The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens - Taimur Ahmad: "Energy Inequality in the Polycrisis"

Episode Date: July 19, 2023

On this episode, Nate is joined by recent Stanford graduate and biophysical researcher Taimur Ahmad to discuss energy inequality within and across nations. Taimur offers a unique perspective as someone who has spent years studying the issues of the polycrisis, while also having experience growing up in Pakistan and living in the United States. How does the culture of a nation and its access to energy interrelate to create huge differences in the daily lives of the people who live there? How do the looming implications of climate change and energy depletion impact the relationship between the Global North and the Global South? And how do issues of class, wealth, and 'fictitious capital' interplay with the larger poly-crisis at hand? About Taimur Ahmad Taimur Ahmad is the author of the Fictitious Capital newsletter where he writes about understanding the base layer of the global system: money/finance, energy, and raw materials. He studied economics at Georgetown University in Qatar and recently completed a graduate degree from Stanford University where he focused on energy policy and electricity markets. After working in agricultural development in Pakistan, he worked in the Middle East supporting clients across energy, CP&I, and national development. From these experiences, he realized the importance of reframing contemporary socioeconomic issues in an energy and ecological systems framework. His work is now focused on exploring the intersection of development in the Global South, degrowth/post-growth, MMT, and leftist social theory. To watch this video episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/4hzDKA0aNJk For show notes, and more information: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/80-taimur-ahmad 

You're listening to The Great Simplification with Nate Higgins. That's me. On this show, we try to explore and simplify what's happening with energy, the economy, the environment, in our society. Together with scientists, experts, and leaders, this show is about understanding the bird's eye view of how everything fits together, where we go from here and what we can do about it as a society and as individuals. Today's episode is with Taimur Ahmad, who is a graduate student at Stanford University, studying international policy energy and systems. Timur has been a longtime listener of this podcast and reach out to me. A few months ago, I went and spoke to him in his class, his students at Stanford.

He is a very bright young man from Pakistan. who moved to the United States two years ago. He is not energy blind. And we had a great discussion about climate, about the global south, about energy systems and the future. I expect he'll be someone you'll hear from in the future. He's very articulate, cares about these things. And I consider him a friend. Please welcome Timur Ahmad.

Tymour. Salam alaikum, my friend. Welcome, Sanam, Nate. How are you doing? I'm great. How are you? Other things at Stanford University. Very good.

The weather is really nice, finally having a nice warm summer to make up for the cold and rain that we've had over the past few months. It's possible your definition of cold and warm are different than mine. Being from Pakistan and I'm from northern Wisconsin. But I don't like real hot.

weather and we're going to talk about that a little bit. So you are the first guest, uh, on this program that is still in college. You are a master's student at Stanford. And you were the first guest who is a listener of the show. And that's how I found you and you found me. And, uh, I recently was at your school. You invited me to speak and it was a great discussion. And, uh, I hope we, we pass the baton to some of your classmates on this topic. Yeah, I thought that was such a wonderful opportunity, you know, especially I think here where so much of the talk around climate is around technologies and entrepreneurship, I think your talk was just a very good,

for people who can see with the problem differently. I think the feedback was great. People were like, oh, I never thought about it this way. And, you know, that was the point of the whole conversation. So thank you for coming. Yeah. Yeah. Well, education is important.

which is a main reason that I'm doing this work. So, welcome. You have lived in the United States, what now, for a couple years with your studies. Okay. And you're academically very successful, your graduate students studying international policy, energy systems, and development. But you were born and raised in Pakistan. what are your observations having been here for a couple years and just being aware of the energy, climate, money, economic, environmental systems

that you're learning about. What are your observations of how the two cultures between the United States and Pakistan differ? And do you think there are things that we could learn from each other facing the human predicament? Yeah, I think it's an interesting question because, you know, I left Pakistan as a 17-year-old moving away for college. So my experience is sort of defined by the first 17 years I've spent there and then, you know, going back every year to physics family and friends. And I think just seeing Pakistan has been a wonderful example, almost, of the good things and the bad things about our system and the country itself. I think in particular, Pakistan is a case for how the global system has left countries, some of the largest countries in terms of population size, countries where are a lot of natural resources,

fertile soil, access to water and everything. Yet these countries have been left in this deplorable development state. I think growing up in Pakistan was always about, like, okay, we've hit rock bottom, and things will always just go up from here. You know, we don't have electricity for 12 hours a day, but we only get better from now. But I think, you know, just having the privilege, of course, of seeing it from the outside, it has considerably gotten worse, I think. And there's a lot about the global system, the material reality of the system that we're living,

the ecological crisis, that sort of, you know, keeps pushing the system lower and lower. So that rebound that everyone expects, I just don't think sort of is happening because the system is still operating in the same way. And I think also was a, sort of very early on changed my thinking in terms of, you know, the things that matter are material resources. I think just growing up in a situation

where stuff at electricity, availability of food, etc., in a country just makes it very hard to do normal things. Go to engage in commerce, do development. You know, it's a country with a very young population. And so I think, you know, that really put to the four, how important this core development things around material goals, energy, electricity are. And I think that surprisingly translated,

bearing to how I saw the U.S. over the past two years. I think I was surprised by just this sheer level of inequality in the U.S., especially some of the big cities. I mean, you know, we see all the movies and heard the stories and read the reports, but just to see it in person was a bit surprising. And also the scale of infrastructure, The level of polarization, I thought was quite surprising. I think in Pakistan politics does divide people a lot.

But I think even with that background, the level of polarization in the U.S. hasn't been even more surprising. And I think there are some interesting parallels between the two countries to explore and learn from. So from an energy perspective, when you came here, you probably didn't know as much as you know now about energy. but what was your emotional reaction the first week or two that you were here seeing? I think the data is Pakistan has 200 million people. We have 330 million people. So we're 50% larger. But our GDP is 45 times larger than GDP per capita is 45 times the average in Pakistan.

Did it just look like opulence or extract? or waste, or what was your reaction? I think the right word for my initial reaction was waste. And I think, you know, the two cities that form my first experience of the U.S. were New York and then the Bay Area, you know, Polo Alto, San Francisco. And these are sort of very prosperous, extremely well-developed, very opulent cities. But just the level of inequality, the level of waste that you see in the system, And I think this is sort of, you know, part of the American consumerist culture around everything's supersized, everything's very big, everything's single use, you know, Costco shopping is such a quintessentially American experience.

And I think I just never framed development in that way. That prosperity is almost, you know, prosperity in waste, almost two sides of the same coin in the system that we're living. The more you consume, the more prosperous you are, but the more you consume also means that there is more waste. in the system. You know, it comes from somewhere, it has to go somewhere, and those two things we don't often think about when you think about development and prosperity.

So you mentioned electricity shortages during your first 17 years growing up in Pakistan. Is that something that the average person living in Pakistan has become used to? Is that still the case? Has it gotten worse? And like how many hours a day would you have electricity growing up

and would it be the same hours that you could rely on or was it totally random? I think it ebbs and flows a lot. I think when I was growing up, we had, I think, the worst times where you would have one hour off, one hour on, one hour off type of system. I was just such a part of people's social psyche.

We were planning social events around this schedule. You know, it would be like, oh, I have to watch a football game at 8 p.m. go to a friend's house because they will have electricity that hour or something like that. So it was a very sort of, I never even felt the extremity of it, I think, which is part of my privilege as well, but until I left Pakistan and so we looked back, I think it could get a lot better over the past decade, I would say, but I think with the past three years with the supply chain issues, with energy issues, with the increasing energy prices and the lack of access to fossil fuel resources,

has caused the problem again because Pakistan, I think, imports one-third of its energy, oil, natural gas, coal. And then any changing prices leaves Pakistan on the bottom end of accessing affordability for those resources. So do you have a view or can you describe the impact of the Ukraine-Russia-NATO war on the economic and energy situation in Pakistan? Yeah, I think that and coupled with the fact that around the same time, Pakistan experiences devastating floods where one-third of the country was underwater. And so I think the sort of one-two punch of those has been quite detrimental. So, for example, Pakistan is a net importer of food, even basic things like wheat, which is the largest source of calories for Pakistan, despite being a very agrarian society.

And so food inflation has been a major problem for Pakistan. I think food inflation is at 50% and has been over the past couple of years. And so that combined with the increased cost of energy, lower availability of electricity, has been so very detrimental to the situation. And it's kicked off this cycle where industries are shutting down, people have less things are being produced in the country,

then that makes this trade imbalance debt thing even worse. Inflation causes all these social developmental problems. that causes a social, political crisis, unrest, and the cycles of feeds off itself. I think that concept of cycles getting kicked off and then just spiraling out of control is something that Pakistan and many other countries in the global south are now facing. So you and I have both been fortunate enough to visit many countries and live in different countries, which offers us a perspective on things. But many people living in the United States

have only lived in the United States. And how do you feel now, having lived here for two years, when you just look at the energy abundance around you at the university and the cities where it's reliable 24-7 access to electricity and all sorts of related energy. services that are getting more costly but still really abundantly cheap for most people.

Like, do you feel guilt or privilege or anger? Or what is your feeling now knowing about the importance of energy to our lives living in the United States? I think I would say there are three things good at. The first thing I would say is the funny story is when I first moved to Stanford. I think within the first month, there was like a six-hour power outrage because of some white fire had disrupted the grid. So that was quite funny. You know, just coming to California all this prosperity and then, you know, facing a blackout again was quite funny.

But I think the three things about energy that have become very important is it just obviously the importance of it. And, you know, the concept of energy surplus that you talk about a lot and how foundation it is to any other form of development. And the second point is about inequality even within societies. So even in this part of the world, part of the U.S., there's so much energy inequality in terms of the access people have to those resources. And it's not just electricity, it's about heating, it's our embodied energy in the goods we consume and the services we consume and so on. So I think that has been a very important thing.

And the third thing has just been this conversation around, decarbonization without actually talking about energy as a foundational aspect of that. I think here there's so much conversation around. Yeah, all we have to do is replace, you know, one megawatt of energy from natural gas with one megawatt of solar energy. And that's of simplistic equation, I think, has really triggered a lot of what I now think about and write about in that. It is not that simple.

Everything changes when you move. from one megawatt of natural gas to one megawatt of solar energy. And so the complications in that system, how complex this transition or this change or this, you know, systemic breakdown is, I think it's something that I've really come to appreciate over the past few years. I think a lot of people view natural gas power plants and solar photovoltaic.

They view those as technologies. They don't view them really as. energy. So I do think there is a giant chasm of misunderstanding on the relationship between energy and technology and the relationship on energy and money and on the relationship between energy and human well-being and brain services, et cetera. So when you were here and that power outage happened, it was surprising to you, but also no big deal to you, right? So growing up in a life of intermittent, do you think that that has impacted your psychology and your resilience as a human being? Yeah, I think that the word resilience is a double-edged sword for many people who

are from the global south, because, you know, there is obviously a higher level of resilience. having grown up in certain circumstances, but I think that resilience can also become almost a toxic cycle of over resilient we can take this versus, you know, saying we need to change, we need to improve, the system needs to be better. So I think there is that resilience, but that resilience is sometimes worn as a badge of honor

when it should actually just be a force of change and a force of action. So what do you like most about the United States? States. Well, I think there's just this tremendous amount of energy, especially where I am here in the Bay Area, about, you know, being very action-oriented. It is a very entrepreneurial space. And I think that sort of energy gets you thinking about, okay, we sort of have some understanding of the problem. What can we do about it? I think that energy is very important. I think the second thing is just the diversity that exists. It helps to have different people from different backgrounds in this occupy the same space because the types of conversations you end up having are enriching for all the people involved.

You know, I think one of the comparisons here with Pakistan is that Pakistan is especially in the social elite or the urban areas that we have is, thanks a pretty quite homogeneous. And so that critical thinking or that pushing you outside your comfort zone doesn't happen because people like marginalized communities are so very, very difficult. frill in the system and you know the core parts of where the spaces you occupy actually tend to be quite homogeneous versus here there is still some more level of diversity of thought even though even though i think polarization has made that quite hard and having conversations across the spectrum on difficult topics has become i think just harder and even the past two years that i've been here so the um you know you've followed my work for for a while and you know that i talk about wide boundaries, there is within country inequality. There's between country inequality. I mentioned that

the average GDP per capita in the United States is 45 to 50 times Pakistan. There's between generations, intergenerational inequality. And then there's, of course, interspecies inequality that we don't include the whales or the insects or the orangutans in our economic decisions. In Pakistan itself, is there a lot of inequality within the country, or is it less so than in the United States? I think there is a tremendous amount of inequality in Pakistan across many different social, so of identities and demographics. I think obviously there's a lot of urban inequality. There's a lot of inequality between the different provinces, across the four provinces.

there's a lot of ethnic inequality, there's a lot of gender inequality. And I think this sort of system is just built around recreating those inequalities as a political and social power process. And I think access to resources is one of the ways in which that inequality is maintained and reinforced. So, for example, taking over farmland from small farmers, from people who've been on those farms for a long time

our poor has been a very common practice in terms of establishing both political material and social dominance in those regions. And, you know, the institutions that govern Pakistan have all the power have been systemic sort of land takeovers for either to take over those farms as farmland, but more so to develop housing societies, real estate, and so on. And so there's a strong interlink between social inequality and material inequality and how they both reinforce each other. I've never been to the Indian subcontinent, so I don't know a lot about Pakistan. I assume it's quite hot there, at least in the southern parts. Yeah, it's quite hard in most parts, except for the north mountainous areas.

So how are people responding to as yet not too, not too, much of an increase in temperatures, but certainly a higher standard deviation of heat waves and rain events, like you mentioned. How are people responding to that? What is the awareness or dialogue of climate change in Pakistan? And what percentage of the population has access to air conditioning? And if they do have access, is it intermittent based on what you said earlier? Yeah, I think even though the temperature might not have changed as much over the past 10 years,

I think the feeling of extreme heat has really hit the Indian subcontinent very hard. I think the fact that it is not just 50, 51, 52 degrees Celsius in the summer. And for increasing parts of the summer, it's also the wet bulb temperature of the fact that it's a combination of humidity and high temperatures that are causing this crisis. I think the increasing level of just concreteness in the cities where there's so much urbanization, it sort of traps, heat, and these cities become extremely hard. That is combined with the fact of increased cars on the road. There also increase heat, increased deforestation, again, for various cases and so on. So the problem of heat, I think, has exacerbated a lot over the past few years.

And I think people have come to, I think there's a higher, recognition of climate change than people outside would expect. So, for example, after my undergrad, I spent a year and a half working with very poor farms in Pakistan on a research project. And it was about, you know, agriculture development. And they were suffering from extreme heat, irregular rainfall patterns and so on. And to my surprise and, you know, to the surprise of the researchers who were on that team, The people on the ground who did not have access to, you know, roads and drinking water and electricity, for example, were quite cognizant of the fact that there's something changing about the weather and the climate.

So I think for all the way from there to the people who study this formally in education, there is an increasing recognition, but it's such a complex topic that is interwoven with so many of other crises that we face. At the same time, it becomes quite hard to either focus on it or just isolate what the climate crisis is from all the other crises. And what percentage of the population has access either at work or at home to air conditioning? Yeah, I don't have the exact number, but I would say it cannot be more than maybe one-fifth, primarily at work spaces, I imagine. And I think the incommigency of energy is actually a big problem. I think there are funny,

well, funny in a tragic sense. And it talks about how having air conditioning in your office space is actually one of the negotiation tactics that many people use about, you know, I want a promotion, I want an office with an AC. And so it has an interval over into the social, political power dynamics. Like heating and, you know, cooling on the other side has become such an important part of survival and class and privilege that it is a conversation people actively have in the workplace as well.

So it's energy privilege is part of your culture. Yeah, I think there is an extreme funneling of material resources towards people at the top. And there's a wide, wide base of people at the bottom who don't have access to those resources. So let me ask a few more questions about this. I know we want to talk about your newsletter and some other things, but I'm very curious. So does the average person or does some percentage of the population in Pakistan understand the concept of wet bulb temperature? They may not call it that in Urdu or Pakistani, but they know that it's the combination of heat and relative humidity is dangerous to human lives. Is that like a common thing that people know?

I think it is a common thing. It is one of those things, I guess, pass down as conventional wisdom as some of these, you know, tactics that people have adopted from previous generations. So there is quite a recognition of the fact that humility can be quite lethal. And so how to keep yourself cool, how to, you know, use water in a smart vehicle, cool yourself, how to share yourself. You know, like some of those things again, going back to your initial earlier question about resilience,

you know, people are forced to survive and they acclimate to the conditions they are throwing. And so the people of Pakistan, as people of many other global South countries, have obviously found ways to make, to survive the system. But I think that also so feeds into this then crisis about we want to move up in the power scale rather than we want to change the system itself. So what about maybe not the average. person in Pakistan, but at least the educated people in college that are studying ecology and climate and other things, is there, what is the attitude towards the global north, partially because the global north has been responsible for 80% plus of the emissions. And also, the global north is responsible for the war, which,

which stopped the Russian gas flowing to the open markets, which meant that the highest bidder would get the surplus gas. And Pakistan was not the highest bidder. So there's also an energy that's kind of a double whammy. Is there like an anger or a blame? Or is it just like, well, this is our life and our challenge. And we have to get through it and we're just trying to survive. What can you tell me about that?

I think it's a complicated question to answer because there are two forces at play simultaneously. One of them is about, you know, we want to move our, there's a large brain drain or immigration outside Pakistan. And most of those people, especially those who are educated and have high skills, want to move to the global north in order to have a better life for themselves. So there is this level of looking up to the global north in terms of, you know, there's a better life for us there and we want to go there. At the same time, there is all the things you're talked about. There's a history of being exploited. There's a history of intervention. There's a very complicated sort of geopolitical, political story to Pakistan's history over the past 76 years.

And so that makes a very hard question to answer. but I think it increases a lot when social crises are at play. When times like now, when there is such a stark social development crisis where people are really being pushed to the boundaries of what is required for survival in material terms, that anger sort of really bubbles over towards everything, it's both towards the system domestically but also the system internationally. And I think because the challenges are so complex and so interwoven across climate and energy and economics and social and political, it's just anger at the system without really mapping out, okay, what parts of the system and what are we actually angry?

And I think that's a perfectly rational response in a situation where you are so pushed against the wall so much. What about yourself? Because now you do understand the whole system and how the pieces fit together and the history that brought us to this. Do you have anger or what are your emotions after understanding the history of energy, climate, human behavior, the economy, the global north and south that brought us to this juncture? I'll answer that question in two parts as well. I think there is one framing where it is the global. North versus the Global South. And I think there's no question about the fact that

both in the past and in the present and potentially the future, development in the global north is built on the backs of the global south. Whether it's of direct exploitation and extraction through colonial times or in the post-colonial system that we've

had for the past 70, 80 years, the global north has taken more from the global south to develop itself. And, you know, developers may be the wrong word to use because the global north is in aggregate past the point of development and now is in this realm of overconsumption and waste. But this whole system is built on the backs of the global south. So I think there's rough. I want to say anger, but it's more about just recognizing the fact that the story that we have been fed where, okay, the global north developed this way, here's what

you need to do to get there as well. It's just a false narrative. That is just almost completely fiction because it implies this sort of linear mode of development where the global north is ahead and all the global south has to do is catch up versus recognizing that it's actually dependent. They are relational.

The global north is dependent on the global south being consequently developing or being underdeveloped. And there is actually no conceivable way for the global south to catch up to the global north in that system. And I think that's sort of the difference between modernization theory

and dependency theory. So that's one. And I think that's second angle to that, which I try and remind myself is, it's not just between countries, it's between class. And I think class struggle and class warfare is a very important analytical framework

for the climate crisis, for ecological issues, for just socioeconomic development issues as well. And I think recognizing the fact that there is sort of this global elite that is quite interconnected, even across countries, and that those, that class of very small number of people

who consume way, way more than what you would think is a fair distribution of resources and that there's a system that perpetuates that consequent a funneling of resources from the 99% to the 1% or the 0.1%. What do you think about the increasingly popular and also polarizing, degrowth movement? Yeah, so I think degrowth,

I would just start off by saying it makes me of sense. For me, I think it's just arithmetic where there is something, there are these biophysical limits. The earth has a very specific carrying capacity in terms of the energy resources that we have access to, the materials that we have to access and use that energy, the yang that is available and so on. So there is this boundary that we have

that de-growth I think does a good job of recognizing or building on the literature of ecological economics that has recognized this over the past 50, 60 years. And then after that, it's just about arithmetic. It's about saying, okay, how do we divide up these resources? And that's all I think deep growth is talking about is saying right now a small group of people have access and use up most of those resources.

So if you want to develop the poor, the working class, the underdeveloped, they need a greater percentage of those resources. And so it's quite simple. The people who are consuming more have consumed less in order for the people who are consuming less to be able to consume more and reach what should be some minimum decent level of welfare and well-being. And I think there are just way too many people, even within heterodox or leftist schools, who mischaracterized degrowth as austerity or recession or, you know, some primitive utopia

where they want to take us back to, you know, a thousand years ago. But that is not what degrowth is at all. It's just this simple arithmetic around someone, there's this boundary that we must acknowledge and recognize and come back into to survive with the species. And then after that, it's just a question of who gets what in order to meet their basic goals of welfare and well-being. Well, if it's really about survival as a species, it's possible that some countries will continue to grow

and others will de-grow. I actually think that's the default. Unless we have a World War or a financial recalibration, then the whole system is going to de-grow. And I refer to that as post-growth. Do you see any way that, that either a nation, like the United States or France, or any nation, could voluntarily, in their governance and political structure, choose to de-grow, or are we going to have to respond

to a post-growth scenario at some point in the future? And a second part of that question, is there any governance or international institutional, viable pathway where the global north meaningfully mussels their growth prospects

in order for the global south to have more access to basic needs and just a viable existence. Big question. Big question. I think this is the question. I think I've spent most of my time

on over the past couple of years. And so I were answered that first in sort of an intellectual historical sort of way where I think it's you know I've been very hard-pressed to find examples of social reformation or change that has happened voluntarily by the people in power it almost never happens whether it's a social issue and economic issue and you know those are often tied together but the people who have it good are not going to voluntarily give that up there are efforts to say, okay, we need to be more just and more fair. But I think because those efforts

and those conversations, and this is one specific reason why I'm quite critical of the climate movement as it exists today, but these efforts don't challenge the fundamental structures that have caused this disparity. And so I think unless those structures are dismantled and changed, there is almost no point in doing arbitrary, small scale, voluntary. things like, you know, will give you $10 billion to do this solar energy project in some global South country. I don't think that changes anything at all because the system is designed for extraction and growth in a one-direction way. So that's sort of the historical angle. I think if you just look at what has happened over the past year, I think the return of industrial policy

in the U.S., the EU has already been doing this, shows that these countries are onshore, growth. They are trying to make their own growth and development more robust by on-showing industries, no matter what the cost is to the rest of the world. And so I think there is evidence that there is no viable plan or even desire for there to be a reduction in the consumption of resources. All this talk about decarbonization, the green new deals, etc. is just to say consumption is good. When you consume more, we just have to replace this fossil fuels with renewable energy and our way of life can continue. So I think both based on the evidence and historical fact, I just don't think there is a way this could ever happen. Do you simultaneously thank me and curse me for the knowledge that you've gained from this podcast and reading my books and such?

because I imagine you have a minority view at a very techno-optimist university generally. And I imagine debunking some of these things that you're mentioning is potentially make you unpopular as a graduate student, or is there an air of intellectual freedom there that you can say these things? Do you have thoughts on that? Yeah, I think I'm quite inspired by, a quote by Gramsci where he says, you know,

the challenge of modernity is to not be, not suffer from illusions without also suffering from disillusions. Disillusionment. And I think that is basically the struggle of our time where we have so many illusions about how things works, even when you're trying to make something better, the illusions get in the way. And I think I would unequivocally thank you for,

debunking some of the illusions that I had despite being quite critical of the system to begin with just because it helps being less disillusioned. I think knowledge helps solve disillusionment, anger, hatred, polarization.

That's the case is what I believe in part of what my efforts on campus through writing, whatever it is, just to make people aware that we all have the sense of anxiety and despair, and uncertainty about the future, but knowledge, I think, helps alleviate some of those pressures.

And that's why I think even though most people who have come across are in this sort of techno-utopian world where, you know, we can have it both ways, we can have our way of life, we can make a profit and solve this crisis, that is at odds with some of the debates and discussions that I have on campus, but I think it is enriching to hear some

people in return say, I never thought about it that way and I'm going to change some of, you know, the frameworks that I have to make sense of what I do. So it's incremental, it's very small, you know, it's very hard to fight against an entrenched system of knowledge and power that exists. But I think it is about having those small changes and then hope that there is sort of a butterfly effect at the end of it, that cascades it forward. Well said. I agree. So you mentioned in you're writing, you have a newsletter at Stanford called fictitious capital. Can you tell me what fictitious capital is and how that might map to what I refer to as the polycrisis? Yeah, so a fictitious capital, I chose it as the name of the newsletter because I think it's a, it's a fun word.

It sort of tells you what it means in some ways, which is that there's capital out there, that is fictitious. And it comes from Mark's volume three of capital, where he was talking about it in a very financialized sense where there's something that is productive capital, capital that we need to invest, that drives production and growth. But then there's fictitious capital

where the monetary financial value of the asset is divorced from the underlying capital or asset is supposed to represent. And, you know, in some ways, I think that's quite intuitive in the world we're living today, where you have companies that are worth tens of billions of dollars one week and are gone the next week. And so this concept of there being extreme speculation or, you know, in the 2008 financial crisis, it was the same thing, mortgage-backed securities. The value of them was not accurately reflecting the assets that they were supposed to represent.

And so I, in my work and in my thinking, sort of take the. this and apply to almost this knowledge capital that we have, basically to say that we have these theories and these models that we use to discuss and debate. And those theories and models are supposed to represent the underlying reality of how the word and the system works. But I think there is a fictitious capital in that system because our models and theories and narratives are so divorced from how the world actually works where this material base layer that you know you talk about all the time means and operates differently to what are theories and narratives than say so the debates and discussions are almost moot they're intense and people are very worked up about them but

none of the sides are representing what's actually happening and then i think has a very important tie to this meta crisis situation because there's this complex crisis is going on, so many things happening at the same time. And we argue and debate about what we should do and who is responsible. But this layer of fictitious capital avails the true workings of the system and how we got here. So there's no point, I think, having this intense political discussions about the way forward if you don't understand how energy and material resources work and create everything in our society. As a graduate student, and I used to be a professional. Professor, give me a two or three minute elevator pitch of how you would describe the metacrisis to someone.

And for bonus points, just start for the first few sentences in Urdu, because I would like to hear you speak in your native tongue. And then go switch back to English. That's a tough proposition, having done this in a while. Well, I won't be able to correct you if you're wrong. The yeah, speaking ordu in this of formal sciences is tough. But just get close. Yeah. America crisis is this is, yeah, America is this thing is.

Jabh, very many issues in our mausheria in, they're all right. Like, you have bidjri, the money, coming, you have a, you have nookery, pay the coming, you have a social issues, you have to, you have, uh,

the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the weather, the issue is

when these things are all the thing that's up to get up and then we're going to make a

meta-crisis is that there's a one is that we can't that we're going to solve but it is

that's all all together and it's the solution are we are our are the solution are

that are to be able to solve to it, it's around along cut to kind of more more than more difficult.

It's and that was a shoddy job of doing, of doing a dying Urdu. I should work on that actually. I only know a few words in Urdu and they're very bad words that I learned from cab drivers in Chicago. So I'll tell you off camera. That's where everyone is the first time in Urdu.

Yeah, for sure. So now in English, give us a summary. You know, how do you view the Meta Crisis in your own, in your own words? Yeah, I think the mega crisis or the poly crisis is a hard category to pin down because in some ways it's about, okay, what's new? Haven't we always had multiple crises before? I think what's special about this category is the fact that there are not just one or two, but I think the former definition is three or more systemic crises happening at the same time. So geopolitical, ecological, financial, social and so on happening at the same time. On top of this, these crises have feedback loops.

So one crisis makes the other one worse, and this sort of happens in this sort of circular way. And then they also amplify the impact of each other. They exacerbate the impact of each other. And this sort of, I think, is the analytical, more material sense in which we understand the polycrisis or the meta crisis. But I think there's an additional element here, which is that it represents,

a crisis of understanding. We use this a vague term because it's quite hard in our vocabulary, our frameworks of knowledge to just map out how complex and how difficult and how the scale of this crisis actually. And so, you know, I think the important thing to take away from this is it marks a change from there's no going back to normal. That I think is critical to understand that we, We have had a system for 50, 60, whatever years.

We've had disruptions, financial crises, the pandemic, and we keep trying to say we need to do this to go back to normal. But there is no going back to normalcy in the time of a polycrisis. Everything will be different. How it would be different is for us to have debate and decide. So what do you think about the current policy initiatives that attempt to address one facet of the polycrisis, is climate change.

Yeah, I think it's quite insufficient. I think just the problem statement itself is very narrow. And there's a reason for this. I would say that this is what the system that we think does to any movement that questions the system. There's almost a three-step process. It first opposes this new movement. It antagonizes it, it sort of debunks it, and that's what the ecological movement.

was going through in the 60s and 70s and the 80s. Then it sort of sterilizes the movement. It tries very hard to make a nice, simple, packageable thing, which I think is why the ecological crisis became this global warming crisis. It's all about CO2 emissions, not about waste or plastics or materials or biodiversity or any of these other things. And the third stage where I think we are now in is a co-ops that movement. And so now being green and talking about decarbonization is sort of what everyone has to do. And that's the in thing, right?

People keep saying, you know, decarbonization is the next big investment opportunity. And so that's why I think this movement has become co-opter. It has become divorced from the radical changes that this movement was asking for in the 20th century, for example, about redistribution of resources, a strong cultural and cultural. social shift, not just the technocratic, change these policies, you know, have some more investment type of change, but change our way of life, change how our societies are structured and designed, who gets what, and sort of have a very deep transformation in our way of life. And all of that has been stripped away into the climate crisis, bring emissions down, have renewable energy,

have carbon capture, hydrogen, and will be fine. I think it's a perverse way of looking at was a very complex and very existential issue. If you were my student, I would have given you a strong A for that answer. So while speaking of that, I mean, I imagine in your classes in undergrad and in graduate school, you have classes talking about climate change. Are the responses at the end of the semester? Okay, I've told you, the teachers told you about various climate scenarios and how emissions are acting as a blanket, on the earth and what are the impacts.

But at the end of the semester, do they talk about economic systems change and degrowth and living with less or are the responses, like you just said, hydrogen, decarbonized through technology? Is that the extent of it? Or is there a behind the scenes implicit or explicit conversation at high profile university? like Stanford on this is going to be a much deeper ask. No, I think sort of the conversation is fully around how do we make this into a wing-win situation where there's this movement, how we jump on this bang wagon and make moral progress,

social progress, while also keeping the system going and making money and, you know, profiting off it. Just the simple example is the new sustainability school that was announced last year at Stanford, this big investment, huge endowment from John Doer. It's supposed to be this flagship sustainability school for all other universities. And their main priorities are around carbon capture, geoengineering, advanced drilling for oil and natural gas, like Arctic drilling and so on, and then hydrogen. And I think that tells you all you need to know about just the general mindset and where people are with this conversation.

like, you know, the pieces at this podcast and there's a whole network of people that, you know, for example, you've interviewed, there was this big growth conference in the EU parliament a few weeks ago. So we have all these signs of progress, but all of the institutions, both universities,

people who hold institutions that hold the financial capital, etc. Their mindset is just completely in a different space. And I think it would be quite hard to get to a point where it's like the notion of it's system change not climate change you know that tagline should be the tagging of this movement not about decarbonization is the next big

investment opportunity I totally agree but I think system change not climate change perhaps by definition could never flourish within the academy especially at high research

donation universities like Stanford and Harvard. In many ways, those types of universities are miniature superorganisms in themselves that are kept going by donations

from corporations doing research on geoengineering, etc. Yeah. So when are you graduating? Are you almost done? Yes, yes. I think by the time

this interview comes out, I'll be done. So we could say more disparaging things about Stanford and you wouldn't be in trouble. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I mean, Paul Ehrlich is a friend of mine, and he says disparaging things about Stanford all the time

because of the research dollars and the lack of ecological awareness on how the system fits together. So do you think there is a way for a true ecological movement to move forward without the support from other social issues like class, poverty, homelessness, or how do you see all those issues interrelated as the years and decades unfold? Yeah, I think this is the crux of the problem, which is to say that too much of the climate movement right now suffers from attacks, from climate deniers,

wherever by saying, oh, we can't stop, you know, for example, oil extraction, what about all the jobs? more about all the working grass people who work in those communities. It's the same thing when it comes to people saying, okay, the global south needs to stop using all these like fossil fuels, places like Pakistan, India, China, who have these big populations, used to move away from fossil fuels. And, you know, the question is,

what else will those people do for development or for jobs or for incomes? And so there is only one way forward, if at all, for the climate movement or, you know, the ecological movement, and is to become much more integrated with critiquing the economic system that we're living in terms of how those resources are distributed, how value is accrued, and who gets to profit of that system. And I think the important point here, and, you know, there are people who are a part of eco-socialism, for example, who are working on this by saying these crises, the good

thing about the poli-crisis in some ways is that you can say that it's part of the same crisis. This is a crisis of capitalism, a crisis of accumulation, a crisis of endless consumerism and growth. So they're not two different crises coming together. There are actually symptoms or outcomes of the same crisis, of the same cultural, philosophical, and economic crisis, or system, sorry, that we have. And so in order to solve either of these solutions when you're tackling the system, and so there's a natural synergy between many of these coppers that we need to focus on. And I think just the second thing I would say to that is just from a more emotional scanning point, there's this,

you know, affect theory. And you know, affect theory is just this how intangible forces affect our emotions. So for example, if you're walking to a room or if you're walking to a sports stadium, even without you're looking at the score, you can just tell whether there's tension in the scale or not. And I think today, Pakistan, the U.S., other people, places, there's just so much anxiety and despair that people across the spectrum have. And the climate movement is a great way to bring that together by saying, you know, this loneliness and depression and anxiety and lack of self-worth, all of these things that we are suffering from and facing are caused by these multiple crises, whether it's ecological, material, economic,

social, etc. And so to bring all of those emotions and feelings, together and to say, okay, these emotional feelings are being caused by the system. They are not because of individual issues all the time or, you know, you don't know how to like deal with your emotional stuff like that. They are caused by material forces. And so I think there's a lot of ways to approach the fact that there is synergy across all of these topics. Is that the root of all of this is that we currently have a culture and a perspective of humans holding dominion over nature? I think so.

I think I have this strong opinion that what happened in the 70th and 18th century is this, you know, the enlightenment was a fundamental breakaway from how societies used to think or how humans could think of themselves in the past. And there was this concept of we've unlocked something special in science and rationality that we are now divorced from nature and the ecology that we've existed for so long.

And I think that break would react to this concept of consumerism, individualism, and just hubris about the fact that we can make it, we don't need anything else. Human ingenuity is enough. I mean, even just if you talk, you know, everyone knows Hobbs, lock, the state of nature and, you know, it's brutal, it's harsh. This concept of there was the state of nature that we were in, and now we've overcome nature to be this refined, rational human being, reflects this type of thinking.

And I think that is deeply problematic. And unless we, again, take the climate issue into that philosophical, cultural lens, is going to be very hard to connect all of these issues and build enough energy in this movement to make the changes that we need to make. Going forward, do we need religion? And what is the role of religion and culture? change in your opinion. Yeah, I think that's super interesting and a topic that is not talked about enough at all,

because I think if you look at the big religions, the ones that I'm more severe of, the Abrahamic faiths, they all have a very strong emphasis on human beings as an integrated part of nature and protectors of nature as the sort of sacred creation, you know, primarily, you know, my sort of being Muslim, I think there's a strong emphasis on the fact that everything, you know, is God's creation, has that Holy Spirit. And so to be cruel to nature, whether it's animals or plants or the land in general, is immoral in so many ways. And I think it is that sense of having a greater purpose that I think ties together where I've been talking about, with affect theory and anxiety and loneliness and the material crisis as well, where consumerism

tries to fill this whole that we all have inside of us of meaning and well-being and feeling like we're worth something. But religion, I think, is one of those ways where you can fill that gap and feel happy and content in a way that is integrated with nature by recognizing the importance and the value of all of the natural world and not just humans as superior and everything else's there for our exploitation. So having this custodian type of lines towards humans and humanity, as opposed to the enlightenment lines of this is there for us to extract and exploit. Let's come up with ways to do that. I think religion is one way of reframing that problem and having a broader support base for this. So I mentioned I've never been to Pakistan, and I hate to admit this,

But when I think of the country of Pakistan, the mental images that come up are the images of the floods a couple years ago and the devastation. Could you describe to me, in your own experience, of some beautiful natural aspect of the natural world, a region or a forest or somewhere you've been in Pakistan? Could you describe some of the natural beauty in your country? Yeah, Pakistan has an abundance of night. beautiful, everything from having an ocean at the sea and beaches in the south to having, you know, the Himalayas in the north and everything in between. There are these very lush green areas in the middle that are very fertile, or farming activity that happens there. The north is just extremely beautiful. I highly recommend going there. You know, it's like being in some

of the national parks that I've seen in California, which obviously is very beautiful. but sometimes just there's so much potential of having those places be accessed in an eco-friendly, ecotorously way. You have like these luscious green forests up in those mountains. You have rivers flowing through them. You have a very, you have a community there that's very in touch with their ecology and the systems, the natural systems that are there. So there is a lot of beauty and nature.

and a way of living that is in touch with those natural systems that exist in Pakistan. But I think just this process of consumption and consumerism and really scared and we need to build out infrastructure is destroying all of that. So this has been great. I would like to ask you some personal questions that as a longtime listener of my show, you can kind of guess. but I'll start with this one. You mentioned what you like and notice about the United States.

What do you miss most about Pakistan? I think just sense of community. I think life in the U.S. is quite individualistic. Everyone does everything on their own, especially California because not a very dense, the urban density here isn't very high. Things are quite far apart versus in Pakistan. I think it's just having people around you,

this is of energy, you know, very, very passionate group of people when it comes to sports and politics and all of those things. Pakistan also has, I think, an unquestionable amount of humor and sagar in that country.

I think I heard your podcast with someone from Lebanon say the same thing about making their crises into a source of humor. And Pakistan is an experts at that. just appreciating that sense of humor through this is something I miss. Humor is

one of our greatest attributes, isn't it, as humans? Of course, humans would be the only one that would think that was funny, but when things are dark, like there is a sense of dark humor on some of my list serves and such. We can be damn clever at times. So how old are you, Timor?

27. You're pretty wise and obviously intelligent for 27. 27, I was watching Gilligan's Islands reruns playing Donkey Kong and eating frozen pizzas in my basement and I had no ecological awareness or systems awareness that you do now, although I did deeply care about nature and animals at 27 and at 7. So we share that. So at 27, knowing about energy, about climate, about inequality, about the system, what kind of advice would you give

to people watching this show from your perspective, who are aware of the poly crisis? Yeah, I think the, I would say there are three things we think about, time and how things move slowly, things get time, and we just need to give the forces of nature, time to work things out. The second, I would say, is imagination. I think we have a severe crisis of imagination

and thinking of other ways of living and social organization. So being imaginative. And the third is just having solidarity and finding community across different issues and groups and finding strength in each other is so important in a world that is increasingly individualized. What do you care most about in the world, Tymore? Well, apart from my family and friends,

I think I care the most about making sure or enabling a system where everyone has an equal and fair chance. You know, I think there will always be inequality and violence and unjustness, but I think the best we can do and we should hope for us to make sure that everyone has an equal chance at life. And we've talked a lot about the crisis, crises, climate change, inequality, energy depletion, lack of electricity, all those things. What things are personally giving you hope and motivation that you've witnessed in your own

life that things might be better than some of us fear in coming decades? Do you have any examples or stories? Yeah, I think there's a lot of upcoming movements by people who are saying, okay, we're tired enough and we want to change things. And that can happen at a super small level. So for example, just in this community, they have been a part of at Stanford. I was talking about the new sustainability school. I think right from the week it was announced,

it's a group of graduate students that have been protesting against the fact that this is a completely fossil fuel-funded, fossil fuel prioritized. school. And so those sorts of movements and coalitions are now reaching out to other schools across the US, forming boundaries, forming connections, forming a community. And that is just emblematic of stuff that is happening, I would say, everywhere. And so many parts of the global south, there's Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, there are all these movements now talking about taking control of their society, of their natural resources and making them work for themselves. So I think there's a lot of hope in the system,

and it's just about making sure that they come together in a way to form power in numbers. So when you first started learning about all this, about climate change and energy depletion and the relationship between rebuildable technology and potential energy as opposed to kinetic energy and all these things, explain your, emotional psychological trajectory through that because you sound really grounded and strong and roll your sleeves up. I'm going to dedicate my time and efforts and skills to this challenge.

You don't sound defeated or scared or anxious to me at all. Yeah, I mean, I would say it depends on the day. I think all of those emotions of Ebbing Phil. to continue the earlier Gramsci Court, the second part of that is, you know, pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will. That is the court that I remind myself a lot. That of my thinking or analysis is quite cynical and pessimistic about how difficult things are to change

and how entrenched things are, but optimism of the will and just making sure that, you know, the word is a complex system, which is both bad because risks can just exacerbate so much, but also in good ways because small things can have these butterfly effects and cascade into bigger things, and you never know where something good will come out of. That's just how human history has evolved.

And that sense, I think, gives me a rough hope. That combined with, I think the earlier points I was talking about, with vigorous and some of the other things about, you know, there is something bigger than all of us. There is some sense of truth that exists. out there and that we're all just doing the best we can in order to make it easier for us for ourselves yesterday i had a conversation with a stanford professor uh who i'll be doing a podcast with he's got an upcoming book on free will uh robert sepulski you've probably heard of him uh so that that ought to be

interesting um so do you um you listen to a lot of my podcast you know what question i'm going to ask you now? Yes. Yes. What is it? What will you do if you had no recourse and you could do one thing? Okay. Yes.

See, I passed the test. What would you do with a magic alarm, time war? There's so many things I would do. I think, but I think the more practical thing that I've recently thought about is I would enforce a system where everyone were having, to work on a farm for a few weeks, like two, three weeks every year. I think the reason for that is food is the number one way in which our relationship with nature is mediated. So the farm is that place where that happens. And I think the fact that we are so divorced from understanding

where our food comes from, what it takes, how hard that is, how nature-based that is, is important. So I think doing that with your own hands, seeing where it comes from, gives us, will or sure give us a greater sense of appreciation for nature, for a simpler life, for things that are less hustle and bustle and less consumers and so on. So I would probably reinforce that. I think every year I go back and work on a farm for two or three weeks and eat what you produce. It's a great idea. Of course, I do work two or three weeks on a farm, but I think. if more people had that knowledge connection, where does the food come from, and also the emotional connection of the soil and the rain and the plant growth and the interconnection

of it all? I totally agree. That's something that actually could happen. Who knows? So what's next for you? You're graduating? What are you going to dedicate your newfound degree and wisdom and experience and passion towards systems. What is your plan? Yeah, I think one of the plans is to continue the newsletter. I think there is an important source for just for me, just to organize and get my thoughts out there, but also just to continue this, you know,

small, small doses of change in the system and then hope something big comes out of it. So three are going to focus on that. And the second thing, which I started doing as scan first, I want to do it outside as well is to have more study circles, study groups with people who are from different disciplines. So having like engineers

and business school students and policy students come and talk about, okay, what does U.S. industrial policy mean for development and the global south and biodiversity and all of those things and introducing people to, you know, your work, degrowth, ecological economics, all of these things.

That's something I really wanted to be. going forward as well. What would you like to be doing in 10 or 20 years if you could just fantasize about that? Tough question. Changes every year, they ask you to that question. I would say, I would just say very inspired by what you are doing. I think having a space where you are connected to the land and the work you do, you know, countering the alienation that we face by being distinct from nature.

and having the opportunity to do that and have a much more simple yet meaningful and connected life connected both with humans and nature I will have to find an opportunity and a space to do that Salam my friend

to be continued thank you very much Michael let's have you back and follow your progress on changing people's minds and hearts thanks Timor and congrats on graduating and let's stay touch. Thank you so much. I really appreciate this. If you enjoyed or learned from this episode

of The Great Simplification, please subscribe to us on your favorite podcast platform and visit thegreat simplification.com for more information on future releases.