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I have no doubt that the fundamental

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source of all our problems,

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particularly our governmental problems,

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is population growth.

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[music]

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I love the years of living dangerously

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because they tackled one of the main

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myths about climate change head-on.

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One of the main myths is 
that climate change

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is a distant issue. 
It's distant in space;

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it's only about the polar bear, 
and not about us,

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and it's distant in time;

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it's only about future generations, 
not about us.

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This is a myth that isn't just among

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people who don't think 
climate change is real.

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Even many people who do view it as

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"Oh it's just you know we'll

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deal with it in the future."

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The years of living dangerously said,

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"No. We are dealing with

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it right now whether you like it or not

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and let us show you the faces of the

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people around the world 
who are dealing with it."

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So we're not talking like we were 
50 years ago, 40 years ago.

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Oh, like this will be a problem.

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It is a problem.

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All the systems we have in place:

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agriculture, urban environment.

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Everything we've set up

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has all been predicated on

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this very, very stable climate, which

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we're now starting to tinker with,

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you know, fiddle with the dials
in an uncontrolled way.

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The science is looking

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at the impact of that on the climate,

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the impact on humans, 
the impact on sea level,

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the impact on precipitation.

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It's gonna be the impact 
on food production.

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It's gonna be the impact of

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where people live, right?

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There is a pretty serious impact.

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There's gonna be an 
impact on biodiversity

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which, in my opinion has been

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bigger than sea level rise, right.

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The decay of species.

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Unfortunately, it's not the people who are

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causing the problems that will be

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most affected, so, you know,

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American has the highest

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commuters per capita.

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But it's the people in the developing

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natures- regions that will be 
affected most.

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So poor old [Curabeth] is already having

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saltwater intrusion, inundation,
and sea level rise.

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And they're not putting any greenhouse

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gas emissions into the atmosphere.

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You can imagine that if you're on a

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low line pacific island,

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well actually a small amount of sea level

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makes a massive difference 
to your livelihood.

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Ah, combine that with, you know,

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a high tide or a storm surge

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and then, you know, we get

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regions of the world 
that are very vulnerable

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to these kind of combined events.

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We are very, very vulnerable as a species

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to relatively small changes in sea level.

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There are countries like Bangladesh,

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the Netherlands, and all the Atolls

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in the South Pacific,

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which would be absolutely devastated

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from a sea level rise of 
more than a meter.

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Millions and millions of people

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are set to be displaced with our

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low-end projections of sea level rise.

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If we start tracking at higher ends

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because of these rapid melting 
of the land ice

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over the Greenland and Antarctic regions,

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you could have, you know, even more

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rapid displacement of populations.

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The sea-level rise around about a meter

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it's suggested would displace potentially

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up to two hundred million people.

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It's very clear that if you push

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slowly on the climate,

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a lot of the things that we have built

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hit sudden thresholds.

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Either the city is hiding behind the levy

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and the water stays just below

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the levy during the storm,

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or just above.

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And that little change

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can make a huge difference to whether

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your city is livable or not 
the next few weeks.

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I think in the tropics, there's where

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you're going to see the first real impacts

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on people, because the people 
are living right downstream

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below the glaciers, and there are

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large numbers of people 
living downstream.

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So, what's happening to those glaciers

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becomes extremely important.

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What glaciers do is

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they act as sponges basically.

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So, in the winter they hold that

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snow that falls,

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and then they release that snow

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in the dry time of the year,

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which is typically the summer.

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So what glaciers do is 
they tend to even out

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the annual precipitation that falls,

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and essentially allow areas to carry on

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to have agriculture, for example, 
in the summer

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when otherwise there'd be areas

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that are very, very dry.

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If you go to a country like Peru,

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seventy percent of the tropical glaciers

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on Earth are in Peru,
in the Andes of Peru.

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Here you have a country of thirty-four
million people.

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Over fifty percent live in the desert

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on the West coast of Peru, depending on
rivers that originate

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in the glaciers up in the Andes.

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Seventy-six percent of their electricity

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comes from hydropower,

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the water coming from those glaciers.

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If you're working in Tibet, there are

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forty-six thousand glaciers there.

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And you take a river like the Indus river,

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it flows through China, through Pakistan,

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and through India, all are

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nuclear power countries.

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All depend on that river for 
its water supplies.

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So these are places, geopolitical hotspots

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in the future.

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I think perhaps the biggest impact is
on agriculture, because the-

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if you think of the prairies that

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stretch East of the Rockies,

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those huge areas are fed by

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the rivers that flow from the Rockies.

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So you can imagine that if we're trying

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to feed a global population, and there are

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crops like wheat, for example,

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which don't have a high tolerance to

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certain high thresholds,
then we could be in serious trouble.

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Those that don't have access

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to things like air conditioning

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or good public health infrastructure.

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You know, if you get a heat wave

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in those sorts of areas

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people get sick, or the elderly

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generally get really sick after
a heat wave.

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If they don't have
the public infrastructure

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to cope with that more people will

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unfortunately, be killed.

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So when you look at health,

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and you look at morbidity 
and mortality rates,

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they increase substantially during
heat wave events,

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and, in fact, Europe in 2003 there was

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somewhere around about

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thirty thousand to fifty thousand

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excess deaths

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due to the heat wave.

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Some of my research is in East Africa.

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We are seeing climate change impacts

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in those places, and they're scary.

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You see what happens to people

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when the distributions of malaria carrying

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mosquitoes expands. It kills them.

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It's not an academic issue for me.

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This is a deeply ethically based issue.

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Climate change in the really short term

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is expensive, but not hugely so.

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And as the climate change gets bigger,

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as we look farther into the future,

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the price goes up. The damages go up.

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Very crudely, each degree of warming

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costs more than the previous degree.

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The first degree was almost in the noise

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of what we were used to; 
it's not very expensive.

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But we've used that one.

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And the second degree will cost

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a little more. It's moving outside

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of your experience, it's starting to
stress things,

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and we've committed to that one
very broadly.

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The third degree costs more
than the second.

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And by the fourth, and the fifth,

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now, sea level rise is going to get huge.

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We have real problems with crops,

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which may be bumping up against

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biochemical limits and the ability to

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feed ourselves gets 
a little bit worrisome.

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And so, by the time you start running

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to the third, the fourth, 
the fifth degree,

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the cost of damages, the dangers,

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go way up. But we're arguing now

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about the third degree, 
because we've basically-

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We've warmed almost all of the first one,

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and we really have committed

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to the second one.

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There are consequences in terms

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of human life for this.

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There are consequences in terms

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of extinction rates for this.

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There are consequences in terms
of ecosystem services.

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Every single day that goes by

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that we don't begin to address these

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problems, the problem gets worse,

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more expensive, more immediate,

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and in some parts of 
the world has a toll in

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in terms of people dying.

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And for me this is

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just, like, fundamental. 
We don't have time

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to muck about with this.

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This is not an ivory tower argument.

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This is one where 
the consequences are real.

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We have to really try
and wake people up

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to realize that this is happening,

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it's very, very serious, but we

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can solve it. But we have to do so

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not because, you know, it's gonna
cut the economy,

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but because it's the planet

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we live on, and it's the people

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that we love that are going to be affect-

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[music]