I've never been more optimistic than I am now. I just think that when you think about where we were as a society right where we basically said fossil fuels are a necessary evil to a modern lifestyle,

anyone who decides to get off of fossil fuels by definition

is choosing a low GDP growth path for their country, right?

That's really where we were in 2008, I'd say. Today, it's been fully decoupled.

Hello and welcome to Wises Happ happening with me your host Chris Hayes.

One of the themes on this program when we talk about climate which we do a fair amount

is that it's the best of times and it's the worst of times in climate.

There was just a day recorded where global temperatures on Earth reached more than 2 degrees centigrade above the pre-industrial

mean and last year was the hottest year on record.

The threshold boundary that we had been sort of shooting for was one and a half degrees of centigrade warming,

two at the outmost and we're starting to bump up against that.

So when you look at what's happening with the actual climate and the amount of fossil fuel we've already put in the air,

the amount of carbon we've already put in the air and what it's doing, it's terrifying.

And as terrifying and bad as it's ever been, which makes sense, this is a cumulative process and the longer things go, the more the planet worms.

That's the worst of times part of it, but the best of times part of it is the fact that in the 20 years that I've covered this issue, the last three years I would say,

three to five, but really the last three has been the period where actual explosion in solutions in

actual green tech carbon-free energy has been happening at a pace that's

unlike anything I've seen before, totally unmatched previously in the history of

energy development on the planet. And a lot of that has been spurred since the signing in 2021 of the Inflation Reduction Act.

And the Inflation Reduction Act included more money towards

climate, green energy subsidies, tax credits, and research and development than any piece of legislation ever in American history.

It's spurred a huge amount of clean tech investment, and there's really interesting things happening all throughout the government and all throughout the private markets in this space.

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