The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens - Sobriété vs Poverty: Preparing for a New Cultural Paradigm with Jean-Marc Jancovici

Episode Date: April 30, 2025

As economic, political, and environmental pressures continue to reshape our daily choices, it's becoming increasingly clear that the era of hyper-consumption that defined the past century is no longer sustainable. Recognizing and adapting to this reality represents one of the most profound cultural shifts of our time – requiring collective reflection and cooperation. But just as importantly, how can we recalibrate our personal expectations today in ways that preserve our sense of agency and sufficiency? In this episode, Nate is joined by energy expert and educator Jean-Marc Jancovici, who shares insights from his ongoing work advising governments and the public on the limits of our economic systems amid growing energy and ecological constraints. Together, they discuss the evolving geopolitical landscape between the U.S. and Europe, the distinction between energy sobriéte and poverty, and the role of the elite in leading societal change towards more practical consumption levels.  How can we change the way we're communicating the science behind our predicament, especially as political and economic tensions continue to accelerate? Why is our collective vision of the future so important for preventing political turmoil? Finally, how can we combine technological efficiency with a change in cultural values to create a future that's not just survivable, but meaningfully better than the default?   About Jean-Marc Jancovici: Jean-Marc Jancovici is a founding partner of Carbone 4, a Paris based consultancy and data provider specializing in low carbon transition, biodiversity impacts, and physical risks of climate change. He is the founder and president of The Shift Project, a Paris based think tank advocating for a low carbon economy. Jean-Marc Jancovici is also an associate professor at Mines ParisTech, member of the French High Council for the Climate, and (co-)author of 8 books. Most recently, he and Christophe Blain released an American adaptation of their graphic novel, World Without End, which describes why our energy and environmental constraints require us to rethink everything: our energy supply, our economies, and our whole world.    Show Notes and More Watch this video episode on YouTube   Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie.   ---   Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future Join our Substack newsletter Join our Discord channel and connect with other listeners  

I had three categories of energy savings. The first one is energy efficiency, which is the one that everybody loves because it enables to have the same service or the same product with an energy spending which is lower. The second is what I call sobriety, which is deliberately waiving a service or product in order to save energy. You're happy because you have chosen it.

Poverty is exactly the same thing, only you haven't chosen it. Poverty you dislike, of course, because you think that something has been imposed on you. So what we are not able to achieve with sobriety, we will achieve with poverty. And poverty is going to trigger political turmoil. You're listening to The Great Simplification. I'm Nate Hagen's. On this show, we describe how energy, the economy, the environment and human behavior all fit together

and what it might mean for our future. By sharing insights from global thinkers, we hope to inform and inspire more humans to play emergent roles in the coming Great Simplification. Today, I am joined by French energy and economics educator Jean-Marc Jean-Marcic for a second time on the Great Simplification podcast. Jean-Marc is the co-founder and partner of Carbon 4, associate professor at Mines-Paris Tech, as well as the founder and president of the Shift Project in Paris, France. Most recently, Jean-Marc just released his American version of the book, World Without End,

which is a French graphic novel that is illustrated by Christopher Blaine and is a number one international bestseller. The book uses beautiful visuals and relatable examples to describe the physical limits underpinning our global economies, which are based on endless growth, as well as discusses the implications. of that paradox. This conversation with Jean-Marc covers a broad range of subjects, as you might imagine, including some updates on projects that we discussed in our previous conversation almost two years ago. We also discussed the implications of our current geopolitical landscape for European economies through the lens of a biophysical macro-resource-constrained viewpoint. While Jean-Marc and I often have deep intersections of our work, his European perspective sheds light on the very different cultural and political situation unfolding across the Atlantic Ocean.

Before we begin, if you enjoy this podcast, one of the biggest ways you can support us is by subscribing to it on your favorite platform and sharing one of your favorite episodes, perhaps this episode, with someone who also might learn from, and enjoy it. We believe in making this content free and accessible to as many people as possible, so we appreciate your support. With that, please welcome my friend Jean-Marc Jean-Marcicic, Jean-Marc Jean-Marcicci. Welcome back to the program. The inspiration for this second conversation between the two of us was the recent release of the American adaptation of your book World Without End, which was originally written in French from a French perspective. Can you Tell us a bit about this book and what it covers. Yeah, this book explains something which is very simple,

but I'm probably very dumb because it took me 10 years to realize it, which is that the work of energy is actually a work of machines, and what made the world that surrounds us today, apart from nature, of course, which is not as it was a century ago, but almost as it was a century ago, the major difference is that we live in the world of machines. And we wanted to explain why actually it's going to be so difficult to get rid of fossil fuels because they have made the life, the daily life, so comfortable. Actually, my first point of interest in the climate change and energy nexus was climate change.

It's the first thing that I looked at. I was very interested in that. It was in the early 2000. And it took me a while to, you know, I'm an engineer. Yeah, so I like basic reasoning and simple things. So we have a problem with greenhouse gases. So let's suppress greenhouse gases. It seems so simple.

Why don't we do it? And actually, then I switch to energy, I would say, topics. And it took me a while to realize actually something which, actually, when you say, it seems so simple, which is that we use plenty of energy because it allows us to have plenty of energy slaves, so to say. machines that wash our clothes, cook for us, transport for us, design for us, I mean, grow our food for us, manufacture products for us, et cetera. They all do for us. And they have enabled that modern, comfortable world in which we have the material possibility to travel, the time to do so, enough money to retire, enough money to pursue long studies. We have

modern medicine. We have large houses heated in the winter, cooled in the summer and all this stuff, can go to the movies. And actually, we owe that, all that, we owe it to what you call the carbon pulse and what I call fossil fuels. It's about the same thing. And we wanted to explain that to the largest possible number of people with a book that was accessible to everyone. And actually, in French, we have a motto that says that a simple drawing is often, and better than a long explanation. And so when Christophe Blin,

who is a very well-renowned author of graphic novels in France, came to me and asked me whether I was interested in doing together a graphic novel on basically my stuff that is explaining what is energy and explaining what is climate change, I was really excited and thrilled because, and it happened to prove to be the right move, because we sold over a million copies in France. And the idea was to explain in simple terms. Simple terms is anybody you run across is able to understand that.

The bus driver is able to understand that. The person that sells you the bread is able to understand. The cashier is able to understand that. I mean, anyone, okay? And that's what we wanted to do in France. And that's the origin of the book. And I have not read the book yet. Is it mostly about understanding or is it all

near the end offering prescriptions or directions to the million people that have read it so far? It is mostly understanding the prescriptions we have offered, well, some of them, I would say, are implicitly enclosed into what we explain. Some of them are not. And we explained at the end of the book that there are a number of moves that wouldn't need such an effort to be. be made and that we could make them. But basically, it is not the master plan on how we can draw, design a future

society in which we are happy with our fossil fuels. It doesn't come to that point. That is something that I have done also in France, but in another book, not in that one. So my understanding is that book, World Without End,

has been translated into dozens of language. including English. So why did you decide to make an American adaptation of this? And what did you change about the book? Actually, it has been translated in over 20 languages, mostly for European countries, but not only. It has also been translated into Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Arabic, and some others.

Felicitation. Well, you know, in France, the two major countries outside France so far have been Belgium and Switzerland because that's where you have the largest French-speaking community and comics actually or graphic novels

they are very popular in France but outside France they are not that popular I mean you lose two orders of magnitude regarding the sales regarding the US it was first something that Christoph wanted

very much. It happens that Christoph likes a lot part of the American culture and he happened to know an agent that knows very well the US and so he insisted a lot so that

this agent would sell word without end in the US and trying to find an editor in the US which eventually happened. What we changed in the book is that we know that no offense intended, half of the American population doesn't know where France is.

So what we decided to do is to remove everything that was a French or European example and replace it with an American example. So, for example, the way we accessed leisure over time, in the French version, we have used French examples, and in the American version, we have used American examples. We have taken a couple living on the East Coast and we explained how over the centuries the later changed from going hiking in the woods at the back of the house to going skiing in whatever in Colorado or in California for the weekend or going on cruise from Florida or whatever. We also have changed the units which switched from the metric system, which is the only one

which makes sense, but no matter, to the imperial system. And all the calculations that are enclosed in the book, like, for example, in the book, I have calculated the size of the reservoir that would be needed to store enough water to provide electricity to the whole country for two weeks if all the electricity came from renewable, non-dispatchable sources, And you needed absolutely to store energy for two weeks, electricity for two weeks, in a big reservoir.

So I calculated the size of that reservoir. I initially did that for France or for Europe, to be more precise. And I made a recalculation for a U.S. example. That's another example of some things that we have changed. How big would it need to be? Or it would need to run along the full coast of the U.S. and B, if my memory is correct, about 200 meters tall and 100 meters wide

or something like that. Huge, yeah. And the last thing that we did is that in the French version of the book, the way I illustrated the fleet of machines that work for us is the Iron Man costume. Basically, what I explain is that the fleet of machines in the world

they are equivalent to all having an Ironman suit or an Ironman costume on our shoulders. Because that fleet of machines does exactly the same thing that the Iron Man costume allows us to fly, allows us to whatever transform arises... Anything, I mean. But of course in the US,

we couldn't use that character because it's Marvel's property. And Marvel would have claimed probably a zillion dollars per copy so we changed the superhero we changed its appearance and we gave him a new name and the name was

Armourman Armourman, got it so how's, I know it recently came out like a week or two ago how has the response been so far and honestly I don't know because I didn't get the figures it's probably a little early

to know how it's going well good luck with that I don't think we have a graphic novel or any comprehensive book covering the importance of the carbon pulse in the United States. Do you ever get the sense, given world events in the last three to six months, that the moment of educating the broader public about fossil fuels and the carbon pulse and armor man's special powerful attributes, that the moment is slipping past us, that world events with war and geopolitics and authoritarianism and polarization

and people not knowing what's true or not have overtaken the role that you and I have attempted the last decade plus on educating our biophysical macroeconomy to more people. I think you are partially right, unfortunately. But keep in mind that World Without End in France was released four years ago. So the world was slightly different. Trump had not been elected and part of what is happening right now. I mean, I think that the pace of time is accelerating. So four years ago was already a slightly different world. I think that educating people is never something

that we should wave. I mean, it's always good to do. If I take your country right now, there is obviously half of it, which is probably beyond reach now for this kind of, I would say, this kind of move. Unfortunately,

and you will have to wait for a little time or a long time. I don't know. for the country to hit something before the window comes back for this kind of, I mean, before people are receptive to explanations again. That's for half of the country.

But the other half is still there. There is still a significant fraction of the country that is open to explanations and understanding and which can benefit from a clear view of what is really going on. Because that eventually we will still have to design plans that can work.

I think you're implying Republican and Democrat as the halfs, maybe, maybe not. I agree with you that half our country won't listen to this sort of thing, but I don't think it's split by political lines. I think it's split by other things, people that want to learn and understand our reality and those that don't, because both political affiliations, kind of ignore or tend to ignore the biophysical reality that you are explaining. Yes.

Yes, but I would say that there is a strong overlap with the political division in the relationship to science. So do you worry, as I do, Jean-Marc, that the flame, which is civilization, is dimming because of institutions and resources and the credibility of science itself is dimming because of some recent events. Without science and the respect and credibility and able ability of neutral people trying to figure out what's going on with our world, what hope do we have? Is this something that concerns you? Yes, a lot. Once I saw a comic strip, which was funny, in which you could see someone saying, I don't like this fact because they don't fit with my opinion.

And what we are seeing right now is basically the population being divided in two parts. I wouldn't say that they are of the same size because it depends on where you are. In France, for example, the two size are respectively 70% of the population and 30% of the population in rough figures. I'm afraid that in the US you are closer to 50-50 or 60-40, but I think that the part of the population

which dislikes any science, which is not in accordance with what they want is larger. And my belief is that it's a reaction to people not understanding where they can

go, them personally, in a world that would be in accordance with what the science says. So basically, the science says things that need, or for which the implicit consequence is that we have to change a lot. They don't see what would be their role, their place, their hopes in this global change. And so they reject the scientific diagnosis that existed in the first place. It's something that I see growing everywhere, including in France, but not only, including in the US, but not only. And of course, it's a matter of concern because history has proven us that when you try to design a plan on the grounds of something that doesn't exist at some point.

I mean, you will be hurt. You will have pain, basically. So it's not good news that you see that fraction of the population rejecting science growing. When I say science, I must be precise. There are two sciences, actually. There is one science that everybody loves, which is the science that allows to design new techniques. So basically the science that allows to,

design a new smartphone or whatever, that science, everybody loves it. The science that a fraction of the population dislikes is the science which enables to understand the state of the world. And it's that science that brings bad news, basically. The other science brings only good news. We are going to be able to do this, that, and have reality glasses and whatever.

I mean, that one is not an issue. But that second science is fully dependent on the first. one. Yes, of course. Yeah. So what is your take? Today is April 2nd. What's your take on how France and the European Union have been responding to the new United States administration's first few months, especially in terms of defense spending and climate policy? Like, what's your observation and perspective? On climate policies, my take is that Trump might very well be a very good friend of the climate, because with all what is doing, he can very well trigger a recession, which is going to be very good for a decrease of the greenhouse gases emissions. So I already said that before the election, I said that between Trump and Harris, I was not sure that there would be a major difference at the end,

regarding only one part, which is, of course, the trajectory of the U.S. regarding climate change and, well, regarding emissions. In some sense, though, your work and my work over the last decade predicted that it almost doesn't matter from a biophysical perspective. We have these animated machine slaves that we give methamphetamine and turbo boost them with more. debt, but there is a limit. The limit, you reached it in 2008, as we did in Europe. Yeah. My hypothesis is that it's, the reason lying below is the peak oil for conventional oil that happened then.

That triggered what was called the financial crisis and the subcrime crisis. And actually, it happened that the maximum of the energy consumption in the US was 2007. as it was for Europe. And there was no special climate policy happening that year. I mean, nothing special happened regarding the climate in 2007. But from 2007, the CO2 emissions of Europe and the CO2 emissions of the US have declined. Yeah. And actually, it happens that it's even during the first mandate of Trump that they declined the fastest in the US.

So based on that observation, I may have. the command that drove a number of people crazy, that regarding the climate issue, there would probably be no major difference between Trump and Harris, which didn't mean that I wouldn't have, that I didn't know for whom I would have voted if I had been a U.S. elector, but it just, I just said that on this particular point. If you just cared about emissions, I take your point. But the other point that you care also about is science and the institution of science. Of course. Again, I know for whom I would have voted. But regarding just emissions, I made that comment.

So right now, I think that what Trump is going to do might well, as I said, trigger a recession because he's going to slow down a lot trade, or at least that's what he wants to do. The drill, baby drill does not depend. He's not the master. I mean, it's the return. It's the return. It's the return on investment of the oil companies, which is going to pilot how much the rigs they are going to operate and how much new fields they are going to develop or not. And it's how much remains below the ground. Because when you look at the oil patches in the US, all but one, which is the largest, of course, the Permian, are already declining regarding light, tight oil. So, I mean, he's not in command. I mean, he doesn't decide of anything. The Fed is a little

in command, because depending on the amount of money that will be poured on oil drillers and the price of the barrel, there will be a little bit more or a little bit less. But, but it, I mean, Trump has not a major influence on what is going to happen regarding oil production in the US. Regarding the other topics right now, basically what happens in Europe is the same. kind of startled attitude that you probably have in part of the U.S. Because Trump is basically flooding the zone. Every day you learn something new. And so instead of thinking of their own plans, the Europeans are trying to react day after day to the news of the day.

But, I mean, I don't think that it's very relevant. they are going to go nowhere this way. What the Europeans should do is design their old plan, which they are a little bit doing, but not that much. But right now, I mean, they are just looking at what is happening and reacting day after day to the last news. What is your opinion, Jean-Marc, on the economic and strategic prospects of a resource

and energy-poor continent, to be honest, Europe, at a time when American security guarantee is being withdrawn and increased spending on defense seems inevitable. And is there any long-term alternative to resuming energy trade with Russia, knowing the world from your energy perspective? Well, Russia is a touchy issue here, a very touchy one. My belief is that we cannot avoid negotiating with Russia. There are our neighbors.

We have interconnected interests and we cannot afford to have a mighty enemy at our gates. So what is happening to Ukraine today is sad. very sad. But we say that the U.S. is our friends. Why they are financing a regime, which is Netanyahu's regime, which is doing on a smaller scale, just because Israel is a smaller country,

probably something which is worse than what Putin is doing in Ukraine. So, I mean, if we stay on the grounds of moral, I don't see why we would discuss with the U.S. and not with Russia. Then we discuss with no one. I mean, which is another possibility. But yes, we have an issue, which is that we are a continent with a very small amount of resources because we have basically exhausted all our resources

because we began the industrial revolution before everybody else. And today, all that we have is our intelligence. our methods, our skills, and that's what we have to use and trade. And my belief is that our best option would be to use them to invent the world after the carbon pearls that we will face anyway

and that we are more and more that we are facing, sorry, more and more already, only we don't understand it. And as we are already facing it without understanding it, It's why what we call the populist parties are on the rise everywhere in Europe for exactly the same reason, because we are facing a future of no growth because it cannot happen physically anymore. And actually, when you look at the real indicators of the economy, say, for example, the weight of the goods that are transported each year,

or the surface which is built each year, or some other physical indicators like that's one, you can see that the European economy is contracting, has been contracting since 2007. No, no, I mean, no coincidence. It's normal. And so today, we are not understanding that. So basically, we are in a denial process, probably for a large part because people don't understand what is going on, because they don't have that, as you say, biophysical. way to assess what is surrounding us. And that's a major reason of concern for me.

I believe that we must try to design something which is not trying to copy the US. I mean, the US is loaded with oil, even if not as much as it would like, loaded with mines, loaded with space, loaded with forests, I mean, plenty of everything. We don't have all that.

So we have to design our old plan, our own future, which is, so I don't believe that we should fight with the US. Just we should understand that we cannot follow their path. It is something which is physically not reasonable. And the path that we have to follow is actually has a common part with Russia. Because they are our neighbor. And the idea that we would deprive them of revenues. If we didn't buy their gas, I mean, basically, it's just putting their gas into the hands of China. That's what it does.

So if you mentioned earlier from a moral perspective, there's little difference other than scale, perhaps, between the United States and support of Israel and what Russia is doing. And maybe you don't talk to either of them. But the implications of not talking to either of them in a country that is used most of its, fossil and mineral endowments is another theme of your work, which is the concept of sobriete, and something we discussed in our first conversation. To summarize, this was the idea of a society that knows how to value minimal consumption and acknowledges when they've had enough. So how is the cultural value of sobriete changed and evolved in the last few years?

and is it kind of central in how it interacts with the geopolitical pressures being placed on the entire European bloc? Well, sovereignty is not really a way not to talk to the US or not to talk to Russia. It's an answer to the fact that even if we talk to both of them, we have the obligation to be happy with less

because we are already facing having less. So basically we have. And so I have a way to distinguish energy savings. I have three categories of energy savings. The first one is energy efficiency, which is the one that everybody loves because it enables to have still the same service or the same product with an energy spending which is lower.

So that one is loved by everyone, including the political world, because it doesn't mean that the elector is going to deprive himself or herself, or something? The voter, sorry. The second way to save energy is what I call sobriety, which is deliberately waiving a service or product in order to save energy.

Say, I have a car and I choose to use a small motorcycle or a bicycle or a bicycle or whatever. Okay, or to take the bus. This is sobriety. You deliberately choose it, and as you deliberately choose it, and as you deliberately choose it, you do not feel that you are deprived of something. So you're not angry, basically. You're happy because you have chosen it.

Poverty is exactly the same thing, only you haven't chosen it. So poverty is not driving a car anymore, not because you have chosen it because you think that it's good for your health or good for your muscles or good for your stress or whatever, just because you can't afford it anymore. And sobriety, you appreciate it

because you believe or you think that you are the master of your own destiny, and poverty you dislike, of course, because you think that something has been imposed on you. So my belief, just to finish, is that in Europe, we won't face the energy decline with only efficiency. So what we don't do, what we are not able to achieve with sobriety, we will achieve with poverty. And poverty is going to trigger political turmoil.

So basically, sobriety is not only a response to geopolitical issues. It's also a response to the rising populist vote. If we enable to implement it. Now, the good question is, will we be able to implement it? And there, there is something that the conclusion that I've reached is that it is possible at one condition, which is that the people that have the most give the most in that move. otherwise people at the lower part of the social ladder will consider that there is a major injustice for them

and they will revolt. And I will give a simple example. When you ask people, are you in favor of limiting flying? 40% of the people say yes. And if you ask the same question, comer and forbidding private jets, then it jumps to 60%.

So that's what I mean by the people that have the most in that system should give the most. Otherwise, it's not going to be possible to follow that path. So in some ways what we face in your country and in mine and in the world is a race between cultural sobriete and poverty. and the more that we can voluntarily move towards sobriete now, then the larger chunk of the energy savings won't necessarily be poverty. Have you thought about it that way? It's exactly what I think. Okay.

You said it in a short way, what I've been trying to explain in a longer way, but it's exactly what I think. So do you think it's possible for an attitude like sobriete or whatever the English Sufficiency, I think it's in English. Sufficiently, okay. Do you think that could ever become a mainstream ideal? And specifically, do you think it's possible in some of the highest consumption countries like Les Eatsune and other Western countries to adopt such a thing?

It is possible, as I said, only if the part of the population which has been the most gifted is also the one which is leading the way, meaning that they are. among the one that in a prominent way say, it's okay with me, I can do without this and that. I can fly less. I can sell my private jet or not use it anymore. I'm going to take the train like everybody else. And the difficulty, of course, is that these people are those

that are the least afraid of what's going on because their status and their wealth protect them or give them a very protective feeling against what is happening. So basically, those people are probably the last ones that are going to feel either afraid or to be motivated

by the general movement because where they are in the society is a protection against what is already happening and that people that are not in their position feel much more. So it's, it's, you see, for one of the things that I say often is that if people that have, their chauffeur and their private car took the underground in the bus,

that would probably already be a little bit more connected to the surrounding world. So there may be a sobriety and poverty rhyming situation. for the elite as well in coming decade. We shall see. So shifting gears, I know that you're an energy expert, but you also pay close attention to climate. And since you were on in late 2023, there's been an acceleration in global heating.

Do you have any views on the current situation with emissions, global heating, geoengineering, any updates you'd like to share there? Well, on emissions, 2024 was a record year as most of the previous ones. So, I mean, the emissions have never been as high as in 2024. And my take is that

I don't see how the world is going to organize, in a coordinated and smooth way decline of the emissions in the future. I believe that fossil fuels are such a powerful drug that it is very difficult to do without

and get rid of them at the good speed. So what I believe is that the work of people like me is useful to prepare plans that will have to be implemented someday because there will be a crisis or something like that, or

there will be a shortage or something like that. I believe that the decline of fossil fuels is not going to be evenly distributed in the world. And of course, Europe is much more at risk than the U.S. The European Union is importing 97% of its oil.

90% of its gas and even half of its coal, the European Union, excluding Norway and excluding UK, but still. So, I mean, we have nothing, basically. We're just like Japan. And you can see that Japan is on the decline, has been on the decline for now 30 years, basically. Stackflation, then more, I mean. And so Europe is going to follow the same path physically.

and we have to invent something which is in accordance with that. So going back to climate change, there is still huge amounts of coal everywhere in the world, including in the US. There are huge amounts of coal. Not used right now because there has been

that switch from coal to gas because of cheap gas. But I mean, the day cheap gas ends, I do not exclude at all that there is a comeback to coal, in the US. And I don't know whether the first consequences

of climate change are going to be enough to discourage us from using fossil fuels. I don't believe that it's going to be enough, unfortunately. One of the reasons why

is that the paradox is that abundant energy is one of the ways to face the first consequences of climate change. Because with abundant energy, you can transport food from where it's still

grows to places where it doesn't grow anymore. You can reconstruct infrastructure and hopes that has been destroyed by some events. You can bring water where you do not have water. I mean, you can do plenty of things with abundant energy. So the reason why we can adapt so easily today to the first consequences of climate change, whereas two centuries ago it would already have killed plenty of people

is because we have plenty of energy. So the paradox is that in a world which is going to be more and more disrupted by climate change, the temptation is paradoxically to call more and more of fossil fuels in order to have more and more means to react to the first consequences.

Well, a micro example of that is India is massively increasing their coal production and burning to have more air conditioning and cooling because their climate is warming. Among other things you have that, yes? Yeah, so here's something that I struggle with, and I'm sure you do too, because we care about the natural world and global heating,

and we know or can infer what's going, what's in the pipeline in coming decades and century, and yet we've got the failure of the cop process, the removal of science and science institutions in my country, increasing global focus on energy security instead of decarbonization. It seems like in the human aggregate behavioral choice math or game theory, you know, the superorganism doesn't care about climate at all. So many of my viewers of this program deeply care about the biosphere and climate.

Is it game over? How does one keep fighting for what's right? on behalf of the biosphere? Probably we share the same answer because it's meaningful. Yes. I mean, why did the first Christians resist crucifications and lions and whatever?

Because it was meaningful to them. So basically, it's very important for us, all of us, actually. Even those that we don't share opinions with, we need meanings and things that are meaningful. So that's part of the answer. The second part of the answer is that as long as there is life, there is hope. I mean, so you cannot say one day, okay, now the game is over. I go in my little home.

I'm going to grow my peas and my potatoes. No, you can't. I mean, we are all connected to the outside world. The idea that you are going to bury yourself in some desert with 40 years of cans and 10,000 bullets and whatever, is just a dream. I mean, you cannot do that. You need to be connected to the outside world.

For anything we do today, we are connected to the outside world. So the best answer to the problem will always remain to try to grow a network of people that you educate and that you try to convince that we can have a common point plan, which is not the one, which we are following today.

And I see, I mean, even if it's something which requires a lot of effort, which is sometimes painful, which is not rewarding every day, I don't see any better option. You're right. I agree with your sentiments, totally. So regarding such unlikely but necessary plan, I'd like to return to something you brought up in our last conversation, your organization, the Shift Project, had released a report detailing how to decarbonize the transition for the French economy by reframing the management away from a monetary focus and towards a physical systems lens.

And I'm wondering if you could unpack the details of what it would mean to organize an economy through a physical systems lens. And if any ideas from that report have been taken up by the French government, or either at the national or more municipal and local scales. Well, the idea was to try to understand what it meant for our country, France, to put it in accordance with the decrease of the emissions, which is required to stay below two degrees. It happens that we need, in order to achieve that goal,

we need to decrease emissions worldwide by 5% per year. So we said, okay, let's do that for France. Let's imagine that we decrease, sorry, domestic emissions by 5% each year. What would it require, what would it mean, what would the world around us would look like? And so we did that for plenty of different sectors, housing, freight, transportation of people,

agriculture, culture, actually, health, because today a hospital is a world of machines also. And for each of these sectors, we have imagined how we could organize ourselves in order to achieve that rate of decrease of the emissions. How much of that applies to not reducing emissions, but just the efficiency and sobriety aspects of energy decline? It depends, because if I take, for example, freight, part of what you can do is efficiency. For example, shifting trucks to electricity, that is basically efficiency. Shifting electric production from the present mix, which actually in France is already very low carbon. But if I take Europe, still comprises gas and coal to something which would be 100% low carbon,

is something which is not efficiency, but I mean, it's still something which is technical. It doesn't involve the end consumer. But we also have a part which involves the end consumer, which is basically ordering less goods, so you need to transport less, having less cars, so you need to manufacture, you know, part of the trucks transport today is food, another part is industrial parts,

another part is end consumer goods. So basically, if you apply sobriety to what we buy, then you also can have a consequence, on the amount of trucks that you need to transport things around. And the good question in all these transformations is what do you do with the people? It's not an issue to have from one day to another. In France, we have 600,000 trucks. Okay.

Say we have 400,000 in a decade. I mean, it's not an issue. The only issue is what do you do with the 200,000 people that drive trucks? And in our plan, we also... had a focus of something that was paramount for us, which is what do you do with the people? How do you ensure that people that will not be useful to the society in a given job in the future will be useful in another job in the future? And that's partially for me the answer to the rising of the populist parties that I mentioned before, because it's a way to say to the people,

we are not going to forget you. We are not going to say to you, okay, we don't care about what is going to happen to you. We do care. And we also have a plan for where there will be new jobs and how you can go

from one to another with the necessary time and training. And that was one of the in my view, the most important chapters of the book. That part was not taken I would say, by the French government.

But it enabled us to develop a very useful and very constructive dialogue with trade unions, which appreciated that a lot. And regarding the French government, the idea of planification, you know, having a master plan and following it, that's an idea that we passed to the French government, that even created a body

which is in charge of designing the plan. Let me ask the question slightly differently. How much of your shift project work could be applied to, instead of asking the question, how do we optimize for climate and keeping climate under two degrees for emissions, shifting it to how do we plan for energy descent and energy security in France and in Europe? Like, there's a big overlap between those two questions. There's a hundred percent overlap. Yeah, okay.

And is it being taken that way? Are you having, no. It had not been taken that way until very recently. And sovereign issues have become a topic. So now people talk of recovering part of our sovereignty, if we can. And that is doing a lot of good to the climate debate in Europe. And I mean in Europe because we import all our fossil fuels. Yeah.

It would be very different in the US because regarding oil and gas, you are now almost self-sufficient. But in Europe, the two merge perfectly. I mean, being happy with less fossil fuels is basically what it takes to adapt to the future position of Europe in the availability of fossil fuels.

And one of our, I would say, one of our quests or fights, I don't know how I should put it, of the coming months and years, is precisely to make people understand that the two merge perfectly. And I think that now we have a window. Yeah, that's great.

I don't know how much you follow the podcast. A few weeks ago, I had a European Swiss gentleman, Pierre Strach, who talked about the 2000-watt society. And next week, I have an American who lives in an intentional community

that they have no fossil fuels and 300 watt continuous, which is 3% of the average American footprint. So it can be done. It just is going to take a massive cultural shift. The real shift project is cultural. Of course. I agree with that. It's cultural regarding our relationship to limits.

It's cultural regarding our relationships to social, status? I mean, if social status didn't translate into having larger goods, we would be much better off. I mean, social status is the only reason why Porsche and Ferrari sell cars. A little bit, the feeling of power when you

accelerate that fast, but maybe only one or two percent. But yeah, you're right. You know, if you go to Disney World, you will accelerate also in the mystery train the same way. No, I mean, if you want feelings, I mean, you can have them with plenty other things. Yeah, its status is our whole thing. If we could change our status to be organic farmers with the best tomatoes and actually negative status from flexing on conspicuous consumption, that would change a lot. What I say right now in all my conferences is that we have called on fossil fuels for three reasons.

The first one is that because we are lazy, like all animals. So basically we want the most for the least effort, like all animals. Which is why today modern comfort allows us to become couch potatoes, and we do. The second reason is that we are accumulative, and that is probably specific to mid-latitude civilizations, because when you look at Africa, historically, they have not been as accumulative as we, have been in mid-latitude civilizations

because we had to go through the winter. And going through the winter requires to accumulate during the summer and we have worshipped accumulation for that reason. People that were saving have always been much more considered that people that spend all they have

in a glimpse of an eye and accumulation. And the third reason why is that because we are social animals, we live in groups. And so we are very, we pay a lot of attention to our social status because in the ancient times, it meant access to food and sex. So basically, we love our social status.

And fossil fuels have enabled us to develop that in a very massive way. But the paradox is that the only way to fight the fact that we are accumulative and lazy is precisely reversing the way we see our social status. And it already happened in the past. You see, for example, monks or people that consume very little, there have been times, they have been periods in time, where they were on the highest part of the ladder regarding social status. And I think that we have to go that way in a way or another,

making so that using a lot is not well considered and using little is something which brings you social status, therefore the esteem and the help of others and the love of others and if we can achieve that we can partially fight our two other

I mean basic animal instincts which are accumulating and being lazy. That's really well said. I really like that framing. So something else is

come on the scene since our first conversation a year and a half ago. And that is artificial intelligence. Do you have any thoughts on that generally and how Europe is engaging with these events in the tech race towards artificial general intelligence? What are your thoughts? Well, the first thing that I think is that artificial intelligence is not intelligent. Yeah, simulated intelligence. It is

yes, it is copying training basically. The artificial intelligence doesn't know why it's doing things. It is just doing things. The second thing

that I think is that it is a domestic debate, a US domestic debate that Europe thinks it is forced to follow. But basically the center of the world regarding artificial intelligence

is a US domestic debate between people that have no other problem in life than being excited by the last gadget that they can design. That's basically what I think. I mean, the Sam Altman and Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, they basically have no problem in life. They have plenty of money. They have plenty of food.

They have plenty of power. They have, I mean, they are very high in the... So the only thing that is new for them is designing new machines. that do new things because it's, I mean, they're like kids, basically, playing with their new gadgets. The problem is that this special playground with these special kids is drawing hundreds of billions or thousands of billions and thousands of, and tens of thousands of brains that would be much better used in solving urgent problems that we have because artificial intelligence is not going to bring back a healthy ecosystem.

It is not going to bring back extinct species. It is not going to restore oceans. It is not going to prevent us from overfishing. It is not going to prevent us from putting more CO2 into the atmosphere. It is not going to prevent trees from dying. I mean, it is not going to prevent people from being obese. It is not going to do any of that. It is just going to allow the richest people in the world to pass time because they are bored.

Okay, so big deal. Big deal. What do we need it for? And the idea that is going to solve all the problems that we have, it is just a fake. It is not true. I mean, we will solve the problems that we have if we decide to solve them. It's not because we will have extra computers that we are going to solve our problems.

Okay, it is saving 20% of time for people that have to file resumes for applications. Well, it saves 20% of our time. time on lots of things, but then what do we use our time for? We go do more gadgets and more laziness and more consumption. Fantastic. That's the largest achievement in life, okay, saving 20% of time. So my belief is that it is something which is triggered by the super rich that I'm not concerned at all by the major issues of the world and that Europe is making, the super rich of Europe, basically are those that push the hardest to, follow the path, which is initiated by the super rich in the US.

But I believe that it is just something which makes no sense regarding the situation that we are in. Globally, having saying that, I've said nothing. I mean, it's not going to prevent the thing from happening. Not at all. But my belief is that I really don't see the benefit for the largest fraction of the population. Let me ask you a personal question, Jean-Marc, you and I are friends. We have a respect for each other as humans and a respect for each other's work and you're French and I live in the United States. And I have a lot of colleagues that I dearly love in Europe and around the world. It's what gives me most hope about the future as you get in an international conference and there's people from all kinds of countries that care about biodiversity, for instance. And we like, soup and music and our dogs and, you know, all the simple things in life, but then there's

governments and there's the superorganism and the economy. But let me ask you this. Is the relationship of the United States to the rest of the world irrevocably damaged and broken with recent events? I mean, you live in Europe and you travel and you care about these global issues. Is this a sea change that is permanent? I don't travel much because I do not fly anymore. I do travel a little, but not much, but I can read news.

What I understand is that the answer is unfortunately partially yes. I think that, of course, the existing relationships will survive. But I think that part of what is not in the field of personal relationships will be damaged by what is happening. I've just read the news recently that, for example, the sales of Tesla are dwindling in Europe. I don't know whether you consider that it is damaging the relationship between the U.S. and Europe, but it could belong to that category. I've also read that French tourists wanting to go to the U.S., the number is decreasing.

I don't know whether it's damaging and it's probably reversible as long as there will be planes but it is something which you can put into the liability part not really in the asset part

so of course there will be consequences to what is happening today. Some people will not forgive. For example, in France I I believe that without expressing a personal opinion, some people will not forgive the increasing support of the US to Israel's behavior.

Some people will not forgive the way Trump, even though I believe that it's the only thing to do to try to negotiate in Ukraine some kind of peace. And I know very well that Ukraine will not recover all the territories that have been invaded. I know that very well. Or the lives that have been lost. But at least stop more deaths. But Trump is doing it in his way. So some people will not forgive that. Some people will not forgive a number of things.

So I believe that, yes, something will be damaged at the institutional level regarding the image of the country. And it will not damage the image that you have of people you already know. it might damage the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the way that you do not know today that you would have known in a future of more cooperation and that you will not know in that future of more aggressive attitudes but some of this can be attributed to this or that political person or political party but some of it also could be attributed to the peak of the carbon pulse and what it is enabled in our expectations. and global alliances. Yes, but the two are linked. I am not sure that Trump would be in office today, Trump, sorry, would be in office today if the decrease of the energy consumption of the US

had not started in 2008. Yeah, yeah. So I'm not sure. What I can see is that all the shocks that countries have experienced, be it the Brexit, be it Meloni in Italy, be it the Trump's success

to the Oval Office a first time, then the second time, etc. Would have happened in a world where the carbon pulse would not already be over for what we call the advanced economies industrialized countries. I'm not sure. And my take is that if we do not react, all this is going to increase. And the world is going to be more fragmented

more violent and less cooperative. That's what we are heading for if we don't realize where we are. So my penultimate question for you in today's conversation, you kind of just answered indirectly is how of your expectations and hopes for humanity broadly changed in the last year and a half than when we first spoke? And I mean, I think you just said it, but do you want to say anything more? It's very difficult to say because you see I don't discuss with each of the 8 billion people every day.

So all my sensors are indirect ones. And it's only what I can read and hear in a day's work. So I necessarily can offer only a very limited view or a very limited answer to your question. the only thing that I can say is that I see every day matters of hope and matters of despair and I'm not sure myself of how to

allocate between the two my global view is that, but I've said that for the last 10 or 15 years, I don't see how we are going to avoid a number of shocks. I just don't see that. What I don't know is

how ample they will be and what will happen afterwards, that I don't know. But you asked me whether I was looking at some of the videos of your podcast. I do view at some videos of your podcast sometimes. And I remember a reason, frankly, in which you have listed, I even did a post, a LinkedIn post on that one, in which you listed a number of questions that seems existential to you. But you didn't give the answer.

and I share the questions and I'm not sure that I had the answers either. It's the times that we are alive, Monami, that make us think these things. Yeah, I think we agree on lots of things. So what are you doing now? And can you share any projects that you're currently working on

that you're particularly excited about in this domain? We are going to try to enhance what we have done for the last presidential election in France so that

master plan that we have proposed that you mentioned before and we are going to do an enhanced version for the next presidential election

in France so in two years from now with the idea that we are going to focus a lot on the fast that becoming

more sovereign goes along or actually is another way to name going low carbon. You see, going back to artificial intelligence. In France, today, we export about 20% of the nuclear production outside our borders.

If we want to use that electricity for ourselves, we have two options. The first one is to build eight massive giga data centers for artificial intelligence. The second option, with the same amount of electricity, is to shift to electricity

all the terrestrial means of transportation that we have in France. What do you choose? Okay, so if we choose the first, we have not gained anything on sovereignty, we have not gained anything on resilience, we have not done anything to help the poor people that have a petrol car

that they won't be able to afford anymore, we have done none of that. If we choose the second way, we can achieve, all the goals that I've just mentioned. So there is a way to again have at the same time more sovereignty and

less fossil fuels in the French country. And my belief also is that as we are social animals, we are mimetic. We copy each other. Otherwise fashion wouldn't exist. And the best option

that a small country like France, emitting 1% of greenhouse gases in the world and waiting 1.5% of the world economy, the best option that we can have to do something useful for the rest of the world is to begin by doing it for ourselves and hoping for a growing number of people to copy what we do.

It already worked in the past for a number of things, and I don't see why. Actually, it's the only bet, it's the only reasonable bet that we can make because any other bet will fail. I've long thought that Europe is going to face the great simplification first. And actually, that could be a very important learning event because the rest of the world will still hold together. But Europe will downscale and have to have some merger of sobriety and poverty.

I don't know the U.S. is going to take the lead first because of some of the dynamics that we said. So what you do, what you inspire, what you try, what you pilot and fail at and succeed at, could be very important. That's what I believe. And I believe that we can turn that into a matter of pride and a project that could bring some kind of enthusiasm in the population. It's both resilience and enthusiasm. All it takes is to have a significant. I would say the challenge is huge, is to have a fraction of the elite

and particularly a fraction of the elected people, but not only, also a fraction of the economic leaders, which is basically my primary target, accept, understand, desire that this is our best option. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So thank you for your time today and thank you for your continued work of meaning on these important things.

Do you have any closing thoughts or words for our viewers? If a significant fraction of your viewers are in the US... 40% actually only. Well, so I'm going to talk to them. Okay. Don't give up, I think, because history is not over and I don't believe that we can forever

deny fact. So being a denial of relationship to fact. So someday the win will change. Jean-Marc, Giancovici, thank you very much, my friend, to be continued, and thank you for all your important work.

Thank you, and thank you for hosting me. If you enjoyed or learned from this episode of the Great Simplification, please follow us on your favorite podcast platform. You can also visit thegreat simplification.com for references and show notes from today's conversation. And to connect with fellow listeners of this podcast,

check out our Discord channel. This show is hosted by me, Nate Hagan's, edited by No Troublemakers Media, and produced by Misty Stinnett, Leslie Batlutz, Brady Hyen, and Lizzie Siriani.