A Climate Change Debate with Nate Harmon and Steve Barbour - WBD589
The Peter McCormack Show
Peter McCormack
4.7 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 5 December 2022
⏱️ 149 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Nate Harmon is CEO and cofounder of OceanBit; Steve Barbour is CEO and founder of Upstream Data; both are Bitcoiners. In this interview, we debate climate change: the reliability of climate models, climate change mitigation, adaptation and the forecast inequality of climate change impacts.
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What Bitcoin Did has discussed both sides of the climate change debate with a number of esteemed guests. The reasoning is two-fold: firstly, one of Bitcoin's major attack vectors is energy use and associated climate change impacts; secondly, it is one of the major issues of our time, arguably the most pressing issue. These shows have either expressed one side or another, until now.
Bitcoiners are a broad church. That is an inherent strength. But is also brings its own internal pressures. Whilst there is broad consensus on Bitcoin's mission, there are divergent opinions on a host of other issues that this new form of money affects. None more so than climate change. Many believe in the need for fossil fuels to enable humans to continue to flourish; others argue that we need to rapidly pivot from fossil fuel reliance if we're to avoid an existential crisis.
However, the debate is not open-ended. There is a strong argument that the framing of the current discussion falls within agreed boundaries. It doesn't feel contentious to state both sides of the debate within the Bitcoin community agree that abundant energy is needed and that the climate is warming. The disagreement is focused on the rate of climate change and the approach to mitigation.
Obviously, whilst there is agreement that narrows the parameters of any debate, the outstanding issues are complex, contentious and critical. The stakes on both sides are high; discussion and compromise are vital. Can we within the community find common ground? Is it possible to attenuate the growing animosity around this subject? Can Bitcoiners lead the way in being open-minded, receptive and malleable to different ideas? Let's start engaging and find out.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We can't just let these people die. I came up with the best plan that I could possibly do and that's to bring them as much energy as possible in |
| 0:16.4 | as least damaging away because if you have unlimited energy you can solve |
| 0:21.6 | unlimited problems. |
| 0:24.0 | Hello there, how are you all? |
| 0:26.0 | Did you have a good weekend? |
| 0:28.0 | Are you enjoying the football? |
| 0:29.0 | Watch England last night. |
| 0:31.0 | You became Senegal, we've now got France in the next round of the |
| 0:34.1 | World Cup. Very exciting. I think the country will typically get over excited. |
| 0:39.5 | They'll be muttering as of because home, and then it'll be disappointment. |
| 0:45.0 | As again, England crash out of another major tournament. |
| 0:48.0 | Anyway, welcome to the What Bitcoin did podcast, which is brought to you by Gemini the only place I'm using |
| 0:54.2 | for buying Bitcoin I'm your host Peter McCormack and today I've got Nathaniel Harmon |
| 0:58.4 | back on the show alongside Steve Barber they are going to debate the impact of climate change and what we should do to mitigate it. |
| 1:06.0 | Now, a few people have wanted to have this kind of discussion with Nathaniel since he came on the show. I think it was originally |
| 1:16.2 | Alex Epstein who wanted to do it but we couldn't make it happen but Steve Barber put his |
| 1:19.8 | hand ward and said listen I want to this, I want to chat to Nathaniel. |
| 1:23.6 | So whilst we're out in LA, I was only happy to facilitate it. |
| 1:28.0 | Now listen, this isn't the perfect debate. |
| 1:30.1 | It does go off track a little bit. |
| 1:31.6 | And I do my best to try and help bring it back in line to have some sense of kind of structure to it but yeah it does go all over the place a little bit sometimes but still we get the chance to listen to both sides to listen to the points they |
| 1:43.9 | wanted to make with regards to this. Now Nate has been calling out everyone on |
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