Uncommon Courage

Climate Courage: how do we prepare financially?

November 04, 2022 Andrea T EdwardsAndrea T Edwards, Steve Johnson, Dr David Ko, Richard Busellato Episode 80
Uncommon Courage
Climate Courage: how do we prepare financially?
Show Notes Transcript

Are you having conversations at home about preparing your financial future in the face of extreme uncertainty? We certainly are and that’s why this week, my husband Steve Johnson, will be joining me to discuss how we can make the right decisions, not just for our future, but for our children’s future too. And we want to share that knowledge with you. 

However, Steve and I are not experts in this field and we’re really struggling to come to an agreement on what we should do next. That’s why we’ve invited Dr David Ko and Richard Busellato, authors of “The Unsu$tainable Truth – how investing for the future is destroying the planet and what to do about it,” as our guests this week. Two incredibly experienced professionals and insightful speakers, this is going to be full of value. 

David and Richard are both successful investment managers and have successfully worked in this field for 30 years, working among the most celebrated funds. Due to their extensive research into sustainable investing, they left the industry to focus on the true meaning of sustainability and a proper purpose for investing – to improve the planet’s timeless capacity for life. 

Climate Courage is a fortnightly Livestream and podcast published on Uncommon Courage, where we will go big picture on the climate crisis and focus on the actions you and I can take to be part of the solution. Whether individual action, community action, or national/global action - every single one of us can be part of ensuring a live-able future for our children and grandchildren. We owe them that!

#ClimateCourage #UncommonCourage

Get in touch with Richard and David  Home - Rethinking Choices www.rethinkingchoices.com

Their book “The Unsu$tainable Truth – how investing for the future is destroying the planet and what to do about it - The Unsustainable Truth: How Investing for the Future is Destroying the Planet and What to Do About It or https://www.amazon.com/Unsustainable-Truth-Investing-Future-Destroying/dp/1784529591/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1667551148&sr=8-1 

Connect with Steve Johnson on LinkedIn Steve Johnson | LinkedIn

To get in touch with me, here I am

Websites www.andreatedwards.com and www.uncommon-courage.com 

My book Uncommon Courage, An Invitation

And the Uncommon Courage workbook 

My other book, 18 Steps to an All—Star LinkedIn Profile (2022 edition)    

LinkedIn @AndreaTEdwards

Twitter @AndreaTEdwards

Instagram @UncommonAndrea 

My

To get in touch with me, all of my contact details are here https://linktr.ee/andreatedwards

My book Uncommon Courage, an invitation, is here https://mybook.to/UncommonCourage

My book 18 Steps to an All-Star LinkedIn Profile, is here https://mybook.to/18stepstoanallstar

Unknown:

All right, we are live Welcome to climate courage. My name is Andrea Edwards. My name is Steve Johnson. And despite the difference in name, I'm the proud husband of Miss Andrea. Thanks. So one of the discussions that you and I have been having a lot over a few quite a few years now is how do we prepare financially for a future? Where there's no real clear answers of what's coming, when it's coming? How, how we're going to be affected, who's going to be affected? And, you know, everything seems to be escalating. The predictions aren't looking good. So from a financial perspective, what's your big? Unknown? I think it's, it's, how do we plan for something that we don't know, we don't know what it's gonna look like in a few years time. Because as with most things, there's different data points and different bits of information that we can gather. But how do we, you know, how do we get ourselves ready for that to hopefully cover all the options? And I don't know if it's, I mean, I'm an engineer by background, I don't know that, that sort of drives that need to plan and need to have a path forward. But as we were just talking about, I mean, I found it really, really uncomfortable. last few months, and sort of not having that foundation, not knowing what that future looks like. Yeah, I think that's a tough thing, especially I think, for men who have been raised to take care of the family be the protectors, you know, that sort of traditional mindset, in all cultures, I think that's a big issue. For me, it's, it's even things like, Do we have cash in, in our in our safe, you know, and if we do have cash, what currency like, you know, is currency going to be a thing and you know, you know, we're looking at societal collapse. So what does that look like? And then the other side is, where do we buy property? Do we go south to Australia? The only place that's looking good, it's Tasmania. We go north, to the UK, Scotland. That's not looking good either. If if the a mark goes, so we're struggling with it. And to her. And I know that a lot of other couples and families are struggling with this. So to get our heads around it, we decided to invite back. Two fantastic people. And that is Dr. David Koh. And it should be so lotto Welcome back. Morning. Good morning, very much for having us back. It is very early morning for you. And I'm sorry about that. But I think you know, getting that message out into the Asia and Asia Pacific region, it's important to right. Oh, you're going in a lot going on up north, but not so much out in these parts. But anyway. So just if you haven't met Richard and David before they wrote this book called The unsustainable truth, and how investing for the future is destroying the planet and what to do about it. And I have to tell you, I've almost finished it is such a fantastic book. It is what I don't expect people from financial backgrounds to be great storytellers. But you're both excellent storytellers. It's very philosophical. But I think the most powerful thing that I took away from it was an understanding of the global economy and how its works as well as its history. It's, it's a phenomenal book, and I recommend everyone, everyone gets a copy. So yeah, I hope it's going well getting getting in front of the people you want it to get in front of. Well, well now. Thank you. That's true. All right. So let's, let's let's kick off. So in recent weeks, we've heard that 1.5 is gone. And a lot of people are saying two is probably gone as well, that is in two degrees, global warming, which is catastrophic for humanity, and all life on Earth. And there's an expectation with that we're heading to 2.8 2.4 if we're a little bit good, and basically follow what we promised in Paris, I've been reading about permafrost collapse. So that used to be something that used to happen over decades, and it just be a slow trickle. Now it's happening where massive areas of land are basically just collapsing. And you know, it's taken forests with it, which of course the co2 has lost. These huge lakes are forming in these permafrost areas. And then yesterday in Europe, apart from rising rates in the UK, we found out that Europe is rising twice as fast as the rest of the world. And we know that the the Arctic and Antarctica is rising eight times as fast. By all accounts, we're in trouble, big trouble. So, but before we get into the finances, there's one area of concern that I consistently have every conversation I have, the timeframe that people are thinking about for when this is coming is 2030 2050 20 100 And as far as I can see, from everything, I'm reading everything I'm witnessing and experiencing the climate, he is already here, and it's going to progressively get worse. I was just reading about famine, you know, by 2023, we're going to have all sorts of trouble. So give us give us a an idea of what you think the timeline is, because you might be different to me. Well, I mean, the timeline, if you, if you take this year, as an example, we've had a huge cost of living crisis everywhere. fuel prices have gone up everywhere along. And that's largely driven it, food prices have gone up all over the place, and so on. The story of this as being from the war with Ukraine is actually wrong. If you look at that story about Russian energy, Russian oil, gas and coal, you would think that we've seen Q shortages, in oil, gas and coal. Turns out that oil production has increased by about the same as what he always does, half a year was about percent or so. CO production has gone up Baba, not percent, which is supposed to be gone going down. Russia has been producing the most actually energy efficient coal. And that hasn't actually particularly stopped along the way we've increased our coal production, gas production has slowed down, but not from what you think of if you look follow European press about nobody using Russian gas anymore. It's only gone down by half of a percent. And so what the situation is, is actually hydroelectricity has been shut off. Because of climate change. Nuclear power has been affected by the fact that rivers have run dry in France, and they can't cool the reactors. So what you're seeing is that you've got a huge demand for energy, coming from everybody trying to do things to mitigate climate change. Because when you want to build a wind turbine, you're going to need a lot of energy to take that stuff out of the ground, to be able to convert it into copper, that you need to have the wires to carry the electricity that you're hopefully you get to know the rest of it. And if you want to build a Metaverse, you still need copper wires so far, because you know, you can try the fibres, but that doesn't, that isn't everywhere. So all the activities is he putting huge demands on everything. And the other side of if you look at food, you mentioned famine, I was quite shocked to find that basically, there was a report that, you know, China's basically spend all the money they can to buy food from America buy grain from America, not because they bought a lot, but because the prices have gone up so much. And the prices have gone up so much is because the grains are transported through rivers in America. And the major rivers have run dry. So the transportation costs have gone up huge amounts. So what's going on is we look at the thing to do physical things that you talk about. But the economic side of it. Basically, the economy being all about our livelihoods. Basically, everything we do for our livelihoods is what makes the economy that side of it is feeling the effects of climate change first. And he's hitting everybody around the world. We were talking Richard and I yesterday, you know, we've been borrowing from the planet for centuries, and increasingly so over the past few decades. And climate change is coming back to us like a loan shark. Say, you know, you borrowed off this, you got to pay back now. And if you are rich yourself, you've probably got siblings who aren't quite so much. And they're feeling it got friends who are feeling it. And the thing with loan sharks is it doesn't matter how rich you get the interest compound up and you can never pay unless you really face it and say I've got to do something about high lift. So the answer to what you're describing is, is absolutely here now is hitting our economy before we feel it in the geophysical effects what a great analogy, climate change or loan shark I love that. Yeah, of course. Of course in borrowing from the planet course we have I love them that's great. I think that's that's pretty much how it how it works actually. Like David said, we we've been squeezing the planet effectively now into submission because we demand too much. And we have no way really of restraining ourselves from keep on asking for more. Because there's so much things we want to do. And everyone makes a good case for why my needs are the ones that needs to be satisfied at the expense of everyone else, I'm not going to restrain my own demand on the planet, and the planet is rebelling. It's for everyone to see, this is what someone says an unruly child who doesn't want to be told to do his bed up. It's going to rebel. All right. So I think we're all in agreement. So those conversations that I have with people, like I'm not trying to freak people out, I'm just trying to, I just want people to be aware of because when you're aware, you can start to make the decisions and take the actions that you need to protect yourself, your family, your community. And that's where we are, you know, I kept saying to everyone, if you're not, if you haven't got a garden, plant, start one. If you live in an apartment complex stellar community garden, like, we need to be focusing on food security, right? Because that's going away. And, you know, places, you know, friends of mine in Singapore, haven't seen any empty supermarket shelves yet. We've been seeing him for a couple of years, but this year has been much worse than than previously. So yeah, it's now I'd say, if you want to lay out our scenarios, yes. So for the benefit of everybody, hopefully, watching, what we wanted to ask you to guys was your thoughts on two specific scenarios that we'd like to model, both requiring both regarding sort of, like family units, little, little bit sort of extremes in terms of in terms of their level of preparation. But the idea is, is what would be your advice for these two different scenarios. So the first one, say it's a family with kids. Let's say they've followed the traditional planning for retirement model that got on the property ladder, reasonably early, maybe own a number of properties, maybe in a number of different countries. Kids are close to finishing school, there's provisions put aside maybe for college slash University slash technical training, college fund, pensions, peepees superannuation, following the traditional kind of route of preparing for that time in life, where they are empty nesters and is and they rely on their previous actions for their income going forward into the future. And they probably have a plan to pass some of that along to their kids as well. Second scenario we'd like you to consider is, again, a family unit that's maybe taken an untraditional path. I mean, by nowadays, the definition will be digital nomads in being able to live in multiple different areas for a number of different reasons. Still financially, fluid, you know, well off by, by, by most by most explanations in most sort of cultures. Kids are in school, but they have not been paid into pension superannuation. Instead, they've kind of been sort of reacting to different events moving to different countries. So there isn't that big traditional kind of nest egg. But they are fluid if you like, you know, liquid rather, you know, in that they do have money, but it's not tied up in assets. Where, I mean, looking at these two scenarios, what would be your advice? For both of those? I mean, everything comes into play? Is it currencies that need to be looked at what type of currency is it, something more portable, like, gold that's going to be worth more luxury goods? I mean, you know, everyone hears about high end luxury goods being a good way to transport money across borders, without too much credibility without too much scrutiny. Although we did see recently in China that the value of things like Rolexes and luxury items have fallen off the cliff recently, so you know, yeah, that was another sort of interesting. Yeah, I think is, you know, for us, it's probably good to give a fresh short description of where we come from, you know, I, I, we both worked in the investment industry for 3030 odd years. I started in 94. Like my girlfriend, the time was now my wife was going to Japan to look for a job and we couldn't afford the phone though. So I had to leave a university Korea, where I was a lecturer at Oxford in physics, to go and find a job somewhere else and got hired got invited into a hedge fund, which turned out to be the dream team of hedge funds and actually is been stayed in that career since. But the thing I learned from that was very much about the fact that you You, you have to be very careful about overextending the capacity of whatever it is to helps you to keep your life going, in many ways, because in the first job that I had, we were so successful. And we thought so wonderful about it that in 97, we saw that it was getting harder to make money, we're making 40 odd percent a year. Right. So everybody's following us thinking we're brilliant. And we were doing that with basically making money every month to build up to it. So there's like, no down with just money up all the way. And we saw the getting more difficult to keep that up. So what we did gave back half the money we gave back. You know, we had billions at a time, which in back in 97, was huge for funding, we gave a half the money. And the next year, we blew the world up, because we doubled up our leverage by giving out half the money. And we found that actually, we hit a bump in the road, Russia defaulted. If you remember that time on his domestic debt, well, markets started worrying about if people started taking money back to keep it safe. So things that make sense from an investment perspective no longer makes sense for people to hold because they just want to be safe. And then what you end up with is all sorts of borrowing and things ends up being in trouble. And we blew the world out literally so much that the Federal Reserve Bank of America locked 14 of the biggest banks in the world, in a room with us and said to sort it out doors and opening until you do. And that's what's already there. And so that was my experience, and Richard can give his about, you know, 500% interest rates this. Yeah, I started working in 1990. But thanks to an internship in the autumn of 89, this is actually the fifth decade I've been involved in financial markets, which always sounds incredibly impressive, because they think of you as an 18 year old, but I'm not quite there yet. So I grew up in Sweden, via Brussels, I ended up in London 25 years ago. I've been involved really only one thing my whole life, which is managing various types of financial portfolios. And like David said, in 1992, which is, within days of the 30 year anniversary at the moment, actually, the European currency system around us it was called, came under a lot of pressure because it was clear that the peripheral countries struggled to keep up with German productivity effectively. And in the UK, it was the Black Wednesday, with Norman Lamont singing in the bath when Sterling finally got kicked out. And the club met countries in UK didn't really have a lot of appetite for pain and defending their currency, Sweden opted for a different route. So Sweden in progressive steps, hike their interest rates to 500% over the autumn of 1992. That has quite serious implications for people with floating mortgages. You pay something like 1.3% per day of the value of your house if you're 100% mortgaged. So it wasn't quite that bad, because floating is not daily interest. But it got incredibly expensive and not totally unexpected. We had a huge housing crash in Scandinavia, Sweden, in particular, what it does teach you when you're sitting in kind of the hot seat and you're managing money in that kind of environment is that no matter how much buffer and leeway, you think you've got to really, really extreme events, it's never quite enough. Because Mr. Market can teach you awful lessons for people who are really sailing close to the wind all the time. And 500% you cannot plug that into any model and think this can happen because it's such an outrageous move that no one was able to read it to predict it to capture the magnitude of such a defence of the krone. At the end they had to capitulate and Sweden devalued like everyone else, but they put up a fight for month that basically took the country into a full blown very nasty recession. There was a lot of political unity at the time actually not to let the currency speculums forces out. But like I said that that gives you a whole other perspective on risks that you're running and you should never let any kind of event bankrupt you. That's really the life lesson I learned from from that experience. Um, no matter how much leeway you have, make sure you've got more margin, because otherwise you do face the risk of bankruptcy when you get hit with really extreme events. So So I think back to the question, you know, the, the two scenarios that you have, you know, from, from our experience, our experience is really one that says, It's not about trying to predict how the world is going to be, is actually asking if it doesn't work out to how you want it to be, or you fear to be whatever it is, are you going to be taken up again? So So we very much take it from that side. And I learned my lesson, right? When I started in this place that was screwing so well, everybody was bending over backwards to be with us along, we have a Bank of Italy as one of our strategic partners, is, you know, that kind of reputable in that way. But reputation and all of your investment savvy and everything doesn't stop the world from becoming however it is going to be. And you can never, you can never really foresee how it is. It is more about are you doubling down on an idea? Are you actually arguing your way to say I was going to be like this, and getting yourself so fixed on it, that you're not actually asking what happens if I'm wrong. And that that's the that's the side that we come from. That's the side why we end up leaving the investment industry, because we actually see climate change as something very real. And the reason we do that is because you can't sidestep climate change. And the only way to be able to do the things that we genuinely need to do is to make sure that first of all, we can be secure ourselves. Because only that way are we going to have that fortitude to stay the path and the courage to do the right thing. Along the way, we can't see ourselves as insecure as you're describing. If I tick those two, those two kinds of couples as the examples, whatever it is, if they start worrying too much about how they're going to be if they end up spending all their time, being anxious about not being able to find their space, they'll never be able to first of all hold on to that view. The other side of it is that will mean they'll never have the courage to actually tackle the root issues that drive climate change at the moment. So those are really important, important questions for us. I identify for myself very much with the first example. I've had very good years, we have time there. The first thing I've done, and I use myself in the example to that because I identify very much to it is I actually don't consider I talked to my wife about this a lot, I truly don't consider our wealth as being a chore staple in the world to come. We're basically upfront in our inheritance, you mentioned the inheritance, with our children asserts, you know, that's all you can manage the rest of this we're gonna live and spent, basically. And that's an important element also, with with climate. Because if we simply take out the resources we need and spend it or effectively give it all back then you're neutral to the world. We've grown in the past probably since the 70s, especially with this idea that somehow we want to leave our children a step up. The world we're facing, we don't know what that stop step up really means. That's the path they need to find for themselves. So the greatest inheritance I can give them is the courage to do that. That the elements of courage that, Andrea, you've talked about very much, that's the greatest inheritance for them. The money side, don't don't fixate on whether they've got enough from the money side. Because whatever it is, it probably isn't going to be enough. But the courage part of it will mean that even if there isn't any of it, they will find a way. Yeah. Do you foresee a potential for that future? Where that that inheritance that you talked about that you maybe put a finger on it of X? Do you see the potential for that inheritance to be x minus 50% 40% 80%? You know, that nest egg that you plan for? Do you see that possible potential risk? I guess? Absolutely. I mean, I think I see tests You know, again for myself, so we we, we have property, we've been very fortunate we've been able to property and we bought the properties back in sort of the 90s. So, you know, we were written along and, as, as a, as someone I hired, not long ago in the job I was at before was talking about how, you know, his parents are so proud of their investment savvy of having bought the property. And they were saying, but it was just, you know, they just happen to have been there, there was no, no savvy in that way, you know, you just on this floating tide along in there, that tie can turn. And so in terms of that aches, and whatever it is what I think of between myself and my wife is we were going to live, we're going to spend what we have saved, we're going to end up doing that, the chances are, he's not going to be enough. So that goes down to this other part. And this part, actually, I had this kind of realisation in a way it's a, it's a, it's a subtle feeling we all have. But it was brought into words through the lyrics of a song. And it was because my mum was 87. And she's kind of, she had a stroke she was, she can't move very easily. She's, she's basically blind because of glaucoma and things. But through the hospital, she goes through, there's a singing group called VIP singers, visually impaired singers. Oh, very important. And, and they were singing the theme song to chess, which is an old sitcom. And it talks about, we all want to be in a place where everybody knows our name, well, troubles are the same. And that's the element that's kind of sums up away from the money. That part we would like, we don't want to be left out somewhere where actually we are on our and in the world, and the problems that we face, the money is going to be important. But if you want to feel allow the money to be the driver of saying, Do I have enough all the way, then what you're going to end up doing is you actually will end up isolating yourself away. Because to preserve the money means that you're actually not going to be able to spend it in the way of saying, Am I actually creating a space in a community for myself, and realising that I realised that that soul brought out into words, what I've been thinking and feeling over the past few years about what to do. And so if I understand this correctly, you've got decades of experience and institutional investment, and you're leaning on Jennifer Aniston. Cheers, cheers not. So, so you know, sometimes sometimes these kind of, you know, songs capture very much things which are deep within us. And then very often the sitcoms, especially if they run for a long time, they run for a long time, because they appreciate something that people feel affinity to. And, and that element of it is going to become very important in that way. So So, so what what that means onto the onto the way when I think of is it x minus whatever or x divided by whatever is in that sense? I actually don't try to think of it as specifically how much do I have? That's enough? Because I know it's not going to be I see instead, how do I think about can I get an income and getting an income requires us to have the openness to take ourselves out a little bit outside of our comfort zones, to be able to do things that we otherwise wouldn't necessarily think of. And to think of what we able to in terms of what other people may actually want, may actually need and for us to step in the way to step up in that in that way to do. And I have a friend who was a who's a computer programmer, and during COVID He was a kind of a freelance computer programmer. His work all dried up. And we met up and he said, you know, he's doing gardening and I'm like, Oh, you didn't gardening. That's kind of interesting. Why? So that's where My Computer Works or dried up, and I need to get money. And I know people who know me, they know me enough to say, yeah, come, you know, do this for me, I'll give you a bit of money for it. And we, we have to be open to that sort of thing as a base SSH, kind of like, the minimum of that is, very often we find, we think that we need to reach out and reach up, and so on. But when you refuse those sorts of things, and you try to plan in terms of do I have my money safe enough, I've got to invest in all the right places, or whatever it is, what happens is, you're left with actually nothing that you can rely on. You know, when when, you know, the story I was telling about the first time I was working in finance and things I mean, I remember walking to work in an August morning, looking at the billboards outside the tube station with a newspaper headlines, and seeing fat rescue banks, and thinking, okay, I can continue the rest of my journey now. Right. Interesting. So the community side, the community spirit, like I always think if you, one of the Steve once said to me, there's no way that like the wealthy friends that we know, are going to put their money back into the community, because why would they do that they you know, and I said, because anyone who's earned wealth has entered at the expense of the planet. And at some point, we've got to recognise that if you do have wealth, it's time to put that wealth back into society, so we can address the big problems we've got. And when he sort of said, but why would they do it does it because it's their children's future? You know, and I don't think that mindset is kind of, sort of there at all, especially in wealth and what we're seeing around it. But the other thing is, you know, that, that, that surety of work that you were talking about, you know, when the work runs out, you're gonna you're gonna be a gardener, I think yeah, I think that's another thing, that real adaptability in the future. Like, I know, you guys talk a lot about pensions. As you know, we're the only living being on earth that stops work, and then for 20 3040 years live off an accumulation. Whereas I actually think pensioners have got an opportunity to step into the climate, like, every time. You know, 70 plus person says, what more can I do? I think they've got to get involved, you know, they should vote the way the young people want them to vote, rather than the way they vote now, you know, for example, right? Because it's about the kids future, not theirs. You know, what work? Could they do? Could they be saving the mangroves? Could they be cleaning the beaches? Could they be organising, good, the you know, all that sort of stuff. And that's that momentum hasn't happened yet. Now, we've been very privileged, I think, acid generation I'm speaking broadly for all of us, you're a bit younger than than me and they know that much. We're part of a generation that probably has reaped unparalleled and unprecedented benefits, because of the housing boom, David is describing. If you started investing in the early 90s, or started working, which also means you basically started investing to your pension, you needed to be phenomenally bad decision maker not to build wealth, if you had a reasonable income, because you could invest in anything and it's gone up. Tomorrow will not look like that. As most of you have figured out, you know, David is the kind hearted optimistic of the two of us and I'm the cold hearted bastard, you know, brutal on on on our future. Now, I'm inside, I'm actually really optimistic person. But when I look at the numbers and the facts before me, I can see a very, very bleak, near medium term future and without, you know, boring people with a lot of econometric stats, it's like, over long time periods and we talking multigenerational, 50 6070 years, possibly periods. The global GDP, or what we accumulating in growth for for the planet will more or less correlate with the wealth we have. And there are very good reasons for why that is the case. And at the moment, our wealth, as we see it in monetary terms, is about as far above that curve as we have ever seen, historically, more so in the late 19th century, when we had a very big crash in property and particularly in Europe, it's sort of 1870s 1880s I see no reason given what's going on. And then you overlay what the climate is going to do to us and our wealth because of our Have we been exploiting the planet too far that that relationship is not going back to what was historically. So I think people will have to find out over the next 1020 30 years that their wealth will not keep growing as it has. And it will probably stagnate, it's a good scenario and let growth on the planet catch up. That's the optimistic scenario. The pessimistic scenario is really that climate change moves so fast, because it's unchecked, and we're not willing to tackle it, that it compounds what is already a kind of natural long term process, and it brings our wealth down really, really rapidly in in an almost uncontrollable manner. That's a really bad scenario for everyone. Because then you're gonna get a lot of political movements that you definitely don't want to see. I'm probably somewhere in between the two couples you're describing, I'm moved three times country before I was 28. I worked in Stockholm, Brussels and London, because when you work in the financial industry, as a portfolio manager, you can basically not do anything with your own wealth. Because trading parallel to what you do in your job is not only a really bad idea, it's also clearly unethical. So what I've saved normally up until recently has been through my pensions and really long term things that I cannot touch, which has not been a bad thing up until this year. Obviously, you will see a fair ly big haircut on your your wealth. I think, not surprisingly, I'm pretty close to David's view of how you need to look at the future is like a, I'm fairly convinced that you need less money than you think. If you make certain lifestyle choices, and paradoxically, those lifestyle choices, choices would probably be super imposed on you by by the client to some extent. So in some senses, you will perhaps spend less money than you think, on the other side of the equation is the cost of living, that's going to keep going up. Because when you're running out the resources, you are going to get competition and money is the medium we use for measuring who has the most ability to pay. And that's going to keep on squeezing us from all fronts, because although we could get a fairly significant drop off in inflation over the next six to 12 months, the underlying pressures on resources are not going to go away. So everything you really need will become more costly over the next 10 years. And there's no way out of that. I think, for the couples, you need, again, to take the approach that the 500% interest rates taught me, which is always be prepared for kind of extreme scenarios. Obviously, you cannot be totally uninvested in the market and sit on a pile of cash because it's seldom a good idea. But actually at the moment, in most countries cash is yielding something which it hasn't done for 15 years, it's not a bad position to to put the reasonable chunk at the moment. Because the alternatives to me look really unappealing. I've always had a penchant for gold, because for 5000 years, it's been the one measure that actually stores wealth in a reasonable albeit a times volatile fashion. For all the fans of cryptocurrencies I'm, I'm just baffled. I have a lot of sympathy for the underlying idea that you want something that the government can control really the price of. But if your idea is to opt out of the normal monetary system and create something different, that has an independent value, what's going on, I think you're essentially up on a different planet. Because the really extreme scenarios when you would need something very different to store your wealth. I don't think you're going to be able to plug in a computer and get the electricity that actually proves your ownership. You need something that is physically portable that you can bring with you. Because that is kind of the really far out tale Mad Max scenario when climate change moves so rapidly, and you'll get floods everywhere you get clear food shortage around the world and people will start competing not only with money anymore for the remaining resources, but with far more ugly means. In that scenario, I'm sorry, your Bitcoin ain't gonna buy your free pass. So HR two here. Yeah, and Lloyds, it's a very small risk, that risk is not zero here. Yeah, anyone who sells you that tail in market terms, you should buy that insurance with all you have, because that risk is no longer zero. And that means you need some form of reasonably portable assets. And that's why property is not portable, it's, it's always going to be where it's being held. So if you own property, you'd rather do it in countries that have strong historical respect for private ownership, where it would be a big leap for governments to come in and tax you, or expropriated if you get a regime change, for example. So in that way, I mean, you know, for for myself, for example. I actually view myself as starting from fresh, basically, and the night kind of tell my children this. And so it's not, it's not a bad thing to do. We have a conversation early in the year with a person who is a specialist in human nutrition, we were trying to reach out to different people, and actually reminds me, we want to reach back out to to her. And she had been working in human nutrition around for the getting continents of the world for a long time and this human nutrition, because as she puts it, it is it's not it's the distribution, and the way we use food is not about the lack of food, you know, we're famine, not because there's enough food around just that it's not distributed around, then we have obesity not because somehow that, you know, it's a problem with food supply, is just that gave is the nutritional element of it. But she started having worked a long time. And she said, I'll ask the question. So what do you think about investments in stock markets and pensions? At this point, in our saying, Well, you know, I've taken out cash. And the reason is because I want to start investing again. And this is because a couple of years back, I had a conversation with a colleague who's saying about who's asking similar things. We were working in the investment industry, and we were looking at the market, and it all seems extremely popular. And I was thinking, Well, you know, what you really want to do now is just to bank it, and then start putting your chips in again, slowly. Because that way, I don't know if this will continue. I'm going to keep adding along slowly. But I certainly don't want everything accumulated to suffer a 50% or 70%. Drop. And if that seems extreme as a number, I, I personally don't think so. You know, I personally think that the world we're going to is not my base case, or what happens. But I don't want to be taken out. When that happened. If that happened. Can we? Sorry, I just wanted to talk to housing, right? Because housing is one where, you know, I'll be hanging out with friends, and they're doing a second or third round of renovations. And they're really excited about it. And I'm looking at their property going, I reckon this might be under see by the end of this decade. Is it really worth it? Or, you know, when I was at my sister's place in Melbourne, we were right in the heart of this red zone in Melbourne that was under risk of massive flooding. And it didn't, but I said, what, where are you above sea level? And they didn't know. So obviously, they probably know now, you know that? At some point, you know, we talk about stranded assets in the petroleum industry in the oil and gas space. Right. But I think at some point soon, that the amount of stranded assets that individuals are going to have the properties that governments aren't going to help them you know, it's going to get to a point where it's going to be it's going to fall right. And you know, when you see the predictions and people argue with Oh, that's not gonna happen. I'm like, looking like, I mean, we're watching Greenland melting at the moment, you know, Thwaites is hanging on by its fingernails, those sort of statements, you know, and this is all predicted in the next few years. You know, moving getting, getting even that sort of stuff under under control, like, do you need to sell your property now, while you still can? Is, is that ethical to sell a property that's at risk. But then, if somebody isn't doing their research, it's up to them. I mean, a lot of people can't sell them because I can't insure him. You know, the banks around the world are finally recognising the financial risk of the properties they actually do have already. But yeah, what about that because property, I think, for the majority of people is their wealth. Yes. We certainly in our part of the world, it's central Europe has a slightly lower level of home ownership, particularly in Germany than we have in Anglo Saxon countries UK it's quite it's pretty extreme actually, in how much of household wealth is tied up in property. What you're describing is very much along the lines what David and I think of is the transmission mechanism for how you start chipping away at society and by climate change is likely to bankrupt us before it answers. The insurance industry is not stupid. They make a living out of underwriting various types of risks, when they are stepping away from underwriting property insurance are various forms of exports, that companies are going to sell stuff to another place, when they withdraw from all these underwriting risks, because they see that the climate is really putting everything in jeopardy, pressure is going to come on to local and central governments to fill that void. Because that's what the citizens demand, rightly, I can no longer get house insurance, you need to provide me with this. Governments are going to find very, very rapidly that they're running out of money, something that Liz trust experienced not many weeks ago, that transmission mechanism can be extraordinarily fast, because it's built on one single brick in his foundation, which is confidence. And when that confidence gets eroded, that we no longer have control at policymaker level, then we're going to find very rapidly that house prices can actually come down in a dramatic fashion. Personally, I have like David described quite strong libertarian stance on bits of how the economy should operate, it's, you have a free choice to buy wherever you want, you need to do your research, if you like beachfront property, and all of a sudden, the insurer says I'm not going to provide you with property insurance. Myself, as a taxpayer, I have absolutely zero interest in my government underwriting that race. Because you need to be aware of what's happening around you. Unfortunately, I think the first round will be government's trying to fill that void, which would put them into an even bigger, darker blacker hole financially, before they realise that they more or less will have to step away from committing to underwriting everything in society. How that mech how that path looks, can be very different. But for us, the way we see the world, that's the kind of transmission mechanism, how climate really starts hurting us in more ways than we think of initially. And financially will be. Yeah, the the boiling point. So it's that's that I mean, that's already started. I know, in New Orleans, the whole insurance industry is basically gone, and the government sort of coming in. So it's already begun. So, you know, from everything, we're reading the escalation, you know, we see it and once part of our country, but then the escalation seems to be going through like that. It's not, it's not linear, it's, you know, it's massive. So if you were gonna ask something. So I was gonna say that, you know, we, we, I live in London, you know, we are sufficiently high, Richard is high away from sea level. And, you know, we talked about those things, but actually, what we've experienced is actually the flooding comes from rain. Yeah. A lot of people are really impacted and affected by it. And so it's the case that it's not even about weather where you add sea level in that sense. You're largely not going to affect it in in that way. And this comes to a point where you have to go along and you ask this question, okay. I'm going to move because I want to go somewhere else, or whatever it is, how much do you mind willing to pay for a house? And how much I'm willing to pay for something along? Pricing in property markets in a lot of the places which are like London and so on this still really extreme? From what from what I see. And you kind of have to ask this question, am I willing to walk away from this if things turn out bad? And is this the price I can pay where I can walk away from and big because the chances are in the bad scenario of how things work out. You won't find that buyer or you'll be stuck there for a long time hoping that you'll find that buyer. And, and go on. That's that's kind of the reality of what that investment in property should mean. So you it becomes a case that do I like being in this place? Is this a place that I actually want to go to as a refuge and live there? And that's the part where when people buy property, you mentioned about renovating three times and stuff. You know, I live in a place where everyone who gets a place, they renovate it, even though the guy before had just renovated it, and had lived there for six months before he moved away and flipped the place and so on. So is this like, you know, he's clearly not intend on doing anything, but some, I think an interior designer in getting off fantastic the latest trend and everything else. But that's not really creating the place that they actually want to be. And for for the for the couple, who is kind of like me, that identify with all the digital nomad. In the other side, they both have this sort of question I, I had a I went on holiday in the summer, my daughter with my youngest daughter who's 11, as a school friend whose parents are Spanish and Italian. And the father is from this part of Italy Puli I think it is in the southern part of Italy. And we want those the first time I've been there, it's beautiful place. And it's relatively cheap in terms of property prices and things still. But what they're saying is they've got all these digital nomads now, especially after COVID People who are kind of tech people who get, you know, global tax salaries, who can now work remotely. And they find themselves you know, a place that they really like in that sort of world. And they build for them around it. The the environment, unfortunately, what they also saying is, you know, they, because these are people who are very flashy with the money that they have, as the extra is actually pushing up the prices a lot in places. But the point of it is that there is something about the lifestyle of the digital nomad that in some sense, we should be open to it goes back to this part with Richard and I, what we do, you know, we will we want to end up having effectively an education and advice or in some form or another an investment, but investment into unscalable things is what I want you to do as part of what we build into our future to help us as we go forward. And we want to be able to do that no matter where we are by reaching out to people around the world. So the digital nomad in some sense, is our vision of where we would like to end up as even though we start off as the other couple. Right? Interesting. And because I actually see that as being the most stable part, but within there, I need a local community around me. And I need a local community where I can contribute along. And we we talked about, you know, how do you get local energy security? Not kind of like by country, but you know, I live in the courtyard of 15 houses to 15 houses. Yeah. We saw some biomass stuff. We were talking some people talking about some biomass stuff, and you think, you know, one house alone is not enough. But Richard was saying you saw this in a hotel in Austria? Well, 15 houses is kind of like a hotel. Works. What you need to do is you don't need to provide all of your energy, you needed to provide sufficient for baseline of your energy, so that you're not completely exposed to the grid. Yeah. Right. And you can plant a garden together as well. Right. And do compost. The whole thing, right? really bring it? Yeah, yeah. And the thing about planting garden together is you can go on holiday, someone else can be watering is really important. Because you come back and all your plants have died because it's been very dry that week, right? It's those things that actually says, you even when I start thinking I'm going to become more like a digital nomad. I want to be a digital nomad in a local community. And, and then I and with that in mind, I start asking how do I then look how I want to use the money I have? Yeah, who was building that? And I'm now moving away from the idea of thinking, what's the best stock to invest in? To become actually how do I really invest in my own future. And as I start doing that, I end up being able to say, I want to be more vocal with our transformation ownership to take oil and gas and coal out of financial, to put it into stewardship to start cutting it because I can see my own future with more clarity. And that can help me have the courage to take that last step. Yeah. So So, so a lot of where we've ended up is we've gone from being the managers of institution money, where, as I was describing earlier, just before we joined about how I used to get up at two in the morning to check out Asian markets open, get into work before 72 for the European opening, stay up until at least 10, to see how the US closes. And, and, you know, kind of kept sleep and do work in between kind of thing, to the saying, of concern, amount of assets, how do I actually make use of that, to build to invest in my own future. And to do that, so that I can have the courage to say, we got to do take a hard step, we got to face the world where energy has to be reduced, because we have to reduce our gas and coal, whether we're ready for it or not. And, and so it's really it is, it's very interesting that, you know, COVID has shown that digital nomad, in that sense, is something that we all moving somewhat towards. Yeah. But what is also showing equally is where we need that where, you know, I have a friend yesterday. She, she works in Dubai, she's in Italy at the moment, and she was trying to send me something and she was having such difficulties is everybody around the world are with Digital's with services, you're trying to send something to someone that costs you so much, you can't get anyone to respond, it's all a lot on the other side, and all of those things. And if you look at that, it actually is saying, You know what, I don't need the speed of an overnight delivery. But I need the contact and the service. So it opens up sort of things about okay, there are real opportunities for, for investments for developing a service that I can do, or I can have people and bring together to do that is more compatible with what we need for the climate, which is a slowing down of activities. But we need a quality of activities that puts people at the centre. And, and and those are and we were talking with a young young man yesterday, who is who is an engineer who's interested in kind of technology for agriculture and stuff. And he said he'd sort of volunteer this aspect of sewing, I think he called it you know, being human centric. Yeah. In that way. So so from that perspective, we think about investments and that resonates with me about what do you actually invest in, and being genuinely human centric is not peloton, or something like that, which was trying to sell this idea of it. Because it doesn't give a place to people to interact with others genuinely as to say, How can I actually have a Can I can have an umbrella business to actually have, you know, individual personal trainers, they can get to know you, too, you know, just watching a video to try and go and do your thing or whatever it is. or compete in that way and so on. So so so that's so there's that low CO site, which is going to be very important but a local site carried out to his extreme is makes it very unstable. And you do need that sort of international angle, broader angle you need you need to be investing in more ways by which you think you can be can make a bit of a living, you have contacts with people who know you. That's reason why they want and you know what, you know that you are valued by them. Now, how you translate that is the challenge that we all face, basically. Just got a question from Melbourne. How do you how do you effectively combat myths, misinformation, lack of critical thinking and people's attitudes? From Clinton? Daily, that's one for you, I think. Okay. Okay. Okay. I'll do that. And I do that by actually saying, you know, very much that we talked a bit about faith and faith is I've expressed his faith is believing the future to have belief in the future. And the element of his being faith is not because of proofing in that sense. But for me, it comes out of recognising that there are things which gives me genuinely gives me joy, and those I can hold on to and that helps me to believe in the future. And I had a conversation with my daughter last night, our elder daughter, who's now a, who's now just qualified as a doctor. And she's facing this situation where in the in the UK, in January, they're gonna have a vote, do they go on strike or not? And she's asking these questions, what do I do? What should I do? And I was saying. And I was saying, actually, and I told her about this, this thing which Richard Dawkins, who is an author, who wrote things like The Selfish Gene, or about biology and evolution, and those sorts of things, against sort of where he's saying, you know, nature and evolution is, can bring about all these complexity and all the rest of it. And he was once asked a question about the AI. And he was like, the question was, How can something so intricate, so complex, that has such kind of designed functionality come at random. And he said, you don't look at the eye at the moment as what it is. Just think what difference it has to you to be able to distinguish between dark, and light. So if you close your eyes, and you look to one side of the room, and then you look to the other, and you can't see any of the features. But if you can distinguish between dark and light. That's a huge step. That allows you take a small step along into a direction in which you wish to be whether it's too dark or too light. And that's really important in terms of combating the misinformation, everything else. Because we get caught into parts where we want to prove all the details and stuff was really what we want to do is actually just to say, the dark between the dark and the light. You know, you take climate change, and says, Is it important? Is it happening? Well, you're proven or the rest of it? And for me, it's simply a case of saying, Does it feel different? Yeah, if it feels different. take that next step. Yeah, start from thinking of those things. Yeah, if you want to go get into the details and start thinking about in those details, what happens is you end up in traps, where ultimately, you end up with this part of saying, Can I prove something? But if you actually take it back at the point of saying, Can I feel it? Do I feel that difference? Is that dark? And the light along just very simply, in that way? Is a bit darker here is a bit like does it feel darker? If I go down this path, this is a little lighter, if I feel goes down this path? It lets you take those small steps along. And it lets people along with you in that way, too, because they can feel it in that way, too. Yeah. So can I ask a question on that? Just following. Can I just quickly add to this because you know, misinformation, something I talk about, right? So one of the reasons I do the weekly reads is to share everything I'm reading, but it's also about saying he's lots of different perspectives on lots of different media. So the first thing is, you're not going to stop misinformation, social media channels need to stop it. The media houses need to stop it, but they're not going to stop it because that's how they're making money. And that's a that's a, that's a business problem with the with the press. So I always say like, we've just got to share information. Like if all the good people in the world who know what they're talking about the experts who know what they're talking about, if we're all out there sharing information, it's a way of tackling it, we're not going to stop it. Lack of critical thinking, all we can do is demonstrate critical thinking, and then people's attitudes, you know, so I've had people that I grew up with, say, Well, I'm not I'm not noticing anything, requirement change. And I'm like, Okay, let's just look at it from this perspective, where we grew up, it was very, very rare to hit 40 degrees, very rare in a summer. Now, we're in the mid 40s, and based on global warming, that area will hit 50 Is that not proof enough? You know, just just look over the span of your life of what's actually happened, you know, 70% of all life, you know, has gone you know, we've taken away the habitat or you know, going towards extinction so I mean that the evidence the proof is out there, but don't don't fight with people who want to fight. Talk to people who want to talk but don't fight with what people who want to fight because they're not they're not interested in talking. That's my experience. No, it's It's you want to fight the battles that you can win and save your energy and resources for those. But what's important I think what's helping the bright side of, of community in the world is that actually, technology is here, very, very helpful. It's much, much easier today than it was 10 years ago to access a lot of information, if you really want to find it. The internet has done wonders for your ability to actually get hold of the stuff that you want to read from the sources you trust because of who they are. But don't waste energy and you know, your your own your own good, good health, fighting people that clearly are not going to listen, it's a waste of time. I know how much I do to acquire my knowledge, if someone who wants to argue with me, has spent no time acquiring knowledge, and they just have an opinion. I'm just like, it's okay. You go, you go and do what you need to do. I'm doing what I need to do. And, you know, sorry, Steve, you're gonna say something? No, I was just going to pick up on. On one of the last things that you said there, David, which actually leads really nicely into my final question for both of you. And you were saying if you see change, take action. If you think institutional investment houses are seeing this change, are they just slightly? Are they quietly divesting? It's a difficult it's a really, really, it's really difficult question. It in many ways, because institutional investing is very constrained by its fiduciary duty, that is sat under regulations. So when people call on them, and say, You can do this, you mustn't do that. They face shackles on one side. And then on the other, they also recognise the things which people don't, don't generally see. 82.2% of our energy in 2021 came from oil, gas and coal. Part of the reason why we have this cost of energy issue is because of the lack of investments within the oil, gas and coal. Because imagine you've got a car, you've had it for 15 years, is running to a point where it takes money to go along and repair, you're not allowed to buy a new one, you're not allowed to repair it is going to cost you more and more to run it. Right. So they see a problem of being put onto the site of saying, I'm not allowed to buy a new one, I'm not allowed to repair it. And somehow, I'm gonna make investments provide this for cheaper and cheaper. And on the other side, I can't get rid of this thing, because I have my fiduciary duties along with it. Right. Right. No, I totally get that. I just wonder. I think Deutsche hit the headlines 1516 years ago, correct me if I'm wrong, they were one of the first to announce a Green Fund. Does that sound was it? It was I wonder if if anyone is is going to be it's going to stand up and have one of those courageous kind of moments and go you know what? Ethically, you know, we need to go down this path. I mean, it will be financial suicide, probably. I wonder if I wonder if we're going to get to that point. Or, as I say, our institutions already taking measures against that. And kind of slowly divesting of that side of things. Well, I'd like to take the opportunity to take it into our transformation ownership. Basically, if I may. And of all the reporting numbers and everything else, there's only one thing we need to watch, which is just the amount of oil, gas and coal we are producing. And that's increasing along every year. So it doesn't matter whether you declare yourself to be green, it doesn't matter where you go along and you say I should produce renewable energy, whatever it is, is the total that matters. As long as that total is not decreasing, the total amount of oil, gas and coal that we're using is not decreasing. The total amount of oil gas and coal that we are producing is not decreasing. We are all greenwashing because at 82% of our energy in the world, being coming from organic code, the medicine you take all the active pharmaceutical ingredients are basically made in China, or generic drugs are basically made in India. And as everybody from climate side says these are the worst countries in the world because of the coast and so on of the use of coal, or that the reason for part of the reason for those things is big Just to make Madison nice a lot of energy. So when you go public for your painkiller just so that you can go back to work or whatever it is that you take, or your vitamins that you do your green washing away. Yeah. And the only way to deal with that the only way to wrap around it well is by taking the financial interests out of ownership of oil, gas and coal. By them up, you can't allow oil, gas and coal to be used for free. So take the profit from the energy companies from the old gas income producing companies and give them back to everybody affected by climate change, then you become an owner with no financial interest. Make that owner, everybody make that owner, everybody who spends money, because everybody who spends money is part of the pressures as to why we have to keep using our gas and coke. Or these, but we are now owners without any of the financial interest. And we can now go along and call our businesses and says, We are owners of these resources for energy we all need. But you say you've committed to net zero by 2050. Join us by contributing a part of the money we spend with you so that we can buy up these assets. And we are going to cut his production to your 2050 target. And if you're not greenwashing use the energy supply by this. Because if you don't, and you're using the other guys who's not cutting the production, you're you are now clearly greenwashing. And those that use this clearly are not. And you allow this distinction to be made between genuinely the an ecosystem of businesses and people and governments who put their money where the mouth is. And others who want to put a green label on it and says I'm going to keep using suppliers that will keep providing. And in doing so, you transform the whole debate into action that individuals can take. Right. And, and and so to the case of Deutsche or Blackrock are those people then it becomes Are you supporting this are you calling on all the companies actually saying we will invest in you, because you are going to take part of the revenues that people spend and put it into this transformation ownership, making the people who spend the money, the transformation owners, so that they have the ownership rights over the company as shareholders and all those things. But in doing so committing to buying up the oil, gas and coal companies. This distributing all the profits back out to people directly. And that's a huge amount of money. I mean, last year that was 100 and $20 billion, in terms of the dividends that came out, that's more than the Climate Fund that supposedly they're trying to get probably two or three times that considering the difference in pricing that we've had. And that works out last year to $14 per person, you know, a Charter School Class of, you know, my daughter's school has, you know, about 30 people in her class, you know, at $14 Each, just kind of like what $420 That they can have to do something, whatever that might be whatever it is that helps them to live their lives, to to do what we were talking about, you know, help the community to contribute along in that way it might be you know, life so hard, we just need to have a bit of a party. It might be you know, that can help us to be able to have that biomass, you know, off regeneration. And just a little bit of contribution that gets you started in that in that way. And if you are living in we I was in conversation with some people who are trying to walk to cop 27 At the moment, and they need a bit of funding, by the way. And I could send a link later and so on. They just needed a bit of funding to make that last trip the group of people from Sub Saharan Africa, wanting to go to cop 27 and tell their stories. And for them in their communities, having that money for them in places of the world for $14 makes a huge difference. For for each individual is really the kind of aspect of climate justice that people talk about. But it's time it doesn't have to go through layers of institutions and layers. So what kind of transactions and things it allows people to say, you know, best what you need. And this will give you a little bit of a helping hand. And in doing so you're committing to supporting us cutting the production of oil, gas and coal, even if we're not ready. Yeah. And it's not, we can't just turn it off, right? It's got to it's got to go down, but the fact that it isn't, so I would definitely recommend unsustainable true to understand what, what David's talking about with this transformational ownership, it's, it's, to me, it's one of those ideas that is needed for this time. And it's very, very simple. But yeah, no one's really looking at it. And we're seeing some of the oil and gas assets being sold off to some of the players we don't want them sold off to. But it's just really one final question, and then we'll wrap it up. Pensions are a huge part of your book. And I know that scenario you both worked in, and I was actually shocked by what I was reading, you know, like the vineyards in France, or, you know, so there's a UNESCO World Heritage wetlands in Spain that's been drained so that they could water the strawberries, right. So it's gone. You know, we've tying perpetual growth to two things that can never guarantee perpetual growth, because whether right, I was, I was a bit shocked by that. So beyond the damage that's been caused, by the way pensions are being run, what is the future for pensions? Is it even worth investing in a pension? I mean, I'm looking at lots of stuff going on in the UK around pensions, I don't get it. I know, you do a pension is going to collapse, is that nest egg that everyone thinks they've got going to be impacted? We've seen we've seen, you know, my dad had to work for a couple more years because of a recession that chip chipped away at his pension. We've seen that, but are we talking about something a lot more drastic now? Yes, and no, I think pensions are important. It's something that you should have. And you should save continuously. Because A, you are not going to be able to retain your earnings stream all through your life unless you sadly die prematurely. As you get older, it's kind of important, like we mentioned that if you can find any source of revenue, it helps you it helps the community and society at large. The over reliance on pensions, is what we're describing normally, as being the only human beings who actually hoard resources for part of our life and then contribute nothing at the end. It's a bit unnatural. And I think what you see happening with markets coming off this year is making people realise that you cannot solely rely on this nest egg to see you through to your dying days. Like I described earlier, there are pretty good reasons for why you should not expect fantastic returns from Iran. And actually people are a bit shocked by how much markets have declined this year. My sobering thought there will be you're still quite far above trend. If you look at like multi second century graphs. So there's all the possibility and even probability you can come off further, in some respects, which would make pensions decline. We're not anti pensions, I'm certainly not anti pension, but you can not. Again, it goes back to your risk management approach. If your whole life is depending on it at one point in the future, you're in trouble. Because more likely than not, there will be impairments for you. Young people should start saving early, they should always put money away for this long term investment plan. Because if you can't access the money, you can actually look really long term, which is a good thing. But we need to step away from our over reliance on having to reach number x, at a certain point in our time, where we can put our feet up and stop contributing to society, society, it's not healthy for us, it's certainly not healthy for our communities and our society. And I think from that perspective, the decline we've seen in in pension plans will be a wake up call for people whether it means you need to, like you describe work a couple of years more, or just rethink our whole relationship to our anchor investments for the future, which the pension very much is because the flip side of this will be going forward as well that governments again, will step away from some of the commitments they have in the public pension plans. UK we're looking at the so called triple lock and what that means and it's pretty clear governments are gonna run out of money so there will be impairments anyway. So it's better for yourself, your community and society at large. If you start figuring out, how can I keep contributing in some meaningful way further on in life? You know, I have three children who are in their 20s. And I tell them, expect to be working to your 100. Let that guide you as to how you think your work needs to be. Let that guide you as to how you think your savings need to be. And how you think what you think investments ought to provide to your world, because you're going to be working to your 100. I think I think that's the reality of what sort of climate scientists the other day saying a child born today will have a life expectancy of 30 to 40 years, and the majority of that life will be miserable. So we're seeing that sort of extreme prediction as well. So what's the point? Right, you know? Well, that's, that's actually, you know, I think, I think that's where climate science sometimes ends up picking, what are the the scenarios, which are so far out of reach in terms of people's lifetimes. It's not, it's not that that's necessarily wrong prediction. But that's not going to be the prediction of my children in that way, and we still got a degree of buffering lack in our economies, that's going to do its best to try and make sure that doesn't quite happen. For people like ourselves, there are people born today in parts of the world where their parents had a life expectancy of, and there's there could be the same or worse, and so on. So So you know, that's certainly true in certain situations in, in certain places. But the reality of what we're likely to see, and what we want to achieve, and that's, that's the important difference between them, is a world where we will likely our children will like live to 100. But they will be contributing actively in that way, you know, you've got a nice tree in your garden, you don't actually practice somehow to stop contributing to being nice tree in your garden, and spend 30 years after that, and you know, after 60 years being around, and then spend 30 years just basically not contributing any more, you know, not not effectively providing the shelter and everything that it does to, to the things around it. And that's, that's the distinction, you know, if we're going to, if we're going to manage along, we have to recognise a few things that the world has changed. And one of the ways in which it has changes. You know, we're 8 billion people in the world, that's room enough for people for 8 billion people in the world, if we are different, we all try to be the same. But what it does mean is that the way in which we could exploit the planet before, is no longer available for a billion people in that way. So the planet is an integral partner now, with us. It's like growing up and being part and contributing to community to family in that way, rather than just sort of being supported by it. And pensions is a huge part of that, because investments need resources, resources, strain the planet. And if you look at it, as I'm building up resources, so that I can live a secure life without having to face having to work every day in in that sort of way, then you're going to be draining those resources and taking them away from other people coming on who need those resources. And that's that's the that's the difficulty of pensions. There is no room for pensions as we think of it. In the world we're going to, because there are more and more people thinking of wanting that pension. The the number of middle class, aspiring middle class, looking to that as a way for them to stop having to work along is not within the capacity, what our planet can provide. Yeah, no, all right. 333 Quick Tips from both of you what everyone should do. Go. For me, I'm just I'm just I'm just all about staying agile. That's what I kept saying to Steve, let's just stay agile, pay attention, be ready to move if we have to try and make the right decision in time. You know, understand the threats and how far out they are. And if they come closer, you know, that sort of thing. So what do you what do you recommend? Well, I think we go back to the one we always have right, which is slow down. Do less and Don't panic, panic is very bad thing to do, you normally never take good decisions when you do so. But the only thing I would add is we are fragile in our economies because we have no buffers makes our resilience low. And we talked earlier about the need to have more localised energy generation, etc. We need more of that thinking and, and rebuilding our natural robustness and resilience. So you make sure you have some stuff at home, you can come home and have an empty fridge have a couple of packs are passed around, you always can eat because supermarket shelves are gonna go empty every now and then those small things that we have been grown accustomed to, because we've been so privileged that everything is always readily available at the flick of a switch, the world has changed, it won't be like that, that it means on an individual level, you actually need to have a little bit of buffer, in my sense, it's like might not go to 500% when they hike rates, but you need to be prepared that things can go much worse than you initially imagined. Can you stay in the game and not be literally kicked out? That for me is kind of essential in how you you structure your own resilience against adverse events. And like you described be agile, you know, the world is changing very, very rapidly. So yeah, keep keep keep pushing your comfort zone. Just keep you can gently tapping it. And just keep gently tapping your comfort zone. Yeah, that that helps you to just open your eyes. Yeah, that's really good advice. I'm, I'm so concerned by the amount of people not doing that they're not concerned when the moment comes. What that's gonna do to them, you know, and that's, you know, we're all trying to raise awareness, right? Yes. Okay. So, in soon when you guys give me a date, I'm going to host a live conversation with David and Richard on my uncommon courage Facebook group, where you can ask them anything, you can talk about anything. They're really open really honest. So I'll let you know when that's happening. The next no show will be on the 18th of November. Because next week, we're celebrating our Lexi's 60th birthday. Can't believe if we've got a 16 year old, and we're gonna go and see Guns and Roses. So he's very excited. Yeah, the next climate coverage is going to be on the 25th of November. And I haven't decided what it's going to be about yet. But I've got so many topics. So I don't think I'm ever going to run out. But Richard and David, thank you so much for joining me again. So it was really, really valuable to listen to you and what you've got to say. And thanks, Steve, any more clarity for you. So what my what I'm taking away from my new friend Richard is expect the best plan for the worst. Now. As an engineer, that's what we live and die by. And David, you talk about buffer. So we call that a factor of safety. So I never realised that civil engineering was so closely aligned to the financial services market. So thanks for that, guys. I actually feel a little bit smarter than just the builder now. So much for all right now I really appreciate it. I hope it's been useful for everybody. Just be patient. We've got to start paying attention. This is happening. It's escalating. There are real risks to all of us, wherever we are in the world. And you know, if you know you can, you can plan and prepare, right? Yes, thank you so much for having us. Thank you. All right, in the broadcast. So you guys, thank you very much. Let's play