WEBVTT 00:00:01.158 --> 00:00:03.103 This is the ocean as I used to know it. 00:00:03.825 --> 00:00:08.038 And I find that since I've been in the Gulf a couple of times, 00:00:08.062 --> 00:00:12.562 I really kind of am traumatized because whenever I look at the ocean now, 00:00:12.586 --> 00:00:15.047 no matter where I am, 00:00:15.071 --> 00:00:18.976 even where I know that none of the oil has gone, 00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:20.976 I sort of see slicks, 00:00:21.000 --> 00:00:25.247 and I'm finding that I'm very much haunted by it. 00:00:26.666 --> 00:00:28.862 But what I want to talk to you about today 00:00:28.886 --> 00:00:32.416 is a lot of things that try to put all of this in context, 00:00:32.440 --> 00:00:38.414 not just about the oil eruption, but what it means and why it has happened. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:38.438 --> 00:00:40.073 First, just a little bit about me. 00:00:40.097 --> 00:00:42.609 I'm basically just a guy that likes to go fishing 00:00:42.633 --> 00:00:45.589 ever since I was a little kid, and because I did, 00:00:45.613 --> 00:00:47.680 I wound up studying sea birds 00:00:47.704 --> 00:00:51.126 to try to stay in the coastal habitats that I so loved. 00:00:51.150 --> 00:00:55.736 And now I mainly write books about how the ocean is changing, 00:00:55.760 --> 00:00:58.660 and the ocean is certainly changing very rapidly. 00:00:58.684 --> 00:01:04.497 Now we saw this graphic earlier on, that we really live on a hard marble 00:01:04.521 --> 00:01:07.976 that has just a slight bit of wetness to it. 00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:10.242 It's like you dipped a marble in water. 00:01:10.266 --> 00:01:12.333 And the same thing with the atmosphere: 00:01:12.357 --> 00:01:15.582 If you took all the atmosphere and rolled it up in a ball, 00:01:15.606 --> 00:01:18.524 you would get that little sphere of gas on the right. 00:01:18.548 --> 00:01:23.777 So we live on the most fragile little soap bubble you can imagine, 00:01:23.801 --> 00:01:28.564 a very sacred soap bubble, but one that is very, very easy to affect. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:28.588 --> 00:01:33.435 And all the burning of oil and coal and gas, all the fossil fuels, 00:01:33.459 --> 00:01:35.628 have changed the atmosphere greatly. 00:01:35.652 --> 00:01:38.573 Carbon dioxide level has gone up and up and up. 00:01:38.597 --> 00:01:40.914 We're warming the climate. 00:01:40.938 --> 00:01:42.949 So the blowout in the Gulf 00:01:42.973 --> 00:01:47.118 is just a little piece of a much larger problem 00:01:47.142 --> 00:01:51.216 that we have with the energy that we use to run civilization. 00:01:51.240 --> 00:01:52.671 Beyond warming, 00:01:52.695 --> 00:01:56.389 we have the problem of the oceans getting more acidified -- 00:01:56.413 --> 00:02:00.555 and already measurably so, and already affecting animals. 00:02:01.200 --> 00:02:07.628 Now in the laboratory, if you take a clam and you put it in the pH that is not 8.1, 00:02:07.652 --> 00:02:11.379 which is the normal pH of seawater, but 7.5, 00:02:11.403 --> 00:02:14.009 it dissolves in about three days. 00:02:14.033 --> 00:02:17.828 If you take a sea urchin larva from 8.1, 00:02:17.852 --> 00:02:22.144 put it in a pH of 7.7 -- not a huge change -- 00:02:22.168 --> 00:02:24.821 it becomes deformed and dies. 00:02:24.845 --> 00:02:31.687 Already, commercial oyster larvae are dying at large scales in some places. 00:02:32.247 --> 00:02:36.582 Coral reefs are growing slower in some places because of this problem. 00:02:36.606 --> 00:02:38.218 So this really matters. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:38.242 --> 00:02:42.599 Now, let's take a little tour around the Gulf a little bit. 00:02:42.623 --> 00:02:46.012 One of the things that really impresses me about the people in the Gulf: 00:02:46.036 --> 00:02:48.324 They are really, really aquatic people. 00:02:48.348 --> 00:02:49.976 And they can handle water. 00:02:50.000 --> 00:02:52.632 They can handle a hurricane that comes and goes. 00:02:52.656 --> 00:02:54.976 When the water goes down, they know what to do. 00:02:55.000 --> 00:02:59.756 But when it's something other than water, and their water habitat changes, 00:02:59.780 --> 00:03:01.429 they don't have many options. 00:03:01.453 --> 00:03:05.511 In fact, those entire communities really don't have many options. 00:03:05.535 --> 00:03:08.171 They don't have another thing they can do. 00:03:08.195 --> 00:03:12.268 They can't go and work in the local hotel business 00:03:12.292 --> 00:03:15.000 because there isn't one in their community. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:16.522 --> 00:03:20.980 If you go to the Gulf and you look around, you do see a lot of oil. 00:03:21.004 --> 00:03:22.853 You see a lot of oil on the ocean. 00:03:22.877 --> 00:03:24.976 You see a lot of oil on the shoreline. 00:03:25.000 --> 00:03:28.976 If you go to the site of the blowout, it looks pretty unbelievable. 00:03:29.000 --> 00:03:31.976 It looks like you just emptied the oil pan in your car, 00:03:32.000 --> 00:03:34.271 and you just dumped it in the ocean. 00:03:34.295 --> 00:03:37.160 And one of the really most incredible things, I think, 00:03:37.184 --> 00:03:40.756 is that there's nobody out there trying to collect it 00:03:40.780 --> 00:03:43.583 at the site where it is densest. 00:03:44.397 --> 00:03:48.432 Parts of the ocean there look just absolutely apocalyptic. 00:03:50.557 --> 00:03:53.962 You go in along the shore, you can find it everywhere. 00:03:55.056 --> 00:03:56.212 It's really messy. 00:03:56.236 --> 00:03:58.607 If you go to the places where it's just arriving, 00:03:58.631 --> 00:04:01.066 like the eastern part of the Gulf, in Alabama, 00:04:01.090 --> 00:04:02.976 there's still people using the beach 00:04:03.000 --> 00:04:05.143 while there are people cleaning up the beach. 00:04:05.167 --> 00:04:07.889 And they have a very strange way of cleaning up the beach. 00:04:07.913 --> 00:04:10.572 They're not allowed to put more than 10 pounds of sand 00:04:10.596 --> 00:04:12.304 in a 50-gallon plastic bag. 00:04:12.328 --> 00:04:14.684 They have thousands and thousands of plastic bags. 00:04:14.708 --> 00:04:16.998 I don't know what they'll do with all that stuff. 00:04:17.022 --> 00:04:19.743 Meanwhile, there are still people trying to use the beach. 00:04:19.767 --> 00:04:22.545 They don't see the sign that says: "Stay out of the water." 00:04:22.569 --> 00:04:23.998 Their kids are in the water; 00:04:24.022 --> 00:04:26.951 they're getting tar all over their clothes and their sandals-- 00:04:26.975 --> 00:04:28.186 It's a mess. 00:04:28.210 --> 00:04:31.714 If you go to where the oil has been for a while, it's an even bigger mess. 00:04:31.738 --> 00:04:34.122 And there's basically nobody there anymore, 00:04:34.146 --> 00:04:37.012 a few people trying to keep using it. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:37.758 --> 00:04:40.096 You see people who are really shell-shocked. 00:04:40.120 --> 00:04:42.109 They are very hardworking people. 00:04:42.133 --> 00:04:44.743 All they know about life is they get up in the morning, 00:04:44.767 --> 00:04:47.063 and if their engine starts, they go to work. 00:04:47.087 --> 00:04:51.376 They always felt that they could rely on the assurances 00:04:51.400 --> 00:04:54.690 that nature brought them through the ecosystem of the Gulf. 00:04:54.714 --> 00:04:57.506 They're finding that their world is really collapsing. 00:04:57.530 --> 00:05:03.416 And so you can see, literally, signs of their shock ... 00:05:05.000 --> 00:05:07.476 signs of their outrage ... 00:05:10.622 --> 00:05:12.439 signs of their anger ... 00:05:17.321 --> 00:05:19.765 and signs of their grief. 00:05:20.834 --> 00:05:23.103 These are the things that you can see. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:25.000 --> 00:05:28.609 There's a lot you can't see, also, underwater. 00:05:29.626 --> 00:05:31.495 What's going on underwater? 00:05:31.519 --> 00:05:35.128 Well, some people say there are oil plumes. 00:05:35.152 --> 00:05:37.976 Some people say there are not oil plumes. 00:05:38.823 --> 00:05:41.174 And Congressman Markey asks, you know, 00:05:41.198 --> 00:05:46.155 "Is it going to take a submarine ride to see if there are really oil plumes?" 00:05:46.727 --> 00:05:48.638 But I couldn't take a submarine ride -- 00:05:48.662 --> 00:05:52.751 especially between the time I knew I was coming here and today -- 00:05:52.775 --> 00:05:55.976 so I had to do a little experiment myself 00:05:56.000 --> 00:05:58.386 to see if there was oil in the Gulf of Mexico. 00:05:58.410 --> 00:06:00.065 So this is the Gulf of Mexico ... 00:06:01.336 --> 00:06:02.983 sparkling place full of fish. 00:06:04.411 --> 00:06:07.104 And I created a little oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. 00:06:07.874 --> 00:06:10.574 And I learned, in fact, I confirmed the hypothesis 00:06:10.598 --> 00:06:12.800 that oil and water don't mix ... 00:06:14.309 --> 00:06:16.610 until you add a dispersant ... 00:06:18.088 --> 00:06:19.285 and then ... 00:06:20.890 --> 00:06:22.322 they start mixing. 00:06:23.409 --> 00:06:27.630 And you add a little energy from the wind and the waves, 00:06:27.654 --> 00:06:30.949 and you get a big mess, 00:06:30.973 --> 00:06:34.108 a big mess that you can't possibly clean, 00:06:34.132 --> 00:06:37.153 you can't touch, you can't extract 00:06:37.177 --> 00:06:40.442 and, I think most importantly -- this is what I think -- 00:06:40.466 --> 00:06:41.976 you can't see it. 00:06:42.000 --> 00:06:45.334 I think it's being hidden on purpose. 00:06:45.358 --> 00:06:47.976 Now this is such a catastrophe and such a mess 00:06:48.000 --> 00:06:51.670 that lots of stuff is leaking out on the edges of the information stream. 00:06:51.694 --> 00:06:53.351 But as many people have said, 00:06:53.375 --> 00:06:56.485 there's a large attempt to suppress what's going on. 00:06:56.509 --> 00:07:03.481 Personally, I think that the dispersants are a major strategy to hide the body, 00:07:03.505 --> 00:07:06.644 because we put the murderer in charge of the crime scene. 00:07:07.570 --> 00:07:08.976 But you can see it. 00:07:09.000 --> 00:07:13.188 You can see where the oil is concentrated at the surface, 00:07:13.212 --> 00:07:15.843 and then it is attacked, 00:07:15.867 --> 00:07:18.823 because they don't want the evidence, in my opinion. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:19.377 --> 00:07:20.527 OK. 00:07:20.898 --> 00:07:23.108 We heard that bacteria eat oil? 00:07:23.419 --> 00:07:24.976 So do sea turtles. 00:07:25.525 --> 00:07:26.933 When it breaks up, 00:07:26.957 --> 00:07:30.431 it has a long way to go before it gets down to bacteria. 00:07:30.896 --> 00:07:33.976 Turtles eat it. It gets in the gills of fish. 00:07:34.000 --> 00:07:36.257 These guys have to swim around through it. 00:07:36.281 --> 00:07:41.118 I heard the most incredible story today when I was on the train coming here. 00:07:41.699 --> 00:07:43.976 A writer named Ted Williams called me, 00:07:44.523 --> 00:07:47.407 and he was asking me a couple of questions about what I saw, 00:07:47.431 --> 00:07:50.574 because he's writing an article for Audubon magazine. 00:07:50.598 --> 00:07:54.345 He said that he had been in the Gulf a little while ago; like about a week ago, 00:07:54.369 --> 00:07:58.283 and a guy who had been a recreational fishing guide 00:07:58.307 --> 00:08:00.976 took him out to show him what's going on. 00:08:01.000 --> 00:08:05.976 That guide's entire calendar year is canceled bookings. 00:08:06.000 --> 00:08:07.913 He has no bookings left. 00:08:07.937 --> 00:08:10.976 Everybody wanted their deposit back, everybody is fleeing. 00:08:11.000 --> 00:08:12.967 That's the story of thousands of people. 00:08:12.991 --> 00:08:18.069 But he told Ted that on the last day he went out, 00:08:18.625 --> 00:08:22.347 a bottlenose dolphin suddenly appeared next to the boat, 00:08:22.767 --> 00:08:26.487 and it was splattering oil out its blowhole. 00:08:27.938 --> 00:08:32.653 And he moved away because it was his last fishing trip, 00:08:33.799 --> 00:08:35.976 and he knew that the dolphins scare fish. 00:08:36.000 --> 00:08:39.884 So he moved away from it, turned around a few minutes later, 00:08:39.908 --> 00:08:42.155 it was right next to the side of the boat again. 00:08:42.179 --> 00:08:45.600 He said that in 30 years of fishing he had never seen a dolphin do that. 00:08:45.624 --> 00:08:47.185 And he felt that -- NOTE Paragraph 00:08:47.693 --> 00:08:48.896 (Sigh) NOTE Paragraph 00:08:48.920 --> 00:08:52.581 he felt that it was coming to ask for help. 00:08:52.938 --> 00:08:54.088 Sorry. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:55.392 --> 00:08:59.346 Now, in the Exxon Valdez spill, 00:08:59.860 --> 00:09:04.614 about 30 percent of the killer whales died in the first few months. 00:09:04.638 --> 00:09:06.558 Their numbers have never recovered. 00:09:06.582 --> 00:09:11.447 So the recovery rate of all this stuff is going to be variable. 00:09:11.471 --> 00:09:14.296 It's going to take longer for some things. 00:09:14.320 --> 00:09:17.908 And some things, I think, will probably come back a little faster. 00:09:18.273 --> 00:09:20.976 The other thing about the Gulf that is important 00:09:21.000 --> 00:09:24.465 is that there are a lot of animals that concentrate in the Gulf 00:09:24.489 --> 00:09:27.025 at certain parts of the year. 00:09:27.822 --> 00:09:30.429 So the Gulf is a really important piece of water -- 00:09:30.453 --> 00:09:35.363 more important than a similar volume of water in the open Atlantic Ocean. 00:09:36.000 --> 00:09:37.976 These tuna swim the entire ocean. 00:09:38.000 --> 00:09:40.773 They get in the Gulf Stream, they go all the way to Europe. 00:09:40.797 --> 00:09:42.965 When it comes time to spawn, they come inside, 00:09:42.989 --> 00:09:44.714 and these two tuna that were tagged, 00:09:44.738 --> 00:09:46.838 you can see them on the spawning grounds 00:09:46.862 --> 00:09:49.567 very much right in the area of the slick. 00:09:49.591 --> 00:09:52.076 They're probably having, at the very least, 00:09:52.100 --> 00:09:54.853 a catastrophic spawning season this year. 00:09:54.877 --> 00:09:58.371 I'm hoping that maybe the adults are avoiding that dirty water. 00:09:58.717 --> 00:10:02.759 They don't usually like to go into water that is very cloudy anyway. 00:10:03.148 --> 00:10:06.940 But these are really high-performance athletic animals. 00:10:06.964 --> 00:10:10.206 I don't know what this kind of stuff will do in their gills. 00:10:10.230 --> 00:10:12.176 I don't know if it'll affect the adults. 00:10:12.200 --> 00:10:15.017 If it's not, it's certainly affecting their eggs and larvae, 00:10:15.041 --> 00:10:16.228 I would certainly think. 00:10:16.252 --> 00:10:19.595 But if you look at that graph that goes down and down and down, 00:10:19.619 --> 00:10:24.340 that's what we've done to this species through overfishing over many decades. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:24.364 --> 00:10:29.521 So while the oil spill, the leak, the eruption, is a catastrophe, 00:10:29.545 --> 00:10:32.278 I think it's important to keep in mind 00:10:32.302 --> 00:10:36.418 that we've done a lot to affect what's in the ocean, for a very long time. 00:10:36.442 --> 00:10:39.780 It's not like we're starting with something that's been OK. 00:10:39.804 --> 00:10:42.540 We're starting with something that's had a lot of stresses 00:10:42.564 --> 00:10:44.426 and a lot of problems to begin with. 00:10:44.450 --> 00:10:48.476 If you look around at the birds, there are a lot of birds in the Gulf 00:10:48.500 --> 00:10:51.267 that concentrate in the Gulf at certain times of the year, 00:10:51.291 --> 00:10:52.575 but then leave. 00:10:52.599 --> 00:10:55.671 And they populate much larger areas. 00:10:57.387 --> 00:11:01.577 For instance, most of the birds in this picture are migratory birds. 00:11:01.601 --> 00:11:03.443 They were all on the Gulf in May, 00:11:03.467 --> 00:11:06.584 while oil was starting to come ashore in certain places. 00:11:06.608 --> 00:11:11.163 Down on the lower left there are ruddy turnstones and sanderlings. 00:11:11.187 --> 00:11:12.910 They breed in the High Arctic, 00:11:12.934 --> 00:11:15.496 and they winter down in southern South America. 00:11:15.520 --> 00:11:20.331 But they concentrate in the Gulf and then fan out all across the Arctic. 00:11:20.355 --> 00:11:23.481 I saw birds that breed in Greenland, in the Gulf. 00:11:24.852 --> 00:11:28.263 So this is a hemispheric issue. 00:11:28.287 --> 00:11:33.083 The economic effects go at least nationally in many ways. 00:11:33.107 --> 00:11:36.174 The biological effects are certainly hemispheric. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:38.867 --> 00:11:44.060 I think that this is one of the most absolutely mind-boggling examples 00:11:44.084 --> 00:11:46.896 of total unpreparedness that I can even think of. 00:11:46.920 --> 00:11:50.818 Even when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, 00:11:50.842 --> 00:11:52.249 at least they shot back. 00:11:52.273 --> 00:11:56.356 And we just seem to be unable to figure out what to do. 00:11:56.380 --> 00:12:00.016 There was nothing ready, 00:12:00.040 --> 00:12:03.430 and, you know, as we can see by what they're doing. 00:12:03.454 --> 00:12:06.218 Mainly what they're doing is booms and dispersants. 00:12:06.242 --> 00:12:09.994 The booms are absolutely not made for open water. 00:12:10.018 --> 00:12:14.859 They don't even attempt to corral the oil where it is most concentrated. 00:12:14.883 --> 00:12:17.117 They get near shore -- Look at these two boats. 00:12:17.141 --> 00:12:19.765 That one on the right is called Fishing Fool. 00:12:19.789 --> 00:12:21.799 And I think, you know, that's a great name 00:12:21.823 --> 00:12:24.881 for boats that think that they're going to do anything 00:12:24.905 --> 00:12:27.977 to make a dent in this, by dragging a boom between them 00:12:28.001 --> 00:12:30.965 when there are literally hundreds of thousands of square miles 00:12:30.989 --> 00:12:33.870 in the Gulf right now with oil at the surface. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:33.894 --> 00:12:37.644 The dispersants make the oil go right under the booms. 00:12:37.668 --> 00:12:41.032 The booms are only about 13 inches in diameter. 00:12:41.867 --> 00:12:44.893 So it's just absolutely crazy. 00:12:44.917 --> 00:12:46.611 Here are shrimp boats employed. 00:12:46.635 --> 00:12:50.576 There are hundreds of shrimp boats employed to drag booms instead of nets. 00:12:50.600 --> 00:12:51.923 Here they are working. 00:12:51.947 --> 00:12:53.744 You can see easily 00:12:53.768 --> 00:12:57.663 that all the oily water just goes over the back of the boom. 00:12:57.687 --> 00:12:59.637 All they're doing is stirring it. 00:12:59.661 --> 00:13:01.259 It's just ridiculous. 00:13:03.104 --> 00:13:05.209 Also, for all the shoreline that has booms -- 00:13:05.233 --> 00:13:07.404 hundreds and hundreds of miles of shoreline -- 00:13:07.428 --> 00:13:09.209 all of the shoreline that has booms, 00:13:09.233 --> 00:13:11.919 there's adjacent shoreline that doesn't have any booms. 00:13:11.943 --> 00:13:16.976 There is ample opportunity for oil and dirty water to get in behind them. NOTE Paragraph 00:13:17.000 --> 00:13:20.823 And that lower photo, that's a bird colony that has been boomed. 00:13:20.847 --> 00:13:25.416 Everybody's trying to protect the bird colonies there. 00:13:25.440 --> 00:13:30.671 Well, as an ornithologist, I can tell you that birds fly, and that -- NOTE Paragraph 00:13:30.695 --> 00:13:33.000 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:13:35.671 --> 00:13:40.976 and that booming a bird colony doesn't do it; it doesn't do it. 00:13:41.000 --> 00:13:44.520 These birds make a living by diving into the water. 00:13:45.623 --> 00:13:46.773 In fact ... 00:13:48.140 --> 00:13:51.283 really what I think they should do, if anything -- 00:13:51.307 --> 00:13:54.444 they're trying so hard to protect those nests -- 00:13:54.468 --> 00:13:57.141 actually, if they destroyed every single nest, 00:13:57.165 --> 00:13:59.201 some of the birds would leave, 00:13:59.225 --> 00:14:01.530 and that would be better for them this year. 00:14:02.415 --> 00:14:03.948 As far as cleaning them ... 00:14:05.001 --> 00:14:09.934 I don't mean to cast any aspersion on people cleaning birds. 00:14:09.958 --> 00:14:13.858 It's really, really important that we express our compassion. 00:14:13.882 --> 00:14:17.422 I think that's the most important thing that people have, is compassion. 00:14:18.026 --> 00:14:21.976 It's really important to get those images and to show it. 00:14:22.000 --> 00:14:25.375 But really, where are those birds going to get released to? 00:14:25.399 --> 00:14:27.844 It's like taking somebody out of a burning building, 00:14:27.868 --> 00:14:29.508 treating them for smoke inhalation 00:14:29.532 --> 00:14:33.285 and sending them back into the building, because the oil is still gushing. NOTE Paragraph 00:14:33.686 --> 00:14:37.578 I refuse to acknowledge this as anything like an accident. 00:14:37.602 --> 00:14:41.189 I think that this is the result of gross negligence. NOTE Paragraph 00:14:41.213 --> 00:14:45.976 (Applause) NOTE Paragraph 00:14:46.348 --> 00:14:48.631 Not just BP. 00:14:48.655 --> 00:14:55.312 BP operated very sloppily and very recklessly because they could. 00:14:55.336 --> 00:14:57.283 And they were allowed to do so 00:14:57.307 --> 00:15:01.700 because of the absolute failure of oversight of the government 00:15:01.724 --> 00:15:06.049 that is supposed to be our government, protecting us. 00:15:08.305 --> 00:15:09.814 It turns out that -- 00:15:09.838 --> 00:15:13.069 you see this sign on every commercial vessel in the United States -- 00:15:13.093 --> 00:15:15.695 you know, if you spilled a couple of gallons of oil, 00:15:15.719 --> 00:15:17.098 you would be in big trouble. 00:15:17.122 --> 00:15:21.729 And you have to really wonder who are the laws made for, 00:15:21.753 --> 00:15:25.425 and who has gotten above the laws. 00:15:25.449 --> 00:15:27.800 And there are things that we can do in the future. 00:15:27.824 --> 00:15:30.876 We could have the kinds of equipment that we would really need. 00:15:30.900 --> 00:15:33.503 It would not take an awful lot to anticipate 00:15:33.876 --> 00:15:36.271 that after making 30,000 holes 00:15:36.295 --> 00:15:39.120 in the sea floor of the Gulf of Mexico looking for oil, 00:15:39.144 --> 00:15:41.537 oil might start coming out of one of them. 00:15:41.561 --> 00:15:44.721 And you'd have some idea of what to do. 00:15:44.745 --> 00:15:47.036 That's certainly one of the things we need to do. NOTE Paragraph 00:15:47.060 --> 00:15:51.109 But I think we have to understand where this leak really started from. 00:15:52.000 --> 00:15:57.347 It really started from the destruction of the idea that the government is there 00:15:57.371 --> 00:15:59.086 because it's our government, 00:15:59.110 --> 00:16:01.994 meant to protect the larger public interest. 00:16:06.000 --> 00:16:09.960 So I think that the oil blowout, the bank bailout, 00:16:10.640 --> 00:16:17.305 the mortgage crisis and all these things are absolutely symptoms of the same cause. 00:16:18.236 --> 00:16:21.105 We still seem to understand that at least, 00:16:21.129 --> 00:16:25.519 we need the police to protect us from a few bad people. 00:16:25.543 --> 00:16:28.546 And even though the police can be a little annoying at times -- 00:16:28.570 --> 00:16:30.481 giving us tickets and stuff like that -- 00:16:30.505 --> 00:16:33.030 nobody says that we should just get rid of them. 00:16:33.054 --> 00:16:35.976 But in the entire rest of government right now 00:16:36.000 --> 00:16:37.862 and for the last at least 30 years, 00:16:37.886 --> 00:16:40.976 there has been a culture of deregulation 00:16:41.000 --> 00:16:46.406 that is caused directly by the people who we need to be protected from, 00:16:46.954 --> 00:16:49.477 buying the government out from under us. NOTE Paragraph 00:16:50.263 --> 00:16:57.263 (Applause) NOTE Paragraph 00:16:59.921 --> 00:17:02.727 Now this has been a problem for a very, very long time. 00:17:03.165 --> 00:17:08.524 You can see that corporations were illegal at the founding of America, 00:17:08.548 --> 00:17:11.256 and even Thomas Jefferson complained 00:17:11.280 --> 00:17:16.896 that they were already bidding defiance to the laws of our country. 00:17:18.162 --> 00:17:21.057 OK, people who say they're conservative, 00:17:21.691 --> 00:17:26.504 if they really wanted to be really conservative and patriotic, 00:17:26.528 --> 00:17:29.572 they would tell these corporations to go to hell. 00:17:30.183 --> 00:17:33.000 That's what it would really mean to be conservative. 00:17:33.807 --> 00:17:38.505 So what we really need to do is regain the idea 00:17:38.529 --> 00:17:41.744 that it's our government safeguarding our interests, 00:17:41.768 --> 00:17:45.976 and regain a sense of unity and common cause in our country 00:17:46.000 --> 00:17:47.629 that really has been lost. 00:17:48.932 --> 00:17:50.862 I think there are signs of hope. NOTE Paragraph 00:17:50.886 --> 00:17:52.976 We seem to be waking up a little bit. 00:17:53.415 --> 00:17:56.427 The Glass-Steagall Act -- which was really to protect us 00:17:56.451 --> 00:17:59.477 from the kind of thing that caused the recession to happen, 00:17:59.501 --> 00:18:03.193 and the bank meltdown and all that stuff that required the bailouts -- 00:18:03.217 --> 00:18:07.432 that was put in effect in 1933, was systematically destroyed. 00:18:07.937 --> 00:18:11.674 Now there's a mood to put some of that stuff back in place, 00:18:11.698 --> 00:18:16.219 but the lobbyists are already there trying to weaken the regulations 00:18:16.243 --> 00:18:18.976 after the legislation has just passed. 00:18:19.000 --> 00:18:20.976 So it's a continued fight. 00:18:21.000 --> 00:18:23.048 It's a historic moment right now. 00:18:23.072 --> 00:18:27.085 We're either going to have an absolutely unmitigated catastrophe 00:18:27.109 --> 00:18:28.746 of this oil leak in the Gulf, 00:18:28.770 --> 00:18:31.416 or we will make the moment we need out of this, 00:18:31.440 --> 00:18:33.107 as many people have noted today. 00:18:33.131 --> 00:18:34.787 There's certainly a common theme 00:18:34.811 --> 00:18:37.218 about needing to make the moment out of this. NOTE Paragraph 00:18:37.242 --> 00:18:41.257 We've been through this before with other ways of offshore drilling. 00:18:41.281 --> 00:18:43.976 The first offshore wells were called whales. 00:18:44.305 --> 00:18:47.163 The first offshore drills were called harpoons. 00:18:47.187 --> 00:18:49.976 We emptied the ocean of the whales at that time. 00:18:50.735 --> 00:18:52.431 Now are we stuck with this? 00:18:52.455 --> 00:18:56.367 Ever since we lived in caves, every time we wanted any energy, 00:18:56.391 --> 00:18:59.942 we lit something on fire, and that is still what we're doing. 00:18:59.966 --> 00:19:04.160 We're still lighting something on fire every time we want energy. NOTE Paragraph 00:19:04.590 --> 00:19:08.075 And people say we can't have clean energy 00:19:08.099 --> 00:19:10.411 because it's too expensive. 00:19:11.000 --> 00:19:12.772 Who says it's too expensive? 00:19:12.796 --> 00:19:15.054 People who sell us fossil fuels. 00:19:15.078 --> 00:19:17.976 We've been here before with energy, 00:19:18.000 --> 00:19:22.101 and people saying the economy cannot withstand a switch, 00:19:22.125 --> 00:19:25.337 because the cheapest energy was slavery. 00:19:25.361 --> 00:19:28.118 Energy is always a moral issue. 00:19:28.142 --> 00:19:30.407 It's an issue that is moral right now. 00:19:30.431 --> 00:19:32.974 It's a matter of right and wrong. NOTE Paragraph 00:19:32.998 --> 00:19:34.166 Thank you very much. NOTE Paragraph 00:19:34.190 --> 00:19:35.563 (Applause)