II – Chapter 03

0100 [00:14:12] "So where is all that water going? I'll tell you where some of it's going. It's going into the streets of Miami Beach, Florida. " (Al Gore)

0200 [00:14:26] "High tides continue to bring a flood of frustration. " (TV news announcer 1)

0300 [00:14:30] "Fort Lauderdale gets the reward for the "something you don't see everyday" video. Fish swimming on Cordova Road. " (TV news announcer 2)

0400 [00:14:35] "Experts say in 30 years or so, a drive along Ocean Drive could be a drive in the ocean. Downtown Miami could be awash. " (TV news announcer 3)

0500 [00:14:47] "So, is this a temporary pump here?" (Al Gore)

0600 [00:14:49] "All temporary. Just to get help. " (Al Gore)

0700 [00:14:52] "Oh, that's supposed to stop the water?" (Al Gore)

0800 [00:14:55] "It keeps it back as long as possible, but it's not very effective. And what happened is, with these new high tides that came in, this is.... You can't do anything for it. So it's going to get worse and worse as the tide comes up. " (Philip Levine)

0900 [00:15:12] "We are showing you an area that hasn't been actually fixed at all as you can tell. And then on Wednesday, when we are going to get together I want to show you some of the areas that used to be like this, but now we raised the road and put in pumps. We've seen dramatic results. It's so much better, yeah. " (Philip Levine)

1000 [00:15:28] "So you raised the road with saltwater-resistant materials? " (Al Gore)

1100 [00:15:34] "Yes. " (Philip Levine)

1200 [00:15:35] "And what level of sea level rise is this designed to protect against?" (Al Gore)

1300 [00:15:40] "We are building in about a foot of sea level rise. And I'm sure the projections are going to continue to move. " (man 8)

1400 [00:15:48] "Kinda hard to pump the ocean. " (Al Gore)

1500 [00:15:52] "That's why we've got to raise above it. " (man 8)

1600 [00:15:54] "Yeah." (Al Gore)

1700 [00:15:55] "Yeah. " (man 8)

1800 [00:15:57] "Yeah, it's not easy. It's not easy. This is not a, uh...not a simple fix. " (Philip Levine)

1900 [00:16:03] "Yeah. " (Al Gore)

2000 [00:16:04] "You can only raise so much before you change everybody's lives around here. " (man 9)

2100 [00:16:09] "Yeah." (Philip Levine)

2200 [00:16:10] "Scott and I grew up here. This wasn't the case 40 years ago. So we...if anyone wants to argue that is's not happening.... It's happening. It's happening. " (man 10)

2300 [00:16:36] "It's coming out of the manholes, it's coming out of drains. And this is while the pumps are operating at full capacity. This is a stopgap measure at best. Look, it's coming out into the street there. " (Al Gore)

2400 [00:16:59] "Well, I've got to go onstage in about 15 minutes. So..." (Al Gore)

2500 [00:17:03] "Right. " (woman 3)

2600 [00:17:04] "...show me where the new slides are, and then try to fix these videos. Put them on a stick and I'll try to download them to my computer." (Al Gore)

2700 [00:17:09] "Okay." (woman 3)

2800 [00:17:20] "I thought those boots were going to be high enough but they weren't." (Al Gore)

2900 [00:17:28] "All right. " (Al Gore)

3000 [00:17:34] "Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Well, I'm so excited to be here and so excited...uh...that you are here for this training. I'm a little bit late getting here because I got up early and put on some wading boots and went over to a couple of the streets that are filled up with water this morning. " (Al Gore)

3100 [00:17:56] "Miami, in terms of assets at risk, is the number one city at risk in the entire world for sea level rise. This is a major crisis. " (Al Gore)

3200 [00:18:04] "Projected sea level rise in South Florida, possibly seven feet or more in this century. By population, the top ten cities at risk: Kolcata, Mumbai, Dhaka, Guangzhou, China, et cetra. " (Al Gore)

3300 [00:18:15] "West Africa. A lot of people at risk there. " (Al Gore)

3400 [00:18:20] "And, of course, the low-lying islands, the Maldives have an enormous amount at risk. " (Al Gore)

3500 [00:18:29] "Kiribati has already purchased land to move its entire population. " (Al Gore)

3600 [00:18:36] "And again, this is from the city we are in right now. I mean, I just wonder how the governor sloshes through this and says, "I don't notice anything. Do you notice anything?"" (Al Gore)

3700 [00:18:54] "So, Florida..." (Jenny Staletovich)

3800 [00:18:56] "Florida. " (Al Gore)

3900 [00:18:57] "...is a challenge. And so...." (Jenny Staletovich)

4000 [00:19:00] "I can confirm that." (Al Gore)

4100 [00:19:01] "Okay. Well, so, that's...that's like the big question we have. I cover the climate, environmental stuff all the time, and you have a state with a governor who wouldn't even meet with scientists to talk about climate change. " (Jenny Staletovich)

4200 [00:19:13] "Yeah." (Al Gore)

4300 [00:19:15] "How do you move forward on it?" (Jenny Staletovich)

4400 [00:19:17] "In order to address the environmental crisis, we are going to have to spend some time fixing the democracy crisis. Because big money has so much influence now. Our democracy has been hacked. Large contributors call the shots. " (Al Gore)

4500 [00:19:35] "Have you ever thought about running for office again?" (Jenny Staletovich)

4600 [00:19:38] "I...I am, uh...I've used this line before, so forgive me, but I am a recovering politician. And the longer I go without a relapse, the...the less likely one becomes. " (Al Gore)

4700 [00:19:52] "So, I just want to say probably we'll do sort of three buckets of stuff. " (man 11)

4800 [00:19:55] "All right." (Al Gore)

4900 [00:19:56] "So, there is..." (man 11)

5000 [00:19:57] "Is one of them climate?" (Al Gore)

5100 [00:19:58] "Yes, climate. Yes. One of them is climate. One of them is sort of broadly like how politics are different now than they were, say, 15 years ago. " (Al Gore)

5200 [00:20:04] "Sure." (Al Gore)

5300 [00:20:05] "Citizens United, the...I mean, I'm...I'm interested to hear your thoughts on that." (man 11)