WEBVTT

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♪[ominous music]♪

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(Leonardo DiCaprio) Ancient life on earth.

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Over millions of years 
plants and animals lived and died.

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That decomposed life sunk
deep into the ground, and as a result,

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an ancient menace was created...
fossil fuels.

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Black oil, coal, and gas, have created 
modern society as we know it.

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This ancient sunlight unleashed
global industrial power on a scale

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never before witnessed 
in the history of the planet.

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But when burnt into the atmosphere, 
carbon causes climate change.

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97% of climate scientists 
agree that climate change

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is happening now 
and is caused by human activity.

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However, the fossil fuel industry continues
to pull that carbon out of the ground.

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They drill, they extract, making trillions of dollars.

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They frack, they mine, earning astronomical profits.

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We need to keep this carbon in the ground.

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In order to prevent a catastrophic 
warming of the planet

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by 2 degrees Celsius, we cannot burn
more than 500 gigatons

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of carbon into the atmosphere.
But the fossil fuel industry has access

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to five times more than that.
Almost 2800 gigatons of carbon pollution

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is ready to be pulled out of the ground,
sold, and burned.

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We must fight to keep this carbon 
in the ground, and it is possible.

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>> People are ready for conversation.
They're ready to understand

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that carbon pollution
is causing this challenge,

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and that there is a simple solution...

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Put a price on carbon pollution.

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In the United States we spend
$110 billion federal dollars

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on climate change events. 
That's about $300 a person in tax dollars.

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>> But we certainly need a price 
on carbon pollution.

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Right now it's a free good and we're using
the atmosphere as a sewer, and that has

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a real cost. And that cost should be
reflected in the cost of carbon pollution.

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>> In the '50s in London,
based on the industrial revolution,

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there was so much pollution, 
as you see in Beijing and around

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China today, that you actually couldn't 
see six straight feet in front of you.

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They put a price on pollution,
and it changed.

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>> You have to put a price on carbon, 
and that can either happen

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by carbon trading or through a carbon tax.
There's a moral imperative there,

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but there's also a business imperative.

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>> Senator Boxer and I have 
introduced legislation to do just that.

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We are going to do it in a way
that impacts fewer than 3,000

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of the most significant fossil fuel 
polluters in the country.

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And the reason you do it, is people should

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not have the " freedom" 
to destroy the planet.

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They cannot continue to be able
to do that with impunity

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to the tune now of a trillion dollars
a year. We need to redirect these

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subsidies that encourage innovation. 
That's what we need in the world.

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But the biggest barrier is money 
from fossil industries that want to defend

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their market share, and which I consider
the industries' walking butt. They've got

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tremendous assets underground 
that they want to be able to mine.

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Those are trillions of dollars of assets 
that the fossil energy companies used

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to evaluate their worth in the stock
market. And the fact that we want

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to strand them, to leave them
underground, is not going over real well

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in those industries. But in fact,
if we wanted to head off the worst

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uncontrollable damages from
climate change, that's what we have to do.

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Thom Hartmann: Finland and the
Netherlands implemented a carbon tax

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back in 1990. Both, putting a price tag
on each ton of CO2 poison.

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>> In the beginning of the '90s 
there was a deep understanding

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that we should do something. 
We think that the Finnish economy

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should be based on sustainable energy
in order to make our society competitive

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and in order to save our planet,
which is, of course, the main target.

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Thom Hartmann : Since then, several other
nations have created their own versions,

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including Norway, Costa Rica,
and the United Kingdom.

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Ireland passed a carbon tax in 2010.

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>> It was very simple to introduce. 
When they see a carbon tax in place,

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people know that they can invest
in alternatives that actually

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cut out the use of fossil fuel.

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It starts to have that effect improving
energy efficiency in your homes

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and improving industries' 
energy efficiency.

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And what we've seen in the last 
5 years is we doubled amount

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of renewable energy supplies, 
so the benefit for the consumer

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is if through those signals you can
cut out the wasteful use of energy,

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then everyone is saving money 
and it more than covers the cost

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of the carbon tax in the first place.

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Thom Hartmann: In Australia, renewables
like wind are now cheaper

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than fossil fuels like coal. Recently
China put a price on carbon

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in over 7 regions and will add more.

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Now it's up to the United States, 
where there's good news at a local level.

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In 2007, Boulder, Colorado
passed a carbon tax

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charging $13 for every metric ton of CO2.

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>> The carbon tax was generated 
and voted into place by Boulder voters.

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So it's a surcharge on electricity consumption and it's applied to residential,

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commercial, and industrial customers here in Boulder.

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The effect has been really tremendous.

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So once the carbon tax went into place,

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it has generated about
$1.8 million a year.

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What's been extraordinary is that we've
been able to really turn the curve,

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so to speak, on our emissions 
just on demand side alone.

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>> We actually proposed that every single
dollar go back to American households.

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Carbon tax is the right way to go and is
actually the conservative answer

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to global warming.

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>> Finally we're at the point where wind
power and solar are coming down in price

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in a quarter of the United States. 
Solar voltaics are already cost effective.

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Last year more wind power was 
added than natural gas power.

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And this is true around the world. 
We have the technologies at hand.

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We are ready now to really 
ramp up deployment.

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>> The figures for Ireland I think 
show an example that you can actually

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start cutting out the carbon 
and your economy still holds up.

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The world didn't come to an end. 
I think it's a lesson

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for the rest of the world.

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>> We've been disappointed by the
national policymakers who haven't been

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able to resolve their differences about 
this and time is growing very, very short.

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President Obama is the last president
with a chance to confront this problem

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in a way that may head off
the worst of the damage.

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>> But given the severity of the problem
right now, we're not moving fast enough.

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We're looking at a fight 
to save this planet.

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And we have got to be bold 
and we have got to be aggressive.

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>> If it's not going to happen 
at the federal level or the state level,

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we in the communities,
where the innovation occurs,

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where we're gonna be on the front lines 
of the impact of climate change,

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we need to take it in our own hands

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and make the changes that we need to see.

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(Leonardo DiCaprio) If national 
governments won't take action,

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your community can.

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We no longer need the dead economy

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of the fossil fuel industry.

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We can move our economy town by town,
state by state to renewable energy

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and a sustainable future.

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To learn more and join the movement,

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go to greenworldrising.og.

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♪(tranquil mid tempo orchestral music)♪

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