Ted Nordhaus is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of the Breakthrough Institute, the world's first and most prominent Ecomodernist think tank.
We talk about the origins of the concept of ecological decoupling, the New Left's ceding of class and materialist politics to the right and the empty radicalism of the Green New Dealers.
Ted shares his thoughts on the wicked problem of climate change which he compares to a chronic disease like diabetes rather then an acute problem like an asteroid strike.
Ted also opines on energy policy where he argues that the most effective root to deep decarbonization, a centrally planned and coordinated massive build out of gigawatt scale nuclear, is not viable given the political economy of our time. He argues instead for a pragmatic, non-radical strategy that adapts itself to our liberalizing energy markets with a mix of renewables, natural gas, and advanced small scale nuclear.
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