o.k. corral, i think really meaning to leave town but not wanting to leave too fast because they didn't want all the onlookers to think the earps had backed them down and made them leave, any number of things might have prevented this. but even if that had been the case, then something similar would have happened, i think, sometime soon. ..

tonight for christian parenti's book "tropic of chaos". we welcome him for that. i welcome you here on behalf of the donors who bought the book store. we're excited to have them on board and all the book sellers here. so thank you and welcome. for those of you new to the store i will quickly go over the format. christian parenti will talk about the book and we will open it up for q&a which we look forward to your input. the one thing we ask is if you get to this microphone in the middle here we will keep the talk hon.. we welcome our c-span audience

as well. when it is time for q&a we will still them from this microphone and afterwards have a book signing up here. that is how we will go. turn off your self phones. a small space the ring can kind of resonate. welcome and thanks for being here. christian parenti, "the nation" contributing editor, visiting scholar at the graduate center. here tonight to talk about his new book "tropic of chaos: climate change and the new geography of violence". he has authored three previous books including lockdown america. "tropic of chaos" as christian parenti describes it is economically and politically battered colonial states in the planet's mid latitudes. societies are heavily dependent

on agriculture and fishing and very vulnerable to ships and weather patterns. his book is about how climate change drives floods and their impact on energy distribution. how they accelerate existing civil and ethnic disputes in this area of "tropic of chaos" and some of these conflicts in afghanistan and somaliland brazil are not solely the result of general in the fighting or economic deprivation or political disorder but collectively made worse by climate change and what christian parenti called the catastrophic version. his book is in four sections three of which deal with each region. africa, asia, let america and examining the current and future impact of climate change in these regions he has looked at

historical relevance and history of counterinsurgency, land ownership and fallout. we're pleased to have him here to participate in this. please welcome christian parenti. [applause] >> thanks to all of you for coming out tonight. and thanks for the kind introduction. as was hinted at in the introduction, climate change doesn't just look like bad weather. it also looks like ethnic violence, religious violence, civil war, counterinsurgency, anti-immigrant policeing. what i try to do is tease out in

these different situations the causal role of climate change. i never argue that climate change is the sole driving force of violence in any one place but is a contributing factor and it always works in conjunction with preexisting crises. the idea of the book came to me when i was reporting on the heroin economy in afghanistan. farmers -- i would ask why they are growing this illegal crop and running the risk that came with that of getting arrested or having their crop destroyed by the government. smurfs if -- part of the answer was poppy is drought resistant. at first i didn't know there was a drought in afghanistan. turns out afghanistan is suffering the worst drought in living memory which has coincided with the nato project

of nation-building in afghanistan. and copy uses 1/5 to 1/6 the amount of water that we require is. so given this dropped, the worst in living memory it is one of the only crops that is economically viable for farmers in afghanistan so it occurred to me that along with all of the religious reasons one might have for joining the taliban and ethnic reasons for joining the taliban there was an economic motivation which was linked to climate change because in the war there are two positions on poppy. mail and the african government oppose it and more often than not just in rhetoric because there's so much corruption that people can by themselves out of the eradication program but that does not mean it is not going on. the other side, the taliban defense farmers' rights to grow

poppy. in facing this drought farmers have this economic motivation to support the taliban because it will defend their right to grow the one crop that is economically viable given the environmental crisis they face. people get confused about the taliban and poppy. they support poppy production when they were in power except for one year due to international pressure and a glut in the opium supply and for one year right before 9/11 they eradicated poppy because they supported it. with that in mind set out to try to find other examples of how this works. what happened, it seemed to me that climate change worked

through this preexisting crisis in different combinations of different places. those crises are fundamentally the military legacy of the cold war and the economic damage of radical free-market economic policies pushed by the world bank and the imf over the last 20 years. so the legacy of the cold war and neil liberal economic restructuring. the legacy of the cold war in a nutshell which was the site of the very hot wars with in the cold war is an oversupply of cheap weapons, so for 0 -- social fabric of population dislocated from their places and urbanized networks of men trained in smuggling, vaccination and small arms tactics and former guerrillas or police and military or

paramilitary set up by governments. once the cold war was over the detritus of the cold war did not go away. there were bands of armed men moving weapons in one direction and conflict weapons and another and drugs out and the results is continued insurgency without a real cause or a new cause or political insurgency becomes religious insurgencies' for ways to build upon this infrastructure. you see this in central america where the murder rate in el salvador and honduras rivals the death toll of many years during the civil war but there is no cause, there is just this military hardware and leftover military training and society traumatized by war and all this killing goes on. that is one legacy free set in

the crisis. and the legacy of the liberal economic restructuring. what is that? essentially a program of removing the state from economic activity. it is important to remember from the 1930s, an end of world war ii until the 70s the prevailing idea and development economics in the west about to develop capitalist economy held there should be a robust and important role for the state. there should be planning and public investment and the state was an important component in developing capitalism. the ideas that are implemented by the world bank and the imf shift radically into the 80s and the idea that after that point that states should be removed so

as the debt crisis occurs which i should get into later. the lifeline loans are extended to many economy is in the global south trying to service the debts that have occurred and in the process of developing the economy is and sometimes borrowing cheap petrodollars' of spending corruptly but regardless of specifics the conditions with the new lifeline loans are you have to privatize state assets and the airline and utilities and ports and deregulate. open your market. no longer protect domestic industries, withdraw -- cut state spending on education and health care and infrastructure. the idea is the market solves problems. the state should be removed.

the effect of this is many societies in the global south suffered rising inequality and rising increased poverty but just as important as increased poverty is inequality because sociologists know that it is not just deprivation that causes instability but relative deprivation. that could be political or religious or criminal but the idea of relative deprivation is important for understanding how instability occurs because people take violent action at a personal level or collectively, politically, more often than not not just in response to absolute suffering but any response to a relationship to what could be, what was, what others have. increased inequality is

destabilizing. these are the conditions into which comes extreme drought punctuated by flooding, weather systems falling out of whack, the monsoons writing too heavily too early or not at all. the drop a quote convergence zone, the weather system that regulates the rainy season in ecuador reasons falling out of whack. climate change exacerbates this set of existing crises and the combination of all three working together called a catastrophic convergence. it is important to put climate change in that context because it usually doesn't just look like floods force people to move. as you will see from these examples it is more subtle than that. one of the first places i research was the horn of africa which there are ten million people threatened with an. i was there two years ago and

there was this same drought in effect. this has been going on for years and years, the better part of the decade occasionally punctuated by a reasonable rainy season but more often than not in kenya punctuated by frequent flooding, out of season flooding that doesn't alleviate the problem of drought but exacerbated. interestingly precipitation patterns in kenya increase the overall level in the last 20 years has increased but the experience on the ground is one of drought because the pattern of the reins change with rain coming auld one 5 lee and floods rather than gently in this pattern of two rainy seasons that farmers traditionally counted on. i will set that kenya part up by reading you the first few pages

of the book. it begins with the death of this one man. norman late beanies a flat top vacation tree. its latticework of branches cast a soft mash of shade on his body. he wore silver earrings and khaki shorts and lay on his side with his arms beneath him. the left side of his forehead was gone, blown away by the exit of a bullet. there was a greasy black slip on the desert floor. he had been a past oralist who live in northwest kenya on the rift valley. he had been killed the day before when a neighboring tribe launched a massive cattle raid. his corpse lay on the ground exposed to the elements with goats and sheep browsing nearby because they do not believe -- they don't bury people killed in raids. they believe doing so is bad luck. will invite more attacks.

they leave their dead to decompose where they fall. but these supernatural precautions' will not hold the enemy at bay. for profound social forces drive them forward. why did norman die? what forces compelled his murder? he was 35 years old. age among them is usually just estimated. he had three wives. kissel eight children and 50 head of cattle. he was an important powerful man in his community. warrior in his prime with plenty of experience and wisdom and young and strong enough to fight a little food and water. we could say tradition killed him. the age-old tradition of cattle rating among the tribes of these africa. we could say he was murdered by a specific man. or that he was killed by the drop. when the drought gets bad the rating picks up. or perhaps he was killed by forces get larger, transcending

the specifics of this regional drought. this rate, physiography. to my mind while walking through the desert scanning the hills for war party seems clear that his death was caused by the most awful set of events in history. the convergence of poverty, violence and climate change. this book is an attempt to understand his death and so many others like him in the land of this catastrophic convergence. in that case why did he die? the drought obviously. why were people fighting so viciously? partly because the government has withdrawn the kenyan government provides very little support for people or the raiders who raided his cattle. there are hardly any programs of drilling new wells. there are no real programs of

introducing camels to replace cattle and goats which are incapable of living within this environment where camels would be more reasonable. there is no support of any sort. so herder's gather around what few wells remain. why are the raid so violent? partly because there are so many weapons which are the direct result of the collapse of somalia and uganda and the war in south sudan. somalia is the main problem. there's no state in somalia and hasn't been since 1991. it hemorrhages instability and weapons into the region. the story of somalis in a nutshell is there was a socialist coup in somalia and ethiopia. the cubans and russians were trying to build unity between these governments and supporting both of them but there were local agendas and some of

dictators -- among many other things a small nationalist who wanted to really be so molly homeland part of which is the theory of a greater sum all realize in ethiopia. he launches a covert war against his ally ethiopia. this covert war spins out of control and become the conventional conflict. when he realizes the cubans are helping ethiopia as well as himself he switches sides and the u.s. and saudi arabia and pakistan start supporting him and for weapons into somalia while the cubans and russians for weapons into ethiopia. the net result is the collapse of somalia. he refuses to let go until his army has disintegrated and somalia collapses and there is no government.

neither side thought that that would happen. nor was that the goal of the u.s.s.r. or the u.s.. the cubans were there to create a socialist alliance and foment revolution to improve people's lives and raise standard of living. carter supported somalia because he was defending against the spread of socialist dictatorship that strip people of civil-rights. best of intentions on both sides regardless of your position. unintended consequence was the collapse -- prominently destabilize the region. that is an example of how this climate crisis works through preexisting problems. what you have in northern kenya is essentially a state of war. intercommunal warfare that involves kapor rating, rating

traffic on highways, cross border raids by the military, constant presence by the paramilitary police, back and forth official numbers are over a hundred people died this year. it is probably half the number because most of these deaths are not registered. many of the roads are too dangerous to travel. it is and and declared war. social breakdown. an example of how climate change can create instability more industrialized country would be turkistan. not a country we think a lot about in the u.s.. not necessarily important to the u.s. economy or u.s. politics but very important if you live there. people might remember that in the spring of 2010 turkistan made news when the capital went up in flames and there was ethnic rioting. one government fell. another government came in and called for russian intervention.

the russians declined. it all subsided. it looked like age old animosity between young uzbek men and turkey's men going after each other. underneath was another story. turkistan gets 90% of its electricity from hydro electric particularly one really large hydroelectric dam. the same drought that has been punishing afghanistan for ten years cause the water levels in this damn -- probably mispronouncing it -- to drop to the lowest level ever and that cause the government to start rationing power. once they started rationing power industry had to lay people off. once unemployment goes up consumer demand goes down and further increase in unemployment. on top of this drought comes a brutally cold winter in central

asia and in turkistan cattle herds are freezing to death and dying in the field. pipes are bursting in apartment. pensioners are freezing to death. there is further power rationing just as there is an increase in power demand. day shutdown schools and most public institutions for two months. very serious crisis that results in more poverty, more enter and unemployment and increase in population of unemployed young men who spend their time in casinos drinking and getting into trouble. then the government decides to reach engage with a previously stalled out privatisation program and privatized utilities. to make the assets more attractive they doubled the tariffs people pay for power with a promise to double it again. at that point people hit the streets and are protesting the standard of living in the

economic crisis. due to this population of angry young men those protests evolve into protest and animosity. you see that beneath this ethnic violence is an economic crisis and beneath the economic crisis is a climatological crisis. the drought and the winter. just a caveat. climate scientists are very clear about not blaming anyone weather event on climate change. i do that in my book. i don't say that any one of these events is caused by climate change but there's a pattern climate scientists have predicted for 20 years which is from burning fossil fuels and ceo to concentration in the hemisphere increase more heat is trapped from the sun. temperature goes up and there is

an increase in climatological chaos. increasing drought and freak storms. that was predicted that is coming to fruition. this storm or that storm you can't blame that level of specificity on climate change but the pattern is unfolding and that is correlated with climate change and has been predicted for long time and is coming to pass. another case study is india which is a crucial economy for the world and the region. india has had a guerrilla insurgencies in 1969. began in the district named for the tee in west bengal. for many decades this collection

of maoist parties known as na l naxilites was contained in west bengal but in the last 15 years they have advanced down the eastern coast of india along the eastern get into the second plateau. you can look at maps and is clear that what is happening is a drought has been extending down the eastern coast and district by district where there is drought you find them showing up and in response to the state is counterinsurgency and more violence. the way that they feed off of dropped passes through the cotton economy frequently released were i did my research. the situation is economic

liberalization which in india is associated with high rates of growth. has also been associated with increased inequality and absolute misery of many. the farmers' can no longer fall back on the semi socialist support that were the hallmark of congress's development policies in the postwar era. since 1991 india has been withdrawing. on the face of it farmers want to drill wells and have to borrow money on the private market from moneylenders. the environmental crisis is such that the money lenders don't want the land as collateral but only crops. the only crop that they will advance money for is a crop that can't be eaten or stolen by the farmers in the case of a crisis so the only crop is cotton.

the farmers borrow money to plant cotton. the more they are in debt and the war, is planted and the lower the price and the harder to get out of debt and the more they borrow money. the drought is one of the key factors that makes the cotton fail not come sufficiently to pay off the debt and people eventually leave the land. thousands have committed suicide in a grimly poetic way of drinking the actual pesticides used for the cotton. there are 2,000 people documented committing suicide across india and possibly 200,000 have done this but other farmers commit themselves to committing political homicide

and join the next lights -- maxvilleat ites and down with the companies selling new this and down with this government that is not supporting you. let's pick up the gun and kill these money lenders and go after the government and have a revolution. you get this increase in violence and the state response with counterinsurgency, targeted assassination and detention and torture and problematic reestablishing paramilitary forces in parallel with paramilitary police units. particularly the use of private paramilitary taking off where there is this auxiliary to the state forces that some what developed autonomously and nurtured by the state which is

dangerous because kafiri in counterinsurgency is -- the theory is government can control these guys but what the history of doing that shows is what the government is doing unintentionally is setting up future war lords. these people are criminals and they are not under control and when the war is wrapped up is hard to get them to put down their guns and go back inside and you see that particularly in colombia where the paramilitary was established helping government forces and eventually become a force that are beyond anyone's control and crucial to the drug trade. climate change mixed with bad economic policy triggers rebellion which triggers further violence. the argument that i am making is

in the global south climate change create state failures lists -- revolutionary rebellion. that is not what the drought in texas -- highway banditry as a result of that. with climate change, the way climate change is encouraging violence in rich economies is giving a new impetus to the incipient police states that developing so there is now further justification for border militarization. one more argument behind anti-immigrant policeing and the new emergency to justify sacrificing civil rights of the police can round up foreigners and get rid of them. this is part of the discourse in arizona. people in phoenix understand the

situation in environmental terms. phoenix lives on borrowed time and borrow water and there are elements in the busy of phobic right is explicitly articulate their desire to militarize the border further and roundup more immigrants in terms of the ethics of the lifeboat or an armed lifeboat that there is an environmental crisis, climatological emergency and the response has to be to repress and exclude foreigners. that is not as violent or dramatic as social breakdown in the global south that is a form of violence. 700 of the 2,000 miles on the border are locked down with surveillance cameras and motion sensors. the border is policed by the u.s. military and national guard. the border patrol has the largest non-military air force in the world. they operate with military

hardware. on any given night there are 30,000 undocumented migrantss in a largely privatized immigrant detention system. they have no real rights because they haven't committed crimes. they entered the country illegally and most will be deported without facing trial or anything. there is very little participation for lawyers. we have the kernels of what could imagine could become a very authoritarian, very brutal domestic response to a climate emergency. the other way we can see climate change provoking forms of violence within and from the global north is the planning of the pentagon and the armed services to their credit take the science of climate change very seriously unlike a lot of people in the u.s. government.

the pentagon realizes the intergovernmental panel of climate change, un main clearing house for climate science isn't a joke and if anything is very conservative in its findings and they have produced scenarios for the future which generally don't see a massive increase in conventional warfare between states over resources but more often than not predict an increase of civil conflict, mass migration, state breakdown, ethnic violence, rebellion and counterinsurgency. they realize armed services will be called upon to respond increasingly over coming decades. at the heart of that response is an open ended program, counterinsurgency on a global scale. fundamentally won't work and military planners say we can

keep the lid on the crisis for just so long but if there isn't radical reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, because just a little science caveat for those who don't follow this as closely there have been some disturbing findings in climate science in the last 20 years. one, that in the mid 1990s important event was final extraction of ice core samples from the greenhouse icy. like free ring there was a year by year record of 10,000 years of climate. they saw that definitively co2 concentrations before the industrial revolution had been stable round 280 parts per

million and then start going up with the industrial revolution and now at 390 parts per million. scientists believe after 350 parts per million we enter a danger zone where there could be positive feedback loop that essentially makes climate change self propelling. primary example would be melting of the permafrost in the arctic underneath which is a massive store of methane which is a greenhouse gas 20 times more powerful than co2. if the permafrost melts and all that methane comes out that will accelerate climate change radically in a way that civilization can't deal with. right now the main cause of global warming is our emissions. we can deal with that. is not nature throwing out greenhouse gases so we can control that but that might not be the case for much longer.

the other thing they discovered was that the climate system doesn't change gradually necessarily. it can change quite suddenly. this was a fringe position in the 1980s. climate regimes like the beginning and end of ice ages didn't take hundreds of years to start and stop that happened in decades. the global rise quite radically within a few decades. and through the record provided by the ice core samples they saw there had been radical quicks which is in the climate regime. the belief now is the causes of climate change buildup and the effects lag and kick in all at once. a helpful way to think about it is the way earthquakes work. two plates pressing against each other and the pressure builds and builds but there is no earthquake and then the effect of the pressure of, the movement

of the plates kicks in all at once as an earthquake. so the climate system a work like that which means very important we reduce the emissions. we have to amount we are locked in for an adaptation is technical and social. involves building sea walls to protect cities and coming up with new technologies for farming in extreme climate and reshaping social relations so that technology can be adapted by people and used effectively. all of that adaptation is predicated on radical -- we have to reduce carbon emissions by 80% over the next 30 years starting now if we are to avoid the sticking points and the military generally end reports saying that. i have some suggestions. i don't want to go on too long but i will give you some suggestions so as not to leave

on a down note. there is a lot that could be done by this country which is the most important country. we can move policy at global levels. even despite the crazy situation in this town where the republican party doesn't believe the science, nearly impossible to get reasonable legislation passed. the first two years of the obama administration saw millions of dollars wasted pursuing legislation that if it had passed would have been scientifically inadequate but didn't pass any way. there is a lot that can happen today. the epa for example has the obligation to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. this is the result of green groups -- beginning in the 1990s

after the clinton administration signed the kyoto protocol people say we already have enabling legislation to cut carbon emissions. the clean air act stipulates if emissions are dangerous to human health is under the clean air act and the epa has to regulate those emissions. everything years of legal struggles the epa has an obligation to regulate greenhouse gas emissions like co2. they are harmful to human health. that happened in 2006 and 2007 and president bush ignored and of obama administration is beginning to issue rules based on that. so far the rules have been weak. there are 30 more rules and 170 specific policies. gets very detailed in terms of what gases in which places, but this is something that is happening.

if the epa were really robust and brave in implementing these rules it would impose a carbon tax. you are free to burn coal but if you're smokestack their dirty will pay fines and those fines will essentially forced the closing of these plants or raise the price. that would help make clean energy more cost competitive and drive private investment for the clean tech sector. another thing happening today without lining up any republican votes or getting any more money or subsidies or anything would be to use government purchasing power to jump-start clean technology. state and federal governments in the united states constitutes 1-third of u.s. gdp. the federal government has the largest fleet of vehicles in the country and the largest fleet of buildings in the country and the largest single energy consumer in the country and it is going to buy vehicles and electricity

for its buildings regardless of whatever. it might as well use the money it is going to spend in a way that helps build alternative is. retrofit its buildings and reduce consumption and make buildings that are net contributors. that would be good in and of itself and reduce the carbon footprint of the federal government but have an important knock on effect to create economies of scale by the clean tech sector which is currently stock. it doesn't have markets. it can't buy its supplies in bulk and cheap enough. if the federal government provided a market, many of these clean tech firms could compete directly with the alternatives and close the price gap. once the price gap is closed the private sector would begin adopting clean technology and

clean energy for economic reasons. that could happen right now without having to deal with the insanity that is politics in d.c.. so that i hope is hopeful. on that note i will take your questions. [applause] >> i have to get some microphones. >> sounds like a wonderful book that puts together a lot of stuff. it is a good thing that the greenhouse gas case got to the supreme court before the current supreme court was constituted. my question is about china. china at is half north and half south. how is it affected by climate change and how has it responded?

>> china is suffering severe drought which is the pattern of climate change. you all know that china burns coal and is a major polluter and recently overtaken the u.s. as the single largest polluter that there has been progress in recent years in china and they have embraced clean technology and taking the lead in wind power and solar and electric cars development. and a lot of reason is high-minded concern about climate change. it has to do with the local crisis of air pollution in china which is very intense and in the u.s. i believe the air quality index when it gets above 50 you get a warning. above 100, children and older people are urged to stay inside and not to drive. in beijing they go a hundred or more days at a time when air quality index is over 500. the same condition exists in

other major cities that have horrendous air. partly in response to that there are trying to close down dirty coal plants. they have a certain advantage which is when the leadership makes decisions it is implemented. there's the problem of corruption at the provincial level and between the central government's agenda and what happens in the provinces. >> are they trying to keep water from countries further down the river and go through china and putting big dams so the water stops in china and doesn't move into vietnam and thailand or wherever? >> yes they are to some extent. i don't know the specifics about treaties between china and other countries. most rivers being dammed and moved are within china and exit the sea with in china. that is part of what controlling

to that is about. same thing going on within the and pakistan. one of the key elements in the conflict between india and pakistan which expressed itself as terrorism like bombing in mumbai and pakistani intelligence agencies support for the taliban afghanistan. part of that is about pakistan using asymmetrical assets to counter india. india 6 on the glaciers that are the head waters of the basin for which pakistan gets 90% of its water and is one of the driest countries in the world. as glaciers melt more rapidly india is building dams and the political wing of an outlaw terrorist organization, one of their slogans is water flows or blood. sort of a related issue in terms of dams and rivers.

>> thank you for this book. good addition to what we need to hear. my question is could we talk a little about the issue of fear versus education? what i mean by that is we still don't have leadership educating americans in terms of catastrophic climate change and tipping points and so on or leadership that says if we don't do this by a certain date it may be too late. americans are pretty complacent about the danger that we face. there has been an argument among the environmental groups about how much do you inform people of dangers that are coming versus educate them because you don't want them to be afraid and give up? my point is we humans don't deal well with anticipating crisis we

react afterwards, katrina and tsunami and all kinds of examples where we didn't prepare well enough. this is one where we might not get a second chance. question is how do we deal with the fact that the general public is not being adequately lead in this movement of people in the world, not yet ready to say this is a demand we do something about now. >> according to a pupil at the height of concern about climate change 67% of people thought was a serious problem that we need to take action. then the coke brothers get involved and exxon mobile which has funded climate the nile for decades, a big push back from the fossil fuel industry after 2007. it is still at 56% which is a lot. a lot of policy gets passed

without that level of popular support. i think if there were -- i think one thing that can happen is education and action can happen simultaneously. the sierra club and greenpeace and the rainforest action network along with local organizations have this successful anti coal campaign involved in an array of tactics from lobbying and mobilization to suing companies to direct action sit ins on smokestacks and mountaintops that will be blown up for mining coal. this is succeeded in closing over 100 coal plants that were scheduled to be built. if action like that can get more publicity that will hopefully educate people. it is important that education

happen while addressing problem directly. in terms of how to educate people, if i had a special set of tactics i would have written a book about it but i don't really know what to do other than the kinds of things that are being done already. i don't have a special angle on how to deal with it. >> i came up with a term that may help. a circle with a stop sign with the letter c3 meaning stop catastrophic climate change. you are welcome to borrow it. >> i have been involved in the movement against mountaintop removal mining. coal is the number-1 source of

greenhouse gases. there is a source close to this area where coal extraction or false will fuel extraction is going on. it takes seven hours to get down there to see first hand what is going on. it has been over the last six years -- did the mountain justice summer campaign which snowballed and encouraged people to come in mostly college students who stuck around establishing relationships with local communities and of course not having the kind of dramatic effect we would like but it is going somewhere. i would like to ask a couple provocative questions. one is if you look at what is going on, going after more

extreme methods of getting these different fuels whether it is oil or tar sands in canada or mountaintop removal down the line because the rate we are using them up getting scarce since we have to accelerate and intensify the extraction methods and seeing the law corporations have on the political system, the way it shaped loose the way i look at it is everything -- it is all possible solutions that we propose are equally utopian. i put it right now. whether it is revolution or reform. it is all basically the field is open. do we need to actually think at the theoretical level about de

industrialization? >> there is an element on the environmental left that almost embraces climate change as a solution to the other problems associated like overconsumption and eat quality unwelcomed as a method and imagine that after the collapse there will be a more just society. i don't subscribe to that. >> i talked-about practical de industrialization. >> i don't think --de carbonization is hearty enough. if we do that we have not solved the environmental problems. there are so many other associated problems but the time frame on climate change what was being get 395 parts per million

when the tipping point maybe three 50 we have to deal with carbon emissions immediately. if we don't we run the risk of catastrophic collapse down the line. to continue what i was saying. to those that embrace the crisis. >> type of catastrophism in certain elements. that is misguided. i don't think if this society collapse is due to environmental crisis that what will follow it will be conducive to any kind of change. i say that because i have been to places where there have been state collapse and there is a zero space for women's rights or collective mobilization by poor people. when there is no law what it is the rule of the gun and

progressive politics goes out the window. so i think a realistic but difficult task is de carbonization. industrialization may have to be addressed but we don't even have -- we are not even sure we have time to deal with that. >> two more. than we will wrap up. >> i am a justin rose how long you were in india in the few got a chance to talk to any state officials regarding their line of thinking about climate change and if there's any hope moving forward? >> i spend six years in bangladesh.

i didn't talk to people dealing specifically with climate mitigation. i talked to climate scientists and state officials in insurgency at a more local level. my impression is the political class in india has recently begun to take this seriously because there are so many other pressing issues and some of them are taking this seriously and getting up to speed on this. and think about how to deal with this and participating in the international discussions of coming up with a successor agreement. but the political class until recently thought this was a rich person's problem. the environment is for people in the west to think about and we have a crisis of poverty we need

to develop but now they are seeing the agenda of development might be scuttled by climate change so they're taking it seriously increasingly. >> i have a question. why is it the scientists involved with global warming don't seem to be accepting the fact that nothing really is going to be done until one of these tipping points is reach? what they should be concentrating on exactly what that tipping point will be and when it will occur and what we can do when it finally happens? the second question from your travels, where would you anticipate mass migration because of starvation triggered by global warming where do you think it is likely to occur? >> to take your questions in reverse order we are already seeing a mass migration out of somalia into kenya which is linked to the drought.

people are migrating from the countryside into the city's and the north and brazil. people migrating to cities -- the first chain migration usually not out of the country but from the countryside to the city. bangladesh famously is threatened by sea level rise and india has militarized the border. that will be a site of crucial conflict around migration caused by climate change because you have a muslim population on one side and in due dominated, multi-cultural society in india but hindu dominated society and particularly the hindu rites that does not like muslim migrants. that is a sight of potential conflict. in terms of why climate scientists aren't making tipping points they are. that is why they are arguing for

radical mitigation. >> they are talking about doing things now but not really looking at when they will occur. in other words planning now for a world after the stabbing points are reached accepting that nothing will be done until something big happens and look back 20 years from now and say we should have been planning for this. >> take james hanson. in his latest book he argues it is possible flooding points and positive feedback loop of runaway climate change could increase to the point ready planet is so hot it will be like venus and wipe out all life many hundreds of years in the future.