Increasingly favor a few at the cost of many. The degraded condition of our biosphere screams out we redouble our aspects in politics and policy. We must be part of a movement that puts a stop to politicians disregard for science on matters of great importance like Energy Policy and Human Welfare in general. I know and you probably do too that were imagining a Massive Mission to affect this great transition. Massive missions always require a mastery of politics. Theres no other way to marshal the wreck zit resources. We could more fully master politics, we could more fully ensure a certain transition if more of us showed up to serve in elected office. You may agree that the world is run by those who show up. But youre not the least bit inclined to show up in show in the irrational world of politics. I found that politics is not all that irrational. I have served in the Montana Legislature for a decade. I sit in the senate. Its an irrational world. Its defined by a bunch of knuckleheads
Some of the major problems that were dealing with and then a lot of people see live stock as part of the solution to Climate Change. That is a really healthy discussion. Wed like to invite you all to have it with us over lunch. Were not going to get into the debate too much during this panel. Were not going to have a panel. So can we transform our food system . Can we solve for this food water, and Climate Nexus with these intersecting issues . I believe we can but we have to talk about something that makes us all very uncomfortable. That is meat. So were in a consumption crisis right . I dont want to villainize the animals themselves and say theyre inherently evil as many maybe who advocate for plant based diets might share that perspective. They certainly play an integrated role in lots of farming systems that have been really critical to development of our agriculture over time. But we are in a consumption crisis at this point where live stock are a core driver of Climate Change, de
Koch, who lived upstream. Why the citizens of aspen would submit to because he spent literally millions of dollars to defeat this when its in the best interests of aspen and the environment. But there are many facilities and i understand koch generation is legal and the grid has to accept it. Is that correct . Does the grid have to accept ogeneration . I believe they do. If i can address your point, first of all, there are many opportunities to use existing diversions to generate hydro electricity which is of course part of the solution to Climate Change. And so my organization, american rivers, has worked very closely with the hydro Power Industry and with some people that would not normally be our allies on some legislation that passed congress this past year to actually encourage that kind of development because we see that as a Good Alternative to taking a wild and free flowing stream and building a new facility on it and damaging the stream in that way. As far as i think its the c
Understand it. Is that right in the Columbia River are they taking dams out . Funny you should bring that up because i cut my teeth as larbgworging on whoops litigation and it actually involved the construction of five Nuclear Plants in the Columbia River basin. The dams were built during the depression in the 1930s. While they certainly have done an amazing job in bringing cheap and abundant electricity to the northwest and been a real engine for Economic Development there, theyve also done tremendous damage to the salmon runs which are pretty important in that part of the world, too. So nobody is proposing taking out all of the dams but there certainly has been a lot of discussion about taking out the four lower Snake River Dams which is particularly damaging to salmon that go up into idaho. Were getting these messages. Thank you very much to both of you. Thank you for your questions. I think that we saw this from local issues to global issues, water certainly is top of the agenda. T
The river party only lasted a few weeks, though. We did what any river loves would do. We floated it. By canoe, paddle boards. And eventually by foot crossing the shallows. I believe this is the colorado. Generally the real colorado has no water in it. But as you can see, its a pretty nice river right now. It looks amazing. Usually this part of the river is completely dry. Its sand. It has been many years like that. On may 7, after nine, 13hourlong paddling days we crossed 90 miles of the delta and reached the sea. It was the first and only paddle board crossing of the new delta. And the first time the Colorado River kissed the sea in nearly two decades. On many levels, it was a preposterous journey foolish, even wrong headed. I dont feel like im getting anywhere. The most absurd paddle Board Mission ever. Also beautiful and symbolic. And with a relative trickle, we can bring a river back to life if we try. [ applause] ill just say a couple words before we move on to bob and american r