Boonta Vista - UNLOCKED BONUS EPISODE: The Political Climate (Feat. Ketan Joshi)

Episode Date: November 18, 2019

In this unlocked bonus episode from our Patreon (www.patreon.com/BoontaVista), Theo is joined by climate, clean tech and science communicator Ketan Joshi for an interview that covers recent bushfires and the political reaction to them and plenty more. You can follow Ketan on Twitter at https://twitter.com/KetanJ0 Support our show and get an extra bonus episode like this every single week by subscribing on Patreon: www.patreon.com/BoontaVista

Hi everybody and welcome to a very special edition of Buntavista. I am Theo and I'm here with Climate Communicator Katan. Kitan how are you? I'm pretty good. How are you? I'm very well. How is Sunny Oslo? It's, I haven't seen the sun in about three or four weeks I think, and I don't mean that as a joke, like I actually haven't seen the actual star at the center of our solar system. It's just been kind of cloudy. It's snowed for a bit, I slipped around, and nearly died, and now it's just rainy.

Yeah, it's good. It's completely alien to me. Yeah. But as you can kind of imagine we're having a bit of a different time in Australia which is the reason that we're having a little chat today. Of course we've had some absolutely tragic and and hard events in Australia still long ongoing as of I guess Friday night when we're recording this. We've had bushfires tear through Queensland, New South Wales. Western Australia, they believe that Victoria will start burning soon. We've got, so that's about a million hectares of bushfire.

We've had four people, unfortunately, passed away in the events. It's not good at all, I think it's safe to say. But it's also safe to say, I guess, that this has kicked off an absolutely ludicrous amount of takes, garbage, ridiculous talk, just the worst kind of reflexes of the Australian politics and media apparatus. So is that probably summing it up okay, do you think? Yeah, it's perfect. I mean, so, it's a tricky one because there's two different things happening, right?

There's the actual fact that a bushfire happened, a fire burnt, and then there's the changes and the characteristics of it, right? So you've got more of them happening. There's individual sort of bushfires. You have a higher area. And you also have it earlier in the year. So there's spatial and temporal stuff, right? Like it's, those two factors are changing. So what that means is that there's not really

a good language for talking about the way things change over time and space as opposed to whether things happen or not. Yeah, and this is really something that I was trying to, I was going to try to think of how to slip this in, but it's something we've talked about previously a lot on the show where it seems, it seems like the media and especially a conservative media has absolutely no way at the moment to deal with the concept that sometimes a number is than another number, right? Like it's, it, it, it, it, the, the, the magnitude, the magnitude, the magnitude, the magnitude, the magnitude, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, th th th th th, th, th is, tho, tho, thi, thi, tho, tho, tho, to to to to to to to to to to to to th is is, th is, th is th is th is th is th is th is th is th is th is th is th is th is th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th is th, th is th is th is th is th is th is thi, thi, thi, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, to to that, to to that is that is thi thi, thi, th number, right? Like, it's either it is or it isn't. Yeah, magnitude is an unpleasant thing to talk about for a lot of people who kind of, their brand is simplicity.

And I don't think it's impossible. I think that it's, I don't think that it's like an effortful thing to talk about these events in the context of changing magnitudes. Like you see a few media outlets do it particularly well. I think the Guardian does a pretty good job with this. The ABC does a sort of okayish job, but they're extremely guarded about everything they say. So they're kind of doing it with their hands tied behind their backs. So it's not impossible, but what happens is people trying to get out a simple message, want to frame stuff as a binary on and off. And so you have that with causality around a complex event. So a bushfire is caused by many things.

One of those things is the climactic conditions, and those conditions are changing because of human activity. So for a few decades we've been releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, that has changed stuff and as a consequence, Australia has an earlier bushfire season and it's more intense. That's not disputed, right? Like that's a very sort of well-confirmed sequence of causes and you can trace it all the way right down to bushfires, right? It's not like, oh okay we know that the conditions have changed, so let's make an assumption between the change conditions and the occurrence of bushfires. There are scientific papers that actually

examine specifically the bushfires and specifically the link to human cause climate change and then you can use the science to basically say well there's an extremely high probability that this particular bushfire wouldn't have happened had humanity not burnt fossil fuels for four decades or something like that, you know, like that absolutely. And example. And I mean we've been, I think, talking about that concept in broad strokes for, you know, 100 years or more now, but in like real specificity since the 80s, probably earlier, but specifically, you know, by, by, you know, the even studies fostered within fossil fuel companies, BP and Shell, and that sort of thing.

And I understand that all of our listeners are just like, yep, no, I know, I know kind of things, but it is important to, I guess, repeat thiii. But it is important to, I guess, repeat this, because that's certainly not what we're hearing at the moment. And, you know, especially, I think you did a good rundown of the media, like, in general, they're approached there. The Guardian is publishing a lot of stuff, especially from, not just climate change stuff, because I mean, they've been talking about things that climate scientists have been saying for a very long time now but from firefighters and

you know ex-firefighters and a lot of this stuff so there's a coalition of former fire chiefs that are talking to the government that have they claim that they are being ignored throughout and that politics is is the reason you know and and of course they are just you know the things they're they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they are they are they are they are saying they are saying they they are saying they are saying they they are saying they they they are saying they they they are saying they they are saying they are saying they they are saying they are saying they are saying they are saying they are saying they they are saying they are saying they are saying they are saying they are saying they are saying they are saying they are saying they are saying they are saying they are saying they are saying they are they are they are they are saying they are they are they are they are saying. they they they they they they they they they they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're saying. they're they're they're saying. they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're saying. they're they're they're saying. they're they're they that they are being ignored throughout and that politics is the reason, you know, and of course they are just saying the things that science has said as well where we are seeing bushfires they're more deadly. The bushfire season is longer. It starts earlier and of course that impacts, that impacts the ability to create burnbacks and that sort of thing. Yeah, so that's a really interesting, I've sort of been reading those articles about the group of fire chiefs who just sort of said, look, you know, we've been completely ignored on this and we've been trying to warn about this for ages. Australian needs to reduce its emissions, because that is a behavior that is contributing to the worsening of this problem.

And also it needs to lead the world in change, right? Like it's not just enough for Australia to reduce its domestic emissions and it's not even enough to stop exporting fossil fuels. It actually needs to say to other countries, look how well we're doing and how much benefit you can draw from decarbonizing and just become like this global leader and then influence the world that way. And that would hypothetically have a big impact on emissions, which would then definitely have a big impact on the Earth's climate

system. Yeah, which is, I think, a different approach than we are used to taking in a capitalist society where we're used to being able to offload that trouble to somebody else. But here, the concept that we can't, that the coal burnt here versus the coal burnt when we sell our low grade coal to China or wherever it may go ends up as the same CO2 in the atmosphere either way and it's a very difficult concept for I think a lot of the way that we have, our exports and our kind of responsibility around this is structured, is not structured to handle this. So, like, that's, as you mentioned before, like, I'm sure a lot of your listeners agree, but like that that to say that is relatively straightforward, right? And that it

comes from those fire chiefs is like they're a trusted source like that implicitly they're deep, they're not political, but it was odd to see, like, so there were a few Greens and MPs and Senators who said pretty much the same thing but they that they cast it in very to in in in in in in th th to th to th th to th to th th th th th th to th very th very to to th very the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the theat to say that that to say to say that to say to say that that to say that that to say to say that that that that that to say that's the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the theeeeeeeeeeeat to say to say theat. to say to say to say to say to say to say that's to say the the the to see, like, so there were a few Greens and theirs and senators who said pretty much the same thing, but they cast it in very strong terms of like moral guilt, right? So, like, Senator Jordan Steele said that the coalition government is no better than arsonists, which, you know, like, that's, that's, that's, that's pretty strong language, but I don't think there's anything wrong with saying that per se. Like, I don't think that that's a unhealthy form of discourse, right? Sure. But that was reacted to with a lot of people, like, so, so, and we'll get to this in a second, but the couple of coalition people saying silly stuff,

far sillier than saying that somebody who is morally culpable for contributing to a problem is a bad person for having contributed to it, right? So, like, when Jordan Steele said that, he wasn't betraying any scientific outcomes, right? Like he wasn't saying anything non-scientific. He was simply saying, for contributing to this problem, you're this bad a person or this bad a group of people. So it wasn't, it wasn't like sort of anti-scientific, but then, you know, Barnaby Joyce said the other day that the son's magnetic field was causing bushfires. Yes. Now, that is not even really a moral claim,

right? Like he's not, like he's not saying something mean. He's saying something astonishingly unscientific. Like, that's like, you know, that feels like something from 2009, you know, when climate denial was at its absolute maximum and this stuff was just across all media outlets. Like, that's just a really sort of, um, classical, old school, climate denia blog, sort of like Andrew Bolt kind of thing to say, right? Absolutely, but in his defense he has had a lot to deal with since 2009.

But you're a hundred percent right and the and it's it's odd because they can't get their messaging in order, right? Whereas the Greens messaging is very clear if aggressive. And you know I think clearly not not many of us would disagree that if you're taking the time to separate ignorance from Malfiants, right, as far as the intentions of selling coal goes or selling gas goes, that it doesn't really matter. Either way, your hand should not be on the wheel, right? So I think as far as we are concerned, we wouldn't really split that hair because, we wouldn't really split that it doesn't really matter. Either way, your hand should not be on the wheel, right? So I think as far as we are concerned, we wouldn't really split that hair because in the end it results in the same coal being burnt. But the nationals can't get their ducks in the line on this,

right? Like we've had McCormick kind of circle around the issue, but then again gone way off the track right at the end, right? So he's on record recently saying, you know, we know that it's getting drier, we know that it's getting situations in parts are getting very warm, which is, you're right, and you're getting very warm there, McCormick, but but then continues on to say, you know, that the climate protests in Melbourne are getting way too much publicity, they crave that, they yearn that these people are in a city raving lunatics, and of course we just cut that right down to the very last sentence, which in context it's easier to see what he's he's talking about it doesn't th, it th, th, th, th, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, to thi's to to It doesn't make it any better, though, I don't think.

So the tactic there is really just a sort of recast, so something that's happened in the past five years. And it's actually really surprised me. I've been pretty pleasantly surprised by this is a really significant increase in broad public concern about climate change. And it's very, very different to anything that's happened before because it's not just more people accept the climate science or more people are vaguely saying like, oh yeah, it would be nice to get something done.

It's actually starting to shoot up lists of day-to-day concerns, right? So it's stuff that people, normally you get answers like, pay my mortgage, or like, you know, having enough time to do things or managing finances. And climate change is starting to end up at the top of those lists. Yeah, I mean, you saw what we saw in the, like last decade. Certainly a lot of people got out and up at the top of those lists. Yeah, I mean you saw, we saw in the, like, last decade, certainly a lot of people got out and protested the Iraq war. Yeah. But it wasn't something that would immediately go to the top of somebody's existential concerns.

Yeah. They just see it as a moral wrong. Well, you know, in September this year there was the global climate strike event and that was just incredibly massive. There were millions of people around the world. Australia in particular had a lot of people and it was, Australia was disproportionately represented in terms of how many people attended, which is nice, right? Like it's not that's not something that often happens in Australia is like a lot of people, huge, huge, huge quantities of people caring about a really important thing and actually getting out on the street and saying I care about this please do something. So what you're seeing from

Michael McCormack is an attempt to kind of push back against the broadness of concern and he wants to be like no no no the people who care about this are you know gluing themselves to roads and doing all this extreme stuff that you just couldn't possibly imagine doing because you're an average person and it's not really that his messaging isn't really playing out because you know within an hour of him saying that there's like, not now, within a couple of days of him saying that there's like a whole bunch of fire chiefs saying precisely what the same people you know using strong

language in Parliament or gluing themselves to Rhodes. They're all saying the same thing right which is basically we're contributing to this problem A we should stop contributing and B we should try and influence the rest of the world to stop contributing as well. So it's, so like that style of talking of trying to frame climate action as like this extremist, sort of rude, activisty kind of thing has really lost a lot of its power. Like it sort of worked, you know, back in like a decade ago. But it's not, it doesn't really work now because the whole situation has changed. A lot, far more people care about it.

So McCormack is kind of doing what he's just kind of seen other people do and he's like, oh crap, okay, I better just say the stuff that we've been saying for ages and maybe that'll work. And this time it hasn't. No. And I mean, I think it's worth, worth noting that I'm sure plenty of people would like to just, I guess, dismiss anybody further than 50 kilometers from the coast as a redneck or what have you. But the fact of the matter is that there are a number of very, you know, hardworking, clever farmers and hunters and shooters and all those sorts of things. And they are rightly concerned, right? So the constituency, his constituency and the worry within it is changing, I think, in the

last, especially in the last couple of years. And like you were saying, you know, suddenly you've got people going to these protests and suddenly people know people that have been to these protests and they're, you know, people that they are friends with or know and respect, and it kind of takes, I their, I I I I I I I I I I I I I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I th, I th, I th, I thi, I thi, I thi, I thi, I thi, I thi, I thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, is, is, is thi, is thi, is thi, is thi, is thi, is thi, is thi, is thi, is thi, is th is th is, is, is th is, is, is th is th is th is th is th is th is th is thi, is thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii, is thi, is thi, is thi, is thi, you know, people that they are friends with or know and respect and it kind of takes, I think, a bit of the stigma out of out of doing that as well, out of talking on and taking a position on it. There's a bunch of funny, funny as in peculiar data around Australian views on the urgency of climate action. And one that really strikes me is, there used to be a small difference between country slash rural areas and city areas in terms of accepting the science and wanting and wanting change. There was a slightly lower sort of belief

in climate action from rural and country areas in the past, that has kind of disappeared, right? So now they're pretty much the same thing. Like, you take a random person from a city and you take a random person from the country, they'll both probably tell you the same thing. What has increased is the divide between people older than 50 and people younger than 30. So that difference actually used to be smaller. There used to be a much, the distribution used to be narrower. Now older people are more firm in their rejection of climate action and younger people have become significantly more passionate about urging climate action.

So that's a funny statistic, right? Because you expect people in country rural areas to be older. But the thing you have to remember there is that not all old and young people are distributed evenly across all areas. So yeah, I don't go anymore into it because it's kind of mind-bending, but what it means is that if there's going to be any kind of warfare, it shouldn't be between city and country, it should actually be between old and young, because that, there is actually a real and measurable difference that is getting bigger between generations on this issue. Yeah and when we kind of talk about I mean I hate to bring it up we've got the kind of okay boomer sort of deal going going on and I think it goes way beyond boomers right to the to the

quiet generation that kind of thing where the the quiet generation, that kind of thing, where the distrust between generationals is, between generations, is possibly hardening because the policy positions are hardening. The policy difference and the belief difference is, like you say, it's really, it's really separating, you know, at a certain age bracket. Yeah. And suddenly we're seeing people that feel kind of betrayed by their parents and their grandparents and that sort of thing. And you know, you end up with this kind of battleground around age, which is starting to break out. I'm a, I'm an older millennial. And I a kid and like I think you know she will be pretty right to hold me responsible for millennial sort of inaction right like we like obviously

millennials kind of care a lot about this issue and we've kind of be mad about it a long time but the quantity of action really differs greatly compared to the what's after millennials, Gen Z is it? Kids these days yeah they're they're incredible like they are not just mad they're very active they're doing a lot of things whereas like we, millennials as a generation like that they're they're, they're incredible like they're, they're they're they're, they're, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th are thi thi thi thi thi, thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi, thi, thi thi thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their th, th, th, thi th, thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi their, their, their, they're very active, they're doing a lot of things. Whereas millennials as a generation, we were mad, but we didn't do a whole lot. And so, you know, kids are actually making sacrifices and sacrificing their education and their time, and, you know, for some of them, their public profile, you know, in an age where everything is kind of stored permanently, they're making these

really sort of huge decisions about how to live their lives as climate activists. And so they're going to look at millennials and be like, well, the hell did you guys do? And I'll be like, well, I tweet it a lot. And I'll be like, well, I tweeted a lot. I wrote some stuff occasionally, but not much else. And yeah, my kid will be like, what hell, that's ridiculous. Yeah, but I mean, I think also tweeting is one of the bravest things that you could do. It is. You know, that's why I'm spending eight hours a day doing it.

So, but that's, so we've talked about then the nationals who are just bizarre and shooting everywhere. Yeah. We are. So, Barnaby Joyce, sorry, I think we forgot to mention this. There's a quote going around at Barnaby's that says basically that two of the people that died in the fire, there's this one one instance in northern central New South Wales and you know the quote goes that well they were Greens voters.

And that one's being passed around kind of sight unseen a lot. I think it's worth wrea reading the whole thing because he's clearly trying to not make that political and I will give him that much from that from that quote. So I thought I should just kind of read that out because it's you don't tend to see the whole thing. I says that I acknowledge two people who died were most likely people who voted for the Green Party so I th. So. So I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I'm to th. th. th. the th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's theeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. the. the. the. th I acknowledge the two people who died were most likely people who voted for the Green Party, so I'm not going to start attacking them. That's the last thing that I want to do. What I wanted to do is concentrate on the policies. We can mitigate these tragedies happening again in the future.

I'm not quite sure what exactly he means as far as our policies and mitigations. This is a man that said that climate change is barking mad and that global warming is better than the next ice age but what has come out from the Australian from the right-wing media I think is that it's actually all the Greens fault. Yeah. Which is cool to know. Yeah that was a that was a sort of meme that emerged. I actually think quite some time ago, like sort of around 2012 or 2013, when there were some sort of, around the time of the bushfires around then as well. And the meme basically goes that Greens have opposed this activity called hazard reduction,

so that's when you, not during a bushfire, but before bushfire season, you kind of look at where all the fuel loads are, which is just the stuff that burns during a bushfire, and you go, okay, I want to remove that. So you can either remove it by burning it off, or you can mechanically remove it. So you just, you know, tear it down. Get rid of all those fuel loads. There are problems with hazard reduction because it creates smoke and it reduces air quality and there are health impacts related to air quality reduction. So what that means is the authorities looking after hazard reduction have to balance those two factors, right? Like one is like, okay, well, we'll pay a small price when we do the, um, do you know, the, do the, uh, the, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, te, after hazard reduction have to balance those two factors, right?

Like one is like, okay, well, we'll pay a small price when we do the hazard reduction burning, but maybe it'll have a better impact when a bushfire happens and the bushfire doesn't go as far, and that also has a much greater impact of protecting human health. So it's not a simple, it's not a simple issue, but what is extremely clear and very simple is that the Greens did not stop hazard reduction from happening at all. It's been pretty much proceeding. I found some data from the New South Wales Rural Fire Service in the annual report. It's directly on their front page. It's extremely easy to find.

And it just shows that like, you know, since, if I remember correctly, I think it goes back to 2007 or something like that, but it just shows pretty much the same amount. There's been a slight increase in the rate of hazard reduction. They measure it in hectares, and it has increased slightly after 2014, I think. Probably around the time that the original thing came out about the greens are trying to stop hazard reduction. So the interesting thing about this whole thing for me, right, was when it came out, and it was a really clear case study of how, when somebody just says something that is entirely the product of their imagination,

it is treated as if it is a political claim that you cannot possibly verify or not verify. Now what happens is eventually a fact check or something like that will come out, right? Like four or five days after the thing has been back and forth throughout a bunch of different media outlets. It took me like probably about 13 seconds to find the historical data of hazard reduction quantity in hectares going back a decade and a half. So, so it's not like, it's not like, you know, like you sort of hear this thing of like, oh no, no, no, we, like, there aren't resources to be able to fact-check, check that sort of thing in such a short period of time. But why are there

the resources to get a person who said a lie, a platform so quickly. Do you see what I'm saying? It's like, you're dedicating all this effort to distributing something that a man just like was just emitted from their mind? Like it wasn't, it wasn't like, then they're dedicating real resources to that, right? like it's a lot of time and effort it goes into when Barnaby Joyce says the sun's magnetic field is controlling bushfires. A huge amount of time and effort goes into making sure that a huge number of people hear those words. Yes. So, um, why not, like, take some of that and put it into first verifying, like, I'm being extremely general here, there are some reports of those, so those two things, like the magnetic field

thing and the hazard reduction thing, that did very quickly try and assess the veracity of the claim. But it wasn't the dominant mode, right? Like, if you just pick five or six random reports, you'll have one person saying, the, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, I the the the the the the the the the the the the th. I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I, I'm thi, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I, I, I I'm, I I I I'm, I I I I I I I I I'm, I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I, I I I I I I I I I I, I, I, I I, I, I I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I thi, I thi, I'm thi, I'm thi, I'm thi, I'm thi, I'm thi, I'm thi, I'm th., I'm th, I'm th, I'm th, I'm thi, I'm thi, I'm thi, I'm thi, I'm thi, I'm the claim, but it wasn't the dominant mode, right? Like if you just pick five or six random reports, you'll have one person saying the green stop has a reduction, you'll have another person saying the government contributes to climate change by not reducing emissions, and they're both kind of treated as like equally potentially true. Absolutely, and there's a real kind of, there's a mechanic around how it's, how it is actually reported in that one article as well, where, you know, clearly over the last

few years we've developed techniques to maximize the amount of clicks on an article, right? I don't know it's very kind of shreight and minimalizing a lot of facts there, but to just get a click-through rate on Twitter or on Facebook or what have you, it's much easier to just write that thing that was said and then wait further down, it's the reputation of it, you know, it's the, well, he said this, but that's not actually true, these are the facts. Whereas really in a just world, as far as like, and feel free to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to th., it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, th, th, th, th, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, th., th., th., th., th., th., th., th., th., th., th., th., th., th., th., thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, toee.e.e. It's, toe. It's, toe. It's, thi. It's, thi. It's, these are the facts. Whereas really in a just world as far as like,

and feel free to disagree with me here, but as far as communication goes, the thing that should be in the headline should include the actual fact of what it is, the actual kind of, you know, sunspots or sunflares contribute a very small, you know, percentage of global climate change versus our CO2 and methane and so on emissions, but here's what Barnaby said or what have you. But there's also that that kind of concept around like what you were saying where it takes far more energy to disprove a lie than it is, where it takes far more energy to

to disprove a lie than it is to just say it and by the time you've disproved that the person that said it has just they're a mile down the track they don't give a shit they're gone. So you're absolutely right so this is actually a really extremely important thing that a lot of people get wrong because even when they have their good intentions and they want to debunk something that is just doing the right doing the rounds and sort of misinforming a lot of people what they'll do is when they publish their thing you know you've got the text of a tweet or the headline in an article it mentions the myth first and then it says okay I'm going to explain why it's wrong, and then it's like massive explanation of why it's wrong. You should always lead with the verified fact, right? Like,

so the headline in the Barnaby Joyce thing should be, as you said, you know, the main cause of bushfires are X, Y, and Z. Sunspots are a smaller cause, but, you know, not enough to drive the change. Binderbjoi said it and it, and it, and it, and it, and it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, the the the they it, it, it, it, it's, it's, it's the they it's they it's they it's they it's their it's their it's their it's, it's, it's, it's, they it's, they it's, they it's, they it's, they it's, they it's, they it's, they it's they it's they it's they it's their it's they it's they it's they it's, they it's, they it's they it's they it's they it's they it's they it's they it's they it's their th's thi it's their their their tho, they it's they it's they it's they it's they it's they it's to drive the change, Barnaby Joyce said it and he's wrong. Like it's a very, it's, there's a little bit of an underestimation of the significance of the order in which you put things. With articles it's sort of like this rapidly declining curve in terms of like the impact and how people remember it. Headline is crazy important people really remember the headline and the first few paragraphs, but then you it it it it it it it it it, it, it, you, it, you, it, you, you, it, it, you, you, it, it, you, it, it, it, you, you, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's the the the the the, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the, it's a the, it's a the, it's a the, it's People really remember the headline and the first few paragraphs. But then, you know, you sort of get to the end and only the most dedicated of readers.

Right, to make it right down to the end. And so, yeah, it's a really, it's a really tricky thing. And I think the other thing to mention is, when it comes to this whole debate around, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the of of of of the the the of other thing to mention is when it comes to this whole debate around the role of facts and evidence in the news, I think what is happening here is people overestimating the modelness of facts to some degree. So I'll give you an example. So earlier this year, there was an update from Australia's emissions data and it's going up a lot. It's just often, it's the same story every time there's an emissions starter thing. It's like, it's going up. But what happens is...

We're going to make our Paris accord though. We did the trading thing and it's fine, right? Yeah, sure. Well, we are horribly missing, if you sort of break those targets down into quarterly chunks, we're missing every single one as well. It's not, it's horrible. Anyway. That sounds bad. We said it was good. What happened earlier this year is the energy and emissions reductions minister tries to frame it as something good. And it's pretty hard to frame increasing emissions as something good. So what he did last time is the time, and it changes every time, it's always like this exciting thing, I think there's one at the end of this month, I'm already starting to get excited about it. What he's going to, what he did last time was he said, okay, Australia's emissions are going up because we're digging a lot of gas out of the ground and the process of digging gas out of the ground causes this leakage of emissions and that's

why it's going up, right? So we are increasing emissions in Australia because of the process of extracting fossil fuels which are then later burned in another country which produces even more emissions. Yeah so it's the emissions from emissions extraction, which is just like so heartbreaking. It's a bad story, right? But what he said is he's like, look, Australia is selling its gas to countries, and gas burns at half the rate of emissions than coal does. So if you sell all of our gas, if you use all of our gas and you use it to replace all of the dirty coal, then emissions go down by half. And so that became the line when

that report came out. Great, Australia is selling this emissions reductions technology to the world. It's only true if Australia is selling its gas two countries where they only burn coal, and all that gas does is it only displaces coal. But sometimes gas displaces nuclear or hydro or wind and solar or various other... Yeah, and Japan is Australia's biggest customer for gas. Japan, from within Japan, Australia is their biggest supplier. And coal, gas, and oil emissions are rising, all rising in Japan. So, and you know, part of that is because the Fukushima disaster inspired a very rapid shutdown of nuclear across Japan. The other

reason is their wind and solar are growing but extremely slowly. And so the consequence is that it's just increasing emissions, right? Like it's just the whole thing is increasing emissions. Now that's not muddy, that's not complicated, it's not mysterious. It's a really straightforward thing, right? Like, I just read Angus Taylor's press release and I was like, that's not a, it's not one of those things where you kind of read it and you're like, well, it's pretty complicated analysis, so who can really say, you know, maybe we'll talk to some experts and they'll say, well, his argument isn't really strong but we can't really say either way. It is not that. It's just a totally...

It's number goes up. Yeah. Right. And it just like, I can't emotionally process the way people treat this, right? Like in, in when Angus Taylor does a press release and an, the the, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, the, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, the, the, the, their, their, their, their, their, th, their, th, thi, their, thi, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, th, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, their, their, their, their, their, their, the way people treat this, right? Like when Angus Taylor does a press release and a bunch of media outlets will sort of quite credulously report it because they sort of have this like ideological leaning to agree with it, like that's okay. It's not okay, that's terrible, but that's predictable. You can see them doing that and they're not going to do anything else. But there are other like journalists and media outlets who look at Angus Taylor's press release and they're like, it's my duty to present this without prodding it, without testing its claims, and you would only, it would only be like half a millisecond of prodding and the whole thing falls apart

and you're like, oh you have just released a verifiable lie to all of Australia's media outlets. But they're not in the ideological business of actually doing that, right? Like we've joked about it a lot that, you know, for many, many places that you can't really see an editing process going on between a press release from the government and actually being printed in a Murdoch press newspaper. And it's again, that sounds very simplistic to kind of say, but at the end of the day, that's effectively what's occurring much of the time. Yeah, so to bring it back to the bushfire thing,

you know, this happened with a few media outlets and journalists that are not like tacetly right-wing, but nevertheless looked at what happened from this week and said, there has been terrible behavior on both sides. Like Barnaby Joyce said this crazy stuff, and then the Greens said this crazy stuff. And no one came out looking good because it was all unedifying, and it was all basically equally bad at misrepresenting science. Yeah. And ABC journalist Lee Sayles specifically mentioned science, right?

Like she says, in her tw- I'm paraphrasing here, but it was something along the lines of like, both sides are over-egging the science. Yeah, it says, so this is in reference to an article that Philip Corey wrote, which was so boring and didn't really make a point that I fell asleep halfway through reading it, but of course, wouldn't be Australian journalism if they weren't all just encircled to pat each other on the back in one long chain. She says, Corey nails it with common sense.

The extremes at both ends of the climate wars over-egged their cases and show why this issue is so vexed in Australia. And really, I only I think somebody completely concerned with hearing both sides and being, you know, quote unquote objective, more so than actually looking at the numbers and looking at what we're staring down the barrel of climate-wise and the consequences, that's really the kind of person that we would take to say that. And, um. And, the that, the kind of person that we would take to, to say that. And, um, and I think it drove a, th, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I th, and I th, and I th, and I th, and I th, and I th, and I th, and I th, and I th, and I th, and I th, and I th, and I th, and I th, and I th, and I th, and I thi, and I th, and th, and th, and th, and th, and th, and thi, and I thi, and I thi, and I thi, and I thi, and thi, and thi, and th,, that's really the kind of person that we would take to say that. And I think it drove a lot of people nuts. It really annoyed me. It was a real rock in my show to read this. And I know it annoyed you. Yeah.

We had a specific point on our notes here that just says centrism. So I guess this is that. So a couple of days ago, the International Energy Agency released this thing called their world energy outlook. And what it does is it looks at a bunch of different scenarios in the future. And it's actually gotten a lot of people in the climate science community had a lot of gripes with the way that they did their reporting, but it's kind of improving gradually and what they've done this year is they've released two, I'm massively oversimplifying, but they've got two different scenarios that they look at. One, nothing happens.

It's all the policies that exist right now. No one creates any new policies. It takes into account the Paris climate pledges and things like that. And it's just got a straight line of emissions going up in the future. And they have this alternative scenario where they're like, okay, we want to keep global warming down to a particular level, right? It's arbitrary, but it's a rough guide of like, if we kind of want to resolve this as best as we can and stop the absolute worst from happening, this is what we need to do. And it's just a line going down, right? So emissions go down.

How do you get emissions to go down? They've got a list of about 20 different things. And they're all pretty much stuff that you and your listeners would have heard before. Renewable energy, demand reductions. I won't go through them all, but there's quite a lot. And one thing that they really make clear is that it's not so much about the technologies, the policies, or the choices, or whether it's spread between individuals or corporations or governments.

It's about the rate of change. So this stuff needs to happen very, very quickly and broadly. It is the rate of change that centrists seem to be the the the to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be the the the needs to happen very, very quickly and broadly. It is the rate of change that centrist seemed to be weird about. What they really don't like is urgency or emergency. Oh yeah. So there was a piece by Walid Ali that also kind of annoyed me a little bit a few months ago. And he talks about how framing the situation as an emergency is not diplomatic, and it's a bad way to get consensus from the community.

And I think it's kind of the opposite. I think that people understand emergency and the need for rapid action far more than they better, far more than they understand a 700-page IPCC report published in 2005. Right, like it's a very different, you know, the pleas that you sort of heard in 2005, which were like, this is kind of starting to happen now, so let's come together and come up with the policy around the world, and like it's very different to the language you hear now, which is like, we are properly running out of time. Yeah, and I don't like that phrase because, you know, you never really sort of run out of time on this. It's just, yeah, yeah't want to blackpill people into kind of going, well, you know, the accelerationist

arguments say, well, look, there's nothing we can do so we may as well have fun while we're here. It's like, there's, like, there are things you can do to change how bad this is, this is going to be, but you have to do their their, the, the, the, the, the, the, to do, the, to do, to do, the, the, the, the, the, to, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, tape, acceleration, th., to, the, the, the, acceleration, the, the, the, the, the, the, reduction, that's all well-ungood in 1980. Right? Like, like, that time has passed. The comparison that we should be making now is that of a total war economy, right, where we alter our economies worldwide to fight a common enemy, and, you know, you model after what we did in the world wars, right? worldwide to fight a common enemy. And you know, you model after what we did in the World Wars, right, where the existing infrastructure is re, is altered and changed to be towards a particular purpose

and away from this other thing. And that's the only way that we're going to get there. And that's renewable energy, that is carbon capture, that is every single thing that we can throw at it. Any amount of egging to take Lee's language here is under-egging. Any amount that we can do is not, is not enough. There's no quantity of eggs that could ever, yeah, I know what you mean. That's exactly right. But we're still chewing around the edges of this, like it's a new and novel idea, but it isn't. It's not, we've known for so long. Yeah. And any, to see the media just kind of put one foot in front of the other and behave as they did five years ago or ten years ago, with some exceptions, you know, um, you know, we've, you know, the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the, you're the, you're the, you're the, you're their the, you're the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their their the the the the the the th is the th is the th is the is 10 years ago, with some exceptions, you know.

And we've seen, I guess, the Guardian take at least a mild stance to say, look, we are not in the business of both sides, is we are just reporting the facts, right? Which is nice to see, but I don't, not necessarily enough. And we can't, I, we can't, I think, and we can't, I, I think. th...... th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. the the th. the the the the the the the the the the the the, I've the, I've the, I've the, I've, I've the, I've the, I've the, I've the, we've, we've, we've, we've, we've, we've, we've, we've, we've, we've, we've, we've, we've, we've, we've, we've, we've, the, the, the, the, the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the they. the they. they. they. the the the, I've, the, they. the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, they. they. the the the the they. the the the the the they're just reporting the facts, right? Which is nice to see, but I don't, not necessarily enough. And we can't, I think you alluded to it slightly earlier on about the ABC. Well, they have to be overly cautious, right? Yeah. And divide the issue right down the middle where, you know, they're totally... I find that ABC really fascinating on this because they, they, um, I've been the the th been th been th been reading the the then then, I've then, I've then, I've the, I've thi their thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, to, thi, toeeeeeeeean, toeee, toean, thi, thi, thi, not, not, not, not, not, not, notthis because they, they, um, I've been reading these articles

on when they report on stuff like disasters, you know, push fires, droughts, flooding that sort of thing. In the past week, they actually have had a lot of coverage on the role of climate change in the frequency of bushfires, but just going back a few months, like they would do these articles where the whole article was about the role of climate change in a particular disaster, but they never ever mentioned the words. So you have this really astonishing thing where, like, they're interviewing people from the Bureau of Meteorology, and those people that they're being interviewed are just like, well, the climate has changed in this particular way over these particular years, and this is the impact on human life. And they're very strongly alluding to it, but they just don't say

human behavior from the burning of fossil fuels has caused this. And so like, you could, I'm just reading it and I'm like, this fuels has caused this. And so like you could I'm just reading it and I'm like this is somebody who wanted to write an article about climate change but somewhere along the way whether it was from like pressure like an unspoken pressure or someone literally walked up to the article and said with a red pen get rid of all these mentions of climate change something there is some force at play that is the article and said, with a red pen, get rid of all these mentions of climate change. Something, there is some force at play that is reducing their ability to talk about the

science of this. So I've had, I would really love to write a book or do like a series on the role of like the way the media reports on climate change because that story will never be told by journalists right like even even the sort of parts of journalism that are dedicated to you know watching media like Media Watch they're not gonna they're never gonna have the space of the time to tell the story of how the media has grappled with the science of climate change. So yeah, I don't know, one day I just, I really

want to, I really want to write or talk or do something about this because it's just, and like, you know, there's, Australia in particular has its own unique, I guess, like spread of just because Australia has such a weirdly concentrated media environment. It has its own particular stance on climate change and it's really, yeah, it's pretty interesting. One day, I'll get to it. So to bring it all around though, what would you, what would you like to see, how would you like to see this issue communicated? Hmm.

What's the right thing? Yeah, so just on that same thing that I mentioned before about how the language used to talk about climate change has itself sort of changed over the past few years, urgency and collective action kind of go nicely together. So, um, so. So, to to to bring it, so to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to the the the to to to the the the the the the this this this this the the the the the the the the the the the the the to the to to the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the issue the issue the issue the issue this the issue the issue the issue, the issue, the issue thi. thi. to to thru. to thr. to thr. thro. the the issue the issue the issue the issue the issue the issue the the issue over the past few years. Urgency and collective action kind of go nicely together. So something that really sticks in my mind has been the climate strike movement from this year, because it's something that happens on a very large scale. And scale is extremely important when it comes to either individual lifestyle changes to address rising emissions, or putting pressure on governments and

corporations to change what they do to stop the extraction and burning of fossil fuels. There is a sort of like additive quality to it that is really very different to everything that's happened before. And I'll give you an example of this sort of phenomenon in emissions reductions. There was a study that came out a few years ago about the way solar power spreads across a suburb. So one person puts it on their rooftop, great, that's you know, X quantity of emissions reductions, but their neighbors walk past and they see it and they talk to their neighbor and the neighbors like I paid

ten bucks on my electricity bill this year. And so it's been a real like social kind of, you're a hundred percent, like I've actually seen this thi, theylain, thi's thin, thin, thin, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their nigh.eean, their nigh.ean.ean. their nea. toge. toge. today, today, their nea.e. their nea. their, their, their, their, their as this little is this little seed of you know we saw a couple of companies where they took on the took on the electricity bill and they said look we'll just we'll make it all balance out right with the because we'll be generating electricity but you know you'll be paying us through this mechanism and this idea has kind of spread spread socially once it reached a particular scale right once it hit that little t idea has kind of spread socially once it reached a particular scale. Right? Once it hit that little tipping point of people having heard of it.

Yeah. So that is a powerful message. So with everything, talking not just about the fact that something is being done, that it's being done together is something that really has quite an impact these days. It wasn't so much the case, like about a decade ago. Like you sort of talked about stuff in it and it really, um, it was always quite a lot about technology and policy. It was always like, oh, there's a new type of solar panel or there's this cool new policy that is going to reduce emissions in a particular way. These days, really powerful messages tend to come from 100,000 people believe the same thing you believe, and they were so pissed off about it that they walked out onto the street and did something about it.

So it's not just you yelling at this fossil fuel corporation. There's many, many hundreds of thousands of people doing the same thing. That is something that I think has a lot of potential to lead to systemic changes in government and corporations, but also smaller scale lifestyle changes, which I'm always nervous to talk about because it does take away a lot of the focus from big companies and the companies in particular like to say to people, here's ten ways you can reduce emissions in your lifestyle when, you know, like even if you never drove a car for the rest of your life, that's like ten seconds worth of the amount of time that they spend extracting fossil fuels in terms of emissions. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I th, I th, I th, I th, I thi, I thi, I thi, I thi, I thi, I thi, I thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, and thi, and thi, and tho, and tha, and tha, and tha, and thaa, and thaa, and thaa, and their, and their, and their, and their their their their their their, and their their their, and their their their, and their, and their thi, and tha, tha, tha, tha, tha, tha, tha, thau, thau. thau. thau.ea, teauu.eau. tea, tea, tea, thau. thau. t fossil fuels in terms of emissions. Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, I think you need, one person by themselves as well is very difficult to affect change and I think you're 100% right that you really, you need to start with the scale first and then work to personal choices and that sort of thing. It's all well and good for you to recycle all of your bottles. The better thing would be for them to not be making single-use plastic in the first place, right? And you apply that logic to climate change. And especially, you know, we saw results out of the, and we don't have time to get into this whole, oh my god, the ETS being destroyed and, dear to me. But the climate, the carbon pricing right is an

example of a mechanism where we saw a thing at scale filtered down to actual personal lifestyle changes right where the price of things changes based on what's the externalities actually being priced and then suddenly people have to factor that into their day-to-day decisions but it's too hard to being priced and then suddenly people have to factor that into their day-to-day decisions but it's too hard to think about that by yourself you know as it is life life is hard enough as it is and that's why we need real policy and real change. Yeah so well exactly right like that's the interaction between policy and personality so

so to give you another good example, Australia's national electricity market, which is the southeast sort of coast states, everything except Western Australia and T, has gone from about 10% zero carbon energy, which was mostly hydro back in, you know, sort of pre-2010. In the space of about a decade, it's gone to about 20 percent, right? So, well, that's kind of a prediction. I think by the end of 2020, the year 2020, it will be about 20 to 23 percent renewables, right? So that's including hydro. Now, that growth, like, basically the decarbonization of a tenth of that entire electricity grid was subsidized by everybody. So every single person who pays an electricity bill paid a tiny little fraction into the scheme that resulted in the construction of a huge

quantity of solar panels and wind turbines that are all displacing coal. There are molecules of greenhouse gases that are not being released into the atmosphere for every single five-minute interval on that national electricity market because those people paid that money. And if everybody had said, I'd hate this thing, I'm not going to pay that money, then it wouldn't have happened. So it is like this massive collective action, and you know, obviously it was forced because it was a government policy, but everybody was cool with it, right? That was a year in which the renewable energy target, that was a decade in which the renewable energy target was just happily welcomed by everybody and it remained popular for the entire length of its existence as a policy. And it worked,

like it is going to exceed its target by a very large quantity. The liberal government cut it in 2015. So it's actually going to exceed its original target to its ta. The liberal government cut it in 2015 so it's actually going to exceed its original target before it was cut but of course the amount by which it exceeds it would be higher if it hadn't had been cut. So that did have some impact unfortunately but it is still like a pretty damn big change to the entire like machine that is the electricity market that was funded by everybody and they all kind of did that right like it it was a real sort of everybody was involved every single person who paid an electricity bill was involved and that is a really really, like, that's just a great thing that happened. I know that's a weirdly simplistic way of putting it.

No, I know, you have to, but you have to believe that great things can happen through collective action, right? Because otherwise, what else is there? Yeah, and I think a lot of people kind of just don't know about it. Like they kind of, like it happens in the background and someone will read an article about, you know, renewable energy hit like a 50% maximum in the grid, which is great, which is that's really good, but it happened because of a lot of help from all Australian citizens who pay electricity bills. So you know if people are feeling like, geez, you know, like I hate that this stuff is happening

and I hate not helping. Well, you're already helping to some degree. You can help more if you want to, if you have the capability to do so, but you shouldn't feel like dejected because there's already there's already collective action happening, people are already involved and they're living normal lives. It's not like they're sacrificing their entire lives and living terrible, having terrible experiences day to day. Yeah, so it's just... No, it is possible. Yeah, and it's something that's something that, like, the renewable energy target isn't just we built X number of wind turbines and solar panels and now they're just going to generate electricity. They actually had an impact on the economics of those machines as well.

So they've obviously, they've gone down and priced massively way more than anybody expected globally. And in Australia in particular for solar. And so that help that was given from Australian citizens will continue to help even though it's not like a direct payment anymore because there's like this embedded phenomenon where wind and solar and other cheapest things that you can build, even if you don't give a crap about emissions, those are the cheapest technologies that you build to generate electricity. So that emissions reductions is going to keep happening because it's just cheaper to be

cleaner than it is to be building a dirty coal-fired power station. And that's why the government is focusing on trying to intervene in the market and say, well, we're going to help people build coal-fired power stations because they need to now because no one will do it by default. For entirely ideological reasons. Exactly. It's like they're going out of their way to do the wrongest thing that they could possibly. Yes, at the highest cost. Yes. But it it it it's it's it's th. It's th, it's th, it's th, it's th, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's thi's thi, it's thi, it's thi, it's tho, it's tho, it's thi, it's thi, it's thi, it's thi, it's thi, it's thi, it's thi thi, it's thi thi, it's thi thi, it's th th th th th th th th th th th th th th. th thi, thi, thi, thi, their their their thi. thi thi thi thi thi thee to to to the to to to to to the to the the the the the the thi thi thi thing that they could possibly. Yes, at the highest cost. Yes, but through our continued action and pressure on the government and especially I guess not saying now is the time, you know, we can, I continue to press the issue and press the importance of this to us as citizens, I think. Yeah, and, and you know, there's a lot of, um, there's a lot of sunk cost already in this. this this this this this this process. This this process. This th. This th. This th th th th th. to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do to do the importance of this to us as citizens, I think.

Yeah, and you know, there's a lot of sunk cost already in this project. And keeping it, keeping the ball rolling is really important. And so I think if people really want to, sunk cost is not the right words, it's momentum. Like it's, there's actually, there's a surprising sort of movement building across the world. And it's having impacts that I don't think anybody expected the scale of. Like, you know, even I was a little bit like, I didn't quite see these changes happening. I sort of expected it all to go a bit slower.

And I remain like, I described it as infuriated optimism the other day, but it's like, you have to be constantly angry about this. But at the same time, it's actually really heartwarming and nice to see changes that happen. And it's of course very important to remember that a lot of the good things that happen come from sacrifice from people who often are in positions where they can't give up a lot. You know, people in developing countries

are often protesting their government when they're exposed to massive risk. There are young people who are also exposed to massive risks from being active about this, but at the same time what they do has a really big impact on politics as well. So yeah, it's good. Absolutely. Cool. Well, I think we will wrap that up there on a positive note. It's been really lovely chatting to you in Katan.

Any plugs that you'd like to do for all the projects that you've got going on? Yeah, follow me on Twitter. I've just submitted a book manuscript with UNSW Press and that's going to be probably coming out about halfway through next year. So keep an eye out for that. And over the next few months I'm going to be doing a few little projects, but just keep your eyes peeled on my Twitter feed and they'll be coming out there. So yeah. Awesome. Cool. Well thank you so much and we'd love to have you back sometime. Awesome. Thanks to the chat is really fun. All right, cheers mate. you