Clean Air and Economic Progress: A Profitable Replacement for Petroleum—Graciela Chichilnisky—Global Thermostat
Finding Genius Podcast
Richard Jacobs
4.4 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 16 July 2020
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today's episode features Graciela Chichilnisky, CEO & Co-founder of Global Thermostat and Professor of Economics and Statistics at Columbia University.
Tune in to discover:
- What long-standing common assumption regarding the economy and environmental health is being turned upside down by a new carbon-sequestering technology
- Why direct-air carbon sequestration is necessary for a carbon-negative technology, and how many gigatons of CO2 must be removed from the atmosphere each year in order to prevent catastrophic climate change
- Why carbon sequestration will never produce a deficit of CO2 in any location
In 1997, US Congress passed the Byrd-Hagel law, which states that there shall be no limitations on greenhouse gas emissions in the US if those limitations would have a negative impact on the economy. This law was passed under the assumption that economic development and a cleaner environment are incompatible goals, and as a result, emissions have gone unchecked and led to dire consequences.
Global Thermostat is a company that's turning this assumption on its head; the premise and mission of the company is that it is very much possible to lower emissions and remove CO2 from the atmosphere while at the same time spurring economic development and the creation of jobs. They have created and implemented technology that removes CO2 from the atmosphere in a profitable way by selling it to companies that use it for CO2-desalination processes and the creation of clean gasoline.
"CO2 is a very valuable gas that can replace petroleum to produce a lot of goods and services, including clean polymers, biofertilizers…beverages and food…and synthetic fuels," Chichilnisky explains. She continues by describing how the technology works to remove factory-produced CO2 and CO2 directly from the atmosphere via direct air capture.
Currently, Global Thermostat is working with ExxonMobil and several other large companies to determine the best way of scaling up and removing 40 gigatons of CO2 from the atmosphere every year, which is what the United Nations and US National Academy of Sciences computes is necessary in order to avoid devastating consequences of climate change.
Press play for the full conversation and visit https://globalthermostat.com/ to learn more.
Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Transcript
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| 0:07.0 | 95% of people in any profession are good enough to be qualified and licensed. |
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| 0:18.0 | Richard Jacobs has made it his life's mission to find them for you. He hunts down and interviews geniuses in every field, |
| 0:25.0 | sleep science, cancer, stem cells, ketogenic diets, and more. Here come the geniuses. |
| 0:30.3 | This is the Finding Genius Podcast. |
| 0:33.0 | That is Richard Jacobs. |
| 0:35.0 | Hello, this is Richard Jacobs with the Finding Genius Podcast. |
| 0:41.0 | I have Grassella Chichniski, she's the CEO and |
| 0:44.8 | co-founder of Global Fermatat. She's a professor of economics and |
| 0:49.0 | statistics at Columbia University. So welcome Gr Graciella, how you doing? |
| 0:53.6 | Hello. Yeah. So if you would tell me about your work and what's the premise of global |
| 0:59.5 | thermostat? Yeah, the premise of local thermostat is that the world needs to remove a lot of CO2 from the atmosphere |
| 1:11.0 | and it is possible to change the economy so that we can do it while creating |
| 1:18.1 | economic development and jobs. |
| 1:21.6 | So that is not just the premise, but it's also the mission of Global Thermostra. |
| 1:29.1 | So is it commonly thought that in order to control our climate and to prevent it from warming that we have to sacrifice economic activity? |
| 1:38.0 | Yes, in fact, there is a law that was passed in 1997, both in Congress, in the United States, saying that there |
| 1:48.8 | will be no limitation on emissions in the United States if it has a negative impact on the economy. |
| 1:57.5 | And it was assumed that it does. |
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