The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast

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00:00:57.420 Hello everyone. I'm extremely pleased today and privileged, I would say, to sit down with Bjorn Lomberg,

00:01:16.280 who I regard as the world's foremost commentator on environmental and sustainability matters in the best possible sense,

00:01:24.660 and Ralph Schollhammer, a journalist who's been working in Europe diligently covering such ill-covered topics as the Dutch farmers' protest.

00:01:34.340 And I recorded a video earlier this week with Michael Yon, who is a war correspondent and a journalist who's also been covering the farmers' protests,

00:01:44.520 and he made a variety of prognostications about the dismal prospects of the coming fall.

00:01:49.300 And I thought I would talk to Bjorn and Ralph in some detail about global issues, particularly with Bjorn,

00:01:56.740 because, as I said, he's incredibly well-versed in such matters.

00:02:01.860 And then with Ralph, more particularly, about the rising wave of protests around the world, Canada, the U.S., Europe,

00:02:10.160 while in other countries as well, and see if we can bring some clarity to the issue.

00:02:14.300 So, I'll start with a bio of Bjorn and Ralph so that people know who I'm talking to,

00:02:20.340 and then we'll jump right into the discussion.

00:02:23.400 Ralph Schollhammer is an assistant professor in political science and economics at Webster University, Vienna.

00:02:31.140 In addition to his teaching and research commitments, he is a regular contributor to the public discourse

00:02:36.820 and has been published in Newsweek, the Jerusalem Post, the Washington Examiner, and the Wall Street Journal.

00:02:44.700 He also hosts his own podcast called The 1020, in which he talks to guests about a wide range of issues,

00:02:53.220 from Roman history to contemporary culture in the Western world, as well as global geopolitics.

00:02:59.000 Dr. Bjorn Lomborg, one of the world's foremost political thinkers,

00:03:07.120 researches, and this is the truth, the smartest ways to do good.

00:03:12.960 With his think tank, the Copenhagen Consensus,

00:03:17.360 he has worked with hundreds of the world's top economists and seven Nobel laureates

00:03:22.540 to find and promote the most effective solutions to the world's greatest challenges,

00:03:27.900 from disease and hunger to climate and education.

00:03:31.780 And so, if you're genuinely concerned about doing your duty to your culture and the planet,

00:03:36.700 Bjorn is a great person to know about, to read about, and to follow.

00:03:42.040 I think that might be more true of him than of any thinker on the policy front that I've ever encountered.

00:03:49.620 For his work, Lomborg was named one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World.

00:03:56.680 He's a visiting fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution,

00:04:00.280 and is a frequent commentator in print and broadcast media for outlets,

00:04:04.540 including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, CNN, Fox, and the BBC.

00:04:11.080 His monthly column is published in many languages by dozens of influential newspapers across all continents.

00:04:17.740 He's also a best-selling author whose books include

00:04:22.400 False Alarm, How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor,

00:04:30.660 and Fails to Fix the Planet.

00:04:33.560 Bjorn has discussed that book at some length on my podcasts, among many other places.

00:04:38.180 He's also written The Skeptical Environmentalist,

00:04:41.520 Cool It, How to Spend $75 Billion to Make the World a Better Place,

00:04:47.420 which is a fascinating read.

00:04:49.120 The Nobel Laureate's Guide to the Smartest Targets for the World, 2016 to 2030.

00:04:56.040 And Prioritizing Development,

00:04:59.380 A Cost-Benefit Analysis of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals.

00:05:04.980 So, welcome to you, Bjorn and Ralph.

00:05:08.900 I'm very much looking forward to our discussion today,

00:05:11.900 and hope that it will enlighten people as to the sorry state of European politics, let's say,

00:05:20.120 and bring some clarity to the discussion of the apocalyptic nightmare

00:05:25.080 that seems to be plaguing us above all else at the moment.

00:05:29.220 Bjorn, no doubt you've been watching what's happening on the European protest front,

00:05:34.380 and with the manufactured energy crisis,

00:05:36.800 and now with the manufactured food and fertilizer crisis.

00:05:40.300 And so, what do you see happening now, and what do you see coming?

00:05:47.100 It's very hard.

00:05:48.020 Yes, I have been watching, as I think Ralph has.

00:05:50.180 I mean, we both live here in Europe.

00:05:52.700 And I think the fundamental point is it's really hard to see what is going to happen.

00:05:57.660 I'm going to give you a little bit of background,

00:05:59.060 because I think it's important to sort of look at why is it we're so dependent

00:06:03.660 on Russian gas.

00:06:05.580 And the simple answer is because we have lots of renewables.

00:06:10.460 What do you get when you have lots of renewables?

00:06:12.840 You get lots of power when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing,

00:06:16.040 but you have none when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing.

00:06:20.540 And then you need backup power.

00:06:22.140 And in past times, we would get this from coal.

00:06:25.720 Now, coal emits a lot of CO2,

00:06:27.780 so a lot of the continent has simply gone rid of coal-fired power plants.

00:06:33.240 That's overall a good thing, partly because they pollute a lot.

00:06:36.740 They actually kill people through pollutants,

00:06:39.900 but also because they emit a lot of CO2, which obviously is also bad.

00:06:44.000 And so, we've gone to gas, but we have not delivered our own gas.

00:06:48.580 So, Europe has lots and lots of shale gas, potential shale gas, just like the U.S.

00:06:53.560 But we have not used it.

00:06:55.040 We have, to a large extent, been incredibly worried about shale gas.

00:06:58.940 Oh, shale gas is probably going to create a lot of earthquakes,

00:07:02.140 or it's going to pollute the drinking water,

00:07:03.880 all those kinds of stories that you also heard in the U.S.

00:07:06.680 And again, remember, it's not that it was entirely untrue.

00:07:10.720 There are some problems with fracking in the U.S.,

00:07:13.280 but fundamentally, fracking has made the U.S. both much more energy independent,

00:07:18.600 and it has actually reduced dramatically the emissions of the U.S.

00:07:24.060 The U.S. has reduced its emissions more than any other country in the world over the last 10 years.

00:07:29.360 Europe did not do that because we had cheap Russian gas,

00:07:32.620 and now we're in this pickle.

00:07:34.640 So, fundamentally, it's because we don't like coal,

00:07:37.420 we love renewables, and then we need lots of gas,

00:07:40.180 and there we are right now.

00:07:41.300 And, of course, that is going to make us very, very vulnerable to pressure from Putin.

00:07:45.520 Everybody has been pointing that out before.

00:07:48.000 Well, let's dig into that a bit.

00:07:49.940 First of all, it was completely obvious that unidimensional dependence on the Russians

00:07:56.320 for vital energy sources was a bad strategic idea.

00:08:01.000 And that's even the case, I would say, in some sense,

00:08:03.840 if Russia was a clear ally and we weren't in a war with them,

00:08:07.400 because you don't want your entire economy so unresilient that you're dependent on a single source

00:08:14.580 for your fundamental resource.

00:08:16.880 And everyone who had any sense whatsoever could see that just as clearly as they could see the daylight sun.

00:08:23.280 And then the second issue here, and I don't think people do understand this,

00:08:27.620 is that every energy source has risks.

00:08:31.200 So, for example, if you put solar panels on your roof,

00:08:35.300 you pose a risk to the workmen who install it because they fall off the roof.

00:08:39.800 And you might think, well, that's trivial danger,

00:08:41.960 but way more people are killed installing solar panels every year

00:08:45.460 than are killed by nuclear power, for example.

00:08:48.100 And so every energy source has its risks.

00:08:51.020 And, you know, I grew up in northern Alberta,

00:08:53.160 and people had fracked there for decades.

00:08:56.140 No one was concerned about it in the least.

00:08:58.120 And so then when everyone started to short out about the dangers of fracking,

00:09:02.620 we all knew, people that I knew, knew that that was just rubbish.

00:09:07.700 But even more importantly, if you are concerned environmentally,

00:09:12.460 and there are some reasons to be concerned environmentally,

00:09:16.060 you would have to point to the fact that the Americans

00:09:18.640 and their success with fracking drove their carbon emissions down 15%, I believe.

00:09:25.100 And as you pointed out, they're the only industrialized country that has managed this.

00:09:30.040 And so if you were really concerned about the environment

00:09:32.300 and not just an idiot communist anti-capitalist,

00:09:36.020 you would note that and you'd think, well, this is a lot better than the alternative,

00:09:40.380 which is high energy prices, which are hard on the poor,

00:09:44.160 hyper-dependence on the Russians as single source energy.

00:09:47.360 And then, well, and then the fact that if you don't frack,

00:09:53.740 you have to turn to alternative energy sources that are going to pollute or leave you vulnerable.

00:09:58.540 Now, is there anything wrong with that analysis, even from the pro-environmental front?

00:10:03.720 So I think the fundamental point here is that we were so worried about global warming

00:10:08.060 that we forgot to realize we need to be worried about a lot of other things,

00:10:12.880 like, for instance, being security dependent on Russian gas.

00:10:16.940 So look, if we had a wonderful, peacefully coexisting world,

00:10:22.760 there's nothing wrong with getting your power from other places,

00:10:25.440 because actually, you know, where they can do it most effectively is probably a better idea.

00:10:30.120 But obviously, we don't live in that world.

00:10:32.180 And I think it's been clear for most people, at least for a decade or two,

00:10:35.740 that Putin was probably not our best ally.

00:10:38.560 And so clearly, we should have been more concerned.

00:10:41.700 This is what happens.

00:10:42.840 I think this is sort of the step back we need to take.

00:10:45.720 This is what happens when you only worry about global warming.

00:10:49.480 If global warming is the only thing on your radar,

00:10:52.540 you obviously forget all the other things.

00:10:54.660 There's a new survey from OECD that showed, of all the OECD countries,

00:10:59.740 they asked adults and representative segment of adults for all OECD countries.

00:11:05.780 60% of them believe that it's likely global warming will lead to the end of mankind.

00:11:12.240 If you think this is the end of the world, then obviously nothing else matters.

00:11:17.260 It is not.

00:11:18.320 Global warming is a problem, yes, but it's not by any means the end of the world.

00:11:22.380 And one way to look at that is, you know, we've just seen a lot of heat waves,

00:11:26.140 and those are horrible.

00:11:27.360 And remember, heat waves are damaging, and they will kill some people.

00:11:32.060 They're definitely dangerous, but after all, they will probably kill, you know,

00:11:37.360 in the order of a couple of thousand people.

00:11:39.300 Remember, every winter, we probably see about 300,000 to 600,000 people die from cold in Europe.

00:11:46.660 We don't have a good sense of proportion if we're only focused on the,

00:11:51.140 and it's actually a lot more so, 100,000, 200,000 people that actually die from heat

00:11:55.120 across the year.

00:11:56.340 But forget the many, many more that die from cold.

00:11:59.040 And that's what we're going to, sorry, that's what we're going to see this winter

00:12:02.880 when we run out of sufficient fossil fuels, and some people are going to start freezing.

00:12:10.100 We will be much, much more worried about cold waves than heat waves.

00:12:14.540 But that's not how the media present it.

00:12:16.200 That's why we're in the trouble.

00:12:18.320 Can I jump in real quick here?

00:12:19.240 Because I think what LeBron said was so interesting.

00:12:21.700 And because you mentioned kind of there is this focus on global warming,

00:12:25.100 and you think you're right, but could you maybe dissect a little bit more?

00:12:27.740 Is it really the focus on global warming as global warming?

00:12:31.500 Or is it also a little bit the focus on global warming as kind of this ideological struggle

00:12:35.940 that fulfills almost an emotional need for many people, much more than an environmental need?

00:12:41.380 What I mean by this is, for example, why is there no Manhattan-like project into nuclear fusion

00:12:46.860 or into nuclear energy in general?

00:12:48.740 I think we have, and you mentioned this in your writing so many times,

00:12:51.380 there are many tools we have at our disposal that could really help with global warming.

00:12:54.820 But sometimes, I'm exaggerating here slightly, but sometimes I almost feel like

00:12:58.920 that some might don't want to go global warming fully away

00:13:02.340 because they kind of poured all their heart and soul into it.

00:13:05.440 I mean, you know, in the past, right, we had acid rain, we had the ozone layer,

00:13:08.780 and there was kind of global action taken to address this

00:13:11.540 because it was seen as a technical problem.

00:13:13.660 But now, by the way, something I think we partially also see with COVID,

00:13:16.620 it kind of bleeds over into a, you know, a cultural moral problem.

00:13:20.380 I mean, this strike is much more difficult to overcome.

00:13:23.940 Ralph, it might be that, to some degree, we're wired to apprehend the apocalypse.

00:13:31.000 And part of the chronic psychological problem of mankind is where to put hell and the apocalypse

00:13:37.180 and Satan, for that matter, properly.

00:13:40.480 And I think we're apocalyptic because everybody knows in their heart of hearts

00:13:44.860 that everything comes to an end, and we have to contend with that.

00:13:48.860 Our lives come to an end. The lives of those we love come to an end.

00:13:52.180 Civilizations come to an end.

00:13:54.040 And we also know that there's an association between the morality of our actions

00:13:58.140 and the likelihood of a cataclysmic end.

00:14:01.320 And part of the utility of a functioning religious enterprise

00:14:05.340 is to help us manage those apocalyptic visions

00:14:09.420 without them contaminating everything we do.

00:14:12.740 Because it is hard, and Bjorn pointed to this,

00:14:15.220 if COVID is a disaster, then it's the only thing you should focus on.

00:14:18.960 And if environmental degradation is a disaster,

00:14:22.280 then it's the only thing you should focus on.

00:14:24.180 But it isn't the only thing you should focus on.

00:14:27.280 And one of the great advantages of Bjorn's books and works

00:14:30.800 and institute is that he's done what politicians are supposed to do,

00:14:36.260 which is to take a look at the broader context and to say,

00:14:38.800 well, what's the complete list of our problems?

00:14:42.820 And how do we intelligently wade our way through the whole set?

00:14:46.820 I mean, when we panicked about COVID, we blew our supply chains apart.

00:14:50.300 And however many millions of people we might have saved with the COVID reaction,

00:14:54.700 and I'm very dubious about any of those claims.

00:14:57.360 God only knows how many people we're going to doom now

00:14:59.820 because of supply chain disruptions and communication disruptions

00:15:03.380 between, say, Putin and the rest of the world because of COVID lockdowns.

00:15:08.480 Bjorn?

00:15:09.360 Yeah, no, I totally agree.

00:15:11.660 I think it's incredibly hard to imagine.

00:15:14.220 And I think, Ralph, you're absolutely right.

00:15:16.640 There is a lot of people who feel that recycling and all these things

00:15:22.100 sort of make sense in their life.

00:15:23.960 It's part of the thing that you do to feel like I'm a good citizen.

00:15:27.620 And in some ways, I constantly try to argue, well, shouldn't we talk about how effective this is?

00:15:34.320 And I think there's some part of this that we really need to confront.

00:15:38.940 I'm glad we can do that in this conversation.

00:15:41.320 Just one example that I think is so spot on, and you'll probably love this, Jordan.

00:15:48.280 A couple of weeks ago, as you well know, about a billion people are likely to be starving,

00:15:54.980 and this winter will probably be even more because we don't have enough food.

00:15:59.060 One of the ways you produce food in this world is through fertilizer.

00:16:03.260 Fertilizer is what drives it.

00:16:04.680 But of course, most fertilizers, most synthetic fertilizer is made with gas.

00:16:09.340 And so when the EU was approached, should we not make more fertilizer for the world?

00:16:14.560 They go, oh, but that's going to make us use more gas.

00:16:17.340 No, I think we'll not do that.

00:16:19.240 There's something morally wrong about this of saying, yeah, you know what?

00:16:23.100 You know, a couple hundred million people are going to starve, but at least we didn't use extra gas.

00:16:27.640 You know, the same way as much of the rich world is saying to the poor world,

00:16:31.720 you guys, you know, we got rich from using lots of fossil fuels, but you guys, you don't really need that.

00:16:37.720 Which, of course, to a very large extent, means leaving them in poverty.

00:16:41.800 And of course, they don't actually accept to do that.

00:16:44.460 And so I think there's a point, Ralph, to your argument of saying this is also a religion.

00:16:50.560 But on the other hand, I think if you're going to converse with people, if you're actually going to have a reasonable conversation with them,

00:16:57.240 I think it has to be about the facts.

00:16:59.540 So basically talking about what can you do, how much good will cutting a ton of CO2 do,

00:17:06.560 how much good will it do if you recycle a bottle, how much good will it do if you get more fertilizer for poor people?

00:17:14.700 And it turns out, not surprisingly, that most of the things that we focus a lot on are basically feel-good things.

00:17:21.920 They'll do very little, even for poor people, and even in 100 years.

00:17:26.080 Whereas many of the obvious things are these slightly boring things like getting, you know, people with tuberculosis, get them addressed.

00:17:34.800 Remember, again, tuberculosis is the world's leading infectious disease killer when there's not COVID.

00:17:39.400 But we don't care about it because we fixed it 100 years ago in the rich West.

00:17:44.660 But there's still lots of these issues.

00:17:46.940 And likewise, just to put out one more thing, about a billion people, so about a billion school kids,

00:17:53.720 have lost on average nine months because of lockdowns of schools during COVID.

00:17:58.360 This is probably the biggest loss.

00:18:00.360 So the World Bank estimate that by 2040, when these kids are out and actually being productive,

00:18:08.000 their world will be $1.4 trillion less rich every year because these kids are less well-educated.

00:18:15.900 How is that not our biggest challenge?

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00:19:54.080 Well, let's answer that.

00:19:59.260 Why is that not our biggest challenge?

00:20:01.020 And so we'll go back to the religious issue.

00:20:03.300 So if you configure the apocalypse and hell properly, then you take it upon yourself to carry a very heavy moral burden.

00:20:12.760 And that burden is to put your life together.

00:20:14.800 And that means to be productive and generous and honest and concerned with life more abundant for everyone.

00:20:24.520 And you have to retool your whole psyche in some sense to aim towards that.

00:20:29.120 And that takes, that's 100% dedication and a lifetime of effort.

00:20:33.720 But if you're worshipping at the altar of a false god, let's say, what you're looking for is shortcuts to put yourself in a position where you have the moral advantage and where you can claim reputation stakes because of that.

00:20:47.960 And all of this false moral posturing that comes along with these shallow analysis is, in my psychological estimation, nothing but a narcissistic trip to replace competence with the false competence of the Machiavellians and the psychopaths.

00:21:04.520 And because, I mean, your work struck me so hard, Bjorn, because I worked on the UN report on sustainable development for the Secretary General.

00:21:13.220 I worked on that for a couple of years.

00:21:14.580 And one of the things that really came to the forefront for me, there were two things, three.

00:21:18.980 One is, we stupidly overfished and destroyed the oceans.

00:21:22.380 That's a really nasty thing.

00:21:23.680 And we didn't have to do that.

00:21:25.520 The second was, oh, all the data shows that if you make poor people rich as fast as possible, they stop polluting and start caring about the environment.

00:21:35.040 So isn't that something?

00:21:36.840 We could make everyone rich and the planet would be better off.

00:21:40.440 And then the next thing was, well, what's the rank order of importance of our problems?

00:21:47.040 And I went back to the UN central agencies, authorities, a couple of times, the other people who were working on the report.

00:21:53.220 And there were many of them and said, well, you guys have 200 goals here or whatever it is, 400 or 169.

00:22:00.740 It's like, that's not any goals.

00:22:03.640 Goals have to be prioritized because you can't do 200 things at the same time.

00:22:10.320 And all 200 things aren't of equal importance.

00:22:12.760 And they said, well, there's a constituency for each of these goals.

00:22:16.000 And if we prioritize them, we'll annoy someone.

00:22:18.180 It's like, that's not a good reason.

00:22:20.940 And then next, we don't have a methodology for prioritization.

00:22:25.140 And I thought, well, that's a big problem.

00:22:26.660 Does anyone?

00:22:27.460 And the only one I came across, and maybe you could explain this a little bit.

00:22:30.960 The only one I came across was you.

00:22:34.240 And so you tackled this problem, which I thought was, I really thought that was a stroke of genius, Bjorn.

00:22:39.940 And if the Nobel Prize Committee had any sense, you would have been a recipient of the Peace Prize for this work because it's signally important.

00:22:47.780 So do you want to outline what you do and what you've concluded?

00:22:50.740 So thank you very much.

00:22:52.080 I mean, I should just say, what we're doing is not rocket science.

00:22:55.540 And as you point out, it's kind of obvious if you have 169 targets, which is what the UN has, you have no priorities.

00:23:03.700 And so we simply try to work with some of the best economists across the world to look at where can you spend an extra dollar or an extra rupee or an extra shilling or whatever your currency is and do the most good.

00:23:15.960 This is an objective question.

00:23:17.400 And, of course, you can have a lot of conversations about how do you value different things because, remember, you need to include everything.

00:23:26.060 So they're both going to be economic costs.

00:23:28.080 They're also going to be social costs.

00:23:29.860 For instance, if you vaccinate someone, not only has it a cost from the hospital part of the thing, but you also need to take people's time to get vaccinated.

00:23:37.680 Maybe they need to get off work.

00:23:39.000 And there will also be environmental costs, for instance, if you put up a new power plant, not only does it have cost, but it will also add to more pollution and more CO2 emissions.

00:23:49.240 You need to include all of that.

00:23:50.500 And likewise, there are going to be lots of benefits, both economic, social, and environmental benefits.

00:23:55.400 Now, what we try to do is to include all of the costs and all of the benefits and count them in dollars.

00:24:04.100 This is something economists have done for 30 years.

00:24:06.280 And, obviously, it feels a little sort of, really, can you do that?

00:24:09.520 How many lives are you going to lose?

00:24:11.260 But remember, we do that uncontroversially in many different contexts.

00:24:16.940 One obvious place is when you put out roads, you decide what kind of security are you going to have on a road.

00:24:24.880 Are we going to have a hard center line so people can't run into each other?

00:24:29.500 It's more costly, but it also saves more lives.

00:24:31.920 And governments around the world make those trade-offs depending on how many lives you're going to save and how costly is it going to be.

00:24:40.300 That kind of consequence thinking we put into all of these issues.

00:24:45.440 And then we basically came out with a list of saying these are the very best things to do.

00:24:49.640 These are the so, so, so good things to do.

00:24:51.980 And these are actually the dumb things to do.

00:24:54.140 And so we simply tried to say, do the smart stuff.

00:24:57.720 And I appreciate you saying that this is something that the Nobel Committee should be looking at.

00:25:02.500 But I think, you know, in some sense, it's so obvious.

00:25:05.220 It's not rocket science.

00:25:08.140 But we don't do it exactly, as you say, because nobody wants to offend anyone.

00:25:12.480 So we just say everything is important.

00:25:14.400 And then we end up worrying about the stuff that makes the headlines, which very often is global warming and other, you know, yes, problems, but perhaps not the most important ones.

00:25:23.360 Well, we also do it because we're lazy and ill-informed and treacherous because we want to take the easy moral path instead of plowing through, like, let's say, your work.

00:25:35.340 And I'd like to point out, by the way, to those who are listening, you can argue about the accuracy of cost-benefit analysis because it's hard to price everything and to value everything.

00:25:46.020 And you can debate about how you might do that.

00:25:48.480 But Bjorn, who is doing something closer to rocket science in some sense than he admits, he got teams of economists together, multiple teams, to independently produce lists of cost-benefits by problem.

00:26:03.820 And then he averaged across the ratings.

00:26:06.320 And I know, as a diagnostician and as a researcher, that's how you come up with reliable calculations.

00:26:12.980 And so those are calculations that could be replicated and valid calculations.

00:26:17.280 And a valid calculation is one that actually bears some resemblance to the real world.

00:26:21.040 And so what you did is, in some sense, in retrospect, self-evident.

00:26:26.660 But it's also very, very sophisticated conceptually.

00:26:29.180 But what is also so remarkable is that it's a singular attempt, despite the fact that we're jumping up and down about the coming apocalypse and everyone's got their panties in the knot as a consequence of it.

00:26:41.920 No one has sat down and done the hard-edged economic analysis that you have done.

00:26:46.920 And then you've taken a hell of a lot of flack for it, too, because you end up prioritizing things like, well, stopping tuberculosis and feeding children instead of, what, shutting off Europe's energy supply so that we can reduce carbon dioxide and pat ourselves on the back for saving the planet.

00:27:04.680 And you faced an awful lot of vitriol as a consequence of this, too, which I also find unbelievably appalling, because all of your work is devoted clearly towards specifying the most good that can be done in the most efficient possible manner.

00:27:20.980 And why someone would be attacked for that is, that's really a great mystery, where you're obviously undermining this very shallow religious commitment people have to their apocalyptic pretensions.

00:27:31.120 And that's the primary reason. But it's also unbelievably appalling.

00:27:35.940 But I think it makes a lot of sense because you're a heretic, right?

00:27:39.660 I mean, in previous times, it's like, imagine you are in a fictional island culture, and what they do is every year they throw a virgin into a volcano in order to get a good harvest.

00:27:49.900 And then you come along and say, wait a moment, you actually could get the good harvest without throwing the virgin into the volcano?

00:27:55.240 There will be many people who would say, but we are used to throwing that virgin into the volcano, right?

00:28:00.100 I think we, it's a technical problem, but I think a lot of it, and this has been, I would argue, forced since the 1960s, right?

00:28:06.680 It's a cultural problem so much, right?

00:28:08.940 This has been kind of instituted in education, right?

00:28:11.980 This idea, you know, in the 70s, it was the new ice age, it was all these kind of things.

00:28:15.780 I think the consciousness for the doom, for environmental doom has kind of been, you know, inflicted upon the younger generations now for at least two generations.

00:28:23.800 And you, I think, again, I think technically everything you say is right, but maybe you could also speak a little bit to, I mean, William Nordhaus did get a Nobel Prize, right?

00:28:32.220 Kind of talking in a similar direction.

00:28:34.280 And I wonder, why is he never in a talk show?

00:28:36.260 I don't know, maybe he's a reclusive, I don't know.

00:28:38.200 But he's never in a talk show, like he's barely ever quoted.

00:28:41.040 So I wonder why that is.

00:28:42.920 And I think because he is less outspoken than you are, but I think he would probably also be seen as a heretic.

00:28:49.040 So that's why you see more Thunbergs and less Lomborgs and less Nordhouses.

00:28:55.520 Yeah, why we see Greta Thunberg instead of you on the international stage is just, that's just, maybe she's the virgin we're sacrificing to the volcano, you know?

00:29:05.840 So I think it's, you know, you're both right and in very specific sense, I think what you just mentioned about the UN, that they didn't want to offend anyone.

00:29:17.200 Remember, we basically come out and say, as you said, you know, we should be focusing on free trade, contraception for women, vaccinations for a lot, rotaviruses, you know, a lot of these very, very simple things that you can do a lot about.

00:29:32.740 Tuberculosis, food for kids, it's also a way to get better schooling, better schooling, all these kinds of very, very simple things.

00:29:40.300 And the reason why they didn't want to prioritize it was because they didn't want to offend anyone.

00:29:45.400 But as you point out, who gets offended?

00:29:47.560 Well, when we put down some of the solutions that people argue for climate change, they're not bad, they're just not very effective.

00:29:54.920 Some of them are actually bad.

00:29:56.300 And, you know, the thing that we've just done in Europe, we'll probably end up seeing in half a year was very bad.

00:30:01.500 But fundamentally, that pisses off a much bigger segment than, you know, everybody who does tuberculosis think we're, you know, we're the, what's the smartest thing since sliced bread.

00:30:13.980 So it's not that there's not constituents out there that like what we do.

00:30:17.920 All the ones that get up on top think it's amazing and not surprisingly.

00:30:22.040 But there's just so many more people who are advocating for the bottom things.

00:30:27.600 In that sense, I think it's more a question of saying, well, this is almost a poll of saying, what is it that makes sense for people?

00:30:35.380 What is it the religion that we make makes us feel like we're doing something for the world?

00:30:39.300 And for most people, it feels much better to be saving the planet, which you're unfortunately not actually doing, instead of saving some kids' lives, which just feels like, yeah.

00:30:51.560 You know, our prime minister in Canada has just decided to do the same thing to Canadian farmers that the Netherlands has done to the Dutch farmers.

00:30:59.100 He's going to force them, because he likes to use force, because he's saving the planet, even though he's not, he's going to force them to reduce their nitrous oxide output.

00:31:08.280 And here, get this, man, this is something.

00:31:10.940 He decided that he's going to do that without calculating the ratio of pollution produced to food produced.

00:31:17.320 And so the provinces and the farmers are pushing back and saying, well, how about you judge our polluting use on the basis of how much food we produce?

00:31:26.440 Wouldn't that be like vaguely reasonable?

00:31:28.460 And the answer from the feds has been, no, we want an absolute reduction.

00:31:32.500 And that's exactly an example of this low resolution, narcissistic moralism that is substituting both for genuine religious conviction and for genuine knowledge.

00:31:43.060 And I would say our prime minister in Canada, if it isn't Jacinda Ardern and Kamala Harris, it's definitely Justin Trudeau, who are the poster people for this sort of thinking.

00:31:53.960 So just very briefly, it's a great example of how economists would approach this conversation.

00:32:01.920 It's basically saying, look, there is something nice about this idea of reducing nitrogen deposits.

00:32:09.240 It actually, especially biologists, but also other people like the fact that there are low fertilizer areas where different kinds of sparse plantations live.

00:32:23.200 And that can be a nice sort of ecosystem.

00:32:26.360 But if you ask most people, how much are you willing to pay for that?

00:32:31.020 So the other set is we can't produce as much food.

00:32:34.560 We can't keep our culture.

00:32:36.380 A lot of farmers are going to go bankrupt.

00:32:39.160 And of course, also that you're just going to move this nitrogen deposit to, for instance, developing countries instead.

00:32:44.800 Right.

00:32:45.020 Exactly.

00:32:45.240 Then you have to ask, so what's the weighing of these two things?

00:32:48.860 We do that all the time.

00:32:50.740 And let me just give you this one obvious consequence.

00:32:53.580 And it's called thinking.

00:32:55.240 When you talk about the speed limit, most people, you know, if you don't, so in the US, about, what, 40,000 people die on the roads every year, mostly because people drive too fast.

00:33:06.880 And the simple question is, well, shouldn't you do something about it?

00:33:10.520 If you don't reflect very much, people would just say, yeah, that number should be zero.

00:33:15.020 Well, there's a very obvious way to get it to zero.

00:33:17.440 It is to put the speed limit at five kilometers or three miles an hour.

00:33:21.380 Now, nobody would get killed, but nobody would get anywhere either.

00:33:25.520 So that's, of course, why we don't actually do it every year and every day.

00:33:30.140 We decide, all of us, yes, I would like to go at a reasonable speed, and that will end up meaning some people will die.

00:33:39.400 There's a trade-off here.

00:33:40.920 Now, we can have a sensible conversation.

00:33:43.040 Do we want to have, you know, like, sorry, I'm a little unsure whether I should use miles or kilometer.

00:33:49.820 I'm just going to go with miles, right?

00:33:51.260 It's okay.

00:33:51.560 Should we use 55 kilometers?

00:33:53.860 I didn't do that, did I?

00:33:55.400 55 miles or, you know, 85 miles?

00:33:57.720 And that's a fine conversation, but nobody suggests it should be zero or three miles an hour.

00:34:03.900 And that's the conversation that we need to have in all these other things.

00:34:08.020 So when we're talking about nitrogen deposit, of course, we all want to have less rather than more,

00:34:13.360 but we also have lots of other things we want to do.

00:34:16.420 We need to recognize those trade-offs.

00:34:18.300 Like eat.

00:34:18.940 Yeah, so, okay, so I want to return to something you said, and then I want to talk about economists

00:34:23.420 versus biologists, let's say.

00:34:25.320 Okay, so when I had calculated, and this is a rough calculation, and I knew it was wrong,

00:34:32.380 I figured that we'd be facing a world in the fall and the winter where 150 million people would be starving.

00:34:37.940 But Michael Yon mentioned that it was going to be 1.2 billion.

00:34:42.220 That was his estimate.

00:34:43.100 And I thought, oh, my God, not only is that famine on a level that we haven't seen probably since the early 60s,

00:34:49.640 and then he talked about how famine multiplies, because once a famine hits,

00:34:54.540 the governments tend to take centralized control over food production and basically appropriate farmers' crops,

00:35:00.640 and then the farmers quit growing crops, which is exactly what you'd expect.

00:35:04.360 So not only do you have 1 billion, you have the stage set for an expansion of famine.

00:35:11.000 And then I thought, well, and Yon commented on this as well, well, what happens when 1.2 billion people go hungry?

00:35:18.600 And that's going to be, well, in the poorest countries throughout the countries that are most likely as well

00:35:25.780 to push desperate immigrants towards Europe's borders and the same on the American front.

00:35:31.840 And so not in the fall, you tell me again if I'm wrong, if you are right and Yon is right,

00:35:37.880 not only are we going to see a seventh of the world go hungry in a serious way, like it's already happening in Sri Lanka,

00:35:44.600 but we're going to see immigration pressure, human movement pressure on the flanks of Europe and the United States

00:35:51.820 on a scale that maybe we've never seen.

00:35:54.980 And how sure are you that that's what we're looking at in the fall and winter?

00:35:59.940 Sure. So I think there's a couple of things.

00:36:02.440 First of all, we're starting out in a world where there's already some seven or 800 million people that are starving.

00:36:09.720 And this has fairly little to do with the current energy crisis or fertilizer crisis,

00:36:14.760 but it's just the fact of people being poor.

00:36:17.620 So, again, that goes to your general point of saying, look, maybe we should get people out of poverty first.

00:36:23.040 But the second part of this is it actually turns out that when people are really,

00:36:27.640 really poor and really damaged in many ways, for instance, through starvation, they will not flee because they can't.

00:36:36.120 So I'm not sure that we're going to see huge immigration streams.

00:36:40.860 We might. And I think it's useful to start thinking about.

00:36:43.880 But I don't have the data on whether.

00:36:46.440 So there's a, you know, it's actually you see more refugee streams when people get richer because then they can start afford to get on trucks or buses or even flights and go to Europe and the U.S.

00:36:59.160 But if you're really poor, you're just stuck.

00:37:02.200 This is more of a moral problem than I think it's going to be at first a political problem.

00:37:08.140 But I think fundamentally this is about our priorities.

00:37:12.280 And it's about saying, what kind of moral person do you want?

00:37:16.020 Do you want to be the moral person that said, I want to save the world from climate change?

00:37:20.380 So I'm going to make sure we don't use gas to make fertilizer that could save millions of people.

00:37:25.300 Or are you actually going to be a person who says, no, I actually think saving people's lives is a little more important.

00:37:32.780 But isn't it even almost worse, right?

00:37:34.980 Because I think in many instances, particularly in Africa, right?

00:37:38.500 I mean, it was European politics in particular who hampered and in some cases really sabotaged their ability to feed themselves, right?

00:37:46.960 By not allowing them access to energy.

00:37:49.020 I mean, if you look at, for example, you know, global maps about electricity supplies, there is a huge gap in most of Africa, which also has the highest number of birth rates.

00:38:01.660 So the population that's growing fastest is the one with the most limited access to energy.

00:38:06.320 And as you know, right, whether it's high temperatures or low temperatures or whether food production, energy is key.

00:38:11.060 And I think in many ways, it was kind of deliberate policies, kind of the idea that you can all of a sudden run, I don't know, you know, the Democratic Republic of Congo or these areas that you can run them on wind and solar.

00:38:22.240 So it seems that it's not just that we don't help them to get rich if somebody would be a cynic.

00:38:27.080 But I think it's true.

00:38:27.840 In some cases, we kept them poor, particularly when it came to energy and food production.

00:38:33.180 No, I think you're absolutely right.

00:38:34.960 First of all, remember, this is a European crisis.

00:38:38.000 That's why we're talking about it.

00:38:39.160 If it was a crisis in Africa, almost nobody would care, right?

00:38:42.440 The second part of this is that the reason why Africa and many other places are poor is not just because of this crisis that we're seeing right now.

00:38:51.000 It's much, much broader.

00:38:52.160 I made the comparison last year that all of the energy in Uganda, which is a bigger nation than California's, they're like 43 million versus 39 million.

00:39:05.440 All of the electricity in Uganda is less than the electricity Californians use to heat their pools.

00:39:14.760 I also read, Bjorn, that Uganda is fertile enough so that if it was properly harnessed, it could feed all of Africa.

00:39:24.580 And that they have a water supply that's very close to the surface in most of the country.

00:39:30.540 And that it would be a relatively simple matter to sink pumps all over the country to get enough water to produce the place fertile enough to feed the entire continent.

00:39:40.120 That's just, that's just Uganda.

00:39:42.860 Yeah.

00:39:43.180 And again, remember, it's not just about getting food.

00:39:45.980 It's about becoming rich.

00:39:47.740 Why is it we got rich?

00:39:49.200 We got rich because 100 years ago, so the average industrial worker in the U.S. in the last part of the 1800s used most of, most industrial production was just his work force.

00:40:01.480 So it was typically a he, uh, today is what, you know, six or 7% of the energy that goes in is actually muscle power.

00:40:09.680 The rest of it we get from fossil fuels, mostly from fossil fuels.

00:40:13.680 That's what's made us rich because we can suddenly do, you know, 10 times as much.

00:40:17.980 Uh, if you, if you translate the energy that every person has into what would that be in equivalent human terms, uh, each one of us in the rich world has the equivalent of slaves that are, you know, about a hundred slaves that, you know, help us on hand and foot 24 seven.

00:40:34.440 This is, these are the guys who drive us around the, uh, the roads that deliver us food that gets it heat and cool, uh, in our houses and all the other things that we love.

00:40:43.840 And somehow we're telling the rest of the world, you guys can't have it because of global warming.

00:40:48.100 Well, okay.

00:40:48.580 So that's part of this.

00:40:50.080 That's part of this argument between economists and biologists, Malthusian biologists, and maybe Malthusian Marxist biologists as well that has been raging for, well, since Malthus.

00:41:00.220 And that idea is that the only way forward to planetary salvation is to accept excessive restrictions on flourishing and growth is that there's no way the planet can support us if we're all rich, especially if we have first world living standards.

00:41:15.400 And so the only thing we can do is cut back dramatically while in the first world.

00:41:19.940 But the problem with that means that if you cut back the economy so that rich people get poorer, you doom poor people to starvation.

00:41:28.560 That's absolutely clear.

00:41:30.220 And the economists say instead, well, no, look, we can get more bang for the buck continually.

00:41:36.120 We can drive towards an efficiency that overcomes the Malthusian problem.

00:41:40.180 And that would be the problem of overpopulation, let's say.

00:41:42.900 And we can, we can have more of what we need for less cost with less mess.

00:41:48.500 And, and furthermore, that the best way out of environmental catastrophe and wood burning and indoor pollution and all of that early life, uh, uh, cessation.

00:41:59.460 And high levels of child mortality, all that catastrophe is to make people rich, not poor.

00:42:05.540 And that's such a positive idea.

00:42:08.520 It's like, well, why wouldn't you aim at that, man?

00:42:11.200 We could make, especially think about, man, you're on the left.

00:42:14.880 Don't you care about poor people?

00:42:17.460 Well, we care about them as long as they're suffering in a way that boosts our moral, our moral sense of ourselves.

00:42:23.260 But once they start to get rich and have opinions, they're nothing but annoying.

00:42:28.020 I think, I think it's right on multiple levels.

00:42:30.180 First of all, remember, uh, you know, there are people, there, there's a substantial sort of academic minority still, uh, arguing that we should have degrowth because of global warming.

00:42:40.380 Yeah.

00:42:40.600 So they're basically telling us we should become less rich, especially in the rich world.

00:42:45.320 So, first of all, I think, yes, it's a bad idea and we'll get back to that in a second, but also it's just never going to happen.

00:42:50.860 How would you ever get people to vote for this?

00:42:53.140 It's just impossible to imagine.

00:42:55.320 The second part of it, of course, is to say, do we really think it's great to let most poor people stay about the same level as where they are?

00:43:02.820 They talk about maybe they should be a slight bit better off.

00:43:05.920 I think most of them, as you point out, want much better, uh, than this.

00:43:10.600 The third point, of course, is, as you point out, most economists will tell you, we know that when people get richer, most environmental indicators get much better.

00:43:20.320 People stop cutting down their forest when they become web designers instead.

00:43:24.280 Uh, you know, they, they actually, uh, care about the environment and they pay some of their newfound richness to make sure that we pollute less and we have less air pollution.

00:43:33.900 And as you point out, uh, indoor air pollution, we stop burning, you know, coal, uh, coal or, or wood or dung inside our homes.

00:43:42.420 Remember, this is not a trivial issue about 3 billion people cook and keep warm with really dirty fuels, which means that these 3 billion, 23 million.

00:43:52.120 Yeah, right.

00:43:52.920 Die a year because of that.

00:43:54.280 Yes.

00:43:54.700 And it's equivalent, according to the World Health Organization, to each one of these people smoking two packs of cigarettes every day.

00:44:01.900 We have no sense of this.

00:44:03.480 You know, it's, it's clean inside our homes, but it's not clean inside a very large minority of the world's population because they're poor and cook and, uh, uh, uh, and, and keep warm with indoor air pollution.

00:44:16.460 So we will fix many of these problems, but it is important to say we are not likely to just fix climate change because we get richer.

00:44:24.380 So far we've seen as you get richer, you emit more CO2, not less CO2.

00:44:29.920 So we also need to fix this.

00:44:32.180 But again, I think you, you gotta be honest and say, you're never going to fix climate change by just saying, let's all be poor.

00:44:39.000 That's just never going to work.

00:44:41.300 And also it's destructive in all kinds of other ways.

00:44:43.900 Well, yeah.

00:44:44.760 I mean, well, it's going to make it worse because if you exaggerate poverty at the low end of the distribution and tip people into desperation, they're going to decimate their environment.

00:44:55.600 I mean, as soon as people are starving in any given country, the first thing they do is, well, they cut down all the trees and they eat all the animals.

00:45:01.680 Well, of course, that's what they're going to do.

00:45:04.760 And so that's a complete cataclysmic catastrophe.

00:45:07.260 And so even if getting wealthier does produce an increment in CO2 production, and we can talk about the consequences of that, making people poorer is going to produce a way bigger increment in CO2 production and produce all sorts of other cataclysmic consequences.

00:45:23.040 So it's not like there's an easy, it's not as if that, that if we made people poorer, that would in fact address the CO2 problem because it clearly wouldn't.

00:45:32.680 In fact, it's more likely to make it worse.

00:45:34.700 I think we need to keep those separate.

00:45:36.540 It would make all other environmental indicators worse.

00:45:39.060 It would decimate the Amazon forest.

00:45:42.480 It would decimate a lot of animal species and a lot of, and would dramatically drive up air pollution, but it might actually reduce CO2 emissions.

00:45:51.740 So much of the CO2 that we're worried about is the CO2 that will come from a rich India and a rich Africa because they would be emitting, you know, sort of 10 times as much as what they're doing today.

00:46:04.200 So there is some sense to this, but I think it's important to say it's incredibly morally irresponsible.

00:46:10.740 It is impossible to imagine that people are going to say, yeah, you know what?

00:46:14.140 You've just convinced me I want to stay poor.

00:46:16.620 That's just not going to happen.

00:46:17.740 And it's a bad way to fix the world, you know, just sort of morally.

00:46:23.400 The right way to do this, of course, and that was what Ralph already pointed out, you know, that this really is about making sure that we invest a lot more, for instance, in researching nuclear or fusion, that we actually get these technologies that will save us.

00:46:41.080 Now, it could also be, you know, wind or solar with lots and lots of batteries.

00:46:44.720 That's not competitive right now.

00:46:46.640 Most of these things are not competitive right now.

00:46:48.600 But we should invest in research and development to make sure at least one of these technologies become rich and cheap enough.

00:46:55.860 And remember, that's how we've saved all the other issues in the world.

00:46:59.500 If we think back in the 1970s or 60s when we worried about the world running out of food, we didn't save the world by telling everyone, I'm sorry, could you eat a little less?

00:47:08.800 And then we'll send it down to Africa and Southeast Asia.

00:47:11.460 We did it through the Green Revolution, through science and technology that basically made every seed produce twice or three times as much food per hectare.

00:47:21.240 That's how you save the world, through technology and innovation.

00:47:24.640 Can I throw in something real quick there?

00:47:25.940 Because I think you said so many important things, and particularly what you mentioned also before.

00:47:29.940 I mean, one of the numbers I always find particularly fascinating is in the 1960s, up to the 1960s, Great Britain had as many inhabitants as Nigeria.

00:47:38.020 Now, Nigeria has three times as many as Great Britain.

00:47:40.740 So, these people need to be fed.

00:47:42.280 And what they need mostly for it, and you mentioned it, right, it's going to be innovation.

00:47:45.840 It's going to be access to higher crop yields.

00:47:49.320 And how do you get this?

00:47:50.320 Well, this brings us a little bit back to the question of the Netherlands, right?

00:47:52.980 In many ways, the Netherlands are the Silicon Valley of agriculture.

00:47:57.580 But if you undermine their agricultural sector, knowledge is going to get lost.

00:48:02.620 Let me give you two very quick examples.

00:48:04.200 One from my home country of Austria.

00:48:06.000 They are now trying to kind of reopen coal power plants.

00:48:09.480 They need to get people out of retirement because there is nobody around anymore who knows how to run them.

00:48:14.400 Germany has similar problems in the nuclear sector.

00:48:16.780 It is absolutely astounding, right?

00:48:18.480 We had the first nuclear fission, happened in 1938, and the first nuclear bomb in 1945.

00:48:23.920 That was seven years.

00:48:25.040 Nowadays, it takes more than 10 years to build a nuclear power plant because in many ways, that knowledge has been neglected, right?

00:48:31.480 Companies don't invest in it.

00:48:33.080 Students don't study because there was no interest in it.

00:48:35.600 And I think this is what we completely underestimate as a side effect of many of these environmental issues.

00:48:41.000 If you tell people in the Netherlands, guys, we're going to crack down on agriculture,

00:48:44.760 their agriculture and universities will have less students, will have less innovation.

00:48:48.180 And then we have less ideas, right, than to give to these countries, whether it's Nigeria or others, in order for them to feed their populations.

00:48:55.980 So this is not just kind of this is also a war against the future, if you want.

00:48:59.560 If you undermine the conditions for future innovation, you're going to end up maybe in this Malthusian trap of your own making because you hampered the one thing that would have allowed you to get out of it.

00:49:11.400 And that would be innovation and growth.

00:49:13.020 Yeah, well, on the Dutch farmer front, let's say, it seems to me that the people in the world that you should be most ashamed of persecuting might, in fact, be the Dutch farmers.

00:49:25.740 Because that little country, which is just a postage stamp, which has been scraped out of the ocean by unbelievable, diligent, conscientious effort, is the world's second largest exporter of agricultural products.

00:49:40.240 And so to Ralph's point, these farmers are stunningly efficient.

00:49:44.420 And of course, they do pollute because we don't do anything perfectly.

00:49:48.520 And if you demolish them, which seems to be the current Dutch government's plan, pressured in large part by judicial decision rather than legislative decision, which is also worth thinking about.

00:49:59.920 Then not only do you demoralize the very people that you should be celebrating, but you risk demolishing the food supply and the knowledge necessary to farm at that kind of level of efficiency.

00:50:13.680 And so it's at points where people like the Dutch farmers are being persecuted that makes me think that this is not just ignorance, that there is real malevolence here, too.

00:50:25.220 Because at some point, you're so damn blind with regards to your moral pretensions and your insistence that you're the one that's saving the world with your foolishness, that you've crossed the line from someone who just doesn't know what they're talking about to someone who's actively inflicting carnage and catastrophe on the world.

00:50:41.720 And I would think that some of that is motivated by a kind of deep nihilism about human existence in general, the idea that we're a cancer on the planet, the idea that there are, in fact, too many of us.

00:50:54.480 And as the president of Greenpeace said in relation to the Dutch farmers, he said something like, well, you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, which is really bloody convenient if you don't happen to be one of the eggs that's being broken.

00:51:08.040 So you've had a lot of resistance to your work, Bjorn.

00:51:12.480 And I know a lot of that's rooted in people's ignorance.

00:51:14.760 But what other motivations do you think there might be for rejecting out of hand the kind of, well, you say it's not rocket science.

00:51:24.340 It's not that hard to read your book, which is how to spend $75 billion to make the world a better place.

00:51:30.440 It's actually a pretty straightforward read.

00:51:32.860 And, hey, it's published and you can buy it.

00:51:35.760 So it's also not that difficult.

00:51:37.960 I mean, and you faced all this vitriol, which is, and that's as someone who's actually environmentally oriented, right?

00:51:44.480 Because you basically accept the IPCC's prognostications with regards to climate change.

00:51:51.340 And so let's focus on this.

00:51:52.800 You talk about the fact that we'll be less rich in 100 years, assuming our current rate of economic growth, than we would be if we weren't dumping carbon into the atmosphere.

00:52:04.360 And so you are in favor of certain approaches that might be appropriate to amelioration.

00:52:09.680 How big a problem do you think carbon dioxide accumulation is?

00:52:13.540 And what should and what are we actually doing about it that works?

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00:53:34.580 So let me just back up and then I'll answer your question.

00:53:41.700 I tend to believe that most people are actually well-intended.

00:53:46.660 And so I tend to think that when people are, as you pointed out in the Dutch case, when they're pursuing a court case to force the Dutch government,

00:53:58.600 if I care about this one thing, that's what I want you to do.

00:54:02.600 And I don't think there's something wrong about a world where you have different NGOs and different sort of NGOs and green organizations working for different things.

00:54:13.940 But we need to recognize that you have to prioritize all of these things.

00:54:19.380 And politicians are not normally stupid enough to say, I promise to give jobs to everyone, or I promise nobody will die on the road,

00:54:27.240 or I promise that all kids are going to get to university or something like that.

00:54:31.620 Because we recognize that would actually have a huge cost impact if I was forced by a court to do so.

00:54:37.160 But we've somehow allowed ourselves to make stupid proclamations in the environment space.

00:54:43.660 I promise to basically get Europe back to pre-human nature status.

00:54:50.040 That's just impossible to have.

00:54:52.160 I promise to get us to net zero by 2050.

00:54:54.900 That's going to be drastically costly.

00:54:57.320 So and then I'll answer your question.

00:54:59.860 So there's been a lot of economists looking at what will be the cost.

00:55:02.640 And as Ralph mentioned, perhaps the most prominent person was Richard Nordhaus, no, Dick Nordhaus, William Nordhaus, sorry, who got the Nobel Prize in 2018.

00:55:16.020 The only climate economists get the Nobel Prize exactly for his climate economics.

00:55:21.060 He estimates, and this is broadly validated by many, but there are outlier studies, that the cost, if we do nothing about climate, will mean that by the end of the century we'll be about 4% less rich than we otherwise would be.

00:55:36.240 As you point out, we're likely to be much, much richer for a variety of reasons, and hopefully because we're also smart and don't actually stop our innovation and all that stuff.

00:55:44.180 The UN estimate that on the sort of middle of the road path, which is sort of a bumbling through as we normally do in the world, each person on the planet will be 450% as rich as he or she is today.

00:55:59.540 That's an astounding opportunity that, of course, will have lifted out most people out of poverty, will no longer have starvation.

00:56:06.140 It will be a wonderful planet in so many ways.

00:56:09.120 Remember, most people actually don't believe this.

00:56:11.060 But this is likely where we're headed.

00:56:13.940 With global warming, and if we do nothing about it, I'm not suggesting we should, it will, instead of being this 450%, it will only be 434%.

00:56:24.300 I'm sorry, I can't show the difference.

00:56:25.940 It's very, very tiny, right?

00:56:27.600 It's important to get a sense of proportion.

00:56:30.340 Yes, climate change is a problem.

00:56:32.160 Yes, it would be better if we were at 450 rather than 434%.

00:56:36.080 But this is not the end of the world.

00:56:39.100 It's important to say all things.

00:56:40.480 And 434%, 434% better is, that's quite a bit better.

00:56:46.120 We can be quite happy about that.

00:56:46.600 It's important to say it's a percent of what we are today.

00:56:51.040 So it's 334% better.

00:56:53.320 Yes.

00:56:53.780 Right, right.

00:56:54.380 Fair enough.

00:56:55.160 Well, I'm willing to settle for that.

00:56:56.920 Yeah.

00:56:57.180 And so, you know, you said that you think that people are mostly motivated by positive inclinations.

00:57:03.420 And I'm inclined to agree with that.

00:57:05.140 But I do think, and I think we really have to come to terms with this, is that we are being enticed into taking the easy moral route forward.

00:57:15.760 So there isn't anything more important to someone economically, practically, socially, biologically, than their reputation.

00:57:24.220 Because their reputation is a marker of their deserved standing in the social community and their viability as a trading and playing partner.

00:57:32.520 And the way that you accrue reputation points is through diligent effort and generosity, fundamentally.

00:57:40.020 But you can game that.

00:57:41.980 And you game that by taking shortcuts to ethical prowess when you're offered them in a tempting manner.

00:57:50.100 It's like, well, instead of getting up at it, I'll give you an example, Bjorn.

00:57:53.800 This is a good example.

00:57:55.120 You know how I stopped being faced by protests at universities when I went to talk there?

00:58:01.720 I have my, I hold my talks at eight o'clock in the morning.

00:58:08.480 Yeah, and you know why that's funny.

00:58:10.160 Because none of the bloody protesters will haul themselves out of bed to come and, you know, agitate about that magical super-Nazi because it's eight in the morning.

00:58:20.340 Yeah, it is funny, but it's also exactly right.

00:58:23.080 It's like, well, yeah, you're, once you shake off your hangover days, you can haul yourself out of bed by six in the afternoon to go and protest and wave a sign about all the evil people who are destroying the world.

00:58:36.400 But if your commitment requires getting up in the morning once, well, that's a bit too much for you.

00:58:41.380 And so this enticement of laziness, and it's this weird nexus between narcissism and willful blindness and ignorance because they foment and reinforce each other.

00:58:54.400 And as I said, it's just not that hard to read your book, especially if you've devoted your life to saving the environment.

00:59:01.040 And I've done what I could to bring hammer and tongs to your theories because your books are pretty damn optimistic.

00:59:07.620 And I think, well, could that possibly be real?

00:59:10.460 And I haven't been able to break.

00:59:12.640 Well, what I haven't been able to do about your approach is to think of a better one.

00:59:17.080 Thank you.

00:59:17.820 As error-prone as it might be, because who can do cost-benefit analysis?

00:59:23.220 Of course it's not going to be perfect.

00:59:24.540 And again, the amazing things, the best things we can do in the world are not just twice as good.

00:59:33.700 They're more like 100 times or 1,000 times better than the really dumb things that we very often do.

00:59:40.740 And that's, of course, why we feel much more comfortable about it.

00:59:43.120 But if it was just a factor of two, sure, that could be all kinds of calculations and stuff.

00:59:48.200 But when you're 1,000 times off, maybe we should start paying attention on where we could do good.

00:59:53.540 And it gets back to your point of what happened, for instance, in Holland, which was driven by a court case.

01:00:00.220 So if you take politicians on their words, and they'll make a lot of different promises.

01:00:05.340 Imagine if people took them to court for all of those promises.

01:00:09.780 Imagine what would happen when courts say, well, you've said this, so you have to spend that much money.

01:00:14.980 If you actually did that for all the different things politicians have said, I think it's plausible that you would actually have a total account that would be higher than the entire national budget, quite possibly by a large amount.

01:00:30.100 Imagine if we allow the courts to say, oh, in this case, you promised this, so you've got to do that.

01:00:35.720 Oh, in this case, you promised this, so you've got to do that.

01:00:38.360 Imagine if the courts did all of that and then basically said, I'm sorry, you've got to spend all of your GDP.

01:00:43.980 So everybody has to pay close to 100% in taxes, and we're going to pay all of these things that politicians have promised.

01:00:50.880 That's ridiculous.

01:00:51.740 And it's, of course, terrible.

01:00:54.120 This is exactly why we have politics, because politics is that very hard decision between a lot of different nice competing things that we would like.

01:01:03.580 We both like to have less nitrogen deposits.

01:01:06.100 We'd like to have better agriculture.

01:01:08.180 We'd also like to have safer roads, and we'd like to have better schools and all these other things.

01:01:12.160 We can't spend all of the money 10 times over.

01:01:15.340 So that's why we have politicians making these hard and complicated and not satisfying decisions.

01:01:21.900 But we shouldn't allow ourselves to be run into courts deciding, no, you have to do this because you promised it.

01:01:28.860 Because if they did it across the whole area, we'd probably be both bankrupt, but also we would not have that crucial conversation about where do you want to spend the next dollar?

01:01:38.220 Well, we would also cede all the legislative power that should be instantiated in the sovereign voice of the people to judicial overlords, which we seem to be doing at a very rapid rate.

01:01:49.640 That's happening in Canada, partly because the legislatures are cowardly and they devolve decisions to the judiciary when they shouldn't,

01:01:56.860 but also because the judiciary has become increasingly activist and is perfectly willing to put their apocalyptic nightmare vision at the pinnacle of the judicial process hierarchy

01:02:09.700 and to start ruling in accordance with that instead of relying on precedent rule of law.

01:02:14.760 I mean, in Canada now, you cannot be appointed a judge unless you swear fealty, essentially, to the D.I.E. mantra.

01:02:22.840 They've laid out what the personal requirements are that are necessary to be a judge.

01:02:28.880 And one of them is sensitivity to all the racial, et cetera, issues that the D.I. activists hypothetically believe are a necessary priority.

01:02:37.380 And the second one is, what would it say, openness to the importance of social justice issues.

01:02:44.480 They've actually documented this now in the steps necessary to become a judge in Canada.

01:02:49.160 Yeah, it's unbelievable. It's unbelievable.

01:02:51.040 And these activist judges do believe that, well, they're way more efficient than that noisy parliamentary process.

01:02:57.980 And that should scare us. That is part of the reason why a lot of people are protesting,

01:03:02.700 simply because you can't have a judiciary or anything that ends up making promises that will cost you at least a large part of your fortune.

01:03:12.880 And just perhaps before I get going, if you look at net zero, because I think in some way the Dutch thing that we've seen and even the European conversation,

01:03:24.980 remember, I believe it was, I forget, Citigroup that estimated the total cost for Europe because of the increasing energy prices

01:03:35.600 is going to be about half a trillion dollars higher than it normally is over the last 10 years, which is a huge cost.

01:03:43.120 But let's just remember, if Europe was actually serious about their net zero goals, which, of course, is going to be incredibly hard,

01:03:50.300 which basically means we'll have to give up most of what we think of as wonderful in the world.

01:03:55.660 According to McKinsey's study, that would cost more than a trillion dollars, so twice as much, but every year for the next 30 years.

01:04:03.880 So if we had courts going in and saying, no, you've got to cut down your nitrogen deposit costs, that will be terribly disruptive.

01:04:12.540 But it's much, much less than what you could actually imagine is going to happen if people actually take our net zero promises seriously.

01:04:22.000 And this is not just for Europe and the U.S. It's likely that the cost of net zero by mid-century would be in the order of $12,000 per person per year.

01:04:35.500 And people are just not going to accept that. Remember, if you ask people, most people are willing to spend something on climate change,

01:04:42.340 typically sort of between $25 and $200. But if you ask them, so would you be okay with spending $10,000?

01:04:50.960 No, that's not going to happen, and you're going to have an uprising.

01:04:54.400 That's, I think, why we need to say, well, we should be smart about this, but we shouldn't be spending all of our money on one thing.

01:05:00.960 That's both dumb, it's also economically inefficient, but it also leaves all the other challenges unfixed.

01:05:07.960 Right. Well, this is a good time, I think, maybe to let you go.

01:05:11.000 So it's always a pleasure talking to you, Bjorn, and a privilege to be able to bring your thoughts to as wide an audience as possible,

01:05:18.100 because, well, we would do a lot better off by following the guidelines that you and your teams have produced

01:05:23.800 than by flailing about in this apocalyptic idiocy and trying to elevate our moral status with half measures and dim-wittedness.

01:05:31.660 And expensive, you know, all those trillions of dollars that you're talking about.

01:05:35.280 We've got to understand, people, that when you pull a half a trillion dollars out of an economy,

01:05:40.040 it's the poor that you doom doing that.

01:05:42.320 Because every economic cost is borne most heavily by the poorest people, always.

01:05:48.000 It's like an iron rule of nature and civilization, is that everything that's expensive hurts the poor most.

01:05:55.360 And so, and I'm pretty tired of hearing the environmental activists sacrifice today's real poor

01:06:02.660 to the hypothetically thriving poor of their utopian future.

01:06:05.960 It's appalling morally.

01:06:07.420 And I don't, it's not just ignorant, it's darker than that.

01:06:10.440 It's darker than that, as far as I'm concerned.

01:06:12.600 You know, we have no right whatsoever to be telling Africans and Indians and Chinese, for that matter,

01:06:17.000 that, well, you know, we're rich and I don't think we'll give it up, rub, rub.

01:06:21.640 But you guys, you know, you should be looking forward to a lot less prosperous future than you might otherwise be.

01:06:28.020 And there's just absolutely no excuse for that whatsoever.

01:06:31.200 Especially when we know, we know, we know that if we help the world's poor,

01:06:36.440 or at least got out of their way while they're trying to be rich,

01:06:39.700 that the planet would actually be in much better shape.

01:06:41.980 We could have our cake and eat it too.

01:06:43.900 And your work is so signally important in that regard.

01:06:47.000 You know, and, well, hopefully people will wake up and pay more attention to the economists

01:06:52.680 and less attention to the bloody Malthusian biologists.

01:06:55.880 So, really good talking to you again, Bjorn.

01:06:58.420 Thanks a lot.

01:06:59.340 Wonderful to talk to both of you.

01:07:00.640 Take care, Ralph.

01:07:01.300 Take care, Jordan.

01:07:02.700 All right, Ralph.

01:07:03.660 On to the European protest front.

01:07:06.560 So, do you want to tell people what you've been up to and why and what you've seen?

01:07:11.300 Well, over the last couple of years, a couple of, actually it started a little bit earlier,

01:07:14.920 but Ken, I was a little bit in touch with some of the farmers in the Netherlands

01:07:19.300 and some of the people also involved in the protests over the last couple of weeks.

01:07:23.180 And I think there's a few points that are very important to make and that tend to get lost in the entire debate.

01:07:28.280 I mean, these protests go back to 2019.

01:07:30.180 So, this is kind of, they were a little bit glossed over due to COVID, right?

01:07:33.860 There were stronger restrictions on the rights to demonstrate.

01:07:37.360 So, kind of the farmers didn't really have the opportunity to voice themselves.

01:07:40.700 But there is one thing that is really important for me to make absolutely clear.

01:07:44.320 When, what I use kind of when I describe them, kind of very often use also the term working class.

01:07:48.460 But I think I really want also to put it into people's heads.

01:07:51.440 Working class is not the same as poor, right?

01:07:53.680 Many of those farmers in the Netherlands are economically very well off.

01:07:57.840 But what I mean by working class is kind of literally the people who make something work.

01:08:02.680 So, those are kind of, they are the backbone in many ways of the Dutch economy.

01:08:09.200 So, they are people that need affordable energy, that produce then food that is affordable, right?

01:08:14.200 So, this is kind of what I mean by the working class.

01:08:18.020 And this is also why there is a lot of sympathy towards them in the public.

01:08:22.160 I mean, there was one poll taken, I think it was now 10 days ago.

01:08:25.700 So, I don't know the exact numbers, there hasn't been a poll since.

01:08:28.520 But currently, the so-called Farmer Citizens Party, which is kind of the political representative of the farmers, has one seat in the Dutch parliament.

01:08:36.740 If elections would have taken place, I think it was July 11th, they would have risen up to 20 seats.

01:08:42.420 And, you know, Mark Rutte's party would have lost 14 out of 34 seats.

01:08:46.120 So, there is sympathy from the Dutch for the farmers.

01:08:49.260 And it's not just about the farming.

01:08:51.220 It's more a general sense of that this is an attack on kind of what makes us wealthy as a country, right?

01:08:56.580 This is kind of, we are, and there's a lot of pride for the Dutch that they feel in the agricultural sector.

01:09:01.060 And they should be, right?

01:09:02.320 You said it before.

01:09:03.060 It's a country the size of a post stamp, and they are an agricultural animal livestock farming superpower.

01:09:10.640 It's outstanding.

01:09:11.640 If you look at the research they do, it's kind of what they export in know-how to Kenya, to Indonesia, kind of what they do positive there.

01:09:18.220 But this is all created domestically in this very strong agricultural sector.

01:09:22.700 So, just as a concluding remark on this, to give you a good comparison, forcing 30% of Dutch livestock to be abandoned or to basically disappear is kind of similar to going to Silicon Valley and say, so tomorrow you have to close down 30% of all startups.

01:09:40.220 Well, Silicon Valley would still be there, but it probably would be significantly less innovative.

01:09:44.240 And I said this before, this is really my big point is, if you start to handbine to sabotage an industry that is extremely innovative, at some point they're going to stop innovating because they're going to say, first of all, they try to kind of ingrain themselves as the political class to get exceptions so that they can continue farming.

01:10:01.500 And they will tell, this is what some Dutch farmers told me, they tell their children not to take over their farms.

01:10:07.540 Well, this is the thing that we really should be aware of here, in large part, is that I've watched major companies, corporations, and other enterprises collapse.

01:10:18.780 And they can collapse precipitously because what happens is that when you pressure an industry, all the people that have options leave.

01:10:28.760 And the people who have options are the most competent people.

01:10:31.580 And so, if you tell extremely competent and intelligent and sophisticated farmers, because high-producing farmers are all of those things, practical people with a wide range of knowledge and technical ability and mechanical ability and street smarts, all of that.

01:10:48.120 If you say, oh, we're going to make your lifestyle both uncomfortable and then fundamentally unviable, they're going to think, oh, well, guess what?

01:10:57.780 I have better things to do with my time.

01:10:59.940 See you later.

01:11:01.300 And then you lose the best people right away.

01:11:03.380 And as soon as you do that, because a small proportion of people are responsible for almost all the productive effort, as soon as you lose that uppermost echelon, you lose the whole thing.

01:11:13.460 So, if we forced 30% of Silicon Valley startups to close, or even 10%, all that would happen is all the entrepreneurs would leave Silicon Valley.

01:11:22.140 Like they're leaving California now, for example.

01:11:24.460 They're moving out of California now to places like Tennessee and Texas and Florida.

01:11:28.060 That happens extremely quickly.

01:11:29.460 You cannot pressure competent people because they just tell you to screw off and go do something else.

01:11:36.240 And it's a catastrophe.

01:11:37.420 Okay, so tell me, too, what's happening on the ground?

01:11:40.900 Like how many, do you have any idea what the true numbers of people are who are involved in these protests?

01:11:47.160 And are they mounting?

01:11:48.960 Are they staying the same?

01:11:50.340 Are they shrinking?

01:11:51.880 It's still going on.

01:11:53.400 I mean, I looked at kind of the most, let's say, pessimistic or, let's say, anti-pharma news outlets.

01:11:58.680 And even they admit that it has been 25,000 to 30,000 people, right?

01:12:03.000 That the protesters themselves say it's over 40,000.

01:12:05.740 So, I think the real number is going to be in between.

01:12:08.120 But there is, again, something I think that's very important for the listeners and the viewers.

01:12:11.560 We're talking about the Netherlands.

01:12:13.020 The Netherlands are usually not a country with mass protest, right?

01:12:16.360 This is ingrained in their political culture.

01:12:19.480 They are a very consensus-oriented political nation.

01:12:23.000 This is why also they have many parties in parliament.

01:12:24.980 So, there's always a need for consensus.

01:12:26.720 So, for them to go onto the streets and, you know, block streets or the fishermen have blocked harbors, that's a huge thing for the Netherlands.

01:12:34.780 So, even if the numbers might don't seem that impressive, the fact that it's happening really makes a difference.

01:12:39.740 So, if you get the Dutch to rise, I think the last time it happened was in 1672, where, by the way, then the protesters actually ate their then kind of prime minister.

01:12:49.540 So, I mean, I'm not promoting eating prime ministers, but this is how he can also end.

01:12:54.100 Yeah, well, this is worth stressing.

01:12:56.680 I mean, in some ways, there isn't a more civilized country in the world than the Netherlands.

01:13:02.420 And I'm saying that having spent quite a bit of time there and being a great admirer of the Netherlands.

01:13:07.180 But what we have to understand is that the Netherlands was taken back from the sea.

01:13:12.480 And that took a lot of effort and a lot of technological innovation over centuries.

01:13:17.060 And so, the Netherlands is a very, very well-organized society.

01:13:21.240 It's hyperproductive.

01:13:22.340 It's extremely peaceful.

01:13:24.000 It's consensual.

01:13:25.180 And it's also extraordinarily free.

01:13:28.480 And that's a tremendous number of paradoxical things to get right.

01:13:32.140 And then farmers are not only practical people who don't fly off the handle, but it's also very expensive for them to take their equipment, their heavy equipment, and not utilize it productively and put it on the streets.

01:13:44.940 And so, they're not the sort of people who, like, they're not hippie protesters in Berkeley in 1968 who have nothing better to do when they're not drinking and smoking pot.

01:13:54.480 These are people with very difficult jobs, and it's very expensive of them to take time off.

01:13:59.960 And so, for Dutch to be driven to the point of protest, and then for Dutch farmers specifically to be protesting, if you don't see this as a canary in a coal mine, then you're an idiot.

01:14:10.800 You're willfully blind, fundamentally.

01:14:12.680 Yeah, and there's more to it.

01:14:14.060 I think this is – so, kind of the general conversation reporting talks a lot about the nitrogen issue, right, kind of the environmental part of it.

01:14:21.780 But I think this is something – and this is why you see more and more this all over Europe.

01:14:25.600 It's a little bit of a conflagration that over at least the 90s and early 2000s, there was a growing discontent in the Dutch population, not just about environmental issues and environmental policies, but also about migration, kind of all these issues.

01:14:39.140 And this comes now together because there is – I'm not to be very clear here.

01:14:42.720 I'm not sure if that is true.

01:14:44.280 I mean, definitely some of the farmers also believe it.

01:14:46.420 So, I cannot speak to the validity of it, but it's something that also raises them emotionally, which is this idea, right, that a lot of the land is – that the government kind of wants to force them off the land, take the land, and then use the land to house migrants.

01:15:00.280 So, to what extent that is really true, the evidence is mixed.

01:15:03.760 So, there have been one or two cases where these plans are really – where these plans exist, but if it's really the main motivation, I have my doubts about this.

01:15:11.320 But the point is, and this goes back to what I said initially, there is a sense in the population that more and more the group of people that is the most important to keep the economy going, to keep the country going, that also preserves the culture and these kind of things, that they're constantly under attack and undermined by the political and particularly also by the cultural elite.

01:15:32.120 And I think this is part of the story of that anger that should not be underestimated.

01:15:35.920 So, this is not purely because many of my critics said, oh, Ralph, you know, this is just about nitrogen and that comes from the EU.

01:15:41.640 Yes, that was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back, but there is more going on underneath.

01:15:45.960 Well, what we could say in regard to that, and I would say this is a reasonable approach from a psychological perspective, is that when you start to use compulsion on people – so, compulsion is the sign of bad policy.

01:15:59.320 And so, when you start to use compulsion, the judiciary compels the legislative branch and then the legislative branch compels the farmers, forces them.

01:16:08.440 Well, as soon as you use force on people, you undermine trust by definition, right?

01:16:13.540 Because you don't need to use force on people where there's mutual consensus and trust.

01:16:17.640 So, use force and then you elicit paranoid reactions.

01:16:23.060 It's like if you're going to operate in relationship to me as a tyrant, then just what sort of tyrant are you and just exactly what you're up to?

01:16:31.940 What are you up to?

01:16:32.780 And so, that promotes the spread of these more conspiratorial ideas that might have a toehold in the truth on some fronts.

01:16:39.840 But it's part of a sign of a broader breakdown of communication and trust in society.

01:16:45.320 And that's an absolute catastrophe because you've got to understand this.

01:16:50.060 People have to understand this.

01:16:51.520 A guy named Landis wrote a great book called The Wealth and Poverty of Nations about this very factor.

01:16:57.060 He basically claimed, and I think with plenty justification, that the only real natural resource is trust.

01:17:03.180 And that it almost requires a metaphysical miracle to set up a country where the default response from one stranger to another is,

01:17:12.860 well, of course I can shop in your store and you're not going to rip me off.

01:17:15.740 Of course I can buy something online and I'm going to get the product.

01:17:18.780 Of course I can send my kids to schools that the government runs and that'll be fine.

01:17:23.540 It's just a matter of course.

01:17:25.120 That's a miracle.

01:17:26.260 And when you use compulsion in the service of an apocalyptic ideal and undermine that trust,

01:17:31.600 then you generate all sorts of, well, an endless amount of conspiratorial thinking.

01:17:36.700 And that's a catastrophe.

01:17:38.880 No, I think you touched on something that's extremely important.

01:17:41.100 And that is because particularly in the trust issue, increasingly, and this I would argue, by the way, happens all over the West.

01:17:46.860 That is not just a Dutch phenomenon, right?

01:17:48.680 That the quote unquote working class, and if you want to call them the ruling class, we can quibble about this.

01:17:54.800 But they increasingly inhabit completely different moral universes, right?

01:17:59.300 They live in completely different worlds, exactly what you said, right?

01:18:02.540 The people, as I call them, the working people, they want affordable energy.

01:18:07.320 They want good public schools.

01:18:08.580 They want to maintain their cultural and political identity, all these things.

01:18:12.180 And then you have the political class, the academia class, and they have different goals, right?

01:18:17.000 For them, climate change is number one, right?

01:18:19.120 For them, social justice is number one.

01:18:21.260 But it's simply not the same for these other people.

01:18:23.340 At some point, you cannot have both of these competing moral priorities in the same country.

01:18:29.540 It will come to a head sooner or later.

01:18:32.340 And I think this is what we see in Europe.

01:18:33.800 And to be honest, I think this is just the beginning, right?

01:18:36.680 Because these groundswells have been there.

01:18:39.600 But as long as the economy was more or less working okay, as long as people felt that by the end of the year, they were better off than the year before,

01:18:46.660 they were tolerating the accentries of their elites, right?

01:18:50.380 They said, well, those are those eggheads in the universities.

01:18:52.960 And now we all know that our politicians lie.

01:18:54.900 But as long as I have access to a better life-

01:18:57.940 As long as things are working.

01:18:59.380 Exactly.

01:18:59.900 But once they stop working, and this is so important what you said, because the true test of trust is a crisis.

01:19:05.360 So all these polls read in the past where they said, oh, these are such high-trust societies.

01:19:09.380 Well, they were high-trust when things were going well.

01:19:11.320 But now we'll see how well-developed the trust really is if in the fall, the worst of the crisis is really going to hit.

01:19:18.080 And I'm not that optimistic.

01:19:19.120 Yeah, and so what do you foresee in the fall?

01:19:22.580 Or are you in a position to comment on that?

01:19:25.140 Well, it depends, of course, a little bit on what we talked originally, like on the way that Russia is going to behave.

01:19:30.420 But we already see things happening, right?

01:19:32.560 We see, for example, the government in Italy imploded.

01:19:35.860 Then we have like very small things now in Austria when the Austrian president, right, who's not a famous figure or anything,

01:19:42.340 but kind of when he goes to public appearances, right, that people are booing him.

01:19:46.120 And these are things that didn't happen in the past.

01:19:48.160 It's happening in Canada, too.

01:19:49.720 Yeah, so this content is real.

01:19:52.880 And what kind of worries me the most is that the politics doesn't have an answer to it, right?

01:19:58.700 They immediately revert.

01:20:00.180 They do it in Italy now.

01:20:01.020 They do it in Austria, whatever.

01:20:02.220 They do it also in the Dutch case.

01:20:03.500 They immediately revert to their preconceived notions, right?

01:20:06.380 Oh, those are all, you know, right-wing, COVID-denying, misogynistic.

01:20:13.360 Misogynist bigots.

01:20:14.500 No, what Justin Trudeau said.

01:20:16.200 I mean, I'm sure these people exist in that group as well.

01:20:19.240 But the thing is, you just increase the anger if you don't at some point approach them and say,

01:20:24.520 OK, so what bothers you?

01:20:25.840 What ails you?

01:20:26.520 And just kind of to put something to this, I think a little bit this revolution started in 2016 with the election of Donald Trump.

01:20:33.300 And what I mean by this is they did a fantastic study at the Rand Institution where they said,

01:20:37.940 what's the best way to predict whether or not somebody was voting for Donald Trump?

01:20:42.400 You know, is it race?

01:20:43.240 Is it skin color?

01:20:44.660 Is it, you know, income?

01:20:45.900 It turned out the best way to predict is that those people who crossed on the questionnaire,

01:20:50.900 I feel that I have no voice.

01:20:53.200 I feel that I'm not seen.

01:20:54.900 That was the best predictor for people to vote for Donald Trump.

01:20:58.200 And that's not going to stop.

01:20:59.580 Yeah, well, people believe that Trump addressed them if idiosyncratically and eccentrically and even narcissistically.

01:21:07.940 At least directly, honestly, and in an unscripted manner.

01:21:13.600 And Trump was very good at, well, that's the populist danger that the leftists point to,

01:21:18.740 is that Trump could and did to some degree appeal to resentment.

01:21:22.340 And that's very dangerous, especially for a conservative.

01:21:25.500 I think he was also pushed into a corner on that front because he was pilloried so badly

01:21:31.460 that it's not surprising that he regarded himself as surrounded by enemies, right?

01:21:35.400 And you can create a monster by persecuting someone intently.

01:21:39.620 And I'm saying that as someone who I think is cognizant and appreciative of whatever Donald

01:21:44.200 Trump's flaws might be.

01:21:45.800 But it's definitely the case that the working class felt that they had been shunted out of

01:21:51.160 the conversation.

01:21:52.140 And the reason they felt that way was because they had been shunted out of the conversation.

01:21:56.980 And it's certainly the case if that wasn't true in some fundamental sense, hey, you wouldn't

01:22:04.340 have seen the trucker protests in Canada, the corresponding protests in the US, and now

01:22:09.380 the spread of this into Europe, right?

01:22:11.400 You can't just put that at Trump's feet by any stretch of the imagination.

01:22:16.380 And so what do the farmers want?

01:22:19.260 And what's the probability that they're going to get it?

01:22:22.100 And what do you think is going to happen next?

01:22:23.880 Well, in fact, I would argue that their demands are very reasonable, right?

01:22:26.960 Because if you look at the numbers, they have been very successful in reducing emissions

01:22:31.840 over the last couple of years.

01:22:33.180 So we mentioned this before.

01:22:34.220 Really, Dutch agriculture is astounding.

01:22:36.920 I would argue it's one of the innovative wonders of the world.

01:22:40.380 And they mostly complain about the timeline.

01:22:43.100 So again, it's not that they say, oh, we want to continue to emit as much as possible.

01:22:47.200 No, they just say that 2030, 2035, and 2050 is not feasible for us.

01:22:52.440 We can't do it in the timeline.

01:22:54.300 And the argument that comes back is, well, but these are EU regulations.

01:22:58.560 Well, that is true.

01:22:59.580 Yeah, whatever.

01:23:00.580 Exactly.

01:23:01.080 And it's something that we've answered also before.

01:23:02.820 Well, of course, they have more nitrogen emissions.

01:23:05.220 They are the number one agricultural producing country in Europe.

01:23:09.340 So, I mean, it's kind of natural that they have more emissions.

01:23:12.540 And they did have an exception for a long time.

01:23:14.960 And they pretty much only want that exception to continue.

01:23:17.360 Well, the other thing is that there isn't anybody who cares more about long-term sustainability

01:23:25.440 than actual farmers.

01:23:27.840 Because a lot of those people, well, not only do they want to farm for decades,

01:23:31.480 which is a much longer time span horizon than most politicians and most people,

01:23:36.820 but a lot of them would like to be able to have their children do the same thing.

01:23:40.600 And they don't want to degrade the topsoil and they don't want to pollute the water.

01:23:44.540 And so, but they want to produce as much food as they possibly can.

01:23:48.360 And you're not going to do that without some waste.

01:23:51.200 I mean, that's the thing about these net zero policies.

01:23:54.820 You know, as soon as someone talks about zero anything, that there's a totalitarian bent to them.

01:24:00.240 Because the cost of getting to actual zero is absolutely disproportionate.

01:24:05.780 Like, you could think, well, how about an 80% reduction?

01:24:09.680 It's like, okay, we might be able to manage that.

01:24:11.920 Well, how about 90?

01:24:13.220 Well, you're pushing it.

01:24:14.780 Well, there's an exponential increase in the cost of getting from 90 to 95.

01:24:19.620 And then again, from 95 to zero.

01:24:21.920 And so zero is nothing but moral posturing.

01:24:24.440 And so what's happening outside of Holland, outside of the Netherlands?

01:24:31.160 How cognizant are you of the nature of the spread of these protests into Germany and to Italy and into Spain?

01:24:40.260 You know, the Canadian government collapsed in some sense under the weight of the trucker convoy.

01:24:44.800 It wasn't the federal government, but the conservative party leader resigned and the conservatives imploded, which was unfortunate in the highest degree.

01:24:54.420 Although we might get a better leader out of the deal.

01:24:56.360 And so these protests do have a tremendous amount of significance.

01:24:59.740 So, okay, so what's happening on the protest spread front?

01:25:03.860 There's a couple of things currently that happen parallel.

01:25:06.040 I mean, I sometimes like to compare it a little bit to the Arab Spring.

01:25:08.880 And the reason why I use this comparison is not because of the dimension of the protests at the moment.

01:25:13.920 They're not nowhere near.

01:25:15.280 But what you also mentioned, it's kind of how these things can become contagious, right?

01:25:18.880 In the Arab Spring, it started in Tunisia with a vegetable vendor, you know, kind of basically burning himself alive.

01:25:25.800 And then kind of this spread throughout the entire Middle East.

01:25:29.260 And what you see in Europe increasingly happen is so we have the Dutch case.

01:25:33.320 We had some protests in Spain.

01:25:35.200 Basically, Emmanuel Macron's government in France is a lame duck now.

01:25:40.280 They really can't get anything done.

01:25:42.800 The amount of trust that the people or the distrust that people expressed towards him in the last elections,

01:25:49.520 I think it's only a matter of time until you're probably also going to see protests in France.

01:25:53.440 You see it partially also in Eastern Europe, right?

01:25:55.580 There are protests in Poland.

01:25:57.680 There have been protests in Italy that did play a role in the downfall of the current government.

01:26:03.040 It's going on a little bit in Spain, which, by the way, has huge political repercussions, as you probably have heard, right?

01:26:08.560 Talking about the gas crisis.

01:26:10.580 So the European Commission says every European country needs to reduce their gas consumption by 15%.

01:26:16.380 And the first countries who said, we're not going to do this, among others, were Spain and Italy because they know how fragile their systems are.

01:26:24.160 They can't.

01:26:24.720 And this is the thing.

01:26:25.700 We live in a situation where Western governments, not all of them, but many, they no longer can really ask sacrifices of their people because the people say, no, you know what?

01:26:35.840 You also, first of all, they don't lead by example.

01:26:38.540 We don't have, you know, austere, Charles de Gaulle-like politicians.

01:26:42.480 And personality, I would argue, matters in this way, right?

01:26:44.620 It really matters who asks you for a sacrifice.

01:26:46.880 And they don't even really ask for sacrifice.

01:26:49.400 They kind of demand it, right?

01:26:50.680 Because you have to reduce your energy use.

01:26:56.000 And, of course, people don't think...

01:26:57.240 Or else, right?

01:26:57.960 Or else will punish you.

01:26:59.540 Yeah, or else.

01:27:00.240 And this is...

01:27:01.960 And the other important thing for them, Germany is the best example here, that people say, but wait a moment.

01:27:07.360 You told us you got this under control.

01:27:09.980 You told us we can close down over the last two years, you know, six nuclear power plants.

01:27:14.860 So three have been closed down.

01:27:16.540 Another three will be closed down in December.

01:27:18.680 Not going to be a problem, right?

01:27:20.100 So insane.

01:27:20.920 Yeah, right.

01:27:21.360 So they were told...

01:27:22.680 I'm always very careful to use the word lie because I like to believe in the best of people.

01:27:27.020 But they were definitely told things that turned out to be entirely untrue.

01:27:33.120 Now, they're not just untrue.

01:27:34.740 You know, I've been thinking about the distinctions between different forms of untruth.

01:27:40.080 And so if you're a canny liar, and maybe even a moral liar, when you lie, your lie is an approximation to the truth.

01:27:49.700 It's just bent in a slight direction.

01:27:51.560 But if you're really hell-bent on lying, you tell anti-truths.

01:27:57.460 And the idea that we could close down nuclear plants in Germany and replace that with stable and reliable renewables, that that would benefit the planet.

01:28:08.400 And that that wouldn't come at an unsustainable economic and political risk, which has clearly been the case.

01:28:14.300 That was an anti-truth.

01:28:16.000 It wasn't just a lie.

01:28:17.740 And I don't think it's mere ignorance.

01:28:20.000 Because, like, I'm not a political expert by profession, let's say.

01:28:25.600 And it was obvious to me 10 years ago that producing hyper-reliance on Russia was just not a good idea.

01:28:34.740 It just exposed the West to too much risk.

01:28:38.260 And I can't see how you could be a political leader.

01:28:41.520 Look, you're going to be pessimistic about this one way or another.

01:28:46.700 If you're blind enough as a political leader not to see that as a stark reality, you're way too blind to be a political leader.

01:28:52.980 And if you're malevolent and malicious enough to manipulate that for your own personal and political gain, then you're too nefarious to be a political leader.

01:29:02.020 And if you're both, well, then you have the kind of leaders that we do have, unfortunately, at the moment in many situations.

01:29:08.960 And I would certainly rank our current prime minister as first and foremost among those, the poster boy of the WEF and the globalist utopians.

01:29:17.480 And he's bent and demented this poor country of mine in ways that Canadians are just barely beginning to wake up to.

01:29:24.900 I mean, I think there is more to it.

01:29:26.840 I mean, I think you in your writings and also your commentary, you touch on this again and again, which I think is so important.

01:29:31.500 I mean, this is also a little bit an element of a civilization in a crisis, but also a crisis of confidence.

01:29:38.720 I mean, take one example.

01:29:39.860 I always find this so fascinating.

01:29:41.700 The Hoover Dam, right, was built in five years during a Great Depression.

01:29:45.440 The Golden Gate Bridge was built in four years during a Great Depression.

01:29:48.960 Nowadays, if you want to build something in the United States, right, you have to wait up to five years to get the environmental impact study.

01:29:56.060 I mean, why would anybody try to build anything like that?

01:29:58.600 And I'm not sure at some point, could we still do it if we wanted to?

01:30:02.400 No, we couldn't.

01:30:03.780 Well, look, you know, I just reached out to Buttigieg's office a couple of weeks ago about the immense spending that's occurring on the infrastructure front.

01:30:13.080 And because some of the people that I've been involved in had a hand in that, assuming that the Democrats who are going to spend a lot of money might spend it on something useful, like fixing bridges, let's say.

01:30:25.040 Because infrastructure spending has about a 13 to 1 return on investment.

01:30:29.040 That seems to be the calculation.

01:30:30.340 And then, so we reached out to Buttigieg's office and tried to get some figures.

01:30:35.540 It's like, okay, you guys have all this money.

01:30:38.280 Do you have a website where you've listed the projects that the money is being spent on and just are tracking whether or not anything's actually happening?

01:30:49.560 And the deputy secretary wrote back, he reached out to an infrastructure expert that I was in contact with and encouraging to ask this question.

01:30:59.680 And he said, well, we're not sure that on a project of this scale that effectiveness, genuinely in quotes, effectiveness is a realistic goal.

01:31:10.280 And we don't believe that something with this sort of widespread significance can be evaluated essentially at that level of granularity.

01:31:18.400 And then he sent me a map that showed how much money had been given to each state, which is not the question I asked.

01:31:25.740 It's like, I don't give a damn how much money you spent.

01:31:29.660 That's easy.

01:31:31.300 My business partner always laughed with me.

01:31:33.620 He said, it's really easy to grow your business on the cost side.

01:31:36.760 And the amount of money you spend is not an indicator of your moral advantage or your moral reliability.

01:31:43.740 What you've produced as a consequence of the spending is,

01:31:47.000 and as far as I can tell on the Democrat side,

01:31:50.480 there's no care whatsoever given to actually seeing whether the infrastructure money can be spent.

01:31:59.340 And now, when I talk this through with many of the moderate Democrats I'm in contact with,

01:32:05.100 we became painfully aware that the infrastructure bill spending was going to be in trouble

01:32:10.220 because there are so many regulations and so much red tape that it's not even necessarily the case

01:32:16.280 that much of this repair can, in fact, be done.

01:32:19.820 And I've thought for a long time, if we invented automobiles today,

01:32:25.700 no one would be allowed to drive one.

01:32:27.920 Too dangerous, too polluting.

01:32:29.600 You just wouldn't have the freedom.

01:32:30.960 There's no way the Americans could build the interstate highway system now.

01:32:34.300 And these big projects of the sort that you're describing,

01:32:37.620 I don't think we have the will anymore or the ability to do them

01:32:41.480 because we've tangled ourselves up in moral quagmires.

01:32:44.320 I would go a step further.

01:32:46.160 If coffee, alcohol, and tea would be discovered today,

01:32:50.120 you would never find it in the shelves in a supermarket

01:32:52.280 because it would deem to be way too dangerous.

01:32:55.140 And that's the thing.

01:32:56.440 We are becoming increasingly good in regulating.

01:32:59.660 If you take New York under Mayor Bloomberg,

01:33:02.280 we can regulate the salt and the sugar out of your Coke and your cheeseburger,

01:33:06.740 but we can no longer build a new bridge.

01:33:09.080 We can no longer actually build an efficient highway system

01:33:12.280 as it was built in the 1960s.

01:33:13.960 I really think we can no longer do this.

01:33:16.100 If you forgive that expression,

01:33:17.640 we can torment the average person with ever-growing regulations

01:33:21.520 at the same time, however, create conditions

01:33:24.480 that those on top escape those regulations.

01:33:26.760 Why do you think that the average American bill,

01:33:29.800 and it's the same in Europe as well,

01:33:31.620 has 500 pages?

01:33:33.160 Because it's basically a list of exceptions.

01:33:35.480 So the only person that actually is going to suffer

01:33:37.840 or be affected by that bill is going to be the small family company

01:33:42.440 or the small...

01:33:44.400 There was this great example a couple of years back

01:33:46.460 about a hardware store in California.

01:33:48.740 And what they did is, right,

01:33:49.840 kind of what you mentioned before,

01:33:50.840 so people that came early at 8 o'clock,

01:33:53.680 they handed out coffee and donuts.

01:33:55.340 So they put up a box of donuts and a can of coffee.

01:33:59.800 The state of California was harassing them without end

01:34:02.780 because they need a permit.

01:34:04.220 Do they have a kitchen?

01:34:05.500 Are they up to the hygiene standards?

01:34:08.180 Until the hardware owner said,

01:34:09.620 you know what,

01:34:10.080 I wanted to do something nice for my customers.

01:34:13.020 I no longer do it.

01:34:14.420 So in this area,

01:34:15.780 the state is extremely powerful.

01:34:17.600 But when it comes to other issues,

01:34:19.260 they're extremely weak.

01:34:20.420 And this is going to be a problem again.

01:34:22.480 I think for all of Western,

01:34:24.420 if you forgive that expression,

01:34:25.940 for all of Western civilization,

01:34:26.960 if we don't kind of get our stamina back,

01:34:29.680 if we kind of don't return to the spirit

01:34:32.280 and as well the capacity to get things done,

01:34:35.400 we have a problem.

01:34:36.140 And that I think is the thing also with the Dutch farmers.

01:34:38.400 Right?

01:34:38.620 They say, wait a moment,

01:34:39.460 we actually do something.

01:34:41.140 We produce something.

01:34:42.420 We are the best in, you know, potato,

01:34:44.840 which is the case, right?

01:34:45.720 We have the highest yield per acre worldwide in tomatoes.

01:34:48.540 The highest yield...

01:34:49.160 Yeah, they should be getting prizes for that.

01:34:51.820 Right?

01:34:52.160 I mean, these people should be getting awards.

01:34:54.100 You should find the person

01:34:55.220 who has the highest potato yield

01:34:57.240 per unit of fertilizer used

01:34:59.600 and give him,

01:35:01.320 I don't know what the equivalent

01:35:02.400 of the Order of Canada is in the Netherlands,

01:35:04.400 but obviously that's a person

01:35:05.960 who's a hero in every sense of the word.

01:35:10.420 And what's also so surprising to me,

01:35:13.380 and that tends to tilt me

01:35:15.060 towards a certain degree of

01:35:16.360 perhaps unwarranted cynicism,

01:35:18.720 is that it's the very people

01:35:20.420 who trumpet their allegiance

01:35:21.660 to the working class and the oppressed

01:35:23.560 who are at the forefront

01:35:25.060 of targeting these excellent avatars

01:35:28.500 of the working class,

01:35:30.460 defined the way you defined it,

01:35:31.700 which is, well, those are the people

01:35:33.040 who like work.

01:35:36.020 And so why don't you leave them alone

01:35:37.760 or at least get the hell out of their way?

01:35:40.120 No, I would even go a step further.

01:35:41.960 We kind of live in a kind of reverse Marxism

01:35:45.040 at the moment,

01:35:45.640 where the working class wants

01:35:47.600 to defend industrialization

01:35:49.300 and the ruling class, right?

01:35:51.620 Those who have capital,

01:35:52.480 the Jeff Bezos and others,

01:35:53.920 and nothing against them personally,

01:35:55.380 but they promote deindustrialization.

01:35:57.420 So it's really,

01:35:57.900 it's a complete reversal

01:35:59.000 of what we would think, right?

01:36:00.800 That the exploited working class

01:36:02.400 will storm the factories

01:36:03.980 and the machines.

01:36:04.880 It's the other way around.

01:36:05.880 They want to keep the machines.

01:36:07.260 And just to give another example,

01:36:08.860 Germany, like Willer und Bosch, right?

01:36:10.760 They make tiles in Germany,

01:36:11.980 like a traditional company.

01:36:13.360 They have been producing in Germany

01:36:14.720 since 1879.

01:36:16.160 They closed down production

01:36:17.620 and moved to Turkey.

01:36:18.860 They said,

01:36:19.180 we can no longer afford

01:36:20.700 with labor costs,

01:36:22.920 energy costs.

01:36:23.720 It's impossible for us

01:36:24.940 to produce there.

01:36:25.740 But a huge majority

01:36:27.660 of those costs

01:36:28.440 comes from regulation, right?

01:36:30.600 There was this case,

01:36:32.180 last example,

01:36:32.900 but I think this was so telling.

01:36:34.440 During the economic crisis

01:36:35.620 of 2008, 2010, right?

01:36:37.720 Where the workers in factories said,

01:36:39.620 we know this is a hard time,

01:36:41.660 so we are willing, you know,

01:36:42.680 to put in the extra hour.

01:36:44.080 We want to see our company remain

01:36:46.480 to be sustained, to succeed.

01:36:48.060 And what happened was

01:36:49.160 that the federal union

01:36:50.800 sued the workers

01:36:52.280 who voluntarily wanted

01:36:53.560 to continue to work.

01:36:54.980 So this is kind of,

01:36:55.600 these are all these cases

01:36:56.420 where we continue

01:36:57.120 to shoot ourselves

01:36:58.160 in our own foot

01:36:59.080 and that is no longer

01:37:00.360 sustainable at some point.

01:37:01.440 And I think this is

01:37:02.240 what the people in Europe feel.

01:37:03.640 Let me give you

01:37:04.000 one last statistic.

01:37:05.260 If you are a 15-year-old Italian now,

01:37:07.680 the expected work life

01:37:10.520 you're going to have

01:37:11.260 is 35 years.

01:37:12.480 I mean, that's very much

01:37:13.080 on the lower end

01:37:13.740 for the Danmark, it's 42.

01:37:16.140 For Austria, it's 38.

01:37:17.420 But the point is,

01:37:18.240 if you imagine,

01:37:18.860 so we get about, you know,

01:37:20.420 life expectancy is around 80.

01:37:22.100 Out of those 80 years,

01:37:23.520 we're going to work

01:37:24.160 for, let's say, 35 years.

01:37:25.940 This is not sustainable

01:37:27.120 under current conditions.

01:37:29.020 And what I believe is,

01:37:31.560 and this is going to be

01:37:32.300 the great unknown,

01:37:33.520 which is why I cannot tell you

01:37:34.460 exactly what's going to happen.

01:37:36.340 So far in Europe,

01:37:37.700 we haven't seen a politician

01:37:39.400 capable of channeling that anger,

01:37:41.880 right, of giving a voice

01:37:43.180 to that anger.

01:37:44.080 So whether it's a Trump-esque figure

01:37:46.020 or whatever you would call it.

01:37:47.340 So we haven't seen that.

01:37:48.740 But I think the potential is there.

01:37:50.240 So if you have a politician,

01:37:51.460 I believe,

01:37:51.800 that would stand up

01:37:52.460 and say, listen,

01:37:53.500 I cannot promise you

01:37:55.160 to, you know,

01:37:56.060 retire at 65

01:37:57.260 and go to university

01:37:58.840 until, you know, 42.

01:38:01.440 These are going to be hard times.

01:38:03.120 But what I can guarantee you

01:38:04.740 is that I will fight

01:38:05.600 tooth and nail

01:38:06.400 for affordable energy,

01:38:08.260 for good public schools,

01:38:09.720 for control in immigration,

01:38:11.360 right?

01:38:11.640 And like an elite by example,

01:38:13.300 I am convinced

01:38:14.020 that such a politician

01:38:15.060 would have tremendous potential.

01:38:17.440 But we are in this situation

01:38:19.180 where all the potential

01:38:20.640 new politicians

01:38:21.340 come out of the same bubble

01:38:22.900 where the previous politicians

01:38:24.140 were, you know, created.

01:38:25.960 So I don't think they see it yet,

01:38:27.660 which is, again,

01:38:28.400 going back to 2016,

01:38:29.980 which is why for all

01:38:31.040 his absurdities,

01:38:31.900 and I think he grasped it

01:38:32.920 more instinctively

01:38:34.000 than strategically,

01:38:35.340 Donald Trump was successful.

01:38:37.060 I mean, he was absurd,

01:38:38.080 but he was authentic.

01:38:39.260 He spoke to something.

01:38:40.220 He spoke to anger

01:38:40.860 that people felt.

01:38:41.620 And we have very good numbers.

01:38:42.980 For example,

01:38:43.560 the election in Virginia

01:38:44.560 in the fall last year,

01:38:46.060 he mobilizes people

01:38:47.640 that have never gone

01:38:49.340 to the voting booth

01:38:50.140 in their entire life, right?

01:38:51.540 And then this gold toilet

01:38:53.640 possessing, you know,

01:38:55.120 too long tie wearing guy

01:38:56.920 comes along

01:38:57.520 and rural Virginia voters say,

01:39:00.580 yeah, that's the guy

01:39:01.300 I'm going to give my vote for.

01:39:02.600 And I think we know

01:39:03.940 why that's the case.

01:39:05.300 Yeah, well,

01:39:05.660 there's a real opportunity

01:39:06.800 on both the classic liberal

01:39:09.360 and the small C conservative front

01:39:11.700 right now

01:39:12.340 to make a compelling case

01:39:14.160 for the genuine working class

01:39:16.660 and to say, you know,

01:39:18.440 we admire your thrift

01:39:21.100 and competence

01:39:21.980 and diligence

01:39:22.640 and conscientiousness.

01:39:24.060 We admire your willingness

01:39:26.300 to make sacrifices

01:39:27.380 for your children.

01:39:28.720 We want you to be richer

01:39:30.500 if you're doing so

01:39:32.020 by being productive

01:39:32.980 and generous.

01:39:33.760 We support all that

01:39:34.800 full in a full-fledged

01:39:37.440 and wholehearted manner.

01:39:39.180 We don't want you

01:39:39.980 to be guilty about that

01:39:41.360 because you're bringing wealth,

01:39:42.740 the wealth to the world

01:39:43.700 that stops people

01:39:44.680 from dying

01:39:45.340 from absolute privation

01:39:46.740 and destroying the environment

01:39:47.960 while doing so.

01:39:49.340 And all of that's

01:39:50.340 just lying on the table

01:39:51.420 for someone

01:39:52.640 who isn't a populist

01:39:54.080 and just appealing

01:39:55.040 to resentment

01:39:55.700 to carry forward.

01:39:57.080 And, you know,

01:39:57.660 maybe that could happen.

01:39:58.820 We're trying to hatch plans

01:40:00.200 on that front

01:40:00.920 in a variety of,

01:40:01.680 on a variety of,

01:40:03.560 in a variety of manners

01:40:04.440 at the moment.

01:40:05.860 And so,

01:40:06.480 but I am very,

01:40:08.200 very nervous

01:40:08.880 about the upcoming winter,

01:40:10.800 especially because

01:40:11.560 the Russians,

01:40:12.540 not especially,

01:40:13.320 but in part

01:40:13.940 because the Russians

01:40:14.700 have the control

01:40:15.560 of the taps to Germany.

01:40:17.000 And if I was Putin

01:40:18.300 and pushed into a corner,

01:40:19.840 I wouldn't hesitate

01:40:20.600 to use that for a second.

01:40:22.140 And that's a much

01:40:23.160 preferable alternative

01:40:24.360 to nuclear weapons

01:40:25.420 and also one

01:40:26.140 that's much more

01:40:26.780 morally justifiable.

01:40:28.420 Not that it's morally justifiable,

01:40:30.400 but it's more morally justifiable.

01:40:32.800 And it's not like

01:40:33.800 he doesn't have

01:40:34.520 devastating economic weapons

01:40:36.800 at his disposal.

01:40:38.380 No, I think,

01:40:39.100 I think you're right.

01:40:39.760 I mean,

01:40:39.900 this is exactly the point

01:40:40.920 that, you know,

01:40:41.400 many people now talk

01:40:42.560 in the,

01:40:42.900 in the pundit class

01:40:44.040 about the decolonization

01:40:45.400 and the breakup

01:40:46.100 of the Russian Federation.

01:40:47.320 And what are we going to do

01:40:48.880 once this,

01:40:49.560 with Russia,

01:40:50.160 once this war is over?

01:40:51.500 I'm more concerned

01:40:52.460 about the European Union.

01:40:53.900 I'm not sure

01:40:54.460 if exactly what you described.

01:40:56.200 I'm not sure

01:40:56.860 if the worst should happen,

01:40:58.600 right?

01:40:58.780 If the worst case scenario

01:40:59.960 will kind of complete gas stop,

01:41:01.340 right?

01:41:01.480 You know,

01:41:01.680 breakdown of the industry,

01:41:03.220 do things.

01:41:04.080 This,

01:41:04.460 the European Union

01:41:05.440 is not going to survive this.

01:41:06.700 Yeah.

01:41:07.000 So,

01:41:07.560 on the European Union front,

01:41:10.300 you said that

01:41:10.900 there's lots of pundits

01:41:11.880 who are prognosticating

01:41:14.340 the breakup

01:41:14.760 of the Russian Federation,

01:41:16.060 say,

01:41:16.220 and the demise

01:41:16.780 of the Putin administration.

01:41:18.300 But there's

01:41:19.100 every bit of evidence

01:41:20.240 to suggest

01:41:20.780 that the first thing

01:41:21.680 to crack and break

01:41:22.460 might be the European Union.

01:41:24.700 Italy and Greece

01:41:25.720 and Spain

01:41:26.300 can't tolerate

01:41:27.040 the economic pressure,

01:41:28.180 especially if things

01:41:28.940 start to go sideways.

01:41:30.820 One thing that you mentioned

01:41:32.240 at the beginning,

01:41:33.060 right,

01:41:33.280 kind of was the worst case

01:41:34.300 scenarios for the fall,

01:41:35.540 particularly in relation

01:41:36.560 to Russian gas.

01:41:37.820 And I think this is

01:41:38.600 what we see now unfolding

01:41:39.860 is that the unity of Europe

01:41:41.300 is not as much

01:41:42.280 as we thought it was.

01:41:43.980 They could kick down

01:41:44.920 the can down the road

01:41:46.040 with the economic crisis

01:41:47.680 because the ECB

01:41:48.560 could just print money.

01:41:49.620 So,

01:41:49.760 you kind of could gloss

01:41:50.620 over the potential problems

01:41:52.020 and effects

01:41:52.540 for a majority of the people.

01:41:54.280 But if Russia is really,

01:41:55.520 you know,

01:41:55.860 reducing gas to zero,

01:41:57.180 right,

01:41:57.380 we talk about

01:41:58.500 jobs lost in industry,

01:42:00.400 people unable

01:42:01.000 to heat their homes.

01:42:02.440 We talk about,

01:42:03.700 you know,

01:42:04.880 repercussions

01:42:05.760 that will have effects

01:42:07.400 on every single person

01:42:08.900 living within

01:42:09.420 the European Union.

01:42:10.240 and then countries

01:42:11.460 will immediately

01:42:12.180 to start to look

01:42:13.000 for alternatives,

01:42:13.960 which we already see.

01:42:15.020 I mean,

01:42:15.260 Spain has said,

01:42:16.640 we have,

01:42:17.180 you know,

01:42:17.660 LNG ports,

01:42:19.580 we can import

01:42:20.440 liquefied natural gas,

01:42:22.200 we're going to do this

01:42:23.060 and we're going to use it

01:42:24.220 for the Spanish people.

01:42:25.720 Another quick example,

01:42:27.180 the foreign minister

01:42:27.880 of Hungary,

01:42:29.000 right,

01:42:29.280 I think otherwise

01:42:30.500 a very impressive man,

01:42:31.440 just two days ago

01:42:32.480 traveled to Moscow

01:42:34.060 and met with

01:42:34.940 the Russian foreign minister,

01:42:35.920 Lavrov,

01:42:36.560 in order to ensure

01:42:37.660 that Hungary

01:42:38.220 will continue

01:42:38.840 to get gas.

01:42:39.640 Now,

01:42:40.160 currently he's very much

01:42:41.220 scolded,

01:42:41.820 which I understand,

01:42:42.760 but the thing is

01:42:43.380 what Hungary is doing,

01:42:45.200 sooner or later

01:42:45.760 other countries

01:42:46.600 will follow suit.

01:42:47.420 And by the way,

01:42:48.180 most European countries

01:42:49.140 still export

01:42:49.960 tons of fossil fuels

01:42:51.920 from coal to oil

01:42:52.960 to gas from Russia.

01:42:54.360 So if they really

01:42:55.000 cut it to zero

01:42:55.980 or significantly restricted,

01:42:57.500 I think that

01:42:58.220 that is a lethal threat

01:42:59.380 to the European Union

01:43:00.660 and to the European project.

01:43:01.980 And the fact

01:43:02.720 that this is barely

01:43:03.460 talked about,

01:43:04.440 I find very disconcerting.

01:43:06.480 Yeah,

01:43:06.700 well,

01:43:06.960 I think the reason

01:43:08.660 it's barely talked about

01:43:09.760 is because

01:43:10.300 it's the logical,

01:43:12.000 inevitable consequence

01:43:13.200 of this idiot

01:43:14.200 moral posturing

01:43:15.180 that's been going on

01:43:16.060 for 15 years.

01:43:17.080 And it is indicative

01:43:18.420 of a degree of blindness

01:43:19.700 that is almost miraculous

01:43:21.440 in its totality.

01:43:23.940 I mean,

01:43:24.200 how in the world

01:43:25.160 could you possibly think

01:43:26.440 that making your energy grid

01:43:28.660 non-resilient

01:43:29.720 and then relying

01:43:31.040 on the Russians

01:43:31.720 was a reasonable

01:43:33.000 move forward?

01:43:33.980 And this is independent

01:43:34.980 in some sense

01:43:35.860 of whether you have

01:43:36.420 good relations

01:43:37.020 with the Russians.

01:43:38.200 And how could you

01:43:38.820 possibly think

01:43:39.600 that making energy

01:43:40.500 more expensive

01:43:41.600 was going to be good

01:43:42.600 for the planet

01:43:43.160 when it devastates

01:43:44.080 poor people,

01:43:45.220 especially when you're

01:43:46.060 also purporting

01:43:46.900 to care above all

01:43:48.380 for the poor

01:43:48.920 and oppressed?

01:43:50.020 Like,

01:43:50.260 this is so utterly

01:43:51.280 preposterous

01:43:52.160 and so backwards

01:43:52.980 that it couldn't,

01:43:54.360 in some ways,

01:43:55.120 it couldn't be,

01:43:56.980 we couldn't be doing

01:43:57.880 more damage

01:43:58.640 to ourselves

01:43:59.360 in some sense

01:44:01.040 if we were trying.

01:44:02.720 And, you know,

01:44:03.240 Bjorn just sort of

01:44:04.240 casually mentioned,

01:44:05.140 and this is no slur

01:44:06.360 on Bjorn,

01:44:06.980 that's for sure,

01:44:08.000 but it was an aside

01:44:08.920 that, well,

01:44:09.680 it's probably a billion,

01:44:11.440 1.2 billion people

01:44:12.800 that are going to be

01:44:13.300 going hungry this fall.

01:44:14.540 It's like,

01:44:15.800 what?

01:44:17.340 What?

01:44:18.080 In a world where

01:44:19.140 there could be

01:44:20.460 enough food

01:44:21.300 to make everyone fat,

01:44:23.280 as we've seen happening

01:44:24.480 over the last two decades,

01:44:25.680 we're actually going

01:44:26.480 to enter a period

01:44:27.280 where mass starvation

01:44:28.520 is a thing again?

01:44:29.640 And so,

01:44:32.460 and we're doing that

01:44:33.240 because we're being moral

01:44:34.840 and we're trying

01:44:35.440 to save the planet?

01:44:36.680 That's really,

01:44:37.500 that's really what you think.

01:44:38.820 That's really how you think

01:44:40.380 the evidence

01:44:41.000 is laying itself out.

01:44:42.000 Well, obviously,

01:44:42.660 the Dutch farmers

01:44:43.360 and these sensible

01:44:44.620 working class types,

01:44:46.180 they know that

01:44:46.980 something's up.

01:44:47.840 They know that

01:44:48.320 the jig is up.

01:44:49.740 You know,

01:44:49.920 and I don't know

01:44:50.420 if you know this,

01:44:51.100 but these protests

01:44:52.160 are receiving

01:44:52.740 almost no coverage

01:44:53.740 in places like Canada.

01:44:55.160 Our national newscaster

01:44:56.560 just won't talk

01:44:57.820 about it at all,

01:44:58.640 and it's because

01:44:59.300 they know,

01:45:00.120 I think in some real sense

01:45:01.380 that this is the death knoll

01:45:02.660 for the utopian

01:45:03.920 globalist agenda.

01:45:05.460 And this is happening

01:45:06.100 the same week

01:45:06.880 that Trudeau has announced

01:45:08.540 that he's going to

01:45:09.180 force the farmers

01:45:10.000 because he likes force

01:45:11.180 because, of course,

01:45:12.040 he's saving the planet

01:45:12.960 and force is justifiable.

01:45:14.480 He's going to force

01:45:15.200 the Canadian farmers

01:45:16.100 into exactly

01:45:16.940 the same conundrum

01:45:18.160 that he's,

01:45:19.740 that the Dutch government

01:45:20.540 is forcing

01:45:21.100 the Dutch farmers into.

01:45:22.380 And, you know,

01:45:23.120 I know farmers in Canada

01:45:24.500 and they're not

01:45:25.360 the backwoods rubes

01:45:26.600 that intellectual elites

01:45:27.780 like to presume

01:45:28.480 they are.

01:45:28.940 These people use

01:45:29.740 satellite technology.

01:45:30.960 They know to the square foot

01:45:32.820 where the fertilizer

01:45:33.820 in their land is going.

01:45:35.000 They're really motivated

01:45:36.080 to reduce fertilizer use

01:45:37.760 because it's expensive

01:45:38.820 and so they want to target

01:45:39.980 it as carefully

01:45:40.640 as possible.

01:45:41.800 But instead of working

01:45:42.840 with them

01:45:43.440 and talking with them

01:45:44.440 and meeting with them

01:45:45.280 with a degree of respect

01:45:47.140 that's clearly earned

01:45:48.820 and deserved,

01:45:49.900 the government just says,

01:45:50.840 well,

01:45:51.180 you guys could be doing

01:45:52.480 a better job.

01:45:53.960 It's like,

01:45:54.800 well,

01:45:55.140 we're doing the best job

01:45:57.220 of anybody in the world.

01:45:59.180 That's particularly true

01:46:00.260 in Holland,

01:46:00.740 but, you know,

01:46:01.340 Canada would be a close,

01:46:02.640 well,

01:46:02.800 it'd be in the top 10.

01:46:04.540 This is,

01:46:05.060 I think,

01:46:05.480 I think the point you made,

01:46:06.820 I mean,

01:46:06.980 there's one thing

01:46:07.560 we probably have to keep

01:46:08.560 this for another day,

01:46:09.360 but I think that's something

01:46:10.180 that also needs more

01:46:11.320 to discuss.

01:46:11.820 We have a problem here

01:46:12.860 and I think this is

01:46:13.620 from which this all flows

01:46:14.660 in the educational system

01:46:16.500 as well.

01:46:17.100 It's,

01:46:17.520 you know,

01:46:18.800 in academia,

01:46:19.560 but also already in school,

01:46:21.240 right,

01:46:21.460 kind of,

01:46:21.740 we kind of start

01:46:23.580 to marinate young people

01:46:25.080 in a sense of,

01:46:27.140 not just a rejection

01:46:28.020 of modernity,

01:46:29.180 but also in a sense

01:46:29.940 of historical self-hate

01:46:31.680 and I think this is the problem.

01:46:32.860 So there is,

01:46:33.880 sometimes I feel,

01:46:34.940 and we touched upon this

01:46:35.840 a little bit with Bjorn as well,

01:46:36.840 but I really feel sometimes

01:46:38.140 there is this idea,

01:46:39.360 it's particularly strong

01:46:40.060 in Germany

01:46:40.480 because the Germans

01:46:41.340 always have a thing

01:46:42.200 for ideology,

01:46:43.200 but it's a particularly

01:46:44.140 strong sense of,

01:46:44.980 and guilt,

01:46:45.640 and yes,

01:46:46.080 right,

01:46:46.220 and this is exactly the thing now.

01:46:47.500 I think that they say,

01:46:48.380 no,

01:46:48.460 we're going to atone

01:46:49.660 for our past

01:46:50.460 and we're going to sacrifice

01:46:51.800 the future for it,

01:46:52.700 right?

01:46:52.920 So at some sense

01:46:54.320 that the pain

01:46:55.360 is not a bug,

01:46:56.480 but it's a feature,

01:46:57.380 right?

01:46:57.720 Now that,

01:46:58.480 I'm exaggerating here

01:46:59.680 for dramatic effect,

01:47:00.460 but it is,

01:47:01.040 you know,

01:47:01.380 now we suffer,

01:47:02.580 so now we can atone

01:47:04.220 for our sins

01:47:04.880 of the past

01:47:05.980 and,

01:47:06.700 you know,

01:47:07.020 you can do this,

01:47:08.720 but as I said,

01:47:09.480 it's probably going to cost you

01:47:10.580 at some point your future.

01:47:11.780 Well,

01:47:11.900 that's self-flagellation

01:47:14.440 instead of proper atonement

01:47:16.500 and proper atonement is,

01:47:17.800 well,

01:47:18.420 we're going to take stock

01:47:19.400 of the catastrophes

01:47:20.600 of the past

01:47:21.240 and our oppressive use of power

01:47:22.920 and we're going to do better.

01:47:25.000 And I mean,

01:47:25.440 part of the thing

01:47:26.040 that I've been trying to do

01:47:26.940 while I've been touring around

01:47:27.960 is asking people,

01:47:29.660 individuals,

01:47:30.380 to try to do better

01:47:31.480 because that's the best thing to do

01:47:33.380 is to bear your responsibility

01:47:34.760 and to bear your privilege too,

01:47:37.720 you know,

01:47:38.020 is that we are privileged

01:47:39.440 here in the West

01:47:40.200 and the way we atone

01:47:41.560 for that

01:47:42.360 is by being

01:47:43.220 people

01:47:44.100 whose lives

01:47:45.280 justify

01:47:46.340 our provision of resources

01:47:48.340 and our God-given talents

01:47:49.800 and that's the only way forward

01:47:51.160 and these false sacrifices,

01:47:53.340 they're for show,

01:47:54.020 they're like praying in public

01:47:55.240 to use a gospel

01:47:56.220 metaphor.

01:47:57.900 It's like,

01:47:58.180 well,

01:47:58.260 don't pray in public,

01:47:59.080 just get your life together

01:48:01.080 and be productive

01:48:02.520 and generous

01:48:03.140 and kind

01:48:03.760 and work towards life

01:48:05.220 more abundant

01:48:05.820 and stop

01:48:06.900 elevating your moral status

01:48:08.680 inappropriately

01:48:09.500 with your blind ignorance

01:48:10.720 and your moral pretensions,

01:48:11.900 especially at the cost

01:48:13.200 of the actual poor,

01:48:14.860 which is what we're doing now.

01:48:16.500 No,

01:48:16.680 and allow me to make

01:48:17.740 one last point on this

01:48:18.520 because exactly what you said,

01:48:19.580 right,

01:48:19.680 this is maybe why we should,

01:48:20.920 should I know that you're also

01:48:21.800 a huge fan of Russian literature,

01:48:23.480 right,

01:48:23.680 why people should read,

01:48:24.960 particularly in this,

01:48:25.860 in this respect,

01:48:26.460 Tolstoy again,

01:48:27.140 right,

01:48:27.240 I think,

01:48:27.540 I think we need to allow people

01:48:29.400 and I think this is what

01:48:30.020 the working class wants,

01:48:30.900 right,

01:48:31.000 you can find satisfaction,

01:48:33.040 you can find a fulfilling life

01:48:34.500 in being,

01:48:35.360 you know,

01:48:35.640 being a farmer,

01:48:36.840 being a good husband,

01:48:38.220 you know,

01:48:38.360 being a mother,

01:48:39.700 all these kind of things.

01:48:40.660 It doesn't always have to be

01:48:42.540 saving the world.

01:48:43.500 I mean,

01:48:43.660 also psychologically.

01:48:44.920 I mean,

01:48:45.160 we take 18-year-olds

01:48:46.640 and tell them-

01:48:47.020 That is how you save the world.

01:48:49.040 Precisely,

01:48:49.460 right,

01:48:49.700 one community at a time,

01:48:51.420 but now we take 18-year-olds

01:48:52.700 and we tell them,

01:48:54.320 you know,

01:48:54.520 the world is going to end.

01:48:55.780 The only people who can change it

01:48:57.260 is you.

01:48:58.300 No wonder that we have,

01:48:59.460 you know,

01:48:59.640 such high degrees

01:49:00.480 of attempted suicide

01:49:01.880 and depression

01:49:02.880 and these kind of things.

01:49:03.700 I think what we are doing

01:49:04.400 to young people

01:49:05.760 as well as a consequence of this.

01:49:07.240 Well,

01:49:07.420 and we're telling them

01:49:08.240 that not only

01:49:09.000 can they change the world

01:49:12.140 and save the world,

01:49:13.640 but they should do it now,

01:49:15.300 that they're wiser

01:49:16.160 than their elders,

01:49:17.300 which they definitely are not,

01:49:19.760 and that the best way

01:49:21.340 to change the world

01:49:22.380 and to save it

01:49:23.420 is by stopping

01:49:24.200 the bad people

01:49:25.260 from doing

01:49:25.780 what they're doing.

01:49:27.560 And so,

01:49:28.160 it's a pandering

01:49:29.000 of the worst sort

01:49:31.220 and it's certainly the case

01:49:32.340 that the intellectual class

01:49:33.640 bears first and foremost

01:49:35.280 the responsibility

01:49:36.040 for that occurring.

01:49:37.420 And it's also sometimes,

01:49:38.860 it also has almost

01:49:39.740 a ridiculous,

01:49:40.600 I find,

01:49:41.520 element.

01:49:41.920 If you think about it,

01:49:42.760 and again,

01:49:43.040 I hold no grudge

01:49:43.720 against Greta Thunberg.

01:49:45.140 I think,

01:49:45.540 you know,

01:49:46.160 that she has achieved

01:49:47.120 quite a lot,

01:49:47.700 but if you saw

01:49:48.340 these pictures

01:49:48.900 at the UN

01:49:49.520 and other meetings,

01:49:50.440 right,

01:49:50.660 where mostly men

01:49:52.580 in their mid-50s

01:49:53.960 were, you know,

01:49:54.260 kind of fawning over her

01:49:55.800 and they wanted pictures

01:49:56.780 taken with her.

01:49:57.460 I just think,

01:49:59.080 you know,

01:49:59.280 that for me

01:49:59.960 is not serious,

01:50:01.160 right?

01:50:01.400 I mean,

01:50:01.640 again,

01:50:02.080 as you said

01:50:02.480 with Bjorn,

01:50:02.900 right,

01:50:03.040 I mean,

01:50:03.700 talk to the scientists,

01:50:04.780 talk to the people

01:50:05.380 that are actual solutions,

01:50:06.680 but don't look for,

01:50:07.920 you know,

01:50:08.420 a good photo op,

01:50:09.580 right?

01:50:09.800 I mean,

01:50:10.000 I like Greta Thunberg,

01:50:11.780 I like Arnold Schwarzenegger,

01:50:13.220 I like all these people,

01:50:14.160 but I'm not entirely sure

01:50:16.100 to what extent

01:50:16.800 I would take my moral cues

01:50:18.380 from them.

01:50:18.980 Well,

01:50:19.160 certainly not at a practical level,

01:50:21.080 you know?

01:50:21.400 I mean,

01:50:21.620 these problems

01:50:22.260 are extremely difficult,

01:50:23.600 you know?

01:50:23.860 If you want to do something

01:50:24.920 like build a more effective

01:50:26.640 sewage plant,

01:50:27.860 and who wouldn't want that?

01:50:30.260 Then you talk to the engineers

01:50:31.760 who know how to build

01:50:32.520 sewage plants.

01:50:33.340 These things have to be

01:50:34.220 brought down to the level

01:50:35.260 of painstaking detail,

01:50:36.900 and that requires

01:50:37.900 a lot of time and effort,

01:50:39.120 like the time and effort

01:50:39.960 the Democrats would have

01:50:40.940 had to put in,

01:50:41.660 for example,

01:50:42.180 to track their

01:50:42.760 infrastructure spending,

01:50:44.720 right?

01:50:45.040 And that's something you do

01:50:46.460 if you're knowledgeable

01:50:47.340 and you've done

01:50:48.020 a bathroom renovation,

01:50:49.340 and you know how

01:50:49.860 a construction project

01:50:50.900 can get out of control

01:50:51.900 instantly and doesn't

01:50:53.280 if you're not paying

01:50:53.980 attention to every detail.

01:50:55.540 And the working class people,

01:50:56.880 they're the ones who are

01:50:57.620 paying attention

01:50:58.220 to the details,

01:50:59.120 right?

01:50:59.720 They're making sure

01:51:00.460 that their laces are tied

01:51:01.620 and that the rubber

01:51:02.280 hits the road

01:51:02.960 and that the vehicles

01:51:04.260 are maintained,

01:51:04.880 and they have that

01:51:05.700 pragmatic knowledge

01:51:06.820 of how the world works

01:51:07.920 that the elite use

01:51:08.920 when they fly off

01:51:09.760 into their utopian

01:51:11.620 towers of Babel.

01:51:13.360 So,

01:51:13.860 well,

01:51:14.200 Ralph,

01:51:14.440 we should probably

01:51:15.220 call it a day,

01:51:16.720 I guess.

01:51:18.240 That was a good discussion,

01:51:19.940 and congratulations

01:51:21.900 on the work

01:51:22.720 you've been doing.

01:51:23.380 It's extremely important.

01:51:24.460 Thank you so much.

01:51:25.220 I hope that this helps

01:51:27.300 you bring

01:51:28.360 your coverage

01:51:29.740 of the emerging

01:51:31.820 European protest

01:51:33.180 scene to a much

01:51:34.160 broader audience

01:51:34.880 and helps clue people

01:51:36.780 into the fact

01:51:37.480 that these are not

01:51:38.320 simple misogynists

01:51:39.920 and racists

01:51:40.720 and bigots

01:51:41.360 as they were described

01:51:42.700 in Canada,

01:51:43.420 but unbelievably

01:51:44.180 sophisticated,

01:51:45.260 hardworking,

01:51:46.020 and people who have

01:51:47.140 excellent businesses

01:51:48.580 in the highest sense

01:51:50.140 who have been

01:51:51.100 driven to desperation

01:51:52.120 by the idiot

01:51:53.040 machinations

01:51:53.780 of their utopian

01:51:54.760 masters.

01:51:56.060 So,

01:51:56.740 really good to meet you,

01:51:57.840 and I hope we get a chance

01:51:58.740 to meet in person.

01:51:59.940 Yeah.

01:52:02.000 Bye.

01:52:02.760 Thank you.

01:52:04.820 Bye.

01:52:12.960 Bye.

01:52:14.000 Bye.

01:52:14.240 Bye.

01:52:14.400 Bye.

01:52:15.260 Bye.

01:52:16.840 Bye.

01:52:17.940 Bye.

01:52:18.360 Bye.

01:52:18.420 Bye.

01:52:19.360 Bye.

01:52:19.460 See you

285. How to Make the World a Better Place ｜ Bjørn Lomborg & Ralph Schoellhammer

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