Bernie Sanders Says The Debate is Over About Climate Change | Joe Rogan

Now we're getting to the end of your hour here, so climate change is obviously an enormous issue for our country and for the world. What could be done and what do you think you can do as president that can somehow or another slow down this process? First of all, we have to have a president who, unlike Trump, believes in science, and I do. And what the scientists are telling us, as I mentioned earlier, is that we have fewer than 12 years to transform our energy system or else there will be irreparable damage done not only to our country but to the world. Now climate change is not just an American issue. So we could do tomorrow, do all the right things, but if China and Russia and India and the rest of Brazil and Africa does not do the right thing, you know, we're not going to make the progress we need. So here is what we have to do in my view. Number one, we have to tell the fossil fuel industry that they're short term profits and they make a whole lot of money. Their short term profits are not more important than the future of this planet. I don't think that's a hard sell to make. You cannot keep producing a product which is destroying the planet in the United States and around the world. So by saying that, you're saying you would have to move – we would have to move consciously away from fossil fuels. No ifs, buts and maybes. And if we do that, how do you tell the fossil fuel companies, do you tell them you can't sell fossil fuels anymore? There are a variety of ways to do that, but that is the bottom line. And by the way, in the midst of that, we do what we call is a just transition. The guy out on the oil rig today simply wants to feed his family and the coal miners today want to feed their families. And we're not going to leave them – I'm a pro-worker. I have probably the strongest pro-worker record of any member of the Congress. So it is not my intention to throw these guys out on the – and women out on the street and ignore the pain that they will go through. We are proposing billions of dollars to rebuild those communities and make sure that those guys and women get new jobs. So we're not just discarding people in the fossil fuel industry. But ultimately, the product that they are producing, which is now carbon emissions, is destroying the planet. So we have to move away from fossil fuel in a very bold way into energy efficiency. Right now, in my own state of Vermont and all over this country, there are buildings which are incredibly wasteful. We don't have the windows. We don't have the insulation. We don't have the roofing, the doors that we need to keep the buildings warm in the winter and cool in the summer. And we can create just an incredible number of jobs just retrofitting our buildings. Second of all, we need to move very aggressively to sustainable energies like wind and solar in California. You're doing a good job with wind. Iowa is doing a good job. Texas is doing a good job. We've got to do much more. Solar – there is incredible potential out there. Prices of solar has dropped in recent years. And we have got to not only transform the energy system in our own country, we've got to lead the world in working with Russia and China. Because in this issue, we are in it together. And here's my dream. And maybe this may be a utopian dream. The world right now is spending a trillion and a half dollars on weapons of destruction designed to kill each other. And maybe, just maybe, if we had a kind of leader – and I hope to be that leader – who says to the world, instead of spending a trillion and a half dollars killing each other, maybe we'll use those resources to transform the global energy system and save the planet for our kids and our grandchildren. That's the goal that I have. Well, these ideas sound great, but in the competitive environment of global politics, how would you convince Russia or China or any of these countries to do something that would put them in some sort of a competitive disadvantage? Well, and the answer is, Joe, if we do not do that in 50, 100 years, everybody's going to be a terrible dissident. And look, I'm not – I'm saying – I'm not telling you that tomorrow it's going to happen. But you've got to make the case. These people – Putin is a dictator. I dislike him intensely. You know, Xi in China, very authoritarian, so-and-so, but they're not crazy people. And presumably, they have concern about their kids and their grandchildren. This is a planet under siege. You know, I don't want to become a science fiction. You've all seen the movies, the media, racing toward Earth. We're going to blow up the Earth. What do we do? Well, we've got to get together. This is, in a sense, what that is about. You know what I think about. In 1941, after Pearl Harbor, all right, we were faced with a war in the East, with China, a war in the West, in Europe, with Hitler. Within two years, the United States had transformed its economy to address and win the war basically in two or three years by re-industrializing America. We can do it. We can lead the world. That's what we have to do. So in your eyes, we have to look at the economy almost as if the same kind of threat – or excuse me, the environment, as if it's the same kind of threat as Nazi Germany and act together. Look, if you asked the defense department, you asked the CIA, you asked the defense people all over the world, tell us what the great national security threat is. You know what it is? It is climate change. There's a lot of people, though, that are skeptical of this. How would you convince them? I mean, this is a big part of the problem, right? There's a narrative that you hear from a lot of people that, oh, you know, climate change is not a proven science and climate change is a hoax. And I mean, this is something that's repeated over and over again. And I'm sure some of it has to do with lobbyists and some of it has to do with merchants of doubt that go out there and seed the world with disinformation and try to increase their profits and continue the practices that they're currently enjoying. You know, Joe, when I'm thinking back – and I don't know if all of you listeners can remember this because mold are the most – but I can remember tobacco ads, cigarette ads on television. Remember that? Yes. Doctor guy dressed in a white flock smoking away, this is a great cigarette. It'll improve your health. They lied. The tobacco industry knew exactly what was going on. And the fossil fuel industry is lying right now. And the president of the United States is either too stupid to understand what the scientists are telling us or he is lying as well. Climate – look, I am not the scientist. This is not my idea. I listen to the scientist. The debate is long over. Climate change is real. My God, look at what's happening around the world. The great worst – you know, July was, I think, the warmest July or warmest month in the modern history of the world. The Arctic ice is melting. Heat waves in Europe. All right. Just look out the window at what's going on. So this is not Bernie Sanders talking. This is the scientific community. Climate change is real. It will only get worse if we do not act boldly to cut carbon emissions.