Reflections from the Frontlines of Collective Regeneration

100 Angry Men and Women

Or, The Most Dangerous Game 2: Climate Emergency Room

A conversation over a beer between Emily Wimberger , The Chief Economist at the CA Air Resources Board (2015-2020) and Anthony Myint , Executive Director, Zero Foodprint

AM: So when we met, CARB had about $1 billion dollars per year for climate solutions through the cap and trade program. How much would you have wanted to have–I mean of course infinity. But like realistically, if there was a number…

EW: Simple version? $100 billion total. Something like that. That’s why I was excited to get Restore CA underway. When you mentioned that if CA’s restaurant industry sent 1% that it’d be $1 billion per year.

AM: But of course, it’s turned out to be very hard to convince a business to participate, even though we know that if the sandwich became $10.10 or the three course meal became $50.50, we’d survive. Or in fact it’d maybe even be the basis for choosing one business over another one that “didn’t give a shit.” 

EW: Yeah I mean no one wants to pay to solve the crisis. Governments can’t increase taxes and there’s no budget for climate solutions because there are so many immediate issues–COVID, housing, education. 

AM: It’s gridlock but I also feel like we’re getting to the point of push meets shove. It brings to mind the old movie 12 Angry Men. It’d be nice to just kind of put “society” in a room and you can’t leave until we solve it.

EW: Yeah or better yet, it’s like an escape room gone off the rails, like that story The Most Dangerous Game. Solve it or you die. 

AM: Okay so you have 100 people who perfectly represent society–there’s a housekeeper, a school bus driver, a cashier, farmer, a nurse, a CEO, a government person, an heir and then also like 90 people who write emails. 

EW: And the income distribution and demographics are also perfectly representative.

AM: So they’re in the room and the omniscient voice tells them that instead of solving a riddle to win $100,000 or whatever, they signed up for, they have to actually solve the entire climate crisis in 12 hours, or they all will actually be executed. 

EW: I can’t tell if this is like a nightmare or like the single most rational way to actually solve it. I’d definitely watch a season on Netflix.

AM: They should just break up society into chunks and then actually do this.

EW: You mean like states.

AM: But in the real world the stakes and the timelines are not made for TV. 

EW: Right it’s just like your kids suffer or maybe die sooner.  

AM: I can’t believe it’s not solved yet! 

…Okay, but let’s get back to the Climate Emergency Room. So of course everyone looks to the government and the rich person, right?

EW: Yeah and the government is like, “sorry dudes, we don’t have money because you wouldn’t approve the tax.” And then everybody spends the remaining 11:59 yelling.

AM: Okay, so one of the 100 people is a mediator. They take over the proceedings and set ground rules. 

EW: There’s a bullhorn in the room and people decide to listen because otherwise it’s chaos. SO the mediator turns to the CEO: “Why doesn’t your company pay for the solutions?”. The man says he can’t because shareholders would sue. It’s literally against corporate law for him to pay. The Bus Driver asks if the CEO thinks she should be the one to pay instead? There’s chaos, and then we get back to order.

AM: Wait what are the solutions they’re paying for? Does that matter?

EW: Nah that’s boring. Let’s say all the solutions are lined up in order of cost-effectiveness and the only question–which is the actual question in the world–who’s going to pay for them?

AM: Okay yeah, if all the money was available, we’d find some way to decide on the order of funding and implementation, but no one wants to actually learn about the solutions, they are tuning in to root for their avatar to not have to pay.

EW: Okay so the mediator gets everyone to agree that everyone will pay something. It’s a start. 

AM: Wait, so is this real money? Like from their bank account?

EW: Real money, or you die. There’s an amount and a timeline. You need 100% of the cost covered over, say 10 years.

AM: Okay so it’s not just like empty out your savings or your dead. And so can the people just decide the government raises taxes, but this upcoming vote, they’ll vote for it?

EW: No because the rest of society still won’t really vote for it. 

AM: Okay, so you’re saying they need to figure out. Like to for real, real, plausibly raise a crazy amount of money over 10 years to fund these perfect solutions. Or they die in a few hours? 

EW: Sure, why not? 

AM: Okay so they deliberate for hours and then at 11:45 the room goes vigilante on the rich person. 

EW: No because this is CA, for example, so we need $100 billion. The whole economy needs to change. 

AM: It sounds like maybe instead of a public-private collaboration with a Chinese restaurant chef, you should have called up Wall Street.

EW: I can’t speak for Gavin Newsom, but if corporations wanted to collaborate to send $100 billion to solutions, I bet he’d take the call.

AM: Okay so let’s get back to the climate emergency room. The room narrowly avoids civil war. They break out the calculator. They need $10 billion per year in this example, so what’s CA’s GDP? 

EW: $4 trillion. So they’d only need 1/4000th of CA’s GDP. 

AM: The season ends after 30 minutes when the economist speaks up… 

So if magically, the price of everything just went up by one four thousandth, CA would solve it in 10 years? 

EW: Not exactly but some amount. So for ease of discussion, say the price goes up by 1% on a lot of things–the economy internalizes the cost of all the solutions. Of course that’d be enough, but the question is how?

AM: So you can’t just require it by law because you can’t pass the vote. But what about things like $1 per energy bill. Can’t you just do that for everything? I heard Los Angeles and San Diego have committed to 100% renewable energy.

EW: The show is gonna get pretty boring if “the economist in the room” takes over. But basically each regional government would have to establish programs and pass laws that created a new normal in every economic sector. If they could make funding required, and it passed a vote, then great. If not, then they could create optional programs. 

AM: So basically, in places where the votes don’t pass, then it’s up to the church picnic or the grocery store round up?

EW: The proverbial $1 on the energy bill–or whatever amount, is often an opt-out fee or price difference. 

AM: Okay so back to the room. We’re 6 hours in and there’s been some disasters. There’s some heat lamps and water has started filling the bottom and the ground shifted and there’s a slope and so people are huddled in the few remaining cool dry spots. Someone proposes optional 1% fees on enough parts of the economy to equal $10 billion per year. How do they know if it’s gonna work? 

EW: I guess if I was there I’d want to take each sector of the economy and stress test it. What if gas prices went up 1%? What if the sandwich price went up 1%? What if the hotel cost 1% more?

AM: Of course I’m biased, but that seems totally plausible. But how does it become reality? The 100 people have to somehow figure out how something like 100,000 different actual people agree to use real money to solve the climate crisis? In 6 hours?

EW: You’re the show producer not me.

AM: But you’re the former government economist.

EW: It gets into politics now, but basically local government can move more quickly than the government of the world’s fifth largest economy. You mentioned LA and SD committed to 100% renewable energy and it’s because the city councils and county supervisors can make decisions for big swaths of the economy. 

AM: Ok so local, economic policies to fund climate solutions, that are not required, but garner participation from almost everyone, because the amount is nominal and most people in the world are truly willing to send 1% to climate solutions. So you can’t get 1% on buying a home because it’s a lot of money, so people opt-out. But on a sandwich, you get the 1%. 

EW: And you start in order of plausibility. So the 100 people rate each sector on a 1-10 scale of plausibility and we compile the results.

AM: That sounds boring. “Keep watching to see if insurance comes out ahead of waste management!” 

EW: It’s like the judges scoring on shows. People tune in! We’ll edit that down so you get the results quickly.

AM: So the 100-person society has a plan, and it’s basically like “use a nominal amount of money in every sector, starting with the no-brainers, and then just directly fund all the solutions–also in order from best to worst.” So do they get to leave the room?

EW: Not yet, because just because they think it’s the right plan, they still need to figure out how each local government decides to do this for each sector. 

AM: So how would they convince the Climate Emergency Room that they figured out the way? The CEO agrees to do it and the small business agrees to do it., etc.?

EW: I guess that’d be a start. But the reality is the local governments each want to solve it, so if enough actual people and businesses just volunteered, then I’m sure at some point, local governments would create policies around opt-out economic programs in multiple sectors.

AM: So they live! They solved it! 

EW: No, they still die. 

I mean, they get to leave the room, because, you know, TV. But then eventually they die.

AM: Oh so the last episode is like 7 years later and then another 7 years after that and we check back in with the people.

EW: Yeah, the show should end before the 11th hour and we don’t know if they get out. The public just has to wonder if society will pay to get out of the actual climate emergency room that we’re all in.

AM: Oh it’s so meta, like an indie movie. I dunno if Netflix will bite.

EW: Maybe it has three endings, like Clue the Movie.

AM: Done.

Disclaimer: this was not a real single conversation over a beer. This was a paraphrasing of many strategy sessions, some of which involved a beer.