Welcome to the Jbp podcast season. Four episode. Eighteen with Bjorn Lamberg, this episode was recorded on January twenty first, two thousand and twenty one Doktor Bjorn Lombard is a date author and president of the Think Tank Copenhagen, census, Centre, Bjorn Champions to solving world problems through use of economic research to determine where to spend our resources based on. Return on investment and severity of the impending issue. Dr Lamberg, more notable books include false alarm and how to spend seventy five billion dollars to make the world a better place, dad and born discussed a variety of topics in the realm of climate change and worldwide problems. They examined the claims made in Borns latest book false alarm throughout the episode they touched on sustainable development goals, prioritizing world issues achieving the highest return on investment. The apocalypse lens

apply to many global issues, making the poor, richer innovation, adaptation, selling and market solutions, and much more to mention a few updates, the major one we will I'll, be releasing three episodes per week too, three anyway, probably three one q and aim and too interview podcast starting this week, day and Saturday. So that's big news. The other news, if you haven't checked out dad's personality course, it's available at his website. Join me Petersen, dot com and its currently on sale. And last but not least, you'll, be hearing my voice, hopefully less stuffy. Apparently this job doesn't care from sick in mid. As this is to keep our team running. So you get this much content. You're welcome and thank you. I hope you enjoy the content This episode has brought you buy relief factor. Relief factor is a hundred percent drug free

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start for nineteen. Ninety five go to relief factor com, Jordan enjoy the episode hello. If you have found the ideas I discuss interesting and useful. Perhaps you might consider purchasing my recently released book beyond order, twelve, more rules for life available from penguin, Random House in print or audio format. You could use the links we provide below or buy through Amazon or at your local bookstore. This new book beyond order provides what I hope is a productive and interesting walk through ideas that are both philosophically and sometimes spiritually, meaningful, as well as being immediately implementable and practical beyond order can be read and understood on its own, but also builds on the concepts that I developed

My previous books, twelve rules for life and before that maps of meaning thanks for listening and enjoy the podcast. So today I have the privilege, having as a guest, Dr Bjorn Lamberg, who I've spoken with before on my podcast and. Who was recently on my daughter's podcast Mckenna Petersen as Well- and I came across Bjorn work- gotta, be six or seven years ago now, when I was working for you in panel the canadian panel devoted to.

Analyzing economic, in hypothetically sustainable manner was for the Secretarial Secretary General's report on sustainable economic development, which I think put out in two thousand and sixteen any how well I was working on that project, I read a lot of books on the very is environmental crises that apparently be set us dozens of books and all the people. I read, I think Dr Lamberg doctor Briggs work was the most compelling, and that was partly one of the things I realized. When I was working for this you in committee, we were trying to write the narrative to restructure the narrative regarding what should be. Priorities for international consideration over the next thirty to a hundred years and what I realized: we're working on that was that there were very

people in the world that were trained to think at that level. People just don't have the expertise to do that. We don't have the methodology, we don't know how to specify the problems and we don't how to specify the solutions that we don't know how to rank order. The problems in terms of their let's say there did three, to which their crucial and we don't know how to rank order, the solutions in terms of their appropriateness and The only person that I ran across who had developed a methodology for doing this, which is of crucial importance to develop that methodology was born and the think tank. The Copenhagen. Consensus centre which we'll get him to talk about beyond. Maybe you could elaborate, let's see, there's lots, The problems we have lots of problems. Human beings have lots of problems. Some of them are familiar. Some of them are civic at this, city level say some of them are at the state level, some of them at the national level and a handful or at the international level, and there's a good,

of some, which is that we shouldn't solve family, problems at the international level right. You should work at the lowest possible level, but some problems are international and at least you can make that case. You ve been wrestling with this since nineteen MID Ninety S and he wrote a whole bunch of books. The structure of solutions in the iterated prisoner's dilemma, I think, was the first one, the skeptical in mental list, which I think really established your reputation and you're notoriety for that matter, global crises, global solutions, cool it think HIV: how does spend seventy five billion dollars to make the world a better place, which I really liked. I thought that was a great book like truly a great book Regas fan priorities Bangladesh priorities, Haiti prioritizing.

And Andrew Pradesh prioritizes, and your latest book, which will talk about a fair bit today, is false alarm: how climate change panic costs us trillions, hurts the poor and fails to fix the planet, and so well with that introduction, I'm gonna! Let you talk about your work for a bit hey thank here. It's great to see again join so look what I try to do and really I have a big organization actually found a small organization, but lots and lots of researchers that work hard and all these problems is simply is as you as you say, we don't have infinite resources. We can't do everything first, so credibly important that we have this conversation about saying. If you are to spend it extra dollar or rupee or whatever your currency is. Where can you spend that and to the most good first, because, as you also point out that a lot of problems and and

and while we tend to think about them in the international arena. Of course, most problems actually hit people on a very personal level. It kills them an answer, things I find slightly ironic, as we just come out of two thousand Everybody has been very very concerned about covert. Rightly so. It's a big challenge at the same time, of course, every year about the same number of people number as people died from Covet last year, every year the same number of people die from tuberculosis. This is a very simple disease. We known about it. It's probably killed about a billion people of last two hundred years. So it's probably one of the biggest killers of humanity, and we know how to fix it. We fixed it in the region, which is why we don't worry about it anymore, but it's also very cheap to fix in the developing world, but because,

It never gets any attention. We don't talk very much about it. We don't do very much about and that's why one Six million people every year die from tuberculosis, and so my point simply has to say let have a discussion about saying if you were to spend an extra dollar would, You do the most good if you spend it on tuberculosis or covet or on climate or on infrastructure, or on the many many other solutions that are out there and and we do is we simply work with lots of economists to take a look at what is the cost of a solid and how much good will that deliver, not just in terms of economics. That is how much better or will we be a how less worse off? Will we be, but also how much better. Will we be off socially? That's. Typically, people not dying people, not being sick. People are having to pay their doctors, not experiencing the loss of a love

one and also environmentally, that's not so much relevant for for tuberculosis, of course, when it comes to deforestation or loss of wetlands in the air pollution, indoor, air pollution and many of the other problems of the world also have an environmental component. We try to add up all of those, and so basically say how much will this cost? How much good will it do when you incorporate all of these things and turn them into dollars, and then you can basically say for forever dollars spend you do this much good of social benefit, and then we simply ask if there are a lot solutions where you'll spend a dollar and maybe do a dollar half of good for the work. That's nice but there are some solutions where you can spend a dollar and do hundreds of dollars of good shouldn't. We focus on the hundreds of dollars. First, the place where you make much much more good for every region,

you spend that's really thinking is not is not rocket science, but we just don't think about it. Kind of is rocket science, because one things you want to do when you send a rocket into space, is make sure that it doesn't explode and what that means. Is that you have to pay unbent, the full attention to the details. I think it was an old ring malfunction that brought down the challenger so so in all ring was rocket science in that situation and what really struck me when I started to think about international problems was precisely this lack of methodology. So I'm going to recapitulate. The claims you just made so that the listeners and viewers are very clear about, like you, make number of assumptions and all those assumptions are questionable, but anyone who questions bears the burden of coming up with a better set of assumptions and justifying them and so So you can imagine someone objecting to your rather casual acceptance of the idea that you can

put a cost value on all of these problems. You know anybody who might object to my have some emotional objections even to something like the monetary system and to capitalism, for example, might be appalled at the idea that put, a dollar value to human life, essentially, but in the absence of a better solution, but that's exactly what I mean you have to have a better solution, so. Your first claim is that we have limited resources, ok, so That seems reasonable. We have limited time, we have limited energy, we have limited resources that are added disposal as individuals and estates, and so we can devote an inn an amount of resources to every problem, so that seems pretty much pretty much clearer. Going to solve problems. We might as well start with ones through the most serious. So we get a figure define that then we wanted concentrate on the serious problems that we can fix, and then we want to go,

some trade on the serious problems that we can fix most effectively so that we have some resources left over to solve other problems. Okay, so, let's start with the problem, set itself So, for example, in your book false alarm, you talk about climate change, and you are you're, a supporter of the claim that there is going to be climate change of approximately the degree so to speak, the International Climate Commission projects and you also accept the clay that much of that is man made and but then you situate climate change as a problem as a problem in a host of other problems. So I'd like to know how you came up with a set of problems, begin with hates me again. This episode is brought you buy ladder, life insurance, give me a lot of peace of mind. Knowing my family will be taken. Care of Lord no,

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To do is we taken our starting point of the UN different definitions, so for the he's the last set of goals that the UN has has has used the ones. Tat are running from two thousand sixteen to two thousand and thirty. The sustainable development goals they basically looked across a wide range of areas, so talking about health. Obviously, a big issue poverty. Obviously a big issue, the the the issue education. The issue of being able to live security that is without violence and in many different ways, and they enumerate a lot of different other things, clearly avoiding loss of biodiversity. Avoiding living on an uninhabitable planet like climate change. Many of these the things now. I must say that this is a perfect list, it's made by committee, but it's probably one of the best ways that we can say

manatee has tried to enumerate all the different challenges that were that we are facing We are trying political aspect of this is a consensus there's been somewhat of a consensus with regard to the set of problems, even if not with regard to their privatisation, and so the EU and has made itself open to some degree to to its guns, stunt members to list whatever problems they see as pressing, and those would include women's rights and diversity and oceanic management and well virtually every problem that you can think of that might have hit the headlines. Being a target of media attention over the last say two or three decades, and so again people might quibble with that list, but then it's in mental that they develop a better list and justify it? So you start with the: U N lesson and that's been derived as a consequence,

lobbying pressure and political machination, and also all those sorts of things and hypothetically, that's good enough, and then the next question is: how do we address is how to- and I was very frustrated when I first encounter that list of of of goals, because I thought well There is no possible way that these can all be addressed in the next thirty years. With any degree of success is just too complex. We have to start somewhere Nepal, without is that as soon as you say that you have to start somewhere than you One need above all, others- and you say that those who lobbied for that particular need take priority and you need a justification for that. That's that's something other than power struggle or political expediency or or you know, even effective messaging It might be nice to have a more hands off objective method. Ok, so then you, u organised a team of economy

fundamentally right, why economists and not biologists say so so you definitely all all Knowledge from biologists, especially when you're are talking about things, impact the natural world. You need to talk to epidemiologist when you're talking about diseases, you need to talk to doctors, also about diseases. You need to talk to educational experts. When you talk about education, but the crucial bit that's connecting all of them is to talk about what are the resource needs. That is basically how much money are we going to have to pay in order to get a solution when you talk about global warming or a solution for education or a solution for tuberculosis or covet or any other thing, so what we're talking to is all those economists who do that so climate, economist or education, economist or health economist, these old guys who interface with all of these specific knowledge,

they also study how much this is gonna cost and how effective is a solution going to be? So it's basically about saying: what can you do about global warming, what can you do about covert? Remember no solution is gonna fix all of the problems. Most solutions will fix part of the problem, and so what we are saying is what will a realistically best sort of effort? Look like how much will it solve and how much will it cost? And then we tried s mate. What's the relative value that you provided to the world and, as you started off, say that's a difficult task, but it is crucial if we want to know that we not just focus on the topics that have the most cute animals or the people who scream the loudest in the media, but actually know what works postmodern. Critic of your work might claim that

Erratic oblique contaminated with the biased brought to it by the discipline that you chose to do this election and by the what would you? What would you say by they unexamined political motivations of the participants, those being the economists, but you don't realize- On the judgment of one economist, you have a sequence of economists, analyze. These problems that's correct, and then you aggregate across their findings. I believe that's the method. Yes again, look it's impossible to imagine that anyone can do this entirely objective way. So, as you are pointing out clearly economist, come with a certain way of looking at the world, they typically start. Take the starting point of saying: there's limited resources: how much will the resources who here, how what's the opportunity cost so typically, for instance, if you want to vaccinate children and Third World CUP,

Greece it means that their moms will have to take off typically the whole day walk with their kid to this place, where they're gonna get vaccinated. That has a significant cost for the family. You need to corporate that cost economist will tell you not taking that into account is a failure recognising that's part of the cost of vaccination. But of course it is only one way of looking at I happen to think that it's a fairly convincing way and as again as you point out at least you have to come up with another way of looking this. If you want to criticise and say we should do so I will now can't be reinvigorated too many times is that it isn't good enough to point out the hypothetical flaws of this approach, its only good enough to put forward alternative, and I haven't seen a viable alternative. No right now, the way the world

organizes its priorities is very much about who gets to set the agenda? Who have the cute examples? The things that we care the most about the things that are easy to get into the media and so on, and surely that's not necessarily the best way to decide how we spend Trillions of dollars on the global issues. So what we are simply trying to do is to give the world a sense of how much good can you actually do, if you spend money really smartly on climate or if you spend it really smart me in education or if you spend it really smartly on all these other things, and then we have a good sense of it. Look at the end of the day, it still gonna be a political battle. It still gonna be a discussion about what new captivate people's attention

the reason why we haven't talked about tuberculosis for about a hundred years, but of course, once a covert hits rich people and hit home. We talk a lot more about infectious diseases. I'm not saying it's wrong. We should definitely talk about how we deal with covet, but I think we should perhaps talk more about also. How do we deal with tuberculosis? Not only because it doesn't effect? people people but because affects a a lot of people around the world. So getting that conversation going getting a sense of proportion of the problem getting a sense of what can we do? What's the cost? What is the total benefit in terms of making economies making people and making the planet or the environment better off? What are the benefits? what are the costing getting that balance is crucial. Ok now, my sense is that your call me if I'm wrong, but my senses

that you're often lump in by people who have made climate change the centre of there. It illogical universe. Your often lumped in with I'm a change deniers of questionable motive and that this is the first question might be: do you think it's to do that and if not, why not? And if it's not fair, wide Why happen so happen? So there's definitely a lot of people who approach what I say and many others to do it's just at the night. He doesn't accept the reality of global warming and that's just simply false. I think what has happened is that climate set, the climate conversation has become so politicized that too many people is just simply easier to to set up

would you say just get rid of that. An inconvenient argument by saying you're denier and somehow being able to shut down the conversation exclusive we by saying oh Bjorn, isn't it I'm not a guy. I'm very clearly been stating ever ever since my first book these skeptical environmentalist, as you mentioned, global warnings, real, it's manmade. It is a problem I'm so accepting what the Un Climate Panel, the Ipc, is telling us about global warming. What I'm arguing is how much will a potential solution cost and how much good will that solution deliver to humanity. So the real question, Here is: are we spending lots of resources during not very much good for climate, when we could be spending those resources much better and climate? That is doing much more to actually tackle the climate problem and, of course, also that we could spend those resources and do much more

mark for the whole world with its many many other problems. Those are two important questions. I think, and there the reason why they matter so much has because in many ways, if you're, just gonna talk very very rough numbers, the world's spends about it, didn't fifty billion dollars on all the big problems in the world, from peacekeeping forces to dealing with malaria and tuberculosis to HIV to education, gender equality to many many other problems, but we and in the order of four hundred billion dollars more per year on climate change. So if you look at the money that we, Ben on doing good in the world. The vast amount of that money goes to climate change, so if we get it wrong and climate, we really getting it wrong on how we echo the world's big problems. Ok, so I'm going to read something from the Un Climate panel that you quote in your book.

For most economic sectors, the impact of climate change will be small relic to the impact of other drivers such changes in population, age, income, technology, relative prices life's, I'll regulation governance, and many other aspects of, socio economic development. Ok, so that's the IPCC see panel itself. And those words now, you never guess that I don't think by you wouldn't infer infer that sell. If you only paid attention to the way that the climate change projection are covered by the media. And so now we ve got a psychological question and I suppose this is partly a question of the problems of communication. So it. When you're trying to solve a problem. You ve got two problems. One is to Jim

the solution, the practical solution that might be now again to producing a new technology. But then you have the floor. Of communicating about that technology so that people purchase it. So you have a product the problem in a sales and marketing problem and you you ve, got production, problematic sales and marketing problem now. You'd think that. One of the things that you point out. The introduction, for example, is that that the cost of climate change interventions often involve an increase in energy prices and increasing energy price falls most heavily on the poor and you may credible case a strong case, I would say that much of the climate change intervention as current conceptualize is going to further impoverished the poor, and this made this really confuses me. I would say because

I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that most of the motivation of most of the efforts to put climate change for front of modern consideration comes from the left, you think reasonable? Ok, everybody was happening. You ok, then, also think that the primary concern of the left would be. The absolute or the relative poverty of the most impoverished or relatively impoverished people, Why can't understand why, since you ve continually made the case that climate change policy as presently construed is differentially going to affect the poor that that doesn't attenuate the left's insistence that climate change is the predominant problem, and now I have is about that and my hypothesis,

I don't think it's particularly original and it could easily be wrong, but I think that there an intrinsic anti capitalism that is concerned. Laminating. The discussion about climate change perhaps even the science and that the. Fundamental goal is to advance a criticism of free market capitalism by other means and climate change action, produces, that outcome, that practical outcome and if it happens to negatively affect the poor, then that's an old cape race to pay even That's perverse, because the whole reason for the criticism of capitalism to begin with hypothetically is big of desire to help out either the absolutely impoverished or the relatively impart first, so that leaves me with something resentment as the only other motivation. Now you know, I don't take any of

that's necessarily right, but I haven't been able to come up with a better hypothesis, so what you face tremendous opposition in your work. And I dont understand why, what's going on it's a good question. I tend to take people on face value of what of what they talk about I think, there's a number of different things that are going on. So a lot of people. I I meet a lot of really well meaning very, very concerned people on on climate change debate. We believe that the world is ending unless we do something about global warming. I mentioned in my

that a new survey across the world shows almost half the world's population believe that its now likely that global warming will lead to the extinction of the human race. That's a huge and absolutely unwarranted argument, but if you believe this is the end of the world, everything else moves off the the conversation. If global warming is the end of the world, if it's these sort of asteroids hurtling towards earth, we just drop everything else and just Yup sent up here as well as and do something about that asteroid. So the idea here is to recognise and I've heard, sensible people say: look, there's gonna be poor. People in two thousand thirty will will help them. Then, right now we need to help

warming. That makes sense if this is the end of the world that we're trying to get rid of that's why? One of the big points that I try to make in the book is to say that is not what the Un Climate panel is telling us actually, as you just mentioned, climate change is a problem, but it's a fairly small one compared to most of the other things that we talk about. We never talk about our pension problems, but those are probably going to be much much bigger than climate change. The other part so just to just finish: you're you're you're worth your conversation about the poor. I think that when we were not merely a scared about global warming. In some way you can. You could argue that the reason why we become so scared because the media, the selling argument of climate change, has just been way to successful, it's become the self perpetuating machine that just takes any storm or anything that happens out there and say see. Global warming warming us all believe that the end is nigh. But before that, I think there was a real

halogen in the way, especially the left was very worried about global warming but also worried about the world's poor, and I think it was simply an oversight that we focused so much on global warming and so a little on on on the world's poor, and I think, if you are going to be very rude about it, you could possibly say it's also a little bit, because we care about children, so our own children, we worry, will grow up in a world where its global warming, it's gonna, be terrible for them compared to the world's poor. Which are mostly not our kids, that someone else's kids typically in, free care in Latin America and South EAST Asia,

So in some sense this is really I'm gonna pick my kids over all the other unfortunate kids. I think TAT was also big driver and I try to argue both of these and get people to realise. Maybe that's not the right party for our planet gay. I do think that, generally speaking, it's best to take people at face value, because Do not do so means that you're not extending a hand of trust, and it gets you into a terribly complex comment of situation but Tom, but I wouldn't now that you did question their motives at the end of that answer, you know saying that perhaps people are more concerned with their own children and willing to sacrifice the world's poor so to speak. In their prior to prioritization. As a consequence of that, I looked at potential, dark motivation of of a kind of lurking, anti capitalism.

Other possibility, perhaps, is that a lot of them problems that you list are do fall into that into the same conceptual category as the world's poor, the hypothetical in that you describe said well, there's still be poor people in twenty thirty and we can worry about them, and so you might say that can't make poverty into an apocalyptic catastrophe. Plausibly you, can't even make tuberculosis into a cataclysmic problem or apocalypse problem possibly we. We know how that's going to go. It's going to stay pretty much the same way that it is. You know, barring mutation and and but with climate change, there is eight. There's a non zero possibility of cataclysmic collapse, the degree

The Greenland ice pack melts and slides into the ocean are the the guy stream reverses or something like that and and and. We get a situation where positive feedback, loops spiral out of control and everything comes to everything culminates in catastrophe. It might be that- We don't know how to deal with. A problem that has a non zero probability, of being infinite and- and that is a good common, that that is a good. Theoretical conversation might take on. That is really twofold. It's it's partly. I think it's just simply a question of imagination. Everything when you run it out to two one hundred has a non zero probability of going really really wrong. So one very good argument would be to say, take HIV Aids, which laid bare much of Sub Saharan Africa.

If you imagine it, we did nothing about HIV Aids. You could very easily in one or more states in Africa collapsing over the twenty first century throwing some bioterrorism and some GEO engineering. Sorry, I'm doing up now bioengineering- and here you can get a catastrophe that drive up. Some terrorist who gonna basically eradicate humane you can come up with almost any kind of scenario that will end the work and clearly We also have many many other scenarios that we're not ticklish about one would be North Korea. That seems a non plausible outcome that they could. And up ending the world, if we don't do something about North Korea, I'm not sure what that something would be. But the point here is to say that its very clear

yeah we're going to be a little worried about North Korea, but not very much so so. Are you are you criticising my hypothesis or are you pointing so like, because I see I said that that clay, change seems to slide pretty easily into an apocalyptic vision and one and two rotation of your criticism would be well. That's not valid is not valid to make it apocalypse like that, because many other things can be made apocalyptic, but do you think that it's plausible firstly, that it is easier to do that with climate change or- and I mean it's not clear? Why? Maybe it's because it also involves the nonhuman actors in the world and people feel additional gill about that. So do we have Do we have a rule of thumb that something like,

Well, we were discussing practical moves forward. We don't get to extract from the present apocalyptic quickly and say that this problem is so severe. That requires an infant, amount of resources or if it is morally obligates, to devote an infinite number of resources to its solution. We don't this leave that game. That was exactly my point. So there's there's been a wonderful discussion between a Harvard proof, Who was arguing essentially that point that, The warming might be infinitely so we should be spending infinitely resources on it and a gale of economic, professor, William Nord House, who got the Nobel Prize in climate economics and his point, was exactly the same. Look there infamy.

Infinities everywhere else, so you might have heard Elon musk as worrying about the fact ay I robots will will take over whelp will possibly take over the world. There is the possibility that now tat- will lead to great goo, taking up for the entire world. There's potential lurking catastrophes in everything we do. You can't, and that was North houses point, you can't just take one and say I'm going to spend infinity over here, because you should be spending infinity on pretty much everything else. Of course, that does actually compute, and so what real people do all the time as we face with things that have a tiny probability of going really really we spend more resources on them. We try to find more ways to tackle them, smartly, but we also recognise theirs no way we're going to get rid of all apocalyptic problems. We simply have to be

smart about and in my book I talk about how we should also be smart about climate change. If you worry about the apocalyptic prosper, prospects of while the warning the only way to fix that is by investigating not doing but investigating GEO Engineering, which is basically a way of being able to without climate policy, be able to stay Why the planet's climate right- and I don't- I don't- have the feeling that GEO engineering solutions are going to be an easy cell even to people who are poor minded, and maybe us may it's because they envision GEO Engineering Apocalypse, is as a whole and they end they do. But what what you also have to remember is a lot of people will tell you. I believe global warming is the end of the world, and certainly lots of kids really really scared about this, and I think we should come back to talk about how this is this just simply not real, but I often find it really surprising that if you really really really believe this could be the end

world: why is it you're not advocating the only technology that we know right now how to fix global warming with which is nuclear power, why is it you're not just putting up nuclear power everywhere now? actually not arguing that, because economically nuclear power is not very advantageous, but if you I think this is the end of the world. I wonder why it is that you would be arguing. Let's do the policies that haven't worked for the last thirty years. Let's put up solar panels, wind turbines that cover a couple of percent of the world's energy consumption and that may buy two thousand and forty cover, maybe even four, maybe even five percent of that energy consumption. If you really worried about it, you would be using the technologies that would actually work and the fact that you don't also kind of belie that, even though you talk a lot about these end of the world scenarios, you don't quite believe

because you be allowing lot also coastline solution? We also make the point in the introduction that, when you ask people by Paul concerned. They are about global warming, many theres many people, a majority of people- if I remember correctly, who very concerned about global warming, but if you ask them Much they would be willing to spend two ameliorated. I think the average American agreed to spend twenty four dollars. If I remember correctly from your book and so then that does the problem there. Is by pointing that out. You belie your other claim, which is that you want to take people at face value now. You've got a real problem in that situation, because you can take them at face value with regard to their explicit claims about what they, what they reform of which is global warming, but then equally explicitly they tell they don't want to spend any money on it. And so then you have to wonder what which of those two competing claims. You actually believe I would tend to go with one that acts. It hasn't said,

saying that you're, afraid of global warming has zero cost spending money on it has a cost, obviously sold. The thing is assumes you put. Ass to it, then you find out that people don't appear to believe it does not condemn the question then, is well What what does saying that they are concerned about by them, and it might be something like well, this is again not a particularly original thought, but its moral virtue to advertise that I'm the sort of person who's intelligent enough to conceptualize. Global concerns and impact. And noble enough to be concerned by them and Then you say what what are you doing about it and the answer is well, I'm not doing it if it again Well, then you say: well, then I don't buy your claim, but that's pretty rude. Two to who- get together, who are bet both concerned about global warming, aren't going to be criticising each other's lack of diligent attend to the sacrifices they can just

brace one another and I'm not being entirely cynical about that? I know why people advertise virtue and people are Relatively virtuous- and so it's not such a terrible thing to advertise it, but it does seem too. Interfere in this particular situation with practical movement forward now one of the things you drive home continually is that. There are real costs to getting this wrong. The key so the money spent and what that money could have been spent on instead. So maybe you could make a case for for everyone whose watching what what do you see as the proper sense

priorities. Where do we? Where do we ass a species get the most bang for the buck? With regards to these international problems, what are the top ten things we should be concentrating on? So so absolutely just a just to give you a sense of up to twenty four dollars. You were just talking about before the people willing to spend very much. I think that's one of the reasons why, for instance, are carbon taxes so hard to do? Carbon taxes is one of the smart solutions for climate change, but it also makes a very explicit that you're spending lots of money, so instead what most people support, is that we should be subsidizing green energy, that we should be subsidizing electric cars that we should be doing a lot of other things that make you feel virtuous. It doesn't feel like across all that much, but it actually ends up costing huge amounts of resource, So there's a while people saying they are not willing to spend very much there

sentiment, actually allows politics to end up spending. Huge amounts of money So this really matters. So sorry, you asked me what are the things We should be spending our resources, so that also means what are we sacrificing if we concentrate too much on the moral Virtue of driving at Tesla, for example, which is a clear status, symbol of very expensive and not obviously related to ameliorate in climate change. What are we sacrificing? So as long as we are driving this Tesla big? Has the government and that's typically, almost everywhere in the world, because the government has spent five or ten thousand dollars on so seizing us in order to make us afford to drive this Tesla. That's thousand dollars that couldn't go to other things, either in our own states, our nations, where we obviously could have spent according to what the the

political decision making process would decide on better education and better care for the elderly on better covert care. Right now. There are lots of other things that are demanding attention, but what we try to look at was: where did you spend this globally and I'm going to talk about a few things, because I am sure we can get back to more of them. So one of the things that we talked about was free trade. So free trade, we know, is one of the reasons why almost everyone has gotten rich. The basic point is that, instead of me trying to do everything, I specialize I, one thing, and then I have a baker, bread, my big, my bread. I have a butcher. Do my meat, if I'm not vegetation yeah. You do all these other things and you all these special is doing it having on an internet, small scale means even

More opportunity to have smarter people do what they do best for everyone else, and that's why we ve got Rich. That's why China lifted about what seven hundred million people out of absolute poverty over the last thirty years, which is one of the biggest achievements in the world that it's impossible not to be very, very impressive, just simply on the humanity of project and, of course we should be doing more of that, but unfortunately we have for a variety of reasons. Trump is obviously a big part of this, but it's also, it started way before Trump, the the resentment towards free trade, the sense of this was wrong has not only meant that many people in the rich world has become less better off than they otherwise could have been. But it's also meant that we have left a lot of people, especially in Africa and South South Asia.

Much less well off. We should be spending some of our resources on making sure that we get more free trade, not less, free trade. How do we do want em out anyway, It effectively and this all way that we do. That, unfortunately, is by subsidizing agriculture. So one of the best most vested interests against free trade has turned out to be agriculture, its agriculture in the EU and the? U S, Japan, many other places, because they don't want to have that competition look from a private per view. I understand I. If I was a farmer, I wouldn't want yoke. Cheap, cheap agricultural produce come in and essentially eradicate my business model. So we need to recognise that we need to subsidize these people. We probably also need to subsidize other people. The people who would otherwise have lost their jobs. So there's an enormous amount of money that needs to be spent.

Have ignored. Can really one morning I got confused. Are you speak about eradicating agricultural subsidies in the west? Are you speaking about subsidizing agricultural productivity in third world countries or ring why I missed the mechanics there. Sorry, I'm talking about subsidizing the people who would otherwise block more free trade. So this is basically subsidizing rich western farmers make sure that their ok with more rosalind their livelihood is endangered by the necessity of allowing for com petition on the agricultural market you just buy them out, like you might do with fat. Women who were overfishing, the ocean. Yes, exactly, and this is not a potential- this is not perfect by any means, but it's a way actually solve the problem of getting more of the stuff that will help humane.

Any idea, the bent. What are the benefit is of that compared to the cost, and it is that calculable. Yes, we made the estimate that for every dollar you spend on these subsidies, you'll help the world about two thousand dollars. Basically, you can generate an enormous amount of internal growth, so we estimate that you could actually make every person in the developing world about a thousand dollar richer per person per year. In fifteen years. That's ok! So wait you gonna organ is slow down there because those are unbelievable. Quite those are unbelievably massive proclaims. Ok, so you said to subsidize rich agricultural produce. Shares in the west to the tune of a dollar a year by. One thousand dollars in increased revenue globally. Two thousand.

The two thousand to one return. Yes- and this is basically because those this is, this- is the World Bank's dynamic trade models that show that, once you get a society that table to trade internationally and openly, you also get enhanced growth with in those countries, so that means they buy themselves, get to be better, so that- and these were mostly be poor countries. That would also be a lot of rich countries, but these were mostly actually help world's poor because they have the most catching up to do, and they will then be much better off, not only without be better for them, because if your poor, a thousand dollars is a lot better than if you're rich getting another thousand dollars, but

also because it will help them generate all the other things I would like to have education health resilience to global warming. So the whole point here is to recognise that this is one of the things that are hard to have a discussion about their very few people are advocating global free trade. There are lots of people advocating against it, but we need to recognise that this is one of the things that have helped pull up most people of poverty that we know could do even more in the future and that we have a real opportunity to achieve. So that way, you don't have ice, slow, abandoned, cuddly, polar bears, as as portraits of of the farmers that you're going to help abstractly in world countries, so you have a sales and marketing problems there and that's a real problem right. You know what gets it it's interesting the economic models, don't take into account the difficult of propagating the message, you know

you know what I mean is that because three as a sales and marketing problem there- and it's not trivial- and it might be that a dollar spent in agricultural subsidies to rich farmers in the West would produce that two thousand dollars return, but the question I'd be how much money would you have to spend advertising now before people would leave that and that that's a crew. It's a crucial question. You know with a with the standard entrepreneurial product. I dont gets unreasonable to estimate that sixty five to ninety five percent of the cost is in sales and marketing farther and adjust production. And that's it that's a great argument. So in some sense you could argue what we try to do with a cobra consensus where we make these priority list is just simply give you the

raw data for what would academically be the smartest things to invest in, but you're, absolutely right, there's no cute and cut we up selling points to free trade and and actually to most of our top outcome. So let me just give you a few of the other ones. So the second asked is family planning and probably also basic emergency character women. This will deliver about a hundred dollars back That would also be extremely attractive to people on the left. It should be attracted Everyone young it s because look remember that right now about four hundred thousand mothers die in childbirth and about two million kids die in the first twenty eight days. Life here on earth- and we know we could save many of these

all of them. But many of these by simple measures, for instance, making sure that you don't get that the pregnant women don't get high blood pressure, pre, clamps and clamps which kills more than a hundred thousand women every year by, I sing emergency measures when you come into a facility give birth and you have a problem. If you have simple procedures to make sure that that problem can be dealt with often with fairly cheap, you dont need more doctors. You just need nurses assistant helpers. You can do a lot of these things. We know that you can do this for very low cost and then again, if you have there's about two hundred and fifteen million people, women who don't have access to prevention, so family planning, if you could

The family planning- not all of them, would use family planning all of the time, but it would mean that they would space their kids better. They would be able to give more investment into each one of their kids. That would get them better educated. There would be a lot of knock on effects, but mostly this would mean that a lot of moms wouldn't die in childbirth and their children that they do give birth to would have better lives. And again we estimate this would cost about three billion dollars a year. Would pay dividends both in terms of saving moms saving, kids, but also growing the economy, because of what's known as the demographic dividend, if you have slightly fewer kids, you have more productivity because you have the same amount of capital, but if your kids, that means you get to be faster right sure. That's essentially what China has done in a sort of boosted way by, They are one one child policy on advocating that at all

but it says it is. It gives your good sort of insight than there are lots of how things we talked about tuberculosis. We could probably spend a dollar on tuberculosis and help people not die, help people being better off help families not dealing with tragedy of losing their mom and dad it's typically young people in the middle ages that die from tuberculosis, every dollar spent would avoid about forty three dollars of social benefits. Sorry would generate forty three dollars of of so no benefit. If you look at childhood immunization, we we stop a lot of the really damaging childhood diseases, so we ve gone from a world where about twelve million children died, Justin nineteen. Eighty two now only about five million children die every year bill below the age of five, but clearly

still way too many. We could probably save a million children for billion dollars a year? Just think about that, we estimate that four for every dollar spent there you do about sixty dollars worth of good. So again, the whole point here to recognize. Are lots of lots of amazing things that you can do, and I I was my internal internal cynic, to your arguments and trying to adopt the position of someone who might be critical of them? I know that tat arguments. Four ameliorating. The lot of the poor that would put forth in the sixties were often counter mandate by the claims, often of environmentalists that you dont want to help the poor, because they'll breed more and that will just read lead to more of the kind of problems that you're trying to solve. And so we know what the question might be. Why.

Someone object to saving a million children a year through immunization- or I think you said- two million children as a consequence of enhanced maternal care, and I can urgent. Similar arguments like that being raised. You know whether consciously or or implicitly, but those things should be made implicit, so so let Why would encourage people who are watching this or listening to this? You know a lot of you have chopped up my Youtube videos into small videos and sometimes animated sections of them and otherwise distributed them be orange. Just outlined for the for the top for investment strategies for a better planet, and it might be useful to consider ways that that can be that that information can be distributed as widely as possible mean burns writing his books, but they'll sell at how many books

if you don't mind me asking how many copies a false alarm did you sell? I think it's in the Ets, ten fifteen thousand thereabouts right, that's a good! That's! A good selling book from an academic book perspective, but it's a drop in the bucket right. I that's not a criticism. Obviously, what about total for your books. It's up to three hundred thousand right now, rights and so well, a good youtube. Video we'll get a meal in views and if this was chopped up properly, maybe it would get fibers in all five. Ten million views of that would be good, but we we don't want to. Have you thought about allying yourself with an advertising firm? So we we talk to some of those there's been people coming here asking. How can we help? Can we help do some

and what I find is that when it ends up advertising firms sort of retract their offers. When they start realizing. This is really complicated that they that it's not just the cute pull on the ice flow kind of argument, and I get that and part of it, of course, is also that, unlike when you talk, to someone who's just say. We should do more about this, a good thing. We should save more mom, sir. We should do more about climate change. We are. Guys who actually say you should do this before this, and that was attacking eyes the people. I think it's the only intellectually honest argument, because we have limb resources, so we're simply think do this first. Do this first, don't do this first, don't do this first. I think that's important, but that always creates a lot more antagonism, and I think that's one of the reasons why this is a much harder argument.

And obviously my whole book on climate is everyone knew that you don't you don't have the bloom of having to say no, if you stay in the hypothetical, that's another bandage to nought, trying to solve a problem when you're making a moral claim that you're concerned about it, because you, and be concerned about global warming and world poverty and and the lack of education of women end host of other issues and never make a sacrifice in your concerns. As long as you actually don't try to practically address those problems, because then you are faced with a horrible necessity of privatisation, and maybe that is part of what makes you unpopular to the to the degree that people are not so much resisting your message but critical of of your approach. You force forced the wreckage. Mission that that no has to be said in order to make progress forward and that that interferes with a u

with an imaginary utopian vision, but at an end, and so that makes That makes romanticizing the venture much more difficult. It doesnt seem possible, though I mean you could imagine a heart rending and emotionally compelling video addressing the utility of restoring to health one who was suffering from tuberculosis or preventing it in the first place mean these things don't seem completely impossible. You haven't found any. Marketing or advertising agency. That's willing to partner with you in in the sale of any of these ideas, which we found lots of people who love to jump on board and look. Look there, lots of them he's out there, that that tells you how incredibly important it is to do something tuberculosis and how important it is to do something about maternal health.

And about immunization and about malaria, and all these are the things I think it's me, more a question of saying: what is it that you overwhelmingly see when you see open your tv or you look at Youtube and I think, just a level difference in the amount of knowledge that you have about tuberculosis, compared to the amount of knowledge that you have about covert, certainly now about climate change. In these other things, It's just simply a question of saying one of them, or the two last ones resonate much much clearer to most people to a lot interest

Sorry, my Seychelles where's, the other one is sort of yeah. Of course. I also think we should do some their tuberculosis now back to what we are talking about before, yet so the climate and the other. The issue with regard to the climate is that the weather affects everyone all the time. If you are going to talk about some, if you're gonna talk to someone- and you don't really know what to talk about you'll make small about the weather, and so it's an media data. They concern in a way that even infectious disease isn't or wasn't before, cove it so maybe that's another reason that that the climate issue has been has occupied the day. The space for apocalyptic attention. If there is too hot summer or an extraordinarily hot summer, you have an explanation for it and is something that affects you. Well, it's happening or a too cold winter day or too much wind or too much Rayner in any of the extreme

weather events that can manifest themselves? Some others media see too whether that seems to be associated. Perhaps with it with the emotional residents of climate change. That's also perhaps working against these rational arguments. That is certainly something. So we have research that shows that, when its hawk people believe more, global warming than when it's cold, so their definite these kinds of very, very simple: Connections, on the other hand, if you think about it, when you talk about coloring, it's going to be- let's say four degrees centigrade hotter in a hundred years. That's actually really hard to imagine that most people would get very worked up about. Of course, also what you saw little at first, twenty years or so of global warming? What has happened is that shift from the focus on the the basic outcomes of global warming to these catastrophic outcome, so the

every time you see a storm every time you see a heat wave. Every time you see any kind of change in whether people, often say see: global warming, and there the problem is that that leads you to believe this could be the end of the world right and and and that's what I think and that's what you guys explanatory rubric and hard to do it by you explanations for weather alterations and advise you moral virtue and advise you a sense that you are stand the most improper important problems in the world and it all Is that apocalyptic space? Another reason that climate change might have become such a concern because People have always believed in the apocalypse and that's because things can go cataclysmic, really wrong and and maybe we have- we have a need for cultural representation of that and before God,

we're warming. We had this, the cold war and the and the battle between the United States or the west. More broadly speaking in the Soviet Union, that was a pretty plausible apocalypse and, of course, did garner much more attention, or maybe an amount of attention that equal to the attention that global warming attracts now so. That doesnt solve the the sales and marketing problem it just highlights its difficulty can. Can I ask you I noticed you: have these prioritizes books Bangladesh Priorities, Haiti, Our ties is Andrew practice. Our ties is now you opened up. Your ex normal team to use by states correct yes, can you tell us a little bit about that? That's that's something else. That's extremely proud,

and I'd like to know how you do it and what the effect it doesn't work. Yes, yes, so one of the things we found, so we did a prioritization of the sustainable development goals for the UN that we talked about in the beginning and what what sort of very noticeable as if you talk about what should the world do? Everybody thinks that's intellectually interesting, but nobody looks like they live in the world. They all we're, Canada, we're the. U S are Denmark or whatever, and so you feel like. I want something that's actually relevant from my political conversation and so one of the things we want to do. We have did this in Latin America with the into American Development Bank, and we found you. These are some of the best things to do in Latin America, and then you, obviously Argentina would say yeah, that's probably true in Mexico, but not here, we're special and and likewise

I would say on Austrian Argentina, but not so the concert you constantly get the sense of its true somewhere else, but not here and that's why we wanted to have this conversation specifically, for nations, so we ve done this for Bangladesh. We ve done this for two states in Indiana Production Rochester on we ve done it in Haiti. We just comes this in Ghana in Africa, we're right now working with Malawi, NATO must be reduced Leslie, exciting and interesting, I mean it a combination of rich intellectual, possibility, because these problems are so compelling and and the the potential excitement of actually operating in the real world. Yes, very exciting it's also at times very frustrating, as I'm sure you could imagine so so what happens? Is everybody thinks that this is a great

in principle. But of course everyone worries also. What is my favorite things turn out to be? Not a very good investment. That's some we're gonna, make it much harder for me to get money for next from knit next, yours budget, so there's is right. There's this sense of do. We want this to be too successful, On the other hand, the finance Ministry often love this approach, because they're the the ones who get inundated all ministries and saying we need more money for this project. We need more money for that project and, of course, politician it is also need projects that sell essentially buys them boats and Clearly they are also very ambivalent about. On the one hand they want to do as much good as they can for the country. On the other hand, often the best political promises are the ones that are not very effective there. One set you can sell because a sound good, but don't actually work very well

that you put on endlessly and still promise that you're going to deliver or We're just deliver and do it really badly. So in India, for instance, one The things that have turned out to be incredibly good vote. Thinner winners is to give forgiveness for loans. First small thought: small hole, farmers You can imagine how that if I'm a farmer, I put myself in almost impossible debt, there's a politician who promises he's going to forget that that sounds great. But of course the problem with that argument is that partly they often don't pay, but what happens? Is it actually ends up shifting loaning from the very poorest to the? Not so poor farmers, typically to the rather rich farmers, because the lenders. Don't want to see the politicians ending up saying no we're not

Keep your your loans on on the books. So you end up spending huge amounts of money. Urging bad loans and then not helping the poor when they need it further. On that lose, lose lose outcome, and one of the things we tried to point out was: don't do that, I'm sure we weren't very successful, because it's an incredibly success. Political strategy, but it becomes a little harder to do and why some of the things that we found were incredibly effective becomes a little easier to do so, for instance, four for Bangladesh. We found it and this is not- this is not dramatic news, but

just a really really good approach to a to basically put you're a procurement on line so from many states in the developing countries. A procurement makes up about one third to two thirds of their budgets, so everything from pencils, two roads, but obviously road too much much more expensive, sets typically infrastructure projects that dramatically corrupt because they lend themselves to be very corrupt, and one of the things we find as if you put them online. It becomes a little harder to rig the options. So in Bangladesh, for instance, you have to hand in a sealed envelope with your bid to a specific government office, and what-

not surprisingly happened was they put up goons outside that office, so the people who should come in with a cheap bid just couldn't physically come in. If you put it online, you can get bids from further far its harder to manipulate. You can still manipulate, but it gets harder to do so. So what we found was we. We took four percent of Bangladesh spending, put it online and actually found you get higher quality. You get much cheaper. That means you have to spend less money. You get more for your government tax dollars attackers, as is in bangladesh- and that say, is Bangladesh about seven hundred million dollars a year Rachel, but there there's something else. It's very hard to romanticize. Oh it's absolutely impossible and and and again remember, this is so we equestrian saying we look across a wide range of things You could do in Bangladesh. Some of these things got picked up by politicians because

they save them money. Obviously, the finance minister wants to save seven hundred million dollars. Some of these things have real. He really good long term growth potential like, for instance, getting digitized, getting your land digitized. Some of these are very obvious things like tuberculosis, but many of them also don't happen just simply because they are not the right set of things to do right now so get out. Point is not that we somehow magically make Bangladesh right. That would also be impossible to imagine and look you shouldn't have new economists prioritizing the world should have economist informing the electorate in Bangladesh. How do you want to run your country, but we help make slightly better some of the proposals help spend slightly less money really badly and overall. That means you end up in a place where you, yeah. It doesn't make a good t, shirt slogan, no does it doesn't

Spend your money slightly less badly with your little girl yeah. I know it's a real problem. You know I've been talking. I talked about this little bit with Douglas Murray just a week or so ago, about the rise of extremism, but it's a continual problem, but polarization of the right and the left it seems to be occurring at an ever ask rate, particularly in the U S, but I would say in the west, more broadly, we talked about the collapse of grand narratives. You know them. Right, the centrists on the right and the centrists on the left, don't seemed to have anything. To offer now accept something like incremental and gradualist improvement, and they might quibble about how that could be accomplished with the right wingers, taking one viewpoint in the left wingers taking another. Where is the radical?

a much more romantic cell, and so since the right and the left, the moderates can't come up with her a narrative, even one of progress that back say in the Post WAR period post, world war, two. People were still poor enough, broadly speaking, so that you could seldom the vision of a wealthier future for them in their kids and was enough gap between where they were and that that hypothetical future for it to be motivating. But now you know you might be able to tell you you're your electorate that while we can make these twenty percent better over the next ten years and that's true and its good, but it's not punchy and that's a big problem and I've been struggling. I also talk to MAC to two Matt Ridley. He sees a guy

think who thinks like you, you know he's fundamentally optimistic in his view, and he thinks they are getting better and that we could continue to make them better and that we should continue to make them better. But all of this in mental gradualism. This optimistic for mental gradualism has the same, problem, which is its difficult to get excited about it, and I dont know I rack my brains, trying to figure out how that might be. How that problem might be addressed. But I can't say that I have come up with any solutions that seem useful are credible man. I don't know I'd like you to comment on that sure you what about it? I think you're, absolutely right. It's it is much harder to make the argument. Look we're going to muddle through. It's gonna be a little bit This is a little bit smarter. Please do this, rather than these very grand narratives

That's exactly what I try to make with global warming Grand narrative and global warming is this the end of the world. We gonna throw everything in the kitchen sink at this and reality is no. This is a problem. We estimate that by the end of the century, this will cost us about four percent of GDP, so maybe one or two years of growth. That's problem, not by any reasonable means the end of the world, and that's why you need to be careful. Not to end up spending. Lots lots more to tackle part of this problem, but reality. Of course, as if we go to the root of these very alluring, but incorrect arguments, since the end of the world, let spend everything on climate change? What really could happiness to thing we end up

having lots of our resources on things that are not very productive and won't leave us very well off that will cut, maybe half or for maybe one and a half per cent of GDP growth from our growth rate that could be potentially dramatically damaging in ten twenty thirty years once we're a lot less richer luck, less better off, because remember one of the things keep societies peaceful. Is that we all have a future to look forward to that's gonna be much better once we start realizing we're entering into a stable state where, if you are better off its because I am less well off. We were get much much more antagonism. So I think it's realistic to say: if we follow down those alluring roads, we might actually end up, leaving our future of our grandkids, much less better off, not just any economic sense, but also just simply in our wildly-

but a rioting kind of way that everybody will be at each other's throats. That's one part of it, but the other part is to remember: we right now talking about how the west or the rich part of the world thinks about this problem, most people, The rich world actually think the future is going to be a lot worse off, which is one of the reasons why global warming fits into that whole pattern. I think it's wrong. That's what the model said that its even what the? U and climate pounds us, but that's how people feel the other three quarters of the world which her, China, India, Latin America, Africa, they act we believe that their world is going to be much better and ten twenty thirty years. They have this future belief that you were just talking about from from out of the Second World war. They are not going to say, yeah we're going to do strong climate policy and become poor. They want to mostly become middle income countries and maybe even ripped countries, eventually they

I want to do that? So what will happen is both that we're leaving ourselves in the rich world- to become much more infighting and much less well off often we otherwise would be, and that we're actually seeing the other three quarters of the world just simply running, possibly even ahead of us, but certainly running ahead without looking at the same kind of problems that we are okay. So do you think you could make this case? What you basically There is a hypothesis that ill spent money will have dramatic consequences. I think I can that argument, but I also feel a little uncomfortable, unjust. The guy who wants to tell you you can spend a little smarter gear. You can spend a little more dumb here. I think there's something out. There is something I think it's a little sort of ugly in saying our everybody else's making up their own doomsday scenarios so

me make up another one here, because I think fundamental area states in areas as what got us into these very little fair enough. But you you. You were true to address the problem of of compounding returns right so economic decisions or poor economic decisions compound with time, and so is it reasonable point out when we're talking about risk. I talked with met really about this and I thought about it a fair bit as well, and I think the data support the proposition that making poor people richer, is an extremely intelligent. Environmental move forward of reasons I mean the the first is perhaps that once you get people above a certain level, income. They can start buying fuels cleaner than the fuels they learn they use. Now dung and would not kind of thing, but

also did as people move up the economic hierarchy. They have time to be concerned bout things that are more abstract like what the environs He's gonna be like for their children when which they're not going to be or or when they go on holiday, for example, you know, or even where they live, as as they have some options to choose where to live, and so it it could be. You know We often construe the relationship between the economy and the environment as a zero sum game right and The biologists, in particular, broadly speaking, have the political biologists, have a proclivity to do that that as the economy, rose. We sacrifice the environment to it, but it could be the case that we get best environmental bang for the buck by making the poor rich as fast as possibly can around the world, and if, if we poor economic decisions, because we're catastrophizing a certain

kind of environmental calamity were inviting we're actually increasing the risk of environmental aggregation in in the medium and long term do you think that's reasonable. Just absolutely so and in a number of different ways. So I think it's funny how we don't recognize how terrible it is to be poor if you poor your vulnerable in all kinds of ways, you very clearly incredibly vulnerable to global warming. So up, if you remember, there's a big hurricane hitting high on the Philippines and back in two thousand thirteen, it was made a big deal out of as global warming. It hit this very, very poor city, where most of their city citizens live on the corrugated roof. Surprisingly. Having a hurricane. Five is terrible

When you live under corrugated roof. The best way to help these people obviously would be to lift them out of poverty. What actually, as we can see, back in the early part of last century a similar hurricane hit and eradicate about half the sea This time it was only about a twentieth of the city, so much much better, because the city was much richer, but if we focused on making them even richer, they would be much better off just simply from the point of view of being more protected from hurricanes. So, fundamentally, there's something weird about us saying all those poor people in the Philippines. We should help them not driving our car. Today, let me You should help them by becoming rich becoming part of the integrated global economy, making sure that their kids would be better, better educated not die from easily careful infectious diseases and so on. So not only would it be better environmentally, but it

obviously also be better for them, educationally for them, health, wise and all these other things. It would simply generate much much better lives in the film in the Philippines. But an issue also pointed out as you, get richer, you're actually cleaner and almost always you don't use dung and cardboard and wood to cook. Side, but also you stop cutting down forests. You moved to the city. Instead, you become a web designer or something else, it very very little related to actually clearing out forest land. You do. Out of things in cities that are much more, a collage, equally sustainable and, of course, in the long run you will actually also say. I would like to make sure that we have better regulations, so we have less air pollution, so we have many of the other things that DR environmental benefits. So absolutely by getting people out of poverty, we fix most environmental problem. Fuck.

And this is the important but yeah we don't fix global warming as you get richer. You just simply emit more and more co two, because these guys will then start flying around the world. They'll start consuming a lot more meat they'll be doing a lot of other things because they're richer, that's wonderful for them, but it will mean higher emissions of co two. So we do need to have a conversation about. How are we gonna fix? that problem. Okay, so why don't you lead us down that path? Let me let a bid on what you just said and then let's go down that pathway. Okay, so. To swallow what you just said into believe it you, you, there's a set of leaves that you have to have already in place. You have to believe that current economic system isn't fatally flawed and basically works, or at least works better than any hypothetical. Alternatives that have been tried or that we can dream up, so it basically works. Works means as it runs. It tends to lift people out of absolute poverty. There Stiller,

maintenance of relative poverty, but absolute poverty tends to disappear There seems to be really good evidence for that, especially across well, since the your revolution, but it's really taken off in the last thirty years- maybe not, coincidentally, with the demise of communism, which was a competing for competing economic theory and and produced, It's about economic decisions. In any case, you have to buy the hypothesis that the current system works. Extending? It is going to be at Her- and so you don't get to adopt evolutionary and of revolution, a criticism of the western capitalist hierarchy So that's a big sacrifice, if you, if you're, if you're thinking, is oriented in that direction, now I don't know really what to make of that, because you'd think me evidence that the poor have been lifted out of already at an unbelievable like an astute.

Fishing rate since the year two thousand, not just in China, but but all over the world would be essentially irrefutable evidence that the current system and works and then, if you look at China after they adopted free market policies compared to before they adopted free market policies is absolutely no comparison. With regard to growth so it is an obvious to me how, You are truly concerned with the poor you'd, be able to deny the sorts of propositions that you put forward. I dont understand that. Maybe it's partly because people just don't know how much better things of God in the last twenty years and why you know that, because it has been difficult news to bring forward an and it's difficult to market. If I can

Yes, yes, so one of things, I think people don't recognize. If you look at a graph of last two hundred years, years ago, almost everyone in the world were absolutely poor in the sense of less than a dollar a day, yeah. Ninety five percent of human, entity was below that level and we just the dramatic decline, as you mentioned, we are now down below ten percent, even despite of covert which a lot of people appointed have actually made more poor people. We ve gone from seven up to about nine percent, and so we delayed the benefit for a couple couple years. That's terrible- and I would rather not have had that happen, but it doesn't change the long term trajectory that amazingly, what's in the sense that we have many many fewer people than a poor want, one of my favorite guy

who runs the World and data website. He points out that every year for the last twenty five years, the head line, every newspaper around the world could have been over the last twenty four hours. A hundred and thirty eight thousand people have lifted been lifted out of poverty, a hundred and thirty eight thousand people every day for the last twenty five years, but of not news because it happened every day. It was not you some o this day it happen. We don't get these Good news and I think we need to get them in order to be able to understand the magnitude of what we're talking about? Well, you know the problem with accepting that Good news or a problem with it is that it pretty much erratic it's the romantic rebel. We know because it all of a sudden makes it very difficult for you to be cool to find something cool to stand.

Against and to resist. You know you have a benevolent relatively benevolence society, that's getting incrementally better. It's not a villain that you can heroically resist and that's that he is and I'm not being cynical about that. That is actually a problem, because resisting arbitrary authority is a good story and- and it serve people well for a very long time, and if you don't have that two catalyze. Your identity, you'd have to search for something, perhaps equally grand and that's difficult. Especially when you also don't have to go out and contend with the brute force, of mother nature to anywhere near the degree that you once had to. But if you look at it there's plenty of other things you could stand up to, and that was what we were talking to, instead of being the Roman, take care that stands up against society. Why aren't you the romantic here that stands up against tuberculosis or the one

stand up against maternal, maternal or the the one that stands up for free trade, the the ones that stand up, all these are the things we know for very little money. We can make a tremendous benefits of sergeant. I get why it's an icy, hard question. I am, I mean it. I think it might have something to do also with the inability, utilise, your resentment. You know if you're central about things and you oppose the capitalist state you can eat We identify an enemy, but if you stand up against tuberculosis, like? Obviously tuberculosis is bad? It doesn't make you look good by comparison. Alright, so you mentioned you do promote co2 emission. Amelioration strategies in false alarm and you did just point out that although we should be striving to make,

poor around the world as much less poor as we possibly can as quickly as we can so everyone wins, including us just like Henry Ford One when he paid as workers enough Tobias cars, the cars they made. They are going to increase the rate of carbon dioxide emission and for some people, that would be enough reason to scrap the whole enrichment process but you have some strategies that you think are wise to ameliorate the problems that would be associated with that. Yes, so I talk about five different solutions than the bar, so the first one is a car.

In tax, any economist would say yet. Look. You have a problem. You emit co2, but you don't actually take it into consideration because its freedom, and so that's how we think about the polluter pays. You put a price on carbon in principle. You should do this across the world. You should do it so that it slowly rises with time. It's the most efficient way to deal with it. There are two things we need to recognize with one as it turns out to be very very hard, because it makes a very explicit to people that tackling global warming is actually cost Secondly, we know that politicians are just really really bad at doing something for a long time very consistently across all areas. What politicians typically end up doing us, they'll put on something so in many places in Europe Prince in Europe. Enormously high taxes on cars, and you have enormously low tax

on people who are good at lobbying, their governments for their particular interest, so greenhouse gardeners greenhouse growers don't have to pay the carbon tax, because that would make it really hard for them to grow there. Tomatoes or whatever, and and you can see how this happens across a wide range of areas. So that's one part of the on the other part is that, even if you do this really really well, it'll only solve a small part of the problem. So you should do this. We should focus on on a carpenter, but we should also be realistic. This is not what's gonna fix climate change. This will fix a smaller part of climate change. So it's part of the solution, but it's not the most important part, the second part, and that's where I think we actually have the biggest opportunity, is innovation. So if you talk to map readily, this is certainly also his has ballpark, but it's basically

recognizing that most things that we have solved in this world are about innovation so you rarely get people to to solve a problem by saying, I'm sorry, could you please Do all that cool stuff that you like? Could you please stop feeling good about all that that really works out as a political strategy and unfortunately that, typically what we say. Could you please not? Why not Not do all these things. Could you please have it a little hotter in the summer and a little cooler in the winter? That's really really hard to sell to most people. What you need is innovation, and let me just give you an example back in the nineteen. The LOS Angeles was one of the most polluted places on the planet, because they lots and lots of cars and they have this I shall start geographical notion that just leaves, although the pollution inside this little basin, of LOS Angeles, it was terrible. To live there in many ways and

Obviously the simple answer is to tell it tell people most of this came from cars. So the simple answer, would be to say, ve stop driving your heart. Of course, you ve ever met someone from LOS Angeles. You know, that's not a solution that is actually bible to than blogger. Only ninety sidewalks Morocco is not very we bible for anyone in any city. What did solve the problem was the innovation of the catalytic converter. This little thing that costs money you put on the exhaust pipe. And then basically you have much much cleaner cars that made it possible for people to keep their cars, drive a lot and have much much clean,

in LOS Angeles. Now, I'm not saying everything is perfect, in LOS Angeles in the SI air pollution problems, but it made it a lot better for very little money. That's the way that we need to solve global warming. If we could innovate the price of green energy down below fossil fuels, and this green energy could be nuclear, it could be fusion energy, it could be solar or wind with batteries. It could be lots of other possible solutions if we could innovate one or a few of these loosens down below fossil fuels. Everyone would switch. You wouldn't need sort of Paris accord where you have to twist everybody's arm. Let me ask you know that four minutes, so it's not straightforward matter to set up governmental policy to two to arm too support innovation mean innovations, very abstract idea and I've seen much but in some failure at the governmental level here in Canada when

when governments have set out to foster entrepreneurship and to seed You know the development of high tech industry, for example. It generally it's a cataclysmic failure, mean obviously itself. And in some sense, that a good? idea is good because it solves complicated problem in the more good ideas we have the better. But do you think that it's like it seems on the face of it unless you dig down into the details. It seems like hand waving. Obviously we should have better ideas to solve our problems, but you. What do you think constitute concrete, realistic, evidence based solutions to the problem of fostering innovation. You think it's actually possible to set a policy that does that yes said, the short answer is yes, and and- and the reason is that what what was lacking is

mostly long term investment, so investment that will only generate the solutions and twenty thirty forty years remember. This is why we there's a lot of money in health care of basic research. The den eventually becomes research, the inference and pharmaceuticals can make into products that they can make money off. There's always o up too little investment society. In things that you can't monetize right away so entirely harness who invest in things that you can't monetize right away? Yes, if I make an innovation that then in twenty years say will help us. Generate this enormously beneficial breakthrough. Unfortunately, I won't get any money because my patent has run out

that's why most companies will not be investing in these long term development. What happens is that you then have a darth of investment into these sorts of long term innovations unless you have the public, invest in them and I'll get back to how we do that. Smartly, okay, but we do that in medical research. For many reasons, people nice. This is part of the place where we need to produce lots of professors, lots of medical, noble lords and then eventually the pharmaceuticals will take over and actually make products out of this that's a great set up. We don't do There's an energy variety of reasons. It is what one of the places where we spend very little money, partly because it doesn't feel like yours, solving global warming, because you're nuts,

doing it right now, you're only solving it in your twenty of forty years. That feels like you, didn't really care, but the reality is. This is the only way that we are going to get these sorts of long term break. Now. One reason why politicians often screw this up is because they are not willing to invest in these long term investment sale sake. We were a Silicon Valley in Canada in three years. Yet I make sense if you need to get reelected for, but you can't do that an end, so you shouldn't be trying to do this. In a very short term way and other way, is that you end up giving this away to companies, and companies, of course, are just going to spend it on the product that,

they were going to do next year anyway, but hey thanks, though the money so that the point here is. You need to do this carefully in a way that will generate long term innovation. This is not easy, you're going to waste a lot of money, but we know that governments around the world has done this in all right if different ways, we know, for instance, to the internet, the of the transistor, the fracturing in the: U S, there's a number of places where you have been successful and all

you have to do is to spend lots of money and and I'd love to talk more about has been specifically how we should set this up, how we should evaluate- and we should be careful about- but fundamentally we should do this in a way that we say we want to generate a lot of knowledge that we believe in the long run, can deliver benefits that will actually help companies produce energy that will be viable, but we are not going to try and do this for the next three or five years, so we gotta stop that panic mode and start this long term thinking. We do have realistic knowledge about both that we are investing very little compared to two big, typically almost all other areas, and that more in spent here would make it more plausible that we would faster, get cheaper, green energy, so ok, so in Canada. There's a medical research council and a social Sciences, research, council and natural science and Engineering Research Council. That might be a bit dated that information, but essentially that's how it is being set up.

But the recent and energy innovation, research council- and you know what I'm thinking that way, because I'm an academic and I've seen these granting agencies. I've seen how they in their set up to provide funds for basic research and in some like that, doesn't exist. So what's why? Why aren't we funding research into energy enter into the generation of cheap and and clean energy. What what? What what's gotten away every year? We want to spend it on solar panels that makes us feel like we're doing something right now, with the surprising thing is in two thousand and fifteen, when all countries the Paris Climate agreement on the sidelines of that event, Obama and twenty other global leaders, bill gates and lots of billionaires action

signed and other agreements that, I am happy to say, we were a tiny part of pushing which was we're going to double our investment into green energy, research and development. So all countries, as promised the thing that you heard about, namely we're going to cut our carbon emissions, but they also promised to double their green energy investment in five years, so twenty twenty they did quite a bit of the cutting carbon emissions. They did nothing of the increased spending in Green and John D, and I think fundamentally because it doesn't feel like a solution. It doesn't feel like something urgent feel so something you can do next year. It feels like something that's nice to have. But this putting up the solar panel is urgent and we need to do it. The reality is the over worry global warming that we have, because we're here we have this existential, feel that this could be the end of the world

pricing. We also not only is wrong, but it also leads us down the wrong path, namely the path where we say looks: anything that just makes it look like we're doing something next year, rather and actually laying the groundwork for fixing this problem now obvious and some people will say what we should have done this twenty years ago. Yes, that would be wonderful. We should have done that book. We didn't it sort of too late to do so about what we should have done twenty years ago. But we can do something about what we're going to spend our money on in twenty twenty one, and if you look for its non binding proposals to fix climate change, he's he's he's thinking about spending two trillion dollars. Building, probably not get to spend all that money on a vast array of things, many of which are now.

Going to be very effective, but he's also saying he wants to dramatically increase. Actually, I think, probably too much, but certainly a very, very large amount of increase in american spending on r, and this is what he should be focusing on. But I do worry that he's going to end up having much more success with all his other, much less effective proposals simply because they are more glamorous. Alright, so you don't seem to be an admirer of the Paris accords and so on. My sense of your argument is that the proposals that are part at a quarter extremely expensive and they're, not costume, active, especially when viewed in this larger framework that encompasses a whole host of problems instead of focusing just on climate change, and so maybe, if

If you don't mind you could summarize year, can you lay out your critique of the Paris accords for for us? Yes, so so two things, the Paris agreement is really just an extension of what we ve been trying for the last thirty years and fail to do the last thirty years, namely let's try to do something that really hard that cost a lot of money that will have a little of impact in a hundred years and try and see if we can't get everybody to do not surprising that's really really hard thing again to do what to do what exactly so so, basically get Canada get the? U S, get Denmark get everybody else to cut their carbon emissions, which privately for them is going to be cost way. They have to reduce their use of cheap energy and use a little bit more expensive energy, sometimes less reliable energy. Basically, it puts us, a slight slower dampener On their economic growth, that's always gonna be hard,

always gonna be unpopular you're, basically asking people. Could you please pay some more and use a little bit less? That's that's a heart set, not the pricing, we you do a little bit other. You typically down to a lot of it. You don't live up to all your promises, but even if you do so, let's take the Paris agreement, even if everyone did everything they promised to two thousand and thirteen that would cut as much sea or to that. If you run it through a climb bottle, it would cut temperatures by zero point zero. Two five degrees centigrade by the end of the century. So literally nothing. We compare measure magnitude of increase. So it's about four degrees a temperature rise. We ve already seen once about three three degrees more, so this would be a trivial part of reduction. Now it would be a reduction, it would mean we would have less problems, because,

warming is a problem, so we estimate there would be benefits, but there would also be huge cost because you actually have to pay for this. So if you look at how much you're going hey, which is in the order of one to two trillion: U S dollars per year in two thousand thirty for every dollar spent. You will avoid climate damages crosses is worth about: eleven cents. That's a very poor way of spending money paying a dollar. And actually achieving eleven set you just a paid out the dollar and and done we'll almost ten times as much good in the world. So. The reality here is the Paris agreement is really well intentioned agreement, but it will fail just like all the other agreements or

and all the other national policies that we ve got. It mostly fail, but even if I succeed it, it would be a very expensive way of achieving very little, and this, of course, is the big problem of the climate conversation that because wish so worried we have decided yet we're not going to spend all that much money on all these are the problems in the world, tuberculosis, all this stuff, but we are going then one to two trillion dollars. Remember it's not gonna bring. To the poorhouse, but it's a lot of money is one to two percent of global GDP on something that will basically not buys any measurable impact in a hundred years. That's a bad deal, that's why we need to do better okay. Well, that's a good place. To sum up, I would save unless you think, there's something particularly important that we didn't cover. I would have liked to have heard. Perhaps more description of you know you listed out four things, or things are the top five things that we could be investing in, where there's huge for the

work, but people can get that directly from your website or your book. So yes, we ve with I've, shown you this before. But we have a whole fold. I'm sure you can put that up can actually see all the different investments here and you can see for everyone again. So I've talking with your lamberg today the author of false alarm and we've been talking about global governance, I would say sustainable global governance, with an emphasis on two things and one would be economic, growth, which means alleviation of absolute poverty for those who are poorest and some incremented wealth hypothetically for the rest of us, which seems on the face of it. To be a good thing, I spent at the lower end of the distribution and discussing so, how that might be done in the most appropriate ecological manner

keeping in mind the host of other problems that have to be solved and doktor lumber has developed a methodology for assessing and rank ordering the problems that we face at an international level and as well at a national level and interrupt my summary for one thing: how what's been what's been. Your experience with regards to your success in those? countries where you ve gone and done this prioritization. What's in the practical consequence of that, so we very clearly so we're an organizational look at how effective our you. So, obviously, we should be looking at how effective our we yet in what we do. Also, I'm using my life and this I liked and other actually has an impact, so ass we are effective. So what we found is in these countries will change some of those policies, and will change them somewhat towards being smarter.

By any means the whole way or any danger, but towards better spending and big, because most nation states spends Bill means of dollars on king, lies for their own citizens better if they just change a little bit of their increase spending as they get richer over the years. That will have a much much bigger impact. So, to give you give you a sense of proportion, the whole project that we do cost about two and a half million dollars, and we problem we have an impact in the year? We change hundreds of millions of dollars, possibly billions of dollars in spending and each one of those dollars we'll have impact in the order of somewhere between five and up to twentieth thirty dollars more well off. Okay, so that's great because what that actually indicates is that nationally designed program aimed at incremental, gradual improvement actually work

extraordinarily well. It isn't revolutionary by any stretch of the imagination, but as us strategy. It pays off extraordinary handsome. I wish I for many years is that I haven't been so ill for the last wild, because I was going to lobby hard for the Utilise day of your team here in Ontario and and in Canada, and I suppose that could still happen in the future, pathetically, but I'm very, very pleased to hear that the consequences have been positive and also that you had the fortitude and methodological integrity to incur an evaluation of your own process in your evaluation process, there's a rule, for social science intervention, which is almost never followed, which is don't you, intervene without assessing the outcome of intervention. It's a mistake, it's it's an ethical error and can have terrible practical consequences. Ok, so so back to the summary, Barnes team has rang Gordon

prioritized the whole set of global concerns. They also start to work at the state levelled at country level. Dead of the international level, as we just discussed, that's also paid off All of this lays out a lovely pathway, I would say for people who, for people to for themselves about those issues that they could adopt as salient to themselves politically and ideologically, to provide some meaning for their life, some practical meaning, and to actually further the development. Further positive development and a whole host of areas, and so, if The interested not as the viewer listener, then I highly recommend Bjorn, spokes and but more importantly, his approach and and some intelligent investigation as to the methods of that approach and the consequences and so more power to you. As far as I'm concerned, that's for sure- and I was very pleased- is always to talk with you

anything else. Would you like to tell people before so if you wouldn't mind I'd I'd love to just up, because I tried to go through the five things you can do, some just gonna really quickly mention the last three years on yes and then I'd I'd. Love tells me to make one more point about my book, but so we talk about a carbon tax and innovation. Innovation is crucial. You should also focus and adaptation It's sort of an naughty word in much of the conversation and global warming, but very clearly adaptation is gonna, be one of the big ways that we're gonna fix. Many of the problems it's gonna happen to a large extent, simply because people do that if you're fired, are you gonna plant later were earlier, depending on the climate changes, and eventually you might plant something else. You should also look at GEO Engineering. We talked about that very briefly, but basically the idea of saying if there were to be a really catastrophic and

pack. Geo engineering is basically a way of making sure that you can restore the temperature of the earth very quickly at fairly low cost. We should not just go ahead with it, but we should certainly be thinking about it, and- and that's all I'm going to say about this right now- the last bit- and we also talked extensively about that- is to make sure that prosperity is also a big solution. Climate change most of the things, your impact it with your impact it with, because your poor, if you're, really poor everything, hit you hard for climate, hit your heart as well, if you're rich you much more,

less impact, and so very clearly the question is: do we want to help Bangladesh a little bit by cutting carbon emissions and basically than leaving them poor, but hey? At least sea levels rose this much less by the end of the century or what we rather make sure that we actually bangladesh much richer, which means that they will be much better able to handle hurricanes that they'll be much better able to handle seal of rice and so on. There is a very strong bases of evidence shows that prosperity is actually much better for most countries, not just because it's wonderful and all kinds of other ways you can board your kids dying and make get a better education and all these other thing but so for climate. So those were the five points and innovation is by far the most important thing. I just want to say one last thing about, because my book is very much. We talked a lot about all the big problems the world. The reason why I talk about global warming is because it is the one

in that I that I experienced most people actually talking about all the time. Is this existential threat? This is the big thing that We should all be concerned about certainly a lot of people, the Un Sector general many others are telling us. This is the top priority for humanity, because If this is going to eradicate all of us. Surely this should be the thing that we focus on. I think that that makes intellectual sense if it was true, but that's not what the? U N climate pound telling you it's not what the science is telling us. It tells us. This is a problem. No means the end of the world, and that is not only important because you, you can't really get all the things we are talking about. Unless you stop believing is the end of the world. If this is the The world you're gonna set everything else aside, but also of course, it's the only way that you can actually get a better, are, when you see all these kids being

we worried about- and am I gonna have a future when I grow up people, believing literally that humanity is gonna end. That must be terrible. Now, if it was true, we should be telling people, but it's not true and therefore being able to Relief yourself from that scare is also really really valuable on a personal level. So this book was written not just to make sure that you can get rid of this scared, but also that you can start realizing. This is a problem among many others. Now, let's think of How do we prioritizing that's what I'm I'm hoping that conversation will help us. So in a sense you could say the false alarm book- stepping stone to be able to have that more general position, namely what is it that the world should be prioritizing if we're not scared witless, global. Warming will actually sees it. Sir,

as it is a problem among many problems great well, that's a really good place to end so takes very much, and I hope we get a million people to watch this in another five hundred thousand to listen to it will see how it goes so thanks much for talking to me today, Bjorn it was a pleasure listening to you. I always learn a lot reading your book. I am listening to you in and its Bina. It's been well, it's very nice to come across sources of realistic hope. You know and that's what you're books provide. They provide sources of realistic hope, man, those are in short supply, so even though there is lots of reasons to be hopeful and perhaps the supply shouldn't be so short, but it's nice to be able to maintain critical intelligence and not to have to descend into a well of pessimism as a consequence. Yes, it's wonderful to talk to you. It's and you give me a lot of different,

perspectives on what we're doing, which is just as valuable you sort of ear stuck in your little away. You're thinking, rather than its wonderful to be able to say. Oh yeah, yeah they're, all these other perspectives and all these way You also need to have that conversation. That's great, so it's always wonderful to talk to you. Thank you