#156: My Second Conversation with Judith Curry

Welcome, welcome. Welcome to another episode of the strong and free podcast. Thank you so much for sticking with me through thick and thin, and especially it's been thin recently with guests and I must apologize. It has been very challenging , uh, getting guests on, you know, I think again, people are more reticent to put their voices out there. Um, and so, you know, part of my job here is to reach out to as many people as I can , um , on this podcast.

And of course, if you have anyone to suggest by all means, let me know. But also it's an indication that maybe also I should pivot my podcasting and the content that I provide you with. Um, and so on my YouTube channel, I recently uploaded a video on my thoughts on cop 26. And, you know, as I'm building it 70 views, I can't believe it.

Uh , but that tells me that, you know, it's, it's something that people do like hearing, you know, reflections and , and my opinions instead of just providing you with , um, conversations . So maybe this is a sign for me to pivot, but as always, you'll find everything that I'm [email protected], including this episode, it's on YouTube, it's also an audio format and all of that can be [email protected].

So check me out there and maybe, and maybe, maybe this is a bigger sign from the universe for me to refocus on my blog as well. Last year, I decided to do a series on climate change and it included Judith Curry. Now, before our conversation, I read a lot about Judith Curry's , uh , background and Judith's research. I did not anticipate the amount of views and listens that I would get on that same conversation to this day, almost a year later.

Um, hundreds of people every single day are listening to it, watching it and people to this day are still emailing me about questions from that podcast. And so that, let me know that I need to do a followup with Judith Curry. I'll leave a link below to our first conversation as well. Um, but I wanted Judas to respond to some of the criticisms that people had of Judith's work, including Judith's criticism of climate change models. So here's our conversation. I hope you enjoy it.

Um, Judith and I have committed to continuing having conversations together. So this most likely

Again, I'm so excited for our second followup and that you've made the time for me.

And the first , uh , was about climate modeling and clan and modeling when it comes to climate change. And I know in the past, people have asked you about , um, why you're so critical about , uh , of climate change modeling in particular. And some of your critics say, well, there's so much robust data out there. Um , it's been tested time and time again, and it kind of flies in the face of being critical of, of climate change modeling . What are your thoughts about that?

So, and also there's a growing movement not to use these big global climate models for policy purposes, but just to use simple climate emulators, you know, that just input some very basic things about which emissions scenario, which climate sensitivity and off you go. Um, the other thing that the [inaudible] had to say, which joins me is that these climate models do not simulate extreme weather events. Their resolution is to course .

So any projections about future hurricanes, rainfall rates, whatever you know, are made are semi empirical, you know, based on observations, they're not directly spit out by the climate models.

And then the third factor is with regards to regional climate change, the IPC AR six thoroughly acknowledges that global climate models cannot simulate the kettle regional climate variability with any kind of skill because they don't get the , the magnitude and the timing of the major , um , modes , uh , natural climate variability, which have a dominant role in regional climates. In fact, the EPCC spent like three chapters devoted to , uh , regional climate change.

And at first I was really excited. I said, good. Do they have a recipe for how we should do this? And they didn't, you just have to distill multiple lines of evidence, you know, models, historical data, paleo climate data, process models, physical reasoning, you know, there's no simple answer, but just sure as heck can't just use what the global climate models spit out.

So the things that I've been saying for a long time , um, are fairly widely accepted by climate modelers, at least some people who use climate models , um, the EPCC , um, it, it's not , um, you know, the , the Kwanzaa educated public says, well, you know, they've simulated a warming and , you know , since about 1970 , um, well, great. I mean, I would just , um , the latest post on my blogs show some papers where they can show that solar variability can explain pretty much the whole thing.

So we don't know they're still, and , and neither one of those analyses properly takes into account the multi-decadal variations and the ocean circulation patterns. So , um, you can have models that get the right answer or something close to the right answer for the wrong reason. And that's not very helpful.

Okay. The other thing is that the latest generation of climate models in the so-called c-MET six simulation series, about a half of them were running way too hot with equilibrium climate sensitivities of a lot of them over five degrees, which, you know, seems way, way too high. And they don't do a good job of reproducing the 20th century temperature history.

So, you know, like what happened, those models, well that they included some new cloud feedback processes, you know, sort of arcane details about how clouds interact with aerosols on one level, it's improving the physics, but on another level they didn't include countervailing negative feedbacks that would have, that were needed to really make that make sense. So, I mean, the models were just running way too hot.

And so they sort of danced around it and then did this sort of constrained selection, if you will , uh , have much more moderate , uh , temperature projections.

And I'd love to know from your perspective, being someone who's been in that space and has been in many ways, accosted for your fuse. Why do you believe that is what are some of the underpinning reasons for that specific to the climate change space?

Um , the other thing is there are certain aspects of climate science that are fairly basic, you know, there's a lot of data out there it's based on basic physics and thermodynamics. And so a lot of people say, oh, okay, well, I can, I can look at that problem or I can try to analyze this.

And so there's a lot of passionate armchair scientists out there cranking through, you know, a lot of it's quick ology, you know, just proving the second law of thermodynamics, a lot of Latinos , but some people have genuinely made really good contributions who are not, you know, PhD educated climate scientists. Um, my colleague, Nick Lewis is a case in point , um, he's , he's a financier. He got like degrees in physics and math from Oxford, but not like a PhD or anything like that.

And he's very good at statistics and he's taken on the climate sensitivity problem and has published maybe a dozen papers, you know, in reputable journals and even coauthored with a number of distinguished mainstream scientists. You know , so that's an example of somebody who started off in this armchair mode, but actually ended up, you know, being sufficiently credible and taking it to the next level to actually get this , um , published another example, a paper posted on my latest blog posts .

This is Burma or syngo . She's an Australian. Who's been doing a lot of data analysis and whatever analysis of cycles, statistics and whatever. And she just got her paper published and , um, journal of I can't space physics or something, but it's published by the American geophysical union. So that's a, you know, a reasonably prestigious publication.

So, so some people are getting, you know, these armchair scientists, but there's a lot of people, you know, analyzing some little piece of data or, you know, telling me that this, you know, something's wrong with basic physics and there's a whole lot of bad out there. So the challenge is to separate the wheat from the chaff , but it's really good for the populous to be engaged and thinking about the problem and looking at the data and all this kind of stuff.

I mean, it does make for, you know, a certain amount of crank ology, but overall, I think it's a good thing, but the intolerance of, of, you know, a lot of people having trouble getting their papers published in what I would call mainstream climate journals, but the minute they go a little farther, a field and publish in astronomy and space physics or some, you know, environmental engineering or something like that, where there's , it's not quite so religious, then they get it published.

Okay. So, you know, it's , it's not a good situation, but, but this whole tribalism thing has polluted the science and it's , um , it's editor, journal editors, and a lot of journals do a lot of gate-keeping . That's very unfortunate for, you know, promoting, you know, reasons , scientific debate and dialogue.

Um, but , uh, one thing that , uh, some mentioned was , um, that in your articles, you talk a lot about , uh , uh , wastewater management , um, focusing on , uh, food , uh, food security , um, water and energy. And , uh, it kind of is divorced from the emissions discussion. And so I wanted to know from you, because here in Canada, we're experiencing really severe weather patterns in the west coast and British Columbia right now.

And as I was reading those, I was thinking exactly about what you said, which is why don't we focus on our Waterweight waste management, but it seems that when it talks , when we talk climate change, that's muddled into the emissions discussion. And reducing emissions seems to be the number one priority, because that is the number one factor we should consider when it comes to climate change. Why do you think it's important that we separate the two and respond to each kind of differently?

But a lot of that we need to adapt sea-level rise, not just the part that's caused by global warming, but also the part that's caused by sinking from too much groundwater withdrawal and on and on it goes , um, we have to, even if we do manage to fix the emissions problem, you're still going to get crazy floods and storms and British Columbia. I mean, they're not going to go away.

You can say, well, global warming makes it, you know, 3% worse, you know, maybe it does, but it's not like these storms still aren't going to occur. So the whole issue of reducing vulnerability and adapting to weather and climate extremes sort of transcends the global warming debate. It's something that everybody needs to do. We need to reduce our vulnerability to these weather and climate extremes.

Um, you know, in a big issue, I mean is either have too much water, too little water, you know , even in the same region, different seasons. So , so the challenge is to better, you know, the reservoirs and , you know, sewage systems and on and on, it goes, you need to figure out how to manage your water. So you can buffer against the extreme wet and the extreme don't dry. I mean, that's just a common sense thing. And building in floodplains and all this kind of stuff just causes problems.

I mean, these are soluble and they don't have any necessarily they're impacted, you know, at a few percent level by man-made global warming. But even if we, even if we fix man-made global warming, these problems don't go away. So, so that's why I emphasize these as solutions that support , um, wellbeing , minimize losses and so forth and so on. Um, and food is another issue. I mean, we produce enough food. The challenge is getting it, you know, distributed in the right places.

Um, and also helping places make more sensible that , you know, in the developing world, undeveloped countries make more sensible decisions about their agriculture. Um, my company just got funded for a new project to develop , uh , an agricultural forecast system for one of the states and Pakistan.

Okay. So, you know, we're putting together and we're working with an NGO and agronomists who are on the ground, you know, in Pakistan, we would pre provide the forecast information this way they can make better choices about which seeds they plant okay. For a given season. Um , they can time their planting, you know, based on monsoon onsets.

And they can , um, maximize our irrigation based on understanding when the monsoon break periods will come a long, they use information about severe convective storms and wind gusts to make sure they pick their crops before they all get flattened by the wind does and on and on, you know, so there's a lot of little things like that, that don't cost a heck of a lot of money where you can use information to optimize your yield, you know, in some of these places to, so to the extent that countries

can grow their own food. I mean, it , it really makes our food supply much more secure. Okay. A lot of little things like that that you can do, and that's not to even mention all the, you know, the , the, the new hybrids and GMOs and yellow arrives and whatever that improve the hardiness of the crops and the nutrition of the crops.

So , um, you know, this is good, even in Afghanistan, you know, their main crop is Poppy's okay for cocaine, but you know, if there's going to be a season, when it looks like you're going to have enough rain, they can make the choice to plant other things. Okay. Um, which would help secure their food supply may not be as lucrative as growing poppy, but whatever, but there's a lot that can be done. And then if you go to energy security, I mean, what is the point of all this?

If we destroy the energy security of the planet, by having stuff that's intermittent, unreliable and too expensive, that's not helpful to anyone just not helpful to anyone. So, I mean, there's a real reckoning, you know, that's going on. And , you know, people thought you could run industrial economies on wind and solar, you can. Okay. So all of it just, just within the last few months, all of a sudden everybody's saying, okay, nuclear is the answer.

Well, yeah, it sort of is, but, you know, why are you just realizing this now? Um, I think it's because in Europe that they've just seen like an England , um, in the north sea, they have all these offshore wind turbines and whatever. And in 2020 it produced 25% of their power, which is fabulous. But in the first 10 months of 2021, it produced 7% of the power.

Okay. So then they're scrambling, you know , having to pay too much money and then with all the problems with , um, and Bellaruse , and the pipeline and gas supply from Russia, I mean, you know, their energy, their natural gas supply is vulnerable to, you know , geopolitical stuff. So, you know, being able to produce your energy from within your country has a lot of appeal. Yes .

And , or your neighboring countries, you know, importing, you know , the U S importing hydro power from Canada or something, but, you know, then Canada can always decide, they're not going to do that at some point. So, so, so those sources, aren't always very reliable. So , um, the one advantage of solar and wind as it gave some local autonomy to the countries, but it's not enough to run an industrial economy off of. And nuclear gives you the best of both worlds.

And also if the countries were, were to frack, I mean, there are many, many more countries with natural gas that could be fracked than are actually fracking. So that's another , um, energy source that could be more local. So I think apart from, you know, clean and CO2 emissions, this whole issue of energy security, you know, so it's reliable, you're not held hostage to other countries or crazy price spikes. I mean, that that's very much desired.

Okay. And then the wind and solar, we're talking about huge, big transmission lines over very extensive things. You know, those are very vulnerable to being disrupted by severe storms, to being hacked and on and on. It goes. So to me, that doesn't seem like a very stable solution either. So we need to get real about, I have no problem with going to , uh , you know, cleaner energy sources. Everybody would prefer clean over dirty energy.

Okay. But we have to, energy security has to be first and foremost, we have to have reliable, affordable energy. Otherwise, none of this makes sense.

There's a lot of environmental regulations working with indigenous communities and organizations. Um, so it's very challenging sometimes and often , uh , it's people see the, the short term , the pipeline development and how that'll affect the local ecosystems and not potentially the longterm , which is potentially CO2 emissions. And the biggest polluter in the world will go down and that's a good thing.

Um, but I do think that most people see the , the, the, the, the real cost with introducing new technologies, like wind and solar to replace , um, entire energy systems because energy security is the critical point here.

Why do you think that there's this push specifically for wind and solar , um, for governments to adopt, despite the fact that its inefficiencies are so evident and, and the costs being so high, but yet I see this consistent narrative that with more investments, those costs will come down. It will be more affordable for developed nations to use as a viable solution.

Caveat to that too, is I think if we do use solar on a large scale amount , um, doesn't, it require , um , a lot of land mass and land

They've all been thrown out the window because of global warming. Um, the other issue is see the waste , you know, the end of life we can do with all this toxic stuff, you know, especially from the solar panels and the wind turbines, there needs to be a lot of recycling , um , and reuse, and the circular economy for that to make any kind of sounds right now, these massive, massive wind turbine. Blaine's , they're just like going to landfills. I mean, like , this is just nuts beyond nuts.

Um, so until we solve that, then there's the issue of mining, you know, all these batteries and the solar, you know, cobalt, lithium copper on, on it goes, and this is going to be, you know, in the seventies and eighties, it was all in the middle east and all the wars were there because of oil. Now, it's going to be, you know, in the countries that are natural, are you rich in terms of these minerals? You know, this is where the next geopolitical conflicts are going to be.

Um, again, if we go to nuclear with authorial OnBase , we bypass all this. I mean, that stuff could be recycled , um, you know, is very friendly. Um, and it's all about , um, combination of follow the money. And I even , you know, if you go back to like the eighties, when people were first talking about, oh, we need to stop, you know , this whole CO2 thing, there, there were two groups that jumped on this. It was the petroleum people and the nuclear people.

I mean, they wanted to squeeze out coal. Oh, great. This is how we can squeeze out coal. Okay. Um, the oil and gas people ended up being ascendant as people, you know, the anti-nuclear, you know, sediments took over. So the oil and gas became ascendant.

And then when there was, you know, any other better solution, which people started pushing , you know, renewable , um, solar and wind as renewable, but what really irks me is like burning wood pellets, you know, cutting down for this burning wood, you know, making them into Woodhill , you know , in North Carolina, making wood pellets out of them and then putting on a ship and having them burnt in the UK.

Okay. And this is a big part of UK is claim to , you know, sourcing renewable energy, you know, does this make any environmental sense? Not at all. Um, you know, so , so this gives birth to a whole lot of nonsensical policies and the next generation nuclear, you know, seems to be far and away the best solution. I mean, people are just starting to roll out, you know, these plants, I think China's active. And I think Georgia has one in development and stuff like that, though.

They're just starting to be rolled out. But at times the scale of 10 years, they should be, you know, very common. There may be other better sources that come down the pike. I don't want to roll these out, but it takes a certain amount of time to do, you know, you have the idea and you even have prototypes, but, you know, scaling up and taking it to market and the infrastructure and whatever all takes time.

Um, you know, so I think in the near term, you know, the , the small modular nuclear reactors are, you know, it's the best solution, but even going to natural gas, converting from coal to natural gas, I think is, is a fairly significant help. Um, so yeah,

Um, but right now, if I'm struggling with energy security , um, coal and , and, and , uh, other forms of energy at that provide that security for populations that are not close to like, you know, wind areas or , um, hydroelectricity , or have good sun exposure, you know, coal makes sense, but I want it to follow up with that because again, and I don't want to say that these folks who emailed me are, are, are , uh , fringe, but there were individuals who said, oh, due to the Curry is too

connected to the fossil fuel industry. And that's why she's this Renegade club I've tried not to laugh, but I want, I wanted to ask you that clearly. Cause there is that there are people out there who think that the fossil fuel industry, sorry .

Okay. So in order that this was introduced, you know, like 15 years to go to help stabilize natural gas prices, you know, following hurricane Katrina and all that mess in the Gulf of Mexico and , you know, the natural gas prices skyrocketed. So in an attempt to stabilize this there's natural gas trading. Okay. So I provide temperature forecasts for them to make natural, but the biggest, the growing part of the natural gas trading is wind power.

And to a lesser extent, solar power, because they're so intermittent knowing when the wind is going to blow or the sun isn't going to shine makes a big difference in how much money you're going to have, how much electricity you're going to generate, and then how much backup, natural gas you need to buy. So all of this supports having adequate natural gas supply in the face of these intermittence and keeping the price stabilized. So how is that evil? I'm not exactly sure.

Um, has anybody funded me to do research that any energy companies funded me to do research that I then publish say global warming? Isn't an issue? No. Um, you know, like Willie soon has his research has been supported by fossil fuel company. My research is not supported by fossil fuel. What's supported their paying clients for my weather forecast.

So how this puts me in bed , uh, with, with , um, fossil fuel companies, I don't know anybody, any weather company or meteorologists in the private sector by definition is dealing with energy companies. They're the biggest single consumer of weather information. Okay. So anybody who is in the private sector, weather, forecasting business is dealing with energy companies. If they're not, they're probably not making very much money. So that is my involvement with energy companies.

But if there was as much focus on that than there are on emissions reductions, you just wonder what

Whereas with the gas powered engine, we've got a hundred plus years, I think, of , of development that we can kind of rely on. And why don't we just make that more efficient? I mean, doesn't it produce more heat than anything else, you know, I don't know . It's just a ,

Okay. That's just another reason for, ya know , saying wind and solar, aren't going to cut it because we need much, much more electricity Bitcoin and you know, all these things and who knows what other things will come up with. I mean, like electricity is key to innovation and prosperity, so we want as much of it as we can get.

Um, what are your thoughts about just global climate change agreements all together ? Do you think that they're kind of they're that they're, I wouldn't say pointless. Um, but that it just shows a commitment from the global community towards climate change.

I mean, because it was just this big opulent blow out, you know, and , and here they're telling, you know, all these developing countries, we're not going to give you any energy kind of thing.

You know, that was, to me, it was hypocrisy, but all of these promises are really political games, you know, a way of stature, you know, in the global community, in a way of negotiating other things and on and on it goes, it , it on one level, so much hot air, even when they go back to their countries and actually try to nail out, you know , these agreements at the end of the day, very few countries are going to sacrifice their own economic wellbeing over this issue.

A few European countries seem inclined to, but most of the others don't no matter what they say. Um , the U S is an interesting microcosm because in the absence of a very stringent federal policy, you have the different states going in different directions. Okay. On one hand you have, California is pretty extreme. You know, they're , they're going full force to wind and solar to shutting down their last , um, nuclear re you know, power plant.

And, you know, the prices are sky high and outages and on and on, it goes, that's no end of problems. And people are leaving California in droves. We're seeing a few states that are in , in the sort of Northeast you with that are poised or trying to follow in California's footsteps. New Jersey is one of them and just implementing some big rather draconian plans.

Um, and then you have other states that , you know, anything goes, you know, a couple of them, we just want to keep burning coal , um, you know, West Virginia, cause there's a lot of coal there. And then in Northern Minnesota where they do all the iron ore smelting and all the really big, big, heavy industry stuff, I mean, coal is really the best fuel for that. And, you know, for the cooking and everything. So it's hard to get them off coal also.

Um, you know, so there's so many different things, but at the end of the day, it's wrong for the UN to ask countries to stop, you know , burning fossil fuels when there aren't any obvious alternatives for them, or if they don't have enough electricity already, it's just, it's just not right. So , um, at the end of the day, you know, to me, the alarm has dropped the lot . You know, we used to hear five degrees, centigrade, four degrees, centigrade, you know, crazy, horrible, scary stuff.

Okay. Now with the AR six, with the medium emissions scenario, they said their best estimate was 2.9 degrees centigrade. And this is 2.9 degrees since pre-industrial times. So it's really, we've already warmed 1.2. So we're already halfway there w w with no particularly dire results. And then actually the according to the international energy agencies, our emissions are coming in lower than the IPC medium emission scenario. Okay. So it's even lower than that.

The estimates are now like maybe 2.6 is the business as usual. And then if you put, put in everybody's promises, that goes down to 2.2 and then net zero for , you know, the more developed countries, you know, then it's down to 1.8, you know, unlike, okay. We're pretty much there, but th these numbers are just sort of how meaningful are they? They totally ignore natural climate variability.

Um, I'll have a blog post coming out in a couple of weeks that shows if, you know , it looks like all the modes of natural climate variability are tilted towards cooling over the next three decades. You know , it looks like we're heading towards a solar minimum. Any volcanic eruptions by definition are negative. And we expect the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation to shift to the cold phase on the timescale of about a decade.

So all of these things, point to cooling in the coming decades, which would push off, you know, these years that we're going to pass these , um , deadline , you know, by decades. Okay. And this buys us a lot of time to figure out what we're going to do. Um, but when people even here like 2.9 degrees, they don't realize that that, that already is not 2.9 degrees more than now. It's 2.9 degrees since sometime in the 19th century. And we've already warmed by 1.2 degrees.

So we're talking about, you know, order of another degree or much less, it doesn't sound so scary when you put it that way. Yeah .

Um, if ESG is this new term that's floating out there , uh, especially in the financial , uh , circles about , um, companies and individuals directing their investments to companies that already have some type of environment or social governance , uh, uh, policy or platform to their, their line of work. Now just as an individual, I'm concerned about that because I always think, well, there's no real way to audit a company on their environment or environmental, social governance.

And I worry that a lot of money is going into this space now, similar to, you know, sole sourcing windmill development to one company and signing up large government contracts. And what I saw at cop 26 was there's a lot of money on the table. That's dedicated to this. And again, as a layman investor, I would say, well, show me your assets, show me your liabilities. And I can tell you if you're profitable or not, I'm concerned about this.

Cause it could kind of , uh, in a way, inflate an entire sector , um, without really looking at its gains.

Um, it's not really part of their greenwashing as part of, you know, like what are our vulnerabilities? You know, I help them there. I don't help with the greenwashing or the PR part of it. Um, but you know, at the end of the day, those might not be the best financial decisions.

And so, you know, people who are voting with their politics and their green conscience are people who are voting with their wallet, you know, we'll , we'll see, we'll see who wins, but , um, you know, the same thing's going on with like property along the coast, you know, in the us , you know, sea level rise crazy, you know, and then , then president Obama just bought a big mansion and marches vineyard, right on the coast. Like, how worried are you about sea level rise?

But the pointer , you know, there will be Republic in the U S politics. You know, there'll be Republican and Democrat neighborhoods. You know, the Democrats won't buy houses on the coast and the Republicans or the climate deniers will. And so who's going to make money out of that deal. We'll see. Okay . You know, so, so people voting with their pocket books as part of how this plays out. Um, so people are really, in my mind overinflated the financial risk of all this.

I mean, at the end of the day, even the people who prepared, you know, the emissions, you know, the socioeconomic pathways and the emission scenarios , um, they agreed that, you know, by 2100, everyone will be better off than they are now, at least on average. Sure. Some people will die in a hurricane or something, but I can not , people will be better off in 2100 than they are now, even with the extreme emission scenarios.

Huh. So why are we, you know, we're doing all this now, you know , our grandchildren who will be better off than we are. And even then we, you know , have a fairly naive understanding of the risks we're actually facing in the 21st century. I mean, climate could end up being, you know, I've used this analogy before, you know, this could end up being like treating a head code with chemotherapy all the while when , um , the real medical problem is something very different.

Uh, you know , that's what we could end up doing. And by putting so much resources into a , an ineffective solution for climate change, we use up all, you know , this is the same insurance money that we have for all our threats. You know , we could overall end up more vulnerable as a result of this , um, exercise.

And, you know, we're going to sign on to every international agreement and we're going to commit Canada and the United States to these record low emissions levels, but it's less sexier to talk about, well, guess what, we also built up our water waste management in, you know , uh , Northern Alberta, you know, or , um, um , parts of Canada United States. And so I wonder, is it too far gone?

Can we elect politicians now and leaders of countries that want to revert back to evidence-based discussions and less on the political platitude ?

Okay. If that transpires, I would say that would be the single most effective thing at bringing this dialogue back to some level of rationality, but you know, how much confidence do I have in that prediction? Well, I have some, you know, how much money am I going to bet on that?

You know, I don't know, but you know, it's a very plausible scenario that we could, you know, that natural variability could land to cooling in the coming decades, you know, at least at the magnitude of the emission space warming.

So we'll see if that transpires, if that does, to me, that would be the single most effective thing at bringing the dialogue back to normal in some sensible way, what people look at this problem more broadly, we don't have the answers, you know, how can we manage this risk in a sensible way that leaves our countries stronger and less vulnerable to whatever my transpire in the future.

Um, and so I think that's why I'm so thankful that you've agreed to come back on here and talk for a second time. I know you're super busy.