U. S. Senate. Sundays at 9 00 eastern and pacific on cspan. Continues. Oft we welcome the ceo you say you are an optimist when it comes to the future of conservation and climate. Is it hard to be an optimist in todays world . Guest great to be here. It is sometimes hard to be an optimist, but a pessimist i dont think ever got anything done. You have to think that the world could be better tomorrow. I just had a baby girl, six weeks old. Host congratulations. Myst a little unexpected at age, but when you look at this kid, you really feel like you cant help but feel a great sense of hope. Host you think most environmentalists are optimists right now . Guest no, i dont think so. I think todays current drive in environmentalism is really out of a sense of real despair. It, particularly young people, because those young people will have to deal with the worst. The opportunities for doing something about it are rapidly shrinking. Folks from my generation still remember the natural world, still has the energy to go out and see things and enjoy things and that gives us some sense of courage when we come back and go into battle. Host in the washington post, a in hiscolumn, he said column that a series of recent polls have detected that Many Americans are declaring that they are facing coanxiety ecoanxiety. Farature is already too gone, why go through the trouble of trying to save it . He says we must not just fixate on the bad news. Completely. Try to think about the triumphs. And there are positive changes. Apple, aths ago, Company Invests in forests in columbia as a way to mitigate some of the emissions from their company. You go into every big company, you will see quite arerly that those companies really, really keen about trying to make a difference when it comes to climate. If you look at legislation in this country and abroad, if you look at the news on any given day, there is stories about the environment. There is good news out there. The endangered species act, i know that it is kind of on peoples minds. The fact that we have bought eagles flying around the capital, that is kind of an amazing thing. We have made progress. These are bright spots and what we need to do is scale it. With us until the end of our program, talking about international conservation, Climate Change. You can join the conversation. Phone lines, regional. 202 7488000 in the eastern or central time zones. If you live in the mountain or pacific time zones. A hostith your work as of that program, you are also ceo of conservation international. What is that . We are an organization builds on very simple premise that people need nature to survive. We try to protect nature for climate, massively increase Ocean Conservation and fish management, and create models of sustainability that can be replicated around the world by working with communities, businesses, and governments. Board, greatzing relationships were partners around the world from Indigenous People to big companies. We try to build the divide. The main thing is that we really do work in some of the toughest places on the planet. Liberia, columbia, indonesia, brazil. Kenya. South africa. The work is challenging, the work is exhilarating. At the end of the day, we are always trying to make sure that people who live within the proximity of nature around them are protecting nature in their own enlightened forms. They have to do it because it makes their lives materially better. It helps create jobs, it makes them healthier. Because im be doing it. And hostween your work of the pbs series, a writer describing your job once as skip around the globe and tell people bewitching tales about places in need of protection. Would you say that is accurate . Guest part of it is accurate. Host how does that help . Guest you which means that people get transfixed. People need change because of stories. Great stories are the ones that are able to determine the course of humanity. Years, you250,000 would probably find a small groups of hunter gatherers standing around telling stories about what is over the hill. Whether it is President Trump over here or sanders on the other end of the spectrum, they are great storytellers. Ability always had the to stir peoples imaginations and drive countries, nations forward. Thornburg . S greta guest a young woman who might quite literally change the world. Certainly, when i look at my i think shes a 16yearold girl. Shes the one who basically said hey, what is the point of going to school and learning all of the science of all of the leaders and the politicians are basically not taking the science seriously . Why am i sitting in School Learning about stuff if my leaders are actually not using that stuff to change the world . So she started this process. One day a week she sat outside and said basically, im not going to go to school. It has now caught the imagination of young people around the world, including in this country. Today, we are seeing young teenagers, younger kids than that who are really engaged. They can see their future being thrown away by those of us in charge. And to be honest, that is the most exhilarating thing ive seen in a long, long time. That gives me a real sense of hope. Host does the conservation movement, the Climate Change movement, do they need better storytellers . Guest absolutely. They need better storytellers in two ways. The stories need to be better and they need and the ways of telling the stories themselves have to be more diverse. They have to represent the people whose stories they are trying to tell. One of the big challenges of Climate Change has in that in the past, the stories we were telling were mostly doom and gloom. The stories we were telling were being told by basically those in power who had kind of seen the light. Not seeinge africanamericans, hispanics, asians. You were not seeing young people, you were not seeing conservatives. You were not seeing people from outside this country. Turn on the television and look at any Natural History show. Ask yourself how many of those folks are people of color, of any color. How many of them are women . And you realize you are trying to do a show to convince the world about Climate Change and half the planet is basically asian, having an asian host might actually help that debate a little bit. Host what is your story . Guest in terms of my background . I was born in sri lanka, i grew up in africa, i came to the United States because i heard a Bruce Springsteen song. I came out here on a whim. I went to the university of oregon and then the university of california, santa cruz. I got my phd in biology. I joined the nature conservatory and then three years ago became the ceo of conservation international. Host how did you get involved . Guest i have a drivers license, which is one of the coolest things out there because i have a wonderful place, and i think my years in montana really gave me an appreciation about the American Dream in this country. Host how did you get involved in the pbs show . Guest ive done Television Shows further the bc and others and i think it happened because i met some folks, like always. I pitched this idea that we needed to do a show about wildlife where we were in with the action. And you look at these wildlife shows, they show you the serengeti, all this amazing wildlife, and you dont realize there are people right there. If you turn the camera around, theres a whole village. To me, that is a more interesting story. When you live in montana, one of the things you really appreciate, you are living in a landscape with people that it lewis and clark were to come back today, they would see all of the plants and animals they saw on the original journey. Imagine that. This place with people that has not had a single extinction that we know of. What is the magic . What is going on . That is the story worth telling. Host with us until the end of the program today, if you want to join the conversation, talking about the future of conservation and Climate Change. 202 7488000 is the number in the eastern or central time zones. 202 7488001 if you are in the mountain or pacific time zones. Texas, good morning. Caller thank you very much. Chemist atmosphere texas an end, worked at ucla and developed some of the controls on your ignitions in cars. Anyway, i worked with the professor that coined the term global warming. Its 36 seconds, im going to tweet it to you. I would like for you to discuss his idea of Climate Change. Gone through the geological history over hundreds of millions of years. That man has any influence on this world . Thank you. Guest that is a great question. Theate has changed through course of the evolution of this planet, and quite dramatically so. Veryne thing we know very, well, and weve known this for a long, long time, chemistry itself. Exactly how the chemistry worked. We understand exactly have a physics affect the planets of Greenhouse Gases. Weve known for a very, very long time. Those are things that we understood. Today, different virtually any scientist you speak to an virtually any politician you speak to is willing to at least concede that inans are playing a part changing the temperature of the planet today. What we can tell you very is that Carbon Dioxide is going up very quickly. Ive been to the top where you are measuring Carbon Dioxide concentrations. Years,span of over 50 and you can see every single year, it never goes down, he goes up. That, we know its because we are burning fossil fuels. How much are we interpreting versus other things . That is the most important. Here are the most important things. The only piece of this we can actually control is what we do. Way oft really have a controlling volcanoes, we dont really have a way of controlling other factors that might be adding methane or Carbon Dioxide to the atmosphere. We can control what we do. And here is what i will tell you. Carbon dioxide levels today, Greenhouse Gases in the atmosphere levels today are higher than ever in human history. So, we are living on a planet partsell over or hundred per million in the atmosphere which has not evidence need as long as humans have been around. I dont need as long as america or civilization, i mean humans. This kind of atmospheric level existed, there were hippos in alaska and rhinoceroses in great britain. A very different environment. We are living in uncharted territories. We only have one planet. We know that humans are putting up some portion of Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere. The only portion that we have a way of controlling or limiting. Int the u. N. Climate week new york is coming up next month. If you could address the attendees, what would you tell them . To be there,ing and i will have some opportunity to speak to at least some of the leaders. Say isgest thing i would that today, companies seem to be on board. We need Government Policies to move this thing forward. Goods been some really spots. Columbia, the country of columbia. Has introduced a carbon tax that basically allows for some part of those emissions to be used to protect forests. What i would tell the delegates is its a great thing that other countries can replicate. The second thing i would tell delegates is that its incredibly important to protect forests. One piece of the climate is completely left out. We are, right now, on a fast , a badr a speeding boat analogy to use in america, but a speeding boat in terms of dealing with technological transformation. Solar, wind, other technology. Lots of money. Where we have hugely lag is in protecting forests. ,t turns out that deforestation cutting down trees, deforestation for burning of trees as a country, it would fall right behind china and the United States. It would be the third biggest danger on the planet. But 30 of the emissions going up in the atmosphere come from earth destroying intact forests. That is insane. In this day and age, we need to cut down. Intact forests in order to grow food. Protecting forests, particularly tropical forests and men groups mangroves is hugely important. If you and i wanted to change the thermostat in our lifetime, this one i could ask you to do, support any effort to stop deforestation. It would actually change the thermostat during our lifetimes. Host portland, oregon is next. William, good morning. Caller good morning. Your guest is pretty full of himself. Baby. St he has a population control would be the thing. We just have too many people on the planet. Host too many people on the planet . Guest thats a really interesting or challenging proposition. What is the right number of people on the planet . A million, a billion, 7 billion . 10 billion . No good evidence to show that one number is actually better than another. Its about how we live on the planet. Billion, andut 7. 5 we are heading towards somewhere 9 billion, maybe 10 billion or 11 billion. Most countries have really leveled out population growth. The person who called from i went and talked to the guy who wrote the book, and back in the day, that was a very Controversial Book that he wrote. I asked him, if you wrote the book today, would you call it the population . And he said no, i would call it the consumption bomb. Here is the thing about population. With enough education and opportunity, populations tend to level out. People do tend to have less kids. Very quickly. Bangladesh in the 1970s to 2. 2y, seven kids per woman, kids per woman, almost a replacement rate. That is remarkable, in my lifetime. What hasnt changed, consumption. Consumption has gone like that. It doesnt really matter how much you talk about population if we dont deal with consumption. I think that consumption is a far bigger problem we dont seem to want to know, we just to one more than what we have. Host texas is next. Caller the man from portland actually stated what i wanted to talk about, and that is overpopulation. You may be right about consumerism, but the more people we have, the more things are going to be consumed. All of the deforestation is the socalledn third world countries where the populations are exploding so much. Seem to the incorrect, because this overpopulation is really taking place in third world countries. On that and as you are answering, is that where most of it is taking place, third world countries . Guest they are typically developing countries. You cant say that deforestation, historically, hasnt taken place in developing countries. We have to have a little bit of humility to understand the impact that humans, a very small number of humans, had in the United States. I was very thoughtful when i criticized or laid blame in other countries, developing countries, given how little they have and how much they have managed to protect. Country, we have done a pretty good job of clearing a lot of land. You will see land below you that comes from a time of prairies. Underf it is now gone very mechanized, very largescale industrial agriculture. Colombia, brazil, indonesia. Deforestation is taking place around the world. Some of the Biggest Challenges in the arctic, this is a global bangladesh or sri lanka population has started leveling off. Planning is absolutely necessary and our ability in this country to be able to make of everyone care here, but also people around the world, is a critical part of this. No one is saying the population is not important, but consumption and the rate of and people around the world want to live like we do, theres not going to be enough resources. Caller good morning, i want to thank the speaker for his optimism. Its refreshing to hear that because it is such a depressing topic. My question was about the overlap between human beings and animals and how much he is trying to tap into the survival of the other species, and i will leave it there. Guest great question. Important a hugely force. Toreally allows humans cooperate in a way that you rarely have seen in other species. Our ability to support ourselves to put ourselves in someone elses shoes has done a tremendous amount of good for the planet. Our empathy for other life on earth is really important and certainly, how we think about other life forms that have spent millions of years evolving with us, is really important. That said, i love nature. Its why i still have a place in montana, i like going to a landscape where i know there is something bigger that could potentially kill me. Thats just me. This proposition that saves nature, save the forest, it might come back to bite you, its not a great proposition for most people around the planet. For me, id use the language of love. I love nature, i love wildlife. I love seeing elephants and grizzly bears. For most folks i know around the world including in this country, the language is one of value. I value forests because they prevent erosion. I value the groundwater because it allows me to water my crops. I value clean air because it allows me to breathe easier and avoid diseases. That is where i think it is great to think about empathy and think about love, but you really do also have to think about the language of value. Been lost in as lot of the environmental by log today. Host interesting you use the term, you are bitten by a python in australia . Guest i have been bitten by a lot of things. Things. A dozen i have never sat down and counted, i might. Host what was the worst . Guest i have been bitten by a python twice and they are quite bad because they are not poisonous but in australia, i did not know what it was that got me in the water. Snakes,e very poisonous but they can did very badly infected. The python byte was on my hand and took a long time to heal. It was quite bad. Host why do you love being in a place where there is something that can kill you . Guest i think it caps into some primordial part of our brain. You walk into a place where you ago,like 100,000 years humans were putting their footprints there. Your relationship with nature changes. You are not the master of everything you can see. There is some sense of humility. When you are out in nature, you are close to god. That is how i really feel. That there are greater forces at work and greater powers at work that actually make me smarter, better, more empathetic. Host this ser