How do we make people working in and harmed by the carbon economy part of the clean energy future?

Welcome to Climate One, changing the conversation about energy, economy, and the environment.

Climate One conversations with oil companies and environmentalists,

Republicans and Democrats, are recorded before a live audience and hosted by Greg Dalton.

I'm Devin Strolovich. The number of Americans working in the solar industry is double the full and part-time number working in coal.

But that doesn't mean many coal workers aren't proud of what they've contributed to the global economy.

When I say, you know, we need to build an inclusive green economy, I think about those workers and I think about communities who are

bearing the brunt of pollution from oil refineries and other sorts of coal mines.

Michelle Romero is National Director of Green for All, an environmental justice organization

founded by the activist and CNN commentator Van Jones. She launched the Moms Mobilize campaign to fight the Trump administration's budget and

dismantlement of environmental protections.

Joining her and Greg at the Commonwealth Club was author and war correspondent William

Volman, winner of the 2005 National Book Award for the novel, Europe Central.

His latest books are carbon ideologies, extensive works on the math and the people that drive the global energy system.

Here's our conversation about captives of the carbon economy.

William Volman, you write a lot in your first book about nuclear power.

So take us to Fukushima.

You went into the dead zones over seven years after that nuclear disaster in Fukushima.

So take us to what it's like to go into the site of a nuclear disaster.

Well, at the very beginning, it just looked vaguely eerie.

You would see potted plants that had just begun to wilt,

maybe somebody's umbrella in the doorstep that had fallen down.

...