i'm chris hayes and this is an nbc special politics for power. >> if we don't act soon our children and grandchildren will have to pay the price. >> professor hall, our economy is as every bit as fragile as the environment. perhaps you should keep that in mind before making sensationalist claims. >> well the last chunk of ice

that broke off was about the size of rhode island. some people might call that sensational. >> what once saw science fiction "the day after tomorrow "is now closer to reality. dangerous climate change plays out. we will show that it is happening and the root of the the dependence of fossil fuels. the story of our oil use is fascinating. where we get it, what type we use and how much we use and that needs to change. >> the evidence is overwhelming. 2012 with the hottest year on record in the continental united states. across the midwest and texas, crops shriveled. the iditarod was cancelled. the reason, not enough snow.

ice is melting and the pat certain clear, wormest records worldwide since 19 98 and global temperatures are the highest in 10,000 years. >> if we continue business as usual we will see temperatures rise that we haven't seen in millions and millions of years. it is just across the board, something civilization never today deal with before. >> october 2012, superstorm sandy barrels into the east coast from the unusually warm waters of the north atlantic. in its wake, at least 147 dead and $65 billion in damage. >> it's like, one minute your life is fine. 10 minutes later, you lost everything. >> new york's governor andrew cuomo has little doubt what's behind the devastation. >> climate change, extreme weather, call it what you will, it is undeniable. >> bloomberg business week

magazine puts it even more bluntly. across the globe a disturbing statistics. carbon is up 48% since 1992. we heard it many times before but it bears repeating because some people still don't get it. when coal, oil and natural gas are burned to create energy, carbon dioxide and other gasses are pumped into the air. they don't dissipate. they are trapped. if the heat stay is in, the planet gets warmer. if the planet gets warmer, ice cap melts. if ice caps melt they can no longer absorb the suns rayes. then there are storms like sandy. >> on the west coast you have fires bb draughts, and on the east coast you have storms. >> yet according to a recent gallup poll only one-third of mer cans are greatly worried about climate change. what can possibly explain this

apathy when 99.8% of scientific study support the cause of global warming. some is because of so-called experts. count. >> if you do nothing, about this, at all, for the next 23 years, the worset that will happen using the u.n.'s own estimate, is a one fairen height degree warming. which will be largely harmless and beneficial. >> i think it is important for people to realize that climate change to now has nothing to do with science p. these people are for hire. they don't have any real scientific credentials. >> not surprisingly, some funding comes from the very industry with the most to lose, fossil fuel companies. one of the larger financial

backers of the climate denial movement was exxonmobil. its annual reports show from 1998 to 2007 exxonmobil gave millions to organizations that cast out the scientific validity of climate change. >> as long as climate change is not true we can keep selling coal, natural gas and oil. so remove the cause and your business is preserved. >> in 2008 exxonmobil said they would divert attention from the important discussion on how the world will secure will energy required for economic growth in an environmentally responsible man per. there remain numerous deep-pocketed millionaires still supporting climate change denial. >> it is disheartening as climate change scientist to hear them disrupt the science and it reminds me of what happened

during tobacco. >> in 1994 tobacco executives testified before congress that they believe their product was not addictive despite all of the scientific research proving the opposite. >> i don't believe that nicotine or our products are addictive. >> i believe nicotine is not addictive. >> i believe that nicotine is not addictive. >> the cigarette industry created 50 years of pseudoscience to convince legislators, regulators and smokers that smoking was not harmful. is the fossil fuel now paying to convince policy makers that there is no climate change? of course they are. >> there is a window of time we need to act. once you pass that window, if emissions keep going up, you lose the arctic. i hope people think about how they will protect their homes, families, kids and get down to business, because we don't have that much time. >>

. >> we are now on the leading edge of climate change with more to come. with me is dr. michael oppenheimer, veteran of climate wars. he is now a professor of geo sciences at princeton university. in 007 he was part of a group of scientists that won the nobel peace price for their work on climate control. thank you for being here. >> thank you for having me. >> if we say, we are heading to 2 degrees, 3 degrees, 4 degrees of warming. if i sit in the room and change the thermostat from 68 to 7 2, i take off my jacket, and that's not a huge amount. >> what hurts us and makes us vulnerable to climate is not the average, it is. treems and the extremes that change a lot when the average just changees a little. so even if earth only warns

about 5 degrees fahrenheit, which is the average prediction for this sent century, we will see sea level rising by the amount of 2, 3, 4 feet. on a typical east coach beach that takes away 200, 300, 400 feet of beach horizontally inland. we are likely to see increase in the intensity of frequency of heat waves. you have to remember, heat waves kill. we had one in europe a few years ago that killed about 40,000 people. we've had heat waves in the united states that kill a thousand people or more. so small changes in that average create huge headaches for us. >> so the extreme weather events that are the signal to us, about what's happening and the thing to prepare for in the future. are we already seeing that now? >> we are already seeing some changes in the extremes that we can tie to global warming. there's already more heat waves. there's already an intensification of heavy

precipitation event, kind of things that cause intense flooding. there is a rise in sea level. the critical point is, we are not prepared for any of this. hurricane sandy, or hurricane katrina, gave us examples of how well we are prepared or in these cases, unprepared to deal with these extreme events. we are falling behind. it is getting worse all the time. as long as we let the world warm, we are always playing catch up ball and we're never going to be good enough at it. >> you have had to have the experience of being a scientist battling people on the other side who are often not scientists. what has the experience been like and what has the effect of this climate been on how the u.s. policy apparatus and government deals with the issue? >> the denialists have been given a big megaphone by private interest groups that want to continue the use of fossil

fuels, continue society, heading surging in the wrong direction ehe is not blly and through that meg why phone, i think they confused the public. they tossed up a lot of dust, basically. i have to believe the basic truth outs in the long-term. the trouble is we dent have forever. the emission of gasses w, once in the atmosphere, they stay there for hundreds of years. so the situation is irreversible. we can't wait for the dust to settle. action is to begin now. on the positive side, governments are painfully slowly starting it make moves in the right direction. >> dr. michael oppenheimer, thank you so much. up next, an examination of mer can's oil addiction and where it is so darn hard to kick the carbon habit. k of the house?

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it's hard to believe but just 50 years ago an oil company ran an ad actually boasting that each day it sold enough energy

to melt 7 million fon tons of glaciers. today those glaciers and ice no longer represent ice but the coal mine change. what is keeping us from taking necessary action to solve it? it turns out the politics of power is really about the politics of fossil fuels. in the united states, 80 percent of our energy comes from fossil fuels. coal, oil, natural gas. which one do we use the most in oil. in 2012 we used almost 7 billion barrels of toil fuel nearly all of our transportation. provide half of our industrial energy needs. and make chemicals plastics and synthetic materials found in nearly everything we have today. u.s. is a top oil consumer and much is imported often from volatile nations. >> we are connected to a global oil market when something goes

hay wire in the middle east consumers feel that at the pum pump. that draws us into conflicts around the world. >> the last few years we have begun to wean ourselves off foreign oil. oil imports are down from 60% to less than 45%. part of the reason a technological break through that makes it possible to get oil from shell rock right in our own backyard. >> up until relatively recently it was untapable. judged to be impossible to get oil out of this rock. a few people add vision where if we can get it it out, we will find way. american ingenuity came to bear. >> drilling down thousands of feet into the tough shale layer. it goes vertical then horizontal into the rock, sometimes as far as a mile. then under high pressure water, chemicals and sand are pump need

the line, forcing fractures then releasing oil pumped to the service. this is called hydraulic fracturing. or more commonly known as fracking. and is a common modern day oil rush. but there is something else lock had up in the shale, natural gas. natural gas is only half as much co2 as coal so it is a cleaner fossil fuel. in just over a decade u.s. production of shell gas increased 12 times. meanwhile u.s. carbon emissions are at their lowest level since 1994. >> we've had a pretty significant reduction in carbon dioxide from fuel burning and it is become of the boom in natural gas which is cheaper than coal so companies running power plant say why are we burning coal when we can burn natural gas. >> some see the goods as a bridge fuel to get us where we need to go, toward renewable sources of energy such as sun,

wind and water. >> that implies we have time to walk the bridge. that implies climate change is not yet upon us but it is upon us and we have to worry about it today. >> there are huge con kwns and disintersentives. an ind truss by with trillions of investment from fossil fuel companies. haen while companies predict fossel fuel use will grow quite a bit, not diminish, over the next 15 years, join meg is steve call, author of "private empire, ex yn mobile and american power." ex kwon mobile and oil companies look out and do planning, one of the great things about your book is concept of how far out they strategically plan. it she markable. almost no institution in the world that plans this far out as an oil company. what do they say in 2030 and 2040? >> they see ricing consumption of fossil fuels, driven mainly outside the united states emerging middle class, china,

india, large growing economies not likely to leapfrog past fossil fuels in order to fuel their growth. in the united states they say con sukss oil, maybe a small declan. some shift to natural gas. rapid growth but not changing the mix in a way that would rapidly agrees climate change. >> they are long fossil fuels. >> and especially long natural gas. >> what do the oil company expert for example whab do they think of the climate signs and hu do they see that affecting their business? >> for a long time they were not persuaded it would challenge their business app. >> as the evidence has become

clearer that the worse changes were in evidence and there is a evidence of a shift in problem but managing through regular ligs and taxation that won't go to the heart of their own investment in oil and gas. it is part of the reason they are investing in oil and gas because they resume that eventually the collective wisdom of the united states will impose a price on cab carbon as response to the result of climate change and once you start to price carbon, then goal which is already unfavorable for a number of reasons will become more so. >> one of the biggest challenges we face is just the sheer cost and diffusion of fossil fuel infrastructure. what is the path forward for that? we can't leave that behind at one level but we have to transition quite a bit. >> right. a profound observation and the heart of the problem. the first thing you have to do

is to break it into two chunks. first electricity generation which is the infrastructure and investment, capital stock as economists say, then transportation. the investments that allow us to get into our cars and drive. two different but related problems. the electric generation can be met by alternative fuels, clean fuels now, technologies that we have. solar wind and hydraulics as well as you know, geo thermal and more cutting edge technologies. that is a question of incentives, public policy, not a question of fek no logical break through and investment stock is not as big of an impedement. look at europe was these are made rapidly in the electricity sector. transportation is harder. all those gas stations. all those roads. all those garages that presume a vehicle fuelled in a certain way to transition from oil-based

transportation economy to even a natural gas base. never behind battery-driven economy is a much more expensive proposition. >> right. do oil companies worry about challenges coming from technology and some unexpected? >> they do. exxonmobil studies the problem systemat systematically. they aren't afraid of most of the alternatives that are on the horizon. but they do worry a little bit about breakthroughs and battery technology because great batteries could change the way we drive and make oil much less relevant as transportation fuel. >> thank you steven call. up next is oil and its kissing cousin natural gas here to stay in we'll have answers when we return.

the world's first nuclear ship is launched in camden new jersey, ns for nuclear ship. an atomic reactor will go three years before refueling. the savannah will be a floating showcase for nuclear energy.

>> u.s. savannah was the first nuclear ocean liner and part of eisenhower's atoms for peace initiative, effort to replace fossil fuel with nuclear power. it didn't work out so well and i suspect fracking won't either. what do we do in tush our famous american ingenuity towards low-cost fuels. and lose the determination and resolve that gave us fracking. that is where our future lies, renewables. >> they're will holy grail of green clean carbon energy. sun, wind and water. so-called renewables because their supply is endless. similar to fossil fuels in that exception from hydro, they original from the sun, but it doesn't take millions years for their energy to fossilize. it is a ray of sunshine, gust of

wibd or rain drop. >> the 8 track economy, right? the fuels of the past, they pollute, they are not even as cheap any more. and then there's the ipod economy, what's going on in energy. there's wind, solar. those are the technologies of the future. >> how do we get from here, federal government shelling out tens of billions a year in fossil fuel subsidies, to there a cleaner planet with fewer renewables and fossil fuels. one place to look is across the ocean. we might start by taking a page out of the european play book. spain gets half ofity energy from wind and solar. denmark nearly 30% from wind. today germany gets nearly one-fifth of its energy from renewables and has ambitious plans to up that by 30% to 2020 and a hundred percent by 2050. >> if you look at germany, look at china, they have a larger percentage of renewables. they are creating more jobs than

the united states. the united states is be on the cutting edge at all. >> there is some good news come og ut of the u.s. iowa gets nearly a quarter of electricity from wind. in california's hmojave desert, the world's largest solar plant is nearing completion. >> this is concentrated solar power. >> $2.2 billion ivan positive solar electric generating system will create 200 new jobs and power up to 140,000 homes and keep millions of tons and co2 and other pollutant from entering the atmosphere. to understand how the solar power towers work, think of the sadistic experiment some kids do using a magnifying class and sun to incinerate an aunt. >> sun light shines down on to mirrors. which we refer to as heelo stats. these mirrors then reflect that sun light on to that steam generator and that's where the steam generator generates

electricity and that electricity flows into a transmission line and into the power grid. >> the current u.s. power grid in some places half a century old is engineered to transmit energy only short distances. from the fossil fuel hydroor nuclear power plant to nearby user. but for renewables, we need a smart grid that moves the power from where it's made in regions with lots of sunshine and wind to users all over the country without losing substantial power via transmission lines. >> most of us can't even fathom technological innovation it would take to transmit zero carbon, long distances but we aren't notoriously bad at predicting future technologies. a hundred years ago who could predict telephone, internet or fracking untold millions of barrels of gas out of rocks. >> what if some day the solar panel was the side of a window

and that generates what you need for your home. maybe it doesn't do it 24 hours a day but you can restore energy. send it back into the smart grid. so when you didn't need energy you could send it to other people. when they had excess energy, you could use theirs. >> we are dealing with new enovations right around the corner that we can't even imagine right now. but some young student will unleash that. we just lack the political will. the world can't wait. it is too urgent a problem. >> so, what would a green carbonless energy economy look like and what would the power sources be comprised of? joining me is a person who can answer those questions and has spent his career using his entrepreneurial skills and help a green renewable. he started his company and sold it for a few dollars.

he now runs his own green consulting firm. this is a cash onless energy source. it is not considered renewable and there is tremendous civil war inside the big green tent of environmentalists about the future of nuclear. what is the future of nuclear? >> it is dim. because from my perspective, i have moved billions of dollars into projects. right? that's my religion. right? and so, when citibank says we are going to short every single stock of every single company working on nuclear, than i'm not working on nuclear. that's what citibank said. >> is that just because the risk, risk is so large of something catastrophic that it is just difficult to price? >> no, it is just not cost effective today. if you lock at the french company, in inland, they've been trying to build a nuclear plant the last six years. we are four years behind

schedule and two and half times over budget and it is not done yet. >> you worked for bp solar. we have been talking a lot about fossil fuel companies. how committed are fossil fuel companies to renewables. can reimagine a transmission from where they are now to renewable can companies. >> bp announced they are sheltering their system and selling off wind mills from around the world, as has shell. ultimately they are doubling down on 20th century technologies they are not interested in the 21st century. >> how much does the grid have to change in order for us to get to where we want to be in terms of how much of our power is coming from things like solar and wind? >> now in my world, that the big fight. right? because there are wind farms. they are measuring in hundreds of megawatts who needs transmission to shift power to load centers like cities. where as in the solar industry, the vast majority of our panels

are installed in hundred thousand projects at a time. hundred thousand dollar projects at a time doing $87 billion of work last year. that's a lot of hundred thousand dollar projects on the rooftops of wal-mart. on the rooftops of your relatives. commercial buildings. on churches. on schools where they are used. that's the big fight is that transmission is fantastic if you can build it. but there's a lot of land owners who don't want a transmission line to go through their land and many of the land owners have enough money to take projects and delay them through the courts. so that's where people are moving to distributed generation away from central generation. >> it is a very exiting time to be in solar. what is going on in the solar market? >> solar is fundamentally a semi conductor, right? the same way we talked about moores law. same way we talked about innovation in silicon valley. the same benefit in r & d space.

problem is that we weren't spending enough money on capturing the research and development benefits until 2006 when germany was turning on the after burners for their program. japan was doing the same, et cetera. so now, seven years later all of that r & d has come to fruition and solar is 70, 80% cheaper than in 2006. >> thank you so much. when we come back, how partisan politics are getting in the way while washington fiddles around as seas rise. yeah. [ male announcer ] ...office space. yes, we're loving this communal seating. it's great. [ male announcer ] the best thing to share? a data plan. at&t mobile share for business. one bucket of data for everyone on the plan, unlimited talk and text on smart phones. now, everyone's in the spirit of sharing. hey, can i borrow your boat this weekend? no. [ male announcer ] share more. save more. at&t mobile share for business. ♪

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fire down, it is only 7% contained. now back to the power of politic with chris hayes. for too long our national leaders have spent too much time talking about addressing our fossil fuel addiction and too little time doing something about it. that is until president obama decided it finally take action in a land fall speech in climate change. >> i'm announcing a new national climate action plan and i'm here to enlist your generation's help in keeping the united states of america a leader. a global leader in the fight against climate change. >> from the great depression to fighting fascism to the space race, the solutions and money to tackle our greatest challenges have often come from one place, washington. so too must a solution for climate change. >> without government support and yes, funding of industry and

new technologies, american economy as we know it wouldn't exist. federal land grants helped build railroads in the 19th century. >> you wouldn't have a personal computer if it wasn't for the sprays program and missile program. they shrank computers to put them into guidance systems on missiles. it wasn't something, someone is like gee, it would be nice to have a computer on my lap. that happened later wh he geniuses like steve jobs turned it into . but the government turned it into a policy. >> listen to this, it worked before. if you are of a certain age you may remember the panic over a growing hole in the ozone later and another catastrophe known as acid rain. the ozone crisis was mitigated by a world wide band on cloero foro carbons which one powered

aerosol spray cans. acid rain was dealt with in north america by cap and trade which enabled older power plants to buy newer cleaner plants with a cap on how much they could pollute. >> the good news with experience with acid rain and ozone is we found problems, identified solution is an achieved big results. >> so why want we reply gate those successes with the daunting change of chilimate change. the answer is in washington. >> catastrophic global warming is a hoax. >> i would point out if you're a believer in the bible, one would have to say the great flood is an example of climate change. that certainly wasn't because mankind overdeveloped hydrocarbon energy. >> recent survey found 44% of republican voters believed there is solid evidence the plan set warming. compare that to 87% of democrats, including the president.

frustrated by congress's lack of initiative on the issue, president obama announced in his climate change speech that his administration would limit co2 emissions through the epa. >> so today for the sake of our children, and the health and safety of all-americans, i'm directing the environmental protection agency to put an end to the limitless dumping of carbon pollution from our power plants and complete new solutions for new and sifting power plants. >> while president obama stepped up within congressional action on this issue is still very much needed. to limit co2 emissions and bring about a faster transmission to renewable energy. yet global warming reus a man a hard issue to get any politicians, republican or democrat, to fully embrace. for. >> global warm sgt antithesis of something that politicians would find a way it act meaningful on. >> because you can't cut a ribbon, look what i did and have it play out in your time in office.

>> given the ceaseless obstruction with climate realist at at state level, and how can we move forward on possible solutions, such as carbon tax or cab and trade or any kind of price on carbon. with me now is carol browner, she served as head of epa for eight years with president clinton and was president obama's director of white house office for energy and climate change policy in 2009 and 2011. currently ms. browner is a brother for climate progress. it is great to have you here. >> thank you. >> vast majority of politicians who if you and i sat soun with them, they would say, yeah, it is warm are than we need to do something about it. but they don't work everyday to prior ties this. why is it hard even for people who are sympathetic, because as said in the taped piece, there is no ribbon cuttings. no deliverables to bring back constituents. >> i believe that's part of it.

no deliverables or ribbon cuttings. i think we intend to see the pollution, taste it, feel it. it is immediate. what we are asking people to do is think about a problem, consequence chess may not happen for a while may only happen in parts of the country. maybe sandy was a climate change induced hurricane. maybe it wasn't. you are really asking people to step out of their everyday life and make decisiones about the future. that's a hard thing for anyone to do. >> let's talk a little bit about the president's speech and his new initiatives. i think that congress has felt like a dead end for change on this issue. so there is going to be change in the next three, four years, it will come from the white house. what is your take on it? >> i think it is important know that what the president is doing is using a law that's been on the books since 1990. this is not something new. he haven't going behind anyone's act. >> kplien that t . >> congress passed the clean air

act. so what the president is basically saying is i went to congress, i tried to do it with you guys. you're not responsive. i'm taking the clean air act and use it to regulate the dangerous pollutants. >> to you take the emissions in the u.s. economy, how much comes from power plants? >> a lot. the way people generally think is a third from transportation, a third from electricity generation and a third from buildings and industrial -- >> other stuff. >> other stuff. this is a big, big change of it. >> one of the themes in the president's speech is natural gas and how it has become the american economy. are you bothered by the fact that the white house seems so gunning who and there is a bridge fuel when many climate activists point out whether you talk about toll or oil or whether you start on progress until we leave stuff in the

ground. >> i think it is an important fuel. domestic fuel source. i think we have to be careful about how we take it out of the ground. taking things out of the ground is inherently dangerous and bad for the environment. there will be a point where you can't grow the natural gas. where you have to bend the curve down and we continue to create opportunities for renewables and drive down the price of renewables. >> there's been a lot of conversation, argue the to date, about about when we do take another run at this in congress, going from the cap and trade regime, proposed and passed in the house and died in the senate to a carbon tax. are you agnostic on this? do you think there's a meaningful difference? >> i'm not sure that even if all of the economists in the world say it is the way way to do it that congress will embrace something like this. >> because it has the -- >> it has those three letters in this that people in congress can't bring themselves to say. with the president, he is also a

realist, is looking at okay, i tried. i tried get them to do something. i was open to any number of ideas. now i will use what's available to me. i will use the clear air act. >> let's say congress doesn't throw a fit -- >> they may try. >> they are going to almost certainly. there will probably be lawsuits by power companies and others to join the court battle -- >> any pollution standard, it is what happens. epa does it right. i have the confidence they will do it right, they can with stand all of that. >> it is interesting the president chose to make this speech. was it something you discussed when you were in the white house? >> i think the president genuinely believes this is one of the biggest problems we face in the world. and we have a responsibility to lead. and he believes there is opportunity. if we can find the cost effective solutions, fine the new technologies, drive down the price of solar panels, we can compete in a global economy. germany is getting rid of nuclear.

they are going 80% renewable. we could develop the technology with, make it cost effective, use it here, sell it there. >> thank you. i appreciate it. coming up, who's been naught oo, who's been night. what other countries are doing with climate change. y oo, who's been night. what other countries are doing with climate change. oo, who's been night. what other countries are doing with climate change. , who's been night. what other countries are doing with climate change.

atop hawaii's monaloa found 440 parts per million and it hasn't been that high in millions of years. the problem of rising co2 level says one that cannot be solved alone. china and indian are now among the biggest co2 emitters. joining other nations in a dangerous game of chimate change chicken.

climate change is a problem without borders. rising sea levels threaten the existence of 17 million people in glaciers in the himalayas will leave pakistan and india facing water shortages. air pollution in china is so bad it's been compared to living in an airport smoking lounge. china's carbon emissions are up 240%, with no end in sight. private car ownership doubled from 2005 to 2008 and the country is now the world's largest auto producer and market. global energy use is expected to grow. >> we've got a billion people in china all looking to buy cars. they're building coal-fired plants at a ferocious pace. from those being off the grid and on the grid is growing exponentially. >> across the developing world, people are fueling up and plugging in at an unprecedented

rate. all these new users of energy pumping co-2 into the atmosphere, american efforts both past and present to curb emissions just a drop in the bucket? >> if the united states acts and big developing countries don't, then we'll be in for a dangerous and risky world. but there is no big solution without the united states. the united states accounts for almost a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions. ridiculous to claim that the united states has no role in dealing with the problem. >> there's a path that could be taken by developing countries to develop in a more clean way than the united states and europe did, but if the united states and europe continue to rely on fossil fuels, what incentive is there for china and india to do something different when we're setting that model? >> the solution to global

warming is just that -- global. but america can't do it alone. conversely, and this is important, the world absolutely cannot do it without us. with me now is a person who keeps a global focus on climate change, bill mckibben. his book brought it to the forefront. today he keeps it going with an organization he started. >> good to be with you, as always, chris. >> explain to me your theory of change here. we're sitting here at point a, the point i want to get to is essentially a global carbon regulation regime. that's what we're headed towards. >> sure. >> how do we get from here to there? >> it's impossible to get there without leadership from the u.s., the sole superpower and the place where per capita terms is still the biggest contributor. that stuff last up there in the

atmosphere for a hundred years. most of the plurality of carbon in the atmosphere was made in the usa. this is one of the places we need to start. we need a serious price on carbon. we will not get that price on carbon until we've beaten the power of the fossil fuel industry. sooner or later, the world will figure out that it has to regulate carbon, that this is the most dangerous thing now on the planet, but the sooner or later is the key part of the question. if we don't do it soon, there's not much use in doing it. >> we've just passed 400 parts per million of carbon in the atmosphere. your organization is called 350.org. and that stands for 350 parts per million which scientists say is a safe level of carbon in the atmosphere. the question is we're already past it by 50 parts per million. what do you see is the solution to bring the carbon level down to your organization's name? >> there's no solution other

than stopping burning coal and gas and oil and doing it fast. we're past the point where we're going to stop global warming. we already melted the arctic, okay? so if we do everything right at this point, it will still be decades before we're back to 350 and a lot of damage will be done in the meantime. but if we don't do anything right at this point, that damage will escalate. it will be civilization scale. >> there's someone watching this right now who is worried about being on unemployment for three months, who has a dear relative who is fighting in afghanistan, who is worried about her own reproductive choice. what do you want to say to them about this issue and how to think about it in context of those things that seem much closer to the skin? >> first thing to be said is by now for hundreds of millions of people around the world, which is an incredibly immediate thing.

the national oceanic and atmospheric administration said in january in a report, that we've already raised the temperature enough that the ability of humans to work outdoors has been cut 10% and it will be 30% by midcentury. that's about as basic as it gets. but the second thing is the transition to the kind of world that works for everyone will be greatly aided by the transition to a world of renewable dispersed, spread out, democratic energy, a world that doesn't depend on the coke brothers and the exxons and everybody else to bring them their energy, that instead is set up so you can get it from the sun. and if you want to understand why those guys hate that world so much, just remind yourself from their point of view what the problem with the sun is. you can't meter the damn thing. >> when thinking about climate change, we are a bit like the frog in the proverbial pot of water. as the water slowly warms, the frog remains at rest adjusting to the heat incrementally until

it reaches a boil. and then, then sadly, it is too late. today our global pot is filled with carbon dioxide-laden fossil fuels and it is close to the metaphorical boiling point. so attention must be paid now. and we the people must resort to our own politics of power and push our politicians to change the current energy equation from fossil fuels to renewables. and if they won't, well then, we need to vote them out. as president obama urged in his climate speech, make yourself heard on this issue. tell your representatives it matter to us. the price for politics as usual is just too high. our timeline too short. the clock is ticking. tick tock. and midnight draws nigh. for msnbc, i'm chris hayes. thank you for watching. [ male announcer ] if you had a dollar, for every dollar

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