 Hi, I'm Jay Fidel. This is ThinkTech, and we're talking about Community Matters with David and Tice Vogel. They're here in town, and they are co-founders of the Volo Foundation, which is a private family foundation that exists to educate the public. We're going to do that now to create a sustainable and secure planet for generations to come. What's more is that this is an attempt to achieve positive change for the planet through data-driven research. And David is a data-driven scientist. I mean, he's a driven scientist who likes data. I get that right, David. That's right. Welcome to the show, David. Tice, welcome to the show. So you have some slides, and there's some things you want to impart, and I want to give you the opportunity to talk about Volo Foundation, talk about its work, and talk about the climate change science and conclusions that we need to know. So Volo Foundation started in 2014, and down in Florida, we live in Florida, but David was born in Hawaii. That's why we have so much interest in coming here and sharing our knowledge with you all. And I always say that people that know us, we're very different. David is a data scientist. David is the one that talks to that community and more of the everyday mother of six that talks to the everyday people. So we become a bridge between the science and the everyday people. That's perfect, perfect. That's the way you have to do it, right? Otherwise, there's too much distance between the science and everyday life. So the science is very interesting to me. You guys have a regular newsletter, you publish articles, you encourage others to write articles and do research on this. You are really getting more and more active in the area, and it requires that. Unfortunately, we are distracted in recent months with COVID, but you haven't stopped. I noticed that you keep on going and you keep on doing your work and publishing your findings. David, what have you been learning? What can you tell us today? What are your slides show about creating a sustainable and secure planet? It's really important we can never forget it. I think it's important for people to realize the connection between climate change and the effects on our economy. Because consistently, the economy ranks number one on the issues. Climate change ranks somewhere down there, depending on the group. But it's so closely tied to the economy. And what we do is we draw the relationship between each kind of carbon we produce and the damage it creates economically and to our health. And so that's really what the research shows us. And I think if it can be presented correctly, there are certainly policies, many, many different policies that can work to prevent further change in the climate and change in our temperature. Yeah, so policies, my policies, you're really talking about government policies, because that's where the leadership must come from. And today, I think we're going to focus on carbon policies and carbon, the benefits of carbon policies. And I like to hear your most current thinking about that. We have some states that are actually entertaining the carbon tax and maybe there's other incentives you can tell us about. It's all about incentivizing the change of human conduct. That's the way we can save the planet. And it seems like if you look at it from an economic point of view, it's monetary policies, monetary incentives, like a tax or credit, whatever. So tell us your latest thinking. Well, in order to stay on partisan on this, we sort of present a spectrum of policies so certainly there's the carbon tax which you probably hear a lot about, but, but many are many object to an additional tax. So the idea of carbon fee, carbon dividends, where the polluters are charged a fee for every time for basically the damage has been done and that money is given back to the public. There's not an additional tax on households tax on the on the actual polluters. And what that does economically actually patches in efficiency in our economy, where players can actually do more damage than the actual profits, they produce. You can actually patch that efficiency, it makes that that one carbon pricing policy can actually fix everything because capitalism is very powerful. Once you price him the correct, the correct cost of carbon, then all of a sudden the clean energy becomes more competitive and you don't have to listen to that with incentives and caps and all this regulation. The free market can actually solve itself if you, if you make it efficient. Well, maybe I know we want to go through the slides but a couple of things come to mind. Number one is a tax would be across the board. And that means a tax would be regressive on people who don't have a lot of money. In these days, we're interested in what we would call a social justice. That's, you know, a fundamental piece of movement around the country. And query what do you say to the people who say David, a carbon tax is regressive, because it affects everybody the same way and some people are better able to pay it than others. What do you say to them. I'd say there's a lot of adjustments that can be made is probably half a dozen policies that have been proposed and some more, some regressive some more progressive. And that's really something for the politicians to work out to make it fair and certainly we're in favor of something that is socially fair. But the fact of the matter is, it doesn't actually matter. Where the exact economics of where the money is going, for example, is not actually important in solving climate change. It's actually just that just the fact that the pollution is charged is the whole in the in making the economy work and just so just the fact that the pollution is charged actually fixes the problem. This is creating a damage day. I mean, you cannot go and destroy the house and not pay for it. They, the polluters, the big companies are creating this damage that at the end of the day, we, the constituents are paying for it because every time that we have to recuperate from a damage, the problems in the droughts and the California fires, we are paying out of our taxes. Yes, so people don't understand that they are already paying for it in the state of paying for attacks because they don't like the war tax. Let's charge the real polluters. Yeah, and it's only fair if you're looking for fairness is David pointed out. You want you want to assign the burden to the people who have have have emitted most of the carbon you know so it should be proportional to the amount of carbon that that you are responsible for emitting. I'm sorry David you were saying. Yeah, so. Basically, it's like I can't. Well, I'll give you a stat, a statistic that's pretty mind blowing if you look at just the last decade. The net profit of the oil gas industry was $850 billion. The climate damages done was $1 trillion. We're actually at a point with emissions, where the damages to the public exceeds the amount of economic gain. That's a negative. And yet you don't subtract from GDP. So it looks like our GDP is growing. And yet people have less and less and you ask why that's why we're, we're spending tax dollar monies to for climate damages. Huge numbers how do you quantify the incentive or the disincentive the tax whatever mechanism you're going to use. That sounds like something for a data scientist doesn't it. Many, many more scientists than I working on this on that very problem. And there are specialists working in different areas, quantifying storm damages quantifying medical costs in different parts of the world, quantifying the cost of droughts. And so collectively within. If you were to add up what all these specialists have come up with it could be on the order of as much as $200 per ton. Well, that's we need to change conduct. And I suppose the fringe benefit is this will give government some money to spend in ameliorating climate change on the other side of the question so it's a win win. As far as that's concerned, but you know it strikes me that if you want to create a sustainable and secure planet using carbon incentives, carbon policy and the benefits. You have to do it on a global basis. You're not, you don't want to just limit it to one area one country, even one continent, you want to you want to go as far and wide as you possibly can. So am I right about that is that the way you guys address it. You're correct. It does have to be global. And if you get into the details of some of these proposed policies they have border adjustments. But first of all, if we want to be the best country in the world we have to be leaders, we have to start with with pricing here and other countries have already started with that leadership. So for example, Sweden, many places in Europe already have price on carbon and the form of carbon tax, we don't have to do it carbon tax, the price carbon. So we have to show leadership, and then then create a border adjustment. So tax the import that that country is not taxed carbon so there are actually fixes to make this a global policy. So one more question before we get to your slides I do want you to present them but strikes me that to get government to adopt policies which is really the name of the game here and policies that will work. You have to have their attention, you have to have government's attention. And the problem right now is we have a pandemic. If you look at the news, you know, any paper, any paper in the world. The headline is going to have something to do with COVID-19. How do you get their attention in a world which is so focused and so distracted on on COVID. When in fact, when in fact this is as much an existential threat as COVID is, in my view anyway. I think I send you an offer that I did in Florida for Mother's Day. And even though I was focused more on what's going on in Florida. He said, this is a dress rehearsal, the COVID the pandemic is a dress rehearsal for climate change or for the environmental changes that we have until we realize that we have a broken relationship with nature, we're going to have more pandemics, we're going to have future and more often pandemics happening in the world. When people make the connection about climate change, health and social, you're talking about the social racism and social problems right now. It's just a circle, and it has to come together. So we have to make everybody understand that climate change is super tight to the pandemic. And now that we are learning from the COVID the coronavirus didn't see race, didn't see color, didn't see geographical location, climate crisis is exactly the same. And we didn't come as fast and furious like the COVID-19, but little by little is killing us. So whether is that a health issue because of the air pollution and the cleaner act in the government has to take care of their population. I'm afraid we're going to be reminded by the weather soon enough. We're almost into hurricane season in the summer, and the weather will remind us exactly what we have to do here. It'll emphasize the priorities as well happen. David, you were saying something. Yeah, I think it's also a wake up call to not like what happens when we ignore science. I think Hawaii certainly did very well with COVID, very few people. So the person Hawaii did very well in paying attention to the scientists and a lot of states, we didn't. And while other countries were hunkering down and keeping the cases low and testing, we ended up with the most cases in the world. And that was from ignoring science. So I feel like this should be a wake up call. We should not be ignoring. Absolutely. Climate change for every single scientist agrees at least 99% that climate change is inevitable and it's going to be a much bigger effect than COVID. We're going to have parts of the country that are disappearing. It really is very frightening. And when you mix it all together, it's super frightening. So let's let's look at your slides. Why don't we put the first one up and then you can explain it to us and then tell us the track of your thinking. And so this line here shows where the burden of storm damages are falling and how it's changing over time. You can see, and I'll draw your attention to the bars on the right. You can see that the rate and area is the percentage of climate damages being paid by insurance companies. So more and more insurance companies are pulling out of liabilities and they're not they're not covering the coverage is falling on the upon the US taxpayers. And you see a bigger and bigger percentage being paid by taxpayers or or uninsured losses. So that's the American public. And if you look at that middle graph, it shows that climate damages, double or triple every single decade, past several decades, as a result of climate change. So we're at the American public is paying a higher percentage of a higher number. And so it's really just illustrates how it's hitting us in the in the wallet. It keeps climbing. It makes Al Gore look old fashioned. Why don't you go on with the next slide. And this illustrates exactly how many dollars is coming out of the average American wallet. And so it's up to almost $1,000 per household per year and keeping in mind that only half of American households actually pay taxes, if you're a taxpayer that $2,000 a year on average, coming out of your taxes pay for climate damages. What used to be maybe $1 to $1 billion aid packages from the government on is now for storm damages. Now we see $50 billion pack like storm aid being paid on a single storm. So and that's coming out of your wallet. That's all based on that's all part of the carbon damages that the fossil fuel companies are not being charged for. You know, you don't have to engage in predictive analysis, but it's clear from that chart, it's going to go up further, and it will continue to go up. Yeah. Okay, have with the next one. So the next one is a good illustration of how the damages compared to the actual fossil fuel company profits. So, so we think of profits as as income coming into the money coming into the economy going into the pockets of Americans. But you see in the last decade, the storm damages exceed the profits of the fossil fuel industry. So that's like I mentioned in the beginning, that's negative income to the US. We have more. Yeah, okay. So I mentioned that that if you were to add up the all the damages from various experts, it would be something like $200 per ton. And so I just wanted to put that in terms of price per gallon so you might go fill up your carbon gas and it may I don't know what it is and why maybe $4, $3, $4 a gallon. You buy there's an additional $2 of damage being done from the carbon emission. I mean, don't think of that. And so same with the lectures they use in your home in Florida, we only pay 11 or 12 cents per kilowatt hour, but I think you're about triple that here in Hawaii. Every kilowatt hour, if that energy is coming from coal, for example, that's an additional 20 cents per kilowatt hour and damages being done somewhere as a result of climate change. Well, as you know, Hawaii is trying to go to green energy to renewable energy, been trying to do that for, I'd say 15 years, maybe more. We've made some progress. And we have a number of shows on sync tech where we try to track on that progress. Problem is that right now, you know, our economy is suffering, and people are suffering and business ventures and developments and projects, you know, get slowed down a little bit. But there is plenty of plenty of interest and plenty of momentum at every level. So if you're looking for one community where everyone knows the story, or pretty much everyone about renewables, this this would be that that area. People have been educated here, hopefully, hopefully enough to make political will. If we have no more slides, I have some questions for you. We have more slides. So the work can go very quick and it just shows that in a country like Sweden that has imposed price on carbon, that it doesn't destroy their economy, they were able to see that consistent economic growth while driving emissions done. And I think to your other point to, you know, the economy is pretty right now. And as a result of COVID, we've got some like 15 to 20% unemployment now. So, now's the time to stimulate the economy, create jobs in energy. So now is actually a great time to solve two in one, provide jobs and create a clean economy. Make that transition to a renewable war, like to sustain a war. Well, you know, the question is, how you change public conduct. Every time you look there's more public. Every time you look there are more viewpoints and frankly, more confusion. I'm not talking about not necessarily Hawaii but the country, maybe the world. People don't know they don't know the connection between the melting of the ice caps and the change in the weather and the rise of the sea level. They don't really make the connection they don't believe that they can affect those things, even if they do make the connection. You know, really, what we need is a global effort, a global governmental effort to achieve better clarified, rational, appropriate policy, carbon policy. What would the policy be if I made you guys the king and queen of the universe, and I gave you, you know, the power to make any policy you wanted. What policy would you enact would you proclaim tomorrow. I think we're probably in agreement it's the carbon dividend is really good because it's a carbon neutral, not an additional tax, the tax polluters. And I think that one. I think, and it gets back to the people gives back right exactly goes back to the people and it will generate the generate clean energy just on its own because all of a sudden the clean energy becomes more economical that's where people will go rather than to pay the fee, but they're incurring my inclusion. The reality is that carbon pricing has never been on the forefront of any political party, because they all play the game of winner takes it all. So they have to understand first that it has to be a bipartisan issue. It has been a few bills in there, but it never has gotten because both party want to have it all it want to want it. The democrats want the Green New Deal, which is way too much way too soon. And then the Republicans don't want government intervention, but at the same time, they don't do anything about it. So, you have to find this bipartisan consents when Congress and people, political people think about everybody. I think also the comment after we get from politicians is if it's important, if it's important topic to the American public and it's important topic to them. Climate change is not high enough on people's risk for either not aware or deny or don't really understand the connection and you can see from the slides actually not that scientific. If you're a taxpayer paying 2000 a year for carbon damages and it's going up. And if you're aware of that and you should be upset with that and the majority of Americans want that to be addressed as a number one issue, then policymakers will make it that number one issue. I totally agree. The most important question that a constituent of somebody running for office is, what is your position on climate change. What is your position on carbon policy. What is your position on making this a sustainable planet. And I don't think that question is asked often enough. It should be asked every single, every single time, and every, every candidate for office should be able to answer that. And you should judge that candidate on the answer. Otherwise, we just never get education and like you were saying Hawaii is very highly educated on renewables on climate change. We shared that with every state in the United States and globally as well. And at the beginning of this administration we finally did something that all the countries agree and it was the Paris accord, and we had some goals there. Unfortunately, we pulled out of the Paris accord, but you have to have a global consensus because just like a social and health and economy. Everything is tied up and it's going to affect us all. Absolutely. The other the other point I would ask you about is, is the press the media. You know the media can also ask candidates questions they can ask them for their platforms on things. They can encourage policies or at least inquire into what the, what that candidate would adopt as a policy. Do you think the media is doing enough on this. I think you already know how I feel about it. One of the issues here is it's become so politicized. The media, the media does have some coverage but they're afraid has been perceived just by mentioning the topic of climate change as has been one one side of the aisle and the other so really really need to change the perception that it's not a political question is scientific reality. We have some meteorologists that are talking about it now. And I feel like people, they listen to the person that gives them the news every night, and we should start with the news. If it's something you talk about it every day people are going to pay attention to it. So to answer your question I don't think the media is doing enough in an issue as important as climate change. Yeah, don't be surprised I agree with you totally. The other thing is the schools. Now the problem with the schools young kids and I have seen this myself, young kids you know great schoolers and all that if you tell them about saving the planet if you tell them about climate change, they take the point. It's remarkable how, how, how, how quickly they get the message on this. The problem is, they're less than 10 years old, and they're not going to be holding office for a while they're not going to be in charge for a while. They take decades before those kids that you teach today are in a position to do something about this. So it's a delay problem. It's and it's time that we don't have we don't have that time, we have to act more quickly. So what would you say you guys, David ties what would you say to the schools to the educational system, not only, you know, here in this country but around the world, as to how to, you know how to make every one of those kids in every grade. Take this seriously and be ready to go out and change things. You know, Italy already have it in their curriculum and the curriculum in elementary, middle and high school. I think, again, the government has to make it something that has to be. And it should be an important topic in schools, because it's an important issue and it should be part of science. I think teaching kids is extremely important because we're going to be solving this problem for several decades. And also kids may bring it to the attention of parents. Yes, kids talk to their parents and their parents get educated too. You know, one thing it strikes me is that we live in a time when in COVID everybody talks about reimagining things reimagining our way of life our world order we're managing government reimagining social justice, you know, changing it all. I think those people, you know, we're demonstrating, you know, over the past month or so. That's what they want they want a better world. And I think it's really important that we fold this issue in for them. I think they will see it. We have to keep it at a high priority for them. It's just as important as every other issue if not more important, because it, you know, it's ultimately existential. You guys are a great team, you have created this a few years ago and even in my limited observation of how you've done you've expanded your reach you've expanded your, your outreach or your writing your, your, your, your, your newsletters and your articles and your research. It's really amazing. You have done really an enormous amount of outreach on the subject. I want to ask you though and that's a private foundation, which is really a great, a great compliment to your dedication. Where are you going with this. Right now it's, it's impressive it's admirable what where are you going. What what what are the next few years you expect to do in volo foundation. I think that right now volo because like you said we're reinventing ourselves and everybody's reinventing we're going more into the media into the ads on TV we have PSAs, mostly creating awareness, mostly educating not only the kids but educating the adults, mostly telling how to get involved as constituents as you say, learning about the candidates, learning what they're saying for learning, because it's too easy to blame everything also on the government when we are the ones that vote, when we are the one that is certain representative in our, in our, in our little part of where we live, and then we, we tell them oh they're not good enough well you voted for him. So, learn about that candidate us, and also getting bold. What are you, what are you run for office day. Exactly. So David we're almost out of time I want to ask you to say, provide us with the message you want to leave. Not only the people of Hawaii but you know our talk shows go far beyond Hawaii. What would you say to people to ask them to, you know, keep aware be more aware. of policies that will incentivize, you know, incentivize actions that will save us from climate change. What would you say to them what is your message that you want to leave with them. How would they demand that demand of your politicians that they have a solution or proposal to solve to be carbonized our society, and therefore solve climate change. We, we've got all the man that we all understand about telling us about economically and our health. And that if we want to, if we want our kids to enjoy what we enjoyed as a society. We need to demand our politicians address this. Yes, and I remember the last time we did a show with you guys. Tyce talked about that she talked about your kids. She talked about how important it is to leave a world that is livable to them. And then maybe that's one of the big reasons you guys do what you do about climate change, and about follow foundation. It's for your kids and I remember your comments about that last time Tyce, you want to repeat them for our viewer viewer audience. I always say they are my mother, they, they are the reason we do everything we do, and you want to preserve future generations and you want to make them leave them an environment in a world they can live in. Great. Thank you so much, Tyce, David, thank you for coming around. I hope you enjoy your time in Hawaii and I hope we can talk again soon. And we do admire the work you're doing.