Climate Restoration: Andrew Crockett Talks with Peter Fiekowsky
I recently had the opportunity to discuss new approaches to current issues with climate restoration expert Peter Fiekowsky, founder of the Foundation for Climate Restoration. Being interested in a sustainable future for the Santa Clara County Assessor’s Office as well as the world, this is an important topic to me. Check out our discussion!
Note: this interview has been edited for clarity and continuity.
Hello, I'm Andrew Crockett, CPA running for Santa Clara County Assessor. We’re here today to talk about the ways we can address global climate change and how that plays into how I want to address the Office of Assessor.
Peter Fiekowsky
And I'm Peter Fiekowsky. I'm author of the climate restoration book “Climate Restoration, the Only Future that Will Sustain the Human Race,” available on Amazon or from any bookstore.
I'm a physicist by training, and have been a Silicon Valley entrepreneur for 40 years. And for the last 10 years I’ve been taking on climate restoration. This has allowed me to focus on the current question of how we can leave our children a planet that they can absolutely survive on. How do we get to the CO2 level back to what it was before global warming started, maybe 50 to 100 years ago? And it turned out that we can do that. It turns out that once you've decided what the outcome is, doing it is not expensive at all. People are excited about the fact that we can actually restore the climate and doesn't cost the public anything.
Awesome. You are the founder of a couple climate organizations, including the Foundation for Climate Restoration. I know that people are so caught up in the idea that sacrifice is the way that we get to a balanced future, but you are looking at things differently. Could you unpack that a little bit?
Peter Fiekowsky
Most people know that the Earth goes into ice ages every 100,000 years and that the last one ended 12,000 years ago. That isn't that long ago, when you can visualize New York City with a mile of ice. Except there was no city, there was a mile of ice above it.
When nature cools the planet down, it does it by pulling co2 into the ocean, into carbon. The trees do it when they die, when they rot. And plankton and algae in the ocean, when they die, it sinks into the ocean, and the carbon is sequestered for thousands and thousands of years. And the thing is if we duplicate what nature does before the ice ages, then you get rich food in the ocean that gives you more fish. And you can actually pay for the whole system with the fish. So it turns out to be totally viable. And the reason we haven't done it yet is that until now the goal was to zero out emissions rather than restoring the climate. So the key is to get clear about the outcome you want. And then figure out the way to do it. And that's why I was really excited about you running for County Assessor. You look at different ways of doing things.
How many years have you been a climate restoration activist?
Peter Fiekowsky
Well, I'm actually new. I developed the whole field of climate restoration starting about 2015. So right around the Paris climate talks, that's when I saw that this was the thing we want to do on the climate: Decide what we want, and then figure out how to do it. What we've been doing is figuring out things that we can do, and figuring out how good…or not bad? they might be for the earth. What we want for our children is to give them the same climate, the same CO2 levels that we had for the last 10,000 years, since the last ice age, when we developed agriculture and civilization. Because obviously, that's the climate that's going to be best for humanity, because that's what we evolved for. And that's what we want to get back to, getting the CO2 back to those levels using the same methods that nature uses with ice ages. We know how nature sequesters that carbon, so we can do the same thing.
You endorsed me this week, Peter. What were some of the factors that had you choose to endorse my campaign?
Peter Fiekowsky
Well, I've known you for about 15 years, and I've known you as someone who puts his mind to something and makes it happen. And what I like about endorsing you, is you and I have something in common, which is getting clear about the outcome we want, then figuring how to make that happen. Because it’s always more productive to focus on what you want to happen, rather than the negatives. And you coming in as a millennial is phenomenal.
Your scientific thinking allows you to come to a problem with a blank slate. That’s the same sort of mindset that I wish to bring to the Assessor's office. We should ask, what do we want? How do we get there? What are we not doing that we haven't explored? Because we have this office that has all of the data for the 484,000 properties in Santa Clara County. And yet, if you want access to it, you have to pay $47,000 for access to that data. This is not a partnership, where you have what you need to succeed, which is this data. So we can look at it objectively, bring scientific methods to it, and say, “Well, what are we not doing that if we did would make all the difference in this housing crisis.”
Peter Fiekowsky
If that data were available, what would be possible in the county? What would entrepreneurs do with it?
Specifically, it's about precision targeting our solutions, because if you go to a surgeon, and the surgeon says, Okay, you have a broken bone, I'm just gonna kind of cut open here and figure it out along the way to fix it up. This is like, yes, you could get your bone fixed [using that method], and that would be wonderful. However, there's a lot of collateral damage, whereas with modern medical techniques, it's all about scanning, getting accurate data, accurate measurements, so that you can make as few incisions as possible to allow quick recovery time. And we have a housing crisis now. And if we're going to respond to it in a way that benefits us as quickly as possible, it needs to be data driven. And the Assessor's office has that data and is currently on the sidelines in this fight for ensuring that people have an equitable future for themselves and their families.
Peter Fiekowsky
I think what you're saying is that the Santa Clara County Planning department and the various groups that are doing planning have some ideas of what they want, but they don't have the data to implement it efficiently. And since the Santa Clara Assessor has the data, he should partner with the people who are doing planning and have the resources.
That partnership is key, because no single person has all the solutions. But when we network together, we can find those solutions that might escape my eyes, but your eyes catch them. This is the whole thing, we are in this game together. Whether it's restoring the climate or solving the housing crisis, we need to bring this fresh perspective, that's data driven, to help us find all the solutions that are currently just sitting there waiting for us to act upon them.
And we need to remember democracy is supposed to be like a relay race, you hand it off. While you’re there, you prepare the people who are going to take over for you. So that you can go and do something else. Because even the best minds are susceptible to stagnation. And once you get really good at something, that's the time to hand it off. So that the next person can not only learn from you to be very good at it, they can then end up bringing the new eyes you were talking about, so that they might be able to improve processes, improve outcomes, improve service. All of these things are possible when we don't think about political office as about me, but about all of us together as a team and a community.
Peter Fiekowsky
I think what is great is bringing new eyes. In the same way, I've only been really working on climate issues for about six to eight years. And the people I work with have been doing it for 40 years. Bringing fresh eyes, you get to shed the preconceptions and say, you know, we want this, let's just see how it can work, what resources we could bring in, that used to not be available.
I want the Assessor's office of Silicon Valley to become the gold standard for the rest of the state, and help bring up the rest of the state so every Assessor's Office is seen as a team player, an essential part of being the data clearinghouse for all things property related. I see it through the lens of having been treasurer for a few nonprofits. The point of the treasurer is not just to make sure that the books are kept accurately, but to make sure that the relevant information from those books is presented to decision makers, so that they can use that information to guide the organization. The Assessor's Office is something that logically should have a data reporting component, not just to community members in positions of decision making authority, but also the community at large. Because where the most innovative solutions are generated is normally not in a committee room. Somebody like yourself, who just sits down and brings those new eyes to it, and then goes to the committee room and says, Hey, have you considered this?
Peter Fiekowsky
Here’s a possibility–we could lead the state! After all, it’s Silicon Valley.
After all, it's Silicon Valley, we could lead the state! It's something you can vote for June 7th. It's pretty amazing. It's like we have the opportunity to live up to our own hype, people! it's like we are right now on the frontier, as Silicon Valley, with myself on the ballot, for us to embrace that future and be at the cutting edge. Isn't that exciting?
Peter Fiekowsky
It is! What I like about working with you is you're looking at it from the view of how do we serve the people? How do I serve the state for the country? It's not just about how do I serve the office?
And we're up to such amazing things. I'm just excited for what the future can bring.
Peter Fiekowsky
Good. Bring it together. Vote for Andrew Crockett. It's time for something new and exciting. And get a copy and read my book: “Climate Restoration, the Only Future that Will Sustain the Human Race.” We were going to do it. Thank you very much. And thank you guys for voting.
Vote by June 7th. Andrew Crockett for Santa Clara County Assessor
Thank you. Live long and prosper y'all!
