Speaker 1:	If I can have everybody's attention, please. Sorry for my voice. Though I would absolutely love to give a long introduction to our wonderful speaker who has done so much, because we only have an hour, I'm going to keep my comments fairly brief. I'm pleased to welcome our alumna, Christiana Figueres back to Swarthmore. I'm very honored to introduce her to you. She was born in San José, Costa Rica, into a family dedicated to public service. Her father José was president of Costa Rica three times and is considered the founder of modern democracy there. Her mother Karen was Costa Rican ambassador to Israel and elected to the legislative assembly. Her brother José was also president of Costa Rica and is credited with having initiated the country unto a continuing path of sustainable development.
	Christiana, a sociology and anthropology major, graduated from Swarthmore in 1979 and initiated her life of public service as [inaudible 00:01:10] counselor at the embassy of Costa Rica in Bonn, Germany. Later she became a member of the Costa Rican climate change negotiating team from 1995 to 2009. She represented Latin America and the Caribbean on the executive board of the Clean Development Mechanism in 2007 and was then elected Vice President of the bureau in 2008. She served as Director of International Cooperation in the Ministry of Planning in Costa Rica and was named Chief of Staff to the Minister of Agriculture.
	Moving to the USA, she was Director of Renewable Energy in the Americas and in 1995 founded the non-profit Center for Sustainable Development of the Americas, which she directed for eight years. She designed and helped to establish national climate change programs in Guatemala, Panama, Colombia, Argentina, Ecuador, Honduras, El Salvador, and the Dominican Republic, becoming a prime promoter of Latin America's active participation in the climate change convention. She served as high level adviser to both governments and private companies.
	Christiana was appointed Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change on the 17th of May, 2010. Christiana told me right before lunch that she has not been back on campus, this campus she loves, for 20 years. She's about to speak to you on the anthropology of climate change. Will you join me in welcoming her back home?
Christiana F.:	Well, good afternoon to you all. It is wonderful to be back home. I'm actually quite touched to be back home because I haven't been here in such a long time. So I would like to first start by thanking President Chopp for inviting me to return to Swarthmore. But I will be very honest with you. I have actually been waiting for this invitation for a very long time. So I'm going to tell you what happens on the Swarthmore campus if you wait for an invitation, okay? So my freshman roommate, Madeline [Barrillo 00:03:38], who's sitting where? Madeline? There she is. She was and continues to be my very best friend.
	So Madeline and I can both tell you the following story because it is a true story. When we were Swarthmore students way back in the 70s, okay, so that's the petroglyphic age, we constantly watched fellow students who were being invited to the president's home. Everybody except us. We thought, "Well, we have to take matters into our own hands, okay?" So one early Easter morning, before sunrise, of course, a group of us got dressed up as bunnies and hopped up to President Friend who was president at that time. Hopped up to his door, pounded on his door with the wonderful excuse of a basket of chocolate eggs. Now, this poor man at 5:30 in the morning opened up the door in his striped pajamas that we can still see it in our head, stared at this bunny invasion in total disbelief. He was utterly shocked, but I tell you, he never forgot us after that.
	So here's the deal. I was actually thinking about that little episode when I met a couple of Swarthmore students last year in Durban at the last climate change conference. Are you here? Those of you who were there? No, you're not here. All right. So I met two or three Swarthmore students at the last conference that I directed in South Africa at the end of last year. They said, "Well, you know, have you been back to Swarthmore? Oh, no? Well, would you like to come?" "Yes. Yes, I would like to come back." I didn't tell them, but I was wondering, "Hmm, I wonder if they're working here on President Chopp's behalf?" You know? Because maybe President Friend gave her a call and said, "If you make her wait for an invitation, she's going to organize this little bunny invasion." So I was wondering whether President Chopp was actually concerned about having a bunny invasion in her garden. What's even more suspicious is she's actually invited us to dinner tonight.
	So let me tell you, you may think that this was actually just a fun campus prank, but I tell you this story because I would like to impress upon you that on the very critical issue of climate change, the world can no longer afford for you, for any of you, to wait for an invitation. You cannot wait for an invitation to put your knowledge to purpose, to put your passion to action. The world needs you and it needs you now. President Chopp actually said it best in her inaugural address and I quote her: "We must educate to set anew and set aright our relationship to the earth, to our climate, to the web of all existence. Under this canopy of trees can there be any doubt that we must do all we can, all we can, to sustain the beauty of this good Earth?"
	Well, I must confess that in the idyllic setting of a Swarthmore campus, it's indeed very, very tempting to ponder global challenges from an intellectual perspective, to write fantastic papers, which I'm sure you all do, to participate in stimulating honors seminars, if you're very lucky, in your professor's living room, and then leave it at that. But as I'm sure President Chopp would agree, doing all we can, which is what she said, means taking action. It means taking action not tomorrow but today because when it comes to climate change, thought without action is not only empty, it is profoundly irresponsible. Let me tell you how I come to that conclusion.
	So it all started when I decided to become a sociology and anthropology major here at Swarthmore. Anybody here in the room wondering, "Well, how does an anthropologist get to do climate? How does she get to be the head of the Climate Convention?" Well, I must admit that way back then in the petroglyphic age when I was here, I did not dream about one day becoming the head of the United Nations Climate Convention. In fact, I was even lucky if I had time for one dream under those very, very short sleeping hours as you well know. The honest truth is that when I graduated from Swarthmore in 1979, the global environmental movement was very much at its infancy. I was frankly not very concerned with global environmental issues with one exception. An important exception. I was a committed solar energy activist and got a tan in front of Parrish Hall every time that I could get it.
	So if there are any anthropology majors here or in fact any students who spent any time overseas, you may remember or you may have heard of Steve Piker. Does anybody remember Steve Piker? Okay. Well, Steve Piker was my thesis adviser and my inspiration on campus. I would like to pay tribute to Steve. He opened my eyes to a simple but very, very powerful truth that still resonates with me today. That the direction, scale, and speed of change in society is determined by men. Simple, but very powerful. Now since I know that the science of climate change is a taboo topic in some parts of the United States but certainly not in Swarthmore, I trust that we will all agree very, very quickly that the unprecedented atmospheric concentration of greenhouses gasses that are at the root of climate change are produced by the activity of man. And I say by the activity of man because it has occurred over the past hundred years, therefore not man and woman, but we can leave that discussion for later.
	I trust that we can also agree why addressing climate change is so darn urgent. This August, the US National Snow and Ice data center reported that the extent of ice cover on the Arctic had fallen to its all-record low, shrunk by 186 thousand square miles compared to just five years ago. That's four times the size of Pennsylvania. Now can you imagine the impact of that on the lives of those who live in the Arctic region let alone the alarming consequences of that much water flowing into the ocean and affecting ocean current circulating throughout the globe? In January I had the opportunity, and some of you have read about this, to see the effect of warming temperature on the opposite pole, in the Antarctica. Huge pieces of ice breaking off, triggering a shrinking of land-based, which is different than the Arctic, land-based ice faster than it had ever been anticipated by the glaciologists.
	Now sitting here in Swarthmore, Antarctica may seem very distant, but believe me, what happens in Antarctica does not stay in Antarctica. There is a direct and proven correlation between ice melt on that continent and sea levels all around the world. Just ask some of the 50 million people who live in low-lying island states, whose survival is directly threatened not tomorrow but today. On the island of Fiji where I once traveled as a young anthropologist, the families of the village of [foreign language 00:12:12] are today, today as we speak, relocating to drier and higher land because of sea level rise and constant flooding. They're actually lucky that they have higher land on Fiji that they can relocate to because the former president of the Maldives toured the world and was unsuccessful in finding any country that would accept the entire Maldives population as climate immigrants or as climate refugees. Now climate refugees. There's a term that wasn't around in 1979. But you know what? Get used to it. Because current projections estimate that we could reach anywhere between 100 and 400 million climate refugees over the next 20 to 30 years. 100 to 400 million refugees. That tragic situation is made even poignant by the fact that all those people are the least responsible for climate change.
	Now we don't have to go so far away. I know that you understand the urgency of climate here in the United States. January through August were the warmest eight months any year recorded in the United States. This country just experienced one of the worst droughts on record. Heat wave extending from the Rocky Mountains to the Ohio Valley with devastating effects on the farmers of the entire region and today the assessment that it will mean 1.3% less economic growth because of the losses in that region. Furthermore, the US is the world's largest exporter of corn, soybeans, and wheat and because of that drought, the Department of Agriculture estimates that global food prices of these staples will jump 2 to 3% next year. Now if you're a poor family, a few cents on the dollar can very quickly determine whether you eat or whether you starve. So it doesn't take a scientist to connect these dots. While none of these single events can be exclusively linked to climate change, taken together, they indicate that we're already in the midst of climate unpredictability, of a profound disruption in the Earth's hydrological cycle, the effects of which are actually still unknown. So yes, Steve Piker, the direction of global change has been determined by man but the speed may now be completely out of our control. I'm sure Steve Piker could not possibly have imagined the scale of the change that we may already have caused.
	So in the face of this calamity, is anything being done about this? Well, good news and bad news. The good news is that there is some progress, both from governments and from private sector. So at the inter-governmental level, in the last round of negotiations that we had in Durban in South Africa at the end of last year, all governments agreed to not let the rise in temperature go beyond two degrees Centigrade with a view to revising that with the most recent science to 1.5 degrees which is actually the temperature rise that we should allow and no more if we want to be responsible to the most vulnerable populations of the world. Additionally in Durban, most industrialized countries, most ... Agreed to continue leading in their emission reductions efforts via a second commitment period in the [inaudible 00:16:30] protocol. That covers only 10 to 12% of global emission. So in order to increase that ambition for the very first time, governments have agreed that they will negotiate a legally-based universal agreement to be applicable to all, underline, I have to underline that many times, particularly when I speak in the United States, by 2015 to come into effect by 2020. So that's a the international level.
	At the national level, actually, a lot of movement because of the advance of the Climate Convention. There we see a number of countries with actually very serious climate initiatives. All industrialized countries, in fact, even including the United States, all industrialized countries have made voluntary, not legally binding, voluntary pledges to reduce their own emissions by 2020. Even more impressive, 49 developing countries with no historical responsibility for climate change, future yes, but no historical responsibility, 49 developing countries, including all emerging developing countries, have announced nationally appropriate mitigation actions to 2020 and beyond. Some of these countries actually have already passed and enacted domestically legally-binding legislation such as Mexico, Korea, and yesterday, Pakistan. Now I know you won't read about this in the press in this country, but China has legally-binding domestic legislation on climate, on renewable energies, on energy efficiency, and they are now working on their first national comprehensive climate legislation with a view to enacting it over the next few years. Finally, 119 countries around the world have renewable energy policy targets and nearly every country has some type of energy efficiency initiative.
	So this is progress, but let me be perfectly clear. It is not enough. In fact, if fully implemented, all of the above efforts amount to about 60% of the global effort that we need to guarantee a two degree temperature rise, let alone a 1.5, which is as I said, where we should be. There is no doubt that reaching the temperature target requires yes, decisive national action, but it also requires collective commitment in the context of an agreed global framework. That's where Steve Piker's lesson is to be applied yet again. There is no doubt that we need to change the way we generate, transmit, and use energy. Only man, and here in this case, I'm going to rephrase, man and woman can actually help to solve this problem by determining the direction, the scale, and the speed of the positive change that we need.
	Now the challenge is that as things currently stand, time is not on our side and math is clearly not in our favor. Given population growth and economic development, particularly in the emerging countries, global demand for energy will double over the next two decades. To meet that demand, we're going to need approximately 26 trillion dollars of investment in climate responsible infrastructure and well over half of that needs to go into developing countries. So we stand at a very, very clear fork in the road. We can either take the path of least resistance, the business as usual, path of high carbon, high emissions. If we do that, we stand a very good chance that in 40 years global emissions will have risen by 50 percent as opposed to fallen by 50 percent which is what science demands. The other choice that we have is the green path. If those investments are focused on renewable energy, on energy efficiency and if we improve access to sustainable energy, then we will achieve something very different, something actually truly remarkable. We will for the first time in history have delinked economic growth from greenhouse gas emissions. We will increase economic growth where it's most needed and we will decrease greenhouse gasses where they are the highest. We will create new jobs, new opportunities, new direction.
	That is in fact the path that many businesses are beginning to take. They're recognizing that the opportunities offered by green growth are there to be taken. Just a few months ago, the trillionth dollar, trillionth dollar was invested in renewable energy. Cumulative, not in a year. Companies all across the world have seen the light. One example that I like to use is a company in Qatar because it is the host of our next Climate Change Conference this year. Well, I'm hoping you all know that Qatar is one of the world's oil and gas producing states. In Qatar, the Qatar Solar Technologies company recently invested more than a billion dollars in a cutting edge polysilicon facility because they're aiming to produce 1,800 megawatts of solar power by 2024. Other than the investment of Saudi Arabia, that would be the largest solar farm in the world. Now right here in Pennsylvania, we're seeing how renewable energy can provide an economic boost. In 2010, the wind energy industry in Pennsylvania supported directly and indirectly four thousand jobs in this state.
	Now to not leave Swarthmore out of the equation, Swarthmore has also chosen the green path and I would like to applaud Swarthmore's efforts to make this college more sustainable, certainly more sustainable than when Madeline and I were here. I especially want to note President Chopp's leadership because in 1910, she signed the American College and University Presidents' Climate Change Commitment and she is moving forward on delivering on that. Now Swarthmore has also committed to develop a clean action plan by January 2013. You will tell me after this how far we are on that one. Swarthmore has attracted widespread attention for concrete climate actions such as the green roofs that I have yet to see and would like to see this afternoon.
	So that's the direction governments, institutions, and private companies are moving. Now the question is is that enough? Can we leave the responsibility of the transformation to governments, institutions, and private companies? Well, my response is absolutely not for a very simple reason. Because what is urgently necessary is the creation of a new norm, the low carbon norm. And that requires nothing short of a consumer rebellion against high carbon living which is what you and I have right now. So let me explain what that means for you today as students and what it means for you tomorrow as tomorrow's leaders. Dear students, it is actually very, very easy to fall into the trap of exporting responsibility. But let me tell you, this is not about others. It's not about those who you think are not doing enough or those who you judge to be irresponsible. This is about you. It's about your lifestyle, your consumer choices, your energy consumption. It's about your choices and mine.
	To be very honest with you, my husband has grown so tired of telling me to turn off the light when I walk out of a room that he has finally put motion sensors in my house, okay? And my daughters, I travel all the time, so my daughters are always asking me, "And did you take a plane or did you take a train? Did you walk or did you take the car?" So they're on my case all the time. The fact is that's what it takes. That is exactly what it takes. Being responsible means being honest with ourselves. So let me try a little honesty here. How many of you own a car? Okay. I would say three-quarters of you. How many of you know what your CO2 emissions of your car are? One. Two, three. Three and a half. Okay. So if you don't know what the CO2 emissions is, I'm assuming that when you bought the car, the carbon efficiency of the car was not a factor in buying the car. Is that a correct assumption? No? It is? Well, you can calculate it. You know you can calculate it by gallon, you can calculate it by average mile.
	The point is this is a lot of incredibly enlightened, committed, thinking students, so if you don't know what your carbon footprint is, can you imagine the rest of the US population? Here is my concern. It is your purchasing power, your purchasing power that is your strongest voice. Your generation ... Excuse me faculty, I'm not talking to you. Your generation, students, is the one that is going to determine how quickly we shift to low carbon. You're going to determine it through your choice of whatever you buy. Your everyday products. Think every time you buy, you are determining the pace of this transformation. That's a pretty heavy responsibility to have on your shoulders, but that's the one that you have to pick up.
	Now companies are actually finally slowly realizing that sustainability is more than just a cute advertising campaign, right? It is what informed consumers ... I'm sorry, on this one, you just don't make it, okay? You're not informed consumers yet. But I would really ask you to join others who are letting companies know that your dollars will follow sustainability. That is the one way that you can make your voices heard today as students. Now tomorrow, as tomorrow's leaders, let's look at some basic facts that you're going to have to address.
	We're trying to get to two degrees max, hopefully 1.5, two degree maximum temperature rise by 2050. Who knows what the average per capita emission would have to be in order to get to two degrees? Is it 50? Up or down? 40? Tons, tons. Is it 50? Tell me if it's 50. 40? Down? 30? 20? 10? Dudes, it's two tons, okay? Two tons per head per year. That's the global average that we would need to use. Now do you know what the average emission of every citizen in India is? Above or below two? It's one. Do you know what the average emission in China is? It's two. Do you know what the average emission in the United States is? Okay, everybody's getting uncomfortable, right? It's 20. So here's your challenge, okay? You thought getting through Swarthmore's a challenge? Forget it. Here's your real challenge. To be in line with responsible global citizenship, you, each one of you, would have to reduce your personal average emissions by 90% from where you are today, 20 to two tons in your lifetime. I daresay you're probably not even the average US citizen because everybody who comes to school is a privileged person. So you probably are even above 20, even above the US average.
	So how the heck, how the heck are you going to get from 20 to two tons per year and meet your Chinese colleagues because that's where they are? So think about it, okay? Where are your emissions? Well, how you transport yourselves, the AC and the heater in your room. Do they even have AC and heaters because when we were here, they were really crappy. Okay, maybe they're better. I hope they're certainly more energy efficient than when we were here. I'm sure you have electricity in your room. I'm sure you have lighting. I'm sure each of you has at least three iPads, iPhones, laptops, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Well, they all use electricity. So you see, if you switch off the AC particularly because you're not here in the summer, if you turn off the lights when you go out of a room, and if you unplug your computer at night, well, you can get down a little bit, but it's not going to get you from 20 to two. It just is not going to do it.
	So you see, the challenge is we need a dramatic, dramatic change. Some call it transformational change. I actually quite simply just call it a revolution because I don't use that word lightly. President Chopp introduced me as the daughter of a president but that president was a revolutionary leader. He led the Costa Rican revolution in 1948 and I am proud of the social change that that revolution brought. But here we are in Swarthmore, in a peace-loving Quaker college, okay, with a strong anti-war tradition. I don't remember too many courses on how do you operate a machine gun here. I did receive values and inspiration and principles that I still live by. So I'm not calling for an armed uprising, but I am calling for something that is in fact even more challenging than that. I'm calling for an uprising against our own consumption patterns which have become fatally incompatible with our vision and our responsibility for a sustainable future. Energy is at the heart of everything that we humans do. Everything. I'm calling for radical transformation in the way we generate, transmit, and use energy.
	Now ladies and gentlemen, as tomorrow's leaders, I actually need your help. No matter what field you're going to go into, you will very likely be affected by climate change one way or the other. So I need you, I need the brightest minds to come up with real and lasting solutions in every single field. Don't think about climate as this thing over here. Climate change affects everything. It is the most transversal challenge we have ever, ever had. I need you to find solutions. I need you to discover them, I need you to articulate them, I need you to operationalize these solutions in such a way that they make sense from an environment point of view, from an economic point of view, and from an ethical point of view. That's what Swarthmore is all about, isn't it? It's always been about that. This college was forged in the crucible of the US Civil War in a time in which some human beings literally owned other human beings. Think about that. At the time, most people thought that that paradigm was intractable but there were people with passion who knew that it was fundamentally wrong and who took the firm steps to remedy that wrong.
	Now today it's not just the United States but it's the entire world that is facing the challenge of addressing climate. So some may think it's too complex to be solved, it's too far away to warrant any concerted effort now. Well, there is no doubt and I'm the first one to admit that the complexity of climate is unparalleled in human history, but I hope that I have shown you that we are making some progress and above all, I hope that I have shown you that each one of you can make a difference. In fact, that each one of you must make a difference.
	So dear students, please don't sit around in your dorm room waiting for an invitation. Can't wait anymore. So let's get to work together. Together to make a radical change required of every man and every woman together to meet challenges with conviction and resistance with resiliency, regardless of the odds or opposition. Together to build on the proud tradition, on the proud Quaker tradition upon which this school was founded. Together to have our voices heard. Together to let our lives speak. Thanks.
	Now I'm happy to take questions but just in case you didn't get the message of that speech, I have a one and a half minute clip for you. Can we kill the lights?
Video:	Change is everything. Change is the mainspring of evolution, the foundation of life on Earth. But nature's symmetry depends on exchange. We strain the perpetual cycles by taking more than we give. We lessen the sources of existence for ourselves and for coming lives. Do we realize that we need to change, that we must reinstate ourselves into the natural balance? Do we realize that we have everything it takes to make a difference, that we can effect change? As our motivation to change grows, our longing for real change intensifies. Change challenges our capacities, our modes of development. It involves all our innovative energy. Change presents opportunities everywhere to every one of us. Our chance to change is now. Change for good.
Christiana F.:	Good. If we can have some lights? Thank you. Questions, comments, provocations. I was a Swarthmore student, I know you provoke, that's what you're here for. Yeah? ... Define dishonesty. Well, 95% of scientists agree that climate is actually produced by man. It doesn't really matter. The climate skeptics are out there and honestly, that's not going to change the science of climate, okay? The science is compelling, every day more and the fifth assessment report that is coming out next year is going to have even more painful evidence. But here's the point. Do you really have to read the report of the IPCC, of the Intergovernmental Panel Change? Honestly, just look. Just open up your eyes and you see that climate change is occurring. To dishonesty, here is my very painful answer. Let's start with ourselves. Okay?
	Honestly, I don't think, including me, I don't think there's one of us in this hall that can stand up here and say, "I emit two tons." Can anybody say that? We can't. Furthermore, how many of us can stand up here and say, "I'm trying to get to two tons and every single act of my every single day is trying to get to two tons." So let's be honest with ourselves because that's where it all starts. Honesty with ourselves.
	Yeah, because our current way of living is just too comfortable, right? We're just stuck in this comfort and, "Aw, man, don't give me something else to think about," you know? Here is the question. What are you going to say to your children and grandchildren? "Well, I didn't want to change because it was a little bit uncomfortable." What are you going to say? We can't do what we do just because that's the way it's always been done. If that were the logic, we would still be owning other human beings, okay? We have to brave enough to stand up for what we know to be true, for what we know to be right, and in particular, for what we know to be necessary for next generations. We just got to do it. It's not easy, but it's the only right thing to do.
	Yeah, and you know, sadly, I see it more in Europe than I see it in the United States and it's probably because a college campus is not divorced from it's larger environment. You don't even have to go to a college or university campus in Europe to see a much, much higher level of awareness and responsibility. People actually ... I walk down the street and there's this huge car agency and what does it say? It says the car, the model, the price, and the CO2 emissions. I walk into a department store, a grocery store, and it tells me where the apple was brought from and what the CO2 emissions are of that apple and then I can choose which apple I'm going to buy. This is the problem. We are completely uninformed consumers. Completely uninformed. Unless we have the information to make choices, we just continue with our very comfortable way of life.
	Why is that? Because we have not internalized the cost to the environment. Once we internalize the carbon cost into the price, once we valuate that, then we will certainly begin to make changes. So economists, how many economists in the room? Because that is your challenge. Economics really needs to catch up and really needs to internalize what is now an externality which is the environmental cause and the future cause, it's all out there. It's got to be internalized into the cost of every single thing. Until that doesn't happen, I don't know that we're going to be able to do the transformation.
	A portrait? Well, this is the thing, you see, because everything around you is so carbon intensive. That's what I mean. So even if you are very, very conscious, okay? It would impossible for you today to live as a Swarthmore student on this campus with two tons footprint because everything around you is so carbon intensive. That's what I mean. What I mean is we need to get to the point where products, every single product that is produced and that we consume is a low carbon product. That's not where we are. Scientists tell us that we are very, very close to a tipping point beyond which the computer models don't even know what's going to happen. So that's the famous scientific tipping point. Well, my concern is the only way to avoid that potential tipping point is to get to the tipping point that we can get to and that's to become a low carbon society. We can do that, but we are far away from that tipping point. That's what I talk about creating a new norm. So the only way to avoid the scientific tipping point is to get to the economic tipping point of a low carbon society. We are so far away from that.
	Absolutely, absolutely. But that is your purchasing power, you see, because the moment you start doing that, then you don't go and purchase, I don't know, grapes from Chile, okay? So that is included when I'm talking about purchasing power, I include that. So your responsible local growth is totally the way to go.
	Well, first of all, to your statement of there still are a lot of politicians that don't believe that climate is man caused, please put US into that sentence because this is a US phenomenon, okay? It's a US phenomenon. I have the pleasure and the honor of serving every single government in the world. There is the US and then there's 192 countries. It is just beyond description. So first of all, let us understand that this is a US phenomenon. It doesn't mean that there are no climate skeptics anywhere else, just the preponderance of it and the loudness of the voice is clearly a US phenomenon, point number one. Point number two, I honestly don't agree with a statement that would say that the politicians truly, truly do not believe that we are causing climate change, okay? I think there is a structure here in the United States, unfortunately, where the incumbents as I call them, the incumbent industry that stands to lose currently, although they are investing a lot in solar. But the coal, oil, and gas industry is much better funded, much better organized, has much more powerful lobbying structures in Washington, they permeate through their packs, they permeate all kinds of access into decision making structures in Washington and throughout many states.
	What they're doing is they are trying to stop the advance of the Climate Convention until such a time in which they are going to be better placed with respect to the new industries. This is the irony, okay? All of these industries are actually already ... Qatar, okay? Putting in one billion dollars into solar. Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is going to produce 40 thousand megawatts of solar energy by ten years from now. 40 thousand megawatts. The oil companies are doing the same. They are putting in their investment, they're putting into developed technology. They're doing the same because they know what's coming down the pike. It's just that they would rather have this go slowly because they're still positioning themselves into a very profitable position within the new economy. So honestly they're only doing what their bottom line expects. Part of that is to permeate those who are making decisions. Honestly, I cannot imagine that more than, I don't know, 5 to 10% of the people who say climate is not occurring and that man is not ... Do they really, really, really believe it? Do they really believe it? I just cannot imagine that. I still have to meet somebody who says to me, "Yes," and can really convince me that they believe it. I haven't met one. Have you? Has anybody met one. In the back.
	I was warned that this is the hot topic. Okay, here's the honest truth. Number one, fossil fuels have been the backbone of the growth of the global economy for the past at least 100 to 150 years. No questions asked. It is also true that at least over the next 50 to 75 years we will still have fossil fuels in the energy mix. We will. Because fossil fuels have a whole bunch of properties that cannot be ... Characteristics that cannot be displaced by renewable energy. Now, the question is what is the relative weight of fossil fuel versus other technologies? The relative weight of fossil fuel will decrease over time. That doesn't mean that we're not going to have fossil fuels. It just means that as global demand grows, the relative growth for renewable energy and the presence of those other energies in the mix is going to grow.
	So what does that mean? Well, that means that those companies that are producing fossil fuel will still be in business, right? And they'll probably still be in business selling energy from coal. Well, coal I hope we're going to be soon displaced. But oil and gas I think will be with us for a long time, particularly gas. So those companies will still be selling energy from that fuel as well as they will be selling energy from their new investments. So it's not a black and white picture. It is a picture of accelerating the change that we know is happening. Because here's the deal. This change is going to happen. It is going to happen. It's just that it cannot happen at the pace in which it would naturally happen just through the forces of the market because science is telling us that's not going to be quick enough. So we do need to use everything that is in our power to accelerate that change. What is incorrect is to paint fossil fuels as the devil that we need to get rid of because they will always be us at least in some presence.
	So it's a very difficult, complicated issue. For those like Swarthmore who are still invested in fossil fuel, there are options. There are options about how to have that conversation, how to raise the awareness, how to put the pressure of shareholders on those companies to encourage them to do what they're already doing which is investing in solar and in wind. If you're going to be invested, if you're going to be invested, then you've got to put pressure on that side, if you're going to be invested.
	Woah, there's a big challenge for you. Let me put that actually into a global context, okay, because we're going from seven billion to nine billion people, most of whom will not have the access to food, water, and energy that even this seven billion have if we continue along the same path. So it's very, very clear that as we move forward we need to find ways in which we will be able to provide access to food, water, energy that is environmentally responsible. Very difficult to do, very difficult. But it's possible and there are a lot of investments that are going into research and development of much more intensive capacity of food production that is at the same time climate resilient because we need to incorporate that now into all of our development. So it's got to be more intensive, less land using, less nutrient absorbing and more climate resilient in order to be able to have the land to produce the food for nine billion people. It is a huge challenge, a huge challenge, and cannot be divorced from water and cannot be divorced from energy. So that nexus, if you're thinking agricultural, you can't think just agriculture, you have to think the nexus of food, water, and energy and that's the big challenge for the nine billion people.
Speaker 1:	So this is fabulous. Thank you very much. Join me in thanking [inaudible 00:53:12].