This episode features a conversation between Phil Dillard, Founder of Thruline Networks, and Aaron Berger, a research scientist specializing in pattern recognition, domestic and foreign current events, and technology trends. In this episode, Aaron talks about his role in forecasting geopolitical outcomes, the worrying effects of mass climate migration causing internal displacement, and how he’s able to define and measure impact through systems-thinking in research.
This episode features a conversation between Phil Dillard, Founder of Thruline Networks, and Aaron Berger, a research scientist specializing in pattern recognition, domestic and foreign current events, and technology trends. He serves as a strategic advisor to individuals and organizations interested in finding important solutions to difficult problems.
Aaron’s experience includes government relations, high-level representation and negotiation, systems-thinking, scenario planning, learning transfer, and other research skills. He focuses on global catastrophic risks, national security, and geopolitical spillover events, with more of his recent work assisting in solving the climate crisis. Aaron serves the Rainey Center as special advisor, is Head of Research for Sharemeister, a co-chair for the NEXUS Working Group on Energy Innovation & Environment, and an international advisor for the Sunrise Movement.
In this episode, Aaron talks about his role in forecasting geopolitical outcomes, the worrying effects of mass climate migration causing internal displacement, and how he’s able to define and measure impact through systems-thinking in research.
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Guest Quote
“Shakespeare has this quote from one of his plays, I think it's Handler or something like that, there are three ways to achieve for greatness to happen. One is to be born great, and I think they were all born great. One is to achieve greatness, and I think we all have the potential to achieve greatness. And the third is to have greatness thrust upon us. I think that truly great people go through all of those stages, and the third one, of course, being a choice. If we are presented with a great opportunity, are we able to go and rise up to that? And I think that we can. So for me, I was taking stock of the meager amount of resources that I had and the big network that I had developed. I came to the realization that, if I did nothing, no one would do anything for me, and I just couldn't live with myself if I didn't look back and say, you know what, at the very least, I did everything that I could.” - Aaron Berger
Episode Timestamps
(02:11) Aaron’s role
(04:00) Forecasting geopolitical outcomes
(10:19) Climate change as a geopolitical challenge
(13:54) Mass climate migration
(19:40) Internal displacement
(23:47) Systems thinking
(33:16) Inspirational projects
(39:09) Defining and measuring impact
(45:58) Final thoughts
Links
Phil Dillard: Hello and welcome to Thruline to the 4th Sector, where we're exploring fourth sector capitalism and impact investing as an invitation to innovation and changing the world. This episode features a conversation between Phil Dillard, Founder of Thruline Networks, and Aaron Berger, a research scientist specializing in pattern recognition, domestic and foreign current events, and technology trends. He serves as a strategic advisor to individuals and organizations interested in finding important solutions to difficult problems.
Aaron's experience includes government relations, high level representation and negotiation, systems thinking, scenario planning, learning, and other research skills. He focuses on global catastrophic risks, national security and geopolitical spillover events, with more of his recent work assisting in solving the climate crisis, Aaron serves the Rainey Center as a Special Advisor, is Head of Research for Sharemeister, a Co-chair for the Nexus Working Group on Energy Innovation and Environment, and an International Advisor for the Sunrise Movement.
In this episode, Aaron talks about his role in forecasting geopolitical outcomes, the worrying effect of mass climate migration causing internal displacement, and how he's able to define and measure impact through systems thinking in research.
Now, please enjoy this interview between Phil Dillard and Aaron Burger.
Phil Dillard: Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Thruline to the 4th Sector. I'm your host, Phil Dillard, here today with Aaron Berger. How are you doing today, Aaron?
[00:01:47] Aaron Berger: Doing well, Phil. It's a lovely day here in Los Angeles. A lot to be thankful for. How about yourself, buddy?
[00:01:52] Phil Dillard: It is a less than lovely day here in San Francisco.
Normally in this, when we get into fall, it gets to be all sunny and beautiful and it's [00:02:00] still kind of cloudy and, and windy, which is not so great. But, um, at least we don't have LA traffic, .
[00:02:07] Aaron Berger: Well, I, that's, that's fair. That's a, that's fair. That's fair. .
[00:02:12] Phil Dillard: Now, in your description of what you're doing every day on LinkedIn, there.
A few titles there, a number of roles. When people ask you what you do, how do you describe your role?
[00:02:24] Aaron Berger: Totally. Uh, so the way that I kind of see my work, I have this, uh, umbrella that I fit under for myself. And then, you know, different sorts of roles will require different kinds of, uh, expertise. So when I'm first introducing folks, and it's actually funny cuz sometimes I'll think back and when I was first getting started in my current profession, now like.
Six or seven years ago, I would have like three paragraphs of stuff that I would try to explain away in a, in a quote elevator pitch. But, um, so I tell folks that I'm a research scientist. I specialize in global [00:03:00] catastrophic risks and geopolitical spillover events. Sort of within that, uh, I have different kinds of, uh, roles that I'll play with folks there.
And so for example, some of it is the government relations stuff that's a bit more with the, uh, nonprofit work innovation 4.4, the, uh, solutions for climate partnership. There we share meiser, it's a bit more the systems thinking, research trends, you know, business development, uh, kind of thing. And then also personally, I, I do a lot of geopolitical forecasting.
Which is more just sort of to bolster my public image, I guess. And, uh, I've had a fair bit of, uh, interesting fun with that there. I've, I've been really accurate, uh, over the last five years and so, or I guess, uh, six at this point now. And so, uh, I have a little bit of a different, uh, methodology when I'm looking to make.
But yeah. Well, that's
[00:03:55] Phil Dillard: pretty awesome. It makes me think of a, a couple things. Well, the first thing that comes to mind is to [00:04:00] ask what sort of forecast you were right on and, and how you got them and where people might be able to find them. I'm curious because when we think about impact, And environment and major issues and the things that we've talked about over the course of the year with, uh, in our, in our clubhouse and in our research at here at Three Line Networks, you know, we started with some simple areas like plastics and water and waste and rainforest, and see repercussions in multiple different systems.
So, I'm. How do you think about those systems and how do you think about your approach to actually forecasting the geopolitical outcomes of business and climate and generally dumb things that human beings
[00:04:42] Aaron Berger: do? On the dumb things too. No, but, um, the way that I kind of, uh, look at my forecasting there, especially when it comes to geopolitical trends, is that I try to first identify sociological trends and then basically I use, uh, uh, you know, [00:05:00] the understanding of sociological trends to educate which kind of polls I pay attention to and sort of, uh, figure.
What might be coming down the pipeline there with a lot of traditional forecasting, it's kind of the opposite. We see that, uh, uh, demonstrated it with, uh, a lot of the more public forecasters these days where they'll go and they'll just take like all the polls out there and then try to figure out what are the important sociological trends that we should pay attention to.
And, and, um, for me, my, my first kind of claim to infamy, I like to call it, was predicting that Trump was gonna. Uh, the 2016 election, nine months in advance of the election, which was even before either party's primary, multiple months before then. And, uh, it was, uh, a very unpopular, uh, uh, take as you could probably imagine,
And, uh, the reason why I was so certain of that was because of several things. And so looking back at the, you. Impacts of sociological trends there, I was able to understand that there were, [00:06:00] uh, multiple strategic gaps that, uh, the Clinton campaign were exercising that I felt was, you know, if they didn't change, tech was going to lead them into a loss there.
First of all, there was, uh, They weren't giving resources to swing states that President Obama had won twice specifically there. Uh, so that was an interesting pattern. I figure if you're not gonna get the word out, even in those areas, it's just, you know, uh, not gonna happen. And I knew that because, um, I was listening to folks there, you know, that were struggling trying to get resources and visits and things like that to places like Pennsylvania, for example, which ended up, you know, being quite important in the outcome there in 2016.
I recognize that there was a, um, there seems to be whether or not there actually was one, but there seems to be a concerted effort to sort of bash the, uh, left wing of, uh, the progressive Democratic party there on a regular basis in left media. Uh, at one point it got so bad that the [00:07:00] Washington Post had put out 16 negatives articles against the progressives and, and, uh, Bernie Sanders.
In about a 24-hour period. And so I figured that people are only getting, get beaten over the head so much before they start, you know, before they stop showing up effectively. And so that was kind of voter applicant part one. Uh, the third element there was I knew she was gonna pick, uh, a very boring yes man kind of vp, uh, which we found in, uh, Senator Tim.
There, and I'm just gonna say this, like if you're gonna lose to Mike Pence in debate, honestly, I dunno what the heck you're doing, but um, and the fourth element there, which is arguably the most important, was that the Clinton campaign didn't really have a positive campaign message. That's not to say that they had a negative one, but if you juxtapose that, Former President Trump's campaign message and I'm no fan.
I'm a very vocal, you know, I don't wanna say hater, but you know, very vocally against the former president in his agenda. Make America [00:08:00] Great Again is objectively a positive campaign message. You know, it elicits good feels, it just, that's just what it is. And by and large, Uh, uh, the claim campaign had stuff like I'm with her, which is just super neutral and not, not terribly inspiring for, you know, uh, uh, viscerally.
And the thing is, and we understand this here very much in California with the proposition system, that if you don't have a positive campaign message, people will sometimes conflate a no vote with not showing up. And you'll see this represented a lot in the proposition system here in, in, uh, California, where you'll have opposing sides of the proposition really trying.
Fight for, you know, the positive element or the positive sounding, uh, narrative for a particular proposition, whether it's a yes or no on that proposition more recently, uh, and this is all stuff that I just post on my Facebook page. I don't really necessarily have a blog, just kinda use Facebook publicly to put all this out there.
More recently, uh, the wins for me have [00:09:00] been back in August of last. I forecasted the potential for a January 6th event. Not that it was gonna happen on January 6th, but I, uh, was forecasting the opportunity for that event. And then also I, I listed a number of reasons why it was going to fail ultimately, and had no chance of succeeding.
I'm very thankful to have been correct on that. rare, rare when I come up with good news in my forecast. But, uh, there was that. And then, um, I was also able to, uh, take down the Georgia runoff elections about a month and a half in advance. Uh, as well last year, uh, which also was, uh, some rare good news, uh, for me as well.
But yeah, so that's all to say that I tried to go and figure out what the sociological trends are first, and then use those to figure out, you know, what are the important data points that we should be paying attention to, rather than having all the data points available to us and eliciting sociological trends.
Got it. You know,
[00:09:53] Phil Dillard: that's, um, pretty amazing. And, um, I'm sure some people, you know, wonder, [00:10:00] you know, how you get to doing those things and it makes it really practical to understand what you think about when you say, uh, geopolitical forecasting and, and trends. So that, that gets really, really clear. Do you focus mostly on, when you say systems thinking research trends and that sort of things, how broad do you go and how do you figure out what to
[00:10:18] Aaron Berger: focus on?
So, um, I go really broad actually. And so my expertise focuses on global trends, and so when I say something like a geopolitical spillover event, I'm trying to figure out, okay, you know, if you have a situation here in one country, What are the possible ramifications of that particular situation for, you know, adjacent countries or countries that are somehow regionally integrated into that, you know, original country there that's having that situation.
One thing that I'd like to, to share about this for as an example, one that says somewhat well known is, you know, how climate change actually was it. [00:11:00] You know, contributed significantly to Europe's migrant crisis that, you know, you have for one element there. Um, in Syria, leading up to the Civil War, one of the main instigators for the Civil War in Syria, there was a, uh, climate change induced drought, which was.
Mismanaged by the government there and turned into a famine, sadly. And so then you had, uh, a whole bunch of people move from more rural areas to urban areas cause that's where all the resources were. And then, uh, from that, you know, tension spill over into a, a civil war, at which point then you have a bunch of migrants coming from Syria into Europe, you know, for better prospects.
They're, you know, contributing in no small. To the, uh, migrant crisis now that Europe is trying to deal with. Uh, indeed this is also true for countries in Northern Africa as well where they're dealing with, um, different kinds of, uh, climate challenges there that are [00:12:00] exacerbating natural disasters or reducing the opportunity for resource generation, water, food cultivation, that kinda thing.
And so then they also tried to go and push forward. Taking a step back with this climate migrant, uh, uh, challenge right now, it's currently forecast that over the next, you know, 20 to 30 years, we're going to be having several hundreds of millions of people migrating from the global south to the global north as a result of climate change.
And so when I talked about geopolitical spillover events there, that's kind of what I. One thing happens somewhere and then there are ramifications that happen somewhere else.
[00:12:37] Phil Dillard: Sure. I, I totally understand that story. I, I probably, probably don't tell it with as much nuance as you do about the Syria situation, but it's one of the reasons that I have really leaned into this force sector discussion around mission-driven entrepreneurship.
When we started. Refugees in Syria and looked at the status of the camps. A couple colleagues and I and I got together and said, what can [00:13:00] entrepreneurs do to address some of these, some of these challenges? And we, you know, we looked at structures and we looked at emergency structures. We looked at buildings and building materials.
We looked at energy and communications and, uh, identification, how to be identifying people and different things. But realized pretty quickly that one of the big limitations for entrepreneurs is. Um, you have to have stable government and stable markets to be able to, to actually deal with some of this and, and some of the NGOs, particularly like some of the disaster NGOs have learned how to do this.
To what extent they do it pretty well. I really can't say, but you know, that's a great example. I feel like there are others that we would talk about around sea level rise or we talk about loss of the forest and, but when you say the move from the global south and the global north, what sort of things are factors are you seeing as indicators that would drive.
[00:13:49] Aaron Berger: How I get to my, uh, my forecast there. Honestly, it's just a lot of reading, you know? Um mm-hmm. , it's a, it's an amalgam of us and, and international news there [00:14:00] from all over the place. And so usually all pers about 12 different, uh, news sources a week. Uh, trying to figure out what's going on, you know, from.
The Economist, I focus a bit more on international news there and so The Economist is definitely a great place to go. Can't recommend them enough. In New York Times, Washington Post, uh, Lamont in France, you know, Darel is a great one in Germany. There a lot of different places and you know, even some of it.
Chinese, uh, um, news sources just to make sure that I'm getting sort of the opinions from everywhere. I know South China morning post there, uh, to name a few, but, um, and how do I figure out if something is important? I kind of look at it. Uh, so I'm a bit of a video gamer, play a lot of video games there.
And so one of my favorite games is sort of, uh, grand strategy games where you're trying to figure out, you know, world scale challenges and things. And I'm sort of looking at it from a lens of, you know, what events might contribute. Sociological or society level, uh, destabilization and then kinda go from there.
And so when we're talking about [00:15:00] sort of the, uh, the issues that would contribute to this, uh, mass climate migration, basically many countries in Africa and also, you know, south America as well. and Southeast Asia as well, right? You have, uh, several factors. So one, you have, uh, increased severity of natural disasters there, and also an increased frequency of them.
And so, you know, for example, on Southeast Asia, the monsoon season, you know, actually continues to increase in ferocity. Every year you have, you know, soil degradation. Happening, uh, around the world and, uh, uh, changing, uh, uh, rainfall patterns, uh, certainly contribute to the loss of arable land as well. And indeed also water patterns.
You know, those things are kind of what are going to be causing people to move up farther north, which will have, and of course, you know, north, the equator there, uh, United States. Russia, those kinds of places are a bit more well positioned to weather some of these challenges. But [00:16:00] then also they have the infrastructure there to sustain and bring water from other places into, uh, you know, they're more urban areas so they can keep, you know, society moving at a, at a decent pace there, you know, and, and the other thing as well is, is, uh, conflict over water, uh, over uh, You know, there's a term right now being thrown around called resource wars.
I mean, we can actually already see this starting to come up in a few places. For example, right now, you know, near the, the Horn of Africa there you've got, uh, Ethiopia. You know, many of us know about the Civil War that's happening in Ethiopia right now. But even preceding that, Ethiopia was building this massive structure called the gerd.
Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam up on the Nile there. And, uh, uh, Ethiopia's position rests geologically above Egypt, Sudan on the Nile. And so Ethiopia says, well, you know, we need to, we need to build a dam so that we can get reliable renewable energy to our, uh, populace there. And so we're [00:17:00] going to go and do this.
Meanwhile, Egypt and Sudan are very upset because they're like, You know, we are concerned that the dam is going to decrease water flows into our countries, which we need to go and, you know, grow food with, for example, and feed our people, you know? And so right now there's a question of whether a conflict is actually going to erupt between Sudan, Sudan and Egypt on one side, Ethiopia on the other side, because Ethiopia has.
Steamrolled along with the deployment of the stamp and then, uh, subsequently beginning to turn it on and use it. And Egypt and Sudan again are rightly cautious that this will negatively affect, you know, their ability to go and, and feed their own people. Ethiopia being very headstrong about this, you know, there have been attempts to peacefully adjudicate on this, however it.
Worked out very well. Again, with water, I'm looking at a totally different side of the planet there. You have India and China [00:18:00] actually building competing dams along the same river, uh, in their respective areas right now as well. And so, uh, that's another thing. The opportunity for conflict will also kind of spur, cuz whenever conflict happens, you're going to have people that are displaced.
And so, um, that's, you know, that's sort of a broad overview. You know, the things that will, uh, sort of cause and continue to foment, uh, this mass climate migration. And again, it's going to be coming mostly from the global south to the global north. This isn't gonna be like an equal sort of split between, you know, both poles of the equator there.
Folks are going to go and broadly go from the south up to the north.
[00:18:43] Phil Dillard: I could see that from the, the perspective that you laid out and, um, knew a little bit about Ethiopia and China, but, um, those issues are, are sound pretty. Um, Pretty intense. And you know, one only needs to look at the, and at the, at the map, you know, at the globe and see how much more [00:19:00] exposed those island nations and other nations are in the southern hemisphere to, to really understand how it's gonna be a challenge for those who are farther north, who have better, better infrastructure, even given the fact.
That, you know, for example, water infrastructure in the US is in such horrible condition that we'll have our own challenges around what it will already do. Water, agriculture, drought. Um, but if we get our, our ourselves together, if we get our stuff together, maybe we can address that for our, our own urgent issues.
But then, um, what I'm hearing you say is we can and should expect more, more challenges from, uh, from folks coming from.
[00:19:37] Aaron Berger: Absolutely. I mean, uh, uh, to your point there, Phil, internal displacement is very much going to be an issue as well. I mean, if we're looking at, uh, even just the United States here, you know, we can see, you know, Florida, Louisiana, new Orleans.
Places like that, Texas, even now, you know, are going to be sustaining more intense weather. You know, [00:20:00] in the case of those specific, you know, states there especially, you know, increased, uh, uh, uh, opportunities for flooding New York also very much a target Now, uh, when it comes to natural disasters and, and.
you know, people are gonna wanna move away from those places. So, to your point, internal displacement is also very much a part of that.
[00:20:19] Phil Dillard: Mm-hmm. . Yep. There are a lot of, lot of people on the eastern seaboard who are asking the themselves a question, do we rebuild? Should we rebuild? And it, you know, if so, how?
Like the, like I saw a great video of flooding going into a New York. Yeah, and there's like a river pouring down the stairs. Nightmare stuff, nightmare stuff, and, um, really expensive things to try and mitigate when you're thinking about what interventions you've got. If you're trying to do traditional.
Human driven engineering type solutions to them.
[00:20:52] Aaron Berger: And lemme share one more thing here before you continue. Sure. I, I wanna, uh, uh, highlight something else for your audience as well. It's, it's, you know, we [00:21:00] also have these, we're talking about nightmare scenarios here. So, uh, earlier this year we had the heat dome, you know, in the, uh, Pacific Northwest, right?
That got a lot of attention there. Something that didn't get as much attention there I'd like to highlight to folks is this, uh, opportunity, increased opportunity for positive feedback, climate feedback loops. Now I'm using positive feedback loop in a negative, in a context here and explain this. And so in Canada you actually had the scenario where the heat dome was, uh, had caused some wildfires in.
The wildfires were so dense that they created smoke equally dense, that then created thunderstorms and the thunderstorm. Some thunder clouds created more wildfires. So , you have, you have this. Positive feedback loop for those dunno, you know, something that adds in as generative to a particular cycle of things versus a negative feedback loop, which then decreases.
And so, you know, we [00:22:00] also have, um, this opportunity for these positive climate feedback loops, which have been theorized for a while now. But only now kinda beginning to become more prevalent. So anyway, sorry. That was just another thing that I wanted
[00:22:10] Phil Dillard: to highlight. No, it's great. It's, it's great. It's really, it's really helpful.
I mean, um, there was a period, I live in San Francisco and both of my sisters, one lives in New York and one's in Boston, and there was a period where we're on the phone. They're like, how's the weather out there? And I'm like, ah, you know, it's sunny, whatever. It's a decent day. And they're like, how is that possible?
I mean, I've got smoke and. From your fires here in Boston and New York. They were smelling smoking fire when I, when I wasn't. I mean, there's, there's all sorts of craziness that that's, that's going on and I think people are trying to, um, to make sense of it. Um, trying to figure out. What they can do about it.
And you know, some folks, you know, Josh Margolis talks about there being dors out there, you know, gen Z, dors, I don't see a lot of Gen Z doomers. I see them wanting to be doers and wanna be part of the solution. And lots of other people along the way trying to figure out how to, [00:23:00] how to manage. Let's take a quick pause to talk about one of my favorite companies, Caspian Studios.
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Um, to break through the, the disbelief of, of skeptics, cuz I believe that there are some people out there who say, I want to do some critical thinking on my own. I want to be able to connect the dots like Aaron does, but I don't know how I wanna, I wanna build those skills so that I can, uh, really figure out where I go, what do I do, and, um, how do I, um, provide some counter thoughts to the naysayers.
What would you say about how to do that?
[00:24:44] Aaron Berger: So, uh, uh, you know, it starts with a, a little bit of education and this isn't something that, you know, people have to go and get a degree in or anything like that. You know, there's a great opportunity, I mean, I myself just have a bachelor's degree in philosophy. Um, so I don't have a specialized.
[00:25:00] Um, you know, advanced degree, um, some people may speak more to that experience, and, and I, so I don't wanna discredit that at all. But I, I mean, to say that it's not a requirement, right? So if folks, you know, they wanna do something, but they, they may not have the resources or the drive to go and, and achieve an advanced degree, you know, it's not always necessary that one does that.
It's more about, you know, if you focus on doing so number one. Having the certainty that you can do good work and, uh, being quite focused on that, you know, people and here and, uh, listen to experience a lot. And if you, you know, have the ability and the wherewithal to generate ideas, right, but then also deliver on those ideas, that's a thing that'll really get people looking in your direction, how to achieve skills like, , you know, with one thing I mentioned systems thinking earlier.
Um, for me, systems thinking, and there's a number of books on this, and, and people can, I also invite folks to, uh, audit college classes. It's [00:26:00] a lot cheaper than actually going and achieving a degree. Uh, professors will often let you just sit in the class and just be there profess hey, professors love to have folks that are interested in this.
So to get, uh, uh, an unrecognized college education can still be very, very cheap. You know, auditing classes in college. Can be a fraction of the tuition there. And usually all you need is the permission of the professor to do that. And again, professors love people that are actually interested in their, in their stuff.
So, you know, if you see an opportunity in your local college or something like that, you know, please do audit classes. It's not as well known, but certainly something that can be very valuable to folks. And I. Uh, live right by ucla. And so, you know, being able to audit classes there without having to pay a bunch of money for, you know, a recognized education, uh, is definitely a nice little hack there.
But if we're talking systems thinking, for me personally, I read The Fifth Discipline by Peter Sangi, which I thought was a gr Oh, you've read it as well, Phil, or. [00:27:00] I know Peter Singy. Yeah. Mm-hmm. . Oh yeah. No, Austin. I, I haven't met him, but, but seems like a really great guy. And so the Fifth Discipline is an excellent book to sort of introduce people to systems thinking, uh, at least for me.
Um, but there are a number of other, uh, resources for systems thinking. So number one, get some kind of familiarity with systems thinking, because we just do not have the luxury of being able to think about things linearly anymore. So that's one thing Another. Is, uh, uh, I recommend everybody just get a digital, at least a digital subscription to the Economist if folks are looking for one resource to go.
And, and again, I'm not like sponsored by any of these entities, so this is all just me personally, what works. I'm not getting paid to promote any of this is just me personally, what I think is great. But yeah, uh, if folks are looking for like, you know, not everyone may not have the, uh, the time or the wherewithal to, you know, read like a dozen different, you know, news sources.
Uh, uh, And so you know, folks are looking for one that sort of covers a lot of bases and is [00:28:00] still very globally recognized in terms of respect. The Economist is great. They have a digital subscription that you can get where they'll have professional newscasters from the uk recite the entire, every article unabridged to you.
Every single week for the digital subscription there. And so, I mean, I'll listen to it while I'm getting dressed, while I'm in the car, you know, referencing that LA traffic earlier, , you know, doing that. Audiobooks in general. I mean, the fifth discipline also has an abridged audiobook as well. Um, and so making great use of audiobooks is a, is is an excellent way I think that can get folks, you know, especially cuz like a lot of stuff we're sitting there not doing anything either in the car or in transit somewhere or waiting or whatever.
So, um, finding these different resources and audio. Are great. Another thing there, you know, uh, start volunteering at nonprofits, you know, getting some hands on experience. Nonprofits love free labor. All of them do, right? And so if you're looking to get involved, and there's a lot of [00:29:00] opportunity in the climate space to do this, whether it's, you know, advocacy.
I, you know, personally advise some folks over at the Sunrise movement. So they do a lot of advocacy there. Even just being parts of brainstorms and stuff and then stepping up and saying, Hey, listen, I have this great idea. You know, I would love to act on it. You know, maybe there are other people that I can work with.
Another thing as well, get used to working in teams, a collaborative spirit is extremely important. It doesn't always have to be, you know, uh, one of my sayings is like, you know, I don't have to be the guy, you know, getting the job done is more important than any kind of recognition that you might get along the way.
So really leaning into that collaborative spirit, you know, is, uh, uh, is really important there. And you'll learn a lot from other people. I mean, get used to, you know, receiving criticism on stuff, uh, collaborate with others that. You know, have other skills that you don't or have other skills that you want to learn, right?
Um, that's also really important. [00:30:00] Lastly, I'd also say, you know, get used to taking criticism, you know, we don't always succeed. And being able to learn from those opportunities, uh, is something really important. Don't take stuff personally, you know, if someone gives you some criticism, take it in stride, learn from it, and then just make sure not to repeat the same mistake the second time.
[00:30:20] Phil Dillard: Yeah. Thanks so much for that. That's all really good information. We'll make sure that we put that into the show notes. But, um, yeah, I just wanna, you know, share that, you know, I've seen some really interesting courses on, on data analytics from the, the team at Berkeley that does that and some great nonprofits like.
Reinforced Partnership or Bay Area Council or a Buckman or Fuller Institute that are doing things around all these major topics as you talk about then they're, you know, it's, it's interesting cuz people wanna figure out, okay, how do I find a good nonprofit? You know, a lot of it's word of mouth, but, and there are limitations in what you'll, how they can be assessed in Guide Star and Charity Navigator.
So you do have to do some digging, you have to do some work. It's a [00:31:00] challenge for people. Um, but this is serious stuff in important times. And if, and if. If your mission, if your life mission is in, is going to be tackling some of these things for the survivability of humans on the planet, um, we really kind of need to get, get used to them.
[00:31:15] Aaron Berger: Oh, and then one more thing I do wanna, uh, say, and this is obviously slightly less applicable here now that we're in the time of Covid at the moment, but if there are opportunities to show up, Conferences or, uh, summits or something like that. Uh, showing up is significant, you know, just so that people can get used to seeing you at these places as well.
You can, you can build relationships with folks. Um, Before the pandemic, I would, you know, go to a lot of uns uh, stuff at the United Nations headquarters in New York. And it took, you know, a couple of years before people got used to seeing me regularly and, you know, telling them what I was working on. And, uh, you know, do [00:32:00] keep working on stuff regardless of how small you might think of it.
Uh, keep working on a project, you know, you got that quote, uh, uh, ABC always be closing, right? But in, in the nonprofit space, it's like, You know, showing up to a place like the UN or something like that is awesome. Having a project that you're doing will put you on another level. Cause a lot of people will show up to these things and they just won't be doing, working on stuff.
They'll, they'll enjoy showing up because it looks cool, or they can say that they were at the UN or something like that. Uh, people that, that folks will want to engage with will be able to suss out who's actually working on stuff and who's just showing up for the street cred you. . And so that can go a long way as well.
So showing up in an appropriate way, uh, is, is, is a big, uh, ad that folks can, uh, can do as well. It will cost you a little bit of money to travel, but it will pay off at the end. I mean, for me, like showing up to the World Economic Forum for, it took me three years before I was able to sort of figure out what I was doing.
Met the same kind of [00:33:00] people, met the same people over and over. Right. Uh, that sort of thing. Investing the time in that and showing up is really important.
[00:33:09] Phil Dillard: It seems like a very important part of it. Right? Um, I mean, showing up is the first part of the first part of, of anything but earning your way through the door by first, like getting your foot in and working on a project.
I think that's really, really interesting. How did, what sort of great project. Have you seen, are there any folks that you've seen right recently that that stand out? Or is it really just the process of someone being a practitioner, being in the field that people
[00:33:35] Aaron Berger: respect for. It's both. You know, I mean, one of the things that I'm really excited about, you know, for the future is that, especially when we're talking about the climate crisis, is that I feel like we have the technology now.
I'm really excited about the prospects of like fusion reactors, for example, in terms of energy generation. But when we're talking about. Uh, decarbonization when we're talking about, you know, carbon [00:34:00] sequestration when we're talking about, you know, getting rid of waste, biodiversity, regeneration. You know, these are all things that we have now actually.
So, like for me, some of the things that. That get me really excited. There's a technology that we're working with right now that'll basically can take plastic waste, agricultural waste. And sargassum. Sargassum is, you know, when you go to the beach there and you see, uh, seaweed washed up on the beach and it doesn't really smell very good.
And so basically you can take sargassum plastic waste and agricultural waste, put it in this, uh, uh, large machine, and it'll churn out clean ethanol. As well as pharmaceutical grade alcohol or whichever one that you choose, of those two things. And so, you know, the fact that we can go and do something in terms of a waste of value system with that is gonna be a game changer going forward.
Right? And so if we're thinking about real, uh, you know, systems, thinking applications for that kind of thing, [00:35:00] right? One of the, uh, really cool projects we're looking to kind of put together here is taking. Uh, technology, which can fit essentially on, on something as big as a sea barge out in the ocean.
There's another, uh, robotics company that, uh, has built a bunch of robotics for, like construction and mining, but the guy there is, uh, uh, kind of a, a European space agency like chief scientist, kind of a guy. And, and so, uh, everything there was built to, you know, survive in space, certainly, and. , you know, being out in the open ocean can, can also have its own sort of hazardous environment.
So he's building two species of robots right now. One that will be able to, uh, both of these being autonomous for six months at a time. But, uh, uh, one that will be able to clean up macro plastics and then another one. That uses of bailing, whale inspired mechanism that allows him to, allows them to filter out, uh, microplastics in the ocean as well.
And so, [00:36:00] um, on the one hand you're thinking, well, where do we find out where the plastic is at? Turns out there's another nonprofit here that specifically studies seed turtles, and so they'll put these non-invasive sensors on these sea turtles. The sensors can be tweaked. To pick up, uh, the density of plastic, right?
And so basically you have these underwater rivers or what they'll call ocean gyres. And so turtles will migrate within these gyres as well. Also, a bunch of plastic does, uh, at the same time. So the system goes is that you'll have the sea turtles show us where the plastic is at. The robots will be able to go and collect the plastic and filter it.
And then the robots will deliver it to the sea bargs that'll be able to turn it all into clean ethanol, right? Which, uh, uh, will help out and become a, uh, you know, cheaper resource and fuel for a lot of countries developing nations and stuff. And the thing is, is that we give these, uh, technologies to these developing nations.
They can then go and [00:37:00] industrialize in a much cleaner way, you know, reinforce their own infrastructure. Right. Uh, so. We have a far less degree of this climate migration scenario happening, right? Because we wanna make sure that we want to bolster up the countries that these migrants are coming from so that they don't do the migration in the first place.
People would prefer to stay home. You know, people can just go and read stories about, uh, the hazards of migrating across, you know, from Africa to Europe. Or the hazards of migrating up from South America, Latin America up through to the us, right? Nobody wants to do this, but they feel like they have to for the survival of their families, right?
And so if you decrease that, , uh, necessity there, then folks will be much more inclined to staying home.
[00:37:46] Phil Dillard: And that answers the question really when people say, why should we invest in this? Right?
[00:37:50] Aaron Berger: Yeah. It's, it's very much a national security issue, right? Mm-hmm. . And if, if people aren't necessarily feeling it now, it very much will be.
I mean, if you think about it, you know, the US is having [00:38:00] a bit of a problem dealing with hundreds of thousands of migrants at its border. , the EU is having a problem dealing with 1.5 million migrants right now as a result of this crisis. You know, just imagine if we 100 x. Equally, you know, it's wild there.
I mean, in terms of, uh, restoring biodiversity there, there's a kind of practice right now called regenerative agriculture that actually mm-hmm s older methods of irrigation and agriculture, you know, where people will have trees, plants within their. Their plaza of land and stuff like that, that'll actually go and serve to restore biodiversity availability within their own soils there.
And so, you know, it's forecasted that if we had a global adoption of progenitor, of agriculture practices, we would be able to begin approaching, uh, CO2 levels that we had closer to the beginning of World War ii. Right. And that's if we change nothing else. Right.
[00:38:56] Phil Dillard: I bet we could go down the, these topics for hours and [00:39:00] unfortunately we don't have them.
So I wanna hit two more questions really quickly and be respectful of your time and, um, well, we might have to do round two. You never know. Um, hey,
[00:39:08] Aaron Berger: I'm okay with that. Always a pleasure friend.
[00:39:11] Phil Dillard: Well, the first question really is about, you know, impact. You talked about, you didn't say the word as much, but how do you define.
And specifically like how do we measure it and how do we connect with the nonprofits so that those tho those solutions turn into for pro profit or market driven solutions so that financial incentives are aligned for people. What, do you have any thoughts on that?
[00:39:33] Aaron Berger: So for me, for example, uh, a lot of my philanthropic work revolves around, uh, ocean, uh, health mm-hmm.
right? And so, you know, if I'm looking and I'm saying like, alright, what are sort of the bottlenecks right now? And so one bottleneck, uh, is sort of, you know, you'll have these different sorts of prizes and things like that, you know, that will be able to give technologies a lot of money. You know, the important thing is about, well, [00:40:00] once they have the money and the resources, how do we go and actually get them to market so that they can actually be doing the thing that they say that they can't be doing?
Not enough attention is paid to actually getting and handholding these technologies to market. We need them yesterday. Uh, and so for me, impact means like how many. Companies that say that they can make a difference, are we actually bringing to the marketplace? Because we can have the greatest, amazing, most incredible technology, but if it doesn't achieve market viability, it's not going to do anything.
You know, it can have tens of millions of dollars, but if we don't get it to where it needs to be, we're gonna be in the same position, you know, that we were in before. When I'm talking about impact, I'm looking back and I'm saying, how many companies can I actually, uh, to market viability that they can start making the difference, right?
When I'm looking at things to focus on, I'm looking again at, you know, the sustainability of society, right? So for me, [00:41:00] plastic is a huge one, principally because, not just that it looks really bad, but if you look at, um, research by Dr. Shannon Swan, she actually. Uh, shown that plastics in our food and water systems have actually contributed to, um, an increase in infertility among humans.
Broadly. The scary thing here is that if nothing has changed by 2045, We will begin to see sperm counts approaching zero in men. And you know, another thing, you know, that's really important for society too, making sure that we can propagate more people. Um, you know, you'll see you're seeing an increase right now in couples seeking fertility help in their thirties.
Something that was. Unimaginable 20 years ago. Right. And so, you know, I'm thinking about like, how is this going to benefit society? So, you know, that's a big, that's a, so that's why plastics is a big one for me there. In addition to [00:42:00] that, right? We're looking at the ocean. The ocean actually produces a significant amount of oxygen.
Two out of every three breaths that we are taking right now is actually thanks to the ocean. Um, unfortunately, right? We have this loss of biodiversity and, uh, vegetation in the ocean and, and you know, algae and things like that, that are producing this oxygen. So that's another thing that I'm focusing on there as well.
Additionally, when we're talking about carbon sequestration, the ocean is actually our greatest. Quickest asset to sequestering carbon, right? I mean, Trees are awesome, but they also take a really long time. And the great thing is, is that we're seeing here, um, uh, uh, so kelp actually as large as mm-hmm and seaweed is large, as seen as the fastest way to draw down, uh, carbon.
It can't catch on fire. And when it dies, it just goes down to the bottom of the ocean. So sequesters really well, the limitation there had been that up until now. [00:43:00] People were only able to farm kelp on coastlines. However, another great innovation that I'm seeing right now with several technologies is this ability to farm kelp on the open ocean, which would allow for not just a massive area that would be able to sequester carbon mono.
We're talking like. You know, millions of kilometers of open ocean, dead zone that would be able to be seated with life. Right? And all they would need is just some kelp farming going on there with that, you know, it would restore, uh, fish going to the area and, and, and building food for them as well, right?
Including, uh, algae that produces oxygen there. And so when I'm thinking about what I wanna focus on and thinking. One of the things that aren't being paid attention to right now that could have the greatest possible benefits to society right now. And so those are some of the technologies that I think that are coming up and have been, uh, devised and prototyped that I think hold a lot of promise for us, and largely why I'm very optimistic about [00:44:00] this.
You know, I'm not a Gen Z. I'm more, I'm a, I'm, I'm a bit of an older millennial there, but because of these technologies here already in existence, I'm actually very optimistic that we can do this. There's actually a great quote, uh, from James Baldwin, who was a, an amazing, uh, civil rights leader. Several decades ago, and, uh, there was a, a really great movie, by the way, a documentary, it's called, I Am Not Your Negro.
I highly recommend it for those that haven't seen it, but he's got a quote that I really identify with. There was a, uh, interviewer that had asked him. Uh, as one of their questions there, you know, are you a pessimist? And he says this quote here, um, I can't be a pessimist because I'm alive. To be a pessimist means that you have agreed that human life is an academic matter.
So I'm forced to be an optimist. I'm forced to believe that we can survive. Whatever we must survive. And so that's, that's something that, that really resonates with me as well. And, uh, I just wanted to share that with your audience also.
[00:44:59] Phil Dillard: No, I think [00:45:00] that's great. It, it actually, um, helps answer the, the last question about, you know, your, this is important.
There will always be a solution because, you know, uh, your, um, a fellow, um, Learner, scientific minded kind of guy, and we, you know, we definitely speak the same language. I definitely will, we'll work with our, uh, our team to get the names of some of those companies so that we can get them in the show notes and, you know, we'll definitely have to continue again, uh, in round two cuz the work, you know, that we're doing.
Every day is trying to bring, uh, attention and resources and opportunity to those companies, that types of companies that you're talking about that you know, that need that handholding and support to, to get to market and to, to do this great work that they're already started on doing. So, really amazing to, to hear, uh, what you're doing.
I know you said that people can find you and follow you on your, uh, on your Facebook page. We'll make sure we put a link to that in the show notes. And I'm curious if you have any. Uh, parting shots before we sign off for the day. [00:46:00]
[00:46:00] Aaron Berger: Probably the, the, the last thing to share there right, is that, um, as we're looking toward the future, it can be very depressing.
You know, people can get overwhelmed with, uh, things like the climate crisis or other issues that they have going on, you know, in their respective areas, but, One thing that I also like to tell people is that, you know, we are the ones that we've been waiting for. I used to do a lot of work in orthopedic therapy and stuff and, and, uh, got really sick of, uh, um, business of medicine, I guess, and, you know, helped a lot of people, but, and, and met a lot of folks and, and got involved with things.
But, you know, at the end of the day it was just, uh, uh, really depressing there. And, you know, when I went and switched over to, you know, geopolitics and things, I was frustrated because I wasn't sure what I could really do. All I got is just a bachelor's degree in philosophy there. But you know, at the end of the day, right, I knew that I was in a position and I believe [00:47:00] that we're all in this position.
You know, uh, Shakespeare has this quote from one of. There are three ways to achieve for greatness to, to happen there. One is to be born great, and I think they were all born great. One is, uh, uh, to achieve greatness and, uh, and I think we all have the potential to achieve greatness. And, uh, the third is to have greatness thrust upon us.
I think that, uh, uh, truly great people go through all of those stages. And, uh, you know, the third one, of course, You know, being a choice. If, if we are presented with this op with a great opportunity, are we able to go and rise up to that? Um, and I think that we can, you know, and so for me, um, I was looking, taking stock of, you know, the meager amount of resources that I had and the bigs network that I had developed, and I came to the realization that if I did nothing, no one would do anything for me and I just couldn't live with.
If I didn't look back and say, you know what, at very [00:48:00] least I did everything that I
[00:48:01] Phil Dillard: could. And, and that's the thing that matters, right? That, that we, we make the effort and you know, and you stick to it through all the challenges. And it's the challenge of our, of our time. There's some people who don't believe this , but um, hopefully they just won't.
Get in the way of us trying, of us addressing
[00:48:18] Aaron Berger: challenge. One more thing that I also wanna leave with right, is that I, so one of the organizations that I am involved with and I advise a senate right think tank called LEI Center. And, uh, one of their things is they also work a lot on climate change. And, you know, my, uh, you know, my, uh, boss there as a Republican, uh, woman.
and, um, you know, there was, uh, uh, I think that there are ways to talk about this stuff with folks across Seattle, here in the US that can really get, uh, results. Um, I remember in 2019, uh, really impactful, uh, uh, event for me there. That happened at one of the rainy centers, uh, events there at Summits. They had, uh, a whole bunch of.
Conservative, municipal and state level [00:49:00] legislators come to this event, talk about climate change and stuff. And you know, there was this guy, uh, he was a municipal level councilman, uh, from a Midwest state. And he, at one point he got up and said, and this is not a paraphrase, this is exactly what I said.
Cause it was so, it was left such an impression on me. He said, you know, I don't believe in climate change, but I believe, uh, clean energy is good and. And that's when I, yeah, right. You know, it's like on the one hand you're like, okay, but on the other hand it's like, you know what? That's all right.
[00:49:32] Phil Dillard: At least we can agree on something.
Right? And, and that's, that's the thing, you know, in the, in the podcast Capitalism by, uh, Luigi Andes and Bethany McClain, they talked recently about freedom of speech and our loss of ability to have dialogue and to find common ground across different disciplines. And I think your, your, your point about working in teams and not taking things personally and learning that we are all interconnected and that it's in our best interest to look at these issues and see [00:50:00] how they.
Our entire ecosystem, our closed ecosystem of Spaceship Earth to, to borrow one from, uh, bfi. Uh, we have to think about that because it is not an ecosystem in which one action does not ripple throughout the rest.
[00:50:17] Aaron Berger: No, it's not. I mean, you know, uh, clean energy, right? Uh, clean water. Clean food. Clean air, those are bipartisan things, right?
Even if we're talking about the pro-life folks, you know, the fact that plastics is literally, you know, increasing infertility across the world. I mean, that's a pro-life issue. Yeah. Yeah. You know, uh, anyway, that's, that's, uh, uh, kind of the last thing I wanna say. That we can find unlikely allies in these, in these challenging
[00:50:46] Phil Dillard: times.
Yeah. And, and that's, and that is also a, a ray of hope. Uh, thanks so much for sharing your, your perspective and your wisdom, and your insight with us. We really, uh, appreciate you making the time and look forward to sharing your message with the community and happy brother. Yeah. Absolutely. Um, good stuff.
Lots, lots more to come. And thanks everyone for joining us for another episode Thruline to the 4th Sector. We will see you next time. Have a great one.
Thank you for listening to this episode of Thruline to the 4th Sector. I'm your host, Phil Dillard. If you enjoyed the show, please leave a rating and tell a friend.
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