Bill McKibben

That should tell you what you need to know.

And Bill McKibben, could you say something about the progress that the divestment movement has made and why you think divestment is likely to be a more successful strategy with Exxon and getting them to change their climate policy?

Well, I think that the real point of the divestment movement has been to kind of withdraw the social license from these fossil fuel companies and thereby reduce their political power the reason we haven't gotten anywhere on climate change for the 40 years that we've known about it is precisely because these guys wield so much political power i mean look exxon knew perfectly well that what Anna's grandfather was saying was correct.

They set to work climate-proofing all their own drilling rigs and other installations to account for the sea level rise they now knew was coming.

Um, when you're thinking about your energy bills, um, when you're thinking about what jobs are available to you.

I mean, I recently learned from Bill McKibben, who's my new co-host for the What If We Get It Right? podcast, that there's more people who, in America, who work at Arby's than who work in the coal industry.

Mm.

Like, clean energy is where all the jobs are at, where all, they're all emerging, and a lot of those are actually in red states, but we're not talking about that in the ways we should be.

Is it the f- certainly by the '70s, maybe even earlier.

Bill McKibben said that, told us, the first person to tell us about a story in the LA Times-

Yeah

... a few years ago, talking about how there were internal memos, not unlike what the cigarette companies had done years, decades ago-

We have on the podcast today an exciting return from dear old friend Leah Stokes, who back Back when we first met her was just a lovely assistant professor, just establishing herself.

And now she is a force of nature where you're going to see her out there giving talks, occupying stages with Bill McKibben and Naomi Klein and oh, oh, oh, oh, Ezra Klein.

Two Kleins, like every Klein in the world, right?

Not Calvin Klein, but...

However, sometimes.

people do not actually read the book like when they're interviewing you, which is OK. It's just that I try to actually read the book.

Like I interviewed Ezra Klein about abundance and I read the book and there's lots of interesting ideas there or Bill McKibben.

You know, he has a new book.

Um, I saw a clip the other day.

Climate change activist Bill McKibben came out.

Um, Chief Nerd cut the clip.

Mm.

So Michael, to you, how serious is Penny Wong's lie, and should Penny Wong be apologizing?

Well, the authoritarians in Geneva hate it when, uh, uh, people like Natasha Hausdorfer make these kind of brief speeches.

I've done it too.

But, um, Penny Wong doesn't have the courage of her convictions to correct a mistake when she's obviously made one.

But it could.

Well, Bill McKibben wrote a great book a few years ago called something, uh, about his experience in where he grew up in Lexington, Massachusetts.

Liberal town, everyone wants affordable housing, but when it came time to actually do it, everybody voted against it.

There were sign, yard signs and the whole bit, and they w- he talked about that, that tension.