All language subtitles for ice-on-fire-2019-720p-amzn-web-dl-x264-mkvcage-ws

Over the last 250 years
we have, in effect,

conducted the largest
science experiment in history.

Since the advent of
the Industrial Revolution,

we have burned over
1.4 trillion tons of carbon

into the atmosphere.

It has changed life on earth
as we know it,

especially in the Arctic.

The melting of the world's
snow and ice

has now triggered multiple
climate tipping points,

threatening the very existence
of life on earth.

Yet this disturbing future
need not be set in stone.

We have long had alternatives
to fossil fuels.

But more recently,
we have actually discovered

how to pull carbon
out of the atmosphere,

giving us a chance at reversing
climate disruption.

If we are able to reverse
climate change in time,

it would be an unprecedented
achievement in human history.

But the clock is ticking.

Scientists say we must implement
these solutions immediately.

At this critical turning point,
we must give a voice

to the impartial experts
who have presented us

with the facts they have spent
a lifetime to uncover.

It is their time to be heard.

They are the scientists,
researchers and innovators

who have found the solutions

to preserve the very life
of our shared world.

There is a couple
different projects

that require manual sampling.

So one of them
is the long-term CO2 record.

And the way it's set up,
you still need a person

to come physically take
the sample every Tuesday.

I'm the person
that gets to go in the Sno-Cat

to take the measurements.

We want to keep that
long-term record going

the way it's always been taken.

Monitoring and tracking what
we're doing to our atmosphere

is a serious and difficult endeavor.

For the last 50 years,

dedicated researchers
from around the world

travel weekly
to the same locations,

taking samples
of greenhouse gases

that cause climate disruption.

So we're at about 11 and a half
thousand feet at Niwot Ridge

in the front range of the
Rocky Mountains in Colorado.

And this is NOAA's long-term
CO2 sampling site here.

It's the third longest
in the world.

So, these are the flasks
that we're gonna use

to collect our sample,
made out of glass.

And after we're done today filling them
with air, we'll ski 'em down to our office,

and then we'll take them down to NOAA's office
in Boulder where they get analyzed

along with similar flasks
from all over the world.

The reason we do it up here

and a lot of the sampling sites
are high up in the atmosphere

is the air up here
is well mixed

so you're getting a good sample
of the whole atmosphere.

There's the little inlet
on the roof.

When I turn on the pump,

it's gonna suck the air
into these flasks.

This is actually the whole...

carbon cycle
and greenhouse gases,

and CO2 and methane
are the big ones.

When they took the first sample
in 1968,

it measured 322 parts per million.

And now we don't know what
this sample's gonna measure yet,

but it's probably
gonna be around 408.

So, it's a little bit
of an increase.

And now I'm just
putting everything away

and getting it ready
for next week's sample.

One of NOAA's missions
since its inception

was to measure carbon dioxide
in the atmosphere

and other gases
that affect the carbon cycle.

Two samples are collected every week

from around the globe.

So we're looking to see how
these gases change with time.

And the way to do that is
to continuously collect samples.

Currently, we have
about 60 locations.

Most of the samples
are collected in remote areas

away from population centers.

And we measure them
on this set of instruments

for six gases
that affect the carbon cycle.

Those gases are carbon dioxide,
methane, carbon monoxide,

molecular hydrogen,
nitrous oxide

and sulfur hexafluoride.

This system runs five days
and five nights a week,

24 hours a day.

So what I'm doing right now

is putting the air samples
on the manifold

and start the measurements.

And then I can walk away.

I lead NOAA's Global Greenhouse
Gas Reference Network.

The aim of the Global
Greenhouse Gas Reference Network

is to provide data
that are fully calibrated,

carefully quality controlled
and documented.

Data that will still be
fully credible

a hundred years from now
and longer,

so that as climate change
is happening now

and in the future
over the earth,

there will be information
for scientists

that they can really trust

so that they can diagnose
what actually happened

and how climate change
actually happens, how it works.

So modern CO2 measurements

were initiated by Dave Keeling,

a description situation
of oceanography.

Around 1956, he started
measuring along the west coast.

He saw that during
mid-afternoon wherever he was,

he found pretty much the same
concentration everywhere.

And so it got into his head
the idea that maybe

there's something
that we can call

a background concentration.

He started continuous
measurements then

at Mauna Loa Island of Hawaii

and on the coast of Antarctica.

The last ice age
at the end of that glaciation

from 20,000 to 11,000 years ago,

CO2 increased by about 80 ppm

from 200 to 280, roughly.

It was very slow.

It took 6,000 years for CO2
to climb the 80 ppm.

Six thousand years!

In pre-industrial times,

so before 1850,

CO2 was close to 280 ppm.

And now of course
we see 2 ppm per year.

That increase was due 100%
to human activities.

The spike that we now see,

compared to most
geologic history,

I call it an explosion.

It's...

It's like instantaneous
in geologic time scale.

Carbon has increased
dramatically

since the Industrial Revolution.

But what does that
actually mean for all of us?

What we have learned
is that excess carbon

creates climate disruption.

It changes the weather patterns
and life support systems

upon which society
depends to survive.

We have always known

that there's a toxicity
associated with fossil fuels,

but we'd always thought that
it was basically a toxicity

that would affect humans,

you know,
or other individual life forms.

It's really only in the--

within my lifetime certainly

that it has become
frighteningly apparent

that the accumulation
of carbon in the atmosphere

has caused it to warm up.

This greenhouse effect,
this toxicity,

impacts the life systems
of the planet as a whole.

And, you know, once I got that
back in the mid-90s,

I had to start talking about it

and we've been
talking about it ever since.

When we talk about
dangerous planetary warming,

we're referring to something
akin to a two degree Celsius,

that's about three and a half
degree Fahrenheit

warming of the planet relative
to pre-industrial times.

That is where we start to see
some of the worst

and potentially irreversible
impacts of climate change:

substantial melting
of the ice sheets

and associated substantial rise
in sea level,

permanent droughts
in mid-latitudes,

and the list goes on.

Well, catastrophic would be
we melt the major ice sheets,

the Greenland ice sheet
and the West Antarctic ice sheet

as all the major coastal cities
of the world are flooded.

You've got less land.

You've got environmental refugees,

some people leaving those regions.

People leaving the tropics
because it's getting too hot

for human habitation.

It's getting too hot
for agriculture.

Crops in the tropics
will decrease dramatically

in their productivity.

In short, you're looking
at a world with less land,

less food, less water
and more people.

And that's a recipe for
a national security disaster.

I work on the carbon cycle,

tasks that I've taken on
for more than 30 years

and truth be told,
I figured

we would have done something
about this 20 years ago

and I could be off
doing something else,

but I'm still doing
what I'm doing.

If you think about
the relationship

between carbon dioxide
and sea level,

there's a couple of interesting
points in that relationship.

One of them is when CO2 goes up
to roughly 400 parts per million.

That is warm enough that we
melt off chunks of Antarctica,

chunks of Greenland.

And those chunks
are the chunks that are

what we call marine base.

So the base of the ice sheet
in West Antarctica

is below sea level because
it's pinned to the sediments.

And once it starts to melt,

it's one of these
freight trains.

We don't know how this thing
is gonna stop.

And we're dangerously
at that point right now.

The other threshold
is somewhere around

six to seven hundred
parts per million CO2.

That's warm enough
that there is no more ice,

land ice on the planet.

And you have about
80 meters higher sea level.

We are on our way

to six, seven hundred
parts per million.

But I think that's one of those
interesting threshold moments

in our relationship
with the planet where,

are we gonna push
the climate system

so far out of balance

that we threaten the melting
of all land ice?

Guomundur Ingi Guobrandsson:
Yeah, it has changed.

Icelandic nature
is experiencing change

because of climate change.

This is quite visible in
the south coast, for example.

Our largest glacier,
Glacier Vatnajokull

or Water Glacier
if you translate it directly,

has also retreated quite a lot.

There is one
very interesting observation

that everybody noticed when
they drive the south coast now

and that is that they drive over
the longest bridge in Iceland,

almost one kilometer in length,

and there is
almost no water under it.

So you think, OK,
why building such a big bridge

for almost no water?

Well, this is just climate change.

The river changed its course

is because of the retreat
of the glacier.

So now we have
this sort of monument,

a symbolic thing of the past.

The Arctic is a profoundly
different place right now.

In the Arctic,
the impacts of climate change

are the most extreme.

What scientists are finding is
that what happens in the Arctic

has major impacts
for the rest of the planet.

I am working with measuring
greenhouse gases

at the Arctic location

and understanding how
the greenhouse gases

are changing over time.

I am concerned about the increase
of temperature in the Arctic

and the impact this might have
on all the Arctic systems.

But what I think is extremely
important to be aware of

is that with the sea ice reduction
we have now

and all the other changes,

you might change
the whole weather system,

and this has global impact.

We know that the changes
that we see in Arctic

does not only stay
in the Arctic.

Yeah, I've been
working on sea ice

the last 50 years pretty much.

And the whole Arctic has changed
so much in that time.

Loss of ice, loss of not only
a loss of area of ice,

but the loss of the appearance

of the great ice fields
of the past

with huge pressure ridges
and very, very thick ice.

Really dramatic ice scenery
has all gone.

Last month I was up
in the Barents Sea

on a research cruise
in a region where

normally you would have
quite a lot of multiyear ice.

We couldn't find
any multiyear ice.

So the ice was all very thin,
30 centimeters thick.

The Arctic Ocean is no longer
a continent of ice

but something that becomes
just water in summer.

There is a real, a huge loss
as far as beauty is concerned,

but also as far as the physics
of how the planet operates.

The ice is disappearing
because the climate's warming,

that's pretty obvious
that will happen,

but there's much more to it
than that,

because in fact you have

many other feedback mechanisms
going on

which cause the effects
on the planet

to be far worse than just
the retreat of the ice.

So the Arctic's warming up

three times faster
than the rest of the world

and the temperature difference

between the Arctic
and lower latitudes

is getting less,
and that means

that the jet stream
is getting to be weaker.

And as it gets weaker,

it goes from being
almost a straight line

to becoming big lobes
reaching up north and south.

And with it,
when you have a lobe like that,

it means that polar air
can come down

to lower latitudes than it
normally reaches in one sector,

and then in the sector
to the east or west of it,

you've got warm air
going up north

further than it should do.

So you're getting
bizarre weather extremes

which of course everybody's
been commenting on.

The trouble is where
these air masses

are causing such extreme changes

happens to be the latitudes

at which you have
the maximum food production.

Suddenly our ability
to feed everyone

is being affected
by these polar changes.

You can't take
that amount of ice away

without affecting
so many other things.

The impact of our actions
are starting to hit home.

Scientists' predictions
are now coming true

sooner than expected.

We are tragically suffering
through severe storms,

droughts, floods and fires

that are progressively becoming
more intense

and more unpredictable.

Fires started
almost simultaneously

in multiple places.

Over 7,000 structures
were destroyed

and about 3,000 homes.

I think at the height
in the early days of the fire,

maybe about 100,000 people
were evacuated.

It's a collective trauma.

Sounded like a war zone,
looked like a war zone.

They talk about the Hanley Fire,
it took a day to get here.

It burned about the same footprint,
but it took about a day.

It burned less than
200 structures.

This fire started at night,

made it to Santa Rosa in four,
four and a half hours,

and there's no comparison
other than the footprint.

Cal Fire Incident Management Team

came here to help run this incident

and he just shook his head
and said,

"Man, I've never seen
anything like this.

I've been doing this
a long time."

So that's not
terribly comforting,

but that's where we're at
right now.

If we keep having
these wind events,

how do we protect our citizens?

How do we protect
our infrastructure?

What are the things
that we can do

to make it as good as possible?

We've been through four,
five years of drought.

That drought stresses
all the brush, all the trees.

And the winds at Geyser Peak
on one of the weather station

was clocked at
108 miles an hour.

And I don't know what you do
with those kinds of winds.

When something catches on fire,

it's all you can do to try
to figure out where it's going

and how fast
it's gonna get there.

I never would have thought
a fire

would come out of the hills
and run the flats in Santa Rosa.

I really didn't.

Cars were being flipped over.

There were shoebox chunks
of, you know, embers

that were being carried
well ahead of the fire.

You'll see there's some trees

where all the limbs are just,
they're snapped off.

They're not burned off,
they're snapped off.

These natural disasters
are so common now

that people know it's gonna
happen to their community.

It's not like a matter of if,
but when.

It is a wake-up call
to everyone

that climate change is here

and that you need
to plan for it.

Climate disruption is causing
a rise in extinctions today,

but this isn't the first time.

Scientists studying
geological records have shown

there is a connection
between spikes in carbon

and the past five
mass extinctions.

There is a natural law

that the carbon cycle
affects the fabric of life.

Every time there has been
a massive increase in carbon,

the web of life weakens
and sometimes collapses.

I've been working on the way
in which the carbon cycle

is associated with the
occurrence of mass extinctions

and whether the carbon cycle can undergo
instabilities associated with them.

So the carbon cycle
is where life

and the environment interact.

You can think of it as one grand loop
between photosynthesis,

which is a process that takes carbon dioxide
out of the atmosphere

and converts it to oxygen
and plant matter or organic carbon.

And then the back reaction
of the loop we call respiration

which is the process via which we convert
that plant matter to carbon dioxide.

The grand loop of
the carbon cycle takes about

a hundred gigaton of carbon out of
the atmosphere and oceans every year

and it returns it each year.

So this is a hundred gigatons out

and a hundred gigatons back in.

But what we're contributing is on the order
of about 8% from fossil fuel burning.

It's an 8% increase compared to what is normally
going back and forth in a year.

It turns out to be more than what volcanoes
are putting into the system.

The planet is constantly
in the process

of rebalancing its cycles,
like its water cycle

and its nitrogen cycle
and its carbon cycle.

You've gotta think of it
as it's in constant flow.

And part of the planet's
doing that, you know,

was to take all the carbon that was
in the dinosaurs and land plants

and press that into
eventually oil and fossil fuels.

Over long periods of time
it was sequestered

and we're a young species.

And we were curious
and we dug up the carbon

that had been sequestered
by the earth.

And we burned it,
not knowing it was like

burning furniture in a house
with its windows closed.

So what's happened

is that the planet
is reeling from that.

There's an excess of carbon
up in the atmosphere.

What it's doing is causing
the living conditions

here on earth
to go out of balance.

So as a biologist,
when I look at climate change,

yes, I look at rising seas
and melting polar caps.

Those are evidence for me.

But when we begin to look at
what's happening

to the biological organisms in
response to the warming trends,

they are already on the move.

They're moving towards
the poles to get cooler.

They're moving from the lower mountains
up in elevation,

meaning their ranges are moving.

They also sometimes move
without their helpers.

A plant will move north and its
pollinator won't make it.

This is called in our
bloodless language of science,

it's called ecological disruptions.

So for me, if we change
the very conditions

that gave rise to all of this,

and to us, we--

It's gonna get crazy.

When the carbon cycle
is unstable,

it moves into a realm
that we don't understand.

Going back to geologic time
is that occasionally

there are these essentially
bursts within the carbon cycle

in which things change.

One of them which is widely known

as the Paleocene Eocene
Thermal Maxima

55 million years ago.

And others which are decidedly worse.

They're destructive
or catastrophic events.

They're mass extinctions.

The worst of them known as
the Permian Extinction.

So that's the historical record

but what we're doing
to the carbon cycle now

is another kind of problem

because now we know
what's going on.

We know that we have been adding
carbon dioxide

as a consequence
of fossil fuels.

And then the question is,
does that risk

engendering the kind of bursts
that we've seen in the past

that could create
what I would call

an instability
in the carbon cycle?

That is one in which small changes

become bigger changes.

That's a precise scientists'
definition of catastrophe.

When you get down
to the individual level,

losing one's home to a flood
is a catastrophe.

We can still avoid

breaching that dangerous limit
of two degrees,

but if you do the math,

with each passing year
of relative inaction,

it's getting
more and more difficult

to limit our carbon emissions

and remain under
two degrees Celsius warming.

We know we have put too much
carbon into the atmosphere.

But how much is too much?

Scientists have figured out
what that amount is

and have created
a carbon budget

that will create
a margin for life.

This budget tells us
where we are now,

how much more carbon
we can burn

and how much
needs to be removed

in order to sustain life
on earth as we know it.

I would say the major challenge

is indeed dangerous climate change.

And if we want to avoid
dangerous climate change,

well, then we have to accept
that the atmosphere

is for humankind
a limiting disposal space.

So roughly we can emit
800 gigatons CO2

into the atmosphere in this
limiting disposal space.

And if you take into account
that over the last five years

we have already used 200 gigatons,

so this basically means
that over the next two decades

we have exhausted
the limiting disposal space.

So in Paris
it was very important

that the whole world
and the whole world leaders

agreed on limiting
temperature increase

to well below two degrees.

So that's the kind of safeguard line

and it's very important that

more than a hundred nations
stand behind it.

So imagine the volume
that is in this ball.

That's a kind of symbol
for the CO2

that is still in the ground
in terms of coal

or in the form of oil and gas.

So this is the amount of carbon.

And if we want
to limit the temperature

to two degrees globally,
we may only emit

this little amount of carbon
into the atmosphere.

And to see that we have
a lot more of carbon

still stored in the ground that
we can emit in the atmosphere

when we want to limit
the temperature to two degrees.

So therefore the question is,
how does it fit together?

So, now for the next 20 years,

this is an enormous
important time span

to transform our economies,

to decouple economic growth
from emission growth.

And by middle of the century,
we need zero emissions,

and after 2050 you need
even negative emissions.

The carbon clock is just informing people
where we are now.

What is the pathway
how we exhaust

the limiting disposal space
of the atmosphere.

And this is a huge challenge
for humankind.

Science tells us that
our current climate crisis

is a problem we've created.

But it is also a problem
we can fix.

Not only do we need to stop emitting
carbon at the current levels

by switching to renewable energy,

but it is also critical to pull
carbon out of the atmosphere.

Climate change can be reversed
if we act now.

Recently researchers have
figured out what solutions

can draw carbon down, getting us
back to pre-industrial levels.

There's only two things you
can do about the atmosphere.

You can either stop putting
greenhouse gases up there

or you can bring CO2 back down.
That's it.

And you can do the first one
by conservation,

energy efficiency
and clean energy.

And the second one through
photosynthesis,

whether it's on land, on farms,
on forests, phytoplankton,

kelp in the oceans; there's only
two things you can do.

So that actually
sorts it pretty simply.

And in the past what has
been done in terms of solutions

is that it's focused on energy.

Energy, energy, energy.

And the reason for that
is understandable.

So it makes perfect sense to say,

"Well, let's stop putting
that CO2 up there,"

excepting that in the process
of emphasizing clean energy,

renewable energy, solar,
wind, et cetera,

it's sort of occluded
the rest of the solutions.

The purpose of Drawdown
is to see

if the 80 solutions
that we had modeled

would scale to the point where
we could reverse global warming

within 30 years,

going from reduce to reverse.

The bend the carbon curve,

what Drawdown shows,
is that we have choices.

And that if we increase the rate that
we're scaling some of the solutions,

then we could achieve Drawdown
at 2050.

And if you say
the odds are long,

I agree, they're long odds.

I'll take 'em.

My name is Linwood Gill.

I'm the Chief Forester for the
Usal Redwood Forest Company.

Usal Redwood Forest
is a community forest,

it's owned by a non-profit,
the Redwood Forest Foundation.

It's a 50,000 acre forest

which is dedicated
to managing the forest

on a long-term basis

for the economic stability
of the community,

as well as restoring
the forest habitat,

restoring the fish habitat,

and also for sequestering carbon.

And carbon sequestration is a main part
of our operations right now.

Carbon sequestration
is an important part

of combatting climate change.

The Usal Redwood Forest is
a very young redwood forest.

and redwoods can absorb
more carbon

than any other forest type
on the planet.

Redwoods store carbon

by absorbing carbon
from carbon dioxide

out of the air into its needles

and stores it into
the bowl of the tree,

the trunk or the roots,
the branches.

To my knowledge,

this is one of
the largest carbon projects

in the country, yes.

I am the Biochar
Project Manager

for the Redwood Forest Foundation.

We're sort of at a perfect
storm right now in California

where we have over a hundred million
dead trees in the Sierra.

And we need to do something
with that.

We have what is called
the western pine bark beetle,

which makes its living by feeding
on ponderosa pine, and other trees as well.

And these beetles have been
around for thousands of years

and have lived in harmony
and balance with the trees.

But unfortunately,
because of climate change

and because of the long drought,

millions of trees are very weak

and have difficulty defending
themselves against the beetles.

Biochar can definitely be one of the ways
that we address the beetle damage

in the dead and dying trees
of the Sierras.

Biochar is essentially the form
of charcoal that is suitable

for use in agriculture

and in helping to build
more healthy soil.

When you pyrolize woody biomass
particularly,

about half of the carbon
that is in that woody biomass

can be saved,
is a residual charcoal.

And biochar is very much
like coral for the soil

in that it can hold nutrients,
it can hold water.

It's more of an architecture.

It incubates life.

You're saving about half of
the carbon that's in that plant

and then can put it to better
use and sequestering it in soil

for great benefit
to agriculture.

We have all this biomass that
we have to do something with.

They are a fire hazard and,
as you know,

right now we have something
like ten fires in California.

And by producing biochar we can return
some of that material back into the forest

in a safe manner, or we can take some
of that biochar

and take it down into
the Central Valley,

which desperately needs
water savings.

And one of the prime benefits
of biochar

is that it can help
to retain water in soils.

If we put biochar in
just 10% of the world's soil,

we'll actually sequester
29 billion tons of CO2.

29 billion tons.
That's on 10%.

And that's using only--
quote-unquote--

"surplus waste material,"
so that's significant.

And then we have
the carbon offset credits.

And to keep those carbon
credits coming,

we have to employ workers
to do our forest inventories,

to work with the carbon verifiers

to make sure the carbon
that we say is on the property

is on the property,

and then is maintained
into the future.

I'd like to think that we're a model
that others can join in

and do the same thing
that we're doing out here.

This isn't rocket science.

The carbon storage, as we move
into the future, is huge.

And we need more larger,

older forests, intact forests,

that we know will never be developed

and can continue
into perpetuity.

I'm Kate Scow,
and I'm a professor

in Land, Air and Water Resources

at University of California,
Davis.

And I'm a soil microbial ecologist.

So the carbon cycle
on a global scale

involves aquatic systems
and terrestrial systems.

So soil is a very important part of the
terrestrial systems.

Soil actually contains
two to three times

the amount of carbon
that is in the atmosphere.

Soil is the place where primary
productivity is supported.

That means all the vegetation
that grows,

that fixes CO2
through photosynthesis

from the atmosphere,

what miraculous, like,

creating mass here on the ground

out of what? Air?

It's, like, still amazing to me.

That productivity brings
all this carbon in.

The plant fixes the CO2,
it dies,

it falls onto the ground,

and all that plant residue

now enters into
the soil carbon cycle.

It's way bigger than
the atmosphere,

what is residing in soil.

So organic farms
obtain their nutrients

not from synthetic fertilizers.

The fertilizer is in the form
of organic material.

That could be cover crops,
or it could be compost

that's made of food wastes
or yard wastes or animal waste

that you put in the soil.

So in organic systems,
you may be putting

up to eight times as much
carbon into the soil

compared to a conventional system.

So it's like part of it
is really basic.

Climate change
gives us an opportunity

to really behave differently
on this planet.

We see what we can do
at our worst,

and now the question is,

if we were to consciously...

be a part of the healing...

it'll unleash,
I think, our creativity.

You realize, "Oh my gosh,
I have a back yard.

Oh my gosh,
I have a park near me."

If we were to see ourselves
as helpers

who could help the helpers
heal this planet...

that is so much better
than seeing ourselves

as disruptive toddlers
with matches.

You begin to realize that all
of us are somehow connected

to little bits of the solution.

Right now we live and direct
at my mentor's house,

the OG, the organic gardener,
Ron Finley.

I'm more inspired to always
come here

and learn and figure out
different ways

to how I can actually utilize
a small plot of land

to grow the most that I can.

Culinary climate action is
basically what I like to see,

when I'm growing the food and it's basically
taking all that carbon out the atmosphere,

it's pulling it in.

And we also can see the fact

that we can put it back
into the soil.

Now only at the same time
it's creating green jobs,

you know, and also addressing
things like diabetes and obesity

in my community,
where I come from.

You know, there's a lot of plots,

there's a lot of city access,

there's a lot of water
that's available.

This is really just
a beautiful cause and effect.

We're literally pulling out
all the harmful poisons

that we, like, literally just
emit into our atmosphere.

And the best way that you want to transform
that is by growing some food.

Put it on the roof.
Put it in your window sill.

But we feel the heat rising.

You know, being a farmer
is being futuristic.

There is no doomsday mentality.

You have to actually
plant water

and think that you're going
to reap what you sow.

So that's the conversation
that I'd like to see

when we're talking about
transforming the climate.

It's not gonna happen overnight.

But you do have to start now.
Now is the time.

My name is Bren Smith.

I'm the owner
of Thimble Island Ocean Farm.

And we're here in the Thimble
Islands in Long Island Sound.

And I was, I'm born and raised
in Newfoundland, Canada,

high school dropout, and have
fished all over the globe.

I fished in Gloucester
up in Newfoundland,

and then I was in the Bering Sea
for a bunch of years.

And, you know, that was the height of
industrialized fishing.

We were tearing up entire
eco-systems with our trawls,

chasing fewer and fewer fish
further and further out to sea.

So it was completely unsustainable.

In fact, a lot of the fish
I was catching

was going to McDonald's
for their Fishwich sandwich.

It really caused a wake-up call

for a lot of folks
in my generation.

I was actually out
in the Bering Sea,

and the cod stocks crashed.

And, you know, thousands
of people thrown out of work,

canneries shuttered,
and it really taught me

that you can build up an economy and
a culture over hundreds of years

and if you don't protect
the resources,

eco-system collapse can wipe it
out in a matter of years.

And that's when
we really begin to realize

that issues like overfishing,
like climate change,

that they're not
environmental issues

for a lot of us
that work on the ocean,

they're economic issues. I mean,

there's gonna be no food,
no jobs, on a dead planet.

When I realized
this wasn't sustainable,

I went on this search
for sustainability.

I remade myself
as an oysterman.

And what oysters taught me
was that Mother Nature

created these technologies
millions of years ago

designed to mitigate our harm.

We don't need advanced technologies.

Mother Nature has seaweeds
and shellfish

which sequester five times more
carbon than land-based plants,

filter 50 gallons of water
a day per oyster

pulling nitrogen out of our system.

I mean, my job as
a steward of the ocean

is to take Mother Nature's
technologies and grow them.

And it's pretty simple.

So the beautiful thing about if
you grow just restorative species,

is there's zero inputs.

We don't need fresh water,
we don't need animal feed,

we don't need fertilizer
and we don't need land,

making it hands down the most
sustainable form of food production

on the planet.

So kelp is
this beautiful seaweed.

It's like the gateway drug
to a new cuisine.

It's one of the fastest-growing
plants on earth.

It soaks up five times more
carbon than land-based plants.

It's called the Sequoia of the Sea.

But it's just the beginning.

I mean, we're starting with kelp,

but there are 10,000 edible
plants in the ocean.

Part of the plant we can turn
into kelp noodles,

but then this is just biofuel
we turn into fertilizer

and we can turn
into animal feed.

If you provide a seaweed diet
to cows,

you get a 90% reduction
in methane output.

It's stunning.
And cows have been eating--

cows, sheep, goats, have been eating
kelp for hundreds of years.

Hebrides Islands, Maine,
all sorts of places.

You know, the volume's stunning.

We can do 10 to 20 tons
of kelp per acre,

150,000 shellfish.

And you scale this up,

if you were to take
a network of our farms

totaling the size
of Washington State,

technically you could
feed the world.

If you took five percent
of U.S. territorial waters

and farmed in our style,

you could create
50 million direct jobs

and sequester the equivalent
carbon of 20 million cars.

Our farms also help mitigate
acidification.

The kelp creates something
called a Halo Effect

which reduces the acidity
in the oceans,

which then allow our oysters
and other shellfish

to grow thicker shells

and not be as susceptible
to acidification.

So, I mean, climate change
was supposed to be

this 100-year
sort of slow lobster boil.

And instead it's here and now.

Luckily, as fishermen,

we can transition to something
that keeps that

and have the pride of helping
feed my country,

and that's just so exciting.

I can be part of, you know,

the army that's going to help,

hopefully, save the planet.

If we put 10 units of CO2
in the atmosphere,

ten very large units of CO2
in the atmosphere,

about five stay in the atmosphere

and about two and a half
go into plants

and about two and a half
goes into the ocean.

So you've got an acidic ocean.
So how do you deal with that?

Nature handles this problem
by making more shells,

which is the marine snow idea,

that little beasties
grow in the water,

they make calcium carbonate
shells, so shells fall.

The problem with that is,
the planet loves to operate

on time scales
of millions of years.

And we don't.

So, question becomes, can you
speed that process up?

We have to investigate
all our options.

There are more experimental
hypotheses

that still need to be tested.

One solution may lie in a microscopic community
of life called marine snow.

So, fundamentally,
what do we need?

Well, we need this planet
as it was,

we have to bring it in the state that
it was 200 years ago.

Higher concentrations
of carbon dioxide,

they increase acidity
of the ocean.

The oceans are losing
their ability

to capture carbon
from the atmosphere.

And we have to do something about it.

We have to help these systems

which cycle carbon
between the atmosphere,

between the plants on the land,

and between the oceans.

And with marine snow,

it just needs a little help
from us.

The main products will be
removal of carbon dioxide

and the production of oxygen.

What we can do is

insert into the ocean
very small,

minute amounts of iron,

but very, very little,

so it doesn't have
anything to do

with that term "fertilization."

To give you a measure,
we need altogether

about 6 kilograms of iron
for initiating this process

on 100,000 square kilometers
of the southern oceans.

The cells form organic matrix,

which is the foundation

for the formation
of the marine snow.

It is then,
when the matrix appears,

it becomes very attractive
for cyanobacteria

and heterotrophic bacteria,

which colonize these particles,
and then actively grow.

And then we just
let them do their job,

because they can stay suspended

for a very long period of time.

We tracked these
marine snow particles

for more than four months...

so they can float around
and sequester organic matter,

and when they become heavy,

they simply sink down
to the sea floor.

The speed of this change,

and increase in the concentrations
and temperature--

we must act.

And we can.

I'm 100% positive
that we can achieve

um...reorganization
of human activities

to work together with nature,
and not against it.

Science has long proven
we have existing technologies

that work, and they are
already being implemented.

It's just become a matter
of political will and scale.

We need a multitude of solutions
moving forward simultaneously.

In order to solve this crisis,

it is critical we move
to 100% renewable energy now.

So, the top five solutions,

number two was onshore wind,
and that wasn't a surprise.

Onshore wind, though,
being much greater than solar,

was a surprise to us.

Solar was number eight in ten,
actually.

The sun is the largest resource
we have.

All the other resources pale
compared to the sun.

We have known that
for a long time,

we just never understood how to
harvest it in an economic way.

That's what's different now.

Solar PV is in a stage where we're already
lower than fossil fuel.

Well, solar has come a long way.

Carter in the '80s already installed solar
in the White House.

Reagan tore it down later on.

And only in 2001,

when Germany started to deploy
solar on a large scale,

we have been getting the benefit
of economy of scale.

Eventually we will be able to power

the entire electrical grids
with solar and wind,

and all we need is wind and storage,
and solar and storage.

So, if you want to power the entire
United States with photovoltaic,

we would need about
30,000 square miles in area.

That would give us
enough to power

all the power grids in every
state of the United States.

Mount Signal is a project that powers
about 70,000 homes in San Diego.

The second phase, the power is going
to be wheeled to Southern California.

The price of electricity that
we produce at Mount Signal

is already lower
than fossil fuels.

It's also a price that delivers
fuel price certainty to the utility.

The price is flat
over the next 25 years,

not something that you get from
any other fossil fuel energies.

We have integrated so much
solar in California already.

Ten years ago, people would've said,
"No, that's not really possible."

Well, here we are,
solar is covering already

up to 25% of California.

The rate payer had no
material increase in pricing,

and we're still alive,
it all works.

And we have been able to reduce
carbon on the way there.

Over the last years we saw now

utilities volunteering
to buy solar.

We see this mindset shifting.

We still under-appreciate
the value that PV brings.

People do not comprehend
that in five years,

we will have PV at much lower price.

We will be able
to dispatch it at night,

and you combine that with wind,
you get this paradigm

where we are truly living in a hundred
percent renewable environment.

And this is feasible.

We don't need
any new invention for that,

we know all the technology.

We just need to make sure that
the people responsible

for the planning of resources,
for the infrastructure planning,

understand that this
is a different technology,

and it will get cheaper over time.

Coal is coming back.

- Clean coal is coming back.

A hundred percent.

My administration is putting
an end to the war on coal.

Gonna have clean coal,
really clean coal.

It's difficult enough,
sometimes,

to communicate science
to the public.

Now, you take that challenge,

and you add to it

a concerted effort
by fossil fuel interests

and the front groups
that they fund

to pollute the discourse
over climate change,

to confuse the public,
to confuse policymakers.

We need to transform
our energy sector,

move away from
fossil fuel energy,

towards renewable energy.

Well, that's rather inconvenient

for the powerful
fossil fuel interests

who have many millions
of dollars invested

in our continued addiction
to fossil fuels.

And they've fought
tooth and nail

to maintain that addiction,

in part by attacking the science

linking climate change
to that behavior,

the burning of fossil fuels.

A question that
we get asked a lot is,

how do we know that
the CO2 rise in the atmosphere

is because of human activity.

And the answer is that
we leave fingerprints

all over the atmosphere.

And one of the fingerprints
that we leave in the atmosphere

is via what we call Carbon-14,
or radioactive carbon.

So when we burn coal, oil,
and natural gas,

we leave an imprint
on the atmosphere

of what we call negative
Carbon-14, or less Carbon-14.

Because fossil fuels are so old,

there's no Carbon-14 left,
it's all decayed away.

We can actually measure,
very accurately,

how much fossil fuels we burn

by measuring C-14
in the atmosphere.

It is nature's verification
system that we have.

They've persuaded enough people

and sowed enough doubt

that it's making it more
difficult than in the past

to actually get anything done
about climate change,

and that's really depressing.

And the fact is that the agenda

that many of these
fossil fuel corporations,

and those who are running them
are engaged in, is malicious

in the danger it's creating

and the havoc that it is
wreaking on our planet.

So we've got a bunch of people

who are literally profiting
off the death of life on Earth.

I think that some climate denial,

particularly the well-funded
climate denial,

that is being done by people
who know better,

rises to the level of a crime
against humanity

that probably should be
prosecuted in the Hague.

While climate deniers have
succeeded in delaying action,

a much more ominous problem
has emerged.

Very recently,
scientists have recorded

increasing levels of
methane gas in the atmosphere.

Methane, a powerful greenhouse gas,

has the potential to increase
temperatures even further.

Increased methane is a sign

that we are reaching a critical
tipping point.

But where is it coming from?

And how much will it accelerate
climate disruption?

Scientists are racing to find out.

So, we are in front of

the University of Wyoming
Mobile Laboratory.

We have different
instruments inside

that measure what's in the air
that we are breathing right now.

It's doing that in real time.

And we are able, like that,

to chase emission sources
and plumes,

and understand where sources of pollutions
are located,

what activities are going on that lead
to enhanced methane.

Inside of our lab,
we have a couple instruments.

We have a proton-transfer-reaction
time-of-flight mass spec

to measure volatile organics
like benzene, toluene.

And then we also have
a Picarro cavity ring-down

to measure methane concentrations.

We can see data from these
instruments in real time

due to an inlet we have
up on our mast above the van,

which pulls air in and feeds
into our instruments.

So, we found with
aerial and road mapping

that we have more sources
of methane in areas

where we extract the gas
than we expected.

And to really pinpoint where
there are leaks of methane,

you need to be very close
to the sources.

And the mobile lab
gives us the flexibility

to pinpoint where we see
the largest leaks.

The company has drilled
brand-new megapad,

22 wells in the middle
of renewed urban development

in western Greeley.

This is a site
that had a lot of contention,

given its size
and its location.

So the local community,
from what I've heard,

is not really kept up to breadth

on what's going on
at the site.

There's a huge sound wall
around the operation,

and the state is not really
maybe doing its best

at facilitating
the communication.

We saw operations going on
with a lot of flaring.

It seems very large volume of gas.

The yellow color of the flame

tells you it's not
complete combustion.

So, we are going to continue

doing those drives to
understand those sources,

but also to track what the local
population may be exposed to.

So some oil-
and gas-producing regions

have such a large
concentration of methane

in the atmosphere above them
that you can see it from space,

and that's something that was
described a few years back

for the Four Corners region,

and that's really the key
for us to be like detectives

and map where we see the
largest sources of emissions.

So in 2014,

NASA scientists in cooperation
with NOAA,

University of Michigan,
and other scientists,

identified a methane hotspot
the size of Delaware

in the Four Corners region.

That methane hotspot

is the largest accumulation
of methane gases

in the United States.

This ranch,
this spot that we're on,

is approximately ground zero.

If you were able
to identify a middle

for that Delaware-shaped cloud,

it might very well be right here
where we're standing.

And it's closely identified

the cause of that methane hotspot

to be predominantly
the emissions from drilling,

such as this site,

as well as coal and other
fossil fuels.

So the methane hotspot
is identified

basically because
of the technology

that NOAA and NASA had

following the advent
of the FLIR cameras,

which are the infrared cameras

that let us identify the leaks
and vents and flares

that cause the methane hotspot
to accumulate.

You have to think of it
in its full sense,

and that is 60 years and more

of leaking, venting, flaring,

and careless practices
here in the San Juan basin,

over a million acres,
in total 30,000 wells,

that have caused
that methane hotspot

to finally accumulate

and stand as evidence

of what natural gas drilling

ultimately results in.

People lose sight of the fact

that the conventional wells
created the methane hotspot,

and that they are
a daily culprit.

So, this is a conventional
natural gas well.

This is very typical equipment
throughout the San Juan basin

and many gas fields
across America.

This one is leaking pretty badly

from some of the standard
equipment that's on it.

This just requires, honestly,

a crescent wrench,
a little bit of Teflon tape--

some attention
will fix this leak.

If I had a single wish,

my wish would be to pull
an investor in oil and gas here

and stand them where I'm standing,
let them see that leak.

Let them see that times 18,000
in the San Juan basin,

and get them to stop obstructing
a federal rule

that stays in place
to protect my family,

to protect taxpayers
across New Mexico,

and provide federal
fair and equal protection

across the western states.

Let's get those guys
out of the boardroom,

right here on
this well location,

let 'em look at that leak
that can be easily fixed.

And when I found out that
the EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt,

knew that the data had come in

that methane leaks and the chemicals
that come with them

harm children to a greater
degree than they did to me,

I was just outraged
that he would try again

to roll back the federal
protections for us.

You know, if someone
came onto my ranch

with the stated objective
of harming my children,

it would be over my dead body.

250 million years ago,

sudden releases of methane

produced kind of a secondary effect

that finished off large chunks
of life on Earth.

And one of the debates right now

is whether the methane
that is buried in the Arctic,

whether the methane that is,
you know, in the permafrost,

in the seas all over the world,

how rapidly that will be mobilized,

and how destructive
that mobilization will be.

The release of this ancient methane

may lead to exponentially
more warming.

Will this methane create
an apocalyptic scenario?

This is a question scientists
are desperately trying to answer.

I'm the director of the Center

for Gas Hydrate, Environment,
and Climate.

Here we have a team
of 50 to 60 scientists

working on understanding
the impact of methane

on the global climate system.

This methane is stored
beneath the Arctic Ocean floor

in huge reservoirs,

at locations we sometimes know,

but we often do not know
very much about it.

So, we are applying here
geophysical methods

to quantify the methane hydrate
reservoirs,

and also to see how stable

those methane hydrates are
today, but also in the future.

Methane is one of the most
aggressive greenhouse gases.

Methane has, fortunately,
a shorter lifetime.

The Earth has a natural system
for regulating input of methane

from the ocean into the atmosphere.

And this system
is working quite efficiently.

But this system is also changing, because
the ocean current system is changing,

the ocean temperature is changing,

the ocean chemistry is changing.

So, methane was in a kind of equilibrium
for some time,

and during the last couple of years,
we see quite a distinct increase in methane.

Do not know where this signal
is coming from,

and at the present time,
that, of course,

is putting a pressure
on the scientific community

to give an answer
to the politicians:

what is going on with the
methane in the atmosphere?

Where is the methane coming from?

What is presently
becoming more unstable?

We have done some
very comprehensive

measurement campaigns
where we have measured

at the sea floor, in the ocean,

at the sea surface,
and in the air at the same time

to understand how methane is
regulated in this whole system.

There is a lot of methane
stored at the sea floor,

and this is so much
that only a small change

might impact the ocean,
or the atmosphere.

The balance here
needs a lot more focus,

a lot more observations,
and combining atmosphere,

ocean, climate, different kind
of components together.

In my profession,

I'm interested in studying
methane cold seeps in the ocean,

in the Russian Arctic,
and also in the Barents Sea.

It's, well, basically,

streams of gas bubbles
rising from the sea floor,

and those gas bubbles are
mostly composed of methane gas.

First, it's gas hydrates,
that's solid form.

It's basically ice-like structures.

Also, the gas can be present as
free gas, which is gas bubbles.

Plumes of methane bubbles
can vary.

In some areas in the Arctic,

we find gas seeps as tall as
800, 900 meters.

And the water depth
in these areas,

a little more than 1,200 meters.

In shallower areas, we often
find gas seeps

that are almost reaching
the sea surface.

East Siberian Sea is definitely an area
of concern for guys studying methane,

in particular because
it's so shallow there.

So, those methane bubbles have really
high potential to get to the sea surface.

Some areas, Spitzbergen,

we find the methane flares that
are almost reaching the sea surface.

We have warmed the atmosphere
to such a degree

that we have hit the tipping
point of a melting Arctic.

We now face the potential

for an abrupt climate change scenario.

Current models predict we will shoot way
past the Paris Agreement,

to five degrees and more,

causing even more catastrophic
tipping points to be activated.

Warming might lead

to large injections of methane
into the atmosphere.

It's something we need
to be concerned about.

I would only add that it's one
of many possible stressors.

We move into a high-risk situation

where we don't really
have any experience

and we don't know how
to deal with it.

The permafrost,
and methane in general,

is of a great concern.

And I think that
this is something

perhaps we need to pay more
attention to methane in general,

in relation to the climate issue.

My concerns are that

there are great reservoirs
of methane in the world,

in particular in the Arctic.

It is the risk of going
beyond the tipping point

where it will be
difficult to go back

and reverse the problem.

It's a very plausible feedback
mechanism that in Arctic soils,

permafrost soils,

there's an enormous amount
of organic material frozen.

And the amount that is
available there, potentially,

to turn into CO2 and methane is
maybe three times, four times

all of the fossil fuels
that we have burned.

If we take all this material
out of the deep freeze...

you very likely get large CO2
and methane emissions

on a huge scale,

over which we have no control.

I study methane emissions
from lakes.

We are in interior Alaska,

and we are in discontinuous permafrost.

The thing that we're looking at

is microbial methane.

This methane bubbling here behind me,

it's dead plant
and animal remains

that were locked up in permafrost

for tens of thousands of years.

And as that permafrost is thawing,

the microbes eat that soil carbon,

and they turn it into methane.

This process of permafrost thawing,

and that thawing permafrost
fueling methane production,

and then methane
escapes into the atmosphere,

causes climate warming,

which causes more permafrost to thaw,

we call that a permafrost
carbon feedback.

It is a natural process.

Our concern, though,

is that as climate warms

at a faster rate than it has
in the last 10,000 years,

that permafrost
is going to respond

by thawing a lot more quickly

and releasing,
at a faster rate, methane gas.

Now every time
I go to a new lake,

I attempt to light
these gas pockets.

Because it's a very high
concentration of methane,

it's highly flammable,

we see a positive flame test
when they contain methane.

So it's a quick gas
chromatograph on the lake

to tell us do we have
a methane lake,

or are we dealing with
a different kind of lake?

There are many new lakes
forming that were not here

30 or 60 years ago...

and those lakes have 10 to 100 to 1,000 times
more methane than the rest of the lakes.

They are a picture of the type
of methane emissions

we expect to see
in the next 10 to 50 years

as permafrost warms and thaws,

and that permafrost feedback
cycle kicks in

and really accelerates.

Now, is it methane,
is it permafrost,

is it the dissolved organic carbon in the ocean
which is suddenly remobilized?

These things are all
intertwined with each other.

So, really what one
needs to ask is:

are there positive feedbacks
within the system?

The answer is yes.

So, it just stands to reason,
purely by common sense,

the less you disturb it,
the better off things will be.

We have the solutions at hand,
but the question still remains.

Can we mobilize and take collective action
before it's too late?

There isn't the oomph
in the world to do this.

They talk about,
with the Paris Agreement,

how we must reduce
our carbon emissions

and to keep temperature rise
at some low level,

but in fact, of course,
we won't be able to do that.

The technology that can save us
is something

that would take carbon dioxide
out of the atmosphere.

So it ought to be obvious

that the biggest research
effort that man is involved in

should be to develop direct
air capture methods that work.

If we do that,
then we can save the world,

and so why don't we do it?

Direct air capture is machines

which take in ambient air and
extract the CO2 from this air.

For the last ten years, we have
been working on direct air capture,

with the goal of making it with
the least possible energy impact,

and ultimately with the best economics.

This machine consists of four
40-foot shipping containers,

and can be any size,
there is no limit to it.

So we take in the ambient air here.

And inside,
we have our filter structure.

We get the waste heat
of the waste incinerated

to drive this plant.

Once the CO2 is captured,

this gas is then going
to a greenhouse,

and this greenhouse
is using the CO2

to increase the CO2 concentration

in the atmosphere of the greenhouse.

Which is done already nowadays,
but with fossil CO2,

and from tomorrow on, they're
going to use atmospheric CO2.

This plant will allow
to close a carbon cycle.

So, of course, the CO2
goes into the greenhouse,

and goes to the tomatoes
and cucumbers,

and once we eat them, the CO2
goes back to the atmosphere.

But since we recapture the CO2
from the atmosphere,

it's a closed cycle.

So, this can be a missing piece
of the pie

in order to close
a global carbon cycle

in the energy
or transportation sector.

So, besides using CO2
in a greenhouse like this,

we can take CO2,
we can take water,

and we can take
renewable energy.

We can again produce fuels--
for example, jet fuel.

In order to capture
1% of global CO2 emissions,

we would need roughly 300,000
of the plants behind me,

which is of course
a very high number.

But if you compare this
to existing infrastructures,

it's a scale
which humanity can handle.

So, it's definitely
an achievable goal.

The next project is to bring
a plant to Iceland

to capture CO2 from the air

and sequester the CO2 underground.

And in two hours, you literally
turn CO2 into a stone,

which stores it in a permanent
and safe manner.

In order to run the plant,
we would use geothermal heat.

There's an abundance of it
on Iceland,

therefore we would have
low carbon footprint energy

available to drive the machine.

So, today is a very special day.

We have brought CO2 capture
plant up here to Iceland.

And we are taking CO2
out of the air,

and then pumping it underground,

storing it in
the basalt rock formation

within the CarbFix project.

So, we extract CO2 from the air

and permanently remove it
by turning it into rock.

And yesterday night
was the first time

that atmospheric CO2
was injected into the ground.

We can go up to thousands,
ten thousands,

hundred thousands, and even up
to millions of tons of CO2

per year that can be extracted
from the atmosphere.

That is actually,
to our knowledge,

the first time ever
in the world

that direct air capture of CO2

has been combined
with underground safe

and permanent storage of CO2.

Yeah, it's a new relationship
with carbon.

Why can't we find a way

to make it an ingredient
for something?

Why can't we put it
in our plastics

or in our building materials?

Or through the help
of carbon dioxide chemistry,

turning carbon dioxide into the
things that we need every day?

I'm Daniel Nocera, the Patterson-Rockwood
professor of energy at Harvard University.

These are my labs,
the labs where we invented

the artificial leaf
and the bionic leaf.

And what they do
is a complete photosynthesis.

Sunlight, air and water,
to fuels and food.

Think about photosynthesis.

If you think about
what it really does,

it's the building block
of life,

and its building blocks,
literally,

are CO2, water, and sunlight.

And we build all of this,
like this,

wood and food,
and starch, and biomass.

That's a remarkable transformation.

This photosynthetic process,
it's very complex,

but we really listen to nature.

And that, we finally ended up
doing in 30 years.

And something that makes us
really happy,

not only can I say yes,
we can do it artificially,

I can do it ten times better
than photosynthesis.

We made special catalysts that
coated the artificial leaf,

and then they would split water
to hydrogen and oxygen.

The second part of the
invention is the bionic leaf.

It takes the hydrogen
from the bacteria

and then it makes fuels.

And so, depending on what genes
I put into the bacteria,

I could have the bacteria
make materials,

they could make drugs.

We've shown
they can make fertilizer.

We can work out of any water source,

including natural waters,
sea water.

As long as you have
my artificial leaf,

you can do it in your backyard.

We don't need to dig what's been
down there and release more CO2.

The artificial leaf,
working with the bionic leaf,

takes the CO2 out of the atmosphere,

uses sunlight and water,
and we make fuel.

So, we don't add any more
to the atmosphere, any more CO2.

And it's another issue, because
the cost I'm up against,

the developed world has spent
tens of trillions of dollars

to build what they now use.

It's kind of hard
to walk away from

a multi-trillion dollar investment

that you've paid off.

So, that's what it's all about.

Therefore, you need policy
and you need good partnership.

And the public informing them
that they have options,

and that there can be
this different world.

This new world
can be sustainable,

innovative, and profitable.

The green economy
is creating millions of jobs,

and will create millions more.

It matches and will surpass

the economy of the fossil fuel industry.

The challenge to reverse
climate disruption

opens up opportunity for everyone.

It is now more profitable
than ever to be green.

Up until recently,

the profit you could make
from creating the problem

was greater than the profit

you could make from the solutions.

So, the solutions
had to be done with subsidies,

which were rare and non-existent,

or altruism, or faith.

But people who are making
the problems were raking it in,

raking it in, raking it in.

And I think we're at a crossover

where actually the profit
you can make from the solutions

is greater than the profit
from the problems.

And that is not well understood.

So it's not that altruism
need not apply,

it's a great thing.

But actually,
altruism will not be needed

in order to move towards a world
where we reverse global warming,

because in fact,
it's less expensive.

It's more profitable,
more beneficial, more jobs.

It's the most amazing thing
that's happened

in the last few years,

and it's going to do
nothing but increase

as the years go by,

because engineers and designers,

and basically who
are unknown and unnamed,

have been working diligently,
and are working diligently

to reinvent a new way
of being a human being

relating to this planet.

In Orkney, we have a really
strong maritime tradition.

And since the '70s, the oil
and gas industry in Aberdeen

has been a major contributor
to the local economy,

providing tens and thousands of jobs.

But really,
in the last few years,

we've seen quite a big downturn

in terms of the oil and gas industry

and the price of oil.

But we've got lots
of really experienced people

in offshore operations
on our doorstep,

and they're finding new jobs
in offshore renewables

and companies such as ourselves.

Tidal energy is almost
an entirely untapped resource.

We think we have the potential
around the world

for about 100 gigawatts
of capacity, perhaps more.

And what that equates to
is a low-carbon energy

for millions and millions of homes.

What we've got here
is the world's most powerful

floating tidal energy generator.

We've got a floating platform

to which two rotors are mounted.

We start with the rotors turning,

which produces electricity,

which comes back up into the machine

where it's conditioned,

and then it gets transformed,
and stepped up,

and fed back into the grid.

It's like a wind turbine
on its side

with two rotors instead of one.

Two weeks ago,
we had great success.

First period of 24-hour continuous
generation from the device.

It actually operated
beyond expectations.

The device itself generated
over 18 megawatt-hours of power

in that 24-hour period.

We're converging on
more traditional methods

of renewable generation,

and really putting
tidal out there

as a real competitive technology
across the world

and the world's
generation needs.

The tidal turbine is,
it's 63 meters long in total.

We do all the power conversion
within the device itself,

and it's ready,
then, for export

right into the UK electricity grid.

So, you know, we're aiming
for tens of thousands

of these tidal turbines,

but this, you know,
fully integrated system

for producing low carbon energy,
so we're very excited about it.

So, EMEC was set up
as a testing laboratory,

because we know that
there's a huge amount of energy

in the oceans
all around the world,

and we're trying to find a way
to harvest it.

And so, we realized that one
of the most important things

was to have a test center
which would allow us

to find out how to do this properly.

So, what we've got
is a site here

where we've got cables
that are out in the sea

that allow developers
of these machines

to put these machines
on to our cables,

and the electricity
is then brought on to shore.

And that then feeds
into our national grid.

So, this is real.

This is making electricity
out of seawater.

So, at the moment, we've got
a device called the Penguin,

and that's by a company
called Wello Oy,

and their machine is effectively

a large pendulum inside a ship.

And as the ship moves,

this pendulum turns horizontally,

and that then generates electricity.

The sea is unrelenting,

and it will really try
and damage equipment.

So, making the equipment
as reliable, robust,

efficient, cost-effective,
all these things

are the things that people
are grappling with.

But the really clever thing is,

we have done that piece of alchemy.

We've actually turned seawater
into electricity.

And that really is huge,
because people are worried about

whether you can do this or not
for years,

and we've just shown you can.

And that's a big step forward.

No one can say that
the scientist has not warned,

has not told that we have to reduce
the emissions of greenhouse gases.

That should be clear to many.

How much farther can we go?

How many more tipping points
can we go

before we hit a tipping point

from which our civilization
cannot recover,

or from which the life
of this planet,

or a large portion of the life
on this planet cannot recover?

We cannot allow ourselves
to reach those points.

And we're so damn close to it.

We're at a turning point.

Either we can stay the course
and drown, burn,

and starve ourselves to death

in the face of the climate crisis,

or we can come together,
we can innovate.

Where do we stand?

Is it possible?
Is it game over?

Or is it, in fact, game on,

which is that we have at hand

the ability, capacity,
and solutions

that can reverse global warming,

not mitigate, not reduce,
not stabilize,

but reverse?

When you make your goals bigger,

it opens up possibility.

It opens up imagination.

It opens up innovation.
It doesn't foreclose.

It actually does the opposite.

And so, it's not that
there's one solution,

but together,
you can achieve drawdown

by doing 80% of the solutions.

Every one of them
has so many cascading benefits,

makes a better world
for everybody.

So, we don't lose
by understanding

that climate change is happening

and responding to it,
so what's the problem?

We are the first generation

to see the advance
of climate disruption,

and the last with a chance to fix it.

In spite of all this evidence,

we are currently
burning fossil fuels

at an ever-increasing rate.

We have heard from the scientists

who have told us the truth
based on actual research.

It is time to end the delay,
to listen,

and to implement
the solutions at hand.

Time is running out.
The ice is melting.

Decisive action
must be taken now.

There is no other option.

This moment is within our reach.

Let us grasp it.

It is up to us,
each one of us,

to save this unique blue planet
for generations to come.

♪ Lord, if you're
not listening ♪

♪ I'll stop praying ♪

♪ If you're not watching ♪

♪ Will you see me fall
to my knees? ♪

♪ Lose it all ♪

♪ Lord, if I can't see it ♪

♪ I can't feel it ♪

♪ If I can't feel it ♪

♪ It's not happening ♪

♪ Love is light
but ice keeps burning ♪

♪ Love and hope
are just a fall ♪

♪ From your hill ♪

♪ Can you hear us
calling again? ♪

♪ Lord, we're all lost ♪

♪ Is life worth living? ♪

♪ If you're not watching
I'm not doing wrong ♪

♪ Hope and rain
and ice is burning ♪

♪ Then you see us
turn on a friend ♪

♪ Will you hear them
calling again? ♪

♪ Lord, the world went dark ♪

♪ The wave came crashing ♪

♪ If we're all gone
will you still carry on? ♪

♪ Love is light
but ice keeps burning ♪

♪ Will you see us
ride to the edge? ♪

♪ One last fall from the hill ♪

♪ Dear Lord ♪

♪ If you don't want me
I'm not staying ♪

♪ Love is light
light keeps burning ♪

♪ Let me know
if I'm worth saving ♪

♪ We're almost gone ♪

♪ So if we fall again ♪

♪ Will you carry on? ♪

♪ If we're falling in ♪

♪ Will you catch us all? ♪

♪ Lord, just let me know
if I'm worth saving ♪