identifying, how instead that matters to the living. well, that story and the rest of the day's news, including more on the latest development out of thailand. our lead story on our website aljazeera.com. >> the big international reports on climate change have not moved the needle as much in the united states. the white house gathered the latest science and focusing on the here and now. will that get your attention? that's inside story. >> i'm ray

suarez. from the earliest days from the signing of the protocol in 1997 this question has been quietly hidden in the debate. would you in st. charles, missouri or in rochester, new york, change the way you run your daily life or change the way you look at the world if climate change threatened to flood an island or brought mosquitoes. the latest focus of climate change focuses on the united states and the affect on americans instead of the big world full of people you don't know. the white house unveiled it's 2014 national climate assessment on tuesday. climate change is not a thing of the future, it's happening right

now in every corner of the u.s. from increased hurricane risks in the northeast to longer droughts and bigger wildfires in the southwest. from longer more intense heat waves and public health risk notice midwest to an increased demand for water, energy, new agricultural practices in the great plains. from a dangerous rise in sea level across the southeast stretching from texas to virginia, to diminished carbon absorption from national forests in the northwest. it's a report four years in the making by more than 240 scientists a dozen federal entities and various leaders from the private sector. >> every american will find things that matter to him or her in this report. >> reporter: president barack obama came to office with climate change at the top of his agenda.

the administration changed it's strategy and used executive authority time pose tougher regulations on coal-fired power plants. that remains a volatile political issue in this year's midterm elections with the republicans accusing the president with waging a war on coal. >> the president seems to be sending sellingnals, and his latest regulation is just the beginning on the war on coal . >> we're developing a 100 year supply of natural gas. that's something that we expect to support more than 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade. >> reporter: the assessment regionally discusses impacts and costs without a sweeping national plan much of the responsibility is falling on local communities. >> the local people who are just

donating what they have to help others. >> reporter: more than $1,000 cities have signed on the conference of mayors climate protection agreement. seattle, washington, has approved a climate plan to make the city carbon neutral by 2050. the president faces challenges as he attempts to touc turn the country's attention to climb climate change. >> the united states has been the single largest emitter of potentially harmful gasses over the decades, the largest insulator. the new reports suggests the age of climate change being somebody

else's problem, and over in a way that you can already sea. joining us for that conversation, marleau lewis, from new york jason, former white house adviser and also here in washington, gary, vice chair of the advisory committee. we saw you in the earlier report with the unveiling of it'sen inclusions. what are the most important things that you want the public to understand from what you and other researchers compiling found? >> reporter: most important thing include an evaluation of impacts and climate affects that are beginning right now being felt by every region in the country, and that the results conclusion come from the

analysis done for the united states. >> there are some really threatening possibilities laid out in the report, but also a lot of time spend reassuring the public that there are things we can do, that we're not helpless just waiting for the ocean to roll in on us, or the ground to dry up. >> that's exactly right. this is the first time the report has said, as you said, these impacts are landing in the united states, and affecting individuals, and everyone is seeing them, but there are opportunities to be able to respond and increase resilience, prepare for future climate change as well as to make adjustments and reduce the emissions of greenhouse gasses. those opportunities exist and we encourage people to consider the decisions that they make.

>> jason, is this latest report a departure from documents like the latest icpc research which asks the reader to think about the whole world, does a report like this one concentrate your mind on what is going on in the mississippi, the know pack in the rockies, and what it might mean for you. >> it does reconfirm the overwhelming view that climate change is real, it is caused by manmade emissions also says that the climate change are not remote or distance, they're being felt today and that's something that we're going to see. summers are getting hotter, droughts are getting worse, and it had a public health, impacts on food production, and this

helps to crystallize it. >> during the last 15 years the idea of something like this coming has not moved the public to some new consensus on how to respond, whether it's something that you have to worry about, whether it's something that needs some sort of coordinated answer. does this report as opposed to earlier ones going to do that because it involves the united states and concentrates on the effects of the united states so directly. >> well, i do think its helpful for science to not only talk about climate in abstract terms but make clear what the impacts are for people's lives, for the economy, for the food production and public day in and day out, i think this will become stronger.

>> the competitive enterprise institute has been spending a lot of years saying hold on, resisting the idea of limitation towards certain types of fuel use, that kind of thing. is that a wise choice, even if that's not absolute certainty or agreement of what is causing these changes in the atmosphere? >> well, adaptation, a great deal of adaptation happens without government central direction. for example, if you look at u.s. cities, urban air temperatures in the summer have increased decade by decade since the 1970s. during that same period we have seen a decade by decade decline in heat-related mortality. if you look at the most--if you look at the cities with the hottest, most frequently hot weather like

tampa, florida, and phoenix, arizona, even if you increase the temperatures in those cities you get no increase in heat-related mortalities. as more and more of the country warms up, i doubt minnesota will ever be as warm as phoenix, but if global warming continues the future of america is phoenix and tampa. in other words, people aren't dumb. climate change can future adaptation and has historically spurred adaptation which has made people safer with respect to heat spells. >> but with individual decision making does not necessarily get you in an ouija board type of way, isn't there a role for collective action, and i almost shudder to use that word, but isn't there a role for collective action that is coordinated by government.

>> there is a role, but just like politics most weather is local, and most collective action can take place at the local level. like you can have public health services, which gear up for heat spells, emergency relief in the event of hurricanes. but we already have this in places in florida, for example. people there are very aware of hurricanes, and my basic view of this is that the climate system itself is full of hazards, dangers and perils. there was a study that came out recently that shows that no drought in the 20th century was as bad as several droughts in the united states that occurred over the last 500 years. these things happen, and people should prepare for them. i'm very wary and dubious about

a central plan by the federal government because that means the federal government has to manage land use, energy use all throughout the country, and to me that is scarier, that prospect of central planning for any purpose, it's scarier than climate change itself. >> doesn't the air over columbus, ohio, on any given day get its start somewhere else in the united states. >> reporter: the air in connecticut where i live friendly comes from somewhere else. there is a role for the larger scale. it is locally focused on impacts of people that live there, city

governments and state governments need to make response to. sometimes there is an additional risk in their life they have to take into account. other times there is a government taking recognition of increasing risk to the way they protect their citizens. providing an enormous amount of information, they create adaptation panel to address what responses should be taken. emergency management planning, probably save thousands of lives because subway trains were not in the tunnels that they knew would be flooded. >> we're going to take a short break, and when we come back we'll talk about the measures that may get us where everyone wants to get, to a more resilient people facing these unknown changes. this is inside story.

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backed by government comes by industries who fear more regulation but more marketplace responses have drawn widespread criticism. jason, have we done everything we can ? it seems there is a hierarchy of steps some that are difficult to take, and some that are easier, and we don't even do the easier ones. >> we haven't done all that we can. when the obama administration came in, they proposed a concentrated program that says there should an limit on how much carbon emissions we can put in the atmosphere, and it could be adjusted as we learn more. that was

obviously unsuccessful . we didn't want to pay more than we had to. that was unsufficiently. the administration now says we can't do anything. if they're going to use their existing tools with statutes that are already on the books to reduce emissions like doubling fuel economy standards and people looking for rules from the environmental protection agency. >> suddenly putting america's coal industry out of business. burning coal is not something that has no other external costs beyond the purchase of the coal. how do you price damage and risk

and pollution into these equations in a way that replaces the burden that has been placed on us. >> there is no arbitrary way to do that. the social cost of carbon is very much in the eye of the beholder. people who are alarmed about climate change thinks the cost is very high, and leads to a computer-aided soft streak in which the proponent state that they're really unaffordable no matter how cheap renewables are in contrast, they are a bargain no matter what the price. i've seen studies that have made that case that would be cheaper and more efficient for the economy to just do away with coal-based power right now. even if you were to try to do that over a period of 20 years, it would still have some very significant impacts economically because coal is the major power

source in 21 states, and it's the single largest contributor in about half the states. a study that was done by the heritage foundation estimated that even this phase-out plan over 20 years we're talking about a hit to the typical household of $1,200 a year. of course, it would be much higher in a state that relies on coal. so i don't see any way to do this except for sheer political power and flim flam. >> you said there were no negative consequences. there are negative cons to people. >> i see very little hard evidence that the carbon in

coal-based power is significant problem, and especially when you put it in the scale with the solutions that are being proposed which are basically to suppress energy fuels that are affordable, plentiful, reliable, and replace them with what? we're totally reliable -- >> i am not speaking for the national climate cemen assessment. most of the analysts who have been studying this problem have said that simple cost benefit analysis really misses most of the point because most of the benefits cannot be quantified but they willic calibrated want to risk. and

it comes as society sits down and think accepts an acceptable amount of risk and came up with really big numbers. neither of those were particularly surprising but the idea is for us to look at the range of uncertainties and the risks of levels across the country. the other thing that is part of the analysis is that this risk management process has to be decided what it is that we want to monitor over time because we recognize that we are not going to make policy for the next 20 years, for the next 50 years, for the next 100 years.

it is for this year. it won't stick forever. science will change. adaptation options will change. risk preferences will change. you keep track of that and recognize that at some point in time you're going to make an adjustment, a midcourse adjustment with respect to how you're handling this particular problem. is there a macroeconomic analogy for someone who does that on a macro- scale? they make decisions on the money supply, periodically on the basis of what they observe. >> given how hard it is to make any policy response to any of these reports, the idea that over time we would constantly be a hard sale. we'll have more when we come back after this break. this is inside story. >> how old are you?

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>> we want to emphasize to the public this is not some distant problem of the future. this is a problem affects americans right now. whether it means increased flooding, greater vulnerability to drought. more severe wildfires. >> welcome back to inside story, i'm ray suarez. that was president obama talking about the new national climate assessment. on this edition of the program we're discussing the report and the obama administration on climate change. isn't it prudent to start doing some things that will have

positive benefits even if it turns out not to be as bad as some of the dire predictions say. there is very heavy irrigation in the southwest of the united states. in some of the counties that are most water insecure. i mean, some of these things, aren't they just good stewardship? >> you don't need a central plan to do that. we have central planning of corn crop consumption for the purpose of turning it in to ethanol for motor value. that created a whole set of risks for live stock producers throughout the southeast all the way through texas. i agree with gary we should look at this in terms of relative

risk, but my point is that there are policy risks as well as climate risks. when you're looking at the typical solutions, renewable electricity mandates for the whole country, i would say that these do more harm than good, especially if you look at it from a cost benefit perspective. i disagree with gary on this. i think we should look at cost benefit. a reduction of warming of two-tenths of a degree. is that worth spending billions? >> if we stop doing everything

in the report that it says we're doing. a lot of it is already loaded in the system. how much should we spend on it . >> i think if the economy turned off the emissions tomorrow. the fact is not just because some of these the whole world needs to do together the u.n. needs to do our share. but the rest of the world needs to follow suit. it is such a requirement of where we need to be. >> even if the united states does what the report recommends, the united states is not the

master of its own fate. there is only one atmosphere. >> the united states is one of the major contributers to the emissions of gasses, particularly carbon. it gets more expensive the longer you wait, and it is the case that scientists concluded that it is determined by the maximum concentration of greenhouse gasses, and to fix concentrations at any level emissions globally have to go down by 80%. that can happen by 2050, 2080, and you get different levels with different temperature increase. what happens in the near term, i hope, would be if we recognize, communicate risks. >> you're not going to be able to finish that point, but thank

you for joining us, all of you. that's this edition of "inside story." from washington, i'm ray suarez. on, we cannot do anything. >> three weeks since hundreds were kid naps. reports more girls have been taken. the u.s. offers to help free them. how? facing their fears over and over again, therapy for trauma survivors. even young rape victims. >> it was kind of scary because i didn't want to talk about it. i didn't want to acknowledge the fact that i went through it. i didn't want to acknowledge the fact that it was called rape. >> reliving the worst. our in-depth worst, the gruelling therapy for ptsd and how therapists and patients say