Our sermon title this morning is Godly Compassion. Godly Compassion, and our text is 1 Timothy chapter 5, and we're working through this section from verse 3 through verse 16, and we're looking at God's compassion on those in need, specifically here in this paragraph, this section, as it relates to widows in the church. The Lord gives us very clear, very practical instruction with how we're to interrelate with widows in the church and how the Lord demonstrates His compassion toward those in need. This has great application, though, for us as we interrelate with anyone in need. You may have those in your family in need. There are things that you can take home and how you interrelate with your kids, with your spouse here. There's much to apply, but the Lord in His wisdom has demonstrated this in the way that we interrelate with widows, and there's a fairly lengthy section here and much that we can glean from this. So what we'd ordinarily do is we work verse by verse through books of the Bible. I believe that expository preaching is the way that you get God's word to you and not my opinion to you.  I don't care what I think. I want to know what God says, and I want to live by that, and I want to worship Him for that. And so we want to work verse by verse through these sections, and so we're in this section of Scripture, interesting section of Scripture dealing with widows. It begins here primarily in verse 3, and we see, beginning in verse 3, just the compassion of God toward these widows and certainly toward all those who are in need. And it's a godly compassion that we are also to demonstrate. This has great application for us, great wisdom for us. And it begins in verse 3 with, honor widows who are really widows. But if any widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show piety at home and to repay their parents, for this is good and acceptable before God. Now she who is really a widow and left alone, trusts in God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day, but she who lives in pleasure is dead while she lives, and these things command that they may be blameless. But if anyone does not provide for his own and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. So point one on your nose from last week, we looked at the compassion to provide. God's compassion, the compassion that we are to display, is a compassion to provide for those in need. And in verse 3, we see the command, to honor widows who are really widows, that we're there for honor tomorrow. It's a, at a minimum includes respect and reverence, but certainly carries the weight or the sense of financial support. When we see the command, the 10 commandments, to honor your father and mother. So here to honor widows, in chapter 5 verse 17, to honor those who labor, those in the gospel, those elders in the church. You're to honor in one sense by providing financial support, right? And that's certainly clear as well here in verse 3. But now it makes, obviously, in verse 3, makes a distinction. It says there are widows, and then there are those who are really widows. And we're to honor widows who are really widows. So we see, beginning in verse 4, we looked at, in the compassion, point two on your notes, compassion to pastor here, we see this distinction. And a distinction needs to be made, it must be made. Paul commands Timothy to make it. There's got to be a distinction here. And the distinction included in beginning in verse 4, deals with one, the widow's family circumstances, and two, her godly character. In verse 4, it says, but if any widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show piety at home or repay their parents for this is good and acceptable for God. And when we looked at this, we saw from Scripture that she must be in need. In other words, there aren't others in the family who can take care of her. Literally that word there is that she is left alone. She's made solitary, left without family. There isn't any other resource that can provide for her. So that's the first characteristic, the first distinction that needs to be made. She needs to be really in need. But secondly, and interestingly here, she must have, as a matter of character, she must have a record of godly Christian example and service. We're not to just help anybody, we're to help those here specifically who are really widows that include someone who is truly in need, has no other family, and someone who has a godly example, a record of godly service. And specifically here, that's talked about beginning in verse 5. She who is really a widow, she's left alone, number one, number two, she trusts in God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day. In other words, she is selfless, selflessly devoted to God. She looks to God as the source of her provision. She's not wandering around from person to person, trusting in them for provision. She's praying to the Lord and trusting in the Lord for provision. And the Lord uses the means of His people to help those who are truly in need. And praise the Lord. We get to enter into that work and get to be a part of that. As Paul says, we get to enter into the fellowship of the ministry to the saints. And it's the fellowship that we get to participate in and it's a blessing to do it. But here, again, she trusts God, she trusts in Him for her provision and that's evidenced by her continuous prayer. It shows that she depends on God. It shows that she trusts Jehovah Jireh, the supplier. And she rightly prays to Him and trusts in Him. Now that's contrasted. If you look at this passage, that's contrasted first with those widows in verse 6 who are living but living for pleasure and dead while they're living. They're just living for this world, living for their own leisure, alright? But it's also contrasted with those in verse 11 who are growing wanton against Christ, having condemnation because they cast off their first faith. They're not supported because they're prone to wander from Christ into sin. There's a distinction here that needs to be made. Now, so that this decision gets made, that kind of a decision, you understand, requires pastoral oversight. Oversight of the church. We're not just to help everyone. There's got to be a distinction made. We need to help those who are truly in need, but also we're to help those here specifically who have a godly example. This requires a pastoral decision. Now, that brings the light here from this passage of Scripture that not only can the church not financially support everyone, but the church shouldn't financially support everyone. And you've got to see this as a compassionate decision because that cuts against the grain of the way that most of the world views compassion, the way that most of the world views helping those in need. You have to have both the strength and true compassion every once in a while to do that which is most important for them, which is not always going to be right a check, right? And there are those in this circumstance who must, it is good and acceptable on the side of God, that they take responsibility for themselves and that they take responsibility for those under their care. That they, in that sense, are blameless and that is important. In other words, beginning here in verse 3, a part of Paul's emphasis is getting family to move, getting people thinking rightly about who is responsible, what their responsibility is, what the responsibility of that widow is, what the responsibility of the church is, and getting each of those people, each of those entities to take responsibility to get them to move in that sense. And if you think about it, that widow, that family as a church, we have to learn to exercise faith just like the one who is really a widow, just like she exercises faith, laying our supplications before God and trusting him to provide. That doesn't mean that we can't, we are not to put feet, action to our love, action to our compassion. We certainly are. We must trust God and we must do what the Lord has told us to do here. And there is in that just a faithful dependence, a humble dependence in following Christ. Many believe the church today should be like a welfare state. We should be like the government in a welfare state where we support anyone. At some point when you don't reach a certain dollar amount, then we need to meet all of your needs. The church, there are many with this theology that the church's soul existence is to relieve those who are oppressed. Much of that is called liberation theology. It's unbiblical. This is prime example of the Bible teaching against it. We're not to be a welfare state. The sole focus of the church is not to be only providing for those who are oppressed or those who are in need. That kind of mindset, you understand, cultivates the wrong heart. And it is the heart in this that God is concerned about. It's the heart that Christ is concerned about. I'll give you some examples. We had at one point, and these are some of the decisions that need to be made. Some of the distinctions that need to be made. I remember someone coming in one time, a stack of bills in their hand, and they came in and they laid the stack of bills on the secretary's desk and said, I'll need a check for this by Wednesday. I have bills coming due. Wrong heart. There's a wrong way of thinking wrong heart. There are some. I remember one example where someone was unreconciled to us. They're in sin, and they're hostile, and they're bitter against the church, against the people, and yet they texted, right? Won't come by, won't fix things, won't, you know. They texted and said, hey, we've had this happen, and it's the responsibility of the church to help. And so I texted back and I said, you may be right. It may be the responsibility of the church to help. What church are you attending? They're not coming to this one. But there's just that expectation, right? We had another circumstance where the person had a need, and we didn't meet that need in the specific way that that person was expecting. In other words, we didn't just write the check. We prescribed other things for their spiritual well-being, and that person got angry and got embittered toward the church. Betraying a wrong heart in this. Betraying a wrong mindset. And again, it's the heart, the condition of their heart that the Lord is concerned about. And that anger, that resentment, that bitterness confirms the condition of the heart. It's not always the pastorally right thing to do to just simply write a check. There needs to be wisdom in that. Let me give you one example of that. Go back with me to John 6. John 6. And let's just take a look at one example of this. Wrong heart, wrong mindset. Look at John 6, beginning in verse 1. Here, Christ is healing, meeting physical needs. He is providing. He's about to provide a meal here, meeting physical needs. He's curing diseases. He's meeting needs. In all of that, those miracles that are done, those acts that are done, all of that is to point them to Christ. There are many who do wonderful things. They build houses. They dig wells. They down many on Thanksgiving, providing meals. And those are all wonderful things. But as a Christian, all of those wonderful things are to point that person with the right heart, the right understanding to Christ to meet their greatest need, right? And people, even despite that, despite faithfulness here, the greatest preacher ever, right? Preaching and healing and doing works, doing wonders, all should be pointing them to Christ. And even here, they still have a tendency to get it wrong. It's a matter of the heart. Look at verse 1 in chapter 6. It says, after these things, Jesus went over the Sea of Galilee, the Sea of Tiberius. Then a great multitude followed him because they saw his signs which he performed on those who were diseased. You've got to understand, there is a type of faith which does not save that is faith in an experience. Faith in a sign or faith in a wonder. If you remember, the Bible says at the end times, the Antichrist will come performing signs and wonders and will deceive many. There is a faith that does not save. It's a faith in some experience, a faith in some act, a faith in something they've seen. Here is an example of that. They saw the signs which he performed. Now there are many who saw the signs he performed and came to faith in Christ because they saw him as the Messiah and they trusted him and followed him and turned from their sin. It says in verse 3, and Jesus went up on the mountain and there he sat with his disciples. Now the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was near. Then Jesus lifted up his eyes and seeing a great multitude coming toward him, he said to Philip, where shall we buy bread that these may eat? But this he said to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. And dropped down to verse 10, this is what he did. Jesus said, make the people sit down. Now there was much grass in the place and so men sat down in number about 5,000. Jesus took the loaves and we had given thanks, he distributed them to the disciples and the disciples to those sitting down and likewise of the fish as much as they wanted. So when they were filled, he said to his disciples, gather up the fragments that remain so that nothing is lost. Therefore they gathered them up and filled 12 baskets with the fragments of the 5 barley loaves which were left over by those who had eaten. Then those men, when they had seen the sign that Jesus did said, this is truly the prophet who has come into the world. Now they saw the sign and truly this is the prophet. They saw Christ as that, but dropped down to verse 22. So on the following day, when the people who were standing on the other side of the sea saw that there was no other boat there except that one which his disciples had entered and that Jesus had not entered the boat with his disciples but his disciples had gone away alone. However other boats came from Tiberias near the place where they ate bread after the Lord had given thanks and when the people therefore saw that Jesus was not there nor his disciples, they also got into boats and came to Capernaum seeking Jesus. Now were they seeking Jesus? Were they seeking what Jesus had done for them? Verse 25, and when they found him on the other side of the sea they said to him, Rabbi, when did you come here? Jesus answered them and said, most assuredly I say to you, you seek me not because you saw the signs but because you ate of the loaves and were filled many, many see Christ as the prophet, see Christ as the savior, see Christ as a messiah, see Christ as God in the flesh and rightly so and yet they don't seek Christ for what he has done for them eternally, they seek Christ for what he's done for them temporarily. I'll have my present needs met. I'll get that shiny new red truck that I wanted, that shiny new thing that I need. They don't seek Christ for the right reasons. Verse 27, Christ says to them, do not labor for the food which perishes but for the food which endures the everlasting life which the Son of Man will give you because God the Father has set his seal on him. They said to him, what shall we do that we may work the works of God and they're used to a works mindset, what they mean here is what do I got to do? What do I got to do to be saved? I'll work, work, work, work, work. It's not how it works, Jesus said verse 29. Jesus answered and said to them, this is the work of God that you believe in him whom he sent. Therefore they said to him, what sign will you perform? That's just your right. What are you going to do, Christ? Prove yourself that what are you going to do for us? What sign will you perform then that we may see it and believe you? What work will you do? And they bring it up again. Verse 31, Our fathers ate the manna in the desert as it is written he gave them bread from heaven to eat. Again, wanting a free meal. Not interested in Christ at all. Just wanting a meal, wanting lunch, right? God, you provided for us lunch. We want dinner too. No interest in Christ.  Who gave them bread from heaven? God did. God provided for them. Look to the Creator. Not that created thing. Look to him who provides eternally. Not only to that temporal need. Look with the right heart, with the right reasons. Recognize your need. Your need is not a lunch. Your need is eternity. Your need is salvation. Verse 33, For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. There's something more important than lunch. Verse 34, they said to him, Lord give us this bread always. Their first concern was filling their stomachs. The Lord is concerned with their eternal soul. Where to show that same kind of compassion? There's a discretion that needs to be made. Not as concerned with filling someone's stomach at that moment. We need to be concerned about their spiritual well-being. We need to be concerned about where they go when they die. What their life reflects. There's got to be discernment in this. Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall never hunger. He who believes in me shall never thirst. It's meeting a real need. Verse 36, I said to you that you have seen me and yet you do not believe. They said they believed he was a prophet. Christ is saying to them, yeah, you don't believe. You don't have the faith that saves. All that the Father gives me will come to me. That's all that the Father gives him. Mind you, right? All that the Father gives. All those who make a decision. All those who pray to ask Jesus into their heart. All those who walk an aisle and sign a commitment card. No, it's all those that the Father has predetermined to give to Christ. All those that the Father gives to me will come to me. And the one who comes to me, I will by no means cast out. For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. This is the will of the Father who sent me. That of all he has given me, I should lose nothing but should raise it up at the last day. Flip the page. Jesus Christ preaches this lesson. They do not get it. They don't accept it. They reject it out of hand. And look at verse 66. It says from that time many of his disciples went back and walked with him no more. Just wrong heart. Wrong thinking. Not recognizing Christ for who he is. There's something more important about following Christ than having your temporal immediate physical needs met. Trust in the Lord. In that is doing what is good and acceptable to God. It's cultivating the right heart. Cultivating a heart of trust and dependence and love for Christ. That's exhibited now with what Paul goes on to say beginning in verse 7. Like live for Christ. Obey Christ. Be blameless. Verse 7 back in 1 Timothy chapter 5. He says in these things command that they may be blameless. But if anyone does not provide for his own and especially for those of his household he's denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. It is the essence of faith that you work while trusting God. It's the essence of faith. Work. Work out your own salvation. We're to work. And we're to trust God. It is Christ. It is God who is at will at work in you to will and to do according to his good pleasure. Many view God. Many view the church. Like the baby bird. And the mama bird.  And they view Christianity the same way. Having difficulty at work. You know. I don't have a job.  Get out and work to find a job. And the Lord will bless you with work. Let me ask you this question. Does the Lord want you to be able to provide for your own family? Yes. The Bible says that if you pray in accord with his will you have that thing that you've asked for. You know it's God's will that you have work. And so you go out and doggedly work to find a job knowing that when you like that godly example of a widow who is really a widow lays her supplications before God. Praise night and day. Dependence on God, right? You lay your supplications before him. You depend on him. You exercise faith. You pray night and day knowing that the Lord is who will provide you with work. And that's in accord with his will.  And the Lord is faithful to provide. That's dependence on God. It's cultivating the right heart. The right dependence. The right humble spirit. Many do that. Struggling with sin. Work against that sin. And pray to God. Trust in him. Let it be by the strength of his spirit. By the power of his might. And then overcome that sin. Many people do that with their own sanctification. Well if the Lord wants to sanctify you He's going to have to do it because I can't do it myself. That's an unbiblical attitude. Many people don't like. They get confused. This salvation is a salvation by grace alone. No works. And you'll hear someone say I can't do anything. In one sense for your salvation that is true. But then God comes along in his wisdom through scripture and says you got to do something. What do you have to do? You got to repent. And you got to believe. You must repent. Turn from your sin. And you must believe. The Lord says do something. Now let me say this. My car is broken down. The run down.  It's at the shop. And the mechanic just out of the goodness of his heart out of his grace fixes my car up. And he calls me up. Says Mark. I'm not going to charge you anything. I just want to be gracious to you. And so I fix your car for you. Praise the Lord. What an act of grace toward me that he fixed my car. But listen Mark.  I'm like, well that's not grace. What are you talking about? It's all grace. Just because you have to go down to the shop doesn't mean make it any less grace. It's all grace. But you got to go down to the shop. You got to stick the key in. You got to turn the... Are you doing anything to undermine grace? No. When the Lord commands you to repent and believe in the gospel it is a fruit of his grace to you that you do that. It's not a work that earns you anything. All of your salvation is by grace. But the Bible is full of... You got to do something. You can't just... Right? Open your beak. In that... If you're not providing like that then you're denying the faith. You become worse than an unbeliever. You're denying the faith. Work and trust the Lord. And work and trust the Lord. Live by faith. Faith in Christ. And trust the Lord. And the Lord will provide. And it is that kind of faith that is the faith exercised by that one who is truly a widow. So we've got the compassion to provide. That was point one. The compassion to pastor. That's point two. But point three on your notes is the compassion to prove. The compassion to prove or the compassion to test. There is a proving here that needs to happen. That begins in verse nine. And Paul in verse nine shifts focus here a bit, right? And he obviously, beginning in verse nine lays out some conditions. Some conditions. And many throughout church throughout the world period don't like that word conditions. But there are some conditions here. And the concern moves from who is really a widow now to what are the qualifications for when and how the church is going to get involved in the care of widows who are really widows or those in need. Now there's two things to say about this as we get into these verses, right? One is this. It is not a heartless church. It is not a heartless pastor. It is not a failure of grace or a failure of mercy. It's not an insensitive brother or sister or an insensitive pastor or a cold hearted brother a cold hearted sister that will expect or set conditions for help. It doesn't make the church a pastor or anyone's cold hearted or insensitive. Here it's commanding that we do this. It's prescribing conditions for help. We are to not only help those in need but we're to expect that someone take responsibility for themselves and take responsibility for those under their care. That is to be done because it is good and acceptable in the sight of God. Our government could learn a lot from these principles, right? You think about the welfare state that we're moving into. These principles in God's word are seen by many as unloving as insensitive or unmerciful and that's because the world has a sappy, sentimentalized view of what love and mercy and help and grace are. They just don't understand it. Think about that for a moment. Look at the bitter fruit of what that sappy, sentimentalized view of mercy or grace or love or assistance has gotten us by their fruits. Look at the fruit of it. We have raised a generation of people who just feel entitled to help, right? An entire culture that will take no responsibility for themselves or for those under their care. Many deadbeat dads just abandon wives with kids. They blame everyone else but won't take blame themselves. When I was a kid in school, that was a long time ago, but I remember if you got in trouble, my dad always said, listen, if you get a spanking in school, that right off the bat, okay, do you remember when there was actually spanking in school? I do because I got spanked in school, all right? There was actually, they would spank you. Teachers, principals would spank kids in school. My dad always said, listen, if you get a spanking at school, you're going to get ten times worse the spanking at home. There's no questions asked. There was no, what do you got to say for yourself? There's no opportunity to defend. It was just, pull down your pants, let her rip. It was going to be a spanking at home if I got in trouble at school. Today, number one, there is no spanking. If you look at little Johnny wrong, you know, you're threatened with a lawsuit. And I remember when I became a school teacher, long before I became a pastor, there's no spanking. There's no discipline like that. You'd be sitting in the principal's office with little Johnny and little Johnny's parents, and you're saying, I saw Johnny with the brick in his hand when he threw it at Sally. And you got other students. I saw Johnny, and then you got Johnny's parents saying, my kid would never do that. And little Johnny's saying, I didn't do it. And the parents are saying, little Johnny would never do that. He didn't do it. It's like, no responsibility for their actions. That's the way that it goes. We live in a society that has bred that, always blaming someone else for the problems in their life. Laziness, apathy, not taking any responsibility. It is, that's the fruit of our societies, our cultures, understanding of those things. We're not to have a worldly view of those things. We're to have a biblical view of those things. We can't go in the current of this world. We need to trust God and do what God's word says. That's always, that's not always going to be easy. And they're going to be many times and that appears counter-cultural. It appears insensitive, or heartless, or cold, or whatever the case may be. God is true.  Right? And we're going to follow God's word and obey him. And there's great blessing, great safety in that. But you can take these principles at home with you and apply them in your home.   And yes, there ought to be a lot of conditions.  Just because the government says they're old enough, is that all, you know? Yes, there should be conditions. Take that home. How do you interact with your spouse? How do you interact and raise your kids? There should be conditions in the home. Expect those conditions to be met. Remember when we were raising our girls? It's like one of the conditions we early on set was, listen, there will be no bickering in this household. You're not going to fight with your sister.  But eventually that got worked out. You just don't allow that kind of stuff. Set conditions in your home for how people are to act, for how people are to obey. When you make the statement, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Well, there's got to be a lot of conditions in place to make sure that happens. And we learn that from passages in Scripture like this. We can meet these conditions, right? But secondly, okay, one, it's not heartless church, a heartless pastor that does this. Secondly, in this passage, there's difficulty presented by the words here taken into the number. In verse nine it says, do not let a widow under 60 years old be taken into the number. And then there are qualifications given. Some would say that this represents an organized group of widows serving the church in some official capacity, similar to like a third office. There are elders, there are deacons, and there are these widows. Not what is being taught here. There's nothing in the context that supports that. Everything in the context here simply points to further qualifying those who are on the list for help, for support. Simply the church supporting widows. That being said, there's every indication given here that there are widows that were being supported by the church, and there were enough of them that they started a list. They started writing their names down. And that's actually supported by the word there for taken into the number. Taken into the number is represented by one word in the Greek kata legesto. kata meaning down, lego meaning to speak. It literally meant signing someone up in a group. Writing their name down on a list. The church at Ephesus here was keeping a role or a list of widows who were qualified to receive help from the church and who were getting that support. Widows now, that being said, would have had a somewhat of a distinctive identity within the church. We don't have time to go there, but in Acts chapter 9, we saw that with the widow Dorcas who died. And Peter in Acts chapter 9 went and raised Dorcas from the dead. There were a group of widows who were mourning over Dorcas. And one of the reasons that mourning is that all the good that Dorcas had done. She was a godly woman who was sowing clothes and providing for people in the church. And he had the widows there, it says with her that were mourning her. These widows certainly, being supported fully by the church, would have given themselves entirely to the church, to the service of the Lord, like Anna. We looked at last week, fully devoted to the church. And in many ways, most likely provided discipleship, like we see in Titus chapter 2, that older women were instructed to give. They are in Titus chapter 2. It says the older women likewise, beginning in verse 3, that they be reverent in behavior. Not slanderers, not giving them much wine, teachers of good things, that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed. But now, beginning in verse 9, considering this list, who then are these widows who belong on this list? And there are three main considerations given. The first is in verse 9, is maturity. He says, don't let a widow under 60 years old be taken into the number. And that's certainly for many reasons. One, those 60-year-olds are unlikely to respond, like the widows in verse 11, that they grow wanton, or wanton in their desires. They leave the faith, become a slave to their lusts. It's just unlikely, more unlikely, for someone over 60 to respond that way. Secondly, 60 was well beyond the age of having children. So they were very unlikely to remarry. And we'll talk about why that's important next week. Thirdly, younger widows would have likely been expected to work and support themselves. In the Old Testament, with Ruth, before Ruth married Boaz, what was Ruth doing? She's not gleaning in the field, right? Providing for herself. So many of the younger widows would have been expected to do that. But going on in verse 9, the Bible says, and not unless she has been the wife of one man. So the second consideration is that this woman shows fidelity or faithfulness similar to the requirement for elders and deacons who are required to be one woman then. This godly woman would be a one man woman, literally in the Greek there. Not an argument against polygamy. It's just saying that she's to be faithful to the husband that she had if she had a husband. But the third mark in verse 10 is charity. It says, well reported for good works. Again, her character here being looked at and her character, her faith being expressed in good works. And here she said to be, have a reputation for this, to be well spoken of for her good works or well reported for good works. And once again, we're confronted here with the idea in Scripture that we are to be people who do good works, Christians living doing good works. Paul's concern again here is for good works. Not because they save. Good works don't save you. This is not a salvation by works. This is a salvation that works. It's not because they save. It's not because they earn some kind of merit with God. But because good works give evidence of the genuineness of your faith.  How do you stack up to these characteristics of this godly woman who is a widow here? These are characteristics, mind you, of every Christian. Could it be said of you, okay, I'm a Christian, but I'm not going to be given to hospitality. You know, that's for those widows. No, every Christian is to be given to hospitality. I'm not going to do any works of kindness or service for my brothers and sisters like washing their free. This is not making foot washing a church ordinance. It doesn't mean that you've washed people's feet today, but we're to act with loving kindness towards our brothers and sisters, sacrificially serving them to the point where, think about it, if you did wash your brothers or sisters feet, we're to sacrificially serve our brothers and sisters in a way that honors them, honors God, this sacrificial toward them is loving toward them. Or you say to yourself, yeah, that's stuff for the widows to do. I don't need to do that. No, every Christian does that. So how do you stack up? You're not saved by your works, but the works that you do give testimony of the genuineness of your faith. Are you living wholeheartedly for Christ? Are you obeying Him? There are sins of commission, things you shouldn't do. There are sins of omission. Are you sharing the gospel with people? Wanting to see them?  That's absurd. Anyone who is ashamed of Him and His words. Are you loving your brothers by being regular, faithful and small group and looking for ways to love them and support them and help? If you see your brother in need, you close yourself off to Him. Bible says you're not a Christian.  Again here, Paul is concerned for good works. He says if she has brought up children, if she has lodged strangers, if she has washed the saints' feet, if she has relieved the afflicted, if she has diligently followed every good work. That diligently followed every good work is just a way of saying this is not an exhaustive list, this is a representative list and it encompasses everything. It encompasses everything. We're to be faithful to the Lord by being faithful to one another. And we'll look at those next week. We can take a lot from the example of the widow here, can we? There's a lot here to learn from this. And as this godly widow is to exemplify a godly character in her life, let that be said of us. Let that be said of you, that we're living for the Lord. And where you're not, the Lord gives you grace and mercy even now to repent of sin. If you're not, if you're here and you're not saved, the Lord says that He will change your heart, indwell you with His Spirit and cause you to walk in His statutes. We'll give you the heart to obey. We'll change who you are by your very nature. We'll take away your desire for those things that are destructive, take away your desire for those things that are sinful and give you a desire for Him. And it's an awesome blessing from the Lord to do that. It's a glorious salvation. Will you reject Him? Will you take Him at His word? Put your faith in Him and trust Him. If you trust Him, there's a glorious blessing. Amen. The Lord takes care of those who are His own. Let's pray. Father in Heaven, God thank you for this testimony of yourself in 1 Timothy chapter 5 here. Your compassionate heart toward those in need. We see that exemplified or throughout Scripture, and it's just a glorious reminder of how compassionate you are, to meet our greatest need in Christ. We thank you for that, Lord. We praise you. We worship you. Lord, we will serve you joyfully from the heart for all eternity, for all that you've done. And God, thank you for the new heart. And thank you for your spirit. Thank you for your word. And thank you for this joyous Christian life. Albeit lived, God, in a sense of our own unworthiness, a sense of our own sin. God certainly lived in the truth that you are the great provider. You provide for our greatest need and continue to provide for our greatest need. Our sanctification, our conforming into the image of Christ, our eventual glorification. We thank you and praise you for that glorious truth. Help us to live by these truths.   We love you and thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.


The study assessed the safety and immunogenicity of MENACYWTT, a cordivalent meningococcal conjugate vaccine, compared to MPSV4, a cordivalent meningococcal polysaccharide vaccine in 301 healthy adults aged greater than or equal to 56Y. The study found that both vaccines were well tolerated and immunogenic, with higher proportions of participants having HSBA titers greater than or equal to 1,8 against serogroups W and Y after MENACYWTT vaccination compared to MPSV4. This article was authored by Judith Kerstin, Miriam Pena, Judy Pan, and others.


Throughout history, people have had to fight insect pests to reduce diseases, minimize food losses, protect agricultural trade, or simply to avoid the nuisance of stinging, biting and buzzing bugs. Insect pest control is usually implemented locally in individual fields or properties. However, these uncoordinated efforts often prove inefficient because insects move from host to host, irrespective of ownership. Pest control that is limited to individual localities is both temporary and unsustainable since it only suppresses a proportion of the targeted pest population. Pests from nearby untreated areas remain unscathed and thus can re-enter the treated area. The damage continues and people have little choice but to apply control measures again and again to protect their livelihoods. Area-wide pest management provides a more cost-effective and sustainable approach. It calls for targeting simultaneously the entire pest population and allows the proactive coordination of control measures when the pest is most vulnerable rather than reacting when it nears damage levels. This way pest populations can be contained at low levels for longer periods. Having lower pest density also means that pest management methods can be integrated that are less reliant on insecticides such as beneficial insects and sanitation and that address ecological and environmental concerns such as insects becoming resistant to pesticides. Another such method is the sterile insect technique which is a species-specific type of birth control for insects. The technique relies on rearing, sterilizing and then systematically releasing male insects which seek out and mate with fertile wild females that as a result produce no offspring. Area-wide pest management requires the active and informed commitment of numerous stakeholders and even of whole communities. Only through this commitment is it possible to achieve the effective, sustainable and environmentally friendly control of insect pests needed to ensure global food security, prevent disease and protect our environment.


Some people used to deep throat the faucet. Just straight up suckle it. What will never be the same again, once the pandemic is over? Food delivery just being dropped off on your doorstep. Remember when you had to go outside and make eye contact like some kind of person? No more, my friends. Just leave it outside and I'll get it when I'm ready. No more scrambling to find pants when you're half-baked and hungry. I'm a delivery driver myself, and I can tell you, I appreciate it just as much on my end.  Like a FedEx driver before Covid. Standing next to someone after they sneeze. So hygiene and sanitation.  When the manager called her out on it, she got angry and started ranting. Left after lunch. I donated blood two months ago and the nurse was about to pull my needle out after another guy, without changing gloves. I could see blood on her fingertip from 10 feet away.  Health care workers going to work without a mask on. Definitely took for granted seeing my coworkers smiling faces during my long shifts. I started my job at a hospital in May, and it's funny to see my coworkers take their masks off briefly, because I've worked with them for six months and didn't know what their face looked like. I've never noticed how pretty some of my coworkers eyes are before this. Green eyes and crooked teeth gang. I've gone up like three points on the one to 10 scale. At least until the mask comes off. And I can defer my nose job another few years. Win-win. Time spent with my kids. Pre-pandemic, I would leave the house five days a week at 6.15am to commute to the office, usually before anyone else in my house is awake. And I'd get home most evenings just in time to put them to bed. I'll never go back to that.  I know now, what I was missing. Only positive to come from this whole mess.  You'll never look back in years to come and think, I should have spent more time at my desk. Blowing out the candles on your birthday cake. I never thought about it, but it is a rather disgusting tradition. For my wife's birthday, we cut the cake, gave her a piece with a candle, and that's one that she blew out. I will not take hugs for granted. My mom passed away unexpectedly in October. Because of my asthma, my mom took extra precautions around me, and hugs were completely off the table. The last two times I saw her, I tried to hug her goodbye when I was leaving, and she said no. Of course I respected that, and we did an air hug. When I found out she died, the first thing that went through my head, was the fact that I had not hugged her since January, and I never will again.  My heart goes out to all of you, who lost a loved one and are grieving, as well. If you can't hug someone you love right now, let them know you love them in some way. It's so important, and something we all take for granted too frequently. The phrase, avoid it like the plague. Turns out, people don't do that. I remember seeing a funny quote, either here on Reddit or on Twitter, that went something like, if the next zombie movie, doesn't have 40% of the people running towards the zombies to get infected on purpose, then it's not believable. Most of the mom and pop stores in my town are gone forever. Shopping will continue to be mostly online, and malls will likely die out faster than they were already going to. Some of these stores I grew up with, the Nickel Arcade, the tiny French bakery my aunt took us to when we got good grades, the only ramen shop open after 10pm, my favorite donut shop, the fancy British tea shop I never had a good date in, but many London fogs that were utterly perfect, the only dim some place, the handmade mochi and tea shop, the only cigar shop in town to get fancy cigars. I lament the death of all these tiny businesses I took for granted. I always thought they'd be around. Now my community is left with just brand named box stores, no more originality and flavor. Just closed skyrise buildings surrounded by a garishly lit denny's, Olive Garden, and Target. Working in an office, particularly in Japan. I live in Japan. Going to the office and spending all day here is a deep cultural tradition. Asking your manager at a traditional Japanese company, to work from home regularly is on par with asking them, hey, I just realized I'm dragonkin, can you please work with the cafeteria to put live cats on the menu? You would get the same reaction. Even in cases of personal illness or family emergency. So many companies here, even in the early COVID days, flat out publicly said, ha, no, we will never be doing that, work from home thing, sorry. That's laughably naive. Then, the country issued a declaration of national urgency, not an actual emergency, as that would entitle the government to be actually accountable, to the livelihoods of the people, just a very strong arm public stance and shaming businesses into following suit. Literally those same companies, issuing the statements above, were scrambling the next week to get their staff safely working from home, online, using remote meeting tools, etc. So, that was a big game changer. Still, everyone was thinking, once the urgency order is lifted, we'll all be going back to work as normal. Well, the urgency order lasted a few months. And those traditional Japanese businesses saw what happened to their bottom lines, when they no longer had to pay for electricity, heating AC, cleaning, office equipment and maintenance, subsidized travel expenses to slash from work, soft items like coffee and snacks, etc. And so many of them now are singing the praises of a, sensible work from home policy, and planning for even long-term work from home options. Now the society is changing very rapidly to accommodate working from home. More people recently, are less looking at buying their first house slash apartment and crowded Tokyo outskirts slash close suburbs, and looking more to buying one to two hours away in the boonies, where land is actually affordable and living is better. It's watching a sociological essay slash study unfold, live, in slow motion. My waistline. I had finally started working out five days a week, eating healthy, going to bed on time, etc. I kept that up for about three months and one month into COVID, before losing the mental strength. I gained pretty much all that weight back, and I'm pretty bummed.  My bank balance. In the words of the great tiger king himself, I'm never gonna financially recover from this. It's annoying how seemingly quickly, my life went from talking about where we wanted to buy a house, to discussing the possibility of moving back in with my parents for a while. Drinking fountains. Some people used to deep throat the faucet. Just straight up suckle it. Well, no more. My definition of personal space. I've always felt uncomfortable, when customers get too close to me at work. Now I just feel validated, when I keep trying to step away from them. As a nursing assistant, I will be forever hesitant to get near someone without my shield and mask. Particularly the elderly who like to cough directly at you without mask. Today, I was in my building going up to my floor, and told an older man he could share the elevator if he wanted. I noticed he clicked 43 and asked if he was going to vote, our building is a precinct. He said he was and that he was supposed to be an election judge, but had flu symptoms for 36 hours. Then says, maybe I shouldn't have shared this elevator with you. Like, why dude? Thank you for watching Royal AI. Be sure to subscribe and hit the notification bell to receive future episodes. Share your experience in the comments, or tell us what you think of these stories.


Hi everybody. Thank you for taking the precious last few minutes of Day 2 of Slush to join us today. My name is Mia Jawara. I'm a partner at Lower Carbon Capital. We're an early stage venture firm who invests across the globe too, and I hope I can say this here, unfuck the planet by backing companies that are building technology to reduce CO2 emissions, remove CO2 from the atmosphere, and buy more time for communities on the front lines and for ecosystems impacted by the climate crisis. I am really excited to be joined here today by three founders building incredible technologies in this space with that mission in mind. From literally thousands of companies setting commitments to reach net zero emissions by 2050 to billions of dollars flowing into carbon removal technologies, durable carbon dioxide removal, including the $925 million Frontier Fund advanced market commitment to looming environmental disclosure regulations, there are two things that are clear right now. One, companies, the pressure is on to take action on climate change. And two, companies are stepping up to the plate to do that. But complexity, gaps in data availability, lack of transparency, credibility in the carbon markets are making their jobs pretty difficult. And each of the folks on stage today is tackling different challenges in that space to make it easier for companies. So we have Michelle Yu, who is previously the co-founder of Songkick and a venture partner at Local Globe. She's now the co-CEO and co-founder of Super Critical, which is a software platform that helps companies measure, reduce, and offset emissions with high quality carbon removal. David DiPicciotto co-founded Media Startup I Rewind and was then an investor at Partners Group before founding Pledge in 2021. Pledge is a climate infrastructure platform that makes it easy for businesses to embed carbon measurement and offsetting tools into their customer experience. And last but not least, Marta Sugrin spent a decade as an early stage investor before co-founding Pebble, the carbon-restoring company. Pebble takes captured CO2 and stores it permanently in industrial material. I'm so excited to be having this conversation with you three. And again, thank you for being with us in these last few minutes. So let's get started. And what better place to kick off than focusing on the beginning of a company's net zero journey? Where in my experience, companies start off with far more questions than answers and need a lot of help. So why do businesses need so much support in starting their journey to net zero? And how are each of you making their lives easier? Michelle will start with you. Yeah, great. So I really came up with the idea for Super Critical when I was at the VC Fund Local Globe because I was tasked with getting them to net zero. You know, they were like, LPs are asking us questions. You go figure this out. And I found that process incredibly frustrating. I talked to loads of consultants, carbon accounting companies. I think from my experience starting consumer internet business, I just think we didn't make it super simple and straightforward for a late person to understand. People just wouldn't act because there was too much confusion. What we do is we automate the process of measuring carbon emissions for asset-like businesses like VC funds and tech companies. And then once you have that measurement, that's the first step. You need to know what is going on. And really, I've seen customers try to struggle with spreadsheets and do it themselves, but it takes expertise, like knowledge of the databases, emissions factors. So you should hire someone to help you do that. And once you know where those emissions are coming from, you need to come up with a plan to reduce. And you won't know from the outside what you can do. You need guidance and expertise around what works and what are the low-hanging fruit you can do. And once you've set down that reduction class, then the final step, which I think is the most confusing, is what is a high quality offset? And what's the type of offset that counts towards a net zero claim? And that's only durable carbon removal. And I think there's a lot of confusion around that as well. Definitely. David, Marta, is that resonating your experience? Yeah, maybe to tell also about the founding story. So I came up with the idea of a pledge when I was working in private equity in a fund that has a big focus on ESG and a big ESG team. And I saw how tedious it was for that team to essentially understand at the portfolio company level the relevant ESG and specifically climate metrics. And based on previous experience in technology companies like Revolut and Financial Services, I saw how software can help streamline processes in highly complex and often regulated industries to make the process of, for example, understanding, managing, reducing, and eventually offsetting emissions in a way that is easier, faster, and more transparent than existing processes. It's important. Yeah, well, I know everyone has to start somewhere. And I think often what I see is companies really stuck in this stage of paralysis where they've made the commitment, but they don't know the first step of what to do next. It kind of is just a lofty goal that someone at the C-suite is committed to and then gets kind of passed down to the people below them. And people are kind of spinning their wheels. So I guess in your experience, what is kind of the first step that a company can take? Or what is setting that initial roadmap in place look like? What are the first few things that companies can do, David? Maybe just starting with definitions. If we think about what net zero means, net zero is essentially a target to negate greenhouse gas emissions caused by a business, for example. And if we look at, for example, the SBTI net zero framework, there's essentially four steps in that journey. Just for context, SBTI is a leading body that essentially sets emission reductions targets for companies across various industries in line with the Paris Agreement, so the goals of the Paris Agreement. So this famous 1.5 degrees compared to pre-industrial levels. And these four steps to supplement what Michelle shared earlier are measuring emissions, reducing emissions, removing emissions, and finally reporting on the progress until you reach that net zero journey. So the big prerequisite is essentially having the data and then understanding which methodology or framework you need to apply to compute emission in the way that is the most accurate possible. Marta, Michelle, anything to weigh in on there? Are you seeing folks start in a similar place? Yeah, I mean, I can't tell you the number of tech companies we've worked with where the CEO is like, I want to get to net zero. They don't know what means. And then they hit it off to the CFO or the chief people officer. And there is a lot of confusion and paralysis, like you said. And I think the most, the first step is just to start and not let that fear, apparently, hold you back and just measure your emissions. That's like stepping on the scale and then you can figure out what to do. And I think the other thing that a lot of companies neglect to do is just measuring the full kind of supply chain emissions. So not just your energy-related scope one and two, but what's going up in your value chain. So your cloud usage, your work from home emissions, that is all what has to be measured and reduced. So that's the starting point really. I think just to add to that, I mean, I'm a newcomer to this. And I'm super thankful that you guys are doing what you're doing because we're in the actual removal space. We try to provide a service that removes the carbon dioxide, right? And we have a lot of demand from either platforms or direct companies. And I'm sorry, I'm losing my voice. That's why I sound like this. Slush, well done, I guess. Yeah. But what I've discovered just in the last, we said the company a year ago and in the past year, what I've discovered is that companies oftentimes just don't really even understand scope one, two and three. And what that unfortunately ends up in, and part of the reason I ended up doing this company, is that there is a lot of greenwashing. Involuntary greenwashing is one thing, and that's where I think education can really help. Voluntary greenwashing is where I think it should basically be criminalized. I'm pretty strong minded about this. And this is where I don't really know where the border is, right? I think I feel like what would be helpful to your previous question is audit standards. It's not just about measuring, but it's just like, are you even measuring the right thing? Or do we have the same definitions? That would, I think, be incredibly helpful.  And it's an interesting distinction you make between what's voluntary versus what's involuntary. You know, what's a result of bad information or a lack of data versus kind of intentionally saying something that's not true. And I think the involuntary and unintentional greenwashing is like the category that a lot of folks are unfortunately falling into at no fault of their own, but it's really important. I think we see this a lot. I unfortunately saw a lot of greenwashing and my time working in emissions reduction work with the large companies. And I'm curious if there are steps companies can take to try to avoid greenwashing pitfalls or like what you think needs to happen to help to avoid some of the involuntary or unintentional greenwashing. Michelle, I'm sure it's something that happens a lot with the company. I actually do think ultimately it will be regulated. We're starting to see, you know, financial or climate disclosures starting to be regulated in the U.K. and the U.S. with the SEC looking at it. So that will bring a lot more rigor to what people are reporting and measuring on. Actually what I see is a lot of people are so afraid of greenwashing that they don't want to say anything. And I think if you're happy to learn in public and be honest and transparent about what you're doing, what you're learning, then that benefits the community. Like I'm part of a task force in the U.K. called Tech Zero. That's a bunch of tech companies that have made a net zero commitment. Like Revolute is one of them-wise, you know, all the big tech companies. And we're just kind of learning together on what good looks like. And I think that you can think that there's some expert right answer, but net zero is such a new concept that everyone's figuring it out. But in terms of greenwashing, I mean, I really do think that not measuring your full scopes one, two, and three.  I think that that's what makes people feel like they're on the outside. But everything that's in your value chain. So everything you do by, you know, produce as a company that should be measured. And that's one way, I think, to avoid greenwashing. And then similarly, buying durable carbon removal offsets. Those are the only high-quality ones that count towards a net zero claim at your end target date. So there's a lot of greenwashing in the conventional emissions avoidance offset market. And that's a real challenge. Yeah. Which I want to bring everyone onto the same page. I know that like some of these definitions, the terms we're flowing around, like we're kind of like stuck in the jargon. But like to the average person, it might be a little hard to kind of wrap your mind around. And it's like, what is a durable carbon removal? You know, when you think about durable or permanent, and obviously there are variations also in the definition of durable and how people think about it, which is part of the problem. But how do you, yeah, how does each of you who are kind of deep in the space define durable? It's a great, I mean, I think first making the distinction between avoidance and removal. Yeah, that's a great place to start. So in the conventional offsetting market, which is 95% of the credits bought and sold today, it's essentially paying other people to stop doing something, avoid an emission. So this is renewable energy project, clean cook stove to burn a cleaner fuel, protecting a forest. That may or may not have a place, but it doesn't help you as a business get to net zero because the mass of net zero is super simple. If you emit a ton, you've got to remove a ton. And there are these early stage technologies that literally absorb carbon dioxide and sequester them for a period of time. Now durability, I think we've had a learning journey around that. Permanence isn't this like on or off flag. There's just a time frame. And what do you consider durable? And the way we look at, or my head of climate looks at it, it's not my answers. We look at the rate of decay of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and over a thousand years, it gets down to 20%. And you need to remove an equivalent amount that stays sequestered for at least that length of time, right? So it is very nuanced and challenge. And I think the other thing about it is removals, science measurement gets updated all the time. And things change as people are doing more tests. So the time frames and the kind of the measurement of what's sequestered and how long also gets updated. Marta's itching to sit in here. I want to interject because, again, as a newbie in this space, and you guys know way more than me, I just don't understand why a thousand years. I mean like surely like 200 years would be a good starting point or something like that. I have a friend that does CO2 removal through biochar and there there's evidence of 800 years. And apparently that's not permanent. I mean, how? Why? Do you understand this? I think the 1,000 years was initially so Stripe who's been leading, and I talked about the advanced market commitment earlier in the charge and kind of getting private capital flowing toward durable carbon removal. I think 1,000 years is the target for and then their definition of permanent for their program. And so I think it has kind of like caught on in that way. But you know, so Ryan Orbuck on our team leads our carbon removal fund. We have a dedicated $350 million fund to carbon removal. And I think we're going to see some some flexibility around that definition. Or I think the buyer, you know, different buyers are going to be looking for different time horizons. And so I think it's something that will evolve and it's just new and you know, people have different perspectives. The reason I bring it up is just because it's a bit of a ridiculous number, both that it's kind of short. And in our case, we turn CO2 to rock. I mean, it's going to be around for more than 1,000 years, but it's sort of like, what do you why? And so I think getting some sense of different tiers of carbon removal will be so beneficial because we need to solve this problem in the next decades. And that it's again, I don't I'm not an expert again in many of these fields. So I just ask the questions that I asked, which is like, why can't we be happy with 300, 200, 700 years, whatever? But anyway, I think that these, this topic we're discussing, it shows our nation to immature the spaces. Yeah, that's what it comes down to. And if I look, for example, at what was announced last week at COP in Egypt around ISO net zero standard, this ISO net zero standard is very different from other types of frameworks or guidance out there, like the science based target initiative, which says that to get to net zero, we can use initially of avoidance offsets and then eventually removals, while the ISO net zero standard only allows removals types of credits. So you can still feel somehow within the industry, you have varying thoughts from what was what is supposed to be leading bodies. Yeah. I mean, and I think the lack of standards or kind of coming and starting at different places is a problem across not only measurement, not only target setting, but then like the removals as well. The carbon markets obviously have a very important role to play in net zero, but are obviously flawed. And so I'm curious what your thoughts are on, you know, what is working well in carbon markets or why they're so important for this, but then also what are the gaps, what are the things that are missing, how can we make it better? David, why don't we start with you? Yeah, sure. So just to again be on the same page, I think the science is clear across different types of report from different scientific bodies. There's no path to net zero without carbon removals. So I think even after businesses embark on these reduction journeys and meet the relevant industry targets, there will still be what is called unavoidable or residual emissions. And this is where we need to scale these technologies that absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The only thing is that when we look today at the percentage of removals, credits out of the total market, I think it's around just five percent. So there's an enormous potential to scale this. And if we think about also today the production of offsets in circulation, I think it's less, it's clearly less than one gigatons. And the demand for these credits is expected to grow a hundred falls to up to 10 gigatons by 2050. So we need to have the right building blocks in terms of speaking under a common voice from a policy regulatory standpoint, but also putting in place the right economic incentives for corporates to have confidence in buying these type of solutions. Yeah, Marta, do you want to comment on that as well? I was at a dinner the other day and one of the hosts said it so well. It was it was actually kind of a depressed, I hope he's not here, or even if he is, it doesn't matter, kind of a depressing, welcoming speech.  And he said, it's really great that you guys are doing everything you're doing, but it's not enough. And what he was trying to say or what he said eventually is that we need to do more. We need to get policy to act faster, because it's just not fast enough. I'm in Brussels quite a bit working on, you know, government affairs with regards to carbon removal, and we're in mineralization, so mineralization turns CO2 to a carbonate, again a rock. And the fact that it wasn't written in the ETS, European Trading System of Carbon Credits, as, you know, like an accepted category until now is shocking to begin with, when the science has been around for over 20 years. We're building on top of science that's been around for 20 plus, in fact sometimes 30 years. But the next time they can define it, like bringing it into ETS so that our industrial emitter customers can use us instead of paying for ETS, is 26, 27, something like that. That was what I learned the other day. I just found that shocking, like how is there not a fast lane for this this kind of stuff, not just mineralization, I mean just in general technologies or pathways to get us to net zero faster. Similar for suppliers, we're in a global supply chain shortage of all sorts. We're really affected by it, and again here I am like trying to figure out how to get some like pumps. This is very clear things and I had to explain to this management saying you are starting to be a supplier in a pretty urgent category of businesses. Do you not have a fast lane? And I think that can be the first thing, it's like what technologies can really have an effect in the next decade that need to scale in the next decade that we can again prior process without risking biodiversity issues ecosystem issues of other sorts and similar. So that would be my say. Yeah, Michelle, any thoughts on what we can do better in carbon markets? I mean I think it ultimately has to be regulated but I'm not holding my breath it just move as you say it moves so so slowly and I think what I've seen is that the the voluntary commitments from companies are leading the way and regulations following after. So I you know I don't know if you follow the TSVCM like that's been around now being debated and like whatever working documents it's like nothing's been said over here. I'm going to do an acronym police. What is TSVCM? I'm not giving it it's like something about the Task force for scaling the voluntary carbon markets yeah again yeah sorry no not at all just yeah just saying and they still haven't made any decisions and I just think we don't have time we don't have a year to wait for these things to happen I think it's I think businesses really have a lot of impact by being leaders showing what good looks like and then policy will follow actually yeah yeah which is I think I want to applaud actually you know Stripe to begin with for taking that huge step in becoming a serious buyer and then being sort of the the catalyst to the frontier vehicle I guess we can call it and I know I know people who've gone through that process of going through the RFPs with with frontier it's grueling it is really really hard stuff so I want to applaud that because compared to some of the stuff I'm seeing that's regulated it's very serious so I think what would be really helpful actually not on this is coming out loud now as I'm thinking is if there was an NGO of some sort that could be like the auditing body made up of scientists basically and then the private money coming in through companies saying we need to set the standards that's what it's utopian I know I know no I mean that's what the third party certifiers are today vera and gold standard should I think do a terrible job their NGOs right set up by scientists and they do a terrible job of certifying like real credit so I don't yeah I'm not sure there must there must be something we must do better like that's what I find myself saying a lot of the times like yeah it's not that we can't we must do better yeah we have to yeah I will say as as an investor I am seeing some innovation in the measurement reporting and verification of carbon removal I think it's like a very critical piece to the puzzle so stay tuned and hopefully a year from now when we're back in these same seats there will be a lot of innovation happening in that space and folks tackling that gap in particular because I agree that the certifying bodies are not able to move fast enough they're not set up in a way where they can kind of create that fast lane as you mentioned so I guess in your discussions with corporate buyers David because I know you talked to a lot of your customers are thinking about ways not only to do the measurement themselves but also embed it in their own solutions what are the biggest challenges for integrating you know we talked about avoidance credits of avoidance offsets versus some of these more durable permanent carbon removal what's the biggest challenges that they're facing and integrating those into their credit portfolios that they're purchasing or into their customers credit portfolios and how can we address them when speaking to customers I think there are three things that that are frequently mentioned thing one is price secondly is the credibility as we just touched on or is this carbon removal verified and finally it's more I think the issue that stands is the maybe an educational gap they don't really know what to do with these with these credits this is the more traditional ones which they can use for some sustainability claims so if you look at price technology based carbon removals are notoriously more expensive than these more traditional type of offsets which are affiliated with with these registries called Vera and Gold Standard and they're much more expensive by a factor of 5, 10, 15 sometimes 20 times more across different project types the director capture that maybe some people in the arts will be familiar with to ocean based type removals to concrete based type removals so that's the first big hurdle subsequent to that given that these carbon removal technologies of this market is so nascent as we just touched on there's a lack of established standards and so as a result companies don't really know if they can use these credits for example for a carbon neutrality claim or for a net zero claim because nobody has really said the policy yet to say what you can't and can do with these credits and there's so many different types of technology based removals and they're so different to each other some are on land some are just pure technology that director captures some use natural processes with rain for example and so a methodology and a verification process has to be developed for each of these types of of carbon credits and this is the work that's that's currently being done so I think we're seeing now in some of these projects out like biochar the first methodologies being published but it will be a couple of more years so that we can cover the entire spectrum yeah what what steps need to be taken do you think to get a more corporations familiar with you know durable carbon removal and kind of this distinction between avoidance versus kind of removal credits and and to kind of start to purchase them or support them yeah I mean that's that's why we started out with tech companies as the buyers because I feel like they're the perfect early adopters for carbon removal they're comfortable with risk they're comfortable with uncertainty and they understand scaling like they understand we need to buy now but send this demand signal to bring it down the cost curve and scale the technology and I feel like you know I don't know if I mean you you've probably found other sectors that are that are kind of eager buyers of it but we've really been inspired and encouraged by that because they need to be comfortable with something being a bit shit and not as good right and there are more risk averse bigger corporate buyers probably that need things to be you know have a track record and have you know dot the eyes and cross the T's so I think it's finding those early buyers who are willing to to take that risk and make a lot of noise like striped Microsoft and Shopify and then you kind of go down they're like you know it's a crossing the chasm I guess yeah I think what what we've seen as well is some some corporates leveraging if I can call them traditional carbon markets for there to meet their sustainability goals and carbon neutrality claims but then doing on a voluntary basis contributions towards or financial contribution towards scaling carbon dioxide removal technologies I think Microsoft is a great example they pump millions every year into these technologies but if you go on the sustainability report I think you'll find more of a than not that the leverage traditional offsetting markets yeah Marta any thoughts yeah just to add I think Microsoft again is a good example of a company that's gone a few steps further and has committed to removing their historical emissions as well I think if we could get you know whatever a hundred of the fortune 500 for all of the fortune 100 for that or even hell even 10 10% of that to do the same thing would come a long way you know I think just getting those larger commitments and in something that can be measured and seen in the next five years could make a huge difference the other thing I believe in is and we're sort of in that market is that decarbonizing heavy emissions industries is actually incredibly difficult let's take cement for example you have two sources there you know per ton of cement you emit somewhere between six and eight hundred kilos of CO2 per ton of cement even if you electrify the whole process yesterday you still have 60% of the problem left so the problem is more in the material that it is in the process itself and that's difficult so if you're a if the voluntary carbon markets are able to help with the economic shift there I think that could be really interesting so you know that's what we're trying to innovate within as well is to help decarbonize these heavy industries through voluntary buyers as well that can commit somewhat to that well we are very sadly running out of time and I know folks want to get the after party started we're standing between folks in getting to various things tonight on the last night of slush so Michelle David Marta thank you for so much for joining and for talking digging into these really complex and difficult issues and to all of you thanks for sticking with us and hope you learned a little bit that we helped demystify some of the the net zero puzzle and that you feel one step closer to either as your own company for your customers your portfolio companies taking a step closer to getting to net zero emissions by 2050 yeah thank you so much


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