August 9, 2024 • 26 mins
Dr. John Berger, author of Solving the Climate Crisis, joins Danielle for a frank discussions about the urgent issues on our doorstep right now.
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
Good morning, peeps, and welcome to wok F Daily with
me your girl Daniel Moody. Pre recording from the Long
Island Bunker, Folks. As you know, I have taken a
little respite as we prepare for what is going to
be just fast paced, NonStop as we head into convention
and get closer and closer to the election. But I
(00:34):
am leaving you with some really thoughtful, insightful episodes with
some of our favorites and some new voices. And today
is a new voice, Doctor John J. Berger, who's an
environmental scientist and policy expert, joins WOKF to talk about
his book Solving the Climate Crisis Frontline reports from the
(00:56):
Race to Save Earth, and we get into a really
in depth, the detailed conversation about the crisis that we
are in, and he offers up some very clear solutions,
clear ways that our politicians need to act now from
a place of urgency because the situation is becoming dire
(01:17):
and is existential to our ability to, oh, I don't know,
continue on this planet. So coming up next my conversation
with doctor John Jay Berger. Folks. I am very excited
to welcome to OOKF Daily, author of the book solving
(01:40):
the climate crisis. Frontline reports from the Race to Save Earth.
Doctor John J. Berger, who is an expert on the issue,
is an environmental science and policy specialist as well as
a prize winning author. Doctor Burger, talk to us about
(02:02):
where you see the world right now. For years, for
decades now, we have been warned about our warming climate.
We've been warned about rising sea levels and intense storms,
and it seems like every single day there is another
devastating headline. Have we reached the point of no return?
Speaker 2 (02:24):
No? I don't believe that we have, Danielle, I think
that the science is pretty clear that if we are
able to reduce our carbon emissions down to zero, which
is a decadal challenge, then the climate will begin to
cool in two to three years. And the climate is
(02:47):
responsive only to the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
It doesn't care what political party we are, it doesn't
care what we say, and it doesn't care about the
policies that we nominally introduce. It's only interested in the
carbon dioxide concentration and the methane concentration and the nitros
(03:10):
oxide concentration in the atmosphere.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
You know, one of the things that I find that
is the most frustrating about where we are with the
climate crisis is that I still feel like we're in
a place of defense where we're trying to defend against
attacks around fake science and this is in truthful that
you know, the globe always warms and it's always hot
(03:36):
in the summer, that we're still in a place of
trying to tell people that this is real. And if
we're in a position of trying to convince people that
climate change is real, then we're not really able to
focus on the work. Am I wrong about that?
Speaker 2 (03:50):
I think that there's a tremendous amount of misinformation, and
there have been studies that show that half of the
American public at times has basically thought that the change
that we're seeing in the climate is just a natural
climate change. But we have seen the myths that have
(04:12):
been purveyed by the fossil fuel industry change over time.
First they told us that the climate wasn't warming, it
was actually cooling, and then they said, well, maybe it
is warming, but it's natural and it's good for us.
And so they've kind of evolved, and former President Trump
(04:34):
now acknowledges that the climate is changing at times, although
he also thinks that climate change is a Chinese hoax,
and when he does sound off and appear to be
agreeing with the idea that climate change is real, he says, well,
(04:54):
humans probably don't have anything to do with it, so
that's just a total bit of it has no scientific support.
We have scientific results from thousands of scientists and literally
billions of scientific observations over decades to show that the
climate is warming as a result of the waste industrial
(05:17):
gases that humans are spewing into the atmosphere, and there's
a direct correlation if you look at the graph of
how temperature responds, there is a direct correlation between concentration
and temperature. And we've been ignoring these facts, and we've
(05:39):
been ignoring the underlying science in our policy for decades now.
And we have made some very gentle policy measures that
have moved us in the right direction, but we are
nowhere near doing what needs to be done in order
to really climate change. Bring our emissions down initially to
(06:06):
net zero and ultimately to zero, and then we are
actually going to have to be drawing down excess greenhouse
gas from the atmosphere because we're at such a high
concentration due to decades of abusing the atmosphere that we
now need to remedy that situation with specific policy. But
(06:28):
to the point that I think you raise, we are
now kind of going hell bent for leather in terms
of releasing these gases. The world is at the highest
discharge rate of greenhouse gases ever and the rate is increasing,
not decreasing. Meanwhile, the United States is the number one
(06:52):
producer and consumer of oil and natural gas, and the
world's third largest producer of coal, and we are basically
not regulating the major financial institutions, the multinational banks that
are providing trillions of dollars of capital to expand fossil
(07:15):
fuel production and make this problem even worse. Meanwhile, we
are spending as a nation hundreds of billions of dollars
in explicit and implicit subsidies to the maturer multi trillion
dollar fossil fuel industry, where we are thereby buying more
(07:35):
severe hurricanes, more drought, and more destabilization and environmental damage
and public health damage.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
One of the things I find, also with regard to
where we find ourselves is that I think it was
a couple of weeks ago that we had had three
consecutive days of the hottest days that the planet had
ever seen. And we're seeing temperatures in areas like India
that are reaching one hundred and twenty some odd degree
(08:07):
fahrenheit right and places in the Middle East, And it's
happening in areas that are not the key contributors to
climate change, but they are the ones that are dealing
with the brunt and the effects of climate change. And
so how do we reconcile the fact that while the
(08:27):
United States is one of the biggest polluters, that because
we're not the ones that are feeling the effects in
this moment in relation to these other poorer countries, that
it's like we're doing these kind of suggestions with regard
to policy, but it is there's not a sense of urgency.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
This is a very complicated question that you've raised, and
I want to quibble with the premise of the question. First,
because although it was one hundred and twenty four twenty
seven degrees in India, it was one hundred twenty four
degrees in Palm Springs recently during one of the current
heat waves, and there's a giant heat dome that has
(09:08):
been sitting over the midwest of the United States, so
we are feeling these impacts. And in California, where I live,
we're suffering from an epidemic of extreme wildfire. There's a
huge wildfire, the fifth largest in the state's history, that's
raging right now in northern California, and that has already
(09:32):
consumed six hundred square miles and that incinerates, of course,
the wildlife and everything in that area, along with hundreds
of homes. And it's only partially contained. A very small
portion is contained, and there are one hundred wildfires going
on in California. Now. This has a very big human
(09:54):
climate fingerprint on it. So we are definitely suffering these impacts.
But the other aspect of your question has to do
with economic injustice and the fact that countries that have
very little responsibility for having discharged the historic legacy of
(10:16):
climate disturbing gases that are now in the atmosphere are
feeling the brunt of it. Because many of these countries are,
as you said, poor, they're trying to develop, they're in
hot or arid regions, and these regions are going to
be hit the hardest by the heat and the combined
(10:37):
drought that is coming and that we're already experiencing. We
have a very prolonged drought in California, which I believe
we're still in the throes of, although we had a
rainy year or two, but the overall trend has been
one of drying in the American West, which is another
clear fingerprint of climate change. So I think that in
(11:01):
terms of economic justice, the developed countries need to provide
a lot more assistance in the form of aid to
developing countries so that they can leapfrog the fossil fuel
era that we've become entangled in and go directly to
(11:23):
clean solar, wind, geothermal, hydropower, energy storage, so that these
clean technologies can provide power twenty four hours a day,
much like any of the traditional power sources. We have
to accelerate this transition, and ideally the United States would
(11:46):
become a model of environmental stewardship and climate responsibility and
as quickly as possible reduce our fossil fuel consumption. We
now use fossil fuels for seventy nine percent of all
of our energy in the United States, and only about
(12:09):
twenty one percent comes from renewable sources. These sources are
growing rapidly. But we need to provide a great deal
more capital in the form of public private partnerships that
can be used to leverage the trillions of dollars of
private money that's sitting on the sidelines looking for good
(12:30):
economic opportunities. And the good news is that if we
do this, and if we invest adequately in a rapid
clean energy transition, then we're going to be harvesting millions
of new jobs, will be enjoying better public health, environmental protection,
(12:53):
and we will be saving trillions of dollars on our
energy bill in contrast to that we're doing today, which
is spending one point three trillion dollars every year in
the United States on fossil fuels, and on top of
this trillion dollars, there's also about a trillion dollars worth
(13:15):
of public health damages that arise from this, and then
globally this tremendous amount of subsidies that are going into it. Globally,
we spend nine trillion dollars on fossil fuels every year
and about seven trillion dollars in additional funding. Now, if
we took that money and applied it to the green transition,
(13:37):
we could have a spectacular and very rapid, clean transition
that would protect the climate and protect public health because
as a result of this fossil fuel burning, probably eleven
million people die every year as a result of the
air pollution that is ninety percent caused by fole ful
(14:00):
fuel combustion. So we would improve public health, we would
save twelve million lives plus hundreds of millions of illnesses,
and we would avoid the catastrophe that's coming as we
continue to heat the planet. We're at roughly one point
four or one point five degrees centigrade of heating so far,
(14:23):
but we're on this trajectory that is going to carry
us to two and three degrees centigrade. Imagine doubling the
amount of climate destabilization that we've already had, and the
impacts that that will have on the oceans and on
drought and on hurricanes and floods and all this. It's
(14:45):
basically intolerable that we should be doing this to ourselves
and not to mention the planet and other species, because
other species are dying at the rate at one an hour,
and we are losing the abundance of species. We've lost
seventy percent of the abundance of vertebrate species since nineteen
(15:06):
seventy and that's birds and mammals and anything else with
a backbone. Meanwhile, we're damaging and acidifying the ocean because
these toxic gases in the atmosphere react with the ocean
water and make it more acidic. So as we're warming
the ocean, it begins to expand, and we're melting the
(15:28):
polar ice, which is adding fresh water to the ocean.
It's destabilizing ocean circulation and currents, and could have dramatic
and catastrophic impacts on the climate of Europe. For example,
if we divert the Gulf Stream, which carries warm water
to northern Europe. So the kinds of changes that we're
(15:53):
talking about are existential changes that will produce hundreds of
millions of climate refugees, which will be destabilizing to civilization
as we know it. You can see what ten million
refugees has done to Western Europe. Imagine two hundred million refugees.
And we're already seeing refugees on our border, desperate to
(16:17):
come someplace where they can be safe not only from
dictatorship and from crime, but also many of these refugees
were basically small farmers that are unable to farm because
of the drought that's hit Central America. So on many
(16:39):
many fronts, in many ways, we need to deal with
this crisis because it's going to deal with us if
we don't. And I think you alluded to the fact
that there is an ecological dimension to this, there's a
technological dimension, and that there's a political dimension. And we
(16:59):
have the technology that we need, and we have the
money that we need. We're a very wealthy country. And
if it's just a few percent of our GDP that
and we divert some of this money that we're throwing
at the fossil fuel industry and setting on fire because
fuel has to be replenished every year. We're burning money
(17:21):
to support the fossil fuel industry, giving them subsidies, and
undermining our own economy as a result of that. This
is not beneficial to us.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
It's not a long term strategy. I mean, everything that
you have laid out it spells existential threat and crises
because and I guess my other question for you is,
I would assume, and let's talk about the political dimension,
the policy dimension that you brought up, that people have
this information, people in power know what we're being faced with,
(17:59):
and I'm wondering, how do we convince these folks that
are in bed with the fossil fuel industry that they're
betting against themselves.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
It's a challenging question. The climate and environmental movement in
this country tends to be somewhat islanded or fragmented, and
my own personal belief is that this movement does not
speak really simply and really clearly with one voice to
(18:34):
the American public. So I am trying actually to see
if I can't get together enough support to put on
a national Climate roadblock Removal conference that would bring together
political leaders, with leaders in clean climate technology, and also
(18:55):
representatives of groups that are engaged now in trying to
protect the climate, but are doing so in a way
that's not really well coordinated. Because we have groups that
are protecting a park, or groups that are protecting a
particular species, or groups that are interested in conserving land,
(19:18):
and all of these groups have common interests, but they
also have different funders and they have different agendas, and
we need to get everybody together really to have a
coherent platform that can then be taken to the American
people and made clear that we have everything to gain
(19:40):
and little to lose, because the fossil fuel industry is
really a relatively small sliver of our economy, whereas the
clean energy economy offers millions of new, good paying jobs,
and it offers a clean environment. So I think, in
conjunction with getting a conference together, I would like to
(20:03):
see a democratic administration take over in Washington that believes
in the reality of climate change and that is committed
to making it a very high national priority. I think
personally this is the highest priority. It's the highest priority
from all kinds of perspectives and including the perspectives of
(20:27):
environmental and economic justice, because, as you pointed out, the
impacts of climate change that are created more by the
rich countries than the poor countries are disproportionate at least
felt by the lower income countries. And we're also seeing
that within the United States that lower income communities have
(20:49):
hotter temperatures, they don't have as many parks, they don't
have as many trees, the buildings aren't as well insulated.
They may be near petrochemical facilities that are processing fossil fuels,
so they're suffering from our commitment to the fossil fuel economy.
We need a federal government that is deeply committed to this,
(21:12):
but it has to be a multi layered approach, not
just the federal government, but state government, local government, regional government,
municipal government, and it has to be an all of
society effort. We need a national mobilization to address climate change.
We should have the White House first thing when they
(21:34):
take over, issue a National Climate Emergency Declaration to bring
this issue to the fore so the public will understand it.
And then we should couple that with a National Climate
Prosperity Plan, which should be produced by the national laboratories
and the best science and engineering, technology and knowledge that
(21:57):
we have, so that we can map out the scenario
or the optimal path to a clean energy transition that
is least cost and that is quickest and most effective
and most efficient. And then we ought to have the
president issue a national Climate report to the nation every year.
(22:19):
Just as we have State of the Union address, we
should have this state of a Climate address. Wow.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
That yeah, that's a great idea.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
And I think that we should couple this with a
national atlas of climate risks so that people who may
think that the climate is somebody else's problem will be
able to look at this atlas and see that, oh,
my area is like either hit by floods already or
likely to be flooded again within the next few years,
(22:52):
and my property along the coast is going to lose
its value when sea level rises by two feet or
whatever within whatever timeframe. This will help people visualize the
impacts of climate change and the climate disruption within our
(23:15):
own borders, so we'll realize this is not somebody else's problem.
This is everybody's problem, and if we treat it that way,
it could have a very beneficial effect in bringing people together,
even people who think that they have disparate interests. We
all have a very common interest in a healthy climate.
(23:37):
Climate does not ask you what is your political affiliation
before the flood floods your basement or the hurricane rips
off your roof. We have to get together as a nation,
and for political purposes, the fossil fuel industry and its
allies in the Republican Party largely have tried to muddy
(24:01):
the waters that obscure the true issues here, so that
people have not clearly seen what is the cause of
what's going on and what has to happen. And that's
why public education is very important in dealing with this crisis.
Along with all of the other specific roadmaps kind of
(24:22):
ideas that I lay this out in Solving the Climate
Crisis Frontline reports. I have fifteen pages of specific policy
proposals which if we implemented, these proposals would really get
us on the path to solving the climate crisis. It
includes things like we stop all fossil fuel subsidies, we
(24:42):
impose a moratorium on new fossil fuel development, we have
the Climate Emergency Declaration that I mentioned, and we create
a very well funded National Clean Energy Bank and the
issue new clean energy Treasury bonds, and we make the
capital available. These are not expenses that are going to
(25:03):
drain our economy. These are very very profitable investments. They're
a lot more profitable than putting your money into the
stock market. They will pay off three, four or five
times what you invest as a nation in this type
of endeavor.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
I mean, I think to the points that you have
laid out that we need to change the conversation and
make it be one that does really get to people's
pocketbooks and the way in which we're already paying for
the climate crisis. When we're looking at our utility bills
when we're looking at where to move and where to live.
(25:44):
And it was just a year or so ago when
the big insurers in Florida and California said, we're not
ensuring your homes anymore, right, and we're going to see
more and more of those things happen. We'll leave it
here today, doctor John Berger. But I so appreciate you
make in the time to join WOKF. This is incredibly insightful, my.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Pleasure to talk with you. If people want to find
out more, they could go to my website Johnjayberger dot
com burger with an E, and they could also go
to Solving the Climate Crisis dot us, where they can
find out how to gets solving the climate crisis and
also how to learn more about the work that I'm
(26:25):
doing in order to contact me if they want me
to speak or consult. Thank you so much for having me.
It's been a pleasure talking with you, Danielle.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
That is it for me today. Dear friends on WOKF.
As always power to the people and to all the people. Power,
get woke and stay woke as fuck.
Good morning, peeps, and welcome to wok F Daily with
me your girl Daniel Moody. Pre recording from the Long
Island Bunker, Folks. As you know, I have taken a
little respite as we prepare for what is going to
be just fast paced, NonStop as we head into convention
and get closer and closer to the election. But I
(00:34):
am leaving you with some really thoughtful, insightful episodes with
some of our favorites and some new voices. And today
is a new voice, Doctor John J. Berger, who's an
environmental scientist and policy expert, joins WOKF to talk about
his book Solving the Climate Crisis Frontline reports from the
(00:56):
Race to Save Earth, and we get into a really
in depth, the detailed conversation about the crisis that we
are in, and he offers up some very clear solutions,
clear ways that our politicians need to act now from
a place of urgency because the situation is becoming dire
(01:17):
and is existential to our ability to, oh, I don't know,
continue on this planet. So coming up next my conversation
with doctor John Jay Berger. Folks. I am very excited
to welcome to OOKF Daily, author of the book solving
(01:40):
the climate crisis. Frontline reports from the Race to Save Earth.
Doctor John J. Berger, who is an expert on the issue,
is an environmental science and policy specialist as well as
a prize winning author. Doctor Burger, talk to us about
(02:02):
where you see the world right now. For years, for
decades now, we have been warned about our warming climate.
We've been warned about rising sea levels and intense storms,
and it seems like every single day there is another
devastating headline. Have we reached the point of no return?
Speaker 2 (02:24):
No? I don't believe that we have, Danielle, I think
that the science is pretty clear that if we are
able to reduce our carbon emissions down to zero, which
is a decadal challenge, then the climate will begin to
cool in two to three years. And the climate is
(02:47):
responsive only to the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
It doesn't care what political party we are, it doesn't
care what we say, and it doesn't care about the
policies that we nominally introduce. It's only interested in the
carbon dioxide concentration and the methane concentration and the nitros
(03:10):
oxide concentration in the atmosphere.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
You know, one of the things that I find that
is the most frustrating about where we are with the
climate crisis is that I still feel like we're in
a place of defense where we're trying to defend against
attacks around fake science and this is in truthful that
you know, the globe always warms and it's always hot
(03:36):
in the summer, that we're still in a place of
trying to tell people that this is real. And if
we're in a position of trying to convince people that
climate change is real, then we're not really able to
focus on the work. Am I wrong about that?
Speaker 2 (03:50):
I think that there's a tremendous amount of misinformation, and
there have been studies that show that half of the
American public at times has basically thought that the change
that we're seeing in the climate is just a natural
climate change. But we have seen the myths that have
(04:12):
been purveyed by the fossil fuel industry change over time.
First they told us that the climate wasn't warming, it
was actually cooling, and then they said, well, maybe it
is warming, but it's natural and it's good for us.
And so they've kind of evolved, and former President Trump
(04:34):
now acknowledges that the climate is changing at times, although
he also thinks that climate change is a Chinese hoax,
and when he does sound off and appear to be
agreeing with the idea that climate change is real, he says, well,
(04:54):
humans probably don't have anything to do with it, so
that's just a total bit of it has no scientific support.
We have scientific results from thousands of scientists and literally
billions of scientific observations over decades to show that the
climate is warming as a result of the waste industrial
(05:17):
gases that humans are spewing into the atmosphere, and there's
a direct correlation if you look at the graph of
how temperature responds, there is a direct correlation between concentration
and temperature. And we've been ignoring these facts, and we've
(05:39):
been ignoring the underlying science in our policy for decades now.
And we have made some very gentle policy measures that
have moved us in the right direction, but we are
nowhere near doing what needs to be done in order
to really climate change. Bring our emissions down initially to
(06:06):
net zero and ultimately to zero, and then we are
actually going to have to be drawing down excess greenhouse
gas from the atmosphere because we're at such a high
concentration due to decades of abusing the atmosphere that we
now need to remedy that situation with specific policy. But
(06:28):
to the point that I think you raise, we are
now kind of going hell bent for leather in terms
of releasing these gases. The world is at the highest
discharge rate of greenhouse gases ever and the rate is increasing,
not decreasing. Meanwhile, the United States is the number one
(06:52):
producer and consumer of oil and natural gas, and the
world's third largest producer of coal, and we are basically
not regulating the major financial institutions, the multinational banks that
are providing trillions of dollars of capital to expand fossil
(07:15):
fuel production and make this problem even worse. Meanwhile, we
are spending as a nation hundreds of billions of dollars
in explicit and implicit subsidies to the maturer multi trillion
dollar fossil fuel industry, where we are thereby buying more
(07:35):
severe hurricanes, more drought, and more destabilization and environmental damage
and public health damage.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
One of the things I find, also with regard to
where we find ourselves is that I think it was
a couple of weeks ago that we had had three
consecutive days of the hottest days that the planet had
ever seen. And we're seeing temperatures in areas like India
that are reaching one hundred and twenty some odd degree
(08:07):
fahrenheit right and places in the Middle East, And it's
happening in areas that are not the key contributors to
climate change, but they are the ones that are dealing
with the brunt and the effects of climate change. And
so how do we reconcile the fact that while the
(08:27):
United States is one of the biggest polluters, that because
we're not the ones that are feeling the effects in
this moment in relation to these other poorer countries, that
it's like we're doing these kind of suggestions with regard
to policy, but it is there's not a sense of urgency.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
This is a very complicated question that you've raised, and
I want to quibble with the premise of the question. First,
because although it was one hundred and twenty four twenty
seven degrees in India, it was one hundred twenty four
degrees in Palm Springs recently during one of the current
heat waves, and there's a giant heat dome that has
(09:08):
been sitting over the midwest of the United States, so
we are feeling these impacts. And in California, where I live,
we're suffering from an epidemic of extreme wildfire. There's a
huge wildfire, the fifth largest in the state's history, that's
raging right now in northern California, and that has already
(09:32):
consumed six hundred square miles and that incinerates, of course,
the wildlife and everything in that area, along with hundreds
of homes. And it's only partially contained. A very small
portion is contained, and there are one hundred wildfires going
on in California. Now. This has a very big human
(09:54):
climate fingerprint on it. So we are definitely suffering these impacts.
But the other aspect of your question has to do
with economic injustice and the fact that countries that have
very little responsibility for having discharged the historic legacy of
(10:16):
climate disturbing gases that are now in the atmosphere are
feeling the brunt of it. Because many of these countries are,
as you said, poor, they're trying to develop, they're in
hot or arid regions, and these regions are going to
be hit the hardest by the heat and the combined
(10:37):
drought that is coming and that we're already experiencing. We
have a very prolonged drought in California, which I believe
we're still in the throes of, although we had a
rainy year or two, but the overall trend has been
one of drying in the American West, which is another
clear fingerprint of climate change. So I think that in
(11:01):
terms of economic justice, the developed countries need to provide
a lot more assistance in the form of aid to
developing countries so that they can leapfrog the fossil fuel
era that we've become entangled in and go directly to
(11:23):
clean solar, wind, geothermal, hydropower, energy storage, so that these
clean technologies can provide power twenty four hours a day,
much like any of the traditional power sources. We have
to accelerate this transition, and ideally the United States would
(11:46):
become a model of environmental stewardship and climate responsibility and
as quickly as possible reduce our fossil fuel consumption. We
now use fossil fuels for seventy nine percent of all
of our energy in the United States, and only about
(12:09):
twenty one percent comes from renewable sources. These sources are
growing rapidly. But we need to provide a great deal
more capital in the form of public private partnerships that
can be used to leverage the trillions of dollars of
private money that's sitting on the sidelines looking for good
(12:30):
economic opportunities. And the good news is that if we
do this, and if we invest adequately in a rapid
clean energy transition, then we're going to be harvesting millions
of new jobs, will be enjoying better public health, environmental protection,
(12:53):
and we will be saving trillions of dollars on our
energy bill in contrast to that we're doing today, which
is spending one point three trillion dollars every year in
the United States on fossil fuels, and on top of
this trillion dollars, there's also about a trillion dollars worth
(13:15):
of public health damages that arise from this, and then
globally this tremendous amount of subsidies that are going into it. Globally,
we spend nine trillion dollars on fossil fuels every year
and about seven trillion dollars in additional funding. Now, if
we took that money and applied it to the green transition,
(13:37):
we could have a spectacular and very rapid, clean transition
that would protect the climate and protect public health because
as a result of this fossil fuel burning, probably eleven
million people die every year as a result of the
air pollution that is ninety percent caused by fole ful
(14:00):
fuel combustion. So we would improve public health, we would
save twelve million lives plus hundreds of millions of illnesses,
and we would avoid the catastrophe that's coming as we
continue to heat the planet. We're at roughly one point
four or one point five degrees centigrade of heating so far,
(14:23):
but we're on this trajectory that is going to carry
us to two and three degrees centigrade. Imagine doubling the
amount of climate destabilization that we've already had, and the
impacts that that will have on the oceans and on
drought and on hurricanes and floods and all this. It's
(14:45):
basically intolerable that we should be doing this to ourselves
and not to mention the planet and other species, because
other species are dying at the rate at one an hour,
and we are losing the abundance of species. We've lost
seventy percent of the abundance of vertebrate species since nineteen
(15:06):
seventy and that's birds and mammals and anything else with
a backbone. Meanwhile, we're damaging and acidifying the ocean because
these toxic gases in the atmosphere react with the ocean
water and make it more acidic. So as we're warming
the ocean, it begins to expand, and we're melting the
(15:28):
polar ice, which is adding fresh water to the ocean.
It's destabilizing ocean circulation and currents, and could have dramatic
and catastrophic impacts on the climate of Europe. For example,
if we divert the Gulf Stream, which carries warm water
to northern Europe. So the kinds of changes that we're
(15:53):
talking about are existential changes that will produce hundreds of
millions of climate refugees, which will be destabilizing to civilization
as we know it. You can see what ten million
refugees has done to Western Europe. Imagine two hundred million refugees.
And we're already seeing refugees on our border, desperate to
(16:17):
come someplace where they can be safe not only from
dictatorship and from crime, but also many of these refugees
were basically small farmers that are unable to farm because
of the drought that's hit Central America. So on many
(16:39):
many fronts, in many ways, we need to deal with
this crisis because it's going to deal with us if
we don't. And I think you alluded to the fact
that there is an ecological dimension to this, there's a
technological dimension, and that there's a political dimension. And we
(16:59):
have the technology that we need, and we have the
money that we need. We're a very wealthy country. And
if it's just a few percent of our GDP that
and we divert some of this money that we're throwing
at the fossil fuel industry and setting on fire because
fuel has to be replenished every year. We're burning money
(17:21):
to support the fossil fuel industry, giving them subsidies, and
undermining our own economy as a result of that. This
is not beneficial to us.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
It's not a long term strategy. I mean, everything that
you have laid out it spells existential threat and crises
because and I guess my other question for you is,
I would assume, and let's talk about the political dimension,
the policy dimension that you brought up, that people have
this information, people in power know what we're being faced with,
(17:59):
and I'm wondering, how do we convince these folks that
are in bed with the fossil fuel industry that they're
betting against themselves.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
It's a challenging question. The climate and environmental movement in
this country tends to be somewhat islanded or fragmented, and
my own personal belief is that this movement does not
speak really simply and really clearly with one voice to
(18:34):
the American public. So I am trying actually to see
if I can't get together enough support to put on
a national Climate roadblock Removal conference that would bring together
political leaders, with leaders in clean climate technology, and also
(18:55):
representatives of groups that are engaged now in trying to
protect the climate, but are doing so in a way
that's not really well coordinated. Because we have groups that
are protecting a park, or groups that are protecting a
particular species, or groups that are interested in conserving land,
(19:18):
and all of these groups have common interests, but they
also have different funders and they have different agendas, and
we need to get everybody together really to have a
coherent platform that can then be taken to the American
people and made clear that we have everything to gain
(19:40):
and little to lose, because the fossil fuel industry is
really a relatively small sliver of our economy, whereas the
clean energy economy offers millions of new, good paying jobs,
and it offers a clean environment. So I think, in
conjunction with getting a conference together, I would like to
(20:03):
see a democratic administration take over in Washington that believes
in the reality of climate change and that is committed
to making it a very high national priority. I think
personally this is the highest priority. It's the highest priority
from all kinds of perspectives and including the perspectives of
(20:27):
environmental and economic justice, because, as you pointed out, the
impacts of climate change that are created more by the
rich countries than the poor countries are disproportionate at least
felt by the lower income countries. And we're also seeing
that within the United States that lower income communities have
(20:49):
hotter temperatures, they don't have as many parks, they don't
have as many trees, the buildings aren't as well insulated.
They may be near petrochemical facilities that are processing fossil fuels,
so they're suffering from our commitment to the fossil fuel economy.
We need a federal government that is deeply committed to this,
(21:12):
but it has to be a multi layered approach, not
just the federal government, but state government, local government, regional government,
municipal government, and it has to be an all of
society effort. We need a national mobilization to address climate change.
We should have the White House first thing when they
(21:34):
take over, issue a National Climate Emergency Declaration to bring
this issue to the fore so the public will understand it.
And then we should couple that with a National Climate
Prosperity Plan, which should be produced by the national laboratories
and the best science and engineering, technology and knowledge that
(21:57):
we have, so that we can map out the scenario
or the optimal path to a clean energy transition that
is least cost and that is quickest and most effective
and most efficient. And then we ought to have the
president issue a national Climate report to the nation every year.
(22:19):
Just as we have State of the Union address, we
should have this state of a Climate address. Wow.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
That yeah, that's a great idea.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
And I think that we should couple this with a
national atlas of climate risks so that people who may
think that the climate is somebody else's problem will be
able to look at this atlas and see that, oh,
my area is like either hit by floods already or
likely to be flooded again within the next few years,
(22:52):
and my property along the coast is going to lose
its value when sea level rises by two feet or
whatever within whatever timeframe. This will help people visualize the
impacts of climate change and the climate disruption within our
(23:15):
own borders, so we'll realize this is not somebody else's problem.
This is everybody's problem, and if we treat it that way,
it could have a very beneficial effect in bringing people together,
even people who think that they have disparate interests. We
all have a very common interest in a healthy climate.
(23:37):
Climate does not ask you what is your political affiliation
before the flood floods your basement or the hurricane rips
off your roof. We have to get together as a nation,
and for political purposes, the fossil fuel industry and its
allies in the Republican Party largely have tried to muddy
(24:01):
the waters that obscure the true issues here, so that
people have not clearly seen what is the cause of
what's going on and what has to happen. And that's
why public education is very important in dealing with this crisis.
Along with all of the other specific roadmaps kind of
(24:22):
ideas that I lay this out in Solving the Climate
Crisis Frontline reports. I have fifteen pages of specific policy
proposals which if we implemented, these proposals would really get
us on the path to solving the climate crisis. It
includes things like we stop all fossil fuel subsidies, we
(24:42):
impose a moratorium on new fossil fuel development, we have
the Climate Emergency Declaration that I mentioned, and we create
a very well funded National Clean Energy Bank and the
issue new clean energy Treasury bonds, and we make the
capital available. These are not expenses that are going to
(25:03):
drain our economy. These are very very profitable investments. They're
a lot more profitable than putting your money into the
stock market. They will pay off three, four or five
times what you invest as a nation in this type
of endeavor.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
I mean, I think to the points that you have
laid out that we need to change the conversation and
make it be one that does really get to people's
pocketbooks and the way in which we're already paying for
the climate crisis. When we're looking at our utility bills
when we're looking at where to move and where to live.
(25:44):
And it was just a year or so ago when
the big insurers in Florida and California said, we're not
ensuring your homes anymore, right, and we're going to see
more and more of those things happen. We'll leave it
here today, doctor John Berger. But I so appreciate you
make in the time to join WOKF. This is incredibly insightful, my.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Pleasure to talk with you. If people want to find
out more, they could go to my website Johnjayberger dot
com burger with an E, and they could also go
to Solving the Climate Crisis dot us, where they can
find out how to gets solving the climate crisis and
also how to learn more about the work that I'm
(26:25):
doing in order to contact me if they want me
to speak or consult. Thank you so much for having me.
It's been a pleasure talking with you, Danielle.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
That is it for me today. Dear friends on WOKF.
As always power to the people and to all the people. Power,
get woke and stay woke as fuck.
Host
Danielle Moodie
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