Bill McKibben On David Letterman: 'I Damn Well Expect My Political Leaders To Do Something' (VIDEO)

Environmentalist and author Bill McKibben sat down with David Letterman on the Late Show to discuss climate change and the actions desperately needed to confront it.

McKibben says that the dire environmental problems we face aren't entirely unmanageable, and we have the capabilities to provide some solutions, but there are certain groups -- like the oil and gas industry -- that don't want that kind of progress to be made. "Until we build a movement big enough to challenge them, we won't solve it," McKibben tells Letterman.

McKibben describes the environmental grassroots organization he started last year with 7 colleges kids, 350.org, and how it exploded into a worldwide movement when their "International Day Of Climate Action" succeeded with 5,200 demonstrations in 181 countries.

This year, they expect to make an even larger impact on 10/10/10 for what McKibben describes as a "global work party." The organization is putting pressure on President Obama to restore solar panels to the roof of the White House, and is calling on people across the world do their part in addressing climate change in their local communities.

"If I can go to work and do something, then I damn well expect my political leaders to do something," McKibben says.

Watch the clip below, and view the full video on 350.org's YouTube page.

Comments

[recovering Catholic]

05:15 AM on 09/05/2010

From the picture, I thought that he was the guy who does James Carville on SNL.

[SoCalHotOne]

05:13 PM on 09/04/2010

Pretty gimmicky marketing for the global warming religion. It's all based around made up numbers for temperature data anyway. Why not just pick random numbers that sound good to market the whole thing, like 350 and 10/10/10?

[24fans]

12:39 AM on 09/04/2010

OK- I live off the grid - I am typing this right now from solar power from batteries, and I have been doing this for fifteen years. Many say it cant be done but there are a lot of clean technologies, smart grid options and motivated folks who are waiting for the political will and resources. Right now we are simply too wrapped up in digging our energy out of the ground to give a shit- until, of course, it hits the fan.

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

03:42 PM on 09/04/2010

If that is true you are a rare exception to those who walk the talk.

The rest are hypocrites like Gore with no credibility and a huge appetite for Gulfstreams and mansions. Until the leftist elite live more like you do, nobody is going to listen.

[LBOURQUE]

12:36 PM on 09/05/2010

what do you do with your batteries when they are done? I have already had to dispose of two sets of L16's after about 13 years. What climate do you live in and how do you cool and heat.

[24fans]

10:16 PM on 09/09/2010

Batteries are 98% recyclable and always have been they are actually worth money for the lead content. To be fair I am a professional consultant and writer on the subject ( if thats considered cheating ) - here is my blog for more green building info www.baosol.blogspot.com

[dragonmaster]

05:20 AM on 09/03/2010

McKibben echoes in many ways what James Hansen has said. McKibben in his own right is a brilliant professor at Middlebury College in Vermont- his 350 Organization is a strong advocate for bringing C02 levels down to 350 ppmv.

[Michael P Jones]

09:34 AM on 09/03/2010

Another brillant author/ scientists is Dr Peter Ward...read his book "Under a Green Sky" that will wake one up to global climate change and evidence of the past episodes in the earth's history

[WinterRanter]

10:39 AM on 10/11/2010

I'll second Michael Jones in recommending Under a Green Sky, and add Dr. Ward's next book The Flooded Earth. Also excellent in describing some of the near-term effects is Forecast by journalist Stephan Faris.

[BlackbirdHighway]

04:07 AM on 09/03/2010

The US is not replacing coal power plants with cleaner alternatives. instead, many, many new coal plants are being built or planned to be built soon.

[Michael P Jones]

09:32 AM on 09/03/2010

The sad fact is many old coal plants are still in operation because they were grandfathered into the clean air act of 1970 and did not have to abide by itys regulations and are still very profitable in $$$ today!
We need and NEW meaning of PROFIT in our concept.
Ill GOTTEN GAINS is the norm right now.
These new plants will not be shuttled once they are built...God help us.
Also China is building at a fast pace.

[Caroline Webb]

10:54 PM on 09/02/2010

Eventually it will become clear that anyone, including Bill McKibben, who preaches that the only alternative to fossil fuel electricity is solar and wind power, is basically avoiding the uncomfortable, inconvenient reality that coal and gas actually provide the back-up power to these intermittent forms of electricity. If the alternative base load power source of nuclear energy is excluded on grounds of cost, as was done on this TV show, one has to ask if such leadership is really responsible because the cost of runaway climate change is infinitely more "expensive". And a significant portion of the costs of new nuclear are for paying lawyers to deal with court cases raised by environmentalists who have an entrenched position of opposition, no matter what is happening to the Earth.

[little old lady]

11:55 PM on 09/02/2010

One: Uranium resources are limited, as are coal and gas. Two: We have not solved the problems associated with "disposal" of nuclear waste. We undoubtedly still have fuel rods sitting in reactor pools that have been there for decades because nobody knows how to dispose of them.

[Caroline Webb]

09:04 AM on 09/03/2010

Generation IV reactors will use up all those rods, no problem. The rods have energy to offer still and will be re-used eventually. What cannot be re-used should go underground into salt formations which ain't moving anywhere. It's already being done in the US. As for availability of new uranium - check the prices. If it were scarce, would be a lot more expensive. PLUS, if there should ever come a day when it could not be easily obtained from the land surface, there is always the ocean which has plenty of it in dilute form and has been proven to be collectible. Your comments are probably derived from the fallacious sources that are irresponsibly put out by certain groups and individuals who have set themselves up as arbiters of the truth. Gotta to do research. Those who claim to be deep green are not necessarily green at all but trying to win an ideological argument - at the expense of the climate. That sucks in my view.

[GeorgeMilquetoast]

04:40 PM on 09/03/2010

Re: limited uranium resources. There's plenty of Uranium.

A typical uranium fuel rod contains 2% fissionable material (U-235) and is 98% (U-238, much more stable isotope). Once the U-235 is fissioned, the fuel rod is called "waste". However, during the three years that single fuel rod was irradiated by neutrons, a goodly portion of that U-238 was transmuted to fissionable material (Plutonium). What this means is that virtually all of the 98% of U-238 can be transmuted into usable nuclear fuel, implying that one 3-year fuel rod potentially contains 150-years of fuel. The French have been doing this and reprocessing their spent fuel for many decades. Why? Because the French have no uranium ore sources on their land. Furthermore, this reprocessing of nuclear fuel actually reduces the quantity of highly radioactive transuranic material needing very long term storage.

There are those who claim that we should perform more research into using reactors to transmute radioactive isotopes into non-radioactive isotopes.

Long term storage really isn't a technical issue -- the issue is political. As suggested in the preceding paragraph, technical advances through research could actually reduce the amount requiring long term storage. But the storage issue is really non-technical. All you need to do is find a geological formation that will not change for a very long time that also meets several environmental factors, and those locations are already well known. Unfortunately, many politicians have the Not In My Back Yard mindset.

[texfly]

12:10 AM on 09/03/2010

You ignore the fact that global solar and wind resources is so vast that redundancy and energy storgae can provide for the long term stability of electrical power. Not to mention wave energy and geothermal. Distributed geothermal using the earth beneath out homes would have a huge impact on energy used for heating and AC.

[Caroline Webb]

09:11 AM on 09/03/2010

I basically do not accept the EITHER/OR thinking that is being done. Yes, develop technologies of wind and solar providing they do not damage eco-systems and other species or tribal rights or make the environment an ugly place. I AM concerned about the very large amounts of land or ocean surface needed to get the energy out via these technologies and how these large 'collection zones' compare with the extremely small and compact amount of land surface required by nuclear reactors. The comparison is really striking. I don't know enough about distributed geothermal to comment on that. Will research.

[GeorgeMilquetoast]

04:58 PM on 09/03/2010

How much acreage is required to produce 1 Gigawatt electrical output through high voltage transmission lines at high noon on a perfectly sunny day? And are these solar arrays placed only on the roof-tops of homes, or are they centrally located in a desert? If the latter, please provide an environmental impact statement for all the desert species that will be relegated to a shady existence. Also, to provide this 1 Gigawatt electric output consistently over a 24/7 time frame, please explain how you plan to make the sun shine in California at 3 AM, or how you plan to transmit this power from afar without significant losses. Also realize that you must provide for 1 Gigawatt electrical output at 6 AM and 6 PM, too, when the sun's rays are very oblique. Hint: it's not enough to keep the photovoltaic surface-normal following the sun, since a densely packed array composed of neighboring cells will have one cell throwing shadows onto neighboring cells.

The solution you propose is not a simple one. I'm an environmentalist and a PhD EE, among other things...

[jwilson1]

09:36 PM on 09/02/2010

I saw one of the best numbers guy take on pollution. He said that the real problem is not cars
we could burn up all the oil 's known reserves and we would not pass the legal limit of parts per million. What the real problem is the business offices of America which account for 49% of all air pollution. This electric power is generated by old coal burning electric plants. They would all have to be replaced with new efficient plants. This would save the planet. how many of you all saw this? The media has done a horrible job informing us.

[roger37]

09:51 PM on 09/02/2010

That's for sure. How many offices in this country are freezing cold (computer rooms are not the reason)? How much money would be saved if offices and stores were kept at 78 degrees instead of 73?

[Mike Nemeth]

07:31 PM on 09/02/2010

The segment was more than 11 minutes long and Bill was able to get all his chief points in. Letterman was serious until the end when he made a reference about hats. I've tweeted it and got a number of hits. This will help 350.org and 101010. Get solar back on the White House!

[masha2009]

07:02 PM on 09/02/2010

love it when letterman has these science/activist guys as guests. you can see how intelligent and up to date dave is.

[Doc Wattson]

05:46 AM on 09/03/2010

Agreed.

[SangZe]

06:29 PM on 09/02/2010

Pipe dreaming 1.

[MyTake]

06:16 PM on 09/02/2010

Between the two of these "cl---ns" neither one of them would know a HYDROGEN FUEL CELL from a rice cooker!

Maybe Letterman could do a week of shows out in California and tour those 400-500 kW hydrogen fuel cells installed and operational at Google, Staples, Walmart, Fedex, Cox, CocaCola, Albertson's, Whole Foods and others and get a bunch of video in front his audience to alert them to this POLLUTION FREE technology that the allied Corporate Media are withholding from the Nation.

Each one of these hydrogen fuel cell electrical generation units generate 3.4 million kWh of electricty per annum and reduces CO2 pollution by 3-4 million lbs annually.

Better yet, Letterman should power his TV set with a hydrogen fuel cell electrical unit and maybe sit on it for his entire show!

[FreeHat]

05:49 PM on 09/02/2010

So the head of the un org. that is in charge of the earth's future has time to write a sultry novel and trot around the globe being paid as a consultant. You'd think with the future of our existence at stake he would focus at the matter at hand.

[little old lady]

11:59 PM on 09/02/2010

He's spending most of his life focusing on the matter at hand. Are you?
He's focused largely on educating people about this so we can take action to prevent our extinction. And no, I'm not a hysterical old lady. I've been watching these changes for years.

[craniguy]

11:39 PM on 09/04/2010

Faned and faved!

[FatherKindly]

05:34 PM on 09/02/2010

Well, there is this small consolation: that the descendants of the oil moguls and other professional polluters will succumb with the rest of the world when the planet fries.

[little old lady]

12:11 AM on 09/03/2010

Yes, small consolation. Many with money think that being rich will save them. It is important to recognize that climate, energy, economy, and food are all connected.

[I3addog]

04:53 PM on 09/02/2010

As the old adage goes, leave the place in better shape than you found it.

[Rational Voice]

05:42 PM on 09/02/2010

How can we simplify that concept so that politicians can understand it?

[OswegoKayaker]

01:15 AM on 09/03/2010

It isn't about simplifying anything it is the millions of dollars the oil/gas industry pays in bribes, I mean campaign contributions, to these people that is why China is going to overtake us in even in environmental projects and expertise.

[ThinkCreeps]

04:53 PM on 09/02/2010

Good afternoon, hordes of lunatic denier flacks.