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Speaker 1: I think probably we can convince them to slow this down,

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Speaker 1: but it's going to take a lot of work, and

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Speaker 1: that wouldn't surprise me to be back in jail again

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Speaker 1: in the course of the winter, trying to slow it

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Speaker 1: down with Fucked.

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Speaker 2: Hi, I'm Chris Turney and you're listening to I'm Fucking

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Speaker 2: the Future, the podcast where we try to figure out

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Speaker 2: how to fix the environmental dumpster fire we're in. That

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Speaker 2: may sound pessimistic, but I promise it's not unfucking the future.

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Speaker 2: It's all about the incredible people making a big difference

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Speaker 2: and about how we can make a difference too. Let's

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Speaker 2: dig in.

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Speaker 3: We're fucking the future.

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Speaker 2: If you're walking around Burlington, Vermont back in twenty fifteen,

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Speaker 2: you may have seen the unusual sight a middle aged

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Speaker 2: dude in a baseball cap, calmly getting arrested at agasting.

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Speaker 2: As the officer cuffs him, a small group of people

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Speaker 2: start cheering.

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Speaker 4: Ex You.

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Speaker 2: These activists had come to protest ex On Mobile, a

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Speaker 2: big oil and gas company, and their leader that middle

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Speaker 2: aged dude getting arrested. He's our guest today, Bill mckibbon's

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Speaker 2: been fighting for the climate and sometimes getting arrested for

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Speaker 2: it for almost forty years. Bill actually wrote the first

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Speaker 2: book on the climate crisis for mainstream audiences. It's called

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Speaker 2: The End of Nature. I was published in nineteen eighty nine,

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Speaker 2: and as a teenager, I read this book front to back,

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Speaker 2: and I've got to say it really was life changing

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Speaker 2: to me. It's part of why I decided to study

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Speaker 2: environmental science. And he's written twenty more books since. Not

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Speaker 2: to mention, he started three fifty dollars or one of

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Speaker 2: the most effective climate action groups out there. So safe

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Speaker 2: to say, I'm stoked to have Bill on the show.

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Speaker 2: He's been of this for longer than many of us.

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Speaker 2: So I wanted to ask him about the state of

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Speaker 2: a climate movement today, how far we've come, what we

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Speaker 2: still need to do, and how we can get even

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Speaker 2: more people involved. I also wanted to talk to him

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Speaker 2: about his latest initiative, Third Act, which is successfully getting

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Speaker 2: some very unlikely climate activists to take to the streets.

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Speaker 2: So how did this mild mannered writer become such a

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Speaker 2: threat to a fossil fuel industry? As he tells it,

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Speaker 2: it all started back in the eighties.

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Speaker 1: I was a young writer at the New Yorker magazine

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Speaker 1: in New York and I did a long story about

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Speaker 1: where everything in my apartment came from. I followed all

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Speaker 1: the wires and pipes back to there. I was in

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Speaker 1: the Brazilian jungle, looking at oil wells, in the Arctic,

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Speaker 1: looking at hydroelectric dams, and on and I And I

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Speaker 1: think by the time I was done that long piece,

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Speaker 1: I had a sharper sense than I had before of

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Speaker 1: the physicality of the world, if you want to call

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Speaker 1: it that. I lived in Manhattan, which seems like a

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Speaker 1: place that could just mint money and ideas out of nothing,

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Speaker 1: but it turned out it was exquisitely dependent on the

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Speaker 1: continued operation of the planet's physical systems for its survival.

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Speaker 1: And I think actually that set me up to read

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Speaker 1: the early emerging science on climate change and understand some

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Speaker 1: of its implications that really, this was the biggest thing

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Speaker 1: that had ever happened and was ever going to happen,

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Speaker 1: by far, the biggest thing that humans had ever done.

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Speaker 1: And I think that really was laying a little bit

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Speaker 1: at the base of all that.

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Speaker 2: Now, we've talked to a lot of people in this

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Speaker 2: show who grew up in rural places and win inspired

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Speaker 2: by the beauty around them. They came into this fight

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Speaker 2: to protect the natural wonders in their backyards. But Bill,

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Speaker 2: Bill grew up in the suburbs, which.

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Speaker 1: Are a kind of machine for hiding the operations of

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Speaker 1: the natural world from you. Everything is named for what

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Speaker 1: used to be there but isn't anymore, you know, Fox

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Speaker 1: Run Acres or something, and I had sort of no

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Speaker 1: idea much what I was missing. I'm glad that I

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Speaker 1: grew up in the suburbs because I think that I

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Speaker 1: have a deep understanding of the center of gravity of

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Speaker 1: American life, which is the suburb and has been since

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Speaker 1: my time.

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Speaker 2: And it's already an established thing. But you actually saw

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Speaker 2: this incredible change post war and have a suburbs became

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Speaker 2: such a big part of American.

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Speaker 1: Life, American life, and then the model sadly spread around

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Speaker 1: the world.

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Speaker 2: I mean, what the fuck did the suburbs do to Bill?

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Speaker 2: They can't really be all that bad, right, What the

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Speaker 2: fuck are you talking about? Suburban sprawl has had major

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Speaker 2: consequences on the environment. Simply put, hundreds of millions of

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Speaker 2: people living in single family homes means lots of concrete

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Speaker 2: getting poured, loss of land being cleared, and a huge

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Speaker 2: demand for energy there's a certain lifestyle that comes along

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Speaker 2: with living in the suburbs. A green lawn, a large house,

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Speaker 2: two cars, and maybe even a pool. In the suburbs,

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Speaker 2: life is bigger. Plus, you're not living above your grocery

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Speaker 2: store and just a few blocks from your kid's school anymore.

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Speaker 2: The suburbs have made a fifteen, twenty or thirty minute

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Speaker 2: drive totally normal. For result is I fuckalowed more emissions. Historically,

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Speaker 2: carbon emissions from suburban homes are four times more than

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Speaker 2: those of homes in cities. And yet in the US,

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Speaker 2: Australia and much of a world, we've accepted the suburbs

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Speaker 2: as a way of life, and since of inception we've

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Speaker 2: never really made an effort to change fact.

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Speaker 1: The car centric bedroom community became was the American ideal

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Speaker 1: and became in too many places the world's ideal, with

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Speaker 1: grievous environmental consequences. I mean, you have all those big

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Speaker 1: houses you have to heat and cool and drive between them,

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Speaker 1: but also with grievous social consequences. Perhaps more importantly, the

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Speaker 1: average American has half as many close friends as the

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Speaker 1: average American of the nineteen fifties. And it's because we live,

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Speaker 1: because we devoted all our resources to building bigger houses

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Speaker 1: farther apart from each other, and people just naturally ran

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Speaker 1: into each other a lot less the course of a day.

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Speaker 2: Bill's twenty twenty two memoir The Flag, the Cross, and

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Speaker 2: the Station Wagon describes how the suburbs not only super

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Speaker 2: charged of emissions, but also they super charged our wealth,

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Speaker 2: inequality in individualism, and how all of this, taken together,

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Speaker 2: has reduced our ability to actually get together and solve

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Speaker 2: a climate crisis. So that's what the fuck we're talking about.

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Speaker 2: What the fuck are talking about? So anyway, Bill grew

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Speaker 2: up in the suburbs, and it wasn't until he was

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Speaker 2: a young writer of The New Yorker but he began

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Speaker 2: to reckon with the environmental impact of that. And then

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Speaker 2: on June twenty third, nineteen eighty eight, something monumental happened.

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Speaker 1: The greenhouse effect has been detected, and it is changing

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Speaker 1: our climate now.

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Speaker 2: Jim Hanson, then the director of NASA's Institute for Space

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Speaker 2: Studies in Manhattan, spoke to Congress about an emerging threat,

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Speaker 2: global warming. His testimony was headline news around the world.

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Speaker 2: Most people had never heard of such a thing, and

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Speaker 2: certainly not from a senior leader at NASA. People, did

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Speaker 2: you any rational thing? They freaked out.

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Speaker 1: I mean, Time magazine, in the wake of that testimony,

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Speaker 1: made instead of choosing a Man of the Year, as

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Speaker 1: they had for fifty years, they chose the planet of

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Speaker 1: the year. George H. W. Bush, then Republican President of

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Speaker 1: the United States, was shaken enough that he said, we

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Speaker 1: will attack the Greenhouse effect with the white House effect. Everybody,

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Speaker 1: as one would expect, was sort of lining up to

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Speaker 1: try to deal with this problem, because why wouldn't you

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Speaker 1: You've just been given a crucial warning by the world scientists.

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Speaker 2: Of course, all this urgency and unity was way too

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Speaker 2: good to lost.

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Speaker 1: We now know from all kinds of great investigative reporting

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Speaker 1: that within a year or so of Hanson's testimony, the

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Speaker 1: fossil fuel industry had circled the wagons. They'd hired the

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Speaker 1: people who used to work for the tobacco industry, and

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Speaker 1: they'd gone to work sowing doubt, denial, disinformation with billions

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Speaker 1: of dollars and decades of effort.

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Speaker 2: We all know that's the case, but just how much

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Speaker 2: effort they put into this is genuinely shocking. We've all

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Speaker 2: seen the ads. How can today's resources fuel our shared tomorrow.

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Speaker 3: The world needs ways to reduce carbon emissions, especially for

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Speaker 3: heavy industry.

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Speaker 1: We are working on solutions in our own operations, like

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Speaker 1: carbon capture and clean energy from hydrogen.

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Speaker 2: Those cheery inspirational ads about why petrol companies can fix

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Speaker 2: a problem they created our complete garbage. It's amazing. I

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Speaker 2: think anyone believes this nonsense. But sadly it seems to work.

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Speaker 2: Let's start from the beginning. Though it is nineteen eighty eight.

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Speaker 2: Jim Hanson's just presented his testimony to Congress, the world

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Speaker 2: looking at him going otoh, wear in real trouble. Let's

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Speaker 2: do something about it. A big oil starts to get worried.

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Speaker 2: The people are catching on. Something's got to change. So

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Speaker 2: Big Old gets together with some other manufacturing industries and

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Speaker 2: they create a group called the Global Climate Coalition. The

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Speaker 2: greatest success effectively lobbying the US to not sign the

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Speaker 2: Kyoto Protocol, which would have reduced global pollution by an

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Speaker 2: awful lot.

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Speaker 1: I mean, remember, in nineteen ninety two the world gathered

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Speaker 1: in Rio de Janeiro for a big conference on all

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Speaker 1: of this, and everybody was there, and it seemed like

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Speaker 1: people were going to go to work, but they didn't.

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Speaker 1: You know, the first effort was this Kyoto protocol that

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Speaker 1: was you know, still born really because of the US

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Speaker 1: refusal to ratify it.

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Speaker 2: It's a huge win for big al doesn't stop there.

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Speaker 2: Christian Downey and Robert Braule, two researchers who look at

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Speaker 2: trade organization funding, found that from two thousand and eight

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Speaker 2: to twenty eighteen, oil and gas companies outspent all other

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Speaker 2: sectors on public outreach and campaign contributions. And those cute

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Speaker 2: little ads, well, big oil spent are whopping one billion

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Speaker 2: dollars just on ads over ten years. So yeah, there's

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Speaker 2: a shit ton of money going into their efforts.

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Speaker 1: The fossil fuel industry has relentlessly refused to give up

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Speaker 1: its business model. They want to keep burning coal and

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Speaker 1: gas and oil, and so they've looked for any way

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Speaker 1: to keep doing that, and the most effective way they've

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Speaker 1: had is to muscle our political system to gain our

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Speaker 1: political system. Eventually they'll lose. I mean, we now live

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Speaker 1: on an earth where the cheapest way to produce power

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Speaker 1: is to point a sheet of glass at the sun

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Speaker 1: that eventually that will triumph, but eventually doesn't do us

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Speaker 1: much good.

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Speaker 2: I mean, they'reknew in the late nineteen seventies this is real.

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Speaker 2: In fact, there's some of the best scientists working on

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Speaker 2: that actually, and their projections and forecasts of the future

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Speaker 2: were really, really good and frighteningly accurate. There's been decades

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Speaker 2: of disinformation and misinformation that's come from this, from these

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Speaker 2: fossil fuel companies. I mean, Jim's made the points as well,

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Speaker 2: and I couldn't agree more. I mean, gosh, I've basically

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Speaker 2: been working in this field since Jim testified, and it's

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Speaker 2: amazing to see how he's consistently been ahead of the

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Speaker 2: community and repeatedly so. I mean, I find them incredibly inspirational.

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Speaker 1: He's also, let me just dad, he's also been ahead

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Speaker 1: in his willingness to be outspoken about it. I've had

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Speaker 1: to call him half a dozen times and say, will

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Speaker 1: you come get arrested with us here, which looked at

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Speaker 1: one way, is insane. It's so stupid to take the

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Speaker 1: most important climate scientists in the world away from his

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Speaker 1: computer screen and have him go sit in jail for

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Speaker 1: a couple of days. But it was actually super important

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Speaker 1: in building support for actually doing something about any of.

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Speaker 2: This, and in all his work bill has one goal.

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Speaker 2: We have to stop setting things on far and instead

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Speaker 2: stop pointing sheets of glass up at the sun.

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Speaker 1: Combustion has been a big part of human life for

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Speaker 1: something like seven hundred thousand years. Darwin said language and

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Speaker 1: fire were the two things that distinguished our species, and

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Speaker 1: mostly it's been good. We learned to cook food, and

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Speaker 1: that gave us the big brain. We could move north

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Speaker 1: and south away from the equator because we could warm

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Speaker 1: ourselves up. I think the anthropologists even consider that some

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Speaker 1: of the social bonds in our species come from sitting

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Speaker 1: around the campfire every night for eon. Kind of proto

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Speaker 1: zoom I like that. And then we made it to

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Speaker 1: the industrial revolution and learned to control the combustion of

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Speaker 1: coal and gas and oil, and that give us modernity.

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Speaker 1: But we're at the moment when the costs are suddenly

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Speaker 1: outweighing the benefits. The biggest of those costs is obviously

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Speaker 1: the existential climate crisis. So that's the biggest risk, but

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Speaker 1: it's not the only one from combustion. Nine million people

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Speaker 1: a year die on this planet, about one death in

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Speaker 1: five from breathing the byproducts of fossil fuel combustion. That's

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Speaker 1: a lot of people.

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Speaker 2: That is a heartbreaking number of people who die eachy

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Speaker 2: from fossil fuel pollution. That's about a population of London.

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Speaker 1: And as we've discovered and been re reminded in the

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Speaker 1: last couple of years, if you depend on a resource

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Speaker 1: it's only available in a few places, the people who

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Speaker 1: control those places end up with way too much power.

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Speaker 2: Countries that sits on huge all of us as are

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Speaker 2: able to punched way above our wait politically, Saudi Arabia,

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Speaker 2: the UAE, Guitar, Russia, Venezuela, the US. You get a point.

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Speaker 2: But the good news is we can see our way

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Speaker 2: out of this mess.

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Speaker 1: It's our great good fortune that it's precisely at this

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Speaker 1: moment when this trouble is mounting so fast, that scientists

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Speaker 1: and engineers have figured out how to use the power

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Speaker 1: of the sun. We can capture its rays directly on

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Speaker 1: photo voltaic panels, and we can take advantage of the

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Speaker 1: fact that it differentially heats the earth, producing the breeze

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Speaker 1: that turns those turbines. And now we have batteries to

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Speaker 1: store that when the sun goes down or the wind drops,

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Speaker 1: and in essence, you know, we can now take full

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Speaker 1: advantage of the fact that the Good Lord was kind

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Speaker 1: enough to hang a large ball of burning gas ninety

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Speaker 1: three million miles up in the sky. What we have

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Speaker 1: is cheap soilar, cheap wind, increasingly cheaper batteries. It's not free.

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Speaker 1: There's environmental damage that comes from the mining and so on,

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Speaker 1: and they can be done in inhumane ways, and we

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Speaker 1: should do everything we can to prevent that. But the

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Speaker 1: damage is orders of magnitude smaller than the damage we're

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Speaker 1: doing now. If you want one way to just sort

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Speaker 1: of keep that in your mind, statistic that helps for

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Speaker 1: me is that forty percent of all ship traffic on

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Speaker 1: planet Earth is just carrying coal and oil and gas

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Speaker 1: back and forth around the planet to get burned.

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Speaker 2: We have to change that. One of the ways out

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Speaker 2: of this mess is actually buried in the Inflation Reduction Act,

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Speaker 2: which is sending hundreds of billions of dollars into clean

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Speaker 2: energy right now. It's the biggest investment in the US

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Speaker 2: government has ever made to reduce carbon pollution. But Bill says,

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Speaker 2: we've got to spend this money quickly.

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Speaker 1: You know, I know the people at the White House

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Speaker 1: and the Department of Energy who are trying to shovel

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Speaker 1: that money out the door as fast as they can,

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Speaker 1: in part because there's a real fear that Donald Trump

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Speaker 1: will be re elected, which point it'll all come to

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Speaker 1: a halt. The hardest part is getting communities. We're now

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Speaker 1: at the point where the rubber really meets the road.

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Speaker 1: There are one hundred and forty million homes and apartment

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Speaker 1: buildings and apartments in the US, and each one of

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Speaker 1: them has to be changed in certain ways, you know.

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Speaker 1: And there's money now to allow that to happen. But

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Speaker 1: that's still an extraordinarily complex logistical problem, you know. So

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Speaker 1: right now there's a lot of work in listing mayors

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Speaker 1: and city councils and governors and things in this work

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Speaker 1: as it spreads out from the center. So that's half

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Speaker 1: of what the US has to do. The other half

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Speaker 1: is it has to not just worry about its own commissions.

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Speaker 1: It has to stop exporting vast quantities of fossil fuel elsewhere.

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Speaker 1: We will, as someone once said, hang together, or we

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Speaker 1: will hang separately. I mean, look, humans are socially evolved primate.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't that many generations ago that we were sitting

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Speaker 1: on the floor of the savannah picking lice out of

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Speaker 1: each other's fur. You know, and that is us at

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Speaker 1: its best, our responsiveness to people around us. This is

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Speaker 1: what climate change is testing. Now. If we do things right,

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Speaker 1: we'll be making a transition to a world that doesn't

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Speaker 1: set things on fire anymore, and as a result, the

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Speaker 1: world itself will be less on fire, meaning that.

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Speaker 2: Is a future where we only rely renewable energy, where

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Speaker 2: fossil fuels are a thing of a past.

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Speaker 3: We're fucking the future. We're fucking the future.

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Speaker 2: But Bill has been parts of a climate movement for

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Speaker 2: decades and he still has hope. But we can turn

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Speaker 2: this around, but we have to get everyone activates on

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Speaker 2: these issues as quickly as humanly possible.

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Speaker 1: I've had the privilege of being there pretty much the

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Speaker 1: whole time as we've built this climate movement. I founded

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Speaker 1: the first what turned into the first global grassroots climate

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Speaker 1: change campaign three point fifty dot org with seven undergraduates

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Speaker 1: at the college where I teach, and within a year

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Speaker 1: we'd organized fifty two hundred simultaneous demonstrations in one hundred

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Speaker 1: and eighty one countries. We launched this fossil fuel divestment campaign,

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Speaker 1: and within a decade we've convinced endowments and portfolio is

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Speaker 1: worth about forty trillion dollars to divest from fossil fuel.

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Speaker 2: So the good news is we're going in the rights

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Speaker 2: and we can thank longtime activists Light Bill for aggravating

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Speaker 2: the status quo and getting us to where we are today.

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Speaker 1: We sort of kick these things off, but then everybody

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Speaker 1: just took it and ran with it. We think three

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Speaker 1: point fifty dot org has organized or been associated with

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Speaker 1: twenty thousand demonstrations in every country on Earth except North Korea.

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Speaker 1: But you obviously can't organize all those. It's just people

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Speaker 1: picking up the ball and running with it everywhere. I

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Speaker 1: think probably this is the biggest movement in human history,

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Speaker 1: which is good because it's by far the biggest problem

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Speaker 1: in human history. And it really has been an extraordinary

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Speaker 1: honor just to get to watch it grow and grow

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Speaker 1: and grow. Whether we've grown it big enough to take

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Speaker 1: on the you know, to make the change we need

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Speaker 1: in the time we have as an open question. We

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Speaker 1: clearly need more people. I'm spending my time now a

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Speaker 1: lot of it organizing old people like me in this group.

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Speaker 2: Third Act Bill, to fight a problem that seems pretty

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Speaker 2: easy to solve. We need more people to give a

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Speaker 2: shit about what's happening to our planet.

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Speaker 1: The most effective climate activist of all time was obviously

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Speaker 1: gret At Tunberg and her movement that she inaugurated, really

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Speaker 1: the school strike movement, and things came like a bulk

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Speaker 1: from the blue and it was increasing with incredible speed

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Speaker 1: and power through twenty nineteen. In that September of that year,

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Speaker 1: there were ten million kids on on school strike.

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Speaker 5: My name is Grieta Tembari, and I'm inviting you to

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Speaker 5: be a part of the solution.

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Speaker 2: When young people go to the streets, they get attention,

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Speaker 2: and rightfully so. Ten million young people standing up to

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Speaker 2: their governments in action on the climate crisis is big news.

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Speaker 2: But it shouldn't have to be this way. Their kids

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Speaker 2: and they didn't create this crisis. My generation have its

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Speaker 2: generation date.

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Speaker 1: Young people have done most of the leading on this fight.

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Speaker 1: As I said, I started three point fifty dot org

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Speaker 1: with seven undergraduates with extraordinary success. You know, Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge,

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Speaker 1: Princeton University, California, University of Michigan, all divested now from

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Speaker 1: fossil fuel. Those young people, when they graduated went on

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Speaker 1: to form the Sunrise movement that brought us the Green

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Speaker 1: New Deal and hence the Inflation Reduction Act. And around

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Speaker 1: the world, as we've said, you know, Greta and her

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Speaker 1: the ten thousand other Gretas around the world had ten

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Speaker 1: million followers, and they've done an unbelievable job. I mean,

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Speaker 1: what a pleasure it was to get to write my

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Speaker 1: friend Greta in June a letter of congratulation on graduating

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Speaker 1: from high school. Think about that for a minute, you know,

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Speaker 1: but I did hear one too many people my age say, oh,

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Speaker 1: it's up to the next generation to solve this problem,

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Speaker 1: which seems noble but also highly impractical. For all their

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Speaker 1: energy and intelligence and idealism, young people lack the structural

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Speaker 1: power to make by themselves change on the scale we

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Speaker 1: need in the time that we have. We don't have

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Speaker 1: the time for them to grow up and become senators

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Speaker 1: and CEOs and whatever that takes a while. In a

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Speaker 1: while is what we don't possess. So if you look

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Speaker 1: around for who does have structural power, it's people with

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Speaker 1: hairlines like.

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Speaker 2: Mine, which is why Bill started faird Act.

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Speaker 1: We punch above our weight politically because we all vote.

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Speaker 1: There's no known way to stop old people from voting.

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Speaker 1: We ended up with most of the money. We've got

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Speaker 1: about seventy percent of the country's financial assets. So if

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Speaker 1: you wanted to push around Washington or Wall Street or

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Speaker 1: your state capital, having some older people would be helpful.

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Speaker 1: The theoretical objection to this from political scientists and things

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Speaker 1: was that people become more conservative, as so there's no

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Speaker 1: point trying to organize them. I don't know if that

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Speaker 1: was true once, but it doesn't need to be true

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Speaker 1: now because if you're in your sixties or seventies or eighties, now,

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Speaker 1: it means that in your first Act, you were around

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Speaker 1: for this moment of great epic social, cultural, political transformation,

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Speaker 1: when we had the first Earth Day and the birth

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Speaker 1: of the modern environmental movement, when in my country the

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Speaker 1: civil rights movement was at its apex on and on,

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Speaker 1: and so now people are Perhaps the Second Act was

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Speaker 1: a little more involved in consumerism than citizenship, but that's

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Speaker 1: water under the bridge, and now people are organizing like crazy.

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Speaker 1: We've just been a kind of pell Mell sprint these

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Speaker 1: last two years, and people are great at registering voters

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Speaker 1: and lobbying legislatures, on and on, but they're also willing

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Speaker 1: to take direct action. We had Third Act coordinated demonstrations.

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Speaker 1: One hundred demonstrations in one hundred cities in March against

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Speaker 1: the four big banks Chase City, Wells, Fargo, Bank of

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Speaker 1: America that are the biggest lenders to the fossil fuel industry.

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Speaker 1: And these were great and quite milletant.

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Speaker 2: When I told you Bill was a real deal, I

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Speaker 2: meant it. On March twenty first, twenty twenty three, Bill

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Speaker 2: and thousands of other people whose hairlines look like Bill's

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Speaker 2: demanded that banks stop funding bad actors in the climate crisis.

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Speaker 2: During one hundred events in over thirty one states. They

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Speaker 2: pledged to closer accounts, cut up their credit cards, and

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Speaker 2: boycott Bank of America, Chase City Bank, Wells Fargo if

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Speaker 2: they didn't move their investments out of fossil fuel. This

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Speaker 2: kind of action works because, like Bill said, these people

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Speaker 2: have large financial power in the United States, and that's

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Speaker 2: true of just about every other industrialized country in the world.

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Speaker 1: I was in Washington, DC, and we shut down the

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Speaker 1: banks for the afternoons with Citi ins. We're too old

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Speaker 1: to sprawl on the sidewalk easily for hours at a time.

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Speaker 1: We went to all the thrift shops in the Greater

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Speaker 1: Washington area and came away with hundreds of rocking chairs,

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Speaker 1: and that's what we used to The New York Times

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Speaker 1: the next day called it the rocking share of Rebellion.

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Speaker 1: It's very good to be able to back up the

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Speaker 1: young people who are leading in this work. It's a

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Speaker 1: lot of fun.

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Speaker 2: That was something that really struck me from writing. Actually,

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Speaker 2: is this idea that you've got a really impassioned, mobilized,

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Speaker 2: energetic generation, but without the resources the networks for relationships

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Speaker 2: of powers. You say, and I think we're just bringing

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Speaker 2: these two together. It's just such a fascinating and really

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Speaker 2: hopeful momentum and lots of fun. Yeah, and lots of

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Speaker 2: fun as well, you know, moving forward, for people who

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Speaker 2: are listening, how do they help get their parents and

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Speaker 2: if they're fortunate enough to still have them grandparents involved.

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Speaker 1: You know, there's some people who can't reach there have

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Speaker 1: just spent too much time I'm listening to you know,

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump or rush Limbau or something. But there are

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Speaker 1: plenty of other people who you can reach. With older people,

437
00:27:08,359 --> 00:27:11,479
Speaker 1: there's definitely the idea that and it turns out to

438
00:27:11,480 --> 00:27:15,560
Speaker 1: be correct that your grandkids will will think you're cool

439
00:27:19,160 --> 00:27:22,040
Speaker 1: if you're whoever whatever, you're doing. But I think it's

440
00:27:22,200 --> 00:27:26,040
Speaker 1: just a sense of responsibility. I mean, look, climate change

441
00:27:26,119 --> 00:27:29,000
Speaker 1: is basically a test at this point of whether the

442
00:27:29,160 --> 00:27:32,280
Speaker 1: big brain was a good adaptation or not. You know,

443
00:27:32,840 --> 00:27:34,640
Speaker 1: it can get us in a lot of trouble, can

444
00:27:34,720 --> 00:27:38,240
Speaker 1: it get us out? My sense is that that probably

445
00:27:38,280 --> 00:27:40,359
Speaker 1: will have to do with the size of the heart

446
00:27:40,400 --> 00:27:44,000
Speaker 1: that that brain is attached to, And so having a

447
00:27:44,080 --> 00:27:48,119
Speaker 1: kind of human sense of what we need to do

448
00:27:48,280 --> 00:27:52,240
Speaker 1: is really important Americans. You know, we tended to fault

449
00:27:52,240 --> 00:27:58,040
Speaker 1: towards the individual, and you know, if someone tells you

450
00:27:58,040 --> 00:28:00,760
Speaker 1: about climate change, you start worrying about what on your roof,

451
00:28:01,400 --> 00:28:04,359
Speaker 1: what's in your garage. The truth is that at this

452
00:28:04,520 --> 00:28:10,240
Speaker 1: point it's still policy at as large a level as possible,

453
00:28:10,359 --> 00:28:14,679
Speaker 1: national level, state level things. That probably is the most

454
00:28:14,760 --> 00:28:17,919
Speaker 1: where the most leverage lies. The most important thing an

455
00:28:17,960 --> 00:28:19,919
Speaker 1: individual can do is be a little bit less of

456
00:28:19,920 --> 00:28:25,159
Speaker 1: an individual and be instead joined together with others in

457
00:28:25,280 --> 00:28:29,199
Speaker 1: movements large enough to make real change. That's why we

458
00:28:29,240 --> 00:28:30,720
Speaker 1: set things up like Third Act.

459
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:33,960
Speaker 2: And look, if that's not enough to get your mom

460
00:28:34,040 --> 00:28:36,240
Speaker 2: out into the streets, I don't know what is.

461
00:28:36,720 --> 00:28:45,920
Speaker 3: We're fucking the future, weird fucking the future.

462
00:28:50,320 --> 00:28:52,520
Speaker 2: Before I closed out with Bill, I did want to

463
00:28:52,560 --> 00:28:55,480
Speaker 2: ask him one more question. I've read a review in

464
00:28:55,520 --> 00:28:58,200
Speaker 2: the New York Times about Bill's book, and in it

465
00:28:58,280 --> 00:29:00,840
Speaker 2: but right to shed the famous art In Luther king

466
00:29:00,920 --> 00:29:04,640
Speaker 2: junior quote, the ark of a moral universe is long,

467
00:29:04,920 --> 00:29:09,920
Speaker 2: but it bends toward justice. To me, it perfectly encapsulates

468
00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:15,560
Speaker 2: all social justice movements, including climate justice. We must have hope,

469
00:29:15,920 --> 00:29:18,760
Speaker 2: and we must believe a world can be better, but

470
00:29:18,920 --> 00:29:22,240
Speaker 2: it will be better. Bilbo feels somewhat differently.

471
00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:25,240
Speaker 1: The arc of the physical universe is short, and it

472
00:29:25,320 --> 00:29:27,920
Speaker 1: bends toward heat. That quote about the ark of the

473
00:29:27,920 --> 00:29:31,160
Speaker 1: moral universe comes from my great hero, Martin Luther King,

474
00:29:31,640 --> 00:29:35,000
Speaker 1: and what he meant was this may take a while,

475
00:29:35,000 --> 00:29:38,480
Speaker 1: but we're going to win. And that was a powerful

476
00:29:39,240 --> 00:29:41,840
Speaker 1: source of comfort to the brave people of the civil

477
00:29:41,920 --> 00:29:46,040
Speaker 1: rights movement. But we don't have that comfort. You know,

478
00:29:46,160 --> 00:29:49,280
Speaker 1: we've got six years. If we melt the Arctic, nobody's

479
00:29:49,320 --> 00:29:51,520
Speaker 1: got a coherent plan for how you freeze it back

480
00:29:51,600 --> 00:29:55,560
Speaker 1: up again. So if we don't win fast, we don't win.

481
00:29:55,640 --> 00:29:59,239
Speaker 1: And hence the sense of extraordinary urgency that underlies all

482
00:29:59,320 --> 00:30:04,600
Speaker 1: this work. So many thanks for this conversation.

483
00:30:04,880 --> 00:30:07,720
Speaker 2: Bill, it's me. It should be thanking you honestly, thank

484
00:30:07,760 --> 00:30:10,520
Speaker 2: you so much. It's an absolute privileged to be speaking

485
00:30:10,560 --> 00:30:10,760
Speaker 2: to you.

486
00:30:10,880 --> 00:30:14,360
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, welligious mine and thanks for all

487
00:30:14,400 --> 00:30:15,280
Speaker 1: your good work.

488
00:30:15,320 --> 00:30:20,120
Speaker 2: And you two sir, you too. Bill was so inspiring

489
00:30:20,160 --> 00:30:23,959
Speaker 2: to talk with. Honestly, he's a force of nature. And

490
00:30:24,000 --> 00:30:27,520
Speaker 2: now it's on us, yes, all of us, to build

491
00:30:27,560 --> 00:30:28,960
Speaker 2: on this amazing work.

492
00:30:30,080 --> 00:30:32,440
Speaker 3: What fuck can I do?

493
00:30:33,640 --> 00:30:36,000
Speaker 2: I wanted to bring in Maggie bed once again to

494
00:30:36,080 --> 00:30:38,640
Speaker 2: talk about what we can take away from our conversation

495
00:30:38,760 --> 00:30:43,480
Speaker 2: with Bill mckibbon. Hey, Chris, Maggie, Geez. I just feel

496
00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:45,400
Speaker 2: like there's so many things I want to talk about

497
00:30:45,400 --> 00:30:46,240
Speaker 2: from this interview.

498
00:30:46,920 --> 00:30:48,040
Speaker 4: Oh right, there was.

499
00:30:48,000 --> 00:30:48,720
Speaker 2: So much there.

500
00:30:48,760 --> 00:30:52,040
Speaker 4: The big one for me, though, is that Gen X

501
00:30:52,200 --> 00:30:57,280
Speaker 4: and Boomers need to step up. Those generations have a

502
00:30:57,360 --> 00:31:00,000
Speaker 4: lot of political power. And when I say those generations,

503
00:31:00,360 --> 00:31:04,880
Speaker 4: I mean my generation. We are so often hearing people say, oh,

504
00:31:04,920 --> 00:31:09,200
Speaker 4: the younger generation will save us. Younger generation cares Our

505
00:31:09,280 --> 00:31:12,480
Speaker 4: generations have to step up. So I would say the

506
00:31:12,600 --> 00:31:16,880
Speaker 4: obvious follow up here is to get involved with Bill's organization.

507
00:31:17,120 --> 00:31:19,960
Speaker 4: Third act, I mean, if you're from the boomer generation,

508
00:31:20,200 --> 00:31:23,040
Speaker 4: there are a lot of resources on their site to

509
00:31:23,120 --> 00:31:26,240
Speaker 4: help you figure out how to take action. And if

510
00:31:26,240 --> 00:31:29,440
Speaker 4: you're not from that generation, there are resources to help

511
00:31:29,480 --> 00:31:32,880
Speaker 4: you talk about climate with the boomers in your life.

512
00:31:33,440 --> 00:31:37,760
Speaker 4: So to learn more, visit third act dot org, slash

513
00:31:38,040 --> 00:31:41,440
Speaker 4: get involved, and you know all that talk about the

514
00:31:41,520 --> 00:31:46,160
Speaker 4: Inflation Reduction Act. That is an important reminder of the

515
00:31:46,200 --> 00:31:51,160
Speaker 4: importance of civic engagement. And the main part of civic

516
00:31:51,240 --> 00:31:57,560
Speaker 4: engagement is voting. So vote Boomers, gen xers, vote, vote

517
00:31:57,600 --> 00:32:01,239
Speaker 4: for climate candidates, vote for climate Paul, vote like your

518
00:32:01,280 --> 00:32:02,680
Speaker 4: life depends on it, because it.

519
00:32:02,600 --> 00:32:06,719
Speaker 2: Does, absolutely Thanks so much, Maggie, And that's what the

520
00:32:06,760 --> 00:32:08,680
Speaker 2: fuck you can do to help This week?

521
00:32:09,640 --> 00:32:15,480
Speaker 3: What the fuck can I do? Oh?

522
00:32:15,680 --> 00:32:21,560
Speaker 2: Fuck, that's it for now, but I can't wait for

523
00:32:21,640 --> 00:32:25,400
Speaker 2: next week. I'll be talking with Kaylin O'Connor, a brilliant

524
00:32:25,440 --> 00:32:28,360
Speaker 2: philosopher who's working on one of the biggest obstacles in

525
00:32:28,400 --> 00:32:30,920
Speaker 2: the climate crisis, misinformation.

526
00:32:31,440 --> 00:32:35,479
Speaker 5: A lot of what is driving that, I think is

527
00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:40,760
Speaker 5: cylinical actors who are trying to erode public trust in science,

528
00:32:41,040 --> 00:32:45,280
Speaker 5: and especially you see this in the US among right

529
00:32:45,320 --> 00:32:50,600
Speaker 5: wing politicians and especially populist type politicians, because of course

530
00:32:50,640 --> 00:32:55,719
Speaker 5: populism is associated with this kind of rejection of authority

531
00:32:55,960 --> 00:32:56,880
Speaker 5: or expertise.

532
00:32:57,240 --> 00:33:01,160
Speaker 2: That's next time on Fucking the Future. For now, We're

533
00:33:02,520 --> 00:33:09,800
Speaker 2: fucking the Future. I'm Fucking the Future is produced by

534
00:33:09,840 --> 00:33:13,480
Speaker 2: Imagine Audio and Awfully Nice for iHeart Podcasts and hosted

535
00:33:13,520 --> 00:33:17,800
Speaker 2: by me Chris Turney. The show is written by Meredith Bryan.

536
00:33:18,200 --> 00:33:21,000
Speaker 2: I'm Fucking the Future is produced by Amber von Shassen

537
00:33:21,040 --> 00:33:25,400
Speaker 2: and Rene Colvert. Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Carral Welker, and

538
00:33:25,520 --> 00:33:29,480
Speaker 2: Nathan Chloch are the executive producers from Imagine Audio. Jesse

539
00:33:29,560 --> 00:33:34,000
Speaker 2: Burton and Katie Hodges are the executive producers from Awfully Nice.

540
00:33:34,040 --> 00:33:38,080
Speaker 2: Sound design and mixing by Evan Arnette, original music by

541
00:33:38,120 --> 00:33:42,680
Speaker 2: Lillly Hayden, and producing services by Peter McGuigan. Sam Swinnerton

542
00:33:42,760 --> 00:33:46,120
Speaker 2: wrote our theme and all those fun jingles. If you

543
00:33:46,240 --> 00:33:49,400
Speaker 2: enjoyed this episode, be sure to rate and review Unfucking

544
00:33:49,440 --> 00:33:52,360
Speaker 2: the Future on Apple Podcasts or whether you get your

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Speaker 2: podcasts