raising the ethical and moral questions related to our state social and legislative issues the series of educational programs for all its lore important social issues facing new jersey including economic  incarceration environmental sustainability immigration and many others today we are exploring global climate change a controversy zero issue that perhaps not enough people understand what is it and why does it matter our guests are jim walsh jim is a dedicated political organizer with over ten years of experience working in local and national movements to empower communities to work for social environmental and economic justice jim currently serves as the mid atlantic regional direction director for food and water watch in this capacity jim is overseeing and implementing a regional strategy to ensure the wellbeing of the public triumphs over private interests to profit from the exploitation of the essential resources of food and water gems passion for social justice began while volunteering for catholic workers wow earning a degree in economics at marquette university it was an organizing fellow at the new jersey public interest research group at rutgers university and he has also done organizing work with family promise organizing communities of faith on issues of poverty and homelessness and maybe only prior to starting with food and water watch jim was the program director of the new jersey citizen action where he oversaw a statewide campaigns focused on a variety of social justice issues welcome our other guest another guest is jeff tittle jeff is has served as director of the new jersey chapter of the sierra club for over fifteen years is environmental advocacy has significantly advanced the environmental protections of new jersey just some of his legislative and regulatory lobbying a complement accomplishments include passage of the california car bill promotion and design eventually stormwater rolls passage of the private well testing bill among many many others prior to directing the new jersey chapter jeff founded numerous other grassroots environmental organizations in new jersey including the highlands court coalition and he says still serves on many other boards such as the work environment council gifted all received tremendous recognition throughout new jersey as an environmental leader the star ledger has named him one of the most top influential people in new jersey i was third guest is ron hein attorney and chair of ru elementary environmental task force was also comes from an extensive organizing background like to thank you all for being here and helping us understand global climate well climate change is essentially the probably one of the single largest issues facing our society today and where we're seeing ships and temperature patterns and other things that are creating more opportunities for extreme weather events are probably the most direct things that people can see others and access how climate change is coming about is essentially we're seeing an increase in greenhouse gases things like methane and carbon dioxide being put in the atmosphere sensually traps the sun's heat rather than heat reflecting off the earth and going out into space is actually trapped and held within within our atmosphere and this research has shown that this will increase the likelihood of extreme weather events things like forest fires we've experienced recently events like hurricane sandy things like hurricane katrina we can't necessarily peg any one of these incidences to climate change but we're certainly seeing an increase of these events much as been reported more directly and we can see that the polar ice caps are melting and can it's creating a tremendous challenge for us to with climate change and actually maybe exacerbating issues of climate change where the ice caps with which had to be white would reflect more of the sun's energy in the space or actually the ocean will absorb more of that he in itself and is  starting a cycle which if we don't act quickly we may be unable to to reverse and so the action it's needed on climate change is really something that we can't wait along for much longer and you know in terms of what we can do about it i think that there are some really important steps that we can take policy wise to address climate change and and one is is really shifting our focus and energy right now we've been very reliant on  methane you actually emit c o two in the atmosphere and methane itself the cheap component natural gas itself is a greenhouse gas and so in new jersey we've actually seen us moving it in a direction that that is actually in could adversely impact our climate where we're actually transitioning coal plants in the gas fired power plants which we've seen that these gas plants will actually have lower c o two emissions than coal fired power plants but we're also seeing that the methane that would be powering these gas plants is actually leaking out of the pipes and compressor stations in various places along the way which is actually creating a greater warming at facts because methane actually has more  wrong direction and we need to start turning the tide and certainly going away from those energy sources to actually start investing in renewable energy sources to start taking steps to develop our solar and wind capacity and potentially explore other renewable options that we haven't seen before you know we'd like to see a manhattan style project to addressing climate change we're really actually are spending tremendous public resources on actually addressing so we think that  putting those resources for it is is probably one of the most important things that could be spending money on right now we also think that another important step is conservation conservation is probably one of the steps that people can individually take themselves to reduce  energy usage on their own but we also have policies that be implemented actually to help people reduce their carbon footprint and actually reduce those emissions that we're putting into the environment through leaving our lights on or the types of lightbulbs for using or you know the types of transportation choices that we have in front of us and you know with transportation choices we you know unfortunately have folks like  partnering with legislators to promote they should increase natural gas vehicles on our roadways this is another thing where we're not moving away from these polluting possible fuels but really moving away from coal and plugging ourselves into another fossil fuel source which will continue to warm our planet and put more emissions out into our environments and so i think that what we need right now is for policymakers to stop moving as in this direction happening to our planet is really the struggle for survival you know the planet will survive it's the species that live on it what will happen to them we see climate disruption on a daily basis whether it's  bangladesh or whether it's here in new jersey we see in a state like new jersey things like the southern pine beetle that used to die every winter now packing or farse in the pinelands we see storm drains  on long beach island that were built above the high tide now having fish live in them you know one day when the giants play the dolphins in the middle is going to be real dolphins because that's part of the state that's going to go underwater nine percent of new jersey is at risk currently to sea level rise the largest increase in sea level rise almost anywhere in the world has been in the mid atlantic region and we're seeing pound down in the delaware bay for actually go under water every time there's a full moon and high tide we see roads going to water that were built above it so we're seeing it happen it's real anyone who denies climate change is denying reality are being paid for by the oil and gas industry in the coal industry and so we have a real challenge ahead of us we can do it we have the tools now the question is do we have the political will and political leadership to get it done our governor denies climate change he pulled us out of that regional greenhouse gas initiative to close regulations going into the crash or solar market and we had a you know resuscitate it but we have the tools we can make a difference but you have to have the political will to do it or you have to have political leaders that are not more concerned about what the koch brothers in the tea party thinks and what's best for the state and best for the economy five years ago we had ten thousand jobs in the solar field now we have sixty five hundred so there are impacts directly as well as the loss of jobs to also the loss of being able to reduce greenhouse mother pollutants so for every ton of carbon we reduce we reduce two thirds of the ton of nitric oxide and sulfur dioxide mercury and everything else so we have a real challenge ahead of us but we also have the tools to do it we need the political will and we need the independents you know the legislature has done some good things over the years but we have a lot more t you know we've been we really had our head in the sand about this for a long time you know the problem is political will but it's not only just political will or tech anomic decisions that are being made and i think that people need to understand that all of this stuff is interconnected together we don't live in silos all by herself we make these decisions in one area so our lives and it affects others if the political and economic interests of the world specifically in the united states and here in new jersey don't start taking it consideration the interconnectedness then we're going to just make this problem worse as we go forward you know back in the sixty's we had a consciousness raising where we said that you know pollution and air pair pollution was an issue that we needed to be working on and we made major strides in those areas you know the small guy in the major cities in the country today is not nearly what it was back in the sixty's we need the same kind of political will and economic will also to to see if we go forward on trying to do some things differently than what we have in the past to me i mean we talk about climate change once we talked a little bit about new jersey but you know climate change what makes it different now well it's very simple and i'll just use it this way we had between hurricane irene and have been followed by a tropical storm lee was considered millennium a vent by the new jersey climatologist a year later we had superstorm sandy followed by a nor'easter which is also considered a millennium millennial event we've had to millennial events in this decade and we're not even halfway through it we have seen you know eight out of the ten warmest years in the last decade but we're also seeing the damage you know thirty billion dollars was and the you know ten billion from irene and it's just new jersey we're seeing it across the country the damage from climate impacts we're having a bigger bigger toll not only on the environment and on people but also us financially whether it's all these forest fires were having in the west that happened now we're around not just during t seasons we were seeing big disruption you know new jersey the warmest place in the world can still grow crabbers you know we're going to see those changes and they're coming in and so it's here and so we need to do things about it and really be aggressive because you know unfortunately we've only got one state and one planet one place to live and it's really under risk right now you know that the preponderance of the scientists have all said that we this is this is something that's real this is manmade i mean you know you go back two hundred years ago you know we started with coal and peat being burned you know and then we moved to to oil and natural gas it's just a mound of pollution that's being spewed into the atmosphere it just keeps getting larger and larger and we're seeing real results so if if this were a sixty forty kind of split among the scientists you know then we could have a real debate but when we're talking about ninety five ninety eight percent of real scientists looking at these issues this is something that is not just made up this is not just a bunch of tree huggers that's out there this is real life stuff that's happening the it is as jeff was saying that the fact that these events are happening closer and closer together that we can actually measure you know the polar ice caps are melting that we can measure that the the ice shelf in greenland is disappearing today and is not going to be coming back we see the calving of huge icebergs off of antarctica these things are just not random attacks these things are real and we've got to do something about we can do something about it that's the thing in it's taken two hundred years for these things to build up to really a tipping point a real close to a tipping point and  expect you know real results to turn back the clock within the next decade but we do need to sort of draw a line in the sand and say enough is enough we need to take action now we need to take bold action because without that things are just going to get worse i think that you know to your question about you know why is this different you know we're dramatically speeding up the the changing climate and where you know what used to take tens of thousands of years is taking a matter of centuries and decades now and the impacts are actually speeding up faster now than scientist even thought they would be happening with models that were developed ten years ago and so this is something that is is very different than you know the regular cycles of of climate change that happened on the planet for you know over the span of independent thousands and hundreds of thousands of years we're seeing you know these communities of people entire civilizations right now about to be wiped off the map in the south pacific because they're islands are being captured by rising sea levels and these are these are people who you know basically lived in peace and harmony and they were you know small little islands in the pacific and now you know in danger of being entirely obliterated because of climate change you know so this is you know an issue that that impacts us from you know the smallest indigenous communities in the pacific to you know as jeff said you know people are now seeing roadways under water here in new jersey and so you know i think that this is something that you know we weren't seeing happen when my parents were kids you know  the expense is happening now and it and i can't imagine what my daughter is going to see when she's you know my if she doesn't if we don't take action now to make sure that her future and the future of other children like her isn't left to the w fossil fuel industry essentially could centrally care less about what we're doing to the planet right now they're making tremendous amounts of money off of burning coal burning gas burning oil and and it's to the detriment of all this and i think people forget that the human species is one and also become extinct careful long term which can happen you know i would like to move in there i mean because i hear you talking a lot about political will and if we had the political will what kind of legislation what kind of things can we be pushing through well i think first of all new jersey has been up until this administration in the forefront when governor codey put issue reducing carbon the christie administration comes in in the governor's more concerned about its national politics and he cuts all those things so we have a lot of tools we can use right now we could be building lot more we could be building wind off our coast we could be doing a lot more solar so we can do a lot under the tools we have but we need to do to move us forward is that we're supporting legislation that syrup of national priority to have eighty percent renewable by twenty fifty and a thirty percent reduction in energy efficiency of energy use by twenty thirty because we know that we have the ability to do it for energy efficiency is the most under rated form of saving us from pollution and saving us money for every dollar we spend on any of your fish n c as a homeowner we get for back every business get sixteen back to something simple as we did like you know if you turn off because i think when we look at solutions or individuals there's local government or state governors national and international to realize that if you turn off your three televisions and the three t v your cable boxes and the and the light on your on your microwave that's twenty percent of your electric bill right there that you could save and how much power that saves the average house in the state investment about ten thousand dollars and better it's everything to us because we have to make that into you know you have to the individual needs to force government to change but it also can force citee to change and when you know kids look at somebody and that's you being going you know no no and i see that all the can get there but we need to all you know work at the different levels and i think that one of the the you know policies i think about one of the best policies that is that i've seen brought forward weatherize their homes by doing this you're taking a dynamic where someone who doesn't have the means to inflate their windows or maybe their landlord doesn't care about insulating their windows to actually create inflation there so that when that person turns on there they're actually buy it facto reducing their energy bills and reducing our climate footprint i think expanding that program to increase incentives for  homeowners across the board would be really helpful when you look at programs like that they may not only you know it's a like a program you're not only creating it a dynamic where the the low income homeowner is paying less energy bill but that's creating jobs in those communities where people are actually going out and doing the weather as a nation and so these are ways that we can actually create jobs and move forward with things i think that you know one thing that  could be done is you know looking right now we you know recently had the governor vetoed legislation that would prohibit fracking waste from being dumped in the state and we seen the the risk just kind of development of the natural gas industry  just you know run ran shod over communities over the last ten years and they've increased production and so where is the dumping of waste itself isn't going to essentially you know that itself doesn't create climate change the industry and creating the infrastructure of that industry to function is a major concern and we you know essentially are you know not only allowing that industry to continue to develop these climate polluting toxins  also then threatening our drinking water public health by accepting that we stand to the state and so i think that it's really a combination of moving into areas conservation renewable energy and moving two of the things which are important to senator bob smith has convened a group of stakeholders and i think that this is very important that it goes across the holes and that people who are interested in seeing some reform done and there's going to be some legislation that's going to be introduced in the full that talks a lot about having sustainable energy goals that jeff was talking about having conservation and doing a whole number of other things groups need to get behind these kinds of legislations because this is this is trying to partner with all of the different stakeholders whether it's public service whether it's the the advocate's office whether it's rape council whether it's environmental groups that's the kind of thing that we could see significant action being taken place in addition to that you know we need to have a groundswell of support for people recognizing the fact that this climate change is taking place this september on the twenty first in new york there's going to be a large rally it's going to be held a people's rally march for global climate change and we encourage people to participate and talk to your local sierra club talk to your local unitarian church about participation in this we need to stand up and be h absolutely absolutely life think we're or running out of time one of the things that we really encourage are the people who are viewing this program realize that we can't cover it all in a half hour segment but we encourage people to really educate themselves and of course one of the two places that they can go is the sierra club and to food water watch and i encourage everybody to do that i'd like to thank you all for being here tonight i really appreciate the really educational information that was presented and i think it was very informative for anybody who's listening and you are all really great champions of the environment and thank you for all of your work very important  these programs are servants of the unitarian universalists legislative ministry of new jersey u l today is a nonprofit faith based organization supported by your congregation throughout new jersey for more information on this program and