January 31, 2024 • 35 mins
Before Tom Steyer ran for President on a campaign advocating for climate change, Tom Steyer was making money by investing in fossil fuels. But that changed when he realized the natural environment around him was decaying—and the government wasn’t doing anything to stop it. On this episode, Chris and Tom explore Tom’s concept of "movement capitalism," and how businesses can drive positive climate impact.
Show notes from Chris:
According to “Banking on the Climate Chaos”, fossil fuel financing from the world’s 60 largest banks has reached USD $5.5 trillion in the seven years since the Paris Agreement. If you’d like to find out more about who is financing fossil fuel projects around the world check out their website and annual report at https://www.bankingonclimatechaos.org
If you’d like to learn more about how bringing together economic and social values can help build a better world, former Governor of the Banks of Canada and England, Mark Carney, has written a thought-provoking book called “Value(s)”. You can read a review here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I know that if we don't do this, we're flirting
with disaster. But what I really think we should focus
on is we can build the most beautiful future that
anyone can imagine too. Yeah, of course we're trying to
avoid this huge problem, but really what we're trying to
do is build this incredible future better than anybody's ever lived,
(00:25):
than humans have ever had it in the history of
the planet. That's what we're really trying to create is
a fantastic future.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Oh fucked.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Hi.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
I'm Chris Turney and this is I'm Fucking the Future,
a show about a climate crisis and what we can
do about it. The future can sometimes seem bleak, so
every episode we'll talk to someone with a big idea
for turning things around. I believe it. Together, we really
can on fuck this. Let's get started.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
We fucking the future.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
There are a lot of ways you can fight global heating.
You can eat less meat, you can drive an electric car,
or you can try to become president of the United States.
That's what our guest today decides to do. His name
is Tom Steyer.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Here.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
He is one of the Democratic primary debates Back in
twenty twenty.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Rachel I'm the only person on this stage who will
say that climate is the number one priority for me.
Vice President Biden wrong say it. Senator Warren won't say it.
It's a state of emergency, and I would declare a
state of emergency on day one. I've spent a decade
fighting and beating oil companies, stopping pipelines, stopping fossil fuel plants,
(01:49):
ensuring clean energy across the country.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
I know that we have to do this. I also
know that we can do this.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Tom doesn't fit a profile of your typical climate activists,
because Tom is a wildly successful businessman who made his
fortune in part by investing in fossil fuel companies. Here's
Tom on CNN talking about his time in the private sector.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Our company invested in every part of the American economy,
including oil and gas and coal, and I realized as
we were doing it, I basically thought, the American government works.
If there's a big problem, the American government will solve it.
And somewhere around fourteen or fifteen years ago, I thought,
this doesn't seem to be working. There's this huge, unintended
(02:32):
consequence of having a fossil fuel economy, which is climate
change and I started to do whatever I could to
try and solve this problem.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Then the climate crisis is a direct result of industrialization
of runaway business development. But Tom has come to believe
that one way we can fight against global heating is
through the power of business and industry. In twenty twenty one,
Tom founded Galvanized Climate Solutions. It's a financial firm but
(03:05):
only invests in companies making a positive climate impact. How
did Tom go from fossil fuel investor to climate advocate,
I asked him. So, I think a lot of people
are having their are harr moment, that oh fuck climate
change is real moment for me. I remember I was
(03:25):
a nerdy teenager. It was back in nineteen eighty seven
at the weather station and a hurricane hit London, and
just a year later British Prime Minister Margret Factor was
given these powerful speeches about climate change and we're going
to do something about it. So what is your aha,
oh fuck moment?
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Basically I had spent a summer when I was twenty
four up in Alaska. I had an office job, but
I basically spent every weekend out in the woods, climbing, fishing, canoeing,
everything I could think of to get as far deep
into the woods as I could. Incredible summer. And then
(04:01):
I went back with my family, including four kids, to
give them the same appreciation that i'd have show them
how incredibly fertile and wild America was, you know, the
huge fish, the incredible animals, the birds, just how incredibly
rich the country is. And basically we got up there
(04:23):
and we did see that, But what we also saw
inescapably was well, this place is melting.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Okay, let's pause here for a segment we like to
call holy fuck.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Fuck.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
When Tom says for Alaska is melting, he means literally melting.
The average temperature across Alaska has increased by up to
six degrees fahrenheit over the last forty years. That's more
than three times for warming of the rest of the country.
This has led to a dramatic melting of glacier across
the state. It's a trend that's set to continue, with
(05:03):
at least half of Alaska's remaining ice expected to disappear
in the coming years. This matters for two reasons. First,
the melting of glaciers in Alaska and across the Arctic
are one of the biggest causes of rising sea levels today. Second,
this heating is also melting Arctic sea ice, which you
can think of as a world's air conditioner. This is
(05:26):
a thin layer of the Earth's surface that's totally frozen,
and since sea ice is mostly white, it reflects sunlight,
which pushes at heat off the Earth's surface and back
into space. And if that ice isn't there, then the
sunlight gets absorbed into the ocean, warming the waters and
melting more ice. It's a vicious cycle, and it's one
(05:49):
of those facts that just stops in your tracks and
makes you say, holy fuck.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Fuck.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Okay, back to Tom, seeing all this change in Alaska change,
what was happening so fast, was shocking to him.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
And you know, we had as a family, both my
wife's side of the family and my side of the family,
hundreds of years of going into the woods in North America.
And so it wasn't like going to Disneyland. It was
going to this place that Americans have gone, well Native
Americans for thousands of years and immigrants like us for
(06:30):
hundreds of years to find meaning and spirituality and beauty
and incredible natural wealth.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Tom saw how in just one generation, so much of
Alaska's landscape had changed, and like a lot of people,
Tom at first looked to the government to solve a
climate crisis. He supported politicians and causes that were pro climate,
and eventually he took a stab at running for office himself.
Tom's presidential platform was heavily focused on climate action. Here's
(07:03):
one of his ads.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Hi, I'm Tom Steyer. I'm running for president, and I'm
committed to creating a sustainable future for all Americans. Our
planet is at a crossroads. Wildfires are taking lives and
destroying communities. Prolonged heat waves and extreme storms are putting
the vulnerable at risk. We can't continue to deny science
(07:26):
and roll back environmental protections. We must treat the climate
crisis with the urgency it demands. That's why, on day
one of my presidency, I will declare the climate crisis
a National Emergency.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Tom helped make climate a more central focus in the election,
but ultimately he didn't manage to win the presidency, and
so he decides to shift gears. Tom had spent a
lot of time trying to convince people that fighting the
climate crisis was for riving to do, but he thought,
what if he could appeal to people more pragmatic interests.
(08:02):
What if doing the right thing for the climate was
also the right thing for their bank accounts. It's an
idea Tom calls movement capitalism.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Well, you know, capitalism scales, profitability scales. It's somewhat cynical
of me to say, but unfortunately, I think it's realistic
for me to also say altruism doesn't scale.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Right, or it scales less. I mean, we see more
and more consumers choosing to buy from climate conscious companies,
but it's not moving a needle in the way that
would incentivize other companies to do the same.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Right, we need to have these changes be profitable so
that people can make the decisions in their own self interest.
And so it's not that I think capitalism is by
definition good, it's capitalism can be good. Capitalism is basically,
(08:57):
we're going to produce what you want, so you pay
us money. That's capitalism. Like, you tell us what you
want and we'll produce it if you'll pay us for it. Okay,
And the idea is okay, So my self interest is
to produce something you want yours. You're just going to
get whatever you want, you tell me, and I'll make it.
And so in this if society decides we need to
(09:21):
do things that take into account the cost of pollution,
then we're just going to say we're going to produce
all the things you want, but we're not going to pollute.
And if you think about it, there's nothing wrong with oil.
Oil is this incredibly powerful energy source. People did it
as a way of moving cars, moving ships, moving planes.
(09:41):
They weren't trying to destroy the world. They were basically
giving people exactly what they wanted energy. It just turned
out there was this unintended consequence that in burning the
oil and burning the natural gas and burning the coal,
we were going to basically heat up the planet in
a way that was going to cause all kinds of
problems for human beings and all the other eight million
(10:04):
species on the planet Earth. And so all we're saying is, okay,
let's give people what they really want, which is all
of that capability for them to move around and to
fuel the things that they like in a way that
doesn't have this unintended consequence that basically burns clean And
if we can do that, then we're basically producing what
(10:25):
people want. And for that to really happen in a
big way, then we need to build big businesses that
hire people and paying them competitive wages and really give
an incentive for this thing to grow.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Weird fucking the future. Weird fucking the future.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
For years, a big obstacle in getting people to switch
to renewable energy sources was cost. Solar and wind was
just too expensive compared to oil and coal. But in
the past few years that's all changed. Clean energy is
now far cheaper than fossil fuels. Fa'st creates a lot
of demand, and that in turn is to an explosion
(11:11):
of investment by the private sector. It's one example of
a positive alignment of business interests and climate interests.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Well, a ton of things have changed in terms of
making it possible for the private sector and step up.
If you just look at the amount of money that's
being invested in climate solutions, that's being invested in clean
energy versus fossil fuel for the first time. Last year,
I think more money was invested in clean energy to
possi fuels. So there's no question that relatively the private
(11:41):
sector is stepping up. I think the costs have crossed
in terms of electricity generation, whether it be solar or
wind or batteries. I think the costs of evs electrical vehicles, Yeah, yeah,
are going to be a lot lower, both in terms
of how much it cost to buy, but how much
it cost to maintained much it cost to fill up
(12:01):
than internal combustion engines. You know, we're seeing really the
tipping points in multiple technologies where basically you're not asking
someone to make a sacrifice, that we're in this place
where it's like, this is just the smart thing to do.
And you know, as we see that those really rapid
(12:21):
adoptions around the world, we're going to see that be
the dominant technologies and that really we're going to see
the end of the fossil fuel layer.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Oh no, I can't wait for that. I mean, that's
just an amazing headline, isn't it. The amount of investment
in this space is extraordinary, and just seeing the changing costs.
But why things got so much cheaper, Tom, I mean,
what's actually driving out change?
Speaker 1 (12:48):
If you think about when I first went to work
forty years ago, the computer that would fill a room
now would have a tiny fraction of the capability of
your iPhone because that multiplication of capabilities every single year.
(13:09):
And so we see that kind of technological advancement, which
is increasing productivity and reduced cost in every one of
these technologies, whether it's solar or wind, or batteries or evs. So,
for instance, in solar, I think the way that people
think about it is that every doubling of solar capacity
(13:31):
in the world leads to a twenty four percent drop
in price for the equivalent amount of energy. So as
that goes on, it's like it just goes down inexorably.
And so if you're selling oil and gas, like there's
no doubt next year your competitor is going to be
a lot cheaper, and the year after that, by the way,
(13:52):
they're going to be a lot cheaper.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
A game change, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
And so that's not true of fossil fuels. You know,
fossil fue mules become harder to find, more remote, more
difficult to reach. The price of oil has gone up
about two percent a year, you know, forever. So in fact,
you've got one technology that's going up very gradually but continuously,
(14:16):
and one that's going down very steeply. If you look
at the cost of a kilowatt hour of energy, and
whether you look at coal or natural gas or wind
or solar wind and solar by farther too.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Cheapness, fast, incredible change for world, and you see it happen.
This speed is scale, that's just amazing.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
You know, China is the biggest car market in the world.
China is scheduled to have eighty percent car sales be
evs by twenty thirty. Eighty percent eight zero percent. Those
cars do not need to fill up. So when this happens,
Once the sales move like that, then the percentages of
(14:58):
the fleet just in egg changed and you can see
the end of the fossil fuel era.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
We're already seeing this happening around the world. Here's a
news clip from a recent cast show in China.
Speaker 5 (15:09):
Foreign automakers, including American brands, are now playing attention to
Chinese players like bud It's number one in China and
the competition is now so intense it sparked an EV
price war. Here.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
From a climate perspective, an EV price war is exactly
what we want to see. As EV's become more affordable
to buy, it incentivizes consumers to buy greener cars, which
in turn incentivizes companies to build more and better electric vehicles.
It's the power of capitalism.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
I drive electric Mustang and so you know, did I
buy it because I wanted to have no emissions? Yeah?
I really only considered an electric car last time time
before I a plug in hybrid. But honestly, it has
amazing pickup. It has way better pickup than any car
I've ever done drive. I mean, it's like being in
(16:01):
a rocket, you know. I think we're going to see
this is going to enable a lot of things where
you go. It's not just that we have clean air,
safe water, normal temperatures, normal seasons. It's also a great ribe.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
In twenty twenty one, Tom took this concept of movement
capitalism a step further. He found in a business called
Galvanized Climate Solutions. It's an investment firm with two goals.
Make a positive climate impact and make investors a lot
of money. So you're helping investors find those opportunities, those
(16:39):
amazing opportunities to decarbonize economy, builviss and our cities, our communities.
But I'm curioused to know are they really aware of
what they're doing? I mean, are the investors aware of
the rest of economic system if they don't take action
on global heating and is that a motivator for them.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
So I think that our investor have two motivations. One
is they want to get and we must deliver good returns.
Market returns are better. Our goal is to have the
highest returns in the world. And we believe that the
need for this change is a really huge demand generator
revenue generator for these businesses. But I think everybody who's
(17:21):
investing explicitly in galvanized climate solutions knows we will only
invest in things that have positive climate impact.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
So what kind of investments can actually have a positive
climate impact. We're going to spend a few minutes talking
about free areas where Toms's opportunity, real estate, information technology,
and something called sequestration. Let's start with the first one,
real estate. How can investing in real estate have a
(17:54):
climate impact?
Speaker 1 (17:55):
We're doing a fund to do net zero real estate
and basically what is mean? That means generating electricity differently
reskinning the building using heat pumps, and to do this
in a way that gets better returns. And why is
it important to do this? Eighty percent of the buildings
in the US that exist right now will still be
(18:17):
in use in twenty fifty.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
Those buildings are carbon super producers. A lot of the
infrastructure around us today was built at a time when
sustainable architecture wasn't at the top of people's minds. The
result is pretty astounding. Across the world, buildings makeup as
staggering thirty nine percent of all greenhouse gas emissions thirty
nine percent. Most of that comes from what we do
(18:42):
in those buildings, think heating and cooling the units we
live and work in. So yes, some of it is
due to how much energy we used to build them,
but these emissions could be greatly reduced if we made
small changes to how we run them. So all of
that is to say, of these buildings are powered matters
a lot in our fights to combat the climate crisis.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
We have to reformat these buildings, and we have to
do it in a way that makes the landlord's richer,
because if that isn't true, they ain't going to do it.
So we have to do it and prove it and
develop the kind of you know, the recipe to do it,
so everybody goes like wall, Chris is doing it. If
(19:27):
Chris is doing it, I can do it.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
For Tom and his partners. It's not just enough to
find companies that have an innovative business plan or a
cool new technology, it has to be something that works
in the real world. Sometimes when we imagine a green future,
we think of a world in which all the old
polluting technology has been wiped away and replaced with something
shiny and new. But real estate is a perfect example
(19:52):
of why that doesn't work. We can't tear down every
home in the world and replace it with a most
climate friendly alternative. It would take decades and cost an
absolute fortune, not to mention, of course, construction itself has
a climate impact.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
I mean, two of the things I'd say about this
are one is we're not going to be able to
rebuild all the industry, the industrial plants, manufacturing plants either
one of the questions, and this is a real question
for technology. Let's say you have a cool technology, but
it means we have to rebuild every plant in the world. Okay, sorry,
We're going to have to take your technology and figure
out how to do it within the footprints of the
(20:31):
existing plants in a way that makes those owners richer,
because that's why they're going to do it. And you know,
we're looking at some technologies which just from an efficiency standpoint,
if they had no CO two impact at all, make
people multiples of their money in the first year. That's
what we need.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
That's a complete noe brainer.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Isn't it. Yees. So it's like you sit here and
go like, Okay, I'll do that. I'm glad it does
the CO two thing, but I'm doing it for the money.
That's one thing that's really true is within the footprint
of the existing building or situation.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Okay, let's move on to Tom's second big investment opportunity,
information technology. As he sees it, one of the big
challenges in creating a cleaner future is that we don't
actually know how much we're actually polluting.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
And when we think about how we're going to solve
this problem, people think about all of these gadgets, solar
wind batteries, electric vehicles, things you can touch. But if
you're going to manage that, you have to know the information.
If you're going to change your carbon footprint, you have
(21:47):
to know what your carbon footprint is, you have to
know where it's going to come from. So I always
say to people, Okay, what's the carbon footprint of my sweater?
I don't know, and neither does anyone else. But until
the people making the sweater know, and until I know,
how are we going to change our carbon foot right?
How do I not buy the sweater that's made the
wrong way if I don't know how they're made. So
(22:09):
a lot of this is going to be about information,
transparency and holding people accountable to what they're doing.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Do you know the climate impact of all the choices
you make? Can you tell if one sweater is better
for the environment than another? In most cases, the answer
is probably no, And that's in part because measure the
climate impact of something is a lot more complicated than
you might think. It brings us to a concept known
as scope free and a segment we like to call
(22:44):
what the fuck are you talking about?
Speaker 1 (22:46):
What the fuck are you talking about?
Speaker 3 (22:51):
When businesses want to measure their environmental impact, they use
something called the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. This piffy title is
an international standard for how we classify where emissions are
coming from, and, confusingly, these classifications are known as scopes.
Scope one emissions are the direct pollution produced by a company.
(23:14):
To stick with Tom's sweater example, imagine you run a
sweater making factory. The emissions from your company vehicles transporting
the sweaters are scope one Scope two emissions are created
by the power your factory uses, So these are the
emissions from a secondary source. The power plant that supplies
your electricity is your sweater factory run by a coal
(23:36):
powered plant or by a wind farm. And finally, scope
free emissions are all the other pollution linked with a
company's activities. Your sweater factory uses yarn that you bought
from somewhere. How much pollution did the yarn factory create?
Your employees are commuting to work each day? Are they
driving bicycles or monster trucks? When you try to add
(23:59):
all these up, enough to make your head spin. And
it's why scope free emissions are the hardest to measure
and why they're almost always for biggest source of emissions
for a business. But if we really want to understand
our climate impact, we have to be able to measure
scope free emissions. And this is something that Tom can
help with by investing in information technology. And that's what
(24:22):
the fuck we're talking about? What the fuck? Okay, back
to Tom. You'll be shocked to hear most businesses hate
the idea of measuring scope free emissions. It shows that
their products are much dirtier. But if they just measured
scopes one and two.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
You know, the Chamber of Commerce is dramatically opposed to
it would be a huge problem for companies, and I
believe once people know what's going on, that's going to
put immense pressure on those companies to get their emissions
under control. As long as you don't know what you're doing,
you have plausible deniability and you can't be expected your honor.
(25:04):
I had no idea it was true. As soon as
I found out it was true, I acted on it.
So the longer I don't know it's true, the longer
I have plausible deniability and you know, and no one
can really come after you. So that's why the truth
in this and the measurement of this is so important,
because basically, people are polluting for free and they love
(25:27):
it because, you know what, who wants to pay for
their pollution? Nobody. So they're like, we've never paid for it,
it's free. Why should we suddenly have to pay for
our pollution just because that pollution might ruin the world.
It's like, well, that seems like a pretty good reason.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
Given all of this, why would any business measure its
scope free emissions? Simply put, the government is going to
make them do it. They have are multiple laws and
policies being debated as we speak that would have this effect.
The big business is it's already allure in California. So
if every company is suddenly required to measure their scope
(26:06):
free emissions and you are in the technology that does
for measurement, that seems like a pretty good business to me.
But besides being a cool business idea, Tom thinks the
environmental impact could be huge because given the choice, people
prefer to buy stuff that doesn't destroy the planet.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
That's been polled just you know, Chris, if you go
around the world, seventy six percent of consumer's claim that
they would take environmentalism into account when making consumer decisions. Now,
do I believe that mostly No, Most people by the
cheapest best thing they can find, regardless of how it
(26:49):
was produced. But in the United States of America, the
estimate is from also detailed polling data that's something like
eighteen to twenty percent the people really will take it
into account? I would, but I believe if twenty percent
of Americans are willing to take it into account in
making their purchase decisions, that is a huge companies.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
We're fucking the future. We're fucking the future.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
That brings us to Tom's third and final investment idea
for today. It's something called sequestration.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
One of the big verticals which is going to be
a trillion dollar industry that doesn't exist right now is sequestration.
And sequestration is simply somehow taking CO two or methane
out of the atmosphere and somehow sequestering it or sticking
at someplace where it's going to stay.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Obviously, the reason we have global heating is burning a
lot of dirty fossil fuels, and the emissions are floating
around in our atmosphere. Sequestration companies pull the carbon out
of the air and pump it underground or store it somewhere.
And here's the thing, it doesn't matter where you store it,
(28:17):
as long as that carbon is out of the atmosphere.
And that's where Tom sees big opportunity.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
One of the points that's true about that is a
ton of CO two sequestered in Kenya is worth every
bit as much as a ton of two that's sequestered
in Brisbane or Berlin or Iowa. And so if it
can be done less expensively, in Kenya, and if the
(28:48):
money that's paid for it is exactly the same as
in any of those other three spots around the world,
but that money means a lot more relative to the
annual average income in Kenya than it does in Germany,
Australia or the US, then that's a gigantic opportunity for
the people of the world. It's a gigantic opportunity for
(29:10):
the people of Kenya, and it's a real way to
redistribute and build capability around the world and reallocate money
to the tune of at least a trillion dollars year.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
At trillion dollars.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
So these are some of the opportunities that Tom believes
are out there. We're doing the right thing for the
climate can be big business.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
I mean, if we're producing goods and services that are cheaper, better,
faster and cleaner, they're going to get adopted. I mean,
for hundreds of years, new technologies have come in and
replaced old technologies, and they've done it in the form
of an s where that takes a long time to
develop them, the costs finally change and then there's rapid
(29:57):
adoption over a period of time. So that's happened. I mean,
I doubt Chris that you've been using that much whale
oil recently.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
No, that is true.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
But if private sector can prove that doing the right
thing is cheaper and easy to adopt, than governments can
do other things to support it and make it ubiquitous. Yeah. Absolutely,
So it's this interactive thing of Okay, we need to
do this. How can we make it possible for the
private sector to do it and to scale? Okay, now
that they've proved it's cheaper and better, how do we
(30:28):
make it not a good solution but basically ubiquitous solution,
so that we just move all the way. If you
miss this, you're missing the boat.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
It's so important for people to have that vision that's
positive for the future, something that's actually really empowering.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Look, I think that this is just a huge tailwind
for companies that are are behind this change, and it's
going to be that if you go back and look
over the last ten or twenty years, people have dramatically
underestimated the speed and size of this change, and they
are going to continue to underestimate it.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
I'm completely inspired. I'm sure our listeners are too.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Thanks so much, Chris, Thank you very much, really enjoyed
it so much fun.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
I have to say I didn't expect to feel so
inspired by a conversation about real estate investing. But Tom
is pointing a way towards something we in the environmental
community we often overlook. We sometimes think about businesses and
corporations as our adversaries. I mean, after all, industrialization is
what has caused this climate crisis, but harnessed in the
(31:34):
right way, these same forces can also be our partners
in the fight against global heating. And the truth is,
if we're going to unfucked things, we're really going to
need their help. So in this episode, we've talked a
lot about climate friendly investments, but what can you do
if you're not a venture capitalist? To answer that question,
(31:58):
I'd like to bring in my friend Maggie bed for
a final segment this week, something we call what the
fuck can I Do?
Speaker 2 (32:04):
What the fuck can I do?
Speaker 3 (32:08):
Hey, Maggie, Well, Tom Stad's interview was all about using
a power of capitalism to fight global heating, but not
all of us are billionaire venture capitalists, So what can
we do?
Speaker 6 (32:19):
Well, you may not be a billionaire yet, but you
might have, say a savings account, maybe you have a
retirement account through your work or something, and so one
thing you can do is make sure that whatever money
you have, it's not going to support the burning.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Of fossil fuels.
Speaker 7 (32:37):
It's a strategy that is known as devestment. So make
sure that you don't own any stocks in fossil fuel companies,
either directly or through any mutual funds or other funds
you might have in a retirement account or or something similar.
And there are lots of funds from big banks like
Fidelity that anyone can invest in instead that are specifically
(33:02):
pro climate. So check with your financial advisor or whomever
you really trust for financial advice, but tell them that
this matters to you. And lastly, make sure that your
bank is climate friendly. We've put a link in the
show notes to a site that has great lists of
pro climate banks. Take a look and make sure your
(33:26):
bank isn't propping up fossil fuel companies.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
Thanks Maggie, that is so important, isn't it.
Speaker 7 (33:34):
Thank you?
Speaker 3 (33:35):
And for everyone listening out there. That's what the fuck
you can do to help?
Speaker 2 (33:39):
What fuck can I do?
Speaker 1 (33:43):
Oh? We're fucked.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
That's all for this episode. Next time on the Fucking
the Future, psychologist, doctor Lisa van Susteren will talk to
us about how climate is impacting our mental health and
what we can do about it.
Speaker 8 (34:01):
Oh, it's even desirable, frankly to be outraged and angry.
Many studies show that that is the prelude to taking action,
that it is protective to be angry and outraged. They
are healthy emotions to an unhealthy.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
Condition until then, I'm Chris Turney signing off from Sydney, Australia.
Thanks for joining me in I'm Fucking the Future.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Weird Fucking the Future.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
I'm Fucking the Future is produced by Imagine Audio and
Awfully Nice for iHeart Podcasts and hosted by me Chris Turney.
The show is written by Meredith Bryan. I'm Fucking the
Future is produced by Amber von Schassen and Rene Colvert.
Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Carl Welker and Nathan Chloke are
the executive producers from Imagine Audio. Jesse Burton and Katie
(34:56):
Hodges are the executive producers from Awfully Nice. Sound design
and mixing by Evan Arnette, original music by Lily Hayden
and producing services by Peter McGuigan. Sam Swinnerton wrote our theme,
and all those fun jingles. If you enjoyed this episode,
be sure to rate and review Unfucking the Future on
Apple Podcasts or whether you get your podcasts
I know that if we don't do this, we're flirting
with disaster. But what I really think we should focus
on is we can build the most beautiful future that
anyone can imagine too. Yeah, of course we're trying to
avoid this huge problem, but really what we're trying to
do is build this incredible future better than anybody's ever lived,
(00:25):
than humans have ever had it in the history of
the planet. That's what we're really trying to create is
a fantastic future.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Oh fucked.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Hi.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
I'm Chris Turney and this is I'm Fucking the Future,
a show about a climate crisis and what we can
do about it. The future can sometimes seem bleak, so
every episode we'll talk to someone with a big idea
for turning things around. I believe it. Together, we really
can on fuck this. Let's get started.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
We fucking the future.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
There are a lot of ways you can fight global heating.
You can eat less meat, you can drive an electric car,
or you can try to become president of the United States.
That's what our guest today decides to do. His name
is Tom Steyer.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Here.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
He is one of the Democratic primary debates Back in
twenty twenty.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Rachel I'm the only person on this stage who will
say that climate is the number one priority for me.
Vice President Biden wrong say it. Senator Warren won't say it.
It's a state of emergency, and I would declare a
state of emergency on day one. I've spent a decade
fighting and beating oil companies, stopping pipelines, stopping fossil fuel plants,
(01:49):
ensuring clean energy across the country.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
I know that we have to do this. I also
know that we can do this.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Tom doesn't fit a profile of your typical climate activists,
because Tom is a wildly successful businessman who made his
fortune in part by investing in fossil fuel companies. Here's
Tom on CNN talking about his time in the private sector.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Our company invested in every part of the American economy,
including oil and gas and coal, and I realized as
we were doing it, I basically thought, the American government works.
If there's a big problem, the American government will solve it.
And somewhere around fourteen or fifteen years ago, I thought,
this doesn't seem to be working. There's this huge, unintended
(02:32):
consequence of having a fossil fuel economy, which is climate
change and I started to do whatever I could to
try and solve this problem.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Then the climate crisis is a direct result of industrialization
of runaway business development. But Tom has come to believe
that one way we can fight against global heating is
through the power of business and industry. In twenty twenty one,
Tom founded Galvanized Climate Solutions. It's a financial firm but
(03:05):
only invests in companies making a positive climate impact. How
did Tom go from fossil fuel investor to climate advocate,
I asked him. So, I think a lot of people
are having their are harr moment, that oh fuck climate
change is real moment for me. I remember I was
(03:25):
a nerdy teenager. It was back in nineteen eighty seven
at the weather station and a hurricane hit London, and
just a year later British Prime Minister Margret Factor was
given these powerful speeches about climate change and we're going
to do something about it. So what is your aha,
oh fuck moment?
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Basically I had spent a summer when I was twenty
four up in Alaska. I had an office job, but
I basically spent every weekend out in the woods, climbing, fishing, canoeing,
everything I could think of to get as far deep
into the woods as I could. Incredible summer. And then
(04:01):
I went back with my family, including four kids, to
give them the same appreciation that i'd have show them
how incredibly fertile and wild America was, you know, the
huge fish, the incredible animals, the birds, just how incredibly
rich the country is. And basically we got up there
(04:23):
and we did see that, But what we also saw
inescapably was well, this place is melting.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Okay, let's pause here for a segment we like to
call holy fuck.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Fuck.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
When Tom says for Alaska is melting, he means literally melting.
The average temperature across Alaska has increased by up to
six degrees fahrenheit over the last forty years. That's more
than three times for warming of the rest of the country.
This has led to a dramatic melting of glacier across
the state. It's a trend that's set to continue, with
(05:03):
at least half of Alaska's remaining ice expected to disappear
in the coming years. This matters for two reasons. First,
the melting of glaciers in Alaska and across the Arctic
are one of the biggest causes of rising sea levels today. Second,
this heating is also melting Arctic sea ice, which you
can think of as a world's air conditioner. This is
(05:26):
a thin layer of the Earth's surface that's totally frozen,
and since sea ice is mostly white, it reflects sunlight,
which pushes at heat off the Earth's surface and back
into space. And if that ice isn't there, then the
sunlight gets absorbed into the ocean, warming the waters and
melting more ice. It's a vicious cycle, and it's one
(05:49):
of those facts that just stops in your tracks and
makes you say, holy fuck.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Fuck.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Okay, back to Tom, seeing all this change in Alaska change,
what was happening so fast, was shocking to him.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
And you know, we had as a family, both my
wife's side of the family and my side of the family,
hundreds of years of going into the woods in North America.
And so it wasn't like going to Disneyland. It was
going to this place that Americans have gone, well Native
Americans for thousands of years and immigrants like us for
(06:30):
hundreds of years to find meaning and spirituality and beauty
and incredible natural wealth.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Tom saw how in just one generation, so much of
Alaska's landscape had changed, and like a lot of people,
Tom at first looked to the government to solve a
climate crisis. He supported politicians and causes that were pro climate,
and eventually he took a stab at running for office himself.
Tom's presidential platform was heavily focused on climate action. Here's
(07:03):
one of his ads.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Hi, I'm Tom Steyer. I'm running for president, and I'm
committed to creating a sustainable future for all Americans. Our
planet is at a crossroads. Wildfires are taking lives and
destroying communities. Prolonged heat waves and extreme storms are putting
the vulnerable at risk. We can't continue to deny science
(07:26):
and roll back environmental protections. We must treat the climate
crisis with the urgency it demands. That's why, on day
one of my presidency, I will declare the climate crisis
a National Emergency.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Tom helped make climate a more central focus in the election,
but ultimately he didn't manage to win the presidency, and
so he decides to shift gears. Tom had spent a
lot of time trying to convince people that fighting the
climate crisis was for riving to do, but he thought,
what if he could appeal to people more pragmatic interests.
(08:02):
What if doing the right thing for the climate was
also the right thing for their bank accounts. It's an
idea Tom calls movement capitalism.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Well, you know, capitalism scales, profitability scales. It's somewhat cynical
of me to say, but unfortunately, I think it's realistic
for me to also say altruism doesn't scale.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Right, or it scales less. I mean, we see more
and more consumers choosing to buy from climate conscious companies,
but it's not moving a needle in the way that
would incentivize other companies to do the same.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Right, we need to have these changes be profitable so
that people can make the decisions in their own self interest.
And so it's not that I think capitalism is by
definition good, it's capitalism can be good. Capitalism is basically,
(08:57):
we're going to produce what you want, so you pay
us money. That's capitalism. Like, you tell us what you
want and we'll produce it if you'll pay us for it. Okay,
And the idea is okay, So my self interest is
to produce something you want yours. You're just going to
get whatever you want, you tell me, and I'll make it.
And so in this if society decides we need to
(09:21):
do things that take into account the cost of pollution,
then we're just going to say we're going to produce
all the things you want, but we're not going to pollute.
And if you think about it, there's nothing wrong with oil.
Oil is this incredibly powerful energy source. People did it
as a way of moving cars, moving ships, moving planes.
(09:41):
They weren't trying to destroy the world. They were basically
giving people exactly what they wanted energy. It just turned
out there was this unintended consequence that in burning the
oil and burning the natural gas and burning the coal,
we were going to basically heat up the planet in
a way that was going to cause all kinds of
problems for human beings and all the other eight million
(10:04):
species on the planet Earth. And so all we're saying is, okay,
let's give people what they really want, which is all
of that capability for them to move around and to
fuel the things that they like in a way that
doesn't have this unintended consequence that basically burns clean And
if we can do that, then we're basically producing what
(10:25):
people want. And for that to really happen in a
big way, then we need to build big businesses that
hire people and paying them competitive wages and really give
an incentive for this thing to grow.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Weird fucking the future. Weird fucking the future.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
For years, a big obstacle in getting people to switch
to renewable energy sources was cost. Solar and wind was
just too expensive compared to oil and coal. But in
the past few years that's all changed. Clean energy is
now far cheaper than fossil fuels. Fa'st creates a lot
of demand, and that in turn is to an explosion
(11:11):
of investment by the private sector. It's one example of
a positive alignment of business interests and climate interests.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Well, a ton of things have changed in terms of
making it possible for the private sector and step up.
If you just look at the amount of money that's
being invested in climate solutions, that's being invested in clean
energy versus fossil fuel for the first time. Last year,
I think more money was invested in clean energy to
possi fuels. So there's no question that relatively the private
(11:41):
sector is stepping up. I think the costs have crossed
in terms of electricity generation, whether it be solar or
wind or batteries. I think the costs of evs electrical vehicles, Yeah, yeah,
are going to be a lot lower, both in terms
of how much it cost to buy, but how much
it cost to maintained much it cost to fill up
(12:01):
than internal combustion engines. You know, we're seeing really the
tipping points in multiple technologies where basically you're not asking
someone to make a sacrifice, that we're in this place
where it's like, this is just the smart thing to do.
And you know, as we see that those really rapid
(12:21):
adoptions around the world, we're going to see that be
the dominant technologies and that really we're going to see
the end of the fossil fuel layer.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Oh no, I can't wait for that. I mean, that's
just an amazing headline, isn't it. The amount of investment
in this space is extraordinary, and just seeing the changing costs.
But why things got so much cheaper, Tom, I mean,
what's actually driving out change?
Speaker 1 (12:48):
If you think about when I first went to work
forty years ago, the computer that would fill a room
now would have a tiny fraction of the capability of
your iPhone because that multiplication of capabilities every single year.
(13:09):
And so we see that kind of technological advancement, which
is increasing productivity and reduced cost in every one of
these technologies, whether it's solar or wind, or batteries or evs. So,
for instance, in solar, I think the way that people
think about it is that every doubling of solar capacity
(13:31):
in the world leads to a twenty four percent drop
in price for the equivalent amount of energy. So as
that goes on, it's like it just goes down inexorably.
And so if you're selling oil and gas, like there's
no doubt next year your competitor is going to be
a lot cheaper, and the year after that, by the way,
(13:52):
they're going to be a lot cheaper.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
A game change, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
And so that's not true of fossil fuels. You know,
fossil fue mules become harder to find, more remote, more
difficult to reach. The price of oil has gone up
about two percent a year, you know, forever. So in fact,
you've got one technology that's going up very gradually but continuously,
(14:16):
and one that's going down very steeply. If you look
at the cost of a kilowatt hour of energy, and
whether you look at coal or natural gas or wind
or solar wind and solar by farther too.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Cheapness, fast, incredible change for world, and you see it happen.
This speed is scale, that's just amazing.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
You know, China is the biggest car market in the world.
China is scheduled to have eighty percent car sales be
evs by twenty thirty. Eighty percent eight zero percent. Those
cars do not need to fill up. So when this happens,
Once the sales move like that, then the percentages of
(14:58):
the fleet just in egg changed and you can see
the end of the fossil fuel era.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
We're already seeing this happening around the world. Here's a
news clip from a recent cast show in China.
Speaker 5 (15:09):
Foreign automakers, including American brands, are now playing attention to
Chinese players like bud It's number one in China and
the competition is now so intense it sparked an EV
price war. Here.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
From a climate perspective, an EV price war is exactly
what we want to see. As EV's become more affordable
to buy, it incentivizes consumers to buy greener cars, which
in turn incentivizes companies to build more and better electric vehicles.
It's the power of capitalism.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
I drive electric Mustang and so you know, did I
buy it because I wanted to have no emissions? Yeah?
I really only considered an electric car last time time
before I a plug in hybrid. But honestly, it has
amazing pickup. It has way better pickup than any car
I've ever done drive. I mean, it's like being in
(16:01):
a rocket, you know. I think we're going to see
this is going to enable a lot of things where
you go. It's not just that we have clean air,
safe water, normal temperatures, normal seasons. It's also a great ribe.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
In twenty twenty one, Tom took this concept of movement
capitalism a step further. He found in a business called
Galvanized Climate Solutions. It's an investment firm with two goals.
Make a positive climate impact and make investors a lot
of money. So you're helping investors find those opportunities, those
(16:39):
amazing opportunities to decarbonize economy, builviss and our cities, our communities.
But I'm curioused to know are they really aware of
what they're doing? I mean, are the investors aware of
the rest of economic system if they don't take action
on global heating and is that a motivator for them.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
So I think that our investor have two motivations. One
is they want to get and we must deliver good returns.
Market returns are better. Our goal is to have the
highest returns in the world. And we believe that the
need for this change is a really huge demand generator
revenue generator for these businesses. But I think everybody who's
(17:21):
investing explicitly in galvanized climate solutions knows we will only
invest in things that have positive climate impact.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
So what kind of investments can actually have a positive
climate impact. We're going to spend a few minutes talking
about free areas where Toms's opportunity, real estate, information technology,
and something called sequestration. Let's start with the first one,
real estate. How can investing in real estate have a
(17:54):
climate impact?
Speaker 1 (17:55):
We're doing a fund to do net zero real estate
and basically what is mean? That means generating electricity differently
reskinning the building using heat pumps, and to do this
in a way that gets better returns. And why is
it important to do this? Eighty percent of the buildings
in the US that exist right now will still be
(18:17):
in use in twenty fifty.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
Those buildings are carbon super producers. A lot of the
infrastructure around us today was built at a time when
sustainable architecture wasn't at the top of people's minds. The
result is pretty astounding. Across the world, buildings makeup as
staggering thirty nine percent of all greenhouse gas emissions thirty
nine percent. Most of that comes from what we do
(18:42):
in those buildings, think heating and cooling the units we
live and work in. So yes, some of it is
due to how much energy we used to build them,
but these emissions could be greatly reduced if we made
small changes to how we run them. So all of
that is to say, of these buildings are powered matters
a lot in our fights to combat the climate crisis.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
We have to reformat these buildings, and we have to
do it in a way that makes the landlord's richer,
because if that isn't true, they ain't going to do it.
So we have to do it and prove it and
develop the kind of you know, the recipe to do it,
so everybody goes like wall, Chris is doing it. If
(19:27):
Chris is doing it, I can do it.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
For Tom and his partners. It's not just enough to
find companies that have an innovative business plan or a
cool new technology, it has to be something that works
in the real world. Sometimes when we imagine a green future,
we think of a world in which all the old
polluting technology has been wiped away and replaced with something
shiny and new. But real estate is a perfect example
(19:52):
of why that doesn't work. We can't tear down every
home in the world and replace it with a most
climate friendly alternative. It would take decades and cost an
absolute fortune, not to mention, of course, construction itself has
a climate impact.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
I mean, two of the things I'd say about this
are one is we're not going to be able to
rebuild all the industry, the industrial plants, manufacturing plants either
one of the questions, and this is a real question
for technology. Let's say you have a cool technology, but
it means we have to rebuild every plant in the world. Okay, sorry,
We're going to have to take your technology and figure
out how to do it within the footprints of the
(20:31):
existing plants in a way that makes those owners richer,
because that's why they're going to do it. And you know,
we're looking at some technologies which just from an efficiency standpoint,
if they had no CO two impact at all, make
people multiples of their money in the first year. That's
what we need.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
That's a complete noe brainer.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Isn't it. Yees. So it's like you sit here and
go like, Okay, I'll do that. I'm glad it does
the CO two thing, but I'm doing it for the money.
That's one thing that's really true is within the footprint
of the existing building or situation.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Okay, let's move on to Tom's second big investment opportunity,
information technology. As he sees it, one of the big
challenges in creating a cleaner future is that we don't
actually know how much we're actually polluting.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
And when we think about how we're going to solve
this problem, people think about all of these gadgets, solar
wind batteries, electric vehicles, things you can touch. But if
you're going to manage that, you have to know the information.
If you're going to change your carbon footprint, you have
(21:47):
to know what your carbon footprint is, you have to
know where it's going to come from. So I always
say to people, Okay, what's the carbon footprint of my sweater?
I don't know, and neither does anyone else. But until
the people making the sweater know, and until I know,
how are we going to change our carbon foot right?
How do I not buy the sweater that's made the
wrong way if I don't know how they're made. So
(22:09):
a lot of this is going to be about information,
transparency and holding people accountable to what they're doing.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Do you know the climate impact of all the choices
you make? Can you tell if one sweater is better
for the environment than another? In most cases, the answer
is probably no, And that's in part because measure the
climate impact of something is a lot more complicated than
you might think. It brings us to a concept known
as scope free and a segment we like to call
(22:44):
what the fuck are you talking about?
Speaker 1 (22:46):
What the fuck are you talking about?
Speaker 3 (22:51):
When businesses want to measure their environmental impact, they use
something called the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. This piffy title is
an international standard for how we classify where emissions are
coming from, and, confusingly, these classifications are known as scopes.
Scope one emissions are the direct pollution produced by a company.
(23:14):
To stick with Tom's sweater example, imagine you run a
sweater making factory. The emissions from your company vehicles transporting
the sweaters are scope one Scope two emissions are created
by the power your factory uses, So these are the
emissions from a secondary source. The power plant that supplies
your electricity is your sweater factory run by a coal
(23:36):
powered plant or by a wind farm. And finally, scope
free emissions are all the other pollution linked with a
company's activities. Your sweater factory uses yarn that you bought
from somewhere. How much pollution did the yarn factory create?
Your employees are commuting to work each day? Are they
driving bicycles or monster trucks? When you try to add
(23:59):
all these up, enough to make your head spin. And
it's why scope free emissions are the hardest to measure
and why they're almost always for biggest source of emissions
for a business. But if we really want to understand
our climate impact, we have to be able to measure
scope free emissions. And this is something that Tom can
help with by investing in information technology. And that's what
(24:22):
the fuck we're talking about? What the fuck? Okay, back
to Tom. You'll be shocked to hear most businesses hate
the idea of measuring scope free emissions. It shows that
their products are much dirtier. But if they just measured
scopes one and two.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
You know, the Chamber of Commerce is dramatically opposed to
it would be a huge problem for companies, and I
believe once people know what's going on, that's going to
put immense pressure on those companies to get their emissions
under control. As long as you don't know what you're doing,
you have plausible deniability and you can't be expected your honor.
(25:04):
I had no idea it was true. As soon as
I found out it was true, I acted on it.
So the longer I don't know it's true, the longer
I have plausible deniability and you know, and no one
can really come after you. So that's why the truth
in this and the measurement of this is so important,
because basically, people are polluting for free and they love
(25:27):
it because, you know what, who wants to pay for
their pollution? Nobody. So they're like, we've never paid for it,
it's free. Why should we suddenly have to pay for
our pollution just because that pollution might ruin the world.
It's like, well, that seems like a pretty good reason.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
Given all of this, why would any business measure its
scope free emissions? Simply put, the government is going to
make them do it. They have are multiple laws and
policies being debated as we speak that would have this effect.
The big business is it's already allure in California. So
if every company is suddenly required to measure their scope
(26:06):
free emissions and you are in the technology that does
for measurement, that seems like a pretty good business to me.
But besides being a cool business idea, Tom thinks the
environmental impact could be huge because given the choice, people
prefer to buy stuff that doesn't destroy the planet.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
That's been polled just you know, Chris, if you go
around the world, seventy six percent of consumer's claim that
they would take environmentalism into account when making consumer decisions. Now,
do I believe that mostly No, Most people by the
cheapest best thing they can find, regardless of how it
(26:49):
was produced. But in the United States of America, the
estimate is from also detailed polling data that's something like
eighteen to twenty percent the people really will take it
into account? I would, but I believe if twenty percent
of Americans are willing to take it into account in
making their purchase decisions, that is a huge companies.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
We're fucking the future. We're fucking the future.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
That brings us to Tom's third and final investment idea
for today. It's something called sequestration.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
One of the big verticals which is going to be
a trillion dollar industry that doesn't exist right now is sequestration.
And sequestration is simply somehow taking CO two or methane
out of the atmosphere and somehow sequestering it or sticking
at someplace where it's going to stay.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Obviously, the reason we have global heating is burning a
lot of dirty fossil fuels, and the emissions are floating
around in our atmosphere. Sequestration companies pull the carbon out
of the air and pump it underground or store it somewhere.
And here's the thing, it doesn't matter where you store it,
(28:17):
as long as that carbon is out of the atmosphere.
And that's where Tom sees big opportunity.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
One of the points that's true about that is a
ton of CO two sequestered in Kenya is worth every
bit as much as a ton of two that's sequestered
in Brisbane or Berlin or Iowa. And so if it
can be done less expensively, in Kenya, and if the
(28:48):
money that's paid for it is exactly the same as
in any of those other three spots around the world,
but that money means a lot more relative to the
annual average income in Kenya than it does in Germany,
Australia or the US, then that's a gigantic opportunity for
the people of the world. It's a gigantic opportunity for
(29:10):
the people of Kenya, and it's a real way to
redistribute and build capability around the world and reallocate money
to the tune of at least a trillion dollars year.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
At trillion dollars.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
So these are some of the opportunities that Tom believes
are out there. We're doing the right thing for the
climate can be big business.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
I mean, if we're producing goods and services that are cheaper, better,
faster and cleaner, they're going to get adopted. I mean,
for hundreds of years, new technologies have come in and
replaced old technologies, and they've done it in the form
of an s where that takes a long time to
develop them, the costs finally change and then there's rapid
(29:57):
adoption over a period of time. So that's happened. I mean,
I doubt Chris that you've been using that much whale
oil recently.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
No, that is true.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
But if private sector can prove that doing the right
thing is cheaper and easy to adopt, than governments can
do other things to support it and make it ubiquitous. Yeah. Absolutely,
So it's this interactive thing of Okay, we need to
do this. How can we make it possible for the
private sector to do it and to scale? Okay, now
that they've proved it's cheaper and better, how do we
(30:28):
make it not a good solution but basically ubiquitous solution,
so that we just move all the way. If you
miss this, you're missing the boat.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
It's so important for people to have that vision that's
positive for the future, something that's actually really empowering.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Look, I think that this is just a huge tailwind
for companies that are are behind this change, and it's
going to be that if you go back and look
over the last ten or twenty years, people have dramatically
underestimated the speed and size of this change, and they
are going to continue to underestimate it.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
I'm completely inspired. I'm sure our listeners are too.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Thanks so much, Chris, Thank you very much, really enjoyed
it so much fun.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
I have to say I didn't expect to feel so
inspired by a conversation about real estate investing. But Tom
is pointing a way towards something we in the environmental
community we often overlook. We sometimes think about businesses and
corporations as our adversaries. I mean, after all, industrialization is
what has caused this climate crisis, but harnessed in the
(31:34):
right way, these same forces can also be our partners
in the fight against global heating. And the truth is,
if we're going to unfucked things, we're really going to
need their help. So in this episode, we've talked a
lot about climate friendly investments, but what can you do
if you're not a venture capitalist? To answer that question,
(31:58):
I'd like to bring in my friend Maggie bed for
a final segment this week, something we call what the
fuck can I Do?
Speaker 2 (32:04):
What the fuck can I do?
Speaker 3 (32:08):
Hey, Maggie, Well, Tom Stad's interview was all about using
a power of capitalism to fight global heating, but not
all of us are billionaire venture capitalists, So what can
we do?
Speaker 6 (32:19):
Well, you may not be a billionaire yet, but you
might have, say a savings account, maybe you have a
retirement account through your work or something, and so one
thing you can do is make sure that whatever money
you have, it's not going to support the burning.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Of fossil fuels.
Speaker 7 (32:37):
It's a strategy that is known as devestment. So make
sure that you don't own any stocks in fossil fuel companies,
either directly or through any mutual funds or other funds
you might have in a retirement account or or something similar.
And there are lots of funds from big banks like
Fidelity that anyone can invest in instead that are specifically
(33:02):
pro climate. So check with your financial advisor or whomever
you really trust for financial advice, but tell them that
this matters to you. And lastly, make sure that your
bank is climate friendly. We've put a link in the
show notes to a site that has great lists of
pro climate banks. Take a look and make sure your
(33:26):
bank isn't propping up fossil fuel companies.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
Thanks Maggie, that is so important, isn't it.
Speaker 7 (33:34):
Thank you?
Speaker 3 (33:35):
And for everyone listening out there. That's what the fuck
you can do to help?
Speaker 2 (33:39):
What fuck can I do?
Speaker 1 (33:43):
Oh? We're fucked.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
That's all for this episode. Next time on the Fucking
the Future, psychologist, doctor Lisa van Susteren will talk to
us about how climate is impacting our mental health and
what we can do about it.
Speaker 8 (34:01):
Oh, it's even desirable, frankly to be outraged and angry.
Many studies show that that is the prelude to taking action,
that it is protective to be angry and outraged. They
are healthy emotions to an unhealthy.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
Condition until then, I'm Chris Turney signing off from Sydney, Australia.
Thanks for joining me in I'm Fucking the Future.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Weird Fucking the Future.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
I'm Fucking the Future is produced by Imagine Audio and
Awfully Nice for iHeart Podcasts and hosted by me Chris Turney.
The show is written by Meredith Bryan. I'm Fucking the
Future is produced by Amber von Schassen and Rene Colvert.
Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Carl Welker and Nathan Chloke are
the executive producers from Imagine Audio. Jesse Burton and Katie
(34:56):
Hodges are the executive producers from Awfully Nice. Sound design
and mixing by Evan Arnette, original music by Lily Hayden
and producing services by Peter McGuigan. Sam Swinnerton wrote our theme,
and all those fun jingles. If you enjoyed this episode,
be sure to rate and review Unfucking the Future on
Apple Podcasts or whether you get your podcasts
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