Nikolaj Coster-Waldau searches the realm for environmental solutions in new expose

Around the world people are working for a better tomorrow what we're doing is mindblowing so this will be a carbon neutral jet fuel we grow vegetables but to me we give life I believe when history is written and we look back at this moment in time this will be when we started to transform the way we live to inform the.

Future we want the little worm that can actually dissolve plastic in my I harmonize people with nature creating clouds this is the definition of thinking outside the boxs that was just part of the trailer from the upcoming Bloomberg original series titled an Optimus Guide to the planet the six episode docu series follows Emmy.

Nominated actor Nikolai CER waldow as he and his team travel the globe to meet the solutions oriented people facing down humanity is most pressing environmental challenges and Nikolai joins us now he also serves as a producer on the series I like I want to know about the worm well I I like the plastic we'll get to that in a second.

But is it real it is real yeah oh my god you're an optimist that's good you like Optimus that said in in the first episode you go to Greenland yeah and you talk about how about that's where his wife is from right yeah about 2,000 what square miles of of the ice cap has retreated since 1985 MH yeah that's not optimistic well it's.

Well we went there make us happy no but we went there because it is it's kind of seen as the as the the canary and the coal mine like I it's always the image of climate change right and then we did a story there we meet this geologist he says well actually it could also be part of the solution cuz what happens every year was' been having for thousands of.

Years is that all this Glacier flow is is washed out so we have like billions and billions of tons of this thing and turns out it can store CO2 and also it's an incredible fertilizer and you can then take that to parts of the world where they don't have where they have bad soil and it it's it it's just so you can actually turn green into a symbol of.

Of the Sol of the solution but what we found was was that it's a global show we travel all over the world and the reason I wanted to do it I I I worked with the as a Goodwill Ambassador for the undp I've been going around the world to see these projects and I also found that the messaging becomes very much about the problem like we have we know we has have.

A massive problem when it comes to climate change but we kind of tend to focus on the apocalyptic messaging and not the fact that we have solution that we have the the biggest resource of all is us right if you look at what human beings have created in history it's insane like look at this this building we're sitting in this city we're sitting.

In like humans made this and I just refuse to believe that we're so stupid that we would mess up our own planet right it's such a good reminder we got the Doomsday Clock and everyone says we're on the brink or we passed the brink there of No Return we can't fix this problem and it's a good reminder in this space in medicine even in politics.

There I say there are a lot of people working to do the right thing but also the fact is that it seems like we keep talking about if we don't act this is going to happen what we found out is that people are acting and it's happening all over and it's a massive transition is already happening I I remember six years ago I was in San.

Francisco at this event and the final thing I had to do was to drive an electric car around the corner and that was a big thing today I'm from Europe in northern Europe is the most sold cars are electric it's happening on a global scale and uh it's and that thing you said about the sometimes we it's not just about Hightech it's also about.

Looking back and see actually we had some solutions before that worked we just have to reinvent them or look at mat you know offering us Solutions you saw the the the worms the worms that was a biochemist in in Spain and she had as a hoppy she was a beekeeper one day she had to clean up the the the the the beehives and she found there were worms.

In there she put them in a plastic bag next day she comes back she sees those little holes and he goes that's interesting I wonder what that is did they just bite them their way out or did was something else a foot turns out there was an enzyme in the saliva of these these worms that dissolve plastic it's just it's m and is something.

Happening with that oh yeah yeah no incredible making more worms the photography is amazing in this clip um you discover scientists in Australia are creating man-made clouds to cool the Ocean Take a look there's two whole shipping containers with big air compressors in them to generate the compressed air to blast the.

Plum and so what we see is that the plume actually gets sucked right up into the clouds we don't have to that's good right yeah yeah it's terrific it makes life a lot easier and in fact it means we're able to revise a lot of our sort of calculations as to how many stations we'd need and how efficient it would.

be per second one of those machines we've got two now but for one it produces about 1,000 billion droplets a second from about a shot glass of water a second 30 m okay you're smiling I mean is he just making stories so this is this is the stuff of.

Science Fiction creating man-made clouds tell us the benefit of these clouds but also how difficult is that can can clouds be mass-produced now that's above my pay grade but what is exciting is it's it's a symbol of that thing about like just let's just open our minds to what we can actually achieve someone thought of it.

Well the Sun is is heating up the oceans it's a problem right now uh this was the Great Barrier Reef in Australia right how can we just give them a Band-Aid for like until we solve the other big issues and said well let's make some clouds and then these guys came up with it and it actually works they lower the temperature of the oceans they basically.

Just put a cloud over and it it's a symbol of of what humans can achieve and and and we found that I mean we had we to do the show we had like so many stories from all over the world and uh and I know that you said before do we need is there a reason for optimism and I spoke to this one scientist in Australia he said because he said no I'm.

An optimist but it's not like I just want to be an optimist because that's a nice thing it's based on the science on the work we do we can see we can actually make a difference and also the idea that that we I mean it's not like sometimes people want to create this idea that there's ill intent that you know that the generations before us.

Destroyed the Future No it's not like we have people out there going yeah I want to destroy this planet I hate this place no we all want a better tomorrow and yes we got carried away before we discovered plastic it's just incredible maybe we should just slow down with this thing and the same with fossil fuels it it's created so much wealth and prosperity.

And and and and Beauty in this world but we have to Now find it another way we've discovered that way doesn't work it's not sustainable in the long term but the solutions are out there and that's what the show is about I hope your optimism about people not were not so stupid that we would let these things happen I hope you're right about that go ahead Jen um.

Tell us about some of the people that you've met because you I mean you were on all these different continents people you know some the the worms the making of clouds Farmers a lot of different folks but is there something like a characteristic that sort of that that was that was sort of uniform across first of all the whole concept is.

Whether climate change is real or not and all that never came up and then that happened everywhere we went even in know tines Village in Africa people like no no we we understand that and everybody also had the same you know what's interesting um in our part of the world um there's apparently I did a survey a couple years ago 20 50% of 18 to 25 year.

Olds young don't believe in the future believe that we're doomed and that is really a problem and that we need to address it because obviously we're not doomed I mean we have every reason to we will create a better world we never I've never met that traveling outside our part of the world there was nothing but positivity and optimism and belief that.

Of course we can solve these issues and we will and and these are kids that you could objectively speaking say they have you know harder Arts than than kids in in our part of the world and I I don't know why that is but it's just an observation um listen as you there you know we look at the war we look at the news today.

There are so many things that constantly hit us and you go oh my God there's a war here and there's a war there but also sometimes it's important to to remind ourselves that if you just look back 5050 years and where we were and where we are today we're actually doing better on almost every perimeter we have an issue with climate change but we're.

Doing better all over an optimist Guide to the planet begins streaming on the Bloomberg app and bloomberg.com on February 8th it will also air on Bloomberg TV Nikolai CER waldow thank you very much for sharing this with us great work thank you for giving us giving us a reason to yes we need it.

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