The Temperature Edition

Summary

Slate Money – "The Temperature Edition" (May 25, 2019)

Podcast: Slate Money
Hosts: Felix Salmon (Axios), Emily Peck (Huffington Post), Anna Szymanski
Episode Theme:
A lively week-in-review focused on how temperature—literal and metaphorical—relates to business, productivity, climate change, and economic policy. The hosts discuss headline stories including Robert Smith’s Morehouse College donation, the effectiveness of carbon offsets, and how office air conditioning shapes work life and gender dynamics.

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1. Overview of Main Theme

This week’s Slate Money is cleverly titled "The Temperature Edition." The episode ties together hot-button issues—student debt cancellation, carbon emissions, global warming policy, and the physical temperature wars of office spaces—highlighting how both social and literal climates affect economics and productivity.

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2. Key Discussion Points & Insights

A. Robert Smith’s Morehouse College Debt Payoff (02:15–15:35)

• What Happened:
  Robert Smith, a billionaire private equity CEO, announced during his commencement speech he would pay off all student debt for the Morehouse College Class of 2019 (around 400 students). Smith was reportedly moved by the high attrition rate due to student debt burdens.

• Reactions:

  • Emily notes this as a powerful gesture but says it "showcases sort of the failure of public policy to deal with the ballooning amount of student loan debt we have in this country." (03:26)
  • The hosts discuss the racial wealth gap, pointing out that Black graduates typically owe about $7,400 more than their white counterparts.
  • Felix calls it a “lucky lottery” moment for 2019 graduates but underlines policies targeting student debt primarily benefit those who are already relatively advantaged, i.e., college graduates.

• Policy Debate:

  • Anna is skeptical of student debt forgiveness as a comprehensive solution and questions the efficacy and distribution of free-college proposals, noting, “the disproportionate impact would be on higher income people, so you're spending a lot of money to subsidize wealthier.” (06:55)
  • Felix, drawing from his experience in the UK, pushes back, asserting that free college benefits social mobility and national productivity.

• Broader Takeaways:

  • The conversation touches on cost inflation in higher education and how state disinvestment has played a significant role.
  • They debate whether college should be “free” or just “affordable,” with Anna focused on the importance of marketable skills and Felix arguing broadly for the societal benefits of tertiary education, regardless of direct job training.
  • The segment closes considering Morehouse as a "natural experiment" for economists to study long-term impact of debt forgiveness.

Memorable Quote

• Emily: “It really showcases… the failure of public policy to deal with the ballooning amount of student loan debt we have in this country.” (03:26)
• Felix: “If you do things which are great for college grads… ultimately you are helping the rich and not the poor.” (05:35)

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B. Carbon Offsets and "Carbon Neutral" Claims (15:35–27:14)

• Topic Summary:
  The hosts critique the corporate trend of buying carbon offsets as a way to claim “carbon neutrality,” referencing a comprehensive ProPublica investigation revealing most such offsets have failed to deliver promised emission reductions.

• Main Criticisms:

  • Felix satirizes offsets by likening them to “papal indulgences”—companies pay not to atone for actual sins, but for the appearance of virtue. “They go up to the Pope and write him a check… Except it doesn’t actually happen from the Pope, it happens from all these weird nonprofits selling carbon offsets.” (16:29)
  • Most forest-based offsets “would have to get an ‘F’—not one of them has worked” (17:33).
  • Emily references HuffPost’s Alexander Kaufman: “Doing carbon offsets instead of going 100% renewable is bullshit. Even if offsets worked… it’s not going to be enough. It’s enabling pollution.” (20:16)

• Deeper Issues:

  • Problem of "additionality": If projects (e.g., landfill methane capture) would have happened anyway, there’s no true offset.
  • The only robust market mechanisms are cap-and-trade or a carbon tax, not current offset programs.
  • In the developing world, even well-intended offsets can't compete with the higher economic returns from deforestation (e.g., cattle farming in Brazil).

• Policy Implications:

  • Global, governmental solutions needed—“you need to approach this globally,” Felix says, “because the cattle farm is going to generate so much more money than carbon offsets ever would.” (23:06)
  • Anna points out the necessity of developed countries supporting developing ones, not through offsets, but meaningful economic incentives and global climate funding.

Memorable Quote

• Felix: “At some point you have to just say if something has never worked, you have to lose a certain amount of faith that it might work in the future.” (19:06)
• Emily: “Global warming is not something you’re going to solve with a market.” (24:20)

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C. Office Temperature Wars, Productivity, and Gender (27:14–36:11)

• Focus:
  The hosts discuss new research indicating that women are more productive in slightly warmer office temperatures, fanning the flames of ongoing debates about over-air-conditioned workplaces.
• Personal Anecdotes:
  • Emily: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a woman who works in an office is in want of a sweater.” (27:21)
  • Anna and Emily point out the mismatch between office attire expectations and temperature, with men in suits and women often in summer dresses.
• Broader Considerations:
  • Anna highlights that air conditioning, despite climate concerns, has massively improved global productivity and health.
  • Felix points out that the carbon emissions from cooling are actually lower than from heating in most climates.
  • They debate the downsides of open plan offices, both for temperature regulation and productivity—“Open offices are so bad… The only thing they help is sales of headphones.” (32:50)

Memorable Quote

• Emily: “If we raise the temperature in offices to increase productivity of women, we’re also helping solve global warming. What’s not to love?” (28:17)
• Anna (on open offices): “In certain environments, having an open office… can be helpful. Because in a trading environment… it actually is important.” (33:26)
• Felix: “I just… find it super hard to get into that flow state and actually commit… productivity… the felicitous overhearing of conversations is exactly what makes it hard to concentrate.” (34:16)

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D. Numbers Round (36:11–40:41)

Anna:

• “310”: Refers to the 3-month/10-year Treasury yield spread, briefly inverted—an omen commonly discussed as a recession indicator. Anna highlights a Financial Times “musical” version of the yield curve from Tim Harford’s statistics podcast. (36:13–37:25)

Emily:

• “$20”: Reference to the continued delay in putting Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill—a plan blocked by the Trump administration, in contrast to the Obama-era initiative. Discussion covers the symbolic importance of representation on US currency. (37:27–39:20)

Felix:

• “303”: The number of seats won by India’s BJP party in the largest democratic exercise globally. This shift marks a decisive turn toward Hindu nationalist politics and away from the secular Congress Party. (39:25–40:28)

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3. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Policy Gaps:
  "It showcases the failure of public policy to deal with the ballooning amount of student loan debt we have in this country." — Emily Peck (03:26)

• Satirizing Carbon Offsets:
  “You go up to the Pope and write him a check… Except it doesn’t actually happen from the Pope, it happens from all these weird nonprofits selling carbon offsets.” — Felix Salmon (16:29)

• Gender & Office Climate:
  “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a woman who works in an office is in want of a sweater.” — Emily Peck (27:21)

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4. Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:10–02:09: Episode intro, banter, agenda setting
• 02:15–15:35: Robert Smith’s Morehouse debt payoff & student loan policy
• 15:35–27:14: Carbon offsets and problems with “carbon neutral” claims
• 27:14–36:11: Office temperature, productivity, gender, open plan design
• 36:11–40:41: Numbers Round (bond yields, Harriet Tubman, Indian elections)

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5. Tone and Style

The hosts employ quick wit and informed skepticism, mixing dry British humor (from Felix), policy wonkery, and relatable workplace anecdotes (largely Emily and Anna). The conversation is brisk, with frequent moments of self-awareness and mutual ribbing, all aimed at making otherwise technical topics accessible and engaging.

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6. Conclusion

In “The Temperature Edition,” Slate Money deftly connects issues of climate, both literal and economic, examining how policy failures, personal choices, and corporate practices intersect to shape outcomes in education, climate change, and even the daily grind of office life. The episode stands out for its nuanced skepticism, memorable hosts, and thematic coherence—making it a particularly rich listen for anyone interested in where policy meets real life.

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Missed the show?
This summary covers all major points—so you’re caught up on everything except the lemur T-shirt.

Transcript

[A]

Hello, and welcome to the Temperature edition of Slate Money, your guide to the business and finance news of the week. I'm Felix Hammond of Axios. I'm here with Emily Peck of the Huffington Post, who is wearing a cardigan.

[B]

I am wearing a cardigan. But can we talk about your T shirt, Felix? Because what is on that?

[A]

It's Lima. I'm wearing. I have a lemur on my T shirt.

[B]

He does. And the lemur has black coffee.

[C]

The lemur doesn't. There might be sugar in it. We don't know.

[A]

The lemur is drinking a black coffee.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

All T shirts should have a picture of the lemur drinking a black coffee. It is a black T shirt, which is also what Anna Shymansky is wearing.

[C]

It's not so much a T shirt.

[A]

But, yes, it's a black top. I'm not.

[B]

She looks professional.

[A]

Yeah. Anna Shymansky walks into Slate Money looking much more professional than anyone else every single week.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

She reminds us that we are not just throwing this show together.

[C]

Lemurs are not part of my dress code.

[A]

So if you want to be professional, this is what I learned this week. Don't wear T shirts with lemurs on them.

[B]

The lemur is staring at me. That's all I'm gonna say.

[C]

It really looks like it's staring at me. Eyes are following you around the room.

[A]

Okay. This is the last time I wear this T shirt. We have a good show this week. Emily Peck has basically set the agenda for this week, which is. Oh, my God. Air conditioning.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

We are going to talk about air conditioning and the American economy and the world economy. And. Yeah. Emily can't decide whether this cardigan wants to be on or off.

[B]

Is it cold or warm?

[A]

Is it cold or warm? It's hard to tell. I think it's warm.

[C]

I think it's warm.

[A]

It was cold earlier. You know, this is an actually surprisingly interesting and important part of productivity. Yes. So we're going to talk about that. We are going to talk about one of the side effects of air conditioning, which is carbon emissions, and whether they can be offset and how they can be offset.

[B]

Those topics go so well together.

[A]

They really do.

[C]

Wow.

[B]

Felix really put a lot of pieces of the puzzle together in real time in front of us in a lemur T shirt.

[A]

But before we do any of that, we are going to talk about Robert Smith of Vista Equity Partners, the private equity firm that you probably haven't heard of and what he just did for one graduating class of Morehouse College, which you probably have heard of all that. Coming up on Sleep Money. So last week, Robert Smith, who's a rich private equity honcho, was invited to Morehouse College to give the commencement speech. And while he was there on the Saturday before his speech, he was told that 60% of the students at Morehouse fail to graduate because they have too much debt and it's just too expensive. And he was greatly touched by this statistic and took it upon himself on a kind of very impromptu level without having it all worked out at all, to announce to the 400 odd graduating class of Morehouse College that he was going to pay off all of their student loans, which is a grand gesture. And Emily has opinions about it.

[B]

I mean, it was interesting to follow this news because at first there's this guy standing behind Smith when he announces this to the class and everyone's watched this video and his face, just like the shock and joy after Robert Smith says he's going to pay all their student loans is palpable. And it's nice that he's doing it, but it really showcases sort of the failure of public policy to deal with the ballooning amount of student loan debt we have in this country. And it shines a light on a lot of interesting problems, including so more houses, Historically Black university. And apparently black college graduates owe more money on average than whites, about $7,400 more, on average, in part because of the wealth gap that we've talked about.

[A]

And yeah, so 50% of Morehouse's students are eligible for Pell Grants, which is way higher than the vast majority of universities. So they just can't afford to pay out of pocket for tuition. And Morehouse is expensive. It's like, I think it's 48,000 if you're not living at home. And it all adds up. And the median black graduate of a private college has I think it's like 38 or $39,000 in debt. And I think at Morehouse it's even higher than that. So, you know, this is clearly not going to set you up for an easy life upon graduation. And as Jordan pointed out, if you have no student loans, you actually wind up making more money. So this is going to be great for this tranche of gradu.

[B]

No doubt for this tranche, this sort of lucky lottery winning class.

[A]

The lucky lottery winners.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, I don't think that Smith was trying to argue that like, this is how we should deal with student loans. I mean, he was. I think he was trying to make a statement.

[A]

It was very Oprah esque. It was very kind of, you get.

[C]

A degree, you get a degree.

[A]

It was. Some people had $200,000 of loans paid off. It was, you know, an amazing gift to those people.

[B]

One thing the New York Times, I think, pointed out in its editorial on this was that Robert Smith benefits from the carried interest tax loophole and lobbying to close that would be perhaps a more powerful way to solve income inequality and really showcase.

[A]

I don't think that he is really addressing income inequality here at all. I mean, remember that one of the things about attacking student debt and student loans, one of the threads which runs through this whole subject when you talk about policies, prescriptions, is that college grads are the richest people in America. So if you do things which are great for college grads, that's great, but you are ultimately helping the rich and not the poor.

[C]

Yes, exactly. And I think this is really important when we talk about the larger conversation around this, which I think obviously goes into Elizabeth Warren's plans to forgive college debt, that when you really look at the issues with debt and education, the real problems are the fact that a lot of people, like the majority of young people, cannot actually afford to go to college and as a result are going to have an incredibly challenging time in this economy. And if we want to deal with that problem, that makes a lot of sense. The programs that people like Warren promote really don't do a tremendous amount. I mean, because of what they're actually targeting.

[A]

Well, no, I mean, that's not true if college is free. And I can say this as someone who grew up in a country where college was free, you do have a much broader range of, you know, socioeconomic people getting degrees and getting, you know, tertiary education. And so any plan to make college free does make it much, much more accessible and much more.

[C]

Yes, I agree that with that. So I'm not saying it would have no impact on low income people, but the disproportionate impact would be on higher income people. So you're spending a lot of money to subsidize wealthier.

[A]

Well, I mean, it depends on, on what happens to costs as well. Because as we've seen, there has been an insane cost inflation.

[B]

Tuition has gone up higher education 85% over the past 25 years.

[C]

Well, two things. One, you used wild. You do have to look at what people actually pay, not the sticker price, because those are very different. The other thing I do think is important to think about is how a lot of the cost increase is also because the federal government has Been giving out loans with no concern for people's ability to pay them back, which is.

[A]

I think the way you have to do it. If you discriminated against the poor and said, well you can't pay the loan back, therefore we're not going to give you loans, that would just be a non stop.

[C]

Don't give them a grant then. But don't give people a debt that you know that they are not going to have the ability to pay back. That doesn't make a tremendous amount of sense.

[B]

I think Jordan was on one of the other Slate podcasts talking about this and he made a really good point, which is that the federal government already spends a lot of money subsidizing college tuition for people with loans and in other ways, grants, other things. And the idea of sort of like switching that mentality, sort of fixing it and moving towards a free college scenario isn't maybe spending more money, it's just spending money in a smarter way and might be actually really a good thing, might put pressure on costs downward, might get more low income people and lower middle income people's kids to college. Might be really incredible. Like we just don't know. The current system does not make that much sense.

[A]

And it's not just about the federal government either. One of the other huge drivers of real cost increases, not sticker price increases, has been state level disinvestment in state colleges. And so if the states just started investing this kind of same money that they used to in the state college systems, that would be a massive improvement right there.

[C]

And so I think looking at what we can do going forward, I agree with this to a certain extent. I think that investing in human capital is a very, very good thing for the government to be spending money on as opposed to like tax cuts we don't need. But I think trying to figure out, okay, how can we do that in a way that isn't going to potentially make costs worse. I think it makes probably a bit more sense to spend a lot of money into community college, try to create more competition for private universities. I'm a little concerned about the idea of just saying like, well, everything's free. Like I think when things are completely free, people don't value them very much. And I think that making things extremely affordable so people can graduate debt free makes a tremendous.

[A]

Well, can I just come in as the English person here as like, you know, where, as I say, I grew up in a place where college was free and there's just no sense in which people did not value a college education in the UK in the 80s. Yeah, it's just not true.

[B]

I mean, maybe this is facile, but like I live in a town where the school is free, my kids go to public school and it's excellent and people value the hell out of it. I mean everyone pays kind of high taxes, people volunteer at the schools. It's, you know. And then when you look at public universities that are well regarded in the United States, I mean they're not free, but they're definitely cheaper and the good ones are very hard to get into, extremely competitive. I just don't see that.

[A]

Yeah, I'm not saying I'm reminded of.

[C]

The, My argument is not that things should, shouldn't be affordable. I just do question making it necessarily free. Now maybe community college. I actually think there could be a decent argument about that. When you start to get up to like all public universities. I also just wonder, okay, well, are you just going to be funneling money in? I, I, but that's exactly where you.

[A]

Want to funnel money in, right? Is to public universities which are educating, you know, the future, creating the productivity growth for the country. It's the ultimate public good.

[C]

So if you can figure out a way that you'll do that. But then there has to be some way to make sure that this money is actually being used well, and these universities are actually graduating students who have marketable skills.

[A]

Wait, wait, hang on again. I don't, I don't think this is.

[C]

Because you're not helping people if you're saying, okay, well, I mean, yes, it's better to graduate from the university without having a tremendous amount of debt. You still need to have marketable skills. And I think that, that this is a larger question with education.

[A]

I don't, I don't think that's true at all. I think there's an enorm amount of evidence that college degrees are wonderful for like national productivity and for personal income, even if it doesn't give you some kind of marketable skill. I graduated with a degree in history of art and philosophy. It's not a marketable skill, but it definitely put me on, you know, the road to a high earning middle class future. And I think that's true of many people.

[C]

Right. I mean I have an English degree, so I'm not saying that when I say that, I'm not arguing that like everybody needs to graduate like with simply like coding skills, but I'm saying that we do not live in the same world of when we went to university. The global economy is so much more Competitive. And I think we do need to rethink education a little bit more. It's not just a matter of the money going in, it is a matter of the results. Because we're not in the same world where people can just spend. And I know this is not the majority of people's university experience, but people can just spend four years kind of studying things they're interested in. That's great and that's lovely, but that's also not necessarily going to position you well in the new economy.

[A]

And I completely disagree. I think that there are two broadly two different types of education that you can get at university. One is a narrowly targeted vocational training scheme which allows you to get in on the bottom rung as a computer engineer or a nurse, or, you know, something where you need like, skills which you. Or lawyer skills which you have been taught and you know what Anna is referring to as marketable skills. And that will get you into a certain career. You will spend a couple of years in that career and at that point you are solidly ensconced in that career. You will be able to tell whether you're any good at it or not. And if you are good at it, you can get even better and make lots of money. Then on the other hand, you have less marketable skills like Anna's English degree or my philosophy degree or anything like that, which don't particularly help you in terms of narrow qualifications for your first job, but which do help you for life in terms of when you're in your mid-50s and working in whatever like random middle class profession you have wound up in. Because statistically speaking, you probably will wind up in such a job if you have a degree, then those skills that you Learned in your 4 years at university are still coming in handy. That's why history of art graduates, one of the reasons why the history of art graduates have higher incomes than almost any other degree.

[B]

What?

[C]

That's also probably because they tend to come from wealthier families and that really helps them in the United States.

[A]

Yes, I'm absolutely sure about that.

[B]

I think, I mean, putting aside for a second the argument what people should study in college to get marketable skills. I mean, I feel like there's really no question that taking the monetary pressure off of a college education is going to lead to productivity improvements and gains for the economy as a whole and potentially shuffle really qualified people into jobs that they might not have chosen if they had, you know, a hundred thousand dollars of debt to pay off. Like you hear all the time examples of like, well, I would have loved to be a teacher, but I had to become a lawyer to pay off my student loans. Or I would have loved to become you public defender, public interest lawyer, but I had to go to a big firm to pay off my loans. I mean, if you had less debt and pressure to pay off your student loans, you would make. People would make all kinds of different choices.

[A]

Although, although Jordan's point was exactly that if you get rid of debt, people actually wind up taking higher pay.

[C]

Exactly. I'm sorry, when people say that, like, oh, I was going to become a public defender, but then I'm like, no, you weren't. Like, I don't buy. I mean, we don't know.

[B]

I mean, one of the interesting things about this Morehouse donation, right. A lot of economists were saying, and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, this is what's known as a natural experiment. So we can, in 10 years from now, we can look at what happened to these, you know, these 396 men and see, like, what they did and compare it to, you know, the class of 2020 or 2018 and really have some hard data on what happened.

[A]

And we can also just step back and say that what Robert Smith didn't do was help out all of the people who would have graduated this year but dropped out because it was too expensive. Like, he didn't actually solve the problem which caused, you know, him to make this gift. I have one little, tiny, little nerdy thing which I'm going to be looking at, which is the mechanism they use to get around, like, income taxes, because that, you know, if you pay off someone's debt, that technically counts as income. There are ways to get around it. And I know there's this wonderful guy called Craig Antico who's been paying off people's medical debt and has worked out ways of doing it through charitable organizations so that it doesn't count as income. But it's going to be interesting to me to see which mechanism they use to make sure that these graduates don't have to pay literally income tax on $200,000 of income if they get $200,000 of loans paid off. Okay, let's talk about carbon neutral companies, which is one of my bets. Noir. Every so often we'll see some PR stunt from News Core or Virgin Atlantic or, you know, one of these big companies saying, we have been carbon neutral for five years. It's like, but you are an airline. How is it possible for an airline to be carbon neutral? You are spewing carbon into the air. You do, and then you look into it, and it turns out that they're not carbon neutral at all. They are spewing carbon into the air. But then what they do is they go off and basically buy a papal indulgence. They go up to the. To the Pope and write him a check. And then he says, you are absolved of all of your carbon sins. Except for it doesn't actually happen from the Pope. It happens from all of these weird nonprofits selling carbon offsets. And now we have a magnificent, really solidly reported and exhaustive piece in ProPublica looking into this whole business of carbon offsets and basically saying, yeah, no, an.

[B]

Even more inconvenient truth is the headline of the piece.

[A]

And then. And then there's this line saying, if you look at all of the carbon offset plans that have been going for the past 15 years, or however long they've been going, and you graded them, you would have to give them all an F. Like, not one of them has worked.

[B]

She focuses specifically on offsets you buy to prevent deforestation. And she, like, deeply looks at what's happening, happened in, I think, in Brazil and also in Cambodia, where companies and governments pay money to keep the forest intact. And then they go and do all kinds of, like, naughty things to release more CO2 into the air. And she found, just like, it didn't work, the forest.

[A]

The whole idea of there is a forest and we need the forest to help, you know, absorb carbon dioxide. And that's great. But then, like, what happens is the Virgin Atlantic can emit a bunch of carbon into the air, and some person who owns the forest can say, well, we can offset that carbon by not cutting down the forest. Seems completely bizarre to me, although I.

[C]

Think that there is a logic to the argument that people in developing nations are rational people who are going to do what is in their economic best interest to do. And if you don't try to change those economic incentives in any way, it's very challenging to think of why someone's going to say, like, well, I can make so much more money with cattle than I can with, you know, like, getting rubber out of these streets.

[A]

Sure. And this is. And this is why the woman who wrote this piece of ProPublica wound up running into such incredible anger from, like, the carbon offsets crowd, all of whom agreed that the carbon offsets were not working, and all of whom then said, but you can't write this story. And what we have to do is spend many, many more billions than we already have in this market, because ultimately it's the best hope we have to prevent deforestation is to basically bribe people to not deforest. And I am sympathetic to that argument, except that at some point you have to just say if something has never worked, you have to lose a certain amount of faith that it might work in the future.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, I think that in general, I think if a program doesn't work, saying, well, if we throw more money into it, it does not have a fantastic track record. But I will say if you kind of look at some of the articles that she was linking to, I think the outcome of some of these programs is a little less straightfor for than she makes it appear in the article. None of them have been fantastic successes, this is clear. But I do think the argument, it's very hard to isolate the effect when you have many, many, many different things happening in this environment.

[A]

And that's actually her point that, you know, if you pay people to not deforest in Area A, they'll just wind up taking the money and deforesting in Area B instead.

[B]

I was speaking to HuffPost environmental reporter Alexander Kaufman, and he was just like, doing carbon offsets instead of going 100% renewable is bullshit. Like, we're past the point. Even if offsets worked, which as this article kind of outlines pretty well, that it's hard to make them work, they don't work. Even if they did work, it's not going to be enough. Like the UN said, you know, we have to scale back emissions by at least 45% by 2030, and we're not going to get there with offsets. It's enabling pollution.

[A]

One of my favorite bits of the carbon offset versus nothing to do with deforestation. It's landfills which capture methane and then sell it. And that is genuine carbon capture, right, Is methane, which would go into the air, but doesn't because they capture it and it's a profitable business for them. So they don't actually need to sell offsets. But if they can get offsets on top, great, all power to them. But again, like they are getting offsets or something, which they would be doing anyway. So what you lack is this whole fourth thing, which is core to the idea of offsets, which is known as additionality. If you're not getting more carbon captured than you would if you hadn't been paying the money, then paying the money doesn't do any good. The right way to approach this is with some kind of carbon tax or some kind of cap and trade system. But like you know, for simplicity's of sake, let's just say carbon tax, where every single landfill gets taxed on the basis of the methane that it emits into the air. And if they put in one of these systems, then they no longer need to pay that tax. It's a savings for them and they make money that way. And that's much more effective than trying to do it through the offsets mechanism.

[C]

I completely agree with you. And I think in the developed world, I think 100%, like, we're not going to stop this problem with these offsets. But it does raise the question of what you do in the developing world, where, what do you do to make it so that people are not cutting down for it? What are the mechanisms to, to do that? I mean, like, these are sovereign nations where people are going to act in their own best interest.

[B]

I mean, it did seem like that was towards the end of the piece. There was like some quote that was like, all right, smartass, what should we do instead? And the piece did make clear that, like, Brazil is definitely not doing all it can to encourage with Bolsonaro. No, to encourage, you know, people not to cut down trees. It's doing, in fact, the opposite. It's encouraging people to cut down trees. And I feel like the policy mechanisms, it often comes back to the policy mechanisms, but the actually incentivizing your citizens to do the right thing for the environment, that's not in place yet. You have all these people quoted in the piece saying, like, I have to, I can't starve. You know, I can't starve and try and tap some rubber out of this tree. Like, it's just not going to happen. So once have to step up and like, I don't, I don't honestly know, but they have to do something else.

[A]

Right? I think, I think the answer is that you need to approach this globally. That if you, if you attack it on a very local level, on the level of like individual chunks of forest, then at the margin, it's almost impossible to pay someone enough money that they will be economically incentivized to keep it as forest rather than turn it into a cattle farm, because the cattle farm is going to generate so much more money than carbon offsets ever would. For that reason alone, carbon offsets seem to be a bit silly because they just. They're not remotely big enough to be able to have the effect that we're asking them to have.

[C]

Yeah, I agree. I think that this is why climate change is just such an incredibly difficult problem, because it's going to involve global solutions and it is going to then have to involve money going from the developed world to the developing world to offset this. Not different type of offset, but I mean like, because other countries are just simply not going to agree to this if they don't have any economic benefit.

[A]

Right?

[B]

It has to be in a perfect.

[C]

World they would, but they're not going to. And also you can't totally blame them. When you still have a tremendous number of people in your country living in poverty. It's challenging to say like, well, you know, in America we put all of this carbon into the air and so now we're going to tell you that, you know, you can't.

[B]

A market, carbon offsets are like a market solution, but this isn't. Global warming is not something you're going to solve with a market.

[A]

Well, I mean again, you can, you can, you can. There are market solutions. There are market solutions which can be used as part of an attempt to reduce global warming. Those market solutions are, are cap and trade systems, not carbon offset systems. And cap and trade systems can theoretically go global. And under a cap and trade system you use market mechanisms, but you don't use them to preserve Amazonian rainforest. Preserving Amazonian rainforest is like a different problem with a different solution. And I'm reminded of, I can't remember which corrupt Ecuadorian president it was. There have been so many, but there was one of them who was like, who basically shook down some well meaning European countries and said like, listen, I'm going to destroy all of my rainforest unless you pay me a whole bunch of money. And they agreed actually, and they paid him a whole bunch of money and then he absconded to Panama or something, you know, and you're like, great, wait.

[B]

So can you explain a little bit more about how cap and trade would work?

[A]

So basically the way that cap and trade would work is that you have a path for global carbon emissions and you cap total global carbon emissions at that cap. And that cap goes down over time. And if you are doing anything which involves emitting carbon, then what you need to do is buy permits to emit that much carbon. So the less carbon you emit, the fewer permits you need to buy and the less it costs you. And so that's where the trade is. And so if you have excess permits because you've managed to save on your carbon emissions, you couldn't sell those excess permits to someone else who wants to to pollute more. And as the total global cap on carbon emissions reduces over time, the Idea is that the cost of a permit goes up over time, and that gives you every economic incentive to avoid carbon. And it basically, it doesn't tell you how to avoid emitting carbon. It just gives you incentives not to.

[B]

So there's a limited number of permits.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

But that seems idealistic to think that, like, some companies just won't get enough permits and then they can't produce their widgets or whatever.

[A]

Well, it's not that they can't get enough. It's just that if they are remitting a certain amount of carbon in order to produce their widgets, they need to buy however many permits correspond to that level of carbon emissions.

[B]

But what if there are no more permits left?

[A]

No, because it's a market. That's the whole point. There's always a clearing price. The price per ton of carbon emissions. It might start at $25, it might go up to 30 or 35 or 40. And then if a lot of companies are all trying to do things which involve emitting carbon, then the price just goes up and up and up until they start getting an economic incentive not to do that anymore. But there's always a clearing price. It's not like they run out.

[B]

Okay. All right.

[A]

Okay, Emily Peck, let's talk about your cardigan. It's summer. Why are you wearing a cardigan?

[B]

I will start with a quote from the New York Times. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a woman who works in an office is in want of a sweater. That is because when it's spring and summer and you work in an office, it is really cold inside because the air conditioning is set at a very low temperature. There was a study a few years ago that explained why that is. But the study we're here to talk about is a different study of students in Berlin which found that women are more productive in slightly warmer temperatures than men. Which sort of adds fuel to the fire of this burning social media and real life uproar and outrage over how cold it is in offices. Now, we have some evidence from this study that says it's too cold in the office and it is hurting productivity for women. Oh, and if we raise the temperature in offices to increase productivity of women, we're also helping solve global warming.

[A]

What's not to learn?

[B]

So I don't. Mic drop. I don't know what else to say.

[C]

Well, hasn't there been some disagreement about why temperatures are set where they are? Because wasn't part of it actually had to do with like it equipment as well? It wasn't simply A. I just say I think there's some disagreement.

[B]

Okay, good.

[A]

It is true that IT equipment likes to be cold, but I'm sure we have the technology to keep IT rooms a little bit colder than the rest of the office.

[C]

No, I, and I agree with you. And saying this as someone who tends to always be cold. Yes, I definitely do think that this, this is an issue. And I will say though, one thing we all know. Okay, yes, obviously, caveat. We all know that air conditioning and all this, like it's going to destroy the world. Global warming, we're all going to die. But putting that aside for a second, forget that air conditioning has actually done a tremendous amount to increase productivity around the world and to save lives. So just, just to put that out.

[A]

And in terms of carbon emissions, this is one thing which I think people don't really appreciate, especially in colder countries, is that the carbon emissions of air conditioning are much lower than the carbon emissions of heating. And if you just think about the temperature delta, basically the difference in internal and external temperatures, let's say that you have an office which is 68 degrees inside and outside it's 90 degrees. So you have a 22 degree difference there. Your trying to create a delta of 22 degrees. Compare that to if you have a 68 degrees inside and outside, it's 20 degrees. That's like a 48 degree. It's like more than twice as much. Right. And so it's just, it's very close. Honestly, it's maybe a little bit more expensive to reduce the temperature by one degree than it is to increase it by one degree, but it's pretty close in terms of like carbon footprint. So the big carbon footprint is in the, the cold months. But in cold countries, in the cold.

[B]

Months, the office temperature isn't as controversial somehow in the cold months they can get the heat. Right. But in the hot months they cannot get the cold.

[A]

So is what you're saying that the, that the temperature of offices is warmer in cold months than it is in hot months?

[B]

Oh, 100%. Based on just my life alone. And Anna, maybe you could chime in, but the problem also is the outfit fits the clothes, which is, that's part of it.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Women tend to, you know, they have spring and summer dresses.

[A]

You're not wearing a lot of sleeves today.

[B]

Yeah, less sleeves. And men usually, typically, they're still wearing like suits and sleeves and pants. And we don't wear pants. Yeah, no pants. So I guess if women in the summer dress like they do in the winter, maybe they Would be slightly less cold. But that's.

[C]

Although, having said this, all these men that have their fleece vests that they wear year round, so just saying, they're keeping their core warm.

[A]

I think that's just in San Francisco, though.

[C]

Oh, no, it's not.

[B]

Yeah, but I mean, a lot of people were joking around that men just need to, like, wear fewer items of clothing or more short sleeves in the summer. But my argument is just like, make it a little warmer in the office.

[C]

It's cheaper. This is definitely a benefit when you work at a smaller company, because I know when I've worked at bigger companies, it's always just awful. It's just freezing. It's like an ice cream box. And you have your heater on your.

[B]

Space heater on blankets at their desk.

[C]

Oh, yeah, no, I.

[B]

Wait, Felix, personally, have you found the office to be cold in the summer?

[A]

My personal experience with this is that we are moving into a world of bigger and bigger open plan offices. And the larger the number of cubic feet in the space that you're working in, the harder it is to keep that space at a consistent temperature throughout. And what I find is that increasingly what you wind up with is microclimates within the space or nano climates, and that people in one desk are going to be experiencing very different temperatures to people. Like, if you're next to a south facing window, it's going to be a lot warmer than if you're like over in the middle somewhere. And the temperature gradients within large open plan offices can be surprisingly large.

[C]

This is true. And also this is like totally rich person's problem. But in a lot of Manhattan offices now that have like, you know, just solid windows everywhere, those windows are horrible in the winter. They always let in drafts. Like if you have like an office where you have like this lovely, like, wall of window, you're freezing. Like people wearing gloves because it's so cold.

[B]

So maybe open offices are bad also.

[A]

Open offices are so bad. Like, there's nothing good can come of open offices. Open offices are great for employers who want to save money on maximizing the number of employees per square foot, but they do not help productivity. The only thing they help is sales of headphones because everyone like winds up wearing headphones all day is like a cheap and crappy alternative to actually having an office with walls.

[C]

The only thing I will say from this, I think we actually had this argument when we had an open office plan discussion, is that in certain environments, having an open office I think can be helpful in a way. Because I will say, in, like, a.

[A]

Trading environment, trading flows have always been the.

[C]

Yeah, that's. That. Yeah, that's. It actually is important.

[B]

I think, too, in a newsroom, I think it can be felicitous to have open office because you hear what other people are doing sometimes and you get story ideas, and it sort of.

[A]

No, there are. There are always felicities, which are. Which it is possible to, you know, anecdotalize.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

But there are also, you know, a felicities. There are. There are. There are offsetting disadvantages and downsides.

[B]

Including the temperature, apparently.

[A]

Including not only the temperature, but also just like this feeling of, I don't know about you, but I find now that I'm working in, like, a long line of people without. I don't even have a cubicle anymore. I just. I just. I'm sitting at a long desk with people all around me.

[B]

Are you in a. On the corner or are you between people?

[A]

I'm between people. Wow. That's how. That's the state to which I have been, you know, my poor person state. And it's genuinely difficult for me to write anything in that context. I find it super hard to get into that flow state and actually commit, you know, productivity and the felicitous overhearing of conversations is exactly what makes it hard to concentrate on what you're doing.

[B]

Yeah. So I guess beyond the sexism that this study kind of turns up again and the sexism behind colder offices is sort of like a bigger question about designing offices and heating and cooling offices to get optimal productivity out of your. Your human capital parts. Right. I mean, that's not what's happening right now.

[C]

We have these.

[A]

I feel like I am at suboptimal personal productivity.

[B]

Yeah. So we need to work on that.

[A]

Maybe I could have an office. I've never had an office, not once in my life.

[B]

Really? I had one once, and I was too young to understand. It was ridiculous. I was, like, 27, and for some reason, I scored an office.

[A]

I remember talking to Bob Cohn at the Atlantic, who was like, whose first job in journalism was as an intern at Newsweek, when the interns at Newsweek had offices. And he'd literally never not had an office. And I'm like, wow.

[B]

Well, that's a different time.

[A]

It's a different time.

[B]

But maybe we go back to that. And then you could set your office temperature however you want.

[A]

Yeah. Which is what I do in my home office. Home offices are great. You get. You get to set them at whatever temperature you want. And you get to decorate them however you like, you know, because it's your house. Let's just. Let's all just telecommute.

[C]

I hate working from home.

[B]

There's just no good solution to any of that of this, is there?

[A]

Offices. That's the solution. Offices with thermostats.

[B]

Everyone gets an office. You get an office.

[A]

You get an office with a thermostat. It's a lot cheaper than paying off student loans.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

Oh, I love it. Yeah, done.

[A]

Let's have a numbers round. Anna, do you have a number?

[C]

I do. So My number is 310. This is referring to the 3 month 10 year spread.

[A]

Oh.

[C]

But I'm not just saying this because.

[A]

It'S 310 a number. Or is it two numbers?

[C]

Well, there's a hyphen in the. Or actually an N dash. But anyway. So the reason I'm saying this though is not just because of yield curve inversion, which we've talked about. I am saying.

[A]

Are we inverted?

[C]

Yes, it recently again. I mean, it's gone like it's such a small amount that it's about zero.

[A]

The difference between borrowing costs at three months and borrowing costs at 10 years if you're the US government is roughly zero.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

But the reason I bring this up is because this past week I came across my favorite thing, which is so this guy, Alan Smith, who works at the Financial Times, created a musical version of the yield curve. Ooh, it is so cool. Where basically, so it's like each. The numbers obviously, like higher numbers are higher notes and so then you can actually like hear the difference in different years. You can kind of hear like how steep it is, if there are twists. It is so cool. Anyway, this is like my favorite thing I came across this week. Which friend of the show, Tim Harford, has a podcast that is what I heard it on, more or less. That's a very good podcast about statistics. Shout out. But anyway, I thought this was very cool.

[A]

That's awesome. Emily, what's your number?

[B]

$20.

[A]

$20? What's that?

[B]

Harriet Tubman was supposed to be on the $20 bill starting 20.

[A]

This is 2020 because that's the hundredth anniversary of women's suffrage. And so what we need is to take that horrible slave owning guy, the current $20 bill.

[B]

That was the plan from the Obama administration.

[A]

Jack Lew was one of the few things he actually did as treasury secretary.

[B]

Yes, it was actually. I was, I was reading some old stories and like at first the treasury wanted to put Lady Liberty on a 10 and everyone was like, are you kidding me? Put a real woman on the money. Like, what are you doing? And they listened, and they had this all planned out. And guess what? The Trump administration just can't. They said, we can't do it until 2028. They didn't explain really why they can't do it. And I mean, the clear answer is they're a bunch of white supremacists.

[C]

And I think just being petty, I mean, I just think there's this idea that, like, anything related to Obama, they're like, we're not gonna do anything. Cause Obama liked it.

[B]

I think it's that. I think it's worse than that, honestly. Trump says positive things about Andrew Jackson, who, as everyone knows, not only owned slaves, but, like, kicked Native Americans farther west, the Trail of Tears.

[C]

It caused many of them to be killed.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so he said only really positive things about Jackson. And the only thing he ever really said about tubman on the 20 was that that was just political correctness, which is just disgusting. And the whole thing, I feel like, is just, I guess, disgusting.

[C]

No. Okay, I'll agree with you now. It's more than just petty.

[B]

It's more than petty. It is really symbolic of just, like, white supremacy and how little regard the administration has for women and for black people and for American history. I mean, this is a war hero. This woman not only freed slaves, she, you know, she was a spy for the Union Army. I mean, it's just. It's disgusting of this administration not to just. Just make this one symbolic gesture that really could mean a lot. There's no women on any of our currency at all. Only men. Only white men on our currency.

[A]

Clearly, Britain does much better because we have a woman on all of our currency.

[C]

Yeah, we need a queen.

[B]

That's what we need.

[A]

We need a queen. My number is 303, which is the number of seats in the Indian Parliament that was won by the bjp. In the greatest exercise of democracy that the world has ever seen, the world's largest democracy, India, went to the polls. It was six weeks it took them to vote, because that's how big it is. And at the end of it all, the bjp, the Hindu nationalist party under the current leader, Narendra Modi, wound up with 303 of 543. So it's a very, very comfortable majority. The second biggest party, the Congress Party, you know, the party of the Gandhi family, which created secular India, they got. Got 52 seats. They didn't even. It's like one sixth of what the BJP does. So, yeah, this is a huge swing even further towards nationalism and identity politics. And yeah, it's not a great sign for where global democracy is headed.

[C]

Yes, at some point we should actually have an expert on and have like an entirely India edition.

[A]

We should have an Indian.

[C]

I think that would be a great idea.

[B]

That seems like a good one for this side.

[A]

We will do an India edition this summer.

[B]

Send us your ex.

[A]

You have a good idea for who we should have on to explain India to us. Let us know. It is slatemoney.com we have a slate plus segment. We're going to talk about IPO underwriters on technology companies. Many thanks to Jessamine Molly for producing. And we will talk to you next week on Slate Money.