Before the Flood Page #9

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and you can see 1200 miles

in any direction, I mean,

let me tell you.

It's kind of a revelation.

Seeing all the cities at night,

millions of people all working

away, doing something.

Come around the day

side of the world,

seeing the natural systems.

The hurricanes, huge,

great big wheels, you know,

over the oceans.

Saw the Amazon River

go between my feet.

For like five minutes, you know,

I have a whole green carpet

either side.

Just beautiful, all

the way out to the sea.

And you know there was the sun

coming up over the Amazon,

the whole forest waking up, and

doing what it does every day,

you know. Breathing

in and breathing out.

So I, I, you know, at the end

of all that I became immensely

fond, more fond of

the planet. You know?

Which I never thought about

when I actually just live

on the surface.

I'm also kind of fond of

the people on there, too.

It's like being taken away from

your family and coming back.

And um, you know,

I wish it all well.

I, uh, just before Christmas

I got told I got pancreatic

cancer.

Stage 4, so it's also elsewhere

in me, not just in one place.

So um, you know, the, the odds

are I won't be around

for very long.

You know, it's a very

small chance of survival.

So, uh, that's really

motivated me to think about

what's important to do, and what

can I contribute in the time

I have left.

So this is a model

simulation of the earth, now,

we have about 20 satellites

that are dedicated to looking

at the earth, every day.

One looks at clouds, one looks

at the sea surface temperature,

Oko looks at carbon dioxide

in the atmosphere.

All this information comes in,

and this is the tool we use

to do climate simulation.

Here's an example of one thing

we could see:
this is

ocean surface temperature,

as measured from space.

This is the whole world's

surface temperature.

You can see the

poles melting, there.

Wow.

- Yeah.

- It's amazing.

This is the way to do it man.

This is the way to really

see what's going on.

Here's the Gulf

Stream, look at this.

It's like a motion of the ocean.

This is like

a great piece of art.

It is, isn't it?

Biggest impact would be here.

- In the Gulf Stream.

- Yeah.

This current here, see it?

The dumping of ice

off melting Greenland,

would stop this conveyor belt,

and the Gulf Stream would slow

down, stopping the transport

of heat from here, to there.

And then Europe

would get cold toes.

Because there's a lot of heat

transport from the Tropics,

across the North Atlantic,

that keeps Europe warm. I mean.

So Europe would get colder?

Yeah.

Cause that's the

big misconception about

climate change, is that

everything gets warmer.

- Yeah.

- Wow.

And here's the most

advanced precipitation satellite

in the world.

This is very important, cause we

think the biggest impact from

climate change is the moving of

the precipitation belts.

From the equator

they'll go further out,

so we're already seeing

signs of a system drought.

So that causes more

drought in places

- that are already too hot.

- Yes.

And there's a lot of papers

written in the State Department

and elsewhere, how that

sustained drought has helped

fuel the conflict of the Syrian

civil war, Darfur, Sudan,

all these places that are

short of water, short of food.

Is this throughout the

entire planet or is it just this

- particular region right here?

- Nope.

We expect the whole world.

We expect bits of India we

expect in the U.S., Oklahoma.

You know the dust bowl region,

we expect that to get

much, much drier over the

next few decades.

Oh my God, and

what about my home state

of California here?

Um, not looking

great, I'm afraid.

Now predicted persistent drought

in the dust bowl, and here,

for fifty years from now.

But we're just seeing the

worst drought in 900 years

here right now.

So it's coming a bit

earlier than we thought.

We're talking about this

happening over a period

of a few decades.

It's just

consistent not great news.

No.

But a lot of people now kinda

confused about the issue.

You know, the facts

are crystal clear.

The ice is melting,

the earth is warming,

the sea level is rising.

Those are facts.

Rather than feeling, oh my

God it's hopeless, say, okay,

this is the problem.

Let's be realistic.

Let's find a way out of it.

And there are ways out of it.

You know, if we stopped

burning fossil fuel right now,

the planet would still keep

warming for a little while

before cooling off again.

So you're saying

that if we do the right thing,

we're gonna heat

up, or we're gonna.

It'll turn off,

then it'll start cooling again.

Would that Arctic ice

sheet start to then increase

again?

Once the cooling started, yeah.

So there really is

a possibility to repair

- this trajectory that we're on?

- Absolutely.

- Interesting.

- Yeah. So there's hope.

You seem to have an

incredibly positive attitude,

just about everything though.

It's amazing.

Yeah, I, I do, I'm

actually basically an optimistic

kind of person.

I have faith in people.

I, I really do have

faith in people.

And I think that once people

come out of the fog of confusion

or an issue, or initial

uncertainty on an issue,

and realistically appreciate

it at some level, the threat,

and they're informed of what the

best action is to deal with it,

they got on and did it.

And what seemed like almost

impossible to deal with,

you know, became possible.

I still think a lot

about that picture that used

to hang over above my crib.

The story of The Garden of

Earthly Delights actually begins

on the outside of the painting,

where. Bosch painted a view

of our Earth on the third day

of creation.

It's almost as if he wanted to

show the fragility of our

planet by depicting the earth

and its atmosphere enclosed

in glass.

Pope Francis

has officially released

his encyclical on the

environment.

The document is both a call

for immediate action to stop

global warming, and a

cry for justice for the poor.

Our common home has

fallen into serious disrepair.

Hope would have us recognize

that there is always a way out.

That we can always

redirect our steps,

that we can always do something

to solve our problems.

Still, we can see signs that

things are now reaching

a breaking point.

This is a direct message from

the pope, it's a huge deal.

One of the most important

spiritual leader's

on the planet.

DiCaprio.

He has now called upon

the world community to accept

the modern science

of climate change.

A pope has never done anything

like this in history.

Being able to spend

time and sit with the pope

was a pretty

profound experience.

This is a book,

Hieronymus Bosch's.

Uh, it was hanging above

my crib, as a young boy.

Thank you.

There was definitely an

urgency in his voice.

He said that as far as the Paris

conference is concerned, he,

he felt was a step in

the right direction,

but certainly not enough.

He feels we all need to keep

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