online store but here's a collection of c-span products, browse to see what is new. your purchase will support our nonprofit operations and you still have time to order the congressional directory with contact information for members of congress and the biden administration. go to cspanshop.org. >> my name is kate i am an investment specialist focusing on the impact that environmental and social factors have on financial performance. but, before that i was an activist. i am an activist because of the author get to speak to today. i cannot even pretend to play it cool. bill is a big deal. hold your ears for this part, it probably makes him cringe but we've got to do it. bill's book, alter will be discussing this morning and you can purchase using by the book button, has begun to play

itself out. tells the story of increasingly writing climate change, genetic engineering are ai gone wrong. how they threaten the collective, in some ways is the thirty-year companion to his first book. which was really the world's first book on climate change ever. ] 1989 when he was just in his 20s. fast forward a book or 16 a prolific and ongoing contribution to the newew yorker. bill is now the go to voice on climate change. i think it's really important about this author is not just the publishing about problems in the safety of his home and vermont. he is living what he is writing. he the environmental grassroots organization 350.org. he is dedicated his life to the words he reads and writes

into action. beyond this professional powerhouse is also human dad, a dog dad, a sagittarius ongi wikipedia as a serious scholar and has been. we are in really good hands for conversation this morning. my goal for us to leave the sharper understanding of how big what we are up against is, but also how powerful we are as a collective force. as we get into the discussion and ask questions, please submit them in the asked the question box. will hit on them at the end. so bill, i think were ready to get going pretty ready to do this? >> what a pleasure to be with you. that was a very kind introduction thank you very much for your good work and activism. see what you make it easy, you make it easy. i'm so excited to talk not just about this book but what the book represents more broadly. we have got to start from the

beginning. it covers as i mentioned, some pretty heavy topics acquire a certain level of bravery to take on. you dedicate it to a woman who passed away at least two years before it was published pretty say about your friends, have it written down here i have known a great many activists but none of them had more moral force. she spent her whole life engage in her community. it was that sense that spoke itthrough her. i miss that voice so much. we all hear its echo as long as we are engaged. >> can you tell us about how her work? >> nfabsolutely. it is very kind of you to bring her up. she is one i think about almost daily. but we started 350.org it was a first reader is a should of a global climate movement.

now happily there's others there's the sunriseno movement, the extinction rebellion and all the wonderful young people following, so on and so forth. when we started we were reaching out around the world trying to find people who wanted to take on this fight. it seemed fairlyy hopeless. one of the places that we immediately started discovering amazing allies, we were in the most vulnerable places on the earth. these small islands, especially in the south pacific that may will disappear before the century is out. it was the aegean took it upon

herself to be this sort of organizer of so many of those island communities. they call themselves the pacific climate warriors. in my head is a remarkable picture who had organized people on each of these islands to build a traditional work to do. they took them to australia which is not that far away in that part of the world. they use them for a day to blockade the harbor at newcastle which is the biggest cold port in the world. more coal closer than any other place on the planet. as it's burned raises the temperature of the planet melting the ike icecaps drown the melting nations. one of the great iconic images are these people in tiny canoes stopping the progress

of the biggest or shipsno in the world. she was remarkable. and happily it lives on in the south pacific. >> touched on the lot there ire think we will get to eventually. i love this idea that you bring up often, this is hard work. it can be a really daunting and lowly fights. that is whybe having community and you look up to and do this work with, is so important. i am grateful to have learned more about it through yourr. dedication to her. >> now we have a sense of who the book was dedicated to, i would like to ask you, rewind i think it was april 2019.

if you think that happened we can definitely hit on that. even before that i don't know when he started writing. it's curious who you imaginedwr reading it. putting it into action. and things were different or not then your previous at think it is 16 books. >> i think most serious writers basically spend their life writing one book with different chapters this is part and parcel with that work in many ways in her life.

and i had no idea that i do anything more than right. i did not think of myself as an activist or anything. i publish them more time now it's hard to draw the line. it brings the story up to date in a lot of ways. one thing youou can click on and the last quarter is the kind of history of activism and how it really is a potent tool. i call it really just like the solar panel to allow us to make electricity from the

power of the sun. so we needed a technology that allowed the small millennium to stand up to the mighty and the few. people like gandhi, the suffragist, doctor king, and millions of others we do not know their names as well, it gave us those tools in the 20th century. and now we need to figure out very quickly to bear in the 21s. awful lot is on the line. including the ability of appealing to civilizations to keep going. were facing existential crises w the likes of which we have never faced before. there's a lot, a lot of work to be done.

>> i think in any other year it would be okay to avoid talking about an essential crisis. in the last 12 plus months there is just no way around it. you probably get this question all of the time, all leaders are being asked to contextualize their work under the umbrella that was 2020. the experience in global pandemic are long overdue. global reckoning and i mentioned earlier i am in texas i saw climate change march through and this year and shut down our state input a lot of people at risk. it is here with us. perhaps more clearly than in previous years. i am curious if these could go back and face another chapter

about this year. obviously a lot was written on the wall so to speak. but what about this year has changed how you think about the content of this book? >> i think what's happened to confirm the understanding of people talking and working in these positions for a long time, 2020 was a remarkable year. it was among other things the hottest year ever recorded in human history. that is not what we will remember it for. there will soon be other years that passage. but 2020 was the year of the pandemic. that should have taught us aem few things, it reminded us of a few things. one is physical reality is real. i've spent 30 years with varying levels of success that

physics is real andnd they don't negotiate or compromise, it would have to follow their dictates. the pandemic was a reminder that biology works the same way. it did not do any good the president told us it was all going to go away or whatever. he was not in charge, the microbe was in charge. if it said stand 6 feet apart and wear a mask, then stand 6 feet apart to wear a mask. it is the authority. one of the corollaries this we are dealing with physical reality sometimes speed is a very important factor. our systems are not geared for speed. i think probably one off the things historians removed when they write about the pandemic

is the u.s. and south korea had their first case of coronavirus in the same day january 2020. the south koreans went right to work. everybody got a mask, they started testing everybody, on and on. select the avoided the whole thing but fewer people died and south korea in the course of a year then you had that died in the course of a day. what did our president do? it was going to be at go awayou by easter not to worry not a big deal. it didid nothing. therefore we were unable to flatten the virus curb before things got completely out of control. the same substitute for february and march in the pandemic, substitute the last 30 years the claimant's story. despite clear warnings in science we ignored it we did not have the deal that. we did not flatten a curve now

we have to do an obscene amount of work at a very short time. that's what happens when you get behind the curve. the third thing and most important thing this goes directly to the questions about george floyd, the pandemic was a reminder solidarity really matters. i am old enough, my political life has been largely spent in the shadow of ronald reagan who changed our politics in this country. his basic understanding wasc markets solve all problems. government was a problem not a solution. his famoust laugh light in his speeches were the nine scariest words in the english language are i am from the government and i'm here to help. ha, ha, ha. it turns out the scariest words the english language art we have run out of ventilators

or the hillside behind your house is caught on fire. these are not problems you all on market forces to solve pretty : the fire department in the hospital to solve and reflections of ability to work together as human beings to form the collective bonds called government that will allow us to deal with that. so, that sentence was only heightened by what played out over the spring and summer in the streets of minneapolis. and then so much else of the rest of the country. the most important thing george floyd, anybody said in 2020 was what george floyd said as he was dying. i can't breathe. because being able to breathe

is pretty much the definition of being alive human beings. and you can't breathe because there is a racist cop kneeling on your neck? or you can't breathe as activists were soon pointing out there is a gas fired power plant down the road. always the same road, african americans have three times the estimate rate of white americans. not because it would be different in physiology but because the difference in geology. the wildfires have gotten so terrible and california, oregonov, we are told to go inside, stay inside and tape the windows shut so none of the particulates and make their into your house and destroy your lungs. you cannot breathe because it has simply gotten to damn hot. we have a new all-time record for the highest temperature ever observed on this planet

last summer in california. that is right at the upper limit across the tropics by the middle of the century. so in the end, all of this is a stark reminder we live in the world of which we are not a master in. our way of dealing with that has to be to drop together effectively how to deal with question around justice so we're not just a collection of individuals but the ruraly workings of society, of civilization. >> i think that is really well

put. you bring up two areas but it sounds like after having looked through this last year is even more top of mind and working towards justice and urgency. often torn by how to do those two things at once in one a breath. i want to start urgency. i think it is a little bit easier. it's been a bit of back-and-forth with another bill, bill gates. he has a slightly different view on the climate crisis. there is a lot of shared knowledge there but obviously let's call it a nuanced approach for the sake of today. i think gates offered something alerting to folks who find their belief should

be, for lack of a better word, moderate. do not like climate change, they believe in climate change but they might find something like the green new deal to be geographic, too radical. i wonder how you think about the role that neutrality, not of the carbon kind but of where you stand may be on the sidelines. how does that play into addressing climate change and the shrinking of the board as you put in your book? quickset is a really good question, katherine. look, human beings and human institutions change best when they change slowing gradual. that is just the truth. it is less expensive, it's less traumatic, it is less divisive. the best way to deal with that

slopeou. with the kind of cultural and technology shifts that allow us to notot have to make big shifts in the best way and brother-in-law comes over thanksgiving and 30 years down the road we are where we need to be. >> one of the things i have to keep myself from doing is saying to people if only you had listened to me. thirty years ago this was the point we are trying to make. we didn't listen for a series of reasons that are not worth describing. the fossil film had a very

effective paralyzed our political lives. now we have to change very, very fast. because as we said before the basic dynamic here is not our usual political dynamic which is different groups of people arguing with each other and reaching some kind of compromise. i think people should get a good wage for their job. seven dollars and hours finally meet in the middle at 15 and back inside of that in a few years later. that's our system works. the problem is basic conflict is between human beings and physics. since physics is compromise that becomes our job. the scientists have never told us how fast we need to work. 2018 inter- governmental

climate change which is the international group the world leans on for their analysis in this greatest of challenges, publish their latest report. it's it if we had to fundamentally transform our systems which they defined as cutting emissions in half. if we did not meet that target than the prospects for meeting the targets just five years ago our s nail. that is the deadline almost literally the deadline. in the face of that, like it or not we have to move very fast. the good news is there really is good news, along with the activists they've done their job over the last decade and

dropped the price of solar power and wind power to the point it is the cheapest power on earth. they are coming just as fast meet if we want to move fast we really can't but, that means being willing to grapple with vested interest with the fossil fuel industry. they want to keep their business model going a little longer. there's a problem like gates they don't to engage in the messy work of standing up to power. i'm a multibillionaire and might not want to stand up to power either. all of his technological sites about what were going to 30 in

40 years down the rope, greatly might very well need them. we will only need them if we do the work in the next ten years of deploying the technology we have now in wind turbines. we cannot win the climate fight in the next ten years. it's going to take a lifetime. we could lose the climate fight in the next ten years. if we don't do what we need to do we don't have certain tipping points. it's passed the tipping points the prospect, nobody has a plan for refreezing the arctic once it has melted. in the arctic may seemed like a long ways away, it is one of the three or four biggest features on earth. we think the reason texas

froze and february was so much of the arctic is melted and the jet stream now works in very strange ways. it allows the collapse in the quick intrusion of air that should be over the arctic down across the lower 48. we aren't messing with huge forces here and we need to move faster than any of us are politically comfortable. it is not up to us. it is up to physics until we best learn to deal with it. >> it is not up to us but also very much relies on us. >> well put. >> i think i am not alone in

feeling overwhelmed by the problems sometimes. now, my top two favorite lines in your book i'm going to read it to you it hits on this kind of tension between needing people to act and look squarely at the reality of the situation. also keeping folks associated, connected to it and not shut down. you say it in to the fossil fuel industry, let anyone do what they want is a fraud argument no one can stop them in any way. insisting some horror is inevitable about or what you do is the response of people who do not want to be bothered trying to stop it. i've heard it too often to take an entirely seriously. when investigative reporters prove exxon knew all about global warning and covered up that knowledge, plenty people on the professionally jaded

left told me in one form of another, of course they did or all corporations like, or nothing will ever happen to them anyway. this kind of knowing citizen is no threat to the excellence of the world, it is a gift. they do not get precisely no how it will end their power it makes no sense. this really lands for me in a few different ways. : : : a few different ways but t part i want to pull out is how cynicism can be a self defense mechanism. a lot of us need to wake up and do our jobs and be with our families and do the things that do that. breaking the pattern ultimately comes down to changing minds. i'm wondering, in if your mind has been changed something regarding climate

change, if somebody has reached you in a surprising way, what that looks like so maybe we can apply thatha compassionately to folks really need to show up and not resign. >> clearly there's lots of things we learn over time and usually results in, there is a time when people thought natural gas would be the british. bridge to the future and it turned out it wasn't. for scientific reasons it was more problems than solutions. recalibrate going forward. sometimes the surprises are good ones. i think a lot of us fought we were going to have to completely

-- the thing that made it difficult was there might be no way short of shutting down a lot of what human beings did to deal with this because it seemed things like solar power and wind power were frivolous, on the edge, not capable of taking up real black. about that, we turnn out to be wrong. the great capacity for engineering asserted itself and people figured out how to build this in ways that were cheap so we now think access to vast amounts of clean energy and the

irony we have to make -- if we wait for the to work out will run because free. seventy-five years from now, that's what we will run on but if it takes 75 years to get the we will be a broken world that runs on it's our job now, make the politics -- make it happen faster than it otherwise would. for me, the biggest change over 30 years of working on this is the understanding we are going to have to engage in that. i began as a writer and i spent ten or 15 years writing more

books and having symposiums and things because we were in an argument and once we piled up on the evidence, our leaders would act because why wouldn't they? this is the worst problem we've ever faced, why wouldn't you take action? it took me to long to figure out science was entirely clear there wasn't another side pushing back in the scientific community. we are just losing the fight because the fight wasn't about data, it's usually about money and power. the fossil fuel industry had so much in i money and power but it didn't matter that they were losing the argument. you have some sense of the extraordinary power for even a

few hours ago, years ago would be on earth. i ended up doing office organizing because it eventually dawned on me we would need power to the fossil fuel industry from it wasn't going to come from money, we don't have a lot of money but that's why the history is so interesting. and it indicates from time to time we can assemble lots of human beings that their numbers and creativity and willingness to sacrifice things i took about two people have been doing and i'll add, one shouldn't have to do this. i've been a dozen times now, why

would anybody have to go to jail in order for government to pay attention to science? but that's the world we live in and it's not entirely rational so you have to figure out how to work in it. i'm sorry i didn't figure that out sooner. >> i think about argument, we haven't won the fight. it sounds kind of similar to we got the question right but we haven't figured out how to turn it into the solution. my perspective, one area where the climate movement has growth opportunities surrounds

inclusivity and centering the voices for folks who are most impacted by the change and things like that, a.i. and genetic engineering and hopes who have done so much work, doesn't quite get the spotlight for example are performing. i'm wondering from your perspective if you would focus on that sentiment. where are the areas we need to do a better job being inclusive in which voices do we need to do a better job at centering? >> i think you're absolutely right my voice been told environmentalism was something which white people did and if you didn't know where your next meal was comingg from, he wouldn't be an environmentalist because you have more important things to think about. for me, cap understanding shifted dramatically, in 2009,

we've been working about a year and college students and redid the state of action that turned into probably because of beginners luck, a big we managed to coordinate 5200 simultaneous demonstrations and 181 countries. but we would ask everybody to upload pictures of their events and my job, that we can, just monitoring and spreading them out again, we rented billboards at the end of times where, who are flashing these pictures. they were coming in, ten and 20 from around the world.

one after another. watching those, it took abouto a half an hour to realize that they were at the heart of this movement and most of the people for the poor, black and brown an agent because that's what most of the world is. by far from most of the world is. people were exactly is worried about the future, maybe even more so because the future bears down harder the more vulnerable you are. the sooner and harder you get hit so i think it's entirely good and useful and appropriate that people are at the absolute

forefront of this work. frontline communities from affordablemu communities includg women, the activism in recent years and let me give a particular shout out to indigenous people around the world, a large percentage of the world's population but in this case in many cases, air punching way above their weight and i think that it's people saw standing inis this emergence of indigenous leadership on this. it didn't surprise me because many of those people working for yearsor working to be the best

around the same is true from around the world. in pacific, latinin america, australia, new zealand. just about everywhere. i think it's really important. one is that when we exiled indigenous people from the paces where they were put them on reservations, we thought we were giving them worthless land but it turns out it sits on top of a lot of coal and gas and oil for the quarters you need so there are practical areasas people utilize wisely, the keystone at the corner access and find three. also in a deeper sense, it's powerful to see the oldest

traditions on the planet the newest wisdom sinking up. the sweat lodge in the view from satellite and supercomputers are very much in sync, to me. what they are seeing is there conventional wisdom, we are just going to keep growing our economies and having more. we need to think more deeply. to me, that's a powerful moment in wisdom and traditions and new ones coinciding so it's been a pleasure to watch this, elders communities and they are together on the powerful moment

i think you've done a really good job as far as i can tell, we centering voices who have been doing this work for a long time, impacted by this work but haven't always received the credit for doing it so i couldn't agree more that this is the heart of the movement. >> i get to do this newsletter every week in new york, i met crisis, it's a newsletter that a lot of people read. the part i like is this section called passing the mic. i think i've managed to do it now a couple of years without interviewing any other white guys because there are an extraordinary number of powerful and interesting which voices

help us see interesting corners and we've noticed in the past and that's useful. it's going to be a very close call to make it out of the cul-de-sac we are in now. if we do, it's because we managed to get all areas, everybody working in the same direction. we haven't been very good about that as a society and is one of the things that better change fast. solar power is really useful but broad people power. >> i definitely want to make sure we hit on that idea, specifically with your transition within the movement at 350 and federal you play now because it's an interesting

model for a lot of leaders think about cultivating the next generation that can help uplift othese ideas i may be older generations need. before we get there, i want to close out this idea on inclusivity, something for lack of a better word, was that for a while, u understanding the nuane within the proposition of a just transition from understanding the folks at work in the coal mines on the oil well are being paid, more competitively than some of the renewable opportunities which you can show why that's happening but taking a step back looking at what seems to me a little bit of classism within the environmental movement and i

think there's a way to read it but can you help us understand what some of the tensions are and how you have improved years?ing over the >> people through, no fault of their own in industries that are now dangerous to the planet shouldn't bear the brunt. this is to say oilfield workers are different than oilfield executives. they knew very well what they were doing and consequently occasionally they might end up in a jail cell at some time but that's not true, i think it's the opposite of p people have de honorable work over the years and now as we have to transition away from that, we have to

figure out how to make their lives work going forward and it's one of the best things about the green new deal that young people have composed and large parts of have made its way into the new biden infrastructure. they have to because it's right and they have to because it's necessary. think about who holds the power here people like senator manchin of west virginia who probably represents more of the coal miners than anybody else and he's in a position to make sure they can either if they are young, retrying to do something else if they are not, they can rehire with dignity and that's a perfectly good bargain to make. it's well within our economic

ability to do it and should be the first things we should focus on.o people like aoc and joe biden focus on precisely that issue. >> really helpful, thank you. i see some questions coming in, we'll just hit on one or two more ideas before we turn it over to the folks with us at home ande, online who have some interesting ideas and thoughts for you but i have to name the fact that a big part of this book is about a.i. i haven't asked you any questions about it because as you said, it's a scary overwhelming topic that's not a straightforward as climate change. climate change which is pretty complex, working out where to

start when i was 18 or 19, how to act t on climate change. can you help me now, at age 30, how to act on some of this that you bring up in your book about a.i.? >> i think they're kind of in the same category climate change was 30 years ago when i was your age, that as we can see them on the horizon as potentially overwhelming, we'd be smart to have the conversation about it right now, not 30 years from now and one of the first things we can and should do is at least makesu sure the horses behind tm are not so powerful they can't be checked in any way which means taking on silicon valley,

whose power has grown unchecked in recent years and forget a.i. insane amounts of damage already with things like algorithms, run what you see in your facebook feed devoted to make you angrier and crazier every passing day and doing it effectively so breaking the power -- we get concentration to power, there are two whether they are the ends of exxon or the hands of mark zuckerberg, it's a good idea to lessen that power quickly before it overwhelms society's ability to cope and it's possible facebook has already come to where it can be but i am glad to see finally people in power coming in with

these questions. i think for the moment it's important to just talk about questions around a.i. and genetic engineering & until we reached a social consensus on this, let's not take steps place where we can retreat. they do represent this, they do have the possibility of reordering what it means to be human and pacific enough questions we should think first. thinking is something humans are theoretically good at erratically is what sets uss apart so it might be quick to do it once more. >> in that same section of the book also talk about an easier

concept to get your arms around and of course i'll be at virtual, we are talking about reading and books i'm wondering if you could tell us about this it might activate it in a way. >> one of the reasons i write about it, one thing we've come to understand is it's really important thinkers and researchers, humans beings are t their best when they enter into a state of absorption, they get lost whatever it is they are doing. painting, climbing, difficult basis, whatever it is. everybody who is a reader knows

the feeling of becoming absorbed losing track of time and at some level enteringg mentally into this. - that's notot something that happens with twitter, it's the opposite. your forever chart for a few seconds whenever the next light or whatever comes to it. never escape into that kind of place and that's why it's like that at the end of affect.

sitting down to read a book is just too hard. when that happens, we would have lost something very important. >> we heard yesterday on a panel about listening, how shrinking our attention span is but i couldn't agree more that it's a different experience. last real question for me and then we have a few minutes to hit on some questions coming in. you open this book i say an author does not owe its reader hope. here's a great quote about hope without optimism differentiating between the two. it's motivating and there is

still some wiggle room, change is possible and i do feel that come through in your writing, not just this book but most of your publications and thought leadership. if it wasn't there, he probably wouldn't so relentlessly advocating for it. hearing from you, what does it feel like? >> you are right, the best proof of my willingness, ability to be hopeful but i didn't think there was reason to do it, then i wouldn't do it. i don't have a martyr complex, i would just sit on the porch and smoke cigars and drink whiskey

and not be fine. maybe i will reach an age where that's all i can do anyway but in the meantime, the fact that we watched the last ten or 15 years is enormous movement has risen gives me enormous hope you're going to make a fight artifice. i don't whether we went, the physical moment of these systems are so large that obviously we are not going to stop imaging, but maybe we can stop short of civilization it if we can, it will be becauseus not people arouse themselves. for me, i work all over the world, with organized demonstrations in every country except north korea. it's always extremely moving to reflect that so many of the people there working with him to

places that have literally done nothing to cause the problem we are in. that being the case, it does seem it's possible for those of us in the belly of the beast to get together to do what we can so that's why i am happy to keep going. >> it isor my deep sorrow to she we are coming up on time so i'm going to give you one last lightning round question from the folks at home. i think it's one i don't have the answer to. then we'll close out our time togetherer. folks are curious, in this country, i'm guessing in the u.s., what would be the most significant legislation to address climate change that we should urge our government to

enact? t >> right now at this time, it's crucial to get biden's infrastructure bill through congress. it's not going to solve the problem but it's going to do far more than any piece of legislation the federal government has ever passed in the last 30 years to do something about it and it's a real start. it's completely moderate, sensible, it's a very forward way to address the economic crisis we are coming out of the pandemic and try to start down the path of protecting us against the next crisis that looms much larger even than the pandemic so make the phone call and make sure your senator is willing to stand up for families and jobs in the future. i shouldn't be too hard for. >> i thought you might have an answer to that one. thank you for leaving us with something we can take away from this conversation and put into place.

i think what i heard today and what i read in the book, the worst thing we can do is nothing. given how big the problem we are up against our, to nothing to feel better or at least easier to reach for so my hope is that today we will leave this conversation with recognizing what we heard from bill, two things can be true at the same time. things are really bad and we are beautiful and power beautiful planet. from the bottom of my heart, thank you for your work and thank you for being with us today. >> you're very good at this. this was great pleasure this morning. ♪♪

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