WEBVTT 00:00:16.358 --> 00:00:18.303 This is the ocean as I used to know it. 00:00:19.225 --> 00:00:23.438 And I find that since I've been in the Gulf a couple of times, 00:00:23.462 --> 00:00:27.962 I really kind of am traumatized because whenever I look at the ocean now, 00:00:27.986 --> 00:00:30.447 no matter where I am, 00:00:30.471 --> 00:00:34.376 even where I know that none of the oil has gone, 00:00:34.400 --> 00:00:36.376 I sort of see slicks, 00:00:36.400 --> 00:00:40.647 and I'm finding that I'm very much haunted by it. 00:00:42.066 --> 00:00:44.262 But what I want to talk to you about today 00:00:44.286 --> 00:00:47.816 is a lot of things that try to put all of this in context, 00:00:47.840 --> 00:00:53.814 not just about the oil eruption, but what it means and why it has happened. 00:00:53.838 --> 00:00:55.473 First, just a little bit about me. 00:00:55.497 --> 00:00:58.009 I'm basically just a guy that likes to go fishing 00:00:58.033 --> 00:01:00.989 ever since I was a little kid, and because I did, 00:01:01.013 --> 00:01:03.080 I wound up studying sea birds 00:01:03.104 --> 00:01:06.526 to try to stay in the coastal habitats that I so loved. 00:01:06.550 --> 00:01:11.136 And now I mainly write books about how the ocean is changing, 00:01:11.160 --> 00:01:14.060 and the ocean is certainly changing very rapidly. 00:01:14.084 --> 00:01:19.897 Now we saw this graphic earlier on, that we really live on a hard marble 00:01:19.921 --> 00:01:23.376 that has just a slight bit of wetness to it. 00:01:23.400 --> 00:01:25.642 It's like you dipped a marble in water. 00:01:25.666 --> 00:01:27.733 And the same thing with the atmosphere: 00:01:27.757 --> 00:01:30.982 If you took all the atmosphere and rolled it up in a ball, 00:01:31.006 --> 00:01:33.924 you would get that little sphere of gas on the right. 00:01:33.948 --> 00:01:39.177 So we live on the most fragile little soap bubble you can imagine, 00:01:39.201 --> 00:01:43.964 a very sacred soap bubble, but one that is very, very easy to affect. 00:01:43.988 --> 00:01:48.835 And all the burning of oil and coal and gas, all the fossil fuels, 00:01:48.859 --> 00:01:51.028 have changed the atmosphere greatly. 00:01:51.052 --> 00:01:53.973 Carbon dioxide level has gone up and up and up. 00:01:53.997 --> 00:01:56.314 We're warming the climate. 00:01:56.338 --> 00:01:58.349 So the blowout in the Gulf 00:01:58.373 --> 00:02:02.518 is just a little piece of a much larger problem 00:02:02.542 --> 00:02:06.616 that we have with the energy that we use to run civilization. 00:02:06.640 --> 00:02:08.071 Beyond warming, 00:02:08.095 --> 00:02:11.789 we have the problem of the oceans getting more acidified... 00:02:11.813 --> 00:02:15.955 And already measurably so, and already affecting animals. 00:02:16.600 --> 00:02:23.028 Now in the laboratory, if you take a clam and you put it in the pH that is not 8.1, 00:02:23.052 --> 00:02:26.779 which is the normal pH of seawater, but 7.5, 00:02:26.803 --> 00:02:29.409 it dissolves in about three days. 00:02:29.433 --> 00:02:33.228 If you take a sea urchin larva from 8.1, 00:02:33.252 --> 00:02:37.544 put it in a pH of 7.7... Not a huge change... 00:02:37.568 --> 00:02:40.221 It becomes deformed and dies. 00:02:40.245 --> 00:02:47.087 Already, commercial oyster larvae are dying at large scales in some places. 00:02:47.647 --> 00:02:51.982 Coral reefs are growing slower in some places because of this problem. 00:02:52.006 --> 00:02:53.618 So this really matters. 00:02:53.642 --> 00:02:57.999 Now, let's take a little tour around the Gulf a little bit. 00:02:58.023 --> 00:03:01.412 One of the things that really impresses me about the people in the Gulf: 00:03:01.436 --> 00:03:03.724 They are really, really aquatic people. 00:03:03.748 --> 00:03:05.376 And they can handle water. 00:03:05.400 --> 00:03:08.032 They can handle a hurricane that comes and goes. 00:03:08.056 --> 00:03:10.376 When the water goes down, they know what to do. 00:03:10.400 --> 00:03:15.156 But when it's something other than water, and their water habitat changes, 00:03:15.180 --> 00:03:16.829 they don't have many options. 00:03:16.853 --> 00:03:20.911 In fact, those entire communities really don't have many options. 00:03:20.935 --> 00:03:23.571 They don't have another thing they can do. 00:03:23.595 --> 00:03:27.668 They can't go and work in the local hotel business 00:03:27.692 --> 00:03:30.400 because there isn't one in their community. 00:03:31.922 --> 00:03:36.380 If you go to the Gulf and you look around, you do see a lot of oil. 00:03:36.404 --> 00:03:38.253 You see a lot of oil on the ocean. 00:03:38.277 --> 00:03:40.376 You see a lot of oil on the shoreline. 00:03:40.400 --> 00:03:44.376 If you go to the site of the blowout, it looks pretty unbelievable. 00:03:44.400 --> 00:03:47.376 It looks like you just emptied the oil pan in your car, 00:03:47.400 --> 00:03:49.671 and you just dumped it in the ocean. 00:03:49.695 --> 00:03:52.560 And one of the really most incredible things, I think, 00:03:52.584 --> 00:03:56.156 is that there's nobody out there trying to collect it 00:03:56.180 --> 00:03:58.983 at the site where it is densest. 00:03:59.797 --> 00:04:03.832 Parts of the ocean there look just absolutely apocalyptic. 00:04:05.957 --> 00:04:09.362 You go in along the shore, you can find it everywhere. 00:04:10.456 --> 00:04:11.612 It's really messy. 00:04:11.636 --> 00:04:14.007 If you go to the places where it's just arriving, 00:04:14.031 --> 00:04:16.466 like the eastern part of the Gulf, in Alabama, 00:04:16.490 --> 00:04:18.375 there's still people using the beach 00:04:18.399 --> 00:04:20.543 while there are people cleaning up the beach. 00:04:20.567 --> 00:04:23.289 And they have a very strange way of cleaning up the beach. 00:04:23.313 --> 00:04:25.972 They're not allowed to put more than 10 pounds of sand 00:04:25.996 --> 00:04:27.704 in a 50-gallon plastic bag. 00:04:27.728 --> 00:04:30.084 They have thousands and thousands of plastic bags. 00:04:30.108 --> 00:04:32.398 I don't know what they'll do with all that stuff. 00:04:32.422 --> 00:04:35.143 Meanwhile, there are still people trying to use the beach. 00:04:35.167 --> 00:04:37.945 They don't see the sign that says: "Stay out of the water." 00:04:37.969 --> 00:04:39.398 Their kids are in the water; 00:04:39.422 --> 00:04:42.450 they're getting tar all over their clothes and their sandals... 00:04:42.475 --> 00:04:43.686 It's a mess. 00:04:43.710 --> 00:04:47.214 If you go to where the oil has been for a while, it's an even bigger mess. 00:04:47.238 --> 00:04:49.622 And there's basically nobody there anymore, 00:04:49.646 --> 00:04:52.512 a few people trying to keep using it. 00:04:53.058 --> 00:04:55.396 You see people who are really shell-shocked. 00:04:55.420 --> 00:04:57.409 They are very hardworking people. 00:04:57.433 --> 00:05:00.043 All they know about life is they get up in the morning, 00:05:00.067 --> 00:05:02.363 and if their engine starts, they go to work. 00:05:02.387 --> 00:05:06.676 They always felt that they could rely on the assurances 00:05:06.700 --> 00:05:09.990 that nature brought them through the ecosystem of the Gulf. 00:05:10.014 --> 00:05:12.806 They're finding that their world is really collapsing. 00:05:12.830 --> 00:05:18.716 And so you can see, literally, signs of their shock... 00:05:20.300 --> 00:05:22.776 signs of their outrage... 00:05:25.922 --> 00:05:27.739 signs of their anger... 00:05:32.621 --> 00:05:35.065 and signs of their grief. 00:05:36.134 --> 00:05:38.403 These are the things that you can see. 00:05:40.300 --> 00:05:43.909 There's a lot you can't see, also, underwater. 00:05:44.926 --> 00:05:46.795 What's going on underwater? 00:05:46.819 --> 00:05:50.428 Well, some people say there are oil plumes. 00:05:50.452 --> 00:05:53.276 Some people say there are not oil plumes. 00:05:54.123 --> 00:05:56.474 And Congressman Markey asks, you know, 00:05:56.498 --> 00:06:01.455 "Is it going to take a submarine ride to see if there are really oil plumes?" 00:06:02.027 --> 00:06:03.938 But I couldn't take a submarine ride... 00:06:03.962 --> 00:06:08.051 Especially between the time I knew I was coming here and today... 00:06:08.075 --> 00:06:11.276 So I had to do a little experiment myself 00:06:11.300 --> 00:06:13.686 to see if there was oil in the Gulf of Mexico. 00:06:13.710 --> 00:06:15.365 So this is the Gulf of Mexico... 00:06:16.636 --> 00:06:18.283 sparkling place full of fish. 00:06:19.711 --> 00:06:22.404 And I created a little oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. 00:06:23.174 --> 00:06:25.874 And I learned, in fact, I confirmed the hypothesis 00:06:25.898 --> 00:06:28.100 that oil and water don't mix... 00:06:29.609 --> 00:06:31.910 until you add a dispersant... 00:06:33.388 --> 00:06:34.585 and then... 00:06:36.190 --> 00:06:37.622 they start mixing. 00:06:38.709 --> 00:06:42.930 And you add a little energy from the wind and the waves, 00:06:42.954 --> 00:06:46.249 and you get a big mess, 00:06:46.273 --> 00:06:49.408 a big mess that you can't possibly clean, 00:06:49.432 --> 00:06:52.453 you can't touch, you can't extract 00:06:52.477 --> 00:06:55.742 and, I think most importantly... This is what I think... 00:06:55.766 --> 00:06:57.276 You can't see it. 00:06:57.300 --> 00:07:00.634 I think it's being hidden on purpose. 00:07:00.658 --> 00:07:03.276 Now this is such a catastrophe and such a mess 00:07:03.300 --> 00:07:06.970 that lots of stuff is leaking out on the edges of the information stream. 00:07:06.994 --> 00:07:08.651 But as many people have said, 00:07:08.675 --> 00:07:11.785 there's a large attempt to suppress what's going on. 00:07:11.809 --> 00:07:18.781 Personally, I think that the dispersants are a major strategy to hide the body, 00:07:18.805 --> 00:07:21.944 because we put the murderer in charge of the crime scene. 00:07:22.870 --> 00:07:24.276 But you can see it. 00:07:24.300 --> 00:07:28.488 You can see where the oil is concentrated at the surface, 00:07:28.512 --> 00:07:31.143 and then it is attacked, 00:07:31.167 --> 00:07:34.123 because they don't want the evidence, in my opinion. 00:07:34.677 --> 00:07:35.827 OK. 00:07:36.198 --> 00:07:38.408 We heard that bacteria eat oil? 00:07:38.719 --> 00:07:40.276 So do sea turtles. 00:07:40.825 --> 00:07:42.233 When it breaks up, 00:07:42.257 --> 00:07:45.731 it has a long way to go before it gets down to bacteria. 00:07:46.196 --> 00:07:49.276 Turtles eat it. It gets in the gills of fish. 00:07:49.300 --> 00:07:51.557 These guys have to swim around through it. 00:07:51.581 --> 00:07:56.418 I heard the most incredible story today when I was on the train coming here. 00:07:56.999 --> 00:07:59.276 A writer named Ted Williams called me, 00:07:59.823 --> 00:08:02.707 and he was asking me a couple of questions about what I saw, 00:08:02.731 --> 00:08:05.874 because he's writing an article for Audubon magazine. 00:08:05.898 --> 00:08:09.645 He said that he had been in the Gulf a little while ago; like about a week ago, 00:08:09.669 --> 00:08:13.583 and a guy who had been a recreational fishing guide 00:08:13.607 --> 00:08:16.276 took him out to show him what's going on. 00:08:16.300 --> 00:08:21.276 That guide's entire calendar year is canceled bookings. 00:08:21.300 --> 00:08:23.213 He has no bookings left. 00:08:23.237 --> 00:08:26.276 Everybody wanted their deposit back, everybody is fleeing. 00:08:26.300 --> 00:08:28.267 That's the story of thousands of people. 00:08:28.291 --> 00:08:33.369 But he told Ted that on the last day he went out, 00:08:33.924 --> 00:08:37.647 a bottlenose dolphin suddenly appeared next to the boat, 00:08:38.067 --> 00:08:41.787 and it was splattering oil out its blowhole. 00:08:43.238 --> 00:08:47.953 And he moved away because it was his last fishing trip, 00:08:49.099 --> 00:08:51.276 and he knew that the dolphins scare fish. 00:08:51.300 --> 00:08:55.184 So he moved away from it, turned around a few minutes later, 00:08:55.208 --> 00:08:57.455 it was right next to the side of the boat again. 00:08:57.479 --> 00:09:00.900 He said that in 30 years of fishing he had never seen a dolphin do that. 00:09:00.924 --> 00:09:02.485 And he felt that... 00:09:02.993 --> 00:09:04.196 (Sigh) 00:09:04.220 --> 00:09:07.881 he felt that it was coming to ask for help. 00:09:08.238 --> 00:09:09.388 Sorry. 00:09:10.692 --> 00:09:14.646 Now, in the Exxon Valdez spill, 00:09:15.160 --> 00:09:19.914 about 30 percent of the killer whales died in the first few months. 00:09:19.938 --> 00:09:21.858 Their numbers have never recovered. 00:09:21.882 --> 00:09:26.747 So the recovery rate of all this stuff is going to be variable. 00:09:26.771 --> 00:09:29.596 It's going to take longer for some things. 00:09:29.620 --> 00:09:33.208 And some things, I think, will probably come back a little faster. 00:09:33.573 --> 00:09:36.276 The other thing about the Gulf that is important 00:09:36.300 --> 00:09:39.765 is that there are a lot of animals that concentrate in the Gulf 00:09:39.789 --> 00:09:42.325 at certain parts of the year. 00:09:43.122 --> 00:09:45.729 So the Gulf is a really important piece of water... 00:09:45.753 --> 00:09:50.663 More important than a similar volume of water in the open Atlantic Ocean. 00:09:51.300 --> 00:09:53.276 These tuna swim the entire ocean. 00:09:53.300 --> 00:09:56.073 They get in the Gulf Stream, they go all the way to Europe. 00:09:56.097 --> 00:09:58.265 When it comes time to spawn, they come inside, 00:09:58.289 --> 00:10:00.014 and these two tuna that were tagged, 00:10:00.038 --> 00:10:02.138 you can see them on the spawning grounds 00:10:02.162 --> 00:10:04.867 very much right in the area of the slick. 00:10:04.891 --> 00:10:07.376 They're probably having, at the very least, 00:10:07.400 --> 00:10:10.153 a catastrophic spawning season this year. 00:10:10.177 --> 00:10:13.671 I'm hoping that maybe the adults are avoiding that dirty water. 00:10:14.017 --> 00:10:18.059 They don't usually like to go into water that is very cloudy anyway. 00:10:18.448 --> 00:10:22.240 But these are really high-performance athletic animals. 00:10:22.264 --> 00:10:25.506 I don't know what this kind of stuff will do in their gills. 00:10:25.530 --> 00:10:27.476 I don't know if it'll affect the adults. 00:10:27.500 --> 00:10:30.317 If it's not, it's certainly affecting their eggs and larvae, 00:10:30.341 --> 00:10:31.528 I would certainly think. 00:10:31.552 --> 00:10:34.895 But if you look at that graph that goes down and down and down, 00:10:34.919 --> 00:10:39.640 that's what we've done to this species through overfishing over many decades. 00:10:39.664 --> 00:10:44.821 So while the oil spill, the leak, the eruption, is a catastrophe, 00:10:44.845 --> 00:10:47.578 I think it's important to keep in mind 00:10:47.602 --> 00:10:51.718 that we've done a lot to affect what's in the ocean, for a very long time. 00:10:51.742 --> 00:10:55.080 It's not like we're starting with something that's been OK. 00:10:55.104 --> 00:10:57.840 We're starting with something that's had a lot of stresses 00:10:57.864 --> 00:10:59.726 and a lot of problems to begin with. 00:10:59.750 --> 00:11:03.776 If you look around at the birds, there are a lot of birds in the Gulf 00:11:03.800 --> 00:11:06.567 that concentrate in the Gulf at certain times of the year, 00:11:06.591 --> 00:11:07.875 but then leave. 00:11:07.899 --> 00:11:10.971 And they populate much larger areas. 00:11:12.687 --> 00:11:16.877 For instance, most of the birds in this picture are migratory birds. 00:11:16.901 --> 00:11:18.743 They were all on the Gulf in May, 00:11:18.767 --> 00:11:21.884 while oil was starting to come ashore in certain places. 00:11:21.908 --> 00:11:26.463 Down on the lower left there are ruddy turnstones and sanderlings. 00:11:26.487 --> 00:11:28.210 They breed in the High Arctic, 00:11:28.234 --> 00:11:30.796 and they winter down in southern South America. 00:11:30.820 --> 00:11:35.631 But they concentrate in the Gulf and then fan out all across the Arctic. 00:11:35.655 --> 00:11:38.781 I saw birds that breed in Greenland, in the Gulf. 00:11:40.152 --> 00:11:43.563 So this is a hemispheric issue. 00:11:43.587 --> 00:11:48.383 The economic effects go at least nationally in many ways. 00:11:48.407 --> 00:11:51.474 The biological effects are certainly hemispheric. 00:11:54.167 --> 00:11:59.360 I think that this is one of the most absolutely mind-boggling examples 00:11:59.384 --> 00:12:02.196 of total unpreparedness that I can even think of. 00:12:02.220 --> 00:12:06.118 Even when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, 00:12:06.142 --> 00:12:07.549 at least they shot back. 00:12:07.573 --> 00:12:11.656 And we just seem to be unable to figure out what to do. 00:12:11.680 --> 00:12:15.316 There was nothing ready, 00:12:15.340 --> 00:12:18.730 and, you know, as we can see by what they're doing. 00:12:18.754 --> 00:12:21.518 Mainly what they're doing is booms and dispersants. 00:12:21.542 --> 00:12:25.294 The booms are absolutely not made for open water. 00:12:25.318 --> 00:12:30.159 They don't even attempt to corral the oil where it is most concentrated. 00:12:30.183 --> 00:12:32.417 They get near shore... Look at these two boats. 00:12:32.441 --> 00:12:35.065 That one on the right is called Fishing Fool. 00:12:35.089 --> 00:12:37.099 And I think, you know, that's a great name 00:12:37.123 --> 00:12:40.181 for boats that think that they're going to do anything 00:12:40.205 --> 00:12:43.277 to make a dent in this, by dragging a boom between them 00:12:43.301 --> 00:12:46.265 when there are literally hundreds of thousands of square miles 00:12:46.289 --> 00:12:49.170 in the Gulf right now with oil at the surface. 00:12:49.194 --> 00:12:52.944 The dispersants make the oil go right under the booms. 00:12:52.968 --> 00:12:56.332 The booms are only about 13 inches in diameter. 00:12:57.167 --> 00:13:00.193 So it's just absolutely crazy. 00:13:00.217 --> 00:13:01.911 Here are shrimp boats employed. 00:13:01.935 --> 00:13:05.876 There are hundreds of shrimp boats employed to drag booms instead of nets. 00:13:05.900 --> 00:13:07.223 Here they are working. 00:13:07.247 --> 00:13:09.044 You can see easily 00:13:09.068 --> 00:13:12.963 that all the oily water just goes over the back of the boom. 00:13:12.987 --> 00:13:14.937 All they're doing is stirring it. 00:13:14.961 --> 00:13:16.559 It's just ridiculous. 00:13:18.404 --> 00:13:20.509 Also, for all the shoreline that has booms... 00:13:20.533 --> 00:13:22.704 Hundreds and hundreds of miles of shoreline... 00:13:22.728 --> 00:13:24.509 All of the shoreline that has booms, 00:13:24.533 --> 00:13:27.219 there's adjacent shoreline that doesn't have any booms. 00:13:27.243 --> 00:13:32.276 There is ample opportunity for oil and dirty water to get in behind them. 00:13:32.300 --> 00:13:36.123 And that lower photo, that's a bird colony that has been boomed. 00:13:36.147 --> 00:13:40.716 Everybody's trying to protect the bird colonies there. 00:13:40.740 --> 00:13:45.971 Well, as an ornithologist, I can tell you that birds fly, and that... 00:13:45.995 --> 00:13:48.300 (Laughter) 00:13:50.971 --> 00:13:56.276 and that booming a bird colony doesn't do it; it doesn't do it. 00:13:56.300 --> 00:13:59.820 These birds make a living by diving into the water. 00:14:00.923 --> 00:14:02.073 In fact... 00:14:03.440 --> 00:14:06.583 really what I think they should do, if anything... 00:14:06.607 --> 00:14:09.744 They're trying so hard to protect those nests... 00:14:09.768 --> 00:14:12.441 Actually, if they destroyed every single nest, 00:14:12.465 --> 00:14:14.501 some of the birds would leave, 00:14:14.525 --> 00:14:16.830 and that would be better for them this year. 00:14:17.715 --> 00:14:19.248 As far as cleaning them... 00:14:20.301 --> 00:14:25.234 I don't mean to cast any aspersion on people cleaning birds. 00:14:25.258 --> 00:14:29.158 It's really, really important that we express our compassion. 00:14:29.182 --> 00:14:32.722 I think that's the most important thing that people have, is compassion. 00:14:33.326 --> 00:14:37.276 It's really important to get those images and to show it. 00:14:37.300 --> 00:14:40.675 But really, where are those birds going to get released to? 00:14:40.699 --> 00:14:43.144 It's like taking somebody out of a burning building, 00:14:43.168 --> 00:14:44.808 treating them for smoke inhalation 00:14:44.832 --> 00:14:48.585 and sending them back into the building, because the oil is still gushing. 00:14:48.986 --> 00:14:52.878 I refuse to acknowledge this as anything like an accident. 00:14:52.902 --> 00:14:56.489 I think that this is the result of gross negligence. 00:14:56.513 --> 00:15:01.276 (Applause) 00:15:01.648 --> 00:15:03.931 Not just BP. 00:15:03.955 --> 00:15:10.612 BP operated very sloppily and very recklessly because they could. 00:15:10.636 --> 00:15:12.583 And they were allowed to do so 00:15:12.607 --> 00:15:17.000 because of the absolute failure of oversight of the government 00:15:17.024 --> 00:15:21.349 that is supposed to be our government, protecting us. 00:15:23.605 --> 00:15:25.114 It turns out that... 00:15:25.138 --> 00:15:28.369 You see this sign on every commercial vessel in the United States... 00:15:28.393 --> 00:15:30.995 You know, if you spilled a couple of gallons of oil, 00:15:31.019 --> 00:15:32.398 you would be in big trouble. 00:15:32.422 --> 00:15:37.029 And you have to really wonder who are the laws made for, 00:15:37.053 --> 00:15:40.725 and who has gotten above the laws. 00:15:40.749 --> 00:15:43.100 And there are things that we can do in the future. 00:15:43.124 --> 00:15:46.176 We could have the kinds of equipment that we would really need. 00:15:46.200 --> 00:15:48.803 It would not take an awful lot to anticipate 00:15:49.176 --> 00:15:51.571 that after making 30,000 holes 00:15:51.595 --> 00:15:54.420 in the sea floor of the Gulf of Mexico looking for oil, 00:15:54.444 --> 00:15:56.837 oil might start coming out of one of them. 00:15:56.861 --> 00:16:00.021 And you'd have some idea of what to do. 00:16:00.045 --> 00:16:02.336 That's certainly one of the things we need to do. 00:16:02.360 --> 00:16:06.409 But I think we have to understand where this leak really started from. 00:16:07.300 --> 00:16:12.647 It really started from the destruction of the idea that the government is there 00:16:12.671 --> 00:16:14.386 because it's our government, 00:16:14.410 --> 00:16:17.294 meant to protect the larger public interest. 00:16:21.300 --> 00:16:25.260 So I think that the oil blowout, the bank bailout, 00:16:25.940 --> 00:16:32.605 the mortgage crisis and all these things are absolutely symptoms of the same cause. 00:16:33.536 --> 00:16:36.405 We still seem to understand that at least, 00:16:36.429 --> 00:16:40.819 we need the police to protect us from a few bad people. 00:16:40.843 --> 00:16:43.846 And even though the police can be a little annoying at times... 00:16:43.870 --> 00:16:45.781 Giving us tickets and stuff like that... 00:16:45.805 --> 00:16:48.330 Nobody says that we should just get rid of them. 00:16:48.354 --> 00:16:51.276 But in the entire rest of government right now 00:16:51.300 --> 00:16:53.162 and for the last at least 30 years, 00:16:53.186 --> 00:16:56.276 there has been a culture of deregulation 00:16:56.300 --> 00:17:01.706 that is caused directly by the people who we need to be protected from, 00:17:02.254 --> 00:17:04.777 buying the government out from under us. 00:17:05.563 --> 00:17:12.563 (Applause) 00:17:15.221 --> 00:17:18.027 Now this has been a problem for a very, very long time. 00:17:18.464 --> 00:17:23.824 You can see that corporations were illegal at the founding of America, 00:17:23.848 --> 00:17:26.556 and even Thomas Jefferson complained 00:17:26.579 --> 00:17:32.196 that they were already bidding defiance to the laws of our country. 00:17:33.462 --> 00:17:36.357 OK, people who say they're conservative, 00:17:36.991 --> 00:17:41.804 if they really wanted to be really conservative and patriotic, 00:17:41.828 --> 00:17:44.872 they would tell these corporations to go to hell. 00:17:45.483 --> 00:17:48.300 That's what it would really mean to be conservative. 00:17:49.107 --> 00:17:53.805 So what we really need to do is regain the idea 00:17:53.829 --> 00:17:57.044 that it's our government safeguarding our interests, 00:17:57.068 --> 00:18:01.276 and regain a sense of unity and common cause in our country 00:18:01.300 --> 00:18:02.929 that really has been lost. 00:18:04.232 --> 00:18:06.162 I think there are signs of hope. 00:18:06.186 --> 00:18:08.276 We seem to be waking up a little bit. 00:18:08.715 --> 00:18:11.727 The Glass-Steagall Act... Which was really to protect us 00:18:11.751 --> 00:18:14.777 from the kind of thing that caused the recession to happen, 00:18:14.801 --> 00:18:18.493 and the bank meltdown and all that stuff that required the bailouts... 00:18:18.517 --> 00:18:22.732 That was put in effect in 1933, was systematically destroyed. 00:18:23.237 --> 00:18:26.974 Now there's a mood to put some of that stuff back in place, 00:18:26.998 --> 00:18:31.519 but the lobbyists are already there trying to weaken the regulations 00:18:31.543 --> 00:18:34.276 after the legislation has just passed. 00:18:34.300 --> 00:18:36.276 So it's a continued fight. 00:18:36.300 --> 00:18:38.348 It's a historic moment right now. 00:18:38.372 --> 00:18:42.385 We're either going to have an absolutely unmitigated catastrophe 00:18:42.409 --> 00:18:44.046 of this oil leak in the Gulf, 00:18:44.070 --> 00:18:46.716 or we will make the moment we need out of this, 00:18:46.740 --> 00:18:48.407 as many people have noted today. 00:18:48.431 --> 00:18:50.087 There's certainly a common theme 00:18:50.111 --> 00:18:52.518 about needing to make the moment out of this. 00:18:52.542 --> 00:18:56.557 We've been through this before with other ways of offshore drilling. 00:18:56.581 --> 00:18:59.276 The first offshore wells were called whales. 00:18:59.605 --> 00:19:02.463 The first offshore drills were called harpoons. 00:19:02.487 --> 00:19:05.276 We emptied the ocean of the whales at that time. 00:19:06.035 --> 00:19:07.731 Now are we stuck with this? 00:19:07.755 --> 00:19:11.667 Ever since we lived in caves, every time we wanted any energy, 00:19:11.691 --> 00:19:15.242 we lit something on fire, and that is still what we're doing. 00:19:15.266 --> 00:19:19.460 We're still lighting something on fire every time we want energy. 00:19:19.890 --> 00:19:23.375 And people say we can't have clean energy 00:19:23.399 --> 00:19:25.711 because it's too expensive. 00:19:26.300 --> 00:19:28.072 Who says it's too expensive? 00:19:28.096 --> 00:19:30.354 People who sell us fossil fuels. 00:19:30.378 --> 00:19:33.276 We've been here before with energy, 00:19:33.300 --> 00:19:37.401 and people saying the economy cannot withstand a switch, 00:19:37.425 --> 00:19:40.637 because the cheapest energy was slavery. 00:19:40.661 --> 00:19:43.418 Energy is always a moral issue. 00:19:43.442 --> 00:19:45.707 It's an issue that is moral right now. 00:19:45.731 --> 00:19:48.274 It's a matter of right and wrong. 00:19:48.298 --> 00:19:49.466 Thank you very much. 00:19:49.490 --> 00:19:50.863 (Applause)