WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.000 music 00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:08.000 Welcome everyone! I'm really excited to see such a great 00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:12.000 Turnout for the inaugural speaker in our new series, 00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:15.000 Creating a Sustainable Future, which is sponsored by 00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:19.000 By office with the cooperation of our geography and sustainability 00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:23.000 Department under the direction of Professor Mark Van Steeter. 00:00:23.000 --> 00:00:26.000 And I think he was over there a minute ago. There he is. laughter 00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:29.000 Mark is going to introduce our speaker today, 00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:33.000 Rob Dietz from the Post Carbon Institute, so I'll turn the mic 00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:38.000 Over to Mark, and I know we're all looking forward to hearing what 00:00:38.000 --> 00:00:41.000 Our speaker today has to say, so I'm thrilled with the large turnout. 00:00:41.000 --> 00:00:45.000 I think this is a great way to kick off this new series, so thanks for being here. 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:53.000 I am really happy to see so many people here. Thank you, and we have a great speaker today. 00:00:53.000 --> 00:00:58.000 His name is Rob Dietz. He works at the Post Carbon Institute, 00:00:58.000 --> 00:00:61.000 A very important non profit looking at issues of 00:01:01.000 --> 00:01:05.000 How do we have a workable economy 00:01:05.000 --> 00:01:08.000 In a world where we're moving away from 00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:14.000 Our carbon slaves of oil, gas, coal, you name it. 00:01:14.000 --> 00:01:18.000 He spent time in elite schools back East, 00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:23.000 Spent time in the prison of Washington D.C., learning the ropes. 00:01:23.000 --> 00:01:27.000 He's been around, and he's highly intelligent, even to the 00:01:27.000 --> 00:01:35.000 Point of writing a very provocative book, which this talk will cover parts of. 00:01:35.000 --> 00:01:40.000 And the main story here is basically going to be 00:01:40.000 --> 00:01:45.000 Culture takes on this idea that growth is good and growth is eternal, 00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:51.000 And that is completely illogical, even to a grade schooler. 00:01:51.000 --> 00:01:57.000 And he's going to talk to us about how we can face that and have a sustainable future. 00:01:57.000 --> 00:01:60.000 applause. Okay, thank you, Mark. 00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:05.000 Thanks Kathy. Thanks Western Oregon University and all of you for coming out today. It's 00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:09.000 Really an honor to be able to present 00:02:09.000 --> 00:02:14.000 The ideas of how do we make an economy that can work 00:02:14.000 --> 00:02:17.000 For all of us and work for the long term. 00:02:17.000 --> 00:02:21.000 I'm especially happy to be here this week. 00:02:21.000 --> 00:02:25.000 Most of you would know that Monday was Earth Day, and 00:02:25.000 --> 00:02:29.000 A day to really celebrate the beauty of our planet. 00:02:29.000 --> 00:02:34.000 And I want to start off with a question for you all about that. 00:02:34.000 --> 00:02:38.000 From an environmental perspective, 00:02:38.000 --> 00:02:41.000 Do you think humanity is headed in the right direction? 00:02:41.000 --> 00:02:47.000 Show of hands, yes we're going the right way environmentally. 00:02:47.000 --> 00:02:51.000 There's usually at least one person who feels that, 00:02:51.000 --> 00:02:56.000 And that's great. I want us to be hopeful that humanity can go 00:02:56.000 --> 00:02:59.000 The right way. I'm not going to present tons and tons of evidence 00:02:59.000 --> 00:02:64.000 To the contrary, but if you're following the news on climate change, on 00:03:04.000 --> 00:03:08.000 A whole host of things, it's kind of a scary time. 00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:12.000 I mean we've gotten a lot of our local pollution problems 00:03:12.000 --> 00:03:19.000 Handled pretty well, but on a global scale, we're seeing things that have never, never happened before. 00:03:19.000 --> 00:03:24.000 And I think questions like that first one are really important to explore 00:03:24.000 --> 00:03:28.000 And I think you are in a place that is meant 00:03:28.000 --> 00:03:31.000 For asking questions, for exploring big ideas, 00:03:31.000 --> 00:03:36.000 For weighing the evidence, for trying to assess what 00:03:36.000 --> 00:03:39.000 Is a good idea and what's maybe not a good idea. 00:03:39.000 --> 00:03:43.000 And so I, you know, in thinking about 00:03:43.000 --> 00:03:48.000 The things I'm talking about and thinking about your whole college career, I just want to encourage you to 00:03:48.000 --> 00:03:51.000 Be willing to ask questions of 00:03:51.000 --> 00:03:56.000 What's up with the status quo and in this case, what's up with the status 00:03:56.000 --> 00:03:60.000 Quo in economics and what we're trying to do economically 00:04:00.000 --> 00:04:05.000 And the effects of that on the environment, and on society and our communities. 00:04:05.000 --> 00:04:09.000 And this whole notion of questioning things in college, it 00:04:09.000 --> 00:04:13.000 Takes me back to my own college experience. 00:04:13.000 --> 00:04:16.000 I went to my Freshman year at this school, and this was the 00:04:16.000 --> 00:04:19.000 Quad that I actually lived in Freshman year. 00:04:19.000 --> 00:04:24.000 And there was a really strange thing that happened there about a month into my career. 00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:29.000 And this was, I guess it was, we could call it midterm eve. 00:04:29.000 --> 00:04:32.000 It was the night before the very first 00:04:32.000 --> 00:04:37.000 Midterm that Econ students were taking. Do we have any, who's taken 00:04:37.000 --> 00:04:40.000 Economics classes? It looks like 00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:44.000 A fair number. Who's an economics major? 00:04:44.000 --> 00:04:49.000 Uh oh. laughter. I'm the only crazy one here. 00:04:49.000 --> 00:04:52.000 Okay, well, so a lot of people at this school 00:04:52.000 --> 00:04:56.000 Took economics that very first semester, and 00:04:56.000 --> 00:04:60.000 All the different Econ 101 classes were, 00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:03.000 The midterm was coordinated. I guess that was so we wouldn't 00:05:03.000 --> 00:05:07.000 Put our economic knowledge to use and cheat or something, but 00:05:07.000 --> 00:05:12.000 The night before that test, this quad started 00:05:12.000 --> 00:05:17.000 Filling up with people, and I didn't know about this thing until it actually happened. 00:05:17.000 --> 00:05:23.000 As the night went on and it got darker and darker, more and more people started gathering in the quad. 00:05:23.000 --> 00:05:26.000 And then as it approached midnight, when 00:05:26.000 --> 00:05:29.000 You'd think the students would be off studying their 00:05:29.000 --> 00:05:33.000 Production curves and supply and demand, instead they're here 00:05:33.000 --> 00:05:36.000 And as midnight approached, it was like New Year's Eve. 00:05:36.000 --> 00:05:40.000 There was an actual count down. Ten, nine, eight 00:05:40.000 --> 00:05:44.000 And right at midnight, the Econ scream erupted. 00:05:44.000 --> 00:05:47.000 And this is what everyone shouted. 00:05:47.000 --> 00:05:50.000 They ran around going I hate Econ! 00:05:50.000 --> 00:05:54.000 And some people were shirtless. Some people were hanging out of windows. 00:05:54.000 --> 00:05:60.000 This, this incredible like welling up of animosity and energy 00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:04.000 And then as kind of quick as it started, it fell to silence and 00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:09.000 People went home and probably did study for their test, but 00:06:09.000 --> 00:06:13.000 But I often wondered like Why did this happen? I mean it wasn't the 00:06:13.000 --> 00:06:17.000 Math scream. It wasn't the physics scream or the philosophy scream. 00:06:17.000 --> 00:06:20.000 It was the Econ scream, and 00:06:20.000 --> 00:06:23.000 I think it has something to do with the disconnect 00:06:23.000 --> 00:06:28.000 Between what you learn in economics, at least mainstream economics, 00:06:28.000 --> 00:06:31.000 And what you see in the real world. Now this 00:06:31.000 --> 00:06:35.000 Example, this Econ scream, is kind of lighthearted, but 00:06:35.000 --> 00:06:41.000 There's been kind of more serious examples. The one that came to mind a few years ago at 00:06:41.000 --> 00:06:44.000 Harvard University, there was a group of students 00:06:44.000 --> 00:06:48.000 Who led a walk out from their introductory economics course 00:06:48.000 --> 00:06:52.000 Which happened to be taught by Greg Mankiw, who's got 00:06:52.000 --> 00:06:57.000 The most popular, at least at that time, economics textbook. 00:06:57.000 --> 00:06:61.000 And the students were really protesting what they saw as an 00:07:01.000 --> 00:07:04.000 Inherent bias in the course 00:07:04.000 --> 00:07:07.000 That the economics being taught didn't support 00:07:07.000 --> 00:07:12.000 What they wanted to see their society exhibit. 00:07:12.000 --> 00:07:16.000 So they staged this walk out and got a, quite a 00:07:16.000 --> 00:07:19.000 Fair amount of publicity for it. Now, 00:07:19.000 --> 00:07:24.000 I've just presented two sort of student led critiques of economics but that 00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:28.000 That isn't the mainstream. If you look at the mainstream, 00:07:28.000 --> 00:07:31.000 There's kind of this belief 00:07:31.000 --> 00:07:35.000 In the magic of the economic system we've developed. 00:07:35.000 --> 00:07:40.000 And this is a shot of a Parisian cafe. 00:07:40.000 --> 00:07:43.000 And at the time I was working on my book, I was looking for 00:07:43.000 --> 00:07:47.000 Kind of well, What is the mainstream economics story? 00:07:47.000 --> 00:07:52.000 And so I looked at a book called Naked Economics by Charles Wheelan, which is 00:07:52.000 --> 00:07:56.000 Kind of a popularizing the study of economics. 00:07:56.000 --> 00:07:61.000 And he said, he kind of gave this poetic language about Imagine 00:08:01.000 --> 00:08:05.000 This cafe in Paris and you sit down and you 00:08:05.000 --> 00:08:08.000 Order a tuna fish sandwich, and you 00:08:08.000 --> 00:08:12.000 You know, you enjoy that. Think about 00:08:12.000 --> 00:08:16.000 How that tuna fish sandwich got to your plate and 00:08:16.000 --> 00:08:20.000 Into your belly. It's, it's. You can think about the hundreds or maybe even 00:08:20.000 --> 00:08:24.000 Thousands of people in processes along the way that had to happen 00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:29.000 For that to occur, and I kind of agree with him. 00:08:29.000 --> 00:08:32.000 It's amazing that that happens, that, you know, a 00:08:32.000 --> 00:08:36.000 Fish from the South Pacific somehow gets to Paris, France, and 00:08:36.000 --> 00:08:41.000 And you exchange a few pieces of paper for it or even 00:08:41.000 --> 00:08:45.000 Some zeros and ones stored in a computer somewhere off a credit card. 00:08:45.000 --> 00:08:49.000 That's pretty amazing when you sit down and think about it. 00:08:49.000 --> 00:08:53.000 And that's really what the subject of that book was, but that was the end of the story. 00:08:53.000 --> 00:08:57.000 Hey look what we can do! How amazing. 00:08:57.000 --> 00:08:60.000 But there's, you know, when I read that 00:09:00.000 --> 00:09:03.000 Introductory part of this book, I was like Wow, 00:09:03.000 --> 00:09:09.000 That's where they're ending the story. It doesn't take really any research at all 00:09:09.000 --> 00:09:12.000 To find out that the tuna stocks are 00:09:12.000 --> 00:09:16.000 In a serious decline. In fact, around 00:09:16.000 --> 00:09:20.000 Ten years ago, tuna fishing was banned in the South Pacific 00:09:20.000 --> 00:09:23.000 Because it had gotten so bad, and if you look into 00:09:23.000 --> 00:09:27.000 What's happening with commercial fisheries worldwide, 00:09:27.000 --> 00:09:31.000 We're experiencing a serious, serious problem there, and it 00:09:31.000 --> 00:09:37.000 Especially serious because of how many people are dependent on that for their food supply. 00:09:37.000 --> 00:09:41.000 So, this is one of the problems with economics as it's 00:09:41.000 --> 00:09:45.000 As it's been taught and practiced, is that this kind of problem 00:09:45.000 --> 00:09:48.000 Of, say, depleting the stock that 00:09:48.000 --> 00:09:52.000 That you're reliant on, it's just 00:09:52.000 --> 00:09:56.000 Labeled an externality. Externality meaning it's 00:09:56.000 --> 00:09:59.000 Outside of the market. The market doesn't really 00:09:59.000 --> 00:09:63.000 Have anything to say about this. It just has something to say about 00:10:03.000 --> 00:10:08.000 How much we pay for that tuna sandwich. And this is where you can get some real distortions. 00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:12.000 This story is from earlier this year where 00:10:12.000 --> 00:10:16.000 We've to the world record, not the world record blue tuna 00:10:16.000 --> 00:10:19.000 Size, but this is a big blue tuna. It's about six hundred 00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:23.000 Sx hundred pounds or so, but the record here is how much the owner of 00:10:23.000 --> 00:10:31.000 This sushi restaurant paid for that fish. Anybody have a guess? 00:10:31.000 --> 00:10:35.000 A million is a pretty good guess. Three point one million dollars 00:10:35.000 --> 00:10:38.000 For this one fish. And you can think of the distortions that that 00:10:38.000 --> 00:10:42.000 Causes. Now let's say you're a small 00:10:42.000 --> 00:10:47.000 Fishing operation. You know, how great would it be to catch one of the last 00:10:47.000 --> 00:10:49.000 Remaining big tuna like this and be able to sell it 00:10:49.000 --> 00:10:52.000 For three million dollars. I mean, it's 00:10:52.000 --> 00:10:57.000 It's setting up the wrong kinds of incentives. There are problems with 00:10:57.000 --> 00:10:61.000 How the economy then influences what's happening in the environment. 00:11:01.000 --> 00:11:05.000 You know that's kind of a small scale picture, and there's lot's of big 00:11:05.000 --> 00:11:08.000 Big scale things that you could look at. My favorite one 00:11:08.000 --> 00:11:11.000 Of all the studies I've seen that kind of tracks 00:11:11.000 --> 00:11:16.000 Humanity's, the trouble that we're causing environmentally is the 00:11:16.000 --> 00:11:21.000 Planetary Boundary Study, and this comes out of the Stockholm Resilience Institute, 00:11:21.000 --> 00:11:24.000 Johan Rockstrom and his colleagues. 00:11:24.000 --> 00:11:29.000 And what they did is they looked at nine planetary systems that are 00:11:29.000 --> 00:11:32.000 You know, kind of critical for regulating life 00:11:32.000 --> 00:11:36.000 And the flow of energy and materials on Earth. 00:11:36.000 --> 00:11:40.000 And they said, Okay, we can push these systems out of wack 00:11:40.000 --> 00:11:43.000 But only to a certain point before we're exceeding 00:11:43.000 --> 00:11:48.000 A safe boundary. And probably the most, the one that 00:11:48.000 --> 00:11:51.000 We hear about most often would be climate change 00:11:51.000 --> 00:11:56.000 And you know, to have a stable climate, scientists have said that you 00:11:56.000 --> 00:11:61.000 Shouldn't surpass 350 parts per million of CO two 00:12:01.000 --> 00:12:04.000 Or CO two equivalent in the atmosphere. 00:12:04.000 --> 00:12:08.000 And of course we've blown by that. We're now over four hundred 00:12:08.000 --> 00:12:12.000 And so for three of these planetary systems, climate and 00:12:12.000 --> 00:12:16.000 The nitrogen cycle and the one above that, we're 00:12:16.000 --> 00:12:24.000 We're past the safe operating boundary. Anyone have an idea what that second one is? 00:12:24.000 --> 00:12:28.000 That's biodiversity conservation, so the tuna would be you know a 00:12:28.000 --> 00:12:33.000 Character in that story, but we've entered the sixth mass extinction. 00:12:33.000 --> 00:12:36.000 Only five times previously in the geologic 00:12:36.000 --> 00:12:40.000 Record have we had extinction rates like we've had now. 00:12:40.000 --> 00:12:44.000 You know, in those cases you could blame it on some kind of 00:12:44.000 --> 00:12:48.000 Severe shift caused by say an asteroid strike or 00:12:48.000 --> 00:12:52.000 Or some kind of turning over of the chemical composition of the atmosphere. 00:12:52.000 --> 00:12:56.000 This time it's us that's responsible for that. 00:12:56.000 --> 00:12:61.000 So we are I guess, you know, 00:13:01.000 --> 00:13:04.000 In passing any one of these 00:13:04.000 --> 00:13:08.000 These safe operating boundaries, we're risking an awful lot. 00:13:08.000 --> 00:13:12.000 The question is what's pushing us there? It's us. 00:13:12.000 --> 00:13:16.000 It's people. It's what we do 00:13:16.000 --> 00:13:21.000 But it's not just the numbers of us. It's also the amount that we consume. 00:13:21.000 --> 00:13:24.000 I will tell a real quick story on the population front, 00:13:24.000 --> 00:13:28.000 you know something that is hard to see, the actual 00:13:28.000 --> 00:13:32.000 expansion during our lifetimes. Sometimes it is 00:13:32.000 --> 00:13:36.000 instructive to go back and look at the numbers. So I grew up 00:13:36.000 --> 00:13:40.000 in Atlanta Georgia, had a best friend who lived up the street, 00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:44.000 when I was a kid, and I used to go over to his house all the time. 00:13:44.000 --> 00:13:48.000 It was a very striking house, if you went inside you would 00:13:48.000 --> 00:13:51.000 notice the decor was sort of odd, his mom 00:13:51.000 --> 00:13:54.000 had immigrated from China, so they had all this Chinese Art 00:13:54.000 --> 00:13:57.000 around the house, but that was not the weird 00:13:57.000 --> 00:13:60.000 thing. The weirdest thing on their walls was 00:14:00.000 --> 00:14:04.000 they had framed photos of presidents of the United States 00:14:04.000 --> 00:14:08.000 Like you would see maybe in a post office or in a 00:14:08.000 --> 00:14:12.000 elementary school classroom or something. 00:14:12.000 --> 00:14:16.000 And you know when I saw it I was like that's weird, and then I looked closer and noticed 00:14:16.000 --> 00:14:20.000 they are all signed. Like it would say happy birthday Bobby! 00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:24.000 from Jimmy Carter. Well thats really weird! 00:14:24.000 --> 00:14:28.000 I did not get signed photographs from the president on my birthday 00:14:28.000 --> 00:14:32.000 what's going on here! So it turns out my friends older brother, his name was bobby, 00:14:32.000 --> 00:14:36.000 he was the 200 millionth American. 00:14:36.000 --> 00:14:40.000 At the time, this was 1967 when he was born, 00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:44.000 and there was kind of a countdown going on where they were 00:14:44.000 --> 00:14:48.000 trying to track who is going to be the baby who makes 200 million 00:14:48.000 --> 00:14:52.000 of us here in America, and it was him! He appeared 00:14:52.000 --> 00:14:56.000 in magazines, and it was kind of a good human 00:14:56.000 --> 00:14:60.000 interest story. 00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:04.000 I was kinda struck in 2006 when I saw 00:15:04.000 --> 00:15:08.000 the same story repeat, but it was the 300 millionth American. 00:15:08.000 --> 00:15:12.000 Less than 40 years, another 100 million. Thats a 00:15:12.000 --> 00:15:16.000 very hard number to understand, but thats like adding the population 00:15:16.000 --> 00:15:20.000 of ten states of Georgia, or 00:15:20.000 --> 00:15:24.000 cannot remember, I added it up, I think it was 180 Atlantas. 00:15:24.000 --> 00:15:28.000 You know the city of Atlanta, and another 180. 00:15:28.000 --> 00:15:32.000 Its amazing when you start looking at the growth you can experience in 00:15:32.000 --> 00:15:36.000 half a lifetime or so. And thats kind of 00:15:36.000 --> 00:15:40.000 pales in comparison to the ramp up in consumption. Not only are we 00:15:40.000 --> 00:15:43.000 growing our numbers, we are also growing our consumption. 00:15:43.000 --> 00:15:47.000 You can see scenes like this in ports in the US and all over the world, 00:15:47.000 --> 00:15:52.000 I think the thing that strikes me on the consumption front is if you 00:15:52.000 --> 00:15:56.000 look at commercial real estate in the United State, the fastest 00:15:56.000 --> 00:15:60.000 growing sector over the past 40 years has been 00:16:00.000 --> 00:16:04.000 self storage. The warehouses where we put the 00:16:04.000 --> 00:16:08.000 crap that we do not want you know? So it is a 00:16:08.000 --> 00:16:12.000 its a time, we are living through a time of exponential 00:16:12.000 --> 00:16:16.000 growth and population, exponential growth in consumption. 00:16:16.000 --> 00:16:19.000 You can take these two things together, 00:16:19.000 --> 00:16:24.000 and thats economic growth. That is what it amounts to. 00:16:24.000 --> 00:16:28.000 If you look at the size of an economy, 00:16:28.000 --> 00:16:32.000 its based on how many of us are there, and what does each 00:16:32.000 --> 00:16:36.000 person consume. And this is all measured by 00:16:36.000 --> 00:16:40.000 an interesting number, Gross Domestic Product, or GDP. 00:16:40.000 --> 00:16:44.000 You may not hear that much about that number, but its 00:16:44.000 --> 00:16:47.000 kind of the king of all numbers that economists track. 00:16:47.000 --> 00:16:52.000 So what is GDP. Very simply. it is the dollar value 00:16:52.000 --> 00:16:56.000 of the final goods and services produced in a nation 00:16:56.000 --> 00:16:60.000 over the course of a year. So we are just adding up, what did we 00:17:00.000 --> 00:17:04.000 what did we buy and sell essentially. How much money changed 00:17:04.000 --> 00:17:08.000 hands. And the overarching 00:17:08.000 --> 00:17:12.000 policy goal in he United States and virtually every nation 00:17:12.000 --> 00:17:16.000 in the world is to grow GDP, year after year. Exponential growth 00:17:16.000 --> 00:17:20.000 here we seem to like 3% 00:17:20.000 --> 00:17:24.000 as the number, China was growing much faster than that 00:17:24.000 --> 00:17:28.000 over the last few decades. But, the funny thing about 00:17:28.000 --> 00:17:32.000 GDP and the reason I show this picture up here, 00:17:32.000 --> 00:17:36.000 is that GDP is a number that 00:17:36.000 --> 00:17:39.000 says a lot about quantity, and almost nothing about quality. 00:17:39.000 --> 00:17:44.000 You can increase GDP by having a train wreck. The cost of 00:17:44.000 --> 00:17:48.000 clean up, the cost of paying doctors to 00:17:48.000 --> 00:17:52.000 to heal the injured. Those kinds of numbers 00:17:52.000 --> 00:17:56.000 those amounts get added too GDP. So growing GDP does 00:17:56.000 --> 00:17:60.000 not necessarily mean you are growing the things that you want, 00:18:00.000 --> 00:18:04.000 or that you are achieving progress. Ok I promise this 00:18:04.000 --> 00:18:08.000 is the only true economics function 00:18:08.000 --> 00:18:12.000 and bit that I am going to do here. This simple 00:18:12.000 --> 00:18:16.000 equation y is output, the variable y 00:18:16.000 --> 00:18:20.000 which you could also say is GDP for an entire economy 00:18:20.000 --> 00:18:24.000 and output for the economy is a function of labor, 00:18:24.000 --> 00:18:28.000 built capital, human capital, and natural resources. 00:18:28.000 --> 00:18:32.000 Ok labor is the work we put in, built capital is 00:18:32.000 --> 00:18:36.000 the infrastructure, the tools, the things that are 00:18:36.000 --> 00:18:40.000 at our disposal that we have built in order to be productive. 00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:44.000 Human capital is our knowledge base our set of information 00:18:44.000 --> 00:18:48.000 and natural resources are things from the environment that we 00:18:48.000 --> 00:18:52.000 pick. When you are thinking about a whole economy sometimes it is nice to break 00:18:52.000 --> 00:18:56.000 it down to a simple example. So in this case, our economic output 00:18:56.000 --> 00:18:60.000 is pumpkin pie, and the chef is your labor 00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:04.000 the built capital is the kitchen. The ovens, the 00:19:04.000 --> 00:19:08.000 pots and pans. And the human capital 00:19:08.000 --> 00:19:12.000 the knowledge, is the recipe you are using to make the pie, and natural resources 00:19:12.000 --> 00:19:16.000 are the sad pumpkins that are gonna get cooked 00:19:16.000 --> 00:19:20.000 into the pie. So lets go back to our production 00:19:20.000 --> 00:19:24.000 function. The idea and growth is that 00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:28.000 we are putting an exponent on that. WE are increasing that output 00:19:28.000 --> 00:19:32.000 Now if you think about the pies, you can increase the number of pies 00:19:32.000 --> 00:19:36.000 if you add another chef, maybe if you add another oven to the kitchen, 00:19:36.000 --> 00:19:40.000 perhaps, I do not know. Perhaps, if you have a more efficient 00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:44.000 recipe you could increase your output, but you also going to 00:19:44.000 --> 00:19:48.000 have to put more pumpkins into that pie 00:19:48.000 --> 00:19:52.000 and exponentially increasing number of pumpkins. And at some point 00:19:52.000 --> 00:19:56.000 you do run up against physical and ecological limits. 00:19:56.000 --> 00:19:60.000 As you are doing that. That is one of the 00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:04.000 thats really the fundamental flaw, at least from the environmental perspective, 00:20:04.000 --> 00:20:08.000 that you see in the way economics is taught. 00:20:08.000 --> 00:20:12.000 And I am not the only person by any stretch who is critiquing 00:20:12.000 --> 00:20:16.000 or making this argument. I came across this quote, a year or so ago, 00:20:16.000 --> 00:20:20.000 its said, People realize 00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:24.000 either consciously or at some gut level, that there is something 00:20:24.000 --> 00:20:28.000 fundamentally flawed about a system, that has a prime directive to 00:20:28.000 --> 00:20:32.000 churn nature and humans into capital, and do it 00:20:32.000 --> 00:20:36.000 more and more each year, regardless of the costs 00:20:36.000 --> 00:20:40.000 to human well being, and to the environment that we depend on. 00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:44.000 That is a pretty scathing critique of what we are doing. 00:20:44.000 --> 00:20:48.000 The system they were talking about, they said it was capitalism, 00:20:48.000 --> 00:20:52.000 I can broaden that, I think its the whole growth 00:20:52.000 --> 00:20:56.000 obsessed economy. Now this didn't appear in some 00:20:56.000 --> 00:20:60.000 marcsist flyer, or you know 00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:04.000 some hippy screed. This was actually in fact 00:21:04.000 --> 00:21:08.000 FastCompany, which is a pretty mainstream publication. 00:21:08.000 --> 00:21:12.000 But that still is not what the mainstream economists say. 00:21:12.000 --> 00:21:16.000 This is what mainstream economists, they say things like 00:21:16.000 --> 00:21:20.000 this, the organization for Economic Co-operation and Development 00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:24.000 you can think of that as kind of the leadership of 00:21:24.000 --> 00:21:28.000 the western capitalist economies. The head of it 00:21:28.000 --> 00:21:32.000 is a guy from Mexico, Angel Gurria, 00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:36.000 He says, at the OECD, we believe that it is possible 00:21:36.000 --> 00:21:40.000 to tackle climate change and grow the economy. 00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:44.000 Our bottom line, nice financial reference there, 00:21:44.000 --> 00:21:48.000 our bottom line is that green, and growth, are compatible. 00:21:48.000 --> 00:21:52.000 We can and must have them together. 00:21:52.000 --> 00:21:56.000 So just think about that for a second. 00:21:56.000 --> 00:21:60.000 We can and must have them together. So we are going to keep exponential 00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:04.000 growing the economy, 00:22:04.000 --> 00:22:08.000 Either exponentially growing population, or exponentially growing 00:22:08.000 --> 00:22:12.000 consumption, or some combination of the two. 00:22:12.000 --> 00:22:16.000 And somehow magically we are still going 00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:20.000 to get where we need to go. No consideration 00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:24.000 of maybe there is something out of wack here, maybe 00:22:24.000 --> 00:22:28.000 the scale of the economy is more that our biophysical 00:22:28.000 --> 00:22:32.000 systems can handle. Ok so this, 00:22:32.000 --> 00:22:36.000 if you were to sum up the operating system 00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:40.000 of the economy in one word, I think it would be more. 00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:44.000 More stuff, more people, more consumption, more money 00:22:44.000 --> 00:22:48.000 more. That is what we are after, the macroeconomic policy 00:22:48.000 --> 00:22:52.000 year after year, I would ask, why can't we have an economy where 00:22:52.000 --> 00:22:56.000 instead embraces the idea of enough. 00:22:56.000 --> 00:22:60.000 Philosophically speaking for a moment. Think about when you had enough 00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:04.000 sleep, or enough to eat, or enough 00:23:04.000 --> 00:23:08.000 exercise, it feels pretty good, its just right. 00:23:08.000 --> 00:23:12.000 its the right amount. When you have continuously 00:23:12.000 --> 00:23:16.000 increasing sleep, I guess that would be like being dead, or if you 00:23:16.000 --> 00:23:20.000 have continuously increasing amount of food its not healthy, 00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:24.000 So, things that we can recognize 00:23:24.000 --> 00:23:28.000 in smaller systems in the economy, why can't they 00:23:28.000 --> 00:23:32.000 be applicable to the economy as a whole. 00:23:32.000 --> 00:23:36.000 And that was really the premise of why my colleague Dan and I wrote this book, 00:23:36.000 --> 00:23:40.000 Enough is Enough, we were frankly incredibly worried 00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:44.000 about what we are seeing and what is happening in the environment. If you trace it back 00:23:44.000 --> 00:23:48.000 you can look at the economy as the source of the problem, 00:23:48.000 --> 00:23:52.000 and so we wanted to look at what kind of policy 00:23:52.000 --> 00:23:56.000 and institutions are available to change 00:23:56.000 --> 00:23:60.000 what's happening economically, and to look at a 00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:04.000 environmental set up that has a future, where we 00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:08.000 can have a sustainable society. And when we started looking at 00:24:08.000 --> 00:24:13.000 how to kind of represent the economy, we came up with this frame work using the Parthenon. 00:24:13.000 --> 00:24:17.000 The idea here was that if the economy was like a building, 00:24:17.000 --> 00:24:20.000 Well, in a building, the goal of it 00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:26.000 Is kind of to keep you out of the elements, keep you dry, so that's the roof of this thing. 00:24:26.000 --> 00:24:28.000 And we were talking about the economy 00:24:28.000 --> 00:24:33.000 The goal is sustainable and equitable well being. 00:24:33.000 --> 00:24:37.000 I find that a hard goal to argue against. 00:24:37.000 --> 00:24:41.000 You know, we want unsustainable and inequitable 00:24:41.000 --> 00:24:44.000 Bad being? Or, you know, so I mean I think, you know, 00:24:44.000 --> 00:24:48.000 Generally, people will say yes we want people to lead 00:24:48.000 --> 00:24:52.000 Good, happy lives and yes, we want it to be fair, and yes 00:24:52.000 --> 00:24:56.000 We don't want to use so many resources that there's none left for the 00:24:56.000 --> 00:24:60.000 The next generations. Now the foundation 00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:03.000 For this new economy, this structure 00:25:03.000 --> 00:25:07.000 Has got to be a shift in focus from 00:25:07.000 --> 00:25:11.000 That idea always of more to this idea of enough. 00:25:11.000 --> 00:25:16.000 And then what Dan and I were really interested in were these pillars. 00:25:16.000 --> 00:25:21.000 What are the policies and institutions needed to 00:25:21.000 --> 00:25:26.000 You know, kind of make this building hold, to make this economy work? 00:25:26.000 --> 00:25:29.000 And we came up with these seven 00:25:29.000 --> 00:25:33.000 Which I'll read them off real quick. It's limiting the throughput 00:25:33.000 --> 00:25:36.000 Of materials and energy to a sustainable level, 00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:39.000 Stabilizing population, achieving a 00:25:39.000 --> 00:25:43.000 Fair distribution of income and wealth. 00:25:43.000 --> 00:25:47.000 Reforming the financial system so that it's not all about speculation or all about 00:25:47.000 --> 00:25:53.000 Money chasing more money, but it's getting money to flow to the enterprises 00:25:53.000 --> 00:25:56.000 That we care about in the economy. The fifth 00:25:56.000 --> 00:25:59.000 Using measures of real progress. 00:25:59.000 --> 00:25:64.000 Then six, securing meaningful jobs. This is incredibly important when you 00:26:04.000 --> 00:26:08.000 See, you know, economists are right to be 00:26:08.000 --> 00:26:11.000 Afraid of a slowdown in growth because often it means 00:26:11.000 --> 00:26:14.000 Unemployment, which then leads to social instability 00:26:14.000 --> 00:26:19.000 Big mess, world wars, you know, you can summarize that down, but 00:26:19.000 --> 00:26:23.000 A really important one, securing meaningful jobs. And then 00:26:23.000 --> 00:26:27.000 Changing the way businesses operate. We're going to have to contend with 00:26:27.000 --> 00:26:32.000 Do we always get to the right decision when the profit motive means everything? 00:26:32.000 --> 00:26:35.000 So a lot of changes that we would need to make in the economy. 00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:39.000 They're all intertwined. You can't really just do these piecemeal, 00:26:39.000 --> 00:26:44.000 Do one and not do the others. Now for each one of these 00:26:44.000 --> 00:26:50.000 Policies in the book, we ask these questions. We said What are we doing now? 00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:54.000 What could we do instead, how could we make things different? 00:26:54.000 --> 00:26:60.000 And then this last question of where do we go from here? How do we actually start to get 00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:06.000 The change from what we're doing now to what could work for us over the longterm? 00:27:06.000 --> 00:27:11.000 And I won't have time to go through all of, go ahead, all of these 00:27:11.000 --> 00:27:16.000 Policy pillars, but there's a couple that I'll take about. 00:27:16.000 --> 00:27:20.000 For the first one, since I've already brought up GDP and some of the flaws with it, 00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:24.000 Let's go with that one, using measures of real progress. 00:27:24.000 --> 00:27:28.000 Throw a little bit of data up here. On the horizontal axis, you've got 00:27:28.000 --> 00:27:33.000 GDP per capita. That's the GDP of the nation divided by the population. 00:27:33.000 --> 00:27:38.000 On the vertical axis, you have a life satisfaction scale. 00:27:38.000 --> 00:27:42.000 And what you can see is, you know, if you 00:27:42.000 --> 00:27:46.000 Are very poor, you don't have much income, 00:27:46.000 --> 00:27:49.000 Then yeah, you will improve 00:27:49.000 --> 00:27:53.000 By gettin more income. Your life satisfaction will increase. 00:27:53.000 --> 00:27:57.000 But there's an inflection point. There's a point past which 00:27:57.000 --> 00:27:60.000 It doesn't really help you, and yet 00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:04.000 A lot of the nations and a lot of the culture is still saying No, 00:28:04.000 --> 00:28:08.000 No, no, you want to keep going, keep going this way, but 00:28:08.000 --> 00:28:13.000 If it's not doing what would hope it would do, then it's time to reassess. 00:28:13.000 --> 00:28:15.000 And so there's been a lot of work 00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:20.000 On other potential measures that we could use, and one of my favorites 00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:23.000 Is the happy planet index, HPI 00:28:23.000 --> 00:28:28.000 Which comes from the New Economics Foundation. And I think it's a quite brilliant 00:28:28.000 --> 00:28:31.000 Efficiency ratio that uses data 00:28:31.000 --> 00:28:37.000 That others have put together. So what they do in the numerator of this ratio, they take 00:28:37.000 --> 00:28:40.000 How long are 00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:44.000 The people of a nation living, how happy are they 00:28:44.000 --> 00:28:48.000 Based on data from self reporting surveys and how 00:28:48.000 --> 00:28:51.000 Equitably is, are the, is 00:28:51.000 --> 00:28:55.000 Are the proceeds distributed through the nation. 00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:61.000 So it's like, these are things we want. We want to live long, happy and fair lives. 00:29:01.000 --> 00:29:05.000 And they divide that by ecological footprint, which is a kind of a measure of 00:29:05.000 --> 00:29:09.000 How much resources we're using to get the things we want. 00:29:09.000 --> 00:29:16.000 And so when you kind of run the calculations for the nations of the world, 00:29:16.000 --> 00:29:20.000 You can get a score an a ranking. And it's really interesting to look at the top five 00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:25.000 Costa Rica, Mexico, Colombia, Vanuatu, Vietnam, they're not 00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:28.000 What you think of as economic powerhouses. 00:29:28.000 --> 00:29:32.000 But if you just look at the stats, people are living long, happy 00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:37.000 Equitable lives and they are doing so with a smaller footprint. 00:29:37.000 --> 00:29:40.000 Not so say that any of it is perfect, but it's interesting to look 00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:43.000 At the United States. We rank 108th in 00:29:43.000 --> 00:29:48.000 HPI, we actually live pretty long here and we're actually pretty happy 00:29:48.000 --> 00:29:53.000 I mean not uniformly, not everybody. I'm miserable, but, no. laughter 00:29:53.000 --> 00:29:59.000 But, but we do so in a very inequitable way, 00:29:59.000 --> 00:29:64.000 Inequality, the gaps between the haves and the have nots have 00:30:04.000 --> 00:30:10.000 Really been on the rise here and there's a lot we could say about that. 00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:14.000 Maybe for another time. But also our ecological footprint 00:30:14.000 --> 00:30:17.000 Is huge, you know. According to the 00:30:17.000 --> 00:30:21.000 The footprint studies, you know, if everybody consumed like an American. This is where you get these 00:30:21.000 --> 00:30:25.000 These quotes, If everybody consumed like a typical American, 00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:30.000 We'd need six planets to cover that amount of resource use, so 00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:35.000 We have a lot to learn about how to achieve the desired outcomes in society 00:30:35.000 --> 00:30:40.000 Without taking such a big bite out of the planet. 00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:46.000 You know, this is just an easy starting place. It's not hard to 00:30:46.000 --> 00:30:50.000 Produce numbers like this or produce some measure 00:30:50.000 --> 00:30:53.000 Of progress that you care about then report it. 00:30:53.000 --> 00:30:57.000 But we don't do that and this question about how we're going to get there. So 00:30:57.000 --> 00:30:61.000 This is what we do report. Everyday, it doesn't matter if you're a Fox 00:31:01.000 --> 00:31:05.000 News or an NPR junkie or whatever, you're going to get 00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:09.000 Dow Jones Industrial went up or down. You're going to get this very 00:31:09.000 --> 00:31:14.000 Detailed tracking of what's happening in financial markets. 00:31:14.000 --> 00:31:16.000 But you're not going to get this daily in the news 00:31:16.000 --> 00:31:20.000 Unless you're going and looking for it, which is the rise of 00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:23.000 CO two in the atmosphere or some other numbers 00:31:23.000 --> 00:31:28.000 That pose an existential threat to civilization. 00:31:28.000 --> 00:31:33.000 And so it's really about changing the value. We've got to somehow 00:31:33.000 --> 00:31:37.000 Wrap our heads around Hey, this thing that we report on daily, 00:31:37.000 --> 00:31:40.000 That we're all paying attention to and tied in to 00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:43.000 May not be as important as this thing over here. 00:31:43.000 --> 00:31:48.000 So we really need that value change and then it would be easy I would think 00:31:48.000 --> 00:31:52.000 To report measures that tell us the things that we 00:31:52.000 --> 00:31:54.000 That we really want to see. 00:31:54.000 --> 00:31:59.000 Okay, one other of these policy pillars I want to go through real quickly is the idea of 00:31:59.000 --> 00:31:64.000 Limiting the throughput of materials and energy to a sustainable level. 00:32:04.000 --> 00:32:10.000 Anybody know where that is? 00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:12.000 Yeah, that's Butte, Butte, Montana. 00:32:12.000 --> 00:32:16.000 It's an amazing place! I swear I was just 00:32:16.000 --> 00:32:19.000 On my way through to a conference. I was probably 00:32:19.000 --> 00:32:24.000 Driving on this highway here, ad you see this 00:32:24.000 --> 00:32:28.000 This massive hole. It's huge, it's incredible! 00:32:28.000 --> 00:32:32.000 Like I feel like when I saw it it's like you could take the whole city if you had a 00:32:32.000 --> 00:32:39.000 Giant shovel and just turn it over and it you know, it wouldn't even fill the hole. It's incredible. 00:32:39.000 --> 00:32:44.000 And so after I passed it, I was like, okay, I got to figure out what this thing is. And I looked it up 00:32:44.000 --> 00:32:48.000 And it turns out it was once called the Richest Hill on Earth. 00:32:48.000 --> 00:32:53.000 It was basically the best copper mine anybody had ever found, and 00:32:53.000 --> 00:32:57.000 But it also mined other things, gold and zinc and manganese, and 00:32:57.000 --> 00:32:62.000 But what it is now is this huge hole, toxic 00:33:02.000 --> 00:33:06.000 Lake at the bottom of it. It's the biggest super fun site. 00:33:06.000 --> 00:33:10.000 A real mess. And this is what we've been doing. 00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:13.000 We've been pulling resources 00:33:13.000 --> 00:33:17.000 Not to say that the copper isn't valuable. I mean I'm thankful that we've 00:33:17.000 --> 00:33:21.000 Gotten to use that resource and to some degree 00:33:21.000 --> 00:33:26.000 It can be reused and recycled, so that's, that's a good thing, but 00:33:26.000 --> 00:33:30.000 But we've been kind of just saying Yeah, let's go and get what we can. 00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:33.000 And that's a tough place to be with nonrenewable resources. 00:33:33.000 --> 00:33:37.000 We're treating the planet like it's kind of an endless storehouse. 00:33:37.000 --> 00:33:41.000 And what we need to do differently is change the rules. 00:33:41.000 --> 00:33:45.000 And these are three simple operating rules that Herman Daly 00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:51.000 Who is an ecological economist, came up with for different kinds of resources. 00:33:51.000 --> 00:33:56.000 I think for renewables it's pretty easy to understand. Like if you've got a fish stock, 00:33:56.000 --> 00:33:60.000 Don't catch fish faster than they can reproduce. 00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:05.000 And then you know there's been some policy work on that 00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:08.000 And you know, some progress, but we still 00:34:08.000 --> 00:34:12.000 Have a long way to go. I mean the fisheries situation is dire. 00:34:12.000 --> 00:34:17.000 Wastes are also pretty easy to understand, I think, you know. If you can figure out 00:34:17.000 --> 00:34:20.000 What the environment can safely absorb 00:34:20.000 --> 00:34:23.000 Well don't go past that. Emit wastes no 00:34:23.000 --> 00:34:28.000 Faster than they can be safely absorbed. For non renewables, it's a little trickier 00:34:28.000 --> 00:34:31.000 Because nonrenewables by their nature are 00:34:31.000 --> 00:34:36.000 Unsustainable. You can't keep using them. They get used up, so 00:34:36.000 --> 00:34:41.000 The idea there is you would need to find renewable substitutes. 00:34:41.000 --> 00:34:45.000 So basically try to set up a system where you deplete 00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:50.000 Renewables only at the rate which you can find renewable substitutes. 00:34:50.000 --> 00:34:54.000 So if you had an economy that was operating off of these rules, 00:34:54.000 --> 00:34:58.000 You know, you would find an equilibrium size and you would be 00:34:58.000 --> 00:34:61.000 Maintaining your renewables. You would be 00:35:01.000 --> 00:35:05.000 Transitioning from non renewables to renewables and 00:35:05.000 --> 00:35:08.000 You would have a safe amount of waste emission. 00:35:08.000 --> 00:35:11.000 And again I think this comes down to values. 00:35:11.000 --> 00:35:16.000 If we're going to have an economy like that, we've got to start valuing 00:35:16.000 --> 00:35:19.000 Things a lot differently and that 00:35:19.000 --> 00:35:26.000 In one sense means we've got to do a way better job of conserving the ecosystems that we've got 00:35:26.000 --> 00:35:29.000 And looking at the rights of nature. 00:35:29.000 --> 00:35:32.000 And there's been a lot of progress on that front as well. 00:35:32.000 --> 00:35:36.000 The nation of Ecuador, the state of Montana, surprisingly, which is where 00:35:36.000 --> 00:35:40.000 Butte is from that earlier slide, both have written in 00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:44.000 Rights of nature pieces to their constitutions. 00:35:44.000 --> 00:35:49.000 So I think we're finally starting to swing a little bit that direction. 00:35:49.000 --> 00:35:53.000 But without that value change, we're not going to get 00:35:53.000 --> 00:35:56.000 New rules for the economy. And this is interesting to me. 00:35:56.000 --> 00:35:60.000 In the state of Oregon, there was a survey done 00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:04.000 The response was that eighty eight percent of Oregonians agreed 00:36:04.000 --> 00:36:10.000 That the United States would be better off if we all consumed less. 00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:13.000 Eighty eight percent! I can't think of anything in politics 00:36:13.000 --> 00:36:16.000 Where eighty eight percent have said 00:36:16.000 --> 00:36:20.000 Yeah, let's do that! And 00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:25.000 So you know, I think we're starting to develop a foundation. People realize it 00:36:25.000 --> 00:36:29.000 But the economy is not set up for us to consume less. 00:36:29.000 --> 00:36:33.000 It's set up structurally for us to consume more. 00:36:33.000 --> 00:36:38.000 So if we all kind fo believe we' be better off if we consumed less, 00:36:38.000 --> 00:36:43.000 Then we need to figure out how to set up an economy that can do that, and that's what those pillars 00:36:43.000 --> 00:36:46.000 In that structure are about. 00:36:46.000 --> 00:36:50.000 You know, I've just highlighted two of them, but you really need to do all of them 00:36:50.000 --> 00:36:54.000 Because if you just do one of these and try to tweak our current system, 00:36:54.000 --> 00:36:59.000 Chances are you're going to fail and chances are you're going to have all kinds of problems. 00:36:59.000 --> 00:36:61.000 And this is the tricky thing about 00:37:01.000 --> 00:37:05.000 Economics and economic policy. I mean I don't want dump on economists 00:37:05.000 --> 00:37:09.000 at least not too much, but 00:37:09.000 --> 00:37:13.000 There are often unintended consequences, and there's, you know, 00:37:13.000 --> 00:37:19.000 This pressure to get it right, and you know, we don't exactly know how things are going to go. 00:37:19.000 --> 00:37:21.000 You know societies are complex. The environment is 00:37:21.000 --> 00:37:25.000 Complex. The economies are complex. But 00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:29.000 In looking at any one of these, you've really got to say Okay if we're doing that 00:37:29.000 --> 00:37:32.000 Then we better do that. So just an example, if you limit 00:37:32.000 --> 00:37:36.000 The throughput of materials and energy in the economy, 00:37:36.000 --> 00:37:41.000 Well, you know, now the size of the total pie is set. 00:37:41.000 --> 00:37:44.000 You better figure out how to make sure everybody's getting 00:37:44.000 --> 00:37:48.000 You know a fair share of that pie. 00:37:48.000 --> 00:37:54.000 You know, you really need to have this policy of achieving fair distribution of income and wealth. 00:37:54.000 --> 00:37:58.000 So you, if you start looking at it, you can see just how intertwined 00:37:58.000 --> 00:37:60.000 These policies are. 00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:04.000 And it's important to recognize that you can't do this just all in one day. 00:38:04.000 --> 00:38:08.000 You can't just wave a Green New Deal policy idea 00:38:08.000 --> 00:38:12.000 And say Yay, we've done it! There's going to be a lot of starts and stops. 00:38:12.000 --> 00:38:14.000 I want to say we shouldn't let challenges 00:38:14.000 --> 00:38:20.000 We shouldn't let the newness of the idea, we shouldn't some hard work 00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:23.000 Get in our way of doing this. 00:38:23.000 --> 00:38:28.000 The time to get going on building the economy that we need is now. 00:38:28.000 --> 00:38:32.000 Now, this is a little bit of an aside, but 00:38:32.000 --> 00:38:37.000 A lot of people will say without growth, then you're squashing 00:38:37.000 --> 00:38:42.000 Technological progress and that's what's going to save us. You know, and there's this kind of 00:38:42.000 --> 00:38:44.000 We've called it, my colleagues and I, 00:38:44.000 --> 00:38:48.000 We'll think of something ism. You know, it's like this belief that 00:38:48.000 --> 00:38:53.000 Technology will save us. That we will get out of this mess 00:38:53.000 --> 00:38:57.000 Strictly through innovation with the way the economy works now. 00:38:57.000 --> 00:38:61.000 And it's a great idea in the sense of 00:39:01.000 --> 00:39:05.000 You know, it's kind of nice to believe. It has a science fictiony feel. 00:39:05.000 --> 00:39:09.000 And I mean I really used to be in this camp because it's also very optimistic, but 00:39:09.000 --> 00:39:12.000 Just start looking at technology. I mean, 00:39:12.000 --> 00:39:16.000 Again, I'm thankful to be in an age where we have 00:39:16.000 --> 00:39:19.000 Such technology at our fingertips. 00:39:19.000 --> 00:39:24.000 You could take an entire library of information and shove it onto a tiny little computer chip 00:39:24.000 --> 00:39:28.000 And save a lot of resources, and that's amazing. 00:39:28.000 --> 00:39:32.000 You can also take that little computer chip and run a machine like this, 00:39:32.000 --> 00:39:36.000 Which is the the world's largest digging machine. 00:39:36.000 --> 00:39:39.000 Right? So you can have technology that 00:39:39.000 --> 00:39:43.000 It all comes down to what is it and how do you use it 00:39:43.000 --> 00:39:48.000 When you're looking at what are the impacts on society and on the environment. 00:39:48.000 --> 00:39:53.000 And then there's the question of how appropriate is the technology 00:39:53.000 --> 00:39:55.000 That we're deploying. 00:39:55.000 --> 00:39:59.000 Gosh, I don't want to insult humanity in general, maybe I'll just insult myself. 00:39:59.000 --> 00:39:63.000 I do really stupid stuff sometimes, so you know, it's not always 00:40:03.000 --> 00:40:09.000 Clear that we're going to deploy technology in the way that makes the most sense. 00:40:09.000 --> 00:40:13.000 So if you are coming around to the idea that the 00:40:13.000 --> 00:40:16.000 Scale of the economy is important, 00:40:16.000 --> 00:40:20.000 And that we've got to limit, that there are limits to growth. 00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:24.000 And that we can have a different kind of economy 00:40:24.000 --> 00:40:29.000 Well, that puts you in sort of the let's call it the non mainstream boat 00:40:29.000 --> 00:40:32.000 Of economics, and 00:40:32.000 --> 00:40:37.000 And you know, people often, when you start internalizing this stuff you say well, what do I do? 00:40:37.000 --> 00:40:41.000 What should I, what should I go out there and do? And so 00:40:41.000 --> 00:40:47.000 I don't offer what I would say you know here follow these exact steps, but 00:40:47.000 --> 00:40:50.000 What I would say is just learn 00:40:50.000 --> 00:40:54.000 What you can. Learn something, say something and then do something. 00:40:54.000 --> 00:40:57.000 And let's take a look at learning something first. 00:40:57.000 --> 00:40:64.000 I know that you can learn something because I know that I did. I had this poster right before I went to college. 00:41:04.000 --> 00:41:07.000 You know I was sort of raised in that materialistic 00:41:07.000 --> 00:41:13.000 Consumerist, the way to win the game is to own the most toys and 00:41:13.000 --> 00:41:17.000 You know, there's so many good things 00:41:17.000 --> 00:41:24.000 To read to understand that show that this is not the pathway to a healthier, happy life. 00:41:24.000 --> 00:41:28.000 As Mark said, I work with the Post Carbon Institute. We put out the 00:41:28.000 --> 00:41:33.000 Publication resilience dot org, everyday articles that explore these 00:41:33.000 --> 00:41:36.000 Topics in detail from experts around the world. 00:41:36.000 --> 00:41:40.000 There are a lot of organizations that are trying to reimagine 00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:43.000 A better economy. There's plenty of books to read 00:41:43.000 --> 00:41:48.000 You know, like I mentioned Herman Daly. He's got foundational books on 00:41:48.000 --> 00:41:52.000 On ecological economics, on the transition to a steady state 00:41:52.000 --> 00:41:56.000 Or non growing economy. If your attention span is shorter, there's good 00:41:56.000 --> 00:41:61.000 Kids books to read, there's movies to watch. And I have to plug this 00:42:01.000 --> 00:42:04.000 New podcast that I'm cohosting. 00:42:04.000 --> 00:42:08.000 It's very irreverent, so it's not for all tastes, but it's called Crazy Town. 00:42:08.000 --> 00:42:12.000 And we explore a lot of the topics of what we're ding with 00:42:12.000 --> 00:42:15.000 Energy, what we're doing in the economy 00:42:15.000 --> 00:42:19.000 And some ideas for meaningful actions. 00:42:19.000 --> 00:42:23.000 So when you start learning this stuff, and you know, you start internalizing it, you can 00:42:23.000 --> 00:42:27.000 Kind of feel like Alice in Wonderland, falling down the rabbit hole and 00:42:27.000 --> 00:42:30.000 Seeing the world completely differently. 00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:36.000 And so I suggest that if you find yourself in this position that you move to the next, 00:42:36.000 --> 00:42:40.000 Which is to say something. And by saying something, 00:42:40.000 --> 00:42:44.000 The main reason I think has to do with this. This is a quote from 00:42:44.000 --> 00:42:47.000 From Milton Friedman, who said that 00:42:47.000 --> 00:42:52.000 reads slide 00:42:52.000 --> 00:42:56.000 reads slide 00:42:56.000 --> 00:42:59.000 reads slide 00:42:59.000 --> 00:42:64.000 And then he goes on to say that those ideas, you know, are then used to make 00:43:04.000 --> 00:43:09.000 What was politically impossible become the politically inevitable. 00:43:09.000 --> 00:43:12.000 And so we're going to face crises. 00:43:12.000 --> 00:43:15.000 I'm, you know, fairly sure of that. 00:43:15.000 --> 00:43:19.000 And the ideas that are lying around are going to be dependent on what 00:43:19.000 --> 00:43:22.000 We are talking about, what's on the public's mind. 00:43:22.000 --> 00:43:25.000 So I think that's a role we can all play. 00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:31.000 This can be really simple, you know. You get messaging like this all the time, buy, consume. 00:43:31.000 --> 00:43:36.000 By saying something, you can just simply ask Why? 00:43:36.000 --> 00:43:40.000 The most important question any college student can ask, why. 00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:44.000 Feel free to question me, question your professors, 00:43:44.000 --> 00:43:48.000 question certainly what the advertisers are telling you. 00:43:48.000 --> 00:43:52.000 we also have examples of incredible speakers, 00:43:52.000 --> 00:43:56.000 this is Greta, from Sweden, a teenager, 00:43:56.000 --> 00:43:60.000 We can't all get a world wide audience with a microphone, 00:44:00.000 --> 00:44:04.000 like she has, she has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, 00:44:04.000 --> 00:44:08.000 you know, an incredible story. But, we can try. 00:44:08.000 --> 00:44:12.000 Right, we can all, I think one of the things she 00:44:12.000 --> 00:44:16.000 is exemplified, is courage. I mean can you imagine? 00:44:16.000 --> 00:44:20.000 Myself as a 15 year old getting a microphone in front of a 00:44:20.000 --> 00:44:24.000 international audience. Thats an incredible amount of courage. 00:44:24.000 --> 00:44:28.000 If you take nothing else from her, take some courage to say what needs to 00:44:28.000 --> 00:44:32.000 be said. And we can all do this. We can all sit with 00:44:32.000 --> 00:44:36.000 groups of friends and just have important discussions, 00:44:36.000 --> 00:44:40.000 Ok you learn something, you say something, 00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:44.000 then you go out and do something. This is probably most important if you 00:44:44.000 --> 00:44:48.000 are feeling like you are internalizing some ideas about the economy 00:44:48.000 --> 00:44:52.000 and environment, becoming more and more congruent in your own 00:44:52.000 --> 00:44:56.000 life with that. Its really important I think for your own 00:44:56.000 --> 00:44:60.000 for at least for me its been important for my psychological health 00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:04.000 and just to feel part of the solution. AT post carbon 00:45:04.000 --> 00:45:08.000 institute, we recommend that you focus on resilience, 00:45:08.000 --> 00:45:12.000 in yourself, in your household, in your community. 00:45:12.000 --> 00:45:16.000 Especially. And the idea of resilience comes mostly out of 00:45:16.000 --> 00:45:20.000 ecological science, and the idea of it is that you can have 00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:24.000 an ecosystem, like a forest, and a disturbance , 00:45:24.000 --> 00:45:28.000 can come through, like a forest fire, and that changes the 00:45:28.000 --> 00:45:32.000 forest incredibly, even changes it over the long term. But it is 00:45:32.000 --> 00:45:36.000 still maintains its identity as a forest, and 00:45:36.000 --> 00:45:40.000 there are still opportunities for it to change and evolve, 00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:44.000 And we are trying to apply that thinking to our human community 00:45:44.000 --> 00:45:48.000 as well. So when you think about a community, resilience 00:45:48.000 --> 00:45:52.000 there, is the ability of that community to maintain 00:45:52.000 --> 00:45:56.000 and evolve its identity in the face of its changes 00:45:56.000 --> 00:45:60.000 while cultivating environmental, social, and economic sustainability 00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:04.000 and so anything that you do that helps your 00:46:04.000 --> 00:46:08.000 community be more resilient, is going to be a helpful thing. 00:46:08.000 --> 00:46:12.000 and what that really boils down to, is that we are going to need 00:46:12.000 --> 00:46:16.000 communities that are more able to produce 00:46:16.000 --> 00:46:20.000 locally, with less amounts of energy inputs, less 00:46:20.000 --> 00:46:24.000 material inputs, and the idea is to work towards where we can all 00:46:24.000 --> 00:46:28.000 thrive in the places we live, the ecoregions that we inhabit 00:46:28.000 --> 00:46:32.000 And that is really I think one of the most 00:46:32.000 --> 00:46:36.000 important functions we can have, is building our resilience into our 00:46:36.000 --> 00:46:40.000 communities. The earth, to me its 00:46:40.000 --> 00:46:44.000 awe inspiringly beautiful. Its kinda sad 00:46:44.000 --> 00:46:48.000 that we are in here today. Its a beautiful day outside, we should 00:46:48.000 --> 00:46:52.000 at least take a moment to appreciate 00:46:52.000 --> 00:46:55.000 We were gifted this inspiring place, 00:46:55.000 --> 00:46:60.000 to live and to be, and the question is, 00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:04.000 can we build an economy that is also inspired 00:47:04.000 --> 00:47:08.000 that fits within this beautiful place. 00:47:08.000 --> 00:47:12.000 And the real question about whether we can achieve 00:47:12.000 --> 00:47:16.000 that economy that fits 00:47:16.000 --> 00:47:20.000 that description is can we recognize when enough, 00:47:20.000 --> 00:47:24.000 is enough. So thank you all. I will take questions. 00:47:24.000 --> 00:47:26.000 applause 00:47:26.000 --> 00:47:30.000 Its a question about population, and how do we 00:47:30.000 --> 00:47:33.000 how do we stabilize our population. I mean, the way you said it, 00:47:33.000 --> 00:47:36.000 was, I am 85 years old, are they gonna 00:47:36.000 --> 00:47:40.000 come for me, or are they not gonna let you all become 85 year olds. 00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:44.000 When you start talking about stabilizing population, 00:47:44.000 --> 00:47:48.000 you have opened up a hornets nest of political debate, 00:47:48.000 --> 00:47:52.000 the best ideas for 00:47:52.000 --> 00:47:56.000 stabilizing population though have to do with more along the lines 00:47:56.000 --> 00:47:60.000 of educating girls, providing 00:48:00.000 --> 00:48:04.000 access to contraceptives, things that are 00:48:04.000 --> 00:48:08.000 way less controversial, and actually get the job done. 00:48:08.000 --> 00:48:12.000 I don't think anyone is in favor of whatever the 00:48:12.000 --> 00:48:16.000 death squad knocking on the door and saying oh your lottery number 00:48:16.000 --> 00:48:20.000 is up, come with me. So we have got to find benign ways 00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:24.000 o achieve it. And I just wanted to mention, remember 00:48:28.000 --> 00:48:32.000 on and so forth, and it was sad. Most of us read a 00:48:32.000 --> 00:48:36.000 State Newspaper out of Portland and they ran 00:48:36.000 --> 00:48:40.000 a very fine three part piece, even in a blue 00:48:40.000 --> 00:48:44.000 and green kind of state, it was remarkable how many times 00:48:44.000 --> 00:48:48.000 corporate interests in Oregon provided environmental 00:48:48.000 --> 00:48:52.000 bill and I was shocked because I did not know that existed 00:48:52.000 --> 00:48:56.000 and that was depressing to me, cause I thought we were doing better Rob, 00:48:56.000 --> 00:48:60.000 but we are not. Whats your thoughts on politics, a political agenda. 00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:04.000 You raise a really good point about how much power corporate 00:49:04.000 --> 00:49:08.000 corporations have within our system of governance, and it is 00:49:08.000 --> 00:49:12.000 I have used this phrase a couple times in this talk, I think thats gotten out of wack, 00:49:12.000 --> 00:49:16.000 and the idea of corporate person, the courts have ruled 00:49:16.000 --> 00:49:20.000 that a corporation has the same rights as a person, 00:49:20.000 --> 00:49:24.000 and that seems, I don't 00:49:24.000 --> 00:49:28.000 it jut, I don't know. Maybe I am the only one, but that seems 00:49:28.000 --> 00:49:32.000 really weird to me. A corporation 00:49:32.000 --> 00:49:36.000 should be for what it was chartered for, to do 00:49:36.000 --> 00:49:40.000 some project, to run some enterprise, 00:49:40.000 --> 00:49:44.000 so the amount of power that we grant, and you know the 00:49:44.000 --> 00:49:48.000 sort of unlimited amount of supporting campaigns 00:49:48.000 --> 00:49:52.000 you know, that just leads to the potential 00:49:52.000 --> 00:49:56.000 instance of corruption. Yeah, I agree, 00:49:56.000 --> 00:49:60.000 we have got to clean that much money out of politics 00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:04.000 especially if the 00:50:04.000 --> 00:50:08.000 interest is being used, just the further, more padding of a very small number, 00:50:08.000 --> 00:50:12.000 of peoples pockets. So yeah, you are not 00:50:12.000 --> 00:50:16.000 gonna get a sustainable and fair economy if 00:50:16.000 --> 00:50:20.000 its basically being undermined by very 00:50:20.000 --> 00:50:24.000 few wealthy individuals who are taking more power 00:50:24.000 --> 00:50:28.000 that they should have. I liked what you were saying about 00:50:28.000 --> 00:50:32.000 the economic stand point of it. I mean, if 00:50:32.000 --> 00:50:36.000 realistically the world runs on money, so to get a lot of people 00:50:36.000 --> 00:50:40.000 to get on this, there has to got to be an economical 00:50:40.000 --> 00:50:44.000 sustainable way to do it, and I wanted to ask what your though was 00:50:44.000 --> 00:50:48.000 on that Green New Deal, cause I read some about it when it came out, 00:50:48.000 --> 00:50:52.000 it seemed like it was at least a good start in setting it up correctly 00:50:52.000 --> 00:50:56.000 but do you have any thoughts on that? yeah, first part of your question about money 00:50:56.000 --> 00:50:60.000 running the world, I think you are right. We do 00:51:00.000 --> 00:51:04.000 tend to as a society to think of things in monetary 00:51:04.000 --> 00:51:08.000 terms, and I think that might be a mistake. 00:51:08.000 --> 00:51:12.000 Something that we need to get straight on money, is we think of money as wealth 00:51:12.000 --> 00:51:16.000 but money is just a claim on wealth. Real wealth 00:51:16.000 --> 00:51:20.000 is this building, the vehicles 00:51:20.000 --> 00:51:24.000 we have out there, its dinner, its things that we actually 00:51:24.000 --> 00:51:28.000 use. Money is just a claim on that wealth, 00:51:28.000 --> 00:51:32.000 thats gotten out of sorts because there is so much money, so much 00:51:32.000 --> 00:51:36.000 claim on the real wealth that you been to wonder if 00:51:36.000 --> 00:51:40.000 everybody tries to turn in their claim at the same time there isn't 00:51:40.000 --> 00:51:44.000 enough wealth to actually cover all that, thats part of 00:51:44.000 --> 00:51:48.000 if you know you look at the chapter on reforming the monetary system, 00:51:48.000 --> 00:51:52.000 but onto the Green New Deal. I read the 00:51:52.000 --> 00:51:56.000 what was in the Green New Deal 00:51:56.000 --> 00:51:60.000 and it starts off with a very fact to evidence based hey 00:52:00.000 --> 00:52:04.000 this is what's happening with climate and hey we need to do something 00:52:04.000 --> 00:52:08.000 different. We need to get off of fossil fuels, we need to switch to a renewable 00:52:08.000 --> 00:52:12.000 energy economy, I am right on board, yes, 00:52:12.000 --> 00:52:16.000 agree, the only quibble that I have especially in all 00:52:16.000 --> 00:52:20.000 the rhetoric around it is that a lot of people are saying 00:52:20.000 --> 00:52:24.000 we will do this and we will grow the economy, kind of like the quote from 00:52:24.000 --> 00:52:28.000 the On Hell Gueria 00:52:28.000 --> 00:52:32.000 at the OACD, and I think we need to be honest about 00:52:32.000 --> 00:52:36.000 this. I we make the transition to a renewable energy economy 00:52:36.000 --> 00:52:40.000 thats a very different society than what we have here. 00:52:40.000 --> 00:52:44.000 That has a lot to do with the energy density of fossil fuels. 00:52:44.000 --> 00:52:48.000 Renewables are just not as energy dense, 00:52:48.000 --> 00:52:52.000 so but we need to make that change anyway and it might 00:52:52.000 --> 00:52:56.000 end up being a better life, but it's a very different economy. So I 00:52:56.000 --> 00:52:60.000 really do appreciate what the politicians are trying 00:53:00.000 --> 00:53:04.000 to do with the Green new Deal and I think we should be discussing it as much as 00:53:04.000 --> 00:53:08.000 possible and have very honest conversations about 00:53:08.000 --> 00:53:12.000 the changes that we will be invoking. Not 00:53:12.000 --> 00:53:16.000 its not just put a panel on the roof, get rid of the oil, and keep 00:53:16.000 --> 00:53:20.000 doing more of what we already are doing. Its a very different society if you are 00:53:20.000 --> 00:53:24.000 powering it that way. So you mentioned getting 00:53:24.000 --> 00:53:28.000 the fact that a lot of the economists talk about when we talk about 00:53:28.000 --> 00:53:32.000 like stopping growth or slowing down growth that it will lead to larger 00:53:32.000 --> 00:53:36.000 scale unemployment. And thats my mane concern when it comes to 00:53:36.000 --> 00:53:40.000 changing to these new systems, because I am in favor for instance of 00:53:40.000 --> 00:53:44.000 not reproducing until all kids that are in the system 00:53:44.000 --> 00:53:48.000 are taken care of, and until we do something better about our population. 00:53:48.000 --> 00:53:52.000 In that same vein I am concerned about 00:53:52.000 --> 00:53:56.000 how like if you can answer this quickly 00:53:56.000 --> 00:53:60.000 since we have little time, how do we manage to not 00:54:00.000 --> 00:54:04.000 have mass scale unemployment and economic instability and problem 00:54:04.000 --> 00:54:08.000 when we have a system that up until now pretty much 00:54:08.000 --> 00:54:12.000 all of human history I think we have been trying to get more stuff. 00:54:12.000 --> 00:54:16.000 So, yeah the 00:54:16.000 --> 00:54:20.000 policy ideas that we talk about for jobs 00:54:20.000 --> 00:54:24.000 I mean one thing there is a problem. We are doing jobs that don't need 00:54:24.000 --> 00:54:28.000 to be done right now, simply because they can earn us 00:54:28.000 --> 00:54:32.000 money, and some of those jobs are really even detrimental 00:54:32.000 --> 00:54:36.000 meanwhile there are a lot of jobs that need to be done 00:54:36.000 --> 00:54:40.000 that we aren't doing. An example would be, if we know were are 00:54:40.000 --> 00:54:44.000 we have all these environmental issues and problems with 00:54:44.000 --> 00:54:48.000 ecosystem degredation, then we should be working on ecological restoration. 00:54:48.000 --> 00:54:52.000 On a much bigger scale than we are now. 00:54:52.000 --> 00:54:56.000 So with jobs, you have to first start with what's 00:54:56.000 --> 00:54:60.000 the goal that we are after, which is that meaningful work, 00:55:00.000 --> 00:55:04.000 and having it be available for all. So for instance 00:55:04.000 --> 00:55:08.000 one of the things that economists point to as a huge success story is the rise 00:55:08.000 --> 00:55:12.000 in productivity per worker. Each worker can put out a lot 00:55:12.000 --> 00:55:16.000 more product than what we used to be able to do, and thats largely 00:55:16.000 --> 00:55:20.000 the result of us using fossil fuels and using technologies 00:55:20.000 --> 00:55:24.000 to take advantage of that. But 00:55:24.000 --> 00:55:28.000 what have we done with that productivity gain. We have put it all in that 00:55:28.000 --> 00:55:32.000 into making and consuming more stuff. So 00:55:32.000 --> 00:55:36.000 but you can do something else with that. You can cut work time, 00:55:36.000 --> 00:55:40.000 if we improve our productivity that much, maybe we should only be working 00:55:40.000 --> 00:55:44.000 a 20 hour week instead of a 40 hour week, and that opens 00:55:44.000 --> 00:55:48.000 up a lot more room for employment for more people 00:55:48.000 --> 00:55:52.000 as you make that transition. There is also the possibility of guaranteed 00:55:52.000 --> 00:55:56.000 jobs, we talked a little bit about the Green New Deal, to go back to the New Deal 00:55:56.000 --> 00:55:60.000 one of the most popular programs was the Civilian 00:56:00.000 --> 00:56:04.000 Conservation Corps, which put tons of people 00:56:04.000 --> 00:56:08.000 to work who needed to work, learned valuable skills, went on 00:56:08.000 --> 00:56:12.000 to become productive members of their communities, 00:56:12.000 --> 00:56:16.000 and economies, and if you go back and look at the history o it you can 00:56:16.000 --> 00:56:20.000 read some incredible accounts of people loving their experience 00:56:20.000 --> 00:56:24.000 in the CCC, so we can look at programs 00:56:24.000 --> 00:56:28.000 like that, but there are a lot of ways to see about 00:56:28.000 --> 00:56:32.000 how do we secure jobs if we know the economy is not going to be 00:56:32.000 --> 00:56:36.000 growing and that would be part of its structure. Thank you 00:56:36.000 --> 00:56:40.000 music 00:56:40.000 --> 00:56:43.000 music