WEBVTT - Addiction to Fossil Fuels is Solvable 0:00:15.076 --> 0:00:24.396 Pushkin. This is solvable. I'm Ronald Young Jr. Things like 0:00:24.556 --> 0:00:29.116 solar panels are no longer some kind of fringe technology 0:00:29.276 --> 0:00:33.396 that's like good for hippies and whatever. This is the 0:00:33.516 --> 0:00:38.036 cheapest way to generate power around the world now, so 0:00:38.076 --> 0:00:40.996 we understand the basics of climate change. You burn coal 0:00:41.076 --> 0:00:43.356 and gas and oil. You put carbon into the air. 0:00:43.796 --> 0:00:46.316 The molecular structure of that CEO two traps heat that 0:00:46.316 --> 0:00:50.236 would otherwise radiate back out into space. Things get hotter. 0:00:50.876 --> 0:00:54.196 Lots of tundra up in the far North will melt, 0:00:54.356 --> 0:00:57.116 and when it does, it will release huge amounts of 0:00:57.156 --> 0:01:01.396 carbon and methane into the atmosphere, accelerating this heating cycle. 0:01:01.996 --> 0:01:04.196 And this isn't your fun in the sun. Let's take 0:01:04.236 --> 0:01:06.196 a trip and get out of the cold type of heat. 0:01:06.876 --> 0:01:09.036 This is the kind of murderous heat that humans can 0:01:09.156 --> 0:01:12.676 not survive. And the changing climate has already begun to 0:01:12.676 --> 0:01:17.156 affect our lives now with rampant wildfires in California or 0:01:17.196 --> 0:01:20.276 the severe winter storms that cause the power crisis in Texas. 0:01:21.076 --> 0:01:25.276 These problems are urgent to solve. We're past the point 0:01:25.556 --> 0:01:28.876 where we can make the math work one tesla at 0:01:28.876 --> 0:01:32.476 a time, One vegan dinner at a time. Bill mcibbon 0:01:32.516 --> 0:01:34.596 is the founder of three fifty dot org, and he's 0:01:34.596 --> 0:01:37.916 worked on fighting climate change since the nineteen eighties. And 0:01:38.076 --> 0:01:42.316 since the nineteen eighties, communal concerns have grown louder and louder. 0:01:42.876 --> 0:01:46.876 At first, it was just environmentalists and scientists piling up evidence, 0:01:47.276 --> 0:01:52.116 but now action is critical. We're talking massive, dramatic action 0:01:52.716 --> 0:01:58.236 and global collaboration. There's strong limits to how much change 0:01:58.276 --> 0:02:02.996 we can accomplish through changes in individual behavior or habit. 0:02:03.836 --> 0:02:06.476 Most of the problem is deep in the guts of 0:02:06.516 --> 0:02:10.276 the system. So is climate change really solve given our 0:02:10.316 --> 0:02:14.076 dependence on fossil fuels. I believe that our dependence on 0:02:14.116 --> 0:02:19.156 fossil fuels is solvable, and I believe that we have 0:02:19.316 --> 0:02:22.036 to solve it if we're to have a chance of 0:02:22.436 --> 0:02:31.236 keeping civilizations intact over the course of this century. Bill, 0:02:31.316 --> 0:02:35.116 I'm thirty seven, I'm unmarried with no kids. I'd love 0:02:35.196 --> 0:02:37.236 to get married and have kids within the next three years. 0:02:37.236 --> 0:02:40.276 By the time i'm forty. I want you to imagine 0:02:40.436 --> 0:02:42.836 my child and tell me what the world looks like 0:02:42.876 --> 0:02:46.316 for them when they're thirty. So i'd be seventy and 0:02:46.396 --> 0:02:49.276 they'd be thirty. If we continued on the path that 0:02:49.316 --> 0:02:52.956 we're on. Okay, we've got two ways, one the bad 0:02:53.036 --> 0:02:55.716 way and one the somewhat better way. Okay, I love it. 0:02:55.836 --> 0:02:59.396 So if we continue on the path we're on, if 0:02:59.436 --> 0:03:03.916 we just make a kind of slow transition to renewable energy, 0:03:03.956 --> 0:03:06.556 if we don't have government pushing the pace, if we 0:03:06.556 --> 0:03:10.116 don't treat it like a kind of war effort, then 0:03:10.556 --> 0:03:14.436 the temperature is going to mount very rapidly, and by 0:03:14.796 --> 0:03:17.636 twenty fifty will really be at a point, I think 0:03:17.756 --> 0:03:21.836 where we're dealing with just such an endless onslaught of 0:03:22.236 --> 0:03:27.596 disasters one after another, with just coming ever faster at us, 0:03:27.636 --> 0:03:33.076 that no matter what your child has, what career they've 0:03:33.116 --> 0:03:36.876 trained for, their jobs going to be emergency response because 0:03:36.916 --> 0:03:39.876 that's what human beings are going to be doing. Well, 0:03:40.076 --> 0:03:42.956 there's already parts of the world where we're getting there, 0:03:42.996 --> 0:03:46.236 you know, where the cycle of storms and things has 0:03:46.276 --> 0:03:49.956 gotten so big and things so fragile that it's that 0:03:50.356 --> 0:03:55.236 life is getting very difficult. Just last fall, we had 0:03:55.276 --> 0:03:58.876 the worst hurricane season in history, the most storms. The 0:03:58.956 --> 0:04:04.316 last two storms crashed into Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and did 0:04:04.476 --> 0:04:08.116 unbelievable damage. They think the damage in Honduras was equivalent 0:04:08.156 --> 0:04:12.196 to forty of their GDP. If that happens a few 0:04:12.276 --> 0:04:15.196 years in a row, there's just no recovery, you know, 0:04:15.196 --> 0:04:19.516 it's just too much overwhelms. So that's the bad scenario 0:04:19.596 --> 0:04:25.196 when we don't take this seriously. The good scenario isn't fantastic. 0:04:25.956 --> 0:04:31.876 You know, it still features a world that doesn't work 0:04:31.916 --> 0:04:35.956 as well as the one we have now. But but 0:04:36.636 --> 0:04:40.236 things are starting to stabilize. We've put up so much 0:04:40.276 --> 0:04:44.876 renewable energy and we've shifted everything to electricity. So your 0:04:44.916 --> 0:04:48.436 car runs on electricity. You don't have a gas stove 0:04:48.476 --> 0:04:51.236 in your house. You have an electric induction cooktop, you 0:04:51.236 --> 0:04:54.236 don't have a gas furnace. You've got an air source 0:04:54.316 --> 0:04:57.556 heat pump that's running off electricity. Because electricity we can 0:04:57.676 --> 0:05:02.036 produce cleanly. The job, remember, is to stop burning things, 0:05:02.636 --> 0:05:05.836 stop burning coal and gas and oil. And the only 0:05:05.876 --> 0:05:09.836 thing that burns is the sun ninety million miles away, 0:05:10.236 --> 0:05:12.996 and that sends us solar energy, and it sends us 0:05:13.036 --> 0:05:17.036 the differentials in temperature that create wind and hence wind power. 0:05:17.676 --> 0:05:23.996 But that requires the next decade being an all outsprint. 0:05:24.636 --> 0:05:27.396 This is a timed test you get to put down 0:05:27.396 --> 0:05:29.956 your pencil at a certain point. It picture in your 0:05:29.996 --> 0:05:33.116 mind the most average American working in nine to five, 0:05:33.676 --> 0:05:36.636 maybe an hourly retail job, just somebody just worried about 0:05:36.636 --> 0:05:39.356 their basic needs, food, shelter, taking care of their family, 0:05:39.796 --> 0:05:44.196 and explain to them the climate challenges that we're having 0:05:44.276 --> 0:05:49.476 right now. Well, the climate challenge in its largest sense 0:05:49.676 --> 0:05:52.036 is if we don't get it right, we don't get 0:05:52.076 --> 0:05:55.956 to have civilizations anymore. We're not talking your grandkids, we're 0:05:55.996 --> 0:06:01.836 talking you, if you're a younger person. We're already seeing 0:06:01.996 --> 0:06:04.956 the manifestations of that. If you live on the West 0:06:04.956 --> 0:06:08.036 coast of the the United States, there were weeks last year 0:06:08.116 --> 0:06:11.156 when the governor was telling you to go inside and 0:06:11.436 --> 0:06:14.476 tape your windows shut because the air pollution from the 0:06:14.476 --> 0:06:18.196 wildfires was so bad you couldn't safely breathe it. You know, 0:06:18.276 --> 0:06:22.236 if you live in Texas, two years ago had the 0:06:22.276 --> 0:06:26.716 biggest rainstorm in American history. There were parts of Houston 0:06:26.756 --> 0:06:30.076 that got five feet of rain. Wow, that's just the 0:06:30.156 --> 0:06:33.556 United States. And we're still at the early stages of this. 0:06:34.076 --> 0:06:36.796 So knowing that climate change isn't reversible at this point, 0:06:36.836 --> 0:06:40.556 that we can't solve that, I know that your specialization 0:06:40.756 --> 0:06:43.956 is in reducing CEO two emissions. Would you say that 0:06:44.076 --> 0:06:46.356 is what we should focus all of our attention on 0:06:46.436 --> 0:06:50.556 that one aspect, trying to solve that. So the most 0:06:50.636 --> 0:06:57.356 important job is over the next decade to replace coal 0:06:57.596 --> 0:07:02.356 and gas and oil burning with renewable energy. First thing 0:07:02.396 --> 0:07:05.996 to say is we have to do it fast. This 0:07:06.236 --> 0:07:10.756 isn't like other political problems that we're used to dealing with. So, 0:07:10.876 --> 0:07:13.556 for instance, as long as you and I have been 0:07:14.676 --> 0:07:17.916 alive in this country, we've been arguing as a country 0:07:17.956 --> 0:07:21.396 about medical care. Should we provide it to everybody? That's 0:07:21.436 --> 0:07:25.916 been a contentious political issue. I think that it's a 0:07:25.956 --> 0:07:29.356 great sin that we don't, and lots of people suffer 0:07:29.396 --> 0:07:33.196 and die and go bankrupt. But when the day comes 0:07:33.276 --> 0:07:36.316 that we decide to join all the other industrialized countries 0:07:36.356 --> 0:07:39.236 in the world and making sure that everybody has medical care, 0:07:39.796 --> 0:07:41.956 the fact that we haven't done it for the last 0:07:42.036 --> 0:07:47.036 thirty years won't make it harder to do. Climate change 0:07:47.276 --> 0:07:50.396 isn't like that. It's the first problem humans have ever 0:07:50.516 --> 0:07:53.596 faced that comes with a time limit. If we don't 0:07:53.596 --> 0:07:56.436 solve it soon, we never solve it. Because we go 0:07:56.596 --> 0:08:01.636 past tipping points. The temperature gets very much warmer than say, 0:08:02.276 --> 0:08:05.756 lots of tundra up in the far North will melt, 0:08:05.876 --> 0:08:08.596 and when it does, it will release huge amounts of 0:08:08.676 --> 0:08:12.956 carbon and methane into the atmosphere, accelerating this heating cycle. 0:08:13.716 --> 0:08:18.596 So the world scientists have told us now what the 0:08:18.716 --> 0:08:22.596 deadline is. They have told us that if we want 0:08:22.636 --> 0:08:26.116 to meet the temperature targets we set in Paris at 0:08:26.156 --> 0:08:30.316 the Paris Climate Accords, holding temperature increases to one and 0:08:30.316 --> 0:08:35.156 a half or two degrees, then we have until twenty thirty, 0:08:35.636 --> 0:08:39.476 which is as we speak, eight and a half years away, 0:08:39.836 --> 0:08:44.596 to cut our emissions in half. That's hard news to hear. 0:08:44.876 --> 0:08:49.236 Here's the good news that comes with it. The engineers 0:08:49.236 --> 0:08:52.916 have done a great job over the last ten years. 0:08:53.436 --> 0:08:57.036 They've dropped the price of solar power and wind power 0:08:57.396 --> 0:09:01.676 by ninety percent over that time. It's now across most 0:09:01.716 --> 0:09:05.356 of the world the cheapest way to generate energy. So 0:09:05.396 --> 0:09:11.436 it's no longer technically or economically impossible to imagine change 0:09:11.476 --> 0:09:16.516 at that pace. It would just take a remarkable load 0:09:16.556 --> 0:09:19.556 of work in order to get it done, and some 0:09:19.636 --> 0:09:22.716 of that work is political, because you have to overcome 0:09:22.876 --> 0:09:27.556 the opposition of vested interests, basically the oil industry. So 0:09:27.716 --> 0:09:30.796 we understand that our political system, especially in the United States, 0:09:30.796 --> 0:09:34.196 has been, you know, wildly swinging from left to right, 0:09:34.756 --> 0:09:37.876 not really staying moderate, and definitely not being in locksed 0:09:37.916 --> 0:09:40.596 up when it comes to issues like climate change and 0:09:40.716 --> 0:09:43.316 knowing that we're going to have another election and things 0:09:43.316 --> 0:09:45.876 are going to change at least two more times, possibly 0:09:45.876 --> 0:09:50.556 two more times before twenty thirty. So is your solution 0:09:50.636 --> 0:09:52.476 here saying that we just got to get in the streets, 0:09:52.516 --> 0:09:55.036 we got to just apply pressure all the time, or 0:09:55.276 --> 0:09:58.916 what does it look like to actually have the type 0:09:58.956 --> 0:10:01.436 of political support we need to make the changes that 0:10:01.476 --> 0:10:03.276 we need to make. First of all, this would be 0:10:03.356 --> 0:10:07.876 frank here. If we elect another moron, then we get 0:10:07.916 --> 0:10:11.356 what we deserve at a certain point. That's just what happens. 0:10:11.876 --> 0:10:15.356 But the goal of activists in a question this big 0:10:16.076 --> 0:10:21.436 is to, above all, to change the zeitgeist, to change 0:10:21.436 --> 0:10:25.996 people's sense of what's normal and natural and obvious. Yes, 0:10:26.076 --> 0:10:29.276 we fight pipelines, we fight for divestment, we fight for 0:10:29.316 --> 0:10:32.076 all these things, and they're all important fights, but they 0:10:32.156 --> 0:10:35.636 also all add up to that change in the zeitgeist. 0:10:35.636 --> 0:10:39.836 And when we get that, then everything gets much easier. 0:10:39.956 --> 0:10:44.236 So think about what happened with say, gay marriage. You know, 0:10:44.396 --> 0:10:47.916 ten years ago, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were against 0:10:47.996 --> 0:10:51.316 gay marriage because it didn't pull well, you know, But 0:10:51.476 --> 0:10:57.036 then organizers did a fantastic job of getting people to 0:10:57.236 --> 0:11:00.516 understand that, yeah, of course you should be allowed to 0:11:00.676 --> 0:11:03.356 if you love somebody, marry them. Why wouldn't you, you know, 0:11:03.916 --> 0:11:08.116 And they've changed the zeitgeist such that now, you know, 0:11:08.196 --> 0:11:11.756 not even right wing Republicans really bother to fight it anymore, 0:11:11.756 --> 0:11:13.876 because it's clearly that's what we're going to do now. 0:11:14.076 --> 0:11:18.316 Climate change is no different, except that it's a little 0:11:18.396 --> 0:11:23.196 harder because there were not huge companies making trillions of 0:11:23.236 --> 0:11:28.156 dollars a year being bigots. There are companies making trillions 0:11:28.156 --> 0:11:31.596 of dollars a year pedaling hydrocarbons. That change in the 0:11:31.716 --> 0:11:35.316 zeitgeist is clearly coming. Even in America, the kind of 0:11:35.436 --> 0:11:39.396 capital of climate denial. You saw it in the last election. 0:11:39.876 --> 0:11:43.516 During the Democratic primaries, the number one issue or number 0:11:43.556 --> 0:11:47.356 two issue depending on the poll for voters was climate change, 0:11:47.796 --> 0:11:52.476 which is why Joe Biden was staking his ground on 0:11:52.556 --> 0:11:55.356 climate change. He said, we have to transition off the 0:11:55.396 --> 0:11:58.596 oil industry, and everybody said, oh, that's a gaff all. 0:11:58.596 --> 0:12:00.676 The pundity are like, that's going to cost you, but 0:12:00.756 --> 0:12:04.316 it didn't. He won the oil states that were in play, Pennsylvania, 0:12:04.396 --> 0:12:08.356 New Mexico, and emerged with this mandate to do something. 0:12:08.436 --> 0:12:11.036 And so you're in the course of you know, Earth Day. 0:12:11.116 --> 0:12:15.516 This year, we watched him assemble the world's leaders, you know, 0:12:15.636 --> 0:12:18.836 forty of the world's chief leaders in a virtual summit. 0:12:19.156 --> 0:12:23.716 We watched him pledge to cut America's emissions dramatically by 0:12:23.796 --> 0:12:28.316 twenty thirty. We've seen him pledge to spend two trillion 0:12:28.316 --> 0:12:32.076 dollars on this green infrastructure plan. Those are all signs 0:12:32.116 --> 0:12:35.596 of what happens once you shift the zeitgeist. It only 0:12:35.636 --> 0:12:38.316 works when people have done the work to make that 0:12:38.796 --> 0:12:43.036 constituency exist. I think when you were talking about, for instance, 0:12:43.076 --> 0:12:45.276 when you talk about gay marriage and you talk about 0:12:45.316 --> 0:12:48.916 LGBT rights, there was really an effort of people to 0:12:48.956 --> 0:12:51.956 put a face behind all of the people that wanted 0:12:51.996 --> 0:12:54.516 those rights. And instead of making it about you know, 0:12:54.596 --> 0:12:57.676 this amorphous LGBT person that's kind of like just out 0:12:57.676 --> 0:13:00.036 of your line of sight, they made it about your cousin, 0:13:00.396 --> 0:13:04.596 you know, your friend, you're somebody in your community. How 0:13:04.596 --> 0:13:06.836 do we make it so that, like the freeze in 0:13:06.916 --> 0:13:10.636 Texas is the face of climate Like, are we doing 0:13:10.796 --> 0:13:13.596 enough to actually push that so that it is changing 0:13:13.636 --> 0:13:17.356 the zeitgeist. Yeah, we're getting closer all the time to 0:13:17.516 --> 0:13:21.796 people understanding how this affects them. And part of that 0:13:21.996 --> 0:13:26.116 is that the environmental movement, the climate movement, is really 0:13:26.196 --> 0:13:30.196 morphed into the climate justice movement, and people are understanding, 0:13:30.356 --> 0:13:34.196 especially young people who have a stronger sense of justice, 0:13:34.636 --> 0:13:39.796 are understanding how interrelated all this is. Think about twenty twenty. 0:13:40.396 --> 0:13:42.796 You know, the most important thing anybody said in twenty 0:13:42.876 --> 0:13:46.196 twenty was what George Floyd said is he was being murdered, 0:13:46.236 --> 0:13:50.996 he said, I can't breathe because breathing is the I mean, 0:13:51.036 --> 0:13:54.796 that's how we define whether you're alive or not. You know. Yeah, 0:13:55.396 --> 0:13:58.236 people can't breathe because there's a racist cop kneeling on 0:13:58.276 --> 0:14:02.196 their neck. But as activists were quickly pointing out, they 0:14:02.276 --> 0:14:05.396 can't breathe too because there's a coal fired power plant 0:14:05.476 --> 0:14:08.396 down the street and it's always the same street. You know. 0:14:09.196 --> 0:14:12.516 Asthma rates are three times as high for African Americans 0:14:12.556 --> 0:14:15.156 as they are for white Americans, not because there's some 0:14:15.316 --> 0:14:18.636 difference in physiology just because of a difference in geography. 0:14:18.796 --> 0:14:23.636 You know, people who people can't breathe because we watch 0:14:23.716 --> 0:14:26.796 the temperature last year in California hit one hundred and 0:14:26.836 --> 0:14:30.236 thirty degrees fahrenheit. That's at the edge of what the 0:14:30.396 --> 0:14:34.876 human body can tolerate even for a few hours. But 0:14:35.076 --> 0:14:37.836 the computer modeling makes it very clear that if we 0:14:37.876 --> 0:14:41.236 don't get this under control, that's what the world is 0:14:41.276 --> 0:14:45.956 going to be like for huge swaths of the Earth's surface, 0:14:46.036 --> 0:14:48.636 all the tropics by the middle of the century, for 0:14:48.796 --> 0:14:52.116 weeks on end. One of the problems with climate change, 0:14:52.196 --> 0:14:56.236 of course, is that the worst damages are always in 0:14:56.276 --> 0:14:59.556 the future, and so it requires a certain amount of 0:14:59.556 --> 0:15:04.556 imagination in order to deal with them. Now, the actual 0:15:04.596 --> 0:15:08.516 consequences are real enough that it gets easier and easier 0:15:08.556 --> 0:15:11.556 for people, i think, to make that leap in their minds. 0:15:11.996 --> 0:15:13.956 You know, with all the politics that are involved in 0:15:15.036 --> 0:15:18.676 well in everyday life and even in life and death situations, 0:15:19.396 --> 0:15:22.196 there's a lot of cynicism when it comes to what 0:15:22.276 --> 0:15:24.436 the US political system is able to do, like the 0:15:24.516 --> 0:15:27.396 legislative body is as in a lot of ways, been 0:15:27.396 --> 0:15:30.996 rendered moot when it comes to actually passing viable laws 0:15:30.996 --> 0:15:34.596 that could help eating in things like climate change. So 0:15:34.636 --> 0:15:36.076 it seems like a lot of this is going to 0:15:36.116 --> 0:15:39.476 be done through a lot of ways through executive action. 0:15:40.316 --> 0:15:42.716 So is this about making the vote for president account 0:15:42.836 --> 0:15:47.436 even more? Yeah, So let's hope that the president can 0:15:47.436 --> 0:15:50.436 figure out how to get important stuff through Congress, because 0:15:50.556 --> 0:15:52.516 you need Congress to spend money, and we're going to 0:15:52.596 --> 0:15:54.956 have to spend some money. But there's a lot of 0:15:54.956 --> 0:15:57.836 other things that are really important that are happening right now, 0:15:57.916 --> 0:16:01.596 and maybe the most important is what's happening behind the 0:16:01.676 --> 0:16:05.236 scenes at the Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department, and the 0:16:05.316 --> 0:16:09.396 Securities and Exchange Commission. With any luck, by the time 0:16:09.676 --> 0:16:12.956 the Biden administration is a couple of years old, every 0:16:12.956 --> 0:16:17.196 company in America will have to be legally assessing every 0:16:17.276 --> 0:16:20.796 year it's climate risk. You know how this world works, 0:16:21.196 --> 0:16:23.596 Those things that you measure are the things that you 0:16:23.676 --> 0:16:26.676 start to work on. And so if we get that going, 0:16:26.916 --> 0:16:31.516 it'll be a huge change. The Federal Reserve and others 0:16:31.556 --> 0:16:35.956 are working to try and rein in this absurd policy 0:16:36.036 --> 0:16:38.636 of the banks handing over big sums of money to 0:16:38.676 --> 0:16:42.556 the most dangerous industry on Earth. You know, so these 0:16:42.596 --> 0:16:46.756 things are happening kind of behind the scenes in Washington 0:16:47.116 --> 0:16:50.436 and in Wall Street, but they're extraordinarily important and they're 0:16:50.436 --> 0:16:52.836 one of the things that movements are pushing very hard 0:16:52.876 --> 0:17:11.196 to accomplish. Let's talk about divestment. What does that look like. 0:17:11.356 --> 0:17:15.036 So this divestment campaign was completely modeled on the one 0:17:15.116 --> 0:17:18.916 that activists built a generation ago to take on apartheid 0:17:18.956 --> 0:17:21.796 in South Africa. And one of the first people we 0:17:21.876 --> 0:17:24.036 reached out to when we thought about doing it with 0:17:24.156 --> 0:17:28.356 fossil fuel was Desmond Tutu, the Anglican Archbishop of South Africa, 0:17:28.396 --> 0:17:30.316 who'd been at the kind of head of that work, 0:17:30.316 --> 0:17:33.236 and he said, please do it again, because climate change 0:17:33.556 --> 0:17:37.556 is the human rights challenge of this moment. People started 0:17:37.596 --> 0:17:42.556 asking colleges and universities, pension funds, on and on to 0:17:42.596 --> 0:17:48.076 sell their stock in these fossil fuel companies, and by god, 0:17:48.636 --> 0:17:53.436 a lot of them did. The most famous colleges on Earth, Oxford, Cambridge, 0:17:53.516 --> 0:17:58.036 the University of California, the University of Michigan, the country 0:17:58.036 --> 0:18:02.036 of Ireland, all its public accounts were divested from fossil fuel. 0:18:02.516 --> 0:18:05.196 It's added up now to the point where it's putting 0:18:05.316 --> 0:18:09.516 huge pressure on this industry. The Norwegian Sovereign Well Fund, 0:18:09.556 --> 0:18:12.276 which is the single biggest pool of money on Earth 0:18:12.476 --> 0:18:15.396 trillion dollars, most of it made from oil in the 0:18:15.436 --> 0:18:18.276 North Sea. Over the last few decades, they said, Okay, 0:18:18.316 --> 0:18:22.076 we're getting out of this. We're leaving this casino and 0:18:22.236 --> 0:18:25.996 going somewhere else. Shell Oil set in its annual report 0:18:26.076 --> 0:18:29.716 two years ago that divestment had become a material risk 0:18:29.756 --> 0:18:33.356 to its business. If your exon at this point, your 0:18:33.396 --> 0:18:36.476 only hope is to just keep your business model going 0:18:36.556 --> 0:18:39.636 for a couple more decades and you get twenty more 0:18:39.716 --> 0:18:43.316 years of profit out of it. But if they do, 0:18:44.316 --> 0:18:46.356 if they're able to do that, then they're going to 0:18:46.396 --> 0:18:49.276 break the planet in the process. So that's what the 0:18:49.356 --> 0:18:52.796 race is about. Can we shut these guys down before 0:18:52.876 --> 0:18:55.796 they shut everything down? So do you think that the 0:18:55.916 --> 0:19:00.316 US is leading the charge or do you think there's 0:19:00.396 --> 0:19:04.276 models from other nations that we could be learning from. 0:19:04.396 --> 0:19:09.276 There are other nations that have provided real leadership. And 0:19:09.316 --> 0:19:11.916 it's funny because they don't all come in places where 0:19:12.036 --> 0:19:14.516 have a lot of sun and wind, but they're come 0:19:14.556 --> 0:19:18.836 in places that have a lot of political will. Germany 0:19:18.996 --> 0:19:23.516 is the place that provided the original early demand for 0:19:23.636 --> 0:19:28.276 solar panels. They put together this big program called in 0:19:28.356 --> 0:19:33.076 German the Energy Venda, that provided big subsidies for people 0:19:33.116 --> 0:19:35.636 who would put solar panels on their roofs. If you 0:19:35.676 --> 0:19:37.796 take a train through Germany and you look out the window, 0:19:37.836 --> 0:19:41.476 you see solar panels everywhere. And that demand from Germany 0:19:41.996 --> 0:19:45.196 was what allowed the Chinese manufacturers to get really good 0:19:45.196 --> 0:19:48.356 at making this stuff cheap. So the Chinese have played 0:19:48.396 --> 0:19:50.996 a huge role in the Chinese or rolling out renewable 0:19:51.116 --> 0:19:54.636 energy faster than any place on the planet. So there 0:19:54.636 --> 0:19:58.836 are countries around the world that in one way or another, 0:19:58.876 --> 0:20:02.236 have started showing the way forward, and now we need 0:20:02.276 --> 0:20:06.676 everybody catching up very fast. That's one of the problems 0:20:06.676 --> 0:20:09.356 with global warming. I mean they don't call it well 0:20:09.436 --> 0:20:13.196 for nothing, you literally can't. I mean, you know, one 0:20:13.236 --> 0:20:15.956 country could do absolutely everything right, and if everybody else 0:20:16.036 --> 0:20:19.316 wasn't cooperating, it wouldn't help a bit. Let's think about 0:20:19.316 --> 0:20:22.836 the pandemic when it first arrived. You know, there was 0:20:22.876 --> 0:20:24.676 a lot of things people were talking about that had 0:20:24.756 --> 0:20:28.116 changed in the world. Some people said that the oceans 0:20:28.116 --> 0:20:30.796 were bluer, and you know, of course there was less traffic. 0:20:31.076 --> 0:20:33.556 All of those like little little things. One thing they 0:20:33.596 --> 0:20:37.436 talked about was the drop in emissions. We weren't moving, 0:20:37.556 --> 0:20:40.756 there were no cars and planes going to many places, 0:20:41.196 --> 0:20:43.476 and we weren't pumping a lot of pollution into the air. 0:20:43.836 --> 0:20:46.836 But in May of twenty twenty, the concentration of carbon 0:20:46.876 --> 0:20:49.116 dioxide in our atmosphere was at the highest had been 0:20:49.276 --> 0:20:54.276 in human history. Was that emission statistic just a positive 0:20:54.356 --> 0:20:59.676 spin on an awful situation, or was it significant in 0:20:59.796 --> 0:21:02.756 some big picture way to the climate challenges that we're 0:21:02.756 --> 0:21:08.156 facing now. The pandemic was extraordinarily interesting, learning opportunity and 0:21:08.276 --> 0:21:12.236 lots of ways. One of the things that people noticed was, well, 0:21:14.236 --> 0:21:18.836 everybody's changed their lifestyle. You far more than any environmentalist 0:21:18.876 --> 0:21:22.076 ever would have dreamed of calling for. And it's true 0:21:22.556 --> 0:21:26.276 that emissions went down some, but as it turns out, 0:21:26.636 --> 0:21:29.876 not as much as you would have expected. At the peak. 0:21:29.956 --> 0:21:32.996 We think that carbon dioxide emissions fell ten or twelve 0:21:33.076 --> 0:21:39.636 percent worldwide. So what that means is that there's a 0:21:40.036 --> 0:21:44.156 strong limits to how much change we can accomplish through 0:21:44.716 --> 0:21:49.356 changes in individual behavior or habit. Most of the problem 0:21:49.596 --> 0:21:52.356 is deep in the guts of the system, and so 0:21:52.436 --> 0:21:55.316 one has to go into the guts of the system 0:21:55.316 --> 0:21:57.636 and pull out the coal and oil and gas and 0:21:57.756 --> 0:22:01.636 put in the sun and wind and efficiency and conservation, 0:22:01.996 --> 0:22:07.236 and that's at hard a political and economic task. So really, 0:22:07.276 --> 0:22:11.196 I think the pandemic demonstrate to some of the limits 0:22:11.236 --> 0:22:16.956 of individual behavior. Human solidarity really matters. It's not some 0:22:17.116 --> 0:22:22.756 ephemeral thing. It's core to the solutions here. I've lived 0:22:22.756 --> 0:22:25.476 most of my life in the political shadow of Ronald Reagan, 0:22:25.516 --> 0:22:28.036 who really changed the way we think about the world. 0:22:28.516 --> 0:22:31.876 Told us that markets were going to solve all problems, 0:22:31.996 --> 0:22:35.356 that we should just concentrate on getting rich. His famous 0:22:35.476 --> 0:22:39.676 laugh line and all his speeches was the nine scariest 0:22:39.716 --> 0:22:42.756 words in the English language are I'm from the government 0:22:42.756 --> 0:22:46.316 and I'm here to help. Ha ha ha. It turns 0:22:46.316 --> 0:22:49.236 out the scariest words in the English language are either 0:22:49.916 --> 0:22:53.996 we've run out of ventilators or the hillside behind your 0:22:53.996 --> 0:22:57.836 house just caught on fire. Preach it now, and neither 0:22:57.876 --> 0:23:00.356 one of those you're going to solve by you know, 0:23:00.516 --> 0:23:03.636 every somebody getting rich. Those you solve when you work 0:23:03.756 --> 0:23:09.236 together to deal with problems. And hopefully the pandemic has 0:23:09.276 --> 0:23:11.996 at least begun to remind us that we're going to 0:23:12.076 --> 0:23:15.716 have to work together, because that's the prerequisite for doing 0:23:15.756 --> 0:23:17.716 what we have to do to deal with a crisis 0:23:17.756 --> 0:23:20.516 that's far worse than the pandemic would ever have been. 0:23:21.716 --> 0:23:24.756 Hearing you say that is a little tricky for me 0:23:25.436 --> 0:23:30.556 because on the one hand, I'm recognizing what you're saying 0:23:30.556 --> 0:23:34.396 about individual action only doing so much. But with that 0:23:34.476 --> 0:23:38.116 being said, how do we prevent individuals from feeling helpless? 0:23:38.636 --> 0:23:40.516 Because when you say that to be as an individual, 0:23:40.556 --> 0:23:42.596 the first thing I think is like, well, don't need 0:23:42.636 --> 0:23:45.076 to recycle these bottles anymore, just throw them in the air, 0:23:45.596 --> 0:23:48.676 like so, so, how do you keep me engaged as 0:23:48.676 --> 0:23:51.996 an individual in the fight? The hardest part of the 0:23:51.996 --> 0:23:56.476 climate fight has always been that sense of agency, because 0:23:56.556 --> 0:24:00.076 it's so big and we seem so small in comparison 0:24:00.156 --> 0:24:02.716 to it, that it's hard for us to imagine that 0:24:02.796 --> 0:24:06.116 anything we do as individuals is going to make much difference. 0:24:06.916 --> 0:24:12.076 And truthfully, there's a point there. I mean, the roof 0:24:12.076 --> 0:24:15.036 of my house is covered with solar panels. They're connected 0:24:15.076 --> 0:24:19.236 to an electric car. I'm very proud of that in 0:24:19.276 --> 0:24:21.996 some way, but I don't try to fool myself that 0:24:22.276 --> 0:24:26.116 it's how we're going to really deal with this. We're 0:24:26.156 --> 0:24:29.196 past the point where we can make the math work, 0:24:29.636 --> 0:24:33.196 one tesla at a time, one vegan dinner at a time. 0:24:33.956 --> 0:24:37.476 Those things are important, but they're not if we have 0:24:37.596 --> 0:24:40.436 ten years now eight and a half years to make 0:24:40.556 --> 0:24:43.796 wholesale change. We know that it's going to have to 0:24:43.836 --> 0:24:48.396 come by making big political shifts. So the really sad 0:24:48.436 --> 0:24:51.196 thing is when I wrote The End of Nature in 0:24:51.276 --> 0:24:54.556 nineteen eighty nine, we knew most of what we know 0:24:54.676 --> 0:24:58.196 now about climate change. It's not like anything really has 0:24:58.236 --> 0:25:01.996 shifted all that much. You burn coal and gas and oil, 0:25:02.116 --> 0:25:05.876 you put carbon into the air. The molecular structure of 0:25:05.916 --> 0:25:09.036 that co two traps heat that would otherwise radiate back 0:25:09.196 --> 0:25:13.956 out to space. And really the subsequent three decades have 0:25:14.156 --> 0:25:17.876 followed the path that scientists said they would, And it 0:25:17.916 --> 0:25:21.076 should come as no surprise to anyone that we've lost 0:25:21.116 --> 0:25:23.916 half the sea ice in the Arctic, or that we're 0:25:23.916 --> 0:25:29.476 seeing huge increases in storms and fires and things. The 0:25:29.556 --> 0:25:34.436 one thing that has changed over time is my kind 0:25:34.436 --> 0:25:38.156