8:00

for what the Brits disarmingly

8:02

call danger money. You

8:05

get more money because it's more dangerous

8:07

job. You have just revealed how much

8:09

you're willing to risk your life a

8:11

little more for a little more money.

8:13

If you calculate that into what is

8:15

the full worth of one life, turns

8:17

out it's about 10 million. Now, for

8:19

poor countries, the willingness is

8:21

much lower, simply because they have less money and

8:23

they have many more problems. We know that if

8:25

you go to poor countries, you'll

8:28

see people, like

8:30

a whole truckload of people, people

8:32

going on trains and they're hanging out from

8:34

the side, that kind of thing. They also

8:37

wanna arrive alive, but they also have many

8:39

other challenges. And so they'll often accept to

8:41

pay little and have a greater risk of

8:44

death. So we estimate what

8:46

that value is for the low and

8:48

low and middle income countries through a

8:50

lot of complicated measures. The answer is

8:53

it's worth $128,000 per life. Now,

8:57

we actually do it per life year because we think,

9:00

and this is also what the research seems

9:02

to indicate, that people value young

9:05

people that die have a lot of lives

9:07

left over. More than if you save an

9:09

old person, they'll have a couple of years

9:11

and maybe just a couple of months extra,

9:14

that's worth less. So we estimate this.

9:17

Again, there is no way this is

9:19

true, but the

9:21

value of this is it suddenly becomes

9:23

very obvious where you can do incredible

9:25

amounts of good and where you can.

9:27

Okay, okay, so it's a useful methodology.

9:30

Yes. All right. So

9:34

the subtitle of best things first, quote,

9:37

the 12 most efficient solutions for

9:39

the world's poorest. As

9:41

I said, you've settled on a dozen policies that

9:43

would provide the greatest returns. We don't

9:46

have time to go through all 12, but a

9:48

number deal with health. You mentioned

9:50

combating malaria, improving maternal and newborn

9:52

health, addressing chronic diseases. Let's

9:54

take one of these in particular and

9:56

one that I have to confess, I was

9:59

surprised to learn. remains a problem in much

10:01

of the world, and that is tuberculosis.

10:06

So very briefly, what

10:08

is tuberculosis? And

10:10

why would a typical American be surprised

10:13

to learn that it makes your book? Yes.

10:16

Tuberculosis is an infectious disease.

10:18

You typically get it in

10:20

crowded conditions. So it's

10:22

been around forever. We also

10:25

have references in the antique era. But

10:27

it really was only when we started

10:29

building up cities and people living close

10:31

to each other, then we started to

10:33

infect each other. In the

10:35

1800s, every fourth

10:37

person that died in North America

10:40

and in Europe died from tuberculosis.

10:42

This was a huge deal. If

10:45

now I'm giving away the ending. You know,

10:47

in... Shays of Rusch. Dickens,

10:49

Nevels, Nables. Yes, in Moulin Rouge,

10:51

Satine dies from tuberculosis. But

10:54

also in Le Boheme. Oh, God, I'm also

10:56

giving away the answer to the opera. Anyway,

10:59

but, you know, lots and lots of people

11:01

died from tuberculosis. This is a tsunami of

11:03

death. And then we

11:05

fixed it with antibiotics. You

11:07

know, we used to send people off to sanatoriums. It

11:09

probably didn't work, but it kept them away from us.

11:12

But the point is, around 1930, we basically fixed this.

11:16

So more than 50 years, we

11:18

have fixed this for the rich world. That's

11:21

why virtually nobody dies from tuberculosis in the

11:23

rich world. But in the

11:25

poor world, 1.4 million people still die each

11:27

and every year from this very treatable disease.

11:29

Now, it's hard to treat. You actually need

11:31

to take medication for half a year. If

11:34

you've ever had, you know, like medication for

11:36

two weeks, you know, once you start getting

11:38

better, you start to forget

11:40

to take your medication. And actually

11:42

keeping you on this medication for half

11:45

a year is incredibly important because otherwise

11:47

it starts becoming resistant. You may actually

11:49

make a drug-resistant TB and

11:51

transfer that on. So you want to make

11:53

sure that people take it. You also want

11:55

to find all the people who have it.

11:58

Many people don't go to doctors. do

22:00

this. Trade is fundamentally a good idea because

22:02

if you and I trade, it means you can do

22:04

what you're best at and I can do what I'm

22:06

best at and we end up being better off. That's

22:08

sort of the fundamental point that we realized back in

22:10

the late 1700s. This is a good idea.

22:15

But there's often a lot of vested interests

22:17

too who don't want this trade, right? Because

22:20

if I do what you're better at, I'd

22:22

like you to not be able to trade

22:24

with me because then I get to just

22:26

do my inefficient stuff. So there's a lot

22:28

of reasons why this has been a hard,

22:30

long slog. One of

22:32

the things that economists forgot to

22:34

talk about was the fact that when you do trade,

22:37

some people legitimately lose out. There's essentially

22:39

the rust belt conversation that we've now

22:41

had the last 20 years where we

22:43

realized if you open up for a

22:45

lot of trade for China, some

22:48

people in the US are actually going

22:50

to be working in import exposed

22:53

industries and they're going to lose out. They

22:55

will either have, see their pay cut or

22:57

maybe their job's simply gone. This

22:59

is a real cost of trade. We forgot

23:02

to talk about that. Economists in general just

23:04

simply didn't talk about it. They were just

23:06

all elated about this and that's one of

23:08

the reasons why a lot of the West

23:10

has soured on free trade. It was

23:12

sort of like, sure, they promised us all this

23:14

great stuff and we did get a lot of

23:17

great stuff, but there were also real problems. What

23:19

our research does, and again, I should

23:21

say, this is not me being incredibly

23:23

brilliant. These are some of the best

23:26

economists who've done all these papers based

23:28

on period research and they are the

23:30

ones who did the first model, as

23:32

I understand, the first

23:34

free trade economic model that actually tries to

23:36

estimate not just the benefits that we all

23:38

get better off, but also the cost that

23:40

some people lose their jobs. Turns out in

23:43

the rich world, this is a real issue.

23:45

So for every $7 that the US would

23:49

win by opening up its economy, you

23:51

also lose $1. So that's a real

23:53

dollar loss. That's somebody who ... The

23:55

$7 benefits are diffused and spread out

23:58

across all consumers. Everybody who ... It

24:00

stops at Walmart, gets cheaper clothes and

24:02

toys because of China. But

24:05

in South Carolina where they used to have textile

24:07

mills, they're going to be this town and this

24:09

town and this town and this town are

24:11

going to be wiped out. Exactly. Right.

24:14

Okay. And that's a real

24:16

problem, but also of course something that a

24:18

smart society ought to be able to handle

24:21

because you have $7 to compensate these guys,

24:23

make sure that they get an education so

24:25

they can go and do something else that

24:27

they can become productive in a 21st century

24:30

economy. We should not all

24:32

be sewing t-shirts and we've kind of learned

24:34

that lesson, but there are many other lessons

24:36

that are waiting out there. But this is

24:38

the reason why a lot of rich countries

24:40

are a little skeptical. But remember, most

24:43

of the poor countries are

24:45

going to be doing the jobs that will

24:47

create more trade for them. So they're going

24:50

to win. So we find that while in

24:52

the rich world, the benefit cost ratio is only

24:54

seven to one, for the poor

24:57

half of the world, it's 95 to one. That's

25:01

why this is a fantastic deal for poor

25:03

countries. And of course also, if you want

25:05

to help poor countries with all their problems,

25:08

you should also say they should have access to

25:10

free trade. Okay. Let me go

25:12

through, because I find it so compelling, a

25:15

few of the facts that you present here

25:17

in Best Things First. You

25:19

note that China cut

25:21

its tariffs from an average of 32% in 1992 to 2.5% in 2020. At

25:28

the same time, they're lifting hundreds of millions

25:30

of people out of poverty. Actually,

25:33

I think it would probably be better to say

25:35

hundreds of millions of Chinese were then able to

25:37

lift themselves out of poverty. All right. India,

25:40

similar story, cuts tariffs from 56% in 1990 to

25:42

6% in 2020. It's

25:46

opening itself to the world. It sees

25:48

its incomes quadruple. You refer

25:51

to a study by Dartmouth economist Douglas

25:53

Irwin showing the declining trade barriers, quote,

25:55

have been a feature of virtually all

25:57

rapid growth developing countries in the past

25:59

half century. South Korea,

26:01

Chile, Vietnam and on it goes.

26:04

Okay, then we come to the heart

26:07

of this argument on trade and

26:09

again this theme that runs

26:11

through the book. One

26:13

study shows, and the theme is economic

26:15

growth, one study shows that

26:17

over the past four decades of economic

26:20

growth, the bottom 20% and

26:23

the bottom 40% generally

26:26

rose in the same proportion

26:28

as the mean equal economic growth

26:30

in a country. As

26:33

the whole economy grows, the

26:36

poor become better off. Prosperity

26:40

really is shared.

26:43

That's the heart of your argument. Well,

26:45

I would actually argue the heart of my argument is

26:48

that this is a cost benefit

26:50

analysis that shows that this is a great idea.

26:52

But one of the concerns that a lot of

26:54

people would have is, well,

26:56

but you're just talking about money and

26:59

sure on average, American and China

27:01

and India are going to get richer, but

27:03

what about the poorest? Aren't they

27:06

going to be left behind? Aren't they

27:08

not going to be part of this

27:10

economy? And the research shows, well, that's

27:12

actually not the concern. They're going to

27:14

grow just as much. Now, again,

27:16

you might argue that you'd like them to

27:18

grow even faster and that's not what happens,

27:20

but they grow just as fast. John Kennedy

27:22

said a rising tide lifts all boats and

27:24

he was right. He was right. Okay. Kudo,

27:27

I'd like to show you a brief video clip,

27:29

Bjorn. The whole topic

27:31

of tariffs to me is

27:33

so simple. Number one, it's great

27:36

economically for us and it brings

27:38

our companies back because if you

27:40

charge tariffs to China,

27:42

they're going to build their car plans

27:44

here and they're going to employ our

27:46

people. They're right now building big plans

27:48

because of Biden. They're building big plans

27:51

in Mexico. So they build a big

27:53

China plant in Mexico. Then they sell

27:55

it across the border with very little

27:57

tax. It's ridiculous. We want.

27:59

them to build their plants in

28:02

the United States. We don't want to

28:04

get cars from China. We want to

28:06

get cars made by China in the

28:08

United States using our workers. But

28:10

it also gives us a big political

28:12

power. Tariffs are tremendously

28:15

powerful in terms of

28:17

stopping wars because they

28:19

don't want tariffs. And frankly I

28:21

can do I made them sing. I

28:24

made other countries sing with

28:26

the threat of tariffs. And if you

28:29

don't have tariffs we have nothing whatsoever

28:31

on them. So this

28:34

guy has half of the country supporting him. Forty

28:37

seven percent I think of the latest poll. How

28:40

does they were. And of course versions

28:43

of this argument appear in

28:45

democracy after democracy after democracy.

28:48

How does a working politician answer

28:52

the argument. So

28:54

I think fundamentally this is one of the challenges.

28:56

This is why it's not happening because

28:58

it's a powerful argument to say we want

29:01

to have our work in

29:03

our nation and that's how it should

29:05

work. That feels right except

29:07

for when you realize that the reason

29:09

why you're so well off is because

29:11

everyone in the world do what they

29:14

do best and we all

29:16

trade. This is what we found for

29:18

the last couple hundred years. Now there's

29:20

no doubt that Donald Trump could get

29:22

everyone to sing if you if you

29:24

threaten with stuff. Yes I would sing

29:27

too if he was going to threaten

29:29

me with tariffs. But it doesn't mean

29:31

it's a good argument. Fundamentally putting tariffs

29:33

on anything simply means it becomes more

29:35

expensive for Americans and it

29:37

becomes less efficient for the whole world. It

29:39

also becomes worse for China which is why

29:41

they're singing. But the fundamental point here is

29:44

again to remember surely this

29:46

is about making the world as well off

29:48

as we can rather than

29:50

just simply getting I

29:52

actually I don't want someone to sing. I

29:54

want the world to be better off. Right.

29:58

Bjorn there is One

30:00

topic that appears

30:02

nowhere in best things

30:05

first. I thought, well, there's 12 of

30:07

these. There has to be one that addresses this.

30:11

And well, here I have another video

30:13

to play for you. The

30:16

only existential threat humanity faces, even

30:18

more frightening than a nuclear war, is

30:23

global warming going above 1.5 degrees in the next

30:25

10 years. It

30:29

would be real trouble. There's

30:31

no way back from that. Climate

30:35

change, Bjorn, is the only existential threat

30:38

to humans. And

30:41

you don't put it in best things first. Is it because

30:43

you don't think it's a threat or because there's no efficient

30:45

way of addressing it? So it's

30:47

a little of both. So fundamentally, global warming

30:49

is a real problem. It's

30:51

not an existential threat. Any

30:54

kind of estimates, even the worst kind

30:56

of estimates, will still leave

30:59

us with 80 percent more likely, with

31:01

97 percent of what we

31:03

would otherwise have. So remember, by the end

31:05

of the century, we're likely, according to the

31:08

UN, to be, say, 450 percent

31:10

as rich per person as we are today. Because

31:13

of global warming and because of the problems, there

31:15

will be more problems and benefits. We

31:18

will feel like we're only 434 percent as rich.

31:21

That's a problem. But it's not the end of

31:23

the world. It actually will be much, much better off. The planet

31:25

is not going to be reduced to a cinder. No.

31:29

And this is more sort of a politician or

31:32

a campaigner talking. That's

31:34

just not what the climate science is

31:36

telling us. Again, there's a real problem.

31:40

But then you have to ask, what can

31:42

you do about it? And in

31:44

the short run, the things you can do

31:46

about it, so for instance, putting a carbon

31:48

tax, which most economists would say is a

31:50

good idea, is also very

31:52

expensive. So what we find is typically

31:54

that carbon tax will deliver two dollars

31:56

back on the dollar, which is a

31:58

nice thing to do. Yeah. have enough

32:00

money and if you have enough policy

32:02

capital you should also be doing this.

32:05

But it's not the first thing you should

32:07

be doing. So these are the 12 best

32:10

things and we've defined best by saying

32:12

they deliver more than 15 dollars

32:14

back on the dollar. Climate change

32:17

in any shape form away is

32:19

far away from that. Now there are some things that

32:21

are great. And I also mentioned that we we estimate

32:23

in the for climate

32:26

change you should for instance focus on research

32:28

and development into green energy you know make

32:30

green energy incredibly much cheaper through innovation and

32:32

everyone will buy it. That will be a

32:34

game changer. And of course then you can

32:36

get China, India and Africa and everybody else

32:38

on board if you could do that. Even

32:41

that very very effective policy is

32:43

still going to be you know it's going

32:45

to cost a hundred billion dollars a year.

32:47

So three times the total cost of this

32:50

project. And that will deliver

32:52

say about eleven dollars back on

32:54

the dollar. And this assumes essentially

32:58

first world growth rates that we care a

33:00

lot about the future because we are pretty safe

33:02

right now. This is not where most people

33:04

in the poor half of the world is. If

33:06

your kids are dying or have a risk

33:08

of dying tonight if they don't have enough food

33:10

if you have bad education there's not good

33:15

jobs or corruption all

33:17

kinds of other problems. This

33:19

is what you worry about not what the temperatures is

33:21

a hundred years ago. A hundred

33:23

years ahead. Now in a rich world

33:26

we can care about both. I'm not saying we

33:28

should do nothing about climate but I'm simply saying

33:30

this is what we should do first. One more

33:32

question about climate. And by the way I don't

33:34

want you and I have recorded whole

33:36

shows on this very topic and our viewers can

33:39

find them on YouTube and listeners can find

33:41

them on Apple podcast. You've written books about

33:43

this. You know the

33:45

material and viewers can find more of your on

33:47

climate. But for present

33:49

purposes what is it about

33:52

climate change. The

33:54

climate is changing. There's no but why

33:56

has it fix

34:00

the attention of the Western world to such

34:02

an extent that Joe Biden

34:05

can say preposterous things like

34:08

climate change represents an existential threat. When

34:10

as you point out, the science indicates

34:12

no such thing, not even close to

34:14

any such thing. What is there about

34:17

human psychology, the state of the West,

34:19

that we find ourselves fixating on something,

34:22

overstating the problem enormously? And

34:25

I think I might argue, I would tend

34:27

to suspect that it's distracting us from

34:30

real tangible good that we could

34:32

actually do. Why? Oh,

34:34

absolutely. For the same reason

34:36

that a poll early could get away with

34:39

more than 50 years ago to say, yeah,

34:41

we've already lost the game, we're all going

34:43

to dine, or many, many people, many billions

34:46

are going to dine and

34:48

start starvation. Doom is fantastically

34:50

good TV. So,

34:53

obviously, you're just going to constantly

34:56

argue this. So if you think about

34:58

what was before climate change, we worried

35:00

a lot about acid rain. Do you

35:02

remember that? Yes, yes, yes, I do.

35:04

In the 1980s. Again, acid rain was

35:06

a real problem in mainly

35:09

lakes, in for instance, in Norway

35:11

and in Canada, some

35:13

vulnerable lakes. There were some real

35:15

issues near

35:17

Czechoslovakia, where there was

35:19

a lot of air pollution that actually killed some forests.

35:22

But most people thought, and this is how the media

35:24

portrayed it, that we're going to be, you know, there's

35:26

going to be no forest by the year 2000. And

35:29

of course, that turned out to be entirely

35:32

wrong. Totally untrue. But it was a

35:34

great TV for 10 years. And this

35:36

is essentially the same issue. There's a

35:38

real problem underlying this, but we're fixing

35:40

it badly, partly because we're scared, witless,

35:42

and do all kinds of dumb things.

35:44

But as you also point out, it

35:47

means we end up forgetting all the

35:49

other important problems. But remember, the

35:51

people who actually live the poor half of the

35:53

world, the 4 billion people who live in low

35:56

and low and middle income countries, they

35:58

know that while they all. They also care

36:00

about climate change. They do actually care about

36:03

the fact that we could save their kids

36:05

from dying from easily curable infectious diseases tonight.

36:07

Why aren't we? Because we're

36:09

not focusing on smart things first. The

36:13

question of what we already spend, best things first,

36:16

quote, this book doesn't try to reanalyze

36:18

everything the world is already spending money

36:21

on. There may well be useful

36:23

changes to countries current policies on one issue or

36:25

another, but that's a discussion for elsewhere,

36:28

close quote. Here's

36:30

a quotation from the Wall Street Journal.

36:32

On the Inflation Reduction Act of

36:35

2022, a couple of years

36:37

ago, Big Biden now

36:39

being portrayed during this presidential campaign is a

36:41

Big Biden accomplishment. The

36:43

act includes 1.2 trillion in

36:46

supposed climate spending over the next decade.

36:49

Wall Street Journal quote, apart from wartime,

36:51

we doubt there has ever been a

36:53

bigger splurge of government subsidies. This

36:56

acts 1.2 trillion in subsidies will

36:58

inevitably cause investment distortions and

37:00

un-seek, unseen economic damage, close

37:02

quote. I can see why

37:05

Bjorn Lomborg wants to

37:07

keep the focus on this

37:09

specific list of things we can achieve

37:12

and not get drawn into different arguments.

37:15

But, but all

37:18

you need is 35 billion a year to

37:20

accomplish every task in this book that's

37:24

350 billion dollars over a decade. Don't

37:27

you feel at least a little urge to pipe

37:29

up when you see the

37:31

United States wasting 1.2 trillion

37:33

dollars over a decade and what is,

37:36

or some substantial portion of that is

37:38

very clearly a payoff to political constituencies.

37:40

So as you've said, we've had that

37:43

conversation many times and I find that

37:45

one of the things I really appreciate

37:47

about this book is it does not

37:49

try to say, here's what you shouldn't

37:52

do. You're an idiot,

37:54

all that kind of stuff. This is about

37:56

saying here are 12 amazing things. Whatever

37:59

else it is that we're going to do. we're doing, should

38:01

we do that first? And

38:03

then we can get- Then you're such a sweet

38:05

upbeat guy. Well, but it's also, you know, look,

38:07

it's a question of realizing there's

38:09

much more power in getting everybody on

38:11

board with saying, oh yes, we should

38:14

actually do this. We will do

38:16

lots of other things that everybody will disagree on, that's

38:18

fine, but we should do

38:20

this first. Okay. I just want

38:22

you fighting some fights alongside me, but I understand

38:24

you want to be- I do that. All right.

38:27

All right. Here's

38:30

a last question for you. I

38:32

address you as a friend. Here

38:35

you are in your trademark

38:38

t-shirt and jeans, a

38:41

man very proud of his native country of

38:43

Denmark, which is so often held up as

38:45

a socialist paradise. And

38:49

yet in this book, you

38:52

engage in benefit

38:54

cost analysis and close calculations

38:57

of the con- and you ceaselessly

39:00

extol the benefits of economic growth.

39:04

So I put it to you Bjorn, that

39:07

you are running a scam. You

39:10

look like a

39:12

cheerful Scandinavian progressive, but

39:15

you're actually bougie. You're

39:18

actually a capitalist,

39:20

Bjorn. Defend

39:22

yourself. I'm not sure I

39:24

need to defend myself. I think, you know,

39:27

if you look at most of the Scandinavian

39:29

countries, they're unabashedly capitalist. This is why they're

39:31

rich. They're also just very aware

39:33

that they want to recycle some of that

39:35

revenue into good schools and other kinds of

39:37

good things. We could have

39:39

a whole show on that conversation,

39:41

but fundamentally we have learned

39:44

very clearly if you're poor, you're

39:46

vulnerable to pretty much everything. If

39:48

you're not poor, you're much more

39:50

resilient to pretty much everything. This

39:53

is an argument of how we can

39:56

make a very large portion of the

39:58

world have much better starting positions. Remember,

40:00

if you start out and

40:02

you're really smart, yes, but if

40:04

you're really smart, but if you

40:06

die from an easily curable infectious disease in

40:08

the first years of your life, or if

40:11

you don't get a good education, or if

40:13

you don't get good nutrition, or if you

40:15

get into all of these other problems, you're

40:17

not going to get anywhere. This is a

40:19

way to make sure that much more of

40:22

the world get a fighting chance to actually

40:24

live the life that you and I and

40:26

many others in the rich world live. Okay.

40:29

I said that was the last question. Here's the last question. I

40:31

lied to you. This

40:33

book has been out about a year now. Any

40:37

response? Do you see the UN saying, oh,

40:39

you know, Lombard makes

40:41

a point. We

40:44

need a tight, reasonable, almost modest list

40:46

of items that we can actually achieve

40:48

and we'll rank them in quarter of

40:50

RO. What a good idea.

40:53

Let's do it. I don't see it happening

40:55

in the federal government of this country. I'm

40:57

not aware that USAID has shifted. Who's

41:00

responding to you? This is

41:02

compelling. First of all, the

41:04

UN surprisingly, not surprisingly, decided

41:06

to say, oh my God, we're failing on

41:08

all these tasks. So give us much more

41:10

money, which is the

41:13

standard approach of any bureaucracy. I

41:15

understand why they'd say it. I also understand why they

41:18

wouldn't embrace this book. I mean, it's

41:20

essentially saying you should have done it differently. But

41:22

the main point here is to say

41:25

that a lot of people within USAID,

41:27

a lot of people in the administration

41:29

and everywhere else, a lot of people

41:31

that do philanthropy

41:34

realize that this is some of the things that

41:36

they should do. Now I'm arguing for all 12

41:39

points, but the reality is that most people will

41:41

pick up on one or two and say, oh,

41:43

I want to do that. I want to help

41:45

doing that. And that's exactly what this is about.

41:47

This is not about getting everything right. It's about

41:49

getting things slightly less wrong, right? Getting it in

41:51

the right direction. And what we're doing

41:54

now is we're working with a lot of governments

41:56

around the world in trying to take their priorities.

41:58

So I just came back from. Tonga in

42:00

the South Pacific, where,

42:02

you know, it's a fairly small nation, but

42:05

they have their own priorities. And

42:07

what we've done is to go through all

42:09

their priorities and say, of all these things,

42:11

what does the economic literature tell us is

42:13

an incredibly good investment? What is not? And

42:16

try to help them both spend their own

42:18

money, but also, you know, New Zealand and Australia

42:20

spends a lot of money in these countries. And

42:23

often they feel a little bit like they

42:25

get pushed from New Zealand and Australia what

42:27

the answer is. Now they suddenly have an

42:29

argument of saying, no, this is actually what

42:31

the literature tells us is the most effective

42:33

thing for Tonga. We're doing the same thing

42:35

for Namibia, for Uzbekistan,

42:37

for many other places

42:39

around the world. And

42:42

I think that's how you make change. Yes,

42:44

I would love to get everybody on board

42:46

right away, but this is not how that

42:48

works. It's simply getting people slightly more towards...

42:50

But that's two smart things. But that's the

42:52

fact that it's not rich philanthropists or even

42:54

rich countries that seem to be responding. It's

42:57

poor countries. Yes. Who

42:59

are responding? Because this is about poor

43:01

country problems. Obviously, if you're trying to

43:03

sell, you know, the Inflation Reduction Act,

43:05

this is not your main thing. Tonga

43:07

is not fair about that. But, well,

43:09

Tonga cares less about that and more

43:11

about the fact that they want better

43:13

healthcare, they want better infrastructure, they want

43:15

better education, these very, very simple things.

43:18

And that's where you really have a

43:20

big chance to influence. Bjorn Lomborg, just

43:22

back from Tonga, author of

43:24

Best Things First. Thank

43:26

you. Thank you. For Uncommon

43:28

Knowledge, the Hoover Institution and Fox Nation,

43:31

I'm Peter Robinson.