The human qualities that global warming can't destroy.
DIVEST! The Climate Movement on Tour
- Description
- Reviews
- Citation
- Cataloging
- Transcript
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As world governments struggle to meet the aspirational limit of 1.5C of global warming agreed to at COP21 in Paris, a new campaign is targeting the fossil fuel industry in an effort to withdraw its social license to operate. DIVEST! chronicles 350.org's 'Do the Math' bus tour across the United States in 2012 as it launched the fossil fuel divestment campaign onto the national and ultimately international stage. 
Each night Bill McKibben and special guests laid out the findings in his landmark Rolling Stone article 'Global Warming's Terrifying New Math' and made both the moral and historical case for divestment. Three years later over 500 institutions representing over 3 trillion dollars in assets have committed to divest. The campaign is winning, but with the clock ticking down the question remains: will the victories add up enough to matter?
Featuring Naomi Klein, Reverend Lennox Yearwood, Dr. Sandra Steingraber, Josh Fox, Terry Tempest Williams, Winona LaDuke, Desmond Tutu and Ira Glass.
'Divest! goes on a road trip with Bill McKibben, Naomi Klein, and others as they crisscross the country galvanizing people to confront the fossil fuel industry where it hurts--the industry's financial bottom-line. Part documentary, part call to action, one comes away asking not, 'What did I think about the film?' but 'What am I going to do now that I've seen it.'' Paul Wapner, Professor of Global Environmental Politics, American University, Co-editor, Global Environmental Politics: From Person to Planet
'Divest! is a powerful testament to the importance of withdrawing support from the fossil fuel industry. As an important step in following up the Paris Accord, it vividly highlights the urgency of action. An excellent guide for community discussions.' Dr. Richard Tucker, Adjunct Professor of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Michigan, Author, Insatiable Appetite: The United States and Ecological Degradation of the Tropical World
'Teaching students about the severity of the global climate crisis without pushing them into a ravine of hopelessness can be a very difficult task. DIVEST! presents a powerful solution to this pedagogical challenge...This remarkable film holds the potential to inspire courage and meaningful action among viewers.' Shannon Elizabeth Bell, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Kentucky, Author, Our Roots Run Deep as Ironweed: Appalachian Women and the Fight for Environmental Justice 
'Divest! puts the stars of today's climate change movement in the spotlight as they juxtapose the movement's chilling facts with its hopeful energy. This documentary is a valuable audiovisual complement to recent publications by Bill McKibben and Naomi Klein that is sure to stimulate constructive conversation in classrooms and living rooms alike.' Dr. Anna J. Willow, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, The Ohio State University
'Useful for older high schoolers to examine how grassroots action on climate change can make a difference.' Geri Diorio, School Library Journal
'The Climate Movement on Tour offers a telling glimpse of how the movement in 2012 sought to mobilize America with concert performances blending global warming science, inspiring speeches, and music. Useful for college and high school classes where students might find that the concert format helps them learn.' James William Gibson, Professor of Sociology, California State University - Long Beach, Author, A Reenchanted World: The Quest for a New Kinship With Nature
Citation
Main credits
								McKibben, Bill (on-screen participant)
Klein, Naomi (on-screen participant)
Yearwood, Lennox S. (on-screen participant)
Steingraber, Sandra (on-screen participant)
Williams, Terry Tempest (on-screen participant)
LaDuke, Winona (on-screen participant)
Tutu, Desmond (on-screen participant)
Glass, Ira (on-screen participant)
Fox, Josh (film director)
Fox, Josh (film producer)
Fox, Josh (cinematographer)
Fox, Josh (on-screen participant)
Liptay, Steve (film director)
Liptay, Steve (film producer)
Liptay, Steve (photographer)
Wallace, Deborah (film producer)
							
Other credits
Music by D.J. Spooky, Jonny 5 and Laura Goldhamer, Christen Lien, Nahko and Medicine for the People; edited by Steve Liptay; cinematography by Josh Fox [and 3 others]; photography by Steve Liptay.
Distributor subjects
Activism; Climate Change/Global Warming; Ecology; Energy; Environmental Justice; Ethics; Global Issues; Political Science; Science, Technology, Society; SociologyKeywords
WEBVTT
 
 00:00:05.701 --> 00:00:10.167
 (PULSING ELECTRONIC MUSIC)
 
 00:00:38.300 --> 00:00:41.133
 - Remember this moment.
 
 00:00:41.133 --> 00:00:42.467
 This is when we got serious.
 
 00:00:49.767 --> 00:00:52.133
 - Joining me now is Bill
 McKibben, author of "Earth:
 
 00:00:52.133 --> 00:00:55.601
 Making a Life on a Tough New
 Planet" and founder of 350.org,
 
 00:00:55.601 --> 00:01:00.167
 which has launched a Do the Math Tour,
 focusing on the hard numbers behind climate
 
 00:01:00.167 --> 00:01:04.300
 change and advocates a new strategy to
 create political leverage for a solution.
 
 00:01:04.300 --> 00:01:08.100
 Well Bill McKibben, I slightly
 facetiously greeted you as a rock star,
 
 00:01:08.100 --> 00:01:11.334
 because you're selling out these
 big venues across the country.
 
 00:01:11.334 --> 00:01:13.667
 I've been seeing people tweeting about it.
 
 00:01:13.667 --> 00:01:16.367
 People watching right now that
 are not familiar with "the math"
 
 00:01:16.367 --> 00:01:18.434
 that you are talking
 about, what is the math?
 
 00:01:18.434 --> 00:01:20.167
 What are you trying to
 communicate on this tour?
 
 00:01:20.167 --> 00:01:22.400
 - This came out of this piece
 I wrote for Rolling Stone
 
 00:01:22.400 --> 00:01:26.234
 this summer that went strangely viral,
 became one of their most shared pieces.
 
 00:01:26.234 --> 00:01:30.200
 And it's because it laid out,
 finally, the rock and the hard place.
 
 00:01:30.200 --> 00:01:34.100
 If we're going to keep the temperature
 from going up past two degrees --
 
 00:01:34.100 --> 00:01:36.767
 which is what everybody in the
 world, including the US government,
 
 00:01:36.767 --> 00:01:40.734
 has said is too high, that's the red
 line -- if we're going to do that,
 
 00:01:40.734 --> 00:01:45.701
 the scientists tell us we can burn
 about 550 gigatons more carbon.
 
 00:01:45.701 --> 00:01:47.367
 Which sounds like a hell of a lot.
 
 00:01:47.367 --> 00:01:53.133
 But we get about 15 years of current
 rates before we shoot past that threshold.
 
 00:01:53.133 --> 00:01:54.434
 And that's the good news.
 
 00:01:54.434 --> 00:01:58.734
 The bad news -- the third number, the
 really scary one -- is that last year,
 
 00:01:58.734 --> 00:02:04.534
 a group of financial analysts added up how
 much carbon the fossil fuel industry had
 
 00:02:04.534 --> 00:02:06.067
 in its reserves.
 
 00:02:06.067 --> 00:02:10.701
 That number is about 2,800
 gigatons, or five times as much.
 
 00:02:10.701 --> 00:02:12.067
 And they're going to burn it.
 
 00:02:12.067 --> 00:02:14.100
 I mean, unless we figure
 out how to stop them,
 
 00:02:14.100 --> 00:02:17.033
 there's no longer any room for
 doubt about where this story goes.
 
 00:02:28.767 --> 00:02:31.400
 We're on horribly firm ground.
 
 00:02:31.400 --> 00:02:32.367
 I wish we weren't.
 
 00:02:32.367 --> 00:02:35.033
 I wish that there was something
 shaky about any of this stuff.
 
 00:02:35.033 --> 00:02:36.467
 The thing that's so...
 
 00:02:36.467 --> 00:02:37.701
 - I don't question the numbers.
 
 00:02:37.701 --> 00:02:43.067
 I just mean that one of the challenges
 historically with motivating or organizing
 
 00:02:43.067 --> 00:02:47.033
 people around this problem has been
 that it's all sort of "more is worse",
 
 00:02:47.033 --> 00:02:48.634
 but identifying red lines is...
 
 00:02:48.634 --> 00:02:50.167
 - Yeah, well, there's some of that.
 
 00:02:50.167 --> 00:02:54.534
 But 350.org sort of staked
 its claim from the beginning
 
 00:02:54.534 --> 00:02:57.601
 on difficult, wonky numerical analysis.
 
 00:02:57.601 --> 00:03:00.734
 And for some reason, it
 hasn't slowed us down at all.
 
 00:03:00.734 --> 00:03:06.100
 I mean, we organize
 effectively in 191 countries.
 
 00:03:06.100 --> 00:03:09.133
 You don't have to know
 everything about climate science
 
 00:03:09.133 --> 00:03:12.701
 to know that if scientists have
 said 350 is how much we should have
 
 00:03:12.701 --> 00:03:17.100
 and right now we're at 395, that's too much.
 
 00:03:17.100 --> 00:03:21.334
 It's the opposite of fear-mongering
 or scare-mongering or alarmism.
 
 00:03:21.334 --> 00:03:24.133
 It's just absolutely pure reality.
 
 00:03:24.133 --> 00:03:28.467
 I mean, we'll have a few thousand
 people out there tonight for something
 
 00:03:28.467 --> 00:03:31.300
 that's been billed as "Do the Math."
 
 00:03:31.300 --> 00:03:33.000
 It's just like...
 
 00:03:33.000 --> 00:03:37.767
 we couldn't be working harder to
 make it more just kind of real.
 
 00:03:39.501 --> 00:03:42.334
 - This came out of a
 conversation that Bill and I had.
 
 00:03:42.334 --> 00:03:45.200
 We had both seen this
 research coming out of England
 
 00:03:45.200 --> 00:03:48.701
 about what they were calling the
 carbon bubble, this kind of think-tank
 
 00:03:48.701 --> 00:03:50.267
 called Carbon Tracker Initiative.
 
 00:03:50.267 --> 00:03:53.200
 And they had crunched all these
 numbers and found that the fossil fuel
 
 00:03:53.200 --> 00:03:57.234
 companies had five times more
 carbon already in reserve
 
 00:03:57.234 --> 00:03:59.133
 than is compatible with life on Earth.
 
 00:03:59.133 --> 00:04:03.000
 Their whole report was a
 warning to regulators in the UK
 
 00:04:03.000 --> 00:04:04.667
 that there was a bubble in the market.
 
 00:04:04.667 --> 00:04:07.400
 Governments had agreed to keep
 temperatures below two degrees,
 
 00:04:07.400 --> 00:04:09.667
 but these companies had
 gone ahead and purchased
 
 00:04:09.667 --> 00:04:14.067
 all of this carbon that would take
 us to like six or eight degrees.
 
 00:04:14.067 --> 00:04:17.067
 So obviously that can't be
 burned, so this is a bubble --
 
 00:04:17.067 --> 00:04:19.400
 much like the housing bubble
 or the dot com bubble.
 
 00:04:19.400 --> 00:04:22.200
 In other words, these are
 worthless assets, right?
 
 00:04:22.200 --> 00:04:26.501
 Now, I read this going, excuse
 me, you guys have it wrong.
 
 00:04:26.501 --> 00:04:30.133
 What's actually happening is
 that the fossil fuel companies
 
 00:04:30.133 --> 00:04:34.234
 have looked at what governments are pledging
 to do and decided that it's bullshit,
 
 00:04:34.234 --> 00:04:36.100
 and that they're not going to do it.
 
 00:04:36.100 --> 00:04:39.200
 And that, in fact, they are free
 to go ahead and cook the planet.
 
 00:04:39.200 --> 00:04:43.033
 What we realized is that this isn't
 a bubble unless we make it a bubble.
 
 00:04:43.033 --> 00:04:49.634
 (INSTRUMENTAL HIP HOP MUSIC)
 
 00:04:49.634 --> 00:04:53.300
 - These are really important times to
 think about reframing the whole situation.
 
 00:04:53.300 --> 00:04:57.300
 And music and art and literature
 and all these things, these guys
 
 00:04:57.300 --> 00:04:59.701
 are just an incredible force of nature.
 
 00:04:59.701 --> 00:05:05.267
 (INSTRUMENTAL HIP HOP MUSIC)
 
 00:05:43.367 --> 00:05:48.734
 (APPLAUSE)
 
 00:05:48.734 --> 00:05:51.000
 - Hello, y'all!
 
 00:05:51.000 --> 00:05:55.000
 Thank you so much for being here tonight.
 
 00:05:55.000 --> 00:06:03.567
 It is such a pleasure to get to be here.
 
 00:06:03.567 --> 00:06:05.100
 Thank you so much.
 
 00:06:05.100 --> 00:06:09.067
 As always, you know, New York is
 sort of the center of everything.
 
 00:06:09.067 --> 00:06:14.400
 And we've been circling around the
 country but being sort of drawn inexorably
 
 00:06:14.400 --> 00:06:15.267
 to New York City.
 
 00:06:15.267 --> 00:06:19.067
 And we are so happy to be here with you all.
 
 00:06:19.067 --> 00:06:24.133
 I gotta begin by telling you the
 truth, which is that part of me
 
 00:06:24.133 --> 00:06:29.000
 is very aware that we should
 not have to be here tonight.
 
 00:06:29.000 --> 00:06:35.534
 I remember 25 years ago, when the world's
 climate scientists started telling us
 
 00:06:35.534 --> 00:06:38.501
 that this was exactly what would happen.
 
 00:06:38.501 --> 00:06:42.367
 - Dr. Hansen, if you'd start
 us off, we'd appreciate it.
 
 00:06:42.367 --> 00:06:47.734
 - Number one, the Earth is warmer in
 1988 than at any time in the history
 
 00:06:47.734 --> 00:06:50.100
 of instrumental measurements.
 
 00:06:50.100 --> 00:06:53.601
 Number two, the global
 warming is now large enough
 
 00:06:53.601 --> 00:06:56.601
 that we can ascribe with a
 high degree of confidence
 
 00:06:56.601 --> 00:07:01.267
 a cause and effect relationship
 to the greenhouse effect.
 
 00:07:01.267 --> 00:07:06.501
 - I played my small part in that thing
 by writing the first book about this,
 
 00:07:06.501 --> 00:07:13.567
 a book called "The End of Nature," way back
 in 1989 -- so before many you were born.
 
 00:07:13.567 --> 00:07:20.467
 If our leaders and our institutions
 had acted as they were supposed to act,
 
 00:07:20.467 --> 00:07:24.400
 they would have heeded those warnings, and
 25 years ago we would have gotten to work,
 
 00:07:24.400 --> 00:07:29.000
 and we'd be a long way now
 toward solving this problem.
 
 00:07:29.000 --> 00:07:31.701
 But that did not happen.
 
 00:07:31.701 --> 00:07:32.767
 So here we are.
 
 00:07:32.767 --> 00:07:36.200
 That's Naomi Klein up on the
 screen, getting arrested.
 
 00:07:36.200 --> 00:07:37.634
 You're going to meet her in a minute.
 
 00:07:37.634 --> 00:07:40.567
 Next to her is my old friend Gus Speth.
 
 00:07:40.567 --> 00:07:46.567
 This was at the beginning
 of this big protest
 
 00:07:46.567 --> 00:07:51.267
 about Keystone that turned into the largest
 civil disobedience action in 30 years.
 
 00:07:51.267 --> 00:07:52.534
 - Into the park, please.
 
 00:07:55.234 --> 00:07:59.000
 - It's hard doing the thing
 that you're doing today.
 
 00:07:59.000 --> 00:08:03.133
 Law-abiding people don't
 like to go get arrested.
 
 00:08:03.133 --> 00:08:07.000
 We are used to doing what
 the police tell us to do.
 
 00:08:07.000 --> 00:08:08.200
 - The sidewalk is closed.
 
 00:08:08.200 --> 00:08:09.334
 Move up into Lafayette Park.
 
 00:08:11.033 --> 00:08:18.000
 - So it is a hard thing that you're doing
 today, a difficult thing, and a brave one.
 
 00:08:18.000 --> 00:08:21.367
 It will feel uneasy for a moment.
 
 00:08:21.367 --> 00:08:26.334
 But I hope it also feels
 incredibly, incredibly powerful.
 
 00:08:26.334 --> 00:08:30.534
 Because of what you've done
 over the last two weeks,
 
 00:08:30.534 --> 00:08:34.701
 an issue that really wasn't a
 national issue two weeks ago
 
 00:08:34.701 --> 00:08:41.367
 has emerged as the crux test between
 now and the election for Barack Obama.
 
 00:08:41.367 --> 00:08:44.100
 Now, we should not have had
 to have been there, either.
 
 00:08:44.100 --> 00:08:49.534
 Three months before that, Jim Hansen
 of NASA, our greatest climatologist,
 
 00:08:49.534 --> 00:08:54.634
 Jim had said, "Burn those tar sands on
 top of everything else you're burning,
 
 00:08:54.634 --> 00:08:57.067
 and it's game over for the climate."
 
 00:08:57.067 --> 00:09:00.133
 He was speaking, you would
 think, in language simple enough
 
 00:09:00.133 --> 00:09:03.200
 that even politicians would
 be able to understand it.
 
 00:09:03.200 --> 00:09:07.767
 But nobody blinked, not the government, not
 industry, not the Obama administration --
 
 00:09:07.767 --> 00:09:13.100
 full-speed ahead until brave people went
 and interposed their bodies in the way.
 
 00:09:13.100 --> 00:09:17.667
 And so I'm thinking about
 something that Gus said to me.
 
 00:09:17.667 --> 00:09:22.100
 We were in adjoining
 cells, so through the bars.
 
 00:09:22.100 --> 00:09:26.667
 He had done every rational, respectable
 thing you could possibly do.
 
 00:09:26.667 --> 00:09:29.567
 He'd founded the National
 Resources Defense Council.
 
 00:09:29.567 --> 00:09:33.634
 He'd been chair of the President's
 Council on Environmental Quality.
 
 00:09:33.634 --> 00:09:35.734
 He'd headed the whole
 UN Development Program.
 
 00:09:35.734 --> 00:09:38.200
 He'd been a dean at Yale.
 
 00:09:38.200 --> 00:09:42.667
 The sentence he sent out from jail
 to the reporters, the one sentence,
 
 00:09:42.667 --> 00:09:47.734
 was, "I've held a lot of important
 positions in this town, but none of them
 
 00:09:47.734 --> 00:09:51.767
 seem as important to me as
 the one I'm in right now."
 
 00:09:55.200 --> 00:10:02.701
 Truth be told, no night seems as important
 to me as these nights on this tour.
 
 00:10:02.701 --> 00:10:05.467
 We started in Seattle the
 night after the election.
 
 00:10:05.467 --> 00:10:07.501
 We're headed out all over the country.
 
 00:10:07.501 --> 00:10:12.601
 I feel as if, for me, it may be in a
 sense the last campaign I get to fight --
 
 00:10:12.601 --> 00:10:19.033
 not because I'm tired, though truthfully
 the sleeping on the bus is more romantic
 
 00:10:19.033 --> 00:10:22.067
 in theory than in practice, it turns out.
 
 00:10:22.067 --> 00:10:23.300
 But it's not me that's tired.
 
 00:10:23.300 --> 00:10:25.667
 It's the planet that's tired.
 
 00:10:25.667 --> 00:10:30.734
 It's running into really serious
 limits, that's running out of time.
 
 00:10:30.734 --> 00:10:33.300
 Every New Yorker knows that now.
 
 00:10:33.300 --> 00:10:36.601
 But that doesn't depress me, in the end.
 
 00:10:36.601 --> 00:10:38.534
 In a sense, it excites me.
 
 00:10:38.534 --> 00:10:44.000
 Because I think we're closer now than
 we've ever been to what we need to do.
 
 00:10:44.000 --> 00:10:49.501
 I think we've peeled away the layers of the
 onion and gotten to the heart of things.
 
 00:10:49.501 --> 00:10:54.400
 As of tonight, we're going
 after the fossil fuel industry.
 
 00:10:54.400 --> 00:10:59.467
 (CHEERING)
 
 00:10:59.467 --> 00:11:03.734
 - One of the things that you really feel
 from people in the room, it's like people
 
 00:11:03.734 --> 00:11:04.734
 are so ready for this.
 
 00:11:04.734 --> 00:11:06.701
 In fact, they're kind of
 like, "What took you so long?"
 
 00:11:06.701 --> 00:11:09.701
 I think we're going to see a merging
 of different movements, movements
 
 00:11:09.701 --> 00:11:13.000
 that were focused on Wall
 Street, on economic inequality,
 
 00:11:13.000 --> 00:11:14.534
 and now on the fossil fuel industry.
 
 00:11:14.534 --> 00:11:17.000
 So I think a lot of threats
 are coming together here.
 
 00:11:17.000 --> 00:11:22.767
 - Has Sandy changed the way
 that this tour has evolved?
 
 00:11:22.767 --> 00:11:27.701
 - 350 did our best to pitch in with
 the really great people at Occupy
 
 00:11:27.701 --> 00:11:31.033
 who were organizing the relief effort.
 
 00:11:31.033 --> 00:11:32.067
 Because that's important.
 
 00:11:32.067 --> 00:11:34.334
 Those of us who have
 been through these things
 
 00:11:34.334 --> 00:11:38.200
 know that for the first moment,
 that's what really matters.
 
 00:11:38.200 --> 00:11:41.734
 Since I live in Vermont, I got
 to go through all this last year
 
 00:11:41.734 --> 00:11:46.234
 when Hurricane Irene veered around New
 York, and we're still not back to normal.
 
 00:11:46.234 --> 00:11:47.434
 And it won't be.
 
 00:11:47.434 --> 00:11:50.501
 It's not like three weeks from now
 everything will be fine in New York
 
 00:11:50.501 --> 00:11:53.100
 and everyone will just be able
 to forget about it, whatever.
 
 00:11:53.100 --> 00:11:56.701
 It takes a long time and a lot of money.
 
 00:11:56.701 --> 00:12:00.467
 - And I think particularly in
 this city, people were hit so hard
 
 00:12:00.467 --> 00:12:03.534
 by the economic crisis, by
 the collapse on Wall Street,
 
 00:12:03.534 --> 00:12:05.701
 and now dealing with the ecological crisis.
 
 00:12:05.701 --> 00:12:08.767
 And I think people actually
 see connections, especially
 
 00:12:08.767 --> 00:12:13.133
 the connection of having to
 pay for somebody else's crisis,
 
 00:12:13.133 --> 00:12:18.367
 being stuck with the bill for actions
 driven by extraordinary greed.
 
 00:12:18.367 --> 00:12:21.133
 - This stuff doesn't have to happen.
 
 00:12:21.133 --> 00:12:24.200
 It only has to happen
 because the fossil fuel
 
 00:12:24.200 --> 00:12:30.267
 industry is addicted to the level
 of profit that they've been making.
 
 00:12:30.267 --> 00:12:34.567
 They make more money than
 anybody in the world ever made,
 
 00:12:34.567 --> 00:12:39.400
 and they're trading the world for that
 money -- our world for that money.
 
 00:12:39.400 --> 00:12:47.334
 But Sandy has definitely helped change the
 way the world understands what's going on.
 
 00:12:47.334 --> 00:12:50.367
 It clearly was unsettling
 to all kinds of people,
 
 00:12:50.367 --> 00:12:56.367
 because you all saw the cover three
 days later of that radical rag
 
 00:12:56.367 --> 00:13:00.667
 Businessweek, "It's Global Warming, Stupid."
 
 00:13:06.067 --> 00:13:07.734
 - Joshua knows the deal.
 
 00:13:07.734 --> 00:13:11.300
 - And then you'll do a chant or two the
 second time when we're doing the photo.
 
 00:13:11.300 --> 00:13:14.734
 Your timing has us ending at 3:15 here?
 
 00:13:14.734 --> 00:13:15.534
 - At 3:20, right?
 
 00:13:15.534 --> 00:13:16.634
 - Look who's here!
 
 00:13:16.634 --> 00:13:18.367
 The good doctor himself.
 
 00:13:18.367 --> 00:13:20.434
 (LAUGHTER)
 
 00:13:20.434 --> 00:13:21.534
 - Good to see you, brother.
 
 00:13:21.534 --> 00:13:22.501
 - Good to see you, too.
 
 00:13:22.501 --> 00:13:23.534
 - How are you?
 
 00:13:23.534 --> 00:13:26.434
 - I'm going to make you
 stand up early in the program
 
 00:13:26.434 --> 00:13:28.767
 today, so just be ready
 to stand up and wave.
 
 00:13:28.767 --> 00:13:29.601
 - Whatever you say.
 
 00:13:29.601 --> 00:13:31.167
 OK, I can do that.
 
 00:13:31.167 --> 00:13:32.000
 That's good.
 
 00:13:32.000 --> 00:13:33.167
 That's in my repertoire.
 
 00:13:33.167 --> 00:13:35.267
 - Look who's here!
 
 00:13:35.267 --> 00:13:36.767
 Everybody's here.
 
 00:13:36.767 --> 00:13:38.100
 - Hey!
 
 00:13:38.100 --> 00:13:38.767
 - How are you?
 
 00:13:38.767 --> 00:13:39.367
 - I'm good.
 
 00:13:39.367 --> 00:13:40.734
 - Thank you so much for being here.
 
 00:13:40.734 --> 00:13:41.400
 - Oh, man.
 
 00:13:41.400 --> 00:13:42.634
 I got something for you.
 
 00:13:42.634 --> 00:13:44.200
 You gotta make sure you're in here.
 
 00:13:44.200 --> 00:13:47.467
 - Oh, you made my day,
 week, and month, brother.
 
 00:13:47.467 --> 00:13:48.400
 - That's important.
 
 00:13:48.400 --> 00:13:48.434
 - That's good.
 
 00:13:48.434 --> 00:13:50.501
 And I've got hats, we got
 hat envy from this guy.
 
 00:13:52.267 --> 00:13:53.234
 - That's it.
 
 00:13:53.234 --> 00:13:54.234
 That's it.
 
 00:13:54.234 --> 00:13:55.601
 - One, two, three.
 
 00:13:57.200 --> 00:13:58.200
 - All right.
 
 00:13:58.200 --> 00:13:58.601
 All right.
 
 00:13:58.601 --> 00:14:00.167
 I think we're all set, everybody.
 
 00:14:00.167 --> 00:14:01.434
 - Good to see you, too.
 
 00:14:02.701 --> 00:14:07.067
 (CHATTER)
 
 00:14:09.434 --> 00:14:18.601
 - When I was a young guy here in DC,
 in 1992 I came past the Warren Theater.
 
 00:14:18.601 --> 00:14:22.534
 And I saw people lined up outside, excited.
 
 00:14:22.534 --> 00:14:24.501
 And I didn't know what
 they were excited about,
 
 00:14:24.501 --> 00:14:27.734
 but they were excited to be
 coming into the building.
 
 00:14:27.734 --> 00:14:32.100
 And these two gentlemen said,
 "Tonight is Frank Sinatra's night."
 
 00:14:32.100 --> 00:14:34.701
 (LAUGHTER)
 
 00:14:34.701 --> 00:14:40.300
 Now, I am the Hip Hop Rev. So I didn't
 quite get the Frank Sinatra thing.
 
 00:14:40.300 --> 00:14:41.667
 (LAUGHTER)
 
 00:14:41.667 --> 00:14:48.300
 But when I saw their excitement and
 I saw how pumped up they were to be
 
 00:14:48.300 --> 00:14:53.334
 in the building, when I left there
 -- I'm gonna date myself now --
 
 00:14:53.334 --> 00:14:54.734
 I went out and bought me a record...
 
 00:14:54.734 --> 00:14:56.734
 (LAUGHTER)
 
 00:14:56.734 --> 00:14:59.300
 ..."The Best of Frank Sinatra."
 
 00:14:59.300 --> 00:15:02.701
 For the past 20 years, I've
 been listening to Frank Sinatra.
 
 00:15:02.701 --> 00:15:03.667
 (CHEERING)
 
 00:15:03.667 --> 00:15:06.267
 I've got Frank on Pandora.
 
 00:15:06.267 --> 00:15:10.234
 And I check out Frank all
 because of the excitement.
 
 00:15:10.234 --> 00:15:11.734
 Check it now, you might have missed it.
 
 00:15:11.734 --> 00:15:15.467
 There was nothing but a group of
 people coming to see Frank Sinatra.
 
 00:15:15.467 --> 00:15:18.367
 And this little black guy
 here in DC walked past,
 
 00:15:18.367 --> 00:15:25.634
 and because of their excitement of what was
 going on that night, I -- 20 years later --
 
 00:15:25.634 --> 00:15:28.367
 still listen to Frank Sinatra.
 
 00:15:28.367 --> 00:15:32.100
 Now you wanna get folks excited
 in DC, you've got to be excited!
 
 00:15:32.100 --> 00:15:34.767
 So one time, make some noise!
 
 00:15:34.767 --> 00:15:39.667
 (CHEERING)
 
 00:16:00.200 --> 00:16:03.167
 (CHEERING)
 
 00:16:09.567 --> 00:16:12.133
 (CHEERING)
 
 00:16:37.434 --> 00:16:42.434
 (TYPING)
 
 00:16:44.434 --> 00:16:49.133
 - Bill knows that data matters, and
 he's going to show you some math.
 
 00:16:49.133 --> 00:16:52.534
 And as a biologist, I also believe in data.
 
 00:16:52.534 --> 00:16:55.667
 But I know that for data
 on climate change to be
 
 00:16:55.667 --> 00:17:03.167
 able to catapult us past paralyzing despair
 and into no-surrender action requires
 
 00:17:03.167 --> 00:17:05.734
 a personal epiphany as well.
 
 00:17:05.734 --> 00:17:09.167
 And here's a one-minute story about my own.
 
 00:17:09.167 --> 00:17:12.367
 A few years ago when my
 son was four years old,
 
 00:17:12.367 --> 00:17:15.767
 he asked to be a polar bear for Halloween.
 
 00:17:15.767 --> 00:17:21.400
 So I went to work turning a chenille
 bedspread into a polar bear costume.
 
 00:17:21.400 --> 00:17:24.234
 And at some point while I
 was hand-stitching the ears,
 
 00:17:24.234 --> 00:17:31.067
 I realized that this costume was very
 likely going to outlast the species.
 
 00:17:31.067 --> 00:17:33.400
 And that night while I
 was out trick-or-treating
 
 00:17:33.400 --> 00:17:38.334
 in the streets of my own village,
 I saw many children dressed up
 
 00:17:38.334 --> 00:17:43.234
 as species heading for extinction
 because of climate change:
 
 00:17:43.234 --> 00:17:51.067
 monarch butterflies, Kermit the Frog,
 a bumblebee, my son the polar bear,
 
 00:17:51.067 --> 00:17:56.501
 and the icon of Halloween
 itself, the little brown bat.
 
 00:17:56.501 --> 00:18:01.601
 Thanks to climate change, absent
 our immediate intervention,
 
 00:18:01.601 --> 00:18:04.734
 they're all going the way of the dodo.
 
 00:18:04.734 --> 00:18:11.601
 And I began to wonder if children would
 still dress up as vanished species,
 
 00:18:11.601 --> 00:18:14.434
 or if these costumes
 were going to be hanging
 
 00:18:14.434 --> 00:18:20.767
 in closets when their real-life
 antecedents were no longer among us.
 
 00:18:20.767 --> 00:18:27.167
 And my grief at that thought, at that
 image, literally brought me to my knees.
 
 00:18:27.167 --> 00:18:33.033
 So there I was with the plastic pumpkin full
 of Kit-Kat bars, on my knees in the street.
 
 00:18:34.767 --> 00:18:40.400
 What got me up again was love, and
 a belief in the abidingness of life,
 
 00:18:40.400 --> 00:18:43.300
 and the realization that
 my life's work was now
 
 00:18:43.300 --> 00:18:48.000
 going to be to speak about
 the atrocity of fossil fuels.
 
 00:18:48.000 --> 00:18:54.601
 And in that, I take Rachel Carson, a native
 of Pennsylvania, as my guiding spirit.
 
 00:18:54.601 --> 00:19:03.267
 She said, "To sin by silence when they
 should protest makes cowards out of men."
 
 00:19:03.267 --> 00:19:09.667
 "To sin by silence when they should
 protest makes cowards out of men."
 
 00:19:09.667 --> 00:19:12.133
 She gives us our voices.
 
 00:19:12.133 --> 00:19:17.501
 And by that measure, the good folks of
 350 are about the bravest people I know.
 
 00:19:17.501 --> 00:19:19.100
 So welcome 350.
 
 00:19:19.100 --> 00:19:21.133
 Thank you for everything that you have done.
 
 00:19:21.133 --> 00:19:24.167
 And thank all of you for everything
 that you are about to do.
 
 00:19:24.167 --> 00:19:25.167
 Welcome to Pennsylvania.
 
 00:19:25.167 --> 00:19:26.067
 (APPLAUSE)
 
 00:19:26.067 --> 00:19:31.467
 (INSTRUMENTAL HIP HOP MUSIC)
 
 00:21:03.601 --> 00:21:04.734
 - Let's get to work.
 
 00:21:04.734 --> 00:21:08.000
 We're calling this the Do the Math Tour.
 
 00:21:08.000 --> 00:21:08.767
 But don't worry.
 
 00:21:08.767 --> 00:21:11.267
 It's not calculus, really.
 
 00:21:11.267 --> 00:21:17.367
 Three numbers -- I first wrote about them
 this summer in a piece for Rolling Stone
 
 00:21:17.367 --> 00:21:19.200
 that went oddly viral.
 
 00:21:19.200 --> 00:21:21.701
 It was the issue with
 Justin Bieber on the cover.
 
 00:21:21.701 --> 00:21:22.300
 (LAUGHTER)
 
 00:21:22.300 --> 00:21:23.400
 But here's the weird thing.
 
 00:21:23.400 --> 00:21:25.634
 I got a call from the
 editor a few days later.
 
 00:21:25.634 --> 00:21:27.367
 He said, "Something strange is going on.
 
 00:21:27.367 --> 00:21:31.701
 Your piece has 10 times as many
 likes on Facebook as Justin's."
 
 00:21:31.701 --> 00:21:36.701
 Clearly that's partly due to
 my soulful stare and things.
 
 00:21:36.701 --> 00:21:40.167
 But mostly, it was due to
 the fact that it really, I
 
 00:21:40.167 --> 00:21:46.601
 think, described for people just in very
 straightforward, real terms where we are.
 
 00:21:46.601 --> 00:21:48.167
 I'm going to give you three numbers.
 
 00:21:48.167 --> 00:21:52.033
 Before I get to them, I'm just going
 to tell you where we are right now.
 
 00:21:52.033 --> 00:21:55.701
 So far, human beings have burned
 enough coal and oil and gas
 
 00:21:55.701 --> 00:21:59.200
 to raise the temperature about one degree.
 
 00:21:59.200 --> 00:22:00.701
 And what has that done?
 
 00:22:00.701 --> 00:22:06.067
 Well, one day in September this
 headline ran in the newspaper:
 
 00:22:06.067 --> 00:22:09.100
 "Half the Polar Ice Cap is Missing."
 
 00:22:09.100 --> 00:22:12.100
 Literally, if Neil Armstrong were
 looking down from the moon now,
 
 00:22:12.100 --> 00:22:16.300
 there would be half as much
 ice as there was 40 years ago.
 
 00:22:16.300 --> 00:22:22.100
 We've taken one of the great physical
 features on Earth, and we have broken it.
 
 00:22:22.100 --> 00:22:23.133
 OK?
 
 00:22:23.133 --> 00:22:25.701
 And the other ones are
 following close behind.
 
 00:22:25.701 --> 00:22:31.067
 The ocean out there -- the beautiful,
 broad Atlantic -- that ocean,
 
 00:22:31.067 --> 00:22:35.434
 like all the other oceans, is 30%
 more acid than it was 40 years ago.
 
 00:22:35.434 --> 00:22:38.767
 The oceans are our metaphor
 for bigness, for vastness,
 
 00:22:38.767 --> 00:22:41.400
 but we have altered them profoundly.
 
 00:22:41.400 --> 00:22:45.501
 Chemistry of seawater changes as it
 absorbs carbon from the atmosphere.
 
 00:22:45.501 --> 00:22:48.367
 Think about the atmosphere itself, OK?
 
 00:22:48.367 --> 00:22:54.601
 Because warm air holds more water vapor
 than cold -- an absolute, bottom-line,
 
 00:22:54.601 --> 00:23:00.701
 basic physical fact for this century -- the
 atmosphere is 5% wetter than it was when I
 
 00:23:00.701 --> 00:23:02.133
 was born, OK?
 
 00:23:02.133 --> 00:23:08.067
 That's a staggering physical change
 in a basic parameter of the planet.
 
 00:23:08.067 --> 00:23:11.267
 And what it does is load the
 dice for drought and flood.
 
 00:23:11.267 --> 00:23:13.400
 So think about what this year was like.
 
 00:23:13.400 --> 00:23:16.033
 Think about the Midwest
 of the United States,
 
 00:23:16.033 --> 00:23:19.734
 where it just got too hot
 and too dry to grow anything
 
 00:23:19.734 --> 00:23:22.734
 in the most fertile farmland
 on the face of the Earth.
 
 00:23:22.734 --> 00:23:29.167
 July 2012 was the warmest month any
 month in a year in American history.
 
 00:23:29.167 --> 00:23:33.033
 We saw, of course, what it
 looked like in New York.
 
 00:23:33.033 --> 00:23:36.167
 There's not supposed to
 be water in the subways.
 
 00:23:36.167 --> 00:23:40.601
 Those pictures just stabbed
 everyone in the heart,
 
 00:23:40.601 --> 00:23:45.300
 even before we saw the images
 of the devastation where
 
 00:23:45.300 --> 00:23:51.133
 people were living in Brooklyn and Queens
 and Long Island and the Jersey Shore.
 
 00:23:51.133 --> 00:23:55.300
 I wish that what we were talking
 about tonight was how to get us back
 
 00:23:55.300 --> 00:23:59.234
 to the Holocene -- back to the place
 where we'd been for the last 10,000 years,
 
 00:23:59.234 --> 00:24:00.467
 erasing that degree.
 
 00:24:00.467 --> 00:24:02.634
 But we do not have that luxury.
 
 00:24:02.634 --> 00:24:05.734
 The momentum behind
 climate change is fierce.
 
 00:24:05.734 --> 00:24:11.601
 All we have the power to do
 now is avoid complete calamity.
 
 00:24:13.234 --> 00:24:15.334
 - This flag is from the future.
 
 00:24:17.267 --> 00:24:19.634
 This message is from the future.
 
 00:24:19.634 --> 00:24:22.601
 Greetings from the future.
 
 00:24:22.601 --> 00:24:26.767
 People of 2012, we remember you well.
 
 00:24:26.767 --> 00:24:32.167
 You are us at a turning
 point, a moment of decision.
 
 00:24:32.167 --> 00:24:33.567
 Greetings from the future.
 
 00:24:33.567 --> 00:24:37.701
 People of the so-called first world
 nations, we remember you well.
 
 00:24:37.701 --> 00:24:43.167
 Recognize the world's an island
 now, and the water level's rising.
 
 00:24:43.167 --> 00:24:45.300
 Who will sing the songs that turn the tide?
 
 00:24:47.567 --> 00:24:53.634
 (GUITAR PLAYING)
 
 00:24:57.567 --> 00:25:02.033
 (RAPPING) It's a cloudy day in the first
 world, we can't quite handle the severity.
 
 00:25:02.033 --> 00:25:06.167
 It's a cloudy day in the first world,
 so we make a mockery of disparity.
 
 00:25:06.167 --> 00:25:10.100
 It's a cloudy day in the first world, we're
 looking for a new source of sincerity.
 
 00:25:10.100 --> 00:25:12.200
 But when Mother Nature
 proposes austerity, we're
 
 00:25:12.200 --> 00:25:14.667
 all gonna need to resort to solidarity.
 
 00:25:14.667 --> 00:25:18.367
 It's a cloudy day in the first world,
 loud debate now the alters are changing.
 
 00:25:18.367 --> 00:25:20.667
 We all know how to wait
 for the cursor swirl,
 
 00:25:20.667 --> 00:25:22.501
 we all want to sing out for the same thing.
 
 00:25:22.501 --> 00:25:26.667
 We need safety, we need fantasies, we
 just want to find a way to live carefree.
 
 00:25:26.667 --> 00:25:31.033
 We have babies, we have families, we have
 a reason to try to proceed carefully.
 
 00:25:31.033 --> 00:25:34.033
 But the mural they plastered the
 church with detracts from its purpose.
 
 00:25:34.033 --> 00:25:35.601
 The paint's got cracks in the surface.
 
 00:25:35.601 --> 00:25:37.467
 The slogans and the raps are worthless.
 
 00:25:37.467 --> 00:25:39.300
 And nobody's around to enact the verses.
 
 00:25:39.300 --> 00:25:42.601
 I said the murals they plastered the
 church with detracts from its purpose.
 
 00:25:42.601 --> 00:25:43.667
 The paint's got cracks in the surface.
 
 00:25:43.667 --> 00:25:45.434
 The slogans and the raps are worthless.
 
 00:25:45.434 --> 00:25:47.167
 And nobody's around to enact the verses.
 
 00:25:48.701 --> 00:25:55.033
 But if it's more than an observation,
 if there's faith in the congregation,
 
 00:25:55.033 --> 00:25:59.067
 if the audience believes the song,
 then it might come to life when we sing
 
 00:25:59.067 --> 00:26:06.267
 along and say, we can do better than this.
 
 00:26:06.267 --> 00:26:08.434
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:26:08.434 --> 00:26:10.601
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:26:10.601 --> 00:26:12.734
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:26:12.734 --> 00:26:15.000
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:17.033
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:26:17.033 --> 00:26:18.767
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:26:18.767 --> 00:26:21.100
 Go ahead and sing along.
 (SINGING) Better than this.
 
 00:26:21.100 --> 00:26:23.033
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:26:23.033 --> 00:26:25.067
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:26:25.067 --> 00:26:27.067
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:26:27.067 --> 00:26:29.000
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:26:29.000 --> 00:26:30.767
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:26:30.767 --> 00:26:32.701
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:26:32.701 --> 00:26:34.734
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:26:34.734 --> 00:26:38.267
 2012 we can't go on, worshipping
 wealth like nothing is wrong.
 
 00:26:38.267 --> 00:26:40.200
 Their water is scarce, we're watering lawns.
 
 00:26:40.200 --> 00:26:42.000
 That isn't fair so we've gotta respond.
 
 00:26:42.000 --> 00:26:45.334
 People are strong, people are weak,
 people need help, people need sleep.
 
 00:26:45.334 --> 00:26:47.734
 People of faith let's sing in
 the streets, speaking this way
 
 00:26:47.734 --> 00:26:50.734
 so that people believe that
 we can do better than this.
 
 00:26:50.734 --> 00:26:52.567
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:26:52.567 --> 00:26:54.267
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:26:54.267 --> 00:26:56.267
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:26:56.267 --> 00:26:57.734
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:26:57.734 --> 00:26:59.567
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:26:59.567 --> 00:27:01.334
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:27:01.334 --> 00:27:03.267
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:27:03.267 --> 00:27:06.601
 2012, not enough jobs, kids on
 the block decide to sell drugs.
 
 00:27:06.601 --> 00:27:10.133
 Unemployment alleviation, end
 up locked in the police station.
 
 00:27:10.133 --> 00:27:11.701
 Tar Sands blockade Eastern Texas.
 
 00:27:11.701 --> 00:27:13.300
 Tasered, shocked, and then arrested.
 
 00:27:13.300 --> 00:27:15.434
 Still young and old stand
 side by side, hold hands
 
 00:27:15.434 --> 00:27:19.100
 while the pepper spray stings their
 eyes because we can do better than this.
 
 00:27:19.100 --> 00:27:20.400
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:27:20.400 --> 00:27:22.133
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:27:22.133 --> 00:27:24.100
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:27:24.100 --> 00:27:25.501
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:27:25.501 --> 00:27:27.100
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:27:27.100 --> 00:27:29.067
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:27:29.067 --> 00:27:30.467
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:27:30.467 --> 00:27:35.300
 The world is an island, the water level's
 rising, now who will turn the tide?
 
 00:27:35.300 --> 00:27:35.701
 Yeah.
 
 00:27:35.701 --> 00:27:37.067
 Now who will turn the tide?
 
 00:27:37.067 --> 00:27:37.467
 Yeah.
 
 00:27:37.467 --> 00:27:40.501
 The world is an island,
 the water level's rising,
 
 00:27:40.501 --> 00:27:46.234
 and we will turn the tide when we finally
 decide that we can do better than this.
 
 00:27:46.234 --> 00:27:47.634
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:27:47.634 --> 00:27:49.234
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:27:49.234 --> 00:27:50.601
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:27:50.601 --> 00:27:52.601
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:27:52.601 --> 00:27:54.200
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:27:54.200 --> 00:27:55.734
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:27:55.734 --> 00:27:57.067
 As loud as you can, Boulder!
 
 00:27:57.067 --> 00:27:58.167
 (SINGING) Better than this!
 
 00:27:58.167 --> 00:27:59.467
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:27:59.467 --> 00:28:01.067
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:28:01.067 --> 00:28:03.033
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:28:03.033 --> 00:28:04.434
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:28:04.434 --> 00:28:06.434
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:28:06.434 --> 00:28:08.033
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:28:08.033 --> 00:28:10.033
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:28:10.033 --> 00:28:14.000
 We can do better than this.
 
 00:28:14.000 --> 00:28:16.000
 Welcome to Do the Math.
 
 00:28:16.000 --> 00:28:21.767
 (CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
 
 00:28:25.300 --> 00:28:27.601
 - And the first number
 that I want to talk about
 
 00:28:27.601 --> 00:28:32.267
 is the way that the world has
 defined complete and utter calamity.
 
 00:28:32.267 --> 00:28:34.367
 That number is two degrees.
 
 00:28:34.367 --> 00:28:37.167
 Two degrees Celsius, all right?
 
 00:28:37.167 --> 00:28:39.234
 In scientific terms, it's too hot.
 
 00:28:39.234 --> 00:28:41.000
 One degree melted the Arctic.
 
 00:28:41.000 --> 00:28:44.701
 We should not be finding out
 what two degrees is going to do.
 
 00:28:46.234 --> 00:28:49.334
 But in political terms, it's the
 only thing about climate change
 
 00:28:49.334 --> 00:28:52.100
 that we've been able to get the
 world's governments to agree on.
 
 00:28:52.100 --> 00:28:58.300
 You remember that completely horrible
 climate summit in Copenhagen in 2009?
 
 00:28:58.300 --> 00:29:00.601
 The place that, has this
 been a Hollywood movie,
 
 00:29:00.601 --> 00:29:03.667
 we would have had the happy ending
 where the world comes together and does
 
 00:29:03.667 --> 00:29:04.400
 the right thing.
 
 00:29:04.400 --> 00:29:08.701
 But instead, nobody came together,
 and the whole thing fizzled.
 
 00:29:08.701 --> 00:29:13.133
 The only thing they did at
 the end was sign a two-page,
 
 00:29:13.133 --> 00:29:18.033
 sort of scribbled-together document
 with no penalties and no timetables
 
 00:29:18.033 --> 00:29:20.234
 and exactly one number in it.
 
 00:29:20.234 --> 00:29:21.701
 That number was two degrees.
 
 00:29:21.701 --> 00:29:26.033
 Every signatory pledged to make sure that
 the temperature wouldn't rise above that.
 
 00:29:26.033 --> 00:29:28.367
 Everybody -- EU, Russia, Japan.
 
 00:29:28.367 --> 00:29:33.267
 The most conservative, recalcitrant,
 reluctant countries on Earth -- China,
 
 00:29:33.267 --> 00:29:36.701
 even the United States
 -- signed onto this, OK?
 
 00:29:36.701 --> 00:29:40.167
 If the world officially believes
 anything about climate change
 
 00:29:40.167 --> 00:29:44.701
 it's that two degrees is too much,
 that it is the reddest of red lines.
 
 00:29:44.701 --> 00:29:46.601
 Two degrees.
 
 00:29:46.601 --> 00:29:49.767
 To help us with the
 second number to remember,
 
 00:29:49.767 --> 00:29:55.567
 I want to welcome my really dear friend,
 a board member at 350.org and one
 
 00:29:55.567 --> 00:29:58.100
 of the great writers in the
 English language: Naomi Klein.
 
 00:29:58.100 --> 00:30:01.100
 (APPLAUSE)
 
 00:30:01.100 --> 00:30:03.501
 - Thank you, Bill.
 
 00:30:03.501 --> 00:30:05.501
 Hey, everybody.
 
 00:30:05.501 --> 00:30:06.501
 (CHEERING)
 
 00:30:06.501 --> 00:30:07.100
 Hey.
 
 00:30:09.467 --> 00:30:11.067
 Thank you so much, Bill.
 
 00:30:13.467 --> 00:30:14.734
 So here's the second number.
 
 00:30:16.467 --> 00:30:20.434
 The second number is 565 gigatons.
 
 00:30:20.434 --> 00:30:24.400
 565 billion tons.
 
 00:30:24.400 --> 00:30:28.734
 That's how much more carbon dioxide
 can pour into the atmosphere
 
 00:30:28.734 --> 00:30:33.601
 and still give us a realistic
 hope of staying below two degrees.
 
 00:30:33.601 --> 00:30:38.167
 The number comes from a 2009 paper
 by a scientist named Meinshausen,
 
 00:30:38.167 --> 00:30:42.100
 and it's been confirmed by
 dozens of other computer models.
 
 00:30:42.100 --> 00:30:48.467
 Now 565 gigatons sounds like a hell of a lot
 of carbon, like it's a pretty high limit.
 
 00:30:48.467 --> 00:30:50.033
 And it is a lot.
 
 00:30:50.033 --> 00:30:54.367
 Again, a gigaton is a
 billion tons of carbon.
 
 00:30:54.367 --> 00:30:58.534
 The trouble is, the world emits
 30 gigatons a year already.
 
 00:30:58.534 --> 00:31:02.467
 And that number is increasing by 3% a year.
 
 00:31:02.467 --> 00:31:07.334
 That means in 16 years, we'll have
 poured enough carbon into the atmosphere
 
 00:31:07.334 --> 00:31:10.467
 to take us past that two-degree threshold.
 
 00:31:10.467 --> 00:31:13.100
 And that's very bad news, obviously.
 
 00:31:13.100 --> 00:31:17.133
 - But unfortunately it's
 not the worst news, OK?
 
 00:31:17.133 --> 00:31:19.467
 The third number is the really scary one.
 
 00:31:19.467 --> 00:31:20.400
 It's the new one.
 
 00:31:20.400 --> 00:31:22.534
 It's what caused me to write that article.
 
 00:31:22.534 --> 00:31:25.300
 And it's what's causing
 us to do this tour that
 
 00:31:25.300 --> 00:31:31.300
 launches this campaign that will
 take up, I hope, some of your lives
 
 00:31:31.300 --> 00:31:33.701
 for a while to come.
 
 00:31:33.701 --> 00:31:36.434
 The scariest number is the third one.
 
 00:31:36.434 --> 00:31:42.634
 It comes from a group of financial analysts
 in the UK who set out to add up how much
 
 00:31:42.634 --> 00:31:47.200
 carbon the world's fossil fuel companies
 and the kind of countries that operate like
 
 00:31:47.200 --> 00:31:50.133
 fossil fuel companies --
 think Venezuela or Kuwait --
 
 00:31:50.133 --> 00:31:53.267
 how much they had in their reserves.
 
 00:31:53.267 --> 00:31:58.067
 They have to tell the SEC and various
 government agencies and things
 
 00:31:58.067 --> 00:31:59.734
 how much they have.
 
 00:31:59.734 --> 00:32:07.400
 And when they added it all up, the number
 was 2,795 gigatons worth of carbon,
 
 00:32:07.400 --> 00:32:14.501
 or five times as much as 565 -- five times
 as much as even the most conservative
 
 00:32:14.501 --> 00:32:18.567
 government on Earth says is safe
 to burn, and yet it will be burned.
 
 00:32:18.567 --> 00:32:21.000
 That stuff is still
 physically below the ground,
 
 00:32:21.000 --> 00:32:23.300
 but economically it's above the ground.
 
 00:32:23.300 --> 00:32:27.367
 That's what Exxon uses
 to set its share price.
 
 00:32:27.367 --> 00:32:31.300
 When Peabody Coal goes to borrow money,
 this is what they use as collateral.
 
 00:32:31.300 --> 00:32:35.501
 At current market prices,
 it's worth about $20 trillion.
 
 00:32:35.501 --> 00:32:40.267
 And unless we figure out a way to
 intervene, it is going to be burned.
 
 00:32:40.267 --> 00:32:44.601
 The point of these numbers is that
 there's no longer any room for speculation
 
 00:32:44.601 --> 00:32:49.167
 or wishful thinking or wishful
 thinking or speculation about what's
 
 00:32:49.167 --> 00:32:50.567
 going to happen with the planet.
 
 00:32:50.567 --> 00:32:55.567
 Unless we intervene dramatically,
 this story has been written.
 
 00:32:55.567 --> 00:32:57.701
 These numbers show...
 
 00:32:57.701 --> 00:33:00.100
 and I really want to make this clear.
 
 00:33:00.100 --> 00:33:06.367
 They show -- if you remember nothing else
 -- that these industries have become a kind
 
 00:33:06.367 --> 00:33:08.467
 of rogue force.
 
 00:33:08.467 --> 00:33:10.000
 They're outlaws.
 
 00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:12.734
 They're not violating
 the laws of the nation.
 
 00:33:12.734 --> 00:33:14.534
 They get to write those.
 
 00:33:14.534 --> 00:33:18.367
 But they are violating the
 laws of chemistry and physics.
 
 00:33:18.367 --> 00:33:22.467
 And if they carry out their
 business plan, the planet tanks.
 
 00:33:22.467 --> 00:33:27.167
 Exxon alone in its reserves
 has 7% of the carbon
 
 00:33:27.167 --> 00:33:28.734
 necessary to take us past two degrees.
 
 00:33:28.734 --> 00:33:30.734
 One company.
 
 00:33:30.734 --> 00:33:35.267
 Either Exxon has to give in
 or physics has to give in.
 
 00:33:35.267 --> 00:33:40.267
 It's going to be harder than
 heck to get Exxon to give in.
 
 00:33:40.267 --> 00:33:45.534
 They made more money last year than any
 company in the history of money, OK?
 
 00:33:45.534 --> 00:33:50.200
 But my guess is it's going to be
 easier to get Exxon to give in
 
 00:33:50.200 --> 00:33:53.234
 then to get physics to relent, OK?
 
 00:33:53.234 --> 00:33:56.234
 Since those are our choices,
 we gotta get to work.
 
 00:33:56.234 --> 00:34:01.200
 (DISSONANT INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC)
 
 00:34:26.400 --> 00:34:29.133
 The good news is... and
 we've had plenty of bad news,
 
 00:34:29.133 --> 00:34:31.167
 so let's have good news for a minute.
 
 00:34:31.167 --> 00:34:35.100
 The good news is that we know
 how to do what we need to do.
 
 00:34:35.100 --> 00:34:39.067
 We need to make the leap to renewable
 energy, and we have to do it fast.
 
 00:34:39.067 --> 00:34:41.000
 Now, it's going to be hard.
 
 00:34:41.000 --> 00:34:45.267
 It'll take the kind of footing that we've
 had to go on when we went to war and things
 
 00:34:45.267 --> 00:34:46.567
 in the past.
 
 00:34:46.567 --> 00:34:48.167
 But it's not impossible.
 
 00:34:48.167 --> 00:34:54.634
 There's one large nation on Earth,
 one non-Scandinavian nation, that's
 
 00:34:54.634 --> 00:34:56.634
 done its best to deal with this problem.
 
 00:34:56.634 --> 00:34:57.701
 And that's Germany.
 
 00:34:57.701 --> 00:35:03.434
 There were days this summer when Germany
 generated more than half the power it
 
 00:35:03.434 --> 00:35:05.667
 used from solar panels within its borders.
 
 00:35:05.667 --> 00:35:07.033
 (APPLAUSE)
 
 00:35:07.033 --> 00:35:08.334
 All right?
 
 00:35:08.334 --> 00:35:17.167
 And Germany is kind of foggy
 and Wagnerian, you know?
 
 00:35:17.167 --> 00:35:20.667
 I mean, Munich is north of Montreal, OK?
 
 00:35:20.667 --> 00:35:25.300
 It's not Texas and California
 and Nevada, or even New York.
 
 00:35:25.300 --> 00:35:30.601
 It's perfect testimony to the fact
 that what's lacking is not technology.
 
 00:35:30.601 --> 00:35:31.701
 It's political will.
 
 00:35:31.701 --> 00:35:34.467
 You can see the same thing in other places.
 
 00:35:34.467 --> 00:35:35.567
 Go to China.
 
 00:35:35.567 --> 00:35:40.367
 The solar hot water panels are
 just ubiquitous on the roofs, OK?
 
 00:35:40.367 --> 00:35:45.434
 25% of Chinese, 250 million people,
 when they take a shower at night,
 
 00:35:45.434 --> 00:35:48.200
 the hot water is coming from
 solar panels on the roof.
 
 00:35:48.200 --> 00:35:52.067
 25% compared with about 1% in this country.
 
 00:35:52.067 --> 00:35:55.567
 And most of that 1% goes
 to heat swimming pools.
 
 00:35:55.567 --> 00:35:58.067
 China doesn't have better engineers.
 
 00:35:58.067 --> 00:36:00.534
 Germany doesn't have better entrepreneurs.
 
 00:36:00.534 --> 00:36:04.400
 What they have is the
 political will to get it done.
 
 00:36:04.400 --> 00:36:07.033
 That became so clear to
 me one day when I was
 
 00:36:07.033 --> 00:36:11.300
 in the office of the guy who put
 the most of those solar panels up.
 
 00:36:11.300 --> 00:36:16.300
 A guy named Huang Ming, who runs Himin
 Solar, put up millions of these arrays.
 
 00:36:16.300 --> 00:36:17.601
 And as a result, he's a rich man.
 
 00:36:17.601 --> 00:36:20.667
 And at the end of our long talk,
 he took me into his private museum
 
 00:36:20.667 --> 00:36:22.701
 with many interesting things in it.
 
 00:36:22.701 --> 00:36:26.434
 But pride of place on the floor
 is this rusting solar panel, OK?
 
 00:36:26.434 --> 00:36:27.734
 He says, "You know what that is?"
 
 00:36:27.734 --> 00:36:28.334
 No.
 
 00:36:28.334 --> 00:36:29.267
 What is that?
 
 00:36:29.267 --> 00:36:34.334
 "That's one of the solar panels that Jimmy
 Carter put on the White House in 1979"...
 
 00:36:34.334 --> 00:36:40.767
 (APPLAUSE) ...and Ronald Reagan took down
 in 1985 because he wanted manlier forms
 
 00:36:40.767 --> 00:36:41.501
 of energy.
 
 00:36:41.501 --> 00:36:46.033
 Proof if you ever needed it that
 it's not technology we lack.
 
 00:36:46.033 --> 00:36:48.267
 It's political will.
 
 00:36:48.267 --> 00:36:51.300
 Our engineers and our entrepreneurs
 are completely up to the job.
 
 00:36:51.300 --> 00:36:54.033
 They're actually beginning to put
 in a fair amount of this stuff,
 
 00:36:54.033 --> 00:36:56.400
 but not fast enough to
 rise to the challenge.
 
 00:36:56.400 --> 00:37:00.701
 And the reason that it's not fast
 enough is not because they're inept.
 
 00:37:00.701 --> 00:37:05.067
 It's because the fossil
 fuel industry cheats.
 
 00:37:05.067 --> 00:37:09.100
 Alone among industries, they get
 to pour out their waste for free.
 
 00:37:09.100 --> 00:37:12.133
 - And I'm willing to bet that if
 they did have to pay for the damage
 
 00:37:12.133 --> 00:37:14.234
 that their products do to
 the atmosphere, we would
 
 00:37:14.234 --> 00:37:19.467
 be moving a lot faster towards the renewable
 energy world Bill was just describing.
 
 00:37:19.467 --> 00:37:22.767
 And we could do it without
 bankrupting any of us.
 
 00:37:22.767 --> 00:37:25.033
 But there's a problem.
 
 00:37:25.033 --> 00:37:29.033
 Paying for their waste like everyone else
 would hurt the fossil fuel industry's
 
 00:37:29.033 --> 00:37:33.100
 profits, and that's why they've battled
 every effort to put a price on carbon.
 
 00:37:33.100 --> 00:37:35.601
 Now occasionally, they'll pretend
 that they have seen the light.
 
 00:37:35.601 --> 00:37:41.133
 A decade ago, BP announced that its
 initials now stand for "Beyond Petroleum."
 
 00:37:41.133 --> 00:37:42.434
 They changed their logo.
 
 00:37:42.434 --> 00:37:45.534
 They threatened to sue anyone who
 called them British Petroleum.
 
 00:37:45.534 --> 00:37:49.200
 They put solar panels on
 top of a few gas stations.
 
 00:37:49.200 --> 00:37:52.367
 But the truth is, they invested
 very little in renewable energy.
 
 00:37:52.367 --> 00:37:56.667
 And two years ago they officially
 announced that they were now
 
 00:37:56.667 --> 00:38:00.033
 returning to their core
 business, which turned out
 
 00:38:00.033 --> 00:38:03.100
 to be wrecking the Gulf of Mexico.
 
 00:38:03.100 --> 00:38:07.067
 So why are these guys so
 fixated on hydrocarbons?
 
 00:38:07.067 --> 00:38:09.467
 It's not because that's
 the only way to make money.
 
 00:38:09.467 --> 00:38:12.167
 It's because that's where
 the stupid money is.
 
 00:38:12.167 --> 00:38:18.100
 The top five oil companies last
 year made $137 billion in profit.
 
 00:38:18.100 --> 00:38:22.000
 That's $375 million per day.
 
 00:38:22.000 --> 00:38:26.567
 They got $6.6 million in
 federal tax breaks every day.
 
 00:38:26.567 --> 00:38:32.033
 They spent $440,000 every
 day lobbying Congress, OK?
 
 00:38:32.033 --> 00:38:37.567
 Rex Tillerson, the CEO of
 Exxon, made $100,000 every day.
 
 00:38:37.567 --> 00:38:42.067
 The only problem is that the world's
 scientists are now watching in real time
 
 00:38:42.067 --> 00:38:43.601
 as these guys pull off their heists.
 
 00:38:43.601 --> 00:38:46.367
 So it's getting harder
 to deny what's going on.
 
 00:38:46.367 --> 00:38:50.634
 Last summer, the head of Exxon finally
 owned up and admitted what every one of his
 
 00:38:50.634 --> 00:38:54.567
 predecessors had denied --
 that climate change was real.
 
 00:38:54.567 --> 00:38:56.434
 - And clearly there's going to be an impact.
 
 00:38:56.434 --> 00:39:01.534
 So I'm not disputing that increasing
 CO2 emissions in the atmosphere
 
 00:39:01.534 --> 00:39:02.667
 is going to have an impact.
 
 00:39:02.667 --> 00:39:04.133
 It will have a warming impact.
 
 00:39:04.133 --> 00:39:06.200
 - But since the only way
 to stop that impact would
 
 00:39:06.200 --> 00:39:08.634
 be to take a hit to the
 company's profitability,
 
 00:39:08.634 --> 00:39:10.467
 he immediately tried to change the subject.
 
 00:39:12.567 --> 00:39:16.267
 - It's an engineering problem,
 and it has engineering solutions.
 
 00:39:16.267 --> 00:39:16.767
 - Really?
 
 00:39:16.767 --> 00:39:21.501
 What kind of engineering solutions
 did you have in mind, Mr. Tillerson?
 
 00:39:21.501 --> 00:39:25.234
 - Changes to weather patterns that
 move crop production areas around --
 
 00:39:25.234 --> 00:39:26.367
 we'll adapt to that.
 
 00:39:28.234 --> 00:39:33.434
 - Look, all respect, but that's crazy talk.
 
 00:39:33.434 --> 00:39:38.667
 We cannot move crop
 production areas around, OK?
 
 00:39:38.667 --> 00:39:42.467
 "Crop production areas" are
 what normal people call farms.
 
 00:39:42.467 --> 00:39:47.167
 We already have farms everywhere
 that there's soil to grow anything.
 
 00:39:47.167 --> 00:39:50.300
 Yes, Exxon has melted the tundra for us.
 
 00:39:50.300 --> 00:39:54.167
 That does not mean that you
 can move Iowa to the tundra
 
 00:39:54.167 --> 00:39:57.667
 when you make it too hot to grow
 corn in Iowa because there's no soil.
 
 00:39:57.667 --> 00:40:03.033
 A team at Stanford and the University of
 Washington concluded two years ago that
 
 00:40:03.033 --> 00:40:07.767
 from this point on, every degree increase
 in global temperature would cut grain yields
 
 00:40:07.767 --> 00:40:12.767
 10% -- which is pretty easy to understand
 given what we saw across the Midwest this
 
 00:40:12.767 --> 00:40:13.567
 summer.
 
 00:40:13.567 --> 00:40:17.400
 That drought and the failed
 harvest caused the price of corn
 
 00:40:17.400 --> 00:40:21.334
 to rise 40% around the world, OK?
 
 00:40:21.334 --> 00:40:27.000
 Now if you make $100,000 a day, what do
 you care if the price of corn goes up 40%?
 
 00:40:27.000 --> 00:40:32.434
 Most of the people we work with around
 the world, they make $1 or $2 or $3 a day.
 
 00:40:32.434 --> 00:40:36.767
 And if that's the case, then the
 40% increase in the price of corn
 
 00:40:36.767 --> 00:40:39.434
 is by far the biggest thing
 that happened to you this year.
 
 00:40:39.434 --> 00:40:45.167
 It means that you are not filling your
 belly tonight because you cannot afford it.
 
 00:40:45.167 --> 00:40:49.167
 Those people are our brothers and sisters.
 
 00:40:49.167 --> 00:40:51.300
 And not one of those
 people, almost none of them,
 
 00:40:51.300 --> 00:40:54.133
 will ever make $100,000 in a lifetime.
 
 00:40:54.133 --> 00:40:55.634
 OK?
 
 00:40:55.634 --> 00:41:01.434
 But they count every bit as
 much as any oil tycoon counts.
 
 00:41:01.434 --> 00:41:04.367
 (APPLAUSE)
 
 00:41:04.367 --> 00:41:07.400
 They have done nothing
 to cause this problem.
 
 00:41:07.400 --> 00:41:08.467
 Nothing at all.
 
 00:41:08.467 --> 00:41:10.501
 They just get to pay the price.
 
 00:42:45.400 --> 00:42:49.400
 We sent out the word
 along the 350.org network
 
 00:42:49.400 --> 00:42:54.133
 in April, said we want
 people to rally in places
 
 00:42:54.133 --> 00:42:58.000
 that have already felt the sting of
 climate change to kind of bear witness
 
 00:42:58.000 --> 00:42:59.767
 to the world, OK?
 
 00:42:59.767 --> 00:43:03.501
 And we called it "Connect the Dots."
 
 00:43:03.501 --> 00:43:08.367
 Groups responded by the thousands,
 from places all around the world.
 
 00:43:08.367 --> 00:43:11.767
 Because all around the
 world, this is going on.
 
 00:43:11.767 --> 00:43:13.667
 I could show you pictures all night.
 
 00:43:13.667 --> 00:43:17.067
 The day began, of course,
 in the far Pacific.
 
 00:43:17.067 --> 00:43:19.033
 And there, the people
 in the Marshall Islands
 
 00:43:19.033 --> 00:43:22.167
 were rallying underwater
 on their coral reef.
 
 00:43:22.167 --> 00:43:26.467
 It's being eaten away by that hot,
 acidic ocean that we're building.
 
 00:43:26.467 --> 00:43:28.501
 There were pictures coming from Afghanistan.
 
 00:43:28.501 --> 00:43:31.167
 You would think that
 people in Afghanistan have
 
 00:43:31.167 --> 00:43:33.200
 things that they need to worry about more.
 
 00:43:33.200 --> 00:43:39.200
 But the fact that the Kabul River is drying
 up, that's just about as tough as it gets.
 
 00:43:39.200 --> 00:43:43.501
 There were pictures coming from
 across the border in Pakistan, where
 
 00:43:43.501 --> 00:43:48.567
 20 million people were
 dislocated from their homes
 
 00:43:48.567 --> 00:43:53.734
 by flooding when the Indus River
 left its banks in September of 2010.
 
 00:43:53.734 --> 00:43:58.033
 20 million people out of their
 homes, just unbelievable.
 
 00:43:59.501 --> 00:44:00.601
 This picture is from India.
 
 00:44:00.601 --> 00:44:03.300
 It was one of hundreds that
 came in from around India.
 
 00:44:03.300 --> 00:44:06.534
 It's not particularly big, but
 it came with just a little note
 
 00:44:06.534 --> 00:44:08.467
 attached to it that I read.
 
 00:44:08.467 --> 00:44:14.033
 All it said in the note was, "There
 is no water behind our dam anymore."
 
 00:44:14.033 --> 00:44:17.234
 In Micronesia, the problem
 is way too much water.
 
 00:44:17.234 --> 00:44:21.534
 They're figuring out how they're going to
 evacuate their country as the ocean rises.
 
 00:44:21.534 --> 00:44:24.634
 In Siberia, the problem is too much fire.
 
 00:44:24.634 --> 00:44:30.434
 It was like Colorado or New Mexico this
 year -- just rampant, endless wildfire.
 
 00:44:30.434 --> 00:44:34.200
 The picture that stuck with me
 maybe most of all was from Haiti.
 
 00:44:34.200 --> 00:44:36.701
 It was maybe the smallest
 rally of the day, just
 
 00:44:36.701 --> 00:44:42.033
 people standing in a road
 turning into a kind of river.
 
 00:44:42.033 --> 00:44:47.067
 But the sign that those two are holding on
 the side that said, "YOUR ACTIONS AFFECT
 
 00:44:47.067 --> 00:44:49.300
 ME" really got to me.
 
 00:44:49.300 --> 00:44:51.200
 And of course, it's absolutely true.
 
 00:44:51.200 --> 00:44:56.100
 As many people died from Sandy
 in Haiti as in New York, OK?
 
 00:44:56.100 --> 00:45:01.467
 And now in its wake, there's a full-on
 cholera outbreak going on down there.
 
 00:45:01.467 --> 00:45:03.234
 "YOUR ACTIONS AFFECT ME."
 
 00:45:03.234 --> 00:45:05.601
 But it doesn't work in reverse.
 
 00:45:05.601 --> 00:45:09.534
 There's nothing anybody can
 do in Haiti to slow this down.
 
 00:45:09.534 --> 00:45:13.300
 They can't stop burning fossil fuel
 because they're not burning any now.
 
 00:45:13.300 --> 00:45:17.267
 They don't have the headquarters of
 the world's fossil fuel companies
 
 00:45:17.267 --> 00:45:18.667
 in their country.
 
 00:45:18.667 --> 00:45:21.033
 They're not a superpower.
 
 00:45:21.033 --> 00:45:22.601
 That's us.
 
 00:45:22.601 --> 00:45:26.033
 That's our responsibility to take on.
 
 00:45:26.033 --> 00:45:27.300
 That's our job.
 
 00:45:45.434 --> 00:45:48.067
 - Continue 49 miles.
 
 00:45:48.067 --> 00:45:53.434
 (BANJO MUSIC)
 
 00:47:32.234 --> 00:47:33.467
 - It's funny that you say that.
 
 00:47:33.467 --> 00:47:38.234
 Afterwards talking to kids in the lobby, so
 many of the college kids said like, "Wow,"
 
 00:47:38.234 --> 00:47:40.434
 it's like you wrote these quotes for them.
 
 00:47:40.434 --> 00:47:43.300
 Like the first girl I
 talked to was like, "I just
 
 00:47:43.300 --> 00:47:45.734
 felt like I didn't know what
 to do about climate change,
 
 00:47:45.734 --> 00:47:48.534
 and now they said exactly
 what we're supposed to do.
 
 00:47:48.534 --> 00:47:49.534
 And I'm really glad."
 
 00:47:49.534 --> 00:47:52.300
 I was like, wow, you just
 got the complete message
 
 00:47:52.300 --> 00:47:55.000
 that they were trying to send
 out to you, just in a nutshell.
 
 00:47:55.000 --> 00:47:57.667
 - So in a weird sense,
 this is what organizing is.
 
 00:47:57.667 --> 00:48:01.567
 And I gotta say, I was thinking more
 about what you asked about why I did...
 
 00:48:01.567 --> 00:48:07.167
 you know what one of the real answers
 to why I ended up doing this, I think?
 
 00:48:07.167 --> 00:48:09.601
 I mean, I've spent for
 the last 15 or 20 years
 
 00:48:09.601 --> 00:48:11.667
 going around and giving a lot of speeches.
 
 00:48:11.667 --> 00:48:14.267
 And for 10 years, I would
 go and give speeches
 
 00:48:14.267 --> 00:48:19.300
 at which I was perfectly good at explaining
 all the horrible things that were going on
 
 00:48:19.300 --> 00:48:24.567
 but not having anything, really, for anybody
 to do beyond a kind of set of vague policy.
 
 00:48:24.567 --> 00:48:28.701
 And at certain points, it's
 like, this feels wrong.
 
 00:48:28.701 --> 00:48:33.400
 If you're going to make
 people unhappy about this,
 
 00:48:33.400 --> 00:48:36.400
 then you have to give them
 something to do about it.
 
 00:48:36.400 --> 00:48:41.000
 And so, I mean, I suppose
 there's some small, tiny sense
 
 00:48:41.000 --> 00:48:46.234
 out of which 350 just grew
 out of my own frustration
 
 00:48:46.234 --> 00:48:50.033
 at wanting to be able to
 give people something to do.
 
 00:48:50.033 --> 00:48:51.567
 That's what organizing is...
 
 00:48:51.567 --> 00:48:53.467
 - Is planting your
 thoughts into their heads?
 
 00:48:53.467 --> 00:48:54.067
 - No.
 
 00:48:55.567 --> 00:48:56.367
 Not at all.
 
 00:48:56.367 --> 00:49:00.601
 Because it's giving people an opportunity.
 
 00:49:03.601 --> 00:49:05.267
 This stuff's hard, right?
 
 00:49:05.267 --> 00:49:08.467
 It's like, here's me.
 
 00:49:08.467 --> 00:49:10.300
 I'm a student at Colorado State.
 
 00:49:10.300 --> 00:49:11.601
 And here's Exxon.
 
 00:49:11.601 --> 00:49:18.701
 Like, I don't immediately see the way
 that I can effectively take on Exxon.
 
 00:49:18.701 --> 00:49:22.767
 So organizing isn't doing all the stuff.
 
 00:49:22.767 --> 00:49:28.367
 It's just -- at least the way we do --
 it's like "Here's an opening you could go
 
 00:49:28.367 --> 00:49:28.767
 through.
 
 00:49:28.767 --> 00:49:31.367
 We'll help you try to go through it."
 
 00:49:31.367 --> 00:49:36.667
 But we have a staff of 40
 who work in 191 countries.
 
 00:49:36.667 --> 00:49:39.767
 So we're clearly not going
 to come do it for anybody.
 
 00:49:39.767 --> 00:49:41.767
 They're going to figure it out themselves.
 
 00:49:41.767 --> 00:49:46.434
 But organizing is giving people
 enough direction and enough confidence
 
 00:49:46.434 --> 00:49:50.000
 that they can go start doing that,
 and then figure out how to do it.
 
 00:49:50.000 --> 00:49:50.701
 And they will.
 
 00:49:50.701 --> 00:49:54.367
 (LAUGHING)
 
 00:49:54.367 --> 00:49:55.367
 - Wow.
 
 00:49:55.367 --> 00:49:56.334
 - Do that again.
 
 00:50:00.767 --> 00:50:02.100
 - Wow.
 
 00:50:02.100 --> 00:50:03.534
 - Unbelievable.
 
 00:50:03.534 --> 00:50:08.334
 Ira Glass is a slight-of-hand master.
 
 00:50:08.334 --> 00:50:11.601
 (CHATTER AND LAUGHTER)
 
 00:50:11.601 --> 00:50:13.167
 - Well, you just made our cut.
 
 00:50:13.167 --> 00:50:14.167
 (LAUGHING)
 
 00:50:14.167 --> 00:50:20.133
 (ACOUSTIC GUITAR MUSIC)
 
 00:50:20.133 --> 00:50:25.133
 (CHATTER)
 
 00:50:33.100 --> 00:50:36.100
 (APPLAUSE)
 
 00:50:36.100 --> 00:50:41.467
 (BANJO BEING PLAYED)
 
 00:50:45.501 --> 00:50:47.467
 Do we have any fracktivists in the house?
 
 00:50:47.467 --> 00:50:49.534
 (CHEERING)
 
 00:50:49.534 --> 00:50:55.767
 Now we have stopped fracking from occurring
 in New York State for the past four years.
 
 00:50:55.767 --> 00:50:57.100
 (CHEERING)
 
 00:50:57.100 --> 00:51:03.133
 We have stopped fracking from occurring in
 the Upper Delaware for the past four years.
 
 00:51:03.133 --> 00:51:05.667
 When I first heard about this, I
 thought this was something that
 
 00:51:05.667 --> 00:51:08.701
 was just happening to me and my community.
 
 00:51:08.701 --> 00:51:11.167
 And then when I looked
 at this map, I realized
 
 00:51:11.167 --> 00:51:14.567
 it was going on in 34
 states across the nation.
 
 00:51:14.567 --> 00:51:21.000
 And that that was a part of a paradigm
 shift to something called "extreme energy."
 
 00:51:21.000 --> 00:51:27.234
 You heard Bill talk about tar sands, the
 Deepwater Horizon, deep water drilling,
 
 00:51:27.234 --> 00:51:30.501
 mountaintop removal -- where literally
 they blow the top off of mountains.
 
 00:51:30.501 --> 00:51:36.534
 And, of course, fracking for natural gas
 -- injecting millions of gallons of water
 
 00:51:36.534 --> 00:51:40.067
 laced with toxic chemicals
 into shale formations,
 
 00:51:40.067 --> 00:51:43.667
 fracturing them at enormous
 pressure, and bringing up gas.
 
 00:51:43.667 --> 00:51:47.434
 Extreme energy, like Bill says,
 is sort of like extreme sports.
 
 00:51:47.434 --> 00:51:49.334
 It's not skiing down the mountain slope.
 
 00:51:49.334 --> 00:51:52.033
 It's like skiing down the
 Empire State Building.
 
 00:51:52.033 --> 00:51:53.501
 It's much more polluting.
 
 00:51:53.501 --> 00:51:55.033
 It's much more dangerous.
 
 00:51:55.033 --> 00:51:58.767
 It emits more and more greenhouse
 gases, carbon dioxide, and methane
 
 00:51:58.767 --> 00:52:00.734
 into the atmosphere.
 
 00:52:00.734 --> 00:52:07.367
 But what it's also done is
 something actually quite remarkable.
 
 00:52:07.367 --> 00:52:12.467
 What we're seeing in those drilling areas,
 in those places where the fossil fuel
 
 00:52:12.467 --> 00:52:17.734
 industry is literally bearing down on
 people in their homes, as it has done to me,
 
 00:52:17.734 --> 00:52:23.033
 is a really growing consciousness
 of the fact that we're all in this
 
 00:52:23.033 --> 00:52:25.767
 together, that this is one movement.
 
 00:52:25.767 --> 00:52:29.434
 The movements about mountaintop
 removal and fracking,
 
 00:52:29.434 --> 00:52:33.534
 deep water drilling, tar
 sands, and climate change,
 
 00:52:33.534 --> 00:52:37.133
 are coming together in
 one consciousness that
 
 00:52:37.133 --> 00:52:41.334
 says, "We have to take the
 fossil fuel industry on head-on."
 
 00:52:41.334 --> 00:52:44.234
 We could win in New York against fracking.
 
 00:52:44.234 --> 00:52:48.267
 We could win in the Upper
 Delaware against fracking.
 
 00:52:48.267 --> 00:52:52.033
 But we could lose everything we love about
 New York State and the Upper Delaware
 
 00:52:52.033 --> 00:52:54.000
 to climate change.
 
 00:52:54.000 --> 00:52:56.667
 We can't win this battle
 by fighting one state
 
 00:52:56.667 --> 00:53:01.067
 at a time, one frack well at a time, one
 pipeline at a time, one mountain at a time.
 
 00:53:01.067 --> 00:53:05.000
 What we have to do is take all those
 fingers together and make a fist.
 
 00:53:05.000 --> 00:53:10.701
 (ACOUSTIC GUITAR MUSIC)
 
 00:53:42.467 --> 00:53:44.234
 - This is what I want you to know.
 
 00:53:44.234 --> 00:53:47.467
 We went to see Bill in 2006.
 
 00:53:47.467 --> 00:53:51.067
 And Bill, I hope you don't mind if
 I say that you were discouraged.
 
 00:53:51.067 --> 00:53:54.167
 Imagine the weight on the
 shoulders of a writer when
 
 00:53:54.167 --> 00:53:57.467
 you wrote a book in 1989,
 "The End of Nature,"
 
 00:53:57.467 --> 00:54:01.000
 that you were carrying that knowledge
 of global warming and very few people
 
 00:54:01.000 --> 00:54:02.167
 were listening.
 
 00:54:02.167 --> 00:54:05.601
 But on a personal note, what I can
 tell you is that 23 years ago I
 
 00:54:05.601 --> 00:54:08.767
 wrote Mr. McKibben a
 letter, asking him if he
 
 00:54:08.767 --> 00:54:12.601
 would come to talk to us at the
 Utah Museum of Natural History.
 
 00:54:12.601 --> 00:54:13.501
 I was nervous.
 
 00:54:13.501 --> 00:54:17.300
 I thought, I wonder if he would
 consider coming to speak to us here?
 
 00:54:17.300 --> 00:54:21.200
 I got a phone call almost immediately
 after he received the letter.
 
 00:54:21.200 --> 00:54:23.734
 And he said, "I'd love to
 come, but on one condition.
 
 00:54:23.734 --> 00:54:25.400
 Can I stay at your house?"
 
 00:54:25.400 --> 00:54:28.434
 And I thought, this is an unusual person.
 
 00:54:28.434 --> 00:54:29.667
 He didn't care about the money.
 
 00:54:29.667 --> 00:54:31.601
 He didn't want to stay in a hotel.
 
 00:54:31.601 --> 00:54:34.100
 And I think nothing has changed.
 
 00:54:34.100 --> 00:54:36.400
 He's now riding a bus.
 
 00:54:36.400 --> 00:54:40.400
 I can also tell you that we
 have become lifelong friends.
 
 00:54:40.400 --> 00:54:46.000
 We were in Mexico, and as he and his wife
 Sue Halpern were holding their daughter
 
 00:54:46.000 --> 00:54:51.400
 Sophie -- who was a year and a half old
 -- we were watching monarchs fluttering
 
 00:54:51.400 --> 00:54:54.300
 in the forests that are now gone.
 
 00:54:54.300 --> 00:54:57.534
 It was Bill who said, "Close your eyes.
 
 00:54:57.534 --> 00:54:58.634
 Listen.
 
 00:54:58.634 --> 00:55:01.300
 We can hear the mind of God."
 
 00:55:01.300 --> 00:55:06.067
 So I've watched this man, who was a
 literary figure, a political figure,
 
 00:55:06.067 --> 00:55:09.133
 become actually a spiritual figure.
 
 00:55:09.133 --> 00:55:11.033
 And this is his calling.
 
 00:55:11.033 --> 00:55:14.767
 Each of us in our own way are making
 decisions at this moment in time
 
 00:55:14.767 --> 00:55:18.033
 in the name of climate justice
 -- which is human justice,
 
 00:55:18.033 --> 00:55:19.767
 which is justice for the planet.
 
 00:55:19.767 --> 00:55:22.067
 This is our time.
 
 00:55:22.067 --> 00:55:26.100
 And it is not about despair,
 but prosperity and health.
 
 00:55:26.100 --> 00:55:31.067
 And we know this well, that beauty is not
 optional, but a strategy for survival.
 
 00:55:44.033 --> 00:55:45.601
 - (SPEAKING ANISHINAABE DIALECT)
 
 00:55:45.601 --> 00:55:48.434
 That means, "Hello, my relatives."
 
 00:55:48.434 --> 00:55:49.634
 Thanks for coming out.
 
 00:55:49.634 --> 00:55:55.100
 I came in from Minnesota because I
 saw what this movement was doing,
 
 00:55:55.100 --> 00:55:58.167
 and I wanted to support all of this.
 
 00:55:58.167 --> 00:55:59.767
 In our Anishinaabe prophecies...
 
 00:55:59.767 --> 00:56:01.133
 I'm Anishinaabe.
 
 00:56:01.133 --> 00:56:02.300
 I'm from the North.
 
 00:56:02.300 --> 00:56:06.067
 In our prophecies, they say a long time
 ago these prophets came to our people,
 
 00:56:06.067 --> 00:56:08.367
 as they do to most.
 
 00:56:08.367 --> 00:56:12.467
 And when those prophets came, they
 talked about the times ahead of us.
 
 00:56:12.467 --> 00:56:16.534
 They call this the Time of the Seventh Fire.
 
 00:56:16.534 --> 00:56:21.634
 And in that time, they said that
 our people, the Anishinaabe, we
 
 00:56:21.634 --> 00:56:25.234
 would be faced with two paths, two mikana.
 
 00:56:25.234 --> 00:56:29.234
 And one path, they said, was
 well worn but it was scorched.
 
 00:56:31.634 --> 00:56:37.434
 The other path, the other mikana, they
 said, was not well worn and it was green.
 
 00:56:37.434 --> 00:56:40.767
 And it would be our choice
 upon which path to embark.
 
 00:56:40.767 --> 00:56:45.534
 And I'm pretty sure that that does not just
 have to do with us as Anishinaabe people.
 
 00:56:45.534 --> 00:56:47.234
 I'm pretty sure that that is now, here.
 
 00:56:50.100 --> 00:56:53.200
 And we are those people that have
 this choice upon which path to embark,
 
 00:56:53.200 --> 00:56:56.634
 and we certainly have a lot of technology.
 
 00:56:56.634 --> 00:56:59.300
 We certainly have a lot of
 knowledge about what to do.
 
 00:56:59.300 --> 00:57:01.734
 It's a question of if we're
 going to make it happen.
 
 00:57:01.734 --> 00:57:02.601
 So have the courage.
 
 00:57:04.767 --> 00:57:08.767
 Those generations that didn't yet
 arrive, they need your courage.
 
 00:57:08.767 --> 00:57:11.467
 We need us all to stand up.
 
 00:57:11.467 --> 00:57:16.434
 And those generations and relatives
 that look like us, they have hands,
 
 00:57:16.434 --> 00:57:22.367
 but they also have fins and wings
 and hooves and paws and roots.
 
 00:57:22.367 --> 00:57:26.467
 (APPLAUSE)
 
 00:57:26.467 --> 00:57:30.534
 And we're the ones who got
 a shot at protecting them.
 
 00:57:30.534 --> 00:57:38.667
 (ACOUSTIC GUITAR MUSIC)
 
 00:57:38.667 --> 00:57:39.434
 - How you doing?
 
 00:57:39.434 --> 00:57:40.601
 - I'm really tired.
 
 00:57:40.601 --> 00:57:41.434
 - I'm sure you are.
 
 00:57:43.434 --> 00:57:44.400
 This is hard, huh?
 
 00:57:44.400 --> 00:57:47.267
 - I'm an old man, and
 this is a little crazy.
 
 00:57:47.267 --> 00:57:48.567
 - But it must be fun, though.
 
 00:57:48.567 --> 00:57:49.767
 - It is fun.
 
 00:57:49.767 --> 00:57:50.667
 So far so good.
 
 00:57:50.667 --> 00:57:52.734
 It's been quite remarkable.
 
 00:57:52.734 --> 00:57:59.534
 Each night, we leave behind a lot of people
 who are now prepared, organized, connected,
 
 00:57:59.534 --> 00:58:02.033
 ready to go, organizing.
 
 00:58:02.033 --> 00:58:02.701
 Which is the point.
 
 00:58:02.701 --> 00:58:04.267
 The point is not to have a show.
 
 00:58:04.267 --> 00:58:06.734
 The point of the show is to have a campaign.
 
 00:58:06.734 --> 00:58:10.534
 Having made that fist, the
 question is what to do with it.
 
 00:58:10.534 --> 00:58:13.501
 We think that the one thing the
 fossil fuel industry cares about,
 
 00:58:13.501 --> 00:58:15.734
 the only thing they care about, is money.
 
 00:58:15.734 --> 00:58:17.634
 So that's what we're going to go after.
 
 00:58:17.634 --> 00:58:21.734
 And we're going to try
 not just to play defense.
 
 00:58:21.734 --> 00:58:24.501
 We're going to try and play offense, too.
 
 00:58:24.501 --> 00:58:25.467
 (APPLAUSE)
 
 00:58:25.467 --> 00:58:31.534
 First tool -- first tool we're going to use,
 first of several -- is called divestment.
 
 00:58:31.534 --> 00:58:34.501
 We're going to ask or we're
 going to demand that institutions
 
 00:58:34.501 --> 00:58:40.501
 like colleges and churches sell their stock
 in Exxon and Chevron and Peabody Coal.
 
 00:58:40.501 --> 00:58:41.701
 (APPLAUSE)
 
 00:58:41.701 --> 00:58:45.100
 The logic here is brutally simple.
 
 00:58:45.100 --> 00:58:46.167
 It's brutally simple.
 
 00:58:46.167 --> 00:58:49.167
 We can't avoid using a certain
 amount of fossil fuel in our lives.
 
 00:58:49.167 --> 00:58:52.000
 That's just how the world
 is set up right now.
 
 00:58:52.000 --> 00:58:54.033
 But we can avoid profiting from it.
 
 00:58:54.033 --> 00:58:59.501
 It's wrong to wreck the climate, and hence,
 it's wrong to profit from that wreckage.
 
 00:58:59.501 --> 00:59:03.067
 Now that argument worked in a
 big way about a generation ago,
 
 00:59:03.067 --> 00:59:06.667
 when the apartheid regime was
 still ruling in South Africa.
 
 00:59:06.667 --> 00:59:12.667
 - In 1988, the nation of South Africa was
 still legally divided based on skin color.
 
 00:59:12.667 --> 00:59:14.567
 Black people couldn't move freely.
 
 00:59:14.567 --> 00:59:16.334
 They had to carry passes.
 
 00:59:16.334 --> 00:59:19.534
 They were herded into desolate
 Bantunstan reservations.
 
 00:59:19.534 --> 00:59:22.734
 Their leaders were murdered by
 the police, like Steve Biko,
 
 00:59:22.734 --> 00:59:26.000
 or stuck away in prison,
 like Nelson Mandela.
 
 00:59:26.000 --> 00:59:29.267
 And neither the US government
 nor US businesses responded.
 
 00:59:29.267 --> 00:59:33.234
 In fact the US considered the
 racist government to be an ally,
 
 00:59:33.234 --> 00:59:36.133
 and American corporations
 made lots of money there.
 
 00:59:36.133 --> 00:59:37.234
 That changed.
 
 00:59:37.234 --> 00:59:40.367
 People in communities,
 on campuses, in churches,
 
 00:59:40.367 --> 00:59:44.767
 synagogues, mosques around the
 country, insisted that it change.
 
 00:59:44.767 --> 00:59:47.767
 They launched a massive divestment campaign.
 
 00:59:47.767 --> 00:59:50.033
 It took amazingly hard work.
 
 00:59:50.033 --> 00:59:53.667
 People had to persuade their
 boards of trustees to sell stock,
 
 00:59:53.667 --> 00:59:57.100
 even when those trustees
 said it was impossible.
 
 00:59:57.100 --> 01:00:00.634
 Lots of people had to occupy
 deans' offices, boycott recruiters
 
 01:00:00.634 --> 01:00:05.467
 from companies on their campuses,
 stage huge rallies, build tent cities.
 
 01:00:05.467 --> 01:00:07.734
 They had to go to jail by the thousands.
 
 01:00:07.734 --> 01:00:10.033
 But they kept stubbornly at it.
 
 01:00:10.033 --> 01:00:13.100
 And quicker than you might
 imagine, it started to work.
 
 01:00:13.100 --> 01:00:19.667
 By the mid 1980s 155 campuses, including
 some of the most famous in the country,
 
 01:00:19.667 --> 01:00:22.033
 had divested from South Africa.
 
 01:00:22.033 --> 01:00:28.634
 26 state governments, 22 counties, 90 cities
 including some of the nation's biggest,
 
 01:00:28.634 --> 01:00:32.367
 took their money out of the banks
 that did business in that country.
 
 01:00:32.367 --> 01:00:35.601
 Pension funds shed their
 apartheid-tainted stock.
 
 01:00:35.601 --> 01:00:37.267
 And here's the crazy thing.
 
 01:00:37.267 --> 01:00:38.334
 It worked.
 
 01:00:38.334 --> 01:00:43.234
 The combination of uprisings from within
 South Africa and the economic pressure
 
 01:00:43.234 --> 01:00:47.234
 coming from outside the country forced
 the apartheid government to the table,
 
 01:00:47.234 --> 01:00:52.067
 eventually leading to free and open
 elections that included every citizen.
 
 01:00:52.067 --> 01:00:54.200
 When Nelson Mandela was
 released from prison,
 
 01:00:54.200 --> 01:00:57.000
 he took one of his first
 foreign trips to California.
 
 01:00:57.000 --> 01:01:00.033
 And there he spoke to students
 who had forced the university
 
 01:01:00.033 --> 01:01:03.767
 system there to divest $3 billion in stock.
 
 01:01:03.767 --> 01:01:05.767
 And he told them, "Thank you.
 
 01:01:05.767 --> 01:01:08.000
 This made a difference."
 
 01:01:08.000 --> 01:01:16.400
 - It is you, the people of the Bay Area,
 who have given me and my delegation strength
 
 01:01:16.400 --> 01:01:21.133
 and hope to go back and
 continue the struggle.
 
 01:01:21.133 --> 01:01:25.767
 - This story means a lot to us at 350
 because one of our very first colleagues
 
 01:01:25.767 --> 01:01:29.767
 was Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who won
 the Nobel Peace Prize for his role
 
 01:01:29.767 --> 01:01:31.267
 in the fight against apartheid.
 
 01:01:31.267 --> 01:01:32.534
 A remarkable man.
 
 01:01:32.534 --> 01:01:33.334
 (APPLAUSE)
 
 01:01:33.334 --> 01:01:36.267
 And we asked him to
 think back on those days.
 
 01:01:36.267 --> 01:01:37.300
 And this is what he said.
 
 01:01:39.334 --> 01:01:45.267
 - The divestment movement played a key
 role in helping liberate South Africa.
 
 01:01:45.267 --> 01:01:49.234
 The corporations understood the
 logic of money, even when they
 
 01:01:49.234 --> 01:01:54.334
 weren't swayed by the dictates of morality.
 
 01:01:54.334 --> 01:02:00.167
 Climate change is a deeply
 moral issue too, of course.
 
 01:02:00.167 --> 01:02:05.267
 Here in Africa, we see the dreadful
 suffering of people from worsening drought,
 
 01:02:05.267 --> 01:02:12.400
 from rising food prices, from floods --
 even though they've done nothing to cause
 
 01:02:12.400 --> 01:02:14.200
 the situation.
 
 01:02:14.200 --> 01:02:23.100
 Once again, we can join together as a
 world and put pressure where it counts.
 
 01:02:23.100 --> 01:02:24.334
 (APPLAUSE)
 
 01:02:24.334 --> 01:02:27.133
 - There's one sense in which this
 fight should be easier for us
 
 01:02:27.133 --> 01:02:32.334
 than the apartheid battle, because we have
 a very practical stake in all of this.
 
 01:02:32.334 --> 01:02:36.133
 We need to say to the people running our
 pension funds, like the New York State
 
 01:02:36.133 --> 01:02:41.501
 pension fund, it's not OK, not smart
 to invest our retirement savings
 
 01:02:41.501 --> 01:02:46.234
 in companies whose business plan guarantees
 there won't be a planet on which to retire.
 
 01:02:46.234 --> 01:02:50.267
 We gotta to say to churches, it's
 not OK to pay the minister's salary
 
 01:02:50.267 --> 01:02:55.100
 by investing in companies that
 are running Genesis in reverse.
 
 01:02:55.100 --> 01:02:58.601
 If you're a college, you've got to be
 able to say to your board of trustees,
 
 01:02:58.601 --> 01:03:02.734
 it looks to us like you're paying for
 our education, for which we thank you,
 
 01:03:02.734 --> 01:03:06.601
 by investing in companies
 whose business plan guarantees
 
 01:03:06.601 --> 01:03:12.133
 that there will not be a planet on which
 to kind of carry out that education.
 
 01:03:12.133 --> 01:03:15.234
 So it's very hard-nosed, practical.
 
 01:03:15.234 --> 01:03:20.567
 But the key thing -- the key thing
 -- that Archbishop Tutu said,
 
 01:03:20.567 --> 01:03:22.501
 the key word was "moral."
 
 01:03:22.501 --> 01:03:26.300
 Ultimately, if we're going to make
 change on this scale, in this time,
 
 01:03:26.300 --> 01:03:29.701
 it's going to have to be because
 our hearts are involved, too.
 
 01:03:29.701 --> 01:03:32.467
 These are moral battles above all.
 
 01:03:35.400 --> 01:03:40.400
 Here's what we're asking: one, no new
 investments in fossil fuel companies,
 
 01:03:40.400 --> 01:03:43.634
 and two, a firm pledge that
 over the next five years
 
 01:03:43.634 --> 01:03:46.467
 they'll wind down their current positions.
 
 01:03:46.467 --> 01:03:47.133
 OK?
 
 01:03:47.133 --> 01:03:48.501
 That's not unreasonable.
 
 01:03:48.501 --> 01:03:51.100
 It's hard, but it's not unreasonable.
 
 01:03:51.100 --> 01:03:53.133
 And one of the reasons
 we know it's possible,
 
 01:03:53.133 --> 01:03:58.367
 say on college campuses to make this demand,
 is because every last one of them now --
 
 01:03:58.367 --> 01:04:03.367
 if you go look at their web pages --
 explains in great detail what green
 
 01:04:03.367 --> 01:04:06.200
 and sustainable campuses they have become.
 
 01:04:06.200 --> 01:04:14.200
 I bet that every college, NYU, Pace,
 Columbia, CCNY, Fordham, Long Island
 
 01:04:14.200 --> 01:04:19.033
 University, every college up and down
 this part of the world, makes that claim.
 
 01:04:19.033 --> 01:04:19.534
 And it's good.
 
 01:04:19.534 --> 01:04:21.734
 It's good they're building
 energy-efficient buildings.
 
 01:04:21.734 --> 01:04:24.200
 It's good they're building bike paths.
 
 01:04:24.200 --> 01:04:27.634
 If you're going to green the
 campus, you've got no reason
 
 01:04:27.634 --> 01:04:31.434
 not to green the portfolio
 at the same time, OK?
 
 01:04:31.434 --> 01:04:35.334
 (APPLAUSE)
 
 01:04:35.334 --> 01:04:39.667
 All I want to do as we
 finish is basically just
 
 01:04:39.667 --> 01:04:45.100
 say thanks, and talk a little bit
 about how we'll fight this more.
 
 01:04:45.100 --> 01:04:49.667
 When I started working on climate
 change, I was back in my '20s.
 
 01:04:49.667 --> 01:04:51.501
 That's when I wrote "The End of Nature."
 
 01:04:51.501 --> 01:04:56.567
 And my theory of change
 back then was simple.
 
 01:04:56.567 --> 01:04:59.334
 People would read my book,
 and then they would change.
 
 01:04:59.334 --> 01:05:01.000
 (LAUGHTER)
 
 01:05:01.000 --> 01:05:04.534
 And it turns out, that's
 not exactly how it works.
 
 01:05:04.534 --> 01:05:10.133
 Change only comes when we stand up for it.
 
 01:05:10.133 --> 01:05:16.234
 We're not going to outspend
 ExxonMobil in this fight.
 
 01:05:16.234 --> 01:05:21.200
 We're going to have to find other currencies
 to work in -- the currencies of movement,
 
 01:05:21.200 --> 01:05:25.267
 passion, spirit, and creativity.
 
 01:05:25.267 --> 01:05:28.100
 And sometimes we're going to
 have to spend our bodies, too.
 
 01:05:28.100 --> 01:05:31.434
 I want to finish just with
 a couple of reflections
 
 01:05:31.434 --> 01:05:36.367
 about those arrests, that civil
 disobedience that we did a year ago.
 
 01:05:36.367 --> 01:05:39.634
 Because it's still very fresh in my mind.
 
 01:05:39.634 --> 01:05:42.300
 And there are two things about
 it that were really important.
 
 01:05:42.300 --> 01:05:46.234
 One was, when we sent out the letter --
 when I wrote this letter and got Naomi
 
 01:05:46.234 --> 01:05:50.367
 and Wendell Berry and some others
 to sign on to send it out --
 
 01:05:50.367 --> 01:05:55.467
 one of the things I wanted to make sure of
 was that college kids wouldn't have to be
 
 01:05:55.467 --> 01:05:58.434
 the only cannon fodder in this fight.
 
 01:05:58.434 --> 01:06:03.501
 Right now, if you're 22, having a sort of
 an arrest record from the federal government
 
 01:06:03.501 --> 01:06:07.767
 may not be the absolute best
 thing for your resume, all right?
 
 01:06:07.767 --> 01:06:14.300
 One of the few unmixed blessings of
 growing older is, past a certain point,
 
 01:06:14.300 --> 01:06:16.100
 what the hell are they going to do to you?
 
 01:06:16.100 --> 01:06:17.701
 (LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE)
 
 01:06:17.701 --> 01:06:22.667
 And so it was great to
 go to Washington and see
 
 01:06:22.667 --> 01:06:27.701
 that there were a lot of people with a
 sort of hairline like mine showing up.
 
 01:06:27.701 --> 01:06:30.100
 We did not ask people, how old are you?
 
 01:06:30.100 --> 01:06:31.200
 Because that would be rude.
 
 01:06:31.200 --> 01:06:31.601
 (LAUGHTER)
 
 01:06:31.601 --> 01:06:37.000
 But cleverly, we said, who was
 president when you were born?
 
 01:06:37.000 --> 01:06:43.634
 The two biggest cohorts came from the
 FDR and the Truman administrations, OK?
 
 01:06:43.634 --> 01:06:47.033
 (CHEERING)
 
 01:06:47.033 --> 01:06:50.467
 On the last day, there was a guy
 arrested with a sign around his neck
 
 01:06:50.467 --> 01:06:54.634
 that said, "World War II
 Vet, Handle with Care."
 
 01:06:54.634 --> 01:06:58.767
 He had been born in the Warren
 Harding administration, which
 
 01:06:58.767 --> 01:07:04.200
 is so long ago I frankly had forgotten that
 there was a Warren Harding administration
 
 01:07:04.200 --> 01:07:06.467
 to be born in.
 
 01:07:06.467 --> 01:07:10.000
 The point I'm trying to make for young
 people is just that your elders are
 
 01:07:10.000 --> 01:07:15.234
 starting to act like elders -- that they're
 starting to stand up and do the right
 
 01:07:15.234 --> 01:07:21.267
 thing, and that I think they will be with
 you as this fight goes forward as alumni,
 
 01:07:21.267 --> 01:07:23.734
 as whatever else they are.
 
 01:07:23.734 --> 01:07:28.267
 And by the way, if there's anybody in
 this room tonight on a college campus
 
 01:07:28.267 --> 01:07:32.534
 who happens to have tenure,
 this goes triple for you.
 
 01:07:32.534 --> 01:07:33.467
 (LAUGHTER)
 
 01:07:33.467 --> 01:07:36.701
 This is what tenure was made for, OK?
 
 01:07:36.701 --> 01:07:42.100
 (APPLAUSE)
 
 01:07:45.734 --> 01:07:52.367
 Second thing, we asked
 people to come wearing...
 
 01:07:52.367 --> 01:07:58.534
 if they're going to get arrested,
 to wear a neck tie or a dress.
 
 01:07:58.534 --> 01:07:59.667
 Not because...
 
 01:07:59.667 --> 01:08:01.734
 I mean, I live in Vermont.
 
 01:08:01.734 --> 01:08:04.367
 We're sort of clothing impaired.
 
 01:08:04.367 --> 01:08:07.334
 I mean, necktie is not my thing.
 
 01:08:07.334 --> 01:08:10.667
 We did it because we wanted to
 make an important visual point --
 
 01:08:10.667 --> 01:08:15.367
 the point that underscores the point we've
 been trying to make all night here --
 
 01:08:15.367 --> 01:08:19.734
 which is that there is
 absolutely nothing, nothing,
 
 01:08:19.734 --> 01:08:25.200
 nothing radical about what
 we're talking about tonight.
 
 01:08:25.200 --> 01:08:31.767
 All we are asking for is a world that works
 the way the world we were born onto works,
 
 01:08:31.767 --> 01:08:35.567
 the way that the world worked for
 the 10,000 years of the Holocene
 
 01:08:35.567 --> 01:08:39.701
 that all of human history that
 we know about took place in.
 
 01:08:39.701 --> 01:08:42.167
 That's all we're asking for.
 
 01:08:42.167 --> 01:08:47.534
 It's not only not radical, it's at some
 level a deeply conservative request.
 
 01:08:47.534 --> 01:08:51.467
 Radicals work at oil companies.
 
 01:08:51.467 --> 01:08:54.267
 If you get up in the
 morning and say to yourself,
 
 01:08:54.267 --> 01:08:58.000
 "I'm going to make my
 $100,000 today by altering
 
 01:08:58.000 --> 01:09:04.367
 the chemical composition of the atmosphere",
 then you are engaged in an act more radical
 
 01:09:04.367 --> 01:09:08.000
 than any human being
 before you has engaged in.
 
 01:09:08.000 --> 01:09:12.300
 And it is our job to
 figure out how we're going
 
 01:09:12.300 --> 01:09:16.567
 to check that radicalism
 before it overwhelms
 
 01:09:16.567 --> 01:09:19.701
 everything that's good on this planet.
 
 01:09:19.701 --> 01:09:22.367
 That's our job.
 
 01:09:22.367 --> 01:09:24.634
 Look, as we close, I'll
 just tell you the truth,
 
 01:09:24.634 --> 01:09:28.400
 which is that we're not
 certain that we can do this.
 
 01:09:28.400 --> 01:09:33.300
 The science is dark, and the power
 on the other side is immense.
 
 01:09:33.300 --> 01:09:33.701
 Immense.
 
 01:09:35.367 --> 01:09:39.400
 We're not certain that we're going to win.
 
 01:09:39.400 --> 01:09:41.300
 But we're certain we're going to fight.
 
 01:09:41.300 --> 01:09:45.767
 And I gotta say, just looking
 around this crowded room tonight --
 
 01:09:45.767 --> 01:09:50.133
 I don't know about you, but
 I kind of like our odds.
 
 01:09:50.133 --> 01:09:51.334
 Thank you all so much.
 
 01:09:51.334 --> 01:09:56.667
 (CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
 
 01:10:14.434 --> 01:10:18.767
 (MUSIC PLAYING)
 
 01:10:56.334 --> 01:11:00.567
 There's a pipeline right here, and
 it's being inflated as we speak.
 
 01:11:00.567 --> 01:11:03.100
 The pipeline will lead us out.
 
 01:11:03.100 --> 01:11:06.767
 (MUSIC PLAYING)
 
 01:11:06.767 --> 01:11:11.200
 (CHANTING) Hey, Obama, we
 don't want no climate drama!
 
 01:11:11.200 --> 01:11:12.567
 Hey, Obama!
 
 01:11:12.567 --> 01:11:18.467
 (DRAMATIC ELECTRONIC MUSIC)
 
 01:11:21.200 --> 01:11:22.167
 - The bill is passed.
 
 01:11:22.167 --> 01:11:25.033
 Without objection, the motion to
 reconsider is laid on the table.
 
 01:11:25.033 --> 01:11:27.334
 (GAVEL POUNDS)
 
 01:11:27.334 --> 01:11:31.100
 - The net effects of the
 pipeline's impact on our climate
 
 01:11:31.100 --> 01:11:34.300
 will be absolutely critical to
 determining whether this project is
 
 01:11:34.300 --> 01:11:35.300
 allowed to go forward.
 
 01:11:35.300 --> 01:11:40.701
 (DRAMATIC ELECTRONIC MUSIC)
 
 01:11:43.701 --> 01:11:49.667
 - I'm here because I have an obligation
 to my children, my ancestors,
 
 01:11:49.667 --> 01:11:54.267
 our future generations,
 and our one true mother.
 
 01:11:54.267 --> 01:11:59.267
 (DRAMATIC ELECTRONIC MUSIC)
 
 01:12:18.601 --> 01:12:23.200
 (DEMONSTRATORS CHANTING)
 
 01:13:28.434 --> 01:13:37.033
 - (SINGING) I'm gonna let it shine, let
 it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
 
 01:13:37.033 --> 01:13:39.000
 - Everywhere I go...
 
 01:13:39.000 --> 01:13:41.000
 - Everywhere I go...
 
 01:13:41.000 --> 01:13:42.400
 - I'm gonna let it shine.
 
 01:13:42.400 --> 01:13:44.400
 - I'm gonna let it shine.
 
 01:13:44.400 --> 01:13:46.000
 - Everywhere I go...
 
 01:13:46.000 --> 01:13:47.167
 - Everywhere...
 
 01:13:47.167 --> 01:13:49.100
 - We're gonna win this fight.
 
 01:13:49.100 --> 01:13:52.067
 The question is -- and it's
 a really deep question --
 
 01:13:52.067 --> 01:13:54.467
 are we going to win it in time to matter?
 
 01:13:54.467 --> 01:14:01.167
 (MUSIC - NAHKO AND MEDICINE
 FOR THE PEOPLE, "MANIFESTO")
Distributor: Bullfrog Films
Length: 77 minutes
Date: 2016
Genre: Expository
Language: English
Grade: 9 - 12, College, Adults
		Color/BW: 
		 
	
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Interactive Transcript: Available
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