>> Secretary of State Mike Pompeo actually believes that melting ice caused by climate
change is a wonderful thing, because it opens up new business opportunities.
This is what he said during his appearance at the Arctic Council in Finland.
>> The Arctic is at the forefront of opportunity and abundance.
It houses 13% of the world's undiscovered oil, 30% of its undiscovered gas and an abundance
of uranium, rare earth minerals, gold, diamonds, and millions of square miles of untapped resources.
Fisheries galore and its centerpiece, the Arctic Ocean is rapidly taking on new strategic
significance.
Offshore resources, which are helping their respective coastal states, are the subject
of renewed competition.
Steady reductions in sea ice are opening new passageways and new opportunities for trade.
This could potentially slash the time it takes to travel between Asia and the West by as
much as 20 days.
Arctic sea lanes could come before the two, could come the 21st century Suez in Panama
Canal.
>> So as I had mentioned, this is the Arctic Council.
It is a meeting of various nations in Finland to talk about various issues including the
fact that there are 4 million people living in the Arctic whose lives,or where they live
is in danger.
And so there was maybe some consideration about discussing climate change but the United
States was the only country that refused to even mention climate change.
In fact, it appears that the Trump administration on one hand keeps referring to climate change
as the Chinese hoax and then on the other hand admits that climate change is happening
but thinks that it's a great thing because it opens up new business opportunities, according
to Pompeo.
He was also quoted as saying, this is America's moment to stand up as an Arctic nation?
The region has become an arena of global power and competition.
So who cares what we're doing to that habitat?
Who cares what we're doing to the environment?
Who cares what type of ramifications future generations, this current generation has to
deal with?
People are gonna make money off of this, so, awesome.
That is essentially what Pompeo is saying.
There's a few things on this.
First of all, as a bald person I try to look on the bright side and when you lose your
hair, I said at least I'm aerodynamic, right?
>> Yeah.
>> So it feels like he's looking at the bright side, he's like, hey at least boats are gonna
be going faster now that there won't be any ice to slow them down.
So that's number one.
Number two, If this was written, it wasn't going off-the-cuff, am I correct?
>> It seems as though he's reading a prompter, yes.
>> Yeah, cuz when Trump goes off-the-cuff, you go, he's just going off-the-cuff.
This guy wrote this, so somebody proofread this and said, let's go with this whole, the
melting of the ice caps is good because boats will go faster.
And number three I had to look up Pompeo again about where he went to school, he went to
Harvard.
And so, this looks bad for Harvard.
I mean, just cuz you go to Harvard doesn't make you smart.
I mean, and and by the way, remember when Trump said that thing at the United Nations.
I forgot what he said, but everybody laughed.
Remember he said something, and he was trying to be serious, but they laughed at him?
>> I do remember that.
I don't remember what he said.
>> I would have loved to see the camera angle on the Europeans and the Finnish people there
watching him going, is this guy really saying what he is saying?
These Americans are really stupid.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah, and something else kind of that hits me, maybe I guess I should say, as woman with
a weave I can tell you that you know change, it happens and it's a good thing, but unfortunately
in this situation it's not good at all.
The world population has doubled in size over the last 50 years and there are so many other
mouths to feed, as well as people who are taking advantage of resources and need resources
and food and everything that goes with that.
And the fact that we're not using sustainable resources and energy and we're not moving
in a direction that will continue to allow this earth to sustain us in our growing numbers.
It's just the greed is just, it's intolerable, it's disgusting.
>> It is also fascinating how on one hand you have the US government that consistently
judges the interworkings of other governments, of other sovereign countries.
So for instance, Luiz da Silva in Brazil is a political prisoner.
He was accused of corruption.
And there was really no evidence of that corruption other than one individual who was willing
to testify against him in return for a plea deal.
Now I bring that up, because you'll have the U.S. political establishment arguing, well,
that corruption.
We can't support Lula Da Silva, I mean, that corruption is hideous.
>> Yeah.
>> But what you're seeing right now is Mike Pompeo displaying for the world the type of
corruption that we have in the United States, to the point where he is willing to push the
entire world to complete doom just so US business interests or multinational corporations can
profit off of it, and it's absolutely disgusting.
We have no leg to stand on to judge other countries, we have no leg to stand on to judge
Venezuela, and yes there are issues in Venezuela but we have issues at home that we need to
deal with.
We have absolutely no right to judge or take this self-righteous position on any other
country.
>> And by the way, he's touting, again, the benefits of less ice so that boats can go
faster.
I feel, correct me if I'm wrong, as we progress, perhaps there's gonna be ways to transport
things not through water, maybe in the air.
I mean, I think we have airplanes now?
>> Yes.
>> So I'm just saying, it's really looking at, I don't know what the job was for the
speech writer.
It really was like, hey, man, the globe is warming up and the world is about to be destroyed
and melted.
Find me some good things.
>> Yeah.
>> What are some other good things?
>> It's positive spin.
It's part of the spin.
>> It was complete and total positive spin and I love how they'll do this when it serves
their purpose in terms of getting money.
But then, they do this fear-mongering otherwise, when it helps further ethnocentric racism
and bigotry, and something else, like you had pointed it out, in terms of being in the
air and using that as a way to maybe ship resources and goods and whatnot.
The thing is now because we have climate change, it also means that there's greater turbulence
going on in the sky.
As a result planes are less stable and so it's just more problematic whether it's by
water, land, or air.
It's just.
>> Well, look.
>> It's not a win.
>> I think the reality of the situation is if the average person is harmed by what's
going on with the environment then nothing changes.
Or at least It's not enough to convince the people in positions of power to do something
about that, specifically talking about the United States because they are world leaders
who want to do something about this.
I mean, part of the reason why all of these countries got together at this event in Finland
was to talk about what we can do to combat climate change and that included Canada, Denmark,
Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States, it appears to be the
only country that just refuses to even use the phrase climate change.
And I also want to quickly read you a different statement that Pompeo made.
>> At this gathering, he said, quote, I'm sure it was a good party referring to the
Paris Climate accord.
>> Yeah.
>> I'm sure it felt good to sign the agreement.
But at the end of the day, what matters to human health?
What matters to citizens of the world is that we actually have an impact on improving health
and our technology our innovation and R&D, in the research and development, we put in
the United States, that's what will drive better climatic outcomes, that's what will
create cleaner air and safer drinking water, and that's what I hope the whole world will
focus on.
As if he cares at all about cleaner air.
Again, he's deferring to business interests, right?
When he says innovation, he's referring to business interests.
We all know that.
>> And I love that statement about cleaner air and water.
In part it's like how's Detroit doing?
>> Right.
>> And let's talk about Puerto Rico.
How's that running?
So it's kind of like do you really care, or do you just want to, I dunno, maybe get some
more money?
>> But you know this whole thing of climate deniers, I read a great op-ed piece written
by Kareem Abdul Jabbar.
>> And he's talking about the lack of emphasis we put on scientists and intellectuals, and
how much emphasis we put on athletes.
And he was talking about how that then leads to this world we live in, where people go
I'm not gonna listen to the expert, I'm gonna go on my gut.
So I'm not talking about Pompeo, who obviously knows, he knows this is bad stuff that he's
saying, but he's protecting those interests.
But the people that then support him and go, this is a hoax.
The climate change is a hoax cuz my gut tells me it's a hoax.
And why was there cold weather in the East Coast?
The difference between weather and climate, all that stuff.
This type of stuff allows people to believe in their guts and not in research and I still,
I mean it's frustrating when people just support somebody like Mike Pompeo on something like
this, you know.
>> I think it's the failure of the education system and I don't mean that to just simply
criticize public education.
I mean that because education has been effectively dismantled and defunded.
And so critical thinking is not a thing anymore, because the resources for quality education
have been stripped away.
There's also the issue of the media, and the way that they have equivocated this very serious
problem and they act as if climate deniers are on the same ground as climate scientists,
and that is just not the case.
So that misinformation, that lack of critical thinking is really seeped into the minds of
some Americans, certainly not all.
And remember, in order to do something about climate change, all of us have to do things
that are inconvenient, which of course I'm willing to do, but a lot of people don't wanna
have to make those changes and they think it's a very convenient excuse to defer to
the climate deniers and the so-called Chinese hoax to keep perpetuating this dangerous cycle
that we're in.