WEBVTT

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Ta-da!

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(Laughter)

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I am honored to be here,

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and I'm honored to talk about this topic,

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which I think is of grave importance.

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We've been talking a lot

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about the horrific impacts of plastic
on the planet and on other species,

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but plastic hurts people, too...

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Especially poor people.

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And both in the production of plastic,

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the use of plastic
and the disposal of plastic,

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the people who have
the bull's-eye on their foreheads

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are poor people.

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People got very upset

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when the BP oil spill happened,

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for very good reason.

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People thought, "Oh, my God.

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This is terrible, this oil...
It's in the water.

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It's going to destroy
the living systems there.

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People are going to be hurt.

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This is a terrible thing,

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this oil is going to hurt
the people in the Gulf."

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What people don't think about is:

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What if the oil had made it
safely to shore?

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What if the oil actually got
where it was trying to go?

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Not only would it have been burned
in engines and added to global warming,

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but there's a place called "Cancer Alley,"

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and the reason it's called "Cancer Alley"

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is because the petrochemical industry

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takes that oil and turns it into plastic

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and in the process, kills people.

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It shortens the lives of the people
who live there in the Gulf.

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So oil and petrochemicals are not
just a problem when there's a spill;

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they're a problem when there's not.

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And what we don't often appreciate

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is the price that poor people pay

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for us to have these disposable products.

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The other thing
we often don't appreciate is,

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it's not just at the point of production
that poor people suffer.

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Poor people also suffer
at the point of use.

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Those of us who earn
a certain income level,

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we have something called choice.

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The reason why you want
to work hard and have a job

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and not be poor and broke

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is so you can have choices,
economic choices.

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We actually get a chance
to choose not to use products

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that have dangerous,
poisonous plastic in them.

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Other people who are poor
don't have those choices.

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So low-income people often are the ones

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who are buying the products that have
those dangerous chemicals in them

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that their children are using.

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Those are the people who wind up
ingesting a disproportionate amount

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of this poisonous plastic in using it.

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And people say, "Well, they should
just buy a different product."

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Well, the problem with being poor
is you don't have those choices.

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You often have to buy
the cheapest products.

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The cheapest products
are often the most dangerous.

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And if that weren't bad enough...

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If it wasn't just the production
of plastic that's giving people cancer

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in places like Cancer Alley,

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and shortening lives and hurting
poor kids at the point of use...

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At the point of disposal,

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once again, it's poor people
who bear the burden.

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Often, we think we're doing a good thing:

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You're in your office, drinking
your bottled water or whatever it is,

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and you think to yourself,
"I'm going to throw this away.

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No... I'm going to be virtuous.
I'm going to put it in the blue bin."

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You think, "I put mine in the blue bin."

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And then you look
at your colleague and say,

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"Why, you cretin!
You put yours in the white bin."

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And we use that as a moral tickle.

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We feel so good about ourselves.

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If we... well, OK, I'm just... me.

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Not you, but I feel this way often.

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(Laughter)

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And so we kind of have
this moral feel-good moment.

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But if we were to be able
to follow that little bottle

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on its journey,

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we would be shocked
to discover that, all too often,

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that bottle is going to be put on a boat,

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it's going to go all the way
across the ocean

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at some expense,

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and it's going to wind up
in a developing country, often China.

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I think in our minds, we imagine

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somebody's going to take
the little bottle and say,

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"Oh, little bottle! We're so happy
to see you, little bottle."

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(Laughter)

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"You've served so well."

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(Laughter)

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He's given a little bottle massage,

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a little bottle medal.

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And they say, "What would
you like to do next?"

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The little bottle says,
"I just don't know ..."

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(Laughter)

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But that's not actually what happens.

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You know?

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That bottle winds up getting burned.

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The recycling of plastic
in many developing countries

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means the incineration of the plastic,
the burning of the plastic,

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which releases incredible toxic chemicals

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and, once again, kills people.

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And so, poor people
who are making these products

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in petrochemical centers
like Cancer Alley,

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poor people who are consuming
these products disproportionately,

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and then poor people who,
even at the tail end of the recycling,

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are having their lives shortened.

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They're all being harmed... greatly...

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By this addiction that we have
to disposability.

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Now, you think to yourself...
I know how you are...

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You say, "That sure is terrible
for those poor people.

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It's just awful. Those poor people.

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I hope someone does
something to help them."

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But what we don't understand is...

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Here we are in Los Angeles.

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We worked very hard
to get the smog reduction

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happening here in Los Angeles.

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But guess what?

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Because they're doing so much
dirty production in Asia now,

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because the environmental laws
don't protect the people in Asia now,

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almost all of the clean air gains
and the toxic air gains

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that we've achieved here in California

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have been wiped out
by dirty air coming over from Asia.

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So we all are being hit.
We all are being impacted.

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It's just that the poor people
get it first and worst.

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But the dirty production,
the burning of toxins,

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the lack of environmental
standards in Asia,

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is actually creating so much
dirty air pollution,

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it's coming across the ocean,

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and has erased our gains
here in California.

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We're back where we were in the 1970s.

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And so we're on one planet,

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and we have to be able to get
to the root of these problems.

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The root of this problem, in my view,

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is the idea of disposability itself.

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You see, if you understand the link

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between what we're doing
to poison and pollute the planet

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and what we're doing to poor people,

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you arrive at a very troubling
but also very helpful insight:

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In order to trash the planet,

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you have to trash people.

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But if you create a world
where you don't trash people,

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you can't trash the planet.

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So now we are at a moment

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where the coming together
of social justice as an idea

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and ecology as an idea,

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we finally can now see

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that they are really,
at the end of the day, one idea.

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And it's the idea that we don't have
disposable anything.

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We don't have disposable resources.

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We don't have disposable species.

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And we don't have
disposable people, either.

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We don't have a throwaway planet,

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and we don't have throwaway
children... it's all precious.

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And as we all begin to come back
to that basic understanding,

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new opportunities for action
begin to emerge.

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Biomimicry,

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which is an emerging science,

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winds up being a very important
social justice idea.

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People who are just
learning about this stuff:

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biomimicry means respecting
the wisdom of all species.

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Democracy, by the way,

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means respecting the wisdom
of all people... we'll get to that.

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But biomimicry means
respecting the wisdom of all species.

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It turns out we're a pretty
clever species.

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We have this big cortex,
we're pretty proud of ourselves.

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But if we want to make something hard,

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we say, "I know! I'm going
to make a hard substance.

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I know! I'm going to get
vacuums and furnaces

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and drag stuff out of the ground

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and get things hot
and poison and pollute...

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But I got this hard thing!"

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(Laughter)

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"I'm so clever!"

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And you look behind you,
and there's destruction all around you.

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But guess what?

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You're so clever,
but you're not as clever as a clam.

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A clamshell is hard.

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There's no vacuums.
There's no big furnaces.

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There's no poison. There's no pollution.

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It turns out that other species
figured out a long time ago

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how to create many of the things we need

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using biological processes
that nature knows how to use well.

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That insight of biomimicry,
of our scientists finally realizing

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that we have as much
to learn from other species...

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I don't mean taking a mouse
and sticking it with stuff.

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I don't mean looking at it from that way,
abusing the little species.

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I mean actually respecting them,
respecting what they've achieved.

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That's called biomimicry,

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and that opens the door
to zero waste production;

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zero pollution production;

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that we could actually enjoy

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a high quality of life,
a high standard of living,

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without trashing the planet.

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Well, that idea of biomimicry,

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respecting the wisdom of all species,

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combined with the idea
of democracy and social justice,

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respecting the wisdom
and the worth of all people,

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would give us a different society.

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We would have a different economy.

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We would have a green society

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that Dr. King would be proud of.

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That should be the goal.

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And the way that we get there
is to first of all recognize

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that the idea of disposability

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not only hurts the species
we've talked about,

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but it even corrupts our own society.

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We're so proud to live here in California.

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We just had this vote,
and everybody's like,

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"Well... not in our state!"

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(Laughter)

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I don't know what those
other states were doing, but ..."

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(Laughter)

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Just so proud.

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And, yeah, I'm proud, too.

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But...

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California, though we lead the world
in some of the green stuff,

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we also, unfortunately, lead the world

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in some of the gulag stuff.

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California has one of the highest
incarceration rates

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of all the 50 states.

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We have a moral challenge
in this movement.

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We are passionate about rescuing
some dead materials from the landfill,

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but sometimes not as passionate

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about rescuing living beings,
living people.

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And I would say
that we live in a country...

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Five percent of the world's population,

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25 percent of the greenhouse gases,

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but also 25 percent
of the world's prisoners.

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One of every four people
locked up anywhere in the world

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is locked up right here
in the United States.

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So that is consistent with this idea

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that disposability
is something we believe in.

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And yet,

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as a movement that has to broaden
its constituency,

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that has to grow,

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that has to reach out
beyond our natural comfort zone,

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one of the challenges
to the success of this movement,

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of getting rid of things like plastic
and helping the economy shift,

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is people look at our movement
with some suspicion.

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And they ask a question,
and the question is:

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How can these people be so passionate?

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A poor person, a low-income person,
somebody in Cancer Alley,

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somebody in Watts,

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somebody in Harlem,
somebody on an Indian reservation,

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might say to themselves...
And rightfully so...

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"How can these people be so passionate

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about making sure

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that a plastic bottle
has a second chance in life,

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or an aluminum can has a second chance,

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and yet, when my child gets in trouble
and goes to prison,

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he doesn't get a second chance?"

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"How can this movement
be so passionate about saying

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we don't have throwaway stuff,
no throwaway dead materials,

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and yet accept throwaway lives

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and throwaway communities
like Cancer Alley?"

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And so, we now get a chance
to be truly proud of this movement.

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When we take on topics like this,

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it gives us that extra call
to reach out to other movements

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and to become more inclusive and to grow,

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and we can finally get out of
this crazy dilemma that we've been in.

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Most of you are good, softhearted people.

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When you were younger,
you cared about the whole world,

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and at some point, somebody said
you had to pick an issue,

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you had to boil your love
down to an issue.

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"Can't love the whole world...

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You've got to work on trees
or you've got to work on immigration.

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You've got to shrink it down
and be about one issue."

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And really, they fundamentally told you,

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"Are you going to hug a tree?

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Or are you going to hug a child? Pick.

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Are you going to hug a tree?

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Or are you going to hug a child? Pick."

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Well, when you start working
on issues like plastic,

00:12:37.809 --> 00:12:40.008
you realize the whole thing is connected.

00:12:40.032 --> 00:12:42.812
And luckily, most of us are blessed
to have two arms...

00:12:42.836 --> 00:12:44.227
We can hug both.

00:12:44.251 --> 00:12:45.620
Thank you very much.

00:12:45.644 --> 00:12:52.555
(Applause)