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Before the Flood
Leo DiCaprio – Father was an underground comic distributor Picture over the bed as a kid - “The Garden of Earthly Delights’ by Hieronymus Bosch.” Garden of Eden – 1 st^ panel – birds, elephants, giraffes, religious icons Deadly Sins – overpopulation, debauchery, excess Paradise lost – nightmarish – Paradise degraded and destroyed
Leo – United Nations Messenger of Peace Climate Change coming so much faster than before – We are on a boat sinking Inundated with change – pessimistic (may have picked the wrong guy) Critics of Leo because he is not a scientist (neither are they) Interested since he was young on extinct species – explorers would wipe out entire species We are knowingly doing this on a much larger scale
Economy is based on fossil fuels – Oil, Coal, Natural Gas – Moving to more risky energy Tar Sands in Canada – Show clear cutting in Canada – No such thing as fossil fuel Show devastating destruction to the area – compared to Mordor in the Lord of the Rings Removed Boreal forest for Tar Sands – Wash oil out of sand
Talked to Al Gore – Explained global warming from the inconvenient truth – first time he heard of global warming – most important issue of our time – everything we do releases CO2 and leads to climate
change
Baffin Island in Artic – Dr. Eric Sala
Jake Awa – Artic Guide – hunter
Ice decreasing – use to be Blue but now light blue like ice cream – melts faster
i. No ice left over the Artic (north pole) by 2040 ii. Area is transforming – Acts as air conditioner for the world iii. 10,000 – 12,000 Narwhales here waiting for ice to melt
2000 Earth Day
Talked to President Clinton – focused on small individuals actions Change light bulbs Long past that now
Professor Jason Box
Greenland Ice Sheets
i. Moulin – snow water to the sea – if not balanced, sheet gets smaller, sea levels rise ii. Showed monitoring equipment (climate station) – broken down pool equipment iii. Hosing was 30 ft, lost that amount of ice in the last 5 years in Greenland
Mayor of Miami says Miami is flooding Raising roads and electric pumps -Buy them 40-50 years 400 million dollar project – paid by taxes in Florida
Politicians stop talk on climate change - Governor or Senator Opposition to climate change - politics Need to divide the public – funded by the Koch brothers
Prof Michael E Mann – Penn State 97% of scientist believe it is warming Science and Math Geek Physics Curve – cooling trend and abrupt warming – hockey stick
Vilified on the news Death threats against him and the family Attacked by Congressman – FBI investigated threats
Fossil fuel interests…finance a very large echo chamber of climate change denialism. They find people with very impressive looking credentials who are willing to sell those credentials to fossil fuel interests. Front groups funded by corporate interests.
Koch’s industry is one of the largest Oil companies in the world Sen. James Inhofe – Largest recipient of Fossil fuel money Controls climate and any changes in these bills Doing so for short-term profit
We have known about global warming for decades – show clips from the 50’s What if we had taken it serious back then? Population has increased by 5 billion
China is now the number one polluter China is the factory of the world – Manufacturing for the Western countries Much of that pollution is dumped in their backyard Coal in Beijing is = to the U.S. People in China are worried about their health People want to be part of the solution – mass demonstrations Hold the companies responsible National pollution map data base – 9000 facilities Not in compliance = can check on their cell phone Media talk about the violations on a daily basis China is now working hard on green technology Wind and solar – priority rather than coal If china can do it, the rest of the world should be able to do it also
Elon Musk - Tesla
“Every single light that you see has to be completely different – has to come from a new power source. We need to build all those things differently. All the cars that are on the road need to be different. This is one city. If you zoom out to a map of the world at night, you see electrification all over the world. And we’re fighting powerful fossil fuel interests who basically want to keep doing business as usual. How do we turn this around?
Next Leo is in the Nevadan desert visiting the “gigafactory“, the latest project of Tesla founder Elon Musk. Once at full operation by 2020, the vast factory aims to be producing annually 500,000 electric vehicles and batteries/cells equal to 85 GWh/yr. Musk explains why this could be a game-changer:
What would it take to transition the whole world to sustainable energy? What kind of throughput would you actually need? You need a hundred gigafactories to power the world
If all the big companies do this then we can accelerate the transition and if governments can set the rules in favor of sustainable energy, then we can get there really quickly. But it’s really fundamental: unless they put a price on carbon…a carbon tax.
Gregory Mankiw, a Harvard economics professor, who has long argued for a carbon tax. A republican that is arguing for a tax on any activity that puts Carbon in the air. Tax bad activities – like cigarettes
Forces people to do the right thing – Raise carbon tax and lower payroll tax. Not an increase, it is a tax shif
Politicians are elected “followers” – they will do what we ask them to do
John Kerry – Paris Climate Summit
U.S. and China stood up and said they would change Fights over water, no place to live, happening today Need to leave this planet in better shape than we were given it
Earth League On average – we are heading to a 4 degree warming If we don’t take action, we will lose coral reefs We will have heat waves, agriculture will collapse Earth will take over and continue to warm – hit a tipping point Greenland begins to heat the planet – no ice – releases methane from ice Paris summit – the window is still open to stabilize this Wind and Solar – can reach 100% of our needs 195 countries saying they will do what they can to make this change No enforcement rules – no penalties President Obama – Paris agreement is the architecture in place Agreement is not enough – we need to continue to move forward New president doesn’t believe in climate science, can it stop the advancement Leo says the president is optimistic President’s fear is that if sea levels rise, people migrate National security issue – fight for resources
NASA – Dr. Piers Sellers Thin atmosphere – keeping us safe Pancreatic Cancer – odds are he will die soon Motivated him to contribute Model simulation of the world Satellites looking at the earth See poles melting Gulf Stream changing Stops the transport of heat Europe would get colder Moving of the precipitation belt More drought in hot areas Driving wars in these areas – shortage of food and water Facts are crystal clear Here’s the problem, Let’s fix it If we do the right thing, it will repair itself over time Faith in people – Once it is appreciated, people will rise up and deal with it.
The Pope – Pope Frances Our common home has fallen into disrepair – we can always fix our problems Signs of things reaching a breaking point Spiritual leader asking the leaders to take action against climate change Never been done before He believes we need to immediately take action – Pray for the human race
Ending We are now living in the second panel – before the flood Question is: can we change our course in time – not reach the third panel All we can do is control what we do next? We need to tell our leaders that we know the truth about climate change
