Hi everybody we are joined today by
Jason Bradford, the president of the
board of directors for the Post Carbon
Institute. Jason is also a co-host of
Crazytown podcast, an excellent podcast
I must say. Jason, welcome and thank you for
taking time to speak with us today it's
really good to see you and talk to
yourself so I know Post Carbon Institute
from my work in the environmental
community over years but before I got to
Corvallis and was happy to learn that in
fact Corvallis is the home base for the
Institute and can you talk a little bit
about what post carbon Institute is all
about and your mission a little bit. Sure.
It's, in short, you know it's a
it's not like a lot of other nonprofits
in the area because we're a think-tank
ok you often think of think-tanks is
like based in washington DC or something
like that or at a major university or
whatever but no we we are a small think
tank and then been active since
mid-2000s have a big fellows Network so
if you go to post-carbon dot org and
kind of look at staff and board and
fellows you'll see that we have we have
people all over the world involved and
so as what we do is we we analyze sort
of information related to energy and the
economy and society and we frame it to
kind of help steer you know thought
processes ideas and conversations really
to consider the future when why it's
called post carbon is the idea that at
some point you know we have less and
less fossil hydrocarbons to burn and
those are really that's the motive force
that's the that's what powers our
economy right now and it's led to these
the civilization we're accustomed to and
so really we highlight the fact that
whether you do it for policy reasons
that you don't want to burn them anymore
because they're too polluting or because
these were these were laid down by dead
algae you know tens of millions of years
ago and there's only so many left and
we're going to the most extreme
locations on the planet to find them now
that's a good sign that they don't last
forever so we're trying to grapple with
with the implications of that and help
other people think through that as well
so is it like you're predicting there's
gonna be a point where there's going to
be an end to oil or the end of oil as we
all know it and the world needs to
prepare for that you're you're helping
share ideas and background and research
and science to help that process is not
the right way to think about it yes some
extent I would say you know oil
obviously is getting gets a lot of
attention because it is the most
important energy source that the world
uses right now both be cut multiplied
volume like an actual the actual amount
of work done by oil is larger than any
other source but also its unique
properties really because it allows for
a transfer transportation long distance
heavy equipment use a feedstock for many
industrial products so oil is is sort of
the the prime most important energy
source of society but really what we do
is we think about them not just the
limits eventual limits to oil supplies
but for really you know you could think
of society as this giant organism that's
just eating more and more consuming more
and more of the earth
I mean dr.seuss the lorax kind of had it
right you know you build all these
machines and you start cutting down the
truffula trees to make stuff and
sweaters i think is that what it was
something like a sweater yeah sort of a
sweater but eventually you know it's me
that runs its course and and it's you
could never say with any precision this
is the date that this
happen but it's not hard to look at the
long arc trajectory and think in terms
of you know of years and decades and to
see where things might be so that's sort
of the perspective we take it's it's
fresh water it's rare earth minerals
it's key deposits of ores like copper
you know it's the pollution that builds
up in the atmosphere in the oceans and
all those lead to limits and our ability
to continually expand the the enterprise
the way of life were accustomed to well
that's really obscene when you think
about that arc how has the current
pandemic changed that you know suddenly
oil flooded the market became very
inexpensive and I recognize you're
talking about you know a broader use of
the planet beyond just oil but how does
the pandemic fit into this whole picture
and what do you think the future is
gonna look like how do you think it
might be changed because the pendant
yeah what I think of the pandemic was
sort of a an external you know shock
unexpected shock to the system that sort
of revealed the fault lines that are
already there so an analogy might be
you've got a vase and that has it has
cracks and weaknesses in it and you
knock it and it's gonna break where it's
weak already and so I think all the
pandemic really revealed was where the
system was already weak and and that's
what happens when you have really mature
systems that that evolve to a state of
high complexity that are rigid and
unable to adapt and and really change in
any kind of logical sensible way they
get locked in to their ways of doing
things and you see this through the
large corporations you see this in terms
of like public policy what makes sense
is almost impossible to do because the
system has evolved to interlock laws and
and interest group you know people
people protect
their interests and and it gets kind of
out of hand where it really takes a
crisis for to allow changed really
happen and so what I think the pandemic
did was it just basically was a crisis
now there was there was going to be
another crisis at some point that would
have done something similar there could
have been a series of natural disasters
there could have been a war there could
have been the debt overload could have
been untenable and there could have been
a repeat of 2008 but the larger scale
and so there are many ways these things
can now kind of this rigid large system
can can kind of wobble and crack mom and
that pandemic was just the way it ended
up happening so it seems like oil is
gonna be coming back but you know less
excessive now for a while and I'm no
expert but it seems like that would
hinder the renewable energy market and
you know why would people care to go
solar for example if it's you know less
expensive to keep their their house with
oil now and so yeah what do you think
about that transition to a renewable
energy economy in the United States or
even globally and how the pandemic might
affect that yeah I mean the pandemic is
in any anytime you see an economic
decline investments in new things like
renewable energy are sometimes difficult
if they're expensive if they're
high-tech you know so I think that
that's going to be tough it's we're I I
know for a fact that a lot of projects
related to to wind turbines and
photovoltaics those things are being
cancelled they're being pushed off and
and and in for a number of reasons
supply chains project management just
can happen in logistics nowadays
but also then like you said these these
projects become less financially tenable
when the price of fossil fuels that
they're competing with has plummeted and
if we do stay in a recessionary or even
a economic depression State for for very
long then the damage to the economy
continues and it gets very hard for the
for the financial system to back
anything like this so it leads to kind
of a pulling back investment and but
what's interesting though is that I
think people have put way too much stock
in the ability of renewable energy
systems to really substitute for the
energy service were absolutely those
were accustomed to with fossil fuels
mm-hm and and so there are so much more
smart investments that can be done that
have very little do with technology very
little to do with high finance
like when well you know for example you
could ride your bike more you could walk
more you could redesign your cities and
towns to be less car dependent by reduce
the amount of parking spaces making
things more attractive for for
pedestrians and bicyclists you can do
this stuff we could you can tell a
commute more mom we can cut energy use
much faster and we've already seen that
we cut energy use by so much so quickly
and it had nothing to do with replacing
it with anything else like like a wind
turbine or photovoltaics the cheapest
thing and the most likely thing to work
is actually changing lifestyles and
behaviors and so I think instantly went
to using almost no energy right like we
use the energy in our how my car sat in
my driveway for like six weeks with a
full tank of gas are usually refilled
twice a week right yeah tremendous
change happened so quickly
and so that's that's what we talk about
a post carbon Institute
is that renewable energy systems on the
margin in the future if we have some of
this stuff around yeah it's going to be
useful they're having electricity too
Tim as a motive force is kind of nice
but honestly to think they're going to
scale and that this sort of the
modernity we think about the
cosmopolitan era of jet travel and high
consumptive lifestyles and the Internet
of Things that doesn't work with the
renewable energy technologies we have or
likely to be able to have any kind of
scale and so we're really it's about
it's really about focusing on how are we
all going to live very differently and
that's really tough to have prior to
some kind of major crisis like we're
having now where it's forced upon you
you know it's forced upon people and
everyone had to live more simply or is
currently living more simply we talked
about it sometimes in the past tense and
I think we're still really in the
beginning beginning of golf who knows
yeah but I do think as people do try to
go back to some sense of normal there's
a lot of people are having a pause and
same way you'd help I kind of liked
slowing down you know I might not want
to schedule myself the way I used to and
and who knows there might be some
permanent ongoing positive changes Jason
I know a lot of local organizations have
had a hard time with fundraising and
keeping staff on as I understand you
guys have you know a couple of handful
of staff on the organization staff so
how are you guys doing with fundraising
and how does that look now are people
keeping their jobs
yeah we're in really good shape we are a
kind of a unique small think tank that
has a message that's really different
than than other organizations and so we
have sort of a lot of dedicated funders
and really I think this is a kind of
period where people are trying to
understand what's really going on
they're questioning
everything right now and you know we
have a president who has taught us all
about gas lighting and what that's about
we're you know are you gonna believe me
or your lying eyes and I think that you
know the American culture though in
general has been gas lighting everybody
we've been taught to expect a certain
certain and you know outcomes in the
world and when things aren't going the
way they're supposed to we don't
understand it so one of the things a lot
of people that follow post carbon
Institute find so rewarding is that you
know by integrating an understanding of
energy and ecology and economy and
society we're able to piece things
together so people understand the
historical trajectory how we got to
where we are and then have a really way
of understanding what the how the future
might unfold and what the place could be
in it so really this could be a time
where where our organization actually
thrives because we're able to get you
know we're able to make sense of the
world for people and hopefully help us
create creative future that's better I
want to thank you for coming joining us
today everyone against has been Jason
Bradford the board president of Post Carbon
Institute and co-host of Crazytown
podcast I'm Severn Williams at Benton
County COVID connection I also want to
encourage anyone to go to postcarbon.org
and make sure that you learn a
little bit about the work of the Post
Carbon Institute and Jason thanks again
for joining us. Thanks a lot, Sev, good seeing you
