Planet of the Humans

I've got a question.

How long do you think we humans have?

- How long does the human race have?

Ooh.

Um.

Oh, wow.

- I don't exactly know, but may be soon.

I have no clue.

No?

- I hope I get me at least 50 more years.

- I think there's infinite amount of time.

Infinite.

It's infinite, yeah.

I give us a million.

A million years.

- Being kind, I would say probably about 10 years.

10, 12 years.

Thousands of years.

- 47 years, three months, five days.

It's approximate.

- We're kind of like cockroaches on the planet,

no matter how much damage we'll do,

enough of us will survive to procreate and keep it going.

- Unless we can get to another planet,

but then we're just gonna fuck it up like we did Earth.

- Well, I think that we will be here

for a long time, but we will change.

We're gonna turn back into apes.

- Have you ever wondered what would happen

if a single species took over an entire planet?

Maybe they're cute, maybe they're clever

but lack a certain,

shall we say,

self-restraint?

What if they go too far?

What if they go way, way, way,

way, way too far?

How would they know when it's their time to go?

- Due to our release through factories

and automobiles every year

of more than six billion tons of carbon dioxide,

our atmosphere seems to be getting warmer.

This is bad?

- Well, it's been calculated a few degrees rise

in the Earth's temperature would melt the polar ice caps.

And if this happens, an inland sea would fill a good portion

of the Mississippi valley.

For in weather, we're not only dealing with forces

of a far greater variety

than even the atomic physicist encounters,

but with life itself.

That was 1958.

We've known about the dangers

of climate change for six decades.

Back then, there was so much air pollution

it would actually block out the sun.

There was so much water pollution,

Forget throwing plastic bottles into the water,

we tossed our cars in there.

We also knew someday we'd run out of oil.

For millions of Americans,

this may be the worst weekend they've ever faced

for finding gasoline to give them the automobile freedom

they take as their due.

- I never doubted humans would find a better way

and I wanted to be part of it.

A scientist sounded the alarm

and the modern environmental movement was born.

- Unless we do bring these chemicals under better control,

we are certainly headed for disaster.

- Students all across the country

organized the first Earth Day.

- This point in time, it's very, very fashionable

to talk about the environment

but as every day proceeds, we find very,

very little concrete being done.

- As for me, you might say

I was an early environmentalist.

When I was nine years old,

a bulldozer began knocking down the woods near my home.

I retaliated by putting sand in its gas tank.

When I grew up, I became a tree hugger and moved

to the wilds of Northern Michigan

to build a sustainable homestead and commune with nature.

I wired my cabin for solar panels

and heated with wood instead of fossil fuels.

I wrote about sustainable living

and environmental issues for the Mother Earth News

and several news outlets.

I traveled the country documenting invasive species,

ecosystem collapse,

and species threatened with extinction.

- Come on, girls, boys.

- I covered protests against destroying mountains for coal.

And was once even confronted by the BP police.

- Journalist. - You're a journalist?

Jeff Gibbs, yeah.

- By all means, you can take all the pictures you want.

Okay.

- We'll write a report and then we have to send it

to the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's office

they'll call you.

- Through all of this, I kept wondering,

why are we still addicted to fossil fuels?

So I decided to begin following the green energy movement.

What better place to check out

how our renewable energy revolution is coming along,

than a solar festival

in the Green Mountain state of Vermont

powered by 100% solar energy.

Solar.

I was having fun

and got a chance to ask

about getting solar panels installed.

- You can keep adding, so maybe every time

you get a tax return, buy another solar panel?

- But then, a little rain began to fall.

My camera man noticed some commotion behind the stage.

- So the festival's run off

solar energy, primarily?

Right.

- But the biofuel generator wasn't enough,

so they wound up plugging

into the electrical grid that we all use.

The other inverter operating,

it's actually pulling power in from the grid,

charging the batteries.

It's running backwards from the way

we originally intended to do it, but.

That was disappointing.

But after all, it had been raining.

Maybe next time things would go better.

Luckily for us, hope was on the way.

- It's been a long time comin' but tonight,

change has come to America.

- Green activists across the country cheered

when newly elected president Barack Obama

rolled out a trillion dollar stimulus package

with nearly 100 billion dollars for green energy.

[guitar strumming and people chanting]

Green was finally ramping up

and everyone wanted to be part of it.

President Obama brought in environmental

from the Apollo Alliance, with shovel-ready projects.

- They've gotta put up tens of thousands of wind farms,

they've gotta put up millions of solar panels.

- Former Vice President Al Gore,

who had a few years earlier released an Oscar winning film,

shared his ideas with the president.

We have the opportunity now

to create jobs all across this country,

in all 50 states, to repower America.

- Al Gore had already encouraged

billionaire airline owner Sir Richard Branson

to invest big-time in green energy.

- Branson is pledging future profits from his airline

to the tune of perhaps three billion dollars.

Three billion, that's with a B, to fight global warming!

Is Al Gore a prophet?

- Ah, um, ah, how do you spell "prophet?"

Investors came forward.

- Investor Vinod Khosla, known as the father

of the clean tech revolution,

has poured over a billion dollars of his own money

into some fifty energy startups.

- Major banks were eager to get involved.

- By 2020, we think, renewables will require

395 billion on an annual basis.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.,

was both on the board of major environmental organizations

and was leading a green energy investment group.

- We build wind farms, we build solar farms,

once you build our plant, it's free energy forever.

- The Sierra Club received 50 million dollars

from billionaire and former New York City mayor

Michael Bloomberg.

Their mission?

Fight coal and promote clean energy.

- So with the mayor's gift, here's what will happen.

We'll have a large and aggressive