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The Era Of Climate Change Is Here - And This Is Our Only Way Out. With Prof. Bill McKibben · The Smart Cookies podcast

0:00
Our timeframe for the really active deployment
0:04
of these things lasts through about the end of
0:08
the decade. And I think at the end of the decade,
0:12
we're probably going to have to look around,
0:15
see precisely where we are, and decide whether
0:19
we proceed with truly terrifying schemes like
0:25
geoengineering, which nobody wants to do. but
0:29
which may become eventually a break the glass
0:33
solution that we have little choice but to at
0:36
least consider. Bill McKibben is an environmentalist,
0:44
author and journalist, also Schumann Distinguished
0:46
Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury
0:49
College, credited as having written the first
0:51
ever book on climate change for a general audience
0:54
called The End of Nature. Last year, he released
0:57
another. Very compelling title. Here comes the
1:00
sun, a last chance for the climate and a fresh
1:03
chance for civilization. Professor McKibben,
1:04
welcome to the show. Well, very, very good to
1:07
be with you. A couple of weeks ago, I interviewed
1:09
Professor Michael Mann, the famous climatologist,
1:11
and his general point about our predicament was
1:14
kind of that, yes, the state of climate change
1:16
is bad, but it's not too late to avoid the most
1:19
disastrous effects on our planet if we act now.
1:23
I presume that was a pretty... reasonable stance
1:25
however i was kind of taken aback at how many
1:28
straight up pissed off comments the episode received
1:31
i'm talking about real vitriol here all sorts
1:34
of mad conspiratorial things being thrown at
1:38
the good professor mind you uh this was not from
1:40
climate denialists but from doomists who accept
1:44
the basic reality of global warming but say it's
1:47
too late and we should just give up and go live
1:48
on a snowy mountain or something now there's
1:50
a wider scientific context to all Professor Mann
1:55
falls on one kind of more optimistic end of the
1:58
spectrum, and then we find James Hansen, the
2:01
so -called godfather of climate science, on the
2:04
other. He seems to believe that the amount of
2:06
heating that is already baked into our climate
2:09
is so great that the famous IPCC reports are
2:12
practically meaningless and that we should attempt
2:14
a more dramatic intervention now, a geoengineering
2:18
one. For example, spraying aerosols into the
2:21
atmosphere to reflect the sunlight. back into
2:24
space. Now, I did some research. Always a crazy
2:27
thing for a podcaster to say, by the way. Usually
2:29
doesn't end well. And realized that the science
2:32
around this accelerated warming debate has very
2:35
much not been settled. So before we talk about
2:38
renewables, I wanted to ask you, which side of
2:42
the aisle do you fall on? Do we still have time
2:44
to get ourselves out of this mess? We don't have
2:50
time to get ourselves... out of this mess. We've
2:54
already raised the temperature of the planet
2:57
considerably, and it's already caused enormous
3:00
trouble. And the temperature is going to go up
3:05
further, and it's going to cause yet more trouble,
3:08
even if we do everything right at this point.
3:12
The question is, I think, whether or not we still
3:17
retain the power to lessen the eventual impact,
3:24
whether or not we can start shaving tenths of
3:28
a degree off how hot the planet will eventually
3:30
get, which doesn't sound like an enormous amount.
3:34
But we think that at this point, each tenth of
3:36
a degree that we raise the temperature moves
3:39
another 100 million or so people from a relatively
3:42
safe climate zone to a relatively dangerous one.
3:47
Stopping global warming is not on the menu. It
3:50
may still be on the menu to stop it short of
3:55
the place where it cuts civilization off at the
3:58
knees. But we're cutting that very close. I think
4:04
the things that Jim Hansen – first of all, Jim
4:10
Hansen has been correct on the direction, general
4:14
direction of the climate for a very long time.
4:17
You would have lost a lot of money betting against
4:19
him. Over the years. And I think that it's becoming
4:26
clearer with each passing issue of science or
4:30
nature that we're in very perilous territory
4:34
when it comes to things like the great ocean
4:38
currents of the Atlantic, the savannification
4:42
of the Amazon. The very biggest. systems on planet
4:51
Earth are now coming under extraordinary stress.
4:55
So I'm very worried. And I also think that we
5:03
suddenly have a scalable set of tools with which
5:09
to try and change the outcome some, that being
5:14
cheap wind and sun and batteries. And so we should
5:18
use them as fast as we can. which is faster than
5:22
we currently are, and see where we can get. My
5:28
guess is that our timeframe for the really active
5:34
deployment of these things lasts through about
5:39
the end of the decade. And I think at the end
5:43
of the decade, we're probably going to have to
5:46
look around, see precisely where we are, and
5:50
decide. whether we proceed with truly terrifying
5:55
schemes like geoengineering, which nobody wants
5:59
to do, but which may become eventually a break
6:04
the glass solution that we have little choice
6:06
but to at least consider. On a little more hopeful
6:11
note, as of 2026, Clean Power is supplying over
6:14
one third of global electricity mix, I believe,
6:18
which... I think even a decade ago would have
6:20
been a pretty preposterous projection. The sheer
6:22
speed and affordability, particularly of solar,
6:25
has defied all odds. In the introduction of the
6:29
book, you write, we are on the verge of turning
6:31
to the heavens for energy instead of to hell.
6:35
What happened? Well, what's happened is a completely
6:40
fascinating story over the last six or seven
6:43
decades. Solar cell was invented in 1954. Edison,
6:51
New Jersey, Bell Laboratories. And at the time
6:55
it was invented, it was the most expensive source
6:58
of electricity on the planet. Literally, the
7:02
only thing you could use it for was satellites
7:04
because you had no alternative. Over time, a
7:11
mix of activism and engineering steadily, steadily
7:16
lowered that price. You know, we had the first
7:21
solar powered home in 1971 or so in the U .S.
7:27
By the end of the decade, Jimmy Carter, the president
7:30
of the United States, was putting solar panels
7:33
on the roof of the White House. We were on an
7:36
interesting trajectory that was interrupted by
7:40
the election of Ronald Reagan and power of the
7:45
oil industry. But that trajectory resumed at
7:50
the turn of the century, this time not in America,
7:54
but in Germany, where the Green Party held the
7:58
balance of power in the parliamentary system
8:01
and used their leverage to demand what the Germans
8:05
call the Energiewende. Basically, it was a subsidy
8:12
for people who put high -priced solar panels
8:17
on roofs. And the government, the German government,
8:21
paid that subsidy essentially to Chinese factories
8:25
to figure out how to start producing these solar
8:29
panels more cheaply. That work kept going, and
8:32
a quarter century later, we reached, say, 2022
8:37
or 2023, where we crossed some invisible line.
8:43
And it became cheaper to produce energy from
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the sun and the wind than from setting things
8:50
on fire. That was a big moment in human history.
8:55
Humans have been setting stuff on fire for 700
9:00
,000 years at least. Darwin said that language
9:05
and fire were the two features that marked our
9:08
species out. And fire was pretty good for us.
9:13
We learned how to cook food that helped give
9:15
us the big brain. We were able to move north
9:18
and south from the equator. When we learned to
9:21
control the combustion of fossil fuel, coal,
9:26
gas, oil, we called that the Industrial Revolution,
9:29
and it produced modernity, all that we know around
9:32
us. But eventually, the cost has become very,
9:40
very high for all that burning. There's not only
9:43
the most important thing, the destruction of
9:46
the planet's climate system on which we all depend,
9:49
but there's also just the straight up fact that
9:53
9 million people a year on this planet die about
9:56
one death in five for breathing the combustion
9:59
byproducts of those fossil fuels. And then there's
10:03
the ongoing realization that as long as we depend
10:07
on scarce fossil fuel deposits. We're going to
10:11
be fighting wars over who controls them, as this
10:15
year has demonstrated. So it's very good news
10:18
that we now have a affordable, indeed, cheaper
10:23
alternative in the form of sun and wind. The
10:27
question now becomes, will we deploy it fast
10:30
enough to give us some chance in this climate
10:35
fight? 40 years from now, we're going to run
10:37
the planet on sun and wind on sheer economics.
10:41
But if it takes us anything like 40 years to
10:43
get there, the planet we run on sun and wind
10:46
will be a broken one. Why 40 years if the economics
10:49
are sound now? You said purely economic. Yes,
10:53
because two things, two factors, inertia. and
11:00
vested interest, both of which are important
11:03
players in human affairs. So inertia, we've got
11:06
a massive system that we've built up over 200
11:10
years of pipelines and refineries and gas stations
11:15
and on and on and on. That takes a while to replace
11:25
and dismantle. It would be possible to do it
11:30
very quickly, I think, were it not for the vested
11:33
interest. People who own oil wells and coal mines
11:38
aren't happy at this new development. That's
11:41
because at current market prices, the oil that
11:45
they have in the ground is worth, depends on
11:49
the day, but $30 or $40 trillion. That gives
11:53
you a lot of incentive to... corrupt our political
11:57
systems so that we'll keep doing what we're doing
12:00
at the moment or transition off it as slowly
12:03
as possible. I mean, the oil companies are well
12:08
aware because their scientists were studying
12:10
this back in the 1980s when I was writing my
12:12
book, that the price of slowing this down is
12:16
destroying the planet, but they seem willing
12:19
to pay that price, eager to really. So despite
12:23
having this potential for nearly limitless energy
12:25
at only a fraction of a cost, the adoption of
12:27
renewables is somehow still having, like you
12:30
said, to prove itself against fossil fuels, this
12:32
dirty, noxious relic of a technology from the
12:36
19th century, really, but somehow still very
12:38
much one of the forces running our world. How,
12:41
if we're being a bit more concrete, has this
12:44
industry, in light of everything we know about
12:47
where they're taking us, managed to hold on to
12:50
power and even... slow down our efforts to electrify
12:53
our civilization. Well, I mean, let's look at
12:54
my country. Donald Trump, when he was running
13:00
for president two years ago, convened all the
13:04
executives of the oil industry and told them
13:06
quite publicly that if they donated a billion
13:09
dollars to his campaign, he would give them anything
13:12
they wanted. They donated and advertised and
13:16
lobbied at closer to half a billion dollars.
13:20
But that turned out to be enough because Trump,
13:23
true to his word, has enacted a series of policies
13:27
designed to help them and to actively depress
13:34
the growth of renewable energy. He's closed down
13:38
wind farms that were 90 % complete off the Pacific
13:42
and Atlantic coasts. He's spent billions of dollars
13:46
in taxpayer money buying back. the rights to
13:50
harvest the wind off those coasts in order to
13:54
make sure no one ever does. He's put all federal
13:57
land off limits to solar energy. I could, you
14:02
know, he's taken away any support for the transition
14:06
to electric vehicles and indeed made it much
14:10
more expensive to drive those on and on and on.
14:15
So this doesn't stop. dead in its tracks, the
14:20
progress of renewable energy. Its economics are
14:23
favorable enough that it continues to grow, even
14:26
in places like Texas that are the heart of the
14:30
hydrocarbon industry. But it grows much more
14:32
slowly than it would. Around the world, Trump
14:35
has used his tariff policy to coerce countries
14:39
into buying American liquefied natural gas. You're
14:44
in Japan at the moment. The way that Japan was
14:48
able to reduce its tariffs somewhat was to promise
14:51
to buy hundreds of billions of dollars worth
14:54
of American LNG on and on. Now, the other side
15:01
of this is that Trump is so stupid and ill -equipped
15:10
to be president that he's also – helped the other
15:15
side. America's war in Iran, ill -planned, ill
15:23
-executed, ill -conceived notion, has turned
15:29
out to be a great boon for clean energy. Around
15:32
the world, leaders have realized that though
15:35
sunlight has to travel 93 million miles to reach
15:39
the earth, none of those miles go through the
15:41
Strait of Hormuz. And so, especially in Asia,
15:45
but in other parts of the world too, there's
15:48
been a very, very rapid increase in, say, the
15:52
sales of EVs or the transition to building out
15:57
big solar farms in countries like the Philippines
16:00
or Vietnam or Thailand. People are understanding
16:04
that not only is it an environmental risk to
16:09
depend on fossil fuel, it's also a... geopolitical
16:12
risk. So look, it's not clear exactly how all
16:17
of this is going to play out, but it's very clear
16:19
that around the world, the oil industry is doing
16:22
everything it can to keep its business model
16:25
alive. I mean, I assume that the CEOs and shareholders
16:29
of Shell and BP and Exxon have kids, maybe even
16:33
grandkids. I'm genuinely curious, if you're one
16:36
of these people, what kind of... wild acrobatic
16:39
figures do you have to perform in your mind to
16:41
justify the degradation, if not destruction of
16:44
the world of your immediate descendants? The
16:47
mind boggles, truly. I think that at heart, their
16:53
calculation is, if I can make enough money, I
16:57
can insulate myself and my family from the chaos
17:01
that's here and the greater chaos that's coming.
17:05
Build a bunker in New Zealand. Well, I mean,
17:08
it's very literally what a number of these people
17:10
are doing. Still doesn't make a lot of sense
17:13
to me. Like a bunker where you're going to spend
17:16
the rest of your days isolated from everybody
17:19
and from everything you liked in the world. I
17:21
mean, what's going on here? Not my cup of tea
17:24
either. That's why I've spent my life trying
17:26
to move us in the opposite direction. Another
17:30
twist that not many Western pundits expected
17:32
or predicted is the rise of China as an absolute
17:36
green energy titan. They're not only installing
17:39
renewables at a breakneck speed, they're also
17:42
producing most of the green tech that we use
17:44
worldwide. And yet it seems that instead of kind
17:46
of trying to learn something from them, we are
17:48
much more content with wagging our greasy fingers
17:51
at China, claiming that they're still the biggest
17:53
polluter. So we should just take it easy on our
17:56
side and kick the can. down the road like we're
17:58
used to. I also want to address that. But before
18:01
I do, I want to ask you, how did China manage
18:03
to call this bet in such a spot on manner? It's
18:07
like James Bond and Casino Royale or something,
18:09
and the rest of us are Le Chiffre. There's a
18:13
lot not to admire in the Chinese system. It's
18:18
a repressive government. I'm well aware that
18:21
had I spent my life doing in China what I've
18:25
done in the US, I would have spent my life in
18:26
jail. You did spend some time in jail in the
18:29
US. I've spent some time in jail. That's true.
18:31
But it's also true that China has elevated, tended
18:36
to elevate, where America has tended to elevate
18:39
lawyers to positions of importance in its government.
18:43
China has tended to rely on engineers. That's
18:47
the most common career track for Communist Party
18:52
officials. And engineering brings with it a...
18:56
certain dose of reality. The Chinese realized
18:59
a few things, I think. One, they understood very
19:05
clearly the dangers posed by climate change.
19:09
China's exquisitely dependent on, for instance,
19:13
the Himalayas for their supply of water. And
19:18
they understand that the... Trend lines are not
19:22
great in the Himalayas, as we were reminded by
19:25
the collapse of that glacier on the Nepalese
19:28
-Tibetan border. The Chinese also have great
19:32
risk that comes from sea level rise. Most of
19:36
their manufacturing capacity is concentrated
19:39
on the Pearl River Delta, which is a few meters
19:43
above sea level. But they also, I think, understood
19:47
that there was enormous opportunity here. that
19:52
the combination of clean energy and electrification
19:57
was opening up a new industrial frontier that
20:02
they were ready to exploit. Remember, they got
20:06
into some of these businesses very much at the
20:09
behest of the West. They started learning about
20:14
batteries because they were the cheap labor force
20:16
to build iPhones and things like that. And, you
20:21
know, a battery in an EV is essentially a scaled
20:25
up version of the one in your phone. And so they
20:33
were well positioned and they made a series,
20:36
as you say, of bets in their, you know, ongoing
20:40
five -year plans about to stake out this territory.
20:45
And now they're being handsomely rewarded for
20:48
it. The value, the last numbers I saw showed
20:52
that the value of the green tech that China exported
20:58
in the last year was roughly half again as much
21:03
as the value of the oil and gas that the US exported
21:07
in the same timeframe. So it turns out that they're
21:12
already profiting from this. And it's pretty
21:16
clear that they've made the right. bet about
21:19
the future. I don't think there's anyone who
21:25
looks ahead 20 years and thinks, I'd rather be
21:28
in the oil business than the battery business,
21:31
because it's pretty clear where the future's
21:35
heading. China also has a growing... They've
21:43
also, I think, decided that this is their...
21:48
ticket to a kind of global legitimacy that they've
21:53
lacked in the past because of their authoritarian
21:56
system. They've become supplanted, the US, in
22:03
many of the kind of UN and international forums
22:06
when America walked away, say, from the Paris
22:09
Climate Accords and the UNFCCC. climate negotiations
22:15
that are held every year, China was only too
22:18
happy to step into the breach and become the
22:21
responsible player in these questions. It's embarrassing
22:28
for Americans to have our officials wandering
22:31
around the world telling people that climate
22:33
change isn't real and that they should shut down
22:36
their wind turbines and so and so. But it's more
22:41
than embarrassing. It's the It's a kind of act,
22:45
I'm afraid, of economic national self -sabotage
22:49
on a scale that we haven't seen in a very long
22:51
time. Why are ordinary Americans tolerating this
22:58
sort of anti -scientific lunacy masquerading
23:02
as environmental policy under this administration?
23:05
I guess, I suppose it happens everywhere, but
23:08
it seems much more pronounced in the US. Yeah,
23:11
I think that's fair. You know, I think Americans
23:15
elected Donald Trump on some combination of economic
23:20
grievance around inflation after COVID and out
23:25
of, in too many cases, out of a set of sad, racist
23:31
beliefs about some of their fellow Americans.
23:37
I don't think almost anyone elected him to. be
23:42
anti -science, but that's certainly what they've
23:44
gotten. And the only good news I can tell you
23:47
is I think that Americans are beginning to get
23:50
fed up with the whole package. We'll know more
23:53
in a few weeks. I've been spending most of the
23:56
last months on the road around the country helping
23:58
people campaign for Congress in the midterm elections.
24:03
I hope that they'll represent. the beginning
24:06
of a repudiation of all of this, but obviously
24:09
the damage that has been done is sharp and deep.
24:13
And it will take a long time to recover if indeed
24:18
we ever do. While we're here, I never really
24:21
understood why fighting climate change is considered
24:25
an exclusively left -wing thing, given the fact
24:30
that we're on a planet that we're all sharing.
24:34
It shouldn't be, but about 30 or 40 years ago,
24:38
the oil industry began the project of sort of
24:42
purchasing the Republican Party. Previous to
24:45
that time, environmentalism had been a fairly
24:48
bipartisan undertaking in the U .S., but no more.
24:54
Now you can't step out of line on this and stay
24:57
in the Republican Party. It's, you know, big.
25:01
Big players like the biggest donor to the Republicans
25:05
over the last decades, the Koch brothers, who
25:07
are also the biggest refinery and pipeline entrepreneurs
25:12
in America, made sure that that was the case.
25:15
Professor, we already kind of outlined that renewables
25:20
are our ticket, not out of this, but kind of
25:24
blunting the worst impacts. Yes, well put. But
25:28
lest we be accused of being a couple of... techno
25:30
-optimist chills, I think it's fair to outline
25:33
some of the problems as well. And the first one
25:35
is perhaps the most concerning one, to me at
25:37
least. And that's the fact that despite this
25:39
incredible rise of renewable energy that we talked
25:43
about at the beginning, CO2 emissions are still
25:46
rising, which is petrifying, especially given
25:48
all the headlines recently. You mentioned the
25:51
disaster in Nepal. They haven't even plateaued.
25:55
if I understood everything correctly, much less
25:58
reversed course. So the more energy we add, the
26:01
more we seem to use. Data centers popping up
26:05
left and right doesn't help, obviously. What's
26:08
your view of this overall situation? Well, I
26:11
mean, what we're dealing with here is the long
26:16
-term ongoing increase in demand for energy around
26:20
the world. Most of that is now coming out of
26:23
Asia. because Asia is now finally developing
26:27
the way that North America and Europe did over
26:33
the previous centuries. So they're inevitably
26:36
using more energy. The good news is that though
26:41
CO2 is still rising, we can see hopes, places
26:46
where emissions indeed have really begun to plateau.
26:51
The most important of those is China. which seems
26:54
to have reached an effective plateau in its emissions
26:58
of greenhouse gases and done it many years ahead
27:01
of when people had originally hoped. It's not
27:05
the only place. California, which is the fourth
27:09
largest economy in the world, has put up a huge
27:12
number of solar panels in wind turbines and,
27:16
crucially, batteries in the last three years.
27:20
And as a result, generates now much of its electricity
27:26
most days more than 100 % for long stretches
27:30
from renewable sources. At night, when the sun
27:33
goes down, the biggest source of supply to California's
27:37
grid are batteries that spent the afternoon soaking
27:40
up excess sunshine, batteries that didn't exist
27:43
three years ago. And the bottom line is that
27:47
California again, the fourth largest economy
27:50
in the world, is using about 50 % less natural
27:54
gas to produce electricity than it was three
27:57
years ago. That's a big number, the kind of number
28:02
that if we managed to replicate it around the
28:05
world would really begin to make a quick difference
28:08
in how much carbon was accumulating in the planet's
28:14
atmosphere. So what one can do is try and speed
28:20
this up. Another issue that I'm not going to
28:23
pretend that I fully understand as a person who
28:26
can barely operate an email is apparently with
28:30
the grid that was supposed to be made for kind
28:34
of like the old way of storing and using electricity.
28:39
What's going on there? Well, we definitely need
28:43
an upgraded grid to make it easier to access
28:46
all this stuff and put it online. And, you know,
28:50
in places like America, that grid is hard to
28:53
modernize and build. People get in the way. They
28:56
don't want to see new transmission lines. You
29:00
know, coal and gas people try and block them
29:04
because they know that it means more renewable
29:06
energy. You know, there's a number of causes.
29:10
In places like China, where for better or for
29:14
worse, local opposition is not a problem. The
29:17
grid gets built and modernized very quickly.
29:20
Most of the world is somewhere in between these
29:23
two extremes. It should be said that the technologies
29:28
around this are changing extremely rapidly. And
29:33
if the last five years was mostly about sun and
29:36
wind, the next five years will be mostly about
29:38
batteries. And batteries are getting very cheap
29:42
and at every size. And we're learning how to
29:46
use them to really change the way that energy
29:50
systems work. So, for instance, in Vermont, the
29:53
small state where I live in the northeastern
29:56
United States, our biggest power plant is no
29:59
longer a power plant. It's thousands of batteries
30:04
in people's basements across Vermont that we
30:08
hook together with computer software to allow
30:11
the utility to draw on them when it needs power.
30:15
We call it a virtual power plant. And the same
30:19
things are springing up around the world. I asked
30:23
the same of Professor Mann. How bad do you think
30:27
the whole data center build out is in terms of
30:31
like setting us back? I think it's definitely
30:35
not helping on a global basis, not going to make
30:41
or break us. I think the IEA is estimating that
30:46
data centers will take up something like two
30:49
or three percent of the world's electricity supply
30:52
by mid -century. In particular places, especially
30:58
parts of America, a huge, huge, huge problem.
31:04
You know, I was just in the state of Montana
31:07
where there's one data center proposed. so vast
31:11
that it will use seven times as much energy as
31:15
the entire state is currently, seven times as
31:17
much electricity as the entire state currently
31:19
uses. I mean, that's absurd. And for the world
31:25
as a whole, probably the greater challenge is
31:30
the need, especially as the planet warms, for
31:33
more air conditioning everywhere. In numerical
31:37
terms, that'll probably... pretty dramatically
31:40
outpace the demand from data centers. But all
31:45
of it's hard. And of course, data centers, as
31:50
long as we're talking about existential risks
31:53
in the end of the world, it's worth reminding
31:56
ourselves that the technology these data centers
32:00
are supposed to be supporting, artificial intelligence,
32:03
is one whose creators seem eager to warn us runs
32:11
a 10, 20, 30 % chance of wiping us all out sometime
32:16
soon. So it's a particularly egregious waste
32:21
of energy, it seems to me. How did Sam Altman
32:24
put it? Yes, it probably destroyed the world,
32:27
but at least we're going to have some cool companies
32:29
built in the meantime. It certainly wouldn't
32:32
want to interfere with their IPOs, no. Fantastic.
32:36
Which leads me to the final problem. More of
32:41
an indictment of the levels of pathology built
32:44
into our system is the fact that since renewable
32:47
energy is potentially infinite, it's not going
32:50
to make people much money, which of course is
32:52
considered material worthy of a Greek tragedy
32:55
in our society. I read an amazing headline on
32:58
Bloomberg the other day that perfectly illustrated
33:00
this point. It read... Spain built too much solar.
33:06
Investors want out. The article says that Spain's
33:09
massive push into renewable energy inadvertently
33:13
created an oversupply crisis. That's the word
33:17
they used. That is crushing investor profits
33:19
and causing power prices to plummet below zero.
33:24
Professor, help me not lose my mind here. Yes.
33:27
No, I'm afraid that it's a very real problem.
33:30
There's obviously money to be made. from renewable
33:33
energy, but there's not oil money to be made.
33:38
And the reason for that is clear. When the sun
33:43
comes up in the morning, it delivers energy for
33:46
free. That's the exact opposite of the current
33:50
model where we hoard supplies of scarce energy
33:54
and dole them out to people for... heavy prices,
33:58
you know, that they have to pay over and over
34:01
and over again. That's good news for almost everyone
34:05
on Earth. You know, 80 % of human beings live
34:08
in countries that have to import net fossil fuel.
34:13
So for them, extraordinary help, especially the
34:16
poorest countries on Earth. But yeah, it's, that's
34:20
precisely, I mean, what you've just said explains.
34:23
the strange politics of the moment that the fossil
34:27
fuel industry is doing, spending whatever it
34:30
needs to in order to try and keep its business
34:33
model alive. We seem to be kind of constantly
34:38
teetering on a tightrope between irreversible
34:40
disaster or potentially a next stage in the possible
34:44
evolution of our society. And the tighter the
34:48
rope becomes, the scarier every next step seems.
34:51
Do you think... We're going to make it? I don't
34:55
know. I think that I'm quite worried by the momentum
35:02
that physical systems have built up. What's happening
35:09
in the Atlantic is a good example. The great
35:12
currents of the Atlantic are the biggest heat
35:15
distribution engine on planet Earth. The things
35:18
that keep Western Europe, places you're from,
35:21
much... warmer than they otherwise would be.
35:25
But those great currents are beginning to flicker
35:30
and falter as fresh water pouring off a melting
35:34
Greenland changes the salinity and hence the
35:38
density of seawater in the North Atlantic. And
35:42
that's the density differences are what drive
35:46
those enormous conveyor belts of water that stretch
35:49
across the planet. We used to think this was
35:53
a problem for the 22nd century. Now the scientists
35:57
who study it most closely have been saying in
36:00
the last few months that there's a 50 % chance
36:03
of their failure sometime in the decades ahead.
36:06
If that happens, that alone would be the single
36:09
biggest event in our civilization's history,
36:14
civilization of our species. And that's just
36:19
one of the kind of... physical systems that we're
36:22
playing around with at the moment. I mean, the
36:25
jet stream draws its power from the temperature
36:28
differential between the equator and the poles.
36:31
As we melt the poles, the jet stream gets stuck
36:35
in these high amplitude wonky curves that bring
36:41
almost unbearable heat domes to place after place
36:46
around the world. All of this is very real and
36:50
very, very scary. I think that if we move with
36:55
enormous speed, we could do a lot to improve
37:00
our odds. Chinese factories alone are capable
37:04
of producing roughly twice as many solar panels
37:08
as they currently are. And I think on a rational
37:12
world, we'd probably globalize those factories
37:16
and the ones in India and everywhere else. And
37:20
run them around the clock and take the solar
37:23
panels that pour out of the assembly line and
37:25
stack them on every wharf and railroad siding
37:30
on planet Earth for people to come and take away
37:33
and do with what they will. See how quickly we
37:37
can build a world that runs on a very different
37:39
energy system. And I think if we did that, our
37:46
odds would go up. of ameliorating this rise in
37:52
temperature. So that's what, in a way, we work
37:57
for. I mean, we're in the middle now of building
38:01
support for what we call Sun Day, a big celebration
38:06
of renewable energy that'll happen on the summer
38:09
solstice in the Northern Hemisphere next June,
38:13
2027. People who want to participate can go to
38:16
sunday .earth. to find out. Hopefully, things
38:22
like this will allow us to spur change. In the
38:26
U .S., in the last year, my group of colleagues,
38:31
what we call Third Act, an organization of old
38:34
people like me, we've managed to press for and
38:38
pass legislation that allows for plug -in solar
38:44
or balcony solar. 12 states, including California
38:48
and New York. Those were big legislative wins
38:52
that will produce a national market for this
38:56
form of the technology over the next year. So
38:59
it's not impossible, but it's not easy and it
39:04
won't happen without people coming together to
39:07
make it happen. I totally forgot to ask you because
39:11
what you're saying is so interesting. I got completely...
39:15
carried away. What are the current projections
39:17
for renewables if things stay the way they are
39:21
right now? Current, I mean, I think the sort
39:23
of current hopeful projections are that we'd
39:27
be getting somewhere near, that we're capable
39:32
of getting somewhere near net zero by, you know,
39:37
20, sometime later this century, 2050 to 2070.
39:42
But that's not fast enough. Hopeful projections.
39:46
Yeah, hopeful projections. But in any event,
39:49
those hopeful projections aren't fast enough.
39:51
We need to go much faster, and we're capable
39:54
of going much faster. But are there any signs
39:58
that we are going much faster? As the California
40:01
numbers that I read you demonstrate, I mean,
40:05
a 50 % reduction in natural gas use in three
40:09
years, we're capable of going much faster. The
40:13
limitations are not technological. The limitations
40:18
are political. That's good news in that those
40:23
should be easier to change. If we didn't have
40:26
cheap renewable energy, then we would be facing
40:31
technological and economic barriers that would
40:34
be impossible to surmount. But we're not. facing
40:39
political barriers that are difficult to surmount,
40:42
but we're capable of doing it, so we should try.
40:48
I had quite a few conversations with climate
40:51
scientists over the years, and I keep asking
40:54
the same question, and I get different answers.
40:57
So I want to ask you as well, how bad do you
41:00
think the disasters or the extreme weather events
41:05
have to be in order for the majority of society
41:09
to start paying attention to this issue or give
41:14
it the attention it deserves? The majority of
41:17
society wants to take on this work. I mean, the
41:20
polling data from every country on earth makes
41:23
that clear, including the US. There's widespread,
41:27
broad support for a quick transition to renewable
41:31
energy with government support. But, you know.
41:38
There's a lot of things on people's agenda. The
41:41
question you're really asking, I think, is what
41:43
level of desperation will it take to move this
41:47
to the point where it becomes something that
41:49
people absolutely demand from their leaders?
41:54
I don't think anyone knows the answer to that,
41:56
but I suspect that over the next year, we'll
41:59
get a better sense. The El Nino, now aborning
42:03
in the Pacific, is of historic, epic scale. The
42:10
damage it will do around the world over the next
42:13
12 months is likely to be extraordinary. Human
42:18
beings will endure temperatures higher than any
42:21
member of our species has ever endured. We shall
42:27
see, but my guess is it will increase political
42:33
support for quick change. I hope so, because
42:38
I think we're reaching the point where this may
42:40
be, you know, kind of the last warnings of this
42:44
kind we're going to get in a timeframe when we
42:47
still have some room to maneuver. Yeah, you say
42:51
that people kind of support action, but they're
42:53
not exactly, we are not exactly out on the streets,
42:55
are we? Even though... I've been out on the streets,
42:58
so what can I... And we've definitely mobilized
43:02
lots of people to be out on the streets. I mean,
43:04
we've put 400 ,000 people in the streets of New
43:07
York in 2015, which was a key part of winning
43:11
the Paris Climate Accords a year later. Greta
43:15
Thunberg had, we think, seven or eight million
43:17
young people on the streets in 2019 before the
43:21
pandemic hit. So there have been lots of people
43:27
willing to go out in the streets, but we could
43:29
always use some more. that's what this sunday
43:32
thing is about yeah no i was just thinking about
43:35
like even in the most affluent cities in the
43:38
world like new york people sometimes wake up
43:41
and the sky is orange for days and yet when we
43:45
go about our days like nothing nothing happened
43:50
you know and um the the headlines just keep getting
43:54
scarier and scarier and the situation seems to
43:57
keep getting more and more grim which leads me
44:00
to my final question despite all of this you
44:04
seem pretty hopeful in some sort of way at least
44:08
um in the way that you're extremely active in
44:12
campaigning and and um and writing and publishing
44:17
and doing podcasts and trying to sway people's
44:20
um minds and opinions where do you draw this
44:24
energy or this hope from Because I know a lot
44:28
of really young people who are, like I said at
44:31
the beginning, given up and are doomist and are
44:34
just waiting for the apocalypse to arrive. I
44:36
think it's actually easier for older people.
44:39
When I was young, we had examples of political
44:43
efforts really working. The first Earth Day in
44:46
1970 in the US brought... 20 million people into
44:51
the streets, 10 % of the then population of the
44:54
U .S., biggest demonstrations still in American
44:57
history. And they were enough within a couple
45:00
of years to produce the Clean Air Act and the
45:03
Clean Water Act and the Environmental Protection
45:05
Agency that became the templates for similar
45:08
action in countries around the world. And that
45:12
managed to dramatically clean up the air and
45:15
the water in the U .S. Cities got much cleaner.
45:19
Lakes and streams got much cleaner. So at some
45:24
level, it's easier for us to believe that political
45:27
action might get somewhere. If you're 25 right
45:31
now in America, all you've ever gotten to see
45:34
is. Donald Trump and the complete constipation
45:39
of our political system. So I get why it's more
45:44
difficult. I've helped create large organizations,
45:52
350 .org, the first big global grassroots climate
45:56
campaign, Third Act, this work among people my
46:00
age, in part so that I'll have other people to
46:04
work with. And that makes it much easier, very
46:08
hard if you're kind of isolated. So I always
46:12
tell people that the most important thing an
46:15
individual can do and the most empowering, I
46:18
think, is to be a little less of an individual,
46:21
to join together with others in movements large
46:25
enough to change the basic political and economic
46:28
ground rules here. And, you know, like you, I'm
46:31
a journalist by heart. But I've understood that
46:37
it's necessary to go beyond journalism as well
46:40
and also do activism, to work as a citizen in
46:46
order to make things happen. And I think it's
46:49
going to take all of us doing that. That was
46:52
my final question. So instead, I'm going to ask
46:54
you something a little bit more crazy. As a big
46:56
fan of the prison genre, I wanted to ask you,
47:00
how was it in prison when you were arrested?
47:04
It's – American jails are truly terrible places.
47:11
I believe that. And I knew that I wasn't going
47:18
to be there long, that there were people actively
47:21
trying to get me out. And I knew that because
47:26
of the color of my skin and whatever, I was unlikely
47:30
to be subjected to the worst – abuses of them.
47:35
But I will tell you this, each time I'm in jail,
47:38
I come out more determined to help those who
47:42
are working to improve conditions in our prison
47:46
system, which are truly terrible. And that's
47:52
wrong on any number of counts. The only, for
47:56
me, blessing. with being in jail is there's a
48:00
slightly oddly calming thing about it because
48:03
you can't do anything. So, you know, in a way
48:07
the pressure's off for a little while. Professor
48:10
McKibbin, thank you so much for taking the time.
48:12
I know how busy you are. I wish we could extend
48:15
this conversation for a couple more hours, but
48:17
I do appreciate it. Thank you very much. This
48:18
has been a good conversation and thank you for
48:20
your work. We're going to include... The link
48:24
to Sunday in the description as well as the link
48:27
to your latest book. It's a fantastic read. Thank
48:30
you so much and wish you all the best. Bye -bye.
48:33
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