean 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:28.560 region and Africa particularly hard. Today, I'm bringing you a 0:00:28.600 --> 0:00:32.479 conversation with reporter Jeff Goodell at Rolling Stone, who's just 0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:36.200 written a scorching piece on what's been happening in Namibia, 0:00:36.280 --> 0:00:39.680 particularly with respect to a company that seems to have 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:43.120 claimed on paper that there are billions of barrels of 0:00:43.159 --> 0:00:46.640 oil on its land, but never actually proven that there's 0:00:46.760 --> 0:00:51.680 anything there that never stops them from drilling though right 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:55.760 next to a UNESCO World Heritage Site, no less, and 0:00:55.840 --> 0:01:02.000 those completely unnecessary exploratory wells have caused plenty of environmental damage. 0:01:02.320 --> 0:01:05.080 Jeff went to Namibia to figure out what the heck 0:01:05.200 --> 0:01:08.520 has been going on. He's going to talk us through 0:01:08.560 --> 0:01:10.559 all of it, how it fits in with what we've 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:13.399 been seeing in Guyana, and how it all relates to 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:16.480 the global oil rush. After this quick break. 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:28.480 My name is Jeff Goodell. I am a writer at 0:01:28.680 --> 0:01:32.040 Rolling Stone and the author of a number of books 0:01:32.080 --> 0:01:34.240 about energy and climate change. 0:01:34.600 --> 0:01:38.880 We're talking because you just wrote this massive feature about 0:01:39.400 --> 0:01:43.320 oil exploration in Namibia and a little bit in Botswana 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:46.959 in Africa in general, and I am fascinated by this story. 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:49.840 So I guess I wanted to know how you first 0:01:49.840 --> 0:01:52.440 started looking into this, What first popped onto your radar 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:55.440 that made you go, oh, this is something worth looking into. 0:01:56.760 --> 0:02:00.000 Well, I got tipped off by foundation who told me 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:03.840 that there was this drilling going on around the Okabango Delta, 0:02:03.920 --> 0:02:06.840 which is a in ESCO World ariatage site, you know, 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:10.200 and they were interested in life conservation and things, and 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:14.639 like you and many journalists, we get pitched stuff all 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:16.400 the time. And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, it 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:19.680 sounds great, but you know, I got lots to do, right, 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:21.760 and so I kind of didn't think about it. And 0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:24.040 then then I was just sort of googling around one 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:25.760 day and thinking more about it, and let's started to 0:02:25.760 --> 0:02:27.480 look into it a little bit and it became really 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:32.720 interesting to me very quickly. Because this company called Recon Africa, 0:02:32.760 --> 0:02:36.000 which was based in Vancouver. They were kind of, you know, 0:02:36.080 --> 0:02:40.160 a small kind of or oil and gas exploration company, 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:42.880 and there was some really good reporting that had been 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:48.200 done by National Geographic that suggested that, you know, maybe 0:02:48.200 --> 0:02:50.679 this was not all up and up, and maybe there 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:57.640 was some other game being played here besides straightforward oil 0:02:57.680 --> 0:03:00.880 and gas drilling and exploration. And it just piqued my interest, 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:03.840 and the more I looked into it, the more complex 0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:09.320 and fascinating it became. I pitched my editors and said, yes, 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:12.200 let's go go have a look. And that's what I did. 0:03:12.680 --> 0:03:16.680 Yeah. Yeah, And I don't want to spoil the story 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:18.600 for people, because I want them to go and read it, 0:03:18.639 --> 0:03:22.519 but to the extent that you can share a little 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:26.800 bit about what you found without without ruining the story 0:03:26.840 --> 0:03:29.440 for people. Yeah, can you walk us through what you 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:33.000 found when when you got on the ground in Maybia? 0:03:34.760 --> 0:03:37.000 Well, I think you know. The first thing I should 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:42.600 say is, right before I left, I I called this 0:03:43.480 --> 0:03:45.960 Harvard geologist named Paul Hoffman, who is a very, very 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:48.880 very one of the most sort of famous geologists in 0:03:48.880 --> 0:03:52.360 the world as far as geologists are famous, who who 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:56.000 is most known for kind of this idea of snowball Earth, 0:03:56.040 --> 0:03:59.080 this idea that at several points in earth distant past 0:03:59.160 --> 0:04:01.920 it was more less covered with ice in it. It's 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:04.640 very controversial theory, but he he is the one who 0:04:04.680 --> 0:04:06.760 kind of proved it, and he proved it by studying 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:09.560 the rocks in Namibia for about forty years. And he 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:14.240 knows the rocks in Namibia the way you know most 0:04:14.280 --> 0:04:18.279 people know their children's faces or something. And I called 0:04:18.320 --> 0:04:20.720 him and he basically said, I explained the story to 0:04:20.800 --> 0:04:22.640 him and I was interested in drilling. Did he have 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:24.839 any advice for me about traveling in Nmidia and this 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:27.000 and that? And he said, you know, there's no oil 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:28.880 there And I said, well, what do you mean? And 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:32.760 he said, whatever they're saying. I know this place and 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:36.040 there's basically no oil there. And I was like, well, 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:39.320 then what are they doing? And he said, well, you know, 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:41.440 one thing you're going to learn is that a lot 0:04:41.480 --> 0:04:44.080 of oil and gas company or companies are better at 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:47.040 drilling into their investor's wallets than they are into the 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:47.919 rocks in the ground. 0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:50.760 Yeah. 0:04:50.800 --> 0:04:55.000 And with that, I got on a plane and went 0:04:55.040 --> 0:04:58.800 to Namibia. And so my time there was about trying 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:02.120 to understand what was going on on if there was 0:05:02.120 --> 0:05:06.240 no oil there then what were they doing? And if 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:09.880 there was oil, there was this guy, Paul Hoffman, this 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:14.599 man who understands maybe better than anyone. Was he completely wrong? 0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:20.400 And was that a remarkable kind of discovery? They were 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:24.279 recon Africa was claiming there was one hundred and twenty 0:05:24.480 --> 0:05:28.479 billion barrels of oil that had been produced in this 0:05:28.560 --> 0:05:32.880 basin that they that they had so called discovered. And 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:34.599 as you know, one hundred and twenty billion is a 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:38.039 pretty big number. And so that got all their investors 0:05:38.040 --> 0:05:38.600 in a tizzy. 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:42.440 And yeah, I mean that's that would make it, you know, 0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:47.760 bigger than almost any other oil field on Earth. Just 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:50.960 to put it in context for people like they're like, hey, 0:05:51.320 --> 0:05:53.640 we discovered the new Saudi Arabia and no one else 0:05:53.720 --> 0:05:56.120 knew in existed full time. 0:05:56.400 --> 0:05:58.640 Yes, So the first thing I did when I got 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:01.000 there is, you know, one of the things that makes 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:04.800 this story different than a lot of other stories is 0:06:05.040 --> 0:06:08.680 where the they this company, recon Africa, at least about 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:13.200 nine million acres of land in Botswana and Namibia, and 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:15.760 a lot of it is very close to the ok 0:06:15.800 --> 0:06:20.080 of Ago Delto, which is this UNESCO World Character Site, 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:27.920 which is a kind of pristine ecosystem that is you know, 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:32.279 renowned for the number of elephants that live and migrated 0:06:32.279 --> 0:06:37.360 through there, for its wildlife population of lions and you know, 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:40.480 all the sort of big mammals that people pay a 0:06:40.520 --> 0:06:42.880 lot of money to go on Sofari to see. But 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:47.040 it's also just this, you know, this kind of miraculous place, 0:06:47.120 --> 0:06:50.360 this delta where the water runs down out of the 0:06:50.400 --> 0:06:55.120 highlands of Angola and creates this unique ecosystem that is 0:06:55.480 --> 0:07:00.080 very that is basically unpolluted and untouched, and then that 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:04.159 water disappears into the Kalahari desert and just sort of vanishes, 0:07:04.200 --> 0:07:08.000 and it's this is amazing place. So the first thing 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:10.040 I did was go see this amazing place, which I'd 0:07:10.040 --> 0:07:12.680 never been to before. And sure enough, it was, you know, 0:07:12.920 --> 0:07:17.600 astonishing in its diversity of wildlife and in its sort 0:07:17.600 --> 0:07:21.920 of sublime beauty. And the notion that all this was 0:07:21.960 --> 0:07:26.480 going to get you know, screwed up and polluted because 0:07:26.520 --> 0:07:32.960 of these you know, wildcat explorers who were drilling upstream 0:07:32.960 --> 0:07:36.440 of this was you know, pretty shocking in the sense 0:07:36.520 --> 0:07:39.800 of like, what the hell are we doing? You know, 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:43.720 what is going on here? So it wasn't just the 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:46.600 climate aspects of it. It was also just this incredible 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:48.840 wonderland of wildlife that was at risk. 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:53.200 Right, And I think, like I think that there's a 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:55.320 tendency for people to think, oh, well, if they're drilling 0:07:55.360 --> 0:07:57.600 but there's not really any oil, then like no harm, 0:07:57.680 --> 0:08:00.560 no foul, Right, But that's very much not true. So 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:03.800 can you kind of talk through, you know, what impact 0:08:03.960 --> 0:08:08.120 does the drilling have frerespective of whether there is actually 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:12.160 this large amount of oil to be tapped there, right. 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:14.640 I mean, obviously, if if there were one hundred and 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:17.960 twenty billion barrels of oil there, it would turn into 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:23.840 you know, you know, it would there would be drilling everywhere, 0:08:23.840 --> 0:08:27.480 and it would turn into you know, a kind of 0:08:27.840 --> 0:08:30.960 environmental nightmare. But you're right, a lot of people think, oh, 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:34.720 so what's the harm. They were exploring for oil, but 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:37.040 no big deal. They didn't they didn't find it, and 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:42.199 so who cares? Well, it matters a lot because an 0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:46.000 ecosystem like the Oka Bango delta is very fragile and 0:08:46.040 --> 0:08:49.040 it's all built around this sort of flow of water. 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:54.960 And as even drilling these four or five wells that 0:08:55.000 --> 0:08:59.679 they have drilled, they're you know, they're using drilling MUDs 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:03.280 that have god knows what kind of chemicals in them. 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:08.000 They're pumping up water from below that has all kinds 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:12.200 of chemicals in it that are not mixed in the 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:18.720 surface waters. They're cutting roads through these pristine areas, changing 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:22.640 wildlife migration patterns, you know. And then there's the whole 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:27.600 sort of economy of drillers and kind of get rich 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:32.640 quick people who you know, invade this area trying to 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:38.240 exploit this, and so it's like, you know, even this 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:43.000 level of modest exploration in a pristine place like that 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:45.040 has profound implications. 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:49.679 Yeah. Yeah, Can you talk a little bit more about 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:55.560 this company that is exploring in in Nibia because I 0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:58.120 found that really interesting too. Again, I think like a 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:00.440 lot of people think, oh, it's just the oil nators 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:03.240 doing this, but this is a pretty small, pretty new 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:13.319 company that has kind of pulled off something that's that's 0:10:13.320 --> 0:10:16.640 sort of shocking. I would say, you know that they 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:19.200 that they've managed to convince so many people to believe 0:10:19.760 --> 0:10:22.720 in this projection. Like it's one thing, if you know, 0:10:23.120 --> 0:10:25.960 axel On or Shell says there's one hundred and twenty 0:10:26.200 --> 0:10:29.160 billion barrels of oil somewhere, but this is not one 0:10:29.200 --> 0:10:31.880 of those companies no, it's not. 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:37.160 It's basically, you know, a handful of Vancouver mining financiers 0:10:37.800 --> 0:10:42.360 headed by this guy named Craig Steink, who is a 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:48.560 Canadian and you know, he and some of the other 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:51.720 people guys, they are all guys, and they're all like, 0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:57.520 you know, middle aged white guys. Basically you know, made 0:10:57.520 --> 0:11:01.640 a little bit of money in cracking the premium basin 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:05.559 and in parts of Canada and have basically spent the 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:09.920 last ten years trying to kind of export fracking around 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:14.760 the world basically, and you know, they fracking as a 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:18.240 you know, North American invention that was sort of you 0:11:18.280 --> 0:11:21.520 know exploited here, and these guys figure out, oh, well, 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:24.439 we can do that in other places. So they've trotted 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:27.480 around to Mexico and France and Poland and other places 0:11:28.080 --> 0:11:33.440 trying to frack in basins there and they've been basically 0:11:33.480 --> 0:11:39.920 shut down in all those places or else the gas 0:11:39.920 --> 0:11:42.920 fields turned out to be dry or the gas too 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:46.200 difficult to get for whatever reasons. But they've perfected this 0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:51.760 idea of you know, hyping up the possibility of these 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:57.240 discoveries and then selling you know, creating a corporation that 0:11:57.280 --> 0:12:03.200 they then put on the Vancouver Stock Exchange or some 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:10.480 other small exchanges and hype up investors in retail investors 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:14.079 on who are on boards like on Reddit in places 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:17.240 like that, and they get a lot of money invested 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:20.280 in this by hyping up the possibility of you know, 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:25.280 an enormous find in this case in Namibia and Botswana. 0:12:25.440 --> 0:12:28.120 So it really is just I mean, really it's a 0:12:28.160 --> 0:12:33.080 handful of people. When I was in Namibia, I went 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:37.640 to the company headquarters. You know, it's like, okay, so 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:42.720 Recount Africa has got this operation that I'm reporting about, 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:47.360 this drilling, high profile drilling operation. I figured they would 0:12:47.360 --> 0:12:51.360 have a building, a like an office, you know, there 0:12:51.400 --> 0:12:53.880 would be some kind of establishment, And it was basically 0:12:55.320 --> 0:12:58.280 this like rented little office at the end of this 0:12:58.360 --> 0:13:01.800 empty hallway where one I was sitting in a chair 0:13:01.880 --> 0:13:06.600 with like office depot kind of steel furniture. Who was 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:09.440 in charge of their operations there? And I went in 0:13:09.559 --> 0:13:12.840 and you know, said hello and told him who I was, 0:13:12.880 --> 0:13:15.160 and I was from Rolling Stone and and you know, 0:13:15.200 --> 0:13:16.880 I'd like to go look at the drill sites. And 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:20.760 he was at first really friendly to me. It was 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:23.280 really sweet, and like he's like, oh great, welcome to 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:25.000 the maybe and all that, and then he said, okay, 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:28.240 we'll arrange this. Let me let me call me back 0:13:28.240 --> 0:13:30.000 in a couple of a couple of hours and we'll 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:32.959 set it up. And I left and called him a 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:36.000 couple of hours and he was immediately very gruff and like, no, 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:39.320 we're not you know, no, no drill visits. Sorry, we're 0:13:39.360 --> 0:13:41.640 not cooperating and hung up the phone on me. He'd 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:44.360 obviously checked in with somebody and like, you know, we're 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:48.000 not letting any reporters anywhere near this. But that's the 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:51.960 kind of operation it is. It's not a you know, 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:56.640 it's not a big company. It's like four guys, you know, 0:13:56.760 --> 0:13:59.320 who have corralled a bunch of investors, have some money, 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:03.960 bought a drilling rig and are punching holes in Namibia. 0:14:06.280 --> 0:14:09.760 Its wild. It's just it's wild that that's like a 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:10.840 thing that you can do. 0:14:13.320 --> 0:14:14.640 And make a lot of money at it. 0:14:16.000 --> 0:14:18.199 Yeah, I make a lot of money at it, even 0:14:18.280 --> 0:14:23.840 if there's nothing coming out of those wells. Have they 0:14:25.480 --> 0:14:29.760 what's kind of the status of this project right now? 0:14:30.760 --> 0:14:35.360 Well, they've you know, they've drilled three or four exploratory wells. 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:37.840 They haven't really they claim to have found what they 0:14:37.840 --> 0:14:41.480 call a working petroleum system. But all of the patrolling 0:14:41.520 --> 0:14:43.800 engineers I've talked to who've looked at their data say 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:47.760 it's not a working petroleum system. Their stock price is 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:51.320 you know, under a dollar and has been under a 0:14:51.360 --> 0:14:55.000 dollar for a long time. You know, it was up 0:14:55.040 --> 0:14:58.640 around seven or eight, I think even nine dollars for 0:14:58.680 --> 0:15:01.240 a while a year ago, which was when all the 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:05.280 insiders cashed out. You know, this company was worth at 0:15:05.280 --> 0:15:08.080 a certain point something like a market cap of like 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:12.120 two billion dollars, even though you know they'd never found 0:15:12.160 --> 0:15:14.360 any oil and their office was nothing more than a 0:15:14.480 --> 0:15:17.120 you know, steel chair in a in a lonely little 0:15:17.120 --> 0:15:24.240 building in Hindu, Namibia. You know, I don't know where 0:15:24.240 --> 0:15:27.000 it's going to go. They look like they have enough 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:30.040 operating cash to get to go through another quarter or two. 0:15:30.160 --> 0:15:33.400 But a lot of the main investors have already moved 0:15:33.440 --> 0:15:37.920 on to other companies, and even the key player, Craig Stankey, 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:42.760 who is the sort of man behind this, he's moved on. 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:45.480 He's involved in some other companies. So I basically think 0:15:45.520 --> 0:15:50.240 they're going to fade away. I think that, you know, 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:56.600 they're just going to vanish in this sort of petroleum haze. 0:15:56.880 --> 0:16:03.000 I think that after several years of promising and promising 0:16:03.000 --> 0:16:07.400 and promising, I think even there, you know, cult like 0:16:07.480 --> 0:16:11.240 investors are losing patients with them, and you know, they've 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:15.000 been talking about it, you know, a joint venture somebody 0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:19.240 one of the big oil majors coming in and you know, 0:16:19.480 --> 0:16:23.800 buying them out or buying out a portion of their operation, 0:16:23.960 --> 0:16:26.520 and which would certainly happen if if there was one 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:29.800 hundred and twenty billion barrels of oil, sure, yeah they 0:16:29.800 --> 0:16:33.600 would have. It would be a pretty good shape. But 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:37.800 the fact that nobody has after all this time, it's 0:16:37.800 --> 0:16:41.600 pretty good evidence that even insiders don't believe what they're selling. 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:42.280 Yeah. 0:16:42.800 --> 0:16:45.720 Yeah, do you is there any sense that they have 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:48.800 been able to for some period of time at least 0:16:48.840 --> 0:16:53.840 kind of use the discoveries of oil in the southern 0:16:53.840 --> 0:16:57.200 part of Namibia where it shares a border with South Africa. 0:16:58.320 --> 0:17:01.280 Yeah, do you think that they've been they've been kind 0:17:01.320 --> 0:17:07.920 of using that to you know, convince people that oh, yeah, 0:17:07.960 --> 0:17:10.600 there's a lown gas up here too, Oh. 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:13.200 Totally, well, yeah, they're totally using that. And then also, 0:17:13.240 --> 0:17:15.600 you know, shell has been made a couple there's been 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:18.760 a couple of big offshore discoveries in Namibia also, you 0:17:18.800 --> 0:17:21.880 know the maybea for a long time, I thought they 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:25.080 had no oil, there's no gas. They were not they 0:17:25.200 --> 0:17:28.120 you know, Angola to the north, you know, as lots, 0:17:29.320 --> 0:17:31.880 and they just thought this was you know, something that 0:17:32.280 --> 0:17:35.960 you know, was not available to them to develop. And 0:17:36.000 --> 0:17:40.240 then a couple of these big a couple of these 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:45.320 big offshore discoveries came on which do seem real, and 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:48.840 then the some other discoveries in the southern part of 0:17:48.880 --> 0:17:51.800 the country. But you know, Africa, as you know, is 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:54.360 at this sort of turning point right of are they 0:17:54.440 --> 0:17:58.680 going to develop in this old like you know, nineteenth 0:17:58.680 --> 0:18:04.479 century you know, resource curse kind of development path or 0:18:04.560 --> 0:18:06.719 are they going to move in a new direction. And 0:18:06.800 --> 0:18:09.280 I think Namibia is like really at the kind of 0:18:09.320 --> 0:18:10.560 full crum of that decision. 0:18:11.560 --> 0:18:13.320 Yeah, I want to talk to you more about that 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:16.760 because I feel like Namibia is in this really interesting place. 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:19.280 It does. It reminds me a lot of Diana, which 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:22.760 we've been looking at a lot the last year or so. 0:18:23.520 --> 0:18:27.320 In that Namibia also kind of has this you know, 0:18:27.440 --> 0:18:32.520 reputation as like a real leader in conservation and doing 0:18:32.600 --> 0:18:36.159 so much around wildlife preservation and all of these things, 0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:39.719 and now they're at the precipice of maybe becoming a 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:42.760 big oil and gas producer. And I'm curious about what 0:18:42.800 --> 0:18:45.840 you found in terms of what I don't know, what 0:18:45.880 --> 0:18:48.680 people think about it there, how the government is reacting, 0:18:48.840 --> 0:18:52.800 how people on the ground think about it. I had 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:54.520 someone I talked to someone just the other day who said, 0:18:54.520 --> 0:18:57.440 you know, for a long time, folks in global soft 0:18:57.480 --> 0:19:02.439 countries thought about climate change as global North problem, a 0:19:02.480 --> 0:19:04.440 problem that was created by the global North and should 0:19:04.480 --> 0:19:08.119 be solved by it, which is not necessarily untrue, but 0:19:08.240 --> 0:19:11.880 unfortunately everybody is going to be impacted by it too, 0:19:12.119 --> 0:19:17.120 right in these countries, you know, more than most. So Yeah, 0:19:17.400 --> 0:19:19.639 I'm just curious what you saw in terms of people 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:23.240 kind of grappling with all of those things at once. 0:19:24.800 --> 0:19:26.840 Yeah, I mean, I mean, I think it's a really 0:19:26.920 --> 0:19:29.960 really important question, and I think probably maybe one of 0:19:30.000 --> 0:19:34.399 the most sort of important kind of questions in the 0:19:34.400 --> 0:19:37.760 whole energy climate debate that's happening in the world right now, 0:19:37.840 --> 0:19:40.119 and it's at the center of the loss and damage 0:19:40.200 --> 0:19:43.479 conversations that are happening, you know, with the IPCC and 0:19:44.359 --> 0:19:46.879 this question of what does the global North, owe the 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:51.280 global South, and because you know, obviously we, the global North, 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:54.760 have created this problem of climate change. We're the ones 0:19:54.800 --> 0:19:57.240 who have spent you know, one hundred years dumping ZO 0:19:57.240 --> 0:19:59.720 two into the atmosphere. And as you chronicle better than 0:19:59.760 --> 0:20:03.080 any buddy with oil majors like exce On Mobile knowing 0:20:03.080 --> 0:20:05.920 what they were doing, and you know, there's no question 0:20:06.000 --> 0:20:10.760 about who's responsible for this, right right, And you know 0:20:10.920 --> 0:20:14.600 when you travel in when I traveled in Namibia in Botswana, 0:20:14.760 --> 0:20:18.560 you know, I mean, energy poverty is very real. I mean, 0:20:18.720 --> 0:20:23.600 you know it's really important in countries in Namibia, in 0:20:23.640 --> 0:20:26.680 Botswana for more people to get access to energy for 0:20:26.800 --> 0:20:31.480 all kinds of very obvious reasons. And you know, there's 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:34.560 a legitimate argument to be made that. Look, you know 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:39.000 that I even in a meeting with the Maybe is 0:20:41.280 --> 0:20:46.920 Drilling the head of their sort of drilling operations oversight 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:51.800 agency said to me basically is, look, you guys, you 0:20:51.960 --> 0:20:54.720 meing America have look what you've done. You know, you 0:20:54.840 --> 0:20:58.000 drilled everything, and you know, look what's going on now. 0:20:58.040 --> 0:21:01.800 We just okay drilling in the World Willow Project in Alaska. 0:21:01.960 --> 0:21:03.360 Look at what we're doing in the Gulf. I mean 0:21:03.480 --> 0:21:06.919 like you have no right to tell us like not 0:21:07.119 --> 0:21:11.320 to drill. You know, you have no moral standing. 0:21:11.000 --> 0:21:17.240 Here, right like new stop first, you know vibe. Yeah, yeah, that's. 0:21:17.040 --> 0:21:20.280 Really and that's really true. I mean it's really true. 0:21:20.359 --> 0:21:23.080 I mean there's we we do have no moral standing 0:21:23.240 --> 0:21:28.240 to come in there and say, you know, shame on you. However, 0:21:28.960 --> 0:21:32.840 what's very powerful that's happening there and what I encountered 0:21:33.400 --> 0:21:36.920 on the ground was a lot of you know, African activists, 0:21:36.960 --> 0:21:40.879 African sort of you know, new energy thinkers who are saying, 0:21:41.359 --> 0:21:45.160 look forget like what you know people in the US 0:21:45.200 --> 0:21:47.240 want us to do or care. It's like for our 0:21:47.280 --> 0:21:51.119 own good, you know, we need to go on a 0:21:51.200 --> 0:21:55.960 different path because the future is not oil and gas. 0:21:56.040 --> 0:21:58.320 These things are going to turn out to be stranded assets. 0:21:58.320 --> 0:22:00.560 They're going to screw up our country. They're gonna pullue, 0:22:00.560 --> 0:22:02.479 they're gonna do all the things that we can see 0:22:02.960 --> 0:22:06.400 has happened to the US and to other countries who 0:22:06.440 --> 0:22:09.400 have gone down the path of fossil fuel development. Were 0:22:09.480 --> 0:22:13.040 smarter than that. The advantages is to go on this 0:22:13.359 --> 0:22:15.680 new and different path. And Namibia is a great example 0:22:15.680 --> 0:22:20.200 because Namibia's solar resource, for example, is just phenomenal. I mean, 0:22:20.240 --> 0:22:23.520 it's better than California or Nevad. I mean it's really 0:22:23.560 --> 0:22:27.239 they have the real gold mine or the real one 0:22:27.280 --> 0:22:30.560 hundred and twenty billion barrels of oil in Namibia is 0:22:30.600 --> 0:22:34.479 not in the ground. It's in the sun, and the 0:22:34.520 --> 0:22:37.560 possibilities of that are huge. And they're also doing things 0:22:37.680 --> 0:22:41.439 very innovative things like green hydrogen development that they have 0:22:41.920 --> 0:22:45.240 a big project going on that is I think it's 0:22:45.600 --> 0:22:49.600 nine billion dollars or something of investment that is very 0:22:49.600 --> 0:22:53.399 progressive and you know a kind of step towards this 0:22:53.480 --> 0:22:56.479 sort of new energy economy also, so they're at this 0:22:56.640 --> 0:23:01.320 sort of you know, full crumb of this of this change. 0:23:01.760 --> 0:23:04.600 But one of the things that econ Africa story shows is, 0:23:04.640 --> 0:23:08.560 you know, is the ability of the oil and gas 0:23:09.920 --> 0:23:15.360 industry world players to you know, access political officials, to 0:23:15.359 --> 0:23:17.840 to get Okays to do things. They know how to 0:23:17.880 --> 0:23:22.520 pull the levers and you know, they know how to 0:23:23.520 --> 0:23:26.399 you know, pay off the right people and you know, 0:23:26.760 --> 0:23:30.760 get the development going even in ways that you know, 0:23:31.040 --> 0:23:33.879 even if it's not the sort of smartest path or 0:23:33.920 --> 0:23:36.640 the most democratic path or the one that most people 0:23:36.720 --> 0:23:38.520 in the country want, they know how to get it done, 0:23:38.560 --> 0:23:41.160 which is the same story as you saw in Guyana 0:23:41.240 --> 0:23:42.520 and we see in America. 0:23:42.840 --> 0:23:43.080 Yeah. 0:23:43.760 --> 0:23:49.639 Yeah, Well, and then you know there's this this dual 0:23:50.000 --> 0:23:52.400 problem which you pointed to before of like it's not 0:23:52.560 --> 0:23:56.159 just the long term potential impacts around climate, but also 0:23:56.640 --> 0:24:02.680 the near term impacts of you know, air and water 0:24:02.720 --> 0:24:05.600 pollution and the potential for oil spills and all that 0:24:05.720 --> 0:24:08.240 kind of thing too. Did you get like, did you 0:24:08.280 --> 0:24:12.000 get a sense of how well or not the Namibian 0:24:12.040 --> 0:24:16.280 government is positioned to actually like regulate an oil and 0:24:16.320 --> 0:24:18.520 gas industry. No. 0:24:18.720 --> 0:24:25.920 I mean my sense is that you know, they they 0:24:25.960 --> 0:24:30.480 are you know, children in a sandbox in dealing with 0:24:30.720 --> 0:24:34.320 these you know, big experienced oil and gas players, even 0:24:34.359 --> 0:24:37.119 like recon Africa. I mean recon Africa is you know, 0:24:38.359 --> 0:24:42.679 in the classic way kind of trying to exploit this 0:24:42.760 --> 0:24:45.080 in a way. And they're talking about how you know, 0:24:45.600 --> 0:24:49.159 they are. They talk about how they're drilling mud and 0:24:49.160 --> 0:24:52.399