CATHERINE: Good morning! I'd like to welcome you to
our panel on behalf of the Equal Justice
Initiative. My name is Catherine Coleman
Flowers and I'm the Rural Development
Manager for the Equal Justice Initiative. [applause]
This morning, I'd like to present to you
one of my favorite persons in the world,
a mentor to me, he is the person who
has all of us talking about climate
change which intersects with the work
that I do in Lowndes County, Alabama. [applause]
He was elected, by the popular vote,
President of the United States of
America in 2000. [loud applause]
He's also a Nobel Peace Prize winner,
and a Southerner. So I would like to present
to you, Former Vice President Al Gore!
[applause]
AL: Thank you! Thank you, Catherine, thank you
so much, thank you. Thank you, good morning!
Good morning, good morning. Thank you.
Thank you very much, thank you, thank you.
All right, all right!
Thank you very much, Catherine, for those
kind words. I really have learned so much
from Catherine Flowers, and I want to
thank her for being my mentor on so many
of these issues. I'm going to be talking
about the climate crisis and its
connection to environmental justice and
Catherine Flowers works with the Equal
Justice Initiative and she has brought
the sensibilities for environmental justice
into this cause and others.
By the way, I want to acknowledge also
that the true leaders of the
environmental justice cause really have
been low-income African American
communities that raise the alarm
before any policymakers in Washington or
Montgomery or Birmingham or
elsewhere became aware of it. Some 40
years ago in Warren County, North Carolina,
a low-income African-American
community, including by the way the
father of Reverend William Barber, laid
down in front of trucks on the highway
as the trucks were trying to dump
hazardous chemical waste, PCBs in that
case, and it bubbled up and some time
after that I was honored to
join with Congressman John Lewis and
introducing the first environmental
justice law. It didn't get passed but
when the Clinton-Gore year started, I was
able to get the Executive Order that put
it in place, and I hope the Trump White House
isn't listening. They don't seem to
know it's still there and still operating,
but [applause] Catherine is also the Director of
Environmental Justice and Civic
Engagement at the Center for Earth
Ethics at Union Theological Seminary and
I am so proud of my daughter Karenna Gore
who runs that Center who's here
this morning [applause] and I'm grateful,
I'm grateful to her for introducing me to
Catherine and I want to acknowledge
Catherine's daughter, Taylor Flowers, who
is here this morning also. Taylor!
And welcome.
And speaking of gratitude, I know I share
with every single person here, a feeling of
deep gratitude to Bryan Stevenson and
the Equal Justice Initiative [applause]
Oh my goodness... [applause]
We get used to seeing
these horrible events on the news and
every once in a while, there are
developments that just lift us all up
and transcend these hateful narratives
and give us hope and Bryan...
God bless you. I told him earlier this
morning, he's going to have a hubris
problem if all these words of praise
keep coming down, but he deserves every
single one of them, and all the people
that have been working with him. It has
been a wonderful experience, if I may
speak personally for a moment, to come
here and take part in the acknowledgment
of the history that is commemorated here
and to share in the planning for all of
the work that needs to be done to take
this momentum and move forward.
It really is one of the most meaningful, and
dare I say magical events that I've ever
been involved in. And so as a thank you
Bryan, very, very much. [applause]
I used to be in the United States Senate
and I don't remember any election that
has given me more hope and joy than the
election of Senator Doug Jones from Alabama!
Stand up, please! [applause]
And stand up, Louise! [applause]
And by the way, one of his first
statements, as that campaign began to
take shape, was a statement about the
climate crisis and staying in the Paris
Agreement and... God bless you Doug.
And I asked his wife Louise to stand up with
Doug but you didn't hear
her name when you were applauding so
loudly, but Louise, thank you for what you
and your family are doing. Thank you very much. [applause]
And one of my favorite senators,
who's an incumbent and has been
inspiring this country, Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey! [applause]
Before I show you some slides, I want to
read a quotation from Pope Francis.
In his encyclical, "Laudato Si,"
he wrote, "The human environment and the
natural environment deteriorate together.
We cannot adequately combat
environmental degradation unless we
attend to causes related to human and
social degradation... a true," And I'm skipping down,
"A true ecological approach
always becomes a social approach. It must
integrate questions of justice in
debates on the environment, so as to hear
both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor."
So I'm going to show you some
slides and I always start with these
pictures of the earth to set the context.
This is earth rise on Christmas Eve 1968
and this is the last of the Apollo
Mission's pictures. Apollo 17, the most
commonly published photograph in all of
history, and featuring Africa, the
continental home of all humankind. This
picture is from the space station, and I
show this because it illustrates an
extremely important fact about the
climate crisis. We walk outside and look
up at the sky and it seems like a vast
and limitless expanse.
But as this picture shows, the scientists
have always known, well since Galileo and
Copernicus, have known that it's actually
a very thin shell around the planet.
And that difference between our impression
and what the reality is is really
crucial because the power of human
civilization now with seven point eight
billion people and these incredibly
powerful technologies and short-term
thinking about the long-term
consequences means that we're capable of
changing that atmosphere in very
significant and powerful ways
specifically every single day we're
putting a hundred and ten million tons
of manmade
heat trapping global warming pollution
into it as if it's an open sewer free of
charge what we tell the big polluters is
oh you got waste to dispose off that's
gaseous in nature we'll just dump it in
the sky we don't care well we should
care and these are the sources I'm not
gonna go through all of them co2 is the
mainland I'll come back to that but
methane natural gas leaking from
pipelines and compressors in the
fracking process burning of forests
landfills where they don't take the time
and care to capture the methane
agriculture particularly animal
agriculture has a big part but the
biggest part of all is CO2 from the
burning of fossil fuels coal gas oil and
as you can see in after World War two it
really took off now here's a spoiler
alert on the upper right there you see
it leveling off there's some evidence
that it three of the last four years
it's leveled off which is a good thing
and by the way I'm about to go into the
part of these slides that answers the
first of the major questions there are
only three questions that have to be
asked about the climate crisis and
answered first is must we change and the
evidence for why we have to change is
sometimes a little hard to hear and see
so don't get depressed when you see this
don't go down too far because the
answers to the second question can we
change and the third question will we
change bring a lot of optimism and hope
so hold on we're going to get to that
part but first of all all of that
accumulated man-made global warming is
now trapping as much extra heat energy
every day as would be released by four
hundred thousand her ocean
class atomic bombs exploding everyday
it's a big planet but that is a lot of
energy and that's why the temperatures
have been going up so quickly that's why
it's been getting so hot in fact 17 of
the 18 hottest years ever measured with
instruments have been since 2001 and
it's a 2018 the four hottest of all have
been the last four years and the
temperatures in many places are getting
quite extreme last year they had red
alerts in Europe 111 degrees the summer
in the southern hemisphere in Sydney
hundred and seventeen degrees couple
months ago they had to close one of
their roads ten kilometers because the
road was melting I've got about a
hundred slides and videos of melting
highways around the world not going to
show them to you but Iraq last summer
124 degrees Kuwait 124 degrees a year
earlier on in 29 degrees last summer
birds fell dead out of the sky it was so
hot there the Emirates broke their
all-time record last summer 100 24.7
Iran reached 128 0.7 Pakistan 120 9.2
this is getting to be intolerable in
many places and as I'll show you in a
moment it contributes to the climate
refugee crisis but coming back to the
words of Pope Francis the effects of the
climate crisis and all of the
environmental insults are suffered first
by the poor those who have less economic
and political power because of poverty
because of minority demographic status
they are the ones that always suffer it
first and that's true for the rising
heat in our country those most
vulnerable are the poor the elderly
infants and children and those with
pre-existing conditions and the mentally
ill the urban heat island effect means
that there is a particular impact on
African American populations this
gentleman lives in Memphis in my home
state in Los Angeles the projection is a
doubled heat mortality rate for the
residents of the inner cities
principally African-Americans in this
study but let me pull back out and I'll
come back to environmental justice but I
want to take a global view and tell you
last year in fact this year in February
at the North Pole temperatures went up
50 degrees higher than normal this is
the third year in a row that the North
Pole started melting in the middle of
the cold dark polar winter night this is
having consequences and I went up to I
went back up to Greenland
not too long ago two years ago and one
of the engineers and the helicopter that
we use took this iPhone video of the
jakob shavon glacier literally exploding
this was in the middle of April this
look this is not time-lapse this is a
real-time image it looks like a CGI film
and a Transformers movie but this has
real consequences this is why this
octopus showed up in a parking garage in
Miami something you don't see every day
but in many of our coastal cities
Galveston Norfolk Miami and you could go
Annapolis we're seeing sea level rise
down the list
begin to be an extremely serious problem
and if you look at the entire world more
than 90% of all this extra heat energy
is going into the oceans and this has
several consequences for all of us it is
increasing the heat content of the
oceans dramatically and it goes down all
the way 2,000 meters and by the way half
of this increase has been in the last 20
years one of the consequences is that
when these ocean based storms hurricanes
and what we call them cyclones and
typhoons and other parts of the world
when they cross warmer waters they get a
lot stronger
think about last summer hurricane Harvey
crossed ocean waters in the Gulf of
Mexico seven degrees warmer than normal
and became a monster storm you know how
much water was dumped on Houston Texas
Harris County five feet of water and
anybody ever been to Niagara Falls well
you think about st. watching Niagara
Falls and measuring the full flow of
Niagara Falls for 509 days that's how
much water went was dumped on Texas and
Louisiana much of it right in Harris
County and the suffering was extreme I
don't have time to show you some of the
startling images of the damage that was
done but I want to focus on the heroic
rescues and the response it was really
quite inspiring and many heroes emerged
but we're gonna see more Harvey's in the
future in fact we saw more Harvey's
right after Harvey hurricane Irma
devastated the Caribbean a lot of poor
people in the Caribbean islands are
still trying to recover Florida Keys got
hit by this one also and then Maria it
is a disgrace that the people of Puerto
Rico who are Americans have been left to
fend for themselves. [applause]
this the treatment of the people of
Puerto Rico is environmental racism they
were not given the help and support that
they deserve but we all pay the cost
last year alone 320 billion dollars from
climate-related extreme weather events
and there will be more coming
you remember superstorm sandy they
ridicule the idea that the 9/11 memorial
site could be flooded with big storms
and sea level rise but it happened and
just recently a study came out that used
to be a once in five hundred year storm
now it's a once in 25 year storm in the
next 20 30 years it's due to be once
every five years we have to prepare we
have to prepare to adapt but we have to
also put attention on stopping this and
on stopping the causes of it and I'll
continue but one of the causes is you
know we've heard a lot in these
magnificent sessions here these three
days I I came in Wednesday evening and I
you know often I'll come in spend three
hours in some place and do my thing and
get out it when Bryan called me and said
to Al I want you to talk about climate
here I said well I was so honored by
that and so honored by this whole the
opportunity to participate in this whole
thing I decided to spend three days here
but I've heard a lot about broken
systems the hydrological cycle or the
water cycle is a system that we are in
the midst of breaking you know we all
learned in school it evaporates off the
oceans and falls as precipitation then
runs back to the sea well when we heat
up the ocean so much the amount of water
evaporation going into the sky increases
dramatically and the warmer air holds a
lot more water vapor and so we get now
these atmospheric rivers the Brazilian
side has called them flying rivers this
is Hawaii in the lower-left and Silicon
Valley in the upper right there's an
atmospheric river the day this satellite
picture was taken this is what was
happening in Silicon Valley we now get
these rain bombs oh here's another
atmospheric River from a few weeks ago
this was a monster and it correlates
with these many of these rain bombs much
more precipitation falls at the same
time and then there may be a longer
period of time in between the big events
here's a rain bomb over Phoenix a couple
of years ago and this has a lot of
consequences and it's happening all over
the world including in the United States
of America in fact there are four times
as many extreme downpours and floods
then there were in 1980 and another 50
percent increased just in the last seven
eight years so this was just a few weeks
ago in Massachusetts and Kentucky and
Indiana all over the world and Kenya I
could show you lots of these in
Australia 16 inches of rain in 24 hours
sometimes it's snow you know they've run
out of adjectives like Snowmageddon and
snowpocalypse it's the same kind of
thing here's a hail bomb in Argentina
last fall 55 feet of hail in 15 minutes
these people had to be rescued from
their cars some of them taken to the
hospital you know that's a little
unusual five feet of hail in 15 minutes
this was in England yeah you've heard
the saying there'll always be in England
well the inside of this pub stayed spic
and span I really admire that adaptation
but outside things can change also
here's a little-known fact when we have
water borne disease outbreaks in the
United States more than two-thirds of
them are in the immediate aftermath of
these big downpours Paul Farmer I'm told
is here and Paul god bless you gave a
great
speech last night thank you and
teleprompter didn't work your speech was
better one time when I was Vice
President first speech to a joint
session at President Clinton made they
clap you know they stand up and clap all
the time at those things and while they
were clapping he turned around walked up
he's how they got the wrong speech on
the teleprompter yeah I went down to
George Stephanopoulos who was on the
sidelines at that time and I said George
they got the wrong speech on the
teleprompter and so I had a view of the
teleprompter pain pains and they were
just going crazy they're trying to find
the right computer file the first six
minutes of that speech were by far the
best and Paul yours was two anyway the
big downpours that that accompanied the
hurricane Harvey resulted in more than a
hundred top toxic chemical releases and
because of what we're taught by the
leaders of the environmental justice
movement poor people and communities of
color are more likely to be affected
these are the places along the Houston
Ship Canal where the chemical spills had
a big effect and right here in
Montgomery Alabama less than one year
ago 4,500 pounds of a chemical dump went
into the Alabama River now this is where
Catherine Flowers lives and some of you
know the story that the sewage
infrastructure was built to some
communities that had cloud had stopped
before they got their raw sewage and
what happens when these bigger downpours
come well the people are profoundly
affected obviously and in fact as
Catherine has documented one-third of
the residents of Lowndes County Alabama
have tested positive for a parasite that
causes illness and cognitive impairment
in fact around our country some medical
experts are telling us that as many as
12 million Americans living in poverty
now suffer from an undiagnosed tropical
disease tropical diseases are moving to
the higher latitudes and air travel has
a lot to do with this but the conditions
where these diseases take root are
profoundly affected by the climate
crisis the Zika scare is the latest one
we we have to have sewage infrastructure
we have to have good public water
supplies and stop selling the good
public water sources to bottled water
companies for pittance and instead put
them to the use of the people who need
that water people of color are also
exposed more to air pollution these are
the states where the exposure is
considered relatively equal between
white people and people of color here's
where there is a higher exposure there
are two states where the exposure for
people of color is more than twice as
bad
Alabama and Indiana these these are the
locations of the deaths per 100,000
people near existing fossil fuel-fired
power plants and here's where they are
located and in fact 78 percent of
African Americans live within 30 miles
of a coal burning plant. African
Americans are three times as likely to
die from air pollution diseases as the
overall population asthma the percentage
of African American children suffering
from asthma is nearly twice as high and
the death rate is ten times as high we
have to address this of course it can
cause cognitive impairment and mental
health problems as well Hispanic
Americans are also more likely to be
affected this is within a quarter mile
of four chemical plants now this is a
study from a few years ago but I'm
showing it to you because it makes a
point
it's from Salt Lake City the biggest
source of air pollution in Salt Lake
City had to be shut down for a year
for maintenance this shows the
admissions in the hospital for
bronchitis and asthma and this is the
same admission when the plant was shut
down then it was reopened same thing for
pneumonia and pleurisy pretty easy to
connect those dots in it this is a this
is a problem that has to be addressed
and african-americans are 75% more
likely to live in communities that
either border or profoundly affected by
these kinds of activities and it's not
just the the the air pollution from the
burning of the fossil fuels what about
coal ash I live in Tennessee and about
100 miles from where I live with it was
the is the Kingston fossil fuel plant
and it ruptured the biggest coal ash
spill in American history 1.1 billion
gallons where'd it go well a lot of it
was shipped right here to Alabama 4
million tons to the mostly black
community of Uniontown Alabama they were
less able to defend themselves but they
went to court and they sued and they
filed with the EPA it was dismissed
their complaint was dismissed by the EPA
last month and on the very same day
scott pruett announced more lenient coal
ash regulations on the industry I don't
know why he's still in office by the way
but that's I kind of do know why [applause]
the big drifters depend on the little
drifter and the big drifters have
contacted the head drifter and said keep
him in there I think there's a grifters
tender where they all connect up but
Reverend barber was here yesterday as
always filled my heart with inspiration
and motivation and I want to acknowledge
that while dr. King spoke about the
three evils in the original Poor
People's Campaign Reverend barber and
Reverend Liz Theo Harris have added
ecological devastation to the list of
evils the ecological devastation and the
climate crisis are issues that must
engage the sensibilities and the
conscience and the activism of people of
color and poor people and advocates for
all Americans it is absolutely crucial
now let me shift gears the same extra
heat that pulls all that water vapor
into the sky and causes the rain bombs
and the floods and the rest also pulls
the water out of the soil more quickly
so we get these big droughts and they go
deeper this right now the worst climate
related disaster is underway in South
America almost four billion dollars lost
already Cape Town South Africa some of
you know this I remember taking our
climate scientists over to meet with
Thabo Mbeki in South Africa years ago
this has all been predicted Cape Town
may soon become the first major city in
the world to completely run out of water
and in many parts of Africa water
scarcity the continuing drought of
creating a food crisis this is in Kenya
just two months ago still going on the
United Nations has warned again this
month that 20 million people are
approaching starvation in Africa right
now because there's so many of these
simultaneously there are other related
causes as well but underlying this is
the climate related drought and in our
country this is what is projected in
North
shaaka including Alabama throughout the
balance of this century and it's
beginning to happen right now this is
just last week the exceptional drought
and extreme drought in our southwestern
states and by the way I don't know if
it's a coincidence but that right there
is exactly where the Dust Bowl was
centered and it spread out from there
and where there is drought and the land
dries out the vegetation does too and
the fires spread more rapidly there are
200 through almost 300,000 acres in
those states in the southwest on fire
this morning today and the fire season
in the American West has started more
quickly in the relationship between high
temperatures and fires has been long
well established the fire season is now
a hundred and five days longer per year
in the American West this was the
largest fire in the history of
California last December Napa Valley was
also victimized by fire this drone video
goes on and on with all these homes that
were lost this is in the Columbia Gorge
and I show this just to reassure you
that it doesn't have to ruin your golf
game
this Portugal had two tragic events last
year Chile lost 1500 square miles I
could show you these all over the world
it's also a national security crisis and
the Pentagon for decades has warned us
well for a decade and a half has warned
us that this is a national security
crisis food shortages water shortages
tropical diseases spreading and refugees
you know in the future I thought I was
talking with this scientist just two
days ago on the phone he's going to
speak at the climate realities training
program in Berlin next month and we're
gonna have one in August in Los Angeles
and Catherine Flowers is on our board
and is helping very much with this but
when these areas become literally
uninhabitable you know the combination
you know what heat index is what it
feels like you turn on the weather and
it says it's such-and-such degrees but
it feels like there was a city in Iran
last year that had a heat index of 165
degrees well that's the kind of thing
they're talking about when they say this
could be uninhabitable and there are
many causes of the refugee crisis but in
Syria there was the worst drought in
recorded history years before the Syrian
civil war opened the gates of Hell there
and the flow of refugees has begun to
destabilize Europe my faith teaches me
welcome the stranger welcomed the
immigrant but after a lifetime in
politics I know what you know that these
increased flows of refugees sometimes
trigger the vulnerability of many to say
wait a minute this is too much
and even brexit in the United Kingdom
the single most powerful billboard for
the pro brexit campaign was this one
showing an endless line of refugees from
the Middle East and North Africa and
people are not the only ones moving the
average land and plant animal species is
Moo
feet per day we are at risk of losing
toward the pole at an average rate of 15
50% of all of the living species on this
planet in this century on our watch Noah
was commanded to keep them alive if you
believe as I do the purpose of life is
to glorify God if we heap contempt on
God's creation we are not serving the
purpose that we many of us believe we're
intended to serve so the cost of this
crisis I haven't even talked about ocean
acidification or some of these others
I'll mention one other it's the biggest
source the biggest threat to the global
economy these are all answers to that
first question must we change yes we've
got to change yes we've got to change
now what about we're at a turning point
what about the second question can we
change here's the good news and there's
a lot of it we have the solutions at
hand now the best projections 18 years
ago for solar energy was 30 I mean for
wind energy 30 gigawatts about 2010 we
beat that goal by 17 18 times over it's
an exponential curve it is really
expanding quickly Norway's one of the
leaders they routinely get more than a
hundred percent of all their electricity
they're selling it to other Scotland
just had a full month a hundred percent
renewal the home of the coal revolution
England now it gets twice as much energy
from wind as from coal and the world
could get forty times all the
electricity that it uses today just from
wind solar it's even more exciting
sixteen years ago the best projections
were we would add one gigawatt per year
by 2010 well when 2010 arrived we beat
that by 17 times over guess what last
year we beat at 98 times over we're on
the move we can do this this exponential
curve is even more a dramatic and rising
even more quickly because the costs are
falling even more quickly we're seeing a
worldwide investments after 2010
much greater in renewables than in
fossil fuels and the gap is growing and
the projections are that it will
continue to grow a nuclear would make it
grow faster that's a whole another whole
complicated story but the fossil fuel
carbon polluters are trying to hold it
back
worldwide taxpayers are being forced to
subsidize these deadly emissions
thirty-eight times greater than the
meager encouragements for renewable
energy and they're putting up obstacles
and roadblocks and by the way the worst
one is here in Alabama the solar tax the
most punitive fee in the entire country
they're trying to hold it back now
here's the good news
they can't because it's getting so cheap
money talks now and we're seeing this
shift they won't be able to stop it even
it much longer
last year in the United States if you
look at all the new electricity
generation added two-thirds of it was
from solar and wind gas is not a guess
better than coal but not much better
when it leaks each molecule is way more
powerful than co2 we have got to get off
of fossil fuels and get on renewables
the good news is there's no no coal no
coal no new use of coal and by the way
in Kentucky at the famous coal museum
they just installed solar panels all
over the roof [applause]
In China they're still burning a lot of
coal but look at this more than half of
their new electricity generation is from
renewables and they're speeding up and
move they're shutting down a lot of coal
mines and coal plants in India they've
done a complete u-turn since the Paris
agreement 65% of their new electricity
is coming from renewables this is good
news Europe has moved even faster they
don't burn much coal or gas now but
still a lot but look at the incredible
amount 77% from renewables Germany big
powerful economy eighty five percent one
day from renewables Chile some of you
have seen this I've talked about it a
good deal Michelle Bachelet the
immediate past president did a wonderful
job she came in with 11 megawatts of
solar increased it increased that here's
what's under construction now in Chile
and approved for construction to begin.
[applause]
This is a breakout. I can show you lots
of countries I'll show you the biggest
India is the same kind of thing except
it's a bigger much bigger number ten
times more 175 gigawatts we can do this
and by the way it creates jobs you look
at the report from the Bureau of Labor
Statistics two months ago fastest
growing job in America's solar installer
nine times faster growth than the other
jobs in our economy second fastest
growing job is wind turbine technician
now twice as many jobs in solar as in
all of coal wind and solar represents
the future and we get more solar energy
usable for electricity in one hour than
the entire global economy uses in an
entire year we're not gonna run out of
it that's for sure and we're learning
how to store it in batteries in other
ways and the projections are this is a
giant market largest solar battery in
the world just installed so
transportation has to be addressed
that's now the biggest source of co2 but
look at what's happening with electric
vehicles a lot of countries are making
it against the law a few years from now
to have internal combustion engines and
requiring a shift to electric vehicles
including here in this country the
powertrain costs will soon be
significantly cheaper. So that's the
answer to the the second question can we
change yes we've got the tools we've got
the solutions they create jobs they
clean up the air, they clean up the water,
they address environmental injustice.
Final question: will we change?
That answer I believe is yes but really it's
still to come and I'm not I'm here and
I'm so honored to be here but my purpose
I want to tell you it's not just to
present this information I'm here to
recruit you I want to build a bond ever
stronger with the Equal Justice
Initiative and the Poor People's
Campaign so in Paris a little over two
years ago every nation in the world
agreed to go to Net Zero by mid-century
and
what you're thinking president Trump but
you know the way that thing was written
the first day on which the US could
legally withdraw from the agreement
happens to be the first day after the
next presidential election.
[applause]
And if there's a new president,
excuse me for a moment, then a
new president could just give 30 days
notice and we're right back in the
agreement and we are on track regardless
of the Trump administration to exceed
our commitments under the Paris
agreement technology and business
they're driving this and that we're
going to exceed succeed regardless of
who occupies the White House 16 states
have stepped up California and
Washington and all of these others and
they're really doing a fantastic job and
lots of cities lots of cities have
committed to go to 100% renewable some
of including Georgetown Texas or already
there and all these businesses are still
in the Paris agreement universities in
India and China are going to way exceed
their commitments under Paris we can do
this 130 global companies have agreed to
go 100 percent Apple just achieved 100
percent globally two weeks ago and the
people are speaking up this March in
Florence Alabama to save the climate
this one in Richmond Virginia this one
by Native Americans in Washington DC
400,000 people in New York on the eve of
the UN meeting
and this one this one last April now I
used to work in the White House and I
never thought I'd be marching on the
White House there's the White House
there the Treasury Department the White
House but here I am with with my
daughter Corinna and my granddaughter
Anna and Catherine Flowers right here
so in closing ladies and gentlemen one
of my favorite poets Wallace Stevens was
a businessman in the last century and he
became a poet and he wrote these lines
he said after the last snow there comes
yes and on that yes the future world
depends
every great morally based movement that
has improved the condition of humanity
has met with an endless series of noes
we admired and cheered for some of the
pioneers of the civil rights movement at
the concert last night and throughout
these days here
how many noes did they encounter but
finally came a yes and then you move on
to the next yes well the climate
movement is on the cusp of that kind of
change we need your help we need you to
be a part of it and if anybody doubts
that we have the will to change
just remember the will to change is itself
a renewable resource. Thank you very much!
[applause]
thank you thank you
[applause]
thank you very much thank you thank you [applause]
Come on out, Catherine!
Thank you, my dear.
[applause]
CATHERINE: Well our conversation for the remainder
of the time we're going to talk about
environmental justice as we talk about
environmental justice and I've been
sitting through the panels and looking
at our the history of lynchings and
racial terror and I think and reflect
about growing up in Lowndes County
Alabama and I remember when they were
cotton fields all around and people
would come and spray DDT over where
people were living and as a result we
would even see dead birds and so forth
out in the community and we were
wondering now a lot of people that are
in my age group are asking about cancer
rates because the cancer rates are so
high and and I can't help but think
about the lynchings and the comparing it
to the song strange fruit and I guess my
question to you is how do we what do you
think we should do in order to change
some of the conditions that are
happening in these EJ communities how do
we work together because the big greens
often don't go into those areas you know
one of the criticisms that they're more
concerned about polar bears than they
are about people so how do we work
together in terms of bridging the gap
significant change underway and among
those groups that you talked about and
by the way thank you so much for helping
to ensure that the climate reality
project has focused intensely on these
issues Catherine Catherine spent a
couple of days at our headquarters last
week and we've worked together for quite
a while but I think it is I think it is
right that we need to to
attention I was well I'm not gonna read
there was another quote from Pope
Francis that deals with this exact thing
and we have to connect the climate
crisis and it's the environmental
insults people are enduring to social
justice and equal justice you know who
wasn't talking I think is Reverend
barber and Bryan Stevenson has also made
this point that the the the terror
tactics of lynching and all of the other
efforts to try to stop reconstruction to
try to stop the healing have had as one
of their purposes
dividing black and white dividing
majority communities from those who are
in a minority position and when we
overcome those efforts and combine
because these these problems affect
everyone
when we combine forces then we are we
can be unstoppable and it's connected to
what's happening here this weekend with
the acknowledgement and with the effort
to really achieve deep empathy then we
can move on to the transcendence of
difference and find these coalition's
that can address poverty racism
excessive military spending guns getting
out of control the environment and the
climate crisis and these other issues
we've been under investing in health
care education mental health care we've
been ignoring the pollution that can
cause cancer and other diseases but we
have the ability as Americans to use our
right to vote and and to demand change
so coming together is really the secret
to it I think you've taught me that
and you know since this is kind of a
significant area to civil rights and
voting rights one of the questions that
I've had and I think we talked about a
little bit back in the green room how
long would it take after we after the
presidential election and we replaced
the current administration to undo what
he's done with the environment undo well
first of all I really like the
assumption built into your question and
I'm one who doesn't give up on
possibility it won't be that long I
don't know but I shouldn't say this but
we're only a little over a year into
this experiment and in science and
medicine some experiments are terminated
early for ethical reasons
no-no-no
but we have to assume that's not going
to happen and we have to start building
right now and it's a long way from now
to the elections this year much less
2020 it kind of feels to me like a wave
might be building I sure hope so I had
that feeling before Doug's campaign and
it came from many of you from Alabama
but we've got our work to do now let's
assume that there is a new present in
January 2021 I think I'm I'm a
recovering politician the longer I go
without a relapse the less likely one
becomes but but I think that Trump has
turned out to be capable of doing
somewhat less damage than I feared he
could in their rush to do what the big
polluters want them to do as quickly as
possible they've made a lot of mistakes
and the courts are striking down some of
their actions we have a lot of
resilience built into our American
system but they're doing damage for sure
and I think much of it can be overturned
but we need to start working right now
for sure I would also like that to talk
a little bit about the Center for Earth
ethics which I'm a part of with Karenna
and one of the things that I really love
about the Center for Earth FX is that it
brings people their ministers doing in
the partnership of the climate reality
project from all over the country
primarily from EJ communities to talk
about climate change and the intersection there.
And you were very much a part of that.
AL: Well, it's my honor you know how proud of
Karenna I am and she's gonna be shrinking
in her seat with all this praise coming
her way but you know she gave a sermon
last Sunday at Harvard's Memorial Church
I don't know if it's online but I'm so
proud of her it was really great but
anyway we joined that next month
well actually at the beginning of June
we are doing together our annual climate
training for faith leaders there's a
whole scripturally based version of this
slide show and we have leaders from all
different faiths there including
indigenous of faith leaders and I think
it's really important to bring faith
leaders into this dialogue of course
many of them have brought us into the
dialogue but Catherine thank you for
being a part of the climate reality
project and helping to foster this
partnership with the Center for Earth
ethics in New York City at Union
Theological Seminary I think that thank
you I think that it is important that
the faith community is engaged because
as you've seen throughout this week
faith is very much a part of the
african-american tradition and it's been
very much a part of what has brought us
thus far along the way and I guess one
of my other questions is relates to that
as we look at the the archaic policies
that are here in the state of Alabama
about access to renewable energies we've
been talking about the possibility of
some partnerships where we could partner
with people that provide solar power and
actually put the put it on churches so
people can see and demonstrate in the
community how it works because... [applause]
in the Black Belt here in Alabama the
people have some of the highest power
bills in the country and these are
people living in mobile homes so what do
you envision weighs and how do you
envision ways in which we could possibly
work together to make sure that we bring
renewable energy to communities that
otherwise would have access to it you
know if they can put solar panels on top
of the coal museum in Kentucky you ought
to be able to put them on top of
churches in Alabama and homes and
businesses and you know in business they
talk about cost reduction curbs cost
down curve sounds like a lot of
gobbledygook but you remember how
computer chips went where they started
off real expensive and then all of a
sudden the cost came down so quickly
flat panel TVs say all phones we've seen
this well the good news is that's what's
happening with solar panels all right
and now they're cheaper in most parts of
the country but the obstacles are put up
like that like the solar tax that carbon
polluters have been able to get the
state legislature here to put in place
there are many states many particularly
in the south where the coal Lobby and
the coal burning utility Lobby has a
legacy network of connections to elected
officials and we need to try to
challenge that and again it comes back
to solidarity and and using the
political power that American citizens
have and by the way voter registration
is a big part of it of course Reverend
Barbour said yesterday that if only 30
percent of the unregistered African
Americans were registered to vote it
would change control of the United
States Senate and we saw in Alabama
already of the
one of the issues related to climate
changes water scarcity and in places
what we're seeing is part of my work
with Reverend Barbara and the new Poor
People's Campaign I've had the
opportunity to go to Flint Michigan but
I've also had the opportunity to go to
Detroit and Detroit is getting ready to
have 17,000 water shutoffs very soon
primarily for families how do we work to
ensure that people first of all
understand the importance of how climate
change and and water scarcity intersect
and how do we move forward in terms of
putting in place policies to address
that well in June we're gonna be
focusing on the water impacts of the
climate crisis a couple basic facts when
the temperature goes up every user of
water uses more worldwide and in this
country about 80% of water use goes to
agriculture about 20% to business and
industry about 10% to people but but
when it gets hotter the animals need
more water the plants need more water
the industrial facilities that use water
for cooling including Power Generation
need more water and we are devised by
doctors to hydrate more and so this
increases water consumption and because
of growing population and other factors
we have been depleting the underground
water aquifers way faster than they
naturally regenerate and the old saying
out of sight out of mind applies to the
underwater aquifers
so we have a real problem in many parts
of the world and in many parts of the US
I'm not gonna use these statistics
because I haven't verified them but they
give a very high percentage of Americans
that are already dealing with water
scarcity I showed Cape Town South Africa
there's a long list of cities that are
following Cape Town toward the
possibility of running out of water so
we really have to
change our our policies I mentioned the
bottled water and by the way we need to
stop using these dang plastic bottles
and plastic containers so to the idea I
mean you used to be in so many
communities you can trust the municipal
water supply we need to make that true
every everywhere so that people don't
feel like they have to go to the store
and buy bottled water I guess
my other question is through the climate
speakers network which is also part of
climate reality project if someone it
was interested in in possibly having
that type of training or having access
even to the climate leaders training
what would they do what I'm gonna give
you a chance to do a shout out contact
me go to client climate reality dot org
contact Catherine our next training is
in Germany as I said we had one last
month in Mexico City we have these all
over the world we have branches in 96
countries and our purpose is to train up
an ever-growing cadre of grassroots
activists who are empowered by knowledge
and make the connections to
environmental justice and Los Angeles is
gonna be a big training we're gonna
train 3,000 people there and you can
just contact us at climate reality dot
org or contact me or Catherine either
one we would love to have more
applicants yeah and I think that's very
important one there was an article that
read recently in the LA Times that
talked about something they call climate
gentrification and in talking about
climate gentrification they part of the
article talked about the fires in
California and how the fires a lot of
people moved to those areas because they
were desired where they want to get away
from the city and now they're gonna have
to move to areas that are less prone to
the fires and the areas the area that
they noted in the article that was less
prone to fires was Compton
so and I know there are some people from
Compton here Compton High School but...
AL: I see some more Vanilla Ice's coming...
CATHERINE: But that that was one of the things they
said and then the the other area that
they that the site it was in Miami and
that in Miami the gentrification was
going to happen because of sea level
rise and people having to move away from
the ocean and and the area in Miami that
was cited as favorable it's now called
Little Haiti so and so the new term is
climate gentrification how how do you
have you seen the future is we deal with
climate change and the populations shift
that EJ communities are just pretty much
left out and have nowhere to go and end
up like people did in the New Orleans
yeah the Ninth Ward absolutely and in in
Miami the example you used the real
estate industry has been a little slow
to come to grips with the problem of
sea-level rise now when they have high
tides and particularly the the king
tides the highest high tides of the year
lots of streets are flooded and people
are really beginning to look at selling
their property and moving elsewhere and
as you say little Haiti has a higher
elevation and so gentrification begins
to take place we have to have urban
policies that take these things into
account I'll give you another example
just yesterday the Houston City Council
voted to allow the massive construction
of new homes in the floodplain that was
just flooded by hurricane Harvey why
well the the developer community in most
cities and states is one of the most
powerful political forces and I
understand that but what about the
public interests we have somehow
fallen prey in this country to this
illusion that anything that has to do
with people working together
collectively through the instruments of
self-government is somehow bad and
they're trying to take away our right as
citizens of a free democratic country to
say we need policies that promote the
public good we can't just give in to
whatever untrammeled profit incentive is
put forward and and you know it's one of
the reasons we got into this situation
where the policy on cities is make sure
that all the cars are happy we need to
make sure all the people are happy and
we need to have livable neighborhoods
and we need to have you know some of the
best design cities are now getting the
the cars out of the center city and
people can reclaim the sidewalks and and
the stores do more business and the air
is cleaner and where you have an obvious
threat like flooding you know in Houston
the year before hurricane Harvey climate
reality had a big training program there
at Robert Ballard one of the originators
of the environmental justice movement
was there and played a prominent role
Harvey was the fourth once in a thousand
year downpour event they've had in the
last six years I mean after a while
you'd think it might be wise to stop
building in these floodplains so but but
again if you just leave it to the profit
motive alone I'm all for the profit
motive but it has to be balanced with
the public interest and the public
interest can only be exerted and
expressed often in the form of laws and
regulations that embody the public
interests we you know our democracy was
hacked
before Vladimir Putin hacked it
by big money and big lobbying and...
[applause]
In order to solve the climate crisis
we've got to address the democracy
crisis our democracy is not working the
way it should now I for one am tired of
it we've got to reclaim American
democracy for the American people and we
can do it but vote because after the
election the presidential election I
wanted to go and have some sense of hope
and one of the things that I learned
there first of all was about the the
culture and the traditions in terms of
indigenous knowledge and wisdom in terms
of preserving the earth and protecting
the earth and water because water is
life and one of the things that I left
standing rock with it's living my life
in such a way that I would have an
impact on seven generations to come
so I was just like for you two to speak
on that in terms of how we can make sure
and that's part of the hope how we can
make sure that my grandson who is - will
have a livable world a very thoughtful
question Catherine and I was just
thinking as you were asking it how
wonderful it is that this daughter of
Lowndes County Alabama has Bunce has
become such an eloquent and powerful
leader for social justice and
environmental justice
but I I want to put my your question is
so thoughtful I want to put my answer in
context the climate crisis is in my
opinion and the opinion of most
scientists the most serious challenge
humanity has ever faced we're changing
the relationship between our planet and
our star
we're threatening to disrupt the
conditions that have given rise to the
flourishing of humanity for 10 millennia
and the causes are really threefold I
mentioned some of these our population
is quadrupled in a hundred years and
it's level it's it will soon level off
it's kind of a success story unfolding
in slow motion but we have a bigger
impact now the technologies we choose to
use are a million times more powerful
than anything my grandparents could have
imagined but the third factor that makes
this dangerous is our way of thinking
and specifically our focus on short-term
objectives quarterly reports overnight
opinion polls overnight television
ratings whereas my grandparents and I
and I know yours used to think ahead
more and they'd plant trees fully aware
that they were not going to give their
full benefit until a couple or three
generations later and there are many
other similar examples we have along
with fixing democracy we've got to fix
capitalism because we need sustainable
capitalism
I'm a capitalist I'm all in favor but
I'm in favor of reforming capitalism to
get away from this short-term thinking
which is killing us I'll give you one
quick example from the business world
there was a big study a few years ago of
CEOs and and chief operating officers of
major corporations in the country and
one of the questions they asked was a
hypothetical question they said here is
an expenditure you can make that will
build the strength of your company and
make it more profitable for years and
decades to come it meets all of your
internal criteria it's good in every way
except for one if you make this
expenditure you will slightly miss your
quarterly earnings projection ninety
days from now given those facts will you
make this investment 80 percent said no
80 percent said no ladies and gentlemen
that is functionally insane and not only
insane it is hurting our country it's
hurting employees it's hurting
shareholders it's hurting businesses
we've got to get more toward this
long-term thinking that that you picked
up from the Standing Rock Sioux and that
Native Americans and others have been
teaching for a long time and it's not
pie in the sky is common sense we just
got to get out of this almost trance
state that fixes everybody on the
short-term consequences and we've got to
be able to lift our side to see the
longer-term effects of what we're doing
and we've got to reform capitalism in
order to make it profitable to do that.
[applause]
CATHERINE: This has been wonderful and I thank
Bryan Stevenson
who has been an outstanding leader in
the social justice and now and also the
environmental justice movement because
it was Bryan that called and asked me to
come and work for EJ I to continue to do
the work that I was doing in Lowndes
County Alabama and Mr. Gore
thank you so much for being a part of
this today thank you ladies and
gentlemen thank you very much
Thank you, Catherine, thank you so much.
I really appreciate it, you're great. Thank you!
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