Max Lugavere and Jason Silva are best friends, roommates and the founding hosts of Current TV, the online-integrated cable network launched in 2005. And just in case Lugavere and Silva didn’t already spend enough time together, the duo are also producing and anchoring Current’s new late-night show, Max & Jason: Still Up, and wrapping up work on the documentary Power. Directed by Hunter Richards (London), the film puts an optimistic spin on sustainability, investigating the sources of clean energy just waiting to be tapped. Here, Lugavere and Silva, both 27, talk to us about turning that climate change frown upside down.
When you guys met, was it like, bro-love at first sight?
Jason Silva: Well, we met over our mutual interest in a girl.
Max Lugavere: But then we very quickly realized we had a lot more than that in common. We were at the University of Miami at the time, and Jason was a double-major in Film and Philosophy, and I was studying Film and Psychology—
JS: So, we’d wind up having these long conversations about cinema that always wound up going someplace pretty cerebral. That was what led us to work together on the short that we submitted to Current, before the network launched—
ML: Which got us our hosting gig. I think there were, how many?
JS: 4,000 submissions?
ML: The people at Current, I guess they loved our passion, and the whole "buddy" thing we had going, so they hired us.
I see the buddy thing. But what made you want to host Current TV in the first place? I mean, the network launched before YouTube—the concept of airing user-generated video seemed a little wackadoo, back then.
JS: We just really, sincerely believed in the message—this idea that you can empower a generation of storytellers to tell their own stories. Citizen journalism. Grab a cheap camera, edit on your computer, send it our way.
MO: There’s been a void on television, which our chairman, Al—
Or, former Vice President and Nobel Laureate Al Gore, if you prefer.
ML: That’s the one. The way he sees it, TV is still the most powerful medium. There’s a credibility. Even on Current, you have to be voted on-air by the network’s audience of discerning and passionate and socially conscious viewers. But if the work is good, we provide a platform for people the world over to get out these stories that need to be told, and that aren’t being covered by the traditional news media. We’ve made that our calling.
JS: This is definitely a vocation, not a day-job.
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That said, you guys are freelancing…what’s this documentary Power all about?
JS: The film is about the future of clean energy. We see it as an optimistic film—it picks up where An Inconvenient Truth left off. I think now, most of us agree that there’s a problem; this movie, Power, is going to show people what we can do.
ML: And it’s essential that we show people we can do something, because the worst thing about the gloom and doom around global warming is that it makes everyone feel hopeless.
So, what can we do?
JS: Honestly, given the right incentives, there is nothing human beings can’t do. Our technological know-how and ability to make breakthroughs is almost beyond comprehension. We just need to refocus our priorities. For example, one of our little Petri dishes in the film is the island of Lanai in Maui County, Hawaii. Lanai is owned by a billionaire who wants to make the island completely sustainable, and the only thing standing in the way of that—in the way of a billionaire trying to take his own island off the grid—is legislation that makes it impossible.
ML: So, obviously, we need to pass some new laws.
JS: It seems like that might happen soon—something similar to what Germany did with the Feed-In Tariff.
The what?
ML: Basically, the Feed-In Tariff created incentives for inventors and entrepreneurs to come in and test clean energy systems.
JS: You would not believe the technology that is already out there. I mean, really, we’d like people to walk out of this movie scratching their heads and wondering, wait, if this works, why don’t I have more of it in my country?
You still haven’t said what works.
JS: OK, for one example, solar panels. Right now, they’re expensive, they don’t produce enough energy, and we don’t have a way, at the moment, of storing the energy they do produce. But every two years or so, we double our capability in terms of the amount of energy that solar panels can absorb. Meanwhile, every hour, we get enough energy from the sun to power the entire needs of the earth for an entire day.
ML: If we can just invest in those technologies that are already moving exponentially, we’ll have the power in a matter of years to harness the energy of the sun completely.
JS: And then, for another example, there are air compression cars cars with engines that have no moving parts. The technology for that has been around for a hundred years, but at some point, we decided to go with the combustion engine instead.
Just playing devil’s advocate here: Could that have been because the internal combustion engine worked better?
JS: Maybe, and maybe the technology on the air compression engine didn’t advance for the same reason that the salt monopolies tried to forestall the introduction of the refrigerator. Used to be, salt was how you kept food fresh. And every time there was a new invention, like the refrigerator, the salt monopolies would find a way to kill it. They delayed the introduction of the refrigerator into the marketplace for years.
ML: Obviously, the analogy here is the oil and gas companies. They have a huge stake in preserving the status quo. Ultimately, though, they have to see that it’s in their interest to invest in clean power—the era of fossil fuel is going to end, no matter what. But in the meantime, we’re using Power to give these third-party labs and energy mavericks a voice. And to remind the people who watch the film that they get to vote with their wallets. It’s like with food, every time you buy from the local guy raising grass-fed cattle, you don’t just support him, but you take dollars away from the conglomerates running factory farms.
I’m not trying to be a stick in the mud, but come on, aren’t you putting a little too much faith in technology? Aren’t we due for a rethink on the ways we consume in general?
ML: We are absolutely, 100 percent techno-optimists. We don’t want people to stop driving their cars, and we don’t want everyone to become vegetarians, and if you can afford to build a mansion, then yeah, go ahead and do that. But if you’ve got that kind of money, then you have the money to install solar panels on your roof.
JS: The way I see it, the compromises we may be asked to make are temporary, until these technologies prove themselves in the marketplace and scale up. A lot of it comes down to infrastructure: We could make hydrogen-powered cars right now, but what does a hydrogen-pumping station look like? How do you replace all the gas stations?
ML: Those kinds of changes aren’t going to happen overnight. But there’s a movement building to make them happen sooner rather than later.
JS: The two of us, we’re just excited that we have the opportunity to articulate an optimistic, seize-the-day point of view. Let’s do this— let’s identify what’s out there, and let’s use the tools at our disposal. You know, let’s be geniuses.
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