What if we could see the invisible? The magnificent blue whale, stretching 110 feet long through ocean depths, remains completely invisible to our economic systems—until it's killed. In this profound Earth Day conversation with Ralph Chami, we discover how reconnecting our market systems with living nature might be our most powerful tool for planetary healing. L
Chami draws from his 32 years as a financial economist, including 25 at the International Monetary Fund, to explain the fundamental disconnect between our nature system and market system. While markets expertly value dead nature—oil, timber, harvested fish—they remain blind to living nature's immense worth. This blindness stems from catastrophic assumptions made during the Age of Reason: that nature is infinite, mechanical, and soulless.
Through groundbreaking research on whales, forest elephants, and seagrass meadows, Chami demonstrates how living ecosystems provide astonishing financial value. When tiger sharks wearing cameras mapped the Bahamas seagrass—revealing meadows worth potentially $150 billion—it transformed how this small island nation viewed its natural assets. Rather than destroying nature for short-term gain, vulnerable communities worldwide are discovering sustainable prosperity through conservation.
Climate change requires both reducing emissions ("shutting the valve") and removing existing atmospheric carbon ("draining the tub"). Nature restoration offers our most powerful carbon capture technology, creating economic opportunities that align financial and ecological interests. From Native American bison restoration to Polynesian whale protection initiatives, Chami shares inspiring projects creating virtuous cycles of environmental and community well
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (00:00):
Music, music , music Music.
Welcome to Resilient EarthRadio, where we host speakers
from the United States andaround the world to talk about
critical issues facing ourplanet and the positive actions
people are taking.
We also let our listeners learnhow they can get involved and
(00:25):
make a difference.
The music for the show isCastle by the Sea from
international composer EricAllaman of the Sea Ranch in
Sonoma County, california.
(00:52):
In this episode, we speak withRalph Chami, who was our
inspiration for starting thispodcast.
Ralph is a financial economistwith over 32 years of experience
, 25 at the IMF, theInternational Monetary Fund of
the United States.
He is co-founder, ceo of BlueGreen Future and spoke with us
(01:15):
this Earth Day about theimportance of connecting people
with nature and forging a newcontract for sustainable
prosperity and well-being.
He explains the disconnectbetween the nature system and
the market system, emphasizingthe need to make living nature
(01:36):
visible and valuable to markets.
In addition to the IMF, he hasserved as a consultant for the
World Bank and has been featuredon TED 2022, tedx, florence,
npr, cnn, the New York Times,national Geographic, financial
Times, the Economist, theWashington Post, world Economic
(01:58):
Forum and in peer-reviewedjournals.
He is the recipient of the IMF2104 Operational Excellence
Award, 2020 Hermes PlatinumAward and 2024 Mad Blue Five
Oceans Award.
This is part one.
I'm Leigh Anne Lindsey host,along with my co-host and
(02:19):
co-producers, Scott and TreeMercer of Mendenoma Whale and
Seal Study.
It is April 22nd, 2025, EarthDay 55 years of Earth Day and on
this special day, we have avery special guest, and that is
Ralph Chami.
And Ralph, welcome back.
We enjoyed having you on our2021 Ocean Life Symposium.
(02:44):
It's good to see you again.
Ralph Chami (02:46):
It's wonderful to see you again and thank you so
much for inviting me back.
It's been three years, hasn'tit?
Yeah, doesn't seem like it.
Co- Hosts Scott and Tree Mercerboth say Happy Earth Day.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (02:55):
Happy Earth Day.
Ralph Chami (02:57):
Thank you, same to you.
Host Leigh Anne - Well, we'rereally looking forward to
hearing an update from you aboutwhat has transpired over these
last few years.
ways to describeRalph Chami - THere are a few
ways what they're doing all withthe aim of connecting with
(03:29):
people, all with the aim ofbringing an understanding about
this wondrous place that we'vebeen gifted with and therefore,
forge a new contract, if youlike.
Forge a new contract, if youlike.
That is meant to bringsustainable, not only prosperity
(03:50):
but good health, goodwell-being to everyone.
Now, with that in mind becausethat's really the guiding
principle throughout everythingwe try to do and I try to do
with my colleagues let medescribe to you, maybe in a
different way, where we are andwhat needs to be done and what
we're trying to do in this vein.
(04:12):
You have two systems.
You have the nature system andpeople that have been occupied
with protecting and restoringnature for many, many, many
years, and then you have a verypowerful system that we created
for ourselves, called the marketsystem Some people like to
think of it as a capital systemor whatever and those two
(04:33):
systems, unfortunately, havebeen ambivalent towards each
other, at best indifferent.
People that have been sooccupied and sacrificed so much
to protect and restore naturehave really paid much attention
to the market system.
They're indifferent towards it.
(04:55):
In fact, in some cases, theyhad really negative and rightly
so towards the market system andthe market system never really
paid much attention to theliving nature.
The market system has a verygood relationship with dead
nature, extracted nature, oil,gas, fish that you take out of
(05:16):
the ocean, suffocate and eat.
You know, extractive view ofnature.
So this indifference has beento the detriment of both,
because, by conservation or thenature system being ambivalent
towards the market system, nottrying to engage the market
system, the market system knewonly one way of dealing with
(05:36):
nature purely from an extractivepoint of view, which led to the
detriment of nature itself.
That's why we've been losingevery battle, that's why nature
is under attack and stressed,that's why we're losing the
stock and the flow and thebiodiversity of nature.
But when you do that, thennature boomerangs back to the
(05:58):
markets, to everyone else,through what's called, if you
like, climate change.
Why does climate change?
After all, to my mind, it'snature stressed.
When you talk about forestfires in California or the
floods or this, it's nature,nature saying hey, hey, you
can't, you can't keep treatingme this way.
(06:18):
And so it comes back throughclimate.
You know climate risk, naturerisk hitting and affecting the
bottom line of the market system.
So this relationship ofambivalence or indifference or
animosity to where one cannotsustain.
We cannot keep going down thatbecause we, nature is our home.
(06:41):
Nature is our only home.
Carl Sagan used to say thisplanet the only home we've ever
known.
Well, I would at maybe, withhis permission, the only home we
will ever know for theforeseeable future, and it's a
beautiful home.
It's a beautiful home.
You just have to ask people thatlive in balance with nature.
(07:02):
They'll tell you how beautifulit is.
We actually, when we relax abit, we realize what a beautiful
place this is and how lucky weare.
Nature is.
This planet is a gift, and whensomebody gives you a gift,
you're supposed to grow the gift, not destroy the gift.
That's how you show yourgratitude and you're supposed to
share it.
That's what brings youhappiness.
(07:24):
So the question is you have twosystems that are at odds with
each other.
Can we find a way to helpnature understand how markets
work?
At the same time, can we engagemarket to understand how
valuable is the living nature?
Okay, now, the market systemknows a lot about nature, knows
(07:45):
the value of gas, oil, timber,dead fish, dead anything, and
price of corn, wheat, apples,oranges, food, what we refer to
as the provisioning side ofnature, nature that provides
(08:05):
food, or nature, if you like, asa resource.
What the markets never reallyunderstood is what is the value
of nature living for herself?
Let me repeat what is the valueof nature living for herself?
What do we mean by that?
When I first met, you guys and Iwas talking about the value of
the living whale in terms ofcarbon sequestration.
(08:27):
Really, if you think about it,what were we talking about?
It's about the whale frolickingfreely in the ocean.
It's not a whale in an aquarium, it's a whale not even aware of
our own existence, going abouther business.
As you know, nature god,whatever you believe in deemed
it to be.
By living her life for herself,she was adding value to our
(08:53):
life Intrinsically the beauty ofit all, beauty of life itself
but also financially.
That's what I was trying toshow that there's also a
financial angle to nature livingfor herself.
When we did the work on theelephants, it was the same thing
.
It's the elephant frolickingfreely in the forest by not
(09:15):
being even aware of the humanexistence right by living,
caring for her babies.
By this she was adding value tothe forest in terms of.
At the time, we were looking atthe carbon side and we
calculated that that elephantliving for herself added also
financial value to the marketsystem.
(09:36):
I remember you saying servicesthat they provide right, and one
of them is carbon.
But they do a lot more.
I mean, you think of theelephants.
They refer to them as forestengineers, because those forest
elephants, that's what thescientists I learned that from
the scientists that's the workof Fabio Berzaghi and others,
basically showing you that theseforest elephants, they like to
(10:00):
eat plants that are low in fiber, high in protein, and what they
leave alone are the plants thatare high in fiber, high in
protein, and what they leavealone are the plants that are
high in fiber, which means highin carbon.
And through the way they walkin the forest, they traipse on
small shoots, creating morespace for older growth, more sun
, more rain, more nutrients andtherefore enhancing the carbon
(10:21):
sequestration in the forest by14%.
Enhancing the carbonsequestration in the forest by
14%, depending on concentrationper square kilometer.
That's science.
That's their paper in PrecinctNational Academy of Sciences.
That's their paper in NatureJournal.
That's purely science, okay,and also, these elephants eat
certain fruits that no one elsecan eat because the seed is so
(10:42):
big.
They're the only ones who canactually swallow it and defecate
it and therefore fertilize theforest.
They also do other things theymanage the forest.
By managing the forest.
They reduce the probability offires in the forest.
Imagine so.
It's not about carbon, it'sabout life longing for itself.
(11:03):
It's by nature longing foritself.
It's by nature longing foritself.
It's not only intrinsicallypriceless, but because we live
in a market system, we need tomake the case.
We need to take that andshowcase the market system, that
nature living for herself, ifyou like some people like to
refer to it as the regulatingside of nature is also
(11:26):
financially valuable.
Now why is that important?
Because nature is invisibleRight now.
Nature is invisible to themarkets.
As big as the whale is 110 foot.
If your blue whale can grow to110 foot, still is invisible to
the markets.
The markets are going there's awhale, there's a whale, and the
(11:48):
guy says but there's no valuein killing the whale, there's no
penalty.
So the whale in a whale as bigas she is, is invisible to the
market.
You see, now kill the whale,chop it to pieces.
Suddenly it becomes visible.
Why?
Because you can sell oil.
Suddenly it becomes visible.
Why?
Because you can sell oil,blubber or meat, whereas the
whale, the living whale, justfrolicking freely in the ocean,
(12:11):
as she's done for millions ofyears, is not visible to the
market and that's why we've beendestroying the living nature
with impunity.
Now we can drill back and saywhy is that?
Is it the fault of the marketsthemselves or the certain
assumptions that we made wayback when?
And I would say it's not reallythe fault of the markets, it's
(12:34):
the assumptions that were madein the age of reason.
If you go back to the Cartesianparadigm, if you go back to
Francis Bacon Novum Organum, hisbook, right there he says we
were endowed with nature, withinfinite commodities.
What does that mean?
That means nature is infinite.
(12:56):
And the first thing you learn ineconomics 001, freshman class
if something is infinitelysupplied, its price would have
to be zero.
So by making these certainassumptions that are based on
nothing, perhaps when there wasonly even atom, nature was
infinite.
But there's 8 billion of usNature is finite.
(13:18):
Perhaps then you could say whocares?
Right, but now nature is finiteand, as a result, that
assumption of price of nature iszero.
That means way back when, whenwe made that disastrous
assumption.
If you don't worry about naturebecause she's infinite, that
means you can cut, pollute,destroy with impunity.
(13:39):
She's infinite by definition.
That means all you have toworry is about yourself.
And that's where the emphasison growth came from we started
with.
Obsession with growth isbecause why should you obsess
about anything else?
After all, you're using natureto grow, but nature is infinite,
so you shouldn't worry abouther, you should only worry about
(14:02):
yourself.
So this obsession of peopletelling me oh, it's obsession
with growth and GDP, I said yesbecause of these assumptions
that were made.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (14:12):
Descartes, right.
Ralph Chami (14:15):
Descartes gave supremacy to the mind over the
body, right, I think.
Therefore, I exist.
Remember that Descartes?
Yeah, yes, the Cartesianparadigm, and what he did with
this idea?
He would say he would reckonnature to a clock, mechanical
clock.
He said if you know the parts,you know the whole.
(14:35):
But what he did?
He ripped the soul out ofnature.
Nature has a soul, nature is aliving system, nature has a
breath, just like you and me,right?
What he did with his aim tobasically give prominence and
eminence to the scientificmethod, right, he inadvertently
(14:55):
pulled that idea that nature isalive and anything that's alive
takes in breath and gives upsomething in return.
What he did, and then, withFrancis Bacon saying nature is
infinite, those two thingsreally set everything that was
built on the wrong track.
(15:17):
Now, the people that did notreceive that message continued
on their track, and these arethe indigenous people and the
communities.
Because they didn't hear ofthat, they stayed.
And what was their life?
It was our life before we heardthat message too, which is you
live in balance with nature.
I mean, I just celebratedEaster on Sunday.
(15:38):
Happy Easter, happy Passover toall of our colleagues here.
But if you think of the prayeritself.
What does it say?
It says give us our daily bread, right, give us.
It doesn't say give metomorrow's bread.
It doesn't say give me a wholemonth's bread.
You're supposed to only takewhat you need.
And when you interact withindigenous people, as I have
(16:03):
done and I will tell you aboutour projects, are really
fascinating that they don'ttouch nature like we do or don't
touch this, is this is aprotector?
No, no, they live in nature,but they only take what they
need.
They understand that life isyou take and you give, or you
give and you take.
First movement in Tai Chi is wegive and we receive.
(16:27):
You have to give to receive.
Think of your own personalrelationship, your own personal
relationship.
You cannot be in a relationshipwhere you're only giving.
At some point you get tired,and if you only take and you
don't give, the other persongets tired.
So this permeates everything.
We need to rebalance thisrelationship because we're out
of balance with each other.
(16:48):
We're out of balance withnature.
We're out of balance withnature when the Polynesian
people, march 27 of last year,recognized the legal personhood
of the whale, or conferred legalpersonhood on the whale, and it
took place, the event in theCook Islands.
(17:12):
The only two non-Polynesianpeople who were allowed into the
sacred ceremony was CarlosDuarte and myself.
We were also witnesses and wesigned the, with everyone else,
the declaration.
But at the time the Maori kinghe passed away a few months
later was there and the morningafter early we were woken up.
Says the Maori king would liketo have breakfast with you guys,
(17:34):
and temperature must have beenlike in the 90s.
We're staying at a place, noair conditioning.
It was fine, and I was thinkingI cannot put on a suit.
I mean.
So I said, do I put a suit on?
And they said are you kiddingme?
No, no, just T-shirt and shorts, just get there, because the
(17:54):
breakfast was at 6.45 and theywoke us up at 6.
So we hustled, we got in thecar, we got over there.
He was there with his wife andhis advisors and Carlos is
trying to explain to the Maoriking our work on natural capital
, blue natural capital.
And starts to explain bluenatural capital.
(18:18):
And the late King raises hishand, says Professor Duarte,
professor Duarte, this is notlanguage that I understand.
Let me explain to you where Icome from.
Where I come from is the whaleis my ancestor.
So there's no distance betweenme and the whale and our whales.
(18:40):
When they're dying, they beachthemselves and we take their
bones and we put them next totheir famous tree.
I forgot the name of the famoustree.
Now that tree has the DNA ofthe whale in it.
Wow, so when our tree is notdoing well, we know that the
whales are not doing well.
Oh, wow, yeah, as you can see,professor Duarte, there is no
(19:04):
blue, there is no green, thereis no separation.
So it's one continuum of whichwe are part of.
We are part of it Absolutely,and when our cycle is up, we
just return back into nature.
Yeah, I tell you, I looked atCarlos and I think he had tears
(19:27):
in his eyes.
We didn't know what to sayafter that.
We just kept thinking what areyou going to say?
He basically said we don'tseparate.
This is blue and this is green,and this is a whale and this is
a tree.
It's one breath, and that is sotrue.
It is so true.
(19:49):
But he put it much moreeloquently than I just did.
But it was yeah, when they'renot doing well, when the gray
whales are not doing well, wecannot be doing well.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (19:59):
That's right .
We did an episode not too longago where we recapped that whole
event, with you being there,and I just want to say, too,
that, ralph, your words, when wefirst heard you back in 2021 at
the Ocean Life Symposium,really did strike us and sit
(20:19):
with us, and it led to thispodcast, to us creating this,
because we just had not quiteheard that perspective before,
which makes so much sense to us.
It may not have to the Maoriking, but it does to us, so we
just want to thank you.
Ralph Chami (20:38):
Yeah, the Maori king did not lose his way.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (20:41):
No, he didn't he never did, did he?
Ralph Chami (20:45):
They stayed the course.
We veered, we veered, exceptfor the indigenous.
Exactly Now, because we live ina market system, I have to take
all of these ideas and convertthem into, just translate them
into a language.
That same idea, but use adifferent language to make
(21:06):
nature visible, the livingnature visible.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (21:10):
And I like the way that you talk about
language too, and who better todiscuss this than someone who's
been a financial economist forover 35 years and you can see
and be able to interpret in thislanguage, whereas the
indigenous they always had thatlanguage.
Ralph Chami (21:29):
Exactly so I don't when I talk to the Maori people
I work with or I work withNative Americans here, I don't.
When I talk to the Maori peoplethat I work with or I work with
Native Americans here, I don'ttalk about these things with
them because what am I going tosay?
They're already living thatlife.
It's us that got that messageof nature is infinite and nature
has no soul.
We're the ones who veered,we're the ones who went on a
(21:52):
different trajectory anddivorced ourselves from nature.
And if you look at economicsitself, that's how we modeled
our economy.
The idea is that nature haslimitations, if you like, and
technology would obviate theneed to nature altogether, and
so we can grow unboundedly in abounded planet.
(22:15):
After all, the planet has asize, you see, and so, to my
knowledge, earth is notexpanding.
Earth is limited.
So what happened is we've beenliving, if you like, beyond our
means.
Some people have made estimatesof this.
We're expending three earthsright now.
Three earths Meaning we'reusing resources that you can
(22:39):
argue are ours as we're ageneration, but we're really
spending resources of two moreearths, which means we're
borrowing from the future.
We're borrowing from the unborn, we're borrowing from our
grandchildren, from our children, from the unborn, from yet to
be born, without theirpermission.
And yet we say we love ourchildren, yet we say we love our
(23:03):
grandchildren.
Well, you know, as my mom wouldsay, proof of the pudding is in
the eating.
We need to show that love, weneed to share that love, we need
to live within our means toensure that our children, our
grandchildren and all futuregenerations get to enjoy what
we've enjoyed ourselves, whichis this beautiful, beautiful
(23:24):
planet, you see.
So all of this, this is reallythe philosophy behind our work.
Now, because I'm a financialeconomist and I come from the
markets and from the policy side, I have to take these ideas,
because if I don't engage thoseguys, then we are really
proselytizing to each other andthen we give high fives and then
(23:47):
, at the end of the day, we'vedone nothing really, because
when you look at how much weneed in order to protect nature,
the living nature, the deadnature doesn't need protection,
it's the living one and that'sproviding all of this.
You know, fighting climatechange, regulating water, soil
quality, all of that stuff itneeds.
(24:08):
According to the, it needs atrillion dollars a year,
charitable giving, philanthropicgiving, and, if you want to say
.
The little that governmentscontribute is woefully short,
and the financing gap is aboutsix, seven hundred billion
dollars per year.
Now where is that going to comefrom?
You can proselytize some more,but people have voted with their
(24:31):
pockets already, you see.
So what's left is there's onesegment of the society that has
never been included in thisconversation the markets.
The markets are sitting ontrillions of dollars, and the
markets behind it are people too, and they are like you and me.
They're brothers and sistersand they too have families and
they too want to live in abeautiful earth.
It's brothers and sisters, andthey do have families and they
(24:53):
do want to live in a beautifulearth.
It's just that they don't know.
What we know, you see, is howbeautiful the living nature and
how important it is to societyand to our economy.
So that's why all of my workwith my colleagues have been how
do we engage those guys withthe resources, with the ability
to move fast, to bring thatfunding into the protection and
(25:17):
restoration of nature?
Because we all live under thesame sky and when the sky falls,
it's not going to say you're amarket person and you're a
conservation person.
All of us See my mom everythingI know is from my mother, and
which is also my brothers and Iwould fight.
She'd say why do you guys fight?
At the end of the day, you'regoing to come back home and
(25:37):
you're under the same roof,you're going to sit at the same
table and have the same dinner,so why do you fight?
He was right.
So all these lessons are reallythe philosophy behind this work
.
Now I'll take you through therabbit hole, but please don't
(26:00):
lose sight of why we're doingwhat we're doing.
We're trying to make nature,the living nature, visible to
the markets, thereby changingthe mindset of the markets,
because actions follow changesin mindset.
You cannot have actions, newactions, if the mindset hasn't
shifted.
Remember when everybody used tosmoke in their cars and in
their bedrooms and just watchold movies?
Nobody does that.
It was a mindset shift followedby action.
(26:22):
So the only difference here isthat we have little time.
So there's an urgency.
There's an urgency behind this.
So when we did the work on thewhales, it was to say, hey,
nature, the living nature,provides a service, a regulating
side, not the provisioning side.
(26:43):
So it's not meat, it's not, youknow, potatoes, it's regulating
, helping the climate.
When you have healthy whales.
You have healthy actually, youhave healthy krill and
everything feeds in the water,as you know very well on krill,
it's not only the whales, right.
When you have a healthy, whenthe whales are feeding, there's
a whole biome feeding around thewhales, right?
(27:05):
I observed it myself and I'msure all of you have seen it.
When the elephants are doingwell, the gorillas can, as seen
it, when the elephants are doingwell, the gorillas can, as I
learned from the famous IanRedman, gorillas make their
homes in the canopy.
They need the forest elephantsto help them.
Everything depends oneverything you see.
So the elephants are doing muchmore than that.
So we started with the trying tosay, hey, a living whale, just
(27:30):
from carbon sequestration, wasfar, far more valuable than a
dead whale.
And then the same thing messagewas with the elephants.
Then UNAP came along and saidhey, you seem to know how to
value a living nature.
I said no, no, I'm not valuinga living, I'm valuing some of
the services that we can measure.
It's a minimum, it's not anupper bound, it's a lower bound.
(27:54):
Just to basically highlight tothe markets, not to the converts
, to the markets you have astake in protecting and
restoring nature.
So they said okay, and you valueseagrass?
And to that one I said I haveno idea and I know nothing about
seagrass.
They said oh well, you got togo talk to that famous guy.
His name is Carlos Duarte, bythe way.
(28:17):
On April 16, he was awarded thehighest award in that field by
the Emperor of Japan, which isequivalent to the Nobel Prize,
if you like, in marine ecology.
A few days ago he wasrecognized for all of his work,
carlos Duarte, anyway.
So I went to Carlos and I saidcan you teach us about your
(28:39):
seagrass?
And look what he said.
He said oh, I've written manypapers on seagrass, so let me
give you a very quick example.
He said if you plant threetrees next to each other, after
30 years there'll be one treeleft because they're competing
for nutrients and light and rainand all that stuff.
When you plant seagrass, after30 years there's a billion of
(28:59):
them.
They're clonal.
If you plant them, they're likea tree on its side.
They grow this way and this way.
Okay, and they grow at anexponential rate.
So you're saying horizontallyand down and down, because they
sequester carbon down and theygrow in this way.
So you have the biomass in thesoil, the sediments.
(29:20):
Seagrass grows as long as youhave space, it grows.
That's the work of Carlos andothers, well-established.
And so they grow exponentiallyfor 50 years, then at a constant
rate forever.
As long as you have space, theykeep growing, which is
incredible.
And when they're growingthey're sequestering carbon.
(29:43):
In fact, all living systemsright Seagrass, mangroves, salt
marshes, trees we sequestercarbon also because this is what
makes our tissues so.
With Carlos, it was shockingbecause I had no idea that they
grow at an exponential rate andthey are sequestering carbon.
(30:05):
Now, I've never seen atechnology that grows
exponentially for 50 years andat the constant rate forever.
And I said okay, if weunderstand your science, we can
take that and mathematicallycalculate what is the value of
seagrass living for itself?
Again, this is a new language Iuse just to highlight that
(30:29):
we're not talking about seagrassin an aquarium or seagrass in a
lab.
This is seagrass just existing.
It's over a trillion dollars injust carbon sequestration Over
a trillion, over a trillion, andI'll explain to you in much
more detail.
This is work with codloss.
(30:51):
But when you have healthyseagrass, you have healthy fish
stock.
Why?
Because fish love to hide inthere and lay their eggs, and
the Australians had alreadyknown that.
Because if you go to theirwebsite, great Barrier Reef,
they have the data.
Just take a look at the data.
You see.
When you have healthy seagrass,you have healthy fish stock, so
you can calculate the delta inthe fish and you know the price
(31:12):
of fish.
You multiply that you havehealthy seagrass.
You have healthy fish stock, soyou can calculate the delta in
the fish and you know the priceof fish.
You multiply that, you get thevalue from enhanced fisheries
and when you have healthyseagrass, it staves off flooding
.
How valuable is that?
Well, we know exactly how to dothat, because if you didn't
have seagrass, you'd have tobuild seawalls, and you know the
cost of that.
(31:32):
And didn't have seagrass, you'dhave to build seawalls, and you
know the cost of that.
And when you have healthyseagrass, it has a knock-on
effect on corals because itpurifies the water.
So suddenly, seagrass is notabout carbon.
Seagrass is all these services,ecosystem services right that
are provided just from seagrass,existing for itself.
(31:53):
Of course.
Now you look back at some ofthe resorts I used to frequent
where people would complain tothe management that their feet
touch the seagrass.
And you see those guys in themorning chopping away at
seagrass.
Seagrass is gold.
Mangroves are another system,but mangroves are trees and they
(32:15):
don't grow laterally, they growvertically and so they're
physiologically different thansea grass.
They also sequester a hugeamount of carbon in the soil and
in the biomass, but theirbiomass up to a point, about 10
years, and that's it.
Then, whatever they grab, theyrelease.
So you need to know thephysiology.
(32:38):
But once you know thephysiology of whatever you're
interested in, you can start tocalculate the value from carbon
sequestration, if you like, onlyto highlight the value of the
living system for itself.
So we went from we started withvaluation of services, just the
carbon for Wales and back ofthe envelope, just to bring this
(33:01):
utilization to humans, to us,especially in the markets,
especially to my guild, thewhat's in it for me crowd Right.
They had no idea and I rememberthe shock that everybody, when I
was doing this work, somepeople thought I went nuts.
I'll say why are you doing thiswork?
Like no, no, it's not why.
(33:23):
The question is is this theonly work I want to do?
Why did I waste my time doinganything else?
Because this is our life, thisis our home.
This is what all my training was, I guess was all about is to
apply all these techniques tounderstand the value of the
(33:44):
living nature to our health,wealth and prosperity.
So we went through whales,elephants, to seagrass, to salt
marshes, mangroves, forests.
Of course we all know aboutforests and planting, but it's
not really about planting trees,it's about the life in the
forest, it's about theinteraction of fauna and flora.
I mean, when we talk about theelephants, the elephants are
(34:06):
interacting with the trees, withthe soil.
That richness of life turns outto be not only intrinsically
valuable but financiallyvaluable to our system.
Now, once the science tells younature is valuable and you can
calculate some aspects of thatvalue in dollar amount, what can
(34:26):
you do with it?
Because some people getfrustrated when you tell them
well, you know, just, carbon is2 million, 1 million, whatever
the number is, or an elephant.
They say what do I do with this?
So that's the next questionthat we had to face, right Is
what can you do with that?
And the idea can we buildmarkets around the protection
(34:47):
and restoration of nature?
And this is where we are rightnow.
We have projects all over theworld.
We have projects on seagrass,for example.
There's a huge project in theBahamas.
So let me just give you an ideahow these things can be
translated Bahamas and this isthe work of Carlos Duarte and a
(35:08):
group called Beneath the Waves,and they published that work in
nature.
What they did?
It was an ingenious way.
So Bahamas is a small islandand they wanted to know how much
seagrass they had.
But it's very expensive to youknow, to do the mapping.
But these guys were ingenious.
They came up with this idea.
(35:28):
They said, yeah, if we usesubmersibles or humans or
technology, it's going to costmoney.
But you know, guess what?
What feeds on seagrass?
Sea turtles.
And what feeds on sea turtles?
Tiger sharks.
So they came up with thisingenious idea they outfitted
tiger sharks with 365 cameras.
(35:50):
Now, what year was this?
2021.
The paper came up in 2021 inNature Journal.
It's called Using Tiger Sharksto Map the Largest Seafloor
Meadow in the World and Ivisited that boat where they
brought the sharks.
And it's not a trivial exerciseand it's quite dangerous, right
(36:14):
, you bring them on board andthen you outfit them with the
camera and you let them loose.
Now the nice thing about it isthe tiger sharks swim about 80
kilometers a day and they don'tneed to come up for breath and
they don't take breaks and theydon't charge you for their
services.
So they map the seafloor of theBahamas in no time and guess
what they found?
(36:34):
They found that the Bahamas issitting on 93,000 square
kilometers of seagrass.
93,000 square kilometers ofseagrass Now let me give you
something to compare it to.
All of Spain is 1,600 squarekilometers of seagrass.
That's to give you an idea ofwhat we're talking about.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (36:56):
That's a big difference.
Ralph Chami (36:58):
Yeah Right.
So I was brought down toBahamas to meet the prime
minister.
At the time it was about threeyears ago.
In the room there were thescientists and the officials and
the prime minister says,basically, why are you here?
I mean, why am I talking to you?
And I said well, you're 93,000square kilometers.
(37:23):
You used to have about 140,000000.
You've lost quite a bit due tohuman activity, but that delta
is worth about 150 billiondollars.
Just the delta, just the delta.
Now imagine saying that to a, anisland that has been decimated
by the hurricane, and puttingthem in debt, huge debt to GDP,
(37:48):
where they're one foot away fromoblivion, and you're coming and
saying, potentially you couldbe, per capita, the richest
country on the face of theplanet, because there are only,
I think, 350,000 of them.
So you divide 150, that's inrevenue and that's just carbon.
We're not talking about fish.
We're not talking about fish.
We're not talking aboutanything else.
(38:08):
So I was asked is this magic?
I said no, sir, this is magical, but it's not magic, it's pure
finance.
One plus one is still two.
I was asked why.
Now I said well, let's thinkabout it.
The Gulf countries sat on ablack goo for a thousand years
(38:32):
until somebody, let's say MrFord, needed to move their car
from point A to point B and theyneeded that black goo.
That's called demand.
And they were sitting on thesupply of the black goo and they
said to Mr Ford, you can havethe black goo, but at $100 a
barrel and what you get is anoil market.
(38:54):
So the world needs nature tofight climate change.
That's the demand.
Your island is sitting on thesupply side.
By protecting and restoringyour seagrass, we can strike a
deal with the demand side if wecan agree on a price.
(39:16):
So what does that mean?
The world or the companies thatwant to go carbon neutral,
carbon negative, carbon zero,net zero, can pay you to protect
and restore the seagrass meadowand the carbon that accrues
from that would actually helpthem match what they need.
And thus you create an economyaround it, exactly, but economy
(39:39):
around what?
Around the protection andrestoration of nature, around
enhancing resilience in nature.
Because when you enhanceresilience in nature, you
stabilize people on their land.
Because what people fail tounderstand is when nature is
stressed and you have forestfires and you have droughts and
floods, people are on the moveWithin their boundaries, outside
(40:02):
their countries, into theregions.
They can take boats and try tofind refuge anywhere they can.
So creating resilience innature stabilizes people on
their land, you see.
And at the same time, when youinvest in nature, your health is
going to be better.
So it has many other effects,you know positive spillover
(40:24):
effects.
So this is really the conceptbehind it is there's demand for
nature.
And here allow me just toexplain one thing that I find a
lot of people I even wrote apaper about it with my
colleagues just to help peopleunderstand when they met the
(40:45):
Kyoto Protocols and then theParis Agreement of 2015 to fight
climate change and they said weneed to reduce emissions.
It wasn't only reducingemissions, we need to reduce the
stock of carbon that is sittingup in the atmosphere.
So for hundreds of years we'vebeen destroying nature and
(41:06):
pushing that carbon that used tobe in the ground to become
carbon dioxide, bellowing upinto the atmosphere.
That carbon dioxide doesn't goanywhere, it's just sitting
there.
So think of a tub, think of atub.
Sky is a tub and carbon dioxideis just accumulating there from
emissions, destruction ofnature, pulling oil and gas out
(41:30):
of the ground, burning the oilright, and that carbon dioxide,
the smoke stacks.
That carbon has been there forhundreds of years.
That's the tub.
It's full, but there's a faucetand that faucet is still
dripping more carbon dioxideinto that tub.
That is your emissions.
Which means what If you were toshut off all emissions?
(41:53):
Today, miraculously, somebodyorders the world to stop carbon
dioxide emissions.
We're not done.
Why?
Because the tub is full and thetub needs to be drained.
And the only way to drain thetub is to bring back the nature
that we have lost, becausemother nature has been around
(42:15):
for 4 billion years.
She knows how to do this if yougive her a chance.
Now, of course, boys with toys,the alpha males among us, they
like to play with toys.
They think it's all abouttechnology, that's fine.
So they want to build machinesthat will grab carbon.
But first of all, thosemachines are tiny.
They're not going to make anydifference, and grabbing carbon
(42:38):
is not the issue, it'ssequestering carbon permanently,
because when nature grabs thatcarbon, puts it in the soil.
It doesn't go anywhere, unlesshumans, or in the ocean, unless
humans tinker with it.
You see, so we need nature,right?
Because I see people talk aboutwe need to reduce emissions and
I keep saying it's not enough.
We need two levers, we need toshut off the valve and we need
(43:04):
to drain the tub.
We need to shut off the valveand we need to drain the tub.
Draining the tub is about whatall my work and my colleagues'
work is about is the protectionand restoration of Mother Nature
, blue and green fauna and flora, along, of course, with
reducing our emissions throughalternative technologies, solar
(43:25):
and all that.
That's all good, that's allgood, but it's not enough.
And this is science.
This is not Ralph's opinion.
This is what scientists havebeen saying.
But unfortunately, when you hearit on the news and you hear,
people get confused.
They think, oh, I'm riding mybicycle today and I'm saying,
dude, that ain't enough.
How are you going to pull thatcarbon out of the atmosphere?
(43:46):
So the forest fires inCalifornia and the heating up
and all this, it's not from theemission, it's from the 450
parts per million that aresitting up there going nowhere.
Nowhere.
They're heating up the earthand it's not because there's
carbon up there.
There's always been carbon up.
(44:06):
There's a cycle, there's acarbon cycle.
It goes up and comes back in.
We disturb that cycle and wepush more carbon.
That should be, that isconducive for human life that
used to be in the ocean or onthe ground, in the forests,
right in the soil, in thebiomass.
We pushed it up into theatmosphere.
So this whole thing is aboutrebalancing our relationship
(44:32):
with our home nature and witheach other.
It's like the return of theprodigal child, if you like.
And while we still have time,so imagine for Bahamas.
Bahamas is a Caribbean country.
Many of these are islandeconomies struggled with that.
(44:53):
Their economies depend on twothings tourism and being an
offshore center.
Well, as they discovered fromCOVID, tourism is a fickle
friend.
When there's a recession, whenthere's a COVID God forbid
another one tourists disappear.
So there are no dollars.
So now you fall back on.
(45:14):
Are you an offshore center?
Well, that is changingdramatically due to stricter
laws and regulations and oninternational taxation, all that
stuff.
So all these economies,vulnerable economies, are
looking for a new source ofincome, new source of revenue,
and the only thing that ispeddled to them is sell your
(45:34):
soul, destroy your nature, allowextraction, destroy your
forests, dig for more oil andgas, dig for minerals, because
that's the only model we knowyou see more oil and gas.
Dig for minerals because that'sthe only model we know, you see
.
So for them it's a trade-offQuality of life versus dollars.
(45:55):
I can pay back a debt that Iwill never be able to pay back,
never.
None of them have been able tocome out of their debt.
So what we come along and say,hey, hey, hey, you may not need
to do this.
This because by protecting andrestoring your nature, you will
make more money in perpetuity.
You create resilience in yournature, better health, better
environment, you stabilizepeople on their land, you
(46:17):
alleviate poverty, ensure foodsecurity.
That's the proposition with theBahamas, with all of these
island economies.
They can look at what they have, what they used to have, and
how to restore it and make useof the need that on the demand
side of the equation, there areall these companies that have
(46:37):
made commitments to be bettercitizens of this world.
Now you may say, well, thereare politics involved.
There's a yes, yes, of course,but in Europe there's something
called nature restoration law.
It was passed on February 27 oflast year, ratified by all
countries in the EU sphere.
In the UK, there's somethingcalled net nature gain.
(46:59):
So the regulators are nowcoming and saying, hey, hey,
it's not about carbon, it's whatabout is your net impact on
nature?
Leigh Anne Lindsey (47:08):
I was just going to say, if we could only
get the United States to alsofollow in these footsteps.
Ralph Chami (47:14):
Well, I'll tell you what you know.
I used to complain to my mom.
You know he's not doing this,he's not doing that.
She used to say do your job.
Do your job at your level, therest is not yours to worry about
.
Companies are feeling the bruntof it.
Let's just simplify it.
(47:35):
Insurance companies are walkingout of California, as you know.
Texas, florida, alabama,mississippi I mean, I have
friends in California.
They can't sell their homeanymore.
You're paying a mortgage on anasset that has a negative value.
If you're the bank that holdsthat mortgage, you have a
stranded asset.
(47:55):
If you have a car dealership inthat locality, good luck
selling cars.
So businesses, whether you knowregulation or whether the
politics of the day or thisbusinesses are feeling it
through their balance sheet, yousee.
So the insurance companies.
Because they can raise thepremium, but at a certain level.
(48:17):
No premium is going tocompensate you for the
possibility of fires orpossibility of floods or
whatever it is.
So they move up and now youhave communities that are what?
Leigh Anne Lindsey (48:29):
do, they do and they're all around us A lot
of people that we know.
Ralph Chami (48:35):
Each one of us knows someone who's been
affected either by the floods,or by the drought, or by the
mudslides, or it's affectingeveryone.
The reason the action isdelayed is because the pain is
not uniform.
If the pain, the level of pain,was uniform across all of us on
this land, on this beautifulland, we'd have acted much
(48:56):
sooner.
But it happens, you see, inCalifornia, and you say to
yourself, well, I'm inPennsylvania, it happens in
Oklahoma, and you say, yeah, butI'm in Montana.
But guess what?
And this thing is following youeverywhere and by the time it
arrives at your door it's toolate.
But that's the job of us thatare looking at the forest for
(49:19):
the trees to say, hey, it ishappening, we can see it in the
business.
So I focus on the market side,because I'm seeing it being
priced now in the markets andwhat we want to do is engage in
a positive way, because peopleare scared right now, no matter
what the politics are, becausethey know something ain't right.
(49:40):
My concern is remember.
I mean, I was raised by theJesuits, right?
So it's always these stories inmy head.
There's Isaiah's story when hewas trying to get his people to
behave, if you still rememberthose stories right.
And he's telling them tomorrowyou shall die because of your
debauchery.
I scared them so much.
They said we're going to dietomorrow.
(50:01):
He said yes.
I said good, let's have a bigparty today.
So good, let's have a big partytoday.
So if you scare people too much, they're going to tune us out.
That's why, when I talk topeople, I say this story has a
happy ending and I truly believein the human capability,
because we got ourselves intothis predicament.
We know how to get ourselvesout of it.
Right, when we caused the ozonelayer gap, we got together and
(50:22):
we said we cannot continue likethis.
And guess what?
That hole is shrinking.
We removed all the gases, thefree on, all this stuff that was
causing the damage.
So we know how to do this.
At least we know what to stopdoing.
It's just a matter of do wehave the will and the courage
and the leadership?
I mean, after all, you reallydon't want to be like Alice in
(50:44):
Wonderland, right?
Remember Alice when she gotlost and she bumped into the cat
and she said show me the way.
And the cat said where do youwant to go?
And Alice says what if I don'tknow?
And then the beautiful answercomes out says then what
difference does it make?
So you see, we need a vision ofhow we want to live for
tomorrow.
(51:05):
We want a vision of how we wantto live for tomorrow.
We want a vision of how we wantto live in tomorrow for
tomorrow.
Once you have that vision, thenyou can come up with the
actions that are needed.
So the people need to see avision.
So what we do right when I workwith the Bahamas, or I work
with BVI, or all these countrieswe work in and communities
(51:26):
First is the vision.
Where do you wanna go?
There's another project withour own, here, in our own
backyard.
Native Americans are bringingback what they refer to as the
buffalo, the bison.
So in a conversation with themI asked why are you bringing
them back?
And the answer was for social,cultural and health reasons.
(51:47):
Because that was their diet.
Also, turns out, and I visitedthe Wind River Reservation the
Shoshones and the Arapahos arethere.
And we also went to Montana,where the black feet are.
And what do you observe whenyou see the bison in their own
element, that seedling that hasbeen dormant for 150 years,
recognized the original tenant,came back, that grass.
(52:10):
It's amazing because of course,you can explain it
physiologically, what thesecreatures are doing, but
basically what it is.
You see the tall grass comingback, which used to be there.
So bringing back the bisonbrings back the grass, and that
means the soil is healthier, anda healthier soil, like
(52:30):
everything else, sequesters morecarbon.
Now, if you can figure out howmuch carbon is being added into
the soil due to the bringingback the bison, you can
calculate the carbon credits, oryou can call them biodiversity
credits, because that's nowfauna and flora interacting with
(52:51):
each other, and you can sellthat Again.
Just like you're restoringseagrass, restoring forests,
you're restoring grassland, andthe money that would come in
would allow the Native Americansto buy back their land which is
what they're doing and buy backthe needed bison for their land
(53:12):
, and you create a virtuouscycle, you see, so this is a
project that we've signed onwith all of Native tribes, all
93 tribes in the United States,starting in Montana all the way
into Canada, actually, with theBlackfoot Nation.
Okay so, but what it is isagain, it's the same thing is
(53:34):
bringing back nature that usedto be there.
It's restoration protection,and then you pick up the
benefits of it and you create avirtuous cycle.
Now, three principles are alwaysin our work.
You never sell the asset itself, so the seagrass of Bahamas is
never sold.
So when we go to the Bahamas orin BVI or whichever country
(53:57):
we're operating in, or whicheverindigenous people, local
communities, we say never sellthe underlying.
And they'll say why?
Because you don't know the truevalue of it.
All you have is some idea aboutthe carbon value.
But when you have a healthynature, it's doing a lot more
than sequestering carbon, as wejust discussed.
So why would you want to sellit?
(54:22):
Two, the money has to come backfrom the sale of the credits,
has to come back to look afterthis nature in perpetuity.
Why?
Because it's only this naturethat's alive and well and doing
well is what's sequestered incarbon.
So the seagrass, by being aliveand thriving, is grabbing the
carbon, enhancing the fisheries,staving off flooding.
So you need that money from thesale of those credits have to
(54:45):
be that money from the sale ofthose credits have to be
directed towards the protectionand restoration of this.
And third, and if not mostimportant, if you don't look
after the people that look afterthe land, you're going to fail.
So indigenous people and localcommunity.
The stewards of nature have tobe part and parcel of this
(55:06):
project, not as recipients,because no one wants to receive
something for nothing.
They want to be part of this.
After all, they are part of it.
It's just a recognition oftheir part, learning from them,
working with them, creatingrelationships and learning from
each other, and therefore theybenefit from these projects.
(55:27):
So be it.
We're working with the maori,we're working with the native
americans, working with thebahamas, we have projects all
over and indonesia and so forth.
It's the same.
Three concepts, threeprinciples have to be adhered to
never sell the, the underlying.
The money has to come back, andI don't usually when we do this
(55:49):
, I don't take anybody's wordfor it.
It has to be verifiable, it hasto be transparent, it has to be
accountable.
It has to stand the test ofwho's watching the watch person,
who's certifying the certifier.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (56:05):
And that's the end of part one of two.
Ralph Chami is a member ofPlanetary Guardians and is chief
economist for Wave and servesas senior advisor to a number of
companies and NGOs, includingColossal, hena, moana, holo and
Oceanus.
Ralph has a BS from theAmerican University of Beirut,
(56:29):
an MBA in Finance and Statisticsfrom the University of Kansas
and a PhD in Economics from theJohn Hopkins University.
He is a professional musicianand songwriter and his latest
musical collaboration is on theshort film called Moana.
As co-founder and CEO, blueGreen Future, ralph is currently
(56:51):
working on climate change andnature and biodiversity laws,
developing a new framework forvaluing natural capital to build
an equitable andnature-positive economy.
He has developed a new fieldcalled science-based finance and
is leading and advising onprojects around the globe,
(57:12):
working with SIDs, indigenouspeoples in the South Pacific and
Native American tribes in theUS, as well as governments in
Indonesia, the Philippines,saudi Arabia, among others.
(57:38):
Thanks for listening to theResilient Earth podcast, where
we talk about critical issuesand positive actions for our
planet.
Resilient Earth is produced byPlanet Centric Media, a 501c3
non-profit, and Seastorm StudiosInc, located on the rugged
North Sonoma Coast of NorthernCalifornia.
I'm Leanne Lindsey, producerand host, along with co-hosts
(58:03):
and co-producers Scott and TreeMercer of Mendonoma Whale and
Seal Study, located on the SouthMendocino and North Sonoma
coasts.
The music for this podcast isby Eric Allaman, an
international composer, pianistand writer living in the Sea
Ranch.
Pianist and writer living inthe Sea Ranch.
(58:25):
Discover more of his music,animations, ballet, stage and
film work at ericallaman.
com.
You can find Resilient Earth onSpotify, apple and Amazon
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(58:46):
your podcasts.
Please support us bysubscribing or donating to our
cause.
Music, music , music Music.
Welcome to Resilient EarthRadio, where we host speakers
from the United States andaround the world to talk about
critical issues facing ourplanet and the positive actions
people are taking.
We also let our listeners learnhow they can get involved and
(00:25):
make a difference.
The music for the show isCastle by the Sea from
international composer EricAllaman of the Sea Ranch in
Sonoma County, california.
(00:52):
In this episode, we speak withRalph Chami, who was our
inspiration for starting thispodcast.
Ralph is a financial economistwith over 32 years of experience
, 25 at the IMF, theInternational Monetary Fund of
the United States.
He is co-founder, ceo of BlueGreen Future and spoke with us
(01:15):
this Earth Day about theimportance of connecting people
with nature and forging a newcontract for sustainable
prosperity and well-being.
He explains the disconnectbetween the nature system and
the market system, emphasizingthe need to make living nature
(01:36):
visible and valuable to markets.
In addition to the IMF, he hasserved as a consultant for the
World Bank and has been featuredon TED 2022, tedx, florence,
npr, cnn, the New York Times,national Geographic, financial
Times, the Economist, theWashington Post, world Economic
(01:58):
Forum and in peer-reviewedjournals.
He is the recipient of the IMF2104 Operational Excellence
Award, 2020 Hermes PlatinumAward and 2024 Mad Blue Five
Oceans Award.
This is part one.
I'm Leigh Anne Lindsey host,along with my co-host and
(02:19):
co-producers, Scott and TreeMercer of Mendenoma Whale and
Seal Study.
It is April 22nd, 2025, EarthDay 55 years of Earth Day and on
this special day, we have avery special guest, and that is
Ralph Chami.
And Ralph, welcome back.
We enjoyed having you on our2021 Ocean Life Symposium.
(02:44):
It's good to see you again.
Ralph Chami (02:46):
It's wonderful to see you again and thank you so
much for inviting me back.
It's been three years, hasn'tit?
Yeah, doesn't seem like it.
Co- Hosts Scott and Tree Mercerboth say Happy Earth Day.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (02:55):
Happy Earth Day.
Ralph Chami (02:57):
Thank you, same to you.
Host Leigh Anne - Well, we'rereally looking forward to
hearing an update from you aboutwhat has transpired over these
last few years.
ways to describeRalph Chami - THere are a few
ways what they're doing all withthe aim of connecting with
(03:29):
people, all with the aim ofbringing an understanding about
this wondrous place that we'vebeen gifted with and therefore,
forge a new contract, if youlike.
Forge a new contract, if youlike.
That is meant to bringsustainable, not only prosperity
(03:50):
but good health, goodwell-being to everyone.
Now, with that in mind becausethat's really the guiding
principle throughout everythingwe try to do and I try to do
with my colleagues let medescribe to you, maybe in a
different way, where we are andwhat needs to be done and what
we're trying to do in this vein.
(04:12):
You have two systems.
You have the nature system andpeople that have been occupied
with protecting and restoringnature for many, many, many
years, and then you have a verypowerful system that we created
for ourselves, called the marketsystem Some people like to
think of it as a capital systemor whatever and those two
(04:33):
systems, unfortunately, havebeen ambivalent towards each
other, at best indifferent.
People that have been sooccupied and sacrificed so much
to protect and restore naturehave really paid much attention
to the market system.
They're indifferent towards it.
(04:55):
In fact, in some cases, theyhad really negative and rightly
so towards the market system andthe market system never really
paid much attention to theliving nature.
The market system has a verygood relationship with dead
nature, extracted nature, oil,gas, fish that you take out of
(05:16):
the ocean, suffocate and eat.
You know, extractive view ofnature.
So this indifference has beento the detriment of both,
because, by conservation or thenature system being ambivalent
towards the market system, nottrying to engage the market
system, the market system knewonly one way of dealing with
(05:36):
nature purely from an extractivepoint of view, which led to the
detriment of nature itself.
That's why we've been losingevery battle, that's why nature
is under attack and stressed,that's why we're losing the
stock and the flow and thebiodiversity of nature.
But when you do that, thennature boomerangs back to the
(05:58):
markets, to everyone else,through what's called, if you
like, climate change.
Why does climate change?
After all, to my mind, it'snature stressed.
When you talk about forestfires in California or the
floods or this, it's nature,nature saying hey, hey, you
can't, you can't keep treatingme this way.
(06:18):
And so it comes back throughclimate.
You know climate risk, naturerisk hitting and affecting the
bottom line of the market system.
So this relationship ofambivalence or indifference or
animosity to where one cannotsustain.
We cannot keep going down thatbecause we, nature is our home.
(06:41):
Nature is our only home.
Carl Sagan used to say thisplanet the only home we've ever
known.
Well, I would at maybe, withhis permission, the only home we
will ever know for theforeseeable future, and it's a
beautiful home.
It's a beautiful home.
You just have to ask people thatlive in balance with nature.
(07:02):
They'll tell you how beautifulit is.
We actually, when we relax abit, we realize what a beautiful
place this is and how lucky weare.
Nature is.
This planet is a gift, and whensomebody gives you a gift,
you're supposed to grow the gift, not destroy the gift.
That's how you show yourgratitude and you're supposed to
share it.
That's what brings youhappiness.
(07:24):
So the question is you have twosystems that are at odds with
each other.
Can we find a way to helpnature understand how markets
work?
At the same time, can we engagemarket to understand how
valuable is the living nature?
Okay, now, the market systemknows a lot about nature, knows
(07:45):
the value of gas, oil, timber,dead fish, dead anything, and
price of corn, wheat, apples,oranges, food, what we refer to
as the provisioning side ofnature, nature that provides
(08:05):
food, or nature, if you like, asa resource.
What the markets never reallyunderstood is what is the value
of nature living for herself?
Let me repeat what is the valueof nature living for herself?
What do we mean by that?
When I first met, you guys and Iwas talking about the value of
the living whale in terms ofcarbon sequestration.
(08:27):
Really, if you think about it,what were we talking about?
It's about the whale frolickingfreely in the ocean.
It's not a whale in an aquarium, it's a whale not even aware of
our own existence, going abouther business.
As you know, nature god,whatever you believe in deemed
it to be.
By living her life for herself,she was adding value to our
(08:53):
life Intrinsically the beauty ofit all, beauty of life itself
but also financially.
That's what I was trying toshow that there's also a
financial angle to nature livingfor herself.
When we did the work on theelephants, it was the same thing
.
It's the elephant frolickingfreely in the forest by not
(09:15):
being even aware of the humanexistence right by living,
caring for her babies.
By this she was adding value tothe forest in terms of.
At the time, we were looking atthe carbon side and we
calculated that that elephantliving for herself added also
financial value to the marketsystem.
(09:36):
I remember you saying servicesthat they provide right, and one
of them is carbon.
But they do a lot more.
I mean, you think of theelephants.
They refer to them as forestengineers, because those forest
elephants, that's what thescientists I learned that from
the scientists that's the workof Fabio Berzaghi and others,
basically showing you that theseforest elephants, they like to
(10:00):
eat plants that are low in fiber, high in protein, and what they
leave alone are the plants thatare high in fiber, high in
protein, and what they leavealone are the plants that are
high in fiber, which means highin carbon.
And through the way they walkin the forest, they traipse on
small shoots, creating morespace for older growth, more sun
, more rain, more nutrients andtherefore enhancing the carbon
(10:21):
sequestration in the forest by14%.
Enhancing the carbonsequestration in the forest by
14%, depending on concentrationper square kilometer.
That's science.
That's their paper in PrecinctNational Academy of Sciences.
That's their paper in NatureJournal.
That's purely science, okay,and also, these elephants eat
certain fruits that no one elsecan eat because the seed is so
(10:42):
big.
They're the only ones who canactually swallow it and defecate
it and therefore fertilize theforest.
They also do other things theymanage the forest.
By managing the forest.
They reduce the probability offires in the forest.
Imagine so.
It's not about carbon, it'sabout life longing for itself.
(11:03):
It's by nature longing foritself.
It's by nature longing foritself.
It's not only intrinsicallypriceless, but because we live
in a market system, we need tomake the case.
We need to take that andshowcase the market system, that
nature living for herself, ifyou like some people like to
refer to it as the regulatingside of nature is also
(11:26):
financially valuable.
Now why is that important?
Because nature is invisibleRight now.
Nature is invisible to themarkets.
As big as the whale is 110 foot.
If your blue whale can grow to110 foot, still is invisible to
the markets.
The markets are going there's awhale, there's a whale, and the
(11:48):
guy says but there's no valuein killing the whale, there's no
penalty.
So the whale in a whale as bigas she is, is invisible to the
market.
You see, now kill the whale,chop it to pieces.
Suddenly it becomes visible.
Why?
Because you can sell oil.
Suddenly it becomes visible.
Why?
Because you can sell oil,blubber or meat, whereas the
whale, the living whale, justfrolicking freely in the ocean,
(12:11):
as she's done for millions ofyears, is not visible to the
market and that's why we've beendestroying the living nature
with impunity.
Now we can drill back and saywhy is that?
Is it the fault of the marketsthemselves or the certain
assumptions that we made wayback when?
And I would say it's not reallythe fault of the markets, it's
(12:34):
the assumptions that were madein the age of reason.
If you go back to the Cartesianparadigm, if you go back to
Francis Bacon Novum Organum, hisbook, right there he says we
were endowed with nature, withinfinite commodities.
What does that mean?
That means nature is infinite.
(12:56):
And the first thing you learn ineconomics 001, freshman class
if something is infinitelysupplied, its price would have
to be zero.
So by making these certainassumptions that are based on
nothing, perhaps when there wasonly even atom, nature was
infinite.
But there's 8 billion of usNature is finite.
(13:18):
Perhaps then you could say whocares?
Right, but now nature is finiteand, as a result, that
assumption of price of nature iszero.
That means way back when, whenwe made that disastrous
assumption.
If you don't worry about naturebecause she's infinite, that
means you can cut, pollute,destroy with impunity.
(13:39):
She's infinite by definition.
That means all you have toworry is about yourself.
And that's where the emphasison growth came from we started
with.
Obsession with growth isbecause why should you obsess
about anything else?
After all, you're using natureto grow, but nature is infinite,
so you shouldn't worry abouther, you should only worry about
(14:02):
yourself.
So this obsession of peopletelling me oh, it's obsession
with growth and GDP, I said yesbecause of these assumptions
that were made.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (14:12):
Descartes, right.
Ralph Chami (14:15):
Descartes gave supremacy to the mind over the
body, right, I think.
Therefore, I exist.
Remember that Descartes?
Yeah, yes, the Cartesianparadigm, and what he did with
this idea?
He would say he would reckonnature to a clock, mechanical
clock.
He said if you know the parts,you know the whole.
(14:35):
But what he did?
He ripped the soul out ofnature.
Nature has a soul, nature is aliving system, nature has a
breath, just like you and me,right?
What he did with his aim tobasically give prominence and
eminence to the scientificmethod, right, he inadvertently
(14:55):
pulled that idea that nature isalive and anything that's alive
takes in breath and gives upsomething in return.
What he did, and then, withFrancis Bacon saying nature is
infinite, those two thingsreally set everything that was
built on the wrong track.
(15:17):
Now, the people that did notreceive that message continued
on their track, and these arethe indigenous people and the
communities.
Because they didn't hear ofthat, they stayed.
And what was their life?
It was our life before we heardthat message too, which is you
live in balance with nature.
I mean, I just celebratedEaster on Sunday.
(15:38):
Happy Easter, happy Passover toall of our colleagues here.
But if you think of the prayeritself.
What does it say?
It says give us our daily bread, right, give us.
It doesn't say give metomorrow's bread.
It doesn't say give me a wholemonth's bread.
You're supposed to only takewhat you need.
And when you interact withindigenous people, as I have
(16:03):
done and I will tell you aboutour projects, are really
fascinating that they don'ttouch nature like we do or don't
touch this, is this is aprotector?
No, no, they live in nature,but they only take what they
need.
They understand that life isyou take and you give, or you
give and you take.
First movement in Tai Chi is wegive and we receive.
(16:27):
You have to give to receive.
Think of your own personalrelationship, your own personal
relationship.
You cannot be in a relationshipwhere you're only giving.
At some point you get tired,and if you only take and you
don't give, the other persongets tired.
So this permeates everything.
We need to rebalance thisrelationship because we're out
of balance with each other.
(16:48):
We're out of balance withnature.
We're out of balance withnature when the Polynesian
people, march 27 of last year,recognized the legal personhood
of the whale, or conferred legalpersonhood on the whale, and it
took place, the event in theCook Islands.
(17:12):
The only two non-Polynesianpeople who were allowed into the
sacred ceremony was CarlosDuarte and myself.
We were also witnesses and wesigned the, with everyone else,
the declaration.
But at the time the Maori kinghe passed away a few months
later was there and the morningafter early we were woken up.
Says the Maori king would liketo have breakfast with you guys,
(17:34):
and temperature must have beenlike in the 90s.
We're staying at a place, noair conditioning.
It was fine, and I was thinkingI cannot put on a suit.
I mean.
So I said, do I put a suit on?
And they said are you kiddingme?
No, no, just T-shirt and shorts, just get there, because the
(17:54):
breakfast was at 6.45 and theywoke us up at 6.
So we hustled, we got in thecar, we got over there.
He was there with his wife andhis advisors and Carlos is
trying to explain to the Maoriking our work on natural capital
, blue natural capital.
And starts to explain bluenatural capital.
(18:18):
And the late King raises hishand, says Professor Duarte,
professor Duarte, this is notlanguage that I understand.
Let me explain to you where Icome from.
Where I come from is the whaleis my ancestor.
So there's no distance betweenme and the whale and our whales.
(18:40):
When they're dying, they beachthemselves and we take their
bones and we put them next totheir famous tree.
I forgot the name of the famoustree.
Now that tree has the DNA ofthe whale in it.
Wow, so when our tree is notdoing well, we know that the
whales are not doing well.
Oh, wow, yeah, as you can see,professor Duarte, there is no
(19:04):
blue, there is no green, thereis no separation.
So it's one continuum of whichwe are part of.
We are part of it Absolutely,and when our cycle is up, we
just return back into nature.
Yeah, I tell you, I looked atCarlos and I think he had tears
(19:27):
in his eyes.
We didn't know what to sayafter that.
We just kept thinking what areyou going to say?
He basically said we don'tseparate.
This is blue and this is green,and this is a whale and this is
a tree.
It's one breath, and that is sotrue.
It is so true.
(19:49):
But he put it much moreeloquently than I just did.
But it was yeah, when they'renot doing well, when the gray
whales are not doing well, wecannot be doing well.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (19:59):
That's right .
We did an episode not too longago where we recapped that whole
event, with you being there,and I just want to say, too,
that, ralph, your words, when wefirst heard you back in 2021 at
the Ocean Life Symposium,really did strike us and sit
(20:19):
with us, and it led to thispodcast, to us creating this,
because we just had not quiteheard that perspective before,
which makes so much sense to us.
It may not have to the Maoriking, but it does to us, so we
just want to thank you.
Ralph Chami (20:38):
Yeah, the Maori king did not lose his way.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (20:41):
No, he didn't he never did, did he?
Ralph Chami (20:45):
They stayed the course.
We veered, we veered, exceptfor the indigenous.
Exactly Now, because we live ina market system, I have to take
all of these ideas and convertthem into, just translate them
into a language.
That same idea, but use adifferent language to make
(21:06):
nature visible, the livingnature visible.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (21:10):
And I like the way that you talk about
language too, and who better todiscuss this than someone who's
been a financial economist forover 35 years and you can see
and be able to interpret in thislanguage, whereas the
indigenous they always had thatlanguage.
Ralph Chami (21:29):
Exactly so I don't when I talk to the Maori people
I work with or I work withNative Americans here, I don't.
When I talk to the Maori peoplethat I work with or I work with
Native Americans here, I don'ttalk about these things with
them because what am I going tosay?
They're already living thatlife.
It's us that got that messageof nature is infinite and nature
has no soul.
We're the ones who veered,we're the ones who went on a
(21:52):
different trajectory anddivorced ourselves from nature.
And if you look at economicsitself, that's how we modeled
our economy.
The idea is that nature haslimitations, if you like, and
technology would obviate theneed to nature altogether, and
so we can grow unboundedly in abounded planet.
(22:15):
After all, the planet has asize, you see, and so, to my
knowledge, earth is notexpanding.
Earth is limited.
So what happened is we've beenliving, if you like, beyond our
means.
Some people have made estimatesof this.
We're expending three earthsright now.
Three earths Meaning we'reusing resources that you can
(22:39):
argue are ours as we're ageneration, but we're really
spending resources of two moreearths, which means we're
borrowing from the future.
We're borrowing from the unborn, we're borrowing from our
grandchildren, from our children, from the unborn, from yet to
be born, without theirpermission.
And yet we say we love ourchildren, yet we say we love our
(23:03):
grandchildren.
Well, you know, as my mom wouldsay, proof of the pudding is in
the eating.
We need to show that love, weneed to share that love, we need
to live within our means toensure that our children, our
grandchildren and all futuregenerations get to enjoy what
we've enjoyed ourselves, whichis this beautiful, beautiful
(23:24):
planet, you see.
So all of this, this is reallythe philosophy behind our work.
Now, because I'm a financialeconomist and I come from the
markets and from the policy side, I have to take these ideas,
because if I don't engage thoseguys, then we are really
proselytizing to each other andthen we give high fives and then
(23:47):
, at the end of the day, we'vedone nothing really, because
when you look at how much weneed in order to protect nature,
the living nature, the deadnature doesn't need protection,
it's the living one and that'sproviding all of this.
You know, fighting climatechange, regulating water, soil
quality, all of that stuff itneeds.
(24:08):
According to the, it needs atrillion dollars a year,
charitable giving, philanthropicgiving, and, if you want to say
.
The little that governmentscontribute is woefully short,
and the financing gap is aboutsix, seven hundred billion
dollars per year.
Now where is that going to comefrom?
You can proselytize some more,but people have voted with their
(24:31):
pockets already, you see.
So what's left is there's onesegment of the society that has
never been included in thisconversation the markets.
The markets are sitting ontrillions of dollars, and the
markets behind it are people too, and they are like you and me.
They're brothers and sistersand they too have families and
they too want to live in abeautiful earth.
It's brothers and sisters, andthey do have families and they
(24:53):
do want to live in a beautifulearth.
It's just that they don't know.
What we know, you see, is howbeautiful the living nature and
how important it is to societyand to our economy.
So that's why all of my workwith my colleagues have been how
do we engage those guys withthe resources, with the ability
to move fast, to bring thatfunding into the protection and
(25:17):
restoration of nature?
Because we all live under thesame sky and when the sky falls,
it's not going to say you're amarket person and you're a
conservation person.
All of us See my mom everythingI know is from my mother, and
which is also my brothers and Iwould fight.
She'd say why do you guys fight?
At the end of the day, you'regoing to come back home and
(25:37):
you're under the same roof,you're going to sit at the same
table and have the same dinner,so why do you fight?
He was right.
So all these lessons are reallythe philosophy behind this work
.
Now I'll take you through therabbit hole, but please don't
(26:00):
lose sight of why we're doingwhat we're doing.
We're trying to make nature,the living nature, visible to
the markets, thereby changingthe mindset of the markets,
because actions follow changesin mindset.
You cannot have actions, newactions, if the mindset hasn't
shifted.
Remember when everybody used tosmoke in their cars and in
their bedrooms and just watchold movies?
Nobody does that.
It was a mindset shift followedby action.
(26:22):
So the only difference here isthat we have little time.
So there's an urgency.
There's an urgency behind this.
So when we did the work on thewhales, it was to say, hey,
nature, the living nature,provides a service, a regulating
side, not the provisioning side.
(26:43):
So it's not meat, it's not, youknow, potatoes, it's regulating
, helping the climate.
When you have healthy whales.
You have healthy actually, youhave healthy krill and
everything feeds in the water,as you know very well on krill,
it's not only the whales, right.
When you have a healthy, whenthe whales are feeding, there's
a whole biome feeding around thewhales, right?
(27:05):
I observed it myself and I'msure all of you have seen it.
When the elephants are doingwell, the gorillas can, as seen
it, when the elephants are doingwell, the gorillas can, as I
learned from the famous IanRedman, gorillas make their
homes in the canopy.
They need the forest elephantsto help them.
Everything depends oneverything you see.
So the elephants are doing muchmore than that.
So we started with the trying tosay, hey, a living whale, just
(27:30):
from carbon sequestration, wasfar, far more valuable than a
dead whale.
And then the same thing messagewas with the elephants.
Then UNAP came along and saidhey, you seem to know how to
value a living nature.
I said no, no, I'm not valuinga living, I'm valuing some of
the services that we can measure.
It's a minimum, it's not anupper bound, it's a lower bound.
(27:54):
Just to basically highlight tothe markets, not to the converts
, to the markets you have astake in protecting and
restoring nature.
So they said okay, and you valueseagrass?
And to that one I said I haveno idea and I know nothing about
seagrass.
They said oh well, you got togo talk to that famous guy.
His name is Carlos Duarte, bythe way.
(28:17):
On April 16, he was awarded thehighest award in that field by
the Emperor of Japan, which isequivalent to the Nobel Prize,
if you like, in marine ecology.
A few days ago he wasrecognized for all of his work,
carlos Duarte, anyway.
So I went to Carlos and I saidcan you teach us about your
(28:39):
seagrass?
And look what he said.
He said oh, I've written manypapers on seagrass, so let me
give you a very quick example.
He said if you plant threetrees next to each other, after
30 years there'll be one treeleft because they're competing
for nutrients and light and rainand all that stuff.
When you plant seagrass, after30 years there's a billion of
(28:59):
them.
They're clonal.
If you plant them, they're likea tree on its side.
They grow this way and this way.
Okay, and they grow at anexponential rate.
So you're saying horizontallyand down and down, because they
sequester carbon down and theygrow in this way.
So you have the biomass in thesoil, the sediments.
(29:20):
Seagrass grows as long as youhave space, it grows.
That's the work of Carlos andothers, well-established.
And so they grow exponentiallyfor 50 years, then at a constant
rate forever.
As long as you have space, theykeep growing, which is
incredible.
And when they're growingthey're sequestering carbon.
(29:43):
In fact, all living systemsright Seagrass, mangroves, salt
marshes, trees we sequestercarbon also because this is what
makes our tissues so.
With Carlos, it was shockingbecause I had no idea that they
grow at an exponential rate andthey are sequestering carbon.
(30:05):
Now, I've never seen atechnology that grows
exponentially for 50 years andat the constant rate forever.
And I said okay, if weunderstand your science, we can
take that and mathematicallycalculate what is the value of
seagrass living for itself?
Again, this is a new language Iuse just to highlight that
(30:29):
we're not talking about seagrassin an aquarium or seagrass in a
lab.
This is seagrass just existing.
It's over a trillion dollars injust carbon sequestration Over
a trillion, over a trillion, andI'll explain to you in much
more detail.
This is work with codloss.
(30:51):
But when you have healthyseagrass, you have healthy fish
stock.
Why?
Because fish love to hide inthere and lay their eggs, and
the Australians had alreadyknown that.
Because if you go to theirwebsite, great Barrier Reef,
they have the data.
Just take a look at the data.
You see.
When you have healthy seagrass,you have healthy fish stock, so
you can calculate the delta inthe fish and you know the price
(31:12):
of fish.
You multiply that you havehealthy seagrass.
You have healthy fish stock, soyou can calculate the delta in
the fish and you know the priceof fish.
You multiply that, you get thevalue from enhanced fisheries
and when you have healthyseagrass, it staves off flooding
.
How valuable is that?
Well, we know exactly how to dothat, because if you didn't
have seagrass, you'd have tobuild seawalls, and you know the
cost of that.
(31:32):
And didn't have seagrass, you'dhave to build seawalls, and you
know the cost of that.
And when you have healthyseagrass, it has a knock-on
effect on corals because itpurifies the water.
So suddenly, seagrass is notabout carbon.
Seagrass is all these services,ecosystem services right that
are provided just from seagrass,existing for itself.
(31:53):
Of course.
Now you look back at some ofthe resorts I used to frequent
where people would complain tothe management that their feet
touch the seagrass.
And you see those guys in themorning chopping away at
seagrass.
Seagrass is gold.
Mangroves are another system,but mangroves are trees and they
(32:15):
don't grow laterally, they growvertically and so they're
physiologically different thansea grass.
They also sequester a hugeamount of carbon in the soil and
in the biomass, but theirbiomass up to a point, about 10
years, and that's it.
Then, whatever they grab, theyrelease.
So you need to know thephysiology.
(32:38):
But once you know thephysiology of whatever you're
interested in, you can start tocalculate the value from carbon
sequestration, if you like, onlyto highlight the value of the
living system for itself.
So we went from we started withvaluation of services, just the
carbon for Wales and back ofthe envelope, just to bring this
(33:01):
utilization to humans, to us,especially in the markets,
especially to my guild, thewhat's in it for me crowd Right.
They had no idea and I rememberthe shock that everybody, when I
was doing this work, somepeople thought I went nuts.
I'll say why are you doing thiswork?
Like no, no, it's not why.
(33:23):
The question is is this theonly work I want to do?
Why did I waste my time doinganything else?
Because this is our life, thisis our home.
This is what all my training was, I guess was all about is to
apply all these techniques tounderstand the value of the
(33:44):
living nature to our health,wealth and prosperity.
So we went through whales,elephants, to seagrass, to salt
marshes, mangroves, forests.
Of course we all know aboutforests and planting, but it's
not really about planting trees,it's about the life in the
forest, it's about theinteraction of fauna and flora.
I mean, when we talk about theelephants, the elephants are
(34:06):
interacting with the trees, withthe soil.
That richness of life turns outto be not only intrinsically
valuable but financiallyvaluable to our system.
Now, once the science tells younature is valuable and you can
calculate some aspects of thatvalue in dollar amount, what can
(34:26):
you do with it?
Because some people getfrustrated when you tell them
well, you know, just, carbon is2 million, 1 million, whatever
the number is, or an elephant.
They say what do I do with this?
So that's the next questionthat we had to face, right Is
what can you do with that?
And the idea can we buildmarkets around the protection
(34:47):
and restoration of nature?
And this is where we are rightnow.
We have projects all over theworld.
We have projects on seagrass,for example.
There's a huge project in theBahamas.
So let me just give you an ideahow these things can be
translated Bahamas and this isthe work of Carlos Duarte and a
(35:08):
group called Beneath the Waves,and they published that work in
nature.
What they did?
It was an ingenious way.
So Bahamas is a small islandand they wanted to know how much
seagrass they had.
But it's very expensive to youknow, to do the mapping.
But these guys were ingenious.
They came up with this idea.
(35:28):
They said, yeah, if we usesubmersibles or humans or
technology, it's going to costmoney.
But you know, guess what?
What feeds on seagrass?
Sea turtles.
And what feeds on sea turtles?
Tiger sharks.
So they came up with thisingenious idea they outfitted
tiger sharks with 365 cameras.
(35:50):
Now, what year was this?
2021.
The paper came up in 2021 inNature Journal.
It's called Using Tiger Sharksto Map the Largest Seafloor
Meadow in the World and Ivisited that boat where they
brought the sharks.
And it's not a trivial exerciseand it's quite dangerous, right
(36:14):
, you bring them on board andthen you outfit them with the
camera and you let them loose.
Now the nice thing about it isthe tiger sharks swim about 80
kilometers a day and they don'tneed to come up for breath and
they don't take breaks and theydon't charge you for their
services.
So they map the seafloor of theBahamas in no time and guess
what they found?
(36:34):
They found that the Bahamas issitting on 93,000 square
kilometers of seagrass.
93,000 square kilometers ofseagrass Now let me give you
something to compare it to.
All of Spain is 1,600 squarekilometers of seagrass.
That's to give you an idea ofwhat we're talking about.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (36:56):
That's a big difference.
Ralph Chami (36:58):
Yeah Right.
So I was brought down toBahamas to meet the prime
minister.
At the time it was about threeyears ago.
In the room there were thescientists and the officials and
the prime minister says,basically, why are you here?
I mean, why am I talking to you?
And I said well, you're 93,000square kilometers.
(37:23):
You used to have about 140,000000.
You've lost quite a bit due tohuman activity, but that delta
is worth about 150 billiondollars.
Just the delta, just the delta.
Now imagine saying that to a, anisland that has been decimated
by the hurricane, and puttingthem in debt, huge debt to GDP,
(37:48):
where they're one foot away fromoblivion, and you're coming and
saying, potentially you couldbe, per capita, the richest
country on the face of theplanet, because there are only,
I think, 350,000 of them.
So you divide 150, that's inrevenue and that's just carbon.
We're not talking about fish.
We're not talking about fish.
We're not talking aboutanything else.
(38:08):
So I was asked is this magic?
I said no, sir, this is magical, but it's not magic, it's pure
finance.
One plus one is still two.
I was asked why.
Now I said well, let's thinkabout it.
The Gulf countries sat on ablack goo for a thousand years
(38:32):
until somebody, let's say MrFord, needed to move their car
from point A to point B and theyneeded that black goo.
That's called demand.
And they were sitting on thesupply of the black goo and they
said to Mr Ford, you can havethe black goo, but at $100 a
barrel and what you get is anoil market.
(38:54):
So the world needs nature tofight climate change.
That's the demand.
Your island is sitting on thesupply side.
By protecting and restoringyour seagrass, we can strike a
deal with the demand side if wecan agree on a price.
(39:16):
So what does that mean?
The world or the companies thatwant to go carbon neutral,
carbon negative, carbon zero,net zero, can pay you to protect
and restore the seagrass meadowand the carbon that accrues
from that would actually helpthem match what they need.
And thus you create an economyaround it, exactly, but economy
(39:39):
around what?
Around the protection andrestoration of nature, around
enhancing resilience in nature.
Because when you enhanceresilience in nature, you
stabilize people on their land.
Because what people fail tounderstand is when nature is
stressed and you have forestfires and you have droughts and
floods, people are on the moveWithin their boundaries, outside
(40:02):
their countries, into theregions.
They can take boats and try tofind refuge anywhere they can.
So creating resilience innature stabilizes people on
their land, you see.
And at the same time, when youinvest in nature, your health is
going to be better.
So it has many other effects,you know positive spillover
(40:24):
effects.
So this is really the conceptbehind it is there's demand for
nature.
And here allow me just toexplain one thing that I find a
lot of people I even wrote apaper about it with my
colleagues just to help peopleunderstand when they met the
(40:45):
Kyoto Protocols and then theParis Agreement of 2015 to fight
climate change and they said weneed to reduce emissions.
It wasn't only reducingemissions, we need to reduce the
stock of carbon that is sittingup in the atmosphere.
So for hundreds of years we'vebeen destroying nature and
(41:06):
pushing that carbon that used tobe in the ground to become
carbon dioxide, bellowing upinto the atmosphere.
That carbon dioxide doesn't goanywhere, it's just sitting
there.
So think of a tub, think of atub.
Sky is a tub and carbon dioxideis just accumulating there from
emissions, destruction ofnature, pulling oil and gas out
(41:30):
of the ground, burning the oilright, and that carbon dioxide,
the smoke stacks.
That carbon has been there forhundreds of years.
That's the tub.
It's full, but there's a faucetand that faucet is still
dripping more carbon dioxideinto that tub.
That is your emissions.
Which means what If you were toshut off all emissions?
(41:53):
Today, miraculously, somebodyorders the world to stop carbon
dioxide emissions.
We're not done.
Why?
Because the tub is full and thetub needs to be drained.
And the only way to drain thetub is to bring back the nature
that we have lost, becausemother nature has been around
(42:15):
for 4 billion years.
She knows how to do this if yougive her a chance.
Now, of course, boys with toys,the alpha males among us, they
like to play with toys.
They think it's all abouttechnology, that's fine.
So they want to build machinesthat will grab carbon.
But first of all, thosemachines are tiny.
They're not going to make anydifference, and grabbing carbon
(42:38):
is not the issue, it'ssequestering carbon permanently,
because when nature grabs thatcarbon, puts it in the soil.
It doesn't go anywhere, unlesshumans, or in the ocean, unless
humans tinker with it.
You see, so we need nature,right?
Because I see people talk aboutwe need to reduce emissions and
I keep saying it's not enough.
We need two levers, we need toshut off the valve and we need
(43:04):
to drain the tub.
We need to shut off the valveand we need to drain the tub.
Draining the tub is about whatall my work and my colleagues'
work is about is the protectionand restoration of Mother Nature
, blue and green fauna and flora, along, of course, with
reducing our emissions throughalternative technologies, solar
(43:25):
and all that.
That's all good, that's allgood, but it's not enough.
And this is science.
This is not Ralph's opinion.
This is what scientists havebeen saying.
But unfortunately, when you hearit on the news and you hear,
people get confused.
They think, oh, I'm riding mybicycle today and I'm saying,
dude, that ain't enough.
How are you going to pull thatcarbon out of the atmosphere?
(43:46):
So the forest fires inCalifornia and the heating up
and all this, it's not from theemission, it's from the 450
parts per million that aresitting up there going nowhere.
Nowhere.
They're heating up the earthand it's not because there's
carbon up there.
There's always been carbon up.
(44:06):
There's a cycle, there's acarbon cycle.
It goes up and comes back in.
We disturb that cycle and wepush more carbon.
That should be, that isconducive for human life that
used to be in the ocean or onthe ground, in the forests,
right in the soil, in thebiomass.
We pushed it up into theatmosphere.
So this whole thing is aboutrebalancing our relationship
(44:32):
with our home nature and witheach other.
It's like the return of theprodigal child, if you like.
And while we still have time,so imagine for Bahamas.
Bahamas is a Caribbean country.
Many of these are islandeconomies struggled with that.
(44:53):
Their economies depend on twothings tourism and being an
offshore center.
Well, as they discovered fromCOVID, tourism is a fickle
friend.
When there's a recession, whenthere's a COVID God forbid
another one tourists disappear.
So there are no dollars.
So now you fall back on.
(45:14):
Are you an offshore center?
Well, that is changingdramatically due to stricter
laws and regulations and oninternational taxation, all that
stuff.
So all these economies,vulnerable economies, are
looking for a new source ofincome, new source of revenue,
and the only thing that ispeddled to them is sell your
(45:34):
soul, destroy your nature, allowextraction, destroy your
forests, dig for more oil andgas, dig for minerals, because
that's the only model we knowyou see more oil and gas.
Dig for minerals because that'sthe only model we know, you see
.
So for them it's a trade-offQuality of life versus dollars.
(45:55):
I can pay back a debt that Iwill never be able to pay back,
never.
None of them have been able tocome out of their debt.
So what we come along and say,hey, hey, hey, you may not need
to do this.
This because by protecting andrestoring your nature, you will
make more money in perpetuity.
You create resilience in yournature, better health, better
environment, you stabilizepeople on their land, you
(46:17):
alleviate poverty, ensure foodsecurity.
That's the proposition with theBahamas, with all of these
island economies.
They can look at what they have, what they used to have, and
how to restore it and make useof the need that on the demand
side of the equation, there areall these companies that have
(46:37):
made commitments to be bettercitizens of this world.
Now you may say, well, thereare politics involved.
There's a yes, yes, of course,but in Europe there's something
called nature restoration law.
It was passed on February 27 oflast year, ratified by all
countries in the EU sphere.
In the UK, there's somethingcalled net nature gain.
(46:59):
So the regulators are nowcoming and saying, hey, hey,
it's not about carbon, it's whatabout is your net impact on
nature?
Leigh Anne Lindsey (47:08):
I was just going to say, if we could only
get the United States to alsofollow in these footsteps.
Ralph Chami (47:14):
Well, I'll tell you what you know.
I used to complain to my mom.
You know he's not doing this,he's not doing that.
She used to say do your job.
Do your job at your level, therest is not yours to worry about
.
Companies are feeling the bruntof it.
Let's just simplify it.
(47:35):
Insurance companies are walkingout of California, as you know.
Texas, florida, alabama,mississippi I mean, I have
friends in California.
They can't sell their homeanymore.
You're paying a mortgage on anasset that has a negative value.
If you're the bank that holdsthat mortgage, you have a
stranded asset.
(47:55):
If you have a car dealership inthat locality, good luck
selling cars.
So businesses, whether you knowregulation or whether the
politics of the day or thisbusinesses are feeling it
through their balance sheet, yousee.
So the insurance companies.
Because they can raise thepremium, but at a certain level.
(48:17):
No premium is going tocompensate you for the
possibility of fires orpossibility of floods or
whatever it is.
So they move up and now youhave communities that are what?
Leigh Anne Lindsey (48:29):
do, they do and they're all around us A lot
of people that we know.
Ralph Chami (48:35):
Each one of us knows someone who's been
affected either by the floods,or by the drought, or by the
mudslides, or it's affectingeveryone.
The reason the action isdelayed is because the pain is
not uniform.
If the pain, the level of pain,was uniform across all of us on
this land, on this beautifulland, we'd have acted much
(48:56):
sooner.
But it happens, you see, inCalifornia, and you say to
yourself, well, I'm inPennsylvania, it happens in
Oklahoma, and you say, yeah, butI'm in Montana.
But guess what?
And this thing is following youeverywhere and by the time it
arrives at your door it's toolate.
But that's the job of us thatare looking at the forest for
(49:19):
the trees to say, hey, it ishappening, we can see it in the
business.
So I focus on the market side,because I'm seeing it being
priced now in the markets andwhat we want to do is engage in
a positive way, because peopleare scared right now, no matter
what the politics are, becausethey know something ain't right.
(49:40):
My concern is remember.
I mean, I was raised by theJesuits, right?
So it's always these stories inmy head.
There's Isaiah's story when hewas trying to get his people to
behave, if you still rememberthose stories right.
And he's telling them tomorrowyou shall die because of your
debauchery.
I scared them so much.
They said we're going to dietomorrow.
(50:01):
He said yes.
I said good, let's have a bigparty today.
So good, let's have a big partytoday.
So if you scare people too much, they're going to tune us out.
That's why, when I talk topeople, I say this story has a
happy ending and I truly believein the human capability,
because we got ourselves intothis predicament.
We know how to get ourselvesout of it.
Right, when we caused the ozonelayer gap, we got together and
(50:22):
we said we cannot continue likethis.
And guess what?
That hole is shrinking.
We removed all the gases, thefree on, all this stuff that was
causing the damage.
So we know how to do this.
At least we know what to stopdoing.
It's just a matter of do wehave the will and the courage
and the leadership?
I mean, after all, you reallydon't want to be like Alice in
(50:44):
Wonderland, right?
Remember Alice when she gotlost and she bumped into the cat
and she said show me the way.
And the cat said where do youwant to go?
And Alice says what if I don'tknow?
And then the beautiful answercomes out says then what
difference does it make?
So you see, we need a vision ofhow we want to live for
tomorrow.
(51:05):
We want a vision of how we wantto live for tomorrow.
We want a vision of how we wantto live in tomorrow for
tomorrow.
Once you have that vision, thenyou can come up with the
actions that are needed.
So the people need to see avision.
So what we do right when I workwith the Bahamas, or I work
with BVI, or all these countrieswe work in and communities
(51:26):
First is the vision.
Where do you wanna go?
There's another project withour own, here, in our own
backyard.
Native Americans are bringingback what they refer to as the
buffalo, the bison.
So in a conversation with themI asked why are you bringing
them back?
And the answer was for social,cultural and health reasons.
(51:47):
Because that was their diet.
Also, turns out, and I visitedthe Wind River Reservation the
Shoshones and the Arapahos arethere.
And we also went to Montana,where the black feet are.
And what do you observe whenyou see the bison in their own
element, that seedling that hasbeen dormant for 150 years,
recognized the original tenant,came back, that grass.
(52:10):
It's amazing because of course,you can explain it
physiologically, what thesecreatures are doing, but
basically what it is.
You see the tall grass comingback, which used to be there.
So bringing back the bisonbrings back the grass, and that
means the soil is healthier, anda healthier soil, like
(52:30):
everything else, sequesters morecarbon.
Now, if you can figure out howmuch carbon is being added into
the soil due to the bringingback the bison, you can
calculate the carbon credits, oryou can call them biodiversity
credits, because that's nowfauna and flora interacting with
(52:51):
each other, and you can sellthat Again.
Just like you're restoringseagrass, restoring forests,
you're restoring grassland, andthe money that would come in
would allow the Native Americansto buy back their land which is
what they're doing and buy backthe needed bison for their land
(53:12):
, and you create a virtuouscycle, you see, so this is a
project that we've signed onwith all of Native tribes, all
93 tribes in the United States,starting in Montana all the way
into Canada, actually, with theBlackfoot Nation.
Okay so, but what it is isagain, it's the same thing is
(53:34):
bringing back nature that usedto be there.
It's restoration protection,and then you pick up the
benefits of it and you create avirtuous cycle.
Now, three principles are alwaysin our work.
You never sell the asset itself, so the seagrass of Bahamas is
never sold.
So when we go to the Bahamas orin BVI or whichever country
(53:57):
we're operating in, or whicheverindigenous people, local
communities, we say never sellthe underlying.
And they'll say why?
Because you don't know the truevalue of it.
All you have is some idea aboutthe carbon value.
But when you have a healthynature, it's doing a lot more
than sequestering carbon, as wejust discussed.
So why would you want to sellit?
(54:22):
Two, the money has to come backfrom the sale of the credits,
has to come back to look afterthis nature in perpetuity.
Why?
Because it's only this naturethat's alive and well and doing
well is what's sequestered incarbon.
So the seagrass, by being aliveand thriving, is grabbing the
carbon, enhancing the fisheries,staving off flooding.
So you need that money from thesale of those credits have to
(54:45):
be that money from the sale ofthose credits have to be
directed towards the protectionand restoration of this.
And third, and if not mostimportant, if you don't look
after the people that look afterthe land, you're going to fail.
So indigenous people and localcommunity.
The stewards of nature have tobe part and parcel of this
(55:06):
project, not as recipients,because no one wants to receive
something for nothing.
They want to be part of this.
After all, they are part of it.
It's just a recognition oftheir part, learning from them,
working with them, creatingrelationships and learning from
each other, and therefore theybenefit from these projects.
(55:27):
So be it.
We're working with the maori,we're working with the native
americans, working with thebahamas, we have projects all
over and indonesia and so forth.
It's the same.
Three concepts, threeprinciples have to be adhered to
never sell the, the underlying.
The money has to come back, andI don't usually when we do this
(55:49):
, I don't take anybody's wordfor it.
It has to be verifiable, it hasto be transparent, it has to be
accountable.
It has to stand the test ofwho's watching the watch person,
who's certifying the certifier.
Leigh Anne Lindsey (56:05):
And that's the end of part one of two.
Ralph Chami is a member ofPlanetary Guardians and is chief
economist for Wave and servesas senior advisor to a number of
companies and NGOs, includingColossal, hena, moana, holo and
Oceanus.
Ralph has a BS from theAmerican University of Beirut,
(56:29):
an MBA in Finance and Statisticsfrom the University of Kansas
and a PhD in Economics from theJohn Hopkins University.
He is a professional musicianand songwriter and his latest
musical collaboration is on theshort film called Moana.
As co-founder and CEO, blueGreen Future, ralph is currently
(56:51):
working on climate change andnature and biodiversity laws,
developing a new framework forvaluing natural capital to build
an equitable andnature-positive economy.
He has developed a new fieldcalled science-based finance and
is leading and advising onprojects around the globe,
(57:12):
working with SIDs, indigenouspeoples in the South Pacific and
Native American tribes in theUS, as well as governments in
Indonesia, the Philippines,saudi Arabia, among others.
(57:38):
Thanks for listening to theResilient Earth podcast, where
we talk about critical issuesand positive actions for our
planet.
Resilient Earth is produced byPlanet Centric Media, a 501c3
non-profit, and Seastorm StudiosInc, located on the rugged
North Sonoma Coast of NorthernCalifornia.
I'm Leanne Lindsey, producerand host, along with co-hosts
(58:03):
and co-producers Scott and TreeMercer of Mendonoma Whale and
Seal Study, located on the SouthMendocino and North Sonoma
coasts.
The music for this podcast isby Eric Allaman, an
international composer, pianistand writer living in the Sea
Ranch.
Pianist and writer living inthe Sea Ranch.
(58:25):
Discover more of his music,animations, ballet, stage and
film work at ericallaman.
com.
You can find Resilient Earth onSpotify, apple and Amazon
podcasts, iheartradio, youtube,soundcloud and wherever you find
(58:46):
your podcasts.
Please support us bysubscribing or donating to our
cause.
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