Planet 2020: Fires And Floods Force Climate Change To The Forefront | NBC News NOW

[Music] it's scary it's so scary to go and leave your home everything you own yeah it's not it's not fun it's not fun if you don't believe climate change still exists talk to a firefighter and it's simple when you take record heat which is what the west coast has seen this summer you take the worst drought in at least a millennium over the past decade you put those things together you get these sorts of massive wildfires [Music] maximum sustained winds have been clocked at 150 miles per hour and laura is now one of the most powerful hurricanes ever to hit the u.s mainland this thing is about 400 miles in diameter you just look around and there's water everywhere and you think to yourself how is this reality [Music] so whether it's the wildfires out west or the superstorms back east we're seeing dangerous climate change play out before our eyes hi everybody i'm al roker right now on the east coast here in new york city and i'm savannah sellers on the west coast outside of san diego both locations already battling the effects of climate change you're watching planet 2020 [Music] there is no question about the science this year alone we're on track to have the hottest year ever on our planet arctic sea ice continues melting at a record pace and the atlantic hurricane season while it's advancing at a torrent speed and while the u.s is scheduled to pull out of the paris climate accord in november a bipartisan report just released says that climate change quote poses a major risk to the stability of the u.s financial system and to its ability to sustain the american economy the science tells us we have to act now my hope is that my kids generation will pick up this fight since they're going to be the ones inheriting a planet on fire the good news is that generation is already at work heads turned around the world last fall when then 16 year old greta tunberg slammed leaders at the united nations for their lack of action all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth inspired by greta some teens across the world skip school on fridays every friday asking why they're going at all if they won't have a planet left in the future and in the u.s an election rooms where millennials and gen z will make up 37 percent of eligible voters and concern over climate change is rising sharply and shaping up to be more important to all voting blocs than ever before is it enough are we acting too slowly and can we turn things around and cool our planet off this is planet 2020 [Music] right now coast to coast thousands of people are displaced from their homes feeling the immediate effects of the devastating climate events we're seeing these days as for those people they look for hope in the ruins but scientists warn the worst is yet to come 2020 a year of extremes in january wildfires erupting across southeastern australia in june siberia hitting 100 degrees and right now the western u.s being ravaged by deadly wildfires and heat and the atlantic hurricane season it's so active the record books can't keep up chalk up these disasters to it just being 2020 absolutely not this is a dangerous trend that began back in the industrial revolution and has grown exponentially as we humans continue to release greenhouse gases the last five years have been the hottest years on record on our planet ever so what does it mean it means that if the planet warms another two degrees more heat waves floods and droughts are in store but it doesn't have to be that way there's still time to take action live greener get out and vote and do your part blood orange skies and overwhelming smoke from wildfires had sadly become part of life for people here on the west coast and for many they're still barely recovering from the last fire season what is it like year after year how hard is it to rebuild steve patterson has that story we left two hours before the house burned down it's heartbreaking our younger son hasn't slept alone in his bed for one night in almost three years and that is a constant daily reminder of what we've been through both of our children their best friends lost their homes some of my closest friends lost their homes 25 of our school community lost their homes so it's such a unique situation to go through something that is so awful but to go through it with so many people you know um and there's something actually healing about that so we felt really strongly that we needed to go through this with our community if we moved back to san francisco they wouldn't know what we were going through we also had her parents here they lost their houses as well their house as well and we wanted to to be together we thought the best way was to all rebuild i have to find something positive out of this and what that is is that we have each other yeah we have our family everybody's safe everyone that we know that's lost their home is safe and it's just stuff we'll always have the memories you know the memories are going to be there but we'll build new ones yeah we'll rebuild we'll definitely rebuild oh yeah tell me about um starting fresh what's it been like to rebuild on a place that you know was so destroyed that's a tough question to answer i mean where you start is having the debris removed then your mind goes to all of this toxic burnt ashes whatever else is in it they're carting it off and that in my brain i'm thinking oh so now we're gonna put it do you feel any safer i do feel safer i mean i i i do it's more efficient much more easier way more efficient yeah safer that's a really that's a tough word i i think because i'm broken you know where the ptsd is i don't know i mean i'm broken you know it's it's so darn sad the size and spread of these fires now tearing through the west have already been historic fueled by these high temperatures low humidity and powerful winds it's not yet even the height of fire season we have clear evidence from very careful objective scientific research that global warming is elevating the risk of wildfire in california and more broadly in the western united states over the region as a whole the total area burn has increased around 10 fold in the last four decades and about half of that increase is attributable to the effects of long-term warming on vegetation dryness on a nationwide scale we know that 84 of the wildfires across our nation are actually started by people that's another piece of the puzzle that we can fix so instead of smoky bear in the middle of the woods you need a smoky bear in the middle of suburbia telling us that only you can prevent the fires that are threatening your homes today nearly 80 percent of the homes that were destroyed here have been or are being rebuilt and while the community is coming back the pain still lingers what goes through your head in your heart when you see this current spot of fires that are burning not only in california but now oregon washington and all these other places that we haven't had before it's a lot of disbelief that it's happening again four years in a row now and to see again that it's now we have the biggest fire in california after we had the biggest fire in california the year prior and they go prior to that and it's also really re-triggering and re-traumatizing for those of us who've been through it so it's almost like we never get a chance to heal because it just continues to happen well you can't really do anything but keep an eye on it it's tough it's tough it may happen every year for the rest of your lives you're prepared for that this may be our new normal now al i'm at the site of the valley fire outside of san diego thousands of acres burned and looked like this firefighters were injured and many homes and structures were lost as we just heard in that piece there from steve it's just so devastating to try to build back from yeah i remember being at the paradise fire and and seeing whole neighborhoods wiped clean so only imagining again what those folks are going through and we're seeing haunting images of destruction all over the globe not just in america but polarized views on climate change and the effect it has play into politics despite the science so what is the responsibility of people in positions of power gina mccarthy the former epa administrator in the obama administration and current president and ceo of the natural resources defense council joins us now uh dr mccarthy thank you for joining us we so appreciate it al savannah it's great to be here with you uh first off our climate is being referred to as being in crisis what do you see as the most urgent climate issue in front of us right now well simply to take action and the most urgent action we can take is to vote you know you're absolutely right everybody needs to be all in on climate and the problem is we do not have the leadership at the federal level that's going to deliver the actions we need today to address our climate crisis and there's opportunities for people today look i know that at least me i'm not happy with the lack of federal leadership it disturbs me when we have a president that's sort of giggling at the site of total devastation that we're seeing in the western u.s not to mention the hurricane season that we're facing with double storms just hitting and hitting in all the crazy wind storms in the midwest you know we know everybody is being impacted by climate we need leadership we need new leadership who's going to recognize science pay attention to us and help us move forward and and honestly every one of us has something we can do we can take a look at our own communities we have across the united states while the federal government has done nothing but deny climate pull out of the paris agreement and roll back all the protections we had in place that would start addressing climate change we now we also have uh governors across the country more than 24 of them who are all in on taking action and climate we have hundreds of cities that are acting we can work with those governors and with those cities and we can express our rage in our demand for climate action by voting in november that's the most important thing you can do if you're worried about the climate crisis that is impacting all of us and honestly one of the most important things we can do is recognize that climate change isn't about the planet we now know it's about people it's about our health our well-being our safety it is about the next generation and while i want to see young people standing up and and speaking up and protesting i want to be with them every step of the way because i have two grandchildren myself and there's no way i'm going to stop fighting climate change until my dying breath and all of us have to take that attitude especially knowing that the people most damaged by climate change are the very same people that have been most damaged in this pandemic everybody seemed surprised that that the black community was being hottest hit but if you're in the environmental world you know well that the poor in the black communities in the brown communities are always hit first and hottest with traditional pollutants and they're all they're the ones most at risk in climate so climate change is not just bad for us but it's damn unfair it actually is continuing the systemic racism that none of us want to see to continue now gina you mentioned the importance of voting and as a former epa administrator you know what those leaders are capable of you know what government is capable of and what it's not what role can and should government be playing in this crisis well i think you have to look at government action at the federal state and local level because we live in a democracy the one thing i have learned is that the federal government isn't the innovator the federal government has to be pushed every step of the way now i know that vice president biden has a great climate plan it's focused on equity and it's focused on health and moving us forward but i also know that but that people have to not just vote but they have to keep demanding that all those plans are put in place that's why i'm at the natural resources defense council we have to keep advocating we have to communicate and work together we have to demand more of our businesses not just the fossil fuel companies to step up and take ownership of what they've done but also businesses everywhere have to start looking at how they're investing pension funds have to look at how they're investing make sure that we're divesting of the past dirty fuels that we've relied on and really go all in on clean energy you know the exciting thing about clean energy is that it doesn't just help us with challenges of climate change and pollution but the most exciting thing is it's the way to get us out of the the economic doldrum that we find ourselves one of the biggest damage of all we're seeing a climate is that people are also facing an incredible pandemic people are just beaten down we need to stand up and say our future has to be clean energy it's healthier for all of us it will grow jobs clean energy is three times as many people working in it as fossil fuels we need to have a just transition but we need that transition to happen and happen now so if we can all be all in then we can grab our future once again and we can deliver for those young people a few a future that we will be proud to hand to them gina mccarthy thank you so much we really appreciate your insight and your input savannah there's no doubt climate change is going to be an issue on voters minds when americans cast their ballots this november so how will trump and biden each handle this crisis with november 3rd rapidly approaching let's take a look at where both candidates stand on climate change [Music] since trump entered office in 2016 he's consistently lowered environmental protection regulations citing that they're crippling to the economy including a historic departure from the paris climate accord in 2017. i was elected to represent the citizens of pittsburgh not paris a departure that biden plans to reverse immediately if he wins in november while we're standing around not doing much the rest of the world is moving ahead first thing i would do the day one as president i'd rejoin the paris climate accord which we barack and i put together under trump's leadership the department of the interior proposed the largest ever oil and gas lease of over 78 million acres in the gulf of mexico trump also signed an executive order for the expansion of offshore drilling trump then reversed himself just last week off the coast of florida and up the atlantic coast in a few moments i will sign a presidential order extending the moratorium on offshore drilling on florida's gulf coast and expanding it to florida's atlantic coast as well as the coasts of georgia and south carolina a move he hopes might win him votes in the tough swing state biden on the other hand plans to ban any new drilling permits on public lands or waters instead he plans to shift the country's focus to renewable energy options with a goal of doubling offshore wind by 2030. when donald trump thinks about renewable energy he sees windmills somehow causing cancer when i think about these windmills i see american manufacturing american workers racing to dominate the global market biden wants to create 10 million jobs focused on climate change and wants the whole country to be net zero in carbon emissions no later than 2050. trump meanwhile repealed the obama-era clean power plan that required states to cut emissions by 30 percent by 2030 and was expected to create as many as 560 000 jobs in the clean energy field he claims it caused an increase in energy prices instead he focused on preserving coal mining jobs and approving drilling along the dakota access and keystone xl pipelines the latter of which is still not completed today we take one more step in putting the jobs wages and economic security of american citizens first when it comes to the broader environment trump proposed a 26 budget cut for the epa in fiscal year 2021. meanwhile biden's team unveiled a 2 trillion dollar environmental policy plan it turns out public opinion is on the side of limiting climate change according to a study released on august 24th 68 of americans believe that the u.s government should be doing more to deal with global warming a trend that the biden campaign is banking on with their clean energy revolution as election day grows nearer we'll be keeping an eye on both candidates and their plans to fight climate change well coming up after a quick break what can we do to help our planet and help spark change stay with us [Music] i started coming here before i can remember with my mother and my grandmother and my grandmother's parents built this cabin in 1907. it was a two-story cabin it had cut glass crystal windows in three of the bedrooms it had these big redwood beams in the living room they made a lot of ash we would go from thinking it was gone for sure to being hopeful that it was still here we know it was here for a day and so it was a roller coaster ride of up and down and when we finally saw the photographs from the embedded photographers that come up with the fire department that was really helpful to actually know that it was gone my daughters are very interested in rebuilding they love it here and i guess we will [Music] i hope is based in the youth i see the world use mobilized for very important causes i see them mobilized in relation to gender equality i see the mobilized stimulation to climate i see them mobilized against racism i see them mobilized for international cooperation they are much more cosmopolitan much more universalists than my own generation and it is this dynamism of the use that makes me be hopeful because let's be frank my generation largely failed to address the challenges that the world faces the use seems to be much more determined to do so yeah we always look to our youth uh do you are you more optimistic because of this generation that's coming up yes i think it's our best hope is the generation that's coming up and that understood already and we see that in so many ways around the world understood already that either we are united or will be doomed while the leaders in our country are divided the younger generation is stepping up they go out and strike they don't mince their words when addressing world leaders it is this generation that could be the key to caring for our planet the climate crisis isn't something that we're going to have to deal with in the future we're already seeing the effects of it right now i was there when the camp fire broke out in paradise california we ended up receiving a lot of the smoke and we had to do the same things that we did just in the recent weeks when the entire west coast was on fire we roll up with towels and put them under windows and doors to keep the smoke from seeping in because it was inflaming my asthma i became very sick now it's like a repeat of that history for me personally i am a 15 year old climate activist and founder of earth uprising international my thoughts on the whole generation z is the leader of the climate movement is a bit it's a bit inaccurate because this is an intergenerational movement and young people are getting involved at bigger and bigger levels because we are seeing this impending climate catastrophe and we really feel that anxiety and we're being asked to plan for our futures but we have nothing to plan for and so then we feel really angered and motivated my name is jamie margolin i'm 18 years old and i'm a co-founder of the international youth climate justice organization zero hour when i first got involved in climate activism what i told people was that in the future we won't be able to go to school because we'll be too busy running from the next climate fueled disaster people told me i was being dramatic and i was being an alarmist but it hasn't even been two years since i started and we're already starting to see what scientists have been telling us for years if we were able to go to school at this time we still wouldn't be able to on the west coast because it's very unsafe for us that air quality causes all sorts of effects to your body it can cause health issues in the future but we aren't the ones who decide the city in federal budgets we aren't the ones who vote on the bills we aren't the ones who are actually in power to change things from the summer of 2017 to the summer of 2018 we were working non-stop organizing and organizing to create youth climate marches in washington dc and what ended up being 25 cities around the world we haven't really been ingrained in the system that a lot of adults are ingrained in so we think outside of the box and we don't think about what's politically possible when it comes to actions to take about the climate crisis we just think about what really needs to happen i feel like people could often think like oh yeah what's the point why should young people even bother if we're not going to be heard but i think that the answer is intergenerational organizing we need the young people's energy and the wisdom of the elders and people have been doing this together we needed adults backing us up in our activism and so i believe that we are going to come out of this pandemic much stronger as the movement as a whole than before while yes like we are often dismissed overall we have contributed to a massive cultural shift we need climate action within the next 10 years in order to save our planet now al i've had the pleasure of talking to so many of these both young and first-time voters and what's so cool is that many of them identify as republican many of them identify as democrat this particular issue does not feel partisan if anything it maybe feels generational and this generation just really seems to care across the board you know savannah i've got a 22 year old who has marched in the strikes and i have an 18 year old who's excited about voting for the first time and making a difference well successfully addressing climate change it's gonna require action and activism so so how do we truly make a difference in restoring our planet one person helping to lead that fight producer actor and environmentalist is ian somalhalden uh ian here's a question for you what do what do you see as the most urgent threat in the climate crisis right now by the way thank you guys for for having me on listen the the biggest urgent threat that we have is this carbon output that we that we have up there not just the legacy load of carbon but what we're putting into the atmosphere every every year and that's why we shot a film on it that took seven years to give a real understanding of how to get out of this simple solutions that actually work that is what we're facing is how do we not only to mitigate or minimize our carbon output but actually draw down the carbon that is left in this legacy load of carbon because at the end of the day we could take every car up the road every maritime shipping vessel out of the ocean or every plane out of the sky shut down every coal-fired power plant there is and climate change would still happen at an alarming rate and that is because of agriculture and carbon now in like you just said carbon emissions this is this huge part of this conversation you mentioned your film that's this new netflix documentary kiss the ground it focuses specifically on a way to do that and it's really interesting and i feel like a lot of people might not have heard of this until seeing this film sustainable farming to regress the surplus of carbon in the air tell us specifically about what this film reveals and how you hope to contribute to combating climate change right right thank you so much um so it's it's called kiss the ground and it's actually not even about sustainable farming it's about regenerative farming the whole idea that the only way to get rid of the amount of carbon we have in the air is to do it at scale right other than you know oceans and massive massive uh areas of the land of the world the biggest areas are agriculture so it's called biosequestration otherwise known as drawdown right which is using growing plants and different ways of grazing animals to draw down all of that carbon through biosequestration store it safely back in the ground where it belongs all that carbon and feed all the microorganisms because much like the human body you know our health the health of a human being is completely based on the microbiome of our gut the same thing with the earth right the microbiome of soil is how the earth heals itself it's how the earth grows food that then pulls carbon out of the sky so unfortunately modern agriculture is was not designed for the betterment of the soil so by changing the agricultural systems to regenerative farming and here's the big kicker and i'll say this very quickly what no none of us actually ever understood right we took it took seven years to make this film i shot the initial footage of this film nine years ago in zimbabwe when we and this is the big one that people just hate to hear when we till soil which is what we do every year we release what carbon no one thinks about that when you damage soil it releases carbon so that's when everyone says wait what so when we stop tilling our soil and we design our our planning practices around no-till the world was shipped on its axis when china russia the united states india and the eu switch to regenerative farming practices the world will shift on its axis and we will literally reverse climate change by 2050. that is exciting this is not all doom and gloom sorry go ahead ian let me ask you a question so i'm not a farmer uh you know i i don't you know i don't do farming who who do you see as allies how do we who are not part of that process uh become allies so it's a really great question listen this is obviously an intergenerational um movement but i will say this when millennials gen z's uh even baby boomers demand that every piece of spinach they eat every piece of broccoli they eat or every chickpea they eat every bite of cereal they eat come from a regenerative farm every mall development high school college sports arena you see what i mean you can we can do this at scale so again it goes back to empowered conscious consumers but every day that they leave their home they have the ability to vote with their dollar and that's the most powerful vote that there is and are they going to be voting with that dollar to companies who are not just sustainable but that are regenerative and again this cannot be something that that drives the prices up right that's what happened with the whole organic movement it's too expensive for families you know i grew up very very poor uh in the deep deep south in louisiana there's no way my family would have been able to afford you know organic food back then and so the reality of it is we have to make it affordable which we can because we can do it at scale and this film offers real solutions that is just so exciting i've seen 25 or 30 cuts of our film there's not one time i've seen it where i'm not teary and that teary is not just anger it's hope it's excitement and that is what i think people will see um on netflix september 22nd now ian you mentioned that this is an intergenerational fight and that's of course because it's an intergenerational issue it's something that affects all of us who are here on the planet and if you don't mind me asking in a personal take on that how does being a father you know i know you have a daughter contribute to your commitment to this cause thinking about her future well that's the thing right that that's what's so crazy about all of this is i was in this climate fight before i had a daughter we have enough healthy soil left for 60 harvests so that's 60 years of food when i'm holding my daughter i see her at three years old and say in 60 years you're only going to be 63 years old i don't want a world where my child at 20 30 40 50 and 60 is fighting because some new you know storm systems have you know completely you know destroyed the entire eastern seaboard and the whole southeast and there's mass you know uh migration from the eastern seaboard in the southeast up to the north and midwest and northern uh northwest of this country which is where we're going that's what the computer models say uh and the biggest organizations ultimately that want this science and have the data is the united states military and the biggest insurance companies in the world because they are actually at the greatest risk of loss and so the science is there it's the intergenerational um buy-in ultimately that this is their time because i look at what's happening in the youth of the world and how amazing it is and what greta's been able to do but here's my question who's financing these young ones who's organizing these young ones who's putting together the structure you know if you're thinking about massive global change from a policy level from a corporate level from an institutional educational level it takes guidance it takes structure it takes finance you know that finance is not just going to fall out of the sky we've got to do it through business unfortunately and that is you know for-profits giving back and using not just sustainable business practices regenerative business practices will ultimately change the world and that is what is so exciting for me and that puts the power into the people's hands which makes them feel empowered makes them feel part of the process and gives structure and finance to this whole thing that we're going to need to do at scale you know well well ian someholder you have certainly given us given us literally food for thought we appreciate you sharing your time thanks so much my friend such a huge fan of you guys thank you for doing what you do we love you thank you of course fixing our planet isn't just about climate change a key component waste management carrie sanders traveled to the maldives back in february to see how they're working through this challenge i'm more than 8 600 miles from new york in the maldives a country of 1100 plus islands here in the indian ocean and wow stunning clear water amazing beaches it's why more than a million and a half tourists come here every year but every tourist who comes here also creates a problem an average tourist creates six pounds of garbage daily and that's quite a lot the numbers are staggering tourists and residents produce a mind-boggling 636 million pounds of garbage a year and this is where that garbage winds up much of it plastic 700 tons a day 30 years ago this was a small island with a lagoon and a coral reef today it's three times its size appropriately nicknamed trash island the garbage is shipped to trash island on barges the government here estimates 25 percent is lost overboard in the indian ocean add to that plastics carried here by ocean currents from other nearby countries i went into the water to look along the reefs teaming with fish we found some of that plastic garbage sinks but most float washing up on beaches which are littered in those plastics to demonstrate the problem i grabbed a burlap bag and started collecting [Music] that's two and a half minutes of picking up plastic and i see it as far as the eye can see for years to prevent the growing plastic soup just as we do here in the u.s maldivians tried recycling at first glance this looks like a success this plastic will ultimately be recycled but the government here in the maldives has a different idea to eliminate single-use plastics so they never have a mountain like this again it was theatrical but to make a point the government in the maldives held an underwater cabinet meeting eventually a new law of the land here by 2023 single-use plastics should no longer be available no more bottles bags and baby diapers collectively those three items make up 80 percent of the single-use plastic garbage the inspiration for this countrywide undertaking comes from a garbage experiment on the maldivian island of suniva fuji the owners of a hundred acre resort hotel wondered how much could they reduce that six pounds per day per tourist they first took aim at plastics and the biggest enemy the water bottle with some false starts and a few dead ends how does it add up we've been able to reduce it to half pound now from six pounds to a half a pound yeah exactly that's less than a tenth of what had been dumped the question if widespread reduction in garbage eventually works here could we in the u.s follow what's driving all of this is it just tree hugging no it's got to make financial sense that's why our program is called the waste to wealth program and is it making you money is it saving you money is saving us money and that dollars and success is why other hotels are beginning to do the same thing all of it with the incalculable benefit of preserving this beauty which of course is why tourists come here to begin with carrie sanders nbc news suniva fushi the maldives our thanks to carrie and everyone who contributed to this important and clearly timely discussion al the expert i've loved joining you for this well i loved having you and your your your outlook on this as well savannah and in fact no matter where we live whether it's on a coast the midwest we are all affected the next generation is going to judge us by what we do today with climate change question is is it too late to change that legacy well we want to thank you so much for watching planet 2020 and have a great day the death toll rising in california as fires are spread across the state national hurricane center called this historic catastrophic flooding that is unfolding right now it's not rocket science there is only one thing that can explain why we are seeing such massive hot burning intense wildfires and it's the hot dry conditions that are being created by climate change scientists have found that fires out west are 50 percent more intense and the season has been extended by weeks as a result of human contributions to climate change the reality of this is slowly but surely sunk in day after day it gets a little harder a little worse so you know a little bit more oh my god is this ever gonna end i've been i've been in multiple hurricanes katrina gustav i mean this is it's part of living down here and see all this damage you see all this destruction but you also people see the best in people right now everybody coming together trying to help each other out we're all just looking out to make it out to the next day ready for the next sunrise [Music] hey nbc news viewers thanks for checking out our youtube channel subscribe by clicking on that button down here and click on any of the videos over here to watch the latest interviews show highlights and digital exclusives thanks for watching

Channel: NBC News

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Keywords: NBC News NOW, Deep Dives, NBC News Climate in Crisis, nbc news, breaking news, us news, world news, politics, nightly news, current events, top stories, pop culture, lester holt, Climate Change, Floods Force Climate, unrelenting wildfires, historic hurricane season, Savannah Sellers, Al Roker, devastating climate events, young activists fighting, climate crisis, climate change 2020, environmental plans, climate change documentary, global warming, global climate crisis

Id: FQ-ClkTZdgg

Length: 39min 43sec (2383 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 21 2020