Net Zero? The old ISP? Nope, this would be referencing climate goals. Specifically to reach the goal of net zero climate emissions. Sounds good doesn’t it? And it is, but you may have noticed that the goal isn’t ‘zero’. It’s ‘net zero’. What that means is that reaching net zero emissions means that a company or country that sets that goal is doing something to offset their emissions. That could be a lot of things. It could be planting trees, contributing to renewable energy, or technology that reduces vehicle emissions. Depending on who is doing the counting, things like cleaning up landfills and recycling might be considered as offsetting some emissions. More on that sort of thing in a minute.
Many companies have announced their intention to reach this goal at some point in the future. The latest among these is credit giant Mastercard. However, you might want to hold the fireworks and the kazoos. Keep that champagne corked y’all. Why? Because the powers that be have set their net zero goal for 2050, a timeframe that was actually called ‘audacious’. Really? Thirty years is ‘audacious’? Next week, that would be audacious. And unachievable but that’s beside the point.
So why aren’t we celebrating? Isn't it good that Mastercard is at least trying? That’s the wrong question. The right question is, are they really trying at all with a goal like that? If the goal were five or even ten years, that might be considered trying. Thirty is a virtue signal. It’s made to make people think that they are trying.
I get it. That seems unfair. Stop to think though. How many times have you heard of some long term goal getting set by any organization and then heard of it actually being met? Whether we are talking about countries, the UN, companies, or charities, long term goals or pledges like that rarely amount to much. Just think of all the ‘moonshots’ the US government has announced over the years. Whether it’s going to Mars, curing cancer, eradicating poverty, etc. They never go anywhere.
The fact is, there isn’t any sort of long term planning ability in most organizations. Most executives won’t last anything like the amount of time needed to make the goal a reality. And that’s if they even mean it in the first place. So even if the current Mastercard CEO and Board of Directors are well intentioned, the chances of the next two or three having the same vision are pretty darn slim. And even if they were going to try to get somewhere with it, there are creative ways of accounting that could very easily be applied to the net zero concept. In fact, so many unrelated issues have been bound up with climate change and environmentalism in general in recent years that almost any donation to anything could wind up counting.
Let’s say for a moment though that Mastercard was actually interested in reducing its emissions and doing so in a reasonable period of time, how might it go about that? Well, the company has 180 data centers worldwide. They no doubt suck up a fair amount of electricity so that would be a good place to start. Is there a more efficient way to store and process the data? Could they actually collect less of it? Could the buildings those data centers are in be made more efficient so they take less to heat and cool? What if they powered the climate control systems at least from solar panels on the buildings in climates where that makes sense?
Mastercard could also do the classic thing and plant some trees. Surely they could spare money to take some brownfields and turn them into greenfields, something that would benefit the local community as well as the environment. There are plenty of options available to organizations that are willing to take the goal of net zero emissions seriously.
What’s your data worth? Sign up and join the TARTLE Marketplace with this link here.
Net Zero? The old ISP? Nope, this would be referencing climate goals. Specifically to reach the goal of net zero climate emissions. Sounds good doesn’t it? And it is, but you may have noticed that the goal isn’t ‘zero’. It’s ‘net zero’.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to TARTLE Cast with your hosts, Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby, where humanity steps into the future and source data defines the path.
Alexander McCaig (00:26):
It'll probably help, if I took those things off me, right?
Jason Rigby (00:31):
I'm so fearful.
Alexander McCaig (00:32):
Yeah. I'm so fearful and everything.
Alexander McCaig (00:34):
Yeah. Good morning. Welcome to TARTLE Cast, Tcast. Whatever you want to call it, we're just here spreading-
Jason Rigby (00:40):
With Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby.
Alexander McCaig (00:42):
... spreading some knowledge, right?
Jason Rigby (00:44):
Mr. McCaig, what's the commercial that MasterCard used to have?
Alexander McCaig (00:52):
"What's in your wallet?"
Jason Rigby (00:53):
"What's in your wallet?"
Alexander McCaig (00:54):
No, no, no. Is that MasterCard? "What's in your wallet?"
Jason Rigby (00:55):
It was a Visa. Yeah, I don't know.
Alexander McCaig (00:57):
Was it Capital One, "What's in your wallet"?
Jason Rigby (00:58):
Yeah, it was something like that. But there was... Do you ever remember the MasterCard commercials?
Alexander McCaig (01:03):
Do they even advertise?
Jason Rigby (01:04):
They used to have. I don't know if they advertise anymore, but back in the '90s, they used to have MasterCard commercials, and it was kind of cool to have a MasterCard.
Alexander McCaig (01:12):
Yeah. You got to have the master... But just think about the brand name. It's the MasterCard.
Jason Rigby (01:16):
Yeah. Exactly.
Alexander McCaig (01:19):
The top one. It's numero uno. You can be global with your MasterCard. The whole idea here is about processing transactions efficiently. If I can be in some sort of country on one of 180 countries, and swipe my MasterCard, I needed to work, because that's what I plan my vacation, to my trip on. Okay? So, for MasterCard, a lot of their money is spent on data centers. You think of it as a financing operation. It's a data operation, hands down. And these data centers are so large, processing such a high volume of transactions, it requires a huge energetic output. And MasterCard has built its own sovereign data centers across 180 countries on the globe. So, they have pretty much these big buildings, just sucking huge amounts of energy.
Jason Rigby (02:08):
What if they said, "Instead, let's decentralize it, put it on the blockchain and then use cryptocurrency, and wherever you go, you can just purchase."
Alexander McCaig (02:16):
See now that-
Jason Rigby (02:17):
[crosstalk 00:02:17] And we give the right to the individual.
Alexander McCaig (02:18):
With utopian future, we can all dream up, put the processing power on their cell phones.
Jason Rigby (02:22):
But then do we need MasterCard?
Alexander McCaig (02:23):
Yeah. I think, no, you don't. You don't need MasterCards. You don't need central banks. You don't need any of that stuff, but we choose to do it right now. That's a side point, though. Don't get me distracted. Don't get me amped-up.
Jason Rigby (02:33):
This is the article. MasterCard Joins Net-Zero Climate Club With Audacious 2050 Goal. 2050.
Alexander McCaig (02:40):
Why?
Jason Rigby (02:41):
30 years.
Alexander McCaig (02:41):
Why? That's way too long. Why do you need 30 years to just... MasterCard, you have so much money. Do it tomorrow. Am I wrong? Am I crazy, though?
Jason Rigby (02:52):
No, no, no.
Alexander McCaig (02:53):
Why do companies need to put this 30 years out?
Jason Rigby (02:54):
So, this Net-Zero Climate Club has no greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Alexander McCaig (02:58):
Dude, I am going to forget about MasterCard in 30 years. MasterCard is going to forget about MasterCard in 30 years.
Jason Rigby (03:06):
I don't think they're going to be around in 30 years.
Alexander McCaig (03:08):
I think, they're going to disappear. Yeah. And you're telling me, it was some... What do they call the goal? Audacious? What about it is audacious? It'd be audacious, if they said they were going to do it next week. 30 years from now? You could do nothing for the next 15 years. Literally nothing, but you said you're doing it. Great.
Jason Rigby (03:26):
Well, I think it's also... A lot of companies... It's shareholder values, number one, and then what is the stock price?
Alexander McCaig (03:33):
Well, it's all about the ESG and the portfolios.
Jason Rigby (03:35):
Then, whenever you look at something like this... I'm not saying this is the intent of MasterCard at all, but I'm just saying a lot of this is just a cool thing to do to be woke, or to be liberal, or to be whatever it is. [crosstalk 00:03:50] It's just like, "We're zero..." Yeah. "We're zero emissions by..."
Alexander McCaig (03:53):
You're not anything. You're in 180 countries right now, burning through electricity. Why do you need 30 years to get a job done? What's so hard about that. I bet you... Bang! Right now, what just happened? The amount of transactions... There's a time that they could have bought a wind turbine with those profits. Hold on. There's another one they could have purchased. You can have this goal done in a week, frankly. Just run everything on these wind turbines or whatever it might be-
Jason Rigby (04:20):
Because profit's not bad.
Alexander McCaig (04:22):
No, profit's not bad.
Jason Rigby (04:24):
What if you surveyed all MasterCard users and said, "Our fees are going to raise 0.03%-
Alexander McCaig (04:32):
Because?
Jason Rigby (04:33):
... because we're made an audacious goal to be done in five years, instead of two years-
Alexander McCaig (04:38):
Are you willing to that sort of ways?
Jason Rigby (04:40):
... so, help us fund this. We're going to split the cost fifty-fifty with you. Would this be something you're interested in?" And if all these MasterCard holders say, "Yes," then you move in that direction and that becomes a priority.
Alexander McCaig (04:52):
Think about this. Imagine if you had a MasterCard. Every time I swipe it, I planted a tree. Every time I swiped it, it donated to this charity that I cared about.
Jason Rigby (04:59):
Or help the Big Seven.
Alexander McCaig (05:00):
Oh my gosh. How amazing would that be? Wouldn't that just be incredible? But do not give me some 30 year thing about, "Oh, we have an..." There's nothing audacious about that. You know what's audacious about what we're doing here at TARTLE, is we got the Big Seven and we need this thing fixed by next year. I don't want to wait 30 years, to then get around to the point of fixing things for the climate, or then focusing on human rights. Do it right this second. If you have the ability to do it now, do it. Do not wait. That goes for just about everything positive in this life that'd be beneficial to us. Why wait?
Jason Rigby (05:35):
Yeah. Because I think, if we get too involved in doing reports, and collecting data, and having all these scientists and then making these conservative assumptions based off of this false data, that we get into this whole idea of... Well, 30 years will give us plenty of time to be able to accomplish this and then here... It's like, at some point, you're pushing it. You as a CEO are not going to be there. The average CEO, I think, has eight years.
Alexander McCaig (06:06):
Yeah, of their tenure. Yeah.
Jason Rigby (06:07):
Yeah. You're not going to be there. So, why wouldn't a CEO, or our President, our prime minister, or whoever it may be, say, "In my timeframe. In four years or in eight years, this is what we're going to accomplish because I can take..." This is what they don't want to do. Leadership does not want to do this across the world. "Then I could take a hundred responsibility for this cause."
Alexander McCaig (06:30):
They don't want to take responsibility for it. I would like to go back at all the people that had a 2010 plan, a 2000 plan, a 2020 plan, 2015 plan. How many of you actually did it?
Jason Rigby (06:39):
How many articles did we see? Oh, in 2000, we said, "We're going to do this." Now, it's 2020 and we accomplished that."
Alexander McCaig (06:44):
Yeah, I'd love to run a collection on these things. Listen, not to say that the... The end goal and vision is fantastic, hands down, but we don't need to be waiting 30 years to do something that can be done today.
Jason Rigby (06:57):
Yeah. It's like, more women in tech.
Alexander McCaig (07:00):
Are you shitting me? That should have been done forever ago.
Jason Rigby (07:04):
Why is it all white guys?
Alexander McCaig (07:05):
It should have been more women in voting. There always should be balance. And right now you're saying we want to wait 30 years to have balance? Come on. Snap out of your, just delusion that you're sitting in.
Jason Rigby (07:18):
Well, it's even women that are CEOs. Yeah, it's gone up, but the percentages that says, "Going up," is like, "What's causing us not to look and understand that a woman could have just as good or better leadership than a man could have, based off of their ability to be able to lead, not looking at gender?"
Alexander McCaig (07:42):
Is she a human being?
Jason Rigby (07:45):
That's what I'm saying.
Alexander McCaig (07:46):
Is she a human being. It's a simple question.
Jason Rigby (07:47):
Yeah.
Alexander McCaig (07:48):
Yeah. So, then why is it-
Jason Rigby (07:50):
Why is it harder for a woman to become a CEO?
Alexander McCaig (07:52):
Why you paying women less?
Jason Rigby (07:54):
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Well, that's proven.
Alexander McCaig (07:56):
Snap out of your delusion. What the heck is going on here? You know what I mean? Let's look at the data. Okay. If you have 180 data centers, stop being hypocritical with your 2030 goal.
Jason Rigby (08:08):
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. To me, it's just another "fake lipstick on the pig".
Alexander McCaig (08:16):
"Fake lipstick on the pig". MasterCard, we're not trying to bash on you. We're just saying, if you are-
Jason Rigby (08:24):
I'm talking about companies in general. Because, I mean, this plays right into number six.
Alexander McCaig (08:28):
No, I know that. Listen. I love the fact that MasterCard is saying, "We want to get the net-zero thing." Great. I love that. I love that, that is just the smallest focus in your transaction-based business. That's what you want to do, right? But if you are a resource holder, do it tomorrow. Do not wait 30 years. We've seen what waiting does for us. This reminds me a lot of fusion technology. Oh, fusion. How many years they've been working on it? 50 plus years? Why? What are you still working on it for? You still say, "It's the promise." How many articles we... Oh, a new fusion breakthrough, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All it sounds like is that 40 years went by, and a new guy came in to take the old career path of somebody else, and write a new paper.
Jason Rigby (09:16):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (09:17):
That's all it is. It's a new report of a new regime that has come and said, "We need to focus on this." And you think, you're bending to how the world is changing by saying this. No, the world is changing right now. Do not wait 30 years to change. If you have so much data, if you can process so much, you should be able to understand the flow of resources, better than anyone else. MasterCard processes so many transactions. You know how this consumer behavior is happening in the way you're collecting your data, everywhere that it's swiped. Why are you not sharing that information with everybody? Why is that not happening? Why is MasterCard not selling that data on the TARTLE marketplace.
Alexander McCaig (09:57):
Come together. If that's your 30-year-goal and you really want to decrease that... You want to get to that net-zero impact, well, then help share and help other people join you in that goal, that you're isolating yourself. You have 180 data centers that are yours, and you've locked all of the value of it to you, and you're not sharing in that value. Not that you have to. I'm not saying it's responsibility. Of course, it's your choice. But just realize that you have the power to really unlock a lot of data and help other people understand what is going on here. And they can help you achieve that 2030 goal faster. Does that make sense?
Jason Rigby (10:31):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (10:32):
See you MasterCard.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Thank you for listening to TARTLE Cast with your hosts, Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby, where humanity steps into the future and source data defines the path. What's your data worth?
