Slightly Offensive - Elijah Schaffer - Extinction LA
Aired: 2019-12-04
Duration: 13:34


=== Greta's Call to Panic (13:10) ===

[00:00:00]  My name is Greta Tunberi.
[00:00:02]  I'm 60 years old.
[00:00:04]  I come from Sweden and I want you to panic.
[00:00:08]  My message is that we'll be watching you.
[00:00:11]  You'll come to us young people for hope.
[00:00:14]  How dare you have stolen my dreams?
[00:00:17]  My childhood people are suffering, dying.
[00:00:20]  Ecosystems are collapsing.
[00:00:24]  I want you to panic.
[00:00:55]  Not enough people in the country currently care about climate change.
[00:00:59]  I would definitely agree with that statement.
[00:01:02]  I mean, it's changing, but it's not changing fast enough.
[00:01:05]  So there's obviously, with the climate stuff, there's been an argument.
[00:01:08]  It used to be called global warming.
[00:01:09]  Now it's climate change.
[00:01:10]  They're saying it's going to be raised, right, four degrees Celsius, whatnot.
[00:01:13]  How do you feel like we can actually combat that through human intervention?
[00:01:18]  Stop driving less, cars, car pull, alternative methods, electricity.
[00:01:23]  So there is a science says ban cars, and there's a lot of blanket statements that are being made here, like change your lifestyle, ban cars.
[00:01:30]  But it's like really neglecting the implications of really what it would take to make this change in the country.
[00:01:37]  I mean, if you really think about it, this is like, this is one of the motor cities.
[00:01:42]  This is Los Angeles.
[00:01:43]  It was designed for cars specifically.
[00:01:47]  You can't just ban them.
[00:01:48]  There's no public transportation here.
[00:01:50]  I'm a Whole Foods vegan and I don't use plastic.
[00:01:54]  I have a water filter purifier on my faucet.
[00:02:00]  I mean, obviously the best thing you can do is to go vegan and to use cars less and use public transportation and those sorts of things.
[00:02:05]  I personally am not vegan, further showers, cut red meat out as much as you can.
[00:02:09]  Solar power is huge.
[00:02:11]  And even other parts of the country like Alaska, where they can't use solar power and one third of the jobs are fossil fuel related.
[00:02:16]  I think there are, I mean, I haven't done a ton of research on the subject, but from what I have read and what I have seen, there are a lot of places like in coal country, for example, where people are transitioning into tech jobs and they're retraining professionals who have jobs in environmentally problematic fields into doing things that have less of a carbon footprint.
[00:02:32]  It's really just big businesses that are really the huge downfall to what's happening in the earth.
[00:02:38]  I also don't think that the economy is the most important thing.
[00:02:40]  We need a planet to have an economy.
[00:02:42]  So if the economy takes a hit in the short term to save the planet in the long term, I don't have a problem with that.
[00:02:45]  Awesome, guys.
[00:02:46]  We got to keep walking.
[00:02:46]  Thank you so much.
[00:02:47]  Really appreciate it.
[00:02:50]  Knock you in the way.
[00:02:50]  Taking a picture.
[00:02:51]  Taking a picture.
[00:02:51]  That's what people are here for, to be honest.
[00:02:53]  They're here for photo ops.
[00:02:54]  They want pictures.
[00:02:55]  So look at me.
[00:02:58]  This iPhone made in China, like the dictatorship of slave labor, and the most, literally the biggest contributor to pollution in the entire world, them in India.
[00:03:06]  But we'll use their phones to take our pictures to show them what we're doing.
[00:03:09]  When you look at Western nations combined, we're like less than, we're literally less than like 5% of the pollution, but these countries that are roaming free, they are not getting the pressure put on them and they're the contributing the most.
[00:03:19]  So how do we actually change it to focus our attention on those who are contributing the most?
[00:03:24]  We lead by example.
[00:03:25]  I have a hybrid and we set standards and that other people will want to follow.
[00:03:31]  Do you think China really cares though?
[00:03:32]  I mean, they're our enemy.
[00:03:33]  They're going to have to.
[00:03:34]  Do you think that China doesn't get pressure because they own so much of our industry?
[00:03:37]  Meaning, like if you do know recently with the LeBron James and the NBA scandal, right, that they have so much investment monetarily that Americans are selling out for their own country and for what's right just to make money and they're basically fine condemning the Trump administration, but they're not even condemning a true dictatorship in communism, which is just wrecking and ruining the entire planet.
[00:03:57]  But do you feel like that's because China's been strategic in actually getting their hand in industry and Americans are more greedy than they really do care about the country?
[00:04:04]  I do.
[00:04:04]  I do agree, yeah.
[00:04:27]  Apparently we're calling for the whales.
[00:04:29]  We got to bring in the orcas and we're making the noises of the people.
[00:04:32]  This is honestly what is considered music in a postmodern era.
[00:04:35]  What is this group right here?
[00:04:37]  This is our Red Brigade and it's for the life that needs blood to live and loses blood when it dies.
[00:04:43]  And they're silent.
[00:04:45]  We are the blood of the planet of all lost species.
[00:04:48]  We attempt as a performance group to enter the subconscious level of society, to enter culture and start transforming it from the inside out.
[00:04:58]  Sometimes at climate marches people see let's say shots of these ladies right here or there's been like some pretty I would say artistic behavior at other at other marches.
[00:05:07]  Oh thank you.
[00:05:08]  There's been some artistic marches like things.
[00:05:11]  People do like dance moves and there's like a lot of different kinds of videos that come up at climate marches and people go, how is that going to help climate change?
[00:05:18]  So then how does this help actually climate change?
[00:05:21]  That's always my number one question.
[00:05:23]  The artistic component.
[00:05:24]  Correct.
[00:05:25]  Great.
[00:05:25]  Well first of all we're going to burn ourselves out.
[00:05:28]  It's not about lecturing.
[00:05:29]  It's about entering through the heart, through the subconscious, through our perception.
[00:05:34]  200 species a day go extinct.
[00:05:37]  That means they're gone forever.
[00:05:38]  They cannot.
[00:05:38]  Who do we have?
[00:05:40]  Humans?
[00:05:41]  I mean we're not it's not like a checklist and species by species go extinct.
[00:05:45]  When there are no pollinators there's no food and then we're all f  ⁇ ed.
[00:05:48]  I mean if society collapses because of eco-fascism and nuclear weapons get launched we're all f  ⁇ ed.
[00:05:54]  It's not like you know a timeline.
[00:05:56]  We need to act now.
[00:05:57]  It's too late for most of it.
[00:05:59]  So we're attempting to change the culture at the base level and transmit the level of urgency that climate change requires.
[00:06:07]  It's like a metaphysical it's a metaphysical infiltration into the subconscious rather than a direct obtrusive just here I am and that's sort of the missing link that gives people that elevated awareness.
[00:06:18]  If the issue is that not enough people are on board do you think pairing this movement with an anti-capitalist notion which I see a lot of signs about when most Americans agree that capitalism is the best solution for the country or there's a lot of anti-Trump stuff when half the country voted for him.
[00:06:34]  So by pairing political niche ideas in with a scientific endeavor doing that isolates half the country who would think this isn't really a climate change march this is like you get what I'm saying like the signs it says like it's a lot of like against Trump stuff.
[00:06:46]  Don't you think that would scare away people like because they would go well I don't want to go to an anti-Trump march or I don't want to go to an anti-capitalism march.
[00:06:53]  But do you understand the problem is these things are all connected.
[00:06:57]  I honestly don't agree with putting other political movements into a protest that's mainly about climate change.
[00:07:06]  You can't put them in their little separate niches and I think more and more people are beginning to realize this.
[00:07:11]  I feel like yes Trump is part of the part of the reason for climate change but there are also many other leaders that contribute to it.
[00:07:22]  I mean I know people who one time would not bother about going to an anti-racist march who are now starting to think maybe well I see black and brown people who are most impacted at this and I'm being impacted because my house is burned down.
[00:07:37]  So you know with the fires that are going on here you start to put tune together.
[00:07:41]  Many supporters of Trump's are impacted now because of the tornadoes happening in Oklahoma and all these places including places that didn't used to have tornadoes and the floods.
[00:07:50]  They once were climate deniers.
[00:07:52]  They voted for Trump.
[00:07:53]  Someone that must be beginning to wonder.
[00:07:55]  This Trump Pence movement is, I don't think it actually helps the actual full climate change movement.
[00:08:04]  Big oil!
[00:08:06]  Keep it in the soil!
[00:08:08]  Help!
[00:08:08]  Big oil!
[00:08:09]  Keep it in the soil!
[00:08:11]  Help!
[00:08:12]  Big oil!
[00:08:13]  Keep it in the soil!
[00:08:15]  Help!
[00:08:16]  Alright, so we brought the children to the front of the march, and while there's mostly adults in the back, and we're beginning to push and march into the we're going to march into the city hall, and so we push the kids up so that it appears to be the children's march specifically.
[00:08:31]  I'm surprised that there's not more kids out here.
[00:08:33]  There's a lot of adults, and it's kind of mixed, but they push the kids to the front for optics.
[00:08:37]  What do you think about that?
[00:08:41]  I think you're probably looking to make a conspiracy out of something that's a little more naive than that.
[00:08:46]  No, I'm asking you, there's not as many kids as there would have been.
[00:08:49]  What do you feel about that?
[00:08:50]  That they have to move them to the front.
[00:08:51]  It's not a conspiracy, that's just like there's not as many kids showing up as probably would have thought at a children's climate march.
[00:08:58]  I don't know, was there like odds on how many were going to show up?
[00:09:00]  The last one, it was like almost all kids.
[00:09:11]  It's really not about that.
[00:09:12]  You're trying to turn into a competition.
[00:09:13]  So it takes time to build a movement.
[00:09:17]  We've got to get everyone that we can get.
[00:09:18]  And you cannot just separate yourself from immigrants coming up here because their farms are destroyed.
[00:09:24]  They don't want to come up here.
[00:09:25]  They want to stay on the farm that they, you know, small little peasant farms.
[00:09:29]  They don't want to leave their countries, but they're forced to because they lost their farms.
[00:09:33]  The big aggregate business took over their land.
[00:09:35]  Then there was a war and then there was, and they children went to the cities, they couldn't get a job, and then they're coming up here, you see.
[00:09:41]  Yeah, yeah, but then wouldn't that technically not make them climate refugees?
[00:09:44]  Because that would be considered like geopolitical, like, do you get what I'm saying?
[00:09:47]  Yeah.
[00:09:48]  Okay, but you're missing the point.
[00:09:51]  The drought causes their crops to fail.
[00:09:53]  That makes them climate refugees right away.
[00:09:55]  Then they go to the cities and can't get a job, and there's the economic thing, right?
[00:09:59]  Right, yeah, correct.
[00:10:00]  That's another economic, okay, ecological, economic.
[00:10:03]  They both start with an E.
[00:10:04]  Okay, so then they go.
[00:10:06]  My name is Elijah.
[00:10:07]  It starts with an E too.
[00:10:08]  Yeah, okay.
[00:10:09]  And so Elijah was a prophet in the Bible.
[00:10:11]  Oh, yeah.
[00:10:12]  So, and I think she's a little bit like Greta, in a way.
[00:10:17]  I even brought my Greta wig.
[00:10:28]  I dress as her for Halloween.
[00:10:30]  We have been repeating the same message over and over again.
[00:10:35]  Ladies and gentlemen, it's Greta Thunberg or Thretta Gunberg at Greta Thunberg speech.
[00:10:38]  We are here in Los Angeles, California at the climate march, where we are listening to the world's most popular 16-year-old besides Justin Bieber.
[00:10:48]  The crowd cheers to me.
[00:10:49]  The crowd's cheering for me.
[00:10:50]  They said that Greta Thunberg was the best.
[00:10:51]  The thing is, what they don't realize is that Greta Thunberg is not as good as Thretta Gunberg.
[00:10:55]  Thretta, Thretta, Thretta.
[00:10:57]  That's exactly.
[00:10:58]  You think I'm making fun of her?
[00:10:59]  No, I dress as her for Halloween, actually.
[00:11:00]  Oh, you did?
[00:11:01]  This is her at the EU.
[00:11:02]  Oh, okay.
[00:11:03]  Yeah.
[00:11:03]  So you're supporting her or you're mocking her?
[00:11:06]  Oh, huge fan of her.
[00:11:07]  Okay, great.
[00:11:08]  Yeah.
[00:11:08]  I'm not going to mock a kid.
[00:11:10]  Well, I didn't, I mean, please understand that I was delivered that message through other people who thought that.
[00:11:17]  No.
[00:11:17]  So I just was.
[00:11:18]  That feels like the Gestapo or something.
[00:11:20]  Can a man wear it.
[00:11:21]  Can I just wear a wig in LA and get away with it?
[00:11:24]  Hey, I'm in full support.
[00:11:25]  I'm really grateful.
[00:11:26]  Yes.
[00:11:26]  Even if I was mocking her, I'd have the freedom to do so, but I'm not going to make fun of a kid with autism.
[00:11:30]  That's not the best optics.
[00:11:32]  We're actually all in the spectrum, so there's no difference.
[00:11:34]  No, I'm with you on that one.
[00:11:35]  But I just, that's how you get kicked off the air is by making fun of kids with disabilities.
[00:11:40]  That's not a good thing.
[00:11:42]  Yeah, and it's not a disability either.
[00:11:43]  It's a gift, and we all have it.
[00:11:45]  So someone got mad.
[00:11:46]  They said, oh, you're making fun of her?
[00:11:48]  And I said, how is this making fun of somebody by literally dressing up like that?
[00:11:51]  You're inspired.
[00:11:52]  You're inspired.
[00:11:54]  I'm surprised more people didn't come as Greta, but I actually call myself, I'm calling myself Thretta, because I originally said Greta, then I realized I had a beard.
[00:12:01]  Be disrespectful to say I look like her, so I'm Threta.
[00:12:04]  I'm inspired.
[00:12:05]  I'm the male, the male transgender inspired version of Greta Thunberg.
[00:12:09]  Love it.
[00:12:09]  Yeah.
[00:12:10]  So did you guys enjoy her speech?
[00:12:11]  I did.
[00:12:12]  I really did.
[00:12:13]  Awesome.
[00:12:14]  And you guys seem to have more of a sense of humor than some people who somehow couldn't understand that it's like just fun.
[00:12:19]  I think it's funny.
[00:12:21]  It's harmless fun.
[00:12:23]  I dressed as Greta for Halloween last night.
[00:12:25]  You dress as Greta?
[00:12:26]  Yeah.
[00:12:26]  I dressed, this was my Halloween costume.
[00:12:29]  This isn't me, but I had the yellow rain jacket and stuff.
[00:12:32]  Some people got mad at me and said it was mocking her, and I go, how is it mocking?
[00:12:37]  Right, no, mine wasn't all mine.
[00:12:38]  Totally.
[00:12:39]  Mine is all in solidarity.
[00:12:40]  I'm not going to mock a kid.
[00:12:42]  Yeah, of course I am.
[00:12:42]  This is really cool.
[00:12:43]  It says, clean up our planet, not Uranus.
[00:12:50]  And someone littered the sign.
[00:12:52]  Someone littered the sign to clean up the planet.

=== Children and Animals (00:38) ===

[00:13:03]  We are the blood of all the past and future casualties of climate change.
[00:13:07]  Of the war against the planet.
[00:13:09]  Against ourselves.
[00:13:11]  We are the sixth extinction currently underway.
[00:13:14]  We are the blood of indigenous people fighting for the right to exist, to preserve their culture, to save our world.
[00:13:21]  We are the children and the animals.
[00:13:24]  We are the trees and the flowers.
[00:13:26]  We are the life force and energy itself.
[00:13:29]  We are the Red Rebel Brigade.
[00:13:31]  We mourn our losses now to help you awaken.