WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.900 Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, delighted to have such a wonderful crowd here this afternoon. 2 00:00:05.260 --> 00:00:12.280 I acknowledge that we have this conversation on Kaurna land and hosted here by the beautiful 3 00:00:12.280 --> 00:00:19.020 University of Adelaide grounds. My name is Rick Saar, I teach law at the University of South 4 00:00:19.020 --> 00:00:24.280 Australia and you'll see that one of our sponsors this afternoon is our university. I'll be saying 5 00:00:24.280 --> 00:00:30.840 something a bit more about that at the end of the session. Welcome to this session, a politics for 6 00:00:30.840 --> 00:00:37.760 a new century. A little housekeeping before we begin, please switch off your mobile phone or to 7 00:00:37.760 --> 00:00:44.200 silent, although I'm told here you are most welcome to tweet. So if you'd like to tweet to someone, 8 00:00:44.400 --> 00:00:51.100 whomever, somewhere out there in the universe, it is at Ideas Adelaide and our hashtag is 9 00:00:51.760 --> 00:00:54.100 hash a f o i 10 00:00:54.280 --> 00:00:59.440 so if that means anything to you and you like tweeting, please take note of that. Today's 11 00:00:59.440 --> 00:01:05.380 speakers, we have Michael Schellenberger and Ted Nordhaus. Let me say something briefly about both 12 00:01:05.380 --> 00:01:10.040 of them and then I'll ask Ted to speak first, followed by Michael, then we'll have a series 13 00:01:10.040 --> 00:01:17.240 of questions and be finishing just before quarter after the hour. Michael Schellenberger is President 14 00:01:17.240 --> 00:01:23.700 and Co-Founder of Breakthrough Institute and co-authored with Ted the book, Breakthrough from 15 00:01:23.700 --> 00:01:24.260 the Death of Institute. He's a professor at the University of South Australia and he's a 16 00:01:24.260 --> 00:01:28.920 professor of environmentalism to the politics of possibility. I just checked the imprint's tent, 17 00:01:29.160 --> 00:01:35.420 there are three copies of that left so if you need to get a copy, you need to be quick at the 18 00:01:35.420 --> 00:01:41.020 imprint's tent right outside the door here. They argued for positive post-environmental politics. 19 00:01:41.520 --> 00:01:47.080 He and Ted published an essay called The Death of Environmentalism which argued against apocalyptic 20 00:01:47.080 --> 00:01:53.880 climate rhetoric in favour of an aspirational discourse. Michael was named one of Time Magazine's 21 00:01:53.880 --> 00:01:54.240 two-thirty-first authors of the book, The Death of Environmentalism. He was a professor at the 22 00:01:54.260 --> 00:02:01.140 2008 Heroes of the Environment, the Breakthrough Institute's strategy to make clean energy cheap 23 00:02:01.140 --> 00:02:06.940 was the recent subject of a profile on National Public Radio's morning edition. He co-founded the 24 00:02:06.940 --> 00:02:11.420 Apollo Alliance and has written for the Times, that is the New York Times, the Washington Post, 25 00:02:11.680 --> 00:02:17.500 the New Republic, the American Prospect, Ceylon, Harvard Law and Policy Review and Democracy. 26 00:02:18.420 --> 00:02:23.660 He will follow Ted, so in introducing or bringing Ted to the lectern let me tell you something 27 00:02:23.660 --> 00:02:30.320 about him. Ted is an author, researcher, political strategist. He's a recognised authority on climate 28 00:02:30.320 --> 00:02:35.540 and energy policy. He co-authored The Death of Environmentalism. He was equally named Time 29 00:02:35.540 --> 00:02:40.500 Magazine's 2008 Hero of the Environment. His writings have appeared in magazines, newspapers 30 00:02:40.500 --> 00:02:45.980 and journals including the New Republic and the New York Times. He's a co-founder of the Breakthrough 31 00:02:45.980 --> 00:02:51.240 Institute which is based in Oakland, California. It works at the nexus of climate, energy and 32 00:02:51.240 --> 00:02:53.040 environmental and economic policy. 33 00:02:53.660 --> 00:02:59.640 He's managing partner of American Environics, there's a new word for us, a research and 34 00:02:59.640 --> 00:03:04.080 consulting firm using cutting-edge research and methodologies to understand the evolution 35 00:03:04.080 --> 00:03:11.560 of American social values to progressive political projects. Ted Nordhaus's name means in German 36 00:03:11.560 --> 00:03:18.160 North House which is entirely apt for a place on North Terrace. Would you welcome Ted Nordhaus to 37 00:03:18.160 --> 00:03:18.620 the lectern. 38 00:03:25.760 --> 00:03:41.280 Well, thanks for the great introduction, thanks for having me here. Really, first time in Australia, so it's been great to learn a little bit about Australia and see the sites a bit. 39 00:03:42.060 --> 00:03:53.060 But let's get on to the matters at hand. So first just following up on that introduction, just a little bit more about us. 40 00:03:54.000 --> 00:04:02.160 We're both lifelong progressives. We say liberals in the U.S. I think the meaning's slightly different here. 41 00:04:03.540 --> 00:04:21.360 And both have spent much of our career prior to starting the Breakthrough Institute working in the American environmental movement both as staff and consultants to virtually every major environmental group in the country over about 20 years. 42 00:04:21.580 --> 00:04:21.740 Okay. 43 00:04:22.700 --> 00:04:23.460 All right. 44 00:04:23.460 --> 00:04:23.640 All right. 45 00:04:23.660 --> 00:04:28.660 We left the environmental movement because we had to leave it to reform it. 46 00:04:29.620 --> 00:04:37.100 And we are probably sort of best known as critics of conventional environmentalism, 47 00:04:37.760 --> 00:04:42.720 environmental philosophy and strategies to deal with the ecological challenges 48 00:04:42.720 --> 00:04:44.940 that the world is faced with today. 49 00:04:46.260 --> 00:04:49.600 We are broadly pro-modernization. 50 00:04:49.700 --> 00:04:52.300 I'm going to talk a little bit more about what that means 51 00:04:52.300 --> 00:04:56.260 and why we think that is so important to thinking about a new politics 52 00:04:56.260 --> 00:04:59.540 for this century we've just entered. 53 00:05:01.660 --> 00:05:05.640 We were, as was mentioned in our introduction, 54 00:05:05.780 --> 00:05:09.760 named Heroes of the Environment by Time Magazine in 2008. 55 00:05:10.660 --> 00:05:13.120 Wired Magazine called our book Breakthrough, 56 00:05:14.380 --> 00:05:18.660 said that it could be the most important thing to happen to environmentalism 57 00:05:18.660 --> 00:05:19.700 since Silent Spring. 58 00:05:20.900 --> 00:05:22.280 And we've just launched... 59 00:05:22.300 --> 00:05:27.660 launched a new journal called, not surprisingly or terribly creatively, 60 00:05:28.020 --> 00:05:33.500 The Breakthrough Journal, which is dedicated to modernizing liberalism. 61 00:05:33.780 --> 00:05:38.460 And we're obviously going to talk a lot more about what, for us, that means. 62 00:05:39.880 --> 00:05:41.400 So let's talk a little bit about modernization. 63 00:05:45.200 --> 00:05:51.600 Well, the place to start is that literally technology made us not only modern humans, 64 00:05:51.600 --> 00:05:52.580 but humans. 65 00:05:53.000 --> 00:06:00.200 If you kind of go back deep into the record of human evolution, 66 00:06:00.520 --> 00:06:03.960 what you find is that we literally evolved. 67 00:06:04.180 --> 00:06:09.220 We became human as we evolved, our tools evolved, 68 00:06:09.600 --> 00:06:14.600 and the human systems that we created with those tools evolved. 69 00:06:15.180 --> 00:06:20.400 And that has really been the sort of long-term dynamic 70 00:06:20.400 --> 00:06:21.580 of modernization. 71 00:06:21.600 --> 00:06:27.560 Human systems of various kinds becoming more and more powerful over time, 72 00:06:27.780 --> 00:06:33.980 a greater ability to manage and engineer environments 73 00:06:33.980 --> 00:06:40.500 that are better suited to our development and prosperity. 74 00:06:43.420 --> 00:06:49.740 Our view is that states have increasingly played a crucial role 75 00:06:49.740 --> 00:06:51.580 in this process of modernization. 76 00:06:51.580 --> 00:06:52.900 Modernization and human development. 77 00:06:53.340 --> 00:06:56.380 That as those systems have become more powerful, 78 00:06:56.460 --> 00:06:59.740 as human societies have become more complex, 79 00:06:59.980 --> 00:07:04.180 the role of the state in managing 80 00:07:04.180 --> 00:07:08.220 and driving development has only expanded. 81 00:07:08.700 --> 00:07:15.020 And with that, we've seen rising living standards, quality of life in all sorts of ways, 82 00:07:15.840 --> 00:07:20.920 first with the development of agriculture, and then, obviously, 83 00:07:21.580 --> 00:07:22.200 with the development of a more diverse and diverse society. 84 00:07:22.200 --> 00:07:23.340 And that's how we have evolved much more rapidly 85 00:07:23.340 --> 00:07:25.820 after the industrial revolution. 86 00:07:26.980 --> 00:07:35.760 Those sort of epochal shifts in human sort of societies have brought 87 00:07:35.760 --> 00:07:44.100 with them a process of democratization, expansion of rights to minorities and women, 88 00:07:44.420 --> 00:07:48.180 a rising individualism, urbanization. 89 00:07:49.060 --> 00:07:51.560 And that's how we have evolved. 90 00:07:51.560 --> 00:07:57.800 Right now we're in the process of one of the most remarkable transformations of human societies ever, 91 00:07:57.900 --> 00:08:11.260 as virtually the entire human population over the next century will leave traditional rural ways of living and systems and move to cities. 92 00:08:11.460 --> 00:08:12.800 Ten billion of us. 93 00:08:16.680 --> 00:08:26.920 Obviously all of these processes, in our view, are a process of meeting a rising hierarchy of needs. 94 00:08:27.100 --> 00:08:33.380 For those of you, probably most of you are familiar with Maslow's hierarchy of needs. 95 00:08:33.960 --> 00:08:41.240 First meeting our most basic needs for physical security, shelter, feeding ourselves, 96 00:08:41.420 --> 00:08:42.200 and then meeting... 97 00:08:42.800 --> 00:08:49.960 Higher needs for self-esteem, connection with others, self-actualization. 98 00:08:51.220 --> 00:08:56.480 And in our view, this process is fundamentally a salutary one. 99 00:08:56.700 --> 00:09:02.180 And its acceleration is salutary, even as it brings with it new challenges, 100 00:09:02.880 --> 00:09:07.760 and it creates new kinds of problems that we have to deal with, 101 00:09:07.980 --> 00:09:12.160 which are unintended consequences of our development. 102 00:09:16.980 --> 00:09:26.980 From 1940 to 1970, particularly, the center left was a modernizing force, 103 00:09:27.180 --> 00:09:30.140 and really reflected a modernizing ideology. 104 00:09:32.580 --> 00:09:37.440 So, and during this period, which was certainly in the United States, 105 00:09:37.440 --> 00:09:41.820 as well as much of the rest of the world, a time when the center left really sort of dominated, 106 00:09:42.800 --> 00:09:43.820 divided government and politics. 107 00:09:44.200 --> 00:09:50.340 We saw governments create, literally build the infrastructure of our present day modernity. 108 00:09:51.340 --> 00:09:55.120 Roads, electricity, clean water, sewage treatment. 109 00:09:57.220 --> 00:10:02.620 The state obviously rescued, literally rescued capitalism in the 1930s. 110 00:10:05.360 --> 00:10:11.480 Cold war military investments, particularly by the US military, whatever you think of the Cold War, 111 00:10:11.580 --> 00:10:12.580 and the various military. 112 00:10:12.580 --> 00:10:18.620 Military adventures that followed drove investments in a whole range of technologies 113 00:10:19.140 --> 00:10:22.080 that sort of fundamentally transformed modern life. 114 00:10:22.980 --> 00:10:29.120 Radios, microchips, the internet, GPS, jet engines, lasers. 115 00:10:30.960 --> 00:10:38.080 Governments also created virtually most of the energy technologies that we rely upon today, 116 00:10:38.180 --> 00:10:40.680 or that we hope to rely upon in the future. 117 00:10:41.700 --> 00:10:42.440 That includes nuclear. 118 00:10:42.440 --> 00:10:49.980 Nuclear power, hydroelectric power, gas turbines, solar power, solar energy. 119 00:10:50.240 --> 00:10:53.860 This period also marked, you know, in developed societies, 120 00:10:54.060 --> 00:10:59.640 a market expansion of civil rights and civil liberties protections 121 00:11:00.800 --> 00:11:04.740 that were both extended to populations by their governments, 122 00:11:04.820 --> 00:11:12.080 and demanded of their governments by those populations in a mutually reinforcing process. 123 00:11:12.940 --> 00:11:17.860 We obviously got modern entitlements, our pensions, and healthcare, 124 00:11:18.760 --> 00:11:25.920 and a range of other sort of benefits from the state that assured basic living standards 125 00:11:25.920 --> 00:11:28.660 for the populations of most developed societies. 126 00:11:30.020 --> 00:11:31.340 Environmental protections. 127 00:11:31.520 --> 00:11:38.880 So we see a dramatic expansion in sort of government-led measures to clean up the environment, 128 00:11:39.160 --> 00:11:41.900 preserve natural places. 129 00:11:43.980 --> 00:11:49.060 And we had the Green Revolution, radically increasing yields around the world. 130 00:11:49.180 --> 00:11:53.120 You see there the picture of Norman Borlaug, who won the Nobel Prize, 131 00:11:53.280 --> 00:12:00.560 and was really the father of the Green Revolution, which sort of extended, you know, 132 00:12:00.560 --> 00:12:07.000 the ability to feed ourselves to a population of, you know, I think, 133 00:12:07.000 --> 00:12:11.880 three or four billion that is now close to seven billion, and we continue to, 134 00:12:12.440 --> 00:12:20.060 you know, feed ourselves as we see continuing increases in agricultural productivity and yields. 135 00:12:21.140 --> 00:12:28.140 So I'm going to turn it over to Michael now, who is going to talk about sort of what happened to liberalism. 136 00:12:29.440 --> 00:12:30.200 Thanks, Ted. 137 00:12:30.340 --> 00:12:33.820 And I want to thank the sponsors of the festival for bringing us out. 138 00:12:34.160 --> 00:12:39.460 It's really been a fantastic trip for us to meet Australians, especially the younger generation 139 00:12:39.460 --> 00:12:42.420 that is quite interested, I think, in modernizing sort of a sense of what we're doing, you know, 140 00:12:42.420 --> 00:12:43.200 in the center-left politics. 141 00:12:43.480 --> 00:12:46.260 I would also add we're here with one of our Breakthrough Generation fellows. 142 00:12:46.460 --> 00:12:51.140 We have ten fellows come and work at the Institute every summer with paid fellowships, 143 00:12:51.140 --> 00:12:52.000 very competitive program. 144 00:12:52.320 --> 00:12:56.840 One of them is here with us, Lee Eubank, our first and only OSSE fellow. 145 00:12:57.140 --> 00:13:00.980 And afterwards, we've got a bunch of the issues of Breakthrough Journal that we're going to give away for free, 146 00:13:01.040 --> 00:13:02.000 if anybody would like a copy. 147 00:13:03.680 --> 00:13:06.220 So what happens after 1970? 148 00:13:06.860 --> 00:13:11.740 You start to see a turn away from modernity by the left in the United States, 149 00:13:11.800 --> 00:13:12.400 and throughout modernity. 150 00:13:14.440 --> 00:13:23.440 And this is a reaction to a whole set of negative uses of technology, nuclear weapons, environmental problems. 151 00:13:23.820 --> 00:13:28.720 You see the rise of an environmental movement that in many ways is an anti-technology movement, 152 00:13:29.660 --> 00:13:30.120 Silent Spring. 153 00:13:30.640 --> 00:13:36.460 And while there was always more ambivalence, perhaps, about technology during that period, 154 00:13:36.620 --> 00:13:41.160 it starts to take a much harder edged view over the coming decades. 155 00:13:41.380 --> 00:13:42.400 And we like to point out that the 156 00:13:42.420 --> 00:13:44.580 this is a wider cultural shift. 157 00:13:44.840 --> 00:13:52.680 So you see the most popular sci-fi show in America, really probably throughout the world, is Star Trek. 158 00:13:52.880 --> 00:13:54.500 This is a global federation. 159 00:13:54.740 --> 00:14:00.920 These are sort of the United Nations blue helmets who go out and make sure people aren't fighting, 160 00:14:01.100 --> 00:14:05.540 and everyone's getting along, and the Klingons aren't messing with the peaceful people. 161 00:14:05.980 --> 00:14:08.280 And it was, you know, look, it was racially diverse. 162 00:14:08.620 --> 00:14:10.480 You had Asians, African-Americans. 163 00:14:10.560 --> 00:14:11.540 It was sort of optimistic. 164 00:14:12.280 --> 00:14:12.400 It was sort of optimistic. 165 00:14:12.400 --> 00:14:12.920 It was sort of optimistic. 166 00:14:12.920 --> 00:14:14.500 A sense that the world was coming together. 167 00:14:14.540 --> 00:14:18.400 It was a kind of sci-fi cosmopolitanism. 168 00:14:18.580 --> 00:14:19.980 And then look what happens. 169 00:14:21.100 --> 00:14:26.440 You know, you then move to Star Wars, 1977, I believe. 170 00:14:26.760 --> 00:14:32.260 And in this period, you get a baby boomer, George Lucas, who presents a very different picture. 171 00:14:32.420 --> 00:14:37.960 In Star Wars, the global federation is the dark side of the force. 172 00:14:38.220 --> 00:14:40.460 The moderns are the bad guys. 173 00:14:40.600 --> 00:14:41.720 The guys with the technology. 174 00:14:42.640 --> 00:14:47.500 The ones that are out to, that are undemocratic, that are oppressive. 175 00:14:47.740 --> 00:14:52.020 And of course, the good guys are the pre-moderns, Obi-Wan Kenobi there on the right. 176 00:14:53.220 --> 00:14:56.400 You know, later you get the Ewoks, who they form an alliance with. 177 00:14:56.920 --> 00:14:57.980 The forest people. 178 00:14:58.260 --> 00:14:59.940 And you start to see it in all sorts of ways. 179 00:15:00.060 --> 00:15:03.220 The good guys are the little guys that hang out under the mushrooms in the forest. 180 00:15:03.480 --> 00:15:07.980 The bad guys are the ones with the steel ships and modernity. 181 00:15:08.020 --> 00:15:09.960 So you see something going on in the culture here. 182 00:15:10.680 --> 00:15:11.700 And you see a lot of the 183 00:15:11.700 --> 00:15:14.700 There's a lot of, a move towards a lot of apocalyptic discourses. 184 00:15:15.460 --> 00:15:20.500 Nuclear, people forget, was viewed as a sign of hope. 185 00:15:20.660 --> 00:15:23.460 You know, there was a lot of guilt, at least in the United States, around Hiroshima and 186 00:15:23.460 --> 00:15:23.860 Nagasaki. 187 00:15:24.140 --> 00:15:26.620 They wanted to see nuclear power put to positive use. 188 00:15:26.800 --> 00:15:29.820 The idea was cheap electricity, lifting people up. 189 00:15:30.360 --> 00:15:35.140 But suddenly became viewed with a kind of apocalyptic foreboding. 190 00:15:35.260 --> 00:15:37.800 And the word apocalypse is, of course, the Greek word. 191 00:15:38.220 --> 00:15:41.120 We tend to think of apocalypse as simply a kind of a catastrophe. 192 00:15:41.240 --> 00:15:41.680 But it's not. 193 00:15:41.680 --> 00:15:47.120 But in fact, apocalypse was always both a kind of collapse of this world and the emergence 194 00:15:47.120 --> 00:15:47.900 of a new world. 195 00:15:48.000 --> 00:15:49.660 A world where small is beautiful. 196 00:15:50.700 --> 00:15:53.580 Where we would all be sort of living in harmony with nature. 197 00:15:53.760 --> 00:15:54.780 And again, 1968. 198 00:15:55.300 --> 00:16:00.120 So if you have Norman Borlaug there with the Green Revolution, expanding agricultural yields, 199 00:16:00.380 --> 00:16:03.740 really averting mass starvations. 200 00:16:03.920 --> 00:16:08.000 From the environmental movement, you get the population bomb, which says there's just too 201 00:16:08.000 --> 00:16:08.880 many people on earth. 202 00:16:09.080 --> 00:16:10.760 We should cut off food aid. 203 00:16:10.880 --> 00:16:11.660 Let this, let this, let this, let this, let this, let this, let this, let this, let this, 204 00:16:11.660 --> 00:16:11.860 let this. 205 00:16:11.860 --> 00:16:14.760 But you know, fewer starvations now will prevent more starvations later. 206 00:16:15.040 --> 00:16:16.220 We need sterilization. 207 00:16:17.640 --> 00:16:20.700 Really, again, a hard edged move against modernity. 208 00:16:21.020 --> 00:16:25.640 You see it in sort of the rise of kind of limits to growth. 209 00:16:25.920 --> 00:16:31.080 There's sort of a sense that nature can't handle all this economic growth. 210 00:16:31.340 --> 00:16:33.600 It's very common in the discourse. 211 00:16:33.820 --> 00:16:36.740 You hear it from people who say technology can't save us. 212 00:16:36.920 --> 00:16:40.480 Of course, against, you know, 200,000 years of human evolution. 213 00:16:40.620 --> 00:16:41.560 But the idea is. 214 00:16:41.560 --> 00:16:43.340 Really, we're at the end here. 215 00:16:43.540 --> 00:16:45.080 This is the final days. 216 00:16:45.700 --> 00:16:50.000 And a discourse that was traditionally associated with really the right wing or with kind of 217 00:16:50.000 --> 00:16:53.540 Christian evangelicals is really embraced by liberals. 218 00:16:53.680 --> 00:16:55.480 And what a dramatic shift that was. 219 00:16:56.620 --> 00:17:01.780 You also start to see, this is of course a photo of what's going on here in Australia. 220 00:17:02.220 --> 00:17:11.340 The anti-carbon, I'm told that even sane carbon tax indicates some sort of political bent. 221 00:17:11.380 --> 00:17:11.540 So, you know, we're in the middle of a global crisis. 222 00:17:11.560 --> 00:17:17.100 So the people who say they're against the carbon tax in Australia, you see a division 223 00:17:17.800 --> 00:17:22.440 within the left between the kind of traditional working class, labor movement, blue collar 224 00:17:22.440 --> 00:17:24.420 workers and knowledge workers. 225 00:17:24.900 --> 00:17:28.500 Folks like us, people who work in offices, who sit in front of their screens all day. 226 00:17:28.600 --> 00:17:34.420 We become increasingly alienated from the mode of production, from productive activities. 227 00:17:34.680 --> 00:17:39.040 And we start to think that those productive activities are going to be our downfall. 228 00:17:39.340 --> 00:17:40.400 We start to think. 229 00:17:40.480 --> 00:17:41.460 We imagine. 230 00:17:41.460 --> 00:17:43.580 We imagine industrial civilization is not sustainable. 231 00:17:43.980 --> 00:17:44.960 That's the idea. 232 00:17:45.120 --> 00:17:46.540 It's been, this can't last. 233 00:17:46.840 --> 00:17:51.560 There's not enough planet earth for all of the Chinese and Indians in the world to live 234 00:17:51.560 --> 00:17:52.060 like we live. 235 00:17:53.140 --> 00:17:56.120 Meanwhile, of course, government is becoming really invisible. 236 00:17:56.680 --> 00:18:02.820 Really every technology you have in your cell phone, as Ted described, was created by the 237 00:18:02.820 --> 00:18:03.540 US military. 238 00:18:04.060 --> 00:18:10.020 Microchips, GPS, even the touch screens, the internet itself was invented in a defense 239 00:18:10.020 --> 00:18:10.680 department laboratory. 240 00:18:10.680 --> 00:18:12.040 But nobody knows that. 241 00:18:12.240 --> 00:18:14.620 All you do is you just kind of go, thank God for Steve Jobs. 242 00:18:15.180 --> 00:18:17.760 You know, thank, you know, the private sector delivers this. 243 00:18:17.780 --> 00:18:23.460 We have a relationship with private corporate brands and we tend to see the state as inefficient, 244 00:18:23.880 --> 00:18:27.800 sinister, and certainly not capable of innovation. 245 00:18:29.340 --> 00:18:35.120 And meanwhile, also the publics in at least the wealthy world feel increasingly entitled 246 00:18:35.120 --> 00:18:38.380 to a whole set of benefits of the modern world. 247 00:18:38.540 --> 00:18:40.660 But we don't really feel like paying attention to the fact that we're not really going to 248 00:18:40.660 --> 00:18:41.020 sustain for them. 249 00:18:41.300 --> 00:18:45.420 This is more acute in the United States, I think, than it is in Europe and Australia. 250 00:18:45.680 --> 00:18:49.680 I think there's a question about whether that's because we're, maybe we're a little bit of 251 00:18:49.680 --> 00:18:53.800 an outlier, maybe we're a little bit ahead of where other publics are headed. 252 00:18:54.020 --> 00:18:57.060 But what you see is sort of people in the United States, they say, keep government out 253 00:18:57.060 --> 00:18:57.660 of my Medicare. 254 00:18:58.060 --> 00:18:59.520 Well, Medicare is a government program. 255 00:19:00.220 --> 00:19:01.840 So people sort of forget this. 256 00:19:02.300 --> 00:19:04.660 So we sort of call this sort of an entitlement culture. 257 00:19:04.860 --> 00:19:08.840 We want all the benefits of modernity, but yet we don't want to, we don't want to pay 258 00:19:08.840 --> 00:19:09.260 for them. 259 00:19:09.260 --> 00:19:13.260 And meanwhile, we are increasingly suspicious of modernity as something that is liberatory 260 00:19:13.260 --> 00:19:14.400 or emancipatory. 261 00:19:14.740 --> 00:19:18.140 And of course, meanwhile, you see in a political sphere, the rise of neoliberalism. 262 00:19:18.340 --> 00:19:22.960 Again, on one side, you have a kind of working class labor movement. 263 00:19:23.040 --> 00:19:27.920 On the other, you have knowledge workers who believe that the market should be fixed or 264 00:19:27.920 --> 00:19:28.360 corrected. 265 00:19:29.440 --> 00:19:34.220 So, for example, in Australia, when people think, does government have a role or not? 266 00:19:34.680 --> 00:19:37.180 On one side of the bill, they say, no, the government has no role. 267 00:19:37.300 --> 00:19:38.900 Global warming isn't a problem. 268 00:19:38.900 --> 00:19:39.480 It isn't real. 269 00:19:39.660 --> 00:19:40.700 We shouldn't do anything about it. 270 00:19:40.780 --> 00:19:44.660 And the others say, no, government has a role, but the only thing they imagine government 271 00:19:44.660 --> 00:19:47.840 doing is making fossil fuels cost more. 272 00:19:48.080 --> 00:19:50.200 There's no sense that there's anything else that you could do. 273 00:19:50.560 --> 00:19:54.060 What else could government do if it tried to get involved in technology innovation? 274 00:19:54.240 --> 00:19:56.860 I think we all know in advance that it would only screw that up. 275 00:19:58.760 --> 00:20:07.180 So, I think I'm, well, see, it just disproves my point that technology can save us. 276 00:20:07.280 --> 00:20:08.820 I can't even get the remote. 277 00:20:08.820 --> 00:20:09.240 I can't get the remote to work. 278 00:20:09.420 --> 00:20:09.740 Okay. 279 00:20:09.860 --> 00:20:11.720 A more aspirational politics. 280 00:20:11.940 --> 00:20:15.140 Sometimes you have to look back in the past to be inspired for going forward. 281 00:20:15.400 --> 00:20:17.160 What does a new politics look like? 282 00:20:17.640 --> 00:20:22.260 Broadly, it's a shift from this entitlement culture, from entitlement societies to innovation 283 00:20:22.260 --> 00:20:28.220 societies, societies that are creative, that are risk-taking, that accept a huge amount 284 00:20:28.220 --> 00:20:30.740 of failure in order to get very important successes. 285 00:20:31.640 --> 00:20:37.740 You have a sense of, we have a sense of gratitude as like a core value towards development, 286 00:20:37.980 --> 00:20:38.800 modernity, and technology. 287 00:20:38.820 --> 00:20:44.580 Instead of taking it for granted that clean water comes in, dirty water goes out, that 288 00:20:44.580 --> 00:20:49.400 the lights come on every time we turn a switch, you know, we actually appreciate that. 289 00:20:49.580 --> 00:20:51.520 You have a sense of wonder and awe. 290 00:20:51.820 --> 00:20:57.720 You hear those words used in relationship to the natural world, but of course, we fail 291 00:20:57.720 --> 00:21:00.500 to use those often in relationship to technology. 292 00:21:03.060 --> 00:21:07.200 Governments, of course, and this is where, this is, I think, this new politics, this 293 00:21:07.200 --> 00:21:08.800 new center-left politics needs to break down. 294 00:21:08.800 --> 00:21:09.700 It's not just a matter of how we take from neoliberalism. 295 00:21:09.780 --> 00:21:13.880 It's just that governments actively shape and drive modernization. 296 00:21:14.180 --> 00:21:19.360 Sometimes we get accused by our colleagues in the environmental movement of just being 297 00:21:19.360 --> 00:21:20.400 kind of pro-status quo. 298 00:21:20.620 --> 00:21:22.280 Well, modernization is already happening. 299 00:21:22.460 --> 00:21:24.360 You guys are just saying go with the flow. 300 00:21:24.560 --> 00:21:29.600 In fact, quite the contrary, modernization will be happening, but it's a question of 301 00:21:29.600 --> 00:21:33.640 how we shape that, where we direct that, where do we want to marshal all of these incredible 302 00:21:33.640 --> 00:21:36.820 energies and creativity of the development process toward. 303 00:21:37.060 --> 00:21:37.180 Yeah. 304 00:21:38.800 --> 00:21:43.160 The other thing that we realize is that really 90% or more of economic growth comes from 305 00:21:43.160 --> 00:21:43.940 technology innovation. 306 00:21:44.420 --> 00:21:48.400 There's really no sense in talking about economic growth outside of a context of innovation. 307 00:21:48.880 --> 00:21:52.200 It's what creates, makes labor more efficient, more productive. 308 00:21:52.360 --> 00:21:54.860 It's what makes energy more efficient and more productive. 309 00:21:55.140 --> 00:21:58.400 And obviously, we have a shared common interest in continuing that process. 310 00:21:59.880 --> 00:22:05.640 It's also an acknowledgement that those big technology platforms, the internet, microchips, 311 00:22:06.820 --> 00:22:07.420 electricity. 312 00:22:08.800 --> 00:22:14.680 These platforms can only be created by government and really by the public making a shared investment. 313 00:22:14.900 --> 00:22:17.360 No private company can do that stuff on its own. 314 00:22:17.640 --> 00:22:21.240 Requires major investments by governments. 315 00:22:21.340 --> 00:22:24.060 Often hiring private firms to execute the work. 316 00:22:24.240 --> 00:22:28.660 But nonetheless, there's a sense of which if you want to create new technology platforms, 317 00:22:28.980 --> 00:22:32.920 you've got to have long-term big investments by the public sector. 318 00:22:33.360 --> 00:22:38.460 And instead of viewing environmental problems as a sign of the coming apocalypse, we would, 319 00:22:38.800 --> 00:22:41.540 instead of viewing them as unintended consequences of development. 320 00:22:41.820 --> 00:22:45.200 And that we're going to deal with them through more development and more technology. 321 00:22:45.420 --> 00:22:50.180 We're not going to solve global warming by all of us trying to live with less. 322 00:22:50.520 --> 00:22:52.240 Literally it's an impossible task. 323 00:22:52.520 --> 00:22:56.840 We'd have to go, we can show you the numbers on it, you'd have to go to Somalia levels 324 00:22:57.420 --> 00:23:02.580 of energy in the developed world in order to reduce emissions sufficiently. 325 00:23:03.300 --> 00:23:07.500 Instead, what we need to do if we want to deal with a problem like climate change is 326 00:23:07.500 --> 00:23:08.540 embrace technology. 327 00:23:08.540 --> 00:23:12.720 We need to embrace technological innovation, make clean energy cheap, make nuclear power 328 00:23:12.720 --> 00:23:17.740 safer, smaller, cheaper so that we can move away from fossil energy. 329 00:23:19.120 --> 00:23:24.860 And I think finally, the new politics has to be skeptical of identity politics, which 330 00:23:24.860 --> 00:23:31.460 is overly divisive, kind of a resentment-based discourses that I think kind of get in the 331 00:23:31.460 --> 00:23:34.760 way of actually speaking about what we have in common and what we share. 332 00:23:35.220 --> 00:23:38.520 And then finally, there's some sense in which we need to be reformers. 333 00:23:38.520 --> 00:23:39.980 And I think that's what we need to be reformers of the public sector. 334 00:23:40.140 --> 00:23:42.940 It's not good enough for us to simply be pro-government. 335 00:23:42.980 --> 00:23:45.980 We also have to acknowledge that in many places government really is bloated. 336 00:23:46.100 --> 00:23:53.880 You really do have government agencies that have overstepped their mandate or that need 337 00:23:54.700 --> 00:23:59.480 some pension reform or other reforms in order to become fully modern and functioning institutions. 338 00:24:00.260 --> 00:24:01.540 So with that, we'll stop. 339 00:24:01.700 --> 00:24:02.660 And thank you very much. 340 00:24:10.540 --> 00:24:14.380 I think we'll stay here for the dialogue that's about to unfold. 341 00:24:14.560 --> 00:24:16.560 We have 30 minutes. 342 00:24:16.640 --> 00:24:20.900 I'll ask an initial question and then while that's being answered, I'm going to encourage 343 00:24:20.900 --> 00:24:25.460 you if you're in this lower part of the auditorium, there's a microphone right in the middle here 344 00:24:25.460 --> 00:24:27.040 if you can line up behind that microphone. 345 00:24:27.340 --> 00:24:30.240 If you're in the upper gallery, there's a microphone off to your left. 346 00:24:30.760 --> 00:24:37.180 Let me start by either Ted or Michael just responding to a word that I heard a second 347 00:24:37.180 --> 00:24:37.420 ago. 348 00:24:37.420 --> 00:24:42.400 It's a bit of a catch word here in the debate, the nuclear power option. 349 00:24:43.080 --> 00:24:44.780 Is it an option for Australia? 350 00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:48.740 It's completely off the agenda at the moment and has created a great deal of controversy 351 00:24:48.740 --> 00:24:50.020 in the last half a dozen years. 352 00:24:50.260 --> 00:24:51.140 Where do you stand on that? 353 00:24:52.880 --> 00:24:53.400 Sure. 354 00:24:54.240 --> 00:24:57.460 Well, it's an option if you decide it's an option. 355 00:24:59.620 --> 00:25:07.400 I think when you look at the options to radically decarbonise the nuclear power, I think that's 356 00:25:18.100 --> 00:25:30.020 where Australia would be the case. 357 00:25:30.200 --> 00:25:35.780 Australia would be the case for sure, would be the case for sure for sure for sure for 358 00:25:35.780 --> 00:25:35.800 sure for sure for sure for sure for sure for sure for sure for sure for sure for sure for 359 00:25:35.800 --> 00:25:35.820 sure for sure for sure for sure for sure for sure for sure for sure for sure for sure for 360 00:25:35.820 --> 00:25:37.380 sure for sure for sure for sure for sure for sure for sure for sure for sure for sure for 361 00:25:37.380 --> 00:25:45.980 entirely with nuclear power, Sweden with nuclear power, and a lot of hydro. So if you are, you know, 362 00:25:45.980 --> 00:25:51.560 deeply concerned about climate change and the potential for, particularly for catastrophic 363 00:25:51.560 --> 00:26:00.680 risks from climate change, and you are skeptical of nuclear power, you just need to take a hard 364 00:26:00.680 --> 00:26:06.380 look again at just the basic math of global emissions and the realities of the technologies 365 00:26:06.380 --> 00:26:13.320 we have, just full stop. Do you want to add anything? No. Okay. I mean, I can later, but. 366 00:26:13.400 --> 00:26:18.960 I think someone moved to the microphone. It's this first question here. Yeah. Hi, guys. I just, 367 00:26:18.980 --> 00:26:24.300 I guess my main question is, I feel like there's, yesterday we had a presentation that was about 368 00:26:24.300 --> 00:26:28.600 drifting into failure and how a small change of language can make a massive impact on an outcome. 369 00:26:29.440 --> 00:26:34.660 And I guess my question is about the difference between the battle between renewable and 370 00:26:34.660 --> 00:26:35.760 non-renewable energy. 371 00:26:36.380 --> 00:26:42.720 And what you see as the dichotomy between clean energy and fossil fuels. And I noticed that the 372 00:26:42.720 --> 00:26:47.180 trick of language is that when you talk about the debate between clean, renewable and non-renewable, 373 00:26:47.220 --> 00:26:51.940 that uranium is taken out of the equation because it's non-renewable energy. And I'm wondering, 374 00:26:52.020 --> 00:26:55.620 is that deliberate? Because I seem, you know, like, I mean, in terms of, you know, like, if we assess 375 00:26:55.620 --> 00:27:00.900 your presentation, it seemed like 80% of it was attacking the left and the last 20% was uranium 376 00:27:00.900 --> 00:27:05.620 is the future. And I'd like to thank the South Australian government and the primary industry 377 00:27:06.380 --> 00:27:12.260 for putting on today's presentation. But I'm just wondering, like, is this basically, I'm not aware of your work, 378 00:27:12.340 --> 00:27:17.580 is this basically what you do? 80% attack the environment movement, 20% advocate uranium? 379 00:27:18.420 --> 00:27:19.500 And advocate uranium. 380 00:27:22.100 --> 00:27:26.100 Well, I mean, I thought, I hope you would see something more there than just an attack. 381 00:27:26.960 --> 00:27:32.080 It's really a story about where we think the left went wrong in becoming anti-modern. 382 00:27:32.340 --> 00:27:36.080 Well, I guess I'll follow up by asking, 383 00:27:36.380 --> 00:27:40.380 you know, like, you know, I was really excited to see so many people here to, you know, address the topic, 384 00:27:40.480 --> 00:27:44.140 a new politics for a new century. And I'm really inspired to see this many people who are genuinely 385 00:27:44.140 --> 00:27:49.580 interested in engaging in this topic. And I invite you in the last 25 minutes of the session to be inspiring. 386 00:27:50.860 --> 00:27:51.840 I'm sorry, I missed the last thing. 387 00:27:52.780 --> 00:27:54.700 It's going to be inspiring, I think you said. 388 00:27:54.820 --> 00:27:57.980 Yeah, yeah, I'm inviting you to be inspiring because I feel like the energy in the room 389 00:27:58.400 --> 00:28:02.180 is lower than it could be. And, you know, like, you guys have been thinking about this for a long time. 390 00:28:02.280 --> 00:28:06.000 So inspire us about not just the role of government or, you know, 391 00:28:06.380 --> 00:28:06.900 but our role. 392 00:28:07.100 --> 00:28:09.860 Yeah. Well, I mean, I think there's a lot to be inspired about. 393 00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:17.440 I mean, you saw over the last 20 years, 500 million Chinese get lifted out of backbreaking agrarian poverty 394 00:28:19.180 --> 00:28:23.880 into fairly, you know, modern lives, long lifespans. 395 00:28:24.600 --> 00:28:28.400 So I think there's a whole set of things that I think we in the West kind of look at with horror. 396 00:28:28.720 --> 00:28:34.540 You know, China, it's making all the same mistakes we made, such as longer lifespans, you know, 397 00:28:34.540 --> 00:28:35.880 greater energy consumption. 398 00:28:36.820 --> 00:28:38.260 Better medical access. 399 00:28:39.060 --> 00:28:44.300 So, I mean, I think we look at the next century and we're very excited about the potential, you know, 400 00:28:44.300 --> 00:28:50.660 and excited about the potential of development and technology to really have a world where all 10 billion people 401 00:28:50.660 --> 00:28:52.640