tavis: good evening. from los angeles, i am tavis smiley. tonight with earth day less than a week away a conversation with ken caldeira. one of the country's leading authorities on climate change and its consequences. after years of record floods, droughts, and ice cap meltdowns, the u.n. released a report of -- from their panel of experts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions now or face catastrophic consequences in the future. and with easter this sunday we abouturn to philip yancey. his new tome, the question that never goes away. when accidents and tragedy strikes. that conversation right now.

♪ >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. tavis: the extent of the damage to the world's resources and what action governments should take continues to create

acrimony. as auditions argue about what should be done, what is clear to leading scientists is that immediate actions must be taken to preserve the earth's resources. among those sounding the alarm, ken caldeira. from stanford university and one of the leading experts on climate change and our nation and the world. good to have you on this program. i want to make the best use of our time. how bad is the problem and to jump to what we should do. how bad is the situation? >> on hundred million years ago around. dinosaurs were we can recreate the kind of that existed 100 million years ago. this is a radical alteration of the earth. tavis: in what way?

caps will rise -- milk and the sea levels will rise. places that are dry will get drier and there will be a fair amount of economic is location. people -- and we go to ecosystems, things like coral reefs, it has been projected that they will not -- be sustainable within a few decades . forrester threatened throughout the world. today if you think about here in los angeles, the average temperature band is moving north or defeated a. we can maybe move 30 feet a day. if you think of animals and trees there is no way that ecosystems can keep up with this. people who live already in gated communities might be able to survive. if you are in the sahara or africa or and the low-lying pacific islands among people who are already in a marginal

situation, climate change could be the thing that pushes them over the edge. tavis: how do you respond to the argument that the world's worst polluters happened to be the big guys and that the little guys in africa and elsewhere and up suffering because of the damage that we are disproportionately doing to the environment and putting their lives at risk? >> this is a good point. if we look at the projections for crop production, in the northern mid-latitudes them in the northern u.s., canada, russia, the growing season is getting longer and crop yields are likely to go up in these regions. if we look at the tropical countries already today, crop production is limited by heat stress and it will only get hotter and have more problems for growing crops. north same way that the south will deal with the

impact. tavis: we are not at the level that we should. often times i read these stories and accounts of where these countries are screaming loud. at the point of jumping up and down at conferences. those who are causing the problem do more. how would you respond to that, webeing the u.s. area wrecks have done essentially nothing. people will argue about this. we have a little bit on the margins. to really solve this problem we need to transform our energy system into one that does not use the atmosphere as a waste them. if you compress the atmosphere down to the sickness of water, the atmosphere would be 30 feet every tail pipe

and smoke stack is going into 30 feet of water. these concentrations are going up higher than it has been for hundreds of thousands of years. the amount of money that it would cost to transform our energy system is a huge amount of money. we're talking hundreds of billions of dollars a year. than theh less military budget. maybe 1/10 of the health care budget. it is the kind of thing that we do. tavis: to your point before we get to what can be done and what ought to be done, while the debate about this in washington and beyond, what do you make of and i am not naïve and asking this, what do you make of the infighting among the political fighting that happens in washington even though the science is telling us one thing. -- theink fundamental fundamental problem, if we

already had an energy system that did not used the sky is a waste dump and somebody said it can be two percent richer and all we have to do is acidify the oceans and melting ice caps and shift around weather patterns. tavis: this is all about money. >> the problem is to use cleaner energy systems are more expensive. whoever uses it has to bear the cost. the benefits are distributed to everyone around the world and future generations. you're asking people in the here and now to spend money to benefit people around the world. tavis: if they end up in annihilating themselves and the rest of us their business will be bankrupt and nonexistent at some point anyway. >> i might agree with you there. i am not running the show. there is a problem in that people try to get what they can

today locally. and people are not thinking about the big picture and how to make things better for the long term. about what do you think ignoring the warnings, those warnings are not new. think of places like new orleans and katrina. the truth is that we were warned this would happen. we were warned about any number of catastrophes we have had to deal with. it is one thing for tornado to come out of nowhere and that has to do with the work that you do. how do we explain, justify our absolute ignoring of the warnings that keep in given to us. cigarettends me of smoking and cancer. climate science has not fundamentally changed since i was in graduate school in the 1980's. the same way that we knew for decades that cigarette smoking causes cancer. we're still selling cigarettes all around the world.

and it has been clear that climate science if you release greenhouse gases the earth will heat up and it will change the climate in predictable ways. the other thing is that we are talking about numeral two percent of the wealth. the clean air and clean water act together still have to cluster at one percent, maybe half as much as solving the climate problem. if you look at china have these terrible pollution problems. nobody wants to go back to having bad air pollution. areyone is happy we spending that 1% to solve the air pollution problem and if we and solve- spend 2% the problem it seems like an -- a no-brainer. geo-engineering the answer? rex the thing we need to do is talk to the average person which is why this program is excellent. the politicians do what they

need to do to get reelected and not necessarily what is best for the public. and so the public has to make politicians understand that they are going to lose the election if they do not vote the right way on this issue. you bring up this idea of geo-engineering which in some forms it is this last ditch effort that if things get really bad, what could we do in an emergency situation some people have suggested you could reflect some sunlight from earth and cool things down. we saw in 1991 there was a huge volcano in the philippines in the next year there is cooled down despite the fact that greenhouse gases comprising. or not weasically personally but society could basically do what they volcano do and throw air cells into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight. it would cool down the earth that there is all kinds of risks political and environmental. tavis: what the environmental environmentalhe

risks of make it worse trying? >> things would have to get pretty bad before i would he willing to do that. if people were starving -- we talked about how crops might fail in the tropics. if there are widespread famines in the tropics and there is no way to get food to these people, that is the kind of thing where people would think to save hundreds of millions of lives and be we should try something radical. would it beat point too little too late? >> i would look at it as giving morphine to someone with cancer that you are trying to do some to medic relief. you're not into solving the problem. the solution to the problem is transforming our energy system today and transportation systems. we should hope we are not in that kind of deathbed situation that we want to deal with the morphine.

is at the caldeira institution for environmental science. great to have you on. coming up, philip yancey. about -- and his book about the question that never goes away, why? stay with us. philip yancey explained the difficulty of "where isto faith, ?"d when it hurts and the question of faith. the timing of this conversation could not be more propitious for many reasons among not the least of which is what i think a lot

of us are what resting with -- wrestling with every day. what do you say to these families, the families of the persons on the malaysia airlines jet. their bodies have not yet been recovered. that why question, it does not ever go away. in the context of this book and that tragedy you say what to those families to start our conversation question mark >> i wrote this book by started my first career with writing the book and as a result i have been invited to speak on that topic and all sorts of -- in all sorts of wrenching circumstances. virginia tech, columbine, the aurora ater shootings, i have had to face that question so often. actually one of the things that i have learned is that we should speak very slowly. you go back to the story of job

in the bible. here is a guy who everything bad could happen to him and he did not deserve it. his friend showed up and we kind of laugh about these friends now. we call him his comforters. if you read it carefully they were so moved i what happened. they sat down in silence for seven days and seven nights. it is when they opened their mouths that the problem started. one of the things i found is that we want to say for well-intentioned motives for people often cause more harm than good. if you come into quickly with explanations you made you more harm than good. that is advice to us. the family, the friends, help -- fellow human beings. what do you say to them with these hard questions they have. not had questions, -- head

questions, heart questions. >> as a christian, one of the things the church has done wrong looking -- look like the bad guy. he is pulling strings and sticking pins. god is always on the side of the one suffering. not against the sufferer. on the side of the one suffering. if you read the new testament you follow jesus around and see how he handles a widow who has lost her only son or even a roman soldier whose servant felt ill. he respondstures, with comfort and hope and healing. is to bring that kind of comfort and hope and healing, to be alongside and let people know god is not against you. the world is not against you but the world is a place where bad

things happen. it is just true. airlines crash, people do evil things. a lot of bad things happen and it causes a and. tavis: for those who would make a mockery of the god we serve, if he is all knowing and all powerful and then some, white -- why could he not stop this question mark -- stop this? talk about that all night and maybe we will. tavis: we have some time. about there upset situation, god is far more upset. whatever anger or grief we feel about bad things happening, god feels even more. god is not defending this world as the ideal world that he had in mind. he plans to do something about it. as a christian, i believe that. it is important if you feel that kind of anger or grief to get it out. there's a lot of that in the

bible. it is ok to feel that grief. jesus and the large prayer, he taught us to pray that god's will be done, on earth as it is in heaven, clearly that is not happening. when i went to newtown, connecticut, i was called to speak there after the tragedy at sandy hook. this,ened to be reading they call them the new atheists. christopher at hitchens. when a tragedy like that happens, look at "the new york times." to writeot ask them the editorial. they turned to rabbis and priests and pastors. where desperate foreword of hope or comfort. and dawkins was very clear. he said we live in a world of a blind, pitiless universe.

it is a random accident we are here. and when we are gone we are going to disappear. the parents and newtown, connecticut who just lost their six and 10 years old. comfort andword of hope. as a christian i was able with integrity to stand up and say i believe that there is a future. when jesus was here he said i am going away to prepare a place for you. your son who you miss so dearly, they did not just disappear. they did not just vanish. you may be reunited with them someday. they're in the safe hands of a loving god. >> why does the why question never disappear question mark >> because the bad things keep happening. caused,it is human hitler, things going on in syria or i talk about being in japan.

along havingriving coffee and going to work and suddenly this wave comes and boom. everything changes. and to normalt life. be ant to know, there must message. why did happen question mark it is inevitable. you can't not ask that question. >> what do you say to people who are looking for hope in a world where, to my mind at least hopelessness is on the rise -- on the rise? >> i remember hearing a line from fred rogers. remember him? tavis: pbs. hear about something bad in the world and he would be scared. his mother would save bad things

will happen but whenever something bad happens, look for the helpers. and that is one thing that has helped me. i had a conversation one time 2, the rock star. he had been in ethiopia. he was working with aids orphans. he was -- went home, he was so upset because he heard there may be 10 or 15 million aids orphans in africa one day. he is a praying man. he said was prior -- praying and i was angry. i kept saying god, why don't you do something about this? god said who gave you the idea of going to be up yet? i would like you to do something about it. he did not like that answer. i am a rockstar. yeah but you got connections. he started getting on the phone with tony blair and kofi annan and george bush and almost single-handedly ended up raising

$15 billion for aids work in africa. and he said to me, so many of the questions that we throwing god -- we throw at god, they come back like a boomerang. what are you going to do about it? the only way the world will know that i care is you go out and show that i care. god is not interested in intervening every time some bad thing happens. god is interested in getting the message of good news, love, and comfort and hope across to people like us. ordinary people or extraordinary .eople like auto -- bono tavis: i was raised in a church environment, spiritual environment. i know others who were raised the same way. who were taught to not question. he is the supreme being who is not to be questioned. i wrestled with that for a long time in my life. until i read a passage i had read more passions -- more times than i could count.

it hit me in a different way. for those of us who are believers, when jesus was in the garden, he questioned god. he says if it be possible, let this cup pass from me as we approach the easter season. so that when i finally saw that even jesus questioned god, i think it might be ok for me. >> your in good company -- you are in good company. tavis: he has questions about the discomfort and trouble that comes into life. thatat week -- the notion god is not to be questioned. >> i tried to get my -- my best to get out of it. i felt like a rebel. i thought god does not like rebels. i started reading the bible and i -- god seems to have soft spot for the ornery people, the questioners, the doubters. two thirds of the songs go like

this. you're not doing a good job of running this world, especially my world. get to the book of job, there are these three pious friends who have these great theories about why things happen. at the end of the book job is whining and complaining and yelling and arguing. at the end god says i do not want to hear from those friends unless you prey on their behalf. you are my hero. because you were honest trade you told me exactly how you felt and yet in them midst of it you still hung on. you did not give up. believe god honors us by being as honest as we possibly can and will have doubts. we all have struggles. it would be wrong to try and pretend that we do not. as you say, even the son of god himself voiced those questions. tavis: enclosing how do you suggest that -- in closing, how do you suggest that we navigate the question that in our lives,

this question will never go away. what is your best advice to how do we step to this question why that we will have over and over again? >> if you start looking backwards, what are the causes, what happened, you will go crazy. you're not going to find an answer that way. i try to look forwards. now that it has happened, can anything good come out of it? god is the great recycler. he takes the bad stuff and turns it into good and i think that is true of any bad thing that someone goes through. god can use it for good. is "thehe book question that never goes away." thanks for joining us. as always, keep the faith. >> tavis, congratulations on

getting a star on the walk of fame. so proud of you. so well-deserved. maybe i can go and polish your start everyone sit a while. you rock. >> i can attest that it is fun in hollywood.n congratulations on your star on the hollywood walk of fame. tavis, what a wonderful honor. congratulations on getting your star on the hollywood walk of fame. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. tavis: hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me next time for a conversation with the economist joseph stiglitz and rufus wainwright. that is next time. we will see you then. ♪

>> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> be more. pbs.

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