Pod Save America - Pod Save the Planet with Al Gore

Episode Date: July 29, 2017

Former Vice President Al Gore talks with Jon, Jon, and Tommy about his new movie Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power. Lovett also made some jokes.

Welcome to a bonus episode of Pod Save America with the former Vice President of the United States, Al Gore. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. I was going to call it an extra special episode, but bonus is fine. Extra special. I just want people to feel like they're getting something better. Because you know what they got?

They got the former Vice President of the United States, and he's a movie star now. He's a movie star. He's about to have two hits. Extra special. I just want people to feel like they're getting something better. Because you know what they got? They got the former Vice President of the United States. And he's a movie star now. He's a movie star. He's about to have two hits. Oscar winner. Nobel laureate. We're talking to former Vice President Gore about his new movie, an inconvenient sequel, Truth to Power, which is out now in select theaters and everywhere August 4th.

You should see this movie. So we, the three of us, saw it on Monday evening to preview it. It is an excellent movie. Everyone should go see it. Go see the movie. Go see the movie. If you're in New York and L.A., you can see it right now. If you care about climate change, you go see the movie.

Yeah, bring a friend. If you have a friend who doesn't believe in climate change, maybe bring them. That's even more important. That's even more important. Especially if it's the president. Are you Anthony Scaramucci looking for a Sunday film? How about I take your boss?

Go hang out. Because until he started deleting tweets, he believed in climate change. That's right. So maybe the Mooch and Trump can go see the film. I mean, Al Gore has already talked to him about it in person. I have some breaking news, though. We already filmed the episode,

the conversation with Vice President Gore. Recorded. We don't film yet. Good call. He was very funny. He was loose. spoilers love it tried a bunch of jokes some of them landed some of them landed a lot of them landed the first you can be the judge you be the judge guys the first you're the audience we listen to you he turned and looked at me and i for one second i was back in that van where i made that joke about buzz aldrin and i thought he going to punch me in the face. But then he laughed, and he was in on it. It was good.

He did tell you you were funny at the end. He said, you're funny. That was nice. Okay, well, not to give it all away, you're about to hear it. So, without further ado, our interview with former Vice President Al Gore. And see the movie. Adieu. We are very lucky to have with us today on the pod former Vice President Al Gore.

We are talking about his brand new movie, an inconvenient sequel, Truth to Power. It is out now in select theaters and everywhere on August 4th. Mr. Vice President, welcome to Pod Save America. Well, thank you very much. I'm happy to be here. There's sort of a big difference between this movie

and the original movie, which is, I felt like the first movie was a case based on facts and data and the predictions about the future. This movie felt much more about, here's what's happening right now. Here are the changes you can see on the ground. What was the most surprising, shocking thing you saw while shooting for this movie? Well, first of all, it's great to be with you guys. And congratulations on this podcast. It's amazing

how quickly the audience has been growing, and I'm really happy to be with you. The directors of this new movie, Bonnie Cohen and John Schenck, have developed this cinema verite style, which accounts for some of the differences between this movie and the one a decade ago. But there have also been some big changes since the first movie in the world as a whole. Number one, the climate-related extreme weather events are way more common, way more severe, more than exceeding the worst predictions of the scientists a decade ago, which, by the way, ought to lead us all to pay more attention to what they're telling us would happen in the future if we don't grab hold of this. But the other big change in the last decade

is that the solutions are here now. And in many areas of the world, to pick one example, electricity from solar and wind is now cheaper than electricity from fossil fuels. In many cases, less than half the cost of electricity from fossil fuels. And because the cost continues to drop for renewables, before too long, it's going to be that way in most of the world. There was just a contract signed in Arizona at less than half the cost of electricity from fossil fuels. Electric cars are coming online. India astonishingly announced last month that within only 13 years, 100% of all their new cars and trucks are going to have to be electric vehicles, in only 13 years, 100% of all their new cars and trucks are going to have to be electric vehicles,

which is amazing and really hardening. India and China are closing hundreds of coal burning plants, quickly expanding their solar installations in particular, also wind. So I was shocked, to circle back to the specific question, by the speed of the decay, degradation, melting in Greenland. I've been to Antarctica twice. That's not included in this movie,, the impact on the people there of Super Typhoon Haiyan was really shocking. But in the positive sphere, I was shocked by the incredible growth of solar in Chile. Wow. Michelle Bachelet, their president, she's the second time around there. I worked with her extensively in her first term. She came back in and really went to town on this. And it's teaching a lesson to a lot of other countries who are now poised to follow that same breakout. to follow that same breakout. Mr. Vice President, the movie builds to this incredible moment at the Paris Climate Accords. And you're in these negotiations with business leaders and foreign heads of state. And then the world takes this meaningful action to stop climate change. And then Trump is elected, and it unravels what was accomplished in some ways. And it feels deflating.

I think for a lot of Democrats who are watching the news day to day, they feel that sense of deflation about a lot of things they care about that Trump is pushing for, like the health care bill. What's your message to people who feel frustrated by stymied progress on climate change and to progressives generally who want to keep fighting for the things they care about? Yeah, hang in there. We're going to win this. I've been at this for 40 years, and I've seen a bunch of setbacks and obstacles to get around, and Trump is certainly a big one. But, you know, the Paris Agreement was designed in a way that makes it technically impossible for the U.S. to actually leave the Paris Agreement until the day after the next presidential election in 2020. And if there is a new president, please God, if not before, please God, then a new president could merely give 30 days notice and rejoin

the Paris Agreement. But I was really concerned when he announced the withdrawal because I feared that a number of other countries, and I had a few I was particularly worried about, would use that as an excuse to withdraw themselves. But it didn't happen. And to the contrary, the entire rest of the world redoubled their commitment. That process is ongoing, as if to say, we'll show you, Donald Trump. And here in the U.S., a lot of governors and mayors and business leaders stepped up to the plate, filled the gap, said

we're still in the Paris Agreement. And it now looks as if there's a real good chance that the U.S. will end up meeting the commitments made by former President Obama in the Paris Agreement, regardless of Donald Trump. Now, that's not to say he's not trying to do a lot of damage, and he's surrounded himself with a rogues gallery of climate deniers who are doing really awful things. Not a Scott Pruitt fan. No, I'm not. I thought they were the best people. Have I been misinformed? I was told these were the best people by him.

No? And you believe him. I believe my president. Am I wrong? What kind of cynics am I dealing with here? Yeah, yeah. Well, we do have some resilience in our American system and the courts have blocked some of what he's tried to do. The Senate defeated his effort to repeal the so-called methane rule, and a number of Republican members of the House have now switched over to supporting solutions to the climate crisis. I love this so-called Noah's Ark caucus, and people think it's named as an analogy to the

biblical deluge, and I guess it is, but it's also in reference to the fact they can only join two by two, one Republican and one Democrat. And they're up to 30 some odd members now. And we're actually close to a working majority in the Congress. Of course, the elections next year are going to be absolutely crucial, more than ever. And, you know, who knows what's going to happen where the White House is concerned. The next few months are likely to be pretty challenging for the country. I don't want to take us down that rabbit hole. We're down there. Yeah. We'll take pictures for you. What's the old song been down so long? It looks like up to me.

So you said in the movie that we don't just have a climate crisis, we have a democracy crisis. If I had seen this movie a few years ago, my first reaction would have been, if only everyone could see this movie, we wouldn't have so many climate deniers. Today, we have a president who spends all day attacking fake news. We have a good chunk of the Republican Party who doesn't even believe things they read in the New York Times or that they see on CNN, let alone a movie from Al Gore. So how do we break through? How do we fix this democracy problem as it relates the White House chief of staff and the communications director. I think Anthony Scaramucci used the phrase Cain and Abel this morning.

He did, yeah. Oh, okay. Talked about treason, talked about hanging. A lot of things happened on CNN this morning with Anthony Scaramucci. It's a real problem. I'm sleeping through all this news. And you're still believing. I wake up and they've lied all morning.

I don't think you got to the end of the Cain and Abel story. Yeah, that's right. Well, we do have a democracy crisis for sure. And big money has been playing a very toxic role. You know, I have watched the Congress for most of my life because my dad was in the Congress for 10 years before I was born. And I was elected back in the mid-70s. And I've watched the impact of big money grow and grow and grow. It really kind of started when television displaced print as the dominant medium and candidates became dependent on these 30-second TV commercials to reach the voters and the audience. And all of a sudden there were gatekeepers that charged huge amounts of money.

amounts of money. So contrary to what it was like in the mid-70s, now the average member of Congress and House and Senate spends four to five hours every day begging special interests and rich people for money. And human nature being what it is, you get the result that the piper demands payment and gets it, and that's it. But this podcast, not to engage in transparent flattery, but this podcast is an example of the new Internet-based media that has the potential for restoring the vitality of American democracy. by returning to a model for information dispersal that the printing press made possible, where an individual with smart ideas or a small group can actually reach out and connect with an audience that agrees with them, and then there's strength in numbers, and the gatekeepers are not playing a big role now. And we're in a transition period. Aggregate ad revenue on the internet just crossed over and surpassed broadcast cable satellite for the first time this year.

But the big advertisers still prefer TV, and so the transition is continuing. But I actually have a lot of hope that the internet media, even with all of the well-known problems, there are some self-correcting mechanisms and there are a lot of people trying to make sense of it. But I think we have a real chance of restoring the original dynamic in American democracy. democracy. Bernie Sanders, even if you don't agree with a lot of what he proposed, did show that it's possible now for a nationwide candidate to mount a credible and effective campaign with no special interest contributions and no big contributions from anybody, just relying on small donors on the internet. And I expect to see some more campaigns following that model, which would be a real earthquake in American politics and help

us restore what American democracy is supposed to be. I just want to make sure we flag that we were referred to as sort of modern day Thomas Paine. So we all caught that. We're going to keep that in. And now I warn you, by the time George Washington's tenure ended, Thomas Paine could only go to the White House through the back door. He was so unpopular by then. And you guys may be heading down

that road. I don't think we're getting our press pass. We're not getting our credential anytime soon. Not in this White House. Ivanka doesn't return my emails anymore. We never emailed. So I want to start with this persuasion question because it's something that we talk about a lot that it seems like this case is now incontrovertible. You go down to Miami. Miami is literally flooding.

Meanwhile. On a sunny day. On a sunny day. And meanwhile, you have politicians either denying or avoiding the issue, people like Marco Rubio. It seems like the facts bounce. And governors. And governors, yeah, of course. Who I hope, dearly hope and pray gets trounced by Bill Nelson, who is a fantastic senator.

And anybody in Florida, get out there and help Bill Nelson. Yes. Yes. Let's get that guy out of there. But it seems as though facts don't play as much of a role in persuading people. You've been at this for decades. It's been one of the – it's a mission of your life now. What have you learned about persuading people, about changing somebody's mind?

Is it less about the actual nuts and bolts case? Is it about behavior? What moves people? One-on-one, your conversation. You sit across from Donald Trump, who is president, as of this recording. And you lay this out for him. Ivanka brings you in. They claim to care about the issue. Pulls out of Paris.

What is not happening in that conversation that needs to happen? Oh, Lord God, I don't know how to analyze what goes on in the president's mind. I've protected the privacy of those conversations, but you won't be surprised to having heard so many business types say that he can be very cordial and engaging in conversations and make his interlocutor believe

that he's agreeing and so forth. I really did think there was a chance he would come to his senses on Paris, and I was wrong. And I think that he had, I already mentioned, he surrounded himself with all these climate deniers. And I think that he's obviously following a strange blueprint of just continuing to play to his base, which is a shrinking minority of the American people, and count on the differential intensity of that base to counterbalance the majority who is getting increasingly apprehensive about him. And, you know, I can't psychoanalyze him. But back to the beginning of your question, it's a really important one. I mentioned just by coincidence, George Washington earlier,

somebody sent me a quote from George Washington yesterday. And I'm not going to get it exact, but it was, people are persuaded first by their feelings and then their thoughts catch up. people are persuaded first by their feelings and then their thoughts catch up. So all the fancy neuroscience and behavioral psychology of the last few decades is simply recapitulating an insight that our first president already had. And of course, the founders were such brilliant humanists. They understood this and they actually designed the Constitution in order to take into account the role of feelings and passions versus reasoning and thought. So there's not that much new under the sun where this is regarded. But a lot of work has been done to try to develop the best and most persuasive approaches to convincing people to be a part of this. There is a new participant in the discussion.

Mother Nature turns out to be more persuasive than any of us who are climate activists. These extreme events, I mean, just one quick example. Just in the last seven years, the U.S. has had 11 so-called once-in-a-thousand-year events. I mean, just one quick example. Just in the last seven years, the U.S. has had 11 so-called once-in-a-thousand-year events, and every night on the TV news is like a nature hike through the Book of Revelation, and people are beginning to connect the dots on their own. And the second factor is also adding to the persuasion. I referred to the cost down curve for renewable energy earlier, and the movie has a scene in the city of Georgetown, Texas, described as the reddest city in the reddest county of Texas, where the Republican conservative Trump-supporting mayor happens to be a CPA

and did the numbers on solar and wind and converted his entire city to 100% renewable. And they're saving money. Their bills are going down. They notice the air is cleaner. And as a happy side benefit, we save the future of human civilization. And all of these cities that are making this commitment, most recently Atlanta. You guys have been to Atlanta. I've been to Atlanta.

Trust me, if Atlanta can do this, any city can do this. Pittsburgh, as opposed to Paris, just made the commitment to 100% renewable. The Climate Reality Project that I founded is having a big training program in Pittsburgh in a few months. program in Pittsburgh in a few months. So I think that the task of persuading people gets a little bit easier as the realities around us change pretty dramatically. And the movie does attempt to put this climate movement in the context of other great morally based causes that have all, you know, abolition, women's suffrage, the civil rights movement, anti-apartheid, the gay rights movement. If somebody had told me five years ago that in year 2017, gay marriage is going to be legal in all 50 states and accepted, honored, and celebrated

by two-thirds of the American people, I would have said, I sure hope so, but I think you're whacked. I wish my mother would stop calling me about it now. It's mostly just a hassle. Well, the point is, sometimes the ferocious resistance seems like it'll never give way. Nelson Mandela once said, it's always impossible until it's done. And having grown up in the South during when the civil rights movement was picking up momentum, I can tell you the resistance to the civil rights revolution was at least as ferocious as the resistance to solving the climate crisis. But when these questions get less complicated, when the underbrush is cleared

away, and we get a clear view of the binary choice at the heart of it between right and wrong, then the outcome becomes foreordained. And I think we're really, really close to that with the climate movement. I'd like to hear your thoughts on where you think climate and energy fits into the democratic message. But more broadly, what do you think the democratic message should be? You've been in politics a long, long time. There's this whole debate after we've lost in 2016 between Hillary people and Bernie people and where the party should go. And what's your view on, you know, Chuck Schumer said the other day, and people didn't know what we stood for. So what do we say about what we stand for? Where does climate fit

into that? And, you know, what do you think the best path is? Well, I was criticized back in 2000 by a lot of Democrats for articulating the message, we have to be for the people, not the powerful. And maybe that message was a bit too early. I don't know. Maybe I don't want to get into the outcome of that election, but I do think that one of the reasons so many people did vote for Donald Trump is that he harvested some of the so-called experts in the economy and trade and everything else hadn't really kept them in mind. And with the rise of inequality, both in incomes and net worths, and also in political power and influence, people, I think, are hoping the Democratic Party will draw from its traditional ideological roots and say, we're for you. We're for the average people in this country. We trust in the wisdom of crowds. We think that together we can make better decisions than these elites and the powerful few. And I don't think that has to come across as kind of rabble-rousing at all. I

think it's really the way America has primarily succeeded over the last two and a quarter centuries. And so I would hope that the climate issue would be a core part of it. You know, solar jobs, just to take one example, are now growing 17 times faster than other jobs in the economy. The single fastest growing job is wind turbine technician. If we decided to retrofit structures to deal with the 25% of the global warming pollution that comes from inefficient buildings, that would create tens of millions of new jobs in communities all around the country, jobs that can't be outsourced. And I didn't start the fire. You started. I didn't start the fire. It felt like the right time.

We can't take him anywhere. I see what you mean. Now, are you building your audience in spite of him? Yes. That's what we like to think. I'm polarizing. That's what the research tells us. Well, congratulations again, guys.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Everyone should go see this movie. I mean, we're so glad. We walked away very scared, but also hopeful. Yes. And look, the hope and despair runs throughout this movie. We're in the middle of these crazy fights.

It's a despairing time. But I think people can go see this movie. It's out in New York and LA already. And be part of a conversation about what we can actually do. And Trump is not going to last forever. But we'll be here. Now, to the young people in your audience, I know you have a lot of young people.

If you're 18 and under, and if you happen to be on Snapchat, they're giving two free tickets to anybody under 18 to go see the movie. Oh, that's great. Oh, and one other thing, you're partnering with Indivisible. Yeah. We love Indivisible. We work with them a lot. Oh, yeah.

And you're doing these town halls with Indivisible across the country where you can go see the movie and talk to local elected officials. And one of the great things about the movie, too, is that, look, Trump is going to be there, but towns and cities and localities and companies and colleges are going to help me Paris without Trump. Yeah, absolutely. And I know we're out of time, but even though big money has too big a role, even though the bar we have to clear to make popular democracy work is higher now, we can still clear it. If enough people go to these town hall meetings, knock on the office doors of their elected officials, tell candidates that if they're good on climate, they'll help them. But if they're bad on climate, they won't rest until they get them defeated. We can make this work. Indivisible is great. Ezra and Leah have become good friends. I profile them

in my new book of the same title, Inconvenient Sequel, Truth to Power. Did I mention the website, inconvenienceequal.com? No, there you go. You could buy advanced tickets to the movie there, and I really appreciate the opportunity to be on your podcast thanks for tolerating me thank you for joining us everyone go see

an inconvenient sequel Truth to Power it's out in select theaters now it's everywhere August 4th you talk a lot about the tension between despair and hope

in the movie and it's good to see that you're still on the side of hope absolutely thank you thank you Mr. French holy shit what a conversation that was so great that's our outro Good to see that you're still on the side of hope. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. French. Thank you, sir.

Holy shit, what a conversation. That was so great. That's our outro. We're recording the outro. Outro. Beginning of outro. Anyway, that was a great conversation with Al Gore. We are very grateful to him for sitting down with us.

Everyone go see an Inconvenience sequel, Truth to Power. Bring a friend. Bring your climate denier friends. And go to inconvenienceequal.com and you can find out about the town halls and the other activism. Indivisible, our good friends, are doing some kind of a guide with the thing. As they just heard on the episode, yeah. But we didn't really get into the guide part of it. And Snapchat is doing

something. They told us to mention. We're told to mention where you can get free tickets if you Snapchat some stuff if you're under 18 and you see the movie. As the vice president just described. So listen, Tommy left some holes there. You're going to have to plug those in yourself. Or maybe they're plugged by hearing the episode.

You know what? I wanted to ask him, but I didn't, which is what's one good thing that climate change is doing? I know. That was a great question on the list. I thought you were going to get there. I know, but we ran out of time. Should we go back in time? I'll text him.

Okay, great. We'll text him. All right, guys. We'll see you later. Have a know, but we ran out of time. Should we go back in time? I'll text him. Okay, great. We'll text him. All right, guys. We'll see you later. Have a great weekend. Bye. End of outro.