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Educational Alpha
S2: Conversation with Brett Christophers, Professor, Department of Human Geography, Uppsala University
00:37:27
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- [00:05]
Bill Kelly
Welcome to Educational Alpha. I'm Bill Kelly, CEO of CHI association and your host. Bringing you on the ground conversations with business leaders, educators and industry colleagues from around the globe. Educational Alpha is sponsored by iCapital, the financial technology company with a mission to power the world's alternative investment marketplace. Part innovator, part educator, and part navigator of the alternatives industry, iCapital offers intuitive, scalable digital solutions that have transformed how private market and hedge fund investments are bought and sold. With iCapital, financial advisors, wealth managers and asset managers around the world now have access to everything they need to deliver the return and diversification potential of alternatives to high net worth investors. To learn more, visit icapital.com in this.
- [01:03]
Narrator
Episode, host Bill engages with Brett Christophers, professor of Human geography and author, to explore the intersections of private equity, climate, investment and the realities of capitalism. In tackling global issues. He delves into the premise of his book the Price Is Wrong, questioning the reliance on private capital to drive decarbonization and assessing the potential limits of profitability in achieving climate goals. Their conversation addresses policy gaps, the importance of long term investment vehicles, and the role of public versus private sectors in leading sustainable change. Listen in.
- [01:48]
Bill Kelly
Greg Christophers, welcome to Educational Alpha.
- [01:51]
Brett Christophers
Thank you for having me. It's lovely to be with you.
- [01:53]
Bill Kelly
I think this is, I would say, maybe a continuation for you and I, but maybe new to some of the listeners who may know of you. Maybe they've read some of your many books, maybe they've heard you on other podcasts. But you and I had the pleasure of spending a lot of quality time at the Global Arc, the Absolute Turn Congress just a few weeks ago in Boston. A home court advantage for me. You had several hours flight to join us, but just a great platform and we covered a lot of ground both in a keynote that you led and then we did one of these stream sessions for 90 minutes with asset owners and asset allocators and we'll cover a lot of that. But I think there are two sides to every coin and you've written many, many books. I think we're going to focus on the first couple. But before we get into all of that, maybe just have you introduce yourself to the audience in terms of background experience so they know what point of reference you're coming from.
- [02:42]
Brett Christophers
Sure. So I am a professor of Human geography, which won't mean much to most people at Uppsala University in Sweden. Human human geography, it's the discipline that I'm in, means different things to different people. I take it as an invitation to essentially write and think about whatever I want to write and think about. And in I guess over the last 10 years or so, I've been focused predominantly on questions related to the modern financial system and particularly questions related to institutional investment. And in that regard, questions of climate and environment have become more and more central to my thinking in the last few years. So that's a very high level introduction to who I am and where I'm coming from.
- [03:28]
Bill Kelly
Well, I do like the way you describe human geography, Brett, and I may change the name of this podcast, Educational Geography, because I can talk about and write about whatever I want too, which is really an unmoored way of going through life. As long as you're respectful and willing to listen to the other side of the argument. I think it gets a lot out there. Which maybe leads us to your second most recent book. And how many books have you written? It seemed to be a pretty lengthy list.
- [03:55]
Brett Christophers
I've written 10 books now over quite a long period of time, actually. I mean, interestingly, the first book I did came out of my master's degree and I then spent actually the best part of a decade away from academia working in management consulting, of all things, before then returning to academia. So I've had two lives, so to speak. And actually since returning to academia, that experience that I had in the commercial world, in the corporate world, turned out to be tremendously useful to me in terms of kind of understanding from the inside a bit more about the type of world that I've subsequently been writing a lot about.
- [04:33]
Bill Kelly
I think walking the walk is always an important attribute when you're going to be critiquing the industry as a whole. So as we said at Global Arc, and I'll just give them a quick shout out, I thought that was just an awesome platform. And Sam, Rob and David just put together a world class event and they've been at this for over two decades and said it got the two of us together. And when we were there, we did talk about your most recent book, the Price is Wrong, and we'll come to that. But I did say on the stage that the prior book, Our Lives and Their Portfolios, why Asset Managers Own the World, we didn't get a chance to cover that, but I saw a little bit of this snippet in your bio and what does interest me is that PE private equity is in limelight to a very large degree for some good reason, some bad. We've got a little bit of a plumbing problem in terms of assets being stuck in the system and that will fix itself eventually, but maybe more importantly, democratization is afoot and the average investor has more and more access to private equity. And I think there's a belief that it's the be all and end all not necessarily true. And I think if we had one of the titans in the PE space on here, they would say, well, they're here to serve the public good. And maybe as a headline, that's true, but maybe to serve the public good for five to seven years. And then they're just trying to maximize price upon exit. And we've seen PE get into dental practices, and I've got a concierge practice, and I don't know if I necessarily want a baker scholar sitting there determining what tests that doctor should give me. And we've seen this in housing and homes for the disabled population. So I don't know enough about the book, but maybe just talk about your view of the good and less good about the PE model.
- [06:11]
Brett Christophers
So you've given a really good lead in, I think, to what that book is about. So essentially what that book is about is about the fact that from pretty much the 1990s, asset managers who carry out private investment increasingly diversified away from their traditional asset classes, which were obviously stocks and bonds, and began to invest a lot more in various types of real assets. And the book is about their interest in two particular types of real assets. So one is housing in various forms. So that can be single family housing, it can be multifamily, it can be student housing, can be care homes. And then the other one is various types of infrastructure, which includes energy infrastructure, transportation infrastructure, so parking systems and toll roads, telecommunications infrastructure, even social infrastructure like hospitals and schools. And so that's what the book is about. And the connection to private equity is this, which is to say that when asset managers began to invest in these real assets beginning in the 1990s, what is, I think, very, very significant is that they lifted up the model that they had been using in private equity and essentially have, to a very large degree used the same model when investing in these real assets. There was no necessity that they would do that. They could have used different models, but for a variety of different reasons, some of which I don't think are entirely clear. They have typically used the private equity model, which of course means particular types of incentive structures, particular fee models, and particular fund vehicles, which, as you suggested, tend to be fixed term fund vehicles where investments are taking place, and then those funds eventually get wound up and the money gets returned to the investors, which of course means, if you're buying housing, say as an asset manager through that model, you're going to be looking to sell that housing not that long later, maybe five years later, maybe six or seven years later, but it's not going to be much longer than that. And the book basically makes an argument which is to say that it asks a question which is basically this question is, is it a good thing that asset managers have got increasingly involved in buying and owning these types of assets, which are assets that are very important in people's everyday lives if they live in them in the case of housing, or if they use them in their daily existence, and that they've done so through that private equity model. So that's basically in a nutshell, what the book is about.
- [08:48]
Bill Kelly
So a couple of follow up questions on this, Brett. So if somebody who was a student and a defender of the private equity world, they might say, well I've got shareholders and I have limited partners and they entrust capital to me to go out and maximize the return and give them multiple times of their capital back at the end of five to seven years. And that has always been my model. So what part of that did you not understand? And I did not force the owner of these assets to take my capital. They understood or should have understood the rules of engagement and yet they went in whole hog and off we went. So is it more of a challenge for maybe the type of capital or maybe a misunderstanding in the model? Because I don't think the PE model has changed so much as some of these maybe assets around housing or dental practices we're now seeing. Even public accounting firms that are maybe in the top decile of independents now have a private equity baker scholar telling them about opinion letters. And I'm exaggerating that, but these are not great developments. But I don't know what the solution is. I a hundred percent understand where you're coming from, but is there a different way of putting this capital to work that would maybe maximize results for everybody?
- [10:01]
Brett Christophers
That's a really good question. And let's be honest, I don't think there are any really easy answers to these questions. These are complicated issues with a whole set of interconnected and sometimes I think contradictory political and economic aspects to them. So let me just make a couple of different remarks in response to that question. So the first of those is to say that to me there's a kind of incongruity here, which is to say that one of the main reasons why many of the end investors that asset managers represent, and I'm thinking particularly Here of pension funds, not least public pension funds. One of the reasons they like to, at least in theory, like to invest in things like real estate and infrastructure, is that these are very long dated assets and that therefore they are able, through those investments to match the maturity with their very long dated liabilities that they have. And that seems to me to be fine. And at the same time, lots of these different types of assets, in particularly regulated ones, provide very predictable, reliable annual yields, again, which is the sort of thing that many pension funds are looking for. The problem, it seems to me, is that it doesn't necessarily make sense to me that if that's your goal and that's your framing, why would you route that money via fund vehicles that are very, very often short termist in nature? To me, there's a structural incongruity there that I think has never been satisfactorily explained. Interestingly, that's one of the reasons why the big Canadian public pension funds, when they invest in infrastructure, they typically do so directly rather than indirectly through asset managers, precisely because asset managers have not made what they would consider to be appropriate fund vehicles available. So that's the first comment I would make, which is the time horizons. The second comment I would make is, look, I approach these things eyes wide open. Absolutely. These asset managers have investors who are expecting them to make a return and they're going to invest in the types of assets where they think they can make their return. If I am sitting here saying I don't think this is a model that necessarily is ideal, if I'm sitting here saying I have some concerns about asset managers that are very, very returns driven, relatively short termist investing in things like low income housing and ratcheting up rent. My criticism is much more about the policymakers who have essentially said this is okay than it is about the capitalist actors that are undertaking. We know how these entities operate and we should be eyes wide open about that. And so my view is that if this thing shouldn't be happen, it should be regulated out of existence rather than relying on the actors themselves to make those decisions, not to make those investments.
- [12:55]
Bill Kelly
Good points. Maybe I'll just make one last one and then I want to move on to the price is wrong. So it's interesting just listening to you speak, this never really occurred to me. But when we think about and talk about private equity, we think about and talk about patient capital and in the public markets it's very impatient and fleeting and everything can be done intraday in T +1. But I wonder if we have that view a little bit upside down in that there's not a single public company out there that has to reset their capital stack every five to seven years. And if they had to do that, I don't know what the corporate motivation would be. So it might be interesting to think about shades of gray as opposed to one model being black and the other model being white. So if anything, you've enlightened my thought process there a little bit, so we'll just park it there. But maybe, as I said, if we're invited back to Global Arc, it might be interesting to do more exploration there. So, moving on from the PE model, we did spend a lot of our prior time together on the Price Is Wrong and the subtext is why Capitalism Won't Save the Planet. And this was in the construct of a wider discussion on esg. And maybe I'll just let you lay out the thesis on this and then we'll take it from there.
- [14:08]
Brett Christophers
As I think I said at Global Ark, actually, if I recall correctly, there's a relatively straightforward thesis, although the analysis that goes into it is quite dense in part, A lot of the book gets into the weeds of energy markets, particularly electricity markets, and how they work and how energy finance works. The basic argument is quite straightforward. And the basic argument is this, which is that a big part of the way in which the world is currently going about the question of tackling climate change, and specifically is going about the really central challenge of decarbonizing energy systems is, first of all, relying on solar and wind as the thrust of what new energy systems will and should look like. And secondly, and equally importantly, is relying largely on the private sector to do this. So for the most part, around the world, governments are not saying we're going to do this themselves. They're not saying we're going to publicly finance these infrastructure investments, put them on the public balance sheet, own and operate them as public assets. We're going to rely on the private sector to do it, but we will incentivise the private sector where necessary through things like tax credits in the US case, so under the Inflation Reduction Act. But we're relying on capitalists to do this. We're relying on the profit motive. At the end of the day, we are assuming that those private actors will see investments in solar and wind as investments that are likely to generate expected profits that will exceed hurdle rates, and therefore the investment will take place. And the basic argument of the book is that that is a very dangerous assumption to make when it comes to solar and wind. Because when you actually look at the business of solar and wind deployment, so developing solar and wind farms, owning and operating them, and selling the electricity that they generate, it turns out that the profitability characteristics of that business are somewhat problematic, are not particularly attractive, and that there are certain constraints around profitability in that business that represent pretty significant hurdles to investment in solar and wind on the scale and at the pace that we require for rapid decarbonization to take place. So basically it's a book about solar and wind not being sufficiently profitable to attract the investment that we need. And that in a nutshell, is what the argument of the book is.
- [16:35]
Bill Kelly
So if I came back to you, Brett, and showed you were short of solar and wind over the last 10 years and said look at the price of the commodity, your point is that's not driving capital, it's got to be profitable.
- [16:47]
Brett Christophers
That's exactly right. So I think that people have been misled is maybe too strong a word, but they've been seduced by those charts showing what have indeed been significant and relatively rapid falls in the cost of the generating technology, in the so called levelized cost of generating electricity through solar and wind. But as you say, it's not on the basis of price that capitalists invest. They invest on the basis of expected profitability. Now, of course, price is one thing that is factored into and shapes profitability, but it's not the only thing.
- [17:21]
Bill Kelly
So a couple of parallels to draw. One is, is it different for a global problem that needs a solution? And here I'm talking about climate more specifically than esg, broadly speaking, versus trying to solve for a specific healthcare issue, or how to maximize AI where you could find micro opportunities, where maybe the pricing made some sense. But you can go in there with a smart set of analysts, smart investors, and do quite well. But we're trying to globally address this issue and to try to attract the amount of capital we need does at least cause a reason to hit the pause button. And I'd mentioned this to you in the past, Brett, about the parallels to Covid, and maybe that's the closest experiment we had live and for horrendous reasons. But I think the point and the question I asked of you in the past is that instead of the government getting behind this, if they turned to industry and said, I want the private sector to solve for this, I need it done yesterday. We'll expedite the approval through the FDA once done. But once you come up with the vaccine, you have to give it away. I don't know if the private sector would have come running forward and maybe solved it with the same urgency that the sovereign did in the U.S. i.
- [18:37]
Brett Christophers
Think that's a great point, and particularly the point about, well, the implicit point you make there, which is that always implicit to that bargain was that there would be certain patent protections, intellectual property protections, that would buttress profitability for those actors. And of course, those capitalist enterprises that invested in and generated the vaccines have done very well out of it and wouldn't have done so well if they didn't have those intellectual property protections. And of course, if you transfer that thinking to the solar and wind context, the point I would make is this, which is that one of the main reasons why solar and wind deployment in the long run tends not to be an especially profitable business is that it's an incredibly competitive business and there are very few barriers to entry and very few, if any, sources of ongoing market power like you have with intellectual property in the pharmaceuticals context. And this absolutely connects us back to that previous point you made about declining costs, which is to say, take a hypothetical if you are, say, a wind energy developer and you've been around for 10, 15 years or more, and you've seen the cost of the generating technologies plummet over that time, then intuitively you would think, well, if my costs have fallen, then my profits are going to go up. But of course, your profits only go up if you are able as the generating company, to privatize or capture the upsides of those cost reductions. But of course, if you're operating in a really competitive market, then those cost reductions simply get competed away and passed downstream, often ultimately all the way to consumers. Which of course, is exactly what policymakers want. They want the energy transition to take place while keeping household bills as low as possible. And my point is simply that I don't think that is compatible. On the one hand, having very, very low household bills with, on the other hand, having significant profitability on the generator side and developer side to incentivize further investment.
- [20:41]
Bill Kelly
So I'm sitting here In Boston, it's November 8th, and I could go out in a pair of shorts and be comfortable. Today it's probably 60 degrees Fahrenheit. The snow falls, we don't see anymore. And this is. It's maybe like watching paint dry. And eventually when it does dry, you can see the results. But it's happening somewhat slowly, but then more and more rapidly and the ability to do something about it becomes much more of a challenge. And maybe we're almost at or past that point in over Return, but just a stat. And I think I quoted this before, I didn't write down the source, but it's one that I think is reliable. And it looked at how much of global electricity is being generated by fossil fuels. And the two data points were 1985 and then quite a few years later, 2022. So pretty widespread. 64% was generated through fossil fuel in 85, 61% in 2022. So progress, yes, but at a snail's pace. The planet gets warmer and warmer throughout the course. So maybe this buttresses your point to some degree, Brett, that if you're an investor, being way too early has a cost, but being a little bit early and being patient, you could do exceedingly well. But if somebody get into this trade in 85, 90, 95, they're still waiting for even an okay return on the investment. And they probably could have done better in Treasuries.
- [22:02]
Brett Christophers
I think there was. It's fairly clear now that up until, say, three or four years ago, there was what now looks like a bubble in renewable energy stocks. They did well periodically for a period of time, but the last three or four years have been pretty catastrophic for those holding renewable energy stocks. And I would argue that that is fundamentally about the dawning of a realization about the profitability characteristics of these businesses. That this is not like the classics of a business school case study where you throw money at a problem, you build market share, you accept those losses in the short term, and in the end it turns around and you get the mega profits that justify those valuations. The Uber or Amazon type thing. People waited and waited for the mega profits to come along, but they haven't come along precisely because of those profitability concerns that I was talking about. And I suppose my take on this would be the answer is not just to throw in the towel, but it's to say, well, what can be done to change the existing model so that a rapid energy transition is not dependent upon those profit imperatives, if you see what I mean.
- [23:14]
Bill Kelly
I do. So assume from the moment, Brett, that somebody nominate you as the worldwide czar on energy transition. And I don't know if such a position exists, but let's, for argument's sake, say you're in that role and perfection is not an outcome. Progress is what we need in sustainable progress. And what would be, magic aside, what would be the solution? And I think as you and I talked, and to quote maybe more of a Marxist than a capitalist, Lenin said that sometimes history needs a push. And maybe part of that push is you Got to get collectively the sovereigns behind this. But I don't know if that is the answer or if it's more complicated than that. But what would the global czar for climate say to that?
- [23:57]
Brett Christophers
It's a nice hypothetical to think. It's a nice thought exercise to work with. For the sake of arguments, let's focus specifically on the question of electricity, the power sector, and decarbonizing the power sector. I mean, I think one of the big problems, and again, you and I have talked about this before, is the fact that the most investment at this point in time is needed in countries that have the least capacity to undertake those investments. I'm thinking particularly about heavily indebted countries in the global south where you have very, very fossil fuel intensive power sectors and an expectation of pretty robust future growth in electricity demand going forward. So you have great need for investment, very limited fiscal capacity and very, very significant obstacles to private investment, not least because of a very high cost of capital associated with very high risk perceptions and all the rest of it. So what does that mean? I think it means that if you were the global czar, you would say, okay, I am calling on you rich country government to pull together a proportion of gdp, much as you currently do for say, development aid or whatever else it might be. And I am going to take that capital and I am going to direct it towards where it is most needed. And here's the thing, it might not be in your own countries. I think that's the key thing. Right? I think ultimately it will come down to a reliance on rich country sovereigns in significant part, I think directly or indirectly to fund the energy transition globally rather than just in their own countries. And of course, the political challenges associated with that are enormous, not least given some of the political changes we've seen in recent times. But I genuinely think that's the reality of it.
- [25:42]
Bill Kelly
And speaking of reality, has the developed world, maybe most notably the US woken up to this reality? And if I think about the US it's maybe no more complicated at some levels than running a household budget. And I wake up and I think about bills that I need to pay and tuitions that I need to pay somewhere further down the road and hopefully saving for a comfortable retirement. And if there's a contingent liability, I think I'm thinking about that. It's not in my blind spot. We have a massive contingent liability here. And despite which side of the aisle you were on in this most recent election, no party was talking about deficits and debt and the US is spending now more on debt service than we are in defense. And I do wonder if energy transition is even in the calculus, and if it is, on whose balance sheet is this very wealthy country going to put that? Because we haven't even kept our own house in the best of orders?
- [26:39]
Brett Christophers
I mean, I think what you are saying is completely right. I don't think the sort of thing that I'm imagining is remotely close to the political calculus in any of the world's rich countries, least of all the US My guess is that what that means, and particularly means, given the fact that we're still getting significant investment in new upstream oil and gas assets everywhere in the world, not just in the US Is that ultimately, I think, for better or worse, probably for worse, we will be relying on one or more technological fixes, saving the day. I think that's where we're increasingly heading, which I think is a worrying scenario, but actual mitigation, by which I mean on the one hand, stranding fossil fuel assets, not exploiting them, and on the other hand, growing out that renewable energy infrastructure much, much more rapidly is clearly not happening. And it's highly doubtful it's going to happen on a necessary scale anytime soon. Which means that we'll become reliant, as I say, on one or more technological fixes that essentially suck carbon out of the air and or engineer the climate on a large scale in one way or another. And I don't think any policy maker would come forward and say explicitly that's what we're banking on. But I imagine that behind closed doors or in their very quiet moments, that's what lots of them are already thinking.
- [28:07]
Bill Kelly
And I do fear that maybe in the calculus of what's possible, could I pull a vaccine out of that rabbit's head? The answer is yes, because we did. But if I reach deeper, can I find a mechanism that's going to pull the carbon out of the atmosphere? I don't know. And if somebody asked me the same question before the vaccine was found, would I say, I don't know, but I think there is? Maybe. And again, this might be a US view, but maybe around the world to some degree, Brett, that, well, when our back is to the wall, the sovereign will fix it. They always do. And I think maybe this time is different. In the remaining few minutes, I do want to talk about maybe trying to weave the first part of this conversation on the price is wrong to what we talked about now. And is there a bit of a hybrid answer? Where could you de risk the investment opportunity for the private Capital to incent them to come in. And I think I mentioned to you, but I was over in the uk, your home country from way back when, and they've got this mansion house compact in place. I think the name has changed under current governments, but if I understand it right, and it's more complex than this is that they're thinking about areas like logistics and energy transition and trying to modernize their ports and really try to go all in on AI. And what the government is doing is they created a new sovereign wealth fund, they created an infrastructure bank where they're willing to be the first dollar in to de risk it and maybe make it more attractive for private capital. And is that a viable solution where if the government could come in, maybe not as every dollar but the first dollar and make it a much more attractive investment for the private capital?
- [29:46]
Brett Christophers
I think that's already where we're at implicitly, if not explicitly. I mean, in a way that's what the Inflation Reduction act is too insofar as the tax credits are a mechanism of effectively de risking private capital trying to make that investment more investment. And it's much more explicit across the global south where you have the World bank, other development banks, philanthropic institutions and so on coming in to provide quote unquote blended finance, which is exactly what you're talking about, which is to say you bring in low cost finance from those types of institutions as a way to subsidize more expensive private finance coming in to bring that private capital in. So I think that's the basic model we have already globally, which to my mind raises a question, which is if that's what we're going to go with, if we think that large scale public investment is off the table for both political and or economic reasons, and if that means the only real viable model is the public sector de risking the private sector, then is the question simply do we need more of it? Do we need more of that occurring? Do we need it on a bigger scale? And here I would say that I'm much less staunchly critical than some of my other colleagues on the left who will say no, that's the wrong approach. If you bill say to me, look, at the end of the day, there are two options. There are two alternative scenarios. One of those scenarios is the public sector around the world really coming to the table and massively de risking private investment. And the result of that massive de risking is both A a rapid energy transition and B huge profits for blackrock and all the rest of them. That's one option the second option is government not de risking or only doing a limited amount of de risking and therefore no rapid energy transition, but also no fat profits for BlackRock. I will take option A every day of the week, even if it kind of sticks in my core a little bit that BlackRock's profits have been built on that kind of public subsidy. To me, if those are the two options, then I'll take option A every day of the week. The question to me is are they the only options? And that's what brings me back to the question of, well, might public investment be somehow be credible?
- [32:05]
Bill Kelly
And maybe just to finish this out and going back to my Covid analogy. So when we finally got the vaccine, the government has said around the world, but led by the us they came up with it, saved a lot of lives, even though there's a lot of death up front. But then they asked the US citizen to do two things, wear a mask and get vaccinated and then we'll reach herd immunity and we could get back to our lives. I think the average citizen of the street in some cases said, screw you, I got my own life to do. I'm not going to get the vaccine. I don't need to wear a mask. Not a political statement, or maybe it is, but there were plenty of people that took that approach. But we eventually reached herd immunity and you and I are back in the real world with masks off. When it comes to climate, nobody wants to own scope 3 emissions. It's the supply chain, it's you and I. So at some point, if we're going to get to the bottom of this, no matter how we influence capital, and hopefully the words you just laid out are going to get us there. At some point it comes down to you and I and the listeners and we've got to say we're going to do something different and doing something different is going to amount to some level of inconvenience. And I wonder when we have that mask and vaccine moment with scope three, what the global reaction is and maybe what the local reaction is in a precinct like the us.
- [33:21]
Brett Christophers
It's a good point. Just two very quick thoughts in response to that. The first is that I agree with you on the point about inconvenience. So there is a narrative out there which is that, and I understand it particularly politically in terms of messaging and that narrative is we can transition to a zero emissions or net zero emissions world and people don't need to make quote, unquote sacrifices, they don't need to be inconvenienced they can carry on living their lives as they want. And I understand that because you need to keep people on side, right? You don't want to put people off. I'm not sure I believe that argument. I have to say. I don't think I necessarily agree with that. I suspect sacrifices will have to be made in one shape or form, not least amongst people with lives that are very carbon intensive, particularly wealthy people in the global. So that's the first thing. Second thing to say connected to that is this, which is that it feels to me like right now there's a bit of a chicken and egg thing going in on, or a game of chicken, which is that a lot of climate progressives say, well, it's up to fossil fuel companies to not invest anymore and to transition away from fossil fuels. And the fossil fuel companies say, well, hang on a second. All we're doing is serving the demand that is out there for our products. And so why should we not continue to supply that demand while that demand is there? Isn't it up to consumers to actually change their demand patterns? And then we will respond to that changing demand? So no one wants to change right now. And my only point on that is this, which is that I think that there's a certain hypocrisy, contradiction of those who say fossil fuel companies are the real source of evil and they need to change their ways while we're not willing to change our ways ourselves. And I don't really buy that argument. I think it's beholden on everyone. Which is not to say that there isn't a hierarchy of responsibility for the climate crisis. There clearly is. And I think the prime responsibility does lie on the fossil fuel companies that have known the damages that have caused for a long time. But I don't think that individuals such as you and I have no responsibility.
- [35:23]
Bill Kelly
No, I agree with all that. So, last question before I let you go. Brett, as a master of human geography, which you are, how do you think about a next topic, a next book? And do you have one that's spooling up in your head that you could disclose to us?
- [35:37]
Brett Christophers
That's a great question. And all I can say is that certainly in recent years, one book has emerged kind of organically from another. So I'll be working on a particular book and obviously in the course of doing that, working on a series of questions and trying to formulate meaningful answers to those questions, and something will crop up that I think, well, hang on a sec. There's something interesting going on here that I haven't thought about, but it's beyond the scope of what I'm working on at the moment. And I put that aside and it becomes organically the next thing I work on. So that's typically what's happened in terms of what's next for me. I'm now based here in Uppsala at the Institute for Housing and Urban Research and I'm very committed to to making housing, which is obviously another area of considerable challenge and even crisis in the world today the centerpiece of the next major piece of work that I do. What exactly that would look like, I'm not yet sure. But something housing crisis related will be what I'm going to be working on next.
- [36:34]
Bill Kelly
A very good topic. And food security is maybe a hand in glove with that. So I encourage you to keep on keeping on there and hopefully we'll have a chance to talk about this next to him at some point. So Brett, great conversation. Our goal is not to solve for anything, but hopefully if we enlighten people about some of the challenges and maybe pathways forward vis a vis opportunities, we've done our job and clearly in the last 40 minutes or so you've done just that. So great to see you again. Thanks for all that you do and appreciate your curiosity and your insights.
- [37:03]
Brett Christophers
Thanks to you, Tim, Ben. I've enjoyed it very much.
- [37:07]
Bill Kelly
Thank you for listening to Educational Alpha. I'm your host, Bill Kelly. Learn more about the Kaya association and subscribe to the show@kaya.org that's C-A I a.org See you next time.