0:00:00.597,0:00:01.219 0:00:01.219,0:00:03.485 [ominous music] 0:00:03.485,0:00:05.936 (Leonardo DiCaprio) Ancient life on earth. 0:00:05.936,0:00:10.695 Over millions of years plants and animals lived and died. 0:00:10.695,0:00:16.020 That decomposed life sunk deep into the ground, and as a result, 0:00:16.020,0:00:21.416 an ancient menace was created...fossil fuels.[br] 0:00:21.416,0:00:27.589 Black oil, coal, and gas, have created modern society as we know it. 0:00:27.589,0:00:33.352 This ancient sunlight unleashed global industrial power on a scale 0:00:33.352,0:00:36.868 never before witnessed in the history of the planet. 0:00:36.868,0:00:41.378 But when burnt into the atmosphere, carbon causes climate change. 0:00:41.378,0:00:46.311 Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that climate change 0:00:46.311,0:00:49.764 is happening now and is caused by human activity. 0:00:49.764,0:00:54.189 However, the fossil fuel industry continues to pull that carbon out of the ground. 0:00:54.189,0:00:59.156 They drill, they extract, making trillions of dollars. 0:00:59.156,0:01:04.652 They frack, they mine, earning astronomical profits. 0:01:04.652,0:01:09.371 We need to keep this carbon in the ground. 0:01:09.371,0:01:14.545 In order to prevent a catastrophic warming of the planet by 2 degrees Celsius, 0:01:14.545,0:01:20.111 we cannot burn more than 500 gigatons of carbon into the atmosphere. 0:01:20.111,0:01:24.664 But the fossil fuel industry has access to five times more than that. 0:01:24.664,0:01:32.590 Almost 2800 gigatons of carbon pollution is ready to be pulled out of the ground, sold, and burned. 0:01:32.590,0:01:37.883 We must fight to keep this carbon in the ground, and it is possible. 0:01:37.883,0:01:44.907 >> People are ready for conversation. They're ready to understand that carbon pollution is causing this challenge, 0:01:44.907,0:01:49.599 And that there is a simple solution. Put a price on carbon pollution. 0:01:49.599,0:01:55.092 In the United States we spend $110 billion federal dollars on climate change events. 0:01:55.092,0:01:58.050 That's about $300 a person in tax dollars. 0:01:58.050,0:02:00.886 >> But which certainly need a price on carbon pollution. 0:02:00.886,0:02:06.449 Right now it's a free good and we're using the atmosphere as a sewer and that has a real cost. 0:02:06.449,0:02:09.524 And that cost should be reflected in the cost of carbon pollution. 0:02:09.524,0:02:12.547 >> In the '50s in London, based on the industrial revolution, 0:02:12.547,0:02:16.568 there was so much pollution, as you see in Beijing and around China today, 0:02:16.568,0:02:18.845 that you actually couldn't see six straight feet in front of you. 0:02:18.845,0:02:21.866 They put a price on pollution, and it changed. 0:02:21.866,0:02:23.719 >> You have to put a price on carbon, 0:02:23.719,0:02:28.402 and that can either happen by carbon trading or through a carbon tax. 0:02:28.402,0:02:32.037 There's a moral imperative there, but there's also a business imperative. 0:02:32.037,0:02:36.941 >> Senator Boxer and I have introduced legislation to do just that. We are going 0:02:36.941,0:02:42.673 to do it in a way that impacts fewer than 3,000 of the most significant 0:02:42.673,0:02:48.701 fossil fuel polluters in the country. And the reason you do it , is people should not have 0:02:48.701,0:02:51.910 the " freedom" to destroy the planet. 0:02:51.910,0:02:54.316 They cannot continue to be able to do that with impunity. 0:02:54.316,0:02:57.688 >> The government has been subsidizing energy for decades 0:02:57.688,0:03:01.929 to the tune now of a trillion dollars a year. We need to redirect these subsidies 0:03:01.929,0:03:04.492 that encourage innovation. That's what we need in the world. 0:03:04.492,0:03:08.458 But the biggest barrier is money from fossil industries that want to defend 0:03:08.458,0:03:12.009 their market share, and which I consider the industries' walking butt. They've got 0:03:12.009,0:03:14.721 tremendous assets underground that they want to be able to mine. 0:03:14.721,0:03:18.455 Those are trillions of dollars of assets that the fossil energy companies used 0:03:18.455,0:03:22.118 to evaluate their worth in the stock market. And the fact that we want to strand them, 0:03:22.118,0:03:25.877 to leave them underground is not going over real well In those industries. 0:03:25.877,0:03:29.421 But in fact, if we wanted to head off the worst uncontrollable damages 0:03:29.421,0:03:31.400 from climate change, that's what we have to do. 0:03:31.400,0:03:37.031 Thom Hartmann: Finland and the Netherlands implemented a carbon tax back in 1990. 0:03:37.031,0:03:41.431 Both, putting a price tag on each ton of CO2 poison. 0:03:41.431,0:03:46.437 >> In the beginning of the '90s there was a deep understanding that we should do something. 0:03:46.437,0:03:52.071 We think that the Finnish economy should be based on sustainable energy in order 0:03:52.071,0:03:58.799 to make our society competitive and in order to save our planet, which is, of course, the main target. 0:03:58.799,0:04:03.597 Thom Hartmann: Since then several other nations have created their own versions, including 0:04:03.597,0:04:07.377 Norway, Costa Rica, and the United Kingdom. 0:04:07.377,0:04:11.291 Ireland passed a carbon tax in 2010. 0:04:11.291,0:04:14.823 >> It was very simple to introduce. When they see a carbon tax in place, 0:04:14.823,0:04:15.458 people know that they can invest in alternatives that actually 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 cut out the use of fossil fuel. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It starts to have that effect improving energy efficiency in your homes and improving industries' energy efficiency. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And what we've seen in the last 5 years is we have doubled amount 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of renewable energy supplies, so the benefit for the consumer 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 is if through those signals you can cut out the wasteful use of energy, then everyone 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 is saving money and it more than covers the cost of the carbon tax in the first place. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Thom Hartmann: In Australia, renewables like wind are now cheaper than fossil fuels 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like coal. Recently China put a price on carbon in over 7 regions and will add more. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Now it's up to the United States, where there's good news at a local level. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In 2007, Boulder, Colorado passed a carbon tax charging $13 for every metric ton of CO2. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 >> The carbon tax was generated and voted into place by Boulder voters. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So it's a surcharge on electricity consumption and it's applied to residential, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 commercial, and industrial customers here in Boulder. The effect has been really tremendous. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So once the carbon tax went into place, it has generated about 1.8 million dollars a year. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 What's been extraordinary is that we've been able to really turn the curve so to speak on our emissions 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 just on demand side alone. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 >> We actually proposed that every single dollar go back to American households. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Carbon tax is the right way to go and is actually the conservative answer to global warming. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 >> Finally we're at the point where wind power and solar are coming down in price 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in a quarter of the United States. Solar voltaics are already cost effective. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Last year more wind power was added than natural gas power. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And this is true around the world. We have the technologies at hand. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We are ready now to really ramp up deployment. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 >> The figures for Ireland I think show an example that you can actually start 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 cutting out the carbon and your economy still holds up. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The world didn't come to an end. I think it's a lesson for the rest of the world. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 >> We've been disappointed by the national policymakers who haven't been 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 able to resolve their differences about this, and time is growing, very, very short. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 President Obama is the last president with a chance to confront this problem 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in an way that may head off the worst of the damage. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 >> But given the severity of the problem right now, we're not moving fast enough. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We're looking at a fight to save this planet. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And we have got to be bold and we have got to be aggressive. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 >> If it's not going to happen at the federal level or the state level, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 we in the communities where the innovation occurs, where we're gonna be 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 on the front lines of the impact of climate change, we need to take it 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in our own hands and make the changes that we need to see. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (Leonardo DiCaprio) If national governments won't take action, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 your community can. We no longer need the dead economy of the fossil fuel industry. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We can move our economy town by town, state by state to renewable energy 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and a sustainable future. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 To learn more and join the movement, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 go to greenworld rising.og. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 [tranquil mid tempo orchestral music]