Source: The Charlie Rose Show
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mys_AQjM4U0
Date: 02/0/2008
Event: Ted Turner on global warming: "most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals"
Credit: The Charlie Rose Show, PBS
People:
Charlie Rose: What do you think of the credit crisis we're in, now?
Ted Turner: You know, I think it's a mess.
Charlie Rose: And why is it a mess?
Ted Turner: Well, I - because I think what happened is people were borrowing too much money on their houses.
Charlie Rose: Clearly, they're doing that.
Ted Turner: My house is paid for, and has been. I don't believe - you know, I think having equity on your home is a good thing. I don't believe in spending every penny you have. When I was making 80 dollars a week after taxes, before taking out of 20, when I was 21, I saved 10 dollars a week and lived on 70 dollars. I mean, I've always saved. I believe that was the thing, it was one thing my father taught me that, too.
Charlie Rose: What's possible? Tell me what's possible to do?
Ted Turner: It's possible that in 15 or 20 years, we could completely redo it. If we - we have to mobilise - this is how important it is, how important that we do it quickly. We have to mobilise the same way we did, when we entered World War II in 1941. We have to fully mobilise everything we have, and put it into changing the energy system, over... And not just here in the United States, but all over the world. It's going to be the biggest business project in the history of the world - fortunes, billions of dollars are going to be made, hundreds of thousands of people are going to be employed, we're going to have clean air, we're going to have so many benefits from it it's not going to cost us anything. Once we get going with it, it's not going to cost us anything - only the people that don't understand it think it's going to...
Not doing it will be catastrophic - we'll have 8 degrees, we'll be 8 degrees hotter in 10 - not 10 but in 30 or 40 years - and basically none of the crops will grow, most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals. Civilisation will have broken down. What the few people left will be living in a failed state like Somalia or Sudan, and living conditions will be intolerable. The droughts will be so bad, there'll be no corn growing - not doing it is suicide. Just like dropping bombs on each other, nuclear weapons - it's suicide. So we've got to stop doing the two suicidal things, which are -
Charlie Rose: Nuclear and global -
Ted Turner: - hanging onto nuclear weapons, and after that we've got to, we've got to stabilise the population. When I was born -
Charlie Rose: To control the population, I mean -
Ted Turner: We've too many people. That's what - that's why we have global warming. We have global warming 'cause too many people are using too much stuff.
Charlie Rose: But they haven't -
Ted Turner: If there were less people, they'd be using less stuff. If we don't get global warming and the nuclear weapons straightened out, we don't have to worry about human rights. The humans will all be gone. You know...
Charlie Rose: Okay. Do you think we'll do it? I mean, are you optimistic, in the end, that the country, that the world will come to its senses?
Ted Turner: On behalf of my grandchildren, and the children all over the world, I absolutely think we've got to do it. But I've got a way of explaining it very simply. I see the human situation I liken to a baseball game - it's the seventh inning and we're down by one run. So we're backs to the wall.
Charlie Rose: Right.
Ted Turner: What we have to do, though, in the next two innings - the game's not over, it's still winnable - but what we've got to do is hold them right where they are, with our best pitcher -
Charlie Rose: Right.
Ted Turner: - and we've got to get a couple of runs on them -
Charlie Rose: Get a man on base.
Ted Turner: And then get him in.
Charlie Rose: Get him in.
Ted Turner: And that ties it, then another run to go ahead, and then we win. That's where we are. We're in a tough situation but we can play our way out of it if we do the right things. It's time for smart political leaders - no more dummies, we can't afford dumb leadership.