The Climate Change Debate Is Long Over And There Is Nothing We Can Do

Published: Nov 23, 2014 Duration: 00:04:13 Category: Pets & Animals

Tags : change Can power energy you film (media genre) think Climate (Literature Subject) Global Warming (Film Subject) Physics (Field Of Study)

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so there won't be any hard questions I'm just going to ask you to expand on the report pretend you're an expert witness and I'm your lawyer sounds good growing environment that the 450 parts per million will soon be crossed the question remains how will we respond and joining us now in studio is Richard Westbrook Deputy assistant administrator of the EPA welcome thank you Mr Westbrook you've spent most of your professional career as a climate scientist in the public sector yes 10 years as a supervisory management out in the Office of Environmental information and before that I was a program specialist in the epa's resource management Division and you have a PhD in climate science from Stanford yes and another in chemistry with a masters in biology okay tell us about the findings in the report that was just released the latest measurements taken at monoa in Hawaii indicate a CO2 level of 400 parts per million just so we know what we're talking about if you were a doctor and we were the patient what's your prognosis a th000 years 2,000 years a person has already been born who will die due to catastrophic failure of the planet what did he just say okay can you uh expand on that sure um the last time there was this much CO2 in the air the oceans were 80 ft higher than they are now two things you should know half the world's population lives within 120 Mi of an ocean and the other humans can't breathe underwater you're saying that The Situation's dire not exactly um your house is burning to the ground The Situation's dire your house has already burned to the ground Situation's over so what can we do to reverse this well there's a lot we could do if it were 20 years ago or even 10 years ago but now no can you make an analogy that might help us understand sure um it's as if you're sitting in your car um in your garage with the engine running and the door closed and you've slipped into unconsciousness and that that's it what if someone comes and opens the door you're already dead what if the person got there in time you'd be saved okay so now what's the CO2 equivalent of the getting there on time shutting off the car 20 years ago you sound like you're saying it's hopeless yeah is that the uh administration's position or yours there isn't a position on this anymore than there's a position on a temperature at which water boils the administration let me try to your Administration and don't forget I need you solar Clean Coal nuclear power raising fuel economy standards and building a more efficient electrical grid yes and that would have been great let's see if we can't find a better spin people are starting their weekends the report says we can release 565 more gigatons of CO2 without the effects being calamitous says we can only release 565 G tell what if we only released 564 well then we would have a reasonable shot at some form of dystopian and post-apocalyptic life but the carbon dioxide in the oil that we've already leased is 2,795 gigatons so what would all this look like a mass migrations food and water shortages spread of deadly disease endless Wild fires way too many to keep under control and storms that have the power to level cities blacken out the sky and create permanent Darkness are you going to get in trouble for saying this publicly who cares Mr Westbrook we want to inform people but we don't want to alarm them can you give us a reason to be optimistic well that's the thing well Americans are optimistic by nature and if we face this problem headon if we listen to to our best scientists and act decisively and passionately I still don't see any way we can survive okay Richard Westbrook Deputy assistant administrator of the EPA thank you for joining us thanks for having

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