Seventh Generation Stewardship is needed. But adopting this mindset in current times is beyond complex and seemingly impossible. Thank you for mapping this out to build our fluency-and for closing with inspiration. Your channel is most certainly worth the fuel it takes to broadcast. Very grateful.

Here’s to Small Islands of Coherence! Something we can all help create or at least foster.

Thank you for this, and my takeaway from your clear teaching is: Eco literacy is systems thinking, earth systems thinking. Modern people can’t and don’t think that way, we think in immediate, linear, incremental and reductionist ways. The way we think is incompatible with how earth systems work. Deeper than that is the paradigm or worldview- the human centered and human supremacist worldview is not compatible with how earth systems work. It’s really tough to think of solutions from that paradigm because they will never account for all the downstream effects- earth systems are so complexly interconnected. Modern “machine” people are not that smart and definitely not that wise. We’ve got super buggy cognition. But a big help in my experience has been shifting my inner worldview from human centered to earth centered. Systems thinking (and feeling, and perceiving in many other ways not dependent on the thinking mind) is easier then. Hi to Frank! ❤️🥺

I've discovered your channel thanks to Jean-Marc Jancovici and I am surprised by the quality and output of your videos and podcasts, but also by the fact that you don't have as many followers as you should. Thank you for all of this anyway.

As Jack Horner said solving the wrong problem just creates a whole new series of problems.

About 15 years ago when I was 50 years old, a very important mantra entered my mind prior to attempting a rather difficult physically challenging endurance event: just because I can doesn't mean I have to or I should Dash what are the consequences of my decision? Sounds a similar, simpler question of, And then what? Reminds me of the Seventh Generation Principle, an indigenous concept that originated from the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (Iroquois) and is still practiced by many Native American nations and tribes today. This philosophy emphasizes the importance of considering the impact of one’s actions on the future, specifically on the seventh generation to come.

Sensemaking of complex issues is hard work, and it seems few of us have time or inclination to do so. I think the viewers of this channel are the exception and I'm glad to see this concept of yellow teaming decision making. It feels like a substantial move in the direction of solutions...

Interesting as always Nate. A few things: Growth vs de-growth. They oppose one another and so need to be viewed together. When you look at the negative wide boundary of growth, those are all physical, material things. When you look at those of de-growth, they are all "of the system" itself. They are abstract, nebulous concepts - metrics of the thing itself. Thus the two aren't really comparable in terms of their negative effects. The negatives of de-growth can simply be overcome by first recognising that we are in a manmade system, before changing the values of the system and the metrics that underpin it. It's simply a more mature bretton woods that is required. Either way, continued growth leads - without doubt - to de-growth as soon as boundaries are hit. Secondly, you mention that we can't yellow team every decision we make, but I'd question that logic. If the values of our system remain extractive and energy ignorant, then not yellow teaming will lead to the same problems as we have currently. The answer is to become more dynamic and better at predicting these Nth order effects as an antidote to any perceived inexorable slowing down (I see slowing down as the correct answer, rather than something to assuage). However, I don't believe that we have ever had a system as humans that has been able to yellow team problems or progress. I don't believe it's possible. It certainly doesn't come in the unnatural form of democracy, which is simply a bureaucratic bolt-on to the system to give the appearance of fairness. There is no working example of a successful civilisation ordered at the level of state, country etc for us to work from. In my opinion, yellow teaming can only ever, and has only ever, held true at the local level, where the locality can visibly see the effects of their decisions and hold to account each individual through cooperation and non-cooperation.

Great video. But the unprecedented and deadly high temperatures in many parts of the world are not being addressed with adequate proposals. Consequently, the heating problem, the most deadly of all, is only getting worse. One idea is phase out all cars. Cars (gas and electric ones) should become illegal to both make and own in 10 or 20 years. The exact time frame will have to be determined by experts. I came up with this idea because around 20 years ago on a visit to Kyoto I saw few big cloth banners hanging from old wooden houses with hand-written text: “ストップマイカー！” “Stop (Driving) Private Cars!”. These early activists failed, and Kyoto is today unfortunately packed with cars. But in the name of these brave activists in Kyoto, where I myself now live, I advocate for the end of cars. An abrupt end would not be kind, but a slow phase-out that everyone can work towards would be a great idea. The economy will become ‘AN ECONOMY BASED ON CHANGING THE ECONOMY’ instead of based on mostly producing things which are unnecessary and only contribute to making things worse. Let’s remember that human beings managed without cars for hundreds of thousands of years. Oil production has peaked and it’s now becoming a losing energetic proposition to suck up every single drop. How about taxis, ambulances, trucks, etc.? These would not be phased out yet. Each local area would probably have some differences in culture, traditions, landscape, economy, etc. so this would become an ongoing discussion to think about localizing and making infrastructure for a post-oil economy.

This takes decision-making to another level and is absolutely critical if we’re going to make it. I’m hopeful this kind of Thinking can make its way into the hearts and minds of the people making really important decisions.

Thank you Nate. This is so important.

In investigation, I've heard this called 'the 5 whys'. The principle being that we don't settle on the initial explanation if we want to find the root cause that we need to fix, we drill down layer by layer until we reach the base. It's called the '5 whys' as it normally takes five or less layers to reach the important one, but it's rarely the first one. I see no reason not to apply the principle in reverse when making impact assessements. Many industries could benefit from applying a wide boundary view. I see rudimentary attempts, but not with due diligence. Legislation would help incentivise it, together with a reduction in competition. An ecocide law could be a stepping stone towards this. The challenge to the idea is the sheer volume of potential impacts in such an interconnected system. Where there is risk of cherry picking and group think or other biases in the selection of factors, what tools can we deploy to reliably discern the important factors in unpredictable emergent systems in a scientific way? I feel we have only scratched the surface of this. Also, are we really talking about rings? I see this more as a network of potential sequences of interconnected outcomes arising from emergent clusters. I am doing what I can can to manifest these ideas where I have agency to do so. It seems such common sense stuff really, but we often get caught in a rush to do the next thing before we've properly finished the first. Sometimes, the hardest thing to do is nothing when it feels like urgent action is required.

Nate, although your frankly‘s are always helpful and provocative, this one goes to the top of the class. I think the “wide boundary” metaphor is both powerful and easily gettable. I was thinking about another thought experiment where we place a drop of ink into a bathtub, filled with clear, clean water. How many drops of ink does it take before the color noticeably changes. Or the idea of an airplane, flying into a gigantic cave, where we look to the left and look to the right, and see no problem at all. However, the cave, its boundaries, are closing in ever closer. Of course, the punchline here is that we as a species could avoid asking the “wide boundary” questions for a time. That time has now passed. Obviously. From my standpoint, the brilliance of human beings is the ability to change the story, the metaphors, the imagery, and thereby change our values, and our very felt experience of being alive. Ultimately, such deep images, metaphors, and binding stories change what we consider to be “common sense” reality itself. (Others in the comments here, have mentioned amazing and insightful things along these lines…) My own experience working with many individuals and groups with poetry, tells me that our capacities to work with new imagery, metaphors, and stories is quite expansive and powerful. Every culture forever, has been some wildly complex, and fluid combination of these three ever-emerging foundations. Poet, Robert Frost once said something like, “poems are little stays against the confusion.” Nate, very much like your small islands of coherence….

I really like this "Wide-Boundary Lenses" method of analysis. It's good for articulating these ideas.

Every so often Nate, and this was one of those, along comes one of your ‘Frankly’ opines that pulls in all the other conversations you have had with your guests areas of expertise, be it ecological/environmental, philosophical, financial, energy, rebuildables (renewables), sustainability, extraction, pollution, brought together within “The Great Simplification’s” ethos. And please to hear of a forthcoming conversation with Daniel Schmachtenberger on AI’s energy, material, environmental impact, I’ll be looking forward to that🤔

Hi Nate, I have been listening to your podcasts for over a year. I agree completely with your wide boundary thinking. As an electrical engineer with 40 years experience in the energy/finance business, I take great exception to the false narrative that wind and solar are renewable sources of energy. Yes the source of energy is renewable but if you consider wide boundary effects, then when you consider all the hydrocarbon energy required to produce those wind turbines and solar panels, they are in no way is the wide boundary system renewable. The only sources that truly can be considered renewable are hydro power, geo thermal, nuclear, tidal power. Unfortunately wind and solar are just like the false gods that people worship.

One of the best episodes imo.

When a wide boundary perspective ends up in the result that exponential growth and degrowth are equal in overall disadvantages it‘s most certainly not applied correctly. Degrowth is tackling almost every sustainability problem we face today. Most of its disadvantages can be avoided by a consistent focus on global justice and equality.

Thank you, Nate! My father was fond of saying, while smiling coyly, "planning would be a lot easier if you knew when you were going to die". Ultimately, he chose the same solution to this predicament as Garrett Hardin and his wife. I'm committed instead to live in the question by taking an adaptive rather than predictive approach to our uncertain future. Namaste.❤

When you add 80 million net new users of every resource annually, particularly oil based products, you're baking in rising emissions for their average lifespan of 30,000 days. It's no wonder renewables so far have been additive to the problem. Population conversations are a third rail no politician will touch.

Trading Places (1983) Give me my point

I really hope you get daniel back on for a pt 2 about progress

Nate truly touched the essence, again... We have created the guide framework to exactly examn the yellow team circle. Thnx Nate.. thnx.

Thank you so much for this. I agree with the commenter about systems thinking. Along that vein, please interview someone who can speak to the mining that is required for EVs, "renewables", etc. and the pollution and destruction of the natural world. I just read Cobalt Red about mining for cobalt for batteries and tech, and it was up there with one of the most horrifying things I've read. Good questions to ask: how many children in the Congo died for that EV you're driving? How many Chinese Uigher slaves built the components for those solar panels and wind turbines? How many desert tortoises were destroyed for those solar panels? How many rivers and riparian systems were completely destroyed for the steel to build EVs and "renewables"? How many bats were killed by those wind turbines? How much PFAs toxic "forever" chemicals were added to the environment while making those batteries? The list of questions to ask is endless. As your interview with Ed Conway hinted at, but didn't get into enough details about, the materials extraction, refining, manufacturing, installing, and maintaining of our built environment, including these technologies that will supposedly (????) de-carbonize but will only make all the other symptoms of ecological overshoot worse, have absolutely horrific impacts. Few ever talk about these, or discuss how these fit into the overall big picture.

Ecoliteracy. The missing component in education, which carefully omits any mention of protecting the Earth as long as its components can be plundered, ideally with no regulations, as "natural resources." Children in a "consumer society" must be taught to work and acquire goods as a sign of their success, without question. They are the future GDP as long as mindless consumption can be promoted and resources can be extracted without limit. And then what? as Garrett Hardin would ask. (And what would it take to make ecoliteracy part of education as essential, accountable knowledge?)

Cantillon’s Essay, those closest to the money spigot benefit most.

Thanks. Ecoliteracy is definitely needed and should have been a staple of all national education programmes around the world over the last 50-60 years. For example what if the solutioning that is being proposed is also a product of the paradigm that has lead us to this cul-de-sac, this narrow boundary trap we have designed as you are highlighting that appear to also lead to narrow boundary traps when they are viewed through wide boundary lenses. The following take some of the narrow boundaries you presented. Carbon and renewable energy: Is energy the issue? The Law of Conservation of Energy states energy in is equal to energy out. What of course changes is the form and its state of distribution(entropy) and of course what human use of energy does is transform energy from a low to a high entropy state which makes it non-useful. Similarly biodiversity and the biosphere takes low entropy energy from the Sun and from this generates high entropy energy that is emitted by Earth maintaining a balanced throughput of energy but incredibly this process reduces entropy within the Earth system via photosynthesis resulting in the growth of diverse complex life on Earth, a form of energy storage via entropy reduction. Here growth is achieved by a reduction process whereas current economic 'growth' is achieved by the opposite i,e, reversing the entropy reduction process by the mindless destruction of diverse complex life on Earth. Debt: Debt is considered as borrowing from or a claim on the future but debt should correctly be considered the product of one group of arrogant people charging another group of people for simply being born and being alive who are given no option but to pay for the privilege for being alive. In other words they need to pay rent for being present and spending time on Earth because there's a price for doing so. And those who demand this price are banks, corporations and governments, all legal abstractions to which many serve and are in service to. These legal abstractions are products of our ecologically disconnected imaginations as is the 'debt' they bring into being due to the barbarity of their exploitation of non-abstract living beings. In contrast the true debt, which is non-abstract, is the loss of the reduced state of entropy performed by Earth over millions of years that evolved to and created the thermodynamic state and niche that fostered our own evolution as part of the collaborative self-making process of all life in the biosphere. This true debt is a consequence of our invention of non-living systems(machines) that generate a lot of high entropy form energy from low entropy form energy completely incapable of replicating a living system that naturally balances entropy increase by performing an equal entropy decrease via the process of simply being alive and living. This capability is beyond all machines/capital invented by the human being, even AI, that adorn the asset side of all balance sheets that are claimed by those who claim ownership over them. How tragic the belief in such delusionary 'wealth' which is in fact true debt. So this leads to the question 'Is our thinking itself enabling us to form the correct questions and to solution long term solutions for our predicament without being influenced by poor understanding of energy and manufactured abstractions?'. Based on the narrow boundary and wide boundary issues presented, this question could apply. Take growth and de-growth. As mentioned biodiverse ecological growth is a product of entropy reduction, or negative entropy as described by others. Shouldn't economic growth correlate with this entropy reduction thus meeting the objectives of de-growth also? And remember this growth and de-growth is achieved with a balanced throughput of energy. Money is a proxy for energy in a human economy context thus requiring an accounting tool to monitor the balanced throughput of money. This is the means by which assets are traded when importing and exporting. Assets therefore require another accounting tool to also monitor the claims on these assets enabling profit and growth to be observed where these assets are developed via creativity, knowledge and wisdom to increase their quality and quantity while maintaining a balanced throughput of money i.e. energy. The creativity, knowledge and wisdom constitute the negative or anti entropy that becomes cultural knowledge and wisdom. And what happens to the need to apply interest on the use of money if there is an accountancy tool that requires money in and out flows to be balanced particularly when this is a requirement for banking? This will become defunct because growth won't be derived from abstract non-living systems that are completely dependent on the concept that monetary incomes need to exceed monetary expenditures i.e. money hoarding or more commonly referred to as investing or saving. With growth derived from entropy reduction and the resultant growth of biodiversity from a flow of balanced energy throughput and a balanced throughput of money, deriving growth from financial interest is not possible. The true meaning of interest will return to its origins where it will describe the income from the sale or direct consumption of claimed assets. Thinking has to change towards ecoliteracy where the processes of nature need to be learned and the wisdom developed from such learning applied to developing better solutioning and tools of decision making. In my own opinion the most effective tool change that could be performed to achieve higher well-being economies would be to flip the function of the current accountancy tools. This would mean the balance sheet would monitor the throughput of money to maintain an input-output balance and rename the profit and loss account to the asset claims record where changes are monitored to identify changes in the claims on assets and to determine if profits or losses were made between periods. The report of profit will coincide with growth, a product of self-growth achieved through creativity, skill, knowledge and wisdom in harmony with the natural process of growth on Earth in turn a product of the balanced production of entropy and negative entropy from the radiated low entropy energy of the Sun. Apologies for the long comment. Thanks.

A “then what” mindset is to me quite like dialectics. Just _way more_ accessible and easily imagined - no Hegel needed… 😅

Thank you! Such an eye opening way of looking beyond the immediate benefits of a decision.

In service of life, not making a killing. Growth by nurture not by claims of the individual and only their badges.

Thanks, Nate.

What you're describing shouts out to me for lateral problem solving. The metacrisis looks to me like clusters of interrelated situations that represent impossible dilemmas, because the operating context which describes the way we think about these situations automatically organizes the elements of each situation in a binary, polarized way. It is the way we are thinking about these challenges, even within a systems context, that in part creates them as seemingly insoluble problems. We talk about different types of problem solving skills currently as if they were a kind of innate intelligence that one either has or does not have. But is that really true? I don't see any reason to assume that. What I see is that it is challenging to develop new ways of thinking, as are most tasks in the beginning that ask us to do what we've never done before. Shouldn't we be focusing deliberately on teaching each other how to develop context by engaging with and immersing in non-dual perception, and in the kind of thought that arises from it, so that more of us might practice and more easily adopt lateral problem solving as part of our habitual way of approaching any contrary situation? I refer to non-dual perception, because it's been my experience that having the experience of non-duality makes lateral thinking more accessible. It seems to me that this is what we need right now, in as much abundance as we can encourage, nudge, seduce into actualized being: a growing cadre of nondual thinkers who are context-aware, and who are 'practiced' in lateral problem solving. When more of us become capable in approaching our difficulties this way, I think we will be astonished at how quickly we are able to come up with solutions that also account for the "what thens."

Saying Congratulations on a hunch lol!

Regarding Methanol, it was never intended to be a primary energy source. It was intended to be an oxygen additive to improve combustion and reduce NOx emissions at the tailpipe. California initially used MTBE instead, a petroleum based additive because of the concerns around using corn but that ended up being toxic and had to be replaced with methanol.

[edit: I should have watched a minute more before commenting - you've described exactly the same thing as I tried to write about below :) ] 12:50 - I didn't hear that narrative before, and it's stunningly wrong. Primo, as you said, cost of a single search is an order of magnitude higher (energy-wise), but all the processes associated with deployment and usage of AI are going to be much heavier too - I've observed efficiency of IT (in datacenters) going downhill for the past quarter of a century, and where once a single command was sufficient, now the usual procedure is to run that command in a freshly created container, effectively adding setting up a brand new virtual machine for running a single command - and some procedures loop this process, so energy consumption increases for ever. Why? Because we can, because we have more storage, computing power, memory in machines, and there is no supercomputer so powerful that a developer could not strangulate it with inefficient code. Bill used to be a developer, and his style of thinking is always "more. something runs slow? give it more RAM, more CPU, more disk space, moremoremore!" - like Windows.. like all the applications that get actually slower every year, while computing power increases in quantum leaps. So, no, AI will increase energy usage, period (but I agree that it has enormous potential in other areas).

…had to take a hiatus from the great simplification, because the awareness had negative psychological impacts. …..But this Frankly is amazing, yet again!

Opening the mind with " what is ", is important to the very survival of the collective. " if you know how to suffer, you suffer much, much less"Thích Nhất Hạnh

Nate said: “if degrowth was actively chosen, which I don't expect it will be but then the scarcity in the system leads to violence and war including countries that have nuclear war, nuclear weapons " Degrowth is the opposite of scarcity. One can argue degrowth is about radical abundance. Associating degrowth with austerity is a mischaracterization. Another quote: *"growth is good, growth gives more jobs, growth gives uh, more conveniences"* I would argue degrowth gives more jobs, not growth. Where has growth taken us? Look at current unemployment, underemployment, bullshit jobs. Degrowth has much better policies for job creation (i.e. worktime reduction, job guarantee etc.) than the traditional paradigm of growth.

Regarding the renewables some better design of neighborhoods could take advantage of how solar panels go mostly unused during a sunny day, where 7 houses worth of panels could supply 10 houses in a culdesac and feed their individual batteries.

I'm pretty sure I heard one of Nates guest describing Wisdom as the ability to recognize boundaries.

You should have popped out of the boundary lens at the end and say, that's all folks!

Thank you

All Franklies get a thumbs up

If we remove the option of some magical tech solutions coming to save us it becomes very clear what the right thing to do is in this situation. At least we know what it would look like to live lightly on this planet. The important question now is what's stopping us getting there? Social group pressures are meant to be able to repair scenario like this, if there was a way out of this self destructive system many many people would take it I think. Lets start with making public transport free!

Good points as usual. Just remember things like interest rates are political choices not natural economic laws. Likewise money creation can be used to positive or negative effect on various domains including standard of living, food and energy security. Governments have used money creation for 1000s of years it’s not inherently a destructive thing. In fact it would be much more difficult to make changes to our energy, food, and settlement patterns if we handicap our money creation ability.

Hi Nate. I love your podcast your insights are so precious. You started out with France with some imprecisions though. It is not a FAR left coalition. It is a coalition including the green party and all of the parties belong to what French call the "republican tradition" in the sense that they respect the institutions and the constitution and they don't want to break away from it. The medias are unfortunately pushing a lot this vision of the FAR left which make them seem them as extreme as the extreme right, which on the contrary is truly fascist and undemocratic. And also I dont much agree with this short cut of more social justice = more depth. There is also another way of redistributing wealth that is taxing riches. Their program is very clear as where they will take that money, whereas in 8 years Macron, who has a neoliberal politics, has increased both depth and social injustice. Sorry for my English but I had to say that because disinformation is making so much damage in France and Europe that it is important to be precise as your podcast must remain a reference in terms of precision of the analysis.

Important reflections and reminders. It is always important to consider the systemic consequences of our choices. But your treatment of degrowth was very condensed, shall we say. You didn't define what you mean by 'degrowth', which makes it harder to assess your consequences (which were also not very clearly explained). But, there's also the issue that degrowth thinking was itself inspired, at least in part, by Systems Theoretical modelling of systemic consequences (local and global). The idea that degrowth economists have not considered such basic economic consequences of their theory strikes me as more than a little unlikely, to say the least. Have you interviewed any Degrowth economists and raised these concerns? I've heard you interview Kate Raworth (who says that her doughnut economics entails degrowth for 'advanced' nations), but I don't recall you raising these questions. Not being a degrowth specialist myself, I'm not able to answer your questions, but I get the sense that your questions betray a misunderstanding. The European Union last year (May 2023) held a week long conference, "Beyond Growth", to which the world's top experts on degrowth (activists, politicians, and scholars from many perspectives and disciplines) were invited to speak. If you haven't seen it, I would highly recommend it. I'm attaching links to 2 of the Plenary sessions from KZfaq, if you haven't already seen them. I would hope that you would do a session with 2 or 3 degrowth economists and put your concerns to them. I would be very interested in such an episode! kzfaq.info/get/bejne/fbFpi5N5xq-2iH0.html (Session on Macroeconomics) kzfaq.info/get/bejne/hNeAephjltSsoH0.html (Final Plenary)

I now live in the Doomasphere. Human growth is an evolution that can also be applied to our economic growth based on the evidence of our model. Hope is bliss as we are in a nosedive with true global warming. Loosing mammal species rapidly that are key to survival eg' chickens in the south of Asia that can no longer produce eggs in the heat. Primates falling from trees that can no longer make it etc. Once we hit 2.5 degrees, we will most likely hit the wall with 'runaway' global warming. How do we keep cattle and livestock alive when water dries up and grass wont grow? At 65, surviving the next 25-30 years is key for me. I doubt that we succeed as a species of growth past 2045. I plan to invest all resources into moving off grid and into self sustainment with a well, solar, EV, and raising my own animal based food for my pure carnivore dietary lifestyle. Wish me luck...

If you want to see what IA is going to do, watch Colossus: The Forbin Project…it’s a early 1970 movie that I believe to be a strong prediction of the near future

money is pretend it's man made , I learned that trading in the ,90s in NYC , that revelation has been invaluable to my life and being able to see those around me other than sociopathic criminally insane and in the way

Thank you for being the adult in the room.

"It's leading us further away from an economic, stable landing point every year." Doesn't this imply that we've passed a sort of complexification tipping point, and the whole global system is beyond our control? I currently don't see any solutions to that one. How do we solve "growth" itself?

Mn/Iowa based ethanol operations have become much more efficient especially the ones that use corn stalks vs grain . There is supposedly even a new sweet corn that was developed that the stalk has a sugar content as high if not higher than sugar cane , but I'm not sure how much they have scaled it yet.

Ok let’s build a list of really watertight, robust, wide-boundary considered solutions to human needs so we can start to triage this ridiculous mess. I’ll start: Insulation: light stray clay (straw can be made from dried weeds cut with a Scythe), sheep’s wool, cork, granulated charcoal mixed into clay or lime for an insulating plaster Home Heating: downdraft masonry heaters fueled with wood from coppiced woodland, passive solar home orientation Water Filtration: gravel + sand + charcoal + gravity + time Professional Dental Cleaning: Metal manual scraper tools + shot of jack and a boof off a joint for the discomfort Transportation: horses duh, maybe pedal bikes depending on ease of continued repair in low-energy future Food: small organic gardens, silviculture, duh Laundry Driers: outdoor covered clotheslines Refrigeration: root cellars Anyone care to add?

In talking about evs you did not mention the appalling amount of mining needed to mine the rare earths for these vehicles. There is massive environmental destruction. In addition to this there are huge impacts on water sources for the extraction and refining of lithium. This causes problems of water of water shortage for surrounding communities. Also what will happen to the batteries once they cannot be used.

I have been looking for a certain episode on 'what you can do' (in daily life, work), and swear I have seen it somewhere, but cannot find it anywhere anymore. Could someone help me direct where I would find an answer to that question? Or is it the roundtable #9 I am confused with?

Really appreciate your content. But, the next guest will talk fast and vast. It’s weird to hear so many terms with Latin prefixes and suffixes. Be hearing a term like "Metacrisize."

considering silicon valley has the highest concentration of toxic waste sites in the U.S. - is it really that surprising that the big tech moguls would be using huge amounts of energy as co2 emissions? We have known for a long time that cell phones are the single largest rate of electrical use increase globally.

I wonder if the "islands of coherence" imagery at the end, that specific archipelago; if that was some indication by Nate or just a synchronicity. My partner and I are thinking of returning there to farm.

80 billion babies per year - -Yikes..The biggest challenge is to stop adding more and more humans and more demand. Super interesting as always!

To play devil's advocate, isn't that the human condition? We're always riding the edge between progress and catastrophe. Granted, that edge is getting sharper by the day, and the fall into the abyss looks imminent. But it seems like the only solution is "new green circles", innovations (better materials, renewables, energy sources, etc...). Like you said, we can't go in reverse and we can't stand still, so it's forward faster, while being cognizant of the problems we're truly solving for.

I don’t understand the term “yellow team”. I googled it and I still don’t get it. Where is this from?

What do you think? There's only one feasible robust healthy solution, and that is to create parallel systems with like-minded others to counter the destructive forces of the system in place

hey nate, long time viewer first time commenter. The 19Terawatts you reference, I did a few mistral llm questions on solar pv and wind and came to the conclusion that with renewables and storage we only really need 9-12 terrawatts due to current electricity coming from burning fossil fuels which only is 38-42% efficient. How do you think this will effect the need for rebuilding in the future and if we have enough to do it say twice. 25yrs x 1.5 not great but gives use say 35 years to build somthing else or change what renewables are made from. idk just a thought.

If you add iron powder into the dead zone areas you would have a flourishing of life instead of a dead zone.

5:01 France did not elect a far left government, Nate. The unified left (the only alternative to neoliberal thinking) came first with a relative majority in the assembly. The government still needs to be nominated and approved by said assembly. Macron is attempting to prevent that by abusing the rules of our constitution with the hope of keeping staying in power after he and his party lost 3 legislative elections in a row. But beyond this point, the Popular Front is the only group that has a sensible, if not ambitious enough in my opinion, plan to tackle the climate and biodiversity crises. The right and far right have the same debt-fueled neoliberal agenda that optimizes profits and wealth accumulation: lower taxes, deregulation, privatization, and continuation of the wealth transfer; all the while blaming anyone black or brown for all the issues in the country. Noting that the black and brown people in France are overwhelmingly coming from former French colonies pillaged for their natural resources. Now, if the Left manages to form a government, they will struggle to pass any significant reforms (top items on their agenda are changes to the tax code, minimum wages, and bring back the retirement age to 62, and eventually 60). They aim to finance that with taxes on the top 10% earners, bringing back a form of wealth tax, and clawing back free money given to large financialized multinational corporations. Will it work? That’s the hope, though unclear. But at the very very least, they aim to make regular people’s lives easier.

On the other hand if you make things too complicated, people won't tend to do them.

All that matters is sustainability, it can not be any other way, it is in the word! Any change we make towards it has to happen as soon as possible. to avoid short term goals and band aid solutions we need to rebuild everything. first is global revolution, change of mindset into ecology and life preservation. That is only what i can safely say, the rest is to radical to be heard by most peoples filters and biases.

I agree: "Growth is good.".........growth of trees 🤣😂🤣😂 In all sincerity, we CAN* grow the economy by growing trees 🤫

Replacing ICE cars with BEVs is not quite like a straight swap from a petrol/gas vehicle to a electric vehicle there are some other benefits aside from a more energy efficient vehicle and one able to use renewable electrical energy and no ethanol. There is less noise in urban areas a cause of stress on the human nervous system. Less heat is radiated that will keep in check the urban heat islands. More importantly human health should be improved in urban areas, no tailpipe emissions, reducing the curse of asthma especially in children. There also seem to be glints of a longevity to the vehicles, in mileage terms so far plus a use for the batteries at end of life for the car before they are eventually recycled. However buses and trains are great for getting around, better for watching the world and can be exciting as I found out this week, a full size bus hurtling down a narrow single track, hedge lined road on Ynys Môn / Anglesey. Hopefully we can abandon our tin cans for a more efficient way of getting our bodies somewhere else. Great to get a different perspective and while I have been listenin or reading your thoughts since you were on the oil drum I have only just subscribed, abject apologies.

If humanity has started asking these questions 10,000 years ago, the planet might have had a chance.

renewables without mention of the Aerosol Masking Effect is like... Roman Aqueducts without mention of humanure composting.

All problems are solved by having fewer of us here. A thousand years ago there were less than 100m people on the planet. Today if that were the same everyone would have a comfortable level of existence and our resources would last us hundreds if not a thousand years.

Trading Places

Welcome to complex systems.

The Boundary that contains all other Boundaries is that "No matter how highly mechanised and self-powered, fossil fuels extraction requires a number of people as if the process is executed by hands using buckets and ropes - by physics". Today, this number is 8 billion people - working flat out 24/7 - strong. AI, climate-change movement, Renewables movement, Nate, you and I are among those, too. Energy transition from fossil fuels cannot be done powered by fossil fuels. Or, humans should have fabricated todays solar panels as early as they invented the wheel thousands of years ago. “In any system of energy, Control is what consumes energy the most. No energy store holds enough energy to extract an amount of energy equal to the total energy it stores. No system of energy can deliver sum useful energy in excess of the total energy put into constructing it. This universal truth applies to all systems. Energy, like time, flows from past to future” (2017).

You're not looking at the majority of Earths' population that as an individual, as a family, are just struggling to survive to the next day, the next week, the next month. Technos and university minded nerds don't necessarily have the correct answer(s)/solutions. They've gotten us to here, today.

I just read that ammunition dispensing machines are being installed in grocery stores! Is THAT a harbinger of a "sustainable" future?

Correction.. 80 million, not billion net babies born. I've done the math on this.. about 350,000 babies are born every day but you subtract the 150,000 daily deaths wich leaves you with the net gain of 200,000 or so net babies per day. Even at this seemingly low population growth would more than double world population by century's end...which I think can't really happen.

there is no changing the current hierarchical social structures (see Jordan Peterson's analogy). There is no interest from the powers that be to promote equality

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According to the Iowa Corn trade association, 62% of Iowa corn goes to make ethanol. There’s no attempt to diversify agriculture in the state so that if the incentives for ethanol go away the agriculture economy doesn’t collapse. In fact, the agriculture laws and regulations make it virtually impossible for any farmer here to move away from corn made to produce ethanol or animal feed.

"Voters..who like things cheap" ... and disposable.

The typical human consumes gigantic resources.. hard to see a way around the devastating results of this.

5:00 Having a 3 party Parlament reflect a higher ratio of voters doesn't make the french national assembly far left by any stretch. Minimum wages are an industry expense, should they make up a significant ratio of government spending I'd be concerned about what that says about government jobs. The takes on this show are usually good but such a messy framing is pretty jarring as a casual introduction to any topic.

While no 2 tonne vehicle will be considered sustainable, an electric vehicle only has 200 kg of different materials than a gas car. And the immense efficiency advantage of an electric motor at 85% compared to a gas car in the 20s% allows the electric car to reach lifetime cradle to grave Carbon parity in 16,000 miles on the USA average grid (which is 23% coal) and 9,000 in Norway on hydro. The USA grid EV will have a 13 year total Carbon footprint of less than half than an internal combustion engine car. And even charging on full coal, the EV will reach parity at 6 years and be slightly lower overall for its lifetime. EVs also can serve double duty as grid storage and will eventually function well for peak shaving and demand control to balance the grid. It is often stated that the increased electricity demand will be too high but I have calculated that if all light vehicle cars and trucks were to become electrified, it would increase the total electrical consumption in the USA by 23%. And if this was demand controlled via aggressive time of use pricing and 2 way vehicle to grid schemes, all of this increased demand could be supplied with no new generation or transmission capacity. Regarding the fraction of crude oil which is gasoline which will be in far less demand, there is nothing magic about the difference between gas and diesel. Heavy transport could easily be transitioned to run on gasoline with a very slight loss of range. Even now the price signal of cheaper gas will lever this transition. Car share, ride share. and then, an inevitable return to bicycles and local production of necessities and a much simpler way of life must displace the 100 million new cars per year. Just as global universal women's education and empowerment must also displace human population growth and tip it humanely back negative from the net 80 million per year gain that we are experiencing now. It's interesting to hear calls for a simplification but then criticism of Degrowth concepts. These concepts are two words for similar ideas. Just that Degrowth is a conscious and concerted effort to focus social production on the things we really need while eliminating production of extravagant endeavors. An unguided simplification would be chaotic and more likely turn violent due to ingroup dynamics of loss aversion. But the wealthy must be convinced that all of their money and digits will be worth nothing if there are gangs of barbarian marauders at their gate. A steep Carbon tax does not have to be regressive to poor people, if the fees that are collected are redistributed equally to all citizens. Which also makes it fair. Poor people are shown to come out ahead despite the much higher prices of everything since wealthy people indulge in far higher Carbon footprints and will be paying in much more than the equal share that they get back. Look up the mature proposal that other countries have already begun to implement. A Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism allows one country to unilaterally implement a Fee And Dividend without a loss in competitiveness. citizensclimatelobby.org/price-on-carbon/ Another aspect of Degrowth is that it seeks to ensure a minimum standard of living through comprehensive social services which can be paid for with progressive taxation, wealth tax, inheritance tax, etc. So it is not necessary to increase debt to fund these initiatives. There is so much wealth in the world that has resulted from this one time pulse of Carbon as energy and access to virgin materials. But it is highly concentrated in a very few hands. If we would redistribute this immense wealth that accumulated to the top to claw back the inequities of the failed "supply side" economics of the last 40 years. there would be plenty of capital to provide sufficiency for all without increasing debt. There is a great misunderstanding of Degrowth which equates it as a recession. It is a reallocation. We must all learn the facts about Degrowth, and then advocate for it with our votes if we want to achieve the best of the still remaining outcomes.available to us. Study Jason Hickel and Timothee Parrique to get started. www.jasonhickel.org/about timotheeparrique.com/about/

Ethanol, David Blume...corn isn't the optimum. But who is paying attention. Listen to David Blume before you tell this story the next time.

Nate: Mark Jacobson on your list for conversations? kzfaq.info/get/bejne/q7uKppeCqdzImWg.html

One of the reason I like Nate is he tries to avoid wild speculation. This question is not for him but for my fellow nut jobs: What if we have a Yellow Team with super-intelligence? Looking at AI now my personal opinion is that the part that “WOWS” us is something I’ve come to call “the greatest parlor trick ever invented.” In other words, it’s been trained on and has access to such an immense amount of data and has so much energy input (to make it super fast) it seems way smarter than it really is. In other words, it has the ability to appear creative, but it’s really not. That means it’s not gonna solve any of the problems mentioned in this podcast. That said Silicon Valley insiders are now talking about ramping it all up to $trillion tokens in the next several years (capitalizing on the awe of the parlor trick before we start taking it for granted) that they believe there may be the a brief window to create AGI (“G” as in generative/ creative and not “General”) quickly followed by superintellgence which basically means a machine intelligence AND creativity that far exceeds our own. The kind of intelligence that can possibly solve the human predicament🤞😇

Is it not logical to allow for Huge Credit Or Vouchers For gas Automobile to encourage trade in Most can not afford EV overpricing / Greed . So why don't government make Trade in old gas auto with Bonus Cash For New EV. stimulate & provide head start. just saying good show today. ? with war there is no stopping C02.

In the Newspaper today : « China is consolidating its position as a world leader in renewable energy, currently building twice as much wind and solar capacity as the rest of the world, according to a study published on Thursday. China has committed to stabilizing or decreasing its emissions by 2030, and then to achieving carbon neutrality by 2060. It is therefore strongly developing its renewable energy capacities: it is currently building an additional 180 gigawatts (GW) of solar energy and 159 GW of wind energy, according to a study by the American organization Global Energy Monitor (GEM). According to the report, this total of 339 GW "represents 64% of the solar and wind energy" that is "currently under construction" on the planet, nearly double the rest of the world combined. China is followed by the United States (40 GW), Brazil (13 GW), the United Kingdom (10 GW) and Spain (9 GW), according to the GEM, an organization that lists fossil fuel and renewable energy projects around the world. »

In AI technology, we cannot extrapolate the future energy's consumption on the basis of actual technology because electronic chips will be replaced soon by photonic chips in AI farm reducing by a factor of 10 energy needed.

Cantillion effect or something like that

Withou using renewable materials, renewable energy solutions are not feasible except maybe for a small population af humans.

It's not a coincidence or accident. Islands of coherence are small because they are permitted to exist under the protection of institutions that have monopolized violence. If fascism had won in the 20th century then deviant thoughts wouldn't be tolerated at all. As it is, those islands are a non threat to the realpolitik status quo because they can be contained by soft power such as misinformation, miseducation, overwork, algorithm manipulation on social media, ect. If soft power proved adequate then hard power would be used. Coherence suggests a future that is both complex and sustainable could be achieved if we redirected the resources of the world's militaries toward that goal. Realpolitik says the world as we know it would unravel if that was attempted. Power is power. You can't coherence your way directly into a peaceful, sustainable future since power and violence win in the short term until that path eventually self terminates

Growth is not good. Period.

Water & War weapons ecological, social, justice, land soil food Rights. they also support each other. 👍

At 4:25, Nate quoting an oligarch right wing publication to criticize a government that wants to challenge the oligarchies in France. How disappointing. It reminds me of Jewish intellectuals and how they cannot be trusted with any serious discussions of Israel policy.

Lots of debt for war

What government policies do you support and advocate for? Everything else you're saying is fluff.