The climate is our biggest threat. Carl Pope is fighting to change our fate

Michael Bloomberg is a unrepentant capitalist who, since he states at his 2017 novel A Climate of Hope, is ldquo;not just your stereotypical environmentalist. ” Yet over the past decade, Bloomberg is now arguably the biggest environmental philanthropist on the planet — particularly given the $500 million investment Bloomberg declared last month he would shortly earn quickly moving the U.S. “Beyond Carbon,” away both coal and natural gas and to some “100% clean energy economy. ” How can this happen?

It turns out among the biggest factors in Bloomberg’s green transformation has been his obsession with Carl Pope, the longtime former leader of the Sierra Club, that Bloomberg first met about a few years back, as Mayor of New York.

Pope is not just a household name, but nonetheless at this stage can probably be called among the strongest environmental activists ever. He also wears a leather jacket and a weathered-looking sweater on the cover of Climate of Hope alongside Bloomberg’s suit, tie, and flag pin.

The two co-authored the publication — and not only in the sense the Pope ghost-wrote Bloomberg’s opinions, as happens frequently when active political and cultural actors take to a lesser-known co-author for some glamour job they could barely even read. A Climate of Hope is a protracted dialogue between Bloomberg and Pope, with both alternating chapters throughout and at times even disagreeing on potentially important issues.

What exactly there ’s no debate on, however, is that Pope “persuaded ” his co-author to dive right into massive ecological spending (a feat achieved in part by revealing the health-conscious Bloomberg the amounts on how deadly coal can be).

Pope isn’t a stranger to controversy — perhaps unsurprising for a nonprofit leader who has raised money well to the nine figures. He’s a “pragmatist,” because he states many occasions at the interview below, that depending on who you ask means compromise to the verge of being compromised, or simply that he has a knack for actually getting stuff done where others only speak.

His legacy has been correlated with earning money from natural gas executives in a fundraising bidding some viewed as mandatory and many others known as ethically tainted; with overlooking individuals ’s untoward individual choices to buy huge cars as well as bigger houses; and with “looking forward to an active venture ” using Republican leaders when it was evident that they weren’t entirely on board with key tenets of the ecological movement.

But Pope has also been equally or better known for pushing the Clinton/Gore administration to become better on emissions; preventing neoliberal environmentalists by adopting a nativist stance in immigration; creating a more diverse and inclusive environmental movement; and now, clearly, with potentially ending the use of carbon dioxide in America.

Even with 30+ years in the public eye, Carl Pope is still a relatively private man who doesn’t seem to like to speak much about himself. So for starters under, I wished to see if I could figure out what makes him tick.

Because if we can get into the minds of men and women who persuade billionaires to behave contrary to their short-term economic interests, with the bigger human picture in mind, maybe we can do it more often.

Then our conversation moved to NASA, Ro Khanna, Tesla, AOC and the Green New Deal, and more. And in a soon to come followup piece, I’ll speak with Pope about the details of this Beyond Carbon plan, including how he managed to persuade Bloomberg to take it on, and a few areas of controversy which might appear because $500 million has been distributed.

All this, after allis a part of what it really means to think about the ethics of technologies — Pope and Bloomberg’s work, appreciate it or not, is surely an effort to reform or change some of their strongest technologies human hands’ve ever touched.

How do we inspire people of all backgrounds and way to make changes to your greener? How do we understand what the perfect changes would be to make? How do we grapple with the ethical issues involved as well as the compromises which could seem to be required?

(Oh and by how in the weeks since I spoke with Pope, I have mostly been bypassing big evening foods and eating more enthusiastically in the afternoon. So at the least there’s that!)

Greg EpsteinI have appreciated discovering you like —  I would say as a historical figure, although important pieces of your story are yet to be told.

I’d like to hear a bit about the important improvements in your own life which gave you the ethical outlook you have.

Carl Pope: I can tell you a few things about my childhood and my creation. Which particular ingredients formed my ethical perspective, I’m unsure I’ll be able to tell you, however, I’ll tell you a few things [that might] help.

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