Climate One

Why Family Dinners Matter: How Every Concern Crosses Your Dinner Plate Laurie David, Producer, An Inconvenient Truth; Author, The Family Dinner Greg Dalton, Founder of Climate One We are at risk of losing a cherished and nourishing tradition, the family dinner, says author and activist Laurie David. Producer of An Inconvenient Truth and author of the just-released The Family Dinner, David says a host of pressures and dangers threaten the family dinner. The culprits are familiar: long commutes; TV, phones, and video games; more women in the workforce; school events and extra-curricular activities scheduled during dinnertime; and the microwave. Despite the challenges, David says family dinner must again become routine, for the good of our children and our environment. “Family dinner can help tremendously with three of the biggest problems we face today: our national health crisis, our difficulty connecting with each other through the fog of technology, and our urgent need to take better care of our environment,” David says. Home-cooked meals are not only better for us, she says, but by gathering the family around one table, they create memories, and help kids develop self-esteem, resiliency, patience, listening skills, vocabulary, and empathy. “Our grandparents knew it, and most of our parents, too, that frequent family dinner can help protect kids from everything a parent worries about – from drugs to alcohol to poor self-esteem, low school grades, and poor nutrition,” she says. David admits it’s not easy to goad kids into leaving their computers or TVs for a sit-down meal at home. But, during the conversation with Climate One founder Greg Dalton and audience Q&A, David offers some helpful tips. One: get kids involved in the cooking. Another: prepare what David calls “participation food” – meals, such as soups, that kids can add to by tossing in ingredients at the dinner table. “We should think of family dinner as the most important activity our kids and our family can do,” David says. “It’s a nightly dress rehearsal for adulthood, a safe, dependable place to practice cooperation, patience, and manners, kindness and gratitude, and share stories.” This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on November 3, 2010 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Science As A Contact Sport Ben Santer, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Noah Diffenbaugh, Professor, Environmental Earth System Science, Stanford Uninversity Greg Dalton, Climate One - Moderator Confronted with overwhelming evidence of a warming planet, scientists have a duty to leave the laboratory and engage the public, say two leading climatologists. This Climate One program, titled “Science as a Contact Sport,” is a tribute to the late Stanford University climate scientist Stephen Schneider, whose last work was a book of the same name. Ben Santer, a researcher at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Noah Diffenbaugh, Professor, Environmental Earth System Science, Stanford University, comment on Schneider’s legacy: cutting-edge research complemented by unmatched communications skills. Despite the need, Santer and Diffenbaugh say, Ph.D.s are not likely to receive communications training during their formal studies. Santer says he learned on the job; Diffenbaugh says he was trained only to communicate with other scientists. The omission is particularly worrisome with attacks against climate science, and its practitioners, ascendant. The attacks leave scientists no choice but to defend the integrity of their work and reputations, say Santer and Diffenbaugh. “We’re in a challenging position as climate scientists,” Diffenbaugh says, “in that there’s a very charged political atmosphere out in the real world. In some ways, it’s the path of least resistance to dump the information on the world, and then do it again for the next paper.” Santer and Diffenbaugh both describe a moral duty to speak out, as publishing alone hasn’t persuaded policymakers to act or silenced skeptics. “When I started off as a climate scientist,” Santer says, “I believed that if you did the best possible science, it would be good enough. Ultimately, people would do the right thing if the science was credible, if it was compelling, if the physical evidence was consistent, coherent. But it’s not.” As a result, he says, “part of our job, too, is to demystify, to speak truth to power when people try to demonize climate science and climate scientists. You can’t just be a bystander.” This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club on November 3, 2010 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Proposition 23: Yes or No? Bob Epstein, Founder, Environmental Entrepreneurs Nancy Floyd, Manging Director, Nth Power Jack Stewart, President, California Manufacturers Tom Tanton, President, T2 & Associates Greg Dalton, Climate One - Moderator The night before an election that would decide the fate of California’s landmark climate change law, a panel of energy experts convened by Climate One debates whether AB 32 would catalyze or cripple the state’s economy. The measure before voters, Proposition 23, would suspend AB 32 until California achieves four consecutive quarters of unemployment below 5.5%. Jack Stewart, President, California Manufacturers and Technology Association, and Tom Tanton, President, T2 & Associates, argue that with California suffering 12.4% unemployment, now is not the time to burden business with additional regulation. “There’s a lot of pain and very little gain,” in pushing ahead with the law, Tanton says. Stewart agrees: “Do we want to go forward and have a growing economy and hold off on AB 32,” he asks, “or do we hobble the California economy and make it more difficult to employ the 2.3 million Californians who are out of work?” Nancy Floyd, Founder and Managing Director, Nth Power, and Bob Epstein, Founder, Environmental Entrepreneurs, counter that cleantech is the fastest growing job sector in California and critical to maintaining the state’s competitive edge globally. Floyd says that 500,000 green jobs have already been created in California, and that her venture firm alone had invested $200 million in 35 companies in the state. Epstein takes issue with claims by Stewart and Tanton that California’s climate change rules would subject the state’s businesses to onerous regulations and uncertainty. “This legislation lays out a 10-year plan. For an oil company, they tell you every place you need to be for 10 years.” Win or lose on Nov. 2, Epstein says the fight over Prop 23 has succeeded in mobilizing interests – environmentalists, venture capitalists, utilities, and tech firms – with a stake in the green economy. “What you have done, by bringing Prop 23 to the table, is you united a community that really needed to be united,” he says. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Calories and Carbon Ken Cook, Founder and President, Environmental Working Group Whendee Silver, Professor of Ecology, UC Berkeley; Marin Carbon Project Helene York, Director, Bon Appetit Management Company Foundation Greg Dalton, Founder of Climate One, moderator Grappling with the carbon impact of our food system is not easy. Faced with such uncertainty, Ken Cook’s simple advice is apt: “Eat lower down the food chain – better for you, better for the planet.” Cook, founder and president of the Environmental Working Group, joins Whendee Silver, professor of ecology, U.C. Berkeley, and Helene York, director, Bon Appétit Management Company Foundation, for a discussion on calories, carbon, and the way forward. The panelists stress how far we’ve come in such a short time. “There was a time, not too long ago, that if you went into an organic restaurant, or tried to shop for organic produce, you really wondered whether the food had been harvested, or maybe had escaped,” Cook says. Helene York agrees, sharing the experience of Bon Appétit, which serves 100 million meals each year. Over two years, her 500 chefs reduced the amount of meat served by 20%. But, York emphasizes, they did so without scrimping on taste. “The real key,” she says, “is to offer alternatives that our guests want to eat. They look good. They taste good. They’re at a reasonable price point, and they’re appetizing.” Whendee Silver, who specializes in carbon number-crunching, stresses the importance of education. Researchers are valiantly attempting to assess the life-cycle cost of food, she says, but it is very hard to compare, say, the carbon impact of grass-fed versus feedlot beef. “There are big gaps in the data. Right now, many of the life-cycle analyses that we’re working with have pretty significant uncertainties,” she says. Despite the challenges, we can transition to grass-fed beef and seasonal, local produce, the panel says. “We have to be thoughtful as consumers about it. But I think people want straight-forward cues,” Cook says. “Take grass-fed beef. It’s more expensive to produce in many cases. But make that investment and that sector is going to start to grow.” This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on October 21, 2010 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Climate Fix? Roger Pielke, Professor, University of Colorado What’s the most efficient way to minimize the impacts of climate change? Public policy? Massive funding of new technology? Buying off emerging countries that will soon emit most of the world’s carbon pollution? Pielke, who is affiliated with The Breakthrough Institute, is critical of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He’ll explain why and offer his take on the state of climate science. This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San Francicso on October 15, 2010 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Greg Dalton, Founder of Climate One, moderator In just her third appearance before a US audience as secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton touts the potential of American innovation to further public diplomacy and to help tackle a host of global challenges. Before a sold-out Commonwealth Club crowd of 1,500, Clinton comments on global flashpoints – Afghanistan, Iran, and Mexico – while addressing climate change and clean energy. Clinton repeatedly stresses the need to leverage the creativity of Silicon Valley with work underway at her department. “Innovation is one of America's greatest values and products,” she says, “and we are very committed to working with scientists and researchers to look for new ways to develop hardier crops or lifesaving drugs at affordable costs, working with engineers for new sources of clean energy or clean water to both stem climate change and also to improve the standard of living for people.” In the Q&A, Climate One founder Greg Dalton asks Clinton if the State Department would reconsider granting a permit for the controversial Alberta Clipper Pipeline. Clinton concedes that while a final decision had not been made, the project is likely to go ahead: “We're either going to be dependent on dirty oil from the Gulf or dirty oil from Canada. And until we can get our act together as a country and figure out that clean, renewable energy is in both our economic interests and the interests of our planet.” Clinton also comments on Senate’s failure to act on climate change. “I don't think it will come as a surprise to anyone how deeply disappointed the President and I are about our inability to get the kind of legislation through the Senate that the United States was seeking,” she says. Clinton closes with advice for Ellie, a 10-year-old who expresses concern for the future environment. “I think that there is a lot that you can do, because it's been my experience that young people are much more environmentally conscious and committed to protecting the world you're growing up in than some of us older people are,” she says. “I'm out of politics, as you all know. So speaking as a private citizen,” she adds, to laughter, “I think people running for office should be asked to explain their positions on what they're going to do.” This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on October 15, 2010 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the Balance: Energy, Economy and Environment Part of The Chevron California Innovation Series Raj Atluru, Managing Director, Draper Fisher Jurvetson Ralph Cavanagh, Energy Co-director, Natural Resources Defense Council Cathy Reheis-Boyd, President, Western States Petroleum Association Jack Stewart, President, California Manufacturers and Technology Association Virgil Welch, Special Assistant to the Chairman, California Air Resources Board Greg Dalton, Climate One - Moderator The low-carbon economy is California’s future. But this panel of energy experts convened by Climate One disagrees on how fast that transition will take, and how it will impact the economy. Jack Stewart, President, California Manufacturers and Technology Association, and Cathy Reheis-Boyd, President, Western States Petroleum Association, repeatedly stress that California could be more business friendly, and that green jobs alone won’t pull the state out of recession. “We all see a clean energy future,” Stewart says. “The question is: When do we get there? How fast do we get there? And at what cost?” “We cannot lose sight of the fact that we are not in a good state in California,” says Reheis-Boyd. “I can tell you my members are making some very difficult choices about where to invest their next dollar.” We have to get the rules right, the remaining panel members say, but they see no trade-off between environmental and economic good. “I think the energy history of California over the last 30 years is how to do both well,” says Ralph Cavanagh, Energy co-director, Natural Resources Defense Council. “Nobody is satisfied with 12.4% unemployment, but I don’t think the answer is doing less of what we already know we do better than anyone else. I think it’s speeding up.” For Virgil Welch, Special Assistant to the Chairman of the California Air Resources Board, it’s also about maintaining California’s global competitiveness. “The policies that we as a state are working on are not just what we need to do for our energy and environmental needs, but they’re critical to driving us towards where the global economy is heading, which is clean energy.” As long as California’s maintains its forward-thinking policy framework, green innovators will call the state home, says, Raj Atluru, Managing Director at the venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson. “California has succeeded over the last century because of its innovation. We’ve innovated in entertainment, flight, defense, communications, PCs, the Internet. Our bet, at our firm, is that the next wave of innovation is going to be the green jobs economy. ” This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on October 12, 2010 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Solar Surge? John Woolard, CEO, BrightSource Energy Karen Douglas, Chairman, California Energy Commission Lisa Hoyos, California Director, Apollo Alliance Greg Dalton, Climate One - Moderator A “perfect storm” of policy and incentives has made 2010 a banner year for solar in California, but for the boom to continue in the state and the rest of the United States, major obstacles need to be cleared, according to a panel of experts convened by Climate One. Karen Douglas, Chair of the California Energy Commission, BrightSource Energy President and CEO John Woolard, and Lisa Hoyos, California State Coordinator, Apollo Alliance, caution that the absence of a coherent, stable, and long-term national clean energy policy is holding back the industry. “One of the challenges in US policy is that … it’s been, ironically, perpetual and long term for fossil fuels, but short term and extended sporadically for renewables,” Woolard says. “We need a longer time horizon … at least five, more likely ten years, is reasonable.” Douglas agrees: “It’s terribly damaging to extend a policy and then reverse the policy. If you do that too many times, developers feel burned.” We also need to be able to deliver the clean energy to the grid. Woolard notes that over the past decade US regulators have sited 12,000 miles of natural gas pipelines but only 600 miles of power lines. “It’s like running interstate commerce without highways and rails,” Woolard says. If you can get projects financed and approved by regulators, it will mean jobs, Hoyos says. “Clean energy jobs are growing ten times faster than any other sector of our economy in this state,” she says. “We need to fully put our energy behind opposing Proposition 23 so we can continue to realize the benefits of AB 32, which is expected to generate in the next ten years over $104 billion in investment and other economic opportunities.” This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on October 8, 2010 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger: Green Light or Red Light Ahead? With an election approaching that will decide his successor and the fate of his landmark legislative achievement, California’s climate law known as AB 32, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger delivers a full-throated defense of his legacy. Schwarzenegger’s aim, he says, is to shed a spotlight on “forces willing to sacrifice this country’s environmental future for private gain” by pushing Proposition 23. “Oil companies like Valero and Tesoro and Frontier and Koch Industries are blatantly trying to manipulate the will of the people and the public good,” he says. “They are creating a shell argument that this is about saving jobs. Does anyone really believe that these companies, out of the goodness of their black-oil hearts, are spending millions and millions of dollars to protect jobs?” Asked by Climate One founder Greg Dalton if he welcomes Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman coming down on his side on Prop. 23, Schwarzenegger replies, “Yes, I welcome anyone who comes to our side and helps. I hope she uses some of her billions of dollars that she has and put it into the campaign to fight Prop. 23.” Schwarzenegger repeatedly stresses that California’s future rests on its ability to lead the transition to a clean energy economy, and that doing so would not negatively impact the state’s economy. Since 2005, he says, jobs in the greentech sector have grown ten times faster than the California average and are the single-largest source of new job growth in the state. This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club on September 27, 2010 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Salt, Oil and Carbon Jane Lubchenco, Administrator, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Nancy Sutley, Chair, Council on Environmental Quality, the White House Greg Dalton, Founder of Climate One A new national oceans policy will require a patchwork of federal agencies to collaborate on managing the country’s oceans and lakes for the first time, according to Jane Lubchenco, Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Nancy Sutley, Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. They told a Climate One audience the creation of a National Oceans Council should help streamline and centralize the fractured system that had existed before. “What we have is a whole new dimension of collaboration,” says Sutley. The pair’s enthusiasm for the new reforms was tempered by the dire state of the oceans and the manifold threats that promise to degrade them further. Lubchenco notes that the acidity of the oceans has increased by 30% in the past 100 years. That is compromising the ability of calcium carbonate-shelled creatures to make shells, she says, threatening the “rainforests of the sea” – coral reefs – and placing in jeopardy the base of the marine food web. How will the BP oil disaster affect the health of the Gulf of Mexico? Lubchenco says it will take years to really know. Of the 4.9 million barrels that gushed into the deep ocean, Lubchenco says ¼ was burned, skimmed, or captured; ¼ evaporated; ¼ was dispersed, naturally or by chemicals; and the last ¼ collected as sheen on the surface, in tar balls, or washed ashore. Lubchenco remains concerned about the very dilute but still toxic oil that remains below the surface. “Dilute does not mean benign,” she says. This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on September 8, 2010 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices