No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - The Charlie Kirk shooting changes political media forever

Episode Date: September 14, 2025

Brian discusses why the Charlie Kirk shooting hits so close to home. Brian interviews Jon Favreau to discuss Fox’s response to the shooting and climate activist and former British government official Johan Eliasch about how he’s buying up portions of the rainforest to protect them from deforestation.Shop merch: https://briantylercohen.com/shopYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/briantylercohenTwitter: https://twitter.com/briantylercohenFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/briantylercohenInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/briantylercohenPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/briantylercohenNewsletter: https://www.briantylercohen.com/sign-upWritten by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we're going to talk about why the Charlie Kirk shooting hits so close to home, and I've got two interviews. I'm joined by Pod Save America's John Fabro to discuss Fox's response to the shooting, and climate activist and former British government official Johann Elieh, about how he's buying up portions of the rainforest to protect them from deforestation. I'm Brian Taylor Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. So you know by now that a political commentator, Charlie Kirk, was shot and killed this past week.

I've seen all the hot takes. I'm not here to give mine. I also don't think that all of my opinions fit neatly into one category. I believe that his political views were utterly reprehensible. I believe that he spent years dehumanizing people of color, LGBT people, and any other marginalized community. I agree that he used the same violent rhetoric that his critics are now using to justify the violence against him. I agree that it's stunning to watch the right shrug off the senseless school shootings that happened all the time, including on the literal same day as the Kirk shooting, but suddenly,

recognize the tragedy of gun violence when a Republican operative is the victim of it. I agree that no one deserves to be killed for their political beliefs. I agree that it is heartbreaking for his children. I agree that the shooting makes everyone left, right and center, less safe. I'm sure there's something in there to piss everybody off, and that's kind of what I want to talk about here. I want to discuss a little bit of my experience in all of this, since I'm a political commentator in a world where another political commentator just got shot and killed. I am terminally online. My daily screen time on my phone is about 10 hours a day.

That's not including my laptop, which I'm also on all day. I've experienced firsthand the degrading effects of staring at and consuming political content every day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. I'm not saying that it's not justified. It's my job. I have to be online. But I felt how it's chipped away at my mental health.

I've seen how the Internet is a place where new nuance and moderation go to die. And most importantly, I see how hatred pervades these spaces, how that's what goes viral and how kindness and positivity disappears like a fart in hurricane. I also know that there are people who will say that I'm guilty of this too, that I exploit the same phenomenon, that I spend all day railing against Trump and Republicans. And to a degree, it's true. I think that Donald Trump is one of the most evil men in the history of the United States, and I feel the same way about the people that he surrounds himself with. I try to give leeway to his voters, who in many cases I feel have been manipulated by some

combination of a really sophisticated right-wing media machine and the time-tested tradition of demagoguery. My North Star in politics is to preserve democracy, to combat climate change, to usher in universal health care, and to ensure that every American has a basic minimum standard of living. I think the people who stand in the way of that, of which I included Charlie Kirk are dangerous, our selfish, and are anti-democracy. I have always and will always use my platform to fight against the people who seek to weaken this country in deference to Trump and the oligarchs that he surrounds himself with. I don't think that makes me the liberal equivalent of Charlie Kirk, who has advocated for brand-sponsored televised executions,

who's called the Civil Rights Act a mistake, and has said things about black people that should have him peacefully excommunicated from civil society. But still, there are plenty of people who think that I am the same as him, just on the left. Which brings me to this moment. This is a much more dangerous world for someone like me today than it was last week. I don't know how it's going to affect my willingness to spend 14 hours a day making content. I don't know how it's going to affect my willingness to go anywhere in public. I don't know how it's going to affect my willingness to engage with the other side on social media. I don't know what anything is going to look like tomorrow or the next week or the next month. But I can say with absolute certainty that these online spaces

are breaking people's brains. To be clear that in no way negates the effect that Kirk's own rhetoric played and the effect that are insanely weak gun laws play. But the sad reality is that A, while Republicans are in power, nothing will change the ease with which guns are available. And B, social media incentivizes extreme and divisive rhetoric. So there is no incentive to tamp anything down. We can't do anything about those two things, but I do think that we do have some agency in terms of being online and exposing ourselves to the worst that humanity has to offer, which, to be clear, includes the kind of rhetoric that Kirk himself espoused. I know that this all is kind of freewheeling, and the truth is that I'm having a lot of trouble processing a lot

of what's happened over the last few days, but I suppose the only way that I can be helpful right now is to offer a warning about the exposure that we all have to a certain type of dangerous rhetoric that is ushering in an era of violence that portends really poorly for the future of this country. I legitimately hope that we can find our way out of this. Next up are my interviews with John Favreau and Johann El-Eyash. No lie is brought to you by everyday dose.

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and gunmetal serving spoon by going to EverydayDose.com slash BTC or entering BTC at checkout. You'll also get free gifts throughout the year. That's Everydaydose.com slash BTC for 45% off your first order. I'm joined now by the host of POTSive America, John Favreau. Favre, thanks for joining me. Always a pleasure. So we are right now in the aftermath of the shooting by Charlie Kirk.

As of this morning, they have found the suspect, the person responsible for the shooting. prior to that though prior to that update there was a slew of right-wing commentators right-wing officials Republicans who had come out and said stuff like this the Democrats just killed

Charlie Kirk today they're desperate they're losing they want to intimidate you and me and everybody else Charlie Kirk's a casualty of war we're in this country when is the Democrats going to stand up

and apologize for the hatred and the lies that they have fed their base that's led to these actions. They are at war with us. Whether we want to accept it or not, they are at war with us. As of this moment, there are some indications of what we know about the shooter, has two Republican parents steeped in online culture. I think like the one thing above all else is that this guy is just terminally online.

As is the case with a lot of these shooters that we see, there isn't some cogent political ideology. political ideology. In a lot of these cases, it's just somebody who is fucked up enough to be able to do this in the first place, right? And yet that hasn't stopped, I think, a lot of what we're seeing from, you know, these figures, which is to kind of use an already violent moment to further inflame tensions. We saw the same thing from Trump himself, who came, came out in a recorded address and basically said that we're at war with leftism, right? So how are you thinking about how are you thinking about like what the the practical impacts of of that kind of rhetoric

are going to be? I mean, I certainly don't think it's going to turn the temperature down or lead us to a better place in any way. I mean, you know, I think the Wall Street Journal ran that story about like maybe there's markings that are trans ideology. I don't even know what that fuck that is or anti-fascist. And so my takeaway is that yesterday, Thursday, everyone jumped to conclusions about the shooter's motive with very incomplete information and now we have a little bit more information but it's still incomplete so I don't really want to jump to the shooter's motives either because they caught him alive and he's got a family and apparently and I believe they said he's talked to his family about some of this stuff so it sounds like we're going to find out yeah but I do

think like whether the shooter was a left wing guy a right wing guy someone with and I said this on the pod yesterday someone with complicated weird I just ideological beliefs that could be conflicting. What matters is that, for all we know, one person pulled the trigger here. And to Jesse Waters and Donald Trump and all those people that we just saw saying the Democrats are at war and Democrats hate it, we're not at war. We don't, we want you to lose in the next election. Yeah. I don't like what you say.

I think it's insightful. I think that Donald Trump is an authoritarian who is trying to consolidate power right now. But I think that we approach that with nonviolence opposition, nonviolent opposition. And I believe strongly in that. So I, and the reason I just bring that up because it sounds kind of obvious is like I do think the best way to contrast with that is to show everyone in this country, we're not the people looking for war. we are not the people we are not in this country

who want violence we don't and if you want to keep making up this fantasy that there is this war in this country that the left is hateful

and wants to tear people down and ruin this country like you can do that but that's not what we stand for is there some concern though given like how bifurcated our media ecosystems are that if you're watching Fox News

if you're consuming you know, like Donald Trump's addresses where he's saying this, Megan Kelly saying the same thing, Jesse Waters saying the same thing, these Republican lawmakers saying the same thing, that still the takeaway for a lot of the people consuming all of this content is going to be the polar opposite of what you just said. Yes. Yeah, I have a lot of concern about that and I don't know what to do about that. Yeah, because I mean, it's like this, it's this massive asymmetry here where one side is saying that the other side is advocating for something, but the problem is that those people are not consuming the other side's views and commentary and beliefs.

And so their takeaway is just that is only based on basically how the right paints the left and not what the left is actually saying. Yeah, and obviously this is a magnified example of this, but like this has been our concern forever with the right-wing media ecosystem. I do think the only thing we can do is show up in some of those places and be out there publicly on whatever platforms we're on. Yeah. Letting people know that what our values and principles are

and that they're not violence. I want to throw to a clip of what Trump said in the aftermath of being asked about Charlie Kirk and how he's holding up. I can go over the law for the defense side. How are you holding up over the last three and a half day? I think very good. And by the way, right there you see all the Trumps. They just started construction of the new ballroom for the White House.

which is something they've been trying to get as you know for about 150 years and it's going to be a beauty it'll be an absolute and like a disruption and I just see all the trucks we just started so it'll get done very nicely and it'll be

one of the best anywhere in the world actually look we all grieve differently you know Obama in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting I think Obama had a reaction that I think spoke to the vast majority of this country, virtually all of the country, and then you have this reaction from Trump in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's shooting.

I'm just curious, you know, having written for Obama, like, I can't even ask you to get into Trump's head because that is, like, the level of sociopathy and malignant narcissism that you have to be capable of displaying to be asked about somebody who you purportedly care a lot about and to respond with how great the construction of your ballroom is going is is like you know next level but just curious you know having having worked with obama hearing that response to to a horrific tragic uh shooting like like the one we saw on sandy hook to today you know a decade and a half later trump's response um just just your general reaction i know everyone thinks that everything in politics is like planned for public consumption and just on the Obama thing.

Obviously, the nation saw him tear up. Yeah. But when it first happened and I brought him the initial statement that he did, not the speech at the eulogy, but I quickly rushed out a statement and I brought it up. I sent it up to him and then he called me up to the Oval so he could give me his edits. And it was the first time I saw him. It was just me and him. and when he handed me the edits like he couldn't even look up from the desk

because he was you know it was very emotional and so when that showed in public that's just who he is you know and sometimes you don't control the things that the public sees when you're a politician as much as either you might like or your advisors might like or whatever that's just something that happens I say this because for Trump Trump could have had a very close relationship with Charlie Kirk and cared about him very much. It could be that Trump doesn't really have, that Trump is sociopathic and, you know, plenty of evidence of that. And it also could be, I was thinking that, like, he knows you're never, ever supposed to show any kind of weakness or vulnerability or emotion because

everything is about strength with him. And so maybe he was like, I'm just going to start talking about that. Or maybe he just was really cared about that because his brain bounces around as fast as the fucking social media feeds that are all, that are ruining our lives. So exactly, it's hard to get in his head. Yeah. A couple options I gave you. It's from work what it could be. So I wanted to talk to you especially because, you know, you host a show offline that I think is really important, especially in moments like this. And a big part of the shooting that we saw has been social media's reaction to it. I took all day Wednesday and all day Thursday and didn't post anything because I felt like I had reached the breaking point in the broader discourse

and you know like I have to also kind of to a degree take care of my mental health and not kind of get consumed by a really a really I don't know just generally disgusting and and and and a hostile and acrimonious news cycle. I want to I want to put on the screen here. here the Utah Governor Spencer Cox offering a few words and then talk to you about kind of a little bit of what you've you've spoken about on offline. We are not wired as human beings biologically, historically, we have not evolved in a way that we are capable of processing those types of violent imagery. And by the way, we've seen another one with a gruesome stabbing, very recent, that went viral, this is not good for us. It is not good to consume. Social media is a cancer

on our society right now. And I would encourage, again, I would encourage people to log off, turn off, touch grass, hug a family member, go out and do good in your community. So I'm joined by social media's John Favreau. It's, how are you thinking about this? Because you are as online as anybody can be, but you also host a show called Offline about the virtues of doing exactly. exactly what the Utah governor said, which is to take time, you know, to touch grass and actually surround yourself with regular human beings. And I remember about a year ago I had asked you, maybe even longer than that, I had asked you if anything that you'd heard while

doing offline, if any guest you'd spoken to while doing offline, if there was any evidence to point to the fact that it was beneficial to your health or whatever it may be, that there any virtue to being to to being online even more and the answer was no like nobody that you'd spoken with said that being on the more that you're on like that there is in any way a positive relationship between being online and like having any semblance of mental health but I'm curious in in given the response that we've seen from from this shooting which is for a lot of people to just kind of devolve further into their into their corners and and use it basically to to defend their, you know, their prior beliefs or whatever it may be.

How you're thinking about, you know, just the broader state of social media? Social media is a cancer. Governor Cox is correct. It promises the, it promises connection. It gives you the illusion of connection. You are not really connecting with human beings, the way that you connect with human beings in real life. But it is hard to see that, which is why people keep going back to it.

So it is also the temptation of connection, for example. And I think part of this is the way that the media environment has broken down. I mean, I was in a family where if there were big events, something happened in the country. Like, there was some almost solace in gathering around the television together and knowing that the whole country was watching, whether it's an election, whether it was a tragedy, whether it was whatever it may be. that the whole country was watching that too, and you sort of felt this connection there. And I think that's an important sort of human need and human impulse. And I think, I mean, for me, I am still on social media,

despite hosting the show. And everyone, you know, I know a lot of our subscribers are like, well, his brain's broken. What does he do? He's like a hypocrite. He talks about it and he doesn't get off. But it's like, first of all, I am fallible. I am just, I am as vulnerable to these temptations as anyone else.

I also do it for my job. But I do think in, like, I've been online the last couple days, and I've been, you know, not posting too much, but I've been online. And the reason is this was a sort of a scary thing that happened, a tragedy. And I wanted to be, I wanted to see what other people were saying. And I wanted to be around other people who were also dealing with it. So that's why people go on. The challenge is the algorithms will show you, first of all,

It's a self-selecting population, right? So the people who are on social media are already more partisan and more ideological than the rest of the country. Right. And then once you're on, it's not like you're all just in a room talking to each other. It's that the algorithm is showing you the most extreme views on either side. And it's also showing you, like Governor Cox was saying, violence, incredible violence, like the video of Charlie Kirk. And to the point where it desensitizes you. to violence. It also dehumanizes people. If you are yelling at someone online, if you are arguing

with someone online, and you are not seeing their face, you don't know who they are, you're not sitting across the table from them like you and I are right now, then it is easier to not see them as a full person and a full human being. And I think whether it's, whether this is the case for this killer or plenty of other troubled killers, sorry, plenty of other troubled young people who either go on to be mass shooters or just going to have all kinds of mental health challenges, if you're home all day and your community and you think you have friends, but your community is people who you do not see in person and who are only online in terms of, you know, their media accounts and you're interacting with them that way. If that's all,

you are not going to have an accurate portrayal of what humanity is, the good that can come from humanity and not just the bad. And that's going to, I think it hurts our souls. I really do. I think and I, so it's tough because I do think that we need places to meet people and interact with people that we may not meet in person, you know, and I do think we need places to find good information, especially information that's, that's breaking quickly, right? I mean, for us, we do this for a job. But the commentary, the fights, all that kind of shit, it's just, it's, it's a cancer. Yeah. I mean, I was looking at all this stuff and I was seeing the way that things were going very quick. and just kind of like step back and I was like they're there it kind of just feels like we're through the looking glass you know like it feels like like this is like I don't know because because it can always it can always get worse but like watching the ways in which all of the commentary was just it was so hostile so acrimonious and and I just I don't know how you come back from a point where where there is no humanity left in in any of this and so

other than just stepping away, which of course if you have like some nuanced, if you have some nuanced perspective on this, you know, I think I think the way, like all of the incentive, all of the incentives for posting online are completely antithetical to that. But, but really the only stuff that's going to bubble to the top is the, you know, is the most, the most hostile takes and the most partisan takes. And so I like, isn't there some concern that like that you don't like, how do you come back? from this in a world where anybody with a nuance take is going to be either so disgusted with what's going on that they're not going to want to weigh in or that even if they do weigh in, it's not going to bubble up in the algorithm because that's not what works online.

And so this is like now the new normal, which is like if you, five years ago, if you looked at a response to a shooting, if you looked today, you'd be like, holy, I mean, this is just, it's a deeply broken, it's a deeply broken society. And so, like, I guess my worry here is that, is that this is the best it's going to be. Like, it, like, it can only devolve even further from, from here because it's not like the incentives are going to be any better. It's not like, Elon Musk is going to suddenly say, like, hey, let's start rewarding nuance and let's start, like, you know, burying the most hostile takes that you can get. I do think that a backlash to social media has been brewing now, like a real one, not just, you know, people who come on offline and talk about.

about it. You can see it in the polls. You can see it in polls of people who support banning phones in schools and including a majority of young people, by the way. Is that true? Young people, young people are in favor of, like, for themselves? It's obviously, yeah, it's obviously closer. In fact, when you actually talk to young people, they've done a few studies of this, even the ones who think that they want to keep the phones, they say, oh, if everyone else gave up the phone, I'd be great. I don't want it. But I just want it because I can't not. I want to unilaterally disarm. Right, which I understand that of that point of view for sure.

And so people don't want this. I think that in, I was just saying this on a group chat, much better than on social media. A candidate who runs in 2028 against social media and against the phones. And I'm saying phone restraint. I'm not saying ban the phones completely like some people think I do. But a candidate who runs on that. It's too late. It's too late.

The soundbite's going to get clad. A candidate who runs on that, I think we do really well. Because I also think it's an issue that you have some people maybe in the center, center right, who also feel the same way about that. People don't want this. And I think even campaigning in politics, I mean, Zoran Mamdani and his social media strategy is very interesting, right? Which is instead of direct-to-camera stuff that he's doing,

so it's just like a relationship with the voter. Yeah. He's doing grassroots in-person organizing and media. meeting people and then broadcasting that to people, which is different, right? Because I think campaigns are going to return to the point that they can. If we're going to get out of this, it will be in person and not necessarily just like knocking on strangers' doors, but holding meetings of like-minded people and talking about politics, like I just think we have to mediate some of our conversations in person. And I say that knowing that I will go back online and have fights because that is what we have right now.

But I know that I am always looking for ways to meet in person and have debates about politics that way. You know, right when I was graduating from college, when I was graduating from Lehigh, I remember, I remember, like, smartphones were just coming out. This was in 2011. I think I had, like, one of my buddies was the first one to get, like, an Android. I had a flip phone in college. Like, it feels, it feels so prehistoric now, like, I had flip phone in college. And I remember being so jealous. I remember like on graduation day watching, you know, I was there and I saw, I saw like some of the, you know, people getting ready to leave and some of the, you know, siblings of graduates coming and they're like, I'm going to be here.

And I was like, man, I'm so jealous because these kids are going to have such a different college career because they're so much more connected than we were. And they'll have the internet and they'll have like Instagram and social media and they can talk to each other. and like we missed out on all of that and and for years that was how I thought about this was I was so jealous because these kids are going to be so much more so much better connected to the world and to even people like on our own campus and recently I started thinking what what a fucking blessing it was yeah that everything we did not just the stupid shit that I did in my frat house but like just that everything that we did was not broadcast to the entire world and that we got to have like real like intimate experiences with other human beings without feeling like you're performing for the whole world, and nobody will ever have that again. I know. I always think, I didn't. I mean, it's like a little bit like, you know, when we were growing up, and like, the way

you found people in your neighborhood in the 90s was like, look for the bikes, right? Like, look for people's bikes in their front yards. It's that. And also, I was thinking about this in college, because I had a flip phone, like, maybe the last year in college. I didn't even, because I'm, you know, I'm old. And, but you'd go out at night. You'd go to parties.

everyone after all your friends at the party after the party would scatter in different directions and then every every morning Saturday or Sunday morning we'd meet in the dining hall and everyone would share their stories and because you weren't texting each other you weren't posting it and so there's like a table of all your close friends and it was the best time because it was like let's talk about last night let's talk about what happened where'd you go where'd you end up how this happened what's going on tonight and it was just like a place we could have a real conversation with people. And I do. I feel so

sorry for kids today that they don't get to have that. And when I talked to Vivek Murthy, the Surgeon General, he talks about how Biden's Surgeon General and Obama's as well. He talked about how he go into schools and sit for lunch with kids at schools and they would all just be looking down on their phones the whole time. Yeah. Well,

look, I think, you know, it's a little weird for like two people who work online and whose livelihood comes from being online to talk about like the virtues of not being online, but I hope that, like, you know, the events of the last few days can at least, you know, offer, offer folks who are watching a little bit of a push to put down the phones, stop watching folks, including us, and just, you know, spend some time, you know, reconnecting with people in the world here. So, Favs, as always, I appreciate the time. Thanks so

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which the FDA does not approve or verify for safety, effectiveness, or quality, prescription required, see website for details, restrictions, and important safety information. I'm joined now by former member of the British government, whose focus was climate change, Johann Eliasch. Johan, you are one of the wealthiest people in the United Kingdom, but what caught my eye when I was reading about you is that you're using your your wealth for something a little bit different than what we're used to here. So can you explain a little bit about what you've done in the rainforest? Yeah. So growing up as a kid, I always had

a fascination about rainforests, the biodiversity, the life that goes on in the rainforests. And how important it is for the planet. They are the lungs of the earth. They account for big part of CO2 emissions by far too much and we'll get to that I'm sure later and it's the rainforest is so important for our atmosphere for maintaining the atmosphere and also for food and water security for billions of people around the planet so I had an idea that it would be possible to conserve rainforests through a very simple method. And that was simply to give harvesting rights to fruits and nuts in rainforest, to the local indigenous population.

So the pressures here are particularly on the outskirts of the rainforest where industrial activity, cattle, beef. ranchers sugar cane all these industrial efforts people need that and in the end it's about land years and by

making the local indigenous population giving them a livelihood that mattered to them they became the custodians of the rainforest and this has been going for 20 years the deforestation rate has gone down to zero it also became part of a UN protocol which is called reduced emissions from degradation and deforestation

which has been going for quite some time the only problem is and this was instituted in the Paris Agreement in 2015 is that there is no funding available for it so governments around the the world have not provided any funding to make this happen which is sad so this is where private individuals can make a real difference other people like me could do more in this area and it would be very impactful and can actually immediately contribute to to solving this problem which for mankind is an existential threat so basically you have the rainforest that was being well you have have the rainforest that is at risk of deforestation, you decided to step in on an individual basis and buy up portions of the rainforest and then allow usage of that land to indigenous

tribes, but in effect, it would protect that land from being deforested. Is that correct? Exactly. So what I did here is to make this, the local indigenous people's livelihood. So they really care because this is what they live from. And this has made an economy, a microeconomy in these land areas where people live off this. And it works. And this is you can do anywhere on the planet. You can do it in Africa, you can do it in Congo Basin, for instance. You can do it in the Far East.

It's the same formula. formula and it's a very simple, easy form. Has the government in Brazil, for example, been a good partner for you in terms of doing this or has the government in Brazil been hostile to these actions or have they allowed more of this deforestation to occur? So the Brazilian people care deeply about the rainforest. This is something they care probably more about than even soccer games. And that tells you something.

Unfortunately, it's not quite the same with the politicians. And this has become, for other reason, whether it's party political funding for most of the political parties, and also a bit of posturing when it comes to the climate change convention of parties. And here, out of interest, I point out that they are the only nation. We'd rate for us. who are not a member of the coalition of rainforest nations, which tell you something. They want to do their own thing, and they think that they should not be bullied into anything by rich, industrialized nations. And of course, they shouldn't be bullied into it, but we have a problem that we can only solve together.

Industrialized nations, developing nations, and rainforest nations. must come together to solve this problem. Aside from folks like you, individuals who are buying up portions of the rainforest in an effort to protect them, is there any valid or effective campaign to protect these areas that, to your exact point, are existential

to the continuation of humanity? I mean, if you think about it, it's so stupid. I mean, here we are. We breathe every day. We take that from Boston. And the rainforest is critical for the atmosphere. Without an atmosphere, we vanish immediately. Right.

So if we had any sense, we would prioritize this, but we don't. So all we can do here is spread awareness, put pressure on governments, politicians, to make things happen. Is this a profitable enterprise for you? No, I don't, this is a non, not-for-profit excise. It costs money, but it's something I'm very happy to give it towards because of the importance. Has what you've done in the rainforest offered anything of an incentive structure for other folks, other wealthy individuals to kind of replicate these actions? I think there are many, many foundations, charitable organizations that are, beginning to do the same thing and in fact some have been doing it for quite some time

and the challenge here is to be effective and this is why i founded something called cool earth together with a british politician called frank field like their lordfield and the idea was to replicate what i had done but make it available to uh individuals. And that organization is called Cool Earth, www.coleearth.com.org. And it basically does the same thing on all continents and making it possible for individuals through small contributions to make a difference. Is that effort able to withstand maybe more hostile actions by the government? If the governments decide to come in and usurp,

this land that the individuals have purchased, has that been able to withstand anything like that, or has it not even gotten that to that point? No, I think governments, no, I can't say any governments have done on a federal level things of that count. Sometimes on a local city level or state level in countries, there can be fun and games going on to, for certain purposes like. if you have elections, politicians threatening to put lots of people into the area to put even more pressures in order to get contributions or get some sort of endorsement. It's very important to

stand firm here and make it very clear that this is an effort for the good of mankind and that they should They should respect that. So, you know, you're using your wealth to buy up portions of the rainforest to protect it from deforestation. You've got other billionaires, like some very prominent ones here in the United States, who've used their wealth, not to further the cause of protecting the rainforest and combating climate change, but rather to invest in space companies or buy up newspapers or buy up social media sites. whatever it may be you've got like the you know the space race between uh jeff bezos and Elon Musk and so can you talk a little bit about the the priorities that some of the wealthiest individuals in the united states have uh kind of in contrast to what you've decided to do with your funds well uh we only have one planet and it wasn't designed for eight and a half billion people

living the way we do and herein lies the problem and uh if we don't do anything about this these issues. And we already see with the severe weather impacts that we get, which, yeah, with great loss of life, great destruction, and there's something we must prevent. And the biodiversity is one thing. The other one is if you can't bring forest in one place, days. Rain starts falling in new places, perhaps the wrong places. You get migration, you get conflicts. It leads to wars. Yeah. And that's happened many times throughout the history and recently the DaFur crisis. You can draw direct correlation between deforestation and that conflict, which led to the loss of 2 million lives.

What do you attribute the apathy among the folks who do have the wealth and the power to do something about climate change what do you what do you attribute that apathy to i think i think people pick courses which are close to their their hearts and minds um and i i think here it's in my case i picked this particular cause because hey i had a passion for the rainforest since childhood but also because I saw how impactful my contributions could be and it created awareness it created a formula to build upon and of course the more people that do the same as I do the better it will be for the planet and for mankind I mean the planet will always be here but the planet is very unique there is no other

planet earth not not maybe not in the entire reachable universe even if we come up with an alkybair stripe or something spectacular so we can travel at the speed of light but even so there are this planet is so unique the way it's engineered. So we have to be very caringful. Do you think it's misguided then for someone like Elon Musk to spend the majority of his time focusing on interplanetary travel when the reality is that if humanity has any chance of surviving,

it's going to be here? And that the efforts would be better placed, not ushering in right-wing governments that deny the existence, of climate change and spending money on other projects that ultimately are just for-profit ventures when you've got, you know, this existential risk staring us right in the face and, and in fact, you know, helping right-wing governments is only exacerbating the acceleration toward that existential crisis. Exactly.

And if we don't care, there is no way we can go through interstellar travel that will provide the premises for inhabitation. There's no other planet like that. I mean, there is an argument that you could stand at 30,000 feet above Venus, maybe you can breathe for

five minutes, but that's the only class, right? Mars doesn't have a magnetosphere, so we would have to artificially induce that. Otherwise, we'd be radiated there. We always had to wear it. There aren't any other places. So we really have to be careful.

We have, the solar, our solar system here is what we got, and that is what we're confined to. What we can do is perhaps put solar stations in space, and that is where the development and if we can bring the payload costs down significantly, it would be more economic to put solar stations in space. And that's reality. That this weather can be a great contributor. As climate change continues to exacerbate the effects of extreme weather, whatever it may be, as we continue to see record temperatures every single year,

have you seen an acceptance from right-wing governments that have historically denied the existence of climate change, oftentimes in deference to oil and gas? Have you seen more of an acceptance from these governments or a willingness to actually do something about it? Well, I mean, no one can say climate change doesn't exist, because climate change, that has been a natural phenomenon. I can find you quite a few American lawmakers who would be perfectly content to say as much. Oh, I know. And I've had plenty of discussions with them. But when you explain to them that this planet has been around for 4.5. billion years and we've had climate change ever since and if it wasn't for climate change we wouldn't be here so that because the climate change actually provided us with the with the

environment where we can where we can live as as organizations so there's no doubt about that but it's a question of how we maintain our existence on the planet and here the biodiversity is such an important part also the oceans are very important because most of the CO2 goes into the oceans and if they become saturated they can't absorb more and that means you'll have this accelerated effect where you know the greenhouse gas effect accelerates so quickly there is no return and that is what we have to avoid that all costs, and we're getting close. So we're contending with deforestation of places like the rainforests that are essential

to combating climate change. We're contending with the prospect of the saturation in the oceans of CO2. And so there are all of these problems bearing down. If you had a magic wand, if you had the ear of every single government on Earth, what would be the steps that you would take to take serious action toward combating climate change in the way that we actually have to not these bullshit incremental steps that may last one year

but then we have another government comes in and undoes all of that work or starts funding fossil fuel companies whatever it may be what would be the steps that you could actually take to truly combat this in the way that it needs to be combated well it doesn't have to be painful

it's just very simple We need to put more focus on technology, number one. We have to invest more in renewable energy sources. There is very promising technology, and I mentioned earlier, putting solar stations in space, accelerate even more solar panels. And the more we do that, the economies of scale will bring the cost down even more. And let's say we get way below current dollar price at $60 a baron. Let's say we get that to $30, $40.

We don't, the governments don't have to do anything more because this is a no-brainer for everybody. They will do it. But we need to get to that point where it becomes a self-fulfilling investment in a sense, where people just do it because it doesn't make sense. to use oil. For some things, we are going to need oil for some petrol, like aircraft. That's not going to change in a heartbeat, but maybe 20 years from now, we can have ceramic turbines. And with technological change, we can get cleaner and cleaner. How are you thinking about America's position in all of this? I mean, this is this is the

the country that I'm coming to you from is the wealthiest country in the world. Obviously, a lot can hinge on whether the U.S. decides to move forward with efforts to combat climate change or pull back from efforts to combat climate change. And so how are you looking at the U.S.'s involvement here? I think the U.S. made great contributions. I mean, under Carrie as a special envoy. his effort to make the paris agreement happen we were on a great trajectory and hopefully that will continue there are you can always criticize various initiatives that are taken under the banner of climate change but one

thing irrespective of whether you believe co2 has impact or not biodiversity is something which is undisputable and has is also separate from CO2 emissions in the sense that this is such a vital part of the balance of well for the oxygen production and the atmosphere and without the atmosphere we're gone so that is a given that we have to that we have to protect biodiversity it comes before reducing CO2 levels and finally we'll finish off with this for folks who are looking to help in any way can you talk about how they can best help would it be cool earth cool earth is great it's really simple cool earth has been around since for 20 years protected millions of acres

around the world is a proven formula And the great thing here is that more than 90%, if not 95%, it goes into actually doing stuff, which has great impact. So it's a very lean organization, which is experienced and know what they do. Wonderful. Well, I'll put that link right here on the screen and also in the post description. If anybody watching is looking to do something to help to mitigate the effects of climate change, protecting this land, rainforest land from deforestation, is top on that list. So again, thank you

so much for your time. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Brian. Thanks again to John Favro and Johann Elias. That's it for this episode. Talk to you next week. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen. Produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesie, and interviews edited for YouTube by Nicholas Nicotera. If you want to support the show, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app and leave a five-star rating in a review. you can find me at Brian Tyler Cohen on all of my other channels, or you can go to Brian Tyler Cohen.com to learn more.