guest part of the program.

Some you may have heard of or from the speaker we're going

to be hearing from next.

I've talked with him over the years, and I think you'll find

him to be a surprisingly effective communicator.

He's an officially retired man, but still quite

active in public affairs.

He's spent a lot of time thinking about the issues that

have been on the table through our whole first day of

Zeitgeist this year: issues of corporate growth, of

technological responsibility, and connectedness

around the world.

Ladies and gentlemen of Zeitgeist 2007, I'd like you to

turn your attention to the screen, because from New York,

we have joining us the 42nd President of the United States,

William Jefferson Clinton.

[APPLAUSE]

WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON: Thank you.

Thank you very much.

MODERATOR: Mr. President, thanks for joining us.

Here is the way this will work.

We have two microphones in the room, and there's a roving

microphone who can come to you if you can't get to

the microphone.

I'm going to ask one question to start this session.

President Clinton has said that he'd like to

take our questions.

I'll ask one initial question just to give you time to

move the microphones.

From that time onward, I'll just call on you.

Here is my initial question for President Clinton: the people

in this room have largely built the latest industrial

revolution for the United States, and for the world.

Most of them are not ready to quit their day jobs yet, but

many of them are in position where they know they can

leave a mark on the world.

There are past models of how people did this well, or not

so well: the Rockefellers or the Carnegies are an

inspiring example.

You, President Clinton, have been thinking a lot recently

about the right modern models for people to make a mark in

the world in a positive way.

People in this room are still affecting the world through

their work, but are beginning to think about how they

can leave their mark.

What would you like them to bear in mind about the conduct

of their lives in that regard?

WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON: First of all, thank you, Jim.

I want to thank Larry, Sergey, and Eric Schmidt.

I think Al Gore's in the audience.

I called him a couple nights ago, and got another updated

seminar on climate change.

If I say anything at all about this that you like, I have

to get him partial credit.

If I screw it up, I hope you'll correct me after

I get off the screen.

Let me say first of all Bill McDonough gave you a terrific

presentation, and I'm very grateful to him for the work

he's doing, particularly in New Orleans, a place where

my foundation still works.

I think that taking the work Google does now, and the

presentation Bill made, gives me a chance to ask you to think

about how you would spend the rest of your life solving the

world's problems, or easing the world's ills, or giving the

next generations a chance to survive climate change, or

giving poor kids more equal chances in the world.

The way I think about it is as follows: number one, what are

the major challenges to the world as we would like to be?

The first is persistent inequality in incomes,

education, health care, and organized systems which enable

people to be rewarded for the efforts they exert.

The second is the unsustainability looming over

us because of climate change, and the related problems of

resource depletion and population explosion.

Don't forget, even though it's not much discussed, it is

projected that the world will grow from it's current level of

six and a half billion to nine billion within only 43 years.

It took us 150,000 years, give or take, to grow from 1 billion

to 6.5 billion, and unless we do something quick to put all

the girls in the world in school, and give all the women

in the world equal access to the job market, we're going

to have nine billion people in 43 years.

It makes all these problems even more urgent to solve.

So the question is: what can you do about it, and is there

an inevitable conflict between trying to ease the inequality

problems in income, education, and health care-- particularly

in economics-- and in trying to do something about climate

change, resource depletion and aggravation by

population explosion?

My answer is no, not if we do it right.

If you just look at the previous presentation-- the

stunning presentation by Mr. McDonough, you see why.

Companies may have spent a little more money doing

whatever they were doing to save the planet, and he

explained how in terms of concrete benefits to employees,

they got their investment back.

They also created a lot of jobs manufacturing all those

products: putting them up, designing them, and imagining

the next generation of them.

I think you should ask yourselves three questions, if

you want to think about how to spend the rest of your life as

a citizen, and not just as a worker: number one, am I

maximizing my potential and my company's potential to advance

the public interest in a cooperative way?

By what we're doing now, and how we're doing it.

Number two: what cannot be dealt with that the world

faces, and my country faces, unless there is a significant

change in government policy?

How can I best, as a citizen, contribute to bringing

about that change?

Number three: what is the role of civil society, the

non-governmental sector?

What can I do to strengthen it?

Google helps me to make the Clinton Global Initiative more

effective by making available opportunities for smaller NGOs

to reach other people and build collaborations and partnerships

around the world.

We know that even with optimum government policy, and strong,

enlightened business leadership, there will be a gap

between where we are and where we ought to be, especially in

the developing world.

That has to be filled by non-governmental organizations

working together with others in the developing world

with governments.

That's basically what I do.

We sell the world's cheapest AIDS medicine, and account for

about 30% percent of all those people in the world getting

medicine, even though we spent a tiny fraction of what

anybody else does.

we're working with 40 cities on five continents to help them

maximize the transition to reduce their greenhouse gas

emissions in a way that makes their workplaces more

productive and their living spaces more habitable, and

generates economic growth, rather than reduces it.

I think you just need to ask yourself those three questions.

In the 21st century, we will have to exist as workers, as

political actors, and as I believe citizen givers.

Are you doing all you can at work?

What should your politics be, and how can you bring about

the changes you want?

In the meanwhile, while we're waiting for all the political

changes we want, what can you do in the non-governmental

sectors as a citizen servant that will help move

things along?

We need a major, major paradigm shift in order to get through

this climate change crisis, and in order to deal with the

rising pressures of population growth and resource depletion,

and simultaneously to reduce all these inequalities

in the world.

If we don't do it, then the identity conflicts occasioned

by our global interdependence as manifested in roadside bombs

set by terrorists, the refusal of the Russians to allow

the Kosovars to become independent by U.N.

mandate, and the continued conflicts between the Hindu

Tamils and the Sinhalese Buddhists in Sri Lanka, and

any number of other things.

The rise of ideological politics in America, and the

war on science-- which, it occasioned, was the subject

of Al Gore's latest book.

All these things are going to get worse.

If we do it right, they'll all get better.

One thing is sure: you've got the right title for this

meeting, because there is almost no problem that any

individual, any business, or any nation can solve alone.

MODERATOR: Why don't we go to a question?

Yes, sir.

Please identify yourself for President Clinton.

TIM CARTER: President Clinton, I'm Tim Carter

from askthebuilder.com.

About eight years ago, I got a phone call in my office one

day from a gentleman you probably know.

He's one of the senators in Arizona.

I helped him save $6000 by cutting a countertop

the right way.

At the end of me helping him, he said, is there anything I

can do for you to repay you?

I said, well, I do have a question.

At the time I was very interested in the flat tax

initiative here in the United States to try to get some kind

of equalization of taxation.

He said, Tim, the best way to do that is to get a grassroots

movement going, because politicians listen to

grassroots movements.

So my question to you is-- as one of our former Presidents,

and being so deeply involved in the political process all your

life-- can we effectively use a grassroots movement to

do some of this work?

More importantly, what is the best way and the shortest

pathway that the current politicians will listen to us?

WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON: Well, first of all, to answer

your first question, is yes-- grassroots politics works.

It works for good or ill.

For example, in the recent debate on immigration in

Washington, I actually supported President

Bush's position.

At least, I supported the position of the administration

and most of the Democrats in Congress that there ought to be

a path to citizenship for people who are here illegally,

as long as they didn't get ahead of those who

waited in line legally.

So that we can identify everyone that 's in our

country, acquire better control over our borders, I thought we

ought to lift the quotas for more skilled workers

in the short run.

I thought that this ought to happen.

It was defeated by a grassroots movements by people who

basically frightened the Republicans and members of

Congress in the House and Senate into voting against it.

Grassroots movements tend to have more power when there's a

lot of emotion in an issue, I suppose, like that.

The reason that grassroots movements are important in

terms of building a clean energy future, for example, is

that we need more of our members of Congress to know the

facts, and then we need more people to make this

a voting issue.

Many of the things that we need to do is a country today, for

example, are set a price on carbon, make a commitment to

reduce our greenhouse gases significantly, and become a

part of the international agreement.

You talked about the flat tax.

I'm not so sure about the flat tax because America is so

unequal now, but the idea behind the flat tax, you see

in Europe with the VAT tax.

What they're trying to do there is to-- and Al Gore pointed out

this to me in our conversation a couple days ago-- they're

trying to rely less on employer specific tax burdens, and more

on broadly spreading the tax burden, so our businesses

would be more competitive.

In order to get those kinds of changes, people need to number

one, make sure their representatives and senators

know what the facts are; number two, they need to make sure

they know they will not be defeated for public office if

they support these kinds of changes; number three, they

need to know that it's a voting issue for you.

One of the problems we've got with climate change right now