You're listening to The Great Simplification with Nate Higgins.

That's me.

On this show, we try to explore and simplify what's happening with energy, the economy, the environment, and our society.

Together with scientists, experts, and leaders, this show is about understanding the bird's

eye view of how everything fits together, where we go from here and what we can do about

it as a society and as individuals.

Today's episode, we will be talking with Chuck Watson.

I've known Chuck for about 15 years when we used his damage infrastructure maps on

the oil drum.com every time there was a hurricane that was threatening the oil and gas

infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico.

But over the years, I've come to know Chuck and realize that he is one of the smartest

humans I've ever met.

And he pairs his intelligence with wisdom, which is a trait that I really value.

Chuck has worked on risk in many fields related to civilization. And he's worked for governments,

for government agencies, and in the private sector. And to be honest, I don't even know the

particulars of Chuck's professional background because it's complicated and confidential.

And I'm probably not supposed to know. Suffice to say that Chuck has become a friend,

a colleague, and is on a team of humans trying to educate and wake people up on the risks

that we collectively face. This episode surprised me because we ended up talking about a risk

that most people don't talk about, which is geopolitics and the increasing chance of a nuclear exchange. I hope you learned some things, as I did, about this increasingly important underlying risk to our future. Here's a conversation with Chuck Watson.

So, Chuck, you and I have known each other going on 15 years. We met when you were doing risk analysis for the hurricane impact

on Gulf of Mexico oil infrastructure when I was running the oil drum. And we've become

...