In case we spoke too fast. How are you doing. Im pat morrison. I couldve said anybody could nine. You think of a good one and ill be that for you. The environment of course as a topic that would take more than 50 mormons or any city. But i think a lot of it has to do with the kind of well that we have to deal with the problems that are at hand. If you look at it through rose colored glasses the Environmental Crisis can if we look at it in those terms be a moment for ourselves we have conquered nature in the past. We can heat the arctic. The question now is what we can do with what is confronting us and whether we are willing to do it. Science has always come to our rescue in the past. We have vaccines that make people able to live to 80 who used it die at the age of 30. We made at the perrys in the deserts into agricultural fields and we made the urchins into our own fish ponds but if you remember the commercial from the 1970s nice its not nice to fool mother nature. More important than the technology is the well to employ the technology to deal with them and each of the panelists appear have done a great deal to say about all of that. Pat morrison is a legend. I had been writing i did a book on saving alaska wilderness which went from john going up to the area of glacier of today. And i and that book with Dwight Eisenhower saving the Arctic National refuge and then last year i wrote a book called rightful heritage. In the land of america looking at the Great Depression era when the conservation corps unemployed workers planted 3 billion trees. In efforts to effort to save all of these books. We look at how they Save National parks and monuments. I will use this as an example. Working in pasadena and she was involved with the roads prayed and she was considered the apostle of the desert. Started showing a desert captives and plant life in london and toured in mexico and we must save this. For her work on the grassroots desert protection. She decided she wanted to save the trees here. Today they do burning man parties in the desert where they used to come out to the desert here in port gasoline and light up. They were all being destroyed because we have purposely tried to burn it the biggest two. Other people were stealing plant life from this area. Hamilton hoyt came up with a million acre plan to have the national park. And fdr got in. She insinuated her way into the white house after they were only president a few weeks. Eleanor roosevelt used to tell grassroots people if you want franklin to save an echo system show them the photographs. She came with the books filled with all of the beauties of that. They looked at the plan and said we will do it. She said wait. They have things here. Dont worry about it. Im done. She cannot believe it but sure enough it took two years to get it done. But they signed an executive order saving Joshua Tree National monument. They did the same thing with the channel islands. And he helped rebuild the whole National Parks system. But he threatened as we speak here. And it threatens threatened not just because donald trump is present is being threatened because for one thing all of these solar farms that we think our great. Theyre actually bringing so much that its killing the plant life in joshua tree because its bringing too much in one area. And then the Climate Change issues that are going on right now. That are creating havoc where Wildlife Corridors are shifting. We are having entire echo systems in peril right now. If you go up to montana and miami youre finding that infiltration problems. The game is changing. One of the spheres now is a Climate Change which is very real and all the scientists know about it is being ignored by the incoming administration. I talked to john carey i worked for cnn as president ial story. I was with them in the march on washington where he was talking to him. Him. He said the thing that was scary the last week was away at the federal government has just ripped down all Climate Information at energy at eta its like Climate Change doesnt exist right now. With the federal presence of it. I think its good to be a great challenge to be environmentally conscious person we have just seen the opening up of the pipeline going on now. We might be okay on some of the National Parks being protected. But i think were having a rebellion here in the midwest. The trumpet ministration is about jobs they are going to want to push it back and try to do economic Central Florida coast jobs. The National Forest and try to my extract drill, do what you can on the public lands while you can says can have to be quite a Resistance Movement if youre an environmentalist at a place by place situation. The airlines and others had worked to save arent suddenly dismantled and then in my little talk in world war ii they got a letter. This is the week of pearl harbor in that letter said dear mister president. They go extinct. Because the state and the water pools over there instead of migrating to the south is the week there. The tenth Mountain Division is hurting the trumpeter swan. No normal president would be this concerned. The dress and he ends up to Henry Stimson secretary of war where he said dear henry there was a battle. I have now looked into whats going on very carefully and the verdict is in. They must d nest. And he booted them to camp hill colorado. Was he just a bird lover or was he doing that. To tell the public they have to protect the public. The system that we developed. And i think we start with the roosevelt. I think we can move to it. You and i have talked to in the week about energy revolution. The greatgrandfather more than doubled the size of the National Parks system. The idea of nature was very dear to him. We cant in a way had both. If we do it the right way. One of the questions i ask myself often if we the environmentalists are right why havent we been more successful in this country and getting this done. And thats a question i think all of us have to ask. There are three things that are important. Were taking on a big task. Energy is hugely important. For affordable energy. We can get it the right way. The second as we to see transformation. When you look at that soil that gets washed down. And ends up in the gulf of mexico create an hypoxic zone. What could be a greater warning signal. The most essential element is soil. And the third is demonstrated clearly. The urban divide in this country. We cant tolerate that any longer. It looks down on Rural America and so want the consequences are. We have to reach out and understand entry Rural Americans with respect and we also need to ensure that our government doesnt act in a wellintentioned way that creates immense animosity in the rural west. And we we now have something such as mister bistro dash mike bishop we will privatize our public lands. Its illegal. He does have some legitimate grievances when sometimes epa or the National Fish and Wildlife Service do things that arent very smart. Theres a rancher in oregon. They do some bad things. They poach deal dear illegally. But they have it management. To help improve it. The fires might escape. So they did some back fire burning. Im in another time the owner described burning. The judge said this didnt result in any damage at all. They decided to prosecute. Under the terrorist act. Alleging that these people were terrorists that is the wrong solution. They did some bad things. But when you encourage him accuse him of being at. Every rancher in the west is outraged by this. We need them. They need to be our allies we need to do a better job. How are we can solve these problems. We are seeing the cost of solar and Wind Generation come down. What state has the most wind energy in the country. Texas. Midas texas. They did something unusual. They made a 5 billiondollar investment in their grid. As a result they could move electricity around. So in some cities there off the grid entirely because wind is the cheapest source of electricity. Forcing the cost of Renewable Energy come down. You have to be careful about this because all im a big believer in Renewable Energy it will not solve the problem by itself. We will need other sources of the carbon free energy. This may shock some of you. In the Fourth Generation Nuclear energy. They are hugely expensive to build. We will have well have the Engineering Technology anymore. I will go into the details. You can recycle the uranium threat. If it loses access to power just let it sit there. You wont have the china syndrome. We need to be smart about how we get that technology and much better at looking at different alternatives there is no question in my mind that we can solve it. Theyre barking up the wrong tree into areas. I think when we sees a couple of thousand veterans standing with the suit he may think again because he will say we. Im not sure we want to take on the most respected people in the country. What hes doing is wrong. Hopefully others will do it. And we need to treat the native americans with respect. They are essential. I did want to ask you. When we talked about putting attacks on carmens john kerry had proposed us in 2004. It was one of the things that brought on his campaign. It serves other Energy Purposes as well. Such a good question. Lets go back and look at numbers. In a banker so i love the numbers. Trumpet wants to cut taxes what i can do. It will decrease the income of the federal government. We need to reinvest in our defense capacity. He was a bit a lot of money into them for structure. Infrastructure. Everybody here would agree with that. We already have a budget deficit. We want to spend more money. Do you want to see the National Debt now become hundred 50 of the Gross National project. That would be financially stupid. A great way of trying to get this done was lets tax something. You dont really want to see. We dont want to see the nation amid more carbon. What he will wont acknowledges that human beings account for. There are smart and they dont understand that. They can get the administration to recognize that numbers are on our side and they can be very powerful. I encourage you to join this effort. Eds book is our dirty love affair with trash. No were talking about one household one trashcan at a time. 2500 pounds of crash in a year. You have to put it somewhere. It takes up energy to do it and get it there. We are a nation of stuff. Waste is kind of the one big social environmental that anybody can do something about. And frankly that is a level at which we are going to make environmental progress. And thats not just because of the kind of administration that we have. You are a big process. A it couldve died in the 70s. When the u. S. Senate voted unanimously without the senate for the endangered species act. The most powerful law in the few history of the planet. And applauded. He also presided over the creation of the epa. On said we are finally entering an era of the stewardship of the environment. Is charged to be good stewards who ever you want to call it. I think there were five and defending votes in the house you cant test mothers day with that political climate. As much as we need National Scope effort to attack these problems its going to be states like california we have the money in the well to hold the line on a statewide basis but its really our communities were legacy the seller progress. Whether its a champion and an end to the wasteful projects. Or initiatives described. Its like darth vaders moment. Companies like walmart saying hey being less wasteful is not just an environmental good. Its good for business. Making waste is the opposite of being efficient and productive. The idea of writing a book about trash into transportation. Is the greatest and most wasteful activities we engage in. That we have a total failure of design in our project we have disposable materials that nature cant absorb plastic in the ocean be being a classic illustration. The toxins they carry in the ocean are entering a food chain. Because of the failure of design. It should be criminal to create a project and release it into nature that is harmful when we could just as easily design that wastefulness is embedded to the point it is so pervasive we cant really perceive it. Its a perfect metaphor. We are managing at the waist which is another term for hiding the waist. They use it. They dont actually measure a pound of trash when i was out. In an era where all of our trash is meticulously weighed because thats her business model. If you look at the real numbers for how much trash it 7. 1 pounds per day for every man woman and child in the country. What does that look like. If you just picked the trash for the front yard. Thats a reality show thats not a problem. Its two years of trash in the house for a retired couple and it was five to six times and exactly what you and i manufacture. You had 1. 3 tons at the end of the year. For each person in your house. Let me ask another follow up quickly. People feel the problem is so immense that they have no individual leverage at all. I have an acquaintance and ask her once this very question. As to stop eating meat. Because they cut down the rain forest where trees take in Carbon Dioxide and put out accident they cut down the and forced to graze cattle. And the methane thats created is counterproductive. And that to her was the biggest solution because habitat can heal itself. What are some of the other individual solutions that you think our workable . They actually have a pay off. I wrote about a family in Northern California because of a job change and a the need to downsize they have to squeeze 3,000 square feet and is the moment no one actually sits in that chair. It was one thing after another only one of which they ever wear. We accumulate the trash business. The biggest the trash can you give your customer the more chair they will make. The irony is that most people who pay for the trash collection will be a charge the same rate whether they make a little bit of trash or a large amount of trash. We should all had that. Then you are created an creating an incentive to be less wasteful. With the vigor trashcan. They have us subsidize the wasteful product. Then i have to clean up. And if you look at our economy you see under the guise of not regulating industries were giving them subsidies to forge the waist on. They can be more fruitful in their habits of consumption. They now have a statewide one. It was fought very vigorously. But plastic bags are the gateway drug of waste. La county pioneer banning them. They were in an uproar about it. They refused to pay the dime. It was a big mess. A year later 75 reduction in the use of disposable bags and the biggest county in america. It only took one dime to convince that population to alter their behavior. I want to ask a policy question now because you are president ial historian and as a species we tend to look for answers in the last wave. It happens to be visible in and apparent and obvious and happens to endanger us. How do you see political will and potential for a solution of working together before we reach the last reel. The Environmental Movement was not uttered until december of 69 and it really became that it was with 1970. The year of the Environmental Protection agency. I interviewed him. He was the first have of the Environment Protection agencies. In his house said the whole thing about nixon and why did he do all of this. It wasnt because nixon was a rich elected environmentalists. Reflected environmentalists. The public demanded it and it started with cbs news in the media showing the moon rise from the photograph. And it became a movement after Neil Armstrong of Lonely Planet earth were all in this together. They decided to make 1970 the year of the environment. By march of 1969 in the first earth day was covered College Protests by cbs live as if it was a convention. In the heat of the media in magazines in the planet on peril just dominated and 70. Nixon got paranoid that the similar from maine was good to be the guy he ran against. So he decided to get a coop coopt the environment because it was so much in the air. The Santa Barbara spell. Spill. The public demanded he do something but he went to look at the founding document. The founding document for the epa. Gorgeous nature writing. Mixed with legal points. We never remembered what the boss said about it. There lo and behold and blue ballpoint pen nixon had written by all of the beautiful points bullshit. He wrote it because he didnt care about the environment any more than donald trump cares about the environment. The public put pressure on. And we demanded that something be done. They decided that he was going to coop at a little bit. Donald trump right now is aiming to get the fish in wildlife. He is looking at that the epa. Its going to take real public protests along with the media which they call the Opposition Party is the moment. They are laughing at the left. As being ineffective. Im not very helpful and hopeful on whats going on here. Unless they get mad. We can have to have our voices heard in a very loud way. Its not going to come from trump. The framework for the answer. But showing that you can make green of a being green. Its going to be an important point. It might not be the only one. Ive been deeply honored to work on on for a long time. They had been threatened for that. Of time because there was a mining patent owned by the korean development. For a lousy ten or 15 million. It was just impossible. And then Something Else was done. Immensely creative the native Corporation Next Door to it that had 70,000 acres of prime tumor has now entered into a transaction with california where those trees well not be cut. The carpet will remain in them. They get carbon rights or credits for doing that from the taxes in california which they consider. Its a great transaction. And it was a handful of native americans who said weve got to do something about this. I would just head to get the remaining out. We can get this done. I also think as a banker driving we probably think that is decades away. Were gonna see within five years certainly within ten years a lot more autonomous cars. There can be some bad economic controversies that come out of this. We need to do for them what we should have been doing when people lose jobs in this country. Need to allow people to get them more education. So that theyre more flexible in this constantly changing world. We need to think about what are the consequences. The average car is used less than 4 of the time if we got that usage up to about 40 the car fleet would be reduced by over 50 . What it means in terms of Parking Spaces incredible opportunities and if theyre going to be autonomously driven what well up or tell them. In it it is supplies by wind and solar were not burning petroleum anymore. Good for us for a prospective and National Security but even better for us in terms of addressing the issue of Climate Change. Dougs point about us getting engaged. When i went to see minors go back to the coal mines where they not there now because coal is no longer competitive. It is a bridge technology. We dont want to see that as a permit source. Its not because obama declared war on coal. Call. It was market doing that. And lets take those coal miners and train them so they can have jobs and try to do everything they can. Putting them back into a coal mine ive only been in a coal mine once in my life and i doubt im never going to go into a coal mine again. Its a scary dangerous place. We dont want americans spending their lives that way. Its a terrible job. Lets help them get the kind of jobs they want. We need to see more political activity but we also need to learn how to talk to ourselves if we were made politically divided we will fail. Even talking to the people who voted for trump. How do we work together. If are all in the boat pulling together it will go where we wanted to go. A lot of what weve been talking about his national policy. When you talk about garbage that is local policy. It civic government. So where is the entry points in there. If you talk to people and communities where most of their trashes land with plenty of space. If you talk to talk about the health benefits. But the money and thats thats kinda been left on the table. Whenever they can be coupled with a self interest then you get the kind of level and by end. So we can work for. With a consensus that we desperately need. Waste in general is the kind of venue where businesses now seem to be more attuned to making progress. Whether its insisting on reasonable cups rather than paper cups. Because they dont get recycled. You can make some personal choices that will influence things at both the community or a lot of colleges there now starting campuswide programs. Where they are eliminating disposable water bottles. And these Little Things start to add up. And also start influence larger business decisions. This is really interesting. Its how we transport ourselves in our stuff around the world. We look at the life cycle and this product transportation. Its very tiny. And technically its true. It distorts the reality. Just this year it surpassed Energy Production sector as a greatest source of carbon emissions. Is just a measure of how wasteful we are using energy. It is over half of the energy it consumes. Because of the inefficiency. With room for eight suitcases. With only one person in it. So little amount of the fuel we are expending. Its almost negligible. I cant lead us to a karma heaven. If it doesnt drive the end of car ownership and a more shared your data plan or whatever you call it. And second work. Its not going to drive the adoption of electric vehicles. Half of the trips we take her under 3 miles. It is the perfect case if were sharing our cars. We dont even need that. Short short trips are where its at. People like to own their cars. Youre 16 you get your license. Once the first gift you get. What takes you to the cemetery when you die. Its cheaper, better safer to head self driven cars is a big it literally coulds help save the world and help save lives. As the biggest thing we waste with the current technology. The bad drivers in really bad drivers. 90 of the crashes that happened on our roads are one of three things drinking, distracted, or speeding. 90 of them are not accidents of their crashes. We can make that go away. We are driving around in this. The sky steps off the curb in between cars. Hes typing on it. He is focused on it. In that car did not did not i didnt see anything until i was leaning forward. It sees everything. We think we can multitask. If were not focused on what were doing. I want to take this. Weve heard a lot about the nuclear clock. We are seeing environmental clocks. Im deeply worried about whats going on right now. Barbara boxer was one of the leaders. Its been great having Barbara Boxer here. We live in texas and it is true. I bumped into boone pikins, anybody know who he is . Boone and i had a fight because i defended john kerry but he came up to me not too long ago and said, you know you should be writing about me, brinkley, im henry taifd of today. [laughter] and i was like im a great conservationist environmentalist and you said, would you come to my property. 60,000 acres in texas ranch land and prepared it back to what it was like at the time of the european settlement of the continent and hes doing wind and hes doing natural gas and he said, im really trying but the media wont give me a break because im boone pikins the oil guy. Hes remarkable what he has done with the land. Lamar alexander read the book and called me to Senate Office and said im a landscape conservationist and i want the smokies protected from no wind on the hills. I want to keep blue rinl mountains and and if we can build one Nuclear Power plant in knoxville, we dont have to, you know, do this. On lan conservation but im worried about this administration taking us back 20 years through all this hardearned legislation and global accords and then when hes gone we are going to have to work our way back up and we are going to lose precious time. Lets see if we can get a couple of questions. I need you to stand up and shout it out and i am going to repeat it. Yes, right there. Stand up. Yes. And shout. [inaudible] who is in charge of packaging . Nobody. Actually the consumer f the consumer choses not to. Packaging. It is the single biggest component in our landfills, packages and containers. You may think its getting recycled. If you look at the stream of different types of things, packages and containers followed by food wastes, two totally controllable things on behavior and choices, that said, a number of major corporations in the retail are demanding smaller packages, so one of the reasons, for instance, we have have you noticed Laundry Detergents are smaller . Thats motivation. Its one of the few bright spots, but, no, theres no regulation, but some cities are looking at kind of products stewardship that solves the problem. Those are big disposable problem. They Want Companies who make those take responsibility, takes responsibility for the products that their customers are done with and either make it more recyclable or reusable or take it away and deal with it themselves. Its an important one. Right here. Stand up, please. Is there one group in the country that we could all join that is trying to get a carbon tax passed . Okay, is there a group behind carbon tax that might thats a great interesting question. The one thats doing the best job is former head of ceq under president clint own and former member of congress from idaho who ran and won as a democrat and subsequently lost to a republican who was far more conservative and they have a couple of other partners and what they are doing whats that group called . Its sort of you can google them and see what theyre doing. What i like about theyre doing is they are having conversations with republicans that are telling them the same thing, we dont want to be first, but we support you, and the republicans of house of representatives and senate are scared of getting out of ahead of their caucus but they recognize increasingly that its the right thing to do and its in their economic and its in their political interest to do that but they dont want to have rightwinger come along and knock them off. So we have to change the political dynamic a little bit. Thats one of the reasons im encouraged about numbers. Numbers, if you march them appropriately can be a powerful effective argument. The number of interesting thinkers that are at berkeley right now looking at climate and poverty and others is astounding. Tom of california has been big of trying to get politicians that want to be part of the climate fight, but i was with styer at conference aspen institute, jimmy carter was there two a couple of years ago and it was all environmentalist having beer, wine, talking about climate. Not bri. Not bri. But they werent doing tom to get reelected from california and you know what the fighter on conservation was the fighter on the climate issue but we let lose a senate seat. It gets back to policy, we have to get the Democratic Party which has made Climate Change a plank has got to get senators in there and governors in there that are willing to talk about Climate Change. Is there one organization california. I dont think anybody wants to give more money to california. Who thought jerry brown was the guy to hold the line. Ic we are part of the one entity that show that is prosperity and jobs and progressive policies on the environment coexist. I think we are already a member of that organization. Have you heard of them. You can always look up online. Why dont you please thank our pam. They are going to cut the mics off in ten seconds. Okay. Doug said something at the beginning, no normal president would care about trumping the swans. I would disagree, any normal president should care about trumping the swamps. [applause] thank you all for coming. [inaudible