I'm recording this on the land of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. And I encourage you all to think about whose land you're on and the wealth of the life that you enjoy of that land and why you enjoy it. As we head of this referendum month, some, I think it's all upon us all to kind of think about listening more. And if you don't know what the voice referendum is all about, go and find out. Let's try listening.
Despite global warming, a rational fear is adding a little more heart here with long form discussions with Climate Leaders. Good. This is cold, that'd be great. Heat waves and droughts greatest mass extinction Morrow we're facing a manmade disaster
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All of this with a global warming and a lot of it's a hoax, book writers Morrow podcast about generation.
For short,
every now and then the irrational fear podcast turns green, we talk to someone who is super interested and who lives and breathes climate on a podcast I like to call the greatest moral podcast of our generation, or GM pug for short. And I'm excited for you all to meet our next GM per guest since about 2015. I have been following his writing on vox.com and the grist. But in more recent years, I've been listening to his podcast and reading along with his newsletter is volts or rather the presenter and the writer of volts podcast. David Roberts. Welcome to irrational fear.
So glad to be here.
Oh, welcome to the greatest moral podcast of our generation.
Yeah, I'm not sure I can keep that acronym in my head.
But well, you know, the first guest on The Greatest moral podcast of our generation was former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who coined the phrase that climate change was the greatest moral problem of our generation. So that's why that's why we call GM plug in you are one of the foremost experts when it comes to climate energy. I love volts, I devour it. I listen as often as I can. And you know, for such a complex and often combative topic, quite frankly, you know, your voice is so calming and reassuring. Thank you. I mean, you could sell anything, and which is why you're here today to sell us some small modular nuclear reactors.
Exactly. And carbon capture and sequestration. That's my that's my thing.
Well, let's let's, I mean, it's such a sprawling conversation I'd love to have with you. Let's start there. We do hear a lot from his very small subsection of our politics, all about small modular nuclear reactors. In fact, Barnaby Joyce, who at one time was a leader of a party in this country, you said that people aren't talking about the cost of living down at the supermarket? They're talking about small modular nuclear reactors, or they were so I want to ask you, David Roberts, is anybody talking about small modular nuclear reactors?
I mean, yes, people are talking and talking and talking about then the more relevant question, is anyone building small modular nuclear reactors? And the answer to that is a big no. So I think they play more of a rhetorical role than an actual physical role in the energy system.
Why is there this energy? For better, no pun intended there, around small modular nuclear reactors? Why is this conversation happening now? Why is there a big drumbeat happening not only in Australia, but other countries for it when there is no working models? Anywhere in the world?
There's two answers to that a cynical answer and a less cynical answer. The cynical answer is, if you need something to say about climate policy, and the other party has already claimed renewable energy, you need something to talk about it right. You need a climate policy, and there's nothing left to grab, but nuclear. So it's a any want to, you know, claim to have a policy, but in practical terms delay any actual real solutions. That's the cynical answer. The less cynical answer is renewable energy is variable. It comes and goes with the weather. So you need what's called firming, you need sources that can firm up renewable energy, ie that you can turn on and off at will. And right now, gas is serving that role. And so in a decarbonized system, you need something else to serve that role. So exactly what will serve that firming role? We don't completely know yet it could be batteries could be geothermal could be you know, a hydro or small hydro or it could be SMRs if they ever come along, so so they could you know, there is a role for that kind of thing in the energy system.
I'm excited to have you because you're in the country. It's great to see you face to face because first of all, just I'm a super fan, but two, we're at a really weird spot right now in Australia. politics and global politics when it comes to climate, we're about a year on from the inflation Reduction Act. We had rich jerk on this podcast about a year ago when it got announced. How has the IRA been? And where is it still lacking?
The headline news is the there have been, I think around $70 billion have announced new manufacturing facilities and industrial facilities announced in the wake of IRA, so it has unquestionably sparked a huge flood of new investment.
Is this because the IRA is like one of the core tenants is all kinds of transport needs to be built in America in order to get this government money?
Yes, there's a lot of yeah, there's a lot of, you know, the, by the by domestic sort of provisions and IRA, you know, so everybody's coming to the US so they can, so they can claim that. So that's part of it. And also, I think, you know, estimates of US economic growth had been revised upward a couple of times in the wake of IRAs. So it has absolutely sparked growth sparked a huge wave of investment. But in the larger picture, there are still big chunks of IRA that are, where the implementation is being hashed out, we really don't know yet it really has not come into, like the like all the subsidies for household stuff, demand side stuff, household stuff, your heat pumps, etc. Like, like, they were just announced, like the structure of those tax credits was just sort of came out last week. So it's too early to tell with those and things like the green hydrogen subsidies, which billions and billions and billions of dollars, the US Treasury Department is still beavering away trying to put those together, figure out how they work, figure out the requirements for those. So in a lot, a lot of the bill hasn't even come into effect yet. So it'll be a couple of years before we really know what happens in the week. But it's clear. It's sparking growth and investment.
Hey, this is a very tough question for you, if Trump gets it.
Everybody keeps asking me this. Everybody keeps what will happen to the IRA. Everybody asked me this, and I get the strong sense that they want me to say something other than the obvious answer. But I'm afraid I have only the obvious answer, which is that it would be totally apocalyptic. Not only I mean, for everything, but But you know, like the the Heritage Foundation, the sort of right wing think tank, you know, for some definition of think,
yeah, I love these words like the Heritage Foundation, and generally the conservatives. They don't want to conserve anything, and they're not interested in the heritage.
No, I know. But they've already put together a plan a very concrete plan to roll it all back. So their intentions are clear. So it would be it would get nuked basically, is the short answer.
Okay. You're in Australia. I understand it to do some side events around the ALP conference later this week. How have you been soaking up Australia and Australian culture and Australian politics to get a kind of a grasp on where we are with climate policy?
Yeah, well, I, you know, I spent a couple of days in Canberra talking to politicians. And I've been talking to, you know, philanthropists and activists and business people I've been talking, talking, talking, talking, that's why my voice is so scratchy. My strong sense is that I am here pushing on an open door, the question of whether something big needs to happen is settled. And what remains to be seen are the details. So it really seems like an inflection point.
I mean, this is not strictly energy, although it is but it isn't. But when it comes to our own scope, three emissions in Australia, this and our own emissions targets in Australia, our government keeps signing off on new gas projects and your coal mines, as does, as does America. Where do you see similarities in this kind of talk versus action disconnect between our two countries?
Well, I think what's happening is and you see this in virtually every fossil fuel producing country, which is they are trying to say yes, let's reduce our domestic emissions. Let's decarbonize ourselves, but then let's go on exporting fossil fuels to everybody else. And of course, everyone can't do that. Right. So So I mean, the trickier argument is talking is trying to give Australian policymakers some sense of what could reply Ace and improve on their export economy that they now depend on. I mean, Australia completely depends on fossil fuel and and iron ore exports at the moment. So, so the question is, what role could Australia play in a clean economy and still maintain its sort of healthy exports? And that has a lot to do with? I'm sure you've heard these discussions, critical minerals, processing critical minerals, processing iron ore to make it green so that people can make green steel. I mean, the world needs these clean materials in Australia is awash in them.
Well, whose mouth has been chewing your ear off about that? Like? Everyone who's kind of who's kind of who's lobbying you to tell these to do these lies? Now, these lines? These are not these lines, these lines? Yeah,
it everyone, you know, because that's the big question for Australia is what if anything can replace or at least diversify? I mean, you know, Harvard issues this list every year of of countries by economic complexity, and I think Australia is like 70, something right down near Nigeria, it is really 100%
It's because we have two major exports, rocks and Hemsworth.
Imagine you're out of work, I
think we found a renewable source, it just takes a while to to regenerate. I
assume there'll be producing new Hemsworth. Shortly. Yeah, so so so everything that's on everyone's mind. And one of the big features of IRA is, you know, the US and a large pool of global capital is going to be looking around for sources of these materials that aren't China, basically, that are that are friendly sources of these materials. And Australia is on the front of the line for that. So it's a huge opportunity for Australia,
when it comes to our unique political landscape. What do you have you got an across that? What do you find most interesting about that?
Oh, my goodness, so many things. Let's say I am extremely jealous of compulsory. I'm extremely jealous of ranked choice voting yes, I'm extremely jealous of having an independent, nonpartisan commission that does districting rather than partisan gerrymandering. Hi, David,
what you're talking to an Australian audience who takes all this for granted? What we think is so weird is like what like you wait for CNN to call the election. Like know that no one's actually want you just you'd let some Republicans and Democrats decide who won in that particular city.
Don't remind me and you know, what else I find is super, super fascinating, which absolutely could not exist in America's dysfunctional system, is the sort of rise of the TEALS the sort of independence the sort of what I guess the back home, we would call moderate Republicans, which is almost pretty much an extinct species back home because we have such a binary system. But here you have room for a little variety, a little complexity, it's much more interesting than than America is extremely boring. Left V right, red V blue, everything is polarised one or the other. Like it's just, it's mind deadening. So it's just interesting to have some complexity
I've spent on a tonne of Mac, I've worked a lot of America, when I explained to people that Australians aren't really polarised by political party, because of compulsory voting, because everyone has to vote, no one has to pick a team. And what we essentially do as a population is stand back without arms folded, and go, alright, impress me. And that's, that's kind of it like when
parties don't go out, picking and choosing their voters, right. They don't they don't win gerrymandered, they don't win by choosing voters that everybody votes.
Oh, my God, gerrymandering is a whole other thing, because
I mean, the US political system is dysfunctional in so many ways. I could go on and on.
What about the room itself? What about if you were in Canberra who struck you as an interesting character talking to them? Well, I assume you would have been protected from the crazy ones?
Yeah, I didn't. I did. I was not forced to deal with any of the crazies. You know, I did a little roundtable thing with Chris Bowen, energy minister, and he was nodding along and seemed very, you know, on board, and it said something that I thought was striking, which is that the US IRA is probably the most significant climate event, even more so than the Paris Climate Agreement, which I thought was quite dramatic and I think defensible.
Do you think that was a fair comment? Yeah, yeah.
I mean, the US has still, despite its dysfunctions, has enormous soft power. It has enormous influence over people and and just the sheer amount of money. It's spending now like the other developed countries simply cannot afford to sit on their hands at this point like they've got to. You know, I think I think that the message of the IRA, which I've been saying over and over again, to everyone who will listen, while I'm here is that the era of free trade, free market neoliberalism is over. It is over. And the Biden administration is explicit that it's over they there's a there's a new economy, global economy taking shape around clean energy around semiconductors around all these things. And it and the US is taking active measures to shape it's placed in that economy and other countries need to do the same.
So what do you say in 15? years? Like, what? How will the economy how in 15 years time? How will the economy be different? I mean, I'm asking you because you know, 15 years ago, you're writing about climate. Energy. Someone who's had their eye on this on this game for so long, like, in 15 years, what what do you say? Like, every country, it seems, here's my understanding, watching other countries talk about climate, from their perspective, they're all saying that they are going to transition to become a renewable energy superpower. It's not a slogan that we just have in Australia from like progressive climate people, you hear that? I see and read that in other countries everywhere around the world. It's like a disease that's kind of caught this meme that everyone thinks they're going to be but they can't ever on can't be an energy exporter. We what what does it look like for you in 15? years? Like, where do you see the board?
Well, the problem answering that question is that in the US now, with every election, the entire fate of the free world is on the like, literally no pressure, literally, if Trump and the Republicans win in 2020, for like, you know, it could be the end of democracy in the US, it could be the it could be that we double down on fossil fuel, it could be that we choose a sort of Russia style, sort of like, as long as there are fossil fuels being used anywhere in the world, we're going to be the producer of that. Or we could have, you know, green Utopia down the other down on the other route, like it's so hard to predict. But I mean, I think you can see a few things like EVs are going to dominate. I think Heat pumps are going to dominate electrification is going to take over energy, renewable energy is going to be even cheaper than anybody now predicts, which is what has happened at every stage of renewable energy growth. It's always cheaper than anyone says it was going to be. Because the beauty of renewable energy, which is not true of fossil fuel energy is that the more you do it, the more you build of it, the cheaper it gets on and on, on and on to eternity. So it's going to be much cheaper. And that's going to change. And the question is, once countries can domestically generate their own energy, once fossil fuel importers are able to generate most of their own energy and no longer need and no longer depend on fossil fuel exporters, how is that going to change geopolitics? I mean, who knows? But it's definitely going to shake up the world order, right in ways that I think are incredibly difficult to
know. Yeah, of course, like Japan currently is one of the biggest importers of Yes, fossil fuels so they can run their economy. Well, I
mean, they're it's a relatively small handful of countries that are fossil fuel exporters. So most countries are going to benefit from this. Most countries are going to be better off when they're generating their own energy. It's only the exporters that really have anything to lose here.
I hear you saying we're gonna have to find a new source of Hemsworth. So this is
renewable Hemsworth.
It's interesting. I think it was your podcast. You were you had somebody on talking about batteries within appliances. I remember that this is
a dump. It's a geeky one. Yeah, I
forgive me, David. I'm very excited to talk to you. But most of the time I listen to you, it's in the shower.
More than I wanted to know. But that's
because it's a great place to listen to podcasts. And I think there's something really interesting with stovetops and water heaters and all these large appliances that need power at night time to have batteries with inside them to run them. That was there was all this kind of interesting innovation. Who's going to be making those next lots of appliances? Do
you think it's a good question, right, because what you generally big established, I mean, this is true. I think it's sort of a truism of, of business Scholarship, which is that big established incumbents are not generally particularly innovative. So it's probably going to be a bunch of little startups to begin with. And the question is, I mean, the question is once, one of the most fascinating things I see happening at the household level is that eventually all these appliances and all these households are going to be connected, digitally, all the appliances are going to be talking to one another, they're going to be talking to the house, they're going to be talking to the neighbourhood, they're going to be talking to the grid. So what happens in terms of emergent effects? Once you have literally hundreds of 1000s of basically small scale, energy, producing energy, consuming energy storing devices, distributed around the grid, talking to one another, and coordinating I think that's going to open up whole new markets, whole new vistas, whole new things that we can't even really guess at yet what that is going to look like.
So we're gonna say, like, startups, like, you know, I guess a great parallel would be the Tesla's in the reviens. Of the of the kitchen world. Yes, well, in the GA's will come along, and
you're gonna, you're gonna see a lot of startups, most of whom will end up carcasses on the side of the road as as with any new market, as with any sort of emerging market, you know, there's gonna be one, you know, one or two, Google's at the end of the line, but most of them are going to die along the way. But in the process, we'll be innovating.
Yeah. I want to know a bit more about you, you don't give a lot of way about you as a person on your podcast. It's, you know, strictly for the nerds.
But how did you very boring, I want to know a little
bit about like, how did you come to this, this subject? How did you come to energy and climate? What was the catalyst fear
100% random chance I was. I went to grad school for philosophy for a good while, you know, got along far enough in that to get a good look at Academia, recoiled in horror, dropped out, and moved to Seattle was unemployed, bouncing around crappy tech jobs for a while. And literally the first time I ever went to Craigslist. I don't know if you guys have Craig. Oh, yeah. This was I think early in Craigslist. The first time I ever went there, there's just a little ad for an editorial assistant at a small web publication called grist, which was devoted to the environment. And to that point, I had no journalistic experience, I had no particular experience in the environment or interest in the environment. So I wrote this long, overwrought cover letter begging for the job because I didn't want to get stuck in tech jobs, wormed my way into Grist. And just over the years, wormed my way over into writing. So 100% self taught in terms of journalism, and in terms of climate stuff.
I mean, you you say this sometimes in your podcasts, how you're just a guy trying to learn about stuff. Yeah. And you're not, you're not an expert. And what point is that tipped over and you've become an expert? Like, at what point do you does that stick no longer, I no longer count,
I will never feel comfortable. Because I talked to too many genuine experts to claim to be one I've seen too. I've seen genuine expertise up close. And I know that that's not what I have. I think I'm a What did better than average educated generalist, let's say,
who has an obsession with climate? Yes, who's obsessed.
And I loved. What I found was, you know, I started at Griffith. And I was like, Well, I got to find something in this area that really interests me. And then I, you know, I gravitated to climate and clean energy. Because much like what attracted me to philosophy, it's just these big systems and systems within systems and how do they all hang together? And how do you think about them and conceptualise their relationships, and it's just really, intellectually endlessly fruitful and interesting.
It's such a hard time right now, with what's happening in the global north with climate, seeing your home country, in flames is is terrible. Like we were on fire three years ago, which radicalised me, you know, that that moment was a moment where I was like, Well, what am I doing this comedy podcast for what's really lock in and you know, do more on climate? How are you coping with kind of this time we live in? After covering it for so long,
migrating anxiety is, you know, there's sort of two stories you can tell one story, which I think climate people have kind of been telling themselves for a long time, which is enough of this stuff happens enough disasters pop up, it's going to change people's mind and radicalised people, and they'll come around and then we'll all start acting. The other story is the more disasters there are, the more stressed there is the more anxiety there is the more dislocation there is. And people generally do not respond to anxiety and dislocation with rational forward looking you know, reason they generally stress and anxiety make people more small see conservative so my great fear is that all these disasters are going to have people drawing in and putting walls up rather than throwing themselves more into international cooperation.
For me, my work I worry a lot you'll hear to do side as I mentioned to do side projects around the ALP conference. Do you have any kind of idea it's weird to ask someone who's kind of out side of the political sphere. Do you have any notion of how you might be received from ALP people? Or how you might be received within the decision makers in labour? themselves?
I mean, I think there is widespread fascination about, about the IRA about the inflation reduct. There's just widespread interest in it, how it came about what effects it's having, what political effects is having, because because the big dynamic right now is my feeling is liberal knows it needs to do something. But it has a little PTSD about the grubby history of climate policy here and the country has had a lot of backlash is
you're talking about a Liberal Party, not liberals. Yeah. Well, I
mean, Labour has has, I think, suffered backlashes in the past due to climate policy, or at least it perceives, so it has a little bit of that hesitancy. So the question is just Can it screw up its courage to go big, and sort of that's why I think it's fascinated by Ira because the US has also had a lot of history with climate policy in the US somehow managed to go big. So that's I think they're, at the very least their ears are open.
So you're thinking Ira might see some kind of big ATM cash injection in Australia, like, you'd think that the government in Australia might do something as bold as IRA.
Maybe if it can overcome its reticence about big spinning, right? Because the hangover of neoliberalism, the hangover of, you know, treating the national budget, like a household budget, all that nonsense, you know, things needing to be revenue neutral, you know, terror of deficits, all this kind of like neoliberal hangover, there's still some of that around. So it's a little question of which
way I can like an American.
Yeah, so so. But I think but I think at the very least, they're open, in a way, at least from what I've heard that they have not been in a long time,
it seems so counterintuitive that they are not more aggressive on climate, and energy, clean green energy, because the tails, as you mentioned before, when they got elected, they got so many seats are only one seat away from disrupting Labour's majority. And I don't know if Labour can see that. But that movement was not just about anti coalition, it was about pro climate, pro green energy. And I don't know if they can say that I think they just see that see these teal seeds as a threat to liberal seats. But what they're actually threatening is the notion that if you don't act on climate, those tails are going to take your seats,
right. Well, do you is the risk going too big? Or is the risk not going big enough? And then and I think that's really up in the air right now. I think there's a real you know, they're very torn about that right now. Right? Well, part of why I'm here is to nudge them in the one direction.
So who's paying the bills who's bringing you out here is it is a big tale. It's the
big electrical union, because Because another feature of Ira that's new for America is the unions are on board now that unions are pulling in the right direction. It's the same here because unlike previous iterations of climate policy, the IRA is all about jobs, good jobs, a lot of these tax credits are are conditioned on prevailing wages and using apprentices. And so it's it's a very pro union Pro, good well paying job environment and it's good to have the environmental justice community and the unions and and in the, you know, the centrists, all the factions of the left are aligned for once, which is not the normal state of affairs.
Let's quickly ask you this. So I saw two nights ago, you're at? You're at the MCG watching AFL. What did you think?
I saw the the the ruse fall to the bombers. And I tweeted out, I said, I'm here at the AFL game, and I'm rooting for the bombers, and was quickly informed by a number of Australians that I might want to use different nomenclature. Yes, yeah.
Yeah. Routing names fucking.
Turns out barracking for the bombers. Excuse me.
That's great. Well, thank you so much for hanging out with me on the greatest moral podcast of our generation. It's a real thrill the minute you meet you, and I'm a big fan boy. So hopefully, many of our listeners can jump over to the show notes and click the link and go listen to your podcast as well.
