Bill McKibben, "The Climate Crisis and the 2020 Election"
Channel: Cathy Cowan Becker
Date: 12/10/2019

Author and environmentalist Bill McKibben spoke by Zoom to about 100 people at the School of Environment and Natural Resources at Ohio State University on Thursday, October 10, 2019. 

Introductory remarks start 6 minutes into the video. The first question for Bill McKibben is at minute 11:30. The introductory remarks are hard to hear, so they are reprinted below. 

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

Good evening!  My name is Cathy Cowan Becker, and I am an MENR student at the School of Environment and Natural Resources at Ohio State, as well as a member of the Executive Committee for Ohio Sierra Club and Chair of the Ready for 100 Ohio campaign. 

Ready for 100 is a campaign to ask cities to commit to 100% renewable energy. So far 139 cities have made this commitment, including Philadelphia and Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in the past week. If you haven’t had a chance to sign our petition asking the city of Columbus to commit to 100% renewable energy, you can find it at our table in the lobby after the event.

We are so excited to welcome all of you to tonight’s low-carbon appearance by author and environmentalist Bill McKibben, who will be speaking to us about “The Climate Crisis and the 2020 Election.” And a special thanks to the eight organizations who set up tables in the lobby. Hopefully you got a chance to stop by their tables, but if not, their tables will also be available after the event, so stop by and see what they are doing!

Tonight’s event with Bill McKibben is a low carbon appearance. That means Bill will not be here in person. Instead he will be with us over Zoom. We can see and hear him on the two screens in the front of the room, and he can see and hear us through the eyeball camera sitting here next to the podium.  Hopefully the technology will work for us for the rest of this event!

We wanted to do a low carbon appearance for a couple of reasons. First, that was the only way Bill could share his thoughts about climate change and the 2020 election before the fourth Democratic presidential primary debate, which takes place Tuesday in Westerville. 

But second, we are climate advocates, and we want to start using these low carbon events more often to share knowledge and information while cutting down on carbon emissions from travel.

This event will be done through a Question and Answer format. We have two moderators at the front of the room who will ask three questions each. We expect that to take about 30 minutes. Then we will open it up for audience questions for about 30 minutes. 

When the time for audience questions comes, if you would like to ask a question, please form a line up the aisles on either side of the room. We will alternate sides taking one person at a time. You will need to come up to the front of the room to ask your question speaking into the eyeball camera and mic next to the podium. Please remember that this must be in the form of a question, not a speech. In order to get to as many audience questions as possible, we need each questioner to take no more than 1 minute to ask their question. 
 
Now for speaker and moderator introductions.

Bill McKibben is an author and environmentalist who in 2014 was awarded the Right Livelihood Prize, sometimes called the alternative Nobel. His 1989 book The End of Nature is regarded as the first book for a general audience about climate change, and has been translated into 24 languages. He’s gone on to write a dozen more books.

Bill is a founder of 350.org, the first planet-wide, grassroots climate change movement, which has organized 20,000 rallies around the world, spearheaded the resistance to the Keystone Pipeline, and launched the fast-growing fossil fuel divestment movement. 

Moderating this event we have two great environmental activists in Central Ohio.

Terry Hermsen is a professor English at Otterbein University, who is spearheading the creation of a regional sustainability hub, pulling together sustainability professionals and advocates in cities and counties across Central Ohio. He’s also an accomplished poet whose book The River’s Daughter was co-recipient of the Ohio Poet of the Year Award, and he conducts poetry night hikes in Ohio state and national parks.

Carolyn Harding is a grassroots environmental activist in Central Ohio who co-founded the Columbus Community Bill of Rights campaign, which has a table in the lobby tonight. CCBOR has gone through three signature collecting campaigns to get an environmental bill of rights initiative on the Columbus city ballot. After the Franklin County Board of Elections denied their last attempt, they are doing it again. Carolyn also hosts the weekly radio program Grassroot Ohio on community radio station WGRN 94.1 FM every Friday at 5 p.m.

So without further ado, let’s get started with the first question for Bill McKibben from Terry Hermsen.