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Well, Your Excellencies, ladies and
gentlemen, honoured guests,

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thank you so much indeed for joining us in
the Digital Theatre of Arts,

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live down here at the World Government
Summit,

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and live at this year's much anticipated GX
Talks.

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We come together to educate, to debate, to
collaborate,

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and to rap a little bit as well by the sounds
of things as well.

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But listen, we come together to open our
minds.

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So, first and foremost, why are we here?

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Why in this packed arena?

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Well, GX Talks is, as you well know, a series
of dialogues.

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It's been created by the Government of Dubai

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to forge a platform that unites government
decision-makers,

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not just here in the region, but worldwide.

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Enthusiastic visionaries, many of whom are
with us here today,

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global practitioners, and of course, renowned
innovators,

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to do a lot of re-ing, to re-examine, to
redefine,

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and to re-look at the government experience
of the future.

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This is where we give you insight to the
future of government experience.

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So, 2018 is when we launched, and since the
inception there,

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GX Talks has hosted upwards of 35 sessions
now.

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Close to 60 thought leaders.

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We're about to add another 15 to that number
this afternoon.

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50 organisations have been recognised, 12
knowledge partners,

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and have achieved a global footprint in its
reach,

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a reach to educate, to debate, and to
collaborate.

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So, we ask you to sit back, to enjoy, to
listen,

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to a number of presentations, as I said, from
thought leaders and innovators.

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Open your mind, but also have your say.

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We've made it nice and easy for you,

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because all you have to do is scan to tweet.

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If you have not got this in your hand,

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if you've not thrown it on the floor, you've
probably sat on it,

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because it was on your seat.

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QR code, scan it, get involved.

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You've got all the hashtags there, the
handles that you can use

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to share your thoughts, to share your
opinions,

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and to get your thoughts over to the team.

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So, we can collate that as part of the
ongoing discussion.

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JxTalks continue to provide glimpses of the
future,

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highlights of integration of humanity and
technology

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and innovation in the times to come.

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So, without further ado, we thank you all for
joining us down here.

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For those that haven't been to an event like
JxTalks,

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we like a bit of pace, we like to keep things
moving.

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We've got, as I said, a number of opinions, a
number of speakers,

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who have flown in from no fewer...

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Well, all corners of the globe for this
particular event.

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It's great to have them here.

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So, in that keeping, we're going to move
things forward.

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There will be a little bit of a break, a
musical interlude, if you like,

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halfway through, an opportunity for you to
pop outside if you need,

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or do stick around and enjoy some traditional
Emirati music here

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in the theatre.

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And then, equally, at the end of it all,

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we'll get together for a bit of a powwow,

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a little bit of a matter, and some
networking.

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I think that's what they call it, outside
straight after.

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OK, so, without further ado,

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feel free to get involved, feel free to share
your thoughts,

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as we welcome the first of our speakers to
our stage down here

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in the Digital Theatre of Arts.

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And, as I said, we have a truly international
line-up for you today.

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And the first one is to...

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Well, it's titled, How to Control the
Weather, a Case Study

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into Supervillainy and Government as well.

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Fascinating title. Looking forward to this
one.

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I'm very much looking forward to the man who
is going to be presenting.

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Let's talk geoengineering, if we can.

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Let's get down with Ryan and some
geoengineering.

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He is a New York Times best-selling author.

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He is an Eisner Award-winning science writer.

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And he's all the seas, as well.

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He's a cartoonist, he's a computer
programmer,

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and he's a Canadian.

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He's with us here today. Put your hands
together for Ryan North!

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Hi, I'm Ryan North.

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I'm a writer of fiction and non-fiction and
all sorts of things,

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but a lot of what I do is comics.

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And if you haven't heard of me, that's
totally fine,

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but you've probably heard of characters I've
helped write,

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characters like Spider-Man,

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or the Fantastic Four, Johnny Storm, the
Avengers, Maria Hill.

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And I'll tell you a secret about writing
comics.

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And the secret is, the superheroes are fun,

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but the real fun are the villains.

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They're the charismatic ones,

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they're the ones who have actual plans to
change the world.

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And yeah, they're the bad guys,

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and yeah, they don't always succeed because
we make them lose as writers,

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but there's a lot of potential in what they
do,

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and there's a lot of fun in what they do.

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And a while back, I started thinking,

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well, how credible are these supervillain
takeover-the-world schemes?

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You're working in the real world with actual
science and technology.

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No shrink rays, no magic hammers. How close
can you get?

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And it turns out you can get really far.

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And I want to walk us through one of those
plots today.

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So this is a world domination scheme

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that is interesting, it's effective,

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it has a social good, and it is shockingly
affordable.

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So this is the How to Control the Weather, a
case study in supervillainy talk.

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But don't worry, we're all in the right
place.

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This is actually going to talk about
governance and governance too.

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So I'm a writer, you start with motivations.

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Why do you want to control the weather?

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Why would anyone want to control the weather?

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And that's pretty straightforward.

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We all live on Earth, all our stuff is here,

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but sometimes the weather makes it an
uncomfortable place to be.

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And this is an actual image of our planet
taken from Earth by NASA,

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where there are five simultaneous hurricanes
on it,

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with a sixth one developing.

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We could probably do better than that.

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But supervillains always want to think big.

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And if you're thinking big, you're thinking,

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well, can we go bigger than hurricanes?

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In fact, why are we talking about controlling
the weather

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when we could talk about controlling the
climate?

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Let's go as big as we possibly can.

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And here again, the motivation makes a lot of
sense.

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The climate has changed, it's the Industrial
Revolution,

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we put CO2 in the atmosphere,

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that's increased the level of atmospheric CO2
obviously,

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and that's caused temperatures to go up
globally.

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And if we want to take over, govern the
world,

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we want it to be a place where people aren't
fighting

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over increasingly scarce drinking water and
habitable land.

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So our motivations here are pretty clear.

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So where do you start with controlling the
climate?

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Where do you start with fixing this?

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And the obvious approach is, well, let's
clean it up.

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Let's take this CO2 and get rid of it.

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But there's a problem.

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And the problem is that carbon dioxide is
diffuse.

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Yes, it's 420 parts per million,

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but that's 0.04% of the atmosphere.

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That is one molecule in 2400.

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So carbon capture technology can work great

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in places like smokestacks where carbon
dioxide is really dense,

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but in the larger world,

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it's like trying to find a needle in a
planet-sized haystack.

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Bit of a challenge.

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So that's not going to work.

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What about trees?

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They're the original carbon capture
technology.

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Could we just plant a whole bunch of trees
and solve this problem?

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And the answer is, yeah, we could have a long
time ago.

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But today, to bring the atmospheric CO2 back
to pre-industrial levels

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would take 9 million square kilometres of
trees.

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To put that in perspective,

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that is two India's worth of surface area,

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or 40% of the Earth's habitable arable land.

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And you cannot get rid of almost half of
Earth's farmland

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without killing a bunch of people.

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So this is also, unfortunately, out.

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So what do we do?

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If we can't capture the carbon, if we can't
clean up by planting trees,

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how are we going to solve this problem?

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And I will tell you how we're going to solve
this problem like a supervillain.

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You, acting alone,

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are going to create a powerful and sustained
artificial volcano.

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And this is the best slide of any deck, the
volcano facts slide.

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When a large volcano erupts,

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it can change the Earth's climate in a couple
of ways.

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The first is by putting ash into the
troposphere.

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That's the part of the world,

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part of the atmosphere where we spend all our
time,

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it's where weather happens.

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And you can shoot ash up there to block the
sun,

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which works, but only for a little bit,

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because it falls back to Earth, rain washes
it out.

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What we want is someplace where there isn't
weather.

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What we want is someplace where these
materials could last for a really long time.

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What we want is the stratosphere.

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So this is the second way volcanic eruptions
can cool.

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They put sulfur dioxide up into the
stratosphere.

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When it's up there, it reacts with water.

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And this reaction produces sulfuric acid.

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Sulfuric acid, once it's up there, interacts
with dust in the stratosphere,

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coalesces around it.

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Sulfuric acid plus dust gives you an aerosol.

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An aerosol is really just a white haze that's
sitting up there in the stratosphere.

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And what a white haze does is it reflects
sunlight.

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So sunlight comes towards this white haze,

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bounces off it back into space before it can
warm the ground that we're on,

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and this produces a cooling climate and a
slightly dimmer one.

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And the advantage we have is it only takes a
2% reduction in light

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to bring global temperatures back to
pre-industrial levels.

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Better still, stuff in the stratosphere can
hang out there for a year or more

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before it falls back to Earth.

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So we're doing great.

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00:09:59,679 --> 00:10:01,960
And you might think, if you know your
science, you might think,

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00:10:02,039 --> 00:10:07,559
hey, Ryan, this sounds an awful lot like what
happened to the dinosaurs

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00:10:07,639 --> 00:10:11,480
when a giant asteroid hit and it blocked out
the sun, and didn't they all die?

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00:10:11,559 --> 00:10:15,360
And the answer is yes, but we will just be
more careful than that.

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So, what is our plan?

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00:10:18,560 --> 00:10:19,879
Easy four steps.

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00:10:19,960 --> 00:10:22,159
Step one, we need a chemical precursor.

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00:10:22,240 --> 00:10:25,919
This can be sulfur dioxide, this can be
ammonium sulfate,

200
00:10:26,000 --> 00:10:28,800
this can be anything that produces a white
haze.

201
00:10:28,879 --> 00:10:30,120
We'll do it for us.

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00:10:31,639 --> 00:10:35,639
Step two is to get it up.

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Sorry, my deck is not moving ahead.

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There we go.

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00:10:41,279 --> 00:10:45,360
Step two is to get the chemicals up into the
atmosphere.

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00:10:45,439 --> 00:10:49,360
Step three is to spray them out in tiny
droplets to make an aerosol.

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00:10:49,439 --> 00:10:52,799
And step four is to repeat this once a year.

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And that's it.

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We have successfully taken a warming climate

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and replaced it with a cooling one.

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Problem solved forever.

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00:11:01,639 --> 00:11:02,759
Or so you might think.

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00:11:02,839 --> 00:11:05,319
But you might think, Ryan, there's got to be
some roadblocks here.

214
00:11:05,399 --> 00:11:06,759
You're cheating somewhere.

215
00:11:06,839 --> 00:11:08,799
Maybe making sulfur dioxide is hard.

216
00:11:08,879 --> 00:11:10,519
How do we make sulfur dioxide?

217
00:11:10,599 --> 00:11:12,159
And the answer is, it's really easy.

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00:11:12,240 --> 00:11:17,199
It's the only output of reacting sulfur with
oxygen.

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00:11:17,279 --> 00:11:19,199
You burn it, you get sulfur dioxide.

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Done.

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00:11:20,759 --> 00:11:24,879
So you might think, OK, well, maybe getting
sulfur is hard.

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00:11:24,959 --> 00:11:27,519
Maybe it's not an easy material to find.

223
00:11:27,599 --> 00:11:29,559
And again, it's not a problem.

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00:11:29,639 --> 00:11:31,839
It's the 10th most common element in the
universe.

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00:11:31,919 --> 00:11:34,079
It is the 5th most common element on Earth.

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00:11:34,159 --> 00:11:36,959
And it is the 4th most common element by
weight.

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This stuff is everywhere.

228
00:11:41,000 --> 00:11:43,320
So we're doing good for sulfur.

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Everywhere.

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00:11:49,120 --> 00:11:52,480
But then you might think, OK, Ryan, I still
think you're cheating.

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00:11:52,560 --> 00:11:54,560
How are we going to move the sulfur dioxide
in the stratosphere?

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00:11:54,639 --> 00:11:55,960
Because you glossed over this earlier,

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00:11:56,040 --> 00:11:59,240
but the stratosphere is 20 kilometres
straight up.

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How are we going to get it there?

235
00:12:00,879 --> 00:12:05,960
And if you know your planes, you'd think
planes only go 14 kilometres straight up.

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00:12:06,000 --> 00:12:07,680
They stay in the troposphere.

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00:12:07,759 --> 00:12:09,240
And all this is true.

238
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However, the US government stands ready to
assist us

239
00:12:12,519 --> 00:12:15,759
with the Lockheed U-2 high-altitude aircraft

240
00:12:15,840 --> 00:12:19,040
that has an operational ceiling of 21
kilometres straight up

241
00:12:19,120 --> 00:12:21,400
well into the stratosphere.

242
00:12:21,480 --> 00:12:25,040
And because this is existing technology, we
know how much it would cost.

243
00:12:25,120 --> 00:12:28,840
For 24 planes, which is what it would take to
produce this haze,

244
00:12:28,920 --> 00:12:32,040
it would take about 7 billion US dollars to
buy the planes

245
00:12:32,120 --> 00:12:35,280
and to convert them to spray gas out into the
stratosphere.

246
00:12:35,319 --> 00:12:36,839
Plus, since this has to be done yearly,

247
00:12:36,919 --> 00:12:39,959
you have about 2 billion dollars in yearly
operational costs.

248
00:12:40,039 --> 00:12:41,959
If you don't like planes, there's other
options.

249
00:12:42,039 --> 00:12:45,439
You could do a hot air balloon with a hose
sending it up to Earth.

250
00:12:45,519 --> 00:12:47,879
Not super practical, but it could work.

251
00:12:47,959 --> 00:12:50,079
If you want to think like a Canadian,

252
00:12:50,159 --> 00:12:54,120
in the 50s, we worked on cannons, giant
cannons,

253
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to launch satellites into orbit.

254
00:12:56,120 --> 00:12:59,000
And they didn't work, but they did reach the
stratosphere.

255
00:12:59,079 --> 00:13:02,839
So you could shell the skies themselves

256
00:13:02,920 --> 00:13:08,759
with sulfur dioxide to solve this problem.

257
00:13:08,840 --> 00:13:11,440
It's not going to be as cost-effective as a
plane,

258
00:13:11,519 --> 00:13:15,160
but it's a very charismatic, supervillainy
way to do this.

259
00:13:15,240 --> 00:13:22,240
So, 2 billion dollars in yearly costs plus 7
billion dollars in start-up costs.

260
00:13:22,320 --> 00:13:24,879
This is a shockingly affordable scheme

261
00:13:24,960 --> 00:13:28,400
within the personal wealth of many people
alive today.

262
00:13:28,480 --> 00:13:32,400
And when you compare it to the cost of
unmitigated climate change,

263
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which is 600 trillion US dollars, this is a
stone-cold steel.

264
00:13:39,600 --> 00:13:44,279
So you might think, this is easy, this is
affordable,

265
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this uses existing technology and this solves
a literal problem.

266
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Why hasn't anyone done it yet?

267
00:13:49,360 --> 00:13:50,959
Which brings us to the downsides.

268
00:13:51,039 --> 00:13:53,240
And I promise they're not what you think.

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You might think, okay, if you stop seeding
the skies,

270
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then everything catches up all at once in the
space of a year.

271
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All climate change happens right in that
year.

272
00:14:02,720 --> 00:14:05,560
And you're right, maintaining this haze

273
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requires constant technological intervention.

274
00:14:08,720 --> 00:14:11,400
But so does farming.

275
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If we stopped using nitrogen,

276
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we would not produce enough food to feed
everyone alive today.

277
00:14:15,759 --> 00:14:17,879
We as a species have long ago decided

278
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that it's worth relying on our ingenuity to
keep everyone alive.

279
00:14:21,400 --> 00:14:24,200
So that's not really a concern.

280
00:14:24,280 --> 00:14:27,240
You might think, okay, well, what about acid
rain?

281
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That could happen by putting sulfuric acid in
the stratosphere

282
00:14:29,919 --> 00:14:32,079
and yes, that would happen.

283
00:14:32,159 --> 00:14:35,399
But the effects of that are hours of
magnitude less

284
00:14:35,479 --> 00:14:36,399
than that of climate change.

285
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Like this is a win here.

286
00:14:38,519 --> 00:14:41,679
We're doing less damage than we could.

287
00:14:41,759 --> 00:14:44,079
You might say, okay, we've never altered the
atmosphere before.

288
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And this is true, there's uncertainty in
doing this.

289
00:14:47,279 --> 00:14:50,079
But you don't have to alter the atmosphere if
you don't want to.

290
00:14:50,159 --> 00:14:53,719
You could always just put giant mirrors in
space

291
00:14:53,799 --> 00:14:56,719
to reflect sunlight away from the Earth

292
00:14:56,759 --> 00:15:00,360
and keep everyone cooling it down that way.

293
00:15:00,440 --> 00:15:03,800
The issue is that there's always going to be
uncertainty.

294
00:15:03,879 --> 00:15:05,800
We can't predict what will happen.

295
00:15:05,879 --> 00:15:07,320
And any technology can be misused.

296
00:15:07,399 --> 00:15:10,120
What if people turned those mirrors around

297
00:15:10,200 --> 00:15:12,320
and burned us all like ants?

298
00:15:12,399 --> 00:15:14,120
This would be a problem.

299
00:15:14,200 --> 00:15:17,120
So uncertainty is always there.

300
00:15:17,200 --> 00:15:19,600
But the real issue here, all these issues
aside,

301
00:15:19,680 --> 00:15:24,200
the real one is out of culpability.

302
00:15:24,280 --> 00:15:28,520
Who do we blame when something goes wrong?

303
00:15:28,600 --> 00:15:32,240
Who do we blame for the weather?

304
00:15:32,320 --> 00:15:38,520
Because today, when there's a tornado or a
flood or a drought,

305
00:15:38,600 --> 00:15:40,040
we call these acts of God

306
00:15:40,120 --> 00:15:43,640
because no human can be held responsible for
what happened there.

307
00:15:43,720 --> 00:15:45,320
Once you've changed the climate,

308
00:15:45,400 --> 00:15:50,720
when there's a tornado or a flood or a
drought,

309
00:15:50,840 --> 00:15:55,200
there will be people who blame you for doing
this

310
00:15:55,279 --> 00:15:58,080
because your actions have changed the global
climate,

311
00:15:58,160 --> 00:16:00,000
you've changed the global weather.

312
00:16:01,759 --> 00:16:03,480
This is not great.

313
00:16:03,560 --> 00:16:05,040
No one wants to be held responsible for that.

314
00:16:05,120 --> 00:16:06,600
You might say, can we mitigate this?

315
00:16:06,680 --> 00:16:11,360
What if we didn't bring the world
temperatures down to pre-industrial levels

316
00:16:11,440 --> 00:16:14,879
but just brought them, say, halfway?

317
00:16:14,960 --> 00:16:18,879
This would only affect water and about 1.3%
of land, which is great.

318
00:16:18,960 --> 00:16:21,240
Everything sounds good until you realise

319
00:16:21,320 --> 00:16:24,519
those people who've only helped half of the
way

320
00:16:24,600 --> 00:16:26,439
might blame you for not doing more.

321
00:16:26,519 --> 00:16:29,840
Why didn't you solve this all the way? Why
are we still suffering?

322
00:16:31,360 --> 00:16:33,000
It gets real messy real quick.

323
00:16:33,080 --> 00:16:35,159
That's even before there are people who think

324
00:16:35,240 --> 00:16:37,600
that if there is to be a global thermostat,

325
00:16:37,679 --> 00:16:40,840
why do you get to control it? Why don't I
control it?

326
00:16:40,919 --> 00:16:44,279
I am going to control it. I'm going to take
it from you.

327
00:16:45,279 --> 00:16:49,039
That's the challenge here and the problem

328
00:16:49,120 --> 00:16:52,480
is that this idea of geo-engineering,

329
00:16:52,559 --> 00:16:56,600
of changing the climate to solve climate
change technologically,

330
00:16:56,679 --> 00:16:58,600
works on paper,

331
00:17:00,000 --> 00:17:02,600
but it falls apart when you start to consider
human nature.

332
00:17:03,360 --> 00:17:05,559
What began with the best of intentions

333
00:17:05,639 --> 00:17:12,000
has instead become a recipe for war and chaos
and disaster.

334
00:17:12,759 --> 00:17:15,799
Because weather is now political

335
00:17:16,759 --> 00:17:21,960
and every natural disaster, now
unintentionally but irrevocably,

336
00:17:22,039 --> 00:17:24,519
has human desires behind it.

337
00:17:27,000 --> 00:17:30,000
In a perfect world, this would work, but we
don't live in a perfect world.

338
00:17:30,079 --> 00:17:32,559
We have humans all over us.

339
00:17:32,640 --> 00:17:35,079
Which brings us to the message I want to say.

340
00:17:35,160 --> 00:17:38,720
There are no technological solutions to
social problems.

341
00:17:38,799 --> 00:17:41,160
When you find something that seems to work,

342
00:17:41,279 --> 00:17:43,880
if you remove the human element out of it,

343
00:17:43,960 --> 00:17:48,240
what you actually have is something that's
creating more and worse problems.

344
00:17:48,320 --> 00:17:51,759
I hope when something comes across your desk,
a new technology,

345
00:17:51,840 --> 00:17:54,680
that promises to solve something and a lot of
them could work,

346
00:17:54,759 --> 00:18:00,000
whether it's geo-engineering, genetic
engineering,

347
00:18:00,080 --> 00:18:03,120
Web3, metaverse, blockchain, anything,

348
00:18:03,200 --> 00:18:07,400
any solution that only works when you take
the human out of it,

349
00:18:07,480 --> 00:18:09,240
isn't a solution at all.

350
00:18:09,240 --> 00:18:11,200
Thank you.