VICE

Shane Smith: This week on "Vice,"

our oceans are rising.

These changes are staggering. We're talking about 15 feet

of big-time sea level rise.

Smith: So you're talking about a global migration.

Man: You can't stop it. This is it.

Reality has a way of intruding. This is gonna change rapidly.

Antarctica's melting.

And if this melts, humanity is in deep trouble.

All the houses just piled on top of each other,

thrown in the middle of a lake, and that's what we have here.

Holy jumpin', it's cold!

I can't imagine how cold it is when the sun goes down.

So we're here in Antarctica,

about 400 or 500 miles from the South Pole.

As you can see, there's a lot of ice.

In fact, Antarctica holds about 90% of the world's ice,

about 70% of the world's fresh water.

The problem is that scientists have now started to realize

that Antarctica's melting.

And if this melts, humanity is in deep trouble.

Smith: Last season, we went to Greenland to witness

the incredible amount of ice that is melting into the ocean.

There it goes! There it goes! There it goes!

Holy fuck! Whoa!

Jason Box: An apartment building just fell over.

Smith: We not only discovered that Greenland's net ice loss

could raise sea levels significantly,

but also that the melt rate is actually 60 years ahead

of previously held worst-case scenarios,

and it's speeding up.

And even more worrisome is that at the end of our story,

NASA climatologist Dr. Gavin Schmidt warned that Antarctica

was beginning to experience massive ice loss

similar to the rates seen in Greenland.

So it could well be that Antarctica will start

to melt at the same rate as Greenland is.

If Antarctica starts melting at the same rate as Greenland,

- we're in for trouble. - Indeed.

Smith: Antarctica's ice loss really caught the world's attention in 2013,

when an iceberg nearly the size of Singapore broke off

from the Pine Island glacier in the western region of the continent.

And although this event surprised everyone,

the real news came in the spring of 2014,

when a glaciologist and his team released a groundbreaking report

with evidence that this whole entire section

of the West Antarctic ice sheet is actually melting away.

And even if this small fraction of the ice sheet in Antarctica melts,

the resulting sea level rise will completely remap

the world as we know it.

Now, since the global scientific community is now ringing the same alarm bells

for Antarctica that they were ringing about Greenland,

and since the consequences are exponentially worse,

we wanted to see exactly what is being done about it.

Now, most of the countries realize the sheer magnitude of this problem,

and as it worsens it becomes a political hot button, globally.

So the United Nations called for the largest political summit

on climate change in history to see what, if anything,

can be done to reverse our current course on global warming.

The alarm bells keep ringing.

Our citizens keep marching.

We are the first generation to feel the impact of climate change

and the last generation that can do something about it.

Smith: And while the world's leaders met to discuss their next move,

people from all over the world took to the streets in protest

to show their frustration and demand action, not words.

- We have to lead. - (applause)

So we're here at the United Nations General Assembly

in New York City for the UN Climate Summit.

And what the general consensus is, is not only environmentally

but politically, global warming is one of the biggest problems facing humanity today.

So our question is why, here at home, then, is climate change still a debate?

Fully one quarter of the American population doesn't believe it's happening,

and those who do, don't believe that it's man-made,

which goes against scientific consensus and political consensus globally.

In an effort to better understand why this is still a debate in our country,

even in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence,

we attended a very different type of environmental conference.

Man: This is how we win the debate.

We have these folks, these eggheads that sit there

that think they never have to defend themselves,

but we in the skeptical community, we have to.

And that's where the science is being refined,

is being proven, and that's where we're winning.

So we're here at the ninth International Conference on Climate Change.

These are the climate change deniers.

And if you see some of the sponsors here, the Ayn Rand Institute,

the International Climate Coalition, are right next

to the Illinois Coal Association.

Man: The real question is how do we bring centrists

and the left over to climate realism.

Smith: Now this particular conference happened to be organized

by The Heartland Institute, whose donors over the years

have included such odd bedfellows to an environmental organization

as one of the largest oil companies in the world, Exxon Mobile,

and the Charles Koch Foundation.

Heartland president Joe Bast is no stranger to controversy.

His foundation spent much of the '90s

refuting the dangers of smoking for tobacco companies.

And now, those same tactics are being employed

to refute the science of climate change.

So what do you do here at the Conference for Climate Change?

Our focus is questioning the claim that there's a consensus

that climate is both man-made and dangerous.

We don't see the data that backs up

the public claims that global warming is a crisis.

So there's an agreement that global warming is happening,

just not that it's a crisis?

Yeah, there can be an impact on, uh, climate

by the human presence, but it's probably very small.

So the stance of many people in this conference, or from your foundation, is

let's wait and see, because we don't know the science.

I would... I would say that's correct. Yeah.

Smith: Now, since these types of groups can no longer credibly deny

that climate change is actually happening,

they are meeting here to refine their message.

So I think this is a perfect example of the talking points on global warming:

it's not man-made, it's a natural variation,

warmer is better, human impact is small,

and there's no consensus.

Which is exactly what they keep telling us.

It's like, uh, a script.

Everybody's saying the exact same thing.

Man: Observations are contingent, okay? They're probable.

They are certainly not knowledge.

They're not universal, necessary, and certain.

Man 2: Environmental groups, they have lots of money

in which to get their message across.

And, of course, their message is basically selling fear.

Man 3: They talk about big oil.

That's nothing compared to big green.

Smith: Now, it's conferences like these where the script

to deny climate change is actually written.

And once that script is written and agreed upon,

it's political pundits like Marc Morano

that have time-tested and effective methods of staying on message

and getting this script out to the rest of the country.

There are quite literally hundreds of factors

that influence global temperature...

There's quite literally hundreds of factors that influence global temperature...

Quite literally hundreds of factors that influence global temperature...

The idea that CO2 is the tail that wags the dogs is not supportable.

Smith: And true to form, at this conference,

he stuck word for word to the script.

Quite simply, there are literally hundreds of factors that influence our climate.

CO2 is not the tail that wags the dog, it is not the climate control knob.

We envision rising temperatures, prolonged droughts,

freakish storms, hellish wildfires, rising sea levels,

food riots, mass starvation, conflicts of every sort,

up to and including full-scale war,

and will force millions of people to abandon their traditional lands

and flee to the squalor of shanty towns.

- That, in a nutshell... - (applause)

is how wacky the global warming debate goes.

What I do as a blogger is then send out

to radio producers, radio hosts,

everyone from Mark Levin to Rush Limbaugh on down.

Suddenly, it's on the Drudge Report.

Suddenly, FOX News is reporting it.

Suddenly, Sean Hannity's talking about it.

Suddenly, it's in The Washington Times

or Washington Examiner. Suddenly, it's in papers

all across the country. Then it goes on Capitol Hill as well.

So then you've got Capitol Hill staffers get it,

speechwriters for senators and congressmen.

Smith: Now, in response to the latest scientific consensus,

the new script that has been written to keep this debate going

centers around Antarctica.

Newscaster: We got a new report and it's from NASA,

and it says Antarctic ice, it's melting,

and that melting process seems to be irreversible.

Hm. Now, you say NASA's wrong, but you're not a scientist, are you?

You don't... you're not going to make any claims like that.

Morano: The interesting thing is the Southern Hemisphere,

Antarctica as a whole, sea ice is well above average,

breaking all sorts of records.

Antarctic sea ice, which has hit the record all time

ever recorded since satellite monitoring began...

Global sea ice is at record ice extent since satellite monitoring began in 1979,

so take a step back and look at the big picture.

Smith: So that's exactly what we did.

In order to see if their latest talking point is true,

we took a step back to get the bigger picture

of what exactly is happening in Antarctica.

So we headed down to the bottom of South America

to meet up with the renowned glaciologist Dr. Eric Rignot.

Dr. Rignot is the lead author of the groundbreaking scientific paper

which has concluded that sections of the West Antarctic ice sheet

are actually experiencing rapid melt.

We caught up with him while he was observing

glacial movements in Patagonia.

We're here with Dr. Eric Rignot, and, uh, maybe

you could tell us exactly where we are.

Smith: And so what's happening to this glacier?

Right.

- (rumbling) - Okay...

It just calved right there.

And so is this kind of a precursor of what's happening in Antarctica itself?

Smith: Now, when Dr. Rignot refers to Pine Island and Thwaites,

he's referring to glaciers that form part of the western border