>> i sit on the board of the white roof project. we paint groups white in new york city because it reduces energy. it is super fast and relatively cheap and easy to get people involved in. >> of course, my favorite group is heal the bay. also, the southern california library. [applause] >> my wife and i are on your side. >> i've heard that there are limited amounts that we can do to reduce the amounts we use. but i'm looking for -- then we have to reduce consumption, but a push for alternative energy. i know cracking is a big

problem. the pipeline agenda than what they're going to do up there. i know that nuclear is a problem with waste and disposal and etc. a big push towards solar am and i know there are some problems with that in the desert habitats. big push towards solar and wind. you guys have -- i live in a big city in la. people are still going to of course unless we have a really great transportation system. big solutions that are done beyond the individual level but for energy and transportation. >> i'm from new york. i don't know a lot about la. i rented a car and haven't killed anyone yet. [laughter] >> i am pretty proud of that. we have an opportunity to speak to the public into the public to

become engaged. one of the things you can do is be representative of your city. in order for you to get to the point of transit where you live and where people live and work, it is a compelling economic peace. you have to get involved and you have to engage your community and transit boards and be a pain in the butt. you have to say that i want a bus system or a light rail. you have to do those things to get your voice heard. otherwise, they will just keep giving money to the same people to give money to. again, bracken is a huge concern where i live, because it is in the new york city watershed. there goes the best water that we have in the century. the reason they have been able to inhibit bracken so far, it has really been putting pressure on things. the same things that are going on with the power plants. the non-funding of the coal power plants.

there are a bunch of direct actions to solve these problems. at the end of the day, have the same core values with these people in your neighborhood. maybe articulated slightly differently. if you take climate change out of the equation, and you start looking at people's attitudes towards community and consumption are my people's attitudes towards the environment, most people have more in common than they don't have in common. the whole red and blue divide is a lie. >> with pollution, no one wants to have dirty air or dirty water. forget about global warming. it is that kind of common -- most people want that, that industry pushback exists against it. i guess the question is, how do you push back, other than community organizing.

>> community organizing is something that is successful. >> we only have time for two more questions. >> i wasn't talking about that, but i have absolute -- i have absolutely taken the bus. people think it is something that poor people take. i think people should be forced to take the bus, first of all, it's getting easier and easier, and you can read and talk to somebody that you might never have talked to before. what i want to talk about is the issues that i have been successful with. i wanted to see if you could address order of us put them out there. composting is wonderful. i have a little bit of trash. i used to have a full trash. i still have a lot of recycle that i wouldn't have invited him shop at traders so much.

when i don't shop at traders, -- for the farmers market,, mostly, and a little bit at traders, you don't get so many plastic vegetable fats. if i didn't take the time or take as much of the time than i would have less to recycle. i only have a little bit of trash. do you have a have a little bif trash. do you have a quick question? >> do have a question? >> i would like you to address the importance of that in your scheme of what we can do, and also, i would like to ask about giving up beat. how would you rate that in your overall address and evaluation of how we can change things? >> composting, farmers markets, that is valuable. >> and vegetarianism. >> i love what you are saying

there. our last question was talking about what are the big things we need to do to become less wasteful. when you are talking about are things that anybody can do to modify their trash and garbage profile. composting is a great strategy for getting things out sh and ge profile. composting is a great strategy for getting things out of landfills and using material and materials that we have productively. if you can shorten the distance between where their food comes from to your plate, you have eliminated an enormous amount of waste. look at what happened with roadside litter. all of a sudden, we collectively as a society decided that enough was enough and change their behaviors. these are individuals that stopped throwing stuff out of their car windows. we took collective action. that was a good way to modify our behavior. this is the one big social thing

that anybody can really do something meaningful about. right in their own homes. when they go out shopping. when they decide to choose a farmers market over a heavily packed store like trader joe's or whatnot. it doesn't take a pack. you don't have to be a good great big corporation. you don't need a power plant plants do that and make those changes. it is the opposite. it is not wasting by 1000 small acts. i think i can work better than waiting for the big thing to come to save us. >> one more question. >> i'm old enough to remember when sustainability and efficiency were good things, they were patriotic things. my parents went through world war ii and the great depression. that was a good attitude when i grew up. a sense of common good. i am amazed how over the years we have become unpatriotic.

i remember in the 1990s, bush saying that efficiency was bad for the economy and their go to jobs. how do we get to the point where we don't have politicians or folks in the media willing to stand up and say, wait a minute, efficiency, sustainability, what art alternatives we have? >> i think we need to expand the conversation beyond the confines of this room. every opportunity that you have when you are listening on the radio and talk shows, they raise these issues to expand the conversation. you are absolutely right. there is a complete mindset that we should not be sustaining things and that it's not necessarily good. it means taking the conversation back and not retreating, and joining with the community again. we, unfortunately, have lost

that sense of responsibility to one another in a community sense. that really has to be restored. we can only do it, each of us, by taking a couple of steps. >> i just want to make a cautionary note about efficiency. we managed to really consume more. roughly 121,100 square foot -- we've now managed to make our homes far more efficient, both in terms of materials that go into them and the fuel they need to burn to keep them. but they are not pushed aside. we've lost that by making our homes twice as great. refrigerators have gotten more efficient. we now have five-star energy

rating, but we take you up a traitor and stick it in the basement and put beer in it. i don't know when that switch happened, but people are looking at their paychecks and they are like, well this is saving me $60 a year. how can i burn a? that is what we are doing. it is important to keep that in the back of our heads. >> we have to end it there. the final message, i believe, is we can't find her way out of this problem. i want to thank all of you. if you have anymore questions for them, they will be out there signing books. [applause] [applause] [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> you are looking at live pictures from the campus of usc where the festival of books is taking place. there are a couple more panel sessions that we will bring you later on. at 5:00 o'clock eastern time, there is a panel on "surveillance and secrets." also, a book called area 51, and michael sherman on the bleeding

brain. this afternoon at 630 eastern time, 50th anniversary of the port huron statement, a manifesto by american student activists in the 1960s with tom hayden. uncovering the 60s. and robert scheer, an author and editor. in a few minutes, we will bring you our program with kareem abdul-jabbar about his book, "what color is my world." the gentleman who is the vice president of events for the "los angeles times" walks us through how this big festival some of the largest of festivals, was more than 150,000 people attending over two days. 500 authors and hundreds of exhibitor booths all come together. >> this will be the 17th annual "los angeles times" festival of books. it is the second year that we

are holding a share. one fact about usc and the "los angeles times", they are the two oldest institutions in los angeles. we expect to have in excess 150,000 people attending the festival. we will have eight outdoor stages, over 400 authors, eight signing stations, 150 literary exhibitors, so as you could say, they are is a little bit of something for everyone. the authors will include anyone from michael black, judy blume, kareem abdul-jabbar, rodney king, we will also be having many of the award-winning editorial members of the "los angeles times" editorial staff. they will be moderating panels. that being said, there is a little something for everyone

here to celebrate about the written word. >> in his new book, rodney king recounts his life following the video recording of his beating by los angeles police on march 3, 1991. mr. king talks about his own legal problems and alcohol addiction since then, as well as the acquittal of four of the police officers in the case. on tuesday, rodney king spoke at the research for black culture in harlem. "book tv" will bring you this event live online. at 630 eastern time, go to "book tv".org and click the watch button on featured programs. you can also check our tv schedule for air times of this event. >> here is a look at some new books being released this week. former secretary of state madeleine albright recounts her childhood in prague winter.

nationally syndicated talk radio show host, dennis prager, talks about his new book. investigative journalist roger charles talks about the bombing of the oklahoma city federal building in 1995. he argued that the investigation was mishandled in oklahoma city. what the investigation mess, and also why it still matters. >> in permanent emergency, the truth about the tsa and the fight for the future of american security, a former tsa administrator contends that the united states approach to national security is flawed. robert draper provides an in-depth look at the current house of representatives in do not ask what good we do. inside the u.s. house of representatives. >> in lots of candles, plenty of

cake, anna quinlan explores what's mattering most women at different stages in life. the author will be our guest on in-depth live on sunday june 3, at 12 noon where she will discuss your questions and take your calls. watch for the authors of the near future on the tv. >> john and i are diverse. we don't know how to search out on the bottom. we know the difference between different parts of the ship. the individual components, the edges of this field will tell a story beyond their ability. we are not naval architects or engineers. what we did was we documented these edges of these two huge pieces carefully so that we could bring that evidence to the

experts and they could look at it and tell stories. the story starts to unfold. not necessarily to a half miles down while we were in the water, but months later is where they are trying these pieces out and finding where they fit into the whole of the titanic. they start to tell a timeline. and they start to tell us things about that night that don't line up with what we have come to know the story of the titanic most of us have seen james cameron's wonderful film, and we are all drawn to the horrible moment when the two main characters are holding on to the back of the huge ship is the stern real -- comes out of the water and then breaks. that is what i had thought was the story.

but the story that we found, steele says that the ship broke apart at a very gentle angle. nothing like 45 degrees. more like 11 degrees. what is the difference? what is the difference that might? well, 1500 people stayed on board the titanic. they did not get into lifeboats. the lifeboats pulled away very calmly with 500 empty seats. people made decisions that night as the ship slowly sank into the water. they decided to stay onboard and wait for the rescue ships or get into the lifeboat. when you are on a ship is only bending at 11 degrees, it seems like you have a long time to go before that ship will break apart or sink. it's a matter of fact, the idea of the ship breaking apart was never in their minds. that is exactly what happened.

while the ship was flooding, she started to break apart. if we look at it, most people have understood the story of titanic to be that the titanic set sail on her maiden voyage, and then on a clear, calm night, struck an iceberg. saint, and broke apart. the pieces of steel that john and i documented say that the titanic struck an iceberg, then broke apart, and there was an incredibly different human experience that night. the steel and the weight of the whole broke apart, meaning that the timeline is remarkably different. instead of it being about a half hour, it's about five minutes. in one five-minute period, people went from this into the band, having a drink by the bar, and in five minutes, being in the cold north atlantic. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org.

>> you are watching "book tv"'s coverage of the "los angeles times" festival of books. our next author in our studio is basketball great kareem abdul jabbar about his book, "what color is my world: the lost history of african american inventors" red. >> tell me about this project. >> this is a book that i did in 1996, which was an overview of black history in america. in one of the chapters that i wrote, i focused on lewis howard let them are. in checking out what different inventors did in the 19th century, it really made me aware of the fact that there were a lot of black inventors that people didn't know anything about. so i got this idea from that

experience. i figured i would do a book on inventors related to children, because there are so many children who are not aware of these things. >> today's children seem to be interested in gaming and videos. why the vehicle of a book to get interested in the story you want to tell? >> i think that a book has the ability to reach children on different levels than games do. it is a lot more in-depth, and a random-access. they can go to any part of it, physically, and draw out the information. >> there are pages of the biography about the inventors. i am sure that you spend time with your coauthors to decide who would be in the book. how did people make the cut? >> our choices had to do with the fact that we wanted to pick

people who did things that were very important to everyday life. the bread machine or food preservation order food refrigeration. the fact that nowadays you can ship food around the world because of refrigerated food transport, that was an idea that was first thought up by a black american. all of these inventions have really affected our lives. there are so many other inventions in there. look at all the lives that have been saved just because we have blood typing and the blood bank. again, very important for all of our lives. and most people don't understand that that was a black american and they were crucial in figuring these things out. >> including super soaker, the big squirt gun. >> some of these kids play with it, and they are not aware of

who invented it. this is such an important aspect for it telecommunication. three d. is such an important aspect of telecommunication. >> programs here are interactive, see you can call up kareem abdul-jabbar about his book. this is his seventh book. the first one was back in 1983. he's been writing for 30 years. we welcome your questions about his writing and about his projects and what life is an author is like light in addition to his accomplishments in life. we will put the phone numbers at the bottom of the screen. we can also take your tweets and e-mails. look through the list, and there was only one woman. why is that?

>> we picked her because what she did was so significant. there are other women inventors, of course, but she made a significant invention that has been widely used. it is the most practical for one, for us to use. >> the concept of this book, by the kids and the people african-american? are you targeting and african-american audience. >> i wasn't targeting african-americans alone, but i thought since all of these people came from the african-american community, i would focus on that. it is crucial that we reach minority kids. so many minority kids today, if you ask them who they wanted to be, they would name you are an athlete or an entertainer. they only see themselves as being able to succeed in those

two realms. athletes, athletics, and entertainment. there is such a wide variety of things that young people can do today to make a significant contribution to american life and to earn a great living and be recognized as doing something meaningful. >> you spend a lot of time talking to kids about this message, especially african-american kids. there are many other avenues besides entertainment and sports. forgive me, it sounds ironic coming from someone with a claim to fame on sports. have you got a message to the young people? >> it doesn't last forever. the crew doesn't last forever. the fact that i'm able to be an author and a public speaker has to do with what i learned in school. the fact that knowledge is power, which gives you the ability to do things that you want to do, that is a very vital message.

i want to make sure that young people get that message. >> i want to get our viewers involved in the conversation. let's take our first call. you are on the air. welcome. caller: thank you. my question for mr. kareem abdul-jabbar, first of all, it is an honor. my question is how do you feel about more african-americans being in the nba, my second question is would you ever want to be the head coach for the la lakers, and my third question is could you tell me who your favorite african american athlete is? >> i guess i will handle this with the last question first. my favorite inventor is lewis

latimer and doctor charles schultz. what they did for people was so significant all the way around the world. lewis letter, by doing alexander graham bell's application drawings, he was right there at the salvation of telecommunication and electronics. also because of what he did with illumination and these are important things all around the world. modern lights would not be able to exist without artificial lighting. i think that his invention is very important. doctor charles has saved so many lives and impacted so many lives because of the knowledge that we have through the science of blood typing. again, this is a very important contribution worldwide. i think and i hope that answers your questions. sorry don't have time to answer all three.

>> let's move on to charlotte in south bend, indiana. >> yes, hello. what an honor it is to talk to you. i wonder if you talk about the book you wrote about the buffalo soldiers and the significance of the buffalo soldiers to american history reign. >> well, i think the industry of buffalo soldiers is important to american history because the westward experience of our nation was a key element in to us becoming a world power. we could not have done that if we had not been able to utilize all of the land that the united states is comprised of. in order to do this, it took people to go out and map the roads, telegraph lines, and explored the best places to live and everything. all of this was accompanied by our armed forces, th