Before the Flood Page #2

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to the great auk, the

quagga, the moa.

I remember the

anger that I felt,

reading all these stories about

how explorers and settlers

would just wipe out an entire

species, and in the process,

decimate the ecosystem forever.

The difference now is we're

knowingly doing this;

it's just on a

much larger scale.

If we're gonna fight

climate change effectively,

we have to start by

acknowledging that

most of our economy is

based on fossil fuels.

Fossil fuels are coal,

oil, and natural gas.

Oil powers most of the

transportation sector,

coal and natural gas power

most of the electricity.

Now, in the first couple decades

of the twenty-first century,

in order to sustain our

dependence on fossil fuels,

we're going to very risky,

very extreme new sources.

You see this in things like

mountain top removal for coal,

fracking for natural gas,

offshore drilling for oil,

and the tar sands, which is

the most devastating form

of producing fossil fuels.

They take away massive forests,

the water in the streams

and rivers is poisoned.

It has severe impacts on the

wildlife, on native communities,

and it requires a huge amount of

energy simply to get it to

our fuel tanks.

There is no such thing

as clean fossil fuel.

Headsets are

hung up at the back,

but the volume control's right

above the microphone so...

The truth is, the more

I've learned about this issue

and everything that

contributes to the problem,

the more I realize

how much I don't know.

How much I don't know

about this issue.

The first time I ever heard

the term global warming,

which was what it

was called back then,

I was in my early twenties.

I had the opportunity to sit

down one on one with then

Vice President, Al Gore

in the White House.

And he drew a picture of

our planet on a chalkboard,

and then he drew the atmosphere

around it, and he said,

this is the most important

issue of our time.

I had absolutely no idea

what he was talking about.

He said all our modes of

transportation, boats, trains,

planes, cars, the way

we produce our food,

the way we build our cities,

almost everything we do releases

carbon dioxide, CO2, and that

leads to climate change.

The polar ice caps will melt,

the seas will start to rise,

there will be more dangerous

weather patterns, floods,

droughts, wildfires.

It sounded like some nightmarish

science fiction film.

Except everything

he said is real

and it's happening right now.

Wow.

Wow.

Beautiful.

I just want to know

how far we've gone,

how much damage we've done, and

if there's anything we can do

to stop it.

You all set, mate?!

So it's the 4th of July,

and we're here in the

middle of the Arctic.

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