ウィスパリング同時通訳研究会コミュのA Virtual Climate Change Town Hall with Special Guest Al Gore | Joe Biden For President

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CshJOKtiMqo
1:50

Joe Biden: (00:00)
… and the whole world with it. This issue is personal to me. When I was a kid, when we moved from Scranton, Pennsylvania out to Delaware, I moved to a little steel town called Claymont, Delaware, and you’re very familiar with this because we’ve talked about it. Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania has more oil refineries along the Delaware River for the Delaware Valley of 10 million people then even down in Houston.
Joe Biden: (00:24)
When we first moved there, we went to a little school about, I guess, it was about 20 blocks as you’d walk it and up what they call the Philadelphia Pike, but the Philadelphia Pike was before I-95 and it was kind of busy so we couldn’t walk as kids. I was going into third grade and so my mother used to drive us up and when it got to be a little colder in the first frost, you’d get in a car in the apartments we lived in, turn on the windshield wipers, there’d actually be an oil slick in the windows.
Al Gore: (00:58)
Wow.
Joe Biden: (00:59)
Literally, not a joke. Delaware on average is only three feet above sea level. This is personal to me from a time I’m a kid to now. Look, going to fight for … This is all about our grandkids. We just talking about our grandkids for our families and hammered by superstorms and pollution and the upside of this is there’s good jobs out there. We’re going to be able to create a lot of good jobs. But I should stop talking, Al, because I want to ask you a question. You’ve been working on this issue for a long time. Why is climate change so important in this election?
Al Gore: (01:36)
Well, first of all, thank you, Joe, for this conversation today and for the dialogue we’ve been having on climate. I’m really excited about your campaign. To answer your question, I never realized when I was young that this issue of the climate crisis would take over my life the way it has.
Al Gore: (01:59)
I didn’t even major in science, but like a lot of students these days, I had the freedom to sample some courses in other disciplines and I walked into a course taught by a great climate scientist named Roger Revelle back in the ’60s and he was the first scientist to chart out the measurement of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere and that’s what really opened my eyes to this 50 something years ago. I kept in touch with my professor and asked him to be the first witness in that first congressional hearing on climate.
Al Gore: (02:34)
I started to try to figure out how to translate what he was saying in scientific language into the kind of words that I could understand and therefore could communicate with others.
Joe Biden: (02:47)
That’s right.
Al Gore: (02:48)
I’ve watched all these years, Joe, since the crisis has grown exactly as Professor Revelle predicted that it would. The study just came out yesterday that this year of 2020 is, more likely than not, 75% chance of being the hottest year ever measured in world history. Already, 19 of the 20 hottest have been in the last 19 years. We’re seeing so much heat trapped in the Earth’s atmosphere by the global warming pollution.
Al Gore: (03:24)
We’re putting another 152 million tons up there every day worldwide, and it stays there on average about 100 years. The scientists will tell you the math is complicated, but they say that figure is good to use. Every day it traps as much extra heat as would be released by 500,000 Hiroshima-class atomic bombs exploding in the Earth’s atmosphere [crosstalk 00:03:50].
Joe Biden: (03:49)
That’s incredible.
Al Gore: (03:51)
It’s incredible and it’s disrupting the water cycle, causing rain bombs. 20 million acres couldn’t be planted in the Midwest last year because of all of the rain bombs and downpours and floods. We’re seeing sea level rise and the big drought specially in the Southwest and in many places around the world, stronger storms. The oceans are the hottest they’ve ever been this year and many scientists are worried the hurricanes will be stronger still.
Al Gore: (04:23)
The list of disasters has been accumulating and yet there is good news and we’ll have a chance to get into that, I’m sure, with renewable energy and electric vehicles and batteries and efficiency and regenerative agriculture and all that, but we need policy changes and that means we need to change some of the policy makers, particularly the one in the White House right now. That’s why I am so proud to endorse your candidacy, Joe.
Al Gore: (04:53)
I was saying earlier today, if I was talking to one person who had not yet decided who to vote for in this upcoming election, I would just say plainly and simply, “This is not complicated. If you care about the climate crisis, if you want to start solving the climate crisis, this is not rocket science. This is the most consequential choice in a presidential election that we’ve ever had in American history. Donald Trump is the face of climate denial globally. He is lifting the constraints on polluters, putting more pollution into the atmosphere, making all these changes to all of the protections that we do now have and we need more.”
Al Gore: (05:42)
Your election is absolutely crucial, Joe, and I want to do everything I can to convince everybody that cares about the climate crisis, particularly those people, that this is a no-brainer. This is a real simple choice and if anybody has any doubt about that, come talk to me.
Joe Biden: (06:06)
Wow, Al. Thanks so much. It means a lot to me. I often say beating Trump won’t end climate change, but it’s a critical first step. Last week, Trump reversed the rule requiring power plants to reduce the amount of mercury and other pollutions that are pumping into the air. Pollution that is bad for human health, to state the obvious, and it’s wrong. It’s a step backwards.
Joe Biden: (06:32)
As we see, as we try to seek some progress he’s eviscerating the EPA and everything that’s out there. But particularly dangerous is now, I believe, for communities of color, communities suffered disproportionately during this global health crisis. We’re seeing it happen now and one reason for this portion of impact is air pollution linked up to 15% increase in COVID-19 mortality in those most vulnerable. People of color are more likely to live in communities with air pollution.
Joe Biden: (07:05)
Just one example of the environmental injustice in Delaware, as I said, we get it and we can identify it. That’s why we have one of the highest cancer rates. Anyway, I don’t want to get into too much about Delaware, but the United States of America, you shouldn’t be poisoned by the air you breathe, the water you drink, the walls in your homes or your school. That’s why we need to invest in infrastructure to make sure that every city, every home, every school has clean water. It shouldn’t be more likely to breathe poisoned air and drink poison water based on your zip code or the color of your skin.
Joe Biden: (07:40)
My question, Al, is we need to act on climate, we need to address the environmental injustices that hold back too many communities of color across the country, what’s the top action we should be doing to address this environmental injustice, not just dealing overall of the environment, the injustice the way it falls on certain communities?
Al Gore: (08:03)
Well, I’m so glad to hear you talking about that as eloquently as you do, Joe. It’s crucially important. You mentioned that study that came out 10 days ago. There was another one three months ago that went back and looked at the great flu in 1918, 1919 and they found that there was a 20% to 25% increase in the death rate in counties that had even a moderately higher coal burning rate.
Al Gore: (08:32)
Right now during this pandemic, counties that are majority African American have a three times higher infection rate with COVID-19 than counties with a majority white population. They have a six times higher death rate from COVID-19. Now, as you know, there are many factors, unequal access to healthcare, sometimes the housing conditions that contribute, the kinds of jobs that many African Americans have aren’t friendly with-
Al Gore: (09:03)
… African-Americans aren’t friendly with Zoom in from home. There are a lot of factors. But the environmental injustice of factors are really key to this because, as Dr. Robert Bullard down at Texas Southern has showed in his pioneering studies and Reverend William Barber II has campaigned against, African-American communities, also Hispanic and native communities, are way more likely to live downwind from the smoke stacks and downstream from the hazardous waste flows and adjacent to the coal ash sites and the hazardous chemical waste sites. This has a huge effect.
Al Gore: (09:42)
One other statistic that’s really shocking to me, Joe, if you look at the death rate for African-American children from asthma, it’s 10 times higher than the death rate from asthma for Caucasian children. Now, some of that was true well before this current set of circumstances, but we have to realize that the burning of fossil fuels and the air pollution that results is a precondition for a higher death rate from COVID-19. Worldwide, even before this 9 million people being killed every year by fossil fuel burning air pollution. So we have got to fix that as we also address the need for better access to healthcare and fix the other inequities that are also contributing to this injustice.
Joe Biden: (10:34)
Oh, by the way, I don’t want to get off on it now, but one of the things, the Navajo Nation is being devastated right now. I met with the president, and we know him. They’re getting virtually no help, but that’s another issue maybe. A gigantic issue, but it goes to this whole … One of the things I’m hoping, Al, is I’m hoping that it’s kind of like the way this administration has dealt with the COVID pandemic as well as the environment has sort of taking the blinders off of people.
Joe Biden: (11:08)
People now are looking to say, my Lord, you mean that same person who kept my sewer open and my basement not flooding, the same person that made sure that I got pulled out of that car crash, you mean the same person who when I have trouble comes to take care of my home when it’s burning down, you mean those people? They’re the ones who in fact are getting screwed?
Joe Biden: (11:29)
Well, I think here’s the question. Look, I think this resonates with an awful lot of people now, many of whom it didn’t resonate before, not because they didn’t care, but they didn’t focus on it. They didn’t realize the consequence. My question is and as often relates to climate change, you hear politicians talk about, this is one of the questions, addressing climate change and that they can create real jobs and that we can turn this from a very big negative into a potential positive. Is that true, you think?
Al Gore: (12:01)
Oh, there’s no question in my mind, Joe. I’ve seen it in the business and investing world. It’s happening all over. Let me frame it up this way. We’ve had a lot of discussion about the similarities between this coronavirus pandemic and the climate crisis, and the biggest similarity is, we see with the pandemic the danger of ignoring the scientists’ warnings until it’s almost too late. That’s the exact parallel with the climate crisis.
Joe Biden: (12:33)
Good point.
Al Gore: (12:33)
But there are some differences also. Secretary General of the US, Antonio Gutierrez, said just a few days ago, the consequences of the climate crisis won’t last six months, one year or two years, but for centuries. It’s just unbearable to imagine that years from now future generations will ask themselves, why didn’t they act back in the year 2020? And you’re determined to do it.
Al Gore: (13:01)
But now here’s one of the big differences. In order to solve this pandemic, we’ve had to see these social distancing measures and other things that have shut down some economic activity, and that’s what the doctors and scientists say have flattened the curve, as they say, and helped us get on the road out of this. But it’s exactly the opposite where the climate crisis is concerned. Because in order to solve the climate crisis, we don’t have to shut down the economy. We need to turn the valves wide open on jobs, installing solar panels and wind farms and building electric vehicles and batteries and introducing regenerative agriculture to help farmers and sequester carbon in the soil and planting trees and retrofitting all these buildings, which is a win-win-win proposition.
Al Gore: (13:53)
We are in the early stages of a sustainability revolution in our world right now, empowered by some of the new digital technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence, that are giving executive teams and business the ability to manipulate the protons and electrons and atoms and molecules with the same proficiency that the IT companies have demonstrated in managing bits of information. The companies that are making commitments to sustainability and becoming far more efficient and reducing their global warming pollution are turning out to be way more profitable and creating new jobs.
Joe Biden: (14:32)
Bingo.
Al Gore: (14:32)
The number one fastest growing job in the US economy for the last five years has been solar panel installer, growing five times faster than the average job rate growth. Second fastest growing job is wind turbine technician, and there are many others that are coming in on that list as well. We can retrofit the buildings, commercial, industrial homes all across in every community in the country, create tens of millions of new jobs, and it can be paid for with the lower energy bills that start coming in right after the retrofit has been finished. So this is the biggest job creating opportunity-
Joe Biden: (15:14)
I agree.