Project Energy

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) ― Don Shelby had the opportunity recently to sit down with an important environmental author. Twenty years ago, Bill McKibben wrote "The End of Nature" and the predictions he made about global warming scared a lot of people.

In Project Energy, McKibben talked about which of his predictions are coming true and why the time is right for things to change now.

"Think about what's going on," said McKibben. "We know that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are higher than they've been for a very long time, much higher. It shouldn't surprise us that it's causing change. What's happening is we're taking hundreds of millions of years of biology -- all those planktons and ferns and dinosaurs and whatever that have been buried safely underground. An enormous pool of carbon. Hundreds of millions of years' worth of it."

"Mother Nature sequestered it," suggested Shelby.

"Exactly right," answered McKibben, "and in 200 years we've pushed it all into the atmosphere. Of course we're going to see huge changes. We're changing the composition of the atmosphere in profound ways."

"The Arctic melting, the world's high-altitude glaciers melting, epic droughts and then epic flood in dry and wet areas. Those kinds of changes are going to be so destructive. And that's with 1 degree of temperature increase, never mind the 5 that scientists think are coming in the course of this century," continued McKibben.

"Even the chemistry of the ocean, the PH of sea water, has dropped from 8.2 to 8.1. The sea's grown 30 percent more acid as it tries to absorb all that carbon we've put in the atmosphere. These are enormous changes in basic physical systems," said McKibben.

"What is the prescription?" asked Shelby.

"Everybody knows pretty much what we need to do," said McKibben. "We've got to move off fossil fuel and onto renewable, clean energy. The question is not whether we're going to do it. In 100 years, we'll do it. The question is whether we are going to do it fast enough to deal with the onrush of climate change. And given what science tells us now. Given that science tells us we're already got too much carbon in the atmosphere. That 350 parts per million is the most we can safely have and we're already at 390. Given that, the question becomes can we do this fast enough."

"The good news is that around the world now, people are really for the first time organizing to try to keep the worst from happening. Try to speed up the transition to a clean-energy future. I'm heartened at least a little by that. There's still days when I have my doubts about how this story ends. But for the moment we're working really hard to try to make sure that it doesn't end as badly as it could," continued McKibben.

"You're preaching much to an audience of the United States, some Europe," said Shelby, "But there is this outstanding question about the developing economies of India and China. Is there anything we can do about China? "

"We need the carbon equivalent of the Marshall Plan at the end of World War II," answered McKibben. "Now, that was both generous and shrewd, yes? It set up the world for the next period of real prosperity. We can do that too if we're able to spread around the planet this clean energy revolution in the next few years."

"We're in a race between the force of natural momentum behind these climate changes, things like the melting Arctic. And the ability of humans to catch up, to take matters into our hands and do something with them," said McKibben.

McKibben has called for an international day of climate action on Oct. 24.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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