Post a comment on our Facebook Page, facebook. Com booktv. If you all for being here i am Tim Henderson director of i would like to briefly encourage you all if you have not done so, to support the southern festival. Which we keep free and open to the public every year and have done so for 29 years. By making a donation to the festival. You can do that online humanities tennessee. Org are our Facebook Page or in person on the plaza at the headquarters done by union avenue. We appreciate your support and appreciate you all being here this morning. A very quick note about the q a portion of todays events. You should be holding an index card if you have a question that you like to ask. If you would pass those towards the end of the aisle, someone will come by and collect those cards and they will be used for q a afterwards. This time, i would like to welcome this mornings guests. Bruce barry is her vantage and where he teaches courses in ethics, Public Policy and negotiations. Is the author of book on the First Amendment and in relation to employment which he discussed at the festival when it was published as well as three books on negotiation. He is presently their return chief of Business Ethics quarterly, a leading International Academic journal of professional ethics. Former Vice President al gore is the cofounder. Senior partner at and member of Apple Incorporated board of directors. He spends the majority of his time as the chairman of the climate reality project. A nonprofit dedicated to solving the climate process. He was elected to the us house of representatives in 1976, 78, 80, 82 for u. S. Senate in 1984 and 1990. Inaugurated as the 45th Vice President of the United States on january 20, 1993 when he served for eight years. He is the author of the bestsellers, earth and the balance and Inconvenient Truth, the assault on reason, our choice, a plan to solve the Climate Crisis and most vaguely, the future six drivers of global change. He is the subject of an oscarwinning documentary, an Inconvenient Truth and the new film which premiered in july, an inconvenient sequel, truth to power. He is the club recipient with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for informing the world of the dangers posed by Climate Change. Please join me now and welcoming to the southern festival of books, bruce barry and al gore. [applause] good morning, thank you [applause] thank you, good morning. [applause] thank you very much. Hello everyone and thank you for the introduction. I believe that he explained about how we are taking questions, they are cards that can be given to humans that will deliver them to me and i will have questions as your point. Questions that the handwriting cannot be read is unlikely to be posed. [laughter] i will be happy to interpret those. There we go [laughter] the book is an inconvenient sequel, the companion book to the film. I want to say a couple of things. First of all, for those who have not seen the film, when it was in theaters, it may still be in some purity become available through digital purchase earlier this month and i believe it is october 24 it becomes available for digital rentals and various Screening Services and also dvd and bluray on that day. I also want to mention, als other book, the assault on reason. A new yorkers times bestseller, there is a new addition that has a newly written preface and conclusion. We may say a few words about that in the course of the conversation. Let me start in this way. I want to start by asking the kind of okay, what has changed in 10 years questions is the first so we can spend hours on the facility from this a little more narrowly. You build the film and the book around three big questions. Must we change, can we change, will we change . Have the answers to those questions changed . In the past 10 years . First of all groups, thank you very much for doing this event. And thank you all ladies and gentlemen for coming to be a part of it. If i may, i would like to acknowledge the president of our absolutely fantabulous mayor who is here somewhere. [applause] she looks vaguely familiar. Will i have had the privilege of developing a personal friendship with bruce and megan. May i say, all of us hold you guys in our hearts and are so proud of you in reaching out to you and all of that. May god bless you. Your question, what has changed . In the last 11 years, since an Inconvenient Truth was published, there have been a lot of changes. But there were two big ones worth noting. One is bad and when is good. The climate related extreme weather events have obviously become way more severe and when more frequent. Aces and regular basis every night on the t. V. News is like a nature hike to the book of revelations. And im kind of reluctant to use that line these days because i mean it really is true and we have had these three huge hurricanes combined losses as high as 350 billion. Not to mention the lives lost. And now today, 17 fires raging out of control and this is a Northern California and other fires around the west. I was in the body yesterday for a Renewal Energy conference and they have had their fires and real tragedy involved. It is connected to the climate. There are other factors involved. But the baseline is that the hotter the temperature, the drier the vegetation and soil. And the more fires there are. By the way, as the temperature warms, there were lightning strikes for each degree. These fire they think were probably ignited by powerlines but i dont know that they decided that. But the hurricanes, in a hurricane harvey, it dumped as much water. Anyone here been to Niagara Falls . The biggest balls in north america. Quite an impressive sight. Think about the full flow of Niagara Falls. For 500 days. That is how much water fell on texas and louisiana in the trailing parts of the storm. Five feet of rain, 60. 5 inches of rain in part of texas. And, i dont want to get sidetracked on this but anyway, the first big and by the way, the same week that houston was going to do that and of course puerto rico is still suffering, the caribbean islands and key west and gainesville and vero beach both got once in a thousand year rainfall from hurricane irma. Nobody noticed that in the same week that houston was going through this, they were 10 times as many People Killed in south asia by historic downpours there. Today, this morning in vietnam, historic downpours, scores of People Killed. This is a global phenomenon. In the last decade, it has gotten significantly worse than scientists had predicted. But the second big change is a very helpful change. And balancing bad news with the hopeful news is part of what this book is all about. We have seen, a Technology Cost down curve. Everybody knows about computers get choices powerful every two years or so because of the breakthroughs in technology. Turns out that solar energy is like that. There was wind energy. Now solar electrical vehicles, leds and the efficiency improvements. The world is in the early stages of a sustainability revolution. That has the magnitude of the Industrial Revolution but the speed of the digital revolution. And with the internet of things and we in our civilization not me, but the technologists and engineers are learning how to manage atoms and molecules with the same precision that they demonstrated they can use to manage bits of information. And it is changing things dramatically. Commission emissions have started this downward trend. We are going to win this. But the remaining question is whether we will win it in time to reduce the risk to an acceptable level that we will cross some point of no return. As it is a dangerous race between hope and catastrophic consequences that we are created. Put another hundred and 10 million tons of manmade global warning up into the sky every day using it as an open sore and skies very thin. You can drive a car a normal speed straight up you would your dumping all of this trapping gases. Its as much everyday as would be released of 400,000 on atomic bombs exploding every four hours. Let me jump in here because i coming across the entire hour. It is tempting to do so. I just had a cup of coffee. Im sorry. [laughter] you mentioned the good news is this technological revolution. Part of the information you make in the book and movie is that the United States is not much part of the revolution as it needs to be. Why is, i can find poll data says 70 or 80 percent of americans say that the last should be a Global Leader on this issue. And yet thomas we are not on that. In our global civilization, since the conclusion of world war ii, the rest of the world has come to expect leadership from the United States. Andrew had made our share of mistakes. But in the main, we have stood for the universally applied principle that people should be free and the economical, political, religious freedom is not the condition of humanity every create the conditions. And we have been a force for good. But where climate is concerned, we have had a series of setbacks to damage the ability of the United States to leave this global revolution. We are still in there because State Government because a lot of cities around the country providing tremendous leadership. California, nevada, washington state. I could go right down the list and by the way, even the president announced withdrawal from the paris agreement, the first date upon which i can legally occur happens to be the first day after the next president ial election. [applause] i do not want to make this partisan because im under no illusion that there are not a few people that are supporting donald trump here. But if we have a new president excuse me. [laughter] but if we have a new president , then a new president to simply give 30 days notice and we are back in. And regardless of what President Trump does, we in the United States are on track to exceed the agreement that we made in the paris agreement. And this is actually shifted some of the leadership to the World Community as a whole. As for Donald Trumps announcement, the only two countries in the world that are not formally still committed are the United States and syria. Good company, isnt it . That was sarcastic, im sorry. [laughter] china and india. China is the biggest source of the pollution. India will soon be the third. They were both on track to significantly outdo the commitments that they make. In the agreement, they have announced by 2022 there will need no new coalfired plants. Their expanding solar electricity to 175 gigawatts which is amazing. They have announced that within only 13 years, 100 percent of all of the new cars and trucks in india will have to be electric vehicles. That is outdoing france and united kingdom. They are really moving. China, the year before the paris agreement, former president obama and president xi have an agreement and china has, they have been going down with coal usage. We are still hanging in there. But we could do so much more and it would be so good for us. Solar jobs in the United States are now growing 17 times faster than all other jobs in the economy on average. The number one Fastest Growing occupation is it would be a great opportunity it will provide more leadership. Spoke about the role of the business sector. You mentioned indias commitment with electric vehicles in the years to come. There were announcements a couple of weeks ago by General Motors and ford, two of the biggest automakers here. Introducing 33 new electric models and making pledges about the degree to which their fleet will not reliant internal combustion in the next five or seven years. Those are good steps, i assume. I also gather from the book and the film that you are quite cynical about you on this. Especially which they are not, this is the vehicle industry. Are these real steps . What they really make a difference with the automakers with a announcing . I do not view myself as cynical about american industry. I am cynical about the actions taken by most of the remaining Coal Companies and several of the oil companies, particularly exxon mobil which has been financing they and some others took, they adopted the playbook of the tobacco industry. Back when the Surgeon General linked smoking cigarettes and lung cancer and other diseases. They hired actors and adjust them up as doctors and put them in front of cameras and teleprompters to say im a dr. And you dont have to worry. In 100 Million People die. They have hired many of the same pr agent and im very cynical about that. But industry as a whole and business as a whole, i really think they are moving. The number of businesses that have made a commitment to 100 percent Renewable Energy, recycling, responsible environmental stewardship, it is really pretty inspiring. And by the way, many of you here are among the group that deserves credit for that because when they have customers telling them, they will take their business somewhere else unless they align their values with what many of us believe, that is making a difference. And when they go to hire new employees, this new generation is not only different from my generation but way different. They want a good paycheck but they want to work for company that shares their values and gives them affiliate there about thing larger than only making profit. And the sustainability revolution i referred to earlier, it is really taking hold in the Business Community industry and the investor community. Investors are now shifting money out of fossil fuels toward renewables. Last year, if you look at all of the new Electricity Generating capacity that was put in place, 75 percent of it is solar and wind. 0. 2 percent is whole. About 1 4 is natural gas which is been displaced with renewables but now because this Cost Reduction because renewables continues downward, solar is beating natural gas in these bathos that utilities are having. There was a contract signed two weeks ago for 1. 7 cents per kilowatt an hour. Three contracts for 2. 4 kilowatt hours. If you dont speak kilowatts, that is happily electricity them burning coal. How do you know the psychology of the companies in this country. Under the impression there more progressive in europe. How do you know the psychology of the people reading these firms . Is the horse out of the barn . Are they just keeping their blinders on and staying locked in the barn . Flexible, i think theyre in a quiet panic. I think that they realize they are facing and existential crisis. Have a product that is used and intended and sufficient volumes and poses a threat to the survival of human civilization. And as the realization spreads around the world, they are facing a real crisis. The european and Asian Companies are ahead of the us. And shifting their business plans. It is difficult for an oil company to become every notable energy company. And cultures dont change that quickly. You are an expert at that over the old school. So i cant tell you about it but i am skeptical that they will be among the leaders in Renewable Energy but they are trying. And but, i think that they are really worried. In the investor community, there is a phrase stranded assets. Which means maybe speaks for itself, if youre holding asset that is in danger suddenly losing its value, then that is think of the subprime mortgage crisis. We had 7 and a half million mortgages given to people that cannot make the monthly payment, cannot make a down payment but the banks decided if we just lump them all together and sell them into the global marketplace, all of that will disappear. Well, not so much. And when people realize that they were worthless, that is what triggered the crisis of the credit crisis and what followed. And we have subprime assets on the books of multinational you know saudi arabia. Just yesterday, pull back on its proposal for an ipo of because people are saying, what . These assets are going to lose their value. The first to lose its value is coal. With the coal industry in the us and globally, it has logged 90 percent of its market in the last decade. The infernal tar sands in canada are next on the chopping bucket some big investors are putting out of there. Oil is mainly sold into the liquid fuel market before gas line and diesel and jet fuel. That is where the electric vehicle revolution really matters to the oil industry. Denmark and norway have announced a ban on gasoline and diesel carl by 2025. India by 2030. Paris by 2030, even germany, where the Auto Industry began, and Angela Merkel so thats where were heading. Every automobile manufacturer in the world is at someplace on this curve moving heavily and to electric vehicles. So the handwriting is on the wall for these companies. What they have done is take some of their revenue stream each year to finance this climate denial and phony science to try and plant. In the publics mind. It was a spectacle the merchants of doubt written by naomi and mark conway that document is started. Theyre being sued by the attorney generals of new york in massachusetts and some other states. As of the Tobacco Companies pursued. They are being investigated for violating the laws that make it illegal to tell investors false information about a material fact. If you find come if youre in the market to my exxon mobil stock, one of the things that you might be interested in is whether this product is going to destroy our civilization. F and that might discourage you from buying it. If they go into the marketplace and disseminate information and say theres nothing to this Climate Crisis, do not believe that. If the evidence supports the allegation, that is an extremely serious violation of security. I want to stick with this idea of psychology but move away a little bit rough economics into the realm of politics and opinion. Its an interesting topic with respect to Public Opinion even in the us. Overwhelming numbers of people said they concerned about their dimples in the last year or two that say that we should be sending much more of the attention to sustainability and renewables then on fossil fuels. Yet, we have an administration that told us last week that the war on coal is over. [laughter] dont get me started. Outrage comes along and i have to download some existing outrage to make room for it. [laughter] [applause] it was not my goal to bring new outrages to the table. We have time for that later today. But i do want to ask you, about the psychology of Public Opinion on this. Because one of the paradoxes is that people, when asked, will say this is important and that it matters. But yet, when they are also asked as local posters often do. To rank a relative importance in terms of issues they worry about, in the polls and what candidates and politicians it does not score that well. So longterm as he said, he may have to do with the future civilization but not with next month or next year. And so much of your book is about trying to break through this. How do we break through this . First of all, it is important to recognize that our country, the us is unique in the community of nations with this persistent highlevel of climate. I hasten to add that two thirds and more of the American People say that it is real, we are causing it, we have got to fix it. I will come back to how they rank it as a priority. But the us is really unique and there is no plan here in tennessee previous eternal on top of fence post, you can be pretty sure didnt get there by itself. And while we see this high level of this it did not happen by itself. This massively funded on ethical, immoral Public Relations campaign to create false doubt has in part, up until recently, achieved its intended purpose. And there really are three sources of climate denial. That is the right thing. It has been intentionally created. The second source is political and ideological. There is an ideological battle in this country 12 with the proper role of government is. And there is where i would regard as an extremist fashion and some of that group that one of the lobbyists, they want to shrink government down to where it will be drowned in the bathtub. And its kind of blending with anarchism anyway. That group has formed an Ideological Alliance with the fossil fuel polluters to help feed this major industry of climate denial. The third source of climate denial is human nature. Because all of us actually want to push away anything that is painful or uncomfortable to think about. Like the end of civilization. Yes, that might be one and these blend together. Because if you are wanting to avoid having to think about this, then you are exposed to some of these false docs with phony pseudoscience essays not real. And then the tendency is to say, well, if it is not a settled question then we can afford to wait and you know scarlett ohara, i will think about that tomorrow. You talked earlier about extreme weather and of course always produces conversation about whether or not this or that hurricane is or is not a sign of Climate Change. The question is no d think these weather events are moving Public Opinion . Definitely. Definitely. Let me add a quick word about the nature of cause and effect. It is still common to hear some of the Scientific Community say you cannot attribute any single weather event to the Climate Crisis. What you have to say is the odds of it happening have increased. But increasingly, the best scientists, the cutting edge scientists are saying that differently. What they say is, every storm is different now. And that is cause and effect. We are used to, we are used to thinking this as linear. But if you have a complex system that manifests many consequences and then you radically change the operations of the system, all of the consequences are different. Mark mcguire broke babe ruths and Roger Morrises record for home run and found out that hed been on steroids whole time. Each of those homeruns, do they result from the steroids . Well, every time he had the ball it was different. And certainly, the net result was different. And a quick example. There is now a five percent increase in water vapor in the air all around the world. Because we are boiling the ocean. 93 percent of all this extra energy goes into the ocean. To have his atmospheric rivers and when the downpour occurs, it is just meant by a huge increase in moisture. Same thing with drought. It is so much hunger that they tickle quicker. That leaves two fires. The ice is melting so the sea level is rising. So another confirmed case of locally transmitted in florida today. And Better Public Health systems. But these tropical diseases are moving to northern latitudes because the conditions are moving. They are moving north with extinction crisis. The landbased plant and animal species on average are moving toward the north pole at the rate of 15 feet per day. And that is happening on our watch. And we are in danger of losing 50 percent of the living species on the planet in this century. You know, the biologists say that it is the worst consequence of this. But the storms, just to wrap up the answer to your specific question. There is definitely having a big impact on Public Opinion. Robert j lifton, a famous psychiatrist and author had a big column last week noticing that the posters are finding it. Yes, it is having a big impact. Question asked a related question. And let me ask you one more than we will get some questions from the folks. Related to understanding the politics and Public Opinion, i want to ask a question about the role of the press and journalism. Like me, we have something in common. Both spent part of our 20s practicing the art and science of journalism. And i know you are thoughtful on this subject and a new conclusion to the new addition you write talk about how the press and media list is changed since the First Edition of the book and the first film. Having to jump through in covering the Climate Crisis and what role are they playing or not play moving us ahead here to. It has been a massive systemic failure of journalism on a whole. There are many honorable exceptions. There are a lot of writers, many journalists that are really doing a terrific job but, as a whole, particularly the Network Television news has in the main, ignored it. We just went through the president ial election last year. This was the third quadrennial president ial election in a row where not one question any of the final election defeats dealt with Climate Crisis. Arguably, it is by far the most serious challenge that we are facing. And not a single question about it. If you look at the total number of minutes devoted by nbc, abc, cbs, to the Climate Crisis over the last year, it is pathetic i mean seriously. You know, it is like 45 minutes total among all three for the entire year and yet, we have had recordbreaking climate related disasters. One right after the other. And i will say what is life. I think part of it is due to the erosion of the line between news and entertainment and the consolidation of the media industry. And divisions that needs to be with the label of Public Service on the expected to contribute as much as they possibly can the corporate bottom line. And they do polling you know what segments because of people to turn the dial and so the, those in charge, a little bit they resemble a dysfunctional family with an alcoholic father flies into a rage if the word alcohol is mentioned. And then the rest of the family tiptoes around the elephant in the room and never brings up the main cause of the dysfunction. Less it creates a rage. And again, this denier group has concentrated on creating rage that is unleashed if anybody mentions the Climate Crisis or the solutions to it. And so, the news media, too much of the time cowards in fear of the small minority of climate deniers will put the tax hex on them. So lets get to some questions. This is a segway. One of the ways of the book differs from the film, differs is the wrong word but a different emphasis. The film talks about being an activist and what you can do at the end of the film of the first film but it is actually a major component peter goes into quite a bit of depth and with that in mind, the first question from sarah who is here, what advice can you give the young environmentalist hoping to make a difference . The answer is in the book. And by the way, i spent a few hours backstage is money. I came over early and i personally found all of the copies i personally signed over the copies out there for sale. 100 percent of profits go to climate reality project which trains people to be climate activists and there are three things in general that you can do. First of all, when the conversation is on climate, the climate deniers inspire and some people who are reluctant to speak up, has to be affirmatively overcome. When the conversation you not to be hostile or mean about it but be persistent. I remember as a kid growing up in smith county here, a big part of my life, when the civil rights conversation really changed dramatically. I am so proud of the nashville that they play such a role in the revolution but its important to acknowledge that conversations played a major role in changing the culture. So use your voice, use your vote. We still have the bars hired to clear now but we still have the ultimate power in this country as citizens. If we get up and go register to vote and organize and as they used to say early to bed early to rise work like hell. Use your vote, use your capacity as a citizen. Sometimes Elections Come along where people are inclined to send a message. Lord almighty ive never seen a time when it was more important to send a message right now. Use your vote and then use your choices, including in the marketplace. Because when you insist on a Climate Friendly product or whatever service you are buying, it is not only helping you to walk the walk it sends a pretty powerful message to business and industry and engineers and designers to speed up the transformation of our civilization to shift to a low emissions environment. And then, write your congressman. Email, go to the town hall meetings, im doing a Training Session monday, tuesday and wednesday in pittsburgh. We have 1600 people coming to be trained for three days, climate activists. I did one earlier this year in seattle, did one in denver. At the denver training there was an 11yearold girl that came. And i was, i didnt know what to think because all of a sudden i saw myself like the amusement ride owner. With the bar, you have to be this tall to get in. But i saw that shed carefully took notes the entire three days. In a few weeks later i clicked on a video that was going viral on the internet and bertha did not recognize her. But she had gone to the town hall meeting of her republican congressman in colorado and she was standing up just giving him hell on climate. And i was thinking, you go girl [applause] i think it goes without saying, i assume that youre making suggestions as well as you do this in the book, sign up for one of these climate reality project training. Go to one of these. Absolutely. I have done two of these now. I also did a big one here in downtown nashville and im going to be doing another big one here but i do them around the world also. I have done them in manila, beijing, new delhi and mexico. Im doing one in mexico city next year. And the reason for this, is that, we have, in order to solve the Climate Crisis we also have to adjust the democracy crisis. Our democracy has been hacked. It really has been. Not only from the russians but before that big money has hacked our democratic process. And we have to fix it. All of the reform is all mind there are problems with the echo chambers and we have been reminded of how vulnerable it is to manipulation but we can take it back. And we can reempower people to use their individual this is a guidebook for how to do that. And i have long since come to the conclusion that there has to be a bottom up movement. Because bigmoney has captured the minds and hearts of too many of the elected officials in washington is really a shame. But now we are seeing campaigns run small donations over the internet and and i just think that it is really important to get involved politically. On that downbeat note im going to ask you a question where somebody writes, are beyond the Tipping Point toward a reversible Climate Change with a rising ocean levels and more frequently violent storms. He warned about this in your film. No, we are not. At least that is the conclusion of the Scientific Community and the members that i most trust and follow. All i do really is channel with they have been finding and their patient enough with me to go over this stuff over and over again until i get them to boil it down into simple language that i can finally understand and that is the right time to communicate. But they will say in answer to a question, no. We still have time. Not a lot of time but we still have time to avoid the most catastrophic consequences. In all candor, i have to point out that they also tell us that the decades ahead are going to be a challenge for the courage and character of humanity. Because some of the consequences that we already have begun to experience will likely get worse. There will be more hurricane harveys, there will be more magnifiers, there will be increased sea level rise. And so we have to see that we have already done some damage that will not be easily reversed. But the civilization ending consequences can still be avoided and we can begin a healing process that will redeem the promise that all of us as parents and grandparents at least would like to make to the coming generations that we have done what we were supposed to do to try and safeguard their future. We have to prepare to adapt to the changes we cant avoid but we have to change the things that we cannot adapt to. And that is why the urgency of this task is so great. We talk about adapting to the changes but we cannot avoid there starts with conversations especially with all the storms and conversations about some places that you do not reveal. Lowlying areas. And i think the most compelling thing in the film is when youre standing with the mayor of miami on a sunny day on a flooded street and actually my favorite page in the book is the page a has a photograph of an octopus in a garage and im not saying we should let miami go for so much for miami but weve seen some damage in the caribbean and stuff. It does raise questions about are we always going to rebuild places that really all vulnerable . Is a part of the change we had to adapt to fully lowlying areas, are there some the map to abandon . Is a painful subject but ultimately comes down to a calculation of loss versus benefits. New orleans for example. You can build a bigger, taller the wall and they probably will endeavor to do that. Miami is a different case because it is limestone and it comes up from the saltwater layer and underneath. In some areas it will have to be in a more or less orderly retreat from lowlying coastal areas. This is already underway in places like a Pacific Island nation that purchased land elsewhere to move the entire population. And a area of bangladesh, on the southern border with bangladesh. Mumbai, calcutta, northbrook in this country, the Largest Naval base in the world is, the naval base in north pope. The u. S. Navy is going to have to move that entire naval base. And that is going to be very expensive. There are also areas that will be abandoned due to excessive heat and heat index. There is a city in iran, last year, Everybody Knows with the heat index is. Is a combination of heat and moisture and the weather forecasters here say that the temperature you know what it feels like. So just imagine, if you were in the city of iran and they said the temperature is this but it feels like 165 degrees fahrenheit. That is what the index reads there. And thereve been a couple of other cities that every thought level. No human being can survive for more than 4 to 6 hours in those conditions. No matter how healthy they are. And so some of the scientific institutes are now mapping leaders particularly in the middle east and north africa. Some of which will be uninhabitable. So this brings up also the question of climate refugees. And the connections to political instability. Some of you know the story of what happened in syria where the gates of hell opened with their civil war unfortunately still going on. But years before that civil war started, there was a climate related drought in the eastern mediterranean. Centered on syria from 2000 62,010. By far the worst in the 900 years of records that they have. And the connection to climate has been thoroughly documented by the way. And it destroyed 60 percent of the farms in syria. It killed 80 percent of the livestock in syria. It drove one half million climate refugees from the farming areas into the city of syria. And the wikileaks dock, they were internal conversations among syrian ministers again, well before the civil war saying we cannot handle this it will cause an explosion. And so, whether we make rational decisions to save this area and adopt at great expense in another area, on a global basis, this is going to be disruptive. And we have to prepare ourselves for it. We have time for a couple of more questions. This is an interesting question a little bit complicated. It is asking about the issue of population. And whether we have the, the question refers to a population explosion whether we have the resources to accommodate that. I will posit more generally. Whats the relationship, and im looking for a short answer here. What is the relationship because this is a big question. What is the relationship between population growth and the Climate Crisis . Okay. I will do my best to give a short answer [laughter] the Climate Crisis properly understood in my view is the single most dangerous manifestation of an underlying collision between the way we have organized our civilization and the ecological system of the earth. The effect that we are having on the oceans, wetlands, forests, etc. There are other manifestations. The Climate Crisis is the worst. That collision is the underlying problem. The causes of that collision are three. Population, Technology Enhanced power to have an impact on the ecological system. And third is our way of thinking and our obsession with shortterm outcomes and decisions have longer terms. So where population is concerned it is one of the three big factors. The thing about the global population is that believe it or not, it is a Success Story unfolding in slow motion. Because there is, and im so not to be able to make this shorter but ait is well understood how this can be successfully addressed. There are two population equilibriums. The first is large families, high birth rates, high death rates. It comes down an answer to a second equilibrium. Small families, low birth rates, low death rates. Every nation in the world is on that journey. We have already accomplished that transition. Acceptor immigration which is a good thing in my view. Western europe, japan, russia, a lot of countries are now in negative. So they have made the transition. Africa still is farther up that curve than it needs to be. By mid century africa, it is a continent on the country but they will have more people in china or india. And at the end of the century it will have more people in china and india combined. But both china and india are way down that curve. How do we accelerate that transition . Well understood. Educate girls, empower women, make fertility management and bigwood is fully available and increased Child Mortality rates further. Those are the four things. [applause] okay, were going to close a quick waiting room with two questions. Nineyearold person asks, what will happen to the polar bears when the ice melts . Bless your heart. There are several polar bear populations that are already suffering from this. There are others that have adapted and are now hybrid between hope polar bears and grizzly bears. They have some name for them. But long term, polar bears we are going deep on bears i did not see that coming. Walruses. When a species loses its habitat, it either has to adapt or disappear. Unfortunately, the overall population is finding that significantly. And somebody here gave us just the Perfect Question to close on. I will read this as is. In the face of soft opposition, how do you it is a privilege to have work to do that is justifying or feel like it justifies every ounce of energy that you can put into it. And if you love your job and you feel like it is really worthwhile, it gives you energy back. It does not feel exhausting for training. And particularly, when we are beginning to make this progress in the world. And we are not making it fast enough i want to emphasize. But now we can see, we have a pathway now. We are going to win this. We have to win fast. I have never, i do not remember a similar moment when i thought i am too tired to go to work on this today. I never imagined this would become a kind of mission for me. But the more i get into it, the more i felt like oh my gosh it is a source of joy for me to have work that really makes me feel like i am doing what i am intended to do. [applause] thank you. At the risk of another round of applause, thank you al gore. Thank you, i appreciate it thank you. Thank you ladies and gentlemen. [applause] thank you. I look at now at some of the book fairs and festivals have been around the country. Next weekend is the ninth annual boston book festival in louisiana both festivals in baton rouge. In early november we will be a two state capitals. Look for us at the wisconsin book festival and live at the texas book festival in austin. Later next month we will also be live from Miamidade College for the miami book fair. Featuring senator al franken, bestselling biographer Walter Isaacson and nbc news katie among other authors. For more information about upcoming book fairs and festivals and to our previous festival coverage go to our website booktv. Org. Here is a look at some books being published this week. Former first daughters share their experiences growing up in the political spotlight and sisters first. And an american family, old star father recalls immigration to the United States. Fox news brian and don provide a history of the war of 1812 battle of new orleans in Andrew Jackson and the miracle of new orleans. Comedian joy behar shares her thoughts about President Trump and the great gasbag. And in republican like me, former npr ceo ken stern reports on his ear traveling with in conservative circles and how it affected his own political thinking. Also being published this week, author and journalist matthew i cant breathe. And a historian continues history of the jewish people in the story of the jews, volume 2. Accidental president looks at the challenges harry truman faced during his first form is in office. By the author and wall street journal contributor,. And blood brothers they explore the relationship between sitting bull and buffalo bill. An pulitzer prizewinning author, gordon would recalls the tumultuous fr