Earth 2100 Page #2

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add about 20 million people to the population

and then just play out what that

does to consumption patterns.

I mean, the, the number of

people that we've got to feed.

There's just basically this slow,

creeping tension for natural resources.

As the American way of life

becomes increasingly unsustainable,

the rest of the world

will be trying to catch up.

The Chinese like cars.

And they like big cars.

You have 14,000 cars out

onto China's roads daily.

Incomes are rising really rapidly.

They're moving into meat-based diets.

You need 10 pounds of grain

to get one pound of meat.

There is simply no way that the rest of the

world can start eating meat the way we do.

If everyone in the world consumed

as much as the average American,

It would take the resources of four Earths

to support the planet's population,

which raises the question,

should the rest of the world consume less,

or should we?

American habits, though,

are hard to break.

We in the US have gotten used

to the idea that we're somehow

immune to natural limits and it's the

other people who are going to suffer.

Good morning, Miami.

The summer of 2015 is on track to

become one of the hottest in history.

Temperatures are expected

to be in the triple digits.

My mother and I were waiting for gas.

The line went around the block

and then some.

Nothing new.

But this time, the line had

stopped moving altogether.

A man who worked at the gas

station came out holding a sign.

People started yelling

and they got out of their cars

and started moving towards him.

My mother got us out of there fast.

I've been

staking out an area that's been

hit hard recently by gas snatchers.

Look at him, he gets out,

walks right up to the car.

Wow.

Look at this,

right in the middle of the day.

There's cars going by, and these guys are -

siphoning gas out of someone's car.

In the face of mounting protests

over rising gas and food prices,

Congress today approved a plan

to fund the construction of

over the next five years.

The country took the easy way out.

Coal was once again touted

as our so- called salvation.

But the more coal we burned,

the faster our planet warmed.

You get the picture.

We're spewing more carbon, more methane,

more nitrous oxide into the atmosphere.

All the bad things of

climate change are coming true.

And most people were just going

along with their everyday lives

as If nothing had changed.

And until we have a crisis of some kind,

I don't think we're going to be motivated to

wake up and say, okay, now we have to change.

Sometimes it takes a big shock to get people,

you know, out of the inertia that,

that, that's built into the system.

They're calling

it the storm of the century,

Hurricane Linda packing Category 5 winds.

Big storms weren't unusual.

But this one was bigger than the others.

And it was headed for Miami.

All coastal regions

are being evacuated.

This storm makes landfall, we're

going to see a tremendous storm surge.

My mother was a nurse

and she wouldn't leave until all the

sick were evacuated from the hospital.

My father was afraid we

wouldn't get out in time.

I was afraid too.

Those who make the decision not to

evacuate face life threatening danger,

between the howling winds

and those giant surging waves.

Miami is a very scary

place to be right now.

but many experts say that If the

world has not reached an agreement

to massively reduce greenhouse gases by then,

we could pass the point of no return.

If we're still dragging our feet in 2015,

it really becomes almost

impossible for the world to avert

a degree of climate change that we

simply will not be able to manage.

The longer we wait without addressing

these challenges in an aggressive way,

the more likely it is we're going

to end up with really bad outcomes.

This morning, in the aftermath

of Hurricane Linda,

we are seeing the first images

of what remains of Miami.

Neighbouring communities have been

overwhelmed

by hundreds of thousands of

evacuees seeking refuge.

The evacuation center was as

big as an airplane hangar.

Maybe it was an airplane hangar.

And so jammed with people,

It was hard to move.

It was hot.

It was noisy.

We were there three weeks.

There was nowhere for us to go.

Nowhere for anybody to go.

We watched the news on TV.

I was only six, but it looked to me

like the whole world was in trouble.

Some 250,000 Bangladeshi refugees

fleeing from last month's devastating cyclone

are massing on the Indian border.

Thousands riot as China faces

it's worst wheat shortages in a decade,

the result of seemingly endless drought.

World leaders are gathering

in Washington, DC

to attend an emergency global summit meeting.

Hopes are high that the world might

finally reach an historic climate agreement.

This is the first time the whole

planet is in that kind of a crisis

and the whole planet has to join in

meeting a crisis of epical proportions.

In 2008, the Center for

the New American Security,

a Washington think tank,

staged an elaborate game.

The goal was to simulate a

global summit on climate change.

The year is 2015.

The context for the

game is Lucy's context.

Miami has been devastated by a hurricane,

and Bangladesh ravaged by a cyclone.

The people who are playing

the roles of global leaders

are in fact high level policymakers

from around the world.

Let me be very clear,

our time is running out.

John Podesta,

President Obama's transition chief,

is playing the role of UN Secretary General.

Indeed today, in October of

is exempt from the ravages of climate

change as we saw so tragically

with the Category 5 hurricane that hit Miami.

In the game, the Secretary

General has asked for a 30% reduction

In emissions by 2025.

The US team holds a

closed-door strategy session.

It's very important for us to strike

that very positive leadership tone

right out of the box.

We have to be much faster and more

serious about emission reductions.

We need to do 30% .

- By 2025?

- By 2025.

But there's a strong disagreement

about whether the American public

would be willing to make

that kind of sacrifice.

Basically, the odds of a 30% reduction in

the United States in 10 years is zero.

The world is going to hell in a

hand basket and we're saying,

gee, can we stretch this out?

Even If the United States were

willing to make these reductions,

this is a global crisis

that needs global action.

The US calls a meeting with China.

We have an inherent responsibility

to our people to take action.

In 2015, China and India are in fact

projected to account for more than 30%

of the world's carbon emissions.

But in the simulation,

they're unwilling to agree to a treaty

they feel limits their economic growth.

For both countries,

the issue is fairness.

The Western countries went through a very

energy intensive development process,

became rich by burning coal and burning oil.

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