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The Climate Mobilization Victory Plan, written by Ezra Silk, is a policy document that tangibly demonstrates how the U.S. could eliminate net greenhouse gas emissions by 2025, contribute to a global effort to restore a safe climate, and reverse ecological overshoot through a massive WWII-scale mobilization.
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00:00We need a World War II scale mobilization to defeat the global climate emergency,
00:04not to warm the planet to an almost catastrophic level, but to solve the climate crisis.
00:09Today we discuss the Climate Mobilization Victory Plan, here forward from 2016 by Paul Gilding.
00:15The Climate Mobilization Victory Plan, written by Ezra Silk, is a policy document
00:20that tangibly demonstrates how the U.S. could eliminate net greenhouse gas emissions by 2025,
00:26contribute to a global effort to restore a safe climate and reverse ecological overshoot
00:32through a massive World War II scale mobilization.
00:36For many years a small number of scientists, scholars and activists have called for a World War II scale mobilization
00:42to save civilization from climate catastrophe and an outlawed effort far beyond anything proposed in today's polite debates.
00:49This year the idea has started to build serious momentum with new advocates like Bill McKibben
00:55and Bernie Sanders and the adoption by the Democratic Party in the U.S. of the call for an emergency
01:03climate mobilization.
01:05As mobilization starts to break into the mainstream, it is imperative that we discuss the specifics of this effort.
01:12In 2009 I co-authored with Professor Jorgen Renders the One Degree War Plan, a global and less comprehensive overview
01:21of the concept described herein.
01:23The One Degree War Plan showed we can realistically slash global greenhouse gas emissions to net zero in 20 years
01:31and then restore a safe climate through a carbon dioxide drawdown effort.
01:35While it is very positive that people are now signing on to the concept, it is critical that such a
01:42response be based on what the science demands, the hard truth.
01:47The climate has deteriorated significantly since 2009 and this appears to be now accelerating.
01:53There is no time left for multi-decade transition scenarios.
01:58At this late hour, targets based around 2050 or calls for only zero emissions without drawdown and cooling are clearly
02:06not sufficient.
02:07They risk an unthinkable defeat by putting off the very concrete steps we need today.
02:13That is why I am so pleased that the climate mobilization has written this victory plan.
02:17It is important to understand what it means.
02:19World War II scale climate mobilization is not just a big effort.
02:23It is not a major project or a key policy initiative like the Apollo program or even the New Deal.
02:30It is a comprehensive economy-wide approach that, if done correctly, represents the only realistic way we can overcome the
02:41climate emergency.
02:43The mobilization called for in the victory plan is powerful and sweeping enough to provide effective protection in the face
02:51of civilization-threatening climate disruption.
02:53It is firmly based in the most advanced climate science and offers an extensive overview of the policies necessary to
03:01be implemented in every sector.
03:04This is their Facebook page.
03:08They are kind of active.
03:16People who are involved in this at the beginning of the world are trying to find a better way to
03:17find a better way to pursue the future.
03:17This is the most advanced climate crisis.
03:18Even though this is a small crowd, it is your networks that are going to make a difference.
03:22We are not dealing with just another issue here.
03:23We are dealing with a crisis.
03:25It is the crisis of our time, possibly the crisis of our species.
03:30And we have got to take it with the seriousness that it deserves.
03:33And I think people here do that.
03:34We need to fire up other people to do that as well.
03:37And there are so many ways in which you can be involved.
03:40And I really think that there's two ways we need to weigh in on this.
03:45We need to be promoting the proactive stuff, the wind, the solar, geothermal, especially conservation.
03:50We need to do that in our own private lives if we can, and to be encouraging policies that promote
03:55those things.
03:56But we also need to be fighting the bad stuff.
03:58We need to keep that fossil fuel in the ground.
04:01And in Iowa, in Iowa, the biggest fight we have on that front is the pipeline, the Dakota Access pipeline.
04:09Whatever Trump may think, or it's usually the case, not think.
04:18The American people understand that we have a moral responsibility to leave this planet healthy and habitable for our children
04:32and for our grandchildren.
04:38And that we can and must lead the world in combating climate change.
04:46And by the way, when we do that, we create millions of good paying jobs in America.
04:58If people see the choice between mobilizing on a scale not seen since World War II and probably significantly larger
05:09than that,
05:10or to transition our entire economy and end emissions and start drawing down excess emissions from the atmosphere,
05:16the choices between that or the collapse of civilization, I think that people want to live.
05:21I think they want to see their children live.
05:25So this is the Climate Mobilization Victory Plan Executive Summary, first edition, by Robert Shapiro, Joshua King, and John Mitchell.
05:33The draft was written by Ezra Silk.
05:36And I will just read this segment here.
05:39What is the Climate Mobilization?
05:40The Victory Plan 2016, drafted by Climate Mobilization co-founder Ezra Silk,
05:45proposes a World War II-scale mobilization to restore a safe climate and healthy environment.
05:50Our current trajectory of abruptly rising global temperatures and intensifying extreme weather events shows the catastrophic consequences of greenhouse gas
05:58emissions.
05:59In fact, the latest climate science shows that humanity has already overheated the earth.
06:04To date, domestic and global efforts have fallen woefully short,
06:07effectively confronting the greatest threat humanity has ever faced,
06:12with incremental agreements and policies failing to address the magnitude of the true threat facing our world.
06:19Runnable global warming and ecological decline could cause the collapse of civilization.
06:25We face a series of time-sensitive existential emergencies that can only be overcome successfully
06:31with a drastic transformation of the entire economy, accomplished at wartime speed.
06:35So, I'd like to stress that while this document is written with an United States-centric view for the United
06:43States economy,
06:44it can probably be adapted and plotted to other nations.
06:49America's home-front mobilization during World War II provides an essential roadmap to rapidly transforming our economy.
06:55In addition to subsidizing a historic production miracle to address the war emergency,
07:01the mobilization of the 1940s encouraged widespread conservation to the point of critical resource rationing,
07:10extensive efforts to gather, preserve, and carefully coordinated resources facilitated the extraordinarily successful war effort.
07:19The concept of economic mobilization can therefore be described as a society-wide project
07:24that steers private industry at large toward a singular national purpose.
07:29It employs powerful deficit spending, increased taxation to combat inflation,
07:35and strong government controls over the distribution of raw materials and basic goods.
07:41It is also identified with increased equality, full employment,
07:45and victory over a clear and present danger to national security.
07:50To achieve victory, we must restore a safe and stable climate
07:53that supports the continuation of an organized human community.
07:57Restoration requires cooling the planet from its present levels of approximately 1.2 degrees Celsius
08:04above pre-industrial, 1750 figures,
08:07temperatures back to roughly 0 degrees Celsius.
08:11Humanity must also reverse ecological overshoot by shrinking the ecological footprint of the global economy
08:18from 1.6 planets to approximately half a planet.
08:22It comes down to the CO2 emissions in the atmosphere,
08:25about 280-300 ppm parts per million in the atmosphere.
08:31We are currently at almost 410, yeah, 410, and we need to get this down to 350, 300, 208.
08:43So that's actually the emissions from our past 100 to 150 achievable,
08:49but the technology needs more research, such as artificial reliefs,
08:55some serious reforestation attempts, and, of course, drastically emission phase-offs.
09:01And it's incredible to see how people transform once they're given some structures
09:06to really tap into this and find their calling.
09:11Realize that if I just stay an individual, I will fail at this mission.
09:17I have to become part of a group, part of a movement, part of a, you know, a shared effort.
09:22Well, I think one of the ways you've so powerfully extrapolated from the World War II analogy
09:29is this idea that in that kind of dirigiste, you know, mobilization economy,
09:34they try to, you need, because there's labor shortages, you need to cultivate every citizen.
09:39We're having all of these disasters and floods and the coral reefs are dying,
09:44and we're already seeing droughts leading to famine, leading to failed states.
09:48Does that sound like we have more carbon left to burn?
09:52Does that sound like we should keep this crisis going and multiplying?
09:56In order to restore a safe, stable, and supportive climate for human civilization and our life,
10:01humanity must drive the economy to net zero greenhouse gas emissions as rapidly as possible
10:06using emergency economic measures.
10:09The US must reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by no later than 2025,
10:14and the entire world community must do so not later than 2030.
10:18Annual global greenhouse gas emissions should be drastically slashed immediately.
10:22Jordan and Ford could take decades or even centuries to cool the planet, depending on their scale and scope.
10:27For that reason, the government should research human methods to limit warming
10:31or to cool the planet in the near term in order to prevent uncontrollable global warming,
10:37driven by greenhouse gas, or so, sorry, Arctic permafrost, yeah, so that's, that's, that's a big, big wild card.
10:43Kickstart mobilization.
10:44Declare a national climate and sustainability emergency.
10:47Set pre-industrial greenhouse gas air quality standards.
10:50Order zero emissions plants from large and middle market firms.
10:55With total annual revenue greater than 10 million, showing how each entity will end the growth of their firms,
11:01life cycle greenhouse gas emissions within one year, and cut them to net zero by 2025.
11:07Establish new federal government agencies to coordinate mobilization,
11:11must operate on a transparent, inclusive, and fair basis.
11:16The federal government, in partnership with state and local governments,
11:19should institute a rationing system in which all products and services that emit greenhouse gases,
11:24are rationed, using electronic cards, similar to credit or debit cards,
11:29regular, equal greenhouse gas emissions allowances issued to all citizens.
11:34Citizens would be able to sell their unused rations back to the government for cash, energy, and electricity.
11:42An accumulated abandonment of fossil fuels is a central component of the victory plan.
11:47This transition will not be cheap or easy,
11:50as fossil fuel source power generation and the use of fossil fuels in industrial activities
11:55will need to be completely replaced.
11:58The most feasibly transition strategy is an enormous build-out of solar and wind energy.
12:03The use of nuclear power as a replacement source is not advisable due to safety and economic concerns.
12:13Decarbonize the U.S. transportation sectors follows closely with the successful efforts implemented in World War II.
12:18These efforts were characterized by the retrofitting of carmakers to supply the war effort,
12:23strict rationing of gasoline for pleasure driving.
12:26And actually, this kind of actions and rollout of electric vehicles or, let's say, trains or metro
12:33or car-sharing options is rolling out public transportation at an incredible race.
12:41So there are many details in this plan.
12:44I will link it in the video description.
12:46You can look it up for yourself.
12:48By one estimate, the food system as a whole is responsible for about half of global greenhouse gas emissions,
12:54agricultural production contributing 11 to 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions,
12:59processing, packaging, refrigeration, retailing food contributing 15 to 20% and food waste, additional 2 to 4%.
13:08Additionally, food production contributes substantially to global deforestation and the production of food.
13:14So this entire agriculture, it has a big, big footprint.
13:18Because if you factor in all the different aspects of making food and getting it on your table,
13:24there is a big carbon footprint to it.
13:26And they want to implement so-called victory gardens.
13:29This was popular in World War II as well.
13:31And if you have a garden, a place where you know locally you can get your food,
13:35this is very much a security action everybody could do to become self-sustainable,
13:43to help become climate resilient, to cope with sudden impacts on the food system.
13:49Agro-ecology will also include the implementation of a $150 ton carbon sequestration subsidy benefit to local economies.
13:58And this is a nice incentive to encourage carbon sequestration.
14:01Very good.
14:02Overhaul the built environment.
14:04A set of government programs will need to strive to shift toward residential energy efficiency.
14:08Assistance should be offered to homeowners to make the switch.
14:11And so on, full employment, job guarantee.
14:14So obviously something in this scale will offer a huge amount of new jobs.
14:20And employment could be tackled by this.
14:23This is very good.
14:24Mobilize the Department of Defense to fight climate change and ecological overshoot.
14:28The Department of Defense should aim for zero emissions by 2020 in research and development.
14:32Subsidize the conversion of as much industrial capacity as feasible to the climate mobilization effort.
14:37In my mind, the military in the future will pretty much look like a big rescue operation, sustain and emergency
14:50unit.
14:52If you have big climate disasters to move people very fast and at one point every nation needs to think
15:02about how they will tackle sea level rise.
15:04Because many countries are already stocking up their sea walls to employ literally thousands of thousands of people to build
15:13this huge sea wall covering the entire United States coast.
15:20Unless you want to give up on the land.
15:23And in some instances, probably you have to face the situation that you cannot even save the land with a
15:32big wall.
15:33Because water could also tend to creep down from below, from the ground.
15:39Launch an emergency global forest management effort.
15:43Yeah.
15:43That's a very good plan.
15:44Plants on a land absorb some 20 to 30 of global carbon dioxide emissions every year.
15:49A global forest management program to preserve old growth forests, combined with a worldwide effort to grow new forests on
15:56previously forested lands, will immediately draw down significant resource gases and curtail deforestation emissions.
16:03Yeah, this also pretty much goes without saying.
16:06There's a lot of benefits.
16:07When we think of, you know, a lot of people, they hear World War II and they hear the World
16:11War, but the reality is in, like, about a decade, we invented computers, radars, split the atom, jets, I mean,
16:20and utterly transformed the American economy and the world economy in 10 years over something that, look, yeah, World War
16:28II, the Axis powers, they were dangerous, but they didn't pose the kind of existential threat that this does.
16:34I think that unprecedented nature of it, there's a book, David Ray Griffin, Unprecedented, How Can Civilization Survive the CO2
16:41Crisis?
16:42And I think that is so overwhelming to people.
16:45I mean, people grasp for these analogies, and I think the World War II is the best one, but in
16:50the social movement, you know, side of things, often we're looking at the civil rights movement.
16:55And I think when you compare what the civil rights movement accomplished and its goals are, what we need to
16:59do is, like, orders of magnitude more difficult than that.
17:03And the conclusion we came to when we did our retreat in New York recently was, we have to become
17:08the greatest social movement in history.
17:12Given the very real prospect of global warming feeding back up in itself uncontrollably, it is possible that merely ending
17:20net global greenhouse gas emissions at wartime speed and instigating a massive greenhouse gas drawdown effort simultaneously will not cool
17:28the planet quickly enough to protect civilization and the natural good.
17:31Solar radiation management and other near-term cooling approaches include potentially extraordinarily high consequences, which must be weighed by an
17:40informed public.
17:41The Victory Plan does not advocate the use of these technologies, only the transparent, comprehensive research to investigate the impacts
17:49in order to educate the global public.
17:51Near-term cooling intervention should only be considered as a method of last resort.
17:55So, slowdown and reverse global population growth.
17:59So, the best way to reduce population is to increase education.
18:05Dozens of studies literally have shown that if people are more educated, they will have less children.
18:11The US Department of Health and Human Services should run a large-scale and long-lasting campaign on media across...
18:17And I must consider the catastrophic effects of global population growth when they make decisions.
18:21So, if someone has a job, which this plan is encouraging to have more jobs and less people without jobs,
18:28they probably can get a better education too, or at all.
18:33So, and with education as mentioned, people tend to have less children.
18:39Contraceptive, this goes without saying, should be available, should be free.
18:42I will link to the plan in the video descriptions below.
18:47Check it out for yourself.
18:48Let me know what you think of the plan.
18:51Maybe you already do some parts of it on your own, even not knowing there's a plan outline.
18:57Or get involved.
18:59Start something in your local area.
19:02Start a Victory Garden, for instance.
19:03Or the next car you buy, make sure it's an electric-driven car.
19:07All these decisions will help to steamroll such efforts and ultimately help us to combat the climate crisis.
19:19I think what people are trying to get away from by building bunkers, and it's not just the type of
19:24people you're talking about.
19:24It's also professionals, which is scary as well, who are coming up with doomsday plans, at least in their heads.
19:31Is they're trying to get away from the fact that they, that are really, our duty at this point is
19:36to be heroes.
19:38To call for something totally unprecedented, totally unrealistic, totally seemingly impossible, and say, this has to happen.
19:45I'm devoting myself entirely to this.
19:47Now.
19:48Let's do this now.