- I'm doing all right. I was on a TV show,
I don't know if you heard that.
It's pretty well known. Not so much in Iceland.
- Well yeah, I had to Google you, I'm afraid.
- SoulPancake Presents, An Idiot's Guide To
Climate Change.
- Hi, my name is Rainn. I am an actor and I care
about the planet, so I am going to Greenland
with some scientists to witness first hand
the melting of the glaciers and learn some
hard science about climate change.
I pray this makes even a little bit of a difference.
Also, don't be an idiot. Rainn.
- Come on,
I'm too shy
to talk in my seat on the airplane.
Don't worry, I'm not pooping or anything.
Is this thing working?
The one thing that kind of freaks me out about this
trip is, all the carbon that I'm using.
How much carbon have I used flying in this plane?
What does that mean? Does that mean I have to
plant like a thousand trees to make up for it?
I don't know. Let's find out.
I don't want to be one of those
climate hypocrites, but maybe I am.
Okay, here we go.
- First up, to learn some basic facts about
climate change, I touchdown in Reykjavik, Iceland.
A country rich in history, from vikings to elves,
no McDonald's and only about 300,065 people
in the entire country.
One of which is astronomer and climate change
expert, Sævar Helgi Bragason.
The Bill Nye of Iceland.
Three, two, one. I am a trained actor.
Well since you're the Icelandic expert
and I'm beginning this journey of my
knowledge and my learning about climate change.
Take me through the, I don't know,
the top ten salient points about climate change.
- I'll try my best, definitely.
But the reason we are in this mess,
is because we are burning fossil fuels.
- Okay.
- We're taking our stored carbon
from deep underground and pumping it up
into the atmosphere, wrapping the Earth into
a warmer blanket. Which means the
average temperature in the Earth is increasing.
And when you increase the average temperature in the Earth,
of course you have more extreme weathers, for example.
And also acidify the oceans.
Which is a horrible thing because we know
next to nothing of how that will actually change.
In about 200 years we have changed the chemistry
of the ocean more than the Earth has, or
nature has for the past 50 million years or so.
- Humanity has changed the chemistry of the
oceans in the last 200 years more than in planet
Earth in the last 50 million years?
- That's right.
Each day we pump up about 100 million tons of co2
into the atmosphere.
- Every single day?
- Yes.
- Three volcanoes going off non stop to equal
what humanity is pouring into the atmosphere?
- That's right.
It's almost the way we live.
- Right.
- So we need to change everything.
- Another one you hear a lot in the States
is that China and India produce so much more co2,
why should we do anything until they get
their act together?
- Well, because historically we are
the biggest contributors.
Half of the emissions of co2 into the atmosphere,
comes from about 10% of the richest persons
population on Earth.
A person, for example, in India,
is responsible for about two tons,
per person, per year.
- Okay.
- But in the U.S., well it's about
20 tons per person.
- Holy moly.
- So it's our fault.
- That's up.
- We need to change our waste,
not the poor people, we have to help the poor people.
- 'Cause I'm doing all right, I was
on a TV show, I don't know if you've heard that.
- It's pretty well known. Well not so much in Iceland.
- Well, yeah I had to Google you, I'm afraid.
- Oh, you're a horrible man.
- I didn't ask Sævar what
the main causes were behind all these emissions,
wreaking havoc on the planet.
- We're doing great, I'm good.
- Here we go.
- Construction, we use a lot of cement.
Choices we make when it comes to
the food we consume. Red meat.
Red meat is a big source of co2 emissions, as well.
We keep cutting down trees.
Which are kind of like natural
vacuum cleaners for co2.
- So then planting trees might
be a helpful solution.
- Planting trees is definitely a helpful solution.
- Not eating beef.
- At least less beef.
- Boom, how do you like that? Boom.
- Our food wastage. We waste an awful lot
of the food we buy.
About a third or so ends up in the trash.
Whenever we throw our trash into landfills, it breaks down.
- Does that create co2?
- That does create co2 and also methane.
And methane is a much more powerful greenhouse gas.
- We call it methane just so you know.
- Methane or methane.
- You can say methane.
You say methane, I say methane.
- We say methane.
Clothes. We use an awful lot of clothes.
Takes a great deal of energy and water
and everything to produce clothes.
- Isn't it, um, just general consumerism of just
buying lots and lots of manufactured stuff?
- Manufacturing is a big contributor as well.
Especially when it comes to electronics.
'Cause you need to dig up all the metals
to use in your electronic devices.
Also they way we transport things around the world,
using airplanes and ships and cars.
Maybe we need to slow down a little bit.
And consume a little bit less.
We don't need to fill our houses
with crap we don't really need.
Like, I don't know how many vases you have at home?
Are all of them filled with flowers?
Or are they just there?
- I've got like six vases in a cupboard
that I never use.
- And I don't know how you transport yourself,
or commute. I don't know if you use
bicycles or walk or something like that.
- Now I have electric cars.
I'm planning on making this whole trip
carbon neutral by giving back to all
the transportation and co2 that I've
produced on this tour.
Okay I admit, this trip is going to
rack up quite a large carbon footprint.
So far, I've taken a 12 hour international flight,
which equals approximately 45,000 gallons of gas,
or 360 per person.
About five paper cups and three car rides,
which leaves a carbon footprint of about
2.5 metric tons of co2.
But there was one transport company that showed
me how it's trying to lower its carbon footprint.
Toyota of Iceland.
It's like a museum of cars.
Now I know what you're thinking,
because I'm a celebrity I get a lot
of free stuff, but that's not why I'm here.
At least, not today.
I wanted to visit them to see how companies
are trying to help the planet instead of harm it.
And Toyota of Iceland recently won
a Top Environmental Award.
What are we looking at?
- We're at the body and paint shop of Toyota.
These are the booths that we use
to heat the cars once they've been painted
and that helps dry the paint.
Before we used to do this with oil.
Right now we use geothermal water.
It goes down and it heats the cars
and no oil is burnt.
- Oh wow.
- So, we've managed to decrease our impact
on the environment, dramatically by doing this.
- And that's not all Toyota of Iceland is doing.
They're also trying to reverse the effects of climate
change by restoring a massive amount of wetlands.
Yes, wet lands.
I should've worn my boots, these
are actual wet lands.
- What we used to do in the past,
we've been digging these ditches
to drain the wetlands, for farming
purposes and other purposes.
- We do the same in the States,
we dry them out and then put in housing projects
and shopping malls on the wetlands,
because people didn't really recognize their worth.
- We have dried up so much land that it's
increasing the emission of greenhouse gases.
- So drying out the land emits methane
and stored co2 that was in the soil.
- Right.
- So, you're helping restore some
of these native wetlands.
- Right. There didn't used to be any water here.
So, we closed these ditches here.
The water is rising again. The emitting
of greenhouse gases is slowing down and stopping.
And we see the birds coming back
to a place that they weren't before.
- Who knew wetlands, or bird swamps,
could actually store co2?
That leads me back to where I left off.
My last question for our scientist, Sævar.
Did you talk about, uh,
biodiversity?
- Did you talk about, uh
- And as it turns out, there are
actually Office fans in Iceland.
Well, viking knows viking.
What percentages of the Earth's animal
species will be lost to climate change,
in say, the next 20-50 years?
- Well, we know that about 25 percent of all
plant and animal species on the Earth,
are in danger of becoming extinct.
And if we look throughout Earth's history,
we can find at least one event for the past
100 million years or so, where the same
or even worse has occurred.
- It's a mass extinction.
- That's right.
- It was about 66 millions years ago when
an asteroid impacted us, but these days
we are the asteroid and we have to stop it.
We have to do everything we possibly can to do so.
- Looking down over downtown Reykjavik,
I met so many amazing people here, today.
I'm feeling a little bit overwhelmed.
I'm feeling a little bit daunted.
I mean, what am I doing? I have a video
camera on the end of a stick and I'm talking
to myself and I'm about to go land
on a glacier at ground zero for the climate crisis.
And you know what, I don't know anything.
The science is so complex. The sociology
of this whole expedition is so complex.
I mean this issue is not just like pollution,
it's economics, it's social justice,
it's how humanity relates to its precious Mother Earth,
it's how we relate to each other.
It's like an onion, the more you dig into
the issues around climate change, around climate
activism, the more complicated they get.
I don't know that I know any more
now than when I started.
And I'm going to bed, a little bit afraid of what
I'm gonna find out on these glaciers,
in the next couple of days.
Coming up on An Idiot's Guide to Climate Change.
- I've seen some crazy in my days,
but man oh man I've never seen anything like this.
Ground zero for climate change.
- What happens in the Arctic doesn't stay in the Arctic.
- How warm is it getting in the Arctic?
- Right so.
- Whoa.
We're stuck on a harbor in Greenland.
Keep your thoughts and prayers coming please.
Thoughts and prayers coming.
Thoughts and prayers and a boat.