Is It Irresponsible to Have Kids in a Climate Crisis?

Sean Weisbrot: Welcome back to another episode of The Wheel Lift to Build podcast. Today's guest is Yaron Ben Nun, the founder and chief Technical Officer of NEMO Energy, an Israeli based company that has developed an ice thermal energy storage system. That is really cool, to be honest. They recently went public in Israel, and in this episode we talk about clean energy.

Sean Weisbrot: Why I'm afraid to have children. Pulling carbon out of the air and going public, things like that. So I hope you enjoy this episode. Yaun is a character, to say the least. He's extremely funny, and I actually cut out half of the episode because most of it was just goofy and off topic. I did leave some of that in for the end of the episode.

Sean Weisbrot: so that the first part of the episode is a little more serious and relevant so you can get the information from it that you want. And if you don't want to hear us be goofy together, you can just end the episode. if you want to hear us be goofy together, then finish to the end. I also wanna announce before we get into the episode that this is number 93.

Sean Weisbrot: So why don't you tell everyone a little bit about yourself and then we'll go from there.

Yaron Ben-Nun: I think I'm an explorer by heart. I was an explorer before I became an entrepreneur. way before I knew this world. I was enlisted to the Army.

Yaron Ben-Nun: I. And, served as a jet fighter pilot for seven years of my life.

Yaron Ben-Nun: Then I finished my service and I started a career as an author, as a director of films. I directed mainly documentaries and TV commercials and television. And in 2009 I had some kind of middle life crisis or something.

Yaron Ben-Nun: Close to that and I decided that I would like to redefine myself and my occupation and the essence of what I'm doing.

Yaron Ben-Nun: I started to ask myself questions. Why am I here? For what legacy? I will leave. All these questions come when you understand, finally, that you're gonna die. I believe I was about 39. 38. I was father two already and I felt this, you know, the time is passing by and, and what I'm doing is useless in many ways.

Yaron Ben-Nun: So I decided I would like to discover if I have anything to do or to contribute or to find myself more comfortable with operating in the field of emerging clean energy. At that time, 2009, solar, it was the hype of the, of the. ClinTech bubble. If you remember, in 2010 this bubble burst, and that was just two years after the subprime crisis.

Yaron Ben-Nun: And, so I was actually in the midst of this, I would say a new era collapsing. But I did not really care about that. I just wanted to find a place that I could, you know, feel that it's my spot. It's my place. And anyhow, solar, I did not have anything to contribute to solar. Solar seems to get along quite good without me.

Yaron Ben-Nun: So I started to work in another startup company called FBOs, which is doing hybrid heating for, uh. For Senator Water, for hotels and sports centers with machines called heat pumps. So they do like hybrid reducing carbon to heat water for a different usage. And two years later, I hooked up with two guys from Oracle.

Yaron Ben-Nun: They knew a lot about supply chain and they had an idea to make an energy management system for manufacturers, for factories. And they saw me as a big one that comes with a big knowledge in energy. Of course they were wrong. I knew very little about energy.

Yaron Ben-Nun: I invested in this company and today this company is called Xera. They're operating in California, mainly in the San Francisco Bay area. In 2006, when I was in the midst of getting, $5 million grant from the CEC, the California Energy Commission for Xera, I started to see anomalies. And the anomaly was that a year before there was an event, very low, very under radar, but for the people in the ClimaTech energy, it was a huge event.

Yaron Ben-Nun: It was the moment that the solar panels prices dropped and the cost. The KWH from solar met the KWH cost from the grid, which was fully, you know, fossil fuel based. And, from that moment on, the summer of 2015, it was very clear that the cost of solar will drop. Solar will become the main energy producer.

Yaron Ben-Nun: Economically. It doesn't really lean on the tree huggers, for this, for this revolution to thrive. It was already very sure that economically the KWH for solar is gonna drop. And actually today we're talking about one and a half US cents per KWH of solar. 2 cents maybe. And still, the degreed cost of energy is between eight to 12 uh cents.

Yaron Ben-Nun: So that was already proven. But in 2016, everybody started to talk about the next revolution, which is the storage revolution. And there I look, the trends, what are the energy storage analysts are saying? And they all were talking about only one thing, electrochemical batteries. Since I was already deep into the big data of consumers of electricity on the grid because, RA is an IIO ot.

Yaron Ben-Nun: What it means is the industrial Internet of things, big data company. So we gathered a lot of data. We sold the picture very clearly, and it was very obvious that the biggest consumer on the grid is cooling systems. I knew another thing. The tap water is a great means to store cold energy per se, meaning you can use electricity when there is surplus and you can make ice transform water to solid ice.

Yaron Ben-Nun: This quality of water is called the latent teeth of water, water has the highest latent teeth in nature meaning the ice cube, you know, very closely is an amazing phenomenon. For itself, you can store cold energy in very high density with water. But I also knew that there was no available technology that could actually utilize this phenomenon, in a way that could take off cooling loads on a massive scale.

Yaron Ben-Nun: So in a moment, it would have been a little bit crazy to do that. I left the company, I came to my family and I said to them, I want to raise. $100,000. Let's call it proceed. I'm going to learn how to freeze water like no one ever before. Then I told them about the need. I told them, the cooling demands are the number one, growing need.

Yaron Ben-Nun: That was right in 2016. We did it. Thought all about electric vehicles yet, but it is still today one of the biggest growing demands on the grid, especially in the developing countries. And if I might say so, I will develop a technology that will support water in becoming a really main player in the field of energy storage.

Yaron Ben-Nun: Using or surplus energy, making a lot, lot of ice, and then discharge this cold energy into commercial buildings, big users of, of cold energy, and, by that, stabilize the grid. So my family, like, looked at me and said, okay, can you, whatcha gonna do with this one? $100,000? Say it again. So I said, there is a huge need.

Yaron Ben-Nun: You just need to look forward. You'll understand that the world will be full of solar and the sun is setting down every day, almost every day for millions of years. I think it'll keep on setting every day. And then you lose all your solar energy and you need storage to mitigate this phenomenon. And I believe that storage is the big next thing.

Yaron Ben-Nun: And water is cheap, clean and healthy. And then I had to give my father a glass of water. Eventually, one of my sisters gave me $50,000.

Yaron Ben-Nun: The other sisters and brothers joined. And last, my father, who is a well-known businessman, you know, and like, a real gentleman. He said, okay, I'll join them.

Yaron Ben-Nun: It's crazy, but I'll join them. And there were no friends, only family in this round raised $200,000 eventually. And for eight months or so, me and two partners of mine, Al and Uri, went into a stable. It was like, deserted. Stable behind the, the, my father and mother's, house. And we started to freeze our way towards the ice brick.

Yaron Ben-Nun: A year later, we closed the, the, the seed round. It was $4.6 million. And then we already had the prototype working. It was very promising. if I show you a picture of it, you will laugh. It really looks like, you know, children trying to get to the moon, building a ship from, you know, some trees they found in their backyard.

Yaron Ben-Nun: It's funny, it's only six years ago, but it looks like ages have passed already. And our second round, the seed was $4.6 million. We became public, half a year ago, and we raised about $30 million till this day. We have a working system, an amazing product that actually can freeze water like no one has frozen before.

Yaron Ben-Nun: And it's modular. The basic or the heart of what we're doing is taking all this bulky, you know, big, tanks of water that were there for ages for this reason to store ice, for the industry mainly. And we talk, take it and we build. On a different technology called Encapsulated Ice. We build some very neat building blocks like Lego, that we are in modular fashion, we are retrofitting buildings and we make these buildings, which are a great burden to the grid.

Yaron Ben-Nun: We are making them this solution, making them a battery, a very clean one, like a very sustainable one 'cause we are using water mainly and some plastic and, and metal. But our technology is here to stay, meaning water. You can freeze and thaw or melt for billions of times. It's a physical phenomenon, not chemical.

Yaron Ben-Nun: They don't, you know, age. so we have already proved that, after 6,500 cycles, we'll lose less than 1% of the ability to freeze water. So it's, it's not yet like, you know, any other electrochemical solution, which is degrading. And then you have huge problems in the supply chain to get rid of it.

Yaron Ben-Nun: And we believe that. Lithium ions are amazing, but whenever you can avoid it, simple and clean means you better avoid it, especially inside buildings. And, we believe that we have, yeah, we have a great solution. We already installed two systems here in Israel. We're now installing the third one, 1.5 megawatt hour in the Beverly Hilton.

Yaron Ben-Nun: And we have other projects coming up and, um. We hope to bring water into the discussion, to the heart of the discussion of that paving our future. We would like to see our future full of renewable energy and recyclable and clean means. To support, to make and to store this energy, and this is the only way we can believe that this idea of a clean future will thrive.

Yaron Ben-Nun: You cannot kill for peace. I was told you shouldn't kill for peace and you shouldn't use unsustainable means to create a sustainable future as much as you can. We are here to enable that. I hope so.

Sean Weisbrot: Congrats on 30 million. Yeah, that's great. And you, you said you went public. I wasn't aware you guys were public, so congrats on that.

Yaron Ben-Nun: This is quite new. Yeah, we did this 'cause it was easy to get the money that way at that time. Now things are getting more complicated, so we wait and see how that will come up.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah, I was talking with one of my investors because we're getting ready to do our next fundraising round and he was saying that the specific investors he wants to introduce us to would be happier if we were in a position where we could. Go public faster, even though we're a very early company. But he has a means by which we could potentially go public through a reverse merger, whatever. I don't even understand how that stuff works, but

Yaron Ben-Nun: This is what we did. It's not like a pac, a reverse merge, meaning that you are actually acquiring some structure that is empty of activity. the structure is already there, so you don't do all the due diligence for, for becoming. Public, you just need to go through the board of directors of this skeleton. Actually, the skeleton is buying you, but it's a reverse merge. You will get only a portion of your equity and you will be the owner of this skeleton.

Sean Weisbrot: So he was saying that these specific investors, they don't wanna just give you five or 10 million. They want to give you a lot more. But if they have to go through the due diligence of a private company, it's annoying. So if you go public first, then they can give you as much as they want and they don't have to do all of the due diligence 'cause it's already been done.

Yaron Ben-Nun: So I'm not an expert. But, you can believe me, that if the skeleton is holding the money, this is public money, so they would have to do the highest due diligence. But if the money is coming outside of the skeleton. From a private company, this company is evaluating you. They say, okay, I will put in the skeleton $10 million, and all I want is 10% of the shares, meaning you are just being evaluated as a $100 million company.

Yaron Ben-Nun: The skeleton couldn't care less, of course because of the skeleton, but if this money comes from the investors that were operating in the skeleton before you came, this is public money, so the board of directors of the skeleton must, their diligence won't be easy. One actually, DD that we've been through almost killed us because it took a year, but it's different if the skeleton.

Yaron Ben-Nun: Has only the structure and no money in it. There are skeletons Before they, they went into preservation. They sold the activity. But there is no money in the skeleton. You just use, you, you buy for $1 million the skeleton, for instance. Okay, so you bought the skeleton from the owners of this financial skeleton.

Yaron Ben-Nun: It's just, it's a structure. The money comes from a third party, then you have no problem. But I'm not an expert in these fields, so don't take my word. Ask the guys that you pay for them, $1,000 an hour. Their answer is better.

Sean Weisbrot: We don't have any of those guys just yet.

Yaron Ben-Nun: Yet. If you're gonna be public, you'll start to spend at least quarter of a million of a dollar a year only to be public.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah, it's crazy. But hey, if these companies want to give us tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars in investment to build our company, I think a quarter of a million dollars a year is a worthy expense.

Yaron Ben-Nun: yeah. Who? Who can ever pay a quarter of a million a year just to be something? It must have much more to be whatever he's there to be.

Sean Weisbrot: It's an executive salary.

Yaron Ben-Nun: Yeah. Yeah, it's not that much. This is for the Israeli stock market. If you're gonna be, you know, in the United States, even in the NASDAQ or whatever, I'm sure these numbers are double

Sean Weisbrot: Well, so we're a Singaporean company, so I don't know what that looks like, but he was talking about something about Canada, so I don't know.

Yaron Ben-Nun: Well, the Canadian dollar is already 30% less. It's like 70 cents. So take everything I'm saying, you know. 30 cents down, down. I'm joking, but I would check, you know, what is the biggest problem to go public if nobody cares? Because if you're going to be public and there, the trading in your company is low, there is a low, you know, activity, you are down.

Yaron Ben-Nun: I mean, you are exposed to some mean things. Just think about it. That nobody really cares about your stock, so you need to be sure that your stock will be active because otherwise, the people that already hold the money, they see that there is no activity. Not a lot of money is being exchanged every day, so they are now prisoners in your jail.

Yaron Ben-Nun: They cannot liquefy their money, so somebody just loses. I had this case. Some people came to me, they were, I inherited them from the other company. They asked me, what's going on? Is something going on? I said, look, this is inside information. I cannot talk about it. They became impatient and they decided to drop their money.

Yaron Ben-Nun: They just drop it and, and we lose, I dunno, like 10, 12% this day. Sometimes you're really being sabotaged because people are not patient. People don't really know you. What you do, what is your prospect? How much they don't have the patience. Another month is passing by, another month is passing. No interesting things to say to the public.

Yaron Ben-Nun: They might just dump them now. Now if there is a low activity on your stock, you can get hurt. You need to know there. It's a tablet sort

Sean Weisbrot: similar to cryptocurrency where if you launch. Off a bunch of hype, but you don't really have anything going on. People will dump your coin and if you don't have people making your market for you, which is technically illegal, but everybody has to have it in order for there to be liquidity for people to buy and sell, then the price of your coin could go up and down very significantly, very quickly.

Sean Weisbrot: So I can imagine how that would be. Be similar in this situation.

Yaron Ben-Nun: If you are a young company and you don't have income yet, you are more likely to be caught as something that people are gambling on because you don't show income. Fast enough. So this is the catch with young companies going public. you are into the zone of an unknown stage where you can't show, you know, high income yet.

Yaron Ben-Nun: so it's all about whether I believe it or not. If I believe I buy your stock, then how much I will keep on believing in you. Another month passes, another month passes. If I drop this stock, it'll affect you.

Sean Weisbrot: There's ways around this. Use some of the $30 million to have a PR team and their specific job is to get you booked on every TV show and radio station and podcast and everything they can all day, every day.

Yaron Ben-Nun: It's not that paying for pr, but very little. And we had a lot of coverage here in Israel and outside of Israel. The World Economic Forum had a, a, a long article about us, stating that every leader should think about how to promote such technology.

Yaron Ben-Nun: We're huge believers in what we're doing, but implementation and execution takes time.

Yaron Ben-Nun: We bleed for that and supply chain and covid 19 and the costs of freights and so forth. But I love it. I love these challenges because we are actually doing something. We're not just bragging, you know, we are working on it, we are changing the world. This is our mission, we are proud of, of, of trying to do that or, or aiming towards that.

Yaron Ben-Nun: and I believe today that either you are. Helping or you are pulling us backwards. and I would like to wake up in the morning and be on that side of the equation. Really.

Sean Weisbrot: I totally agree. I mean, a few years ago, my team was like, look, our research has shown that CEOs are being expected to be vocal on social media about these issues, about all sorts of issues, whether it's a social issue or a. Political issue or climate issue. People want to know that you're alive, you have a heartbeat, and you have an opinion and they wanna hear what you have to say. And I was like, yeah, but that's not who I am. Like I'm building the product. I'm focused on that. And they're like, yeah, but. If you want people to know about what we're doing and why it's special, you gotta get out there.

Sean Weisbrot: And so I, that's one of the reasons why I created the podcast. 'cause I thought that was a really good way for me to express those views. From what I see, the companies that succeed are the ones that are on the minds of the people. Now, I personally think Trump is a horrible human being, but that guy. Has the world been talking about him now for six years, every day because he's constantly telling people what he thinks about every tiny detail of what the world is doing.

Sean Weisbrot: So he has captured the hearts. Minds of people even if they hate him. Yeah. No news is bad news for a company. Whether people are saying good things or bad things about what you're doing, if they don't know about you, your stock price will ever go up.

Yaron Ben-Nun: I will tell you that when I asked myself if going public is reasonable, the straight and the fastest answer I got was, of course.

Yaron Ben-Nun: Now more than ever, the public should have the opportunity to be your partner. Since we are. Paving the future and the public. The only ways he can impact the future is either with his vote or the way he lives, or where he invests his money. Let's say you eat meat. I mean I eat meat, but more and more rarely, every time I pay for my meat, I really look at it as if I am feeding this monster.

Yaron Ben-Nun: And the meat. As you know, meat is one of the biggest influences on global warming, in many, many aspects. The rainforest is suffering a huge suffering for the meat we are eating because all these, you know, protein, industry goes on their behalf and many, many other issues. So at this time, I think.

Yaron Ben-Nun: It has a huge influence on deciding to cut your meat, to eat less, or to go on to, you know, beyond meat or impossible meat or whatever. This has a real impact on how fast our world is changing and being an entrepreneur in, in the field of, or supporting what we are doing. In, in tro, Nostrom is the name of the company I'm leading.

Yaron Ben-Nun: So what we are doing is supporting renewables. Now, I'll tell you a secret. The ramp up is a phenomenon that is being measured every sunset in California, mainly because California has so much solar that the sunset drives down the solar and that brings the fossil fuel ramp up.

Yaron Ben-Nun: Meaning the demands from the grid are huge while the sun is setting down. And a few days ago, a new world record was broken in California, the ramp up for three hours was six. 16,900 megawatt drop. 16,900 megawatts. This is almost 17. Gigawatts of electricity vanished from 4:00 PM to 9:00 PM through three hours of ramp up. They measured this huge. Demand for fossil fuel. mostly, they imported from, I dunno, Nevada, Arizona, and so forth.

Yaron Ben-Nun: And that shows you how extreme the grid is going to be when more and more solar will kick in. So we, as leaders of energy storage, clean technologies of energy storage, know that anyone that can help lowering this curve or this, um. Cliff the ramp up, and discharge your energy through these three crucial hours.

Yaron Ben-Nun: This is actually what helps renewables penetrate in more quantities. And California today has 16%, from the total energy being produced and they have 50% goals. The 2030 goal of California is reaching 50% solar. That's gonna be crazy. Crazy. So we need a lot of storage in order to make it happen. We need to support storage, but I, I'm just saying, try to make the storage a little bit more sustainable.

Sean Weisbrot: Well, you were saying that, you gave me an idea I was thinking about, can't remember his name at the moment.

Yaron Ben-Nun: Warren Buffet.

Sean Weisbrot: Of course. Okay. If Chuck Norris could do what everyone thinks he could do, he would just kick all of the carbon dioxide outta the atmosphere. He would inhale it. Okay. He'd inhale it. All right. Fine. So I was thinking about Warren Buffet and how he owns a company that specifically invests in other companies where they're public. And so he just gets, he buys shares and he holds those shares and. I've been thinking about how my company, even though we're not in Cleantech, can do something to support it.

Sean Weisbrot: If my company can invest in private companies like that, then there's no reason why we shouldn't also be able to invest in public companies that are doing that. Of course, because. We ourselves are completely incapable of going and being carbon Zero because we are completely beholden to all of the companies that we pay for services from, and none of them are in this state.

Sean Weisbrot: So it's impossible for us to get there, and I think a lot of other companies are in this same position. So I. If we can take our profit and invest in companies that are trying to do things to make these changes, then maybe we can help to get those other companies that we buy from to get there faster.

Yaron Ben-Nun: It's called carbon trading in a way. You can actually buy credits for carbon. You can pay. Companies that have credits that they have done, you know, things that reduce their carbon emissions below a certain line so they get the credits and you can buy these credits and decarbonize your company. But I have a more creative idea for you.

Yaron Ben-Nun: Did you give a thought to the carbonated drinks? All these sodas, where do they get their carbon? Where do they get the CO2 for your soda drinks?

Sean Weisbrot: I don't know, but they should be pulling it out of the sky.

Yaron Ben-Nun: Let's start now. The mission to decarbonize carbonated soda. I will tell you a secret now. Almost all the soda makers, I'm not talking about these guys. All the other companies, I won't name even one. You know them. You've drunk their soda. They are making this CO2 by intentionally burning fuels. Did you know that? I did not. Isn't it crazy? So let's start a campaign. Who will be the first soda maker that will be CO2. Neutral about his bubbles. Meaning how, how?

Yaron Ben-Nun: I'll tell you how. If you burn biomass, this is a neutral CO. Why? Because this biomass, if it's wood, let's say it took the CO2 from the atmosphere.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah. But if you're burning it, then you're allowing the CO2. So you'd, you'd have to have a chamber and it'd have to go be funneled directly from there into the, into the drink or else you go back into the atmosphere.

Yaron Ben-Nun: They are cooling it. They clean it and they put it in your drink and you, you, you drink it and you fart it or whatever, but it's a zero emission cycle.

Sean Weisbrot: Then it goes back into the earth and then it has to be captured again.

Yaron Ben-Nun: But it's okay. It's okay. This is called neutral. All the biomass is really neutral. It really, really, the only problem is if you take fossil fuel, which was 7 million, 70 million years ago. Underground and you burn it. This is un-neutral. This is imba. I'm balancing the atmosphere. So biomass fire is cold and it's recognized as a neutral act of burning. Really, it does. I did not invent it.

Yaron Ben-Nun: If I was a soda maker, I would think about it myself. I would say, Hey, you know what? Let's decarbonize de-carbonated drinks. You are neutral my friend. This is carbonate neutral. Drink it. I would drink it,

Sean Weisbrot: I would think of how you could pull all of the carbon dioxide out of the air directly.

Yaron Ben-Nun: That is even better because then you don't even have to burn it.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah. You don't have to burn the biomass. Okay. So you can leave the biomass.

Yaron Ben-Nun: Let's start our own company. we will take the carbon out of the atmosphere and you will drink. Decarbonation atmosphere. Drinks. Wow. We will call it.

Sean Weisbrot: Who doesn't wanna get closer to the environment?

Yaron Ben-Nun: Sky water. This is decarbonation from the sky. And we'll take rain water. This is perfect. It's like, it's like soine. Think about the name. You'll come up with the name. I'm bad with names, but Soda, rain. Think about it. Let's restart this conversation now, we're doing alright.

Yaron Ben-Nun: Are you optimistic?

Sean Weisbrot: I have been accused of being called pessimistic. I consider myself a realist.

Yaron Ben-Nun: What is a realist? Do you believe in reality?

Sean Weisbrot: Really, I believe that nobody knows what reality actually is. We're somehow living in a collective delusion.

Yaron Ben-Nun: I can relate to that.

Sean Weisbrot: I was married before.

Yaron Ben-Nun: Okay. And, and, and she came to you and she said, look, I'm pregnant. And do you really love her? Would you go for that being a father in our world,

Sean Weisbrot: I would do it because I love her and I love children, but I honestly think that having children right now is a really bad idea

Yaron Ben-Nun: because now is the end of something or the start of something? What, what, what is now? It's both. Are you aware that this is one of the best times for humankind to be alive?

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah, but I'm also aware that climate change is probably going to next, the next 200 years, which is really difficult for humans.

Yaron Ben-Nun: Let's fight it together. Bring your children.

Sean Weisbrot: I don't eat meat. I'm a minimalist. I don't buy things. I have a very low carbon footprint as an individual. I'm just one person.

Yaron Ben-Nun: You do great. Yeah.

Sean Weisbrot: Everybody else I know doesn't care. I spend a lot of my energy trying to convince people to like, think about these bigger things and change their behavior, and they're like, oh, but that's just too difficult.

Yaron Ben-Nun: I mean, the people are waiting for a major crisis to be awake and deal with that.

Sean Weisbrot: It's happening every day. Yeah. There's an ice storm across the eastern seaboard of the United States, and in a few days it's gonna be two degrees Celsius in Miami. This is not supposed to happen. Yeah, it's 22 degrees right now. It's supposed to be 22 degrees. Yeah, but it's gonna be two. It's crazy. A week ago in Florida, there were tornadoes and floods. Two or three weeks before that there was a series of tornadoes, a hundred of them that span 10 states and killed hundreds of people in America. This is climate change. Yeah. If people are waiting for a smoking gun and it's gonna only get worse as the climate continues to increase, you know, the, the, the temperature. So if anyone thinks that like, this is a fluke here and there, oh, what was the volcano in Tonga? You know, what is, what are all these tsunamis and hurt like, I'm sorry, but we're living in it.

Yaron Ben-Nun: Yeah. And the fire in, in, in Southern California and the fire in Australia and the water floating this summer in New York City. That was terrifying. That was really terrifying. The floating, the underground, the subway in, in New York City. Oh yeah.

Sean Weisbrot: It was so crazy. That's because. The metro stations were built like a hundred plus years ago, and the water is underneath sea level. So when you have a hurricane, it's gonna flood it. When you have a tsunami, it's gonna flood it. These things are not designed for it, and that stuff's not supposed to happen, and yet it is. The only explanation is climate change.

Yaron Ben-Nun: What are we gonna do? What, what is your plan?

Sean Weisbrot: Well, the problem is these things were caused by companies. They're greedy and it requires people to change their act on an individual basis in order to convince companies and I, there's two ways of doing it. One is to be on social media and complain and complain and complain until eventually they have no choice but to make a change because the people are complaining and society against them or stop buying their products so that they run outta money.

Sean Weisbrot: They fall apart, and the ones that change are the ones that survive. However, that's not gonna happen for the most part, and they're gonna keep buying from them. It's like people using Facebook products despite being disgusted about how, you know, they have disgusting business practices, but people are gonna continue to use Facebook. Why? 'cause everyone they know is on Facebook. So we are locked, right? You're asking for companies to change, but they don't care. You're asking the people to force the companies to change, but they don't care. You're asking the politicians to get together to make change and they don't care.

Yaron Ben-Nun: Maybe that will change.

Sean Weisbrot: I think we've got 200 years left, maybe. Before the earth was unlivable for humans, and once all the humans were gone, the planet would rebound, the animals would come back, everything would be fine, and a new species would take over.

Yaron Ben-Nun: You still have 200 years for your children. This is at least four generations.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah, but they're gonna suffer. Why would I wanna bring them into the earth if they're gonna suffer?

Yaron Ben-Nun: Well, every human being in the history of humankind thought that his children were gonna suffer. If you were in 200 BC they always suffered 200 years from today before the second industrial revolution, or even before the first one. They did not have an engine. They did not have the railway trains. They did not have lights. They did not have wifi. I mean, that's not suffering.

Yaron Ben-Nun: Yeah, it is. Take the wifi from me. I will kill myself.

Sean Weisbrot: Let me tell you what suffering is. Suffering is not having clean water, clean air, clean food.

Yaron Ben-Nun: Lots of these guys 200 years ago had some severe problems getting clean water.

Sean Weisbrot: That's, it's different. They couldn't get it. What I'm talking about in the future is. Wars will be fought over the last drop of clean water, but we're not there yet.

Yaron Ben-Nun: It's just something you presume that will happen If you will sit on your ass instead of fighting climate change, of course it'll come.

Sean Weisbrot: I do everything in my power to fight climate change with the resources that I have. But me as an individual can't do anything more than to try to change the people around me after changing myself.

Yaron Ben-Nun: Let's decide on one thing that we can do together. Let's start this campaign for decarbonizing, decarbonized drinks. Let's try to put light on them. Tell them you would like to keep on selling soda. Get it from the sky. Go get your soda. Then we'll buy it. Let's start a campaign together. That's, that could be a great campaign.

Sean Weisbrot: That would probably require a hundred million dollars in investment.

Yaron Ben-Nun: No problem. You'll get them. Go to Bill Gates. Bill Gates will support you.