we were required to have a circular election commission so they are putting all over the country. united states let every county decide how people vote. punchcards and that thing. other countries, require all the qualified counties have equal access to radio and television advertisements where as in our country, you have to buy it. i would say that citizens united was a great setback to inherit democracy in our country. not just to the election process. it makes every successful election candidate in the congress obligated to certain special interests for access and to take advice on how to vote. i think it has been a terrible

setback. and it is all recent. mr. kayongo: what recommendations do you have for ordinary citizens to change the discourse of elected officials in washington dc? mr. carter along with the : process has come the polarization of parties in washington dc. in addition to the infusion of money. we also have gerrymandering. when a republican or democrat state legislature gets dominant, the governor is the same party, then they can contrive delineations of voting districts. maybe in a certain state like georgia, they want to put all

the white people in the same district and let them have a few congressmen. and the vast majority of them, 60 have been 55% will be in the other district and they will be the other party and black. this is done all over the country. they are benefited from this and it will not change. i think the supreme court could rule quite easily that they should be able to -- obviously balance and composition that would decide on the delineation of district. gerrymandering of districts in two states have this requirement. -- two state test this requirement.

-- states have this requirement. gerrymandering of districts in the massive new edition of money has been the two worst things that has resulted in negative advertising. i never kept of having a negative commercial against my opponent. i would have been the one people would have condemned. you should not cast of those things on your opponent's character. now that is where a lot of the money goes. you raises millions of dollars and spend it on commercials. and tried to tear down the rotation. -- tear down the reputation. a bad impression by both candidates. and then republicans will begin to despise democrats. you have almost 100% republicans will vote against anything obama passed a bill. the basic debate takes place in the party caucuses. republicans go to their caucus and decide how to vote and to make a must have devote 100% the way the majority says. when i was president, the floor the house and senate, we would

have long and exciting debates. that is no longer happening. i'm being critical of the current process because i feel that way. i don't apologize for that. [applause] mr. kayongo: this puts you and i on the spot. mr. carter: read another one. [laughter] mr. kayongo: thank you for your call to action for the liberation and dignity for women. what is your message to men who don't think they are sexist but support the language and policies that oppress women?

mr. carter: i would like everybody interested in basic human right and moral values to read the book i read about the oppression of women. it is the worst human rights crime on earth. the people who perpetrate and enforce discrimination against women are basically meant. -- men. a lot of those men are religious leaders. where early in our religion, christianity, women were deacons deacons and prophets and spiritual leaders of all kinds as expressed by st. paul. he give the names of them. and then after a few years, within the christian community, man became dominant in over a

period of time women are excluded from roles in churches. as the signal to everyone that in the eyes of god, men are superior. women are inferior. if a woman cannot be a deacon, then a woman cannot be a kaplan, -- chaplin, a woman can be a priest, then in the eyes of god they are not qualified. if a husband wants to dominate or abuse his wife, if the church does not think she is equal to me, then why should i treat her equal? if an employee was to keep these by paying her less than a man. maybe subconsciously, if god is not think she is equal to me, then why should i treat her

equal to my men workers? and the element of violence. this is also a factor in the abuse of women and girls. men perpetrate horrible crimes with rape, it is a horrible thing to talk about. in some cases involving the united nations troops and troops from countries that volunteered to fight for the united nations. this is terrible. in my own country, atlanta, georgia, i would say is one of the most heavily trafficked places in our country and selling slaves. we have the largest airport and a lot of our passengers come

from the southern hemisphere and a lot of them are dark skinned or african-american and they can be sold cheaply to a brothel. the average price for a female sex worker who is dark skinned is only $1000. they are tempted in analysis a year ago -- showed they can get $36,000 a year profit from her. 200-300 girls sold into slavery in atlanta every month. we had determination in our military forces as well. -- discrimination in our military forces as well. and sexual abuse being prevalent on college campuses.

rarely, even the most and landed -- like an campuses -- enlightened campuses have serious problems as well. rarely is a rapist expelled. half of the sexual abuse on a campus is perpetrated by a rapist. they become habitual rapists without impunity. and poor countries you have abuse with horribly emulated and honor killings and other things. it happens every country around the world.

it is the worst overall human rights abuse there is in ferment -- for men, we are responsible. same thing we had during the civil rights. a lot of white people felt that discrimination by segregation was not right. we got the best jobs and best education, we benefited. so why should we give up this privilege even though we know it is wrong? so what should we -- why should we speak out against being superior to women? it is a long answer to your question. [applause] mr. kayongo: a few more before

we close. this one is a bit easier. it is for the both of us. it is about our upbringings. you have a little african boy over here from uganda. left the country as a refugee. i was raised with american women from pittsburgh. she taught me how to drink iced tea. [laughter] then she took the out to eat -- then she took the out to eat cookies and biscuits.

now i know americans give this -- givegive this gets biscuits to dogs. [laughter] mr. carter: i had biscuits for breakfast. [laughter] mr. kayongo: so, i got to this country and i checked into a hotel and the hotel had three bars of soap. two dogs. -- special soap, hand washing soap and other soap. what was the difference? >> i don't know. [laughter] mr. kayongo: americans are like that. [laughter]

-- then i end up after grade school starting a company. refugee camps back at home. --the home of human rights that is my story. what is your story? mr. carter: it doesn't start with soap. [laughter] we used to make our own soap on the farm it does a big project we had every time we sold hogs. i grew up with and i go to the hotels with soap. [laughter] as i said earlier, i think i was

lucky that i just happened to grow up in a community that was african-american. and my mother was a registered nurse and she was gone away a lot. she would have 20 our duty. from 2:00 the morning to 10:00 at night she only got off four hours a day. we did not see my mother much. i was raised by african-american women. all my playmates were african-american as well. i benefited ultimately from my mother's enlightened attitude towards the race issue. i think that is why i got my views of what should be done with civil rights at home and human rights.

i have sent a tremendous abilities that can come from opening up an opportunity for people to exhibit human rights. one of the practical things in south america, before i was president, most of the countries in south america where relatively dictatorship. -- south america were military dictatorships. they were in bed with the president of the united states. and with the corporations in the united states. there are the ones that control oil and pineapples and to get a monopoly on those products. whenever one of those dictators were threatened by dissenting voices, within his own country from indigenous indians or slaves or poor people, united

states would send just under to protect our friend the dictator. peru, argentina, brazil, uruguay. paraguay. when i stab at the human race policy, we began to protect the rights of those foreign deprived. every country and ultimately became a democracy. i'm saying this is a practical indication of the benefits of theoretically, helping from a distance so people have a chance to speak their own mind. that is part of my background.

mr. kayongo: i have a bit of -- i have two kids, that i know of. [laughter] kevin kayongo is growing up as an american. kevin is 16 now and 6'4". plays basketball. a clasically trained piano. logan is 11. she is elegantly tough because girls are different at this point. how do i take these two kids and

inspire them to understand that the country they live in is a remarkable country? we hear so much about the u.s. being a bad country and horrible, how do you inspire hope? mr. carter: there's a lot of reason for hope. our country has learned the hard way. the best thing, the characteristic of america that gives me hope is the fact that we have such a heterogeneous population. the united states is not a melting pot, i think it is more of a mosaic. a shining bright, different color or different , and when you put them on together you have a group of courageous innovators

to foreign country to improve themselves and demonstrate a commitment to a higher ideal. we should have that inherent character in our country. over 230 years or so, but only a bulletin but the proven commitment to improve ourselves. we make mistakes. our states are becoming increasingly apparent. [indiscernible] the our self-correcting. i think that is what gives us hope. i think we've seen, and i have seen and you've seen too, i would say since the 1960's, we have seen african-americans

treated not only equally but because of their superior , so that has given the the assertiony that we are all equal in god's eyes and in our capabilities. some people have superior qualities. i would say that your children, certainly 6'4" already, have a good future ahead. he will be able to get scholarships to most colleges. i am a trustee at a local college and -- [laughter] the economy is better. i am a trustee now. two years ago with 3000 students -- [laughter]

that has been opened up and i think there is plenty of opportunity for hope. mr. kayongo: thank you. this one is from online. women are not less than men. is it a right of an elected official to refuse to consider a supreme court nominee? talk about one of those. >> i think that the u.s. senate, republicans have made a serious mistake in not considering the nominee for the supreme court that has been put forward by president obama. [applause] >> it is a very worthy candidate. if the judicial committee would meet and vote, they could present a name to the senate and

vote and say no, that would be ok to me. but just to refuse until obama is out of office, i think it is a mistake. it does not abide the constitution or the laws, and i think it violates the spirit of our country and sets a bad example. mr. kayongo: let's talk about some competing remarks. i am inspired everyday by different people. in the room today, we have my board member and her husband. she is out there. her and her husband.

and every time i look at her, she inspires me. who inspires you? what inspires you? mr. carter: i was inspired by her father. and i still am. he sent a long ethical standard for me as a president in doing equitably with the people who live in africa. he did it in a quiet way without preaching to me. his suggestion that we -- and he went on his first trip to africa as my ambassador to the united nations. he went to say not what we want you to do, but what can the united states do for you?

there are still a lot of heroes that i have. nelson mandela was a great friend of mine. i was part of his intimate circle, and he has been to the carter center. we have worked on human rights programs. i would say there was -- [indiscernible] a white person that made an impact on the was my earliest school superintendent. there was someone who was jewish who had a lot of influence on my life. we do not need to look very far for inspiration.

i happen to be religious. i think the ultimate standard of perfection for a human being is a life of jesus christ, and that is why i teach the bible every sunday at church. we can look at 2000 years ago or look in recent years and see people who encourage wisdom, the highest ideals that should guide us all. mr. kayongo: well, before i thank you for what has been a wonderful and powerful hour, a seditious man of morality and kindness, i want to say you are my hero. [applause]

mr. carter: ok, stand up if you can out there. you have been very busy. [applause] she is the director of the museum. she holds a very important place in my life, as well. thank you, meredith, very much. [applause] mr. kayongo: again, thank you so much for coming. we want to thank the museum for hosting us. ambassador peters for being with us, and for everyone here that is a distinguished guest and honored guest. remember the wonderful moments, treasure them, and know that they do not come back, so i wish there was more of us here to listen to a voice of perfection.

[applause] >> thank you very much. >> thank you, everybody, for coming out. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> i'm very happy to be there. even though i may northerner i was born and raised in new york, my father is from georgia. something likeve

a [indiscernible] say thank you to the staff of the carter library here. give them a round of applause. [applause] and in particular meredith evans. friend.ood spoke hereime i ever he was responsible for it. i had another thing supposed to do and i canceled it. to be with friends and family here today. i'm looking forward to this conversation, i know you are looking for to participating as well.

if you have questions we will have a little bit of time to get to them in the end. shot of getting your question asked. i would like to introduce the participants of this conversation today. we are fortunate to have this good panel of contributors here. to my left is karin ryan. worked swiss former president jimmy carter -- works with former president jimmy carter. she has her present at the center at many international negotiations, including the court,tional criminal the declaration of human rights defenders, and most recently the establishment of the human rights council. and has worked closely with the commission of human rights to -- to to organize

strengthen the role of on the end, we have mr. williams, who has a sustained opening statement biography, and i think this is a great line. she knows what it is like to be demeaned and held at gunpoint and be called on hi unprincipled names. and to be afraid of her own skin and repeatedly tortured and then blame for it all. she endured many years of abuse, abandoned and homeless at age 12, she did what you had to do to survive in the streets and determined early on that attitude is everything. it is that belief that helped her turn tragedy into opportunity and became a child of hope, not only for herself but for others.

her formal education includes a bachelors of science and arts and human resources and logistics certificate in engineering from the united states army. she developed an unwavering passion for the empowerment of women and youth, particularly those who faced sexual abuse and exploitation. just in the center, we have a panelist who i am passively familiar with, a doctoral candidate at the university it seems like not very many years ago, i was a professor at the college, and a very serious first year student popped into

my office and said i am told you are at my advisor. the most experienced student i have ever met. she is a doctoral candidate at columbia. she is focusing her studies on african history and the native of new york and the recipient of a scholarship from the university of oxford where she received her masters in migration studies. have curt young, who is the associate professor and chair of the department of political science at clark atlantic university. he is originally from belize city, grew up in new jersey --

attended the university of florida. he has his masters in african-american studies and political science in 2002. we have this wonderful, distinguished panel, and i really want to jump into it, quickly so we can get to the substance of this conversation. i wonder if you could talk a little bit about how you all came to have your individual passions and your passions for individual freedom, and the concern that we are here to talk about, today. >> thank you. to all of you, i'm not really sure how to follow that session, earlier, it was so beautiful and sweet and wonderful.

i am lucky to have been here for a long time. i started as a very enthusiastic volunteer, and ended up working on individual cases of human rights violations. i lived overseas, and now the congo, and understood how important it was what president carter achieved with putting human rights at the front of foreign policy.

for today's conversation, i think what i am feeling is the heirs to think about and talk about is the goal of the conversation, which is where are we on our journey for human rights, because civil rights as we understand it is very specific to participation, active participation in civic life, but human rights is a broader concept, that we have to see each other as human beings, and there is a way in trying that respect for each other, in global warmth in the idea that we are equal human beings, and we have, in recent years been looking at the rights of women is not only do we have strong women, but this is an area where human beings, half of the planet are actually not full human beings, in the way we live, even in this country, -- but we have victims of violence, they are not protected by law in the same minutemen are. we have a situation where our bodies are commodified anyway

where we normalize violence against women through what we want to call sex work and prostitution like it is just another job. or the abuse of women, so this is what we begin to realize is that we have to think of human rights and boil it down to specific things like access to voting, but also access to equal protection of the law, this is what we have been up to with the leadership of our ceos and president carter. president carter talked about his book that he wrote on this, and he has been a major part of this. >> hello, and thank you, i would like to echo the thank you for having us here to answer your question, my initial entry into the field of human rights came

about during a semester studying abroad. i was studying international studies, and i had to go abroad, so i chose to study in senegal. we went on tour of the slums, and it was not that far distance from where my grandparents lived, it was deftly a part of town i would never have seen had i not been with the university, and from there, i was curious and it's sort of sparked a series of applications the different fellowship programs and research, and i was fortunate to travel and work in the middle east, in israel's on issues with rap -- -- african refugees, -- human sex trafficking is a huge problem and a few other jobs and fellowships around the world, i

was able to see how the definition of human is the real root of the problem when you are talking about human rights, whose rights are we protecting, and in cases like thailand, oftentimes the people most often captured our girls from hill tribes and not citizens, they don't have any paperwork, so they are not protected by the state and they are not that are human. we think you can apply that to pretty much every situation. as president carter pointed out, atlanta is a huge city for sex trafficking you have the north and south of the united states, east and west, cut together and human sex trafficking on a global sense comes quite easily in atlanta as you have people

from southeast asia brought in, there at the mexican border with texas and throughout the different highways and byways. once i realized that the things i worked on abroad were very much an issue at home, it's sparked my interest to continue this work. >> good afternoon. i want to start by saying how wonderful it is to share the stage with dr. cobb, i have a mired your work and i appreciate the opportunity. i appreciate this question because it gives me an opportunity to then arrange my ancestors. it is an easy question for me to answer because in a sense, it chose me and i'm sure we can all relate.

it is really a function of my family. my position is a function of my family, both in the distance sense. you mentioned my birthplace, and i remember vividly coming to the realization that i belonged to a family that had a very direct personal connection to one of the most active and respected chapters of a universal negro improvement association, the organization -- i began to associate -- understand the phenomenon a different type of way. i connected to that. i was able to connect and come to where i am now through an understanding and application of those types of history and that type of experience to the community that i am from.

i came of age in jersey city and tampa, florida particularly, a distressed but beautiful part of that city. when i graduated from college and continued my degrees, by and the rest of my family, remain did grounded and connected to the dynamics of that community. we maintained by connection and became a very active part of the efforts to address the challenges. both in the context of tradition and a bit broader effort to understand and eradicate all the isms that make life difficult for human beings to be human, it

is a different part of the fabric, and i cannot take credit, it chose me. >> good afternoon. it was april 5, 2007 when i saw the article in our local newspaper that said the selling of atlanta's children. they could've been the selling of america's children. here i was sitting on my farm, a very privileged life, thinking this is a misprint. we cannot be selling our children. on that newspaper was a picture of the child who is being charged with acts of prostitution. she was 10 years old. she was an american child, a full citizen of america. she stood there alone being charged with an act. she was charged with a crime

that had been committed against her. there was something wrong with that. i did not know what to do except to get on the phone and call people because you cannot see an injustice like that and still be ok. it came to me not from my past, but in the present time that we are sitting in. today, our world centers around the social determinant to leaves our children vulnerable. we have come full circle because if we don't dismantle the social determinant, those issues that breathe into that point of being recruited, then we have done nothing. >> i want to return to the question about human rights and i think this is a kind of open-ended question but i think

you will have a unique perspective. we have seen, historically, lots of images of civil rights and most people are completely unable -- unaware, but i wonder if these struggles are somehow different, if there is a reason we have not learned these lessons, have we made progress? it is -- it -- is it more difficult to convey that message now, in 2016? these seem like relics of a different era, but we don't have this understanding of what makes a person a human in -- a human being. >> president carter sort of hints to this issue when he talks about the normalization of violence. i think part of the problem is that violence is so prevalent in our culture. we have absorbed it as a normal type of behavior.

in the family, on the schoolyard, and our communities, and our faith communities and foreign policy. the act of violence seems normal, and first there is dehumanization and the degree to which you feel entitled to use violence against other people. the second level of that is the fact that violence itself is ok. to get in order for us rid of violence, we have to dehumizanize other people. like was said earlier, we are always better than someone else. something has set into our culture that allows us to do that. we see the spike in violence.

the number of people dying in wars has gone down. individual violence is ever present. how do we face that, and what do we do about it? i do think communities play a big role in this. someone told me that pornography is very widely abused in their church community and i thought if this is so acceptable when such a violent person becomes violent -- even 12-year-old boys and our children have access to it and it is sort of infecting our ability to see other people and dignify them as equals. i think our faith communities must tackle this.

in policy circles, it is awkward, but i do think it is important. >> your question brings to mind man in 1966en by a in havana. this speech made reference to a necessity to any movement to advance, it has to resolve the internal contradictions and to the extent that those contradictions are not resolved, a particular movement will not succeed. let's expand on that and apply it to this national project that we see. there has been this discussion,

a conversation about freedom and human rights, but there needs to be a conversation about the conversation that gets to one of our internal contradictions. it came out in president carter's comments, but we have this juxtaposition of being able to proclaim with pride the values, the exceptionalism that defined the american experience and at the same time, refused to grapple with the contradictions that defy those proclamations that we make about ourselves. that i see as a contradiction in that is one that runs so deep, it continues to flow in that it will prevent us from grappling with the problem that i think your question suggests.

when we just now begin to reflect on the experience with the first african-american president, there was an opportunity to have a different kind of discourse, but the tendency was to proclaim on the one hand that it was evidence to a post-racist society, or the unleashing of a kind of racial tension that resulted in many ways of dehumanizing of this person of the most powerful -- holder of the most powerful seat in the world, and so what i would suggest is a part of our difficulty in grappling with the problem is very much in the way that we choose not to. president carter made a point earlier when he made mention of the progress. i would argue that one of the

forces behind the progress is whether we have these conversations about our conversations, the ways we talk about freedom, injustice and race. when we have those conversations, -- other type of movement or through a coming to reckon with some kind of contradiction in this is that -- in the society, it forces us to move forward and at the same time, when we relinquish those opportunities to have a serious look in the mirror, and a serious dialogue where we are not afraid to deal seriously with the problems that we see an grappling with those contradictions, we continued to face those very strong and start . >> i wanted to ask, it occurs to the previous movements address these issues, grapple

uniformncerns, gives and are there lessons we have not learned in other things that are different and novel challenges? i want to give it to her because she is a former student. or not. i left out your surname. >> i think what everyone is touching on is this process of othering and when you remove this sense of identity and say this person is not you or not like you because they are different nationality or gender, it is easy to create this invisibility and i don't think there is anything new about it or exceptional to americans in this process. [inaudible] [laughter]

you do see this happening in different sectors and different time frames, and i think the way to try to bridge that disconnect and have a conversation with raises money towards work to empower women and children and it is difficult. universities have an easier time raising money to build a new stadium than organizations that are serving -- and you have to ask why is that and people connect the idea of seeing a -- their name on a doorway to the water fountain as part of

the basketball court, but not with sending money across town, let alone overseas to work on things that nobody really wants to talk about. they are not pretty issues, they are not proper table conversations. you raise the point about the pornography in churches which is not the kind of thing -- maybe it comes to close to home for people in their own vices or it is something they don't want to pretend happens in their town. it is easier disabled that happens in thailand, but not here in atlanta, it is a little bit different, but it really is not that different. getting people to step out of their comfort zones, whether it is taking a tour of a different part of town or different state or going overseas, because you need to go and see what the

struggles are and how you can help, because sometimes it is something as simple as $20 that a girl needs paperwork process so she can enroll in school, and that $20 that you would spend at starbucks could go a long way toward allowing someone's whole entire life outlook to be different. i think -- >> i think the then is connected to the now. we started in 2007 because of an injustice for a little girl who was 10 years old. we shared that rhetoric with everyone we could come into contact with in the communities, on our jobs and they rallied with us, and then there were hundreds of us speaking on behalf of that child.

we took that voice and we went to legislators and said laws must be changed and it was not just three or four, there were thousands of us across the state of georgia. that moved us to work in concert with people we would not normally working concert with, we worked with men and republicans and democrats and independents and people who did not think like us, but knew there was injustice and that together, we could change the state and the dignity of those children being bought and sold in our community. that materialized on may 5, 2015 with the governor signing the historic safe harbor rachels law into act. that is a direct correlation back to the 60's and the civil rights movement. we took a page book because we did not --

when that happened on may 5, 2015, i looked at the young woman that bill was named after and it was a moment in history for me because across the nation, i can say this because i have probably done this work across the nation, most people dismiss girls of color. when we talk about this issue of sex trafficking, as if this was their lot in life. therefore, they do not matter, and they are in -- we are in hell to do what we want with them because they do not matter. they are insignificant, invisible and voiceless and they never get a place at the table. on may 5, 2015, with that bill signed the safe harbor rachels law and to act, it was named after a young african-american

girl. it is the only bill in america named after a living african-american woman. we did not reinvent, we just had a modern-day slavery as what we called it, as what our president called it, that we are dealing with and we are dealing with it because these are our children in our state and in our country. my youngest baby that i had a call and four was seven years of age. for us to only look overseas is unacceptable when we have things going on in our own backyard. it is very much a part of the now. [applause] >> i wondered if you could talk about social media and how this has impacted the work that you do, facilitated it, is there something in social media to make sure work more difficult?

>> i'm struggling with that, right now. i'm almost hesitant to ask this question, because i can't claim to be immersed enough in social media to get it quite right. at the same time, i'm seeing some trouble signs. you asked the question of moment ago, with regard to the applicability or the transfer of some previous struggle or movement, and so i think that there are some aspects of the movement that belong to particular point in history, that stays there although i agree with the point that you can apply some aspects to the challenges that present themselves, especially when it is the result of a clear understanding of the conditions on the ground and the extent to which those actual mechanisms apply.

what i am afraid of, and almost on critical assumption that social media has replaced those previous mechanisms, without a serious discussion of what are the conditions that we are trying to grapple with and what are the goals we are trying to achieve, what realities are we trying to transform and the answers to those questions determine these instruments and mechanisms. i had a conversation with a student of mine and he helped clarify what i am struggling with, whether you are cooking with an old wood stove or in a microwave which symbolizes increase technology, you still have to learn how to cook. the goal is still to never as oneself. the goal is not to arrive at the use of a microwave just for the

use of technology. technology becomes the instrument for something and i am afraid that if we are not careful, and this is a humbling, because i have not immersed myself in it, but i know how to text and e-mail. i don't want us to gravitate toward what is easy because it is there at our fingertips. depending on the concreteness, we have to make those decisions of proper instruments based on reality and i'm not sure if we are having those conversations. in maybe it is in the inter-gender -- intergenerational conversation we have this movement with those who use social media in the context of a social movement, but i still think we have to have that discussion, otherwise we will be repeating ourselves. >> the nice thing about social

be a, is that it allows issues that might not be picked up by the mainstream news channels to be discussed and that is the biggest impact i see, especially on these issues that nobody really wants to talk about. if you turn on the news, all you will really hear about is donald trump and hillary clinton and sometimes you just want to put it on mute. it is easier to go to social media to see what else is happening in the world and in our state, that is not being covered because it is not getting as many ratings. it puts the news outlet in the power of the people and to your point, younger people and as carter says, there will not be any change without. >> we have to know what it is we are after, so we can decide how to use the tools available, and this is where we may be a little bit lost, because the norms and ideas and who we are is i think,

confused. ben jones better video the other day saying fdr mastered the radio and got the public. jfk mastered the tv and got a public. donald trump has mastered social media and it is accelerating. it was a good point because there is a caution that we can't dismiss it, its power. we know isis and these groups are using this very effectively. we can be naive about it. we have to understand how to use it. i think we do have to understand the civil rights movement succeeded because they had a strategy. they had meetings, they had people meeting face-to-face. sunday we are doing this, and people were all in. this is the part where we get

lazy. we send out a tweet. even arab spring. well, it's sort of -- something has to accompany this use of the technology. we have to be thinking together about strategy. what is our goal and how do we get there? it can be in accelerant for good or ill. we have to figure out how to use it for good because people are using it for ill. [applause] >> we're talking about the future of the movement. i want to just asking foundational question. what about this work and what makes you hopeful? you are trying to appeal to

people and say this is what you should do. one gives you hope and change and the progress they can be made? >> i see hope every day when it look in my girl's eyes. the girl being sold on the cheshire bridge two years ago who is now a double major. i see it when my girls are accepted kennesaw state university. when my two girls were invited to the 59th commission on the status of women to speak for women all over the globe. they stand up there. they do not go with victimization but with their power. i see that help. i see that hope when my girl says, i didn't do it right this time but i will do it right next time. i'm not giving up. i see it will be rescued 13 boys and they say that you for rescuing us even though we are not a girl but you saw us. i see it will be go to the polls this november on november 8. we have the opportunity to vote

for senate resolution 7, the funding mechanism, the constitutional amendment in georgia that will fund the resources for children 11 victims of human sex trafficking. that is hope for me. it is over me for my baby girl says i have a job and no it is tricking me out anymore. and when the the fbi says something to read about your girls. there is something different about the girls that come through living water. they hold their heads a little different. they stand a little taller. they don't get it all right, none of us do, but they keep trying. it is something that gives me hope about that. it gives me hope we are having this conversation and we are going to walk out seeing things differently, what matters when

we talk about human trafficking. services are given and withheld because of a girl's race or age. when she is 18 she is no longer a child and should've known better. when we see a victim we treat them with the resources and services they need, but we don't allow them or make them stay in their victimization. we are the bridge to help them become a survivor. that is where my hope is. [applause] >> i want to build on this because you pointed to something important. we have to have hope in the work we are doing because it is almost like accepting nobody wants to talk about it. there is this great work to provide services to people who are trapped in what we can call

slavery. there are whole jurisdictions where they have adopted a comprehensive approach. in sweden they passed a law 15 years ago that sees people trapped in the sex trade, child or adult. we know this would not be a choice any person with make if they had other options. we are going to provide housing, child care and job training because this is something we recognize. it's 99% men who buy, and hold the men accountable with stiff penalties. we are also going to educate the public on the inherent harm of prostitution and trafficking. they just passed a law in france. they passed a law in canada. they are doing a version of this

in seattle. for me that is hope because there is another trend where people are saying sex work is just another way to make a living. i'm afraid he and people -- there is a movement in new york city to legalize prostitution so they can pay their student tuition. i understand some people will put this forward as empowering, etc., and i get that. it is part of the new cultural moment of self-determination. i mean is very misguided. if we legalize this whole thing, imagine how many human bodies, mostly girls and women, will have to be supplied to an endless marketplace. this is sex we are talking about. this is happening right now and the hope i have is that places like sweden and cook county and atlanta are showing a different way. we can help people. we can get people without

treating them -- but to really say no. we are not going to give in to this. it's the oldest profession so we better just except it. this is a thing happening right now we have to get informed about. your work gives me hope because i can say to people who are skeptical that look at this amazing work being done to actually give girls and women an option that they don't have to do that. so thank you for that. [applause] >> we have about five minutes, a little less actually, and we go to audience questions. can we get you in on this really quick? >> please. >> i was going to add that the

economy behind this is a big piece of the issue. it is important to look at the interconnectedness of a lot of the things we vote on such as raising minimum wage and providing other employment opportunities so young girls don't feel like this is a viable means to pay tuition. there may be another option available. likewise i am inspired by the work of organizations like yours, and more so would like to see they're not be as much of a need for so many organizations like that. i think the real way in which you can alleviate pressure for organizations to pop up and recuperate and rehabilitate young girls and boys is for there to be other opportunities. which is why all the organizations emphasize a component on staying in school, education, helping girls finish k-12 and then going on to college. you talked about some of your

girls that are graduated and got the higher education as well. all these opportunities raise their ability to earn and i can change the entire landscape. >> that is a great point. i was thinking about a famous quote but florence bernard in his book where he said each generation must realize its mission. the question is an easy question. it is easy to drift towards the easy answer to that question, which is inspired by the young folk who are taking their own lives in their hands and seizing the time and trying to make the world a new. young people always do that. we talk about forces of movement.

young folk always -- we enjoy the experience we enjoy because young people at some point chose to make a difference. i was struggling to not give an easy answer like that. i reflect little bit on your point. what we saw taking place -- this may just be in my mind. what i see when i look at a juxtaposition of young people galvanizing behind the jenna and ferguson, one of the differences between those two reactions where they did not take long for what occurred around the jenna 6 to be absorbed by an older generation of leadership. who began to articulate for the

young folk who are organizing exactly what they were trying to say. in the process of doing so they missed with the young people were saying. what we see occurring in my mind, and i guess we all saw this, the other people who began to organize and ferguson took a careful not to say, not this time. we got this. it made some of our leadership kind of nervous because they were not used to being told to sit down and move out of the way. certainly young people in ferguson and other types of responses to the dynamics we see unfolding in front of our eyes, i think they demonstrated certain level of courage. which said we are prepared to

proclaim for ourselves this is our movement in our time. that is what gives me hope. not that young people are moving, because again, a complete the circle. young people are always responding to challenge what they see to be the distasteful or injustices of their time. what i think i see happening now is there prepared to do so with a certain sense of kurds, a certain sense of courage and clarity. all generations -- that is the essence of the point. they have to figure it out themselves. that is what i think is a beautiful expression that gives me the most hope. >> your question? >> in the interest of time maybe we can have one person respond to each question.

the question we have here is do black lives matter? what the civil rights look like for communities that people believe are now equal? >> i'll take a shot at that because it kind of flows from the point i was trying to make. i think what is happening is the black lives matter movement is getting, unfortunately, is experiencing an unfortunate treatment right now. for the right reasons there is a rush to compare them to a movement of another period. because people are hungry for some kind of new type of energy to help transform and continue the need to transform a particular challenge in this society. some would argue that the movement such as black lives

matter is well overdue. i think that we have to give them time to complete the maturation of themselves as a movement. we talk about the civil rights movement as if it was a monolithic movement that dropped out of the sky, changed the world and left. the beginning point began in the 1950's. we forget there was such a thing called a march on washington movement. we forget we had all types of expression of civil rights. some famous and some very obscure. we know some of his movements were absorbed into other, more popular movements. of the phenomenon is a very old phenomenon. it took time to get to the point where indeed it had the power to transform the world. we have to give this black lives matter movement -- i respect the question. i don't disrespect the question.

i think it is an important question. i think there is a tendency to rush to a comparison that i don't think is right yet. give it some time. >> karen? most people think they can't engage in civil rights in their everyday lives. how can we be more involved in our thinking and advocating for human rights? >> great. gives me a chance to plug some good work that is going on. first of all, you have to think in your own life. if you want to be involved in human rights, the first thing to do is to find some think you care about and you know would get you up on a saturday morning to go do. and then really learn about that issue and invest the time and figure out who are the

organizations working. go and get involved. we are in the process of creating an online collaboration tool. it is called the forum on women. women, religion, violence and power. it is geared towards this question. people can just plug in. there are other such networking opportunities. i think the main point is to think within yourself what do you care about? pick something that really talks to your heart. and really died in and go for the long-term. try not to just dabble. dabble until you find the thing. human rights needs is all because it is quite -- we are in danger of losing these global norms. we are normalized torture, because of guantanamo. we have normalized indefinite detention, normalized violence

against women. we are in danger. we have the right to privacy, which is actually gone. without is really making much of a thing about it. these are things -- it is time to wake up and get engaged and get a hold of it. >> lisa, what programs are active in the u.s. and other countries to educate young man so there is a diminished market for prostitution and less acceptance of domestic violence, etc.? >> not enough. that is the real answer. i can give you a few organizations that not enough. there are many against violence, boys to men programs, but it is not enough. one of oil will again be in safe he wishes he was a girl, that

means we have fallen down on this job. we need people to step up to answer the call. we can only do so much as women in terms of helping young men become a young man. we need men to help do that. in lieu of that we will continue to fill that void, but we don't have the programs necessary. we don't have a shelter specifically for males who have been victims of trafficking. how do we say it is ok? again, my answer is not enough. i have learned when i save one male, i save on average three to four girls. they did not try to go to profit off of her body. if i can put him in school, give him a support system, the mentors that are necessary,

counseling if it is required, housing, food, and a part-time or full-time job, then he does not see it as a necessary evil for him to go and prostitute a child or some woman. >> earlier president carter said about racism, he said people benefited from it. that was why it was hard to uproot. i like everyone to talk about the ways in which men benefit from the dehumanization of women and how that impacts the difficulty of operating that in the society, the country in the world. >> i would broaden that a bit. >> broaden the world? >> broaden the aspect. a lot of societies, and i will speak for my context of southeast asia, you could go through a village and walk along

the street and you see straw houses constructed with mud and you will see this big white porcelain home with marble floors and lions at the entrance way and a pickup truck, a big status symbol. in certain areas in the north when you see a house like that that means one of the daughters is working in bangkok as a waitress. that is socially acceptable and something some girls, not knowing what their life will be like in bangkok or other towns in the resort areas, they look forward to it because they see the girls they look up to down the street has gone out of town to the big city and come back with money and her family is doing better. they have built up levels to their house and upgraded their vehicles. it is prestige. and the men who are buying this

and the families and the societies that glamorize and really admire status coming through these unjust work systems. there is a lot to undo because sometimes organizations such as yours that fit in these international contexts are made up of westerners to come from the united states or europe or sweden with the context of this is terrible and we need to save them. they will go right back to it. not because they love the work but because it an entire family of 50 people depending on them and that money. the economy and the structures, yes they need to be in place. but in an ideal context you get paperwork and there are no longer hill tribe girls and they can be saved from this by the authorities who often just sit there and pretend they don't

see. there are police in every corner of these areas but they are not doing what you expect them to do. you can have a seven-year-old girl dancing on a table outside a club with a police officer four feet away. i have pictures of this kind of arrangement. seeing is believing. i give presentations with this and people are like, what is that officer doing? not what you would assume. even if all of this was in place, there will always be another girl they can replace her with. it goes deeper than men buying. it goes to the family context, the government support, the police officers, or border officers and who is getting paid off along the way. it's a very intricate financial network. >> can i add to that? here in america when i look at that same problem, we had to go and unpack some family secrets. no one ever wants to talk about

those kinds of things. our girls would often call back and say i can't live at home because they don't understand the new me. they want me to be the old person because my mother was also the victim of abuse and they don't have a treat me. i will call her d, and she was 12 years old. she was the first one brought to me by the fbi. when she returned home she went she was only supposed to answer to her name. when she returned home they called her out of her name. when she refused to answer them, and those who called her our family members, she was faced with one of two things. to run away or stay in the home and be abused. it wasn't the man we were dealing with. it was the family unit. we had to go back and help of

mothers and fathers unpack from things and understand the trauma that their daughters or sons had endured and understand what made them vulnerable and how they were perpetuating it in the family. those things are very difficult to do because no one wants to be told they help in the victimization of a child. that is the work we have been doing for the last few years. and because of that work and being honest about it and having those conversations because they need to be had, we saw girls staying at home much longer. we got about a 67% rate. we have given them great support systems to help them navigate this. no one understands this thing that takes a hold of a child that has been sold or handcuffed

and put in cages and sold on the market to the highest that are. -- highest bidder. you don't understand what she is thinking every moment of the day. when we can apart some of that knowledge, that changes the family dynamic and they can keep our boys and girls savor. >> to put a cap on this conversation, all this human suffering, i think one we don't talk about that is so uncomfortable to talk about is pornography. it is bigger than the sex trade itself, the physical encounter. it is the biggest area of commerce. the amount of transactions are more online than in person. the statistics are terrible. mostly women less than three months in pornography until they are cast aside. the hyper violent pornography is all available to 12-year-old

boys and their phone. >> is a growing market. we don't talk about that. we need to be very honest in the conversation. when we talk only know another one benefiting from children being trafficked, we must also say women are too. when you know your husband or son or uncle have participated in this and you do nothing about it, you are a part of the problem as well. we are not saying that out loud. we are not saying women are traffickers. we need to have those conversations if they are to ever protect our children. pornography is not just a gateway, but one of the largest moneymakers out there when it comes to boys and girls. we don't want to talk about it because our next-door neighbor may be participating or buying that pornography. that is uncomfortable for us.

>> the thing being filmed is extremely violent. i know a woman who says thank god it was never filmed. it was very violent. she said at least i was never on film. there is no record of it. i say this mostly because the vast majority of those who are victimized are female. males, the top porn kings talking about how he regrets it. he is in his 60's now. he is in his 50's now. i am raising this because you asked about male privilege and how do men benefit. i think there is this idea this is a form of entertainment, it is way too normalized in our society. people are harmed, seriously harmed in this.

i would ask that we think about that. by participating, every time you click on that someone is being harmed. and money is exchanged. a profiteer is profiting. i think this is a concrete area we could ask ourselves to challenge. >> we have a lot more we could say here but we have a hard out. i want to invite meredith up for the closing comments. want to thank everyone up here for participating. a live look at the national building museum in washington, d.c., where shortly a panel of designers and policymakers will be discussing the impact of climate change on buildings and landscapes and what can be done to help communities adapt to environmental changes. the museum is currently featuring an exhibit called

"icebergs." it is described as a fantastical, glacial sea designed by landscape architects. the panel should get underway in just a few minutes. we understand they are waiting for one of the panelists to arrive, so the event could kick off a few minutes past 5:30 eastern time, the scheduled start time. while we wait for it, we will show you part of the discussion on china's interest in the u.s. election from today's "washington journal." host: just back from an extended trip to china looking at all areas of the economy and getting reaction from people in china on what is going on in the u.s. with our presidential election. how did you wind up doing this tour? what was the motive behind it? guest: the american embassy in beijing invited me out for two weeks to speak with chinese

think tanks and audiences about to try toan election, explain during the conventions what was going on in the united states and how americans elect leaders. host: what was the most common question from the audience you would get about america's president to election? guest: they want to know what it would mean for them. what a clinton presidency would mean for them and what a trump presidency would mean for china. host: in terms of direction to personalities, donald trump's and hillary clinton's, give us a flavor of what you heard about both of them. guest: in general, the chinese have a book on secretary clinton and the official view which is elected in the state run media that she takes a hard line on china. this dates back to 1995 when she gave a famous speech in beijing in which she said women's rights are human rights. they see secretary clinton as emphasizing human rights and the role of international civil

society. under the general secretary, china has been clapping down on civil society. as a candidate, secretary clinton has been fighting back against that. they have heard that. clinton iscretary one of the primary architects of the american rebound to asia. the official line in china is that is aimed directly at china and containing china. they see her as taking a harder line. on the other hand, they find her more predictable than president trump might be. in general, they know what her policies are and they know who her advisors on china are and are comfortable with them. she brings more predictability. host: in terms of her record as secretary of state with china, is it a favorable reaction? was it a positive relationship? guest: in general from the official site, no. secretary clinton in 2010 in a famous meeting in southeast asia declared for the first time that

the united states had core interests in the western pacific, the south china sea in particular. china saw this is inspiring countries like vietnam and the philippines to take a harder line resisting china. that was a major moment for china. this was the same meeting at which china's foreign said to the countries of southeast asia you've got to remember you small countries and china is a big country, and that is the way it is. this is a mutual throwing down of the gauntlet. rarely a donald trump's speech that goes by where he does not mention china in terms of banks or trade. what is the chinese view on donald trump? guest: there are a range of views. i was speaking with hundreds of people. they were very concerned. we would do a show of hands. i found about 55% trump, 45% clinton. when you ask follow-up questions, it turns out the

majority of the chinese i was speaking to, so this is anecdotal, it turns out they supported trump because they thought he would be bad for america in ways that would be good for china. that was the majority of the trump support i discovered. there was also a group basically like the entertainment value of watching the trump campaign from day to day. then there was a more sophisticated read on trump as well. people thought if trump, regardless of what he says during the election, he says things that are offensive to china and encouraging to china, he is on both sides of that line. the positive critique is if he shows up and is really just a businessman, a transactional president who was to negotiate based on interest, that china could deal well with a trump presidency of that kind. china is used to playing hardball at the negotiating table and could welcome that kind of transactional presidency. host: do you find the chinese

new donald trump is a personality -- as a personality? just his brand, was there an awareness of his brand? guest: they know him more recently from the headlines. they follow the american press closely. a lot of the chinese press simply transcribes what is in the american mainstream media. this means the chinese are often reading the same things we are. host: robert daly is our guest here to talk with you about china's views of the u.s. elections. republicans, democrats, independents and all others. we also welcome your tweets. we mentioned donald trump talks about china a lot in his speeches. we wanted to play one of those comments typical of its own in a recent speech about what he had to say about our relationship with the chinese. donald trump: they have no

respect for our leadership. we don't blame them. we want to put ourselves in that position soon. you watch. they will like this better than they do now. >> i am delighted to welcome you for this evening's conversation. on your way to this auditorium, you might have noticed a large structure in the middle of our great hall. for the past five years, the museum has been presenting a series of interactive, immersive exhibitions as part of what we call our summer block party. some of you may recall we started with many golf exhibitions, which were a huge hit. this was followed by two innovative large-scale installations in the great hall. the big maze designed by the danish firm and the beach designed by the brooklyn-based architects. this summer, we present "icebergs" designed by james corner field operations this

public places around the world include new york and santa monica. i should note it is sponsored by the american institute architects. allows us toam examine one of the key themes behind the design of "icebergs." climate change and its effects on the designed and built places where we live, work, and play. at the conclusion of the program, we invite you to join us in the panelists inside the icebergs to continue the conversation informally over snacks and drinks while explained the exhibition. and don't miss the slides, which are faster than you might think. ins program is presented partnership with the national park services in celebration of its centennial. happy birthday, yesterday. please allow me to it is windy o'sullivan, the associate regional director for community

engagements for the national park service. parkas been with the service for 20 years serving in three regions and at the park service national headquarters. she has extensive background in tnerships and community engagements. welcome, wendy. [applause] wendy: thank you. thank you for hosting us tonight. the national park service is thrilled to join in partnership with the national building museum during our centennial year. the national building museum advances the quality of our built environment by educating people about its impacts on all our lives. the national park service preserves the natural and cultural identity of our nation for the benefit and enjoyment of

this and future generations. combining these two great entities will educate all ages about the relevance and importance of the environment we live in. the beachyone loved last year, i would say and in my opinion, the design and experience of your "iceberg" exhibit has more people talking. talking about design and talking about climate change. as the national park service director has publicly stated, climate change is the biggest ineat we have ever faced terms of the integrity of our national park system. the national park service is working with partners and collaborating with partners like the national building museum to do educational events like

canght to work on ways we better position the park service to address the challenges we face and leverage the opportunities presented during the second century of america's national parks. we look forward to hearing the dialogue tonight about design, to hear the dialogue tonight from our experts on the panel, and here how the discussion goes about how climate change is impacting the built environment and all of our worlds. i am pleased to judas -- introduce our first panel expert. tas is a science communicator. he hosts nerd night dc. on the second saturday of every month.

and he works as a senior washington director at cater communications. please come up, aaron. [applause] aaron: thank you so much. i am a science communicator. i work a lot with climate scientists over the past 10 years. the thing i love about working with scientists is they each have this little piece of the puzzle for whatever they work on. they are always cracking away at that little piece of the puzzle. when it comes time to publicly communicate about the science, they often want to talk about the little puzzle piece. tell people what the puzzle is first and then tell me about your puzzle piece. climate change, the thing i encourage scientists to emphasize are the following. one is simply that climate change is occurring. it is already here and observable in all of the records we keep about the history of our planet.

a lot of people think climate change is often the future someday. and it is. it is also here right now. we can see it in temperatures increasing, precipitation patterns changing. we can see it in sea levels rising. , change naturally occurs -- climate change naturally occurs over a long time. wilson of climate change today is different. the story of climate change is longer than people think. it is not recent history. one of the first scientists who proposed the idea that burning trees could cause the temperature to rise was in 1896, so the climate science story is longer than people think. it is kind of a detective story. we noticed temperatures are increasing. there is a theoretical basis for how they could be increasing. let's figure out what is going on. is a volcanoes? what has changed? carbon dioxide levels have gone up. why are they going up? largely because of burning gas,

coal, and tropical degradation. those are the three big leading sources of carbon emissions. and they have been building up in the atmosphere. what does that mean for the future? when scientists talk about climate change, for them it is a scientific endeavor. it is very technical. they get into the details. we have ast of us, couple of different reactions to that. one is to feel overwhelmed because it is huge. the other reaction people often have is to feel despond it -- despondant. what can we do about it? that is the question scientists get asked most. just tog i ask why emphasize is we face a lot of choices around climate change. we also face choices for climate

adaptation. we know some climate change is already happening. there is a latent heat effect for carbon dioxide. it traps heat for a long time. integrates and comes back down to the earth's system -- it degrades and comes back down to the earth's system. we face choices. is not something happening to us. it is something we have agency over. we can make choices at the individual level and globally. we have an international climate agreement which speakers will talk about later. specifically, the last thing i ask scientists to emphasize is we talk about climate change in terms of global warming. i get the picture in my head of the iconic nasa photo of earth in space -- from space. that is like a lot of the images you see when we talk about climate change. breezy colbert's -- or you see

polar bears. has anyone ever met a polar bear? that is awesome. a lot of times we talk about climate change, is seen as this big, far away thing. i translate a lot of social science for natural scientists. they talk about this as a terrarium problem. a terrarium is one of those little miniature glass boxes where you can create a tiny ecosystem on a tabletop. it is the idea environmental changes happening in a box outside. it is not. i had an environmental justice expert explain this to me simply several years ago. she said in by him is not something out there. the environment is where we live, play, work, and worship. we are part of the environment. can change our environment very rapidly. when we think about that big

picture environmental change, we've got to make it local. even as we realize all these globally, what a super interesting is that has local effects we can look at right now. especially for washington, d.c., we are connected to the coasts in a way we do not think about all the time. we will get into that with the speakers. i was establishing the climate baseline before we get into the climate talk. i appreciate everyone being here. has anybody been to the glacier were iceberg -- a glacier were iceberg? very cool. we have a crowd that has had in-depth, personal expense with icebergs. i love it. during the reception later, i am blown away by what we have pulled together with this exhibit. we will have each of the speakers give a short presentation with size. and then we will have a

discussion and take questions from the audience. please think of great questions for the panelists. i went to introduce our speakers and they will stand up briefly. our first speaker is vicki arroyo. say hello. vicki is the executive director of the georgetown climate center and overseas the center's work on climate change mitigation, dealing with the climate change baked into the system. she does it at the state and federal level. the georgetown climate center serves as a leading resource for state energy policy. she teaches classes on climate change law and policy and serves as assistant dean for centers and institutes. she is also taught at catholic, george mason, and tulane law school. she has served as the environment and program director and launched the new environmental law degree program. what is llm? it can get your master's

and specialize in environment to law. aaron: excellent. so many opportunities. and this is alexis goggans. she is a program analyst in the department of energy and the environment, urban sustainability administration, in d.c. she chordates stakeholders to advance programs and policies in our wonderful home, the district of columbia. our final speaker is sanjukta sen, a landscape and architectural designer at james corner field operations, design firm that created "icebergs." they are responsible for the incredible space and slides. her core interest in expertise lie at the intersection of urban resiliency and place making, which are evident in all of her projects. with that, vicki, please. thank you. [applause]

vicki: thank you for being here on a friday night late in august, a hot day. thank you to the building museum for putting this exhibit on. i am one of the lucky people in that i have seen "icebergs," including in antarctica earlier this year. it was stunning and beautiful to see them in person. as big as this building, if you can believe it. is sobering when you think about it and the implications of those icebergs and what it means to all of us and around the world. i have a few slides. one that makes this point that already our government accountability office down the street has identified climate change is a top financial threat to the united states. don't hear about this a lot. you often hear about entitlement programs, terrorism, and things like that. but it is right up there because the park service that we heard about today and other u.s.

government entities, including the military, own a lot of land and infrastructure that will be affected by things like sea level rise. that are already affected by heavy storms like we saw in my home state of louisiana. the government often has to bail out people in times of disaster here and abroad, sometimes been called into international conflicts as well. we also serve as an insurer for flood insurance. it really does have very high financial stakes in addition to human stakes and stakes to on environment if we don't get this under control. the good news is as of 2013 when president obama gave his climate speech at georgetown, the u.s. started to move forward with emissionsfor reducing contribute into climate change from our major sectors such as transportation. the cars we drive are becoming more efficient.

it is on the way up to 54.5 miles per gallon per the rules of this administration. we have for the first time seeing the administration finalize rules that finally regulate co2 greenhouse gas emissions for the first time from power plants, both new and existing. those have been held up temporarily we hope in court. watch this space because those arguments are happening next month. we hope to see some real resolution and movement on that large sector of emissions. center atclimate georgetown focus a lot of our energy on state and local actions. we work with some of the states who have formed a cap and trade program. we also have a transportation and climate initiative in this region. california has partnered with other jurisdictions including provinces like québec in canada

and has been a leader on these issues for years. the majority of states have renewable portfolio standards, trying to get a certain amount of renewable energy to power our homes and buildings, schools, etc. that goes to show these changes are happening, but they don't necessarily have to paint a bad picture of what life will be in the future. we can invest in new technologies like tesla and volt, new cars, new renewables, and cheaper renewables coming onto the market with wind and solar. thousands of cities are standing as leaders. you will hear from one of them in d.c. we are preparing for the impacts of climate change because we are already seeing those impacts. i do want to talk a little bit about the national and international stage at paris. you might have heard last year

in december, there was a big climate conference. we had more heads of state gathered to talk about reducing emissions than were gathered for any other purpose before. it was a successful outcome as you can see in the middle with almost 200 countries banding together to make their own individual commitments to cut their emissions. money flowing to help support the poor countries adapt and move toward cleaner energy solutions. a target of getting our emissions down so our observed increase in temperature will not go above two degrees ideally and we will decarbonize our economy by the second half of the century. we will put an application on equal footing for the first time with mitigation. having gone to climate conferences for 15 years, i was happy to see it and with a wonderful resolution and not the usual finger-pointing of you go

first or you are the culprit. china, india, the united states, brazil, all of these countries taking up their own leadership mantle and holding up the leadership of states. me frome governors with washington and california. i want to point out while we are all focused on federal politics in d.c., what happens in the local communities is also very important. states and cities can lead on this. for more information on our work and what is happening in your state on renewable power or adaptation, you can go to these websites. thanks for the opportunity. [applause] alexis: my name is alexis goggans. am a program analyst at the

department of energy and environment. and excited to speak with you today. not just because we have an incredible opportunity to address some issues i think may have been missed in previous environmental movements, but i am excited because we have recently taken big steps in releasing the city adaptation plan to prepare for and adapt to our changing climate. not only do i get to share the the research we have done, but we can move the conversation to real solutions. i want to talk about the studies we have done, what we have seen, and what we project will happen to d.c. across planning horizons. the impacts on our infrastructure and vulnerable populations and residents. i will talk more specifically about the plan and some of the challenges we are facing with the city. i am new to doee. my colleague did an incredible amount of work, working closely with consultants and leading

.cientists it is a little doom and gloom. we have a lot of issues in d.c. most recently, the heat. i think we can all say we have survived the heatwave of 2016. hottest year on record for d.c. i'm sure you have seen the headlines. it is pretty intense. we have looked not just at the average summer daytime high temperatures but also at the nighttime temperatures. what we have done is we have taken climate data from international and global models and had the match with data points from d.c. 1950's butback to also projecting out, it is getting hot. right,oing up and to the more extreme and more severe.

what is so hard is we are not also seeing a litigation of the dangerous -- alleviation of the dangerously hot days. we are seeing heatwaves longer but also not seeing them stop at night. we have a big challenge. precipitation is another challenge we have here. this is not just storm and rain events. we also have to think about snow. withay have been impacted the 2011 snow began and hurricane jonas. seeingthe nation, we are 1000 year flood events when people were talking about the 500 year floodplain being the new 100 year floodplain. the impacts are intense. obviously are trending up and to the right with the other data. we look at storm events specially -- spatially. we are seeing shorter events

with twice the rainfall. extreme weather is another big one and falls on the back of what we have been talking about with precipitation. the 2012 derecho was a big wake-up call the impacts on power supply and the stress it puts on vulnerable populations. this is looking at some of the design stormst that look at the spatial distribution and intensity of water. when we think about sizing our stormwater infrastructure long-range, a lot of our pipe systems are not able to take what we know will be the new storm events in the future. of the other hand, we have sea level rise. our rivers are rising and falling with the tides. the chesapeake bay is also thinking. sinkagey do we have thin

from pumping and glacial retreat from years ago, we have sea level is rising. it is kind of unfair for us because we have both of these processes against us. the impacts are incredibly important. this is looking at some of the army corps of engineers depending on how we are factoring in the warming of the ocean and considering the historical projections. whether you are picking a more modest production -- projection, it is all going up into the right. we are entering into hurricane season now. we will continue to experience more intense storms. that has been a big challenge when we think about moving people around, providing services and goods. and the impact on businesses. this is the picture of a storm areas alongowing the potomac and