Great simplification pulsing lines

#5 | Frankly

FAQs on Episodes 1-25

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Frankly

On this segment of Frankly, Nate’s former student Lizzy curates and asks some of the most frequently asked questions sent in by listeners during The Great Simplification episodes 1-25. How should we be educating people on energy? What types of fossil alternatives are really feasible? Is a climate disaster the most pertinent and existential risk that we face? Nate gives his answers to these questions, and more. (A trial format for an AMA or live broadcast in future?)

In French, we have a motto that says that a simple drawing is often better than a long explanation. Jean-Marc Jancovici Carbone 4 President

That’s very understandable because with left atmosphere thinking, one of the problems is that you see everything as a series of problems that must have solutions. Iain McGilchrist Neuroscientist and Philosopher

We can’t have hundreds and hundreds of real relationships that are healthy because that requires time and effort and full attention and awareness of being in real relationship and conversation with the other human. Nate Hagens Director of ISEOF

This is the crux of the whole problem. Individual parts of nature are more valuable than the biocomplexity of nature. Thomas Crowther Founder Restor

Show Notes & Links to Learn More

01:30 – Energy Blindness

01:47 – Joe Tainter TGS Podcast and Collapse of Complex Societies

03:50 – Germany’s energy transition plan and its reliance on natural gas

05:37 – George Soros vs Bank of England

05:57 – One barrel of oil does 5 years of human labor (Section 4.3)

07:50 – The average American uses 100X more energy than your body needs in food

09:37 – Peak Oil in November 2018

09:50 – New Economic Growth high

10:25 – All the products that come from a barrel of oil

10:41 – China is the biggest oil importer in the world

11:55 – Peak Demand myth

11:45 – Peak oil production growth was in the 1970s

15:18 – 20% of global energy use is electric

15:53 – Nuclear is either on or off aka ‘flat’

16:28 – It take 10 years to build a nuclear plant

16:50 – We are doubling debt every 8.5 years and doubling GDP every 25 years

17:23 – Simon Michaux TGS Podcast

19:15 – Overshoot

19:45 – How much of a risk do people think climate is around the world?

20:10 – IPCC Climate resources (moderate action scenario)

22:02 – The Uninhabitable Earth

22:25 – The effects of 2-2.5 degree celsius increase and effects of incremental increases

23:25 – Biological feedbacks affecting climate

23:27 – The Amazon is becoming a carbon source

23:40 – Greece’s forestry response during the Great Recession

28:58 – Oil priced at negative dollars/barrel (2020)

29:56 – Oil is needed for all aspects of the supply chain

30:06 – Drawing down strategic oil reserves to 40 year low

30:36 – There’s nothing left after shale oil

31:18 – Human biases

34:02 – DJ White

37:35 – 2022 Earth Day Talk

41:17 – Doomerism

51:28 – Chuck Watson TGS Podcast 1 + 2 + Frankly

Download transcript
Back to episodes
Frankly#109 | Peak Oil, Ponzi Pyramids, and Planetary Boundaries

In this week’s Frankly, Nate returns from New York City Climate Week with fresh reflections on the disconnect between our economic narratives and biophysical realities. Using his background in finance, Nate observes that while the prioritization of financial abstractions and claims continue to accelerate, with gold and silver prices reaching record-setting highs, the ledger is being balanced with parallel declines in our planetary health and social resilience. This tradeoff is harder and harder to ignore as newly crossed planetary boundaries continue alerting us to the fact that we are operating outside of our Earth’s ability to maintain biospheric stability.

Watch nowOct 3, 2025
Frankly#108 | The Influence of Psychopaths: Why Humanity Is Better Than We Think

In this week’s Frankly, in a continuation of his ‘This Week's Learnings’ series, Nate  updates viewers on things he learned in the past week, and the implications for our sociocultural trajectory. This edition focuses on recent financial and political headlines – global gold holdings, shifting geopolitical energy deals, and new U.S. Department of Energy reports – and explains their relevance to our biophysical reality and broader geopolitical landscape. Through this exercise, Nate invites podcast viewers to use a systems lens to integrate the wide array of news we are bombarded with into the large evolving story of The Human Predicament.

Watch nowSep 26, 2025
Frankly#107 | This Week’s Learnings: Gold Holdings, Political Divides, and the DOE Climate Report

In this week’s Frankly, in a continuation of his ‘This Week's Learnings’ series, Nate  updates viewers on things he learned in the past week, and the implications for our sociocultural trajectory. This edition focuses on recent financial and political headlines – global gold holdings, shifting geopolitical energy deals, and new U.S. Department of Energy reports – and explains their relevance to our biophysical reality and broader geopolitical landscape. Through this exercise, Nate invites podcast viewers to use a systems lens to integrate the wide array of news we are bombarded with into the large evolving story of The Human Predicament.

Watch nowSep 12, 2025

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