Water, Wildlife, and Climate’s Hidden Trade-Offs

0:00Hello and welcome to Outrage and Optimism, I'm Tom Revekarnik. I'm Cristiana Fugidis. Hello, I'm Paul Dickinson, and we are still together and we're still answering your many questions. Today, we're going to be looking at impacts, trade-offs, and how we talk about climate. Thanks for joining us. OK, friends, so another round at these brilliant questions is going to be our third episode of Listener Questions. And honestly, they've been fantastic. So thank you to everybody who wrote in. And I guess we should just kick off. So I believe the first one is a question we have from Samia, and we have a recording. So let's go to that. I'm Samia Marafa, working for Waterade in Bangladesh. I'm here in Bilem at Endingop 30, and I want to ask the podcast, if water is kept at the heart of the climate conversations. Because in Bangladesh, back home, water is how. We see the impacts of the changing climate. This is how the changing climate enters our homes.

1:00And I want to know from you, if water has been given the importance that it needs to be in the decision-making. A fantastic question. There's lots to say there, Paul. Should we start with you? Well, I certainly don't know as much about the problems of water in Bangladesh as you do. I mean, there are obviously two. I'm just going to talk a little bit about categories here. People most closely associate problems with water in Bangladesh as rising sea levels, where there's catastrophic problems for literally millions of people from rising sea levels. I remember seeing an extraordinary piece of work that was about an necessity for families to tie babies up at night because if a baby were to move off a platform with water underneath, they might be lost. This kind of tragedy has lived experience for millions of people in Bangladesh. Now, there are additional issues with water, which is essentially drought, not having sufficient water. Or there's a big difference between seawater and fresh water. You can't drink seawater. So step back from these categories to the basic issue. We had to come up with a framing for this some years ago.

2:00You've probably heard me say this before at CDP. And we said, if climate change is the shark, water is the teeth. So essentially, it's water that actually kind of gets you so often in a climate change context. And I guess the reasons behind this are incredibly obvious, but I'm just going to mention them. One is the melting of ice, which sits basically not floating ice, but ice that sits on land. When it melts, it raises sea level. And of course, the world is getting hotter in the oceans, and particularly getting very much hotter. And there's something called thermal expansion. Now, sea level rises somewhere between, it was kind of three millimeters a year or something, more or less, it kind of depends for various reasons, different regions. But the critical issue is that sea level rise is correlated to increased storm surge. So inundation of land that might have been 10 meters or 100 meters with a centimeter or two of sea level rise could be many hundreds of meters and far more severe storm impacts. So essentially, and then the final thing to say is in terms of sort of flooding events,

3:01which are also super serious, greater energy in the Earth system causes greater carrying of precipitation of water in the atmosphere. So you get these more intense rainfall events. So in all of these different areas, I think it's a great question. And I suppose the question I would put back to you to based on this question is, if we assume water is not well enough comprehended, although we talk about it in terms of small island states, but more broadly, how can we better include the impact of water in our kind of engagement with the climate challenge? Yeah, I'm just to build on that. Thank you for going through all of that, Paul. The one piece that I would add is the absence of water in terms of droughts, which is the other disturbance of the hydrological cycle. I have to say people say an eight-year drought in Iran has sort of fermented demonstration, perhaps, a long time coming, but we've seen the same Syria. The conflict was possibly caused by drought, but sorry to interrupt. No, and the question, because water or the absence of water or too much water or warmer water is so often

4:02the way that climate is experienced, I often get the question, why is water not mentioned in the climate convention or in the Paris agreement? And it is a very good question. The somewhat procedural, sorry about that, our answer to that is because both the convention and the Paris agreement tend to focus on the cause of climate change. So in this case, the rising concentrations of all greenhouse gases, but particularly CO2, of which the disturbance in the hydrological cycles of the planet is one of the main effects. But neither the convention or the Paris agreement tend to go into the effects, but rather stay with the causes of the problem. Except in adaptation, right? What do you mean by that? Well, I mean, obviously, there are adaptation elements to the NFC mitigation adaptation. Adaptation will presumably respond to water. Building a sea wall, for example, to stop flooding. Yeah, but that's not what I'm saying.

5:03OK. What I'm just saying is that the word water doesn't tend to appear. Yeah, OK, but will it not be referenced underneath the adaptation elements of the NFC? Well, maybe, but honestly, almost like a footnote, not really with the importance of my point, because the convention and the Paris agreement and the hydro protocol and all of these tend to focus, it's the same answer to wire fossil fuels, not named. Wire fossil fuels, not named, is because these legal texts tend to stay with the original cause. And the original cause is the emissions of greenhouse gases. Anyway, in addition to what you have said, Paul, I wanted to add, have we thought about the fact that water is actually the golden thread that crosses through all the three environmental conventions? So water is definitely at the heart of climate change.

6:04Water is definitely at the heart of the biodiversity crisis that we have. And it's definitely at the heart of the desertification processes that we're seeing. So it is very ironic that despite the fact that water is the golden thread through all three, that it doesn't have, from, I guess, from a negotiation perspective, why don't we have a negotiating process that focuses on water? And those that would like to bring all these three conventions to some way of our coherence have focused and said, water brings them all together. Yeah, that's such a good question. And I think one of the things I'd take from it is we should delve into it more this coming year. It makes me remember, last year at the Clinton Global Initiative, I moderated a panel with Matt Damon and Gary White, who run water.org, and they actually said that come on the podcast and educate us a bit more. So we should go back to that and bring them on to help. Answer to me is a very good question.

7:04Just when last thought on water, if I may, with regard to refugees from Bangladesh, but not being able to survive in that country, India has built more than 3,000 kilometers of fence to stop migration. Well, that's a very good point. And actually, I was going to go to that. I have a very good friend who argues cases in front of the Supreme Court in the United States. And he has specialized particularly in water disputes between states. What happens when water is supposed to flow from one state and to the other? Rivers. Rivers, exactly. And like the Rio Grande, not reaching the ocean, and there are so many ancient pieces of law that cover how much flow is supposed to go from one legal jurisdiction into another. And these things are just ramping up at the Supreme Court in the US. And it's also happening internationally. Because what happens if Bangladesh is rivers as abundant as they once were, because it's being removed by Indian agriculture, there are huge areas of complexity. In the middle east, huge issues. Yeah. So actually, those territorial disputes, I think are going to become more and more prevalent. And the other issue I would just point to all the great ones,

8:05you've all brought up, is I had an amazing statistic, which is that AI is using more water than the entire bottled water industry. Now, so I appreciate that's a very different angle on it. But it water is going to become more and more of a scarce resource in specific areas. It's a bit more about that, because... Well, because it's required for cooling the data centers. So there's an enormous water demand in these data centers. It's one for cooling. Yeah. So yeah, so anyway, a great question. And we should definitely come back to it more this year. Thank you for that. Right. And so I think the next question is from Antoinette. Hello. My name is Antoinette, and I listen to your podcast every week. It helps me to stay positive when the situation looks so bleak out there for the environment. My question would be, I think it was Paul who mentioned industrialization during your podcasts from the COP30

9:08with regards to wind energy. And I wonder whether you could divide, devote some time to the balance between renewable energy, maybe wind energy in particular. And the biodiversity crisis, because I feel that private companies sometimes are able to build wind energy where biodiversity is rare and at an up-threat. And how far can we go? Should we go? I feel passionate about the biodiversity loss we're facing. I also think we need renewable energy, but there has to be a balance. Thank you very much for your podcast, podcast. And please keep going. Keep helping me through this difficult time. Thank you. Great. Such a good interesting question about book trade-offs. Well, Antoinette, thank you so much for being an avid listener. Love your comments. Thank you so much. First off the bat.

10:09Absolutely. Wind can harm biodiversity. You're absolutely right. The one way that that can happen is what you name already, which is habitat disruption, because roads are builds, foundations are built, transmission lines for wind turbines or wind farms, bat can fragment sensitive ecosystems. So that is one way in which biodiversity can be affected. There are a couple of other ways we know about bird and bat collisions where turbines have been poorly cited. And also we should consider offshore wind and what the construction of the bases of the turbines, how that construction noise can disturb marine animals. So all of these are definitely negative impacts on biodiversity.

11:09Now, what is changing is the planning, sighting, and operating of wind turbines is actually changing. In many ways, technically, to have larger, more efficient, more effective wind turbines, but also changing in order to be much more sensitive to negative impacts on biodiversity. And in fact, standard best practice that is already being implemented by the industry takes this account. So there are now radar and AI systems that pause turbines when birds approach. There are seasonal curtailment, protecting migration and breeding periods. There is now much stricter standards about where the roads and access points can be built and cannot be built. I'm not saying it's a perfect situation, but it is being improved.

12:10Very, very interesting to me is the fact that offshore wind turbines are now being found being built in a way that they're acting as artificial coral reefs. And so in that sense, those wind turbines are actually increasing local biodiversity. So it's not a black and white picture, but overall, overall of this, I think the consideration that has to be made is what are we comparing the wind turbines to? If the wind turbines are actually displacing fossil fuels, then one can say fossil fuels cause climate chaos, ocean acidification, air pollution, mass extinction. So it has a global existential impact. Wind power in the worst cases, and we're moving away from the worst cases,

13:11are having localized manageable risks that are being improved and are improveable. So I think we have to accept the fact that if we need energy and we need more and more energy, we are going to have some impact. But can we actually move away from global catastrophic impact to local impact and as little local impact as possible? So I think this is such a great question. And I think it also gives us an opportunity to speak to the politicization of this issue specifically. So we often hear at Trump and Farage and others who are trying to discount the validity of wind energy and try to find arguments to prevent its spread, which ultimately, probably at its cause, has a desire to perpetuate fossil fuel infrastructure using this example of destroying birds and the destroying. And of course this is a problem, and we need to address it in the ways you've set out. But in the US, for example, it is true that wind turbines

14:13cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of birds. But cats cause the death of billions of birds. Like orders of animals. Oh no, don't tell Paul that because he loves cats. Paul, you didn't hear that. I love cats and I love birds, but I kind of think cats are awfully good at catching and killing birds. Exactly. Now we just heard the data points. Sort of kind of forgive them in a way, even though I shouldn't really forgive them I kind of do. Do you forgive wind turbines as well? Yeah. I mean, but I've never kind of had a wind turbine curl up on my lap and purr. I mean, it's obviously an issue we should think about. And as somebody I have a lot of house mountains that nest around my house. And it honestly is just one of the most heartbreaking things when the migratory birds don't come back for whatever reason. And you realize this connection to this incredible, these incredible species that travel halfway across the planet and for anything that prevents them and kills them, we should absolutely do everything we can to stop that from happening. And at the same time, that argument is being used in an outsized way to drive a political point

15:14that is not consistent with the level of damage we can solve the problems we shouldn't give in to the politicization of it. The next question is from Baroka. I listened to the episode, a latest episode about geoengineering. And what I want to see addressed more is that aerosols they will affect renewable energy because they will block the sun. So you can't create that much solar energy. So that will kind of be a locking problem. Because it will be harder to reduce emissions if you reduce the energy generation from solar energy. And I would love to hear more from climate scientists like IPCC scientists. For example, one of the highest positions that a woman has in the IPCC. The IPCC vice chair, Diana is a woman coming from a small Eastern European country. I would love to hear sometimes her fuse

16:16and she is also a optimistic. Great. I mean, what an important question from Baroka. And I would 100% agree that we should get, not only talk more about this, but get some of the top scientists including from the IPCC to come and talk to us. So if you actually have Corinna Kerry, who is a brilliant artist and chair of the Climate Change Committee in France and we recorded it as one of our first recordings and then we lost the recording. She said she would come back on, so we'll try to talk about it. It's a very generous we, I think that was me. But thank you, Paul. Right. So a few different things here. One is spraying aerosols into the upper atmosphere, which is a topic we broke into a tiny bit at the end of last year. It's such an important consideration that so many people are looking at now. I personally find that I am terrified by that prospect and that it's not really responsible to just discount it without looking at it at this point, given how late we are and given how many risks we are. So that makes it a great topic for further debate and discussion and research and we will be providing that this year.

17:16In terms of the specific question here, which is around the proportion of dimming that solar radiation would have into the planet and what effect that would have on solar energy, my understanding is that the aerosols with dim solar radiation reaching the surface of the planet by one to two percent. And that would obviously have a significant impact, not only on solar power but also photosynthesis, for example, and we don't really know quite what that would mean for photosynthesis, but my understanding on solar energy is that local factors like dust on the panels and other things can have a much bigger impact on that. So whether that in itself will be a significant impact, I would suggest it may not be. But we've had many other questions on geoengineering, including from Steve, who wrote to us and said, presumably dimming the sun won't stop ocean acidification at a terrifying rate. And I want to just dig into that for a minute as well, because I think that's also really important. And he is absolutely right, of course. It would have no impact on ocean acidification and may even in a sort of unintentional way make it worse,

18:18because it may remove some of the urgency and the desire and the necessity exactly to reduce emissions, which then could accelerate ocean acidification. It doesn't have to turn out that way, but you can see why you'd be frightened of that. The pH of the oceans has shifted from 8.2 to 8.1 since pre-industrialized levels. Now, that's a logarithmic scale, so it's much more significant than that number sound. It's actually a 30% increase in the acidity of the oceans. And that has devastating effects in various different ways. Of course, acidification slows coral growth. So when you get to the point where warmer oceans are killing the corals and the acidification prevents the regrowth, then it massively increases the damage that we are causing to our coral reefs. And the other thing I would point to... Which should be the basis of the food pyramid in the ocean? That's why it's so important. 100%. That's the basis of the food pyramid. Well, there's worse. There's another issue that's connected to that. So there's something called aragonite saturation levels, which affect the ability of plankton to form their shells.

19:20And as we get closer and closer to these saturation levels, then you can prevent the shells being formed around the plankton, around plankton, particularly at the South Pole. And those plankton, as you say, Kristiana, are the basis of the food chain. And also 40% of the pump down. Of the atmospheric CO2. Absolutely. So those shells then form the creatures die. They fall to the bottom of the ocean. And that's 40% of the pump down of CO2 from the atmosphere. So, I mean, again, we're just pointing at depths and depths of complexity here. But what happens to... And there's another thing I'm with a patient as well. Well, what you don't want to get to is a point where exactly, where you get to a point in illness, and this, of course, tragically happens to people where you end up with trade-offs. It's like, well, there are so many challenges happening that you could have one solution, but it creates other problems. But that's where we are. But that's where we are. And so, in medical conditions, you know, this problem with the patient is exacerbating that problem with the patient, and they're both getting exponentially faster worse. Yeah. So, for all of those reasons, spraying aerosols into the upper atmosphere is a terrifying prospect.

20:21And it's also slightly terrifying not to spray aerosols into the upper atmosphere, because of all the other impacts we're seeing. So, this merits a lot more thought and reflection and science as well. But I don't know if either of you two want to add to this important topic. Well, as you say, there are so many comments about this from Tom, not you, Tom. From another Tom. And from a gratin also, and he says, logic will say, do engineering will give us more time? More time for what? That's exactly the question. It's really nailed that. The tragic opera that causes us all to burst into tears in the front row. More time for what? More time for what? Exactly. Yeah. The adverb is very important in that question. But my sense is that this is such a huge topic that we should actually, Tom is already volunteering to take the lead on doing a whole deep dive. Are you, Tom? There's lots of space for all of us. Can you commit to that publicly now? If you're looking to me to solve this problem, it may be.

21:21No, no, no. Not so. But take the lead on constructing a deep dive for us on to engineering. I mean, this is, to me, this is one of the most interesting things for us to educate and help our listeners understand this year. So I'm really excited about that. All right. Paul, we're talking to professionals about building out content in this area. It's not going to go away. Great. Okay. So let's move on. I think the next question, wonderfully, given that we're in Bath, comes from Anne Elliott, which I'm assuming is not the Anne Elliott from Persuasion by Jane Austen. But let's listen to her question. Hello, outrage and optimism. I really think, if we're looking at words and terminology, I think the term climate change is way too narrow in this era of incredible urgency. And I think we should always, when we talk about climate change, say climate change, loss of nature, loss of biodiversity, because one feeds the other.

22:22And to help encourage this sense of urgency and then action. And if we're going into, you know, deep adaptation mode, the rewilding, the restoration of land is so important at every level by all of us where we can do it. And the other side is developing more compassion and supporting communities and working at the grassroots while also somehow feeding the top, which is government annexed way too slowly. Well, Anne, what a good question. You've actually asked something that we should just ping over to Al Gore because this is one of his pet topics, which is, how come we're calling this just global warming? Warming sort of has a positive sense to it. So he was one of the ones who said, no, no, we have the move toward climate change.

23:23Then he said, no, that's not, that is not drastic enough. Let's call it climate weirding. Climate crisis. Climate crisis. And to your point about the urgency, I think the one or two years ago, many people moved over to climate emergency. And I think that is much closer to where we are. What we call things is really important. I so agree with you that we should call things by their true name and not paint a picture that is not commensurate with what we are facing. It is one of the most difficult things to do. How do we communicate about this? And not just the words that we use, but the arguments that we put on the table. So climate communication, I must say, is at front and center one of the challenges or perhaps

24:24the biggest challenge that all of us face because not only how do we explain what is happening, but also how do we motivate people, institutions, governments, sub-national and national to take the bull by its horns and actually take the action that is so urgently necessary. Very difficult to communicate. Yeah. I just think that if you think it's an era of incredible urgency, let's call it the era of incredibly urgency. I think that's a great name. One of the things that I was just thinking if you look at that. We do have decisive decade. Does that more or less move in that direction? Yeah, probably too many names for all of us. That's true. When the war is a famous one that I quite like. If you look a hundred years ahead, it's an emergency now. And I was just thinking about this just now. And I really see it really, really clearly. I just want to draw our attention particularly to smoking and alcohol. Now let's just consider drinking a bottle of whiskey or something like that.

25:24That's incredibly dangerous. People drink a whole bottle of whiskey. They die. The alcohol kills them on the spot. They fall under a car. Something terrible happens. No child, or say somebody in their 20s, is the slightest risk from smoking 20 cigarettes. They will not die for years if they smoke 20 cigarettes every day for a few years. No problem. But we go to massive, massive efforts to stop children smoking cigarettes because we factor in the future now. So unlike this bottle of whiskey, despite the fact someone could smoke cigarettes from 20 to 25, with almost zero chance of dying from that activity, we go to enormous lengths to stop them. And so I think it's bringing time and emergency into the equation. Yeah, I agree and I find challenges with it because you're so right. The smoking analogy should work. We should be able to use that anticipation of future risk and apply it to the way that people change their lives

26:26and we run change societies now. And if we're honest, we have been at best partially successful with that journey. And the idea that climate change is psychologically distant, that it doesn't really affect how you feel and what you're going to do today, that the impacts are collective, rather than personal. If I smoke 20 cigarettes a day for 20 years, I will die. But if I drive my car and go flying on holiday, then the impacts on me aren't going to be any greater than on everybody else. So I do think there is an interesting debate going on now with a lot of research around the kinds of language that we can use to get people more engaged. One of the things that I have heard is that actually that connection of immediacy, you know, it's about affordability, it's about lung health today, it's about other things that affect my life in terms of, you know, my wallet or my personal health or my kids' lungs that do seem to motivate people more because we have this real challenge to engage and take meaningful action on collective problems

27:26when there's not this shared sense of urgency. So it's a really good question. Language is part of it, bringing, you know, bringing it more immediate to people with part of it, there's a lot in there. One last thought is just defense. You know, nations have been fighting nations for thousands of years. And the public are not really expected to deal with that strange problem that may occur or may not occur. And so we all, you know, in most countries, with the imminent exception of the Costa Rica, some of our tax money each month goes into a budget for a national defense so that the nation is prepared for something that may never happen. So that's another collective protection and security system that we've built up that we haven't got for climate change yet. But I see no difference between the defense challenge and the climate challenge. But that's, I don't want to get too hung up on here, but just one thought there is if an army appears on the horizon, then the solution to that is to go out and fight the army, right? The solution is intrinsically connected to the risk. If climate change appears on the horizon, then the solution is to elect better public servants, change your diet and, you know, do something else.

28:26It's not connected to the risk. And I think that's a big part of the problem. When it triggers our response, we have to do something different and actually what it often triggers to do. It's not a mirroring. It's not a mirroring. What it often triggers in people is not, I better deal with my emissions and avoid this problem. It's, I better build a bigger wall to stop this impacting me. So I agree with you theoretically. There should be no difference. But when it actually shows up in people's lives, I think there's a massive difference. And Tanzu in the heart of war says that the battles are all won and lost before they occur in terms of the spirit of the people and the different nations. So actually that speaks to the collective challenge. Okay. Should we move on? Great. Let's listen to this question from Deirdre. I am getting hung up on the acronyms and having a hard time following the stories period. Would you mind clarifying these a little bit more? Question mark. Thank you so much. Okay. Deirdre, thank you very much for that question.

29:26Now, I will say last year, if my memory does not completely betray me, we started the whole year's episodes with an episode on acronyms. Do I either be remembered that? Yes. Oh, yes. Yeah. A year ago. Yeah. I think it was the first episode. And I think the question that we set to ourselves is, what are the acronyms that we think are going to be pertinent to this year or coming up in the climate discussion this year? So we have quite a collection there. If you would like to go back and listen to those. But I also personally have a little internal war against acronyms. I do not like them. My personal favorite, at least favorite, my personal least favorite right now is NCQG. I mean, somehow that doesn't quite roll off your tongue. And what it stands for also doesn't roll off your tongue. New collective quantified goal.

30:27It's not exactly poetic. So that is my piece. That is what I'm going to call my first child. Yes. If you're Elon Musk. If I'm Elon Musk. There's it. There we go. We could send that one up to Elon Musk for your next child. NCQG. Which is the terrible name that has been invented for the new financial target of support from the global north to the global south to meet the responses to climate change in any of it. I would like to say that we renew our commitment this year that we made last year to either not use acronyms or explain them and remind each other what they are. So is that a commitment of all three of us? I swear on the things I believe in which change all the time. Yes. Okay. Good.

31:27So that is a collective commitment. But now here's my little confession. I was leading the climate secretariat for a long time. I had to use my fingers in a very discrete way to make sure that I pronounced the three C's. Because the acronym of the title when I walked into this position was I was the E-S of the UNFCCC. I mean, how on earth are you supposed to stop there? Yes. E-S is the executive secretary. And that's what people call me. The E-S, the E-S. That's what we call the E-S now. And then the convention is called the UNFCCC. Now, I shied away from calling it the triple C, which is what most people call it, because I just don't like the triple C. But somehow the IPCC is so ingrained in my mind and that only has two C's. That I very often said, you know, the UNFCC.

32:27And then people would be on what about the third C? How much time is it really saving us to not say United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change? Well, my favorite part of that is we actually had a conversation about why there's the word framework and there are nobody new. Yeah, framework is not, yeah, exactly. There's a famous one which is worldwide web, which is faster to say than WWW. Sometimes it's actually longer. Anyway, what are your favourite acronyms? Well, I think the ones that we use ourselves often are COP, the conference of the parties, where the parties to the UN Framework Convention meet. The IPCC, the inter-governmental panel on climate change, a scientific body that warns us. 1.5, it's kind of acronym, or it's numbers, which is... IPCC, but you see how many students does that one have? Two. Okay. Poor you. Poor me, I had no idea. You couldn't actually work out, there's been two and three. So, you know, it's kind of superchieving underachieving. So 1.5 degrees, which is a target for temperature rise. Of course, it doesn't sound like very much, but it's related to the tipping points in the system. UNSG, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, NDCs, nationally determined contributions

33:32that countries submit CO2E, CO2, the gas equivalent, because we can normalise everything to that. That's my list of the ones we use too much. So I went a slightly different direction with this, and I bring you, humbly bring you, SSP3, iPhone 7.0, bracket, CMIP6. I think that... Yeah, that's an emissions problem. Illusion immediately have at least three more children. Okay, so let me break it down for you. You're pretty close, Paul. SSP Shared socio-economic pathway, a whole imagined future scenario. Version 3, a regional rivalry version, which includes fragmentation, nationalism and low cooperation. Oh, I think that's us. 7.0 is the radiative forcing in Watts per square meter by 2100. And CMIP6 is coupled model into comparison project phase 6, the global climate model backbone. So, what SSP3, iPhone 7.0, iPhone, CMIP, brackets, P6 means is effectively a pathway towards global collapse.

34:36So we've developed this language to prevent us from having to go directly at these concepts. But now you know what it means? Well, I feel so much better. I'm sure you know that. I know the path to collapse. So, but it might be that if we were able to. It makes me feel so much better. But it isn't that a dehumanizing thing that we call it that. And of course we need to have language that enables us to talk about things with specificity. But we need to also bring, you know, it reminds me now a little bit of the financial services sector where the language is exclusionary. It stops you from participating. Because you need to know so many acronyms. I would argue the climate industry does the same thing. We exactly. Yeah. Every time we have a cop, we have at least three to four new acronyms that are born at the cop. And that's the way you can tell whether somebody's really up to date or not. Right. As a purity test. And if you've ever edited a document, it's almost always the case of sitting up to in the morning, spending half an hour trying to find the meaning of an acronym that someone has written to say themselves about four seconds. Yeah.

35:36But I have to say very impressed you knew what that was. Well, you know, I like to be a bit of a geek now. That was totally dehumanizing. Thank you. You're welcome. Can we actually go to something much more humanistic? Okay. Yeah. And this is the personal story from Gita. Yeah. This is the last comment that we will have in this episode. Not quite because I have a comment about the acronym episode. If people want to go to our whole episode on this subject, it's number 281. Oh, good. Right. Now let's hear from Gita. Cristiana Tom and Paul. My name is Gita. I live in Western Australia and I've been listening to your podcast for a few years now. And this is just a little story. It's not so much a question, but I just wanted to first of all, thank you so much for your work. I've learned so much from the podcast and I get so much out of it. I recently listened to the episode on the 10 year anniversary of the Paris Agreement.

36:36I think it's one of your highlights. And I also wanted to share our story. I met my husband in the Netherlands on the 1st of November, 2015, when he was about to embark on a group pilgrimage to raise awareness for COP21. The pilgrimage was organized by Agenda and they had earlier that year, one a very important climate case. I was only there to walk for the day, to walk the first 30 kilometers. But we fell in love and I kept going back and forth between my working life and walking towards Paris. And on the 29th of November, we walked into Paris together. It was very romantic. Long story short, I moved to Paris and we both became big fans of your work and your podcast. And that's just what I wanted to share. Oh, Gita, that is such a beautiful story. I so remember these beautiful pilgrimages that descended on Paris from every corner of the world,

37:41one of the most beautiful preparations, I think, that all of us had for COP21. But what a story that the two of you fell in love throughout this pilgrimage. And I shall therefore now add you and your husband to one of my very favorite clubs, which is the COP Couples Club. I know so many couples that have actually met at the COP fall in love and are wonderful families now. So you are here by inducted into the COP Couples Club. CCC, if you have to have an acronym to that. Yeah, very important COP of Club Club, three C's. I would just say that my whole experience of working on climate change is a galaxy of friends and a very special kind of friendship. I would say that me and all these people are linked by deep bonds of purpose and belonging. And it doesn't always work if I try and sell them something. There may be the friendships a bit thinner than I thought it was. But if I called and said we all got to be somewhere tomorrow,

38:43because we had to be, I know they'll be there. Thank you, everyone. Thanks for all the questions. This was a great episode. And we will leave it here and we'll be back as usual next week. Look forward to it. See you then. Bye.