GMPOOG: Saul Griffith + David Pocock

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Once a month on the A Rational Fear Podcast feed we have a long-form conversation about climate change with climate leaders from all walks of life.

This month Linh Do and Dan Ilic speak with David Pocock about the launch The Cool Down. An open letter of over 400 people in the sports community. all  

The Sport Positive Summit 2021

Every Single Electorate in Australia wants Climate Action.

And our big interview is with Saul Griffith —  Entrepreneur, engineer, scientist, energy, expert, MacArthur Fellow (Genius) and now he's adding on more.

Fed up with the inability of politics to meet the moment of the climate crisis, heading into COP 26,  Saul is trying out a new title Political Heavyweight.

It's an inspiring chat about the possibility and the pathway to electrify everything.

Pre-Order Electrify: An Optimist's Playbook for Our Clean Energy Future.

Buy the This Is My Last Gas-Guzzling Piece Of Sh*t bumper sticker.

🤑 CHIP IN TO OUR PATREON https://www.patreon.com/ARationalFear
📨 SUBSCRIBE TO OUR EMAIL LIST: http://www.arationalfear.com/
👕 BUY OUR MERCH HERE

Dan Ilic  0:00  
This podcast is supported in part by the birth of foundation. Hello, irrational fearlessness Daniel. It's here. This is one of our semi monthly spin off podcast from irrational fear called the greatest moral podcast of our generation. So don't freak out if it sounds a little different. Just enjoy the ride. This is my co host for Bloomberg, longtime climate change industrial complex worker. lindo. Lynn. It's been a while,

Linh Do  0:23  
Dan, it's been so long you've changed in lockdown. What is time?

Dan Ilic  0:28  
I know, my hair is definitely out of control. But thankfully,

Linh Do  0:31  
people can't see us. It's the dream. Otherwise, they could tell that we haven't been outside and you know, months on end, we're looking a little bit pasty.

Dan Ilic  0:40  
That's okay. I live by the beach. So I've got a nice tan about me. Now in this podcast, Lynn and I look at a few climate stories from the previous month and I have a conversation with someone who's doing great work in the climate space. This week's chat is one of my favourites is with one of my heroes, Saul Griffith, who is inventor, scientist, engineer energy nerd. He's writing policy for Biden and trying to get the US and Australia uncouple from fossil fuels and go completely electric with renewables. Do you know much about Saul's work? Lin?

Linh Do  1:08  
Yeah, I do. I don't know if I call him a hero, though. But the work he does is truly amazing. I think you know, one of the coolest things about our semi monthly, you know, again, what is time is that we get to interview super smart people and get them to give us all the answers in a way that's super digestible.

Dan Ilic  1:24  
Yeah, great. And in a second, we're going to be chatting with another one of those kinds of people from wallaby David pokok about his new climate campaign with the sports community, the cooldown, I'm recording my end of the greatest moral podcast of our generation on gadigal Land of the eora nation,

Linh Do  1:38  
and I'm on orangerie Land of the call and people's

Dan Ilic  1:41  
sovereignty was never seated. We need a treaty. Let's start the show. Despite

Unknown Speaker  1:45  
global warming, our rational fear is adding a little more hot air with long form discussions with climate leaders. Good.

Unknown Speaker  1:57  
This is called Don't be afraid the heat waves and drought

Unknown Speaker  2:01  
greatest mass extinction tomorrow we're facing a manmade disaster podcast, climate criminals. All of this with global warming and that is a lot of it's a hoax. Book, right. A small roll podcast about generation. For sure.

Dan Ilic  2:22  
Okay, let's rip straight into the climate news. First cab off the rank the cooldown this week, climate activist and former wallaby rugby union superstar David pokok has launched a brand new campaign to get climate action on the agenda of sports loving leaders. Joining us now is David pokok. himself. welcome David. Hi, Dan Lin. Thanks for having me. It's great to have you here. Yeah. Congratulations with the launch of the cooldown. What's the reaction been like so far?

David Pocock  2:49  
Thank you. Yeah, it's it's it's been positive. So far, we've got I think over 360 athletes from 30 plus sports have put their name to this calling for the Australian Government to really up their up their game on climate action. You know, this is something that the majority of Australians are concerned about and want more action. And yeah, I think it's it's everyone's responsibility to be talking about it more and to be pushing for for action at the national level. Yeah, this

Dan Ilic  3:18  
is great. It's like you, you have so many ears and hearts attached to kind of that community, this sports community. It's so great to see them pushing for action themselves as a community. Do you think this will be attractive to these sharks loving Scott Morrison?

David Pocock  3:36  
I hope so. I mean, I think the thing you know, the last 10 years of climate policy in Australia, and just how insanely politicised, it's it's been, I think, we often lose, lose sight of the fact that this is something that's going to affect every aspect of our way of life as Australians, including the sports that we love. And yeah, as an athlete. When you talk about things outside of your, your sport, you open yourself up to all the usual criticism to stay in your lane. You know, shut up, mate, stick to sports,

Dan Ilic  4:13  
literally stay in your lane. Yeah.

David Pocock  4:16  
And, you know, in the face of something like climate change with, you know, worsening extreme weather events, making things life a lot harder. Sport probably isn't the most, it definitely isn't the most important thing. The thing, the thing we're saying is athletes is that, you know, we are people who have families, we have kids, we are part of communities, and we love this country, and we want to see a thriving future, trying to draw the people's attention to the fact that this is going to affect sports and it is already affecting sports, you know, a part of Australian life that people love and as you kind of alluded to, we see we see politicians you Using sport for their game, because they know how much it resonates with us as a country. Yeah,

Linh Do  5:05  
yeah, one of the things that I definitely remember growing up in Australia is, you know, half of the new segment is dedicated to the sport to beat like half of the newspaper, you know, the fact that it's always the sports bit as well. We never spend that much time focusing on climate. What do you think, I guess will be the difference with some of these athletes speaking out about climate to reach new audiences? How do you think that's gonna make hopefully some impact?

David Pocock  5:30  
Yeah, our hope is that it really helps normalise climate action. As I said, it's such a political issue, which shouldn't be, you know, the politics should be about which, you know, policies as a party, you want to get Australia to this sort of netzero future, not whether or not we should get there, or how much it's going to cost. So I think really trying to say to people that as Australians, we love it when we're punching above that weight. You look at the Olympics, the Paralympics, you know, you see Ozzy's winning medals. And we lie.

Dan Ilic  6:07  
Are you trying to say that climate action is a race? David? Can I say that to race?

David Pocock  6:14  
And I'm saying it's a race. And I'm also saying that we're running dead last.

Linh Do  6:19  
Sometimes it feels like we're not even in the race. And I have to admit, I spent a lot of this morning thinking back to the Steven Bradbury moment at the Winter Olympics. And I'm like, well, maybe, maybe, you know, we're about to slip in at some point. Is that going to happen? But

Dan Ilic  6:32  
I don't I think that analogy is terrible. because it implies that all the other stronger countries fall over. And we need

Linh Do  6:41  
to be mercenary.

David Pocock  6:43  
I mean, you're spot on here. This is we're running dead last and we're refusing to even play by the rules. So we all we all know, we need to do better than that. We can do better than that. And that's maybe the other thing that's that's missing from the debate in Australia is you hear politicians talk about are the costs of action. But one note, talking about the cost of inaction, which you know, hard to even comprehend, if you believe scientists, but then also the opportunity for Australia, where the sunniest, windiest country in the world, it's insanity that we aren't a renewable superpower already. Or Well, on our way to becoming that. So I think it's, you know, it requires a real change in mindset around the debate, this is an opportunity for us that we have to take, because, you know, as Australians, we love places like the Great Barrier Reef, and you know, other just incredible parts of this country, the danger,

Dan Ilic  7:46  
even even from a sport focus, Dave, like, you know, kids playing soccer in the middle of the day on a weekend is going to be extremely difficult in a few years, particularly in places like Western Sydney, like it's the heat islands that are going to be attracted around school zones around tarmacs around around playgrounds, like being being a young athlete is going to be harder than ever, like it's going to be so difficult your brain capacity, loses capacity as carbon dioxide fills up the atmosphere like these things, that these things are just going to be really, really hard to do in the future. Like, like, sport has a lot to say like, I don't feel like I don't feel like you have to say much, you know, you can say look for the longevity of our of our of our children's future or the longevity of sport in general. Like we need proper climate action

David Pocock  8:38  
official. One of the one of the guys who's signed the letter and is really leading on this is Pat Cummins are the best fast bowlers in the world.

Dan Ilic  8:49  
He's gonna stand outside and out in the sun for so long.

David Pocock  8:52  
Well, you know, he grew up he got to start playing cricket in Penrith. And you know, scientists are saying that places like Penrith are hitting towards towards 50 degrees Celsius days in summer. Like, try playing a summer sport where you're standing outside all day and 50 degrees Celsius. Yeah,

Dan Ilic  9:11  
in 2018 Penrith was was the hottest city in the world. Yeah.

David Pocock  9:16  
You know, this is this is real, it's here. And, you know, there's a long list of how it's already affecting sport from early retirements of the Australian Open bushfire smoke, forcing a number of events, cancelled, relocated. And then, you know, the thing that probably to your point about kids is probably not front of mind for most people is the effect that this is going to have on regional community. Sport is such an important part of life. You know, it's where people can come together. And we're already starting to see some of those sports clubs, really struggling to afford their premiums which are going up due to flooding. And then in the, you know, in the recent drought, there were a whole whole bunch of regional grounds that were just too hard, like they couldn't water them, they rock hard, they're too dangerous to play. So you can't use those grounds and all these things that we, we, you know, you don't really think about when you hear someone talk about climate change. But you know, the increasingly real and you read the latest IPCC report and you know, the type of action, we have to we have to be upping our game.

Linh Do  10:23  
Yeah, and I think these everyday consequences are just the reminder that sometimes an IPCC report can feel a bit abstract until you boil it down to here's this activity you love doing that you might not be able to do in a couple of years time. What would you say to all of our listeners in terms of how could they may be raised and start this conversation within their communities sport or otherwise? Because you know, it's not the normal thing that people expect anyhow, tips? Well,

David Pocock  10:50  
have you just launched the call down, I'd say you can, you can head to the cooldown of Comdata. You and join and sign alongside your favourite athletes, but then, you know, in a day to day thing, this is something we should be talking about as a community and should be on the news most nights, this is something that we're going to have to adapt to. And, you know, if we if we act really strongly as a country and show some international leadership, we can avoid some of the worst that is to come, should we should we not act? So talk about in your community, and then obviously, the politics, you know, all this individual action doesn't add up too much, unless it's galba. Politics. So get hold of your local politicians. And then you know, we've got an election coming up, vote, like vote for your future vote for the future of your kids find a find a candidate who is going to make decisions in the best interests. And that may be an independent. Yeah. And if there isn't someone, consider rallying around someone or running yourself. This is just it's so important that we we begin to take action soon.

Dan Ilic  11:55  
David, on the political question, will we see in the future national teams not going to the lodge or not going to kirribilli house to spend time with the Prime Minister for a Photoshop with the harbour in the background? Is that something you can see in the back in the future? for national sides deciding to make a call on climate and say, No, we won't, we won't be part of Scott Morrison's photo,

David Pocock  12:17  
we're seeing climates, you know, start to really gain, I guess consciousness around around the world when we look at businesses and climate risk of standard factoring. You know, we, we this really interesting push in the UK around legislating eco side as a crime, you know, to me that really points to people are increasingly going to say, no, that's not that's not good enough. And we aren't going to support or associate ourselves with companies, individuals, leaders, who aren't taking this seriously. So it's it's not unimaginable

Dan Ilic  12:58  
question about your community, you're building and the letter and all the signatures you're getting, what happens next?

David Pocock  13:05  
I guess it at the moment, it's really trying to show support for strong, bold, ambitious climate action in Australia and try and trying to normalise the debate around that. Guess the second thing is trying to push this idea of everyone having to be part of this. Yeah, I think there's been one of the real failures, in my mind of the sort of climate movement or people who want action is there's, there's almost sort of this, this purity tests in a way like if you if you fly, you have no right to be saying that Australia should be committing to Boulder climate action. And you see it like if you ever if you ever post something on social media, trolls,

Dan Ilic  13:51  
troll troll trolls on Twitter saying, oh, how many kids do you have? kids and I can't get off set my car. I can't get off set by electricity. I don't own a house. But if I did, I'd electrify everything. So you know

David Pocock  14:03  
what? So you know, there's that there's your you're not perfect. So how can you even talk about this? Then the other thing is, is like maybe you're just a dumb rugby players probably had way too many concussions? What the hell do you know that? It's really those two things is, is one pushing for good national policy. You don't you don't have to be perfect to do that. And to you don't have to be a climate scientist to want a Livable Future. You've just got to listen to the climate scientists. And you know, what we've seen through COVID is that when we actually listen to these people who've spent their lives trying to understand these things that most of us can't even, you know, get our heads around

Dan Ilic  14:43  
things. That's because we've had to

David Pocock  14:46  
turn out better than if we just ploughing on our own course. So why aren't we listening to climate scientists?

Dan Ilic  14:56  
Well, David, thank you so much for joining us on the greatest model podcast of a generation and Thank you for all the advocacy work that you do for climate and the environment in general and social justice in sport, because it actually has a tangible, meaningful effect. And it's great to see you, you're doing so much, Dan, and thanks for really hearing you bring to it, I really appreciate it. It can be really hard time. So it's great to know, if we're in the same room and asked you to pull my finger. That'd be great.

Unknown Speaker  15:26  
Thanks, David, for you listening to the greatest moral podcast about generation

Dan Ilic  15:33  
pretty interesting when you're facilitating, you know, a whole session on sport and climate in Sport, Sport climate soon, like, what are you bringing to that, that conversation for that conference coming up at the end of September,

Linh Do  15:46  
it's so much of what Dave was sharing, right? We have so much elitism. Unfortunately, in the climate movement. Sometimes you have to be perfect before you can say something, or you need to have three PhDs and all of the different hard science areas. But it's that recognition that the more we talk about, if climate is going to be impacting everyone, then everyone needs to figure out exactly what that means for them, their sector, their community, whatever that looks like. And helping those individuals take action in a way that makes sense. So this sport positive thing actually came out of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is the same body that governs the Paris Agreement. And it's that recognition that if you know, if you counted the membership of some sporting clubs around the world that makes up a small country equivalent. So what would happen if you know Manchester United came on and declared a bunch of different climate targets, both for their grounds, the way they operate their team, and you know what they encourage their fan base to do? So I think it's just taking climate a little bit like what we're doing with this podcast right outside of that Walgreens realm.

Dan Ilic  16:52  
Yeah, that's so interesting, because people look up to those brands, they look up to those teams and whatever their teams are doing. Now, they'll they'll also do that as well. That's such great position, like positioning those brands in a place of leadership and climate action is is really powerful. It's, it's not unlike if Australia was a good actor on the world stage and climate. We could also be a leader and encourage others to do good things on climate as well. So

Linh Do  17:19  
yeah, reputation matters. And I think where you lead your reputation and your voice as well, again, it's super important. Again, I think back to do you remember a couple of months ago, runout, I was at a press conference, I think it was and there was a bottle of coke there and

Dan Ilic  17:34  
replaced it with water,

Linh Do  17:36  
with water. And obviously for me, I was like, Oh, my God, it was still a plastic water bottle. But it's that recognition of if you're going to be a top athlete, why would you be promoting that kids essentially drink sugar, and then the impact that that had on, you know, the stock value of Coca Cola for the next, you know, couple of days is just that indicator of the signal that the sports community or other communities could be sending to their fans?

Dan Ilic  18:01  
Well, I want people listening this podcast, I'm drinking a cup of tea, so I can't wait for the stock value of what am i drinking? majority to go up

Linh Do  18:09  
to go? Wow, exactly. Positive brand Association. That's what you are top influencer.

Dan Ilic  18:14  
I think because we had a special guest, we've probably run out of time for the climate news. I think there's one thing we have to do. I think there's one thing we shouldn't mention those the ACF survey, which just came out this week, which is incredible. They found that every single electorate, Australians want climate action, that's amazing. 60% 67% of voters believe the government should be doing more to address climate action, including majority in all 151 National states. This is this is such a huge survey. This is amazing. And it's

Linh Do  18:43  
the narrative that we haven't been hearing, right, we've been hearing that this is something about, you know, regional communities versus inner city like, specific people. But actually, every single community wants climate change, and maybe what action they want looks a little bit different. But the direction that everyone wants to be heading in is definitely the same. We need

Dan Ilic  19:04  
to know the difference between the city and the regionals is negligible. It's like 3% difference like sick, it's in the 60 something's percent it's like so when Michael McCormack or other nationals say, well, you people in the cities, you don't understand what was actually you people on the regions also

Linh Do  19:18  
understand and want more or less exactly the same thing. Um, I think this would be really cool if it could be overlaid with real estate.com You know, when we're browsing property, aspirationally not because we can afford anything, but we can figure out you know, what community should I be living in? If I ever want to spend all of my time changing my neighbor's opinion, or spending time in my little bubble of you know, pro climate action people, this is how I want to live.

Dan Ilic  19:42  
We're all moving to the seat of God. I believe in Australia, which is about the size of Germany. So

Linh Do  19:48  
ya Love it. Love it. Lin.

Dan Ilic  19:51  
I want to talk about cop but we're kind of running out of time this podcast. So let's next month let's talk about cop. And because we'll be about a month out from cop starting. It'd be great to hear from you. Where Australia is heading into into carbon? I think we'll probably know more by then as well,

Linh Do  20:04  
we definitely will. I mean, fingers crossed that it's even going ahead. There's been actually a call over the last couple of weeks that maybe we should postpone the conference. Again, if countries in Europe, particularly emerging economies, the countries that will be most affected by climate change can't be there because of the COVID vaccination rollout situation globally.

Dan Ilic  20:23  
Well, that is a frightening thing to think about. Thanks, Lynn, for joining us again on the greatest moral podcast of a generation. We'll see you next month can't

Linh Do  20:28  
wait.

Dan Ilic  20:30  
And right now we've got Saul griseus great interview I did with him earlier this week. He is an absolute brain and as you can hear, in my interview in your brain taking over as you're catching up, I'm a little bit too excited. I'm a little bit too excited little

Linh Do  20:44  
waiting you fanboy.

Dan Ilic  20:49  
My guest on this episode of The Greatest moral podcast of our generation is Saul Griffith. He's got a lot of titles in his life entrepreneur, engineer, scientist, energy expert, MacArthur Genius Grant winner is now adding one more fed up with the inability of politics to meet the moment of the climate crisis heading into cop 26 soul is trying out a new title, political heavyweight. He's a man fully charged and ready to steamroll his way into any politicians office he can with a unique style of lobbying that can only be described as bad cop bad cop. Soul hopes to shut politicians into action with a big kick in the ass. so gracious. Welcome to the greatest moral podcast of our generation.

Saul Griffith  21:30  
Thank you, Dan, very much. I'm going to excuse you for embarrassing me with the genius comment because that was the best intro I've ever heard. From Polonius.

Dan Ilic  21:42  
Well, man, then my next question is, is it awkward follow up. You know, I've only spoken at once before I've seen you speak to lots of groups in online forums. Dare I say you seem a little dangerous, if not a little unhinged. Is that a fair assessment?

Saul Griffith  21:57  
That's just we've had a pandemic for a little while and the long hair and the beard resembles the unabomber is purely Coronavirus, side

Dan Ilic  22:05  
effect. All right now the audience that listens to irrational fear. They're pretty smart. They've lived with the climate action journey for over a decade. So I want to talk with you about big bold ideas. First of all, I'm kinda want to start off with personal responsibility. You know, in the climate activist world, there's kind of a policing around the language around personal responsibility. There are a lot of folks that say that personal responsibility isn't the problem, the whole notion of the carbon footprint was kind of designed by the fossil fuel industry to kind of put the onus of climate action on the user, are

Saul Griffith  22:36  
they right? I'm very sympathetic to the argument that there was some conspiracy and denial from the big fossil companies, and that it's their fault. But I don't think we should allow ourselves to not understand our role in it. I find it peculiarly interesting that we have divestment campaigns from Peabody coal, or from bhp or from the direct producers of fossil fuels, but we don't have divestment campaigns for Toyota, or Ford. Because they're those corporations. Even though 2% of the world's emissions go through an engine that Toyota built or an engine that Ford built, we don't really want to blame them, because it's just too close to our own personal driveway. So I think the the sort of failing of this logic, can be saying that why draw the boundary at the machine, the machines that dig the fossil fuels up instead of drawing the boundary for the machines that we own, that burn the fossil fuels? That's it, I think it's not easy. It is still today, not easy for an individual person or household to like, have all the solutions and and be a perfect upstanding citizen. But I would like us to recognise that, you know, we just done the numbers for the US and it's very similar in Australia. About 42% of all of our emissions are decisions that are made around our kitchen tables. If you include our small businesses, it's about 65 or 70%. Because around around your kitchen table, you decide what fuel goes in your car, you decide what fuel heats your house, what fuel heats the water in your house for your hot showers, you decide what fuel cooks your food, and you make your similar choices in small businesses, what runs the small business, heating and cooling systems and do they use petrol or electric so we actually have a shocking and surprising amount of power and in some respects, collective responsibility. That's not to blame us all for not making the right decision. Because, again, you have been doing a tonne of this work in the last few years, but like, still not quite economically irrational decision for a household to go fully electric and fully decarbonized you feel have to be in the very wealthy or the Zealot category. This might be it why there's Tesla lovers and Tesla haters, because the Tesla is this solution for the point 1%. The reality in 2021 is it costs you 10 or $20,000. More for the electric car than the gasoline equivalent for a few $100 more for the electric induction and fancy cooked up instead of the natural gas one, that $1,000 more for the electric heat pump heating systems. So as long as I like to think that if you can, if you can afford an Audi or Mercedes, you're playing a fucking hypocrite, because I could just make you could just have buy a Chevy Bolt electric or Toyota electric and, and the other things with the extra 20 grand you spent on your Mercedes. But for the rest of us, it's still a year or two or three away where the electric car production gets big enough that they're cheap enough that the batteries get cheap enough for the side of the house that the solar still gets cheaper and cheaper. But we're right on the cusp now.

Dan Ilic  25:59  
I feel that myself. This year, I bought my first car in 20 years. And I bought a secondhand bought a secondhand car but I was really looking into an Eevee I don't have any garage or any way to plug it in and house. But at the same time I was like well maybe I can get an event you know charge at the Westfield or wherever we're down the beach where I where I live. But still just the price is just maybe 20 grand a little more than what I could afford. But I can feel like this car that I've got now is going to be the last internal combustion

Saul Griffith  26:32  
you definitely want to make bumper stickers that are this is this is my last guzzling piece of shit.

Dan Ilic  26:39  
Let me let me write that down. Do you mind if I put that on the irrational?

Saul Griffith  26:42  
Not at all. I'd also like you to make one that's like my heat pump is hotter than your gasoline.

Dan Ilic  26:50  
One No One says that sincerely sorry.

Saul Griffith  26:53  
But you know the reality now in Australia. I had these numbers yesterday. The it's the upfront cost. That's the problem, which is this is part of the reason I'm trying to get in there and to your point kick political butt is if I was driving a mid sized Australian car right now, at Dollar 50 a litre it's about 12 cents a kilometre. In the if I did an Eevee a mid sized Evie. Charged off the electricity grid test cost me about seven cents a kilometre. And if I was charging that, Evie off my rooftop solar, it's one or two cents a kilometre. So you would get that money back, it will just take you five years. So what we really need is financial instruments to help everyone afford this future. And that's the type of thing that you need federal governments to help with.

Dan Ilic  27:47  
And this is nothing new, like federal governments have been doing this for things in the past.

Saul Griffith  27:50  
Oh, absolutely. You know, and the one way of looking at this for an economy is this giant real estate, one of these games, because we have such explicit economic policy focused around on helping people afford the suburban everything. The house, the home, and we sort of around writing all their mortgages that has precedent that was actually really began, curiously enough under Franklin D. Roosevelt, when the Great Depression had caused 20% unemployment in the US in the 1930s. Much the majority of the jobs were lost in the regions and they were construction jobs that were lost. And they realised they needed a stimulus package that would put people back to work in the States. So the US federal government invented the 25 year mortgage, it wasn't the thing before then before that the reason a lot of people lost their homes in the Great Depression is they had a five year mortgage with a balloon payment. When you get to the end of the five years, you either had to come up with all the money or renegotiate. So everyone lost their money, lost their homes, because and that was a great scam if your brain scan anyway. Imagine like, I actually think about it this way we think about great inventions of the 20th century and how much they change their life.

Dan Ilic  29:09  
No one ever talks about the mortgage,

Saul Griffith  29:10  
the mortgage, like changed, everything changed the patterns of urban development. And so is the whole thing how we do schools, like everything was on it. And actually, the more even more interesting piece of that history is that it was based on the car loan that was invented by a guy called Alfred P. Sloan. Because Henry Ford was very religiously conservative and didn't believe in usury or charging interest on your car. So you had to buy your gold on. You had to give Henry Ford your paycheck for 18 months and then he'd give you the car. Right Alfred Sloan came along said Well, I know you want the car today, why don't you just give me your paycheck for the next 18 months. And GM after that went from 10% market share that's 60% market share over forward in like three years. It's completely flipped the market. And it was that model of you know buy now. Pay Later that that became the the model of the interest rate in the US. Basically that means that the US government is subsidising and giving infrastructure quality financing to the household. So the suburbs are infrastructure. So we need that kind of thinking because we've got to upgrade all of our homes to decarbonize.

Dan Ilic  30:22  
Now it sounds, it sounds like we're really close, it sounds like there's like only a few years in it in terms of when decarbonizing our homes is going to be more expensive than it becomes the only kind of option because it's far less expensive. How long is that runway? Like how long have we got before the tipping point is where we're putting in sustainable homes becomes much more efficient, much more cost effective than the business as usual,

Saul Griffith  30:47  
the really interesting political problem of your question is, it's a little bit longer than the timeline, we have to keep our global temperature on it to you, there's an easy way to say that there's a concept in academia called committed emissions. That is, you bought a car last year, you just told me that car will emit it has a committed emissions for next 20 years is burns petrol, somebody who bought a natural gas power plant last year, that power plant will commit emissions for 35 years, etc, etc. The machines that exist on the face of the world today will emit enough carbon to take us to 1.8 degrees. So that's why you hear people say we should retire cold early, because they're the worst emitters. And maybe that'll bring us down to 1.7 or 1.6. You still end up in this situation where starting tomorrow, no one can ever buy. petrol or diesel car, again, instal coal plant natural gas, if you want to stay on that very rapid path for one and a half ish degrees, so that obviously we you know, the world only created about 2% of the vehicles last year were electric, that's not nearly enough, right? That's not 100%. Because we want everyone to buy an electric car tomorrow, the industry isn't even at scale,

Dan Ilic  32:07  
we're stuck straight, like it needs to happen, strategies

Saul Griffith  32:10  
haven't straight away, but at best with a wartime level of effort. And that's like really heavily investing in our industries to make all the solutions you can imagine maybe it's starting in about 2024 2025, like, we spent three or four years really full on.

Dan Ilic  32:25  
Great. So all we need is like another six more catastrophic weather events to get us engaged into doing something great.

Saul Griffith  32:33  
What I'm trying to say is like, but now that you can see that the economic shift, in the end, we really think about Australia as if I could loan you the money in 2022, or 2023, to buy the two, two electric vehicles to replace the two cars in your driveway, electric heat pumps, your hate electric heat pump, water heaters solar roof, a big one battery on the side of your house, you would be saving a few $1,000 a year on all your energy costs. But I'd have to loan you at that point 30 $40,000 more than you'd otherwise be spending to do it. The crossover point where it's cheaper at like, not only when you're using it that when you go into the store to buy it is probably more like 2027 2028 we wait until then we've blown through too many emissions to hit any of the targets you want.

Dan Ilic  33:24  
So a lot of folks who kind of criticise your work, they kind of say, well, masks is fine. But the reality on the ground in terms of politics is different. How does that change? So how can you see that changing?

Saul Griffith  33:41  
Well, I think you don't change reality. And still you start changing the storyline and you start using some characters as well as sticks, right? And we've really only had the stick narrative for what to do on climate for the last 50 years, which is stop this stop that no, and largely it sounds like we're gonna rip your middle class existence away from you, and you'll live in a cold, small house with a bicycle?

Dan Ilic  34:07  
Well, it just depends where that house is, if it's in Sydney, I think I could live with that, that'd be fine.

Saul Griffith  34:15  
I don't think that's going to work for everyone. So I think you can now tell with a reasonably straight face that, you know, we should be able to give people an even better existence they have now with cleaner air by largely just substituting out electric machines for Walker fuel burning machines and for riding with electricity. So now governments have an optimistic story that they can tell. And you can show that it's going to create more jobs than it destroys by a big margin and you can share now that the economics are going to work for the house the now the economics may not work in 2021, but they're going to work in 2025 if we make the right policy choices now. So you got to got to we need genuine leadership in the in the tradition of like what political leadership really means.

Dan Ilic  34:59  
Okay, All right. Don't get too excited about leadership.

Saul Griffith  35:04  
What? You know, if you have no hope you can have no hope you have, you have to try and lead these horses to water and help them discover that leadership for themselves.

Dan Ilic  35:16  
You're in Australia has been living in America for 25 years. Is that really? What's it like to kind of come back to Australia and be kind of around this kind of leadership we have here versus the Biden administration from I know, I understand you doing some work for at the moment? What's that? What's that kind of disconnect? Like,

Saul Griffith  35:33  
you have to also understand that I went through two Bush administration's and a Trump and Trump administration. Yeah. I'm sympathetic to republicans and some of their traditional conservative ideals, but I'm not sympathetic to crazy unwarranted wars, and whatever trumpism is,

Dan Ilic  35:52  
I believe Trump ism is a policy based on names.

Saul Griffith  35:55  
I mean, that's, I think politically, I'm saying I'm probably a centrist swing voter, to come back to Australia, it a few things, it strikes me that it's way more corrupt here than it was when I left 20 years ago. That is, like just as shocking, the nepotism seems to have been dialled way up, or maybe because I left when I was 19, or 20. I just wasn't old enough to be the benefit of a lot of nepotism yet, but I'm sort of I'm seeing it now. I'm a bit worried about the trend. For sure, we seem to have gotten the civil service. And so I think we used to have a really strong civil service here that really believed in the country and and what was best for the country. And I think we've eliminated a lot of those institutions. That gives me pause for concern. I think the best best government happens when they are well advised by unbiased independent organisations. And I think that's historically what the Australian civil service did on climate I think were doing terribly across the board. So I don't have to point a finger at any particular party here. No one's doing a great job. I am helping the White House and the buyer administration on as I describe it, hand to hand combat with the natural gas industry and and trying to figure out what climate policy you can do. And so I've been watching from the inside a lot of the the three and a half trillion dollar spending bill and the trillion dollar infrastructure bill and watch that sausage get made have introduced electrification legislation with Senator Martin Heinrich and have been doing work with Senator Sanders and Schumer just really helping them with the numbers and making that up and what sensible policy having seen it from the inside the US the collection of Biden policy is not yet sufficiently ambitious to avoid two degrees. So you'll hear a whole bunch of announcements and everyone will declare success but as an engineer and climate nerd, I can add up the math and the commandments are not yet commensurate with the reality but it's a huge step and then ambition brings more ambition. So here's the thing and we helped the the this administration alone, like we are on the cusp of this transition where the economics get better on the good side on the on the Luke Skywalker side and they get worse on the Darth Vader side. The fascinating about Australia is we win first week, the be the luckiest country if only we wish to be the cleverest country. We have the mildest climate we have compared to the US we have high cost of retail electricity we have high cost of petrol we have high cost of natural gas that's basically because very big small population big countries spread out or geographic displacement

Dan Ilic  38:51  
of everyone so

Saul Griffith  38:52  
and then we've already Wait You know, if you wanted roughly that what ROMs was success you'd you need this country to exist Australian rooftop solar policy, Norwegian or Californian electric vehicle policy, and South Korean or German building heating policy heat very heat pump centric. If you could create that country that country wins. And so as Australia at least as one out of three, if these other two we would you know shooting competitor like five years before America, we would we can do it. And we

Dan Ilic  39:30  
what's what's preventing those other two what is like absolutely preventing, you know, he pump policy and car policy as

Saul Griffith  39:37  
well that he policy is pretty good everywhere here except for Victoria, who were really clean to natural gas for heating homes, that there are even state programmes in Victoria that are improving so I think we're totally trending in the right direction. The Australian vernacular building vernacular embraces what's called a mini split system which is a reversible it can heat your house, it can cool your house It's economic. So we kind of on the right track. There, we just need to make sure that we never let a new home be warmed, painted with natural gas going all the way electrically on electric vehicles. I think its culture was fragile white male egos, and just the lack of visceral experience of electric cars that is screwing our electric vehicle policy but

Dan Ilic  40:26  
so well, if if we haven't if I have an electric car, it'll ruin the weekend. I'll have no more way. If you don't have an electric car, you'll ruin all weekends. Reva in perpetuity Yeah.

Saul Griffith  40:39  
But yeah, I've now owning my fifth electric car. And I own four in the US I bought a used Nissen in dV 200 which is like a Nissan LEAF extruded upwards as a as a minivan. It's obviously six sexy car and I love it. When we drop it. It's dropped them in school in it because it was a like a showroom demonstrators as a giant electrical plug on the side. The trauma isn't on my shoulders. I

Dan Ilic  41:09  
mean, this is this is your kids, where they go to school in San Francisco

Saul Griffith  41:13  
Bay, like here in Austin. In America, we had like the first few electric cars we had could barely do 100 miles and that was an inconvenience. And occasionally we'd be stranded by a highway. But like the last electric car we had in the US was a Chevy Bolt that we leased. It was extraordinarily cheap to own and operate. It had a 290 mile range, which is 450 kilometres ish. And we never even went close to exhausting the battery. We could drive to the mountains go skiing. So the future has arrived. We just haven't let it arrive in Australia. And I don't think enough people would have had the experience. I love this guy on the internet. There is like taking coal miners for drag races. And then Tesla.

Dan Ilic  42:00  
Daniel Blakely, he's been on the show, we've had him on irrational. You can. Daniel, thank you. You're doing God's work. He'll be pleased to hear that he should dress or asked me to take you for a ride when locked down?

Saul Griffith  42:11  
Absolutely. You know, well, actually, he's a curious thing. So I'm actually totally I speak carburetors a native tongue and like I sort of part of me, black belongs at summernats. So I'm a little sympathetic to this. I earned some pretty cool vintage cars. There in America. And in Australia, it's the same the putting a battery on the side of your house is enormously expensive, because you have to pay the permanent costs and the regulatory costs and it has to be fireproof, and all that stuff. And so you're spending 13 $100 a kilowatt hour for 10 kilowatt hour battery. So it's like $15,000 for this thing. I can buy a $15,000 battery and put it in my 1916 one Lincoln con continental and we'll have five times the capacity of the battery on my house to house so I'm really into this idea that your luck your your vintage Hot Rod toys,

Dan Ilic  43:01  
becomes the better

Saul Griffith  43:02  
Yeah, even better in Australia is like, Yeah, and I live near the coast and like everyone in Australia since I left has bought a jet ski. And I hate jet skis, I have my father's philosophy that jet skis should be absolutely legal, you're just not allowed to turn them on until you're a mile off. Sure. Because the noise is intolerable. But electric jetski turns out to do an hour of full throttle, which is what you can do with their 10 when they've got about a 40 litre gas tank, it native data 100 kilowatt hour battery, which would be about a $12,000 battery. But then your jetski is your house all battery all your toys become your thing.

Dan Ilic  43:42  
This is a dis absolutely genius idea for getting around regulatory red tape. It's fantastic. And if any, if anyone's like my brothers, they've got a jetski, a motorbike, a second car all sit in the garage doing nothing if put batteries and all those

Saul Griffith  43:58  
geeky powers. See you then take the battery out from the budget for the household, which is like the practical budget which is fine. Yeah. And you get to put it in the toy budget which is irrational.

Dan Ilic  44:13  
Alright, so we spoke a little bit about your two different approaches, you know, the the political approach. Let's talk about the bottom up approach. Like you told me we were talking about these people now want to talk about middle class parents who've got a house and have got all the toys. What would you say to them about kind of their own personal responsibility