Welcome to the Community Supported Best of the Left Podcast, with clips today from

a speech given at a live, step-it-up event in downtown Washington, D.C., an interview

with the speaker on Radio Nation and live music by Emma's Revolution.

The first voice you'll hear is that of Mike Tidwell.

Our next speaker is someone who I don't know whether to praise or curse, because he's

probably had more influence on my life personally than anyone else.

I read Bill McKibben's book The End of Nature in 1990 and I've told him this before that

I, you know, it's one of those books where there aren't many that we read in our lifetime

that completely changes and the fingerprints of that works stay on you the rest of your

life.

And I read The End of Nature in 1990 and just changed everything, changed the how I looked

at the world, it was the first time that I truly allowed myself to accept that the planet

was changing, that global warming was happening.

And after I read the book, something very strange happened.

I did like many Americans, most Americans.

I went into a deep state of denial.

I didn't deny that global warming was happening.

This gentleman convinced me that it was happening.

I denied that it was going to affect me.

I somehow shut that out.

Yeah, it's happening.

Yeah, the news is coming in in the 90s, but somehow I could keep that sense that it's

...