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The Current Transcript for December 13, 2018

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: I will not beg the world leaders to care for our future. I will instead let them know that change is coming, whether they like it or not.

VOICE 2: We have 11 years until 2030. That's the time we have to safeguard the world for our children and grandchildren.

VOICE 3: Countries will need to take unprecedented action to slow the planet from heating up. That is the latest warning from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

VOICE 4: The report's author says there need to be widespread societal changes with ambushes. Target says the effects of climate change can be mitigated. But time is running out.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: I know. You hear a lot about climate change: the numbers, the targets, the needed percentage reduction in emissions. And okay the numbers can be confusing. So here is a simple one. The people who have spent their scientific careers on this say we've got 11 years to scale back the warming trend we've created.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: We already had every single value that we need to care about changing climate. We just haven't connected the dots.

VOICE 2: We do have the means to address this.

VOICE 3: It's about how do you master the political will.

AMT: And before you say this is all doom and gloom, hang on a second. People are working on things. It isn't all mysterious and overwhelming.

SOUNDCLIP

It's quite possible that we will reverse a lot of these consequences. It's not inevitable that the future is going to be worse than it is today. We can make a difference. Even if you can only solve 10 percent of the problem in your lifetime, it's worth doing. It will create a better future.

AMT: There are ways not to see this through the lens of hopelessness and instead consider what is possible. Over the next 90 minutes we're exploring what it will take over just over a decade if we on this planet take the challenge to step up. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is a special edition of The Current: 11 Years, a Blueprint for Climate Action.

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Activist urges WWII-level global effort to fight climate change

Guests: Margaret Klein Salalmon, Robert Gifford

SOUNDCLIP

My name's Deborah Harford. I'm the executive director of the adaptation to climate change team at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. A low carbon resilient future is a beautiful thing, a lot less noisy polluting cars filling up most of our urban downtown areas, more parks, more areas for kids to play, more places for people to grow food, more sheds basis, more places where people can come together and enjoy their environment. I heard a very interesting presentation from a woman who works with small children recently. So she asks them to draw. She says, "If we carry on in how we're living in the world what do you think the future looks like?" And she said that without fail they draw a world in which everything's on fire and everything is dead and everyone is sick. And then she says, "Well okay but if we do it right and we put things right and we go ahead in a good way what does it look like?" And again without fail they draw people walking in a park and the sun is shining and there's birds in the air and there is trees. The thing that gives me the most hope for the future is my 25 year old son who is fully focused on living a healthy lifestyle that is good for the planet. There's a whole generation like him. That's one thing that gives me hope, but the other thing that gives me hope is that everywhere I look people are working on this. We really need to focus on the good news stories and what people are trying to do, because there is action on this happening at every level everywhere you look.

AMT: We get it. You're one person. You're overwhelmed. Climate change is big and you are a little. So let's consult some psychologists. Robert Gifford is a professor of environmental psychology at the University of Victoria, that's where he is. Margaret Klein Salamon is a clinical psychologist and the founder and director of the Climate Mobilization. She's in New York City. Hi.

ROBERT GIFFORD: Hello, Anna Maria.

MARGARET KLEIN: Hey, thanks for having me.

AMT: Margaret Klein Salamon I want to start with you. When you talk about a World War II level mobilization to address climate change, what do you mean?

MARGARET KLEIN: We are calling for a 10 year crash transition to zero emissions plus drawdown and time to achieve full spectrum sustainability across issues. The idea being this is not a problem. We are too late in the game for gradualism to incrementally reduce emissions or for individualism. The idea that I'll take care of my emissions, you take care of your emissions and so forth. What we envision is a rapid transition of our entire economy and society with all hands on deck as most recently happened in our history during World War II. So for example some of the policies that would come from a war were to skip a climate mobilization would be the immediate bane of all new fossil fuel infrastructure, and a 10 year timeline for retiring the fossil fuel infrastructure that we do have, coupled - because we want to keep the lights on - with a massive scale up of renewable energy. So large government investment creating millions of jobs to both reduce demand, through things like winterizing homes, and just transform our energy system to renewable. We also have policies in agriculture transportation and industry that we promote but that's the basic scope okay.

AMT: And you make the connection to World War II actions. Remind us. What are some of the examples of individual and collective action people took during the Second World War in the US that you can imagine being applied to climate change?

MARGARET KLEIN: Well a great example is the victory gardens. So during World War II 40 percent of American vegetables were grown at home in the front and backyard by the people that ate them. We can farm our lawns and have community farms which increases you know local food security, and also you know you don't have emissions from transportation. But more generally, programs like transitioning industry. So the United States banned the production of new consumer automobiles because they said, 'We need all of that automobile factory capacity to create our tanks and planes and machineguns. And so no more consumer car production. Period. Sorry'. It's a fundamentally different mentality. When you get into the mode of 'we face an existential threat, everything is on the line'. And so the government is going to do everything that it can. The government should spend without limit to save as much life as possible.

AMT: So that is the war. This is war and we have a victory plan, idea. That's the mindset. think we need now in the face of climate change.

MARGARET KLEIN: I think it is the only thing that can protect us.

AMT: Robert Gifford, the climate scientists are saying this problem is urgent. Why aren't we seeing that kind of drastic action on this issue?

ROBERT GIFFORD: Well there are many reasons for that of course. All we have to do is look into our own lives and we see that there are psychological barriers, obstacles, I call them the dragons of inaction that hold us back in different ways. I could just list a few of them. We have other goals in life to be healthy which of course is related to climate change, but some sometimes people don't think of it in terms of climate change. We want to look after our children. We want to do a good job at work and so we have - I call this conflicting goals and aspirations or CGA. But there are a lot of other ones. A lot of people feel that their actions by themselves won't make much of a difference. There's distrust in some quarters of experts or government. There's usually some risks involved in making any kind of change in lifestyle. And a lot of people are risk averse. And sometimes people simply think the little bit that they do do is already enough.

AMT: You also talk about limited cognition. Why is climate change hard to think about?

ROBERT GIFFORD: Well as a couple of reasons but probably the most important ones are discounting of distance and discounting in time. That is, well, climate change is somewhere else with the polar bears are far away somewhere. And you know these people keep talking about 2050, 2070. You know, I've got to get to work right now and make breakfast. So we tend sometimes to live too much in the here and now and not think about what's coming and where it's happening.

AMT: Even people with kids?

ROBERT GIFFORD: Well of course, yes, because you know 'my child has cold, my child has to go to school and my child has homework'. And that's also on my kids. It's more immediate. It's more right in front of my face than climate change is for a lot of people.

AMT: Another drag on is social comparison. What is that?

ROBERT GIFFORD: We are social animals. And so we are - whether we like to admit it or not - we're very influenced by the other people around us, the important others around us. So if somebody we admire is driving to work or if we think it's our role in life is to drive and not to take public transport or if we think about that other country is doing it. Why should Canada do it? Why should we do it here? Then that tends to limit our actions.

AMT: There are a lot of dragons surrounding us.

ROBERT GIFFORD: There is a long story to that. You know there was seven drag, literally a total of seven at one point and I would give talks in different places and the people in the audience would say, well what about that? And so it's gradually grown from 10 to 13 to 18 to about 40 now.

AMT: The dragons are multiplying, reproducing. I want to come back to some of the World War II ideas. During World War 2, there were public awareness campaigns aimed at getting people involved in the war effort, both in the U.S. and in Canada. Listen to this.

SOUNDCLIP

MOTHER: Jenny, this is for you and, Billy, this is for you. It's mother's Christmas presents.

BILLY: War bond.

MOTHER: Yes, Darling, war bonds.

BILLY: Gee. Thanks a lot, Mom, but...

JENNY: I wanted a bicycle.

MOTHER: I know you did, Jenny. And I know that Billy wanted a railroad, but I feel that you are both old enough to realize that your country's at war, and to be willing to make sacrifices for it. Just think if Daddy were wounded, one single war stamp might pay for the medicine that would save him from pain, even save his life.

AMT: Well there you go. That's Betty Davis in a war bond's campaign. Over the course of the war the U.S. raised more than 2.5 trillion dollars in today's dollars. Robert Gifford, what jumps out at you about the messaging in that ad?

ROBERT GIFFORD: What jumps out at me is that, frankly, I'm a little bit worried about the sacrifice aspect of it. Some people are willing like our other guest to engage in sacrifice, but sacrifice messages in my own research don't work as well as more positive messages attempting to explain climate change as an opportunity to make a better world, to empower people to take action, not to threaten them with dire messages. There's quite a bit of research that suggests that dire messages actually turn a lot of people off. So my approach would be more toward talking about what can be gained by being more of an activist. We all, at some level, want to help other people to build a better world, and to focus on this kind of positive empowering type of message and not that you can have a bicycle this Christmas.

AMT: Margaret what do we know about the kinds of sacrifices families made for the war effort?

MARGARET KLEIN: Well of course many millions made that ultimate sacrifice and meat was rationed, gasoline was rationed, tires were rash, pantyhose were rationed and other kind of household consumer goods, coffee, but those rations were for everybody. They were across the board the rich and poor got the same amount of gasoline.

AMT: Well you know there was resistance to making those sacrifices. We've got another clip here from the popular radio comedy show of the era, Fibber McGee and Molly.

SOUNDCLIP

FIBBER: How do you think it's fair Molly? They can't do this to me. Four gallons a week. That's rediculous.

MOLLY: I think so too.

FIBBER: You do?

MOLLY: Yes. You don't need four gallons.

[Laughter]

FIBBER: I do too. I think it's a dirty deal. The whole thing is silly, giving all the car owners an [unintelligible] little medicine dropper full of gasoline. It is an infringement on private rights. That's what it is.

MOLLY: Look, dear, look, the main reason they're rationing gasoline is to save tyres. Don't you know that if we continue driving like we have been the majority of our motobiles will be off the road next year?

FIBBER: Good. There is too much traffic anyway.

AMT: Okay Margaret Klein Salamon that's comedy of course, it does give voice to some real concerns at the time, and it echoes a little bit of what people worry about today. How do you answer those worries when you hear them?

MARGARET KLEIN: I don't think it's going to be so easy. I think we're talking about major disruptions in every part of our economy and society. But here's the other side: the people who lived through World War II on the front, often looked back at it as some of the best years of their lives because they felt productively and meaningfully employed in a cause that was greater than them. And they felt connected to their neighbors and to their community and to their country and to their cause. And the hopefulness that Robert is talking about - and that many many people in the climate movement talk about - the hopefulness, yes we need that but it has to be based on reality and on telling the truth. And there is no hope for a smooth transition to zero emissions, for over decades, that kind of doesn't bother anyone. Maybe we could have done that if we had started it in the 70s but we did and emissions have gone up every year. And we need a crash transition to protect ourselves. And even if we do it, even if we execute the most austere year end intense transition to zero emissions, we still might not win. You don't know if you're going to win a war before you go into it. It's possible that the positive feedback loops that we've already triggered will overwhelm even our absolute best efforts to get to zero emissions, but we're not even trying now.

AMT: Robert Gifford what are you really thinking as you listen to her?

ROBERT GIFFORD: I'm thinking a few things. One of the dragons of inaction is uncertainty. And when we talk about 'well we might lose, we might win' that's going, in my view, to reduce the motivation of some people who say 'well if we don't know if we are going to win or lose, then why should I put out any effort?' So I tend to think that we have to take a generally positive tone with people rather than an uncertain - that uncertainty is an important thing or that we must sacrifice. The same action can be seen as a sacrifice or it can be seen as a heroic act. And I think that we need to frame it more in terms of people's heroism than their sacrifice.

AMT: The latest. IPCC report says we have to take drastic action by 2030 to avoid some very serious climate impacts. Robert Gifford do you think it will be possible for our society collectively to overcome dragon of inaction in time?

ROBERT GIFFORD: It's not a matter of whether I think it's possible. It simply must be done and you know there's just no question about it. To me to see what kind of approach do we used to doing it. Not everybody is able or willing to be a militant. So I'm thinking more of the average person who's working, trying to do his or her best, and how do we approach people, what kind of messages do we use for that kind of average person?

AMT: Margaret Klein Salamon what makes you so sure that emergency mobilization and climate change is possible?

MARGARET KLEIN: So one of the slogans we use at the Climate Mobilization is making the necessary possible. I see a lot of green shoots. Let's say a lot of momentum for this paradigm shift into emergency mobilization mode. And I think with every devastating fire in California, or flooding in Houston, or internationally of course these things are happening everywhere. It just drives the point home more and more. So whenever I talked to a politician or staffer I say, "Listen I ever said guarantee that I can give you. And that is that every month the climate crisis is going to be expressing itself with worse and worse devastation. So I advise you to stake out the strongest possible position on climate now and you're going to look like a frickin genius".

AMT: We will leave it right there. Thank you both.

ROBERT GIFFORD: Thank you Anna Maria.

MARGARET KLEIN: Thanks so much.

AMT: Robert Gifford is a professor of environmental psychology at the University of Victoria. Margaret Klein Slalmon is a clinical psychologist and director of the Climate Mobilization in New York City.

SOUNDCLIP

ELIZABETH: My name is Elizabeth Curran and 10 years old and I live in Winnipeg. Being young person, what I find most concerning about climate change is that, like, animals can their homes, like polar bears if the ice melts.

ARTHUR: My name is Arthur. I'm nine years old. I live in Iqaluit. It's a bit scary because I live near the ocean. And if there is a glacier, that will also make the water go close to my house.

BEN: My name is Ben Biscayon. I am 15 and I live in Montreal, Quebec. I think that it's time for the governments to do big things but just because, just because the governments are doing big things doesn't mean that people should stop doing small things, that everyone should just, you know - without necessarily sacrificing everything, yet - just do what they can to reduce the footprint and help us not be doomed.

MIAO: My name is Miao Tistaot. I am 12 years old and I live in Winnipeg. The thing that scares me the most about climate change is literally everything. It's terrifying. It's kind of pushed to the side. And it's just, not knowing anything about it is kind of excuse me about it and just knowing that it's going to kill us if we don't do anything which we're not doing anything. That's the scary part.

PATRICK: My name is Patrick. I am 10 years old and I was born in China but now I live in Vancouver. Young children will experience far worse than the people living right now. Also scares me that floods, hurricanes and other natural disasters are way more likely than in the past five years. I think grownups should think that we actually should make an impact and not just sit back and let it happen.

AMT: This is a special edition of The Current. If you have ideas on climate change solutions let us know. Tweet us @TheCurrentCBC or email us from our site cbc.ca/thecurrent. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Meet the people already working on solutions, right after the news.

Back To Top »

Some jobs in new energy industries come with a pay cut of $50K: coal miner

Guests: Bruno Dobruson, Roy Milne, Marc Jaccard

AMT: Hello I’m Anna Maria Tremonti and you’re listening to a special edition of The Current. 11 years a blueprint for climate action.

SOUNDCLIP

I think grownups should start voting for parties that aren't ready, that don't want to change, and stop paying for companies that aren't going to change how they use their products and are just going to make the world worse.

AMT: There’s a new generation consumed with what they’re learning about climate change and now they know the number: 11, the years scientists say we have to scale back the warming trend we’ve created. We are dedicating our program to the voices of those are really working on solutions today. So let's continue.

SOUNDCLIP

DAMON MATTEWS: My name is Damon Matthews. I am a professor Concordia University in Montreal and I hold every chair in climate science and sustainability. We organise a large projection of the climate clock to coincide with COP24 and also the announcement of the most recent CO2 emissions data. It's really a large building projection and what you see is, at the top, a number spinning upwards, which represents the amount of global warming that human activities have caused over the last hundred fifty years. At the bottom, you see an estimate of the total CO2 emissions that we've produced over that time frame, also spinning upwards. And then in the middle, you see the time remaining until we reach one and a half degrees and that number is of course spinning downward. I mean really what I think needs to happen is an effort to just reimagine how we are living. Solving the emissions challenge itself is that easy part. We have solutions for how to produce energy without producing greenhouse gases. The difficult part is really how do we implement that transition in a way that makes the world a better place for everybody.

AMT: So let's talk about that transition. We have 11 years to cut our emissions in half. Mark Jaccard spends his time figuring out how to do that. He's an energy economist and a professor of sustainable energy at Simon Fraser University and he's in Vancouver, hello.

MARK JACCARD: Hi.

AMT: What do you think of Damon Matthews's suggesting that the transition must make the world a better place for everybody?

MARK JACCARD: Yes. That would be really nice. One of the challenges with greenhouse gas reduction, though, is that a lot of people have attached other agendas to it whether their gall is that we should not eat meat anymore, we should change our behavior in some other way, or global equity and so on. Well these are all goals that one might want to pursue and convince others. The good news is that at least to deal with this pressing problem we only have a few sectors of the economy that we need to flip. And we have the technologies and we know the cost is not great to do that and they are, in particular, in electricity around the planet, we need to phase out coal plants. In transportation, we need to go away from oil towards using electricity, even some biofuels and hydrogen. So if you did those two sectors, over the next three years, you are covering more than half of the greenhouse gas emissions that we need to reduce. And so suddenly the problem is a lot easier.

AMT: Okay I want to take both of those and drill down a little deeper with you then. What will it take to flick our electricity system, yet make the point you phase out coal. Speak to me more about the process and the flip.

MARK JACCARD: So Ontario from 2004 to 2014 closed its coal plants. People said, I remember this, that it would mean a doubling of electricity prices, that's 25 percent of the electricity in Ontario made from coal plants. Now there were electricity price increases and some of them were higher than they needed to be because of poor policy choice in my view. But that's an amazing thing that happened. And I remember when people said it wasn't possible and it happened in only 10 years and we're seeing something similar just as valid in Denmark, in the United Kingdom and so on. So now we have Alberta has committed to out its coal plants in there. The federal government, under Trudeau, has said this is going to be economy wide by 2030 our coal plants will be phased out. That's wonderful news. And now Canada's trying to lead an initiative globally to make that happen. So that's all good moves.

AMT: And as you do that what happens to the workers in other sectors?

MARK JACCARD: Well what happened was you have to make electricity from another way. We're not talking about stopping to make electricity. So the British Columbia 10 years ago I helped design a policy - we called a clean electricity standard - and when it came in British Columbia hydro had to cancel contracts where two coal plants were going to be built in a large natural gas plant. And instead of that we did a whole bunch of small hydro and some wind and the job creation actually was greater. I've seen the analysis by careful objective people and the job creation was greater than would have happened from building those coal plants in the natural gas plant and operating them.

AMT: So then what about a flip in the transportation system. What do you see and how you see us getting?

MARK JACCARD: Well thanks to Elon Musk, I guess, we got some wealthy people, well off people, and technology lovers, or maybe status lover, so really start buying electric cars. Then that can happen simultaneously with the elites in the developing world. So let's say you're a political leader or a corporate leader in China or India, and especially China focus on, it's your family that's breathing the polluted air in Shanghai or Beijing and you're actually very interested in improving that air quality. And California had implemented policies 10-15 years ago to move us towards their omission vehicles. And so now all of that seems to be coming together with a very rapid development of electric vehicles. So we have the technologies. We know what it'll do to the cost of transportation. It's slight increase over a three decades. And we can drive emissions down dramatically and stop using oil. And we have to do that. And then the question becomes what policies do you implement to make that happen.

AMT: And what kind of policies do you implement?

MARK JACCARD: Well the Californians put in something called a low carbon fuel standard. It's a regulation, but it's a flexible regulation. They are what caused the hybrid cars to develop initially. So they had lower emission and ultra-low emission and zero emission. And now people are starting to copy that zero emission vehicle standards. So Quebec has implemented it as of this year. And the British Columbia government just announced a very aggressive zero emission vehicle standard which would be that no gasoline burning cars will be sold in British Columbia by 2040, and already in 2025 and 2030 huge targets, and these are already achievable. So it's a regulation on vehicle sellers saying you have to meet these sales targets or you have to pay a penalty per car. And you can trade among yourselves and you can see what consumers prefer. Maybe they want hydrogen cars or flex fuel vehicles that use 85 percent ethanol. You can do it any way you want but you have to flip us away from gasoline and conventional diesel burning vehicles. The technologies are there. We know the cost and the policies are now coming into place. The Chinese are bringing in similar policy. And this is just starting now. It's going to happen very quickly.

AMT: What about other emissions found for example food production, or buildings?

MARK JACCARD: Yes. So no I'm not really worried about that. Of course you have to worry about everything, but no, when I say electricity and transport then the next ones are steel production, cement production. I'm not saying you don't have to work in all these other areas but I'm trying to give us more understanding that the problem is not as complex as all of that. So in fact food production, surely, it would be great if we move towards systems that produce less emissions but that's going to be difficult. So you walk away at that. But if it fails and you don't make much progress then, because you know the sectors you can do action, then you don't have to have despair. And I guess that's the point.

AMT: Earlier this year, the federal government purchased the Trans Mountain pipeline which runs between Alberta and BC's coast in order to ensure the expansion of the pipeline. What do you make of that move?

MARK JACCARD: So I understand that someone governing all of Canada has to make trade-offs. And so I think it's a mistake to buy the pipeline and I think it's a mistake to be putting our Extra Effort to help Alberta expand the oil sands. Why would you double the number of jobs there which is the plan like to go for 6 million barrels a day and the dependency of the economy? Why would you do that, when - as I just explained earlier - we are going to phase out burning oil products? And so I think it's a mistake in that sense. But I do understand there that the government of Canada has to balance off these regions. So the message I give to environmentalists and others is, okay, you're upset with the federal government about trying to push ahead with the trans mountain pipeline, but please separate that from the very good policies that the federal government is trying to implement.

AMT: Do you think fossil fuel companies play a constructive role in the transition to a low carbon future?

MARK JACCARD: That's an interesting question. So in general I would say no. Definitely a decade ago most of them were very good at explaining the reasons why we're not going to stop using oil tomorrow. We can't do anything until the Chinese act. And also a narrative that drives me crazy, and we get this all the time, they call themselves the energy industry. They are not the energy industry. They're the fossil fuel industry. The energy industry in Canada can be hydropower, biomass. There's just all sorts of possibilities of what is the energy industry, but to connect the two is to make it think like 'Oh we I want to destroy the energy industry'. Actually we have to feel as though the burning of coal in electricity and the burning of gasoline and diesel in transportation and we have to do it quickly.

AMT: Mark Jaccard we have to leave it there. Thank you.

MARK JACCARD: Thank you. It was my pleasure.

AMT: Mark Jaccard is an energy economist and professor of sustainable energy at Simon Fraser University. He's in Vancouver. Now if you're going to quickly phase out the burning of fossil fuels in a country where they are tied to hundreds of thousands of jobs and where they add billions to the economy, Chad Park says the industry has to be part of that transition. Chad is the founding director of the Energy Futures Lab. That's an Alberta based forum and it receives funding from Suncor and Shell.

SOUNDCLIP

CHAD PARK: For many Canadians the oil and gas sector is seen as a big part of the problem in Alberta at least among the innovators that are emerging with the view is largely that the oil and gas sector can and must be part of the solution. The sector can serve as a developing ground for exportable clean technologies. There is obviously a very high need for that industry in that sector to reduce emissions. And so I think the oil and gas sector has an inherent self-interest in having emissions reducing technologies. And you see that happening. There is a company called Carbon Upcycling that is developing technology to turn carbon dioxide into carbon based nanofibers that can be used in concrete and other applications, and technologies that utilize carbon dioxide - instead of as a waste - to utilize it as a material for other uses. And then another example is actually leveraging the assets in the energy system to develop technologies in the industries of the future. And I'll give an example there are two where if you think about the transition to electric vehicles, there's going to be a big need for batteries as that market increases. And in the batteries, at least currently, there would be a big need for the metals in those batteries including lithium. There is companies in our lab in Alberta that are developing Alberta's lithium resource from oilfield waste wider. So on the backs of the existing industry developing the future industry.

AMT: Chad Park of the Energy Futures Lab. You only have to look at the exhaust pipes of our cars and trucks to understand how important transportation is to total immissions. But there are Canadian companies are ready overhauling the way we get around. One of them is the Lion Electric company in Saint Geron, Quebec. It makes electric buses and trucks are because of a dream to change the way kids get to school.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: Kids chatter]

EVE LA PIERRE: My name is Eve La Pierre. I'm a school bus driver for 6 year. Specially the primary, when they came in the bus 'Hey. It's an electric bus! Yes. That's ecologic'.

[Sound: Wistle]

MARC BEDARD: It's amazing. I mean the kids are talking about greenhouse gases. They know. A lot more about us than many many adults. My name is Marc Bedard, I am the CEO founder of Lion Electric. We are at our factory. Our factories and the Lorantians. Three years ago, I remember that I was just trying to convince people that it's feasible. So now we're talking about is it possible like to ride an electric bus? It is. Is it possible to manufacturing electric bus? It is. So we've been able to that. We started working on the electric buses eight years ago and now we can see that the electrification is right now. Just three years ago, the range was 100 km. And right now it's over 250 kilometres. So with them three years we more than doubled the range. The Ontario government, I mean decided when the new government came on power, they decided to cut the electric incentives. Big big mistake. The initial investment is a little bit higher but then you're saving. Every year you're saving obviously on gas, on these all, you're saving on brakes, you're saving on maintenance. We need incentives on a short term basis like for the next five years before the demand goes to a level where the pricing is going down. So we have over 200 electric buses on the street. We're delivering those electric buses every week. So it's exciting and it's a good role model also for the kids. They're getting into an electric bus and then they're coming back home at night, and then they're asking their parents you know 'why not we have an electric car?' So it's putting a lot of pressure on our society to go electric. So I think it's great.

AMT: Lion Electric has created work from more than 135 employees. My next guest wants to see one million climate jobs created in Canada. Bruno Dobruson is a campaign co-ordinator with the Green Economy Network. That's a coalition of labor, environment and social justice groups and he's here with me in Toronto, hello.

BRUNO DOBRUSON: Hi good morning.

AMT: What do you think needs to happen in the next 11 years to address climate change and reduce emissions?

BRUNO DOBRUSON: Well what we say is what needs to happen is a change in the ambition of the measures was always taking. So I think the example from the electric company in Quebec, it's a small example, and we just need to scale that up massively around the country. That's when we say there we can create a million climate jobs. It requires a lot of ambition from the governments especially. We do not see that the private sector is going to be able to do it by itself. It has would be a massive government run policy similar to what some in the US are calling for a Green New Deal. And that's why we outline, to get to those levels of lowering emissions, the level of investment is to be very very high, about 5 percent of the annual federal budget. But this is the only way that we're going to move to lowering emissions and also creating jobs, because let's remember that a lot of our communities are herding were precarious jobs, with unemployment. When you go on the Atlantic, a lot of people that have to travel to work on the [unintelligible]. With this kind of investments we can also stop part of a process that is happening in the background of all of these crises.

AMT: So do you envision - when you're talking about a million jobs - small businesses wit, like we just heard this one 135 employees, or are you looking you envisioning something that would be a much more massive employer combination.

BRUNO DOBRUSON: Combination of both. We're aiming at much more massive employment. For example we talk about public transport, we're talking about national transport strategy that promotes public transit that promotes electric buses, that problems high speed rail. And it has to be a combination of federal, provincial, and municipal governments coming into it and most of the financing is going to have to come from the public, which is anyways the main financing for the oil industry as well. So part of our plan is saying let's divert part of those subsidies that go to the fossil fuels and put them in massive scale towards this new economy.

AMT: I want to bring someone else into the conversation now. Roy Milne is a coal miner. He is president of United Steelworkers Local 1595 in Wabumum, Alberta. We reached him in Katowice, Poland where the global climate change talks are under way at COP24. Hello. Roy Milne.

ROY MILNE: Hi, Anna Maria.

AMT: What do you think about the idea of creating one million Climate jobs?

ROY MILNE: I think it's a great idea but I would just caution that lots of numbers get passed around, but they don't always actually show up. If you create a million jobs, it would marvellous situation. I find my members in right now is layoff notices that went out and no just transition happening.

AMT: And how many people are being laid off so far in your local union?

ROY MILNE: We're just a little over 100. We have a steady number [unintelligible]. I don't know what the numbers will be sometime this fall. So there's the transition plan to just transition province of Alberta has provided a number of supports. We're just waiting to see what's coming for job creation from the federal government.

AMT: So Roy, I know that you have called yourself and your colleagues canary's in the coal mine when it comes to the transition to a low carbon economy. Explain that to me.

ROY MILNE: So we were basically the first group of workers in the first mine being phased out in Canada with this current, the process. Some supports were in place. The rest were waiting to see. So probably the other side of that is that the training that needs to be there to train somebody for the other job has to be available. There has to be a job. There are those new words being created. They'll meet the government. What we have now, there's written a union. Mining job is a fairly well-paid job with the pension and benefits.

AMT: Roy give me some idea of what we're talking about in terms of the pay.

ROY MILNE: Basic operator, without any overtime, at our mine is around 80,000-100,000 dollars a year, full benefits and a defined pension plan. When the tradesmen working at probably 120, and if there is overtime it goes higher than that. So that's roughly where we at on our wage scales.

AMT: And the replacement jobs, do you have any idea of what they look like they pay?

ROY MILNE: Yes. I can give you a perfect example is for electricians. We actually, we looked last year. NAIT, the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology offered an eight months program for renewable energy technician. The provincial education would pay for the tuition to enhance the 45 weeks that the province of Alberta has put forward with every income while you're taking that training. The electrician who'd gone from over a minimum of a hundred thousand dollars a year, that with their new over time, would be able to be employed as a renewable energy technician, that 45 to 50 thousand dollars a year. What that actually results in is with the years in training you can make half the money and get no benefits.

AMT: When you raise that with the people saying this is the solution, what do they say?

ROY MILNE: What we're not getting a whole lot of response back. We're pointing out that this is a glass half full. We're waiting to see what the federal government has.

AMT: Bruno Dobruson, as you listened to Roy, how do you respond to those concerns?

BRUNO DOBRUSON: No I think Roy is absolutely right. This year significant challenges for those communities. When we speak about a just transition, it has to be a democratic transition. And this means taking into consideration the workers and the communities they live in. So for example for the case of coal; is not just the workers in the coal mines but also the towns in which they live that depend heavily on these industries.

AMT: And on them having those pay checks to spend.

BRUNO DOBRUSON: Exactly yes. So that's why we're talking about ambition and scale. And also we cannot leave a lot of green industries off the hook. They have to pay good salaries. They have to get unionized workforce and there is an increasing go for from the International Trade Union Congress to make deals with the big green industry to try to get them to agree to have a union to work for us to increase the pay that workers get. But I mean I'm not denying that that's an issue and it's a serious issue for a worker that has been there for 20 or 30 years doing the job at that level of pay and that now has to transition into something else.

AMT: Roy what do you want the public and politicians to think about that when they talk about a low carbon future.

ROY MILNE: If they talk about a low carbon future, the politicians have to realize that in order to get by in from your average ranking file person that there has to be trust built between the workers and government and industry. [Unintelligible] first notices are gone and those people are laid off February 26. Hopefully there will be something out between now and then from the federal government to help fill up that glass through-out the way and I'm not going to hold my breath waiting. It's a fairly short time frame.

AMT: What's the biggest thing you are going to take away from your experience at the COP24 meetings in Poland?

ROY MILNE: Just that there's lots of good intentions, lots of well-motivated people, but the attention of the details has to get paid. You actually have to have meat on the boards of a plan. Just to have lots of plans and say this will be all wonderful doesn't work when you get your pink slip and you still have a mortgage and kids to feed.

AMT: I will leave it there. Thanks for your time.

ROY MILNE: Thank you very much.

AMT: Thank you Bruno.

BRUNO DOBRUSON: Thank you.

AMT: Roy Milne, coal miner and president of the United Steelworkers Local 1595 in Wabumum, Alberta. We reached him at the COP 24 conference in Karwice, Poland. Bruno Dobruson is a campaign coordinator with the Green Economy Network. He's in Toronto. Stay with us. We are going to eavesdrop on a conversation between two Canadians with very different visions of the next 11 years. I am Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to a special edition of The Current; 11 Years, a Blueprint for Climate Action.

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Two Canadians discuss how to find common ground in fight against climate change

Guests: Hayley Zacks, Jackie Wall

AMT: Hello I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to a special edition of the current 11 years a blueprint for climate action. There are only a few hours left for the nations the international climate change meeting in Poland to find a consensus on how to actually implement the Paris Agreement and cut emissions enough to avert the world's climate crisis. Scientists say we have 11 years to do this, if we're going to stop the warming trend we've created. If you are just joining us and want to hear what you've missed, visit our website cbc.ca/thecurrent. Or download our podcast. We've been hearing about the bald actions needed in some of the solutions on the table. It's today's young people who will have to live with the consequences of our collective action, or inaction. And they have their own ideas.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: I would want the grownups to stop using their cars and like wasting electricity and stuff for where you don't actually need it.

VOICE 2: I think we should have more vegans or vegetarians.

VOICE 3: I'm ticked off about straws. They're stupid. You use them once. They come with your happy meal. You stick it into a drink and you drink out of this little tiny plastic tube. Why do you need a plastic tube to drink your juice? Just drink it normally.

VOICE 3: Individuals could reduce using gasoline cars and they could start using electric or solar panel.

VOICE 4: You don't have to have a big fancy rich life. Like my friend Maria is hoping to have a big three story building that is clear, except for the bathroom. And she wants to have a plane of her own. You don't have to have a life like that. I want to live by the pond in the cottage, one level cardioids. That is simple. Why do you have to live in a gigantic three storey building all toyour self.

AMT: There you go. Some of the people who will judge the decisions we make now about how we're going to live in the future. We invited two Canadians with different perspectives to talk to each other about the decisions they think we have to make.

JACKIE WALL: My name is Jackie Wall and I live in a small community just east of Estevan, it's Bienfait and I am currently the executive director of the Estevan chamber of commerce.

HAYLEY ZACKS: Hi. My name is Hayley Zacks. I am here in Halifax unceded Mi'kmaq territory. I am a 21 year old student at Dalhousie, studying sustainability and international development and I'm part of a collective called Youth Rising which is young people from coast to coast in Canada demanding real climate action now. In the next 11 years I think that we need to transition to a 100 percent renewable energy and create 1 million climate jobs in the process. We need to meaningfully implement the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous peoples, and in the next 11 years we need to keep fossil fuels in the ground, and align the federal climate plan with a 125 degree threshold.

JACKIE WALL: I believe in the next 11 years we as a country definitely need to be conscious of climate change, but we need to do that in a way that is both socially and economically viable. We need to take a look at the entire impact on the social lives of the people transitioning out of fossil fuels. And we really need to take a look at solutions that will accommodate all of the products that are supported by fossil fuels and petroleum products. They penetrate every aspect of our life. You find them even anti histamines an in tyres and in vitamin capitals and telephones and just about everything you touch has a petroleum product at its base. So we need to be conscious of that also as we move forward.

HAYLEY ZACKS: I think that I was really excited to have this conversation because we align so much in terms of jobs and address translation. I think as young people were really concerned about what our future looks like in the climate era. So what that means is also sustainable jobs for us because we've seen in Canada with the natural resource economy the boom and bust cycle has been so unsustainable with [unintelligible] and things like that. That's really scary for my generation because we know that we're moving towards a future where those jobs don't exist, but we're not seeing the transition happen to me that decline.

JACKIE WALL: I absolutely agree with you Haley. I can speak to this very personally because I have as that works in the fossil fuel industry. He works at the coal mine here. And in the next several years we are going to lose hundreds of jobs in our community, hundreds. And once again it is because of a federal initiative, which is fine if the federal government has a plan to transition these workers. We have been part of the dialogue but everything is still up in the air. We don’t have details and it does not look like there is a plan to transition these workers or this community and that is a huge concern of mine. Another concern is that I have two young kids. When the power goes out here at minus 40, it does not take long for your home to get very very cold. And wind generated power does still need backup. So we still need the fossil fuels as the backup for the renewables. I wish that was a different case. Perhaps it will be moving forward in the future, but at this time, when it gets so cold in this part of the world, we just need to know that were able to heat our homes.

HAYLEY ZACKS: I think that’s a really valuable point to make. And I think that what it shows us is that the government doesn't have a plan now for what that looks like. So we're seeing in Canada that we're going to get left behind if we don't start making this transition quickly. And what I think as youth inheriting this future, we see it in two ways. There's this side where we don’t transition properly and we come to a future that is in climate disarray, and there is no plan for how we meet that economically or socially and equitably. But then there's also this opportunity where we've been given 11 years, and 11 years to make changes really quickly. And as youth, as youth inheriting this future course scared for our generation we see the writing on the wall in a way that the government hasn't. This is our opportunity. We have 11 years to make dramatic changes quickly, if we are going to have a future that isn't a complete climate disaster. And so I think for me as a young person, and I really hope that in this moment when we're at such a tipping point that we take this as an opportunity to change the way that we do things here in Canada.

JACKIE WALL: Well you know here's here's my question. Canada can-- we can move forward as quickly as we want. We can adopt as many new practices as we want and I hope we do. I think we need to be an example for the world. That would be my dream. But realistically, across the globe, no matter how much Canadair transitions, we still will have a very very low impact on the world's carbon. We have a very small impact. That's not to say that we shouldn't be forward thinking and be more environmentally sound. I am not saying that at all. We do need to do our utmost and we do. On a global scale, we have some of the highest environmental start words. We are moving in to even better production for our power. But ultimately we have a lot of huge countries that are building coal plants, like, daily. And no matter how good Canada can move forward and move forward quickly, we're not going to have the impact. And speaking to that, Hayley, is also not just the environmental practices, but it’s also the social injustices that are happening. We’re bringing in oil from countries that have very low environmental standards, very low human rights standards. And I think we really have to start taking a look at that as well. I find it very frustrating. I'm very very frustrated because, yes, we should transition, but we really need to have other countries adopt what we have here in Canada.

HAYLEY ZACKS: Yes. Like you said, it is a global scale problem but it's also recognising when we're saying that, yes, maybe Canada is a small country relative to some other countries. Canada also is emitting way above its weight, especially when we're looking at per capita and historically. As a country we have benefited from these industries. It is actually our responsibility, in my opinion, to be the leaders in ending fossil fuel exports, ending fossil fuel imports and also the use of fossil fuels as quickly as possible. And also, regardless of what other countries are doing, we need to be doing it. I I've heard it in interviews us being called 'idealistic youth'. But I think that we're actually the only ones who are being realistic. We are being told by scientists this is a climate disaster and that we have 11 years to act. And so we were seeing that our government is refusing to act in these 11 years. And so were taking that responsibility on our young people because we will be listening to the science. We know what our future looks like if we don't act.

JACKIE WALL: You know that's fantastic. And Hayley I do have children. I have a 12 and a 14 year old at home. And I really want to be able to pass on a sound environment to them in a sound world, overall. I would like to know how you proposed that you were going to continue manufacturing the solar panels, manufacturing the wind turbines, manufacturing a lot of the products that we use daily when we're not going to be using petroleum products. You can take your bike to work which is in great environmental step, personally, but your tires on that bicycle have petroleum products in them. You can take your kayak and enjoy a wonderful scenery in our country, but that kayak contains petroleum products. I just don't right now see solutions coming from the grass roots. I think one of the biggest impacts we could have is personally, each one of us personally taking a look at our life and deciding, 'Can I support more local? Can I support more local farmers, more local growers? Can I take a look at how my carbon footprint is affecting the globe and start there?' But realistically there are so many industries and so many manufacturers that use petroleum products all the time. I mean even the wind turbines. If you're the bearing and you'll have to grease that, what are you going to use to grease that bearing a for not going to be utilizing petroleum products?

HAYLEY ZACKS: Yes. I don't think I have any disillusions about this being easy. I know this is going to be difficult and I do really agree with you that there is an individual impact that we can make, absolutely. But I think what we're talking about here is a global system that has, for generations, refused to look at the impact that we're having on the environment and not account that within our economy, that we haven't been seeing environmental impact as a cost. So I think we're talking at a much larger scale about shifting the way that we understand the environment and the way that we value an economy. Even just looking at Canada as an example in Canada worth subsidizing the fossil fuel industry. But what if we shifted that to renewable energy because even if we look at what's happened this year in Canada; our government committed4.5 billion dollars to purchasing a leaky pipeline and not to mention the costs of actually building it. Like we're looking at a 16 billion dollar bill right now. And for me, when I think about that I think about all the things that we could have done were 16 billion dollars in terms of making this transition easier in terms of not having the cost fall on communities, especially communities that are already impacted by climate change. We are talking indigenous communities and rural communities. I'm assuming, like your own end and the way that that money could have been shifted to making that transition possible, so that when you're talking about your kids we're not making a choice about being able to put food on the table and allow our kids to have a livable future, because that to me doesn't feel fair or just.

JACKIE WALL: Well I would have to say that I know people in the pipeline industry. One of them sits on my board actually and any time there is any kind of a leak, they have to go in there and clean it up to the top standards, I would say, in the world. So as far as pipelines go that is that it's not leaky. The other that I would like to say is they are doing very innovative things here with solar and with wind in our province and they are moving ahead as quickly as they can. But ultimately they also have a responsibility to the ratepayers so that the ratepayers aren't paying an exorbitant amount for their power, which we've seen in Ontario. And I never want to have my children in that position where they're taking a look at their monthly power bill and wondering how they are going to pay for it. There are subsidies for the solar and for the wind. I'm not against that. I am for anything that will make our world a better place. I used to be a farmer and a rancher. We very much changed the way we farmed and the way we ranched because we wanted to be able to provide the land to go forward in future generations. But we also realized that we have to be very careful in how we do that because it does have a huge impact socially and economically and we have to balance all of that. We really do.

HAYLEY ZACKS: Where I'm coming from is everything I'm hearing from you [unintelligible] is that how hard these decisions are and what that shows to me is that the way that we're functioning right now isn't sustainable as an economy. So what I'm saying is that right now, as a young person, I'm looking at my future in 11 years and I'm scared. And I think it is not just me with Youth Rising we are a collective, across the country, of youth that are genuinely afraid of what our future looks like. We're seeing mass wildfires. We're seeing flooding at extreme degrees and extreme weather events. That really make it fearful because we recognize that if this is what our future is going towards, then we're not going to actually have choices anymore because it's going to be too late. And so what I am hoping for in the next 11 years is that we take this moment, where our scientists at the IPCC are telling us that we have 11 years to make some extreme changes about the way that we ran our economy, about the way that we treat the planet, and that we actually take that call to action seriously. So what were doing is we're calling on our government. We're calling on the Canadian government right now who is responsible, who had came forward in the 2015 election saying that they were going to take climate leadership seriously. They showed up to Paris and said 'Canada is back', but as young people we haven't seen that at all. I don't feel secure right now in a climate safe future.

JACKIE WALL: Well I must say, Hayley you're very eloquent and you put forth a very very good argument. You’re right. We have not seen the leadership from this federal government. I guess that I would just-- it's a different perspective from where from where I sit. I have seen pipelines. I have seen pump jacks all the time, but continue, Hayley, continue doing what you're doing. I would really love it if there was a lot more passion and energy put into solutions as well. That's what I encourage of my children every day. And sometimes solutions don’t move as quickly as we would like them to but we just have to keep pushing. And we really don’t know what the next new technology around the corner is going to be. In BC one company is taking CO2 out of the air and producing fuel out of it. And if you and I Hayley can support that, and can get that adopted, just think of the amazing things that we could do. But we have to find those nuggets, those scientists and those innovative companies that are coming up with new solutions, and we need to support them, and we need to make sure that their new technology is adopted across the globe.

HAYLEY ZACKS: I want to thank you for your time Jackie. I think its really valuable to get to speak to people that are on the ground and living this transition. And I also want to say that I know you mentioned your mother and you're talking about solutions with your kids and so I do really value that and I value that it is going to be youth that are carrying this forward.

AMT: Thank you Hayley Zacks in Halifax and Jackie Wall in Bienfait, Saskatchewan. And listen tomorrow. We will ask Canada's Environment and Climate Change Minister, Catherine McKenna, to respond to what Jackie and Hayley had to say and more want to know what Canada's official view is coming out of that COP24 hour meeting in Poland. We also want to hear your ideas about solutions. Tweet us @TtheCurrentCBC. Use the hashtag #11Years. Find us on Facebook or visit our Web site and contact us through there cbc.ca/thecurrent.

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What can environmentalists learn from the civil rights movement?

Guest: Gerard Durley

AMT: You are listening to a special edition of The Current; 11 Years a Blueprint for Climate Action. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Now my final guest today says that the environmental movement should look to the civil rights era for inspiration. His name is Gerald Durley. He joined the U.S. Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s marching alongside Martin Luther King Junior. He went on to become the pastor of the Providence Missionary Baptist Church and that's when he started to see the toll environmental damage was having and would have the most vulnerable members of society. His work has been recognized by the White House and the Civil Rights Walk of Fame. And as chair of the Interfaith Power and Light board, Reverend Gerald Durley, seeks solutions and strategies for climate change.

GERALD DURLEY: For those who've been in the move for some time, what we've got to do now, I think, is really begin to drastically connect the dots as the masses begin to do something, that they think is going to be very difficult. That is, change our lifestyles. And I don't mean going necessarily into the mode of poverty but certainly cutting back on a lot of the energy that we use. That means we've got to look at business, politics and science. Those three things, those three entities must come together, but it has to be on a moral foundation. When business people can sit down and make moral decisions and put profits over people, then I think we can try to come up with some kind of solution. So I think that that's going to be the critical role. We have become a custom to a pseudo kind of luxury that does not warrant the sustainability of the planet.

AMT: You actually have said we need to get over the opulence.

GERALD DURLEY: Yes, and it's a strange-- there's always a side effect when you shift lifestyles and I think the side effect if we get over the appearance it will do something very strange to our society. We will start speaking to each other again. We'll start respecting each other again. We will start slowing down and in not so much rage. If we can't change that, but now we're running and we're grabbing and we're snatching and we need more and more. So if we cut back then it will take time I think to begin to spend more genuine time with our seniors, with our children and with each other, and most of all with ourselves.

AMT: You know there's a lot of doom and gloom when it comes to thinking about climate change. And some people just turned off. How important is it to remain optimistic?

GERALD DURLEY: So I made a personal commitment about two years ago whenever I'm was speaking to groups, I do not start off with all the doom and gloom. One of the strengths that we used in the civil rights movement were three words. We organized, we strategized and then we mobilize. And right now, to organize, we've got to bring the people, the people who really are at the heart of all of this, not the businesses and not the politicians. The scientists are doing their part. But people who are not paying attention to them. So the more we talk about all of the negatives and all of the droughts and the floods and the fires and the methane gas is escaping people become overly burden and overly tax. And they close off and they come back to dealing with just day to day survival, not realizing that climate change is, in reality, a day to day survival.

AMT: What can the environmental movement learn from the civil rights movement?

GERALD DURLEY: Well I think first of all it can learn that those in power want to keep their power by any means necessary. And generally in our society it's around the dollars. When we'd wanted to be voting, we've fought for voting. We fought for transportation rights, human rights. Even though racism was a major part of it is still here as an economic barrier about it. So one of the things that we had to learn is, one, we've got to be consistent with our message. We've got to be willing to do two things. When you're in a movement, a movement is only as successful as those in the movement who are willing to sacrifice and risk. We were willing to sacrifice in risk. When I got to Nashville, Tennessee in 1960, I came to play basketball but I was willing to sacrifice that when we begin to march and [unintelligible] march on Washington in 63. And when Kennedy was killed, it forced us to begin to sacrifice; sacrifice our college status, taking a risk of going to jail. But today we live in a society where people are either afraid or not willing to sacrifice or risk. So if the movement is to have any kind of sustainability, we've got to be willing to sacrifice. What does that mean? Maybe keep one room warm, maybe cut back on so much air conditioner in the summer. Maybe plant more trees so that they can absorb more carbon dioxide. Walk greater distances rather than driving. We'd have to sacrifice something if we want to keep the planet.

AMT: Help me understand the sacrifice, so give me give me an example of what you sacrifice are right.

GERALD DURLEY: I will give you an example. When I was growing up fairly poor we finally got an indoor toilet, I went the schools in one of my goals I said when I finally make it I'm going to buy me a Cadillac. But when I've finally got enough to get a Cadillac, because I wanted a big car, they started making them smaller. I said, no, I need a different car. So what I did, I finally bought a Mercedes 550 and I said now that's a gas guzzler. But then when I became aware of what that was doing, keeping it up with the cost of the car within the gas mileage, I said, wait a minute, this makes no sense. I am a hypocrite. So now I bought a hybrid. It really wasn't a sacrifice. Now I have a hybrid, a 300 hybrid. The maintenace is low. I get 40 miles to the gallon and I never got that with other car. So I thought it was sacrificing, in fact it was a tremendous blessing to my life. My grandchildren said 'Granddad, what's wrong? Did you go on broke? Oh are you happy? Because I just couldn't live without that', and they can. In fact they've got to have to if the overall planet is to survive. But when you really change you thinking it is not a sacrifice. It is a new way of life.

AMT: Well let me ask you. You have spent decades fighting for rights and for civil rights now environmental justice rights. What keeps you motivated in that fight?

GERALD DURLEY: Well I think it had I not gotten involved and listened to people at the EPA, when Scott Gina was there, I probably would have just gone along with the group. So it kept me excited and enthused, I began to meet people and talk to people about what it really meant in their lives and what it is doing to the overall planet and we cannot lose hope. Suppose we had quit in 1961. Suppose we had quit in 1962 suppose we had given up and gone back to the polls and then understood the legislative process and staying there in 63 and 64. You wouldn't even be here now, in terms of the kind of liberties that you have. So you can now give up. You've got to be willing now to stay the course. So we've got to teach our young people the ability to stay in the course. We didn't know ingrain that into them because we didn't want them to go through what we'd gone through. I came up when they were coloured water fountains and White Water fountains, going to the back of the bus. So we protected our children and our grandchildren from that. For the moment to have the kind of sustainability to look at all the scientific facts, look at the distress and then understand that if they do get in there it will not be done.

AMT: How do you imagine our lives feeling and looking in a low carbon future?

GERALD DURLEY: I see people there are much more healthier in people that are held in a much more vibrant. People that are much more vibrant are people that are less fearful, will understand what is really important in life and I think that because of that the forestry will come back. I see all these parking lots that will be torn down because we will have different forms of transportation. I think the bees will come back and begin to pollinate the flowers and the food. And I'm not trying to be Pollyannaish because I know there will always be challenges, but I think it would be a much more healthy environment for plant life, for animal life and for people life.

AMT: Reverend Durley thank you for your thoughts today.

GERALD DURLEY: You certainly welcome.

AMT: Reverend Gerald Durley, chair of the Interfaith Power and Light board. Author of I am Amazed. He's in Atlanta, Georgia. We would love to add your voice to this discussion. Tweet us @TheCurrentCBC use the hashtag #11Years. You can find us on Facebook or send us an e-mail from our web site cbc.ca/thecurrent. And while you are there you'll be able to find today's special, catch up on what you missed, download our podcast or find it on the CBC Radio app which - as you know - is free from the App Store or Google Play. Stay with CBC Radio One. Q is next. We're going to you today with the voices of the next generation. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Thank you for listening to 11 Years a Blueprint for Climate Action on this special edition of The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

ADEN: My name is Aden. I'm 11 years old and I was born in Vancouver. I think grownups I should think, not just for themselves, but for their kids and the next generation. Because if they only care for themselves, they will be gone before the real effects of what they've done is happening.

MADISON: My name is Madison Delatch. I am 12 years old and I live in Winnipeg. What scares me the most about climate change would have to be the fact that it's coming so perfectly. If we don't do anything then, in 11 years scientists estimate, if we don't do anything we're going onto a spiral of just bad things. Heat. And I I'll just be in university by then. I would not have started my adult life but I might die.

BLESSINGS: My name is Blessings. I'm 10 years old. I'm from Vancouver. I think that people should start thinking more about the environment than themselves. They should still have the feeling that they can still make a difference if they choose to and that they have a second chance.

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