WEBVTT - S14, Ep 6 | How the Coal, Utilities and Transportation Industries Obstruct Climate Policy 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:05.800 Hello, and welcome back to Drill. I'm Amy Westervelt. Today 0:00:05.800 --> 0:00:10.520 we are continuing making our way through the book Climate Obstruction, 0:00:10.720 --> 0:00:15.040 a Global Survey. And good news, this book is now 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:20.439 officially out and available for free download. We'll stick a 0:00:20.520 --> 0:00:23.439 link in the show notes and on the website. Today 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:26.800 I am joined by Jen Schneider at Boise State University 0:00:26.880 --> 0:00:32.159 and Gregory Trencher from Kyoto University to talk about the coal, utilities, 0:00:32.200 --> 0:00:35.920 and transportation industries. So we talked last time about the 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:38.519 fossil fuel industry and the role that it has played 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:42.960 in obstructing climate policy at the global level, but it's 0:00:43.000 --> 0:00:46.360 not the only industry that is working to do that, 0:00:46.640 --> 0:00:49.560 and today we're going to dig into three more. All 0:00:49.560 --> 0:00:52.920 three of these industries have mounted efforts to stop governments 0:00:52.960 --> 0:00:57.600 from regulating emissions or transitioning to cleaner energy, and a 0:00:57.600 --> 0:01:00.000 lot of times they kind of dovetail with each other. 0:01:00.360 --> 0:01:06.200 So coal, for example, and railroad companies often lobby together 0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:09.680 because in some ways the railroad industry has been heavily 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:13.200 dependent on coal and vice versa. We're going to dig 0:01:13.240 --> 0:01:17.759 into those intersections and what the strategies from these industries 0:01:17.840 --> 0:01:20.280 look like and how they differ from the fossil fuel 0:01:20.280 --> 0:01:24.160 industry's approach. In today's episode, I learned a lot, and 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:42.120 I hope you will too. So you wrote in the 0:01:42.200 --> 0:01:46.160 chapter about why you ended up looking at coal, transportation, 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:50.880 and utilities together. But I was wondering reading it if 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:54.040 you were always looking at them together, or if the 0:01:54.080 --> 0:01:55.880 research sort of led in that direction. 0:01:57.200 --> 0:01:59.080 I wish I had an exciting answer for that, but 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:01.920 I actually you've always focused on the coal industry, and 0:02:01.960 --> 0:02:04.520 I think Greg has written quite a bit about coal 0:02:04.640 --> 0:02:08.360 as well, but also transportation. I think you could write 0:02:08.360 --> 0:02:10.399 a whole chapter just on coal. I think that would 0:02:10.480 --> 0:02:14.160 be fascinating. But the editors asked us to connect them, 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:16.880 and I think the I think the argument really was 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:22.280 that when you think about coal and transport and others, 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:25.720 you know, like the steel industry or railroad, they're very, 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:29.600 very connected in terms of the way things flow globally, 0:02:29.800 --> 0:02:32.880 so pretty hard to talk about the coal industry without 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:36.519 also talking about the trains that carry coal, for example. 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:40.400 So coal's futures are connected to the railroad's futures, and 0:02:40.440 --> 0:02:42.239 so I think it made sense, sort of from a 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:46.000 logical perspective to think about them as connected. And then 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:48.640 as we were writing Greg, it just became clearer and 0:02:48.680 --> 0:02:51.160 clearer that so many of them were kind of borrowing 0:02:51.760 --> 0:02:54.799 ideas from each other, or had some of them had 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:58.160 shared kind of front groups or shared strategies for speaking 0:02:58.200 --> 0:03:01.200 about climate changer climate policy. 0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:04.760 I agree, yeah, And I think if you went looking 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:07.679 for the links across these sectors, all these industries, you 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:09.960 would find them. But I think it's just like a 0:03:10.000 --> 0:03:12.840 habit of all lot of researchers to sort of focus 0:03:12.880 --> 0:03:14.760 on particular silos. So I think there's a lot of 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:17.440 people that sort of identify themselves as core researchers and 0:03:17.440 --> 0:03:20.359 they don't really sort of do research on the transportation industry. 0:03:20.440 --> 0:03:23.919 I myself have been doing research and transportation and call separately, 0:03:24.040 --> 0:03:26.560 but we've had very few occasions, I think, to look 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:28.799 at these from that more of a macro picture. 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:30.720 So I think the chapter provided this. 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:33.440 I was actually like, wow, I never thought of these 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:37.560 things as being linked, but there were so many connections 0:03:37.600 --> 0:03:40.920 between all of them, even just the thing about trains 0:03:41.040 --> 0:03:42.840 and call. It's like, of course, I've thought about that 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:45.840 a little bit, but I don't know. The railroad industry 0:03:45.880 --> 0:03:48.320 always sort of gets a pass on this stuff because 0:03:48.360 --> 0:03:51.600 we think it's just like romantic train travel and not 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:53.400 you know, chemicals and. 0:03:55.520 --> 0:03:57.880 Yeah, until there's an accident or something, and then people 0:03:57.880 --> 0:03:59.520 will pay attention to things like that. 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:04.200 Yeah, this is a struggle for any book, but especially 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:07.640 climate right now. How much do you feel like the 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:11.000 research has changed, even just in the last six months, 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:14.480 especially around cole Not that it was dying before, as 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:17.479 you point out, but even more so it seems like 0:04:17.520 --> 0:04:20.440 it's it's come roaring back. How much is the landscape 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:24.400 changing in which these tactics are being deployed. Well, I 0:04:24.400 --> 0:04:27.280 can maybe speak in the US context, So I think 0:04:27.360 --> 0:04:31.400 in the United States, the challenge for scholars is that 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:35.800 on the one hand, there might be federal rhetoric or 0:04:35.880 --> 0:04:41.200 executive actions that point towards say the president's values or 0:04:41.200 --> 0:04:45.800 the new administration's values. But then there's reality, a lot 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:49.480 of which I think is determined by industry and by 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:52.880 economic trends. So, for example, I think during the first 0:04:52.920 --> 0:04:57.160 Trump administration, President Trump really argued that he was going 0:04:57.200 --> 0:05:00.279 to bring the coal industry back, that it would come 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:02.480 roaring back. That was part of the sort of make 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:07.839 America great again promise. The coal industry was facing such 0:05:08.560 --> 0:05:12.200 serious economic headwinds that that just wasn't going to be possible. 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:16.560 So I think you can see new investments in things 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:22.080 like the coal industry or movements away from electric cars 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:26.800 sort of in terms of the rhetoric, will industry, you know, 0:05:26.920 --> 0:05:29.800 sort of spin on a dime and match that. It 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:34.960 certainly takes its cues from those political winds that are blowing. 0:05:35.400 --> 0:05:36.400 But I think it takes a. 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:40.640 Lot longer for us to see actual infrastructure change in 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:43.840 the long term because those those systems are really big 0:05:43.880 --> 0:05:44.720 and complicated. 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:48.120 Yeah, So it has anything changed over the last six months, 0:05:48.200 --> 0:05:51.040 I would say that probably no, especially like I think 0:05:51.040 --> 0:05:53.760 if we're thinking about like the direction of decarbonization or 0:05:53.839 --> 0:05:57.280 let's say less best interests or something like this. So 0:05:57.680 --> 0:06:00.360 to give you an example, in that automobile industry, over 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:03.240 the probably past two or so years, around the world, 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:06.360 we're seeing a lot of car makers making quite ambitious 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:10.560 targets to increase the production and the sales of evs. So, 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:12.760 you know, companies like the BM Group the day in 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:15.520 the group in Japan, we had like our big companies 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:18.520 to Honda awake in these pledges and what we've seen 0:06:18.560 --> 0:06:20.480 actually is a bit of a skating back of these 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:23.200 pledges and the scating back series to be happen for 0:06:23.279 --> 0:06:24.039 a few reasons. 0:06:24.440 --> 0:06:25.240 One, I think there's a. 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:28.359 Lot of concern about how ferocious China is as a 0:06:28.360 --> 0:06:32.119 competitor to these Western car companies. Probably over the last 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:36.560 year we've seen a shift towards protectionism. These companies actually 0:06:36.560 --> 0:06:39.080 now lobbying the governments asking for like trade US to 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:41.720 protect them. This is something that I guess you could 0:06:41.720 --> 0:06:43.680 almost call it like a dirty rule of it. Western 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:46.160 countries were criticizing China for doing this ten years ago 0:06:46.200 --> 0:06:49.040 to protect their ev industry, and now we're sort of 0:06:49.080 --> 0:06:53.080 borrowing this tactic to protect our incumbent industries that are 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:57.039 still focused on internal combustion engines. So this is one 0:06:57.040 --> 0:06:59.560 particular example that just shows you that even some of 0:06:59.560 --> 0:07:01.640 the program that we thought was occurring is kind of 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:06.560 encountering some pretty stiff turbulence right now. And then I 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:10.720 think another characteristic of all these industries is what we 0:07:10.840 --> 0:07:14.120 call path dependency. We also have this very similar term 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:18.240 called locking, and basically these industries are reflecting these structures, 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:24.040 and the structures are political. They're also consist of infrastructure, capital, workers, people, technologies, 0:07:24.200 --> 0:07:26.840 especially in the case of internal combustion engines and aviation 0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:31.080 engines and plants, and so these change very slowly, and 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:34.200 there's a lot of linkages across these very complex systems, 0:07:34.240 --> 0:07:36.240 and so we would never expect these to sort of 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:38.560 change radically in sort of six months. That sort of 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:40.720 I think flies in the face of theory of path 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:44.559 dependency and with locking with sort of we expect rapid 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:46.840 change to come from these people coming from the outside. 0:07:46.880 --> 0:07:49.640 So Tesla has been very symbolic of this, and now 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:53.040 we have BYD from China that's sort of characterizing this 0:07:53.320 --> 0:07:56.360 ability to change very rapidly. These are kind of traditional 0:07:56.360 --> 0:07:59.040 industries we would never really expect rapid change to come from. 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:02.160 That makes sense. Can I have you guys each and 0:08:02.280 --> 0:08:04.600 maybe to be this up, but I want to have 0:08:04.720 --> 0:08:09.160 you walk through and give some concrete examples of some 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:14.680 of the rhetorical tactics in action. Climate denial is an 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:17.840 easy one, but where are you still seeing people use 0:08:17.960 --> 0:08:21.760 kind of old school climate denial as a tactic? 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:25.640 Yeah? I think that was one of maybe the most 0:08:25.680 --> 0:08:28.400 interesting things that came out of working on this chapter 0:08:28.680 --> 0:08:31.960 was that I think there was a belief for a while, 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:35.560 maybe for a minute, after the first Trump administration that 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:39.319 maybe climate denial was going away, right, that maybe there 0:08:39.400 --> 0:08:42.320 was a sense that, Okay, you know, the bad George W. 0:08:42.480 --> 0:08:43.559 Bush years when. 0:08:43.400 --> 0:08:47.640 Climate denial was in its heyday are over, and there's 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:51.440 large public consensus now, and we're seeing all of these 0:08:51.559 --> 0:08:54.360 major weather events things to people on the ground are 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:57.280 starting to believe in climate change, and denial doesn't make 0:08:57.320 --> 0:08:58.000 sense anymore. 0:08:58.760 --> 0:08:59.720 I think we learned. 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:02.640 Pretty quick that that was not true, and that climate 0:09:02.679 --> 0:09:07.079 denial would exist alongside all of these other strategies which say, Okay, 0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:10.520 climate change is happening, and so there's this cognitive dissonance 0:09:10.800 --> 0:09:13.160 that was happening where Okay, on the one hand, we're 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:15.280 going to deny climate change or deny that it's a 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:18.280 severe as scientist say, and on the other hand, okay, 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:21.760 if it is happening, well then we can certainly, you know, 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:23.960 innovate our way out of it. So I think that 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:27.200 was an interesting piece that sort of emerged from the 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:30.840 chapter around climate denial. I will say, you know, it's 0:09:30.840 --> 0:09:34.400 just really complicated with the social media landscape too, to 0:09:34.520 --> 0:09:38.040 say that, yeah, any sort of trend has gone away, 0:09:38.200 --> 0:09:42.200 because I think we have a very conspiratorial culture in 0:09:42.280 --> 0:09:45.040 a lot of pockets of the web and climate denial. 0:09:45.080 --> 0:09:48.000 Certainly it continues to thrive in those pockets. 0:09:48.880 --> 0:09:51.120 Yeah, it's weird to see some of the really old 0:09:51.360 --> 0:09:54.560 versions coming back. I've seen a total resurgence of the 0:09:54.679 --> 0:09:58.160 like CO two is good for plants one. 0:09:59.160 --> 0:10:03.360 Yeah, the yeah, or the or the deep state is 0:10:03.400 --> 0:10:07.480 now but you know, messing with our weather to cause 0:10:07.520 --> 0:10:11.720 these major stores, and that's what's happening, you know. So 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:15.400 there's a really interesting, i think evolution of those early 0:10:15.559 --> 0:10:17.400 climate denial ur arguments we saw. 0:10:18.040 --> 0:10:20.720 We have this idea of like denying the physical science, 0:10:20.760 --> 0:10:22.360 you know, so we can see that CT is actually 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:24.439 good sort of tile or it's not coming from humans. 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:27.960 But another tactic that's also tapping the science is to 0:10:28.240 --> 0:10:31.680 question the solutions. And so electric vehicles have been widely 0:10:31.760 --> 0:10:35.960 sort of promoted by governance, by stakeholders and across the world, 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:39.680 and so we see certain companies actually saying, well, in 0:10:39.720 --> 0:10:43.120 the context of Japan, we have large auto makers saying 0:10:43.160 --> 0:10:46.320 that evs are actually not as good planet as other solutions. 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:49.640 And so there's quite a lot of science showing us 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:52.000 that ev is are superior to other drive chains, especially 0:10:52.040 --> 0:10:55.520 gasoline vehicles, and so it's interesting that these solutions are 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:58.280 now being sort of tackled by these companies from a 0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:02.079 so called like research that's tied their own studies about 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:03.920 should show their own grafts, saying that, look, if you 0:11:03.960 --> 0:11:06.560 look at it from this perspective, the two benefits are 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:09.960 actually superior. For in the case of Japan's hybrid vehicles, 0:11:10.400 --> 0:11:15.120 hybrid vehicles only have limited decarbonization potential according to for example, IPCC, 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:20.200 whereas the major car companies over here very systematically denied 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:24.559 the environmental benefits of electric vehicles to justify their further 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:28.200 emphasis on hybrids as a dec urbanization pathway. 0:11:28.679 --> 0:11:33.080 That's fascinating. Do you think that's tied into Japan's anti 0:11:33.200 --> 0:11:36.480 renewables bent a little bit too. 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:40.320 Yeah, So the renewables situation, I guess is a bit 0:11:40.400 --> 0:11:43.640 complex in Japan. I would say that now Japan is 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:48.200 not really anti renewables. About maybe twenty ten to five 0:11:48.280 --> 0:11:50.880 years ago, there was definitely a lot of pushback from 0:11:50.920 --> 0:11:54.920 the major industry associations, which we do cover in a chapter, 0:11:55.600 --> 0:11:57.839 and they were sort of saying very strongly that Japan 0:11:57.920 --> 0:12:01.400 should not too quickly to trineables because this would have 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:04.960 ecomic percussions and electricity will come too expensive, this would 0:12:04.960 --> 0:12:07.800 push industry away, so Augus and them on. We see 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:10.679 it's used by all these industries sort of persuade governments 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:14.160 and not to nurse too quickly. To answer your question specifically, 0:12:14.400 --> 0:12:18.120 Japan today is making reasonable efforts towards renewables, and we're 0:12:18.120 --> 0:12:20.240 actually one of the world ladies in solar, so we 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:23.719 make very rapid progress in solo. We're a legout in 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:26.440 our wins and wind is I think one of these 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:30.480 very important indicators of the energy transition. So we've got 0:12:30.480 --> 0:12:31.800 a lot of work to do there. I think like 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:33.720 the United States, the United States has a lot of 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:36.600 onshore wing, but they don't have much offshore wins, which 0:12:36.600 --> 0:12:37.439 is it out the story, I. 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:40.320 Guess, yeah, and they're probably not going to get it anytimes. 0:12:40.920 --> 0:12:41.559 It's perfect. 0:12:43.040 --> 0:12:47.839 Yeah, Okay, what about corporate ventriloquism. Is there a specific 0:12:47.960 --> 0:12:51.560 example you can share of that that will help people 0:12:51.679 --> 0:12:53.320 kind of go oh yeah, okay, I see that all 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:53.760 the time. 0:12:54.480 --> 0:12:59.559 Yeah, So corporate ventriloquism is this idea that these industry groups, 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:05.040 which is like a collection of different companies and you 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:08.160 know front groups, they come together. They have a particular 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:11.680 set of interests and corporate friend triloquism is the idea 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:15.840 that they can throw their voice through these organizations that 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:20.959 they create that seem like their grassroots. So a grassroots organization, 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:24.960 you know, like Communities for Coal something like that, and 0:13:25.080 --> 0:13:28.280 you go to the website for Communities for Coal and 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:30.800 it looks as if this is something that people in 0:13:31.679 --> 0:13:34.760 you know, towns that rely on the coal industry have 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:38.040 created because they love coal so much. And so we 0:13:38.080 --> 0:13:42.480 see a lot of images with flags and with picnics 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:48.200 and children and people in military uniforms, and the idea 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:52.679 there is that there's a flattening between the community itself 0:13:53.200 --> 0:13:57.640 and the corporations that are benefiting from coal extraction. So 0:13:58.040 --> 0:14:01.640 it makes it seem as if if the industry dies, 0:14:01.720 --> 0:14:04.520 or if this company dies, or if this company is regulated, 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:08.080 our community too is going to die. And so it 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:11.360 kind of creates this one to one relationship between the 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:15.480 individual in the community and the company, and that is 0:14:15.600 --> 0:14:18.800 used to create this really anti regulatory sentiment. 0:14:19.600 --> 0:14:22.600 Okay, I wanted to ask you guys both about these 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:29.440 these three narratives to the apocalyptic consequences for industry, technological optimism, 0:14:29.480 --> 0:14:33.400 and fossil fuel solutionism and the right to develop and 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:37.680 the energy poverty and like just picking one if there's 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:40.800 like a I don't know, a story you've come across 0:14:40.840 --> 0:14:43.920 that really illustrates it, or like an ad you've seen 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:45.000 that illustrates it. 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:48.200 Yeah, so very quickly, I think femal bring has become 0:14:48.360 --> 0:14:53.560 very prominent regarding government ady promotion policies. So we see 0:14:53.640 --> 0:14:57.880 across Europe, across Japan, across I guess the United States 0:14:57.920 --> 0:15:01.560 as well. There's lots of concerns being from automobile companies 0:15:01.560 --> 0:15:04.920 that the shift tubes electric vehicles is going to cause 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:09.600 widespread unemployment. And Toyta in Japan has used some very 0:15:09.600 --> 0:15:12.960 strong languages that described things such as business model collapse. 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:16.720 And I think that they're probably being quite honest there 0:15:16.760 --> 0:15:20.760 because it is the shift evs, especially at the scale 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:22.800 of like I say, one hundred percent eventually away from 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:26.800 the dominating technologists today, which is internal combustion engine or 0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:29.960 hybrid variations. It's a completely different value Dad, it's a 0:15:30.000 --> 0:15:33.000 completely different production line. And so it is actually the 0:15:33.040 --> 0:15:37.320 collapse of the current business law. So the question is 0:15:37.360 --> 0:15:38.640 can they do it, and can they do this in 0:15:38.680 --> 0:15:41.160 a way of that's you know, kind of minimize the 0:15:41.280 --> 0:15:44.480 damage here. But this brings us to the concerns for 0:15:44.560 --> 0:15:48.360 workers unemployment, and we see that this has constantly cited 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:50.520 as an excuse not to move too far. So I 0:15:50.520 --> 0:15:53.960 think the among gering often leads to this idea of 0:15:54.160 --> 0:15:57.920 painting this kind of impression for the public that the 0:15:57.960 --> 0:16:00.560 company is not opposing the direction of travel, not opposing 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:02.400 a transition per se, but they're sort of arguing for 0:16:02.440 --> 0:16:04.440 a bit more time, you know, a bit more assistance. 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:06.640 But we know that this is like a delay tactic. 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:09.080 So this is quite common. And I can't think of 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:12.280 the actual number, but in Japan there's huge amounts of 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:16.560 people were estimated to be working in the automobile industry. 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:19.080 I think it was five million. It just sounds like 0:16:19.320 --> 0:16:21.840 really really huge, and I think to get that number 0:16:21.880 --> 0:16:24.200 you have to take people working in it the insurance 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:26.360 sector that are probably selling insurance to like, you know, 0:16:26.480 --> 0:16:27.160 homes and. 0:16:27.880 --> 0:16:30.640 Coffee shop down the street from Toyota's office. 0:16:30.880 --> 0:16:32.800 Yeah, the coffee shops and you know it's next to 0:16:32.800 --> 0:16:34.840 the service says, you'd have to bring everyone into this 0:16:34.960 --> 0:16:38.400 like so called automobile industry. But they've used this number 0:16:38.400 --> 0:16:41.720 of I'm quite sure it's five minute consistently for several 0:16:41.800 --> 0:16:45.840 years and featured that on national television, in newspaper advertisements, 0:16:45.880 --> 0:16:48.360 and so basically the message to the government was, if 0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:50.960 you sort of push us too quickly towards batteries, then 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:54.080 these five million people are economically at risk. 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:54.920 Mm hmm. 0:16:55.480 --> 0:16:59.560 Yeah. It's such a convincing argument because they are just saying, like, 0:16:59.600 --> 0:17:02.120 we're just want to go slow and study a litill change. 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:06.439 But in this very sensible way, it's hard to argue against. Okay, 0:17:06.480 --> 0:17:09.120 you mentioned workers, and I want to ask you both 0:17:09.119 --> 0:17:12.000 about unions because they show up in a like every 0:17:12.080 --> 0:17:16.600 part of this, and especially around how to bring unions 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:19.320 on board, which you also talk about. But yeah, I'm 0:17:19.359 --> 0:17:23.320 curious what are some of the key ways that unions 0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:26.000 are getting involved in obstruction? And then what are some 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:29.760 ways that you've seen that you know, be sort of 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:31.240 like turned into allies. 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:35.359 I'll speak primarily to the United States context, but I 0:17:35.359 --> 0:17:39.360 think it's been fascinating to watch unions kind of position 0:17:39.480 --> 0:17:43.080 themselves politically in relation to cole in particular, but also 0:17:43.119 --> 0:17:47.800 the railroads in that I suppose the assumption, the partisan assumption, 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:51.240 might be that unions tend to be pro democratic or 0:17:51.280 --> 0:17:54.639 pro liberall right, that they're going to vote in favor 0:17:54.680 --> 0:17:57.479 of sort of workers' interests, and we've seen that that 0:17:57.600 --> 0:18:00.600 has not always been the case with the with the 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:04.280 coal industry in particular, so a lot of those unions 0:18:04.320 --> 0:18:08.440 have seen a threat to the industry from climate regulation 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:12.879 or laws as a threat to their livelihoods, and so 0:18:12.960 --> 0:18:16.800 there's been an interesting pushback or in alignment in the 0:18:16.880 --> 0:18:19.760 United States context, particularly with the Trump administration, and they're 0:18:19.800 --> 0:18:23.960 sort of pro coal policies or their pro coal approach. 0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:27.959 I think where that shifts at times is when it 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:32.080 really comes down to the material realities of you know, 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:35.720 conditions for workers and whether or not they're having the 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:38.960 protections they need and getting the jobs they need. We 0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:41.879 know that automation in the coal industry has led to 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:45.320 a huge decline in the number of jobs that one 0:18:45.359 --> 0:18:48.359 can get in that industry, and so I think, you know, 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:51.800 it's going to be very context specific, but those are 0:18:51.840 --> 0:18:56.000 the complications that I think workers in the unions that 0:18:56.080 --> 0:18:57.640 represent them are having to naviocate. 0:18:58.560 --> 0:19:01.120 That's actually kind of a bloodspot my knowledge, but lots 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:03.439 of researchers focus on this. So we worked with a 0:19:03.520 --> 0:19:05.680 very large team of authorsere and I kind of feel that, 0:19:05.720 --> 0:19:07.240 you know, we're getting a lot of the credits from 0:19:07.280 --> 0:19:10.879 their hard work with basically just had the pleasure of 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:14.159 just accepting these intellectual treats, you know, and just and 0:19:14.240 --> 0:19:16.680 certainly the like in this particular way and polishing them. 0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:18.600 And we did receive a lot of material that's like 0:19:18.800 --> 0:19:22.000 far too large to fit in where many pages were 0:19:22.040 --> 0:19:24.880 given to work with, but unions were cited by many 0:19:24.880 --> 0:19:26.920 of them. And one of the messages we did see 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:29.360 was that our unions a lot of the time they 0:19:29.400 --> 0:19:33.080 are an obstructive force, but sometimes they're kind of being persuaded, 0:19:33.119 --> 0:19:36.160 and because their main concern is jobs, and so when 0:19:36.160 --> 0:19:39.000 they sort of see legitimate strategy so let's say, to 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:43.240 create jobs, then they actually do come on board and 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:44.880 we see that. I think Germany is probably a great 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:47.879 case where the unions have boys understood the coal industry 0:19:48.000 --> 0:19:50.320 in decline because of you know, climate change and because 0:19:50.359 --> 0:19:53.600 of these other economic forces they were renewals forgetting about 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:57.199 climates becoming cheaper and more competitive that many contexts, and 0:19:57.240 --> 0:20:00.399 so they consider about their long term vitality and idea 0:20:00.440 --> 0:20:02.680 of the government sort of injecting large amounts of funds 0:20:02.680 --> 0:20:05.639 into these communities that provide these new jobs or retraining 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:08.960 and things. This actually is interesting for some of the 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:12.760 people in these units. Units have actually changed positions and 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:16.159 supportant green transition packages based upon the evidence that. 0:20:16.160 --> 0:20:17.080 We receive well. 0:20:17.080 --> 0:20:19.000 And I would just say, going back to the path 0:20:19.040 --> 0:20:22.920 dependency point that Greg made earlier, a lot of these 0:20:23.040 --> 0:20:26.920 unions have been in these industry groups for a long time, 0:20:27.080 --> 0:20:30.040 so they've been coordinating with and part of those front 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:33.480 groups that are doing that corporate ventriloquism thing. And so 0:20:33.560 --> 0:20:36.840 I think, you know, you're locked into these relationships or 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:41.320 these coordinated activities. It's pretty tough to peel off unless 0:20:41.359 --> 0:20:43.280 there are real incentives for doing that. 0:20:43.800 --> 0:20:47.840 That's interesting, Okay. I want to ask you about the 0:20:48.440 --> 0:20:52.960 technological optimism and fossil fuel solutionism because this is the 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:55.200 one place where I feel like it might be quite 0:20:55.200 --> 0:20:57.080 different from industry to industry. 0:20:57.080 --> 0:20:59.119 Like I think it's hard for coal to be like 0:20:59.400 --> 0:21:03.600 technolop the way. I'm wrong. Oh, you'd be surprised. 0:21:05.520 --> 0:21:09.680 Yeah, we do have this in Japan actually and Asia. Yeah. Wow. 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:11.800 So I think one of the solutions a lot of 0:21:11.840 --> 0:21:13.640 people are familiar with is carbon capture and. 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:15.400 Storage c cs of course, Yeah, but. 0:21:15.400 --> 0:21:18.919 What's happened recently is that all across Asia, like countries 0:21:18.960 --> 0:21:22.719 acts Vietnam and Indonesia especially, but also countries like India 0:21:22.920 --> 0:21:25.480 China as well, we have these very young cold fight 0:21:25.560 --> 0:21:27.560 palp plants, and so if these countries were to be 0:21:28.040 --> 0:21:31.399 serious about transitioning towards renewables, we're going to have to 0:21:31.400 --> 0:21:33.879 write these off before the end of their economic lives. 0:21:33.960 --> 0:21:35.880 So we're going to end up with the so called 0:21:35.920 --> 0:21:39.480 stranded asset. And not only that wells these countries are 0:21:39.520 --> 0:21:41.760 actually under a lot of stress to supply the power 0:21:41.800 --> 0:21:44.840 for their very rapidly growing populations and economies. So it's 0:21:44.880 --> 0:21:47.320 actually not easy for them to shut down, say a 0:21:47.400 --> 0:21:49.919 cold fire power plant which produces a massive amount of 0:21:49.920 --> 0:21:52.040 power and replace that with solar powers. 0:21:52.040 --> 0:21:54.880 This is a very very difficult change, and so. 0:21:55.119 --> 0:21:57.720 They have very strong interest in sort of maintaining these 0:21:57.760 --> 0:22:01.840 assets while decarbonizing. And that's open to the tour to 0:22:01.920 --> 0:22:06.399 these discussions about slow callder ammonia curve firing right being 0:22:06.520 --> 0:22:10.280 promoted very heavily by Japan, but also also by South Korea, 0:22:10.920 --> 0:22:13.919