Commonwealth Club of California Podcast CLIMATE ONE: Small Dollar, Big Impact
The climate doesn’t care where emissions cuts come from; what matters is that the world transitions to renewable energy quickly and cheaply. If it’s significantly cheaper to install solar panels in India than on a rooftop in California, then isn’t that where they should be built? Similarly, transferring money directly to local people with the greatest stake in preserving their land can have outsized impact in conservation. Where does a climate dollar go furthest?
Guests:
Kinari Webb, Founder, Health in Harmony
Premal Shah, Founder, kiva.org, renewables.org
Nathaniel Stinnett, Founder and Executive Director, Environmental Voter Project
Highlights:
00:00 – Intro
04:30 – Origins of Kinari Webb’s nonprofit Health in Harmony
09:00 – Rainforests as lungs and heart of the planet
12:00 – Radical listening to communities about what they need
15:00 – Positive outcomes from responding to community needs directly
18:00 – Webb’s near-death experience from a jellyfish sting
22:00 – Rainforest conservation as a giant climate lever
29:00 – Premal Shah describes how he came to create Kiva.org
32:00 – How Kiva.org works
35:30 – Thought experiment from moral philosopher Peter Singer
38:40 – Kiva tries to reframe stories of poverty as stories of entrepreneurship
41:00 – Applying crowdfunded microfinance model to renewable energy
46:00 – Idea of “effective altruism”
49:30 – Nathaniel Stinnett: we’ve been taught to blame ourselves for the climate crisis
53:00 – How to shift public actions to make climate more political
For show notes and related links, visit https://www.climateone.org/watch-and-listen/podcasts
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