jivetalking

Episode 8: Zach Malik (https://www.linkedin.com/in/zachariasmalik/) is a 23-year-old British-Pakistani. While his home-based is London, he has had the privilege to live in England, Pakistan, Libya, Egypt, Australia, Netherlands, Switzerland, and France.

Zach graduated from LUC in Feb 2016 with a BSc in Policy Science (now GED) and minor in Sustainability (now EES). He is currently completing his master's in Management and Corporate Sustainability at Cranfield University. Prior to starting his master's, Zach has worked with Arcadis, World Business Council for Sustainable Development, UN Environment, Climate-KIC, and Worldfavor.

Beyond building a career, Zach is developing a charity called G-Corps - a global initiative to unite, up-skill, and unleash the power of young people to help them become changemakers. Zach also acts as a Young Ambassador for Oxfam GB and Unicef UK, representing both organsations at the local and global level.

This episode's motto: "You can get more done if you work multiple jobs."

Episode 7 (14 Feb 2019): In this interview with Keith Agoada (co-founder and CEO of Producers Market www.producersmarket.com), we discuss the supply chain connecting consumers to farmers around the world, and how their platform will make it easier for farmers, stores and consumers to get better food from quality vendors.

This episode's motto: "Get the lemons you want, not the bananas you don't."

Here's their promo video: https://youtu.be/CGfzg6BI8pY

Episode 6: Michelle is a research engineer at the Alaska Center for Energy and Power (ACEP ~ http://acep.uaf.edu) working on projects ranging from bringing more rooftop solar to Anchorage (the big city) to helping residents in the Bering Straits Region find solutions to the high cost of energy (https://avec.org/). After completing a degree in Astronomy from Caltech, and then dropping out of a PhD program in Geophysics at UC Berkeley, she has worked as an engineering geologist, an organic gardening coordinator, in energy efficiency outreach, and as a park ranger in Katmai (among other things)! She returned to school and graduated in 2018 with a Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering from UAA, writing a finite-element model of heat transfer in arctic soils for her thesis. As eclectic as this list might seem, all of it comes together in solving problems of finding sustainable energy sources in the Arctic, with the challenges of unstable permafrost for infrastructure foundations, finding the energy to grow food and provide fresh water, and other linkages between energy and the environment.

Michelle grew up in Alaska, and is happy to be raising her son here as well. They like to take the dog hiking, camping, ice skating and skiing, but also enjoy a lot of cozy indoor time as well. She is thrilled to be doing work that she hopes will continue to make Alaska a great place to live for her family and all Alaskans.

This episode's motto: "Working hard in hard-to-work places!"

Episode 5: Walter E. Block (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Block) is Harold E. Wirth Endowed Chair and Professor of Economics at Loyola University in New Orleans.

Here's my review of Walter's book: http://www.aguanomics.com/2017/08/review-water-capitalism.html

Walter added a comment:

"You inquired as to the difference between suing for pollution and a govt prohibition of pollution. I don’t think I did very well in answering. Let me try again.

Option A: The govt passed a law against fraud. Yet, I can still sue you for fraud if you engage in it.

Option B: The govt also passed a law against pollution. Yet, I can’t still sue you for trespass of smoke particles onto my lawn or lungs if you engage in it. In addition, the govt law has got so much else in it not analogous to its law against fraud: CAFÉ standards, carbon taxes, etc. In sharp contrast there’s no tax on fraud."

To this I clarified (and he agreed): "I think you’re clarification needs to include the (obvious) factor: the government often declares its regulation to have a monopoly, thus prohibiting private lawsuits, etc."

Episode 4: Marina Della Giusta(mardelgiu.com)is an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Reading.

In this interview, we discuss #metoo in economics, teaching millennials, and the different perspectives of gender and age.

For more on women in economics, see the symposium here: https://www.aeaweb.org/issues/538

Episode 3: Monja Esterhuizen (http://www.linkedin.com/in/monja-esterhuizen-4300452a) and I spoke on 2019.01.22 about the governance structure of water resources and infrastructure management in South Africa and different ways to reduce water scarcity challenges. We focussed on the problem of "non-revenue water" that is "produced" but physically or financially "lost." I am doing some research on whether NRW levels may correlate with good/bad governance.

Links and documents we discuss:

(1) South Africa's Dept. of Water & Sanitation: http://www.dwaf.gov.za/default.aspx

(2) National Water & Sanitation Master Plan. See Volume 1 (the summary document)for information on projects, infrastructure, costing, priorities, etc.: http://www.dwaf.gov.za/National%20Water%20and%20Sanitation%20Master%20Plan/DocumentsReports.aspx

(3) No Drop Guidelines:

https://www.kysq.org/docs/2018.01.22_NoDrop_final.pdf

(4) NRW report for the Ilembe municipality in South Africa*

https://www.kysq.org/docs/2018.01.22_ILEMBE_WB_June_2018.pdf

(5) The Kingfisher program for decentralised water management:

http://www.cmra.org.za/sites/default/files/LGCP-SA-KingFisher-booklet.pdf

(6) Some relevant blog posts:

http://www.aguanomics.com/2018/02/what-went-wrong-in-capetown.html

http://www.aguanomics.com/2011/07/miya-waters-quest-to-plug-leaks.html

http://www.aguanomics.com/2012/02/we-can-no-longer-waste-water-like.html

https://www.aguanomics.com/2013/10/wheres-your-water-and-your-money.html

http://www.aguanomics.com/2017/06/californias-shameful-lack-of.html

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* Monja says: "The municipality has a mixed development, some urban developed towns (mostly served by surface water schemes, most receive water via in-house piped water and sanitation via waterborne sewer), but also some deep rural areas (some served by surface water schemes, others by borehole, often connections via communal stand pipes).

The volumes translate to +- 58Ml/d input, of which 60% is non-revenue water.

The population of the district municipality is +- 600 000 persons.

Note however that there are just over 30 water supply scheme areas, not all are accurately metered on the bulk provision. The communal standpipes are not metered. Communal standpipes are placed such that it should be within 200m walking distance from a household. Urban areas are generally metered, but meters are not all read monthly."

Episode 2: Delton and I discuss his ideas for 4C ("Complementary Currencies for Climate Change") as a means of promoting a sustainable carbon economy.

You can learn more about Delton and his ideas here:

Interview: https://youtu.be/Hd4PET0Z2f8

The Silver Gun Hypothesis: New Model for a Sustainable Carbon Economy: https://mahb.stanford.edu/blog/silver-gun-hypothesis/

Hypothesis for a Risk Cost of Carbon: Revising the Externalities and Ethics of Climate Change:

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-03152-7_8

After our talk, Delton sent some additional thoughts:

"Transaction Costs: In our interview, you mentioned a few times that transaction costs for 4C would be high. This could be confusing or misleading, because the costs of trading 4C are very low (i.e. the transactions costs are similar to trading currencies).

[DZ: Economists group all costs of finding, trading and receiving "goods" under transaction costs. Delton separates these... as seen below.]

Administration Costs: The costs you refer to are the costs of administering the assessments of the climate mitigation actions (measurement, reporting and verification of data and policing). These costs are lumped with the actual cost of doing the mitigation work. Both costs are accounted for in the Risk Cost of Carbon (RCC). Separating administrative costs from mitigation costs is only a matter of interpretation — and ultimately we need to combine these costs as one single cost.

Financial Intermediaries: If we compare the Global Carbon Reward (and the 4C payments) to other sources of finance, there is much less opportunity for financial intermediaries to skim profits from 4C (e.g. lawyers and fund managers etc.) because there is no 4C held in reserve accounts. In other words, the 4C is created at the time that it is issued to the actors who do the mitigation work. Technically speaking, there are no financial intermediaries in this system.

Economic Growth Problem: Dirty Growth? Good Inefficiencies? The costs of mitigation and administration will be significant (USD $1-3 trillion per year) but this cost is not a bad cost. In other words, it is not fair to describe it as "bad inefficiency", because these costs are required for climate safety.

Moreover, the more efficient is the economy, the more growth there will be, and economic growth is currently very highly correlated to primary energy demand and carbon emissions. Therefore, if more resources (and money) is spent on climate mitigation (and administration) this will slow other types of economic activity that are producing carbon emissions — and this is the desired outcome. For this reason the inefficiencies of the policy are called "good inefficiencies". This distinction is very important, because it changes the narrative on climate change economics. Please read the book chapter [third link above] for more information."

Episode 1: I discuss water privatization with three students from the Herberger Young Scholars Academy at ASU West in Glendale, Arizona.

This brief introduction explains what the podcast is about, why I am doing it, and who I hope to talk to.