the website with lots of reports obviously a nonprofit of think tanks it's a think tanks that is involved with supporters. take a look i would appreciate it so thank you all for watching and listening my friend of the braves scientist. manage cyberprivacy and privacy reforms. here is bill mckibben. >> i am an investment specialist focusing on the impact environmental and social factors has support but before that i was an actress and is an activist is the

author we get to speak to today where bill is a big deal i assume itt. makes me cringe but we have to do it. bills book we will be discussing this morning as the human gene began to play itself out the increasingly rising space of genetic engineering and in town they threat and the collective and 30 years later to the end of nature which is the worst first book on climate change ever so as a prolific contribution to the new yorker

and now the voice on climate change. so what i personally admire those in the safety of his home in vermont he founded the grassroots organization 350.org and has committed his lifeng putting what he reads and writes into action with this powerhouse sagittarius, dog dad and a distinguished scholar and a husband a really good hand for our conversation so my goal is to have a sharper understanding what we are up against but also we are so powerful as a collective force so as we get into the discussion with the question box we wereai hit on them in the

end. so i think we are ready to get going. >> it's great to be here with you at the very kind introduction thank you for your activism. >> you make it easy. so excited to talk not just about this book but what it represents more broadly. we have to start from the beging broadly, and the topics, a certain level of bravery to take on. a woman who passed away, and have it written down here. they have more moral sports, spent her whole life engaged in the community, that spoke through her.

i miss that voice so much. we are here it's echo as long as we are engaged in this great fight. can you tell us about freddy and how her work influenced this book? >> absolutely. she is someone i think about almost daily. when we started 350.org, the first intimidation of it, now there's lots of help, the sunrise movement, extinction, rebellion and all the wonderful young people and so on and so forth. when we started we were reaching out around the world to find people who wanted to take on this flight, apparently hopeless. one of the places we started discovering amazing allies, one

of the most vulnerable places in new york, the small islands especially in the south pacific. that may well disappear before this century is out. the marshall islands, one of the places like that. it is phrygian, took it upon herself to be an organizer of so many of those communities. they call themselves pacific climate warriors. i have in my head a remarkable picture of organized people on each of these islands building a traditional community and australia is not that far away and they used them for data

blockade newcastle, the biggest coal port in the world, more call goes through than any other place on the planet and the call as it is burned raises the temperature, melting the ice caps that drown these island nations. the picture, one of the great iconic images, these people led by car ready in tiny canoes stopping the progress of the biggest warships in the world. she was remarkable and lives on in the south pacific, climate warriors are doing great work. >> you touched on a lot >> he touched on a lot there we will get to eventually but i love this idea that so this is hard work and it can be a real daunting site and that's why having community and

friends that you look up to is so important i am grateful to have learned more about through your dedication to her. now we have a sense of who the book is dedicated to come i think published april 2019. a few things have happened since then and we can head on that but evenn before that come i don't know when you started writing the book but who do you imagine reading it? and who use saw those outlines and putting it into action from your previous 16 books?

>> i think most serious writers spend their lives writing one book or different chapters so this is part and parcel. so in my twenties i never knew i would do anything more i didn't think off myself as an activist or anything over the last 15 years that has changed so bringing the story up-to-date so it is a potent

tool. so just have a technology like a solar panel to make electricity benignly. but then it is up to the mighty in the few. now we need to figure out bringing to their on the 21st.

including the ability of human civilizations to keep going. not to but to find of a point on it. so there is a lot of work to be done. >> i think in any other year it would be okay to avoid talking about the existential crisis. but the last 12 months there is no way around it. you probably get this question on the time to all leaders are asked to contextualize their work under the umbrella that is 2022 experience global pandemic and the racial reckoning and as i mentioned

earlier and texas it's all climate change and to shut down our state. it is here with us. perhaps more than in previous years but i'm curious if you can go back to look at another chapter. so what about this year has changed about the content of this book? and working on these issues for a long time. 2020 was a remarkable year also the hardest year ever recorded.

but that's not what we will remember it for. the 2020 was the year of the pandemic so that physical reality is real so i spent 30 years with varying degrees of success of those with chemistry and science if they don't negotiator compromise their dictates and the pandemic was a reminder that the president told us it would all go away or whatever he wasn't in charge and stands 6 feet apart and wear a mask

it is the authority. but one of the corollaries with the physical reality sometimes speed is a very important factor our systems are not geared for speed i think probably one of the things historians will note when writing about the pandemic is the us and south korea one —- has the same day january 2020 and the south koreans went right to work they started testing everybody so they avoided the whole thing that fewer people died in south korea than in the course of a day. because what did our president do? not to worry. not a big deal therefore we

were unable to flatten the virus curb before things got out of control. the same substitute for february and march substitute the last 30 years despite clear warnings and then pretending it would go away we would have to deal with it we did not flatten the curve that's what happens when you get behind it. >> that may be the most important thing about george floyd but the pandemic is a reminder and i am old enough my political life was spent in the shadow of ronald reagan who changed our politics and his basicre understanding the

markets solve all problems and that government was a problem not a solution so the nine scariest words in the language i'm from the government and i'm here to help. we ran out of ventilators but these are not problems that you call on market forces with the fire department and the hospitals that is a reflection of our ability to work together as human beings so that senses only heightened

and then the most important thing that george floyd from 2020 is that he said he is dying. i can't breathe. that is pretty much the definition of in a live human being. that's because there's a racist cop on your neck if you can't breathe the activist would point them out because there's a gas-fired power plant down the road it's always the samepl road african-americans are three times the asthma rate of white americans not because of physiology but the difference of geography. you can't breathe because the wildfires have gotten so

terrible in california or arrogant one —- oregon and then they tape window shut because that makes in to your lungs and then you can't breeze the all-time record highest a observed with 130 degrees fahrenheit as part of the upper limit the body's ability to survive so wide swath of the planet by the middle of the century unless we get climate change under control. so all of this is a stark

reminder and not in her own master of how to draw together with those questions around justice so not just individuals butua civilization. >> i think that is well put and you bring up two areas but it sounds like that is exclusivity and working towards justice. so that's easier.

so there is a lot of shared knowledge there and for a lack of a better word to be moderate don't like climate change believe in climate change but they also may find the green new deal and radical i wonder how you think about the role of neutrality of where you stand on the sidelines? how does that play into addressing climate change and the shrinking of the board?

>> human beings and human institutions change slowly and gradual. it is less expensive and less traumatic and less divisive so the best way to deal with climate change is with the cultural and technological shift to not have to make big ships i've got solar panels on my roof those that come over on thanksgiving and sees them then 30 years down the road one of the things i have to

keep myself from doing is to say to people if only you listen to me when? but he didn't listen for a series of reasons so the shorthand is the fossil fuel industry and what paralyzed our political life so now we have to change very very fast because the basic dynamic is not the usual political dynamic to reach some kind of a compromise think people should get a good wage seven dollars an hour is fine maybe and 15 then come back and fight it out there's no

compromise in a system or how it works but the basic problem is with physics since that is compromised it becomes our job and science doesn't tell us how fast we need to work and in 2018 climate change of the international group of scientists and their analysis with the greatest challenge publish the latest report that we haven'tt held 2032 the energy systems cutting emissions inhofe if we did not meet that target by 2030, then the, prospects for meeting the target we set in paris just

five years ago are now. so that is the deadline. literally a deadline and invasive that, like it or not we have to n move very fast so the good news is that along with all the actors the engineers have done their job over the last decade so it is the order of magnitude is so if you want to a fast but that means billing being willing to grapple. and to keep the business model going and then to engage in

that messy work as a multibillionaire i don't want to stand up to power so all his technological fights are great but only if we do the work in the next ten years dramatically to deploy the technology we have now so now that we keep the fight to life. but we could lose the climate fight we can't do what we need

to do but we go past the tipping points nobody has a plan to refreeze the north once it is noted the arctic may seem like a long ways away. it's on the biggest physical features on earth we think texas froze in february because so much of the arctic has melted that the jet stream now works in very strange ways now to collapse in the polar vortex of what should be over the arctic's we are messing with huge forces and to move faster than any of us find what we are politically comfortable but it's not up to

us. >> it's not up to us so i think i'm not alone in feeling overwhelmed by the problem sometimes my top two favorite lines in your book the attention between needing people to ask mx squarely at the reality ofop the situation and to be associated and connectedth to it so in reference to the fossil fuel industry let them do what they

want and nobody can stop them in any way. >> w insisting that no matter what you do the response of people who don't want to be bothered to stop it so when investigative reporters say that they know all about level one —- global warming a set of course they did. or nothing willhe ever happen to them anyway is no threat to the axon of the world. it's a gift they don't know how it will end just that it gives them a pass so this millions for me in a few different ways but what i want to pull out is the patterns and how cynicism can be a

self-defense mechanism so to wake up and be with their families and do the things. >> so breaking a pattern comes down to changing mind so in your 30 plus years if your mind has been changed if somebody has reached you in a surprising way and what that looks like so apply compassionately a lot of things to learn over time. there was a time they thought it would be a bridge to the

future and it turned out it wasn't for the variety of scientific reasons sometimes those surprises are good ones. an awful lot of us thought we have to completely to make it so difficult to shut down an awful lot in order to deal with this. because because it's frivolous to not take up and then people

figure how to build this stuff the vast amounts of clean energy and then to eventually because it is free. so 75 years from now that's of the road look like. so our job now is to make the

politics and that's a politicall challenge so i began as a writer and spent ten or 15 years after writing and of nature but more books and giving talks. so why wouldn't they so then you won the argument science is entirely clear. and in the scientific

community so we're just losing the fight that's what it usually about. and the fossil fuel industry so you live in texas. and then countervailing power. so that's why the history of activism.

with willingness to sacrifice to add up to political power and irrational one really shouldn't have to do this in over a dozen times so why should anybody have to go to jail and sorry i didn't figure that out sooner. >> and we have won the argument but wee haven't won the fight.

but we haven't figured out how to turn it into a solution and one area and that growth opportunities is what exclusivity. what is most impacted by climate change or ai or genetic engineering. so for example i'm wondering from your perspective if you cosign that sentiment we need

to do be a better job of being inclusive quick. >> i thank you are right i was told environmentalism is what white people did and if you knew you next meal came from you are not the environmentalist but for me to understand so dramatically. and then it turns into beginners luck cnn said is the most widespread political action so we asked people to

upload it on —- upload pictures of and then to start them out again but instead they were flashing these pictures. they were coming in ten or 20 a minute from around the world and one after the other. it took me about half an hour to realize that idea was affluent. and it is simply incorrect. that's what most of the world is. so those that are worried

about the future in places or more so. and those that are part of the forefront of this of the frontline communities that have been within the vanguard of activism in the recent years and then to give a particular shout out to indigenous people but a very large percentage of the world's population. but in this case and many

other cases punching way above their weight. those i've been working with four years and in the pacific and latin america and regional communities and i think that's important for a couple of reasons. so to exile people we thought we were giving them worthless land but it sits on top of a

lot of hydrocarbons so there's a lot of practical power there. so to those on the planet and those in the satellite in the supercomputer so what they say the view of the conventional wisdom to grow the size of our economies.

and withse our very ancient traditions and then elders from native communities and those are powerful moments. >> i thank you have done a really good job those that have been doing this work for a long time and the lip service for doing it for these that are at the heart. >> i can do this newsletter every week for the new yorker on the climate crisis and the

part i really like and i think i have managed to do it now for a couple of years with any other white guys there are an extraordinary number of powerful andnd interesting voices and that what we noticed in the past. >> it will be a very close call but if we do make it out and if we do we can get all voice is working in the same direction and it's one of the things that better change fast

solar power is useful but the broad people power. >> i want to make sure that we hit on specifically with your transition and the role that you play now so for leaders to think about a generation of talent to help uplift that the older generation helped me that with this idea of exclusivity that for lack of a better word that is understanding what the proposition to adjust transition to just

understanding and then you can point fingers at why that is happening so it seems to me then the environmental movement can you help us to understand. >> andrew no fault of the realm with industries that are dangerous of the planet.

and that's different from oil executives. but that's not true and then to transition away from the and it's one of the best things that young people have proposed and that make its way to the not new biden infrastructure. and then who holds the power here like senator manchin in west virginia.

so he is in a position that if they are young they can retrain somebody else that's a perfectly good bargain to make. that fits well within our economic ability to do it and it should be one of the first things. so we have one or two more ideas before we turn it over to the folks that are with us at home and outlined - - and online. but a big part of this book is

about ai. i haven't asked to any questions about it because as you point out, that is an overwhelming topic is not as straightforward as c climate change that's pretty complex and 18 or 19 and how to act so you tell me how to act at 830 they are in the same category so that is we can see them on the horizon as potentially and then one of

the first things that we can and should do that the forces behind them not so powerful and then taking on silicon valley. and with the algorithms and devoted to making you angrier increase your every passing day. so when weth get concentrations of power and then before it

overwhelms society's ability but facebook has already to be controlled but i'm glad to see the people in power ask the importants questions so i think it's important just to be talking about questions around ain saying an enormous challenge with the possibility

of reordering what it means to be human and those that we should think first that is what human beings are theoretically good at. >>is you also talk about flow that scrolling so one of the things that we come to

understand that human beings are at their best everybody knows the feeling and that's not something that happens with twitter. it is the opposite you are jarred every two seconds. whenever that comes through

and never to escape and that's why it's so unsatisfying. so at a certain point it gets so attenuated. and then that something very important. but that is if you write twitter you are right.

so you opened this book by saying an author. and that hope is motivating but there is still some wiggle room. na do feel that come through in most of your publications. if it wasn't there he wouldn't be so we let leslie advocating for it. so what does hope feel like?

and the ability to be hopeful there's not reason to do it and i wouldn't do it. so i would just sit on the porch and smoke cigars. then maybe i will reach an age that's all i can do anyway. but in the meantime. the fact that we watch the last ten or 15 years and has given me in norma's hope we will make a fight out of this.

but if we can then enough people but for me it's particularly since i work all over the world we organize demonstrations in every country except north korea. that those places that have literally done nothing. and that being the case it should be possible for those living on —- for those of us living in the belly of the beast. so that's why i'm happy to going. so i will give you one last question f.

and then we will close out our time together. what is the most significant legislation to urge our government to enact? it's crucial to get biden's infrastructure bill through congress. and far more in the last 30 years moderate straightforward way so make a phone call to

make sure your senator will stand up for families and jobs in the future. that should not be t too hard. >> i thought you have an answer to that thank you for leaving us with an action and something you can take away from this conversation and put into place. so the worst thing you can do is nothing. problems we're up against are, doing nothing can feel better or at least is easier to reach for. so, my hope is that today we'll leave this conversation with recognizing what we heard from bill really that two things can be true at the same time, that things are really bad and that we are a beautiful and powerful

species on a beautiful and powerful planet and together we have a shot at this. so, bill, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for your, and thank you for being with us today. >> guest: katherine, back at you. thank you for all you do and you're very good at this. this was a great pleasure this morning,