0:00

The. Key message of my book is like

0:02

air pollution, climate, food, biodiversity. These are

0:04

hard problems to solve. I think we

0:06

are capable of solving them and it's

0:08

just not the case that it's too

0:10

late to tackle this. I'd

0:14

had great teachers that I've learned

0:16

from. I have a librarian at

0:18

my elementary school. I have a

0:21

great tennis coach. Am you know

0:23

the best way to get on

0:26

confused about something is to find

0:28

somebody who really deeply understands it.

0:30

And I call that getting on

0:33

confused. Welcome.

0:38

To: I'm confused Me: I'm Bill

0:40

Gates. My

0:53

guest is Doctor Hannah Richie A.

0:56

Data. Scientist and researcher at

0:58

the University of Oxford. Also.

1:01

Had of research for or world

1:03

and data. She's just coming out

1:05

with a fantastic new book called

1:08

not the End of the World

1:10

Welcome Hannah. Pleasure to be here. And

1:12

so Hannah, when you did your Ted talk and was

1:14

the book written by then or that is it was

1:17

written by then? Yeah, Okay, so. The Ted talk is

1:19

like a little bit of a a own version of

1:21

the. Yeah, that went very well. You

1:23

manage to what did they give you

1:25

fifteen then? that? Is it seems like

1:27

a long time ago when by a as complete

1:30

blur like I actually don't mentor for a set

1:32

of and I was up there by i watched

1:34

a vac and i said most of for i

1:36

wanted to say. Tommy Little bit

1:38

about how you came to write the book.

1:41

Yeah, I think so my backgrounds environmental

1:43

science as original bachelors or masters or

1:45

Phd all and environmental sciences And I

1:47

think. By. The end of my

1:50

degree. Despite having studied environment for a

1:52

long, long time, I felt to some

1:54

extent quite helpless about like the number

1:56

of problems we're facing lawyer huge the

1:59

problems of massive. To me at the time

2:01

it seemed like we were. Making. Any

2:03

progress on these problems with. despite having

2:05

done all of this walk I felt

2:07

kind of late helpless and how to

2:09

tackle these issues. and as I walk

2:11

in our data and my workplace how

2:13

much more data driven approach were rather

2:15

than focusing on news headlines which a

2:17

commoner as all the time is stepping

2:19

back to look at the data to

2:22

understand these problems and how we sold

2:24

them to I've done our dates of

2:26

the last six or seven years as

2:28

to study these environmental problems amongst. Health,

2:30

Poverty, all our problems that we face and

2:33

try to understand where we are on these

2:35

problems and how we talk with them. So

2:37

I do in the book as I take

2:40

seven different environmental problems so air pollution claim

2:42

it sued by diversity on ties to paint

2:44

a picture of where we came from, where

2:46

we are today and what that tells us

2:49

about what we need to do next. And

2:52

there's a large. Group. Of people

2:54

I guess you could call them tumors

2:56

who are feeling a sense of despair

2:58

about. You. Know. There's.

3:01

Nothing we can do should they have kids

3:03

or type of thing I do. You think

3:05

that got to be such. A

3:08

common way of looking at

3:10

at the environmental issues. Yeah,

3:12

think is a growing problem and Isis is

3:14

as like a decade ago I was probably

3:16

And that very same position I was studying

3:18

of these environmental tense and the older seem

3:21

to be getting worse and worse and worse

3:23

of a lot of is also done at

3:25

the time aside, no understanding of human well

3:27

being trends, what changes what was happening to

3:29

poverty, to health, to education and why does

3:32

I just simply stop places and said well

3:34

I'm seeing all these new Tesla insane, look

3:36

at it a number before and hung the

3:38

number of tend to die in Like all

3:40

of these sense I just assumed. The all

3:42

of these were getting worse at the same

3:45

time so to me it seems like war

3:47

and capable of solving any problems are having

3:49

than like a big turning point for me

3:51

was discovering walk of Hundreds lane so really

3:53

brought to the front. has the world has

3:55

changed on these human well being metics putting

3:57

one of the reasons why so many people.

4:00

With a sense of didn't know as

4:02

that we we feel to also recognize

4:04

amount of human progress that we've made

4:06

over last few centuries. One. Reading

4:08

about your book to suit you. Although

4:11

claimants I'm. Probably. The Prom

4:13

the gets the most attempt to new

4:15

talk about other environmental challenges we face.

4:18

Talk about a few of those. Yes

4:20

are set to as on air pollution

4:22

was having some used as an underrated

4:24

problem. If you're looking up number of

4:26

tennis or deaths from a position is

4:28

actually much higher than climate change to

4:30

the in a lot might change in

4:32

the future. Certain for me like air

4:34

pollution is one of the busiest health

4:36

challenges and say so that we it's

4:38

all estimates this or and seven million

4:40

premature deaths every year Job outdoor plus

4:42

endless is what we see as like

4:44

they mrs from Carson and power stations

4:46

etc which is a big problem but

4:48

there's also have a vastly. Underrated problem

4:50

which has ended up listen which is

4:53

basically people mostly it anti poverty. We

4:55

are the only seals they have our

4:57

will.ah cool or or crop with and

4:59

they are recently using nasty heat and

5:01

and sit in their homes and the

5:04

amount of the a position that you

5:06

get from this is really really damaging.

5:08

To. Health Snow on air pollution we

5:10

have achieved a lot. They are one

5:13

of the ozone layer which you know

5:15

I just learn about from history of

5:17

it's because can have missed this those

5:19

only a period. But at the time

5:22

that was our a massive problem countries

5:24

came together and be reduced emissions of

5:26

these ozone depleting diocese by more than

5:28

ninety nine percent. Acid rain is another

5:31

one like especially in Europe and North

5:33

America acid rain was on a massive

5:35

problem is basically souls.scenarios time to see

5:37

and middle income. Countries with Train Of

5:39

for example has seen it's really starts

5:42

to claims and local air pollution but

5:44

when you take Rex Countries soul London

5:46

or Edinburgh where I'm from you've seen

5:48

Zz dramatic reductions and Local or Plus

5:50

in which received a lot of life

5:52

So there are a range of problems

5:54

that we have solved was a guest

5:56

passes by the answers narrative that were

5:58

and capable of. Environmental problems.

6:00

One nice thing about that is

6:02

that. Going. From coal to

6:05

solar or wind, you can.

6:08

Clean up local pollution from coal so

6:10

there's a little intersection with climate there.

6:12

Read the local police people in that.

6:15

Greenhouse. Gas people call is

6:17

the primary enemy. Yeah I

6:19

mean on air pollution you tend to

6:21

see all this call their environmental closeness

6:23

cove which doesn't apply to every environmental

6:25

problem but you definitely see it was

6:27

a a where has almost like an

6:29

upside down year so air pollution tends

6:32

to be lower very viable and comes

6:34

and as countries industrialize ago that than

6:36

which is a peek at middle incomes

6:38

and then vets currencies. once contest get

6:40

rich the start to decline since like

6:42

an upside down you know that's and

6:44

itself promising. That just means once everyone

6:46

gets rich than the problem solved. Of

6:49

the talons, we see some open it

6:51

this far as how do we like

6:53

a sailor at ten? much much faster

6:55

us to see. Wait, the number of

6:57

deaths like under that close as really

6:59

really begs the question is can Ndr

7:01

or lower middle and lower income countries

7:03

go through that tends much faster than

7:05

the Uk or the U S dead

7:07

because doing so will save a lot

7:09

less. I was stunned that

7:11

up the plastics and the ocean

7:14

the poor some coming from say

7:16

North America. Sexy, pretty small and

7:19

so that's another one where might

7:21

not be that expensive to see.

7:24

A. Big reductions having for me. Plastic

7:26

pollution is one key area where things

7:28

attention as can have lopsided of eighth

7:30

we think of plastics be immediately. think

7:32

submitting them on dollars a tree is

7:34

based on this. How do we reduced

7:36

plastic? Guess as much as possible Spots

7:38

is a problem of plastic pollution. Lake

7:40

Placid going into the ocean is not

7:42

at using plastics about has managed and

7:44

oh when it comes to the oceans

7:46

are own. Zero point five percent of

7:48

a plastic waste ends up a nuisance

7:50

is actually much more effective. To talk

7:52

that the zero point five percent and

7:54

to tackle that one hundred. percent we at

7:56

the top of the tin so when you

7:58

look at my soul of plastic use

8:01

across the world. Yes, plastic

8:03

use and plastic waste. Per person is much

8:05

higher in richer countries, like we use

8:07

more of this stuff. But what's different is

8:09

we send it to landfill where it's closed

8:12

and managed or we recycle it or it's

8:14

incinerated. Most of the plastic

8:16

is leaking into the ocean as more

8:18

in middle income countries where they've seen

8:21

very fast growth and very fast industrialisation,

8:23

but waste management has not managed to

8:25

keep up. So, but they're using lots

8:27

of plastic, but there's not the waste

8:29

management infrastructure there to gather it and

8:31

to keep it. So,

8:34

they are, yeah, it's a very tractable problem. If

8:36

you invest a little bit of money in waste

8:38

management, you can actually put a massive dent in

8:41

that problem. You look at environmental

8:43

numbers, have we actually reduced anywhere?

8:45

Are there examples where

8:47

our greenhouse gas emissions have gone

8:50

down? Yeah, so on greenhouse

8:52

gas emissions, I guess across the world, it's

8:54

a very mixed picture. On a global level,

8:56

we did see a

8:58

very rapid rise of the 1990s and early 2000s.

9:00

Over the last decade or

9:03

so, we've kind of saw a bit

9:05

of a plateauing, like rates are, emissions

9:07

are still increasing a little bit, but

9:09

they are going up very, very slowly.

9:11

And so rich countries in particular have

9:13

managed to significantly reduce emissions over the

9:16

last few decades, like in the UK,

9:18

for example, emissions have approximately halved. And

9:20

some of that is because of offshoring, but not all

9:22

of it is because of offshoring. So, even when

9:24

we account for that, emissions are going down. Middle-income

9:27

countries have begun as a bit of a

9:29

mixed picture where some are starting to see

9:31

a decline and then lower-income countries, before getting

9:33

access to energy, you would assume the emissions

9:35

there are going up and they are. Yeah,

9:38

the UK number was quite striking to me

9:40

because of course, the whole energy

9:43

intensification, industrial age coal starts in

9:45

the UK, and yet they're one

9:47

of the countries in that area

9:50

who's made the most progress of

9:52

all. Yeah, I mean, the story

9:54

of carbon emissions in the UK is basically

9:56

about coal. used

10:00

to come from coal. So when I was born,

10:02

it was between a half and two thirds. And

10:05

now we're basically coal free. So we've just

10:07

got coal completely out of the electricity mix,

10:09

which just makes a massive difference to

10:11

your carbon emissions. Yeah,

10:14

the challenge of getting people to understand

10:16

each of the sectors and

10:18

what's in the pipeline in

10:21

terms of innovation

10:23

that might allow that sector

10:26

to get its numbers down

10:29

without having the cost be

10:31

so gigantic. People know about

10:33

electric cars and they know

10:35

about wind and solar, but most

10:37

of the rest of it probably is pretty opaque

10:39

to people in terms of emissions and what we

10:41

might be able to do. Yes,

10:43

you split up the world's emissions. There

10:45

are the power sectors, electricity, there's transport.

10:47

Now those two combined are quite big,

10:49

but they're not everything. So I think

10:51

the way I see it is with

10:54

these sectors, we now actually do

10:56

have economic solutions there. Over

10:58

the last decade or so, we've seen plummeting

11:01

costs of solar, wind, batteries, electric cars. And

11:03

I think for those sectors, it's now about

11:05

deploying these technologies very, very quickly. The last

11:07

decade was getting the cost down, the state

11:09

is building as much as we and fast

11:11

as we can. But there are other sectors

11:14

where we still do need innovation. We need

11:16

cement, we need steel, like a big one

11:18

for me that's often overlooked is the food

11:20

sector. I think decarbonizing food and agriculture is

11:22

going to be very, very difficult. We have

11:25

this twin approach where we need to go

11:27

fast on the stuff that we have now,

11:30

but we also need to be putting

11:32

money and research into innovations in the

11:34

other sectors such that by 2040 or

11:36

2050, we have affordable solutions for those

11:38

sectors as well. I think the rich

11:40

countries have a few responsibilities. One, they

11:42

need to get domestic emissions down. I

11:44

think the other role that they play

11:47

is that they need to drive down

11:49

the cost of these technologies for middle

11:51

and low income countries. Middle and low

11:53

income countries cannot face the dilemma of

11:55

do I left people out of energy

11:57

policy or do I keep my carbon

11:59

emissions low? But the role that rich

12:01

countries can play is to drive in the

12:03

cost of these technologies such that there's no

12:05

trade-off, right? The cheapest

12:07

technology is also the low-carbon one. I

12:10

think that's one additional way by which

12:12

rich countries contribute beyond just the climate

12:14

finance mechanism. Yeah, I totally agree

12:16

with that. I talk about

12:18

the cost as the so-called green premium,

12:21

that obligation not only to get to

12:24

zero but to drive those costs down.

12:26

So the trade-offs for, say,

12:28

in India allow them

12:30

to say, okay, we're going to

12:32

build basic shelter while not dramatically

12:35

increase their emissions. The

12:38

solution that helps with

12:41

basically every environmental issue is this. You

12:43

get richer. Your

12:46

population growth tends to grow down,

12:49

and then your ability to detect

12:52

forest fires or build

12:54

buildings that when there

12:56

are natural disasters, the death toll

12:58

goes down. You have that incredible

13:01

graph of how particularly in rich

13:03

countries the deaths from natural

13:05

disasters has come down

13:08

so dramatically, which

13:10

is actually not about

13:12

reducing the tornadoes,

13:15

floods, earthquakes, but

13:17

rather having some warning

13:20

systems and resilience to

13:22

those negative effects. The

13:24

declining trend in disaster

13:27

deaths was really surprising to me.

13:29

I thought that to be an informed citizen, I

13:31

had to be watching the news all the time.

13:34

That's how I kept up with the world. But

13:36

when you watch the news, all you see is

13:38

disaster, disaster, disaster. And if you'd asked me to

13:40

draw the trend of what was happening to disaster

13:42

deaths in the world, I would have said that

13:44

they were the highest level ever. And actually when

13:46

you step back to look at the data, it's

13:48

the opposite. Because of increased resilience, we've seen a

13:50

really, really dramatic decline. If you look out at 2100, a

13:54

lot of the models look pretty hopeful

13:56

because during that time frame you

13:58

have a lot of economic growth. Yeah,

14:00

I mean the way I see it is we

14:03

do have the capacity to adapt. We have the

14:05

capacity to make our buildings, our infrastructure, more resilient.

14:07

I mean, the key there is that we need

14:09

to make sure that this is inclusive

14:11

globally. Like it's going to be the poorest that

14:14

are going to be hard to sit by this

14:16

because they don't have the resilience to build

14:18

back. Yeah, so to be clear,

14:21

your message is, although

14:23

being a doomer is not the

14:26

right way to look at this, the sense

14:28

of urgency about all the different areas that you

14:31

talk about in the book is still super

14:33

high. You'd love to see us making

14:35

even faster progress. Yeah,

14:37

I mean, the whole point

14:39

of the book is that these are big and

14:42

urgent problems and we need to really get moving

14:44

on them. What I'm trying to push back against

14:46

is more the message of, is truly, we can't

14:48

do anything about it. I think

14:51

for me, we seem to have flipped

14:53

very quickly from this area of kind

14:55

of fringe denial, where the denial

14:57

sphere was actually quite loud and quite big. And

14:59

we've suddenly seemed to flip straight into, it's too

15:01

late, there's nothing we can do about it. And

15:04

the key message of my book is, these

15:06

are hard problems to solve, but I think we

15:08

are capable of solving them. And it's

15:10

just not the case that it's too late to tackle this.

15:13

Well, I'm certainly going to be sending it

15:15

to lots and lots of people. Just

15:18

like in global health, we've got

15:20

to tell the stories of how

15:23

great the progress has been, because there are

15:25

lessons out of that, and keep people engaged,

15:27

even though the pandemic was

15:29

a big setback. So it's easy

15:32

in any of these areas,

15:34

including global health, to feel

15:36

really like, oh, we're not

15:38

making that much progress. And so

15:40

to have the positive data points

15:42

be in there and to have

15:45

it be kind of comprehensive, I

15:47

think is fantastic. So I'm looking

15:49

forward to all the debates that

15:52

it'll generate. I wouldn't have an impactful

15:54

book if everyone just loved it and just loved

15:56

everything about it. It's meant

15:58

to generate discussion beforehand. discussions based

16:00

around the data which I've tried to present

16:03

on the book then I think I'll have

16:05

achieved something. A core part of the

16:07

book is not just saying hey guys everything's

16:09

fine we can just sit back. I get a

16:11

call to action it's about trying to show where

16:13

we are build on the momentum

16:15

that we've gained through tackling some

16:17

of these problems but also trying to show

16:19

what we need to do next well I

16:22

hope that it will inspire more action rather than

16:24

reduce the pace of it. I've

16:30

got a turntable here and like I

16:32

do with all the guests I asked

16:35

if you could bring along a record that

16:37

means something to you so tell

16:39

me about it. Yeah I mean I should cover it

16:41

by saying it's not mine. If you're under the

16:43

age of 30 and you have a vinyl you're

16:46

cool and I didn't meet the cool criteria so

16:48

like I had to read from my dad's collection

16:50

but the one I have here the

16:53

track is called Life is Grand by

16:55

a band called Camper Van Dethoven. Shall

16:58

we play it for you? Sure. I

17:53

think part of why I chose

17:56

it is like I think if you

17:58

ask me like any point in human history like

18:00

when I would want to be born. I

18:02

would still choose today despite the environmental crisis

18:04

we face. I think this is the

18:07

best time to be alive as a human.

18:09

I want to make people

18:11

feel more hopeful about the future that

18:13

we can build and I know that

18:15

that will get some pushback from environmental.

18:18

It's fine like I'm trying

18:20

to create discussion. Yeah so that was why

18:22

I chose that track. My dad would play

18:25

vinyls when I was younger. It's like quite

18:27

poignant that I brought one of my dad's

18:29

tracks because I think he's played a big

18:31

role in shaping like not necessarily what I

18:33

think but how I think. I remember as

18:35

a kid he would always

18:37

play devil's advocate so regardless of what

18:39

opinion I took he would counter

18:42

that with a different opinion even if he

18:44

agreed with me and at the time as

18:46

a kid I found it really annoying and

18:48

frightening. Barwinki really taught me how to think

18:50

about things in different ways and I think

18:52

that's that's part of how I

18:54

think today like the problems that we're facing are

18:57

complex they're not one-dimensional you need to look at

18:59

it from different angles and through different

19:01

disciplines to tackle them. I think the way that

19:03

he set me up of how to think has

19:05

been really important. Fantastic. So

19:08

when I'm delving into a new topic I always try

19:10

to be really curious about it and

19:12

come into it with an open mind and I think

19:15

from that is a need to

19:17

come like a willingness to change your mind when

19:19

the evidence changes. I mean that's what science

19:21

is. Is there something that you've changed your mind

19:24

about recently? I spent a

19:26

lot of time in the technology world and I

19:28

have to say I was very stunned how

19:30

the AIs went from basically

19:32

not being able to read or

19:35

write at all to doing that

19:37

in a very facile way still very

19:39

imperfect but it kind

19:41

of blew my mind. I had challenged people

19:44

to pass a test and thought

19:47

they might never at least would take them years

19:50

but within a few months they

19:52

were able to do it. So now you know

19:54

I'm thinking about wow

19:57

how do we use this in a

20:00

education and health and

20:02

various environmental challenges. So

20:05

the power of these AIs, I mispredicted

20:10

that and I'm reformed.

20:13

Do you think AI will play a role

20:15

in climate action? Well, absolutely, because

20:17

our ability to model complex

20:20

phenomena, the AIs are helping

20:22

a lot with that. So

20:24

for example, looking at

20:26

the genetics of cows and

20:28

saying, hey, some cows emit a

20:30

lot of methane and some emit very, very

20:33

little. And some cows survive

20:36

in hot weather very well and some do

20:38

not. And then along

20:40

with our ability to edit

20:42

genes, one of the most dramatic source

20:44

of emissions that at one time I

20:48

wasn't sure the path forward. Now

20:50

we can see either making

20:53

the cows better or various

20:55

techniques where they create meat

20:57

without the cow. So

21:00

the power of AI to

21:03

look at those genes and see the

21:05

patterns, even the weather modeling

21:07

piece, now AI is being

21:09

applied to that both the long-term, which is

21:12

kind of those climate models, but

21:14

say telling the farmer in Africa, based

21:16

on the weather, should they go ahead

21:18

and plant now, or

21:21

is it going to be so dry? You

21:23

know, they used to always plant at the first rain, but

21:26

if you know that's anomalous,

21:29

then you shouldn't plant. And so the

21:31

AIs are really starting to

21:33

help us with very practical problems. For

21:36

you, what scenario where new

21:38

data kind of changed your view

21:41

of things? So how

21:43

my general framework for change on many

21:45

of these technologies is that if you

21:47

generate alternative technology, which is as good

21:49

as the original and as cheaper than

21:52

the original, then people will just adopt

21:54

it. And I think that's true for

21:57

energy sources. I think people are not that

21:59

bothered about. what actually comes, goes

22:01

into the plug, they just want reliable power.

22:04

I think one area where I'm a

22:06

bit more sceptical of that framework now

22:08

is in food. Now, I'm

22:11

a big fan of meat substitutes. I

22:13

love Impossible Burger beyond Meat Burger. Like,

22:15

I'm a vegan, so I eat this

22:17

stuff all the time. I think I

22:19

had this framework in my head that

22:21

definitely just got cheap enough and tasty

22:23

good that people would just make that

22:25

switch. I'm now becoming much more sceptical

22:27

that it will be as easy

22:29

as that. I think there will just be

22:31

this inherent resistance for many people that it's not

22:33

meat, so I'm not going to make the

22:35

switch. So to me, I'm

22:37

leaning more towards, I think

22:40

if we're going to see this large-scale

22:42

change in dietary habits, it basically needs

22:44

to generate meat, which would be lab-grown

22:46

meat, for example, when it's not just

22:48

a plant-based substitute for that,

22:51

but it's the actual thing just without

22:53

the cow or the chicken. Yeah,

22:56

you've got three ways to solve that, to make

22:59

the cow better,

23:01

but even then, you have

23:03

the ethical issues there, or

23:06

people who use plant material where

23:08

they haven't succeeded in

23:10

matching the taste or the cost. I

23:12

know they have new generations coming, so I'm hopeful

23:15

that will improve, but I think that's a great

23:17

way to say the cell-based approaches, they're

23:21

not going to have a problem with the

23:23

taste. Their challenge is very much

23:25

the cost, but there's some great companies,

23:31

including one called Prolific, and it looks like we may

23:33

get there. So

23:35

sometimes the path is a lot

23:37

longer, but

23:40

I think it's estimated how easy it

23:42

would be for people like Beyond and

23:44

Impossible to become mainstream. But they're out

23:46

there doing new

23:49

versions, so I'm still

23:51

hopeful. In this meat-subsuit

23:53

area, is there a product that

23:55

you've found attractive? So I

23:57

was a vegetarian for years, and last year I went

23:59

to a restaurant, vegan so I'm like a big

24:01

fan of meat substitutes. I

24:03

think the one that's my ultimate favorite

24:05

was the Impossible Burger and I had

24:07

it and it must have been 2019

24:10

when me and my team were in San

24:13

Francisco for a few months but

24:15

you can't get it in the UK so... Oh

24:17

really? Yeah so that was when I

24:20

had the Impossible Burger I think that was a real

24:23

flip back to the sensation and taste of

24:25

actually eating a burger like it really reminded

24:27

me of like what an actual beef burger

24:29

tastes like and I hadn't had one for

24:31

years but yeah unfortunately we don't

24:34

have Impossible Burger yet in the UK. I

24:36

think my ultimate favorite there is beyond meat.

24:38

I think the taste is really good, the

24:40

texture is really good. I'm sure many meat

24:42

eaters would disagree that it doesn't quite match

24:45

the experience for them but for me it's

24:47

really good. What about you? Yeah the...

24:49

I have to say

24:51

sausage is an area where it seems

24:53

to be easier for them to create

24:55

something where I can't tell the difference

24:57

or like a chicken sandwich. Ground

24:59

beef they are pretty close particularly

25:02

because you have salt and sauces

25:04

on it. The ultimate might

25:06

be a steak although there are

25:09

companies who say that

25:12

you know even that they'll be able to

25:14

achieve something. Almost every type

25:17

of food, milk, cheese,

25:19

you know there's interesting work

25:21

going on and so

25:23

if you can get say beef

25:26

or pork to

25:28

be made this way amazingly that

25:30

would even help with things like

25:33

deforestation because there's a whole chain

25:35

of how those animals get fed

25:37

and say agriculture I

25:40

keep trying this stuff there's

25:42

a yogurt that I think

25:44

is absolutely fantastic. I think

25:46

we're pretty far away on fish. I haven't

25:48

yet tried a meat

25:50

substitute for fish that really matches

25:52

the taste. Yeah for fish there's this

25:54

big trend away from Ocean-based

25:57

fishing, the so-called aquaculture.

26:00

And you know, that started

26:02

out as a very environmentally

26:04

insensitive ah thing, but now.

26:07

They're. Really improve Eames. What

26:09

they do with their wastewater, how they

26:11

controlled disease. And so it's interesting that

26:13

for almost to the point where half

26:15

of the fish are coming from auto

26:17

cops and and least in Africa the

26:19

upside to have a lot more of

26:22

that. Is there so

26:24

it's not to substitute but it's just another

26:26

way going. The says. He

26:29

had. The opportunity As

26:31

somebody who had time travel back

26:33

from twenty one hundred. Or

26:36

would beer your top questions for them?

26:39

Spent. One of my top questions

26:41

will be. What see

26:43

of the world are living on less than.

26:46

Twenty dollars a day having some me

26:48

lifted into the seats are why want

26:50

to see as a. World where most

26:52

people are everyone in the world. As

26:55

loving a comfortable as know we can capsule

26:57

out with extreme poverty rates as his decently

26:59

a few dollars a day. it's those party

27:01

lines are extremely low. I'd want to know

27:03

how many people are able to live on

27:05

twenty dollars a day of fighters. They was

27:07

kind of the poverty line and response is

27:09

no es low and middle income countries might

27:12

or might as into it's not level of

27:14

income. I think that would be an amazing

27:16

achievements and to me that was signal. Several.

27:18

Things I mean one just that

27:20

question beside know how they made

27:23

progress on health, agriculture, poverty, clothing.

27:25

All of those issues are low

27:27

diving. you have an end and

27:29

countries where and comes are mostly

27:31

for above the poverty line. You

27:33

have generally good health outcomes. You

27:35

probably also have really productive agriculture.

27:37

I think of it. Also tell

27:39

you something about how well the

27:41

a taco to environmental problems. I

27:43

guess as that was the case

27:45

then my assumption would be that

27:47

say much. Hunt hadn't Extremely devastating

27:50

impacts were agriculture was ruined and health

27:52

outcomes really to and people have plunged

27:54

into poverty. something of I was able

27:57

to ask one question that's. where the

27:59

be that's pretty smart because

28:01

yeah, in the end, it's all measured

28:03

through human welfare. It's not like the

28:06

end goal is less plastics

28:08

or even a

28:10

certain temperature. It's, you know, our humans

28:13

thriving, which is

28:15

very much what the

28:18

Gates Foundation tries to prioritize. I

28:21

have to say, if I met this person, I'd sort of

28:23

wanted to say, how are you

28:25

generating energy? Is fusion or fission

28:29

or some unexpected thing?

28:32

And then understanding how the

28:34

AI was either helping them

28:36

come together to be less

28:39

polarized or how they dealt

28:41

with that challenge. But

28:43

you're right, the report card isn't

28:46

the tactics, it's the

28:48

quality of life. So

28:53

what do you do to relax when you're

28:55

not working so hard? So I'm really

28:57

into exercise, so like running and going to

28:59

the gym, I do a lot of bouldering,

29:01

which is like climbing without ropes. I

29:04

think for me exercise is really key. I think

29:07

the caveat there is that often I'm not,

29:09

I'm still a little bit working. I think

29:11

often when I'm running, I'm getting really good

29:13

ideas and like often I'll think through an

29:15

article that I'm writing while I'm running, but

29:17

I guess for me it's a good idea

29:20

generation tool. So I think for me

29:22

like sport is a big thing. How

29:24

about you? For

29:27

me it's tennis and then pickleball. I

29:29

probably should do more running or exercise

29:32

things. I do some of that, but tennis

29:35

is a lot of fun. I have a lot of friends

29:37

that that's a

29:40

healthy activity and a good

29:42

distraction from work. Well

29:44

thanks for joining me Hannah.

29:46

I really enjoyed our conversation. No

29:49

thanks very much for having me, it was a really fun chat. Unconfused

29:55

Me is a production of the

29:57

Gates News. To

30:00

my guests today, Hannah Ritchie. I

30:03

love forcing myself to write, although it takes

30:05

a lot of discipline. For me,

30:07

I'm like a very, I mean, I also have a D job. So

30:10

for me, I'm a very early morning writer. I get

30:12

up at like 4 or 5am. And

30:15

that's when I'm really productive in my

30:17

writing.