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[inaudible]. this is a big deal and it actually. [inaudible]. but we've got to do it. we will be discussing this book that you can purchase to buy the book button it and playing itself out in it tells the story of increasing the rise and state and climate change, genetic engineering or ai, and collective - and is sort of union to historic which really thee climate change to back in 1989, two back in the 20s, contributions and now on climate

change group so about this author, is publishing about the instinct and legislating he found the environment to grassroots organization, and is committed his life. and he was the worst that he writes into action and is also human dad, doggy dad, an athlete, and historian and wonderful husband and early missionary and. [inaudible]. my goal is to have a sharper understanding of what we are up against and how powerful we are. so as questions come up, please go to the ask the question box and we will take them at the end

so bill mckibben, are you ready to do this. >> tells about this book and what this book represents more broadly so i think we should start from the beginning and it covers things by a certain level of bravery to literally take on and woman, who passed away a few years before the book was published and you say about your friend and hundred andaw down he and a great activist. she spent her whole life with this and it was a sense of urgency goal that resonated with her and ms a much will hear as

so ever engage in t this great fight and can you tell us about how her work influenced this book. >> absolutely is very kind of you to bring her up and 70 that i think about almost daily and with the started with the daughter of the first generation of of the global of the climate movement and is movement and extension and young people following credit and so on and so forth but when we started, we just started to reach out and try to find people of the world who wanted to take on this height, we saw this 15 years ago and one of the places that we immediately started to discover america is an amazing talent and we are in the most vulnerable places in the earth was a small island especially at the south

pacific. and some disappear before the century is out, is falling into some marshall islands and places like that. and really this began, she took it upon herself to be this organizer in saluting those on thee communities and they call themselves the pacific climate sewarriors and in my head, justa remarkable picture of an organized people on the silence today the traditional work and they were in's australian at the far away in a part of the world and the use them to blockade the harbor which was the biggest

port in the world, more: through their been a place in the planet races that turns on the planet and some of drowned in those island nations and one of the climate fighter these people are in tiny communities and stopping the progress as of the biggest warships in the world and she was remarkable and happily designing there in the south pacific it in the climate warriors. >> you touch a lot there but i think people will eventually get to this but i love this idea about this is hard work and really daunting and that is why having community and having it friends that you look up to and

be enforced with is so important and iis have grateful to learn more about her in your adaptation to her and have a sense of who the book was dedicated to. and to ask you that is an published. >> yes. >> we definitely had an avid that i don't know the way you said it in writing the book but were curious to imagine reading it and you saw what alternate lines and how with "falter", how your previous i think it was six. >> will most, i think the most

serious writers basically spend their lives writing one book, different chapters and evolving and so this is hard of that work in many ways, going back 40 years my life. so when i first started to do this, in my 20s when i lived in nature and didn't know that i would do anything more with it. and i didn't taken myself his neck and mr. anything. over the last 15 years that is change more and i sort of was drawing a line between us and so "falter" brings the story up-to-date in a lot of ways the

new lot of things, not score is the kind of history of activism and how it really is an important tool i call technology really to allow us to deal with just as we needed technology to make electricity in the power the son, needed technology to be able to standno up to those in e field and people like gandhi and the suffragists and doctor king, emily and others whose names we do not know as well, really gave us those in the 20th century and now we need to figure out how to bring them to bear in the 21stth because there under a an awful lot is on the line. andof really truly human

civilization to keep going. and were facing a crisis of the likes of which we've not seen before. in the battle is not over so there's a lot of lot of work to beer done. >> i think in any other year, it would be okay with this essential crisis you laugh, but there's just no way around it and you probably get this question all of the, i think the leaders are being asked to contextualize their work. under the umbrella of 2020, where we experienced the global pandemic, and work racial inequities and it you mentioned

earlier, down in texas i saw climate change march and shut down our stage and it's a tear with us and perhaps more clearly than in previous years and am curious if you get go back into another chapter and talk about this year. and 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 a lot is happened for the confirming of an understanding of people talking and working on these issues for a long time, 2020, was a remarkable year, among other things the hottest year ever recorded history and that is not what we will remember it for

because of the years will pass it and 2020, was the year of the pandemic invention taught us a few thing to remind us of a few things in one of the this reality is real which is i have spent 30 years with various degrees of success to talk about physics being real and that they don't negotiate or compromise that you have to follow rules and it dictates and the pandemic was a reminder that biology works the same way. and it didn't do any good their president told us it would go away or whatever. he was on a charge, the microbe was in charge and we had to stand 6 feet apart andn were mass, then do it because it is

the authority. and of course when you're dealing with physical realities, sometimes speed it is very important factor in our systems are not geared for speed. one of the things historians and you're right about the pandemic, is that in south korea, the first case of coronavirus in the same day of january of 2020. and everybody had a wear a mask, they started to test everybody and fewer people in south korea and of course of the year, died in the course of a day. and not to worry, not a big deal.

and then it flattened the virus curve, then i got completely out of control. in the same substitute for february and march during the pandemic and subdued the last three years in the climate story, and really despite clear scientists, we have ignored and pretended that we do not have to deal with and we didn't flatten the curve and so now we have to do it in the seat printed obscene amount of work in a very short time as what happens but the most important thing this goes directly also with the george floyd is that the pandemic was a reminder of it and solidarity doesn't really matter, am old enough but my political life is largely in the shadow of this and changed our politics in this country and basic understanding was that the markets you know, the government

was a problem, not a solution notices w famous left line or ls on in, all of the speeches was the benign words in the english words are i'm from the government and i am here to help and it was a hobbit it turns out that the english language are behind her house, the hill behind her houses,ou fire. we call on the fire department and the health department and those are reflections of our ability to work together as human beings and effective ways. in essence i think this will be heightened by watching this play out over this summer in this

respect and the rest of the country, the most important thing at the george floyd said, in 2020, when george floyd said i cannot breathe, because being able to breathe pretty much is the definition of being alive a camry because there's a racist cop on your neck. we can't breathe because there is a fire gas fired on the run is always the same road, the african-americans have three times that at the rate of white americans, not because there's any difference in physiology, because of the difference in geography. you can agree to breathe because the golf fires have gotten so terrible that the governor new york state, and in california

and oregon or washington, is urging you to go inside and stay inside and keep the windows shut so the smoke will destroy your lungs and his gotten to ding hothead the highest temperatures ever observed in this planet from the last person california, reached 130 degrees fahrenheit. in the human body able to survive even for a few hours as to what, and he makes it clear that would cover parts of the planet across the tropics and in the middle of the century and thus get climate change under control fast. so in the end, the.

[inaudible]. in a way of dealing with that has to be to draw together effectively whether it be to deal with the justice of the we are not just a collection of individuals that work in society and in civilization. >> into this area, it seems like after this past few years, working towards justice and urgency and i am personally happy to do those things at once and.d. [inaudible]. and met with urgency. and you had a bit of a

back-and-forth with bill gates and there is a lot of knowledge shared there but obviously. [inaudible]. i think that gates offered the learning to for a lack of a better party, climate change, but they also my find is something like the green new deal is too radical and i wonder how we thinke about the role tt both the carbon kind of it on the sidelines how does it play into addressing climate change in a shrinking on the board as you put itng in your book.

>> so that's a really good questions of what the human beings, in these institution change best when the change slowly and gradual and that is just the truth, is less expensive, less dramatic, less divisive so the best way to deal with climate change would to be to deal with it slowly. and with the kind of cultural technological shifts allowing us to not have to make big shifts in a and the best way, absolute panels on my roof and a brother-in-law comes over thanksgiving and 30 years down the road, we are where we need to be to change dramatically in one of the things that i have to repeat myself in doingof is sayg to people, if only you and

listened to me than, years ago, this was the point you were trying to make but they didn't listen for series of reasons were probably no describing but the shorthand is very effective campaign of denial and through our political lives so we have to change veryve very fast becae the basic dynamic eras not our usual political dynamic which is different groupss of people arguing with each other and reaching some kind of compromise and i think the people should get away from the job and at $7 and hours find and that is 15 and then come back and fight again a few years later whatever, that is help

compromise our system works. the problem is that the basic the conflict is we are human beings and the physics and since physics is compromise, that becomes our job. and the scientists have now told us how fast we need to work in 2018, there was a panel on climate change of the international group of scientists thatrg the world leas other analysis of these various challenges. in the latest report said that we had until 2032 before our energy systems cutting emissions in half and then sweep did not meet that target by 2030, the prospects for meeting the targets is just five years ago, arnel.

so that is the deadline, literally, it is a deadline and like it or not, we have to move very fast the good news is it really is good news, that one of the activists, when the last decade, and have dropped the prices of solar powered green power quite literally to the is the cheapest of power on earth, the batteries had they can store it just as fast. and if we want to move fast, we really cannot but that means being willing to do the best interest in the fossil fuel ministering the doesn't want to keep his business model going longer. and people like gates this

sometimes they do not want to engage in intimacy work that is standing up to power. the biggest if i were a billionaire, i might not want to stand up to power either. so you know, will this technological advance 30 or 40 years in theal road, we very wel may need them but only if we do the work in the next ten years of dramatically defining technology that we have now, the solar panels and like and so we keep this alive and we cannot win the and over the next ten years, it will take a lifetime. but we could use this in the next ten years. we go past certain tipping

points and passes to be points, is limited and nobody has plan for freezing the antarctic once it is melted and it may seem. [inaudible]. for just the physical features on earth and we think that is in texas, back in february it was because much of the americans that just remiss now working in very strange ways, the collapse and the and across. [inaudible]. and so we are messing with huge things that we need to move faster. and convenient who are politically comfortable but that is well-suited to us, it is up

to physics and so would best do this. >> and it also relies on this and i think that being toverwhelmed by the problems sometimes and tell us about this part in your work and hands-on this kind of tension between people in the act and the people looking squarely at the reality of the situation it and also the scare associated and connected to a shut down and the intended reference to the fossil fuel industry. in the millions to stop them in

any way and is it inevitable for matter what you do, if you're solving people who don't want to stop at him and some to take it entirely seriously. and they're proving all about global warming and clearly some are corporations by or happening in any way pretty in this kind of is literally a threat. .. is no threat to exxon, it is a gift. we don't precisely know how it will end, only giving them a pass because of their power makes no sense and this land in a few different ways but the part i want patterns exit self defense

mechanism. we need to speak up, do our job, be with our families and do the things that's expected from us. so breaking your pattern ultimately comes down to your mind. and wondering if that 30 plus the work of doing this work if your mind has been changed on something regarding planet change? if someone has reached you in a surprising way and what that looks like? so that maybe we can apply it compassionately we really need to show up and not kind of resign. >> lots of things we learned over time. usually result in hopes of being a little dashed. there was a time of people thought natural gas would be a

good bridge to the future. when it turned out that it a wasn't. for scientific reasons it was more problem and solution. to recalibrate go forward. but sometimes he surprises are really good ones i think an awful lot of us.we will have to completely focused made so difficult there might be no weight short of shutting down but a lot did order to deal with this. because it seemed things like solar power and wind power were sort of frivolous on the edge, not capable of taking up real slack in the system.

with the great human capacity for engineering is served itself and people figured out how to build the stuff that weretu powerful. we don't think to have access to vast amounts of clean energy. the economics to worken itself out and eventually it is free. seventy-five years from i now. i would 75 years to get here, so our job is to force the spring as it were, make the

politics -- make it happen faster when it otherwise would and that is a political challenge. for me, the biggest single change has been the understanding we are still going to have to engage. i engage as a writer and i spent ten or 15 years just writing more books i have assumed incorrectly we are in an argument sleep all day up enough evidence this is the worst problem we've ever faced why would you take action? it took me too long to figure out we won the argument sciencee was clear and pushing back on scientific communities.

it was not about, and the fossil fuel industry had so much power did not matter they were losing out there winning the fight. we live in texas you have some sense of extraordinary power or even a few years ago was still the richest industry on earth. eventually it done are going to need some contraband directly fossil fuel. that is why the history or activism is so interesting. it indicates from time to time you can assemble lots of human

beings with their sheer numbers and creativity and willingness to sacrifice and things adds up to political power as a people doing for the last 12. rationally one should not have to why would anybody have to go to jail have to pay attention to science. you have to figure out how to live in f it. i'm sorry didn't figure it out sooner. [laughter] i think the point that we won the argument but we have not when the fight sounds kinda

similar to doing out the question right but we haven't figured out how to turn into the solution. i think one area you can push back you been at this one longer. one area where the claimant has growth opportunities is around inclusivity. i'm centering the voices of those impacted by climate change and genetic engineering. some wondering from your perspective if you would cosign that sentiment. and if so, where are the areas we could have a better job of doing inclusive and which

invoices do we need to do a better job at centering? >> absolutely. environmentalism is something rich white people did. in the years coming from but not be environmental there were more important things to worry about on, and on, t and o. another thing shifted dramatically in 2009, we did thisis international because of beginners luck. it was a big thing to coordinate 5200 demonstrations andre wondered 81 countries. they said it was enough widespread political action in its history. were also ready to upload

pictures and spread them out again. we rented out times square that normally shows the skins and things and instead were flashing these pictures.nd over ten and 20 minutes around the world, and in watching also took about a half an hour to realize that idea was at the heart of the environmental movement was simply incorrect. police the people he wasan working with poor, black, brown, asian and that's most of the world is. it increased a little bit and people were worried about the

future in these places. maybe more so because the future bears down harder on you. the less you did a sooner and further you wanted to get hit. i think it is entirely good, useful, appropriate there at the absolute forefront of this work. frontline commuters, vulnerable communities have to give a shout out a very large but in this case in many other cases punching way

above their freight. the emergence of a lot of indigenous leadership on this continent. the best activists around. in the pacific in latin america when mr. new zealand and australia. i think that is really important for couple of reasons. we thought we are giving them a worthless land describes the

cold air we need to get up and so there's a lot of practical power their people are utilizing. there is the keystone, access, but also in a deeper sense powerful to see the wisdom on the planet and syncing up. the view from the sweat lodge is very much in sync to me. what they are seeing is the view with the rest of us the conventionalro wisdom that we are just going to keep growing the size of our economies. and we need to think a lot

more deeply. it's been a pleasure to watch those moments and great scientists together on the same stage or in the same jail cell it is powerful moments. i think you've done a really good job i can tell. every centering voices have been doing this work for a long time they're very impacted by this work but have notec always perceived the lipservice for doing it. and so i could not agree more at these folks are at the heart. >> like it to do this newsletter every week for the new yorker. it's on the climate crisis. it's creating a newsletter a

lot of people read. the part i really like is the intersection called passing the mic. i think i've managed to do it now for couple of years there are an extraordinary number of powerful, interesting rich that help us see a lot more interesting that we notice in the past. that is awfully useful. it's going to be very, very close call civilization if we do make it out. and if we do it will be because we make we get all working everybody working in the same direction. we have not been very good about that as society and is one of the things interchange fast. solar power isfa really useful

but the broadt people power is useful. >> definitely want to make sure we hit on to cultivate the next generation of talent really close up this idea for lack of a better word and understanding within the kind of a proposition of a just transition, understanding the folks at work in the coal

mines, on the oil wells are being paid right now more competitively than the renewable opportunities you can point out why that is happening. just taking a step back and looking at a little bit of class within the environment. i think there's ay definitely wayan too threaded. can you help us understand what some of those tensions are and how you have navigated over the years? >> we have people through no fault of their own home grown up in the industry's better now dangerous to the planet. all he knew very well what

they were doing. and i would contemplate occasionally they too might end up in a jail cell at some point. that is not true of that honorable work over the years. they also have to transition away from that we have to figure out a make their lives to going o forward. it's one of these things about the green new deal that young people have proposed and parts of that have made its way renewed by infrastructure. we have to because it is right. and we have to because it is politically necessary too. who holds the power here it's like senator manchin of west virginia who represents more of those coal miners than anybody else.

and he is in a position to make sure they can stay in and retrained to do something else if not they can retire with dignity. that's a perfectly good way it's well within our economic ability to do it and it should be one of the first things i am grateful to be by koc and joe biden who focused precisely on that issue. you.ally helpful thank i see some questions coming in we will hit on one or two more ideas here before we turn it over to the folks with this at home and online with some really interesting. a big part of this book is

about ai. i haven't really asked you any questions about it that's a scary and overwhelming topic that is not as straightforward as climate change. climate change is pretty complex and straightforward. they figure out where to start. whether it's 18 or 19. how to act on climate change. and now at age 30 bring up in your book about ai. >> i think they are in the same category climate change was 30 years ago when i was your age. we can see them on the horizon and its potentially overwhelming threats.

very smart to have a conversation about them right now not 30 years from now. one of the first things we can and should do, at least make sure the forces behind them are not so powerful they can be checked in anyway. which means taking on silicon valley. this power has grown unchecked in recentd years. the same amount of damage already someone you're going to see in your facebook feed. going crazier with every passing day and doing effectively. so, breaking the power when he at of power that are too large

in the hands of exxon or in the hands of mark zuckerberg, it is a good idea to lessen that power quickly before it overwhelm societies ability to cope and possibly that facebook is jump past work can be controlled. i'm glad people in power can ask the questions. i think a moment between really important just to be talking about questions around ai and genetic engineering. and say until we reached a social consensus on these things let's not take steps that take us irrevocably flat past places we can retreat from. they do represent enormous challenges. they really do have the possibility of what it means

to be human. mr. questions we should think first. thinking is what human beings are relatively good at. it sets us apart. it might be a good idea to do it once more. >> in that same section of the book you also talk about flow which is a slightly easier concept to get your arms around. i'll be at virtual talking thanks to a festival about reading and books. i morning if you can tell us a little bit about flow how it might activate it in a way that scrolling. >> i'm trying to write about human beings. one of the things we've really come to understand the

important thinkers and researchers are at their best when they enter into a stable absorption. when they get lost in what their painting paintings, climbing difficult rock faces, whatever it is. everyone knows the feeling of becoming absorbed in the book of losing track of time at some level entering a mentally that is not something that happens with twitter. it is the opposite you are forever h the type of absorption

or so on. that is why it is so unsatisfying at the end of the day. hopefully it's why books will persist that at eight certain points leaving sitting around to read a book gets too hard. on that happens we would've lost something very, very important.bo >> something yesterday about listening i could not agree more. we do access flow and twitter can't know. the last real question for me may have a few minutes to hit on questions that have been

coming in. you open this book, i love this you open this bookoo by saying that does not offer its reader hope. and most of your book and publications and most of your thought leadership would not be advocating for w it. that's what it feels like.

>> the best proof i so get up every morning and work hard if there is not reason to do it i wouldn't do it. i would just go sit on the porch and smoke cigars and drink whiskey and that would be'l fine. bmaybe i'll reach an age when that's all i can do anyway. but for the meantime the fact that we watched over the last ten t or 15 years is this enormous movement gives hope. the physical momentum of the system is so large it's obviously not going to stop climate change stop at short

of cutting civilization off at the knees. but because enough people. for me it's particularly moving around the world organize demonstrations in every country except north korea. it is almost extremely to me too reflect so many people and does seem to me it should be possible for those of us to get it together to doo what we can that is where i'm heat happy to keep going. >> we are coming up on time i'm going to give you one last lightning round question from

the folks. it's one i don't have the answer too. and then we will close out our time together. folks are curious in this country what would be the most significant a legislation to address climate change that we should urge our government to act? >> it is absolutely crucial for biden's to get through congress is not going to solve the problem but far more any piece of legislation that's passed. it is a real start. it's to address the crisis coming out of the pandemic and to protect against the next

crisis. so make the phone, make sure your senator to stand up for jobs in the future should not be too hard. >> i thought you might have an answer to that one. thank you for moving us with an action something we can a take away from this conversation and put into place. i think what i heard today and what i read in the book is the worst thing you can do is nothing. nothing can feel better or at least easier to reach for believe this conversation with will be heard from bill not two things can be true at the same time.

we are a useful and powerful species on a useful and powerful planet. together we got a shot at this. from the bottom of my heart thank you for your work and thank>> you for being with us today. >> right back at you. thank you for all you do and you are very, very good at this. it was a great pleasure this morning. i will look forward to the next time. ♪ ♪ >> weekends on cspan2 are an intellectual feast. on sundays book tv preacher the latest in nonfiction books and authors print funding for cspan2 comes from these television companies and more. including cox. >> cox is committed to providing eligible families access to affordable internet. bridging the pivotal divide one at a time. bringing closer.

>> cox along with these television companies support cspan2 as a public service. >> weekends on cspan2 are an feast. every saturday to find events in american history tv. sunday brings you the latest in nonfiction books and authors. it is television for serious readers. learn, discover, weekends on cspan2. ♪ ♪ >> my name is megan i'm with the book festival. thank you so much for joining us this in conversation about ithe environment. i especially like to think for this session include a donation. iei like to welcome those viewers are joining us on c-span book