The older I get, the more comfortable I am with making upfront investments.

When I was younger, this was much more painful.

I knew the long-term benefits of an initial big spend would pay off,

but my immediate reaction was always, heck no, it can't be worth it.

I'm not necessarily talking about the stock market either.

I'm talking about making big

commitments upfront for the sake of a better, easier future experience. Take for instance,

the dentist. Yes, I'll admit, an unpleasant dental procedure coupled with the sticker shock

is not motivating. But in the long run, it makes sense to get a filling or replace the leaky old ones

rather than wait till the tooth situation becomes a way bigger and way more expensive problem.

If my immediate concern is spending money, well, money is coming out of my pocket either way.

It's just that in one of those scenarios, the cost might be much steeper in the

future, and it won't just be my wallet that gets hit. I'm a dupe acinola. This is Ted Business,

a podcast from TED. Today, we're learning all about the trillion dollar paradox. It's something

we've talked about before on this show,

the upfront cost required to transition the world to clean energy, and the new infrastructure

and hardware required to divest from fossil fuels. Sure, it seems really expensive, but actually,

as this TED ed lesson explains, the price of inaction is much worse.

Then after the lesson, we'll talk about how we get people on board.

But first, a quick break.

The public sector has never been more critical or more complex than it is today.

Leading into tomorrow from EY explores the issues facing the public sector.

...