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In this episode of the Climate Confident podcast, I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Jay Hakes, a renowned expert in U.S. energy and environmental policy. We delved into the critical role the upcoming U.S. presidential election will play in shaping global climate action, particularly as we approach the 2030 climate targets.
Dr. Hakes provided an insightful analysis of how the U.S. political system, with its built-in complexities, often hinders swift climate action. He shared his thoughts on the historical impact of past presidential decisions, particularly around automobile efficiency standards, and the lasting effects these have had on the country’s climate progress.
We also discussed the potential implications of a shift in U.S. leadership, particularly contrasting the climate stances of Trump and Harris. Dr. Hakes highlighted the importance of science-based decision-making and the need for sustained, bipartisan commitment to addressing the climate crisis.
If you’re interested in how the intersection of politics and environmental policy will shape our future, this episode is a must-listen. For more insights, be sure to check out Dr. Hakes' work at JayHakes.com.
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Dr. Jay Hakes:
When the election's all over and people are writing their post election analysis, they say, well, Trump lost because he couldn't get the young vote and he couldn't get the young vote because he was backwards on climate change. Well, that sends a message to politicians.
Tom Raftery:
Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you are in the world. This is the Climate Confident podcast, the number one podcast showcasing best practices in climate emission reductions and removals. And I'm your host, Tom Raftery. Don't forget to click follow on this podcast in your podcast app of choice to be sure you don't miss any episodes. Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Climate Confident podcast. This week, we have a special episode where we are looking into the US's upcoming presidential election. And with me on the show today, I have my special guest, Jay. I'm going to read out a little bit of Jay's bio before asking Jay to introduce himself, which is a bit of a departure, but I just wanted to set a bit of context. So, Jay, Dr. Jay Hakes, has a new book called The Presidents And The Planet- Climate Change Science And The Politics From Eisenhower To Bush. So right there, we can kind of see a scope. This book was published in August this year and Jay, according to his own bio here is an expert on US energy and environmental policy. He served as administrator of the US energy Information Administration during the Clinton administration, and as Director for Research and Policy for President Obama's BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Commission. He also directed the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library in Atlanta for 13 years, and he's the author of numerous articles and two previous books on US energy and environmental history. Jay, welcome to the podcast. Would you like to introduce yourself to everyone listening?
Dr. Jay Hakes:
Okay, my name is Jay Hakes, and I have a long experience as a university professor, as being somewhat active in politics from time to time, doing a lot of nonpartisan energy and environmental analysis, and it's a privilege to be on your show.
Tom Raftery:
Thank you so much. And the reason I wanted to read out your bio there is because I think this upcoming US presidential election is incredibly important, even if only through a climate lens because we're coming very close to our 2030 commitments here in Europe. 2030 is a big year. The 2020s are supposed to be the decade of action and this incoming president will be president from the start of 25 right the way through to 29. So the last half of this decade essentially will be under this president. So, it's hugely, hugely important, and the outcome will dictate a lot, obviously, of what happens in the US energy space. And so with Jay having the kind of bio that he has, I felt he was an ideal person to come on the podcast to discuss this. Now, I normally don't touch on political topics on this podcast, but I think for this one, I think it is important enough that we do have this kind of conversation around this election because it is so important. And Jay, your work, you've, you've delved into the history of presidential leadership through your books on climate and energy, given this extensive background, how do you think the US political system itself, designed as long ago as it was, how do you think it shapes or hinders the US' ability to tackle climate change?
Dr. Jay Hakes:
Well, a lot of people around the world are used to the parliamentary system of government, and usually when a government comes in, you get a prime minister, they have a coalition or a party behind them, and they can pass things by a vote of 50, 51 percent will usually do it
Tom Raftery:
hmm. Mm.
Dr. Jay Hakes:
We have a system that's much more complicated and almost designed to slow down action, whether it's climate or anything else. So, I mean, one interesting point in my book was in 1992 the United States had done a lot to support climate. We had just passed some appliance efficiency standards. We had joined the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We had led the fight to protect the ozone layer, which helped out on climate a little bit. So, the next step was to update our automobile efficiency standards, which had become quite weak. And as you know, right now, transportation is one of the big challenges for dealing with the climate problem. And it looked like they had the votes in the Senate to get rid of the filibuster, which meant they had 60 percent plus one votes, which is what we require here for a lot of legislation. And the White House, very aggressively fought that. So even though it had the support of most members of Congress, it did not pass, and we didn't get back to automobile efficiency standards for another 15 years. So that's just one example where whoever's in the White House, and that was a case where president Bush had said before the election that he was going to do something about climate change. So the stakes are very high and climate requires a very sustained effort. It's not kind of like a war you fight for a few years and then you declare victory. You have to be improving technology every year. You have to be changing markets every year. So if you lose that in a presidential election and you get a president who's not enthusiastic about dealing with a climate ,problem. it's really hard to regain that ground.
Tom Raftery:
And worse still, if you have a president who decides that it's all a fraud made by China and pulls out of the IPCC or pulls out of the Paris Climate Accord, at least.
Dr. Jay Hakes:
Yeah, I mean, those statements are so ridiculous. I mean, you know, if you go back, the era of modern what I call modern climate science starts really in the 1950s, and the center of it is in Southern California, where you have Roger Abell and Dave Keeling, and Keeling starts measuring the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. I don't think China was too involved in it at the time but I, I do believe that saying that climate change science is a hoax has gotten more difficult to say with a straight face. I mean, if you watch the evening news and you see the more severe storms, you see rising sea levels, you see the fires caused by dehydration of soils. You see, migration pressures that come to a large extent from climate related issues. It's hard to say that. So this time what the opponents of climate action are arguing, well, electric cars don't work and solar really doesn't work because it's intermittent, which is a whole different argument and probably equally silly. But, you know, some people are going to believe that if you say it often enough. So. It's, it's a real stake, not only for politics, but for, for sort of evidence. Can you say things that have no evidence behind them and still convince people that they're true?
Tom Raftery:
Yeah, and I mean, you touched on it there, but another aspect of American politics, I think, is it's so fractured and divided that if one side takes a position on something, the other side typically just opposes it on on principle. And. Was it Nixon who brought in the Clean Water and Air Acts in the 1970s? So,
Dr. Jay Hakes:
Yeah, I think, I think when we look at the history, that's one of the lessons, because we had for quite a long period in this country a coalition between Republicans and Democrats who wanted to support the environment. And the Clean Air Act, for instance, which mentioned climate change, passed in 1970. And it, it was passed on a voice vote because it had such overwhelming support and it was a very tough, tough bill. And that continued into the 1980s where a lot of the leaders in the Senate on, on climate change were Republicans. And in Europe, you had one of the leaders on climate change was Margaret Thatcher. So that Tended in, in the UK in particular to sort of take that out of play. There wasn't a conservative party making an extreme argument against climate. That started to change in the 1990s. And we're left today where the Inflation Reduction Act. Which is a massive spending bill for alternative forms of energy. Passed on a straight party vote. There wasn't a single member of the opposition party who voted for it, even though the states that voted against it are getting a lot of the benefits with investments in solar and all sorts of things. So, this has been a development that we're going to have to see whether that's sort of a permanent fracture in American society. Is it an episode we're going through? But it has immense implications for climate action.
Tom Raftery:
And that fracturing, was that just because the fossil fuel companies decided to start lobbying, put serious money into lobbying against change?
Dr. Jay Hakes:
The heavy lobbying started around the period of 1989 and 1990, which was the same time, not coincidentally, that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was formed. So, the, the industries that felt they would be adversely affected started getting very serious and their lobbyists started to oppose it. So one of the things that they developed, and they were very clever about it, was they became against regulation. Well, people don't like to be regulated, but, you know, we don't allow people to throw garbage into their neighbor's yard. We have reasonable regulations. We don't allow companies to put toxic chemicals into the atmosphere. Maybe a little bit, but but this whole anti regulation doctrine became almost like a religion. You know, we're against regulation. And unfortunately now, it has bled over into our Supreme Court. So until fairly recently, our Supreme Court was pretty open to environmental regulation and it has now flipped. Where it's hard to find an environmental regulation that they find acceptable. I mean, this sounds unbelievable, but it's in a Supreme Court dissent that's, that was signed by people who are now pretty much running for it. They said that Congress or the Environmental Protection Agency couldn't regulate carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act. Otherwise they would have to regulate airborne frisbees. Now, that's as crazy as saying climate science is a Chinese hoax, but that viewpoint now is more or less sort of the doctrine of our Supreme Court. So we face some really tough hurdles, and one of the things that the next president will do, presumably, is probably, you know, appoint a couple of Supreme Court justices. And this becomes extremely important because the judges have lifetime appointments. And I think a lot of times when people say, well, maybe I'm not gonna vote they forget that you, you can't correct correct the damage if the president appoints an anti environmental Supreme Court justice. We're going to be there for a long time.
Tom Raftery:
Yeah, yeah. That's a really good point. And I mean, you mentioned there as well the Inflation Reduction Act, which obviously is a major milestone in climate policy. How do you see that legislation faring in the political landscape, especially considering the potential shift in leadership after the upcoming election? If Trump became president, would he dismantle its progress or would it be resilient enough to survive the shift?
Dr. Jay Hakes:
Well there's a lot of speculation on that today because the, the, the Inflation Reduction Act, the problem with it is it came so late. If it come 10 years ago that would've been good. It also doesn't say climate in the title. So people who don't follow it carefully don't see it as a climate bill, but the spending levels are massive, and they're spread all over the country, and it's seen as an economic development push in a lot of states that are Trump or Republican states. So I think there is a feeling that that some of that will survive politically even if the Republicans were to win the election. But clearly you would want someone implementing that act who believed in it. And believed in doing the whole package. You know, sometimes people don't like this idea all of the above. Some people like solar, but they don't like carbon capture. And some people like hydrogen, some people don't. But the politics of the matter is you have to do a lot of different things to build the coalition to get something done. And I'm, I'm certainly of the mind that we might invest in a few things that don't pay off. It's a little bit like venture capitalism, you know, you don't need every investment to pay off. You need a few to pay off real big. And that's kind of what climate technology is like. So, there's so many things that we need to be working on, but right now the priority probably is batteries, because batteries affect the ability of wind and solar to store. And it also affects improving the range of the electric vehicle. You know, we're going to have to get longer ranges and quicker recharging to make this a car that everybody's going to feel comfortable with. So, you know, if we could keep that. level of battery, you know, almost a wartime posture that we have to, you know, give the scientists everything they asked for if they're working on batteries. That's a good thing. Some of it might get wasted, but you know, at this point we can't quibble because we're so late coming to the fight.
Tom Raftery:
That's fair. Yep. And could any of it be reversed? Or, I mean, Trump has promised to tear it up on day one in office, but he's promised to do so many things on day one in office he'll have a very busy first day if he is elected. But, I mean, could it be reversed? Theoretically, parts of it?
Dr. Jay Hakes:
Yes what happened is the way they passed the Environmental Reduction Act, there's a technicality where you, you can't be filibustered and that's treated as a budget matter. So if the Republicans retain the control of the House and that, that's up for grabs. I mean, this isn't just a presidential election, it's a House of Representatives and Senate election. And they get a majority in the Senate and all the Republicans combined, which I don't think it's a sure thing. You, you could repeal the whole IRA or you could repeal parts of it. I don't think we can predict today what will happen. I mean, there are a few Republican senators who are not up for election this time, like Lisa Murkowski from Alaska, or Susan Collins from Maine. They might vote with the Democrats on a few of these issues. So we really don't know but one can imagine a lot of worst case scenarios. I mean, right now, I think it's pretty clear that there's no feasible way to keep climate change below 1. 5 degrees centigrade. So, I couldn't even hypothetically you know, given the infrastructure that's embedded and even taking away the politics. So we're, we're trying to keep it below 2.0 centigrade. And I think that's feasible both politically and technically, but if there's a setback in the United States, because there's a psychological aspect to this as well, you know, if a party votes for the IRA, it's a big deal. The other party votes against it. And the party that votes against it wins the election. That sends a pretty strong message about where the American people are. It doesn't necessarily mean that they don't think climate change is important, but at least they're not ranking it high enough in their priorities that it's affecting the vote. And I think the rest of the world looks at what the United States does. You know, another way of looking at this, you know, from an American posture is, do we compete with the Chinese to lead the world on climate? And China is actually meeting some of its climate goals ahead of schedule. And I actually, back in 2008, gave lectures all over China on the technologies that would make a difference for climate change. And I thought their, their main goal was to reduce their emissions. Well, that might have been a goal, but their goal was to manufacture the products that people would want to buy to protect the climate. So I actually did a news conference with the governor of Guangdong province, which is the big industrial hub of China. And most of it was discussing LED light bulbs, which were kind of a new thing at the time. And he, the guy looked over his staff and says, now that's LED light bulbs. Right? Yet, I just given him a lecture on LED light bulbs to the Communist party in the province. So China is out there and, and a lot of people who are climate skeptics say, well, China needs to do something. Well, China is doing a lot and, and they're doing it because it's in their economic interest. So we're sort of going against our economic interest if we are not on the cutting edge. I mean, if you look at the universities we have here, Georgia Tech, MIT, Caltech Carnegie Mellon, you know, there's just all these great schools that have these brilliant scientists. So there's certainly an ability to be the world leader in technology. And we don't want to throw that away.
Tom Raftery:
And I, I was reading recently that China committed to 1,200 gigawatts of renewables by 2030, and they've already reached that goal. So they
Dr. Jay Hakes:
I mean, one of the things that I cite a lot of my books and articles is an MIT report from 2018. It said in the previous 40 years, the price of solar photovoltaic solar cells have come down 99%. Now, that's not a typographical error. It came down 99%. So, a lot of the arguments about solar was going to wreck our economy and raise everybody's prices, you know, have turned out not to be true. And technology can solve a lot of problems, and now if we had that same level of even partially with batteries, you know, that, that would fill a big hole in, in where we need to go. So I, I think there's a partnership with China. I, I, I think at some point after the election, there needs to be an impartial moderator brought in. I wrote back when both countries were doing nothing a few years ago that China and the United States have a mutual death pact on climate change. Well, now both countries are, are doing more than they were there, but they're doing it in a very competitive matter with a lot of tariffs and stuff like that. And some of these tariffs may be justified, but, you know, try to find a way where you take advantage of what China does well, what we do well. So both countries benefit from it. And then the world benefits from reducing carbon emission.
Tom Raftery:
yeah, we, we talked a bit about Trump and some of his possible policies on day one, but what about the other candidate Kamala Harris? She's rowed back some of her climate commitments in the recent weeks and months since she got on the ticket no?
Dr. Jay Hakes:
I don't look at it that way. I mean, she comes from California, and I, I'm gonna be going out to California in a couple of weeks to give some lectures. And it's, it's fun to be out there because they're on the cutting edge. And so she's been with that issue for a long time. And she picked Tim Walz to be her vice presidential candidate and among the American States that aren't on the coast Minnesota probably has the best policies you know, they're very, very aggressive. I think the complaint was she didn't go into it more at the convention, but I don't think you can, you know, a political convention is kind of like a circus and people aren't looking for a policy nerd breaking down because climate change, as you well know from your program, and I know from my research, is complicated. You know, there's no silver bullet. There's a lot of silver buckshot. And it can be confusing to the average person. But I think she's made clear, and I think she feels that Trump has sort of dug his own hole. One thing that's happened this time is environmental leaders were skeptical of Al Gore in 2000 and they were kind of nitpicking in a way, but they didn't feel he'd gone far enough, even though he was one of the kind of fathers of climate politics. And the same thing kind of happened to Hillary Clinton in 2016. You had the Jill Stein Green Party and people peeled away. What I see happening this time is if you look at Climate leaders who have been very aggressive in articulating the issue, like, say, Bill McKibben, you know, who's very widely respected he's out there saying, you know, I may not agree 100 percent with everything the Democrats are saying, but the differences are stark, so let's get realistic and do that. So I see that happening in a somewhat different way this time than last time, so I think that's going to prove helpful to Harris. And I think the people that she brought into the administration would be people who had experience under Obama. You know, people learn as they go on. Some of Obama's people that were really good, were really good because they'd been frustrated they hadn't done more when Bill Clinton was president. So they kind of learned from their mistakes and they, they moved ahead. So, you know, there's not going to be, it's going to have to be pretty much pedal to the metal for quite a while here again, make up the lost ground.
Tom Raftery:
Right. Not quite an energy related question, but do you think that Harris's following will likely be younger and therefore more climate aware than maybe the people who might be older and more inclined to vote for Trump? Or am I misreading that completely?
Dr. Jay Hakes:
Yes the polls are showing a rather dramatic change in the views of young people. They they just weren't relating to Biden, even though, you know, life is a little unfair. I mean, you go back to 1988, and who has introduced the major climate bill in the Senate that year? Senator Joe Biden. And so he's, he's been on this issue for a while. But he's older, you know, and I, I have mixed feelings about that. I'm 80 years old, you know, so I you know, realize that I can't give four or five lectures a day like I did when I was traveling China a few years ago. I can get one or two good ones. But he just wasn't getting credit with people and, and we can talk more about the IRA, but the IRA isn't publicly understood that much. It might be understood by you and me, but the general public, they don't quite know what it does. So a lot of it is optics and photographs and, and Harris is vibrant and she has a great smile and she you know, Biden had a really tough debate sort of engaging Trump and she seems to be just the opposite. She's very quick on her feet. So yeah, the young people are coming into it and they have a different timeframe because if we change emissions, we're not going to see that much different in the climate in the next five years. You know, we have to be thinking how it affects our children or our grandchildren. Or if we're young, what's the world going to be like in 50 years? So, I think there could be, you know, particularly if it's viewed when the election's all over and people are writing their post election analysis, they say, well, Trump lost because he couldn't get the young vote and he couldn't get the young vote because he was backwards on climate change. Well, that sends a message to politicians. Politicians tend to go with the wind a lot. And so if it's perceived that now, hence forward, to get the younger vote and the vote in general, you need to have advanced policies on climate, we've sort of taken a fork in the road in a positive direction. So there's a potential here for a real jump forward in our politics.
Tom Raftery:
Nice. Good. Yeah. And in, in your view, what are the most significant points of contention between Harris and Trump on climate issues and how might they influence global perceptions of the US leadership on climate action?
Dr. Jay Hakes:
Well, you know, with Trump, it's, it's like if people want to drive polluting, internal combustion engines, they have a right to do that. That's part of freedom. Well, you know, I have freedom, you know, I live in a hurricane prone area. So I, don't I have some freedom to be protected from climate change? And so I, I think that is a big part of it. And You know, I, I think you have to embrace new technology and you can't say that the market will just take care of it because usually for new technology, there's a transition period like with solar panels at one point they weren't cost competitive, but you needed to subsidize that. And, and right now, I mean, to give you an example, a personal example, I just bought, I, I couldn't get an all electric vehicle because I have to be able to escape from a hurricane. So I brought a plug in, and most of my driving is done all electric. So when I was looking at buying it, I noticed that there, if I leased it, I didn't want to lease it, but if I leased it, I got a $6,000 rebate. And it made it look like it came from the company that sold it. Well, that was the Inflation Reduction Act. So, one, most buyers might not even know that that tech credit was available. And if they did know it was available, they might think it was kind of a gift from the auto company. No, it was that act that was passed by the 51 votes. And let's give those people some credit, but they're not getting the credit. So there, there has to be a push for technology change and there has to be an acceptance of either climate tax or climate regulations. You cannot do it just with technology and just with investments in science. You have to have a market pull and that market pull can come from taxes, which seems to be easier to do in Europe and other countries in Japan than it is in the United States. Or from regulations and, you know, auto efficiency regulations, appliance efficiency regulations. What's so hard about that? You know, we can do that. While we've been regulating the efficiency of cars, acceleration has picked up. The cars work better. You know, it's not like we're making some huge sacrifice. It's just kind of almost like a ideological knee jerk reaction oh we're against regulation. So I, I, I think that which overlaps with this whole Supreme Court appointment issue, which we discussed earlier, it is really kind of a cutting edge that people have to keep in the front of their minds
Tom Raftery:
Fair enough. What about the influence of vice presidents? I mean, you, you mentioned Tim Walz, do vice presidents often play a significant role behind the scenes? How do you see the role of the vice president candidate shaping their, the party's climate agenda? Do you think the vice president picks could sway the outcome or the effectiveness of climate policies?
Dr. Jay Hakes:
I think in general people vote for the top of the ticket, not the vice president. But I've seen exceptions to that. I was in the room with Clinton's campaign manager when the announcement came through in 1992 that Ross Perot had withdrawn from the race. He was a very strong third party candidate. He eventually came back in. But this was right about the time that they announced Al Gore as the vice president. So you had these guys who were young, quite articulate. They were both from the South, and it kind of sent a combined message. And Clinton's poll numbers zoomed during that time. Also vice presidents, I can point to a few times where they were a little ahead of the president on certain kinds of issues. And then, of course, they may take over as president. So I, I, I think you have as stark a difference between Waltz and J. D. Vance as you do between Harris and Trump. So it kind of adds to that general mix. If, if one of them had picked a person that was more different in how they approach the issue. I think that would be worth noting. But pretty much both sides have kind of shown their cards. And that's a little unusual because both President Bush's just before the election made statements that they were going to do a lot on climate change. So, the second President Bush is sworn into office in 2001 and he appoints Christine Todd Whitman as the head of the EPA. And she starts going back to, to what Bush said during the campaign and starts to implement it. Well, she ends up getting fired because Vice President Cheney came in and said, No, that's not what we're doing. And she'd say, well, he said that during the campaign. I don't care. We're not doing that. So the cards don't always get put on the table during the election season. In this election season, they're pretty much on the table and what you see is what you get.
Tom Raftery:
Nice. Okay. Good. Despite the challenges you've seen a lot in your career, what can gives you hope when it comes to global efforts to combat climate change. Are there any emerging trends or leaders that make you optimistic for the future?
Dr. Jay Hakes:
Well, I think that the leadership has to come from the United States and China, as I mentioned earlier. And I think we have to view this as an opportunity to prove that the human race is pretty intelligent. You know, I, I have this sort of scenario that 50 years from now, people will be giving the human race a grade of how they did. We're not off to a good start, I would say, but, but there's an excitement to this challenge. I mean, we haven't discussed agriculture today and how we make sure that cattle don't emit so much methane. And so that's a whole problem in and of itself. And then there's, you know, the solar and batteries can do a lot, but maybe we need some other technologies to deal with heavy industries like cement and you know, how some people say, well, we can fly airplanes with batteries. Other people say we need biofuels. We'll get a lot of people working on it. So to move, to try to change this from being a burden that we're shouldering is to say, well, we're using our brains, you know, we think we're pretty smart and we can probably solve these problems. We're going to need a lot of people. No one's going to solve all the problems themselves. So you're going to have to have a team of people, people that understand agriculture, people who understand the technology of batteries and all this. And, and can make wise, wise decisions. Some of these decisions are hard. I mean, you know, solar panels take up land. So, you know, I have to cut down some trees and, you know, have to balance that. It's not always clear what we should do, but I, I think it would be an exciting time and I, I want to be able to look my grandchildren in the eye and and say I, I did the best I could. And, and maybe that was quite a bit or maybe it fell short, but we are going to be in the history books. It'd be nice to look better than worse.
Tom Raftery:
Okay. And. Bit of a left field question, but if you could go back in time and change one pivotal decision by a US president that negatively impacted the environment, which would it be?
Dr. Jay Hakes:
Well, I highlight in my book the automobile decision. We've had multiple opportunities to upgrade the automobile standards. And I, I think we missed those opportunities and we're paying for it today. And, you know, if the cars keep getting bigger and higher and less aerodynamic, you know, they can still meet the low standards. But I, I think President Bush, the second President Bush who took office in 1989, that was the turning point. And what I've been able to do is find in my research, which I think nobody else has found, that his top staff members were meeting with the climate denial scientists privately. And they were afraid the news media were going to find out, but they never did, but I was able to get the White House records and document what they meant. So that was kind of a turning point where a president kind of allied themselves with the industrial groups that wanted to slow down the climate train they allied themselves with a lot of scientists who were not the most respected on the issue, but they were the ones that were saying what the industry wanted to hear. Another sponsor of these sciences was the Unification Church, whatever it means. They sometimes worked out of his office. So I, I, I think at the same point we were gaining momentum from having the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the meeting in Rio in 1992, there seemed to be this big step forward. Going on as sort of a parallel opposition to that was this emergence of the industrial groups and the alliances that they had with with President George Herbert Walker Bush.
Tom Raftery:
Ok, Cool We are coming towards the end of the podcast now, Jay, is there any question I didn't ask that you wish I had or any aspect of this we haven't touched on that you think it's important for people to think about?
Dr. Jay Hakes:
I think that you've done a great job, so I, I don't have any great questions left. I mean, I just think that, I hope that young people today will go into the nitty gritty of climate change that it won't be just an emotional reaction, but an attempt to really understand the science so that we're doing the right things. We're going to waste a little money along the way, but. what money we have needs to be spent officially. So keep an open mind, listen to everybody, and then make a decision that's based on the science. I think that's what will save us in the end.
Tom Raftery:
And be sure and get out there and vote.
Dr. Jay Hakes:
Yes, absolutely.
Tom Raftery:
Great, Jay that's been fascinating, if people would like to know more about yourself or any of the topics we discussed on the podcast today, or any of your books, for example, where would you have me direct them?
Dr. Jay Hakes:
Jay Hakes dot com, it's all one word, J A Y H A K E S, and it has my schedule of my own, so I'm good. Some travel, and it describes the book. So that's a pretty good place to start.
Tom Raftery:
Perfect. Jay, that's been fascinating. Thanks a million for coming on the podcast today.
Dr. Jay Hakes:
Thanks Tom, I really appreciate it.
Tom Raftery:
Okay, we've come to the end of the show. Thanks everyone for listening. If you'd like to know more about the Climate Confident podcast, feel free to drop me an email to tomraftery at outlook. com or message me on LinkedIn or Twitter. If you like the show, please don't forget to click follow on it in your podcast application of choice to get new episodes as soon as they're published. Also, please don't forget to rate and review the podcast. It really does help new people to find the show. Thanks. Catch you all next time.
