Kerry's speech at his "ocean summit"

[karynnj]

http://www.c-span.org/video/?319978-1/state-department-ocean-conference - excellent and inspiring as one would expect from an environmentalist of at least 5 decades. (His speech starts about 6 minutes in)

Also today, he sat down for a long interview with Katie Curic. It is an excellent interview, even if she did spend almost all of it on the Iraq situation. There is was good to hear Kerry speaking, not as someone worried about the next election, but trying to explain the very complicated situation intelligently. Even at the end, when she finally went to speak about the ocean - which is what the interview was supposed to be on - the question was if he considered cancelling it given all that is going on. (His answer summarized - It's important and the State Department is always working on many many things all at the same time all the time.)


http://news.yahoo.com/video/secretary-state-john-kerry-live-170000643.html

[mylye2222]

1. Thanks for the speech, Karen!

[ProSense]

2. Thanks for the link. Leonardo DiCaprio via Twitter

Leonardo DiCaprioVerified account?@LeoDiCaprio·
Thru my foundation today I'm pledging $7 million to ocean conservation projects over the next 2 years. #OurOcean2014

https://twitter.com/LeoDiCaprio/status/478947257375809536

Thank you Secretary @JohnKerry for your leadership on this important issue and for hosting #OurOcean2014.

https://twitter.com/LeoDiCaprio/status/478946995177271296

[JI7]

7. nice pic

prosense, i haven't seen you around for a while. i hope all is ok.

[mylye2222]

3. Its weird to see Leo with a beard!

How time has passed since that angel-head boy in Titanic....

[MBS]

4. some of his remarks the second day were even better in terms of political comment

Here are his remarks introducing the afternoon panel
http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2014/06/227692.htm

My favorite part (bold highlights are mine):

Over the past day and a half, some of the world’s very best and most knowledgeable scientists and most influential leaders in both the public and private sectors have been here telling us about inspiring efforts that are underway to address various challenges of our ocean, and importantly not just defining the challenges but laying out the solutions, the things we know we can do.

What’s interesting about the challenges we face, I might add – and is not just about the oceans – but so many of the challenges that are confounding the world today actually have pretty obvious solutions that are staring us in the face. It’s not as if we’re sitting around scratching our heads saying, “How do we solve the problem?” It’s really a question of, “How do we find the political will? How do we get people to move – to sometimes move back very vested, powerful interests that like the status quo because change means reinvesting or changing the way you do business, even though in the long run it will save everybody a lot of money and a lot of grief?”

It’s pretty obvious about where we are. The solution to climate change, which is a serious problem with respect to the oceans, as we have all seen, is very simple, actually. It’s called energy policy. Energy policy is the solution to climate change. . . The irony of it all is that the energy market that is staring us in the face is a $6 trillion market with four to five billion users today, which will grow to nine billion users over the course of the next years. Just think about that. It’s the mother of all markets.

And what we need are the triggers that excite the investment and excite the marketplace itself to move. It’s happening in some places; we all see that – some solar breaking through, more and more windmills. . . . But not happening fast enough, not happening significantly enough. . . .

So there’s not – there is nothing that we’re looking at that doesn’t have a solution – acidification, nitrate overload, dead zones. We have to change the politics. And that’s part of the mission that’s got to come out of here.. . the summary of everything that we’re going to hear today is that we have to change the political will and start to make the decisions that put the money into enforcement, into science, into all the things that can actually save the oceans. . .

Sec. Kerry is doing such a fantastic job..

[karynnj]

5. I haven't watched anything from the second day - except Obama's announcement

I really like the tone of those comments - that echo the first 2004 speech I heard that really really made me excited about a President Kerry. (His speech that spoke of how you could deal with climate change, stimulate the economy, improve the quality of air and water, improve health AND improve national security by not depending on the unstable miiddle east.

The sad thing is that speech, which I think was part of many of his speeches, was on CSPAN. I never saw it on the cable news - where you usually heard the cable person say what Kerry spoke of -- usually focusing on only whatever he said about Bush. It still makes me angry - because this type of intelligent optimism could have inspired the US to do the right things using technology and science to make things better.

I hope that the conference has succeeded in getting people, with the knowledge and/or interest, more excited about what could be done - and that at least some previously unlikely connections were made. I wonder if Teresa's annual conferences on woman's health and other issues had any influence on the Secretary in being the catalyst for this happening.

At any rate, the interesting unusual high level Senator, very capable in writing legislation, who never forgot his own activist grassroots history is now every bit as intriguing as Secretary of State. I am impressed that in both this conference and the London conference that Hague called, he was determined that real action come out of the effort. In addition, the coordination of Kerry and Obama on Obama's announcement was very nicely done. Obama's announcement was - and had to be - the highlight of the conference, but it also was obviously done to draw attention to the conference and - in case the media wanted to doubt it - showed that Kerry and Obama are on the same page on this.

[YvonneCa]

6. He is doing a fantastic job. And that fact...

...is no surprise. I am very glad to see he is making...in a much more visible fashion...the points he made a few years back in the CFR speech about the 'win, win,win' of getting foreign policy, energy and environmental policy right.