Since 2017 host Jon Powers has tapped experts from the worlds of clean energy, finance, technology, and climate science to share experiences, opinions, and predictions for what’s next. This fall we will post the 100th episode of the Experts Only podcast; in anticipation of that milestone, we are sharing some listener favorites from the last four years. We hope you enjoy!
“Early in our work we realized that Americans don’t have a single viewpoint on climate change or frankly, any other important issue. You’ll hear a lot of people out there say, “Well, there are believers and there are deniers.” That is, unfortunately, way too simplistic and does real violence, in fact, to the reality, which is that there are a lot of different perspectives on this.”
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“There is this massive disparity in terms of the level of organization and resources and funds: the fossil fuel industry, the most powerful, wealthiest industry on the face of the earth on one side, and a bunch of scientists and environmentalists and other folks who don’t have those sorts of resources. But we do have a secret weapon, and that’s scientific truth. I like to think that that still matters even in the fact-challenged atmosphere that we now find ourselves.”
“The purpose of ARPA-E, the mission, is to invest in research on breakthrough ideas. Transformative ideas that–if successful–would have the chance of creating some foundational technologies, create the foundation for new industries that do not exist today. Someone had to initiate it because frankly, while these ideas could be wildly successful, they also were risky. And so the idea of ARPA-E is to identify these breakthrough transformative ideas and invest in them, and invest in the people who came up with these ideas.”
“Brains are evenly distributed, one per person. Therefore, most of the brains are not in the rich countries. Only half are in the heads of men. Most are in the heads of poor people who are very resourceful, and we have a lot to learn if we have the humility to look at what other people are coming up with. China is making extraordinary, world-leading progress in both efficiency and renewables. We’re seeing very exciting developments at both a national and a state and city level in India in rethinking personal mobility and making it shared, connected, and electric, and also fair and accessible to everybody. Some of the technical and policy innovations there, I think will have a big influence in other countries.”
“It’s always inspiring to meet people who are just simply on the ground doing good things without a lot of fanfare. And what you see is that there are so many wheels turning, making this new economy work. It’s not like there’s a bunch of people out there with green capes waving wands over everything. This thing [the energy transition] is happening on a daily basis at the community level, at the institutional level, at civic level, all because the simple economics are there.”
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