1 00:00:34,690 --> 00:00:39,107 Over the last 250 years we have, in effect, 2 00:00:39,191 --> 00:00:44,899 conducted the largest science experiment in history. 3 00:00:44,982 --> 00:00:48,107 Since the advent of the Industrial Revolution, 4 00:00:48,191 --> 00:00:52,899 we have burned over 1.4 trillion tons of carbon 5 00:00:52,982 --> 00:00:55,149 into the atmosphere. 6 00:00:55,232 --> 00:00:58,441 It has changed life on earth as we know it, 7 00:00:58,524 --> 00:01:02,232 especially in the Arctic. 8 00:01:02,316 --> 00:01:04,731 The melting of the world's snow and ice 9 00:01:04,814 --> 00:01:07,940 has now triggered multiple climate tipping points, 10 00:01:08,024 --> 00:01:12,191 threatening the very existence of life on earth. 11 00:01:12,274 --> 00:01:17,024 Yet this disturbing future need not be set in stone. 12 00:01:17,107 --> 00:01:21,024 We have long had alternatives to fossil fuels. 13 00:01:21,106 --> 00:01:24,274 But more recently, we have actually discovered 14 00:01:24,358 --> 00:01:27,608 how to pull carbon out of the atmosphere, 15 00:01:27,690 --> 00:01:32,274 giving us a chance at reversing climate disruption. 16 00:01:32,358 --> 00:01:35,732 If we are able to reverse climate change in time, 17 00:01:35,815 --> 00:01:40,899 it would be an unprecedented achievement in human history. 18 00:01:40,982 --> 00:01:43,274 But the clock is ticking. 19 00:01:43,358 --> 00:01:47,731 Scientists say we must implement these solutions immediately. 20 00:01:47,814 --> 00:01:50,940 At this critical turning point, we must give a voice 21 00:01:51,024 --> 00:01:54,358 to the impartial experts who have presented us 22 00:01:54,441 --> 00:01:58,899 with the facts they have spent a lifetime to uncover. 23 00:01:58,982 --> 00:02:01,399 It is their time to be heard. 24 00:02:01,483 --> 00:02:05,523 They are the scientists, researchers and innovators 25 00:02:05,607 --> 00:02:07,649 who have found the solutions 26 00:02:07,732 --> 00:02:12,357 to preserve the very life of our shared world. 27 00:02:29,231 --> 00:02:31,148 There is a couple different projects 28 00:02:31,231 --> 00:02:33,940 that require manual sampling. 29 00:02:37,523 --> 00:02:41,065 So one of them is the long-term CO2 record. 30 00:02:43,690 --> 00:02:45,814 And the way it's set up, you still need a person 31 00:02:45,898 --> 00:02:49,773 to come physically take the sample every Tuesday. 32 00:02:51,857 --> 00:02:54,565 I'm the person that gets to go in the Sno-Cat 33 00:02:54,648 --> 00:02:57,106 to take the measurements. 34 00:02:59,191 --> 00:03:01,066 We want to keep that long-term record going 35 00:03:01,149 --> 00:03:02,939 the way it's always been taken. 36 00:03:05,065 --> 00:03:08,024 Monitoring and tracking what we're doing to our atmosphere 37 00:03:08,107 --> 00:03:10,939 is a serious and difficult endeavor. 38 00:03:11,023 --> 00:03:12,773 For the last 50 years, 39 00:03:12,856 --> 00:03:15,482 dedicated researchers from around the world 40 00:03:15,565 --> 00:03:18,316 travel weekly to the same locations, 41 00:03:18,399 --> 00:03:21,190 taking samples of greenhouse gases 42 00:03:21,273 --> 00:03:23,939 that cause climate disruption. 43 00:03:24,023 --> 00:03:28,190 So we're at about 11 and a half thousand feet at Niwot Ridge 44 00:03:28,273 --> 00:03:31,648 in the front range of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. 45 00:03:31,731 --> 00:03:37,648 And this is NOAA's long-term CO2 sampling site here. 46 00:03:37,731 --> 00:03:39,482 It's the third longest in the world. 47 00:03:41,398 --> 00:03:43,316 So, these are the flasks that we're gonna use 48 00:03:43,399 --> 00:03:45,856 to collect our sample, made out of glass. 49 00:03:45,939 --> 00:03:50,939 And after we're done today filling them with air, we'll ski 'em down to our office, 50 00:03:51,023 --> 00:03:54,190 and then we'll take them down to NOAA's office in Boulder where they get analyzed 51 00:03:54,273 --> 00:03:57,065 along with similar flasks from all over the world. 52 00:03:57,148 --> 00:03:59,523 The reason we do it up here 53 00:03:59,607 --> 00:04:02,065 and a lot of the sampling sites are high up in the atmosphere 54 00:04:02,148 --> 00:04:03,898 is the air up here is well mixed 55 00:04:03,981 --> 00:04:07,565 so you're getting a good sample of the whole atmosphere. 56 00:04:07,648 --> 00:04:09,648 There's the little inlet on the roof. 57 00:04:09,731 --> 00:04:11,231 When I turn on the pump, 58 00:04:11,315 --> 00:04:15,357 it's gonna suck the air into these flasks. 59 00:04:15,440 --> 00:04:17,523 This is actually the whole... 60 00:04:17,607 --> 00:04:20,106 carbon cycle and greenhouse gases, 61 00:04:20,190 --> 00:04:23,190 and CO2 and methane are the big ones. 62 00:04:25,273 --> 00:04:27,231 When they took the first sample in 1968, 63 00:04:27,315 --> 00:04:30,231 it measured 322 parts per million. 64 00:04:32,440 --> 00:04:35,648 And now we don't know what this sample's gonna measure yet, 65 00:04:35,731 --> 00:04:38,648 but it's probably gonna be around 408. 66 00:04:38,731 --> 00:04:41,773 So, it's a little bit of an increase. 67 00:04:44,565 --> 00:04:47,440 And now I'm just putting everything away 68 00:04:47,523 --> 00:04:49,689 and getting it ready for next week's sample. 69 00:05:05,565 --> 00:05:09,189 One of NOAA's missions since its inception 70 00:05:09,272 --> 00:05:12,440 was to measure carbon dioxide in the atmosphere 71 00:05:12,523 --> 00:05:15,856 and other gases that affect the carbon cycle. 72 00:05:15,939 --> 00:05:18,397 Two samples are collected every week 73 00:05:18,481 --> 00:05:20,398 from around the globe. 74 00:05:20,482 --> 00:05:23,731 So we're looking to see how these gases change with time. 75 00:05:23,814 --> 00:05:27,356 And the way to do that is to continuously collect samples. 76 00:05:28,773 --> 00:05:31,648 Currently, we have about 60 locations. 77 00:05:31,731 --> 00:05:34,772 Most of the samples are collected in remote areas 78 00:05:34,855 --> 00:05:38,023 away from population centers. 79 00:05:38,106 --> 00:05:40,023 And we measure them on this set of instruments 80 00:05:40,106 --> 00:05:43,439 for six gases that affect the carbon cycle. 81 00:05:43,522 --> 00:05:48,689 Those gases are carbon dioxide, methane, carbon monoxide, 82 00:05:48,773 --> 00:05:51,647 molecular hydrogen, nitrous oxide 83 00:05:51,730 --> 00:05:53,230 and sulfur hexafluoride. 84 00:05:53,314 --> 00:05:56,856 This system runs five days and five nights a week, 85 00:05:56,939 --> 00:05:57,981 24 hours a day. 86 00:05:58,065 --> 00:05:59,481 So what I'm doing right now 87 00:05:59,564 --> 00:06:01,397 is putting the air samples on the manifold 88 00:06:01,481 --> 00:06:03,231 and start the measurements. 89 00:06:03,315 --> 00:06:04,981 And then I can walk away. 90 00:06:30,065 --> 00:06:34,397 I lead NOAA's Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network. 91 00:06:34,481 --> 00:06:37,647 The aim of the Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network 92 00:06:37,730 --> 00:06:42,064 is to provide data that are fully calibrated, 93 00:06:42,147 --> 00:06:45,230 carefully quality controlled and documented. 94 00:06:45,314 --> 00:06:47,231 Data that will still be fully credible 95 00:06:47,315 --> 00:06:49,607 a hundred years from now and longer, 96 00:06:49,688 --> 00:06:54,272 so that as climate change is happening now 97 00:06:54,356 --> 00:06:56,648 and in the future over the earth, 98 00:06:56,731 --> 00:06:59,564 there will be information for scientists 99 00:06:59,688 --> 00:07:01,980 that they can really trust 100 00:07:02,064 --> 00:07:04,898 so that they can diagnose what actually happened 101 00:07:04,981 --> 00:07:09,147 and how climate change actually happens, how it works. 102 00:07:10,314 --> 00:07:12,855 So modern CO2 measurements 103 00:07:12,938 --> 00:07:15,772 were initiated by Dave Keeling, 104 00:07:15,855 --> 00:07:18,564 a description situation of oceanography. 105 00:07:18,647 --> 00:07:23,439 Around 1956, he started measuring along the west coast. 106 00:07:23,522 --> 00:07:28,647 He saw that during mid-afternoon wherever he was, 107 00:07:28,730 --> 00:07:32,481 he found pretty much the same concentration everywhere. 108 00:07:32,564 --> 00:07:36,147 And so it got into his head the idea that maybe 109 00:07:36,230 --> 00:07:37,481 there's something that we can call 110 00:07:37,564 --> 00:07:38,980 a background concentration. 111 00:07:39,064 --> 00:07:40,938 He started continuous measurements then 112 00:07:41,022 --> 00:07:43,439 at Mauna Loa Island of Hawaii 113 00:07:43,522 --> 00:07:45,897 and on the coast of Antarctica. 114 00:07:47,439 --> 00:07:50,439 The last ice age at the end of that glaciation 115 00:07:50,522 --> 00:07:53,189 from 20,000 to 11,000 years ago, 116 00:07:53,272 --> 00:07:56,522 CO2 increased by about 80 ppm 117 00:07:56,606 --> 00:07:59,481 from 200 to 280, roughly. 118 00:07:59,564 --> 00:08:01,147 It was very slow. 119 00:08:01,230 --> 00:08:05,688 It took 6,000 years for CO2 to climb the 80 ppm. 120 00:08:05,772 --> 00:08:07,064 Six thousand years! 121 00:08:09,356 --> 00:08:10,730 In pre-industrial times, 122 00:08:10,813 --> 00:08:12,230 so before 1850, 123 00:08:12,314 --> 00:08:14,938 CO2 was close to 280 ppm. 124 00:08:15,022 --> 00:08:19,105 And now of course we see 2 ppm per year. 125 00:08:19,189 --> 00:08:24,439 That increase was due 100% to human activities. 126 00:08:26,189 --> 00:08:28,481 The spike that we now see, 127 00:08:28,564 --> 00:08:32,772 compared to most geologic history, 128 00:08:32,855 --> 00:08:34,897 I call it an explosion. 129 00:08:36,606 --> 00:08:38,522 It's... 130 00:08:38,606 --> 00:08:43,397 It's like instantaneous in geologic time scale. 131 00:08:47,064 --> 00:08:49,021 Carbon has increased dramatically 132 00:08:49,104 --> 00:08:51,189 since the Industrial Revolution. 133 00:08:51,272 --> 00:08:53,980 But what does that actually mean for all of us? 134 00:08:55,481 --> 00:08:57,355 What we have learned is that excess carbon 135 00:08:57,438 --> 00:08:59,730 creates climate disruption. 136 00:08:59,813 --> 00:09:03,439 It changes the weather patterns and life support systems 137 00:09:03,522 --> 00:09:07,897 upon which society depends to survive. 138 00:09:07,980 --> 00:09:09,730 We have always known 139 00:09:09,813 --> 00:09:12,606 that there's a toxicity associated with fossil fuels, 140 00:09:12,688 --> 00:09:15,229 but we'd always thought that it was basically a toxicity 141 00:09:15,313 --> 00:09:16,730 that would affect humans, 142 00:09:16,813 --> 00:09:20,147 you know, or other individual life forms. 143 00:09:20,230 --> 00:09:22,355 It's really only in the-- 144 00:09:22,438 --> 00:09:24,481 within my lifetime certainly 145 00:09:24,564 --> 00:09:27,064 that it has become frighteningly apparent 146 00:09:27,147 --> 00:09:29,606 that the accumulation of carbon in the atmosphere 147 00:09:29,688 --> 00:09:31,854 has caused it to warm up. 148 00:09:31,937 --> 00:09:34,564 This greenhouse effect, this toxicity, 149 00:09:34,647 --> 00:09:39,104 impacts the life systems of the planet as a whole. 150 00:09:39,188 --> 00:09:42,813 And, you know, once I got that back in the mid-90s, 151 00:09:42,897 --> 00:09:44,397 I had to start talking about it 152 00:09:44,481 --> 00:09:46,481 and we've been talking about it ever since. 153 00:09:51,230 --> 00:09:54,813 When we talk about dangerous planetary warming, 154 00:09:54,897 --> 00:09:59,481 we're referring to something akin to a two degree Celsius, 155 00:09:59,564 --> 00:10:02,230 that's about three and a half degree Fahrenheit 156 00:10:02,314 --> 00:10:05,271 warming of the planet relative to pre-industrial times. 157 00:10:05,355 --> 00:10:08,272 That is where we start to see some of the worst 158 00:10:08,356 --> 00:10:12,104 and potentially irreversible impacts of climate change: 159 00:10:12,188 --> 00:10:13,771 substantial melting of the ice sheets 160 00:10:13,854 --> 00:10:17,439 and associated substantial rise in sea level, 161 00:10:17,522 --> 00:10:19,938 permanent droughts in mid-latitudes, 162 00:10:20,022 --> 00:10:23,438 and the list goes on. 163 00:10:23,521 --> 00:10:27,439 Well, catastrophic would be we melt the major ice sheets, 164 00:10:27,522 --> 00:10:30,313 the Greenland ice sheet and the West Antarctic ice sheet 165 00:10:30,396 --> 00:10:35,314 as all the major coastal cities of the world are flooded. 166 00:10:35,397 --> 00:10:37,146 You've got less land. 167 00:10:37,229 --> 00:10:39,104 You've got environmental refugees, 168 00:10:39,188 --> 00:10:41,646 some people leaving those regions. 169 00:10:41,729 --> 00:10:44,189 People leaving the tropics because it's getting too hot 170 00:10:44,272 --> 00:10:46,146 for human habitation. 171 00:10:46,229 --> 00:10:49,104 It's getting too hot for agriculture. 172 00:10:49,188 --> 00:10:52,730 Crops in the tropics will decrease dramatically 173 00:10:52,813 --> 00:10:54,480 in their productivity. 174 00:10:54,563 --> 00:10:58,313 In short, you're looking at a world with less land, 175 00:10:58,396 --> 00:11:02,147 less food, less water and more people. 176 00:11:02,230 --> 00:11:06,563 And that's a recipe for a national security disaster. 177 00:11:20,063 --> 00:11:21,521 I work on the carbon cycle, 178 00:11:21,605 --> 00:11:25,480 tasks that I've taken on for more than 30 years 179 00:11:25,563 --> 00:11:27,356 and truth be told, I figured 180 00:11:27,439 --> 00:11:30,521 we would have done something about this 20 years ago 181 00:11:30,605 --> 00:11:31,979 and I could be off doing something else, 182 00:11:32,063 --> 00:11:33,812 but I'm still doing what I'm doing. 183 00:11:36,771 --> 00:11:38,438 If you think about the relationship 184 00:11:38,521 --> 00:11:40,355 between carbon dioxide and sea level, 185 00:11:40,438 --> 00:11:43,355 there's a couple of interesting points in that relationship. 186 00:11:43,438 --> 00:11:48,271 One of them is when CO2 goes up to roughly 400 parts per million. 187 00:11:48,355 --> 00:11:53,020 That is warm enough that we melt off chunks of Antarctica, 188 00:11:53,103 --> 00:11:54,771 chunks of Greenland. 189 00:11:54,854 --> 00:11:56,854 And those chunks are the chunks that are 190 00:11:56,937 --> 00:11:58,438 what we call marine base. 191 00:11:58,521 --> 00:12:00,812 So the base of the ice sheet in West Antarctica 192 00:12:00,896 --> 00:12:04,104 is below sea level because it's pinned to the sediments. 193 00:12:04,188 --> 00:12:05,521 And once it starts to melt, 194 00:12:05,605 --> 00:12:07,188 it's one of these freight trains. 195 00:12:07,271 --> 00:12:09,438 We don't know how this thing is gonna stop. 196 00:12:11,063 --> 00:12:14,854 And we're dangerously at that point right now. 197 00:12:18,063 --> 00:12:19,646 The other threshold is somewhere around 198 00:12:19,729 --> 00:12:22,812 six to seven hundred parts per million CO2. 199 00:12:22,896 --> 00:12:26,521 That's warm enough that there is no more ice, 200 00:12:26,605 --> 00:12:28,103 land ice on the planet. 201 00:12:28,187 --> 00:12:31,812 And you have about 80 meters higher sea level. 202 00:12:33,937 --> 00:12:35,936 We are on our way 203 00:12:36,020 --> 00:12:38,812 to six, seven hundred parts per million. 204 00:12:41,771 --> 00:12:45,187 But I think that's one of those interesting threshold moments 205 00:12:45,270 --> 00:12:48,729 in our relationship with the planet where, 206 00:12:48,812 --> 00:12:52,770 are we gonna push the climate system 207 00:12:52,853 --> 00:12:55,188 so far out of balance 208 00:12:55,271 --> 00:12:59,146 that we threaten the melting of all land ice? 209 00:13:10,312 --> 00:13:11,936 Guomundur Ingi Guobrandsson: Yeah, it has changed. 210 00:13:12,020 --> 00:13:14,854 Icelandic nature is experiencing change 211 00:13:14,937 --> 00:13:16,646 because of climate change. 212 00:13:16,729 --> 00:13:20,312 This is quite visible in the south coast, for example. 213 00:13:20,395 --> 00:13:23,438 Our largest glacier, Glacier Vatnajokull 214 00:13:23,521 --> 00:13:26,645 or Water Glacier if you translate it directly, 215 00:13:26,728 --> 00:13:29,145 has also retreated quite a lot. 216 00:13:29,228 --> 00:13:32,229 There is one very interesting observation 217 00:13:32,313 --> 00:13:36,645 that everybody noticed when they drive the south coast now 218 00:13:36,728 --> 00:13:40,146 and that is that they drive over the longest bridge in Iceland, 219 00:13:40,229 --> 00:13:42,271 almost one kilometer in length, 220 00:13:42,355 --> 00:13:45,479 and there is almost no water under it. 221 00:13:45,562 --> 00:13:50,605 So you think, OK, why building such a big bridge 222 00:13:50,687 --> 00:13:52,395 for almost no water? 223 00:13:54,604 --> 00:13:58,563 Well, this is just climate change. 224 00:13:58,646 --> 00:14:01,145 The river changed its course 225 00:14:01,228 --> 00:14:04,395 is because of the retreat of the glacier. 226 00:14:07,271 --> 00:14:11,936 So now we have this sort of monument, 227 00:14:12,020 --> 00:14:15,729 a symbolic thing of the past. 228 00:14:30,103 --> 00:14:35,354 The Arctic is a profoundly different place right now. 229 00:14:35,437 --> 00:14:39,062 In the Arctic, the impacts of climate change 230 00:14:39,145 --> 00:14:41,562 are the most extreme. 231 00:14:41,645 --> 00:14:45,479 What scientists are finding is that what happens in the Arctic 232 00:14:45,562 --> 00:14:49,729 has major impacts for the rest of the planet. 233 00:14:49,812 --> 00:14:52,479 I am working with measuring greenhouse gases 234 00:14:52,562 --> 00:14:54,062 at the Arctic location 235 00:14:54,145 --> 00:14:56,395 and understanding how the greenhouse gases 236 00:14:56,479 --> 00:14:58,686 are changing over time. 237 00:14:58,770 --> 00:15:02,103 I am concerned about the increase of temperature in the Arctic 238 00:15:02,187 --> 00:15:06,605 and the impact this might have on all the Arctic systems. 239 00:15:06,687 --> 00:15:09,645 But what I think is extremely important to be aware of 240 00:15:09,728 --> 00:15:14,228 is that with the sea ice reduction we have now 241 00:15:14,312 --> 00:15:15,936 and all the other changes, 242 00:15:16,020 --> 00:15:18,604 you might change the whole weather system, 243 00:15:18,686 --> 00:15:20,520 and this has global impact. 244 00:15:22,270 --> 00:15:24,853 We know that the changes that we see in Arctic 245 00:15:24,936 --> 00:15:27,853 does not only stay in the Arctic. 246 00:15:31,437 --> 00:15:33,270 Yeah, I've been working on sea ice 247 00:15:33,354 --> 00:15:35,062 the last 50 years pretty much. 248 00:15:35,145 --> 00:15:39,686 And the whole Arctic has changed so much in that time. 249 00:15:39,770 --> 00:15:44,103 Loss of ice, loss of not only a loss of area of ice, 250 00:15:44,187 --> 00:15:45,728 but the loss of the appearance 251 00:15:45,811 --> 00:15:48,604 of the great ice fields of the past 252 00:15:48,686 --> 00:15:52,062 with huge pressure ridges and very, very thick ice. 253 00:15:52,145 --> 00:15:56,479 Really dramatic ice scenery has all gone. 254 00:15:58,853 --> 00:16:01,728 Last month I was up in the Barents Sea 255 00:16:01,811 --> 00:16:04,062 on a research cruise in a region where 256 00:16:04,145 --> 00:16:07,019 normally you would have quite a lot of multiyear ice. 257 00:16:07,102 --> 00:16:08,895 We couldn't find any multiyear ice. 258 00:16:15,894 --> 00:16:20,145 So the ice was all very thin, 30 centimeters thick. 259 00:16:20,228 --> 00:16:23,478 The Arctic Ocean is no longer a continent of ice 260 00:16:23,561 --> 00:16:26,312 but something that becomes just water in summer. 261 00:16:26,395 --> 00:16:31,727 There is a real, a huge loss as far as beauty is concerned, 262 00:16:31,810 --> 00:16:36,770 but also as far as the physics of how the planet operates. 263 00:16:36,853 --> 00:16:39,644 The ice is disappearing because the climate's warming, 264 00:16:39,727 --> 00:16:41,977 that's pretty obvious that will happen, 265 00:16:42,061 --> 00:16:44,354 but there's much more to it than that, 266 00:16:44,437 --> 00:16:46,270 because in fact you have 267 00:16:46,354 --> 00:16:48,685 many other feedback mechanisms going on 268 00:16:48,769 --> 00:16:50,810 which cause the effects on the planet 269 00:16:50,894 --> 00:16:54,270 to be far worse than just the retreat of the ice. 270 00:16:57,061 --> 00:16:58,561 So the Arctic's warming up 271 00:16:58,644 --> 00:17:00,604 three times faster than the rest of the world 272 00:17:00,686 --> 00:17:02,103 and the temperature difference 273 00:17:02,187 --> 00:17:04,562 between the Arctic and lower latitudes 274 00:17:04,645 --> 00:17:06,894 is getting less, and that means 275 00:17:06,977 --> 00:17:10,020 that the jet stream is getting to be weaker. 276 00:17:10,103 --> 00:17:11,562 And as it gets weaker, 277 00:17:11,645 --> 00:17:14,019 it goes from being almost a straight line 278 00:17:14,102 --> 00:17:19,770 to becoming big lobes reaching up north and south. 279 00:17:19,853 --> 00:17:21,603 And with it, when you have a lobe like that, 280 00:17:21,685 --> 00:17:23,935 it means that polar air can come down 281 00:17:24,019 --> 00:17:28,228 to lower latitudes than it normally reaches in one sector, 282 00:17:28,312 --> 00:17:30,769 and then in the sector to the east or west of it, 283 00:17:30,852 --> 00:17:33,353 you've got warm air going up north 284 00:17:33,436 --> 00:17:34,978 further than it should do. 285 00:17:35,062 --> 00:17:37,395 So you're getting bizarre weather extremes 286 00:17:37,479 --> 00:17:39,727 which of course everybody's been commenting on. 287 00:17:39,810 --> 00:17:41,519 The trouble is where these air masses 288 00:17:41,603 --> 00:17:44,562 are causing such extreme changes 289 00:17:44,645 --> 00:17:46,354 happens to be the latitudes 290 00:17:46,437 --> 00:17:49,519 at which you have the maximum food production. 291 00:17:49,603 --> 00:17:51,603 Suddenly our ability to feed everyone 292 00:17:51,685 --> 00:17:55,519 is being affected by these polar changes. 293 00:17:57,394 --> 00:17:59,394 You can't take that amount of ice away 294 00:17:59,478 --> 00:18:02,145 without affecting so many other things. 295 00:18:13,769 --> 00:18:17,810 The impact of our actions are starting to hit home. 296 00:18:17,894 --> 00:18:20,603 Scientists' predictions are now coming true 297 00:18:20,685 --> 00:18:22,353 sooner than expected. 298 00:18:22,436 --> 00:18:25,935 We are tragically suffering through severe storms, 299 00:18:26,019 --> 00:18:28,686 droughts, floods and fires 300 00:18:28,770 --> 00:18:31,727 that are progressively becoming more intense 301 00:18:31,810 --> 00:18:33,186 and more unpredictable. 302 00:19:17,311 --> 00:19:20,436 Fires started almost simultaneously 303 00:19:20,519 --> 00:19:22,353 in multiple places. 304 00:19:24,186 --> 00:19:27,852 Over 7,000 structures were destroyed 305 00:19:27,935 --> 00:19:29,977 and about 3,000 homes. 306 00:19:30,061 --> 00:19:33,102 I think at the height in the early days of the fire, 307 00:19:33,186 --> 00:19:38,603 maybe about 100,000 people were evacuated. 308 00:19:38,685 --> 00:19:42,102 It's a collective trauma. 309 00:19:44,311 --> 00:19:47,269 Sounded like a war zone, looked like a war zone. 310 00:19:47,353 --> 00:19:50,144 They talk about the Hanley Fire, it took a day to get here. 311 00:19:50,227 --> 00:19:53,019 It burned about the same footprint, but it took about a day. 312 00:19:53,102 --> 00:19:55,478 It burned less than 200 structures. 313 00:19:55,561 --> 00:19:57,144 This fire started at night, 314 00:19:57,227 --> 00:19:59,935 made it to Santa Rosa in four, four and a half hours, 315 00:20:00,019 --> 00:20:02,809 and there's no comparison other than the footprint. 316 00:20:02,893 --> 00:20:04,269 Cal Fire Incident Management Team 317 00:20:04,353 --> 00:20:06,935 came here to help run this incident 318 00:20:07,019 --> 00:20:08,644 and he just shook his head and said, 319 00:20:08,727 --> 00:20:10,310 "Man, I've never seen anything like this. 320 00:20:10,393 --> 00:20:12,519 I've been doing this a long time." 321 00:20:12,644 --> 00:20:15,603 So that's not terribly comforting, 322 00:20:15,685 --> 00:20:19,560 but that's where we're at right now. 323 00:20:19,643 --> 00:20:21,143 If we keep having these wind events, 324 00:20:21,227 --> 00:20:22,644 how do we protect our citizens? 325 00:20:22,727 --> 00:20:24,561 How do we protect our infrastructure? 326 00:20:24,644 --> 00:20:26,311 What are the things that we can do 327 00:20:26,394 --> 00:20:29,226 to make it as good as possible? 328 00:20:29,310 --> 00:20:32,561 We've been through four, five years of drought. 329 00:20:32,644 --> 00:20:35,684 That drought stresses all the brush, all the trees. 330 00:20:35,768 --> 00:20:40,061 And the winds at Geyser Peak on one of the weather station 331 00:20:40,144 --> 00:20:43,394 was clocked at 108 miles an hour. 332 00:20:43,478 --> 00:20:45,226 And I don't know what you do with those kinds of winds. 333 00:20:45,310 --> 00:20:47,727 When something catches on fire, 334 00:20:47,810 --> 00:20:50,727 it's all you can do to try to figure out where it's going 335 00:20:50,810 --> 00:20:52,435 and how fast it's gonna get there. 336 00:20:55,851 --> 00:20:57,519 I never would have thought a fire 337 00:20:57,603 --> 00:21:00,768 would come out of the hills and run the flats in Santa Rosa. 338 00:21:00,851 --> 00:21:01,851 I really didn't. 339 00:21:03,851 --> 00:21:05,394 Cars were being flipped over. 340 00:21:05,478 --> 00:21:10,060 There were shoebox chunks of, you know, embers 341 00:21:10,143 --> 00:21:13,477 that were being carried well ahead of the fire. 342 00:21:13,560 --> 00:21:15,311 You'll see there's some trees 343 00:21:15,394 --> 00:21:17,353 where all the limbs are just, they're snapped off. 344 00:21:17,436 --> 00:21:19,643 They're not burned off, they're snapped off. 345 00:21:22,185 --> 00:21:25,478 These natural disasters are so common now 346 00:21:25,561 --> 00:21:28,934 that people know it's gonna happen to their community. 347 00:21:29,018 --> 00:21:33,436 It's not like a matter of if, but when. 348 00:21:33,519 --> 00:21:36,726 It is a wake-up call to everyone 349 00:21:36,809 --> 00:21:39,310 that climate change is here 350 00:21:39,393 --> 00:21:42,102 and that you need to plan for it. 351 00:21:47,934 --> 00:21:53,101 Climate disruption is causing a rise in extinctions today, 352 00:21:53,185 --> 00:21:56,393 but this isn't the first time. 353 00:21:56,477 --> 00:22:00,226 Scientists studying geological records have shown 354 00:22:00,310 --> 00:22:03,851 there is a connection between spikes in carbon 355 00:22:03,934 --> 00:22:07,019 and the past five mass extinctions. 356 00:22:09,018 --> 00:22:10,934 There is a natural law 357 00:22:11,018 --> 00:22:15,810 that the carbon cycle affects the fabric of life. 358 00:22:15,894 --> 00:22:19,435 Every time there has been a massive increase in carbon, 359 00:22:19,518 --> 00:22:24,934 the web of life weakens and sometimes collapses. 360 00:22:30,684 --> 00:22:35,435 I've been working on the way in which the carbon cycle 361 00:22:35,518 --> 00:22:38,851 is associated with the occurrence of mass extinctions 362 00:22:38,934 --> 00:22:43,602 and whether the carbon cycle can undergo instabilities associated with them. 363 00:22:45,268 --> 00:22:48,185 So the carbon cycle is where life 364 00:22:48,268 --> 00:22:50,393 and the environment interact. 365 00:22:50,477 --> 00:22:54,018 You can think of it as one grand loop between photosynthesis, 366 00:22:54,101 --> 00:22:58,018 which is a process that takes carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere 367 00:22:58,101 --> 00:23:03,393 and converts it to oxygen and plant matter or organic carbon. 368 00:23:03,477 --> 00:23:06,435 And then the back reaction of the loop we call respiration 369 00:23:06,518 --> 00:23:11,809 which is the process via which we convert that plant matter to carbon dioxide. 370 00:23:13,809 --> 00:23:16,560 The grand loop of the carbon cycle takes about 371 00:23:16,643 --> 00:23:20,643 a hundred gigaton of carbon out of the atmosphere and oceans every year 372 00:23:20,726 --> 00:23:22,560 and it returns it each year. 373 00:23:22,643 --> 00:23:24,392 So this is a hundred gigatons out 374 00:23:24,476 --> 00:23:26,893 and a hundred gigatons back in. 375 00:23:26,976 --> 00:23:31,518 But what we're contributing is on the order of about 8% from fossil fuel burning. 376 00:23:31,602 --> 00:23:36,768 It's an 8% increase compared to what is normally going back and forth in a year. 377 00:23:36,851 --> 00:23:41,184 It turns out to be more than what volcanoes are putting into the system. 378 00:23:53,435 --> 00:23:57,435 The planet is constantly in the process 379 00:23:57,518 --> 00:24:00,893 of rebalancing its cycles, like its water cycle 380 00:24:00,976 --> 00:24:03,101 and its nitrogen cycle and its carbon cycle. 381 00:24:03,185 --> 00:24:06,683 You've gotta think of it as it's in constant flow. 382 00:24:06,767 --> 00:24:09,851 And part of the planet's doing that, you know, 383 00:24:09,934 --> 00:24:15,392 was to take all the carbon that was in the dinosaurs and land plants 384 00:24:15,476 --> 00:24:21,268 and press that into eventually oil and fossil fuels. 385 00:24:21,352 --> 00:24:24,267 Over long periods of time it was sequestered 386 00:24:24,351 --> 00:24:27,477 and we're a young species. 387 00:24:27,560 --> 00:24:31,808 And we were curious and we dug up the carbon 388 00:24:31,892 --> 00:24:35,393 that had been sequestered by the earth. 389 00:24:35,477 --> 00:24:39,143 And we burned it, not knowing it was like 390 00:24:39,226 --> 00:24:43,683 burning furniture in a house with its windows closed. 391 00:24:44,893 --> 00:24:46,310 So what's happened 392 00:24:46,393 --> 00:24:49,225 is that the planet is reeling from that. 393 00:24:49,309 --> 00:24:53,643 There's an excess of carbon up in the atmosphere. 394 00:24:53,726 --> 00:24:58,725 What it's doing is causing the living conditions 395 00:24:58,808 --> 00:25:02,518 here on earth to go out of balance. 396 00:25:02,602 --> 00:25:06,559 So as a biologist, when I look at climate change, 397 00:25:06,642 --> 00:25:11,893 yes, I look at rising seas and melting polar caps. 398 00:25:11,976 --> 00:25:14,017 Those are evidence for me. 399 00:25:14,100 --> 00:25:19,435 But when we begin to look at what's happening 400 00:25:19,518 --> 00:25:24,850 to the biological organisms in response to the warming trends, 401 00:25:24,933 --> 00:25:27,142 they are already on the move. 402 00:25:27,225 --> 00:25:31,683 They're moving towards the poles to get cooler. 403 00:25:31,767 --> 00:25:35,850 They're moving from the lower mountains up in elevation, 404 00:25:35,933 --> 00:25:39,517 meaning their ranges are moving. 405 00:25:39,601 --> 00:25:43,683 They also sometimes move without their helpers. 406 00:25:43,767 --> 00:25:46,809 A plant will move north and its pollinator won't make it. 407 00:25:46,893 --> 00:25:49,892 This is called in our bloodless language of science, 408 00:25:49,975 --> 00:25:53,517 it's called ecological disruptions. 409 00:25:55,642 --> 00:25:58,808 So for me, if we change the very conditions 410 00:25:58,892 --> 00:26:01,892 that gave rise to all of this, 411 00:26:01,975 --> 00:26:06,476 and to us, we-- 412 00:26:07,517 --> 00:26:09,142 It's gonna get crazy. 413 00:26:12,310 --> 00:26:14,392 When the carbon cycle is unstable, 414 00:26:14,476 --> 00:26:18,975 it moves into a realm that we don't understand. 415 00:26:19,059 --> 00:26:21,892 Going back to geologic time is that occasionally 416 00:26:21,975 --> 00:26:25,725 there are these essentially bursts within the carbon cycle 417 00:26:25,808 --> 00:26:27,642 in which things change. 418 00:26:30,601 --> 00:26:32,100 One of them which is widely known 419 00:26:32,184 --> 00:26:34,933 as the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maxima 420 00:26:35,017 --> 00:26:36,850 55 million years ago. 421 00:26:38,975 --> 00:26:42,017 And others which are decidedly worse. 422 00:26:42,100 --> 00:26:43,767 They're destructive or catastrophic events. 423 00:26:43,850 --> 00:26:45,392 They're mass extinctions. 424 00:26:45,476 --> 00:26:48,059 The worst of them known as the Permian Extinction. 425 00:26:51,476 --> 00:26:52,975 So that's the historical record 426 00:26:53,059 --> 00:26:54,891 but what we're doing to the carbon cycle now 427 00:26:54,974 --> 00:26:56,601 is another kind of problem 428 00:26:56,683 --> 00:26:58,850 because now we know what's going on. 429 00:26:58,933 --> 00:27:03,224 We know that we have been adding carbon dioxide 430 00:27:03,308 --> 00:27:05,100 as a consequence of fossil fuels. 431 00:27:05,184 --> 00:27:07,434 And then the question is, does that risk 432 00:27:07,517 --> 00:27:10,476 engendering the kind of bursts that we've seen in the past 433 00:27:10,559 --> 00:27:11,974 that could create what I would call 434 00:27:12,058 --> 00:27:14,767 an instability in the carbon cycle? 435 00:27:14,850 --> 00:27:17,559 That is one in which small changes 436 00:27:17,642 --> 00:27:19,476 become bigger changes. 437 00:27:19,559 --> 00:27:23,225 That's a precise scientists' definition of catastrophe. 438 00:27:24,725 --> 00:27:26,975 When you get down to the individual level, 439 00:27:27,059 --> 00:27:29,766 losing one's home to a flood is a catastrophe. 440 00:28:50,975 --> 00:28:52,849 We can still avoid 441 00:28:52,932 --> 00:28:55,391 breaching that dangerous limit of two degrees, 442 00:28:55,475 --> 00:28:56,891 but if you do the math, 443 00:28:56,974 --> 00:28:59,601 with each passing year of relative inaction, 444 00:28:59,683 --> 00:29:01,682 it's getting more and more difficult 445 00:29:01,766 --> 00:29:03,807 to limit our carbon emissions 446 00:29:03,891 --> 00:29:07,434 and remain under two degrees Celsius warming. 447 00:30:17,433 --> 00:30:21,183 We know we have put too much carbon into the atmosphere. 448 00:30:21,266 --> 00:30:23,891 But how much is too much? 449 00:30:23,974 --> 00:30:26,974 Scientists have figured out what that amount is 450 00:30:27,058 --> 00:30:29,141 and have created a carbon budget 451 00:30:29,224 --> 00:30:32,974 that will create a margin for life. 452 00:30:33,058 --> 00:30:35,807 This budget tells us where we are now, 453 00:30:35,891 --> 00:30:38,058 how much more carbon we can burn 454 00:30:38,141 --> 00:30:40,350 and how much needs to be removed 455 00:30:40,433 --> 00:30:44,766 in order to sustain life on earth as we know it. 456 00:30:48,433 --> 00:30:50,141 I would say the major challenge 457 00:30:50,224 --> 00:30:53,224 is indeed dangerous climate change. 458 00:30:53,308 --> 00:30:57,433 And if we want to avoid dangerous climate change, 459 00:30:57,516 --> 00:31:00,682 well, then we have to accept that the atmosphere 460 00:31:00,766 --> 00:31:03,974 is for humankind a limiting disposal space. 461 00:31:04,058 --> 00:31:09,015 So roughly we can emit 800 gigatons CO2 462 00:31:09,098 --> 00:31:12,391 into the atmosphere in this limiting disposal space. 463 00:31:12,475 --> 00:31:16,182 And if you take into account that over the last five years 464 00:31:16,265 --> 00:31:19,058 we have already used 200 gigatons, 465 00:31:19,141 --> 00:31:23,016 so this basically means that over the next two decades 466 00:31:23,099 --> 00:31:27,224 we have exhausted the limiting disposal space. 467 00:31:27,308 --> 00:31:30,224 So in Paris it was very important 468 00:31:30,308 --> 00:31:33,057 that the whole world and the whole world leaders 469 00:31:33,140 --> 00:31:36,724 agreed on limiting temperature increase 470 00:31:36,807 --> 00:31:38,558 to well below two degrees. 471 00:31:38,641 --> 00:31:40,891 So that's the kind of safeguard line 472 00:31:40,974 --> 00:31:42,349 and it's very important that 473 00:31:42,432 --> 00:31:45,141 more than a hundred nations stand behind it. 474 00:31:45,224 --> 00:31:47,932 So imagine the volume that is in this ball. 475 00:31:48,016 --> 00:31:50,640 That's a kind of symbol for the CO2 476 00:31:50,723 --> 00:31:54,932 that is still in the ground in terms of coal 477 00:31:55,016 --> 00:31:57,558 or in the form of oil and gas. 478 00:31:57,641 --> 00:32:00,515 So this is the amount of carbon. 479 00:32:00,599 --> 00:32:03,807 And if we want to limit the temperature 480 00:32:03,891 --> 00:32:07,015 to two degrees globally, we may only emit 481 00:32:07,098 --> 00:32:10,974 this little amount of carbon into the atmosphere. 482 00:32:11,058 --> 00:32:14,308 And to see that we have a lot more of carbon 483 00:32:14,391 --> 00:32:18,182 still stored in the ground that we can emit in the atmosphere 484 00:32:18,265 --> 00:32:21,266 when we want to limit the temperature to two degrees. 485 00:32:21,350 --> 00:32:24,057 So therefore the question is, how does it fit together? 486 00:32:24,140 --> 00:32:26,806 So, now for the next 20 years, 487 00:32:26,890 --> 00:32:29,266 this is an enormous important time span 488 00:32:29,350 --> 00:32:31,308 to transform our economies, 489 00:32:31,391 --> 00:32:34,848 to decouple economic growth from emission growth. 490 00:32:34,931 --> 00:32:39,058 And by middle of the century, we need zero emissions, 491 00:32:39,141 --> 00:32:44,140 and after 2050 you need even negative emissions. 492 00:32:44,223 --> 00:32:47,641 The carbon clock is just informing people where we are now. 493 00:32:47,724 --> 00:32:50,931 What is the pathway how we exhaust 494 00:32:51,015 --> 00:32:54,475 the limiting disposal space of the atmosphere. 495 00:32:54,558 --> 00:32:57,265 And this is a huge challenge for humankind. 496 00:33:08,681 --> 00:33:11,974 Science tells us that our current climate crisis 497 00:33:12,058 --> 00:33:14,681 is a problem we've created. 498 00:33:14,765 --> 00:33:17,765 But it is also a problem we can fix. 499 00:33:17,848 --> 00:33:21,641 Not only do we need to stop emitting carbon at the current levels 500 00:33:21,724 --> 00:33:24,057 by switching to renewable energy, 501 00:33:24,140 --> 00:33:29,308 but it is also critical to pull carbon out of the atmosphere. 502 00:33:29,391 --> 00:33:34,848 Climate change can be reversed if we act now. 503 00:33:34,931 --> 00:33:38,016 Recently researchers have figured out what solutions 504 00:33:38,099 --> 00:33:43,140 can draw carbon down, getting us back to pre-industrial levels. 505 00:33:46,265 --> 00:33:49,390 There's only two things you can do about the atmosphere. 506 00:33:49,474 --> 00:33:52,223 You can either stop putting greenhouse gases up there 507 00:33:52,307 --> 00:33:55,223 or you can bring CO2 back down. That's it. 508 00:33:55,307 --> 00:33:57,515 And you can do the first one by conservation, 509 00:33:57,599 --> 00:34:00,140 energy efficiency and clean energy. 510 00:34:00,223 --> 00:34:02,765 And the second one through photosynthesis, 511 00:34:02,848 --> 00:34:07,599 whether it's on land, on farms, on forests, phytoplankton, 512 00:34:07,681 --> 00:34:10,390 kelp in the oceans; there's only two things you can do. 513 00:34:10,474 --> 00:34:13,432 So that actually sorts it pretty simply. 514 00:34:13,515 --> 00:34:17,723 And in the past what has been done in terms of solutions 515 00:34:17,806 --> 00:34:20,057 is that it's focused on energy. 516 00:34:20,140 --> 00:34:22,015 Energy, energy, energy. 517 00:34:22,098 --> 00:34:24,057 And the reason for that is understandable. 518 00:34:24,140 --> 00:34:25,848 So it makes perfect sense to say, 519 00:34:25,931 --> 00:34:29,140 "Well, let's stop putting that CO2 up there," 520 00:34:29,223 --> 00:34:32,723 excepting that in the process of emphasizing clean energy, 521 00:34:32,806 --> 00:34:35,349 renewable energy, solar, wind, et cetera, 522 00:34:35,432 --> 00:34:39,973 it's sort of occluded the rest of the solutions. 523 00:34:49,015 --> 00:34:51,015 The purpose of Drawdown is to see 524 00:34:51,098 --> 00:34:54,765 if the 80 solutions that we had modeled 525 00:34:54,847 --> 00:34:58,723 would scale to the point where we could reverse global warming 526 00:34:58,806 --> 00:35:00,557 within 30 years, 527 00:35:00,640 --> 00:35:03,348 going from reduce to reverse. 528 00:35:03,431 --> 00:35:05,014 The bend the carbon curve, 529 00:35:05,097 --> 00:35:08,057 what Drawdown shows, is that we have choices. 530 00:35:08,140 --> 00:35:13,348 And that if we increase the rate that we're scaling some of the solutions, 531 00:35:13,431 --> 00:35:16,474 then we could achieve Drawdown at 2050. 532 00:35:18,265 --> 00:35:21,264 And if you say the odds are long, 533 00:35:21,348 --> 00:35:23,640 I agree, they're long odds. 534 00:35:23,723 --> 00:35:25,640 I'll take 'em. 535 00:35:54,181 --> 00:35:55,972 My name is Linwood Gill. 536 00:35:56,056 --> 00:35:59,557 I'm the Chief Forester for the Usal Redwood Forest Company. 537 00:36:00,890 --> 00:36:04,306 Usal Redwood Forest is a community forest, 538 00:36:04,389 --> 00:36:07,890 it's owned by a non-profit, the Redwood Forest Foundation. 539 00:36:07,973 --> 00:36:10,098 It's a 50,000 acre forest 540 00:36:10,182 --> 00:36:14,139 which is dedicated to managing the forest 541 00:36:14,222 --> 00:36:15,723 on a long-term basis 542 00:36:15,806 --> 00:36:18,182 for the economic stability of the community, 543 00:36:18,265 --> 00:36:21,431 as well as restoring the forest habitat, 544 00:36:21,514 --> 00:36:24,014 restoring the fish habitat, 545 00:36:24,097 --> 00:36:26,349 and also for sequestering carbon. 546 00:36:26,432 --> 00:36:32,348 And carbon sequestration is a main part of our operations right now. 547 00:36:32,431 --> 00:36:35,015 Carbon sequestration is an important part 548 00:36:35,098 --> 00:36:37,680 of combatting climate change. 549 00:36:37,764 --> 00:36:41,848 The Usal Redwood Forest is a very young redwood forest. 550 00:36:41,931 --> 00:36:45,598 and redwoods can absorb more carbon 551 00:36:45,680 --> 00:36:47,930 than any other forest type on the planet. 552 00:36:49,639 --> 00:36:51,140 Redwoods store carbon 553 00:36:51,223 --> 00:36:54,930 by absorbing carbon from carbon dioxide 554 00:36:55,014 --> 00:36:57,181 out of the air into its needles 555 00:36:57,264 --> 00:36:59,474 and stores it into the bowl of the tree, 556 00:36:59,557 --> 00:37:02,805 the trunk or the roots, the branches. 557 00:37:02,889 --> 00:37:04,639 To my knowledge, 558 00:37:04,722 --> 00:37:06,639 this is one of the largest carbon projects 559 00:37:06,722 --> 00:37:08,681 in the country, yes. 560 00:37:16,139 --> 00:37:19,056 I am the Biochar Project Manager 561 00:37:19,139 --> 00:37:21,431 for the Redwood Forest Foundation. 562 00:37:21,514 --> 00:37:25,139 We're sort of at a perfect storm right now in California 563 00:37:25,222 --> 00:37:29,431 where we have over a hundred million dead trees in the Sierra. 564 00:37:29,514 --> 00:37:32,306 And we need to do something with that. 565 00:37:34,222 --> 00:37:36,889 We have what is called the western pine bark beetle, 566 00:37:36,972 --> 00:37:41,972 which makes its living by feeding on ponderosa pine, and other trees as well. 567 00:37:43,722 --> 00:37:46,473 And these beetles have been around for thousands of years 568 00:37:46,556 --> 00:37:50,139 and have lived in harmony and balance with the trees. 569 00:37:50,222 --> 00:37:52,556 But unfortunately, because of climate change 570 00:37:52,639 --> 00:37:54,556 and because of the long drought, 571 00:37:54,639 --> 00:37:56,680 millions of trees are very weak 572 00:37:56,764 --> 00:38:00,930 and have difficulty defending themselves against the beetles. 573 00:38:01,014 --> 00:38:05,805 Biochar can definitely be one of the ways that we address the beetle damage 574 00:38:05,889 --> 00:38:08,431 in the dead and dying trees of the Sierras. 575 00:38:08,514 --> 00:38:13,514 Biochar is essentially the form of charcoal that is suitable 576 00:38:13,598 --> 00:38:15,139 for use in agriculture 577 00:38:15,222 --> 00:38:18,680 and in helping to build more healthy soil. 578 00:38:21,722 --> 00:38:24,805 When you pyrolize woody biomass particularly, 579 00:38:24,889 --> 00:38:28,972 about half of the carbon that is in that woody biomass 580 00:38:29,056 --> 00:38:32,764 can be saved, is a residual charcoal. 581 00:38:32,847 --> 00:38:36,514 And biochar is very much like coral for the soil 582 00:38:36,598 --> 00:38:39,556 in that it can hold nutrients, it can hold water. 583 00:38:39,639 --> 00:38:41,722 It's more of an architecture. 584 00:38:41,805 --> 00:38:43,638 It incubates life. 585 00:38:43,721 --> 00:38:46,972 You're saving about half of the carbon that's in that plant 586 00:38:47,056 --> 00:38:50,431 and then can put it to better use and sequestering it in soil 587 00:38:50,514 --> 00:38:53,389 for great benefit to agriculture. 588 00:38:53,473 --> 00:38:56,764 We have all this biomass that we have to do something with. 589 00:38:56,847 --> 00:38:59,472 They are a fire hazard and, as you know, 590 00:38:59,555 --> 00:39:03,264 right now we have something like ten fires in California. 591 00:39:03,348 --> 00:39:08,180 And by producing biochar we can return some of that material back into the forest 592 00:39:08,263 --> 00:39:11,847 in a safe manner, or we can take some of that biochar 593 00:39:11,930 --> 00:39:13,972 and take it down into the Central Valley, 594 00:39:14,056 --> 00:39:16,971 which desperately needs water savings. 595 00:39:17,055 --> 00:39:19,680 And one of the prime benefits of biochar 596 00:39:19,764 --> 00:39:23,514 is that it can help to retain water in soils. 597 00:39:23,598 --> 00:39:28,556 If we put biochar in just 10% of the world's soil, 598 00:39:28,639 --> 00:39:33,513 we'll actually sequester 29 billion tons of CO2. 599 00:39:33,597 --> 00:39:36,472 29 billion tons. That's on 10%. 600 00:39:36,555 --> 00:39:39,514 And that's using only-- quote-unquote-- 601 00:39:39,598 --> 00:39:43,513 "surplus waste material," so that's significant. 602 00:39:45,472 --> 00:39:49,014 And then we have the carbon offset credits. 603 00:39:49,097 --> 00:39:50,888 And to keep those carbon credits coming, 604 00:39:50,971 --> 00:39:54,055 we have to employ workers to do our forest inventories, 605 00:39:54,138 --> 00:39:56,389 to work with the carbon verifiers 606 00:39:56,473 --> 00:39:59,180 to make sure the carbon that we say is on the property 607 00:39:59,263 --> 00:40:00,721 is on the property, 608 00:40:00,804 --> 00:40:03,138 and then is maintained into the future. 609 00:40:03,221 --> 00:40:06,264 I'd like to think that we're a model that others can join in 610 00:40:06,348 --> 00:40:09,055 and do the same thing that we're doing out here. 611 00:40:09,138 --> 00:40:10,721 This isn't rocket science. 612 00:40:10,804 --> 00:40:15,305 The carbon storage, as we move into the future, is huge. 613 00:40:15,388 --> 00:40:18,597 And we need more larger, 614 00:40:18,679 --> 00:40:20,930 older forests, intact forests, 615 00:40:21,014 --> 00:40:23,222 that we know will never be developed 616 00:40:23,306 --> 00:40:25,888 and can continue into perpetuity. 617 00:40:42,513 --> 00:40:44,513 I'm Kate Scow, and I'm a professor 618 00:40:44,597 --> 00:40:46,347 in Land, Air and Water Resources 619 00:40:46,430 --> 00:40:48,431 at University of California, Davis. 620 00:40:48,514 --> 00:40:51,472 And I'm a soil microbial ecologist. 621 00:40:51,555 --> 00:40:54,929 So the carbon cycle on a global scale 622 00:40:55,013 --> 00:40:58,763 involves aquatic systems and terrestrial systems. 623 00:40:58,846 --> 00:41:02,971 So soil is a very important part of the terrestrial systems. 624 00:41:05,264 --> 00:41:08,388 Soil actually contains two to three times 625 00:41:08,472 --> 00:41:10,679 the amount of carbon that is in the atmosphere. 626 00:41:10,763 --> 00:41:15,513 Soil is the place where primary productivity is supported. 627 00:41:15,597 --> 00:41:18,679 That means all the vegetation that grows, 628 00:41:18,763 --> 00:41:22,679 that fixes CO2 through photosynthesis 629 00:41:22,763 --> 00:41:24,138 from the atmosphere, 630 00:41:24,221 --> 00:41:25,555 what miraculous, like, 631 00:41:25,638 --> 00:41:27,347 creating mass here on the ground 632 00:41:27,430 --> 00:41:28,971 out of what? Air? 633 00:41:29,055 --> 00:41:31,347 It's, like, still amazing to me. 634 00:41:31,430 --> 00:41:34,472 That productivity brings all this carbon in. 635 00:41:34,555 --> 00:41:37,430 The plant fixes the CO2, it dies, 636 00:41:37,513 --> 00:41:39,721 it falls onto the ground, 637 00:41:39,804 --> 00:41:41,138 and all that plant residue 638 00:41:41,221 --> 00:41:43,804 now enters into the soil carbon cycle. 639 00:41:43,888 --> 00:41:46,180 It's way bigger than the atmosphere, 640 00:41:46,263 --> 00:41:49,096 what is residing in soil. 641 00:41:50,513 --> 00:41:54,472 So organic farms obtain their nutrients 642 00:41:54,555 --> 00:41:56,970 not from synthetic fertilizers. 643 00:41:57,054 --> 00:42:01,597 The fertilizer is in the form of organic material. 644 00:42:01,679 --> 00:42:04,596 That could be cover crops, or it could be compost 645 00:42:04,678 --> 00:42:08,888 that's made of food wastes or yard wastes or animal waste 646 00:42:08,971 --> 00:42:10,638 that you put in the soil. 647 00:42:10,721 --> 00:42:12,970 So in organic systems, you may be putting 648 00:42:13,054 --> 00:42:17,013 up to eight times as much carbon into the soil 649 00:42:17,096 --> 00:42:19,846 compared to a conventional system. 650 00:42:19,929 --> 00:42:23,430 So it's like part of it is really basic. 651 00:42:26,430 --> 00:42:30,554 Climate change gives us an opportunity 652 00:42:30,637 --> 00:42:35,013 to really behave differently on this planet. 653 00:42:35,096 --> 00:42:38,055 We see what we can do at our worst, 654 00:42:38,138 --> 00:42:40,304 and now the question is, 655 00:42:40,387 --> 00:42:46,221 if we were to consciously... 656 00:42:46,305 --> 00:42:50,013 be a part of the healing... 657 00:42:50,096 --> 00:42:53,929 it'll unleash, I think, our creativity. 658 00:42:56,012 --> 00:42:59,138 You realize, "Oh my gosh, I have a back yard. 659 00:42:59,221 --> 00:43:03,180 Oh my gosh, I have a park near me." 660 00:43:05,095 --> 00:43:08,347 If we were to see ourselves as helpers 661 00:43:08,430 --> 00:43:11,138 who could help the helpers heal this planet... 662 00:43:13,762 --> 00:43:16,096 that is so much better than seeing ourselves 663 00:43:16,180 --> 00:43:18,597 as disruptive toddlers with matches. 664 00:43:18,679 --> 00:43:24,012 You begin to realize that all of us are somehow connected 665 00:43:24,095 --> 00:43:26,597 to little bits of the solution. 666 00:43:26,679 --> 00:43:30,387 Right now we live and direct at my mentor's house, 667 00:43:30,471 --> 00:43:33,763 the OG, the organic gardener, Ron Finley. 668 00:43:33,846 --> 00:43:35,846 I'm more inspired to always come here 669 00:43:35,929 --> 00:43:37,678 and learn and figure out different ways 670 00:43:37,762 --> 00:43:40,429 to how I can actually utilize a small plot of land 671 00:43:40,512 --> 00:43:43,096 to grow the most that I can. 672 00:43:43,180 --> 00:43:46,262 Culinary climate action is basically what I like to see, 673 00:43:46,346 --> 00:43:50,971 when I'm growing the food and it's basically taking all that carbon out the atmosphere, 674 00:43:51,055 --> 00:43:52,472 it's pulling it in. 675 00:43:52,555 --> 00:43:54,013 And we also can see the fact 676 00:43:54,095 --> 00:43:56,554 that we can put it back into the soil. 677 00:43:58,887 --> 00:44:01,888 Now only at the same time it's creating green jobs, 678 00:44:01,971 --> 00:44:05,512 you know, and also addressing things like diabetes and obesity 679 00:44:05,596 --> 00:44:07,179 in my community, where I come from. 680 00:44:07,262 --> 00:44:09,138 You know, there's a lot of plots, 681 00:44:09,221 --> 00:44:10,888 there's a lot of city access, 682 00:44:10,970 --> 00:44:12,803 there's a lot of water that's available. 683 00:44:12,887 --> 00:44:15,596 This is really just a beautiful cause and effect. 684 00:44:15,678 --> 00:44:20,596 We're literally pulling out all the harmful poisons 685 00:44:20,678 --> 00:44:23,471 that we, like, literally just emit into our atmosphere. 686 00:44:23,554 --> 00:44:27,513 And the best way that you want to transform that is by growing some food. 687 00:44:27,597 --> 00:44:29,928 Put it on the roof. Put it in your window sill. 688 00:44:31,387 --> 00:44:33,512 But we feel the heat rising. 689 00:44:33,596 --> 00:44:35,929 You know, being a farmer is being futuristic. 690 00:44:36,013 --> 00:44:37,554 There is no doomsday mentality. 691 00:44:37,637 --> 00:44:39,346 You have to actually plant water 692 00:44:39,429 --> 00:44:41,596 and think that you're going to reap what you sow. 693 00:44:41,678 --> 00:44:43,888 So that's the conversation that I'd like to see 694 00:44:43,971 --> 00:44:46,512 when we're talking about transforming the climate. 695 00:44:46,596 --> 00:44:48,012 It's not gonna happen overnight. 696 00:44:48,095 --> 00:44:51,554 But you do have to start now. Now is the time. 697 00:45:13,179 --> 00:45:14,928 My name is Bren Smith. 698 00:45:15,012 --> 00:45:17,262 I'm the owner of Thimble Island Ocean Farm. 699 00:45:17,346 --> 00:45:21,928 And we're here in the Thimble Islands in Long Island Sound. 700 00:45:22,012 --> 00:45:25,054 And I was, I'm born and raised in Newfoundland, Canada, 701 00:45:25,137 --> 00:45:27,887 high school dropout, and have fished all over the globe. 702 00:45:27,970 --> 00:45:30,387 I fished in Gloucester up in Newfoundland, 703 00:45:30,471 --> 00:45:32,887 and then I was in the Bering Sea for a bunch of years. 704 00:45:32,970 --> 00:45:36,304 And, you know, that was the height of industrialized fishing. 705 00:45:36,387 --> 00:45:39,220 We were tearing up entire eco-systems with our trawls, 706 00:45:39,304 --> 00:45:42,220 chasing fewer and fewer fish further and further out to sea. 707 00:45:42,304 --> 00:45:44,178 So it was completely unsustainable. 708 00:45:44,261 --> 00:45:45,928 In fact, a lot of the fish I was catching 709 00:45:46,012 --> 00:45:49,262 was going to McDonald's for their Fishwich sandwich. 710 00:45:51,471 --> 00:45:53,386 It really caused a wake-up call 711 00:45:53,470 --> 00:45:55,554 for a lot of folks in my generation. 712 00:45:55,678 --> 00:45:57,637 I was actually out in the Bering Sea, 713 00:45:57,720 --> 00:45:59,346 and the cod stocks crashed. 714 00:45:59,429 --> 00:46:02,094 And, you know, thousands of people thrown out of work, 715 00:46:02,178 --> 00:46:04,429 canneries shuttered, and it really taught me 716 00:46:04,512 --> 00:46:08,179 that you can build up an economy and a culture over hundreds of years 717 00:46:08,262 --> 00:46:10,178 and if you don't protect the resources, 718 00:46:10,261 --> 00:46:13,387 eco-system collapse can wipe it out in a matter of years. 719 00:46:15,887 --> 00:46:18,386 And that's when we really begin to realize 720 00:46:18,470 --> 00:46:22,262 that issues like overfishing, like climate change, 721 00:46:22,346 --> 00:46:24,012 that they're not environmental issues 722 00:46:24,095 --> 00:46:25,927 for a lot of us that work on the ocean, 723 00:46:26,011 --> 00:46:27,595 they're economic issues. I mean, 724 00:46:27,677 --> 00:46:30,179 there's gonna be no food, no jobs, on a dead planet. 725 00:46:32,596 --> 00:46:34,470 When I realized this wasn't sustainable, 726 00:46:34,553 --> 00:46:37,471 I went on this search for sustainability. 727 00:46:37,554 --> 00:46:40,179 I remade myself as an oysterman. 728 00:46:40,262 --> 00:46:43,136 And what oysters taught me was that Mother Nature 729 00:46:43,219 --> 00:46:45,844 created these technologies millions of years ago 730 00:46:45,927 --> 00:46:47,554 designed to mitigate our harm. 731 00:46:47,637 --> 00:46:49,637 We don't need advanced technologies. 732 00:46:49,720 --> 00:46:52,470 Mother Nature has seaweeds and shellfish 733 00:46:52,553 --> 00:46:55,762 which sequester five times more carbon than land-based plants, 734 00:46:55,845 --> 00:46:59,137 filter 50 gallons of water a day per oyster 735 00:46:59,220 --> 00:47:00,802 pulling nitrogen out of our system. 736 00:47:00,886 --> 00:47:03,303 I mean, my job as a steward of the ocean 737 00:47:03,386 --> 00:47:06,803 is to take Mother Nature's technologies and grow them. 738 00:47:06,887 --> 00:47:08,886 And it's pretty simple. 739 00:47:08,969 --> 00:47:13,637 So the beautiful thing about if you grow just restorative species, 740 00:47:13,720 --> 00:47:15,512 is there's zero inputs. 741 00:47:15,596 --> 00:47:18,011 We don't need fresh water, we don't need animal feed, 742 00:47:18,094 --> 00:47:20,511 we don't need fertilizer and we don't need land, 743 00:47:20,595 --> 00:47:23,845 making it hands down the most sustainable form of food production 744 00:47:23,928 --> 00:47:26,053 on the planet. 745 00:47:26,136 --> 00:47:29,470 So kelp is this beautiful seaweed. 746 00:47:29,553 --> 00:47:32,471 It's like the gateway drug to a new cuisine. 747 00:47:32,554 --> 00:47:34,719 It's one of the fastest-growing plants on earth. 748 00:47:34,802 --> 00:47:38,053 It soaks up five times more carbon than land-based plants. 749 00:47:38,136 --> 00:47:39,887 It's called the Sequoia of the Sea. 750 00:47:39,970 --> 00:47:41,677 But it's just the beginning. 751 00:47:41,761 --> 00:47:43,345 I mean, we're starting with kelp, 752 00:47:43,428 --> 00:47:47,178 but there are 10,000 edible plants in the ocean. 753 00:47:47,261 --> 00:47:50,261 Part of the plant we can turn into kelp noodles, 754 00:47:50,345 --> 00:47:54,844 but then this is just biofuel we turn into fertilizer 755 00:47:54,927 --> 00:47:56,970 and we can turn into animal feed. 756 00:47:57,054 --> 00:48:00,053 If you provide a seaweed diet to cows, 757 00:48:00,136 --> 00:48:03,303 you get a 90% reduction in methane output. 758 00:48:03,386 --> 00:48:05,387 It's stunning. And cows have been eating-- 759 00:48:05,471 --> 00:48:08,677 cows, sheep, goats, have been eating kelp for hundreds of years. 760 00:48:08,761 --> 00:48:11,053 Hebrides Islands, Maine, all sorts of places. 761 00:48:11,136 --> 00:48:12,553 You know, the volume's stunning. 762 00:48:12,636 --> 00:48:16,053 We can do 10 to 20 tons of kelp per acre, 763 00:48:16,136 --> 00:48:18,011 150,000 shellfish. 764 00:48:18,094 --> 00:48:19,470 And you scale this up, 765 00:48:19,553 --> 00:48:21,219 if you were to take a network of our farms 766 00:48:21,303 --> 00:48:23,054 totaling the size of Washington State, 767 00:48:23,137 --> 00:48:25,094 technically you could feed the world. 768 00:48:25,178 --> 00:48:28,094 If you took five percent of U.S. territorial waters 769 00:48:28,178 --> 00:48:30,011 and farmed in our style, 770 00:48:30,094 --> 00:48:31,887 you could create 50 million direct jobs 771 00:48:31,970 --> 00:48:36,303 and sequester the equivalent carbon of 20 million cars. 772 00:48:38,553 --> 00:48:41,677 Our farms also help mitigate acidification. 773 00:48:41,761 --> 00:48:44,802 The kelp creates something called a Halo Effect 774 00:48:44,886 --> 00:48:48,428 which reduces the acidity in the oceans, 775 00:48:48,511 --> 00:48:51,053 which then allow our oysters and other shellfish 776 00:48:51,136 --> 00:48:53,094 to grow thicker shells 777 00:48:53,178 --> 00:48:57,761 and not be as susceptible to acidification. 778 00:48:57,844 --> 00:49:00,553 So, I mean, climate change was supposed to be 779 00:49:00,636 --> 00:49:04,094 this 100-year sort of slow lobster boil. 780 00:49:04,178 --> 00:49:05,719 And instead it's here and now. 781 00:49:05,801 --> 00:49:07,428 Luckily, as fishermen, 782 00:49:07,511 --> 00:49:09,802 we can transition to something that keeps that 783 00:49:09,886 --> 00:49:12,011 and have the pride of helping feed my country, 784 00:49:12,094 --> 00:49:13,261 and that's just so exciting. 785 00:49:13,345 --> 00:49:15,136 I can be part of, you know, 786 00:49:15,219 --> 00:49:16,595 the army that's going to help, 787 00:49:16,677 --> 00:49:18,636 hopefully, save the planet. 788 00:49:30,969 --> 00:49:34,136 If we put 10 units of CO2 in the atmosphere, 789 00:49:34,219 --> 00:49:36,636 ten very large units of CO2 in the atmosphere, 790 00:49:36,719 --> 00:49:38,844 about five stay in the atmosphere 791 00:49:38,927 --> 00:49:40,843 and about two and a half go into plants 792 00:49:40,926 --> 00:49:43,636 and about two and a half goes into the ocean. 793 00:49:43,719 --> 00:49:47,219 So you've got an acidic ocean. So how do you deal with that? 794 00:49:47,303 --> 00:49:50,886 Nature handles this problem by making more shells, 795 00:49:50,969 --> 00:49:54,677 which is the marine snow idea, 796 00:49:54,761 --> 00:49:56,843 that little beasties grow in the water, 797 00:49:56,926 --> 00:50:00,219 they make calcium carbonate shells, so shells fall. 798 00:50:00,303 --> 00:50:03,511 The problem with that is, the planet loves to operate 799 00:50:03,595 --> 00:50:06,177 on time scales of millions of years. 800 00:50:06,260 --> 00:50:08,677 And we don't. 801 00:50:08,761 --> 00:50:13,094 So, question becomes, can you speed that process up? 802 00:50:17,802 --> 00:50:21,303 We have to investigate all our options. 803 00:50:21,386 --> 00:50:23,635 There are more experimental hypotheses 804 00:50:23,718 --> 00:50:25,886 that still need to be tested. 805 00:50:25,969 --> 00:50:32,218 One solution may lie in a microscopic community of life called marine snow. 806 00:50:34,636 --> 00:50:37,719 So, fundamentally, what do we need? 807 00:50:37,802 --> 00:50:41,344 Well, we need this planet as it was, 808 00:50:41,427 --> 00:50:45,677 we have to bring it in the state that it was 200 years ago. 809 00:50:45,761 --> 00:50:49,010 Higher concentrations of carbon dioxide, 810 00:50:49,093 --> 00:50:51,761 they increase acidity of the ocean. 811 00:50:51,844 --> 00:50:54,553 The oceans are losing their ability 812 00:50:54,636 --> 00:50:57,385 to capture carbon from the atmosphere. 813 00:50:57,469 --> 00:51:00,219 And we have to do something about it. 814 00:51:00,303 --> 00:51:03,345 We have to help these systems 815 00:51:03,428 --> 00:51:07,594 which cycle carbon between the atmosphere, 816 00:51:07,676 --> 00:51:10,511 between the plants on the land, 817 00:51:10,595 --> 00:51:13,260 and between the oceans. 818 00:51:13,344 --> 00:51:15,635 And with marine snow, 819 00:51:15,718 --> 00:51:19,719 it just needs a little help from us. 820 00:51:19,802 --> 00:51:23,718 The main products will be removal of carbon dioxide 821 00:51:23,801 --> 00:51:26,761 and the production of oxygen. 822 00:51:26,844 --> 00:51:28,470 What we can do is 823 00:51:28,553 --> 00:51:31,676 insert into the ocean very small, 824 00:51:31,760 --> 00:51:35,636 minute amounts of iron, 825 00:51:35,719 --> 00:51:37,428 but very, very little, 826 00:51:37,510 --> 00:51:39,260 so it doesn't have anything to do 827 00:51:39,344 --> 00:51:41,926 with that term "fertilization." 828 00:51:42,010 --> 00:51:44,927 To give you a measure, we need altogether 829 00:51:45,011 --> 00:51:48,635 about 6 kilograms of iron for initiating this process 830 00:51:48,718 --> 00:51:52,886 on 100,000 square kilometers of the southern oceans. 831 00:51:52,969 --> 00:51:56,510 The cells form organic matrix, 832 00:51:56,594 --> 00:51:58,469 which is the foundation 833 00:51:58,552 --> 00:52:01,844 for the formation of the marine snow. 834 00:52:01,927 --> 00:52:05,676 It is then, when the matrix appears, 835 00:52:05,760 --> 00:52:09,010 it becomes very attractive for cyanobacteria 836 00:52:09,093 --> 00:52:11,302 and heterotrophic bacteria, 837 00:52:11,385 --> 00:52:15,510 which colonize these particles, and then actively grow. 838 00:52:15,594 --> 00:52:18,927 And then we just let them do their job, 839 00:52:19,011 --> 00:52:22,344 because they can stay suspended 840 00:52:22,427 --> 00:52:25,177 for a very long period of time. 841 00:52:25,260 --> 00:52:28,135 We tracked these marine snow particles 842 00:52:28,218 --> 00:52:30,635 for more than four months... 843 00:52:30,718 --> 00:52:35,260 so they can float around and sequester organic matter, 844 00:52:35,344 --> 00:52:36,968 and when they become heavy, 845 00:52:37,052 --> 00:52:40,510 they simply sink down to the sea floor. 846 00:52:43,135 --> 00:52:45,926 The speed of this change, 847 00:52:46,010 --> 00:52:49,135 and increase in the concentrations and temperature-- 848 00:52:49,218 --> 00:52:51,093 we must act. 849 00:52:51,177 --> 00:52:52,427 And we can. 850 00:52:52,510 --> 00:52:56,594 I'm 100% positive that we can achieve 851 00:52:56,676 --> 00:53:01,469 um...reorganization of human activities 852 00:53:01,552 --> 00:53:05,427 to work together with nature, and not against it. 853 00:53:14,718 --> 00:53:18,675 Science has long proven we have existing technologies 854 00:53:18,759 --> 00:53:22,469 that work, and they are already being implemented. 855 00:53:22,552 --> 00:53:26,385 It's just become a matter of political will and scale. 856 00:53:26,469 --> 00:53:31,260 We need a multitude of solutions moving forward simultaneously. 857 00:53:31,344 --> 00:53:34,010 In order to solve this crisis, 858 00:53:34,093 --> 00:53:39,302 it is critical we move to 100% renewable energy now. 859 00:53:39,385 --> 00:53:41,385 So, the top five solutions, 860 00:53:41,469 --> 00:53:45,634 number two was onshore wind, and that wasn't a surprise. 861 00:53:53,301 --> 00:53:57,260 Onshore wind, though, being much greater than solar, 862 00:53:57,344 --> 00:53:59,760 was a surprise to us. 863 00:54:03,968 --> 00:54:07,510 Solar was number eight in ten, actually. 864 00:54:11,967 --> 00:54:15,218 The sun is the largest resource we have. 865 00:54:15,302 --> 00:54:17,925 All the other resources pale compared to the sun. 866 00:54:18,009 --> 00:54:19,759 We have known that for a long time, 867 00:54:19,842 --> 00:54:23,093 we just never understood how to harvest it in an economic way. 868 00:54:23,177 --> 00:54:25,302 That's what's different now. 869 00:54:25,385 --> 00:54:28,675 Solar PV is in a stage where we're already lower than fossil fuel. 870 00:54:28,759 --> 00:54:30,968 Well, solar has come a long way. 871 00:54:31,052 --> 00:54:34,260 Carter in the '80s already installed solar in the White House. 872 00:54:34,344 --> 00:54:36,426 Reagan tore it down later on. 873 00:54:36,509 --> 00:54:39,135 And only in 2001, 874 00:54:39,218 --> 00:54:42,760 when Germany started to deploy solar on a large scale, 875 00:54:42,842 --> 00:54:46,426 we have been getting the benefit of economy of scale. 876 00:54:46,509 --> 00:54:49,469 Eventually we will be able to power 877 00:54:49,552 --> 00:54:53,259 the entire electrical grids with solar and wind, 878 00:54:53,343 --> 00:54:57,135 and all we need is wind and storage, and solar and storage. 879 00:54:59,635 --> 00:55:03,593 So, if you want to power the entire United States with photovoltaic, 880 00:55:03,675 --> 00:55:07,052 we would need about 30,000 square miles in area. 881 00:55:07,135 --> 00:55:09,134 That would give us enough to power 882 00:55:09,217 --> 00:55:12,717 all the power grids in every state of the United States. 883 00:55:15,885 --> 00:55:20,800 Mount Signal is a project that powers about 70,000 homes in San Diego. 884 00:55:20,884 --> 00:55:25,426 The second phase, the power is going to be wheeled to Southern California. 885 00:55:27,551 --> 00:55:31,217 The price of electricity that we produce at Mount Signal 886 00:55:31,301 --> 00:55:33,800 is already lower than fossil fuels. 887 00:55:33,884 --> 00:55:38,051 It's also a price that delivers fuel price certainty to the utility. 888 00:55:39,925 --> 00:55:43,176 The price is flat over the next 25 years, 889 00:55:43,259 --> 00:55:49,052 not something that you get from any other fossil fuel energies. 890 00:55:49,135 --> 00:55:52,634 We have integrated so much solar in California already. 891 00:55:52,717 --> 00:55:55,675 Ten years ago, people would've said, "No, that's not really possible." 892 00:55:55,759 --> 00:55:58,925 Well, here we are, solar is covering already 893 00:55:59,009 --> 00:56:01,301 up to 25% of California. 894 00:56:01,384 --> 00:56:04,551 The rate payer had no material increase in pricing, 895 00:56:04,634 --> 00:56:07,010 and we're still alive, it all works. 896 00:56:07,092 --> 00:56:10,759 And we have been able to reduce carbon on the way there. 897 00:56:15,717 --> 00:56:18,176 Over the last years we saw now 898 00:56:18,259 --> 00:56:21,092 utilities volunteering to buy solar. 899 00:56:21,176 --> 00:56:24,051 We see this mindset shifting. 900 00:56:24,134 --> 00:56:27,551 We still under-appreciate the value that PV brings. 901 00:56:27,634 --> 00:56:31,259 People do not comprehend that in five years, 902 00:56:31,343 --> 00:56:33,468 we will have PV at much lower price. 903 00:56:33,551 --> 00:56:36,009 We will be able to dispatch it at night, 904 00:56:36,092 --> 00:56:38,634 and you combine that with wind, you get this paradigm 905 00:56:38,717 --> 00:56:42,217 where we are truly living in a hundred percent renewable environment. 906 00:56:42,301 --> 00:56:44,384 And this is feasible. 907 00:56:44,468 --> 00:56:47,426 We don't need any new invention for that, 908 00:56:47,509 --> 00:56:49,092 we know all the technology. 909 00:56:49,176 --> 00:56:53,384 We just need to make sure that the people responsible 910 00:56:53,468 --> 00:56:57,674 for the planning of resources, for the infrastructure planning, 911 00:56:57,758 --> 00:57:01,343 understand that this is a different technology, 912 00:57:01,426 --> 00:57:04,384 and it will get cheaper over time. 913 00:57:08,675 --> 00:57:10,301 Coal is coming back. 914 00:57:10,384 --> 00:57:11,884 - Clean coal is coming back. 915 00:57:11,967 --> 00:57:13,967 A hundred percent. 916 00:57:14,051 --> 00:57:18,675 My administration is putting an end to the war on coal. 917 00:57:18,759 --> 00:57:22,468 Gonna have clean coal, really clean coal. 918 00:57:51,551 --> 00:57:53,468 It's difficult enough, sometimes, 919 00:57:53,551 --> 00:57:55,259 to communicate science to the public. 920 00:57:55,343 --> 00:57:58,133 Now, you take that challenge, 921 00:57:58,216 --> 00:58:00,551 and you add to it 922 00:58:00,634 --> 00:58:05,592 a concerted effort by fossil fuel interests 923 00:58:05,674 --> 00:58:07,467 and the front groups that they fund 924 00:58:07,550 --> 00:58:10,343 to pollute the discourse over climate change, 925 00:58:10,426 --> 00:58:13,799 to confuse the public, to confuse policymakers. 926 00:58:13,883 --> 00:58:16,258 We need to transform our energy sector, 927 00:58:16,342 --> 00:58:18,217 move away from fossil fuel energy, 928 00:58:18,301 --> 00:58:19,717 towards renewable energy. 929 00:58:19,800 --> 00:58:21,800 Well, that's rather inconvenient 930 00:58:21,884 --> 00:58:23,924 for the powerful fossil fuel interests 931 00:58:24,008 --> 00:58:27,176 who have many millions of dollars invested 932 00:58:27,259 --> 00:58:29,925 in our continued addiction to fossil fuels. 933 00:58:30,009 --> 00:58:31,674 And they've fought tooth and nail 934 00:58:31,758 --> 00:58:33,383 to maintain that addiction, 935 00:58:33,467 --> 00:58:35,301 in part by attacking the science 936 00:58:35,384 --> 00:58:39,425 linking climate change to that behavior, 937 00:58:39,508 --> 00:58:41,924 the burning of fossil fuels. 938 00:58:45,925 --> 00:58:47,799 A question that we get asked a lot is, 939 00:58:47,883 --> 00:58:51,091 how do we know that the CO2 rise in the atmosphere 940 00:58:51,175 --> 00:58:52,758 is because of human activity. 941 00:58:52,842 --> 00:58:55,716 And the answer is that we leave fingerprints 942 00:58:55,799 --> 00:58:58,592 all over the atmosphere. 943 00:58:58,674 --> 00:59:02,384 And one of the fingerprints that we leave in the atmosphere 944 00:59:02,468 --> 00:59:06,674 is via what we call Carbon-14, or radioactive carbon. 945 00:59:06,758 --> 00:59:09,133 So when we burn coal, oil, and natural gas, 946 00:59:09,216 --> 00:59:11,593 we leave an imprint on the atmosphere 947 00:59:11,675 --> 00:59:16,175 of what we call negative Carbon-14, or less Carbon-14. 948 00:59:16,258 --> 00:59:18,383 Because fossil fuels are so old, 949 00:59:18,467 --> 00:59:20,966 there's no Carbon-14 left, it's all decayed away. 950 00:59:21,050 --> 00:59:23,716 We can actually measure, very accurately, 951 00:59:23,799 --> 00:59:26,008 how much fossil fuels we burn 952 00:59:26,091 --> 00:59:28,509 by measuring C-14 in the atmosphere. 953 00:59:28,593 --> 00:59:33,758 It is nature's verification system that we have. 954 00:59:36,967 --> 00:59:39,008 They've persuaded enough people 955 00:59:39,091 --> 00:59:41,258 and sowed enough doubt 956 00:59:41,342 --> 00:59:45,258 that it's making it more difficult than in the past 957 00:59:45,343 --> 00:59:47,841 to actually get anything done about climate change, 958 00:59:47,924 --> 00:59:49,799 and that's really depressing. 959 00:59:49,883 --> 00:59:51,841 And the fact is that the agenda 960 00:59:51,924 --> 00:59:54,176 that many of these fossil fuel corporations, 961 00:59:54,259 --> 00:59:57,883 and those who are running them are engaged in, is malicious 962 00:59:57,966 --> 00:59:59,467 in the danger it's creating 963 00:59:59,550 --> 01:00:01,550 and the havoc that it is wreaking on our planet. 964 01:00:01,633 --> 01:00:03,425 So we've got a bunch of people 965 01:00:03,508 --> 01:00:08,091 who are literally profiting off the death of life on Earth. 966 01:00:08,175 --> 01:00:11,133 I think that some climate denial, 967 01:00:11,216 --> 01:00:13,342 particularly the well-funded climate denial, 968 01:00:13,425 --> 01:00:16,133 that is being done by people who know better, 969 01:00:16,216 --> 01:00:18,550 rises to the level of a crime against humanity 970 01:00:18,633 --> 01:00:21,175 that probably should be prosecuted in the Hague. 971 01:00:29,342 --> 01:00:33,425 While climate deniers have succeeded in delaying action, 972 01:00:33,508 --> 01:00:36,840 a much more ominous problem has emerged. 973 01:00:36,923 --> 01:00:39,633 Very recently, scientists have recorded 974 01:00:39,716 --> 01:00:43,758 increasing levels of methane gas in the atmosphere. 975 01:00:43,841 --> 01:00:47,175 Methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, 976 01:00:47,258 --> 01:00:51,508 has the potential to increase temperatures even further. 977 01:00:51,592 --> 01:00:53,508 Increased methane is a sign 978 01:00:53,591 --> 01:00:56,674 that we are reaching a critical tipping point. 979 01:00:56,758 --> 01:00:58,674 But where is it coming from? 980 01:00:58,758 --> 01:01:03,007 And how much will it accelerate climate disruption? 981 01:01:03,090 --> 01:01:05,758 Scientists are racing to find out. 982 01:01:11,757 --> 01:01:13,966 So, we are in front of 983 01:01:14,050 --> 01:01:16,300 the University of Wyoming Mobile Laboratory. 984 01:01:16,383 --> 01:01:18,923 We have different instruments inside 985 01:01:19,007 --> 01:01:22,425 that measure what's in the air that we are breathing right now. 986 01:01:22,508 --> 01:01:24,342 It's doing that in real time. 987 01:01:24,425 --> 01:01:25,924 And we are able, like that, 988 01:01:26,008 --> 01:01:28,382 to chase emission sources and plumes, 989 01:01:28,466 --> 01:01:32,175 and understand where sources of pollutions are located, 990 01:01:32,258 --> 01:01:36,090 what activities are going on that lead to enhanced methane. 991 01:01:38,673 --> 01:01:40,924 Inside of our lab, we have a couple instruments. 992 01:01:41,008 --> 01:01:44,840 We have a proton-transfer-reaction time-of-flight mass spec 993 01:01:44,923 --> 01:01:48,758 to measure volatile organics like benzene, toluene. 994 01:01:48,841 --> 01:01:51,841 And then we also have a Picarro cavity ring-down 995 01:01:51,924 --> 01:01:54,174 to measure methane concentrations. 996 01:01:54,257 --> 01:01:57,883 We can see data from these instruments in real time 997 01:01:57,966 --> 01:02:01,382 due to an inlet we have up on our mast above the van, 998 01:02:01,466 --> 01:02:04,715 which pulls air in and feeds into our instruments. 999 01:02:04,798 --> 01:02:08,924 So, we found with aerial and road mapping 1000 01:02:09,008 --> 01:02:12,215 that we have more sources of methane in areas 1001 01:02:12,299 --> 01:02:14,924 where we extract the gas than we expected. 1002 01:02:15,008 --> 01:02:18,466 And to really pinpoint where there are leaks of methane, 1003 01:02:18,549 --> 01:02:20,715 you need to be very close to the sources. 1004 01:02:20,798 --> 01:02:23,758 And the mobile lab gives us the flexibility 1005 01:02:23,841 --> 01:02:27,882 to pinpoint where we see the largest leaks. 1006 01:02:27,965 --> 01:02:31,632 The company has drilled brand-new megapad, 1007 01:02:31,716 --> 01:02:36,049 22 wells in the middle of renewed urban development 1008 01:02:36,132 --> 01:02:37,757 in western Greeley. 1009 01:02:37,840 --> 01:02:40,049 This is a site that had a lot of contention, 1010 01:02:40,132 --> 01:02:42,883 given its size and its location. 1011 01:02:46,549 --> 01:02:49,090 So the local community, from what I've heard, 1012 01:02:49,174 --> 01:02:51,591 is not really kept up to breadth 1013 01:02:51,673 --> 01:02:53,382 on what's going on at the site. 1014 01:02:53,466 --> 01:02:55,840 There's a huge sound wall around the operation, 1015 01:02:55,923 --> 01:02:59,592 and the state is not really maybe doing its best 1016 01:02:59,674 --> 01:03:01,965 at facilitating the communication. 1017 01:03:02,049 --> 01:03:04,591 We saw operations going on with a lot of flaring. 1018 01:03:04,673 --> 01:03:06,507 It seems very large volume of gas. 1019 01:03:06,591 --> 01:03:08,965 The yellow color of the flame 1020 01:03:09,049 --> 01:03:11,923 tells you it's not complete combustion. 1021 01:03:12,007 --> 01:03:13,673 So, we are going to continue 1022 01:03:13,757 --> 01:03:15,883 doing those drives to understand those sources, 1023 01:03:15,966 --> 01:03:20,549 but also to track what the local population may be exposed to. 1024 01:03:20,632 --> 01:03:23,090 So some oil- and gas-producing regions 1025 01:03:23,174 --> 01:03:25,965 have such a large concentration of methane 1026 01:03:26,049 --> 01:03:29,299 in the atmosphere above them that you can see it from space, 1027 01:03:29,382 --> 01:03:32,798 and that's something that was described a few years back 1028 01:03:32,882 --> 01:03:34,715 for the Four Corners region, 1029 01:03:34,798 --> 01:03:37,965 and that's really the key for us to be like detectives 1030 01:03:38,049 --> 01:03:42,050 and map where we see the largest sources of emissions. 1031 01:03:53,965 --> 01:03:56,965 So in 2014, 1032 01:03:57,049 --> 01:04:00,507 NASA scientists in cooperation with NOAA, 1033 01:04:00,591 --> 01:04:03,757 University of Michigan, and other scientists, 1034 01:04:03,840 --> 01:04:06,965 identified a methane hotspot the size of Delaware 1035 01:04:07,049 --> 01:04:08,757 in the Four Corners region. 1036 01:04:08,840 --> 01:04:10,257 That methane hotspot 1037 01:04:10,341 --> 01:04:12,673 is the largest accumulation of methane gases 1038 01:04:12,757 --> 01:04:14,840 in the United States. 1039 01:04:14,923 --> 01:04:18,549 This ranch, this spot that we're on, 1040 01:04:18,632 --> 01:04:20,882 is approximately ground zero. 1041 01:04:20,965 --> 01:04:23,507 If you were able to identify a middle 1042 01:04:23,591 --> 01:04:26,049 for that Delaware-shaped cloud, 1043 01:04:26,132 --> 01:04:29,007 it might very well be right here where we're standing. 1044 01:04:29,090 --> 01:04:31,174 And it's closely identified 1045 01:04:31,257 --> 01:04:33,548 the cause of that methane hotspot 1046 01:04:33,631 --> 01:04:38,049 to be predominantly the emissions from drilling, 1047 01:04:38,132 --> 01:04:39,507 such as this site, 1048 01:04:39,591 --> 01:04:43,132 as well as coal and other fossil fuels. 1049 01:04:45,965 --> 01:04:48,549 So the methane hotspot is identified 1050 01:04:48,632 --> 01:04:50,756 basically because of the technology 1051 01:04:50,839 --> 01:04:52,632 that NOAA and NASA had 1052 01:04:52,715 --> 01:04:55,424 following the advent of the FLIR cameras, 1053 01:04:55,507 --> 01:04:57,257 which are the infrared cameras 1054 01:04:57,341 --> 01:05:00,882 that let us identify the leaks and vents and flares 1055 01:05:00,965 --> 01:05:04,424 that cause the methane hotspot to accumulate. 1056 01:05:04,507 --> 01:05:07,631 You have to think of it in its full sense, 1057 01:05:07,714 --> 01:05:10,632 and that is 60 years and more 1058 01:05:10,715 --> 01:05:14,341 of leaking, venting, flaring, 1059 01:05:14,424 --> 01:05:17,298 and careless practices here in the San Juan basin, 1060 01:05:17,381 --> 01:05:21,215 over a million acres, in total 30,000 wells, 1061 01:05:21,299 --> 01:05:23,797 that have caused that methane hotspot 1062 01:05:23,881 --> 01:05:25,881 to finally accumulate 1063 01:05:25,964 --> 01:05:28,382 and stand as evidence 1064 01:05:28,466 --> 01:05:31,341 of what natural gas drilling 1065 01:05:31,424 --> 01:05:33,590 ultimately results in. 1066 01:05:33,672 --> 01:05:35,423 People lose sight of the fact 1067 01:05:35,506 --> 01:05:38,757 that the conventional wells created the methane hotspot, 1068 01:05:38,840 --> 01:05:42,465 and that they are a daily culprit. 1069 01:05:47,007 --> 01:05:50,590 So, this is a conventional natural gas well. 1070 01:05:50,672 --> 01:05:53,798 This is very typical equipment throughout the San Juan basin 1071 01:05:53,882 --> 01:05:55,923 and many gas fields across America. 1072 01:05:56,007 --> 01:05:58,298 This one is leaking pretty badly 1073 01:05:58,381 --> 01:06:00,922 from some of the standard equipment that's on it. 1074 01:06:01,006 --> 01:06:03,174 This just requires, honestly, 1075 01:06:03,257 --> 01:06:07,256 a crescent wrench, a little bit of Teflon tape-- 1076 01:06:07,340 --> 01:06:10,048 some attention will fix this leak. 1077 01:06:10,131 --> 01:06:11,798 If I had a single wish, 1078 01:06:11,882 --> 01:06:17,298 my wish would be to pull an investor in oil and gas here 1079 01:06:17,381 --> 01:06:20,840 and stand them where I'm standing, let them see that leak. 1080 01:06:20,923 --> 01:06:24,672 Let them see that times 18,000 in the San Juan basin, 1081 01:06:24,756 --> 01:06:28,048 and get them to stop obstructing a federal rule 1082 01:06:28,132 --> 01:06:30,507 that stays in place to protect my family, 1083 01:06:30,590 --> 01:06:33,006 to protect taxpayers across New Mexico, 1084 01:06:33,089 --> 01:06:36,672 and provide federal fair and equal protection 1085 01:06:36,756 --> 01:06:38,632 across the western states. 1086 01:06:38,715 --> 01:06:40,881 Let's get those guys out of the boardroom, 1087 01:06:40,964 --> 01:06:42,672 right here on this well location, 1088 01:06:42,756 --> 01:06:45,715 let 'em look at that leak that can be easily fixed. 1089 01:06:45,798 --> 01:06:50,797 And when I found out that the EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, 1090 01:06:50,881 --> 01:06:54,131 knew that the data had come in 1091 01:06:54,214 --> 01:06:58,256 that methane leaks and the chemicals that come with them 1092 01:06:58,340 --> 01:07:02,381 harm children to a greater degree than they did to me, 1093 01:07:02,465 --> 01:07:06,214 I was just outraged that he would try again 1094 01:07:06,298 --> 01:07:08,922 to roll back the federal protections for us. 1095 01:07:09,006 --> 01:07:12,007 You know, if someone came onto my ranch 1096 01:07:12,090 --> 01:07:15,631 with the stated objective of harming my children, 1097 01:07:15,714 --> 01:07:18,256 it would be over my dead body. 1098 01:07:31,881 --> 01:07:34,340 250 million years ago, 1099 01:07:34,423 --> 01:07:36,256 sudden releases of methane 1100 01:07:36,340 --> 01:07:38,756 produced kind of a secondary effect 1101 01:07:38,839 --> 01:07:42,672 that finished off large chunks of life on Earth. 1102 01:07:42,756 --> 01:07:44,672 And one of the debates right now 1103 01:07:44,756 --> 01:07:46,922 is whether the methane that is buried in the Arctic, 1104 01:07:47,006 --> 01:07:49,214 whether the methane that is, you know, in the permafrost, 1105 01:07:49,298 --> 01:07:50,881 in the seas all over the world, 1106 01:07:50,964 --> 01:07:54,548 how rapidly that will be mobilized, 1107 01:07:54,631 --> 01:07:57,298 and how destructive that mobilization will be. 1108 01:07:59,089 --> 01:08:01,381 The release of this ancient methane 1109 01:08:01,465 --> 01:08:05,173 may lead to exponentially more warming. 1110 01:08:05,256 --> 01:08:08,839 Will this methane create an apocalyptic scenario? 1111 01:08:08,922 --> 01:08:13,465 This is a question scientists are desperately trying to answer. 1112 01:08:13,548 --> 01:08:15,631 I'm the director of the Center 1113 01:08:15,714 --> 01:08:18,922 for Gas Hydrate, Environment, and Climate. 1114 01:08:19,006 --> 01:08:22,298 Here we have a team of 50 to 60 scientists 1115 01:08:22,381 --> 01:08:25,131 working on understanding the impact of methane 1116 01:08:25,214 --> 01:08:27,173 on the global climate system. 1117 01:08:27,256 --> 01:08:31,672 This methane is stored beneath the Arctic Ocean floor 1118 01:08:31,756 --> 01:08:34,465 in huge reservoirs, 1119 01:08:34,548 --> 01:08:36,839 at locations we sometimes know, 1120 01:08:36,922 --> 01:08:39,255 but we often do not know very much about it. 1121 01:08:39,339 --> 01:08:42,672 So, we are applying here geophysical methods 1122 01:08:42,756 --> 01:08:46,589 to quantify the methane hydrate reservoirs, 1123 01:08:46,671 --> 01:08:48,590 and also to see how stable 1124 01:08:48,672 --> 01:08:52,256 those methane hydrates are today, but also in the future. 1125 01:08:54,297 --> 01:08:58,423 Methane is one of the most aggressive greenhouse gases. 1126 01:08:58,506 --> 01:09:01,881 Methane has, fortunately, a shorter lifetime. 1127 01:09:01,964 --> 01:09:07,756 The Earth has a natural system for regulating input of methane 1128 01:09:07,839 --> 01:09:10,921 from the ocean into the atmosphere. 1129 01:09:11,005 --> 01:09:13,464 And this system is working quite efficiently. 1130 01:09:13,547 --> 01:09:18,006 But this system is also changing, because the ocean current system is changing, 1131 01:09:18,089 --> 01:09:20,130 the ocean temperature is changing, 1132 01:09:20,213 --> 01:09:23,172 the ocean chemistry is changing. 1133 01:09:23,256 --> 01:09:27,214 So, methane was in a kind of equilibrium for some time, 1134 01:09:27,298 --> 01:09:32,631 and during the last couple of years, we see quite a distinct increase in methane. 1135 01:09:32,714 --> 01:09:35,797 Do not know where this signal is coming from, 1136 01:09:35,881 --> 01:09:38,505 and at the present time, that, of course, 1137 01:09:38,589 --> 01:09:41,173 is putting a pressure on the scientific community 1138 01:09:41,256 --> 01:09:43,548 to give an answer to the politicians: 1139 01:09:43,631 --> 01:09:46,464 what is going on with the methane in the atmosphere? 1140 01:09:46,547 --> 01:09:48,422 Where is the methane coming from? 1141 01:09:48,505 --> 01:09:52,298 What is presently becoming more unstable? 1142 01:09:52,381 --> 01:09:54,838 We have done some very comprehensive 1143 01:09:54,921 --> 01:09:56,963 measurement campaigns where we have measured 1144 01:09:57,047 --> 01:09:59,881 at the sea floor, in the ocean, 1145 01:09:59,964 --> 01:10:03,130 at the sea surface, and in the air at the same time 1146 01:10:03,213 --> 01:10:08,839 to understand how methane is regulated in this whole system. 1147 01:10:08,922 --> 01:10:11,838 There is a lot of methane stored at the sea floor, 1148 01:10:11,921 --> 01:10:15,213 and this is so much that only a small change 1149 01:10:15,297 --> 01:10:19,630 might impact the ocean, or the atmosphere. 1150 01:10:23,047 --> 01:10:26,006 The balance here needs a lot more focus, 1151 01:10:26,089 --> 01:10:29,422 a lot more observations, and combining atmosphere, 1152 01:10:29,505 --> 01:10:32,963 ocean, climate, different kind of components together. 1153 01:10:35,422 --> 01:10:37,213 In my profession, 1154 01:10:37,297 --> 01:10:41,339 I'm interested in studying methane cold seeps in the ocean, 1155 01:10:41,422 --> 01:10:44,422 in the Russian Arctic, and also in the Barents Sea. 1156 01:10:44,505 --> 01:10:46,005 It's, well, basically, 1157 01:10:46,088 --> 01:10:48,213 streams of gas bubbles rising from the sea floor, 1158 01:10:48,297 --> 01:10:52,713 and those gas bubbles are mostly composed of methane gas. 1159 01:10:52,796 --> 01:10:55,505 First, it's gas hydrates, that's solid form. 1160 01:10:55,589 --> 01:10:58,380 It's basically ice-like structures. 1161 01:11:00,380 --> 01:11:04,589 Also, the gas can be present as free gas, which is gas bubbles. 1162 01:11:04,671 --> 01:11:08,172 Plumes of methane bubbles can vary. 1163 01:11:08,255 --> 01:11:09,838 In some areas in the Arctic, 1164 01:11:09,921 --> 01:11:13,963 we find gas seeps as tall as 800, 900 meters. 1165 01:11:16,005 --> 01:11:17,464 And the water depth in these areas, 1166 01:11:17,547 --> 01:11:20,088 a little more than 1,200 meters. 1167 01:11:20,172 --> 01:11:22,963 In shallower areas, we often find gas seeps 1168 01:11:23,047 --> 01:11:25,380 that are almost reaching the sea surface. 1169 01:11:25,464 --> 01:11:29,880 East Siberian Sea is definitely an area of concern for guys studying methane, 1170 01:11:29,963 --> 01:11:32,255 in particular because it's so shallow there. 1171 01:11:32,339 --> 01:11:37,630 So, those methane bubbles have really high potential to get to the sea surface. 1172 01:11:37,713 --> 01:11:39,796 Some areas, Spitzbergen, 1173 01:11:39,880 --> 01:11:43,921 we find the methane flares that are almost reaching the sea surface. 1174 01:11:51,087 --> 01:11:54,464 We have warmed the atmosphere to such a degree 1175 01:11:54,547 --> 01:11:57,796 that we have hit the tipping point of a melting Arctic. 1176 01:11:57,880 --> 01:12:00,754 We now face the potential 1177 01:12:00,837 --> 01:12:03,630 for an abrupt climate change scenario. 1178 01:12:03,713 --> 01:12:08,004 Current models predict we will shoot way past the Paris Agreement, 1179 01:12:08,087 --> 01:12:11,047 to five degrees and more, 1180 01:12:11,130 --> 01:12:16,712 causing even more catastrophic tipping points to be activated. 1181 01:12:16,795 --> 01:12:18,630 Warming might lead 1182 01:12:18,713 --> 01:12:22,130 to large injections of methane into the atmosphere. 1183 01:12:22,213 --> 01:12:24,837 It's something we need to be concerned about. 1184 01:12:24,920 --> 01:12:29,838 I would only add that it's one of many possible stressors. 1185 01:12:29,921 --> 01:12:32,505 We move into a high-risk situation 1186 01:12:32,589 --> 01:12:35,754 where we don't really have any experience 1187 01:12:35,837 --> 01:12:39,547 and we don't know how to deal with it. 1188 01:13:00,421 --> 01:13:03,339 The permafrost, and methane in general, 1189 01:13:03,422 --> 01:13:05,380 is of a great concern. 1190 01:13:05,464 --> 01:13:09,379 And I think that this is something 1191 01:13:09,463 --> 01:13:13,796 perhaps we need to pay more attention to methane in general, 1192 01:13:13,880 --> 01:13:16,670 in relation to the climate issue. 1193 01:13:16,754 --> 01:13:19,463 My concerns are that 1194 01:13:19,546 --> 01:13:23,754 there are great reservoirs of methane in the world, 1195 01:13:23,837 --> 01:13:25,546 in particular in the Arctic. 1196 01:13:25,629 --> 01:13:28,589 It is the risk of going beyond the tipping point 1197 01:13:28,671 --> 01:13:30,963 where it will be difficult to go back 1198 01:13:31,047 --> 01:13:33,837 and reverse the problem. 1199 01:13:42,920 --> 01:13:48,213 It's a very plausible feedback mechanism that in Arctic soils, 1200 01:13:48,297 --> 01:13:49,962 permafrost soils, 1201 01:13:50,046 --> 01:13:53,004 there's an enormous amount of organic material frozen. 1202 01:13:53,087 --> 01:13:56,464 And the amount that is available there, potentially, 1203 01:13:56,547 --> 01:14:00,920 to turn into CO2 and methane is maybe three times, four times 1204 01:14:01,004 --> 01:14:04,671 all of the fossil fuels that we have burned. 1205 01:14:11,588 --> 01:14:16,588 If we take all this material out of the deep freeze... 1206 01:14:16,670 --> 01:14:20,963 you very likely get large CO2 and methane emissions 1207 01:14:21,047 --> 01:14:23,463 on a huge scale, 1208 01:14:23,546 --> 01:14:26,254 over which we have no control. 1209 01:14:29,921 --> 01:14:33,463 I study methane emissions from lakes. 1210 01:14:33,546 --> 01:14:35,712 We are in interior Alaska, 1211 01:14:35,795 --> 01:14:39,172 and we are in discontinuous permafrost. 1212 01:14:40,712 --> 01:14:42,087 The thing that we're looking at 1213 01:14:42,171 --> 01:14:43,795 is microbial methane. 1214 01:14:43,879 --> 01:14:46,171 This methane bubbling here behind me, 1215 01:14:46,254 --> 01:14:48,754 it's dead plant and animal remains 1216 01:14:48,837 --> 01:14:50,504 that were locked up in permafrost 1217 01:14:50,588 --> 01:14:52,463 for tens of thousands of years. 1218 01:14:52,546 --> 01:14:54,463 And as that permafrost is thawing, 1219 01:14:54,546 --> 01:14:57,962 the microbes eat that soil carbon, 1220 01:14:58,046 --> 01:15:00,004 and they turn it into methane. 1221 01:15:01,546 --> 01:15:04,129 This process of permafrost thawing, 1222 01:15:04,212 --> 01:15:08,171 and that thawing permafrost fueling methane production, 1223 01:15:08,254 --> 01:15:11,129 and then methane escapes into the atmosphere, 1224 01:15:11,212 --> 01:15:13,295 causes climate warming, 1225 01:15:13,378 --> 01:15:15,379 which causes more permafrost to thaw, 1226 01:15:15,463 --> 01:15:17,546 we call that a permafrost carbon feedback. 1227 01:15:17,629 --> 01:15:19,171 It is a natural process. 1228 01:15:19,254 --> 01:15:21,004 Our concern, though, 1229 01:15:21,087 --> 01:15:23,421 is that as climate warms 1230 01:15:23,504 --> 01:15:27,296 at a faster rate than it has in the last 10,000 years, 1231 01:15:27,379 --> 01:15:29,712 that permafrost is going to respond 1232 01:15:29,795 --> 01:15:31,504 by thawing a lot more quickly 1233 01:15:31,588 --> 01:15:34,254 and releasing, at a faster rate, methane gas. 1234 01:15:34,338 --> 01:15:37,004 Now every time I go to a new lake, 1235 01:15:37,087 --> 01:15:39,253 I attempt to light these gas pockets. 1236 01:15:39,337 --> 01:15:41,171 Because it's a very high concentration of methane, 1237 01:15:41,254 --> 01:15:42,837 it's highly flammable, 1238 01:15:42,920 --> 01:15:45,504 we see a positive flame test when they contain methane. 1239 01:15:45,588 --> 01:15:48,003 So it's a quick gas chromatograph on the lake 1240 01:15:48,086 --> 01:15:49,712 to tell us do we have a methane lake, 1241 01:15:49,795 --> 01:15:52,879 or are we dealing with a different kind of lake? 1242 01:15:52,962 --> 01:15:55,836 There are many new lakes forming that were not here 1243 01:15:55,919 --> 01:15:58,546 30 or 60 years ago... 1244 01:15:58,629 --> 01:16:04,003 and those lakes have 10 to 100 to 1,000 times more methane than the rest of the lakes. 1245 01:16:06,254 --> 01:16:09,087 They are a picture of the type of methane emissions 1246 01:16:09,171 --> 01:16:13,669 we expect to see in the next 10 to 50 years 1247 01:16:13,753 --> 01:16:17,087 as permafrost warms and thaws, 1248 01:16:17,171 --> 01:16:19,546 and that permafrost feedback cycle kicks in 1249 01:16:19,629 --> 01:16:21,170 and really accelerates. 1250 01:16:24,129 --> 01:16:27,212 Now, is it methane, is it permafrost, 1251 01:16:27,296 --> 01:16:32,296 is it the dissolved organic carbon in the ocean which is suddenly remobilized? 1252 01:16:32,379 --> 01:16:36,087 These things are all intertwined with each other. 1253 01:16:36,171 --> 01:16:39,711 So, really what one needs to ask is: 1254 01:16:39,794 --> 01:16:42,546 are there positive feedbacks within the system? 1255 01:16:42,629 --> 01:16:44,254 The answer is yes. 1256 01:16:44,338 --> 01:16:47,919 So, it just stands to reason, purely by common sense, 1257 01:16:48,003 --> 01:16:52,171 the less you disturb it, the better off things will be. 1258 01:17:04,170 --> 01:17:09,754 We have the solutions at hand, but the question still remains. 1259 01:17:09,837 --> 01:17:15,628 Can we mobilize and take collective action before it's too late? 1260 01:17:15,711 --> 01:17:18,795 There isn't the oomph in the world to do this. 1261 01:17:18,879 --> 01:17:22,253 They talk about, with the Paris Agreement, 1262 01:17:22,337 --> 01:17:25,546 how we must reduce our carbon emissions 1263 01:17:25,629 --> 01:17:29,128 and to keep temperature rise at some low level, 1264 01:17:29,211 --> 01:17:32,545 but in fact, of course, we won't be able to do that. 1265 01:17:34,463 --> 01:17:36,545 The technology that can save us is something 1266 01:17:36,628 --> 01:17:39,878 that would take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. 1267 01:17:42,086 --> 01:17:43,962 So it ought to be obvious 1268 01:17:44,046 --> 01:17:47,378 that the biggest research effort that man is involved in 1269 01:17:47,462 --> 01:17:51,546 should be to develop direct air capture methods that work. 1270 01:17:53,628 --> 01:17:56,003 If we do that, then we can save the world, 1271 01:17:56,086 --> 01:17:58,462 and so why don't we do it? 1272 01:18:09,629 --> 01:18:12,128 Direct air capture is machines 1273 01:18:12,211 --> 01:18:15,836 which take in ambient air and extract the CO2 from this air. 1274 01:18:15,919 --> 01:18:19,337 For the last ten years, we have been working on direct air capture, 1275 01:18:19,420 --> 01:18:23,462 with the goal of making it with the least possible energy impact, 1276 01:18:23,545 --> 01:18:25,628 and ultimately with the best economics. 1277 01:18:25,711 --> 01:18:29,503 This machine consists of four 40-foot shipping containers, 1278 01:18:29,587 --> 01:18:32,211 and can be any size, there is no limit to it. 1279 01:18:32,295 --> 01:18:34,211 So we take in the ambient air here. 1280 01:18:34,295 --> 01:18:37,794 And inside, we have our filter structure. 1281 01:18:40,003 --> 01:18:42,628 We get the waste heat of the waste incinerated 1282 01:18:42,711 --> 01:18:43,961 to drive this plant. 1283 01:18:45,003 --> 01:18:46,711 Once the CO2 is captured, 1284 01:18:46,794 --> 01:18:49,378 this gas is then going to a greenhouse, 1285 01:18:49,462 --> 01:18:51,711 and this greenhouse is using the CO2 1286 01:18:51,794 --> 01:18:53,753 to increase the CO2 concentration 1287 01:18:53,836 --> 01:18:56,086 in the atmosphere of the greenhouse. 1288 01:18:56,170 --> 01:18:59,211 Which is done already nowadays, but with fossil CO2, 1289 01:18:59,295 --> 01:19:02,628 and from tomorrow on, they're going to use atmospheric CO2. 1290 01:19:06,587 --> 01:19:09,377 This plant will allow to close a carbon cycle. 1291 01:19:09,461 --> 01:19:12,378 So, of course, the CO2 goes into the greenhouse, 1292 01:19:12,462 --> 01:19:15,128 and goes to the tomatoes and cucumbers, 1293 01:19:15,211 --> 01:19:18,169 and once we eat them, the CO2 goes back to the atmosphere. 1294 01:19:18,252 --> 01:19:21,086 But since we recapture the CO2 from the atmosphere, 1295 01:19:21,170 --> 01:19:22,545 it's a closed cycle. 1296 01:19:22,628 --> 01:19:26,085 So, this can be a missing piece of the pie 1297 01:19:26,169 --> 01:19:29,587 in order to close a global carbon cycle 1298 01:19:29,669 --> 01:19:32,170 in the energy or transportation sector. 1299 01:19:35,294 --> 01:19:38,462 So, besides using CO2 in a greenhouse like this, 1300 01:19:38,545 --> 01:19:41,587 we can take CO2, we can take water, 1301 01:19:41,669 --> 01:19:43,294 and we can take renewable energy. 1302 01:19:43,377 --> 01:19:47,503 We can again produce fuels-- for example, jet fuel. 1303 01:19:47,587 --> 01:19:52,294 In order to capture 1% of global CO2 emissions, 1304 01:19:52,377 --> 01:19:56,211 we would need roughly 300,000 of the plants behind me, 1305 01:19:56,295 --> 01:19:58,253 which is of course a very high number. 1306 01:19:58,337 --> 01:20:01,294 But if you compare this to existing infrastructures, 1307 01:20:01,377 --> 01:20:03,794 it's a scale which humanity can handle. 1308 01:20:03,878 --> 01:20:07,669 So, it's definitely an achievable goal. 1309 01:20:12,753 --> 01:20:16,502 The next project is to bring a plant to Iceland 1310 01:20:16,586 --> 01:20:18,710 to capture CO2 from the air 1311 01:20:18,793 --> 01:20:23,086 and sequester the CO2 underground. 1312 01:20:23,170 --> 01:20:27,127 And in two hours, you literally turn CO2 into a stone, 1313 01:20:27,210 --> 01:20:30,753 which stores it in a permanent and safe manner. 1314 01:20:33,502 --> 01:20:37,377 In order to run the plant, we would use geothermal heat. 1315 01:20:39,170 --> 01:20:41,337 There's an abundance of it on Iceland, 1316 01:20:41,420 --> 01:20:44,419 therefore we would have low carbon footprint energy 1317 01:20:44,502 --> 01:20:46,836 available to drive the machine. 1318 01:20:46,919 --> 01:20:48,753 So, today is a very special day. 1319 01:20:48,836 --> 01:20:52,835 We have brought CO2 capture plant up here to Iceland. 1320 01:20:52,918 --> 01:20:55,337 And we are taking CO2 out of the air, 1321 01:20:55,420 --> 01:20:57,628 and then pumping it underground, 1322 01:20:57,711 --> 01:21:00,419 storing it in the basalt rock formation 1323 01:21:00,502 --> 01:21:01,960 within the CarbFix project. 1324 01:21:02,044 --> 01:21:03,710 So, we extract CO2 from the air 1325 01:21:03,794 --> 01:21:07,044 and permanently remove it by turning it into rock. 1326 01:21:07,127 --> 01:21:09,336 And yesterday night was the first time 1327 01:21:09,419 --> 01:21:13,045 that atmospheric CO2 was injected into the ground. 1328 01:21:13,128 --> 01:21:15,502 We can go up to thousands, ten thousands, 1329 01:21:15,586 --> 01:21:18,960 hundred thousands, and even up to millions of tons of CO2 1330 01:21:19,044 --> 01:21:22,253 per year that can be extracted from the atmosphere. 1331 01:21:22,337 --> 01:21:23,877 That is actually, to our knowledge, 1332 01:21:23,960 --> 01:21:25,668 the first time ever in the world 1333 01:21:25,752 --> 01:21:27,502 that direct air capture of CO2 1334 01:21:27,586 --> 01:21:30,587 has been combined with underground safe 1335 01:21:30,669 --> 01:21:32,752 and permanent storage of CO2. 1336 01:21:36,002 --> 01:21:39,378 Yeah, it's a new relationship with carbon. 1337 01:21:39,462 --> 01:21:40,877 Why can't we find a way 1338 01:21:40,960 --> 01:21:42,668 to make it an ingredient for something? 1339 01:21:42,752 --> 01:21:44,544 Why can't we put it in our plastics 1340 01:21:44,627 --> 01:21:46,085 or in our building materials? 1341 01:21:46,169 --> 01:21:48,711 Or through the help of carbon dioxide chemistry, 1342 01:21:48,794 --> 01:21:52,169 turning carbon dioxide into the things that we need every day? 1343 01:22:07,835 --> 01:22:13,085 I'm Daniel Nocera, the Patterson-Rockwood professor of energy at Harvard University. 1344 01:22:13,169 --> 01:22:17,085 These are my labs, the labs where we invented 1345 01:22:17,169 --> 01:22:19,502 the artificial leaf and the bionic leaf. 1346 01:22:19,586 --> 01:22:24,502 And what they do is a complete photosynthesis. 1347 01:22:24,586 --> 01:22:29,502 Sunlight, air and water, to fuels and food. 1348 01:22:31,002 --> 01:22:33,044 Think about photosynthesis. 1349 01:22:33,127 --> 01:22:36,252 If you think about what it really does, 1350 01:22:36,336 --> 01:22:38,668 it's the building block of life, 1351 01:22:38,752 --> 01:22:40,752 and its building blocks, literally, 1352 01:22:40,835 --> 01:22:45,294 are CO2, water, and sunlight. 1353 01:22:45,377 --> 01:22:48,543 And we build all of this, like this, 1354 01:22:48,626 --> 01:22:53,877 wood and food, and starch, and biomass. 1355 01:22:53,960 --> 01:22:57,001 That's a remarkable transformation. 1356 01:22:57,084 --> 01:23:01,169 This photosynthetic process, it's very complex, 1357 01:23:01,252 --> 01:23:03,461 but we really listen to nature. 1358 01:23:03,544 --> 01:23:06,293 And that, we finally ended up doing in 30 years. 1359 01:23:06,377 --> 01:23:09,002 And something that makes us really happy, 1360 01:23:09,085 --> 01:23:12,502 not only can I say yes, we can do it artificially, 1361 01:23:12,586 --> 01:23:16,461 I can do it ten times better than photosynthesis. 1362 01:23:16,544 --> 01:23:20,586 We made special catalysts that coated the artificial leaf, 1363 01:23:20,668 --> 01:23:24,419 and then they would split water to hydrogen and oxygen. 1364 01:23:24,502 --> 01:23:28,169 The second part of the invention is the bionic leaf. 1365 01:23:28,252 --> 01:23:31,501 It takes the hydrogen from the bacteria 1366 01:23:31,585 --> 01:23:33,336 and then it makes fuels. 1367 01:23:33,419 --> 01:23:36,877 And so, depending on what genes I put into the bacteria, 1368 01:23:36,960 --> 01:23:40,251 I could have the bacteria make materials, 1369 01:23:40,335 --> 01:23:42,002 they could make drugs. 1370 01:23:42,085 --> 01:23:45,127 We've shown they can make fertilizer. 1371 01:23:45,210 --> 01:23:48,335 We can work out of any water source, 1372 01:23:48,418 --> 01:23:52,127 including natural waters, sea water. 1373 01:23:52,210 --> 01:23:54,127 As long as you have my artificial leaf, 1374 01:23:54,210 --> 01:23:56,501 you can do it in your backyard. 1375 01:23:56,585 --> 01:24:01,586 We don't need to dig what's been down there and release more CO2. 1376 01:24:01,668 --> 01:24:04,626 The artificial leaf, working with the bionic leaf, 1377 01:24:04,709 --> 01:24:07,084 takes the CO2 out of the atmosphere, 1378 01:24:07,168 --> 01:24:09,544 uses sunlight and water, and we make fuel. 1379 01:24:09,668 --> 01:24:14,959 So, we don't add any more to the atmosphere, any more CO2. 1380 01:24:15,043 --> 01:24:19,210 And it's another issue, because the cost I'm up against, 1381 01:24:19,294 --> 01:24:23,585 the developed world has spent tens of trillions of dollars 1382 01:24:23,667 --> 01:24:25,084 to build what they now use. 1383 01:24:25,169 --> 01:24:26,835 It's kind of hard to walk away from 1384 01:24:26,918 --> 01:24:29,293 a multi-trillion dollar investment 1385 01:24:29,376 --> 01:24:30,543 that you've paid off. 1386 01:24:30,626 --> 01:24:32,418 So, that's what it's all about. 1387 01:24:32,501 --> 01:24:37,667 Therefore, you need policy and you need good partnership. 1388 01:24:37,751 --> 01:24:43,127 And the public informing them that they have options, 1389 01:24:43,210 --> 01:24:46,959 and that there can be this different world. 1390 01:24:51,001 --> 01:24:53,710 This new world can be sustainable, 1391 01:24:53,793 --> 01:24:56,001 innovative, and profitable. 1392 01:24:56,084 --> 01:24:59,543 The green economy is creating millions of jobs, 1393 01:24:59,626 --> 01:25:01,752 and will create millions more. 1394 01:25:01,835 --> 01:25:03,876 It matches and will surpass 1395 01:25:03,959 --> 01:25:07,126 the economy of the fossil fuel industry. 1396 01:25:07,209 --> 01:25:10,085 The challenge to reverse climate disruption 1397 01:25:10,169 --> 01:25:13,251 opens up opportunity for everyone. 1398 01:25:13,335 --> 01:25:17,960 It is now more profitable than ever to be green. 1399 01:25:21,959 --> 01:25:23,585 Up until recently, 1400 01:25:23,667 --> 01:25:27,918 the profit you could make from creating the problem 1401 01:25:28,002 --> 01:25:30,876 was greater than the profit 1402 01:25:30,959 --> 01:25:32,501 you could make from the solutions. 1403 01:25:32,626 --> 01:25:35,043 So, the solutions had to be done with subsidies, 1404 01:25:35,126 --> 01:25:37,418 which were rare and non-existent, 1405 01:25:37,501 --> 01:25:40,751 or altruism, or faith. 1406 01:25:40,834 --> 01:25:43,293 But people who are making the problems were raking it in, 1407 01:25:43,376 --> 01:25:44,959 raking it in, raking it in. 1408 01:25:45,043 --> 01:25:47,084 And I think we're at a crossover 1409 01:25:47,168 --> 01:25:50,376 where actually the profit you can make from the solutions 1410 01:25:50,460 --> 01:25:52,877 is greater than the profit from the problems. 1411 01:25:52,960 --> 01:25:55,209 And that is not well understood. 1412 01:25:55,293 --> 01:25:57,751 So it's not that altruism need not apply, 1413 01:25:57,834 --> 01:25:59,126 it's a great thing. 1414 01:25:59,209 --> 01:26:01,917 But actually, altruism will not be needed 1415 01:26:02,001 --> 01:26:05,501 in order to move towards a world where we reverse global warming, 1416 01:26:05,585 --> 01:26:08,543 because in fact, it's less expensive. 1417 01:26:08,626 --> 01:26:12,834 It's more profitable, more beneficial, more jobs. 1418 01:26:12,917 --> 01:26:15,460 It's the most amazing thing that's happened 1419 01:26:15,543 --> 01:26:17,126 in the last few years, 1420 01:26:17,209 --> 01:26:19,667 and it's going to do nothing but increase 1421 01:26:19,751 --> 01:26:21,001 as the years go by, 1422 01:26:21,084 --> 01:26:23,376 because engineers and designers, 1423 01:26:23,460 --> 01:26:25,709 and basically who are unknown and unnamed, 1424 01:26:25,792 --> 01:26:28,834 have been working diligently, and are working diligently 1425 01:26:28,917 --> 01:26:32,834 to reinvent a new way of being a human being 1426 01:26:32,917 --> 01:26:34,751 relating to this planet. 1427 01:26:53,791 --> 01:26:57,460 In Orkney, we have a really strong maritime tradition. 1428 01:26:57,543 --> 01:27:01,708 And since the '70s, the oil and gas industry in Aberdeen 1429 01:27:01,791 --> 01:27:04,043 has been a major contributor to the local economy, 1430 01:27:04,126 --> 01:27:06,293 providing tens and thousands of jobs. 1431 01:27:06,376 --> 01:27:07,959 But really, in the last few years, 1432 01:27:08,043 --> 01:27:09,292 we've seen quite a big downturn 1433 01:27:09,375 --> 01:27:11,208 in terms of the oil and gas industry 1434 01:27:11,292 --> 01:27:12,751 and the price of oil. 1435 01:27:12,834 --> 01:27:15,418 But we've got lots of really experienced people 1436 01:27:15,501 --> 01:27:17,875 in offshore operations on our doorstep, 1437 01:27:17,958 --> 01:27:20,792 and they're finding new jobs in offshore renewables 1438 01:27:20,876 --> 01:27:22,667 and companies such as ourselves. 1439 01:27:25,959 --> 01:27:29,709 Tidal energy is almost an entirely untapped resource. 1440 01:27:29,792 --> 01:27:31,709 We think we have the potential around the world 1441 01:27:31,792 --> 01:27:35,334 for about 100 gigawatts of capacity, perhaps more. 1442 01:27:35,417 --> 01:27:38,501 And what that equates to is a low-carbon energy 1443 01:27:38,585 --> 01:27:41,335 for millions and millions of homes. 1444 01:27:43,666 --> 01:27:46,125 What we've got here is the world's most powerful 1445 01:27:46,208 --> 01:27:48,751 floating tidal energy generator. 1446 01:27:48,834 --> 01:27:50,585 We've got a floating platform 1447 01:27:50,667 --> 01:27:52,833 to which two rotors are mounted. 1448 01:27:57,709 --> 01:27:59,750 We start with the rotors turning, 1449 01:27:59,833 --> 01:28:01,334 which produces electricity, 1450 01:28:01,417 --> 01:28:03,042 which comes back up into the machine 1451 01:28:03,125 --> 01:28:04,418 where it's conditioned, 1452 01:28:04,501 --> 01:28:09,000 and then it gets transformed, and stepped up, 1453 01:28:09,083 --> 01:28:11,666 and fed back into the grid. 1454 01:28:11,750 --> 01:28:13,667 It's like a wind turbine on its side 1455 01:28:13,751 --> 01:28:16,084 with two rotors instead of one. 1456 01:28:16,168 --> 01:28:20,083 Two weeks ago, we had great success. 1457 01:28:20,167 --> 01:28:24,084 First period of 24-hour continuous generation from the device. 1458 01:28:24,168 --> 01:28:27,791 It actually operated beyond expectations. 1459 01:28:27,875 --> 01:28:31,460 The device itself generated over 18 megawatt-hours of power 1460 01:28:31,543 --> 01:28:33,750 in that 24-hour period. 1461 01:28:33,833 --> 01:28:37,125 We're converging on more traditional methods 1462 01:28:37,208 --> 01:28:38,625 of renewable generation, 1463 01:28:38,708 --> 01:28:41,460 and really putting tidal out there 1464 01:28:41,543 --> 01:28:44,125 as a real competitive technology across the world 1465 01:28:44,208 --> 01:28:46,000 and the world's generation needs. 1466 01:28:48,043 --> 01:28:51,584 The tidal turbine is, it's 63 meters long in total. 1467 01:28:51,666 --> 01:28:54,292 We do all the power conversion within the device itself, 1468 01:28:54,375 --> 01:28:56,292 and it's ready, then, for export 1469 01:28:56,375 --> 01:28:58,460 right into the UK electricity grid. 1470 01:28:58,543 --> 01:29:02,500 So, you know, we're aiming for tens of thousands 1471 01:29:02,584 --> 01:29:04,584 of these tidal turbines, 1472 01:29:04,666 --> 01:29:06,335 but this, you know, fully integrated system 1473 01:29:06,418 --> 01:29:09,417 for producing low carbon energy, so we're very excited about it. 1474 01:29:12,584 --> 01:29:15,293 So, EMEC was set up as a testing laboratory, 1475 01:29:15,376 --> 01:29:17,833 because we know that there's a huge amount of energy 1476 01:29:17,916 --> 01:29:20,708 in the oceans all around the world, 1477 01:29:20,791 --> 01:29:23,335 and we're trying to find a way to harvest it. 1478 01:29:23,418 --> 01:29:26,500 And so, we realized that one of the most important things 1479 01:29:26,584 --> 01:29:28,916 was to have a test center which would allow us 1480 01:29:29,000 --> 01:29:31,000 to find out how to do this properly. 1481 01:29:31,083 --> 01:29:33,417 So, what we've got is a site here 1482 01:29:33,500 --> 01:29:35,500 where we've got cables that are out in the sea 1483 01:29:35,584 --> 01:29:38,334 that allow developers of these machines 1484 01:29:38,417 --> 01:29:40,543 to put these machines on to our cables, 1485 01:29:40,626 --> 01:29:44,042 and the electricity is then brought on to shore. 1486 01:29:44,125 --> 01:29:46,250 And that then feeds into our national grid. 1487 01:29:46,334 --> 01:29:47,750 So, this is real. 1488 01:29:47,833 --> 01:29:50,459 This is making electricity out of seawater. 1489 01:29:52,375 --> 01:29:54,791 So, at the moment, we've got a device called the Penguin, 1490 01:29:54,875 --> 01:29:57,000 and that's by a company called Wello Oy, 1491 01:29:57,083 --> 01:29:58,625 and their machine is effectively 1492 01:29:58,708 --> 01:30:01,958 a large pendulum inside a ship. 1493 01:30:02,042 --> 01:30:03,375 And as the ship moves, 1494 01:30:03,459 --> 01:30:05,208 this pendulum turns horizontally, 1495 01:30:05,292 --> 01:30:07,375 and that then generates electricity. 1496 01:30:07,459 --> 01:30:08,875 The sea is unrelenting, 1497 01:30:08,958 --> 01:30:11,042 and it will really try and damage equipment. 1498 01:30:11,125 --> 01:30:13,708 So, making the equipment as reliable, robust, 1499 01:30:13,791 --> 01:30:16,417 efficient, cost-effective, all these things 1500 01:30:16,500 --> 01:30:18,167 are the things that people are grappling with. 1501 01:30:18,250 --> 01:30:19,708 But the really clever thing is, 1502 01:30:19,791 --> 01:30:21,375 we have done that piece of alchemy. 1503 01:30:21,459 --> 01:30:23,624 We've actually turned seawater into electricity. 1504 01:30:23,707 --> 01:30:27,125 And that really is huge, because people are worried about 1505 01:30:27,208 --> 01:30:28,791 whether you can do this or not for years, 1506 01:30:28,875 --> 01:30:30,083 and we've just shown you can. 1507 01:30:30,167 --> 01:30:32,207 And that's a big step forward. 1508 01:30:56,250 --> 01:30:59,124 No one can say that the scientist has not warned, 1509 01:30:59,208 --> 01:31:03,750 has not told that we have to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases. 1510 01:31:03,833 --> 01:31:05,499 That should be clear to many. 1511 01:31:05,583 --> 01:31:06,874 How much farther can we go? 1512 01:31:06,957 --> 01:31:08,417 How many more tipping points can we go 1513 01:31:08,500 --> 01:31:10,000 before we hit a tipping point 1514 01:31:10,083 --> 01:31:13,417 from which our civilization cannot recover, 1515 01:31:13,500 --> 01:31:16,082 or from which the life of this planet, 1516 01:31:16,166 --> 01:31:19,000 or a large portion of the life on this planet cannot recover? 1517 01:31:19,083 --> 01:31:22,124 We cannot allow ourselves to reach those points. 1518 01:31:22,207 --> 01:31:23,707 And we're so damn close to it. 1519 01:31:23,790 --> 01:31:25,625 We're at a turning point. 1520 01:31:25,708 --> 01:31:29,125 Either we can stay the course and drown, burn, 1521 01:31:29,208 --> 01:31:30,957 and starve ourselves to death 1522 01:31:31,041 --> 01:31:32,957 in the face of the climate crisis, 1523 01:31:33,041 --> 01:31:36,208 or we can come together, we can innovate. 1524 01:31:37,666 --> 01:31:38,915 Where do we stand? 1525 01:31:38,999 --> 01:31:41,458 Is it possible? Is it game over? 1526 01:31:41,541 --> 01:31:43,083 Or is it, in fact, game on, 1527 01:31:43,167 --> 01:31:45,292 which is that we have at hand 1528 01:31:45,375 --> 01:31:48,291 the ability, capacity, and solutions 1529 01:31:48,374 --> 01:31:50,082 that can reverse global warming, 1530 01:31:50,166 --> 01:31:52,958 not mitigate, not reduce, not stabilize, 1531 01:31:53,042 --> 01:31:54,833 but reverse? 1532 01:31:54,916 --> 01:31:56,499 When you make your goals bigger, 1533 01:31:56,583 --> 01:31:57,999 it opens up possibility. 1534 01:31:58,082 --> 01:32:00,041 It opens up imagination. 1535 01:32:00,124 --> 01:32:03,167 It opens up innovation. It doesn't foreclose. 1536 01:32:03,250 --> 01:32:05,166 It actually does the opposite. 1537 01:32:05,249 --> 01:32:08,458 And so, it's not that there's one solution, 1538 01:32:08,541 --> 01:32:12,375 but together, you can achieve drawdown 1539 01:32:12,459 --> 01:32:15,249 by doing 80% of the solutions. 1540 01:32:15,333 --> 01:32:19,167 Every one of them has so many cascading benefits, 1541 01:32:19,250 --> 01:32:21,166 makes a better world for everybody. 1542 01:32:21,249 --> 01:32:25,749 So, we don't lose by understanding 1543 01:32:25,832 --> 01:32:27,500 that climate change is happening 1544 01:32:27,584 --> 01:32:30,915 and responding to it, so what's the problem? 1545 01:32:38,124 --> 01:32:39,874 We are the first generation 1546 01:32:39,957 --> 01:32:42,624 to see the advance of climate disruption, 1547 01:32:42,707 --> 01:32:46,125 and the last with a chance to fix it. 1548 01:32:46,207 --> 01:32:48,249 In spite of all this evidence, 1549 01:32:48,333 --> 01:32:50,790 we are currently burning fossil fuels 1550 01:32:50,874 --> 01:32:53,375 at an ever-increasing rate. 1551 01:32:53,459 --> 01:32:55,207 We have heard from the scientists 1552 01:32:55,291 --> 01:32:59,874 who have told us the truth based on actual research. 1553 01:32:59,957 --> 01:33:03,583 It is time to end the delay, to listen, 1554 01:33:03,665 --> 01:33:07,041 and to implement the solutions at hand. 1555 01:33:07,124 --> 01:33:11,707 Time is running out. The ice is melting. 1556 01:33:11,790 --> 01:33:15,583 Decisive action must be taken now. 1557 01:33:15,665 --> 01:33:18,124 There is no other option. 1558 01:33:18,207 --> 01:33:21,665 This moment is within our reach. 1559 01:33:21,749 --> 01:33:23,790 Let us grasp it. 1560 01:33:23,874 --> 01:33:27,291 It is up to us, each one of us, 1561 01:33:27,374 --> 01:33:32,624 to save this unique blue planet for generations to come. 1562 01:34:03,041 --> 01:34:07,707 ♪ Lord, if you're not listening ♪ 1563 01:34:07,790 --> 01:34:09,874 ♪ I'll stop praying ♪ 1564 01:34:12,041 --> 01:34:14,082 ♪ If you're not watching ♪ 1565 01:34:14,166 --> 01:34:18,499 ♪ Will you see me fall to my knees? ♪ 1566 01:34:20,749 --> 01:34:24,041 ♪ Lose it all ♪ 1567 01:34:27,498 --> 01:34:32,166 ♪ Lord, if I can't see it ♪ 1568 01:34:32,249 --> 01:34:34,749 ♪ I can't feel it ♪ 1569 01:34:36,582 --> 01:34:38,374 ♪ If I can't feel it ♪ 1570 01:34:38,458 --> 01:34:41,082 ♪ It's not happening ♪ 1571 01:34:43,082 --> 01:34:46,915 ♪ Love is light but ice keeps burning ♪ 1572 01:34:49,082 --> 01:34:53,457 ♪ Love and hope are just a fall ♪ 1573 01:34:53,540 --> 01:34:56,333 ♪ From your hill ♪ 1574 01:34:56,416 --> 01:35:01,248 ♪ Can you hear us calling again? ♪ 1575 01:35:04,458 --> 01:35:08,957 ♪ Lord, we're all lost ♪ 1576 01:35:09,041 --> 01:35:11,540 ♪ Is life worth living? ♪ 1577 01:35:13,707 --> 01:35:17,956 ♪ If you're not watching I'm not doing wrong ♪ 1578 01:35:19,748 --> 01:35:23,790 ♪ Hope and rain and ice is burning ♪ 1579 01:35:27,290 --> 01:35:31,957 ♪ Then you see us turn on a friend ♪ 1580 01:35:33,583 --> 01:35:38,290 ♪ Will you hear them calling again? ♪ 1581 01:35:41,874 --> 01:35:45,873 ♪ Lord, the world went dark ♪ 1582 01:35:45,956 --> 01:35:48,333 ♪ The wave came crashing ♪ 1583 01:35:50,249 --> 01:35:54,748 ♪ If we're all gone will you still carry on? ♪ 1584 01:35:56,540 --> 01:36:00,873 ♪ Love is light but ice keeps burning ♪ 1585 01:36:04,540 --> 01:36:09,540 ♪ Will you see us ride to the edge? ♪ 1586 01:36:11,415 --> 01:36:14,999 ♪ One last fall from the hill ♪ 1587 01:36:18,248 --> 01:36:21,081 ♪ Dear Lord ♪ 1588 01:36:21,165 --> 01:36:25,498 ♪ If you don't want me I'm not staying ♪ 1589 01:36:27,332 --> 01:36:31,332 ♪ Love is light light keeps burning ♪ 1590 01:36:33,748 --> 01:36:37,831 ♪ Let me know if I'm worth saving ♪ 1591 01:36:39,623 --> 01:36:42,041 ♪ We're almost gone ♪ 1592 01:36:42,124 --> 01:36:46,165 ♪ So if we fall again ♪ 1593 01:36:48,914 --> 01:36:51,748 ♪ Will you carry on? ♪ 1594 01:36:54,081 --> 01:36:59,040 ♪ If we're falling in ♪ 1595 01:36:59,123 --> 01:37:05,165 ♪ Will you catch us all? ♪ 1596 01:37:20,040 --> 01:37:26,248 ♪ Lord, just let me know if I'm worth saving ♪