June 9, 2023 • 50 mins
In this episode, Host Stu Briggs and special guest Mark Alpert discuss the unique challenges facing New York City and the entire planet in the era of climate change. From rising sea levels to extreme weather events, the Big Apple has never been more vulnerable.
Join us as we expose the truth about greenwashing, explore revolutionary ideas to fight global warming, and discuss the importance of political action in battling this crisis.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
That's called greenwashing.
You're trying to whitewash thepublic into thinking that you're
doing the green thing, and alot of that's going on.
Unfortunately, that's the way alot of these companies have
reacted to the climate issues.
Let's tell the public all thethings that we're doing and make
them believe that we're reallyon their side, when mostly we're
still doing business as usual.
And of course, that isinfuriating because activists,
(00:22):
we have to constantly be callingthem into account, saying no,
don't believe everything they'resaying in their commercials.
Look at their financials, lookat their bottom line, and then
you'll actually see if they'reliving up to their words.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Don't let them pull the wool over your eyes.
Thank you for stopping by theStuber podcast.
I am your host, slash driver,stu Briggs.
And today let's hop in a Stubergreen, something eco-friendly,
something hybrid, like anelectric car, because our
special guest is a man on awarpath seeking to go after
(01:02):
climate criminals.
I won't say much more, so let'sget into it.
Hop in, buckle up, put on acape, let's go for a ride.
We've got an exciting showtoday.
(01:24):
Our guest is Mark Alpert.
He is a contributing editor atScientific American and he's an
internationally best-sellingauthor of several science
thrillers.
Those titles include FinalTheory, the Omega Theory,
extinction and the Doomsday Show.
These are all action-packedpage-turners that show the
frightening potential of nearfuture technologies.
(01:46):
Mark is also a lifelong scienceenthusiast.
He majored in astrophysics atPrinceton University and he
currently resides in Manhattanwith his wife and two children.
And I also see here that you atone point were on a softball
team, mark.
Is that correct, or is that nolonger something you're doing?
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Don't really go that much to softball teams anymore,
but I love doing it when I do itwith the Scientific American,
and our team was known as theBig Bangers.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Is that somehow connected to a science idea?
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Yeah, I suggested that we call our team the Field
Equations, which was a referenceto something else in science,
but I got overruled FieldEquations.
As you may know, we've had aterrible air quality event the
past few days because of thefires in Quebec.
As a result of those fires, thewind pushed them south to New
(02:40):
York, philadelphia, washingtonDC areas and in New York City we
had the worst air quality everrecorded.
This is especially a concernfor me because I'm a writer of
science fiction and specificallyclimate fiction, which is
fiction about the problem ofclimate change and how it's
getting worse and what can we doabout it.
This recent event was really awake-up call for people on the
(03:03):
East Coast.
You in California, you'repretty familiar with wildfires.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
We had one four or five years ago and I remember
waking up and seeing soot in theair and the orange sky.
So yeah, we're familiar.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Yeah, and this is not isolated events.
I believe that six ofCalifornia's seven worst fires
have happened in just the pastthree years.
It's obvious that globalwarming is causing hotter and
drier conditions to persist inmany parts of the world, from
California to Canada toAustralia, and we're seeing the
(03:36):
effects of that right now.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Yeah, more than 100 wildfires are burning across the
Canadian border, over 9.3million acres charred, and it
could last fora while You'restill seeing some of the effects
of that wildfire there in NewYork.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Yeah, we've had it.
The whole week the sun has beenin eerie orange orbs.
We're just not used to this.
I'm hoping that people in NewYork City, being the media
capital of the world, peoplewill say okay, this is real.
The carbon emissions that we'reputting into the sky are
causing worldwide changes thatwe're feeling the effects of now
.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
So it's not just arson, it's not just a freak
accident on a farm somewhere.
You believe these fires aretriggered by the warming of the
ozone or the environment.
Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Oh, yes, yes, nothing else could explain why there
are so many fires happening allover the world at unprecedented
rates.
Yeah, there's always incidentsof arson lightning strike power
lines also set off fires, butwhen you have all of these fires
just going out of control, youknow that there are really hot
(04:41):
dry conditions and more extremes.
That there are really hot dryconditions and more extremes
Because when you have a globalwarming, which is caused because
of all the burning of ourfossil fuels, it's the
greenhouse effect and thatraises the average temperatures
all around the globe and thatcreates more volatility in the
system.
So you're going to see morestorms, more droughts, more heat
(05:01):
waves and also more wildfires.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
And these phenomenons can't be overlooked and just
dismissed because they have aripple effect.
There's safety issues, healthissues, right.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Oh, definitely.
What's interesting is thesefires are happening hundreds and
hundreds of miles away from us,to the north, and yet, because
of the prevailing winds, we'refeeling the effects.
That's happening in the westtoo.
You have fires in Californiathat their smoke is going across
the Rockies and affecting thewhole country, and this is a new
(05:35):
phenomenon.
It never used to be, but nowthat has become the norm, and so
we're seeing now howinterconnected the world is, and
we have to worry about globalwarming, because something that
happens in another part of theworld will affect this part of
the world.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
In your new novel.
This is your latest novel,right, the Doomsday Show.
Yes, you're also mentioning inthis book the sea level.
There's some predictions outthere that New York City is
slowly collapsing because of theweight of some of the
skyscrapers and that's causingthe sea level to rise.
Any thoughts on the rising sealevels?
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Yeah, rising sea levels are yet another effect of
global warming.
As we pump more carbon into theatmosphere and as the
greenhouse effect slowly raisesthe temperature of the Earth,
you're going to see more meltingof the glaciers in both the
Arctic and the Antarctic, and inthe mountain ranges as well.
And the real problem is whenyou have glaciers that are close
(06:31):
to the sea and they beginsliding into the seas, as you're
seeing now, especially inAntarctica.
They're particularly worriedabout that because those
glaciers down there are justenormous, bigger than whole
states in America.
There's always a naturalprocess of glaciers sliding into
the sea and then being built upon top, but right now the
(06:51):
movement into the sea is greatlyaccelerated.
It's almost like they'remelting so fast that it's like a
sliding pond.
Now and that's the great worrythat ice that was on land is now
going into the sea and willmelt, and that has the potential
to raise sea level.
It's already raising it at arate of millimeters per year,
but if it gets up to beingcentimeters per year, then we're
(07:13):
going to see some real effects.
It's definitely going to makestorms that much more
destructive, because anothereffect of global warming is
making storms more intenseBecause, again, as the world
warms, there's more energy inthe atmospheric system and with
more energy, there's going to bemore volatility.
The storms are going to be moreintense and if, at the same
(07:34):
time, the sea level is higher,then you're going to see these
storms sweeping right intocoastal cities, and I'm not
making this up.
This has happened in New YorkCity In 2012,.
We had Hurricane Sandy and thatswept into New York.
It inundated Coney Island.
It also really impacted thelower part of Manhattan Several
(07:56):
of the apartment buildings andhousing projects along the East
River, where the electricalsystems in the basements of
those buildings were completelyflooded.
In Manhattan, all the power wascut off.
South of I believe it was 26thStreet.
When you look downtown, thewhole lower part of Manhattan
was dark and it was a very eeriesight.
That was a wake-up call for ustoo.
(08:17):
Afterwards, people in the citygovernment were saying what can
we do now to prepare ourselvesfor the next storm?
And the next storm willprobably be worse because, again
, sea levels are slowly rising,storms getting more intense.
The combination of those twothings is really destructive for
cities like New York.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
There's over a million buildings housing 8
million people that weigh 764billion kilograms, and it's
causing New York City to subsideat a rate of normally two
millimeters a year.
Lower Manhattan stands just onemeter above sea level, so at
the current rate, king tidescould roll down its streets
(08:57):
within a few short decades.
It's something that's a veryimminent threat, would you say.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Oh, yeah, you're right and I'm glad you mentioned
the subsidence issue becauseyou're right Cities with these
huge buildings.
They are slowly sinking.
In Manhattan we have thebedrock in lower Manhattan, so
that makes the problem a littleless here.
But you have cities likeJakarta, which is the capital of
Indonesia on the island of Java, also on the coastline, and
(09:23):
there the city is sinking at areally fast rate, partly because
they've depleted thegroundwater and again because of
the weight of the buildings,and so there that city is just
so regularly flooded that rightnow the Indonesian government is
saying you know what?
We just have to build anothercapital city on a different
island in Indonesia.
There's really no way to savethe city of Jakarta.
(09:44):
That's the decision thatthey've made and that's scary
because we're going to see thatmore and more People are going
to realize if we don't stopglobal warming, we're going to
have to abandon some of ourcities on the coast.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
That's mind-blowing, that a city, because Jakarta is
somewhat of a metropolitan placewith skyscrapers.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Millions of people.
Yeah, it's by far the majorcity of Indonesia.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
They're talking about relocating an entire city
because they can't get ahead ofthis problem.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Right, and that poses its own problem, because you
know a lot of people there don'twant to go, and the plan is to
move the capital city to theisland of Borneo, which is also
being devastated bydeforestation.
It's where the last of theorangutans live, and when you
see things like that, yourealize okay, this is just going
to accelerate the process ofglobal warming, because when you
get rid of trees, you get ridof one main sinks for carbon.
(10:37):
Trees do take in carbon, andwhen you cut them down, the
carbon doesn't have anywhere togo and so it stays in the
atmosphere and heats up theatmosphere.
We're doing the same thing tothe oceans.
The oceans also absorb carbondioxide and, as a result,
they're getting more and moreacidic as time goes on, and that
, and the rising of temperatures, is contributing to the
bleaching of all the coral reefs, and you can see this is
(10:59):
something that's happening on ahuge scale, very fast.
It's getting worse and worse onan accelerating rate.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
So my aim and my intention is really to inspire
those that would be listening,particularly the younger
generation, to find their voicefor climate action, because,
after hearing all these factsand all these things that are
ongoing, it's hard to look theother way and pretend as if we
don't have a problem on our hand.
But let's continue to talkabout this energy crisis, going
(11:27):
a little further into what aresome of the threats that carbon
emissions pose to the earth.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Yeah, I'd like to talk just a little bit about my
own personal connection with theissue, because I was a
full-time journalist for most ofmy career and I was an editor
at Scientific American for 10years, from 1998 to 2008.
And that's when I really goteducated on both the causes of
global warming obviously theburning of fossil fuels and also
(11:54):
the effects which we've beentalking about.
What can we do?
Practical steps to curb carbonemissions, to try to slow global
warming by putting less carboninto the atmosphere, and one of
the easy things that was truethen, it's still true now is
just conservation.
Obviously, we should be usingas little energy as we can.
(12:14):
First of all, it's lessexpensive for us and secondly,
it does help save the planet,and so using LEDs, for example,
instead of incandescent lightbulbs, buying the best, most
efficient appliances.
And then another thing that Ireally pushed for in my
editorials in ScientificAmerican was more of a force to
increase the fuel economy of thecars in our fleet.
(12:35):
There are standards they'recalled the CAFE standards.
They're all about fuelefficiency for automobiles, and
they really haven't improvedenough.
If you average the fuelefficiency of all the cars and
SUVs and pickup trucks in thefleet, you would still only have
about 25 miles per gallon,which is not that much better
than the average fuel efficiencywas 10 or 20 or even 30 years
(12:57):
ago.
Basically, this is thegovernment's job is to mandate
fuel efficiency, to tell theauto manufacturers okay, the
average for all your fleets hasto be higher.
And so that was one of thethings that I was pushing a lot
in Scientific American.
The other thing I was pushingwas doing something about
carbon-burning power plants.
When you burn carbon thatproduces more of the greenhouse
(13:18):
gas emissions into theatmosphere than burning oil or
natural gas, burning carbon isthe worst, and so, really,
carbon power plants should bephased out, and one way the
government can do that is bysaying okay, we have to provide
incentives here for you to dothat.
We're going to penalize thecarbon burning plants and we're
going to favor plants usingutility regulation, because the
(13:42):
government does already regulateutilities, and so it can easily
change the law in order todisincentivize the construction
and operation of more of thesecarbon-burning plants.
Some of this was proposed inthe original climate bill.
There was a climate bill passedlast year, but you got to give
the Biden administration creditbecause it was the biggest
climate bill ever passed, but itwas watered down.
(14:02):
In its original form it didhave stricter provisions for
getting rid of the carbonburning plants.
When I was at ScientificAmerican, I was constantly
writing editorials saying we gotto get rid of these coal
burning power plants.
But it was frustrating for me,because you can write editorials
and news stories and then youdon't see much progress, and so
that's why I started writingfiction.
I started writing novels aboutthis, because I thought maybe
(14:24):
that's another way to getthrough to people.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
And reach a larger audience as well.
But aside from your work as anauthor, you also propose an idea
that may seem science fiction,but you suggest that it is a
reality.
Can you tell me more about yoursolar energy idea and how
likely it is to be implemented?
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Oh yes, you're speaking of the space solar
power idea, yet this is featuredin a short story that I wrote
for Anthropocene magazine.
They launched something calledthe Climate Parables, which is a
series of short stories byscience fiction authors,
including myself and Kim StanleyRobinson, who is a legend in
the science fiction field, andother authors, in which we focus
(15:04):
on stories that dramatizetechnological solutions that
could help alleviate the climatecrisis.
And the idea that I focused onis an idea that's been kicking
around for several decades theidea of putting in orbit these
huge solar power arrays.
These are arrays of mirrorsthat could be kilometers wide
(15:25):
that focus sunlight onto thesephotovoltaic arrays, which
generate electricity from thesunlight, and then the energy is
converted to microwave beams,and these microwave beams can be
directed from this big solarpower station in orbit down to
ground stations, to receiverdishes on the ground, and then
(15:46):
that energy can then betransferred back into
electricity that goes into theutility gr ground, and then that
energy can then be transferredback into electricity that goes
into the utility grids.
And this is an idea that's beenkicking around in science
fiction since the 1940s, whenIsaac Asimov, the legend, the
founder of science fiction hewrote a short story about it and
people at NASA started studyingthe idea in a serious way in
the 1970s and 1990s and theyconcluded this is a far-fetched
(16:09):
idea because it's going to costso much money to lift all of
that material up into space andto construct this big solar
power station in orbit.
That was not really feasibleback then, but now, with the
advent of SpaceX and new rocketsthat allow you to take more
stuff into space at a much lowercost, and also the advent of
(16:31):
autonomous machines now robotsthat can construct and assemble
the solar power station in spacewithout the need for putting
astronauts there, those twothings make it a much more
feasible idea and researchershave now returned to it and
saying we could do this.
You could have just one of thesesolar power stations in space.
See, in space there's nonighttime, because if it's like
(16:52):
20,000 miles above the earth,then it's never in earth's
shadow.
It can always be receivingsunlight on its mirrors and on
its photovoltaic panels.
It can always be generatingelectricity and actually
sunlight is also more intense inspace than it is here on Earth
because it doesn't have to gothrough the atmosphere.
There are some efficiencylosses when you convert the
(17:14):
power into microwave beams andthen convert it back into
electricity on the ground.
It's not like you could do thistomorrow you would still need to
work out some technologicalproblems but it is a real idea,
and I thought it would make foran interesting short story to
focus on this idea, because it'ssuch a big idea and a lot of
people would say that's crazy.
But the thing is, we've beenmessing up our environment now
(17:37):
for hundreds of years.
Ever since the beginning of theIndustrial Revolution, we've
been messing around with it andmaking it worse, and we've got
to fix it now, in the next 20 or30 years, because if we don't,
it'll be too late.
You're going to hit certaintipping points and the
temperatures will rise to apoint where we may not be able
to recover so much of thewildlife and so much of the
(17:59):
habitability even of parts ofthe earth, and so we have to do
something soon.
So we have to be able toconsider big ideas to fix a big
problem.
And solar power stations inspace that's a big idea, and I
thought it would be.
One way to promote it would beto write a fun short story about
it.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Yeah, it's a big idea , but you believe it's an idea
that is doable if the fundingand the willpower is there to
make it happen.
So you mentioned conservation,you mentioned legislation for
carbon emissions and companiesthat are using coal, these
coal-fired power plants.
What is their purpose?
(18:36):
Why are they burning carbon?
What do they do?
Speaker 1 (18:39):
They're producing electricity.
They sell their electricity tothe utility grids.
A lot of them are in theMidwest and a lot of their
emissions then sweep east withthe prevailing winds and come to
us here in New York City.
But they also are raisingtemperatures on a global scale
and that's the biggest reasonwhy we need to phase those out.
Unfortunately the coal miningindustry it doesn't employ
(19:02):
nearly as many people as it usedto, because most of the
industry has realized it's moreefficient to burn natural gas
and it's best to shift torenewable sources.
So, for example, wind turbinesand solar power farms.
Solar power here on Earth hasbecome much, much cheaper.
There's an initial cost,obviously, setting up the solar
power farms, but once they're inoperation they can produce
(19:24):
power a lot more cheaply than acoal-fired power plant.
So there's good economicreasons to shift to the
renewables as well.
The biggest problem withrenewables that a lot of critics
often point out is that theirpower is not always reliable,
because obviously a solar powerfarm can't operate at night, a
wind turbine can't operate whenthe wind isn't blowing and
(19:46):
people will always need powernight and day.
So that's the reason why peoplesay we have to continue burning
natural gas, because otherwise,just to make up for the
intermittency of these renewablesources and that is a problem
that's something that we need towork on.
But obviously the coal burningplants need to go.
But unfortunately, let's faceit, it's the Republicans who are
fighting this, even thoughthere aren't that many employees
(20:09):
still in the coal mines,because it's a dying industry.
The economy and the technologyhave passed it by and yet people
are still sticking up for thesepoliticians.
It's really the politicians whoare keeping these coal-fired
plants alive when they should beshunted into the past alive
(20:30):
when they should be shunted intothe past.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned the political aspect
of it and making sure that thenext administration has that as
the top of their agenda.
You would agree with that thatwhoever assumes office next
would need to have a strongfocus on climate change?
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Oh yeah, there was many tragedies of the Trump
administration, as we all know,but one of the biggest tragedies
was that we backtracked onprogress in dealing with climate
change.
Trump took America out of theParis Accords, which was the
agreement of all these nationsto lower their emissions in
order to slow down globalwarming.
He also did nothing to improvethe fuel economy of our cars.
(21:07):
Did nothing to improve the fueleconomy of our cars.
He did nothing to try to shiftthe power industry away from
coal and more toward renewablesources.
Now, luckily in the Bidenadministration, now we're seeing
climate progress again, andlast year's climate bill has
done a lot already.
A lot of the bill funds newresearch.
The reason why solar power andwind power is now cheaper than
(21:28):
coal power is because of all thetechnological development and
research that was done to comeup with better materials for
both of these things, to createbetter photovoltaic panels and
better wind turbines.
Research is really powerful.
It stimulates investment.
I'm really glad the climate billincludes that.
But another thing we need, forexample, you mentioned switching
to electric cars, whichCalifornia is doing a fantastic
(21:52):
job that is way in front of therest of the country in mandating
electric cars.
It's great because Californiais such a large market that the
way California goes, so goes therest of the nation.
But in order to facilitate awhole conversion of the fleet to
go electric, we're going toneed a lot more charging
stations and the government isgoing to need to invest and
(22:12):
encourage the development ofthat infrastructure, because we
don't have nearly enough now.
So I'm really hoping that wehave another Democratic
administration elected in 2024,because otherwise, if we go back
to a Republican administration,whether it's a Trump
administration or a DeSantisadministration or any other
Republican administration we'regoing to see another complete
(22:32):
stall in all this progress thatwe need to be making to curb
global warming.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Yeah, and you wonder why they would want to be
against something so vital toour existence.
I'd like to play a quick clipand then get your thoughts on it
.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
London was hot boy 40 degrees, one of the hottest
summers in history.
After one of the hottestsummers in history, some people
can go outside.
Plants were either dried up oron fire.
Countries were eitherunderwater or on fire.
This extreme weather is onlyset to increase If crops die.
That makes food more expensive,affecting working class
communities, communities ofcolor first.
(23:17):
But what if and go with me onthis what if climate change is
just a symptom of a biggerproblem?
And what if it is the sameproblem that causes racism and
sexism and ableism?
What if all of these things arejust symptoms of a bigger
problem?
Ready White, supremacist,patriarchal capitalism.
(23:44):
Capitalism it feels scarybecause it feels like a concept,
even though our society isquite literally based on it
Infinite growth with finiteresources, at whatever the cost,
those forms of oppressionwouldn't exist if it didn't make
(24:09):
someone money.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Pente Balagoon I hope I pronounced his name correct.
He's an actor and he's anactivist.
He's really taking aim atcapitalism, so what are your
thoughts on that?
Is he right in saying that thisproblem is actually a symptom
of a capitalistic society.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
I can have lots of criticisms of capitalism no
question that it has causedcrimes beyond measure around the
world but on the other hand,you can have a mixed system
where capitalism is restrainedby government so that it can't
do some of the white supremacist, racist things that capitalism
(24:45):
is currently doing.
The government has to step inand say well, okay, we're not
going to let you do that, we'renot going to let you create AI
programs that are racist becauseyou program them using racist
programmers.
The government can't step inand restrain capitalism.
It can tell them okay, youcan't burn coal, we're going to
penalize you for burning coal,we're going to incentivize you
(25:07):
and maybe subsidize you.
We will even give you money ifyou invest in renewables, but
we're not going to let you burncoal anymore without paying a
price for it.
Yeah, capitalism is to blame forso many of these problems, but
when properly restrained anddirected by government
incentives and subsidies andpenalties, then capitalism can
(25:29):
achieve some of these goals inan efficient way.
The price of solar power did godown tremendously over the past
25 years, partly because ofgovernment-funded research and
also because of competition.
People realize it's a good ideato invest in solar power now
because it is cheaper than theother forms.
I don't believe we have to getrid of capitalism entirely,
(25:50):
because attempts to do that inthe past have failed
spectacularly, as the history ofthe Soviet Union has shown, and
so it seems like a bargain withthe devil.
But I think government doeshave to work with business.
It has to restrain business,but in the end it has to work
with businesses to get this done.
We need everyone from societygovernment, businesses, everyday
(26:12):
people.
Everyone is going to have tocontribute to this big
society-wide effort to curbcarbon emissions and slow down
global warming.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
I'd hate to cast a huge blanket over the entire
Republican Party.
I'm sure there are those inoffice that are trying to find
solutions, but by and large theRepublican stance is generally
less government right, morefreedom of enterprise and, I
think for a lot of people, moreinvolvement from the government.
Regardless of what we'retalking about, climate change
(26:42):
seems like a tough balance totry and maintain in our society.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
That's the shame of it that everything has gotten so
politicized now.
Basically the Democrats andRepublicans.
They're not working togetheranymore.
They've become two warringtribes and anything that the
Democrats will propose, theRepublicans will be reflexively
against it, even though it mighthelp all the people who are
(27:09):
voting for Republicans.
The biggest victims of globalwarming are going to be the most
vulnerable, poorest members ofour society, which includes all
the people in states like WestVirginia or in Kentucky, in
Oklahoma, in Kansas.
These are the people who aregoing to be fighting the
droughts here in New York City.
I am a privileged person.
(27:30):
With the bad air, I was able tostay inside my nice apartment
and breathe through my N95 maskand I was fine.
It didn't affect me as much asit affects a homeless person
sleeping on the street whodoesn't have a mask and he's
breathing in this air.
Or what about one of thedelivery guys who has to be
outside running back and forthin this?
(27:52):
These are the people who aresuffering the most from climate
change.
It's always the poorest membersof our society, the most
vulnerable, who suffer the most,and that's the sad thing.
Doing something about globalwarming can only help those
people the most, and those areboth Republican and Democratic
voters.
Global warming should not be apolitical issue.
Both parties should becommitted to this, because it
(28:13):
just makes sense.
The fact is that, in the end,we'll save money by moving to
renewables and greaterconservation.
If we fund the renewableindustry, the United States will
become the leading producer ofthis new technology instead of
China, and so we'll benefit fromthat.
It's just a win-win foreveryone, these investments in
renewable technology.
(28:34):
I don't even think it's goingto hurt the economy.
It can only help the economy tomove toward a new green economy
, a new renewable economy,because that's where we're going
, inevitably, that's where thewhole world is going.
The faster we get there, thebetter it will be for both the
environment and the economy, andso I don't buy the argument oh,
this is going to be bad for theeconomy.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
No, going green is good for the economy, but if you
follow the money when it comesto these coal power plants, do
you think you can trace it backto some politicians?
Oh, definitely.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
And here right now I'm going to criticize a
Democrat okay, because I've beengoing on about the Republicans
but there are some Democrats whohave been stalling these
climate bills as well, and thepremier one is Senator Joe
Manchin from West Virginia.
He represents a state wherethere's still a lot of coal
mining.
They're not as much as thereused to be, but still big coal
interest.
And what most people don'trealize is Senator Manchin has
(29:28):
big financial interests himselfin the coal industry.
He owns this company that sellsthis stuff.
It's called GOB, I think itstands for garbage of bituminous
.
It's not even coal, it's like,at a lower level, you could burn
it, but it's even dirtier thancoal.
And that's what he sells topower plants.
(29:49):
And he wanted to make sure thathe could keep selling his
garbage to power plants.
And so he watered down theclimate bill.
But he was basically protectinghis own coal interest.
He just wanted to make surethat he keep making money from
burning his garbage ofbituminous.
That's just the epitome ofcorruption.
And so, yes, there arepoliticians who have vested
(30:10):
interests in the fossil fuelindustry, whether it's personal
financial interests, likeSenator Manchin, or simply
campaign contributions from theindustry, because the industry
does put a lot of money into thecampaigns of Congress One way
or another.
Yeah, they have a vestedinterest in keeping this old bad
system alive when we shouldmove away from it.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Just because you're a Democrat doesn't mean all
Democrats share the same values.
Is what you're saying?
Or they may have those values,but they're compromised.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Yes, definitely, there is a lot of corruption in
American politics.
Okay, so, bringing this fullcircle, you mentioned that there
(31:01):
are some climate criminals.
There are a few of them.
Who are they?
The premise of this book wasthat the eco-activists are
getting more frustrated abouttrying to accelerate the
transition to renewable energies, and one group of extremists
decides that the only way we'regoing to convince the fossil
fuel industry to chain is we gotto start assassinating the CEOs
(31:23):
of all these fossil fuelcompanies until they actually
commit to making a serioustransition to renewable energy.
And that's a pretty extremetactic, but it starts happening
in my book, and so, in thecourse of the book, I'm trying
to explore what is acceptable asactivism.
People now we've seen peoplethrowing soup at paintings and
museums in order to expresstheir outrage over the fact that
(31:45):
we're not doing enough aboutclimate change.
And a lot of people saying isthat an effective way of protest
?
They're not actually damagingthe paintings.
In some case, they're protectedby the glass in front of the
painting.
Yeah, it gets attention, but isit the right kind of attention?
Does it change people's heartsand minds in any way?
And so I really wanted toexplore that issue.
Naming names is a way to start,because certain companies
(32:07):
obviously have done more toextract the fossil fuels that
are then burned, and so you canquantify, okay, which company
has done the most to put fossilfuels in circulation that are
then burned and then contributedto the greenhouse gas effect
and global warming.
And at the very top of the list, which I got from a group
(32:28):
called the ClimateAccountability Institute, they
identified the 20 companies thathave produced the most oil and
gas and coal which, when burned,produced the most carbon
emissions into the atmosphere.
And at the very top of the listwas Saudi Aramco, because that
is the oil gas company that isowned by Saudi Arabia, is owned
(32:48):
by the government and it'scontrolled by Prince Mohammed
bin Salman, who is the effectiveleader of Saudi Arabia right
now, and so it's a state-ownedcompany and they're the worst.
So since 1965, they'veextracted all of this oil and
gas and that has contributedmore to global warming than any
other company.
But then, if you go down thelist, you'll see American
(33:10):
companies.
You'll see ExxonMobil there,you'll see Chevron, you'll see
European companies like RoyalDutch Shell, the French company
Total, you'll see the ChineseNational Petroleum Company,
you'll see the BrazilianNational Petroleum Company.
It's around the world.
I'm not advocating my readers togo out and start killing the
executives of these companies.
(33:30):
I don't believe in that.
We haven't got to that pointyet.
I don't advocate murder orsabotage, even I'm not at that
point.
But I do think that theseexecutives of these companies
and I list all 20 of thosecompanies by name I believe that
all the executives of thesecompanies need to be called to
account.
They should be passing laws toencourage and force these
(33:54):
companies to move to renewableenergy instead of fossil fuel.
In terms of what the averageperson can do, if you know
anyone who works for thesecompanies, I would talk to them.
I would say do you realize whatyour company is doing?
And if I wasn't getting enoughof a response that way, I would
not want to be friends with thatperson I would want to boycott
(34:15):
that company's products.
In a lot of cases that's hardto do, unless you can afford an
electric car.
Yeah, that's one way to boycottfossil fuels, but a lot of
people can't afford.
They're very expensive rightnow.
So it's hard to do an effectiveboycott of these companies.
We live in a very monopolisticeconomy, but there's social
measures.
You don't have to be friendswith these executives.
You can shun them, you can makefun of them.
(34:35):
These are all nonviolent waysof expressing our society's
displeasure with what theseclimate criminals are doing, and
so that is the kind of thing Ido advocate, you know, in my
book, and I do believe thathumor can be a very effective
tool to making it clear this iswhat our society wants and what
it doesn't want.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
But that being said, these climate criminals, how are
they adapting to the effects ofclimate change?
Are they starting to minimizetheir impact?
Are they starting to make somechanges in the right direction?
Are they just continuing toplummet the earth and destroy it
?
Speaker 1 (35:12):
If you listen to advertisements from BP or these
other companies, they're makinga big deal of saying, yes, we're
supporting the transition torenewables and a green economy
oh, of course we are.
And then if you look at theiroperations and you actually look
at the numbers, yeah, they'vecommitted some money to these
projects, but the huge bulk oftheir operations are still
(35:34):
extracting oil, gas and coalfrom the earth.
That's called greenwashing.
You're trying to whitewash thepublic into thinking that you're
doing the green thing, and sothat's called greenwashing, and
a lot of that's going on.
Unfortunately, that's the way alot of these companies have
reacted to the climate issues.
Let's tell the public all thethings that we're doing and make
them believe that we're reallyon their side, when mostly we're
(35:57):
still doing business as usual.
So that's one way that they'veadapted to this issue.
And, of course, that isinfuriating, because activists,
we have to constantly be callingthem into account and say no,
don't believe everything they'resaying in their commercials.
Look at their financials, lookat their bottom line, and then
you'll actually see if they'reliving up to their words.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
Don't let them pull the wool over your eyes.
Have you participated in orwitnessed an extreme form of
protest for climate change?
I'd love to hear about anyexperience you've had that you
would consider to be somewhatextreme.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
I participated in a lot of climate protests, but all
peaceful.
I'm a writer, which means I'mnot a super daring guy.
I shouldn't say that there aresome writers like Hemingway who
went out and did very daring,extreme things, but I'm not one
of those types.
I'm more of a retiring shy typeand I haven't done anything
(36:50):
extreme.
I haven't ever thrown soup at apainting or even went to an
executive's house to shout himdown or anything like that.
But, I do have friends who tellme about things that they've
done, and one of my friendsmentioned that a group of
activists that she's involvedwith targeted the Blackstone
Group.
I don't know if you're familiarwith that.
It's like one of the largestinvestment funds in America.
(37:11):
It takes money from investors,pension funds there's trillions
and trillions of dollarsinvolved and it invests in
various companies, and they madea big deal of saying a few
years ago, oh, we're going tomove away from investing in
fossil fuel companies, and thatsounded great, right, it turned
out to be another example ofgreenwashing, because if you
look at the companies that theycontrol or have large interests
(37:32):
in, there's still a lot of thesefossil fuel companies that are
still burning fossil fuels at anaccelerating rate, and so this
investment group, the Blackstonegroup, really has not lived up
to its promises, and so myfriend's group of activists
wanted to protest.
So they went down to theBlackstone headquarters in
Midtown Manhattan and theybrought a whole bunch of dirty
coal with them and theybasically dumped it in the lobby
(37:55):
and on the escalator in thebuilding, and it got on the news
a little bit, although, to tellyou the truth, in New York City
that's hardly news right,people are doing crazy stuff all
the time and I don't know if itmade it.
I knew about it just because myfriend was involved and she said
, oh, check out the video.
And I checked it out.
But did most people in New YorkCity see it?
No, it did not get theattention that they wanted.
(38:16):
A few people did get arrestedthere for trespassing and I
admire their sacrifice.
I really do.
I guess they are doing theright thing.
They're targeting a companythat should be targeted.
How effective was it?
That's the thing that I wonderabout and that's the thing I try
to explore in the Doomsday Showthe frustration of activists
who really want to do the mosteffective thing and they don't
(38:37):
know at this point what to do.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Wow, new York.
It's a huge city and there's alot of cars, a lot of emissions,
so I imagine there are groupsout there trying to do something
to make some changes.
Is that happening out there inNew York?
Are there a lot ofenvironmental activists?
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Oh yes, even the New York City government and the
state government are movingforward with some initiatives.
I think the most interestingone is the congestion zone that
they want to create.
Basically, they want to createa zone in the lower part of
Manhattan, so everything southof 60th Street.
If your car enters that zoneand they have these like E-ZPass
type monitoring system to seeif you cross over to 60th Street
(39:19):
, then you will be charged asignificant amount of money I
think it's on the order of like$23, right, so it's a lot and
basically that money will thenbe billed electronically to your
E-ZPass account and that moneywill be directed specifically to
mass transit, because masstransit is one of the best ways
to curb global warming Because,let's face it, trains can carry
(39:42):
a lot more people efficientlythan individual cars.
Even if you don't reallyimprove the technology of trains
, it's still a huge benefit.
So we should be spending asmuch money as we can on fixing
up mass transit, making it asappealing as possible.
Ever since the pandemic, masstransit in New York City has
seen big declines in ridership.
A lot of people stopped takingthe subway and the buses during
(40:05):
the pandemic and they haven'treturned to it.
A lot of people now are workingremotely, so they're not
commuting at all, but a lot ofpeople are also just avoiding
the subway and the buses.
So money taken away from motorvehicle drivers and give that
money to mass transit, that's aneffective climate tool.
I think it's also a socialjustice tool because, let's face
it, there's a lot of people whoare just struggling, but, on
(40:27):
average, motor vehicle ownersprobably have greater net worth
than subway riders.
That's just a fact, and so Ithink it's a social justice move
as well.
This congestion plan wasproposed several years ago, but
you need all kinds of approvalsbecause you've got to build the
whole system, and a lot ofpoliticians have come out
against it.
First of all, the Republicanshate it, because if the
(40:49):
Democrats like something, theRepublicans hate it.
They see this as woke, right.
Well, you want to take our carsaway from us?
No, we don't want to take yourcar away from you.
We want you to pay the properamount of money that reflects
how much your car is damagingthe environment.
Yeah, and also just congestingManhattan.
I don't know if you've everdriven in midtown, manhattan or
downtown.
The average speed is somethinglike four miles per hour.
(41:10):
It's ridiculous.
So it's also good from aquality of life standpoint to
have fewer cars coming into thatpart of the city.
It's not only the Republicanswho have opposed this, I believe
.
Now the governor of New Jersey,who is a Democrat, who is
considered a fairly liberalDemocrat Murphy is his name.
He's come out against it toobecause he's got constituents in
(41:30):
New Jersey who don't want topay an extra $23 every time they
drive their cars into Manhattan, and so now he has come out
against it.
That's a significant politicalblow to whether this congestion
plan will actually be adopted.
Remember I said about politicsbeing corrupt?
Yeah, the Jersey governor's.
I'm not accusing him offinancial improprieties, but he
(41:52):
doesn't want to lose voters.
He doesn't want voters angry athim.
So a liberal Democrat has comeout against a plan to do
something about global warming,and that's always very
disheartening when you seesomething like that.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
Yeah, it's good to know that they're trying to do
something about it.
I wouldn't want to be stuck infour mile an hour traffic period
, and so I think maybe if theycan figure out ways to get that
plan in action without that $23fee, because that is $23 fee.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
Yeah, sucks.
It's going to hurt some peoplewho are not rich, who need to
drive into the city.
Most of the drivers are fairlywell-off people who can afford
the $23 fee and should pay it,because you're already causing
much more than $23 of damage tothe environment every time you
start up your car.
So, really, if you're properlycharging people for the damage
(42:38):
they cause, the charge isjustified.
But I can understand how youdon't want to hurt poor people
with cars and so there's ways toget around that.
There might be like an incometax credit where you can be
reimbursed If your income isbelow a certain amount of money.
Yeah, you should be able to geta reimbursement for those
congestion fees that you have topay every time you drive.
There are workable compromiseswhere we can limit the damage on
(43:01):
the poor people in society, butI have to say the $23 fee
that's the key to making thiswhole thing work, because you
want to discourage too manypeople from driving and you also
want to provide a new stream ofrevenue for mass transit, which
can really use the revenue.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
Wow, I want to close on this note.
We talked about how climatechange really impacts
marginalized people, people thatare living on the fringes, so
to speak, and one genre of musicthat speaks for people of color
, marginalized people, is hiphop.
The thought comes to mind ofhow can hip-hop be a medium to
protest and to speak for peoplein low-income communities as it
(43:42):
relates to greening our earthand environmental justice.
So, before I hear your thoughtson it, I want to play a quick
clip, and then we'll end on thatnote.
Speaker 3 (43:52):
We need climate activism to be mainstream.
We need the fight againstclimate change to be cool.
Let's try something different.
Ladies and gentlemen, pleasewelcome Myverse and Kristen
Warren.
Speaker 5 (44:24):
Dear children, hope you listen.
This is Mother Earth frombeyond your birth.
I've been here when the sunemerged.
I fed you from me for no lovereturn To see you grow up and be
underserved.
In other words, let me nurture,nurture.
Don't let him deceive.
You're self-sufficient, causeyou get it from me that light
bill from the sun paid.
Definitely don't let themhustle you your power, cause
(44:45):
they're energy free.
I gave mountains to guide youand rivers to ride through,
trees to help you breathe.
But don't seem to be mindful.
The other creatures need youbecause they live here beside
you, a mother's nation.
Make sure that you fit forsurvival.
Finish your greens.
Eat less than your eyes do.
Take the trash out.
Be disciplined and recycleseasons getting heated, scolding
y'all will be frightful.
(45:05):
You gonna learn to clean yourroom when you live under my roof
.
Let's creatures fall and diewildfires in their eyes.
Stop waiting for a sign.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
So that was my verse talking about how hip hop can
inspire climate action.
Any thoughts on that?
Mark, I know you live in a veryurban area.
New York in general is just amelting pot.
Any thoughts on how we caninspire a new voice of folks
that are just as passionate asyou are about climate change?
Speaker 1 (45:39):
Oh yeah, thanks so much for playing that clip.
I'm going to look up thatartist.
I really love her line aboutyou're going to clean up your
room when you live in my house,which is good.
That's the message we want togive people.
Come on, you're not being adulthere, this is the place where
you live.
I love that message.
I'm all about trying tointroduce this environmental
message more into the cultureand I try to do it in the books,
(46:00):
hip hop and all kinds of musicreally would be fantastic if
there were more songs about this, because songs would get into
people's heads and hearts.
This conversation makes methink that the climate movement
could learn something from thecivil rights movement.
I love that movie.
It came out a few years ago.
The movie called One Night inMiami, which was based on a real
(46:20):
meeting of I believe it wasMuhammad Ali and Malcolm X and
Jim Brown and Sam Cooke, andthey're all talking about this
civil rights movement and how weall have to be involved in this
.
It's not just politicians andactivists, it's the athletes,
it's the artists, it's thesingers, it's the everyday
people, and the thrust of thatmovie was that Sam Cooke, as a
(46:40):
result of this growingconsciousness of the movement
shifted.
What he sang about, what hewrote songs about because he
started out his career singingmostly love songs, right,
because that's what got himfamous.
But then he shifted and hewrote that great song Change Is.
Gonna.
Come and think about that songand how wonderful it is and how
it got into so many people'shearts.
(47:01):
I would say that song swayedmore hearts than almost anything
toward a recognition of thecivil rights movement.
Imagine if there was a song,either written in hip hop or any
other genre, that could have asimilar effect on people's
hearts and their attention andtheir desire for change.
If that could be done for theclimate movement, that would be
a wonderful step.
Speaker 2 (47:21):
Wow, I love where you took that Mark.
This has been great and Iappreciate all the insights you
gave and for coming on theStuber Show.
I'm excited to hear aboutwhat's next for you.
Can you share with ourlisteners where they can learn
more about your current projectsor your next projects?
Speaker 1 (47:38):
Yes, yes, definitely.
Go to my website.
It's wwwmarkalpertcom.
The Alpert is spelled with a P,it's like Herb Alpert the
trumpeter we were talking aboutmusic earlier and the Mark is
spelled with a K.
So go to my website.
I've written actually 11 novelsand I have little descriptions
of each book to get youinterested in buying them.
(48:00):
But also we're going tocontinue now, you and me, to do
with the Climate ParablesProject.
I believe there's going to bemore performances of all those
stories, including my storyDodging the Apocalypse.
More performances are going tobe planned for that.
And as for my next book, Idefinitely want to continue
writing about climate fiction.
It's funny.
I was thinking of taking it in adifferent direction, because
you always want each book to bea little different, right?
(48:22):
And I was reading yesterday theBook of Revelation, because
I've read it before, but not ina long time.
It's the last book of the NewTestament and it's wild.
It describes the apocalypse.
And I'm reading it now with neweyes because I'm so interested
in climate fiction and a lot ofthings that John Patmos
describes as going to happenduring the apocalypse.
They sound like climate change.
(48:43):
He's talking about the riversrunning dry, he's talking about
the seas turning to blood andall the fish dying and I'm
thinking, hey, this sounds veryfamiliar, this sounds like
what's going on right now, andso I'm thinking, maybe there's a
way I can incorporate this intoanother climate fiction book.
So that's going to possibly bemy next project.
Speaker 2 (49:03):
Oh man, I am here for it.
Wow, so glad you teased thatnew novel.
That's going to open up a wholenew audience.
Hearing how you expound on thereality of what's happening in
the science world with thespiritual world, that's going to
open up a whole new audience.
Hearing how you expound on thereality of what's happening in
the science world with thespiritual world, that's going to
be very interesting.
I hope so.
You have my vote for it.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
Okay, great, I got one reader at least.
Speaker 2 (49:22):
Exactly All right, Mark.
Thanks again, and hopefully youguys can get back to clearer
skies.
That would be the hope.
Speaker 1 (49:29):
Yes, I hope so, and thank you, stu, for inviting me
onto your podcast.
I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (49:38):
Thanks for listening.
If you enjoyed this episode andyou'd like to help support the
podcast, please share it withothers, post about it on social
media or leave a rating andreview.
To catch all the latest from me, you can follow me on Instagram
at stuber underscore podcast.
Thanks again and until nexttime.
Keep your head up and eyes onthe road.
Speaker 5 (50:03):
Today's episode was brought to you by Lorraine's
Cafe.
Homemade, fresh, not frozen,family recipes from her kitchen
to your plate.
That's called greenwashing.
You're trying to whitewash thepublic into thinking that you're
doing the green thing, and alot of that's going on.
Unfortunately, that's the way alot of these companies have
reacted to the climate issues.
Let's tell the public all thethings that we're doing and make
them believe that we're reallyon their side, when mostly we're
still doing business as usual.
And of course, that isinfuriating because activists,
(00:22):
we have to constantly be callingthem into account, saying no,
don't believe everything they'resaying in their commercials.
Look at their financials, lookat their bottom line, and then
you'll actually see if they'reliving up to their words.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Don't let them pull the wool over your eyes.
Thank you for stopping by theStuber podcast.
I am your host, slash driver,stu Briggs.
And today let's hop in a Stubergreen, something eco-friendly,
something hybrid, like anelectric car, because our
special guest is a man on awarpath seeking to go after
(01:02):
climate criminals.
I won't say much more, so let'sget into it.
Hop in, buckle up, put on acape, let's go for a ride.
We've got an exciting showtoday.
(01:24):
Our guest is Mark Alpert.
He is a contributing editor atScientific American and he's an
internationally best-sellingauthor of several science
thrillers.
Those titles include FinalTheory, the Omega Theory,
extinction and the Doomsday Show.
These are all action-packedpage-turners that show the
frightening potential of nearfuture technologies.
(01:46):
Mark is also a lifelong scienceenthusiast.
He majored in astrophysics atPrinceton University and he
currently resides in Manhattanwith his wife and two children.
And I also see here that you atone point were on a softball
team, mark.
Is that correct, or is that nolonger something you're doing?
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Don't really go that much to softball teams anymore,
but I love doing it when I do itwith the Scientific American,
and our team was known as theBig Bangers.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Is that somehow connected to a science idea?
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Yeah, I suggested that we call our team the Field
Equations, which was a referenceto something else in science,
but I got overruled FieldEquations.
As you may know, we've had aterrible air quality event the
past few days because of thefires in Quebec.
As a result of those fires, thewind pushed them south to New
(02:40):
York, philadelphia, washingtonDC areas and in New York City we
had the worst air quality everrecorded.
This is especially a concernfor me because I'm a writer of
science fiction and specificallyclimate fiction, which is
fiction about the problem ofclimate change and how it's
getting worse and what can we doabout it.
This recent event was really awake-up call for people on the
(03:03):
East Coast.
You in California, you'repretty familiar with wildfires.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
We had one four or five years ago and I remember
waking up and seeing soot in theair and the orange sky.
So yeah, we're familiar.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Yeah, and this is not isolated events.
I believe that six ofCalifornia's seven worst fires
have happened in just the pastthree years.
It's obvious that globalwarming is causing hotter and
drier conditions to persist inmany parts of the world, from
California to Canada toAustralia, and we're seeing the
(03:36):
effects of that right now.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Yeah, more than 100 wildfires are burning across the
Canadian border, over 9.3million acres charred, and it
could last fora while You'restill seeing some of the effects
of that wildfire there in NewYork.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Yeah, we've had it.
The whole week the sun has beenin eerie orange orbs.
We're just not used to this.
I'm hoping that people in NewYork City, being the media
capital of the world, peoplewill say okay, this is real.
The carbon emissions that we'reputting into the sky are
causing worldwide changes thatwe're feeling the effects of now
.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
So it's not just arson, it's not just a freak
accident on a farm somewhere.
You believe these fires aretriggered by the warming of the
ozone or the environment.
Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Oh, yes, yes, nothing else could explain why there
are so many fires happening allover the world at unprecedented
rates.
Yeah, there's always incidentsof arson lightning strike power
lines also set off fires, butwhen you have all of these fires
just going out of control, youknow that there are really hot
(04:41):
dry conditions and more extremes.
That there are really hot dryconditions and more extremes
Because when you have a globalwarming, which is caused because
of all the burning of ourfossil fuels, it's the
greenhouse effect and thatraises the average temperatures
all around the globe and thatcreates more volatility in the
system.
So you're going to see morestorms, more droughts, more heat
(05:01):
waves and also more wildfires.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
And these phenomenons can't be overlooked and just
dismissed because they have aripple effect.
There's safety issues, healthissues, right.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Oh, definitely.
What's interesting is thesefires are happening hundreds and
hundreds of miles away from us,to the north, and yet, because
of the prevailing winds, we'refeeling the effects.
That's happening in the westtoo.
You have fires in Californiathat their smoke is going across
the Rockies and affecting thewhole country, and this is a new
(05:35):
phenomenon.
It never used to be, but nowthat has become the norm, and so
we're seeing now howinterconnected the world is, and
we have to worry about globalwarming, because something that
happens in another part of theworld will affect this part of
the world.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
In your new novel.
This is your latest novel,right, the Doomsday Show.
Yes, you're also mentioning inthis book the sea level.
There's some predictions outthere that New York City is
slowly collapsing because of theweight of some of the
skyscrapers and that's causingthe sea level to rise.
Any thoughts on the rising sealevels?
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Yeah, rising sea levels are yet another effect of
global warming.
As we pump more carbon into theatmosphere and as the
greenhouse effect slowly raisesthe temperature of the Earth,
you're going to see more meltingof the glaciers in both the
Arctic and the Antarctic, and inthe mountain ranges as well.
And the real problem is whenyou have glaciers that are close
(06:31):
to the sea and they beginsliding into the seas, as you're
seeing now, especially inAntarctica.
They're particularly worriedabout that because those
glaciers down there are justenormous, bigger than whole
states in America.
There's always a naturalprocess of glaciers sliding into
the sea and then being built upon top, but right now the
(06:51):
movement into the sea is greatlyaccelerated.
It's almost like they'remelting so fast that it's like a
sliding pond.
Now and that's the great worrythat ice that was on land is now
going into the sea and willmelt, and that has the potential
to raise sea level.
It's already raising it at arate of millimeters per year,
but if it gets up to beingcentimeters per year, then we're
(07:13):
going to see some real effects.
It's definitely going to makestorms that much more
destructive, because anothereffect of global warming is
making storms more intenseBecause, again, as the world
warms, there's more energy inthe atmospheric system and with
more energy, there's going to bemore volatility.
The storms are going to be moreintense and if, at the same
(07:34):
time, the sea level is higher,then you're going to see these
storms sweeping right intocoastal cities, and I'm not
making this up.
This has happened in New YorkCity In 2012,.
We had Hurricane Sandy and thatswept into New York.
It inundated Coney Island.
It also really impacted thelower part of Manhattan Several
(07:56):
of the apartment buildings andhousing projects along the East
River, where the electricalsystems in the basements of
those buildings were completelyflooded.
In Manhattan, all the power wascut off.
South of I believe it was 26thStreet.
When you look downtown, thewhole lower part of Manhattan
was dark and it was a very eeriesight.
That was a wake-up call for ustoo.
(08:17):
Afterwards, people in the citygovernment were saying what can
we do now to prepare ourselvesfor the next storm?
And the next storm willprobably be worse because, again
, sea levels are slowly rising,storms getting more intense.
The combination of those twothings is really destructive for
cities like New York.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
There's over a million buildings housing 8
million people that weigh 764billion kilograms, and it's
causing New York City to subsideat a rate of normally two
millimeters a year.
Lower Manhattan stands just onemeter above sea level, so at
the current rate, king tidescould roll down its streets
(08:57):
within a few short decades.
It's something that's a veryimminent threat, would you say.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Oh, yeah, you're right and I'm glad you mentioned
the subsidence issue becauseyou're right Cities with these
huge buildings.
They are slowly sinking.
In Manhattan we have thebedrock in lower Manhattan, so
that makes the problem a littleless here.
But you have cities likeJakarta, which is the capital of
Indonesia on the island of Java, also on the coastline, and
(09:23):
there the city is sinking at areally fast rate, partly because
they've depleted thegroundwater and again because of
the weight of the buildings,and so there that city is just
so regularly flooded that rightnow the Indonesian government is
saying you know what?
We just have to build anothercapital city on a different
island in Indonesia.
There's really no way to savethe city of Jakarta.
(09:44):
That's the decision thatthey've made and that's scary
because we're going to see thatmore and more People are going
to realize if we don't stopglobal warming, we're going to
have to abandon some of ourcities on the coast.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
That's mind-blowing, that a city, because Jakarta is
somewhat of a metropolitan placewith skyscrapers.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Millions of people.
Yeah, it's by far the majorcity of Indonesia.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
They're talking about relocating an entire city
because they can't get ahead ofthis problem.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Right, and that poses its own problem, because you
know a lot of people there don'twant to go, and the plan is to
move the capital city to theisland of Borneo, which is also
being devastated bydeforestation.
It's where the last of theorangutans live, and when you
see things like that, yourealize okay, this is just going
to accelerate the process ofglobal warming, because when you
get rid of trees, you get ridof one main sinks for carbon.
(10:37):
Trees do take in carbon, andwhen you cut them down, the
carbon doesn't have anywhere togo and so it stays in the
atmosphere and heats up theatmosphere.
We're doing the same thing tothe oceans.
The oceans also absorb carbondioxide and, as a result,
they're getting more and moreacidic as time goes on, and that
, and the rising of temperatures, is contributing to the
bleaching of all the coral reefs, and you can see this is
(10:59):
something that's happening on ahuge scale, very fast.
It's getting worse and worse onan accelerating rate.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
So my aim and my intention is really to inspire
those that would be listening,particularly the younger
generation, to find their voicefor climate action, because,
after hearing all these factsand all these things that are
ongoing, it's hard to look theother way and pretend as if we
don't have a problem on our hand.
But let's continue to talkabout this energy crisis, going
(11:27):
a little further into what aresome of the threats that carbon
emissions pose to the earth.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Yeah, I'd like to talk just a little bit about my
own personal connection with theissue, because I was a
full-time journalist for most ofmy career and I was an editor
at Scientific American for 10years, from 1998 to 2008.
And that's when I really goteducated on both the causes of
global warming obviously theburning of fossil fuels and also
(11:54):
the effects which we've beentalking about.
What can we do?
Practical steps to curb carbonemissions, to try to slow global
warming by putting less carboninto the atmosphere, and one of
the easy things that was truethen, it's still true now is
just conservation.
Obviously, we should be usingas little energy as we can.
(12:14):
First of all, it's lessexpensive for us and secondly,
it does help save the planet,and so using LEDs, for example,
instead of incandescent lightbulbs, buying the best, most
efficient appliances.
And then another thing that Ireally pushed for in my
editorials in ScientificAmerican was more of a force to
increase the fuel economy of thecars in our fleet.
(12:35):
There are standards they'recalled the CAFE standards.
They're all about fuelefficiency for automobiles, and
they really haven't improvedenough.
If you average the fuelefficiency of all the cars and
SUVs and pickup trucks in thefleet, you would still only have
about 25 miles per gallon,which is not that much better
than the average fuel efficiencywas 10 or 20 or even 30 years
(12:57):
ago.
Basically, this is thegovernment's job is to mandate
fuel efficiency, to tell theauto manufacturers okay, the
average for all your fleets hasto be higher.
And so that was one of thethings that I was pushing a lot
in Scientific American.
The other thing I was pushingwas doing something about
carbon-burning power plants.
When you burn carbon thatproduces more of the greenhouse
(13:18):
gas emissions into theatmosphere than burning oil or
natural gas, burning carbon isthe worst, and so, really,
carbon power plants should bephased out, and one way the
government can do that is bysaying okay, we have to provide
incentives here for you to dothat.
We're going to penalize thecarbon burning plants and we're
going to favor plants usingutility regulation, because the
(13:42):
government does already regulateutilities, and so it can easily
change the law in order todisincentivize the construction
and operation of more of thesecarbon-burning plants.
Some of this was proposed inthe original climate bill.
There was a climate bill passedlast year, but you got to give
the Biden administration creditbecause it was the biggest
climate bill ever passed, but itwas watered down.
(14:02):
In its original form it didhave stricter provisions for
getting rid of the carbonburning plants.
When I was at ScientificAmerican, I was constantly
writing editorials saying we gotto get rid of these coal
burning power plants.
But it was frustrating for me,because you can write editorials
and news stories and then youdon't see much progress, and so
that's why I started writingfiction.
I started writing novels aboutthis, because I thought maybe
(14:24):
that's another way to getthrough to people.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
And reach a larger audience as well.
But aside from your work as anauthor, you also propose an idea
that may seem science fiction,but you suggest that it is a
reality.
Can you tell me more about yoursolar energy idea and how
likely it is to be implemented?
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Oh yes, you're speaking of the space solar
power idea, yet this is featuredin a short story that I wrote
for Anthropocene magazine.
They launched something calledthe Climate Parables, which is a
series of short stories byscience fiction authors,
including myself and Kim StanleyRobinson, who is a legend in
the science fiction field, andother authors, in which we focus
(15:04):
on stories that dramatizetechnological solutions that
could help alleviate the climatecrisis.
And the idea that I focused onis an idea that's been kicking
around for several decades theidea of putting in orbit these
huge solar power arrays.
These are arrays of mirrorsthat could be kilometers wide
(15:25):
that focus sunlight onto thesephotovoltaic arrays, which
generate electricity from thesunlight, and then the energy is
converted to microwave beams,and these microwave beams can be
directed from this big solarpower station in orbit down to
ground stations, to receiverdishes on the ground, and then
(15:46):
that energy can then betransferred back into
electricity that goes into theutility gr ground, and then that
energy can then be transferredback into electricity that goes
into the utility grids.
And this is an idea that's beenkicking around in science
fiction since the 1940s, whenIsaac Asimov, the legend, the
founder of science fiction hewrote a short story about it and
people at NASA started studyingthe idea in a serious way in
the 1970s and 1990s and theyconcluded this is a far-fetched
(16:09):
idea because it's going to costso much money to lift all of
that material up into space andto construct this big solar
power station in orbit.
That was not really feasibleback then, but now, with the
advent of SpaceX and new rocketsthat allow you to take more
stuff into space at a much lowercost, and also the advent of
(16:31):
autonomous machines now robotsthat can construct and assemble
the solar power station in spacewithout the need for putting
astronauts there, those twothings make it a much more
feasible idea and researchershave now returned to it and
saying we could do this.
You could have just one of thesesolar power stations in space.
See, in space there's nonighttime, because if it's like
(16:52):
20,000 miles above the earth,then it's never in earth's
shadow.
It can always be receivingsunlight on its mirrors and on
its photovoltaic panels.
It can always be generatingelectricity and actually
sunlight is also more intense inspace than it is here on Earth
because it doesn't have to gothrough the atmosphere.
There are some efficiencylosses when you convert the
(17:14):
power into microwave beams andthen convert it back into
electricity on the ground.
It's not like you could do thistomorrow you would still need to
work out some technologicalproblems but it is a real idea,
and I thought it would make foran interesting short story to
focus on this idea, because it'ssuch a big idea and a lot of
people would say that's crazy.
But the thing is, we've beenmessing up our environment now
(17:37):
for hundreds of years.
Ever since the beginning of theIndustrial Revolution, we've
been messing around with it andmaking it worse, and we've got
to fix it now, in the next 20 or30 years, because if we don't,
it'll be too late.
You're going to hit certaintipping points and the
temperatures will rise to apoint where we may not be able
to recover so much of thewildlife and so much of the
(17:59):
habitability even of parts ofthe earth, and so we have to do
something soon.
So we have to be able toconsider big ideas to fix a big
problem.
And solar power stations inspace that's a big idea, and I
thought it would be.
One way to promote it would beto write a fun short story about
it.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Yeah, it's a big idea , but you believe it's an idea
that is doable if the fundingand the willpower is there to
make it happen.
So you mentioned conservation,you mentioned legislation for
carbon emissions and companiesthat are using coal, these
coal-fired power plants.
What is their purpose?
(18:36):
Why are they burning carbon?
What do they do?
Speaker 1 (18:39):
They're producing electricity.
They sell their electricity tothe utility grids.
A lot of them are in theMidwest and a lot of their
emissions then sweep east withthe prevailing winds and come to
us here in New York City.
But they also are raisingtemperatures on a global scale
and that's the biggest reasonwhy we need to phase those out.
Unfortunately the coal miningindustry it doesn't employ
(19:02):
nearly as many people as it usedto, because most of the
industry has realized it's moreefficient to burn natural gas
and it's best to shift torenewable sources.
So, for example, wind turbinesand solar power farms.
Solar power here on Earth hasbecome much, much cheaper.
There's an initial cost,obviously, setting up the solar
power farms, but once they're inoperation they can produce
(19:24):
power a lot more cheaply than acoal-fired power plant.
So there's good economicreasons to shift to the
renewables as well.
The biggest problem withrenewables that a lot of critics
often point out is that theirpower is not always reliable,
because obviously a solar powerfarm can't operate at night, a
wind turbine can't operate whenthe wind isn't blowing and
(19:46):
people will always need powernight and day.
So that's the reason why peoplesay we have to continue burning
natural gas, because otherwise,just to make up for the
intermittency of these renewablesources and that is a problem
that's something that we need towork on.
But obviously the coal burningplants need to go.
But unfortunately, let's faceit, it's the Republicans who are
fighting this, even thoughthere aren't that many employees
(20:09):
still in the coal mines,because it's a dying industry.
The economy and the technologyhave passed it by and yet people
are still sticking up for thesepoliticians.
It's really the politicians whoare keeping these coal-fired
plants alive when they should beshunted into the past alive
(20:30):
when they should be shunted intothe past.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned the political aspect
of it and making sure that thenext administration has that as
the top of their agenda.
You would agree with that thatwhoever assumes office next
would need to have a strongfocus on climate change?
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Oh yeah, there was many tragedies of the Trump
administration, as we all know,but one of the biggest tragedies
was that we backtracked onprogress in dealing with climate
change.
Trump took America out of theParis Accords, which was the
agreement of all these nationsto lower their emissions in
order to slow down globalwarming.
He also did nothing to improvethe fuel economy of our cars.
(21:07):
Did nothing to improve the fueleconomy of our cars.
He did nothing to try to shiftthe power industry away from
coal and more toward renewablesources.
Now, luckily in the Bidenadministration, now we're seeing
climate progress again, andlast year's climate bill has
done a lot already.
A lot of the bill funds newresearch.
The reason why solar power andwind power is now cheaper than
(21:28):
coal power is because of all thetechnological development and
research that was done to comeup with better materials for
both of these things, to createbetter photovoltaic panels and
better wind turbines.
Research is really powerful.
It stimulates investment.
I'm really glad the climate billincludes that.
But another thing we need, forexample, you mentioned switching
to electric cars, whichCalifornia is doing a fantastic
(21:52):
job that is way in front of therest of the country in mandating
electric cars.
It's great because Californiais such a large market that the
way California goes, so goes therest of the nation.
But in order to facilitate awhole conversion of the fleet to
go electric, we're going toneed a lot more charging
stations and the government isgoing to need to invest and
(22:12):
encourage the development ofthat infrastructure, because we
don't have nearly enough now.
So I'm really hoping that wehave another Democratic
administration elected in 2024,because otherwise, if we go back
to a Republican administration,whether it's a Trump
administration or a DeSantisadministration or any other
Republican administration we'regoing to see another complete
(22:32):
stall in all this progress thatwe need to be making to curb
global warming.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Yeah, and you wonder why they would want to be
against something so vital toour existence.
I'd like to play a quick clipand then get your thoughts on it
.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
London was hot boy 40 degrees, one of the hottest
summers in history.
After one of the hottestsummers in history, some people
can go outside.
Plants were either dried up oron fire.
Countries were eitherunderwater or on fire.
This extreme weather is onlyset to increase If crops die.
That makes food more expensive,affecting working class
communities, communities ofcolor first.
(23:17):
But what if and go with me onthis what if climate change is
just a symptom of a biggerproblem?
And what if it is the sameproblem that causes racism and
sexism and ableism?
What if all of these things arejust symptoms of a bigger
problem?
Ready White, supremacist,patriarchal capitalism.
(23:44):
Capitalism it feels scarybecause it feels like a concept,
even though our society isquite literally based on it
Infinite growth with finiteresources, at whatever the cost,
those forms of oppressionwouldn't exist if it didn't make
(24:09):
someone money.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Pente Balagoon I hope I pronounced his name correct.
He's an actor and he's anactivist.
He's really taking aim atcapitalism, so what are your
thoughts on that?
Is he right in saying that thisproblem is actually a symptom
of a capitalistic society.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
I can have lots of criticisms of capitalism no
question that it has causedcrimes beyond measure around the
world but on the other hand,you can have a mixed system
where capitalism is restrainedby government so that it can't
do some of the white supremacist, racist things that capitalism
(24:45):
is currently doing.
The government has to step inand say well, okay, we're not
going to let you do that, we'renot going to let you create AI
programs that are racist becauseyou program them using racist
programmers.
The government can't step inand restrain capitalism.
It can tell them okay, youcan't burn coal, we're going to
penalize you for burning coal,we're going to incentivize you
(25:07):
and maybe subsidize you.
We will even give you money ifyou invest in renewables, but
we're not going to let you burncoal anymore without paying a
price for it.
Yeah, capitalism is to blame forso many of these problems, but
when properly restrained anddirected by government
incentives and subsidies andpenalties, then capitalism can
(25:29):
achieve some of these goals inan efficient way.
The price of solar power did godown tremendously over the past
25 years, partly because ofgovernment-funded research and
also because of competition.
People realize it's a good ideato invest in solar power now
because it is cheaper than theother forms.
I don't believe we have to getrid of capitalism entirely,
(25:50):
because attempts to do that inthe past have failed
spectacularly, as the history ofthe Soviet Union has shown, and
so it seems like a bargain withthe devil.
But I think government doeshave to work with business.
It has to restrain business,but in the end it has to work
with businesses to get this done.
We need everyone from societygovernment, businesses, everyday
(26:12):
people.
Everyone is going to have tocontribute to this big
society-wide effort to curbcarbon emissions and slow down
global warming.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
I'd hate to cast a huge blanket over the entire
Republican Party.
I'm sure there are those inoffice that are trying to find
solutions, but by and large theRepublican stance is generally
less government right, morefreedom of enterprise and, I
think for a lot of people, moreinvolvement from the government.
Regardless of what we'retalking about, climate change
(26:42):
seems like a tough balance totry and maintain in our society.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
That's the shame of it that everything has gotten so
politicized now.
Basically the Democrats andRepublicans.
They're not working togetheranymore.
They've become two warringtribes and anything that the
Democrats will propose, theRepublicans will be reflexively
against it, even though it mighthelp all the people who are
(27:09):
voting for Republicans.
The biggest victims of globalwarming are going to be the most
vulnerable, poorest members ofour society, which includes all
the people in states like WestVirginia or in Kentucky, in
Oklahoma, in Kansas.
These are the people who aregoing to be fighting the
droughts here in New York City.
I am a privileged person.
(27:30):
With the bad air, I was able tostay inside my nice apartment
and breathe through my N95 maskand I was fine.
It didn't affect me as much asit affects a homeless person
sleeping on the street whodoesn't have a mask and he's
breathing in this air.
Or what about one of thedelivery guys who has to be
outside running back and forthin this?
(27:52):
These are the people who aresuffering the most from climate
change.
It's always the poorest membersof our society, the most
vulnerable, who suffer the most,and that's the sad thing.
Doing something about globalwarming can only help those
people the most, and those areboth Republican and Democratic
voters.
Global warming should not be apolitical issue.
Both parties should becommitted to this, because it
(28:13):
just makes sense.
The fact is that, in the end,we'll save money by moving to
renewables and greaterconservation.
If we fund the renewableindustry, the United States will
become the leading producer ofthis new technology instead of
China, and so we'll benefit fromthat.
It's just a win-win foreveryone, these investments in
renewable technology.
(28:34):
I don't even think it's goingto hurt the economy.
It can only help the economy tomove toward a new green economy
, a new renewable economy,because that's where we're going
, inevitably, that's where thewhole world is going.
The faster we get there, thebetter it will be for both the
environment and the economy, andso I don't buy the argument oh,
this is going to be bad for theeconomy.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
No, going green is good for the economy, but if you
follow the money when it comesto these coal power plants, do
you think you can trace it backto some politicians?
Oh, definitely.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
And here right now I'm going to criticize a
Democrat okay, because I've beengoing on about the Republicans
but there are some Democrats whohave been stalling these
climate bills as well, and thepremier one is Senator Joe
Manchin from West Virginia.
He represents a state wherethere's still a lot of coal
mining.
They're not as much as thereused to be, but still big coal
interest.
And what most people don'trealize is Senator Manchin has
(29:28):
big financial interests himselfin the coal industry.
He owns this company that sellsthis stuff.
It's called GOB, I think itstands for garbage of bituminous
.
It's not even coal, it's like,at a lower level, you could burn
it, but it's even dirtier thancoal.
And that's what he sells topower plants.
(29:49):
And he wanted to make sure thathe could keep selling his
garbage to power plants.
And so he watered down theclimate bill.
But he was basically protectinghis own coal interest.
He just wanted to make surethat he keep making money from
burning his garbage ofbituminous.
That's just the epitome ofcorruption.
And so, yes, there arepoliticians who have vested
(30:10):
interests in the fossil fuelindustry, whether it's personal
financial interests, likeSenator Manchin, or simply
campaign contributions from theindustry, because the industry
does put a lot of money into thecampaigns of Congress One way
or another.
Yeah, they have a vestedinterest in keeping this old bad
system alive when we shouldmove away from it.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Just because you're a Democrat doesn't mean all
Democrats share the same values.
Is what you're saying?
Or they may have those values,but they're compromised.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Yes, definitely, there is a lot of corruption in
American politics.
Okay, so, bringing this fullcircle, you mentioned that there
(31:01):
are some climate criminals.
There are a few of them.
Who are they?
The premise of this book wasthat the eco-activists are
getting more frustrated abouttrying to accelerate the
transition to renewable energies, and one group of extremists
decides that the only way we'regoing to convince the fossil
fuel industry to chain is we gotto start assassinating the CEOs
(31:23):
of all these fossil fuelcompanies until they actually
commit to making a serioustransition to renewable energy.
And that's a pretty extremetactic, but it starts happening
in my book, and so, in thecourse of the book, I'm trying
to explore what is acceptable asactivism.
People now we've seen peoplethrowing soup at paintings and
museums in order to expresstheir outrage over the fact that
(31:45):
we're not doing enough aboutclimate change.
And a lot of people saying isthat an effective way of protest
?
They're not actually damagingthe paintings.
In some case, they're protectedby the glass in front of the
painting.
Yeah, it gets attention, but isit the right kind of attention?
Does it change people's heartsand minds in any way?
And so I really wanted toexplore that issue.
Naming names is a way to start,because certain companies
(32:07):
obviously have done more toextract the fossil fuels that
are then burned, and so you canquantify, okay, which company
has done the most to put fossilfuels in circulation that are
then burned and then contributedto the greenhouse gas effect
and global warming.
And at the very top of the list, which I got from a group
(32:28):
called the ClimateAccountability Institute, they
identified the 20 companies thathave produced the most oil and
gas and coal which, when burned,produced the most carbon
emissions into the atmosphere.
And at the very top of the listwas Saudi Aramco, because that
is the oil gas company that isowned by Saudi Arabia, is owned
(32:48):
by the government and it'scontrolled by Prince Mohammed
bin Salman, who is the effectiveleader of Saudi Arabia right
now, and so it's a state-ownedcompany and they're the worst.
So since 1965, they'veextracted all of this oil and
gas and that has contributedmore to global warming than any
other company.
But then, if you go down thelist, you'll see American
(33:10):
companies.
You'll see ExxonMobil there,you'll see Chevron, you'll see
European companies like RoyalDutch Shell, the French company
Total, you'll see the ChineseNational Petroleum Company,
you'll see the BrazilianNational Petroleum Company.
It's around the world.
I'm not advocating my readers togo out and start killing the
executives of these companies.
(33:30):
I don't believe in that.
We haven't got to that pointyet.
I don't advocate murder orsabotage, even I'm not at that
point.
But I do think that theseexecutives of these companies
and I list all 20 of thosecompanies by name I believe that
all the executives of thesecompanies need to be called to
account.
They should be passing laws toencourage and force these
(33:54):
companies to move to renewableenergy instead of fossil fuel.
In terms of what the averageperson can do, if you know
anyone who works for thesecompanies, I would talk to them.
I would say do you realize whatyour company is doing?
And if I wasn't getting enoughof a response that way, I would
not want to be friends with thatperson I would want to boycott
(34:15):
that company's products.
In a lot of cases that's hardto do, unless you can afford an
electric car.
Yeah, that's one way to boycottfossil fuels, but a lot of
people can't afford.
They're very expensive rightnow.
So it's hard to do an effectiveboycott of these companies.
We live in a very monopolisticeconomy, but there's social
measures.
You don't have to be friendswith these executives.
You can shun them, you can makefun of them.
(34:35):
These are all nonviolent waysof expressing our society's
displeasure with what theseclimate criminals are doing, and
so that is the kind of thing Ido advocate, you know, in my
book, and I do believe thathumor can be a very effective
tool to making it clear this iswhat our society wants and what
it doesn't want.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
But that being said, these climate criminals, how are
they adapting to the effects ofclimate change?
Are they starting to minimizetheir impact?
Are they starting to make somechanges in the right direction?
Are they just continuing toplummet the earth and destroy it
?
Speaker 1 (35:12):
If you listen to advertisements from BP or these
other companies, they're makinga big deal of saying, yes, we're
supporting the transition torenewables and a green economy
oh, of course we are.
And then if you look at theiroperations and you actually look
at the numbers, yeah, they'vecommitted some money to these
projects, but the huge bulk oftheir operations are still
(35:34):
extracting oil, gas and coalfrom the earth.
That's called greenwashing.
You're trying to whitewash thepublic into thinking that you're
doing the green thing, and sothat's called greenwashing, and
a lot of that's going on.
Unfortunately, that's the way alot of these companies have
reacted to the climate issues.
Let's tell the public all thethings that we're doing and make
them believe that we're reallyon their side, when mostly we're
(35:57):
still doing business as usual.
So that's one way that they'veadapted to this issue.
And, of course, that isinfuriating, because activists,
we have to constantly be callingthem into account and say no,
don't believe everything they'resaying in their commercials.
Look at their financials, lookat their bottom line, and then
you'll actually see if they'reliving up to their words.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
Don't let them pull the wool over your eyes.
Have you participated in orwitnessed an extreme form of
protest for climate change?
I'd love to hear about anyexperience you've had that you
would consider to be somewhatextreme.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
I participated in a lot of climate protests, but all
peaceful.
I'm a writer, which means I'mnot a super daring guy.
I shouldn't say that there aresome writers like Hemingway who
went out and did very daring,extreme things, but I'm not one
of those types.
I'm more of a retiring shy typeand I haven't done anything
(36:50):
extreme.
I haven't ever thrown soup at apainting or even went to an
executive's house to shout himdown or anything like that.
But, I do have friends who tellme about things that they've
done, and one of my friendsmentioned that a group of
activists that she's involvedwith targeted the Blackstone
Group.
I don't know if you're familiarwith that.
It's like one of the largestinvestment funds in America.
(37:11):
It takes money from investors,pension funds there's trillions
and trillions of dollarsinvolved and it invests in
various companies, and they madea big deal of saying a few
years ago, oh, we're going tomove away from investing in
fossil fuel companies, and thatsounded great, right, it turned
out to be another example ofgreenwashing, because if you
look at the companies that theycontrol or have large interests
(37:32):
in, there's still a lot of thesefossil fuel companies that are
still burning fossil fuels at anaccelerating rate, and so this
investment group, the Blackstonegroup, really has not lived up
to its promises, and so myfriend's group of activists
wanted to protest.
So they went down to theBlackstone headquarters in
Midtown Manhattan and theybrought a whole bunch of dirty
coal with them and theybasically dumped it in the lobby
(37:55):
and on the escalator in thebuilding, and it got on the news
a little bit, although, to tellyou the truth, in New York City
that's hardly news right,people are doing crazy stuff all
the time and I don't know if itmade it.
I knew about it just because myfriend was involved and she said
, oh, check out the video.
And I checked it out.
But did most people in New YorkCity see it?
No, it did not get theattention that they wanted.
(38:16):
A few people did get arrestedthere for trespassing and I
admire their sacrifice.
I really do.
I guess they are doing theright thing.
They're targeting a companythat should be targeted.
How effective was it?
That's the thing that I wonderabout and that's the thing I try
to explore in the Doomsday Showthe frustration of activists
who really want to do the mosteffective thing and they don't
(38:37):
know at this point what to do.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Wow, new York.
It's a huge city and there's alot of cars, a lot of emissions,
so I imagine there are groupsout there trying to do something
to make some changes.
Is that happening out there inNew York?
Are there a lot ofenvironmental activists?
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Oh yes, even the New York City government and the
state government are movingforward with some initiatives.
I think the most interestingone is the congestion zone that
they want to create.
Basically, they want to createa zone in the lower part of
Manhattan, so everything southof 60th Street.
If your car enters that zoneand they have these like E-ZPass
type monitoring system to seeif you cross over to 60th Street
(39:19):
, then you will be charged asignificant amount of money I
think it's on the order of like$23, right, so it's a lot and
basically that money will thenbe billed electronically to your
E-ZPass account and that moneywill be directed specifically to
mass transit, because masstransit is one of the best ways
to curb global warming Because,let's face it, trains can carry
(39:42):
a lot more people efficientlythan individual cars.
Even if you don't reallyimprove the technology of trains
, it's still a huge benefit.
So we should be spending asmuch money as we can on fixing
up mass transit, making it asappealing as possible.
Ever since the pandemic, masstransit in New York City has
seen big declines in ridership.
A lot of people stopped takingthe subway and the buses during
(40:05):
the pandemic and they haven'treturned to it.
A lot of people now are workingremotely, so they're not
commuting at all, but a lot ofpeople are also just avoiding
the subway and the buses.
So money taken away from motorvehicle drivers and give that
money to mass transit, that's aneffective climate tool.
I think it's also a socialjustice tool because, let's face
it, there's a lot of people whoare just struggling, but, on
(40:27):
average, motor vehicle ownersprobably have greater net worth
than subway riders.
That's just a fact, and so Ithink it's a social justice move
as well.
This congestion plan wasproposed several years ago, but
you need all kinds of approvalsbecause you've got to build the
whole system, and a lot ofpoliticians have come out
against it.
First of all, the Republicanshate it, because if the
(40:49):
Democrats like something, theRepublicans hate it.
They see this as woke, right.
Well, you want to take our carsaway from us?
No, we don't want to take yourcar away from you.
We want you to pay the properamount of money that reflects
how much your car is damagingthe environment.
Yeah, and also just congestingManhattan.
I don't know if you've everdriven in midtown, manhattan or
downtown.
The average speed is somethinglike four miles per hour.
(41:10):
It's ridiculous.
So it's also good from aquality of life standpoint to
have fewer cars coming into thatpart of the city.
It's not only the Republicanswho have opposed this, I believe
.
Now the governor of New Jersey,who is a Democrat, who is
considered a fairly liberalDemocrat Murphy is his name.
He's come out against it toobecause he's got constituents in
(41:30):
New Jersey who don't want topay an extra $23 every time they
drive their cars into Manhattan, and so now he has come out
against it.
That's a significant politicalblow to whether this congestion
plan will actually be adopted.
Remember I said about politicsbeing corrupt?
Yeah, the Jersey governor's.
I'm not accusing him offinancial improprieties, but he
(41:52):
doesn't want to lose voters.
He doesn't want voters angry athim.
So a liberal Democrat has comeout against a plan to do
something about global warming,and that's always very
disheartening when you seesomething like that.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
Yeah, it's good to know that they're trying to do
something about it.
I wouldn't want to be stuck infour mile an hour traffic period
, and so I think maybe if theycan figure out ways to get that
plan in action without that $23fee, because that is $23 fee.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
Yeah, sucks.
It's going to hurt some peoplewho are not rich, who need to
drive into the city.
Most of the drivers are fairlywell-off people who can afford
the $23 fee and should pay it,because you're already causing
much more than $23 of damage tothe environment every time you
start up your car.
So, really, if you're properlycharging people for the damage
(42:38):
they cause, the charge isjustified.
But I can understand how youdon't want to hurt poor people
with cars and so there's ways toget around that.
There might be like an incometax credit where you can be
reimbursed If your income isbelow a certain amount of money.
Yeah, you should be able to geta reimbursement for those
congestion fees that you have topay every time you drive.
There are workable compromiseswhere we can limit the damage on
(43:01):
the poor people in society, butI have to say the $23 fee
that's the key to making thiswhole thing work, because you
want to discourage too manypeople from driving and you also
want to provide a new stream ofrevenue for mass transit, which
can really use the revenue.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
Wow, I want to close on this note.
We talked about how climatechange really impacts
marginalized people, people thatare living on the fringes, so
to speak, and one genre of musicthat speaks for people of color
, marginalized people, is hiphop.
The thought comes to mind ofhow can hip-hop be a medium to
protest and to speak for peoplein low-income communities as it
(43:42):
relates to greening our earthand environmental justice.
So, before I hear your thoughtson it, I want to play a quick
clip, and then we'll end on thatnote.
Speaker 3 (43:52):
We need climate activism to be mainstream.
We need the fight againstclimate change to be cool.
Let's try something different.
Ladies and gentlemen, pleasewelcome Myverse and Kristen
Warren.
Speaker 5 (44:24):
Dear children, hope you listen.
This is Mother Earth frombeyond your birth.
I've been here when the sunemerged.
I fed you from me for no lovereturn To see you grow up and be
underserved.
In other words, let me nurture,nurture.
Don't let him deceive.
You're self-sufficient, causeyou get it from me that light
bill from the sun paid.
Definitely don't let themhustle you your power, cause
(44:45):
they're energy free.
I gave mountains to guide youand rivers to ride through,
trees to help you breathe.
But don't seem to be mindful.
The other creatures need youbecause they live here beside
you, a mother's nation.
Make sure that you fit forsurvival.
Finish your greens.
Eat less than your eyes do.
Take the trash out.
Be disciplined and recycleseasons getting heated, scolding
y'all will be frightful.
(45:05):
You gonna learn to clean yourroom when you live under my roof
.
Let's creatures fall and diewildfires in their eyes.
Stop waiting for a sign.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
So that was my verse talking about how hip hop can
inspire climate action.
Any thoughts on that?
Mark, I know you live in a veryurban area.
New York in general is just amelting pot.
Any thoughts on how we caninspire a new voice of folks
that are just as passionate asyou are about climate change?
Speaker 1 (45:39):
Oh yeah, thanks so much for playing that clip.
I'm going to look up thatartist.
I really love her line aboutyou're going to clean up your
room when you live in my house,which is good.
That's the message we want togive people.
Come on, you're not being adulthere, this is the place where
you live.
I love that message.
I'm all about trying tointroduce this environmental
message more into the cultureand I try to do it in the books,
(46:00):
hip hop and all kinds of musicreally would be fantastic if
there were more songs about this, because songs would get into
people's heads and hearts.
This conversation makes methink that the climate movement
could learn something from thecivil rights movement.
I love that movie.
It came out a few years ago.
The movie called One Night inMiami, which was based on a real
(46:20):
meeting of I believe it wasMuhammad Ali and Malcolm X and
Jim Brown and Sam Cooke, andthey're all talking about this
civil rights movement and how weall have to be involved in this
.
It's not just politicians andactivists, it's the athletes,
it's the artists, it's thesingers, it's the everyday
people, and the thrust of thatmovie was that Sam Cooke, as a
(46:40):
result of this growingconsciousness of the movement
shifted.
What he sang about, what hewrote songs about because he
started out his career singingmostly love songs, right,
because that's what got himfamous.
But then he shifted and hewrote that great song Change Is.
Gonna.
Come and think about that songand how wonderful it is and how
it got into so many people'shearts.
(47:01):
I would say that song swayedmore hearts than almost anything
toward a recognition of thecivil rights movement.
Imagine if there was a song,either written in hip hop or any
other genre, that could have asimilar effect on people's
hearts and their attention andtheir desire for change.
If that could be done for theclimate movement, that would be
a wonderful step.
Speaker 2 (47:21):
Wow, I love where you took that Mark.
This has been great and Iappreciate all the insights you
gave and for coming on theStuber Show.
I'm excited to hear aboutwhat's next for you.
Can you share with ourlisteners where they can learn
more about your current projectsor your next projects?
Speaker 1 (47:38):
Yes, yes, definitely.
Go to my website.
It's wwwmarkalpertcom.
The Alpert is spelled with a P,it's like Herb Alpert the
trumpeter we were talking aboutmusic earlier and the Mark is
spelled with a K.
So go to my website.
I've written actually 11 novelsand I have little descriptions
of each book to get youinterested in buying them.
(48:00):
But also we're going tocontinue now, you and me, to do
with the Climate ParablesProject.
I believe there's going to bemore performances of all those
stories, including my storyDodging the Apocalypse.
More performances are going tobe planned for that.
And as for my next book, Idefinitely want to continue
writing about climate fiction.
It's funny.
I was thinking of taking it in adifferent direction, because
you always want each book to bea little different, right?
(48:22):
And I was reading yesterday theBook of Revelation, because
I've read it before, but not ina long time.
It's the last book of the NewTestament and it's wild.
It describes the apocalypse.
And I'm reading it now with neweyes because I'm so interested
in climate fiction and a lot ofthings that John Patmos
describes as going to happenduring the apocalypse.
They sound like climate change.
(48:43):
He's talking about the riversrunning dry, he's talking about
the seas turning to blood andall the fish dying and I'm
thinking, hey, this sounds veryfamiliar, this sounds like
what's going on right now, andso I'm thinking, maybe there's a
way I can incorporate this intoanother climate fiction book.
So that's going to possibly bemy next project.
Speaker 2 (49:03):
Oh man, I am here for it.
Wow, so glad you teased thatnew novel.
That's going to open up a wholenew audience.
Hearing how you expound on thereality of what's happening in
the science world with thespiritual world, that's going to
open up a whole new audience.
Hearing how you expound on thereality of what's happening in
the science world with thespiritual world, that's going to
be very interesting.
I hope so.
You have my vote for it.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
Okay, great, I got one reader at least.
Speaker 2 (49:22):
Exactly All right, Mark.
Thanks again, and hopefully youguys can get back to clearer
skies.
That would be the hope.
Speaker 1 (49:29):
Yes, I hope so, and thank you, stu, for inviting me
onto your podcast.
I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (49:38):
Thanks for listening.
If you enjoyed this episode andyou'd like to help support the
podcast, please share it withothers, post about it on social
media or leave a rating andreview.
To catch all the latest from me, you can follow me on Instagram
at stuber underscore podcast.
Thanks again and until nexttime.
Keep your head up and eyes onthe road.
Speaker 5 (50:03):
Today's episode was brought to you by Lorraine's
Cafe.
Homemade, fresh, not frozen,family recipes from her kitchen
to your plate.
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