“We Won’t Get Another Chance” Climate Activist Bill McKibben on Urgency of Climate Action in Biden Administration’s Reconciliation Bill

Bill McKibben

[Music]

Female: Welcome to Conversations on Health Care with Mark Maselli and
Margaret Flinter, a show where we speak to the top thought leaders
in health innovation, health policy, care, delivery and the great minds
who are shaping the healthcare of the f uture.

This week, Mark and Margaret speak with Writer , Environmentalist
and Climate Change Activist Bill McKibben, who has been warning of
the impending climate crisis for decades in his seminal book, The End
of Nature published in 1989. He talks about the increasing incidents of
devastating hurricanes, tornadoes, drought , wildfires sweeping the
country, and how the President's Build Back Better B ill has some of
the most promising climate change initiatives ever put forward.

Lori Robertson also checks in , t he Managing Editor of F act C heck.org
looks at misstatements spoken about health policy in the public
domain separating the fake from the facts . And w e end with a bright
idea that's improving health and well - being and everyday lives.

If you have comments, p lease email us at [email protected] or
find us on Facebook, Twitter, or wherever you listen to podcast. Now stay tuned for our interview with Bill McKibben here on C onversations
on Health Care.

Mark Masselli: We're speaking today with Bill McKibben, environmentalist , author
and renowned climate change activist . He's the author of a dozen
books on climate crisis from his seminal work in 1989 , ‘ The End of
Nature ’ to his most recent ‘ Falter ’ , both of which explore the d eadly
link between climate change and health .

Margaret Flinter: Bill is the Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College. He's
the founder of 350 .org and Third Ac t.org, dedicated to confronting the
causes of Global Warming . Bill, we welcome you to C onversations on
Health C are today.

Bill McKibben: Well, Margaret, Mark, what a pleasure to get to join you both in this community that you've created.

Mark Masselli: Well t hanks so much, Bill, as you say, “ We're between a rock and a
hard place. ” And we're witnessing the c limate c risis play out in real -
time back to back hurricanes devastating entire regions. We have mega droughts, massive wildfires all happening simultaneously in this country.

And against that backdrop, Congress is back in Washington, taking up
President Biden's $3.5 trillion Reconciliation Bill , which includes the most significant climate change legislation ever considered . W hat's so
groundbreaking about this legislation that President Biden just call ed
today “ Code Red for Humanity ” that cou ld have meaningful impact on

Bill McKibben

climate change in a way that's never been done before in the United
States?

Bill McKibben: Well, the first thing that's so novel about it, Mark , is simply that it
exists. The U . S . Congress has known about climate change for 30
years, and they've done zero, zilch. We never passed real climate
legislation. The closest we came was in 2009, when there was
something called cap - and - trade, and it never even reached a vote in
the US Senate. So this would be novel simply by its existence . But
beyond that, it's really the first piece of legislation that even begins to
address , climate change at something like the scale of the pro mo .

We've delayed so long now. And things have gotten so far out of
control that it's going to take a real effor t. And this is a down payment
on that effort anyway and hopefully enough to really start
jumpstarting the transition to renewable energy that we desperately
need.

Margaret Flinter: But Bill, you noticed in a recent article, that it's not the heat, it's the
humanity, which I really appreciated . And say that climate change and
pollution caused an estimated 5 million global deaths per year. But
the scientists say global warming poses a far greater risk to human
health than the pandemics . I keep having in my mi nd an image of the
Doomsday Clock that we used to look at around the potential for
nuclear war . But climate change now be ing right up there, on the
Doomsday Clock ? What's the true cost of human health that we're
seeing, even today?

Bill McKibben: This is s uch an interesting question, Margaret , because you can
answer it in two ways. One, t here i s a big cost to human health, when
you have an endless series of fires, floods, storms, and an endless
increase in the number of people , on the move around the world
because the place where they lived for generations no longer sustains
life. I mean, we're seeing even in the most rich parts of the entire
world , I mean, in Manhattan, people were drowning in basement
apartments when the remnants of Hurricane Ida swept thr ough.

So you can imagine what the toll is like in the poorest parts of the
world . Is that the thing that causes climate change , and fossil fuels,
burning coal, oil and gas , also kills people quite directly. The pollution
that's produced when it's combusted , not the carbon dioxide , i t
doesn't really do much to us directly, but the carbon monoxide and
the particulates and the other forms of pollution that come when you
burn fossil fuel.

There was a study this year indicating that it's killing about 8.7 millio n
people a year, more than HIV / AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria
combined. It's about one death in five on this planet. So getting rid of
fossil fuel not only helps us ward off the very worst of climate change

Bill McKibben

and the death toll that comes with it. It also ha s immediate payoffs in
terms of human health, just from what we're breathing every day.
T here i s no reason , not to do it now , the scientists and engineers have
worked there miracles and wind power and solar power are now the
cheapest forms of power on plan et Earth. In a rational world, we
would be devoting all our energy to spreading that miracle just as fast
as we could.

Mark Masselli: Bill , I want to pick up on the thread that you have identified that really
the vulnerable population all across the globe is being impacted, and
we see it play out here, right in our own organi z ation at Community
Health Cent er . H ow do we leverage our healthcare delivery and our
public health systems to mitigate, I would say, even prevent the worst
harm of climate change? Is t here a greater role for the healthcare
industry to play?

Bill McKibben: Yes, of course, one of the things that the pandemic should have
taught us, I think, I mean, there are a bunch of things like physical
reality is real s o take it seriously. But clearly, one of the most
important is that solidarity really matters, that we need to be taking
care of each other in serious ways.

The three of us have kind of grown up under the political shadow of
Ronald Reagan, who convinced a generation of Americans that
gove rnment was the problem, not the solution. The la st line in his
speeches was always , the nine scariest words in the English language
are, “ I'm from the government, and I'm here to help. ” But it turns out,
the scariest words are things like “ We've r a n out of ventilators ” or
“T he hillside behind your house just caught on fire. ” And you don't
solve those things with market solutions, you solve them with people
working together and to solve problems.

And so we're at one of those moments. And this is really refle cted in
this $3.5 trillion bill that the Biden Administration is putting forward .
Because part of it is devoted to infrastructure , infrastructure of the
kind that this solar panels, the electric car chargers, that we need to
deal with the climate crisis. B ut another large part of it is directed at
what's called human infrastructure, at the education and healthcare
policies that allow us to build a society that's stable, equitable,
resilient enough to begin to handle what's coming at it. And one
without the other does not make sense.

I was off with my friend Bernie Sanders a week ago, giving some
speeches across our home state of Vermont. And he said, at one
point, something that struck in my mind, he said, “ We're not just
going to build bridges , so that peop le can sleep under them, we have
to take care of all parts of our infrastructure needs. ”

Margaret Flinter: Well, that's a powerful image. You know I want to congratulate you

Bill McKibben

for spearheading one of the largest divestiture campaigns in modern
history with a recent win , Harvard being the latest institution to divest
fossil fuels from its portfolio. I'm thinking of all the work that's been
done over the last 30 years, you h e ad the (00:08:27) Coalition and the
Global Reporting Initiative , and lots of folks that focused on reporting
to change corporate behavior, but this really may actually change the
way the fossil fuel industry works. And what do you think this kind of
economic strategy is going to do in terms of exerting pressure on the
fossil fuel industry? W ill things be different?

Bill McKibben Well, the reason we undertook this divestment campaign, which has
become the largest anti - corporate campaign, perhaps in history, we re
about $15 trillion now in portfolios and endowments that have
divested. The reason we undertook it is because the fossil fuel
industry has been a malign force on this planet. They have
orchestrated a 30 year scheme of denial and disinformation t hat kept
us locked in a completely sterile debate about whether or not global
warming was rea l. A debate we now know from great investigative
reporting , that both sides, the fossil fuel industry and scientists knew
the answer to back when it began. It's just one of those sides was
willing to lie. And that lie has cost us 30 years that we are never
getting back.

The thing to reali z e about climate change is, unlike other public policy
issues, it's a timed test. If we don't get it right , right now then there i s
no chance anyone in the future will . In our society we 've been
debating National Health Car e say, a s long as I've been alive, and I
think it's a tragedy w e've never done it , and lots of people have gone
bankrupt and lots of people have died. But when we finally get
around to doing it, it won't be harder to do because we delayed.
Climate change i sn't like that, once you melt the Arctic, no one's got a
plan to refreeze it. And it's the fossil fuel industry that has cost us that
time. And it continues to try and delay.

So any strategy that weakens their financial and political standing is
helpful in advancing the rational work that scientists , engineers are
doing to point us in a new direction. Their willingness to hold on to
their business model, even at the cost of breaking the planet probably
puts even the tobacco industry in the shade as the sing le worst
example of corporate malfeasance of all time.

So that's why that divestment movement has now gotten , not just
Harvard and Oxford and Cambridge and the University of California
are behind it, but also, even the Pope and the Queen of England have
co me out for divestment , you know, short of getting Beyonce on
b oard. I don’t know what else we're supposed to do at this point.

Mark Masselli: We're speaking today with Bill McKibben, writer, environmentalist
and renowned climate activist. He's the author o f a dozen books on

Bill McKibben

climate change, including “ The End of Nature ” and more recently
“ Falter ” . You know, Bill, the Trump Administration , d uring that we slid
backwards, we withdrew from the Paris Climate Accord, we left the
WHO , drilling and pipeline producti on increased, glacier melt and
deforestation, as you were mentioning, progressed at such a dramatic
pace.

The UN recently released a report stating “ Without a doubt, climate
change is indeed manmade. And immediate action is required. ” Even
y ou say that ac tion is going to require organi z ing. So how do we
organi z e in a collective way to meet these persistent challenges of
climate change? You've talked about one initiative, which is investing
in alternatives to fossil fuel , but what other ways can you lay out that
we might organi z e ?

Bill McKibben: Superb question , Mark . T he two good things that have happened in
the last decade are one that scientists and engineers have dropped
the cost of renewable energy 90%. And the other is that these big
global movements h ave arisen to demand change.

I got to work on sort of the first iteration of that , when we formed
350.org , about a decade ago . And it's gone on to organi z e in every
country on earth except North Korea. N ow there are people flooding
into this area. So we ha ve in Europe , Extinction Rebellion . We have
the wonderful post - college students from the Sunrise Movement ,
who have brought us the Green New Deal. And we have most
beautifully and movingly I think, the high school and junior high
school students who probab ly have the most active role. E verybody
knows about Greta T h unberg , a nd they should, she's wonderful. But
she would be the first to say that the best news is , there are 10,000
Greta T h unberg s, a nd they have 10 million followers, demanding that
we pay atten tion to their future. So those kinds of movements are
crucial.

Individual action, you can't make the climate math work now, one
Tesla at a time, one vegan dinner at a time . The most important thing
an individual can do is be less of an individual . To join together with
others in movements large enough to change the political and
economic ground rules.

And so that's why for those of us who aren't so young, and for those
of us who are over 60, we've just launched this new effort called
ThirdAct.org that will allow experienced Americans to play their part ,
supporting young people in this fight. These generations, many of us
had a pretty good first act, we were witness to our participant in
some profound cultural and political transformations, the Women's
Moveme nt, the Civil Rights Movement, the Anti - War Movement .
Perhaps our second act, taken as a whole was more devoted to being
consumers than citizens. But we've now emerged in our third acts

Bill McKibben

with lots of skills, more than our share of resources, and some
grandk ids . A nd hence, real reason not to want to leave the world a
worse place than we found it, which is going to be our legacy. We're
going to be the first generation that can carry that curse u nless we get
our act together very quickly.

Margaret Flinter: I th ink you're absolutely right. And one of those many lessons we've
learned along the way was “ Don't Whine , Organi z e !” B ut we come
from many different spheres of influence a nd I think we want to press
the levers on all those spheres. And I've been so cheered by s eeing
what a trend there is among in healthcare, and we're very engaged in
training the next generation of healthcare providers . But a real trend
among the teaching institutions to include climate change in their
curriculum . You know, thinking back to the I will add Physicians for
s ocial r esponsibility to the list of groups that you name there, you
know, was tremendously effective , r aising awareness about the threat
of extinction by their work. Nurses are still the number one , most
trusted profession in the United States where nurses are speaking to
the issue of climate change .

W hat are your thoughts about the healthcare sector, the healthcare
workforce as another lever in this act of influencing , both policy and
politics, but also individual and communi ty and state - level behavior s ?
Is there anybody doing that w ell, that you w ould give a shout out to ?

Bill McKibben: There are people doing it very well from the National Nurses Union on
down , people who are working hard , Health Care w ithout Harm .
There are a lot of organi z ations that have taken this seriously. You
know, medicine is one of the few professions left in our world that
has no choice but just to deal with brute reality. It's in a better place
than almost anyone else to understand what's going on.

In literal terms, the planet is running a fever now, and that requires all
of the rest of us become the antibodies that find the cause of that
infection and fight it. That's what organi z ing is. And doctors, nurses,
other health professionals are exquisitel y well positioned to do that,
though you wouldn't always know it from watching the craziness
around COVID a nd vaccinations and things. People still, by and large
do trust doctors and nurses, because they take good care of us by and
large.

Mark Masselli: Bi ll, you describe the manmade ecological disaster of climate change
as a moral catastrophe. But you say there i s a cause for optimism.
Firstly, there i s a dramatic reduction in the cost of renewables. And
second, a growing movement of climate activism , by y oung people
like as you've mentioned, Greta Thunberg .

I'm just wondering, in terms of your pitch, if you will, or the message
that you're sending , there is this place between motivation and

Bill McKibben

despair, when we think about climate change . And I'm wondering
wha t that right message is , because so often we hear people come
away from these and just say, there i s nothing I can do. And then
there i s that point , where you can motive them to move forward.
What have you found in your own experiences, you are out on the
stump talking to people , trying to motivate them, but also recogni z ing
that there i s a real disaster , currently taking place in our globe , how
do you find that , right problem is?

Bill McKibben: I think the problem is less finding the balance between optimi sm and
despair. I think the real problem is that climate change seems so
large, and we seem so small in comparison, that it becomes hard for
us to imagine that we can make a real difference. And that's why I
think the key word that some people use is agenc y, the sense that we
have the power to make a difference . We only have it when we come
together. But when we come together, when we work in these
movements, people find it not just powerful, they find it an
extraordinary relief, including psychologically, to be engaged in this
fight.

Now, we do not know how this fight is going to come out. And that's
different from other causes that we've been engaged in. Dr. King used
to say at the end of speeches, “The arc of the moral universe is long,
but it bends towar d justice. ” t hat was a comforting words for the
brave people in the Civil Rights Movement. What it meant was, this
may take a while but we're going to win.

Well, “The arc of the physical universe is short, and it bends toward
heat. ” If we don't win soon, t hen we never win. And that's why, you
know, that's why some of us end up going to jail, which seems crazy,
but it's what it's taken often to get these things done. Not everybody
has to go to jail, but everybody has to be outside their comfort zone ,
b ecause the planet is a mile outside of its comfort zone. What we're
doing so far is not enough a nd so we need to step up our game.

Margaret Flinter: You know, we've had a frontline seat , all of us and Mark and I , true as
well , on the COVID pandemic, as we saw it descend in our
communities and really mobili z e the troops to mount a statewide
effort around vaccines , and testing . And engage d in many
conversations with our staff, but with people in general in the
communities and I reali z ed probably should have seen (i naudible
00:19:34) there were quite a few deniers out there , about the reality
of COVID, the impact of COVID, the whole vaccine controversy . A nd
when we think about climate, there i s the climate deniers too . And
they're not all in the fossil fuel industry. They a re pretty widespread, I
think throughout the country . But it would be hard to have watched
the news over the last four to six weeks and not at least allowed for
the possibility that something really bad was going on here in terms of

Bill McKibben

climate change.

I 'm wondering what you're seeing and what are pol l s telling us , w hen
you look across the country , i s there a shift beginning , to this being
more commonly accepted that this is real, and we need to do
something about it?

Bill McKibben: Yes. So over the las t three or four years, there ha s been a decisive
shift, Margaret. And the polling now shows that 70% of Americans
understand that we face a real dilemma with climate change.

Margaret Flinter: 70% --

Bill McKibben: 70% , the c ountry a s polari z ed as ours. 70% is good, you know .

Margaret Flinter: Yes, yeah.

Bill McKibben: Yes, the deniers remain, but they a re not going to change because
their beliefs aren't rooted in science. They a re just rooted in ideology.
And if you've spent the last 30 years marinating you rself in Rush
Limbaugh, you wouldn't be able to think clearly about this kind of
stuff either. I mean, ideology is a dangerous drug, sometimes. It gets
in the way of reality.

But the problem is not deniers. The problem is that of that 70% , not
enough peopl e are active in this fight. We've got to take some
percentage of those people and turn them into real battlers. And
COVID is instructive here. I think we're doing better as time goes on,
on that fight.

One difference i s , happily, there i s no trillion dolla r industry that
wants us all to die from COVID, you know . Sadly, there is a trillion
dollar industry that wants us to keep our current energy business
model intact. And that's why it's been taken us 30 years to overcome
the disinformation schemes of the fo ssil fuel industry. But we're
getting there.

The only thing that worries me is time. The scientists have told us , the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in their last report said
that we had until 2030, to have emissions cut emissions in half aroun d
the globe or we would not be able to reach the targets we s et in Paris
just five or six years ago.

2030 is now eight years and change away, we're all experienced
enough to know that our systems are not geared for rapid change. So
we're go ing to have to g ear them for a rapid change. That's our job to
force the spring here.

Mark Masselli: You know, let me pull a question on the Paris Climate Accord .
Candidate Joe Biden said that the first act that he would do, one of
the first acts was to rejoin the Paris C limate Accord, which he saw as a

Bill McKibben

paramount step , really to address global climate change. But activists
like yourself, say more must be done. Tell us what the strengths and
weaknesses of the Paris Accord are s o people can have a broader
view.

Bill McKibben : Even when we signed the Paris Climate Accords, we knew and
President Obama said at the time, that it wasn't strong enough . Even
if we met all the promises, in the Paris Climate Accords that countries
made, the temperature would still rise about three - deg rees Celsius,
so five, six - degrees Fahrenheit, which is too much, we can't deal with
that. And that's why everybody is aimed at strengthening the
ambition of countries. And the crucial meeting is in November in
Glasgow . The most important climate meeting, at least since Paris .

John Kerry, the Former Secretary of State is now our Climate Envoy,
demonstrating I think how seriously the Biden Administration has
taken this . And he needs to be able to go to Glasgow , to negotiate
with something in his pocket . That something is that $3.5 trillion bill
before the U . S . Senate. If it passes, then he'll be able to say with a
straight face, the U . S . has begun to commit serious resources to this
fight. We're moving up our timetable . China, India, we need you to
move up yo urs. If he goes there with nothing in his pocket, then that's
not going to be a productive meeting. And that eight years is suddenly
going to seem even shorter than it seems now.

Margaret Flinter: We've been speaking today with Bill McKibben, environmental ist,
author, and renowned climate change activist. You can learn more
about his groundbreaking work by going to www.billmckibben.com ,
a nd I'm go ing to spell it M - C - K - I - B - B - E - N, or follow him on Twitter
@b ill m c k ib ben.

Bill. We want to thank you for shouting truth to power during decades of climate activism , f or informing our world about the complex nature
of climate crisis, and for inspiring generations of new activists. And thank you so much for joining us today on Conversations on Health
Care.

Bill McKibben: Well, I've enjoyed it enormously. And thanks to both of you for your leadership, especially your leadership in building this informed community , t hat's what it takes.

[Music]

Mark Masselli: At Conversations o n Health Care we want our audience to be truly in
the know when it comes to the facts about healthcare reform and
policy. L ori R obertson is an award winning journalist and Managing
Editor of FactCheck.org a nonpartisan, nonprofit consumer advocate
for vote rs that aim to reduce the level of deception in U . S . politics.
L ori , what have you got for us this week ?

Bill McKibben

Lori Robertson: The majority of United States residents who have not been vaccinated
against COVID - 19 are W hite , a ccording to available State Data and
Survey Research . That contradicts Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan
Patrick's claim that in most states Black r esidents are “ The Biggest
Group ” of unvaccinated people.

The Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health issues
organi z ation reported on comparabl e data from 40 states. As of
th
August 16 , the percentage of people who had received at least one
dose of a COVID - 19 vaccine was 50% for Whites, 45% for Hispanics
and 40% for Blacks . Because Blacks and Hispanics make up a much
smaller portion of the overall U . S . population than Whites , t hose
percentages indicate that in raw numbers, far more W hite people
remain unvaccinated against the disease.
th
But Patrick in an August 19 appearance on Fox News falsely implied
that it was unvaccinated Black people who are responsible for the
resurgence of the Coronavirus in his State , and around the rest of the
country. In responding to critics who fault the policies of Republican
Governor Greg Abbott's Administration for the recent increase in
COVID - 19 cases, hospitalizati ons and deaths in Texas , Patrick said,
“ Well, the biggest group in most states are African Americans who
have not been vaccinated. ”

A Kaiser Family Foundation poll conducted in July found that among
unvaccinated adults , 57% were White , 20% were Hispanic an d 13%
were Black. As for Patrick's suggestion that Black people are driving
cases up in Texas, it was Hispanic and White residents who accounted
for 37% and 32% of the State's nearly 100,000 confirmed cases of
th
COVID - 19 d uring the week of August 20 . Black residents made up
nearly 15% of the cases. And that's my fa ct check for this week. I'm
L ori Robertson, Managing Editor of Fact C heck.org .

Margaret Flinter: FactCheck.org is committed to factual accuracy from the c ountry’s
major political players and is a pr oject of the Annenberg Public Policy
Center at the University of Pennsylvania . I f you have a fact that you'd
like checked, email us at www.chcradio.com , w e'll have
FactC heck.org ’s, Lori Robertson check it out for you here on
C onversations on Health Care.

Each week C onversations highlights a bright idea about how to make
wellness a part of our communities and everyday lives. It's a known
fact that the current generation of American children is more obese
than any previ ous generation . And at a Washington DC Community
Health Cent er, Unity Health Care a pediatrician was in a quandary
over how to tackle this growing health scourge. He began with a
unique solution targeted to a teen patient whose Body Mass Index or
BMI had a lready landed her in the obese category. What he did was
write a prescription for getting off the bus , one stop earlier on her

Bill McKibben

way to school, which made her walk the equivalent of one mile a day.

Dr. Robert Zarr of Unity Community Health Cent e r understood that
without motivation to move more kids just might not do it. The
patient has moved from the obese down to the overweight category,
certainly an improvement. He then decided to expand this program by
working with the DC Parks Department , mapping out all the potential
walks and play area kids have within the city's parks.

Dr. Robert Zarr: How to get their parking , i s parking available if someone is going to
drive, bike racks , there i s a section on pets Park safety .

Margaret Flinter: D r. Zarr writes park pr escriptions on a special prescription pad , in
English and Spanish , with the words “ R x for outdoor activity ” and a
schedule slot that asks , “ When and where will you play outside this
week ?”

Dr. Robert Zarr: I like to listen and find out what it is my patien ts like to do, and then
gauge the parks , I prescribe based on their interests , based on the
things they're willing to do.

Margaret Flinter: Ultimately , Dr. Zarr says , he wants to make the prescription for
outdoor activity adaptable for all of his patients , and adaptable for
pediatricians around the country . R x for outdoor activity , partnering
clinicians, Park administrators, patients and families to move more ,
yielding fitter, healthier young people , n ow that's a bright idea.

[ Music ]

Mark Masselli: You've b een listening to Conversations on Health Care. I'm Mark
Masselli.

Margaret Flinter: And I'm Margaret Flinter.

Mark Masselli: Peace and Health .

[Music]

Female : Conversations on Health Care is recorded at WESU at Wesleyan
University, streaming live at www.chcradio.com , iTunes, or wherever
you listen to podcasts. If you have comments, please email us at
[email protected] or find us on Facebook or Twitter. We love
hearing from you. This show is brought to you by the Community
Health Center .