loris 8:45, nicholas talks about the economics and environmental next. ♪ host: good morning. it is wednesday, august 28th, 2019. day three in our series on the issues driving the election. we will focus on the environment and energy production. we begin with question about where climate change ranks when it comes to your issues in the 2020 election. is climate change a top issue for you? give us a call and tell us why or why not. republicans, 202-748-8001 is the number. democrats, 202-748-8000. independents, 202-748-8002. you can catch up with us on

social media. on twitter it is @cspanwj. on facebook it is facebook.com/cspan. a very good wednesday morning to you. you can start calling now. we will begin by taking you back to monday's final press briefing with president trump at the g7 summit of world leaders. the final question the president took was on the issue of climate change. [video clip] >> there was a significant talk at the summit about climate change. i know in the past you offered skepticism. what do you think the world should be doing and do you harbor that skepticism? has feel the united states tremendous wealth. feet.alth is under its i have made that wealth come alive. exporting -- we are the number one energy producer in the world and soon

it will be by far with a couple of pipelines that have not been able to get approved for many years. could be the largest site in the world for oil and gas. ronald reagan was not able to do it. they have been trying to do it since before ronald reagan. we are the number one energy producer in the world and soon it will be by far the number one. lmgis tremendous wealth and is being sought after everywhere in the world read i am not going to lose that wealth. i am not going to lose it on dreams and windmills, which are not working too well. in a nutshell, i want the cleanest water on earth. i want the cleanest air on earth and that is what we are doing. i am an environmentalist.

a lot of people don't understand that. i have done more environmental impact statements than many people -- i have done many of them, more than anybody that has ever been president or vice president or anything close to president. i think i know more about the environment than most people. i want clean air, clean water, a wealthy country. country spectacular with jobs, pensions, so many things and that is what we are getting. at the same time -- at the same time -- you were not called, at the same time, it is very important to me, very important to me we have to maintain this incredible place we have all built. richer countryh and that is a good thing, not a bad thing because that wealth allows us to take care of people.

we can take care of people we could not have taken care of because of wealth in the past. thank you very much, everybody, i appreciate it. host: that was the president on monday in france. we are asking you about weather climate change is a top 2020 issue for you. republicans, 202-748-8001 to call in. democrats, 202-748-8000. independents, 202-748-8002. the gallup polling organization has been tracking the most important problem over the course of the 2020 election as they do in each election. as of july, the environment, pollution, and climate change was picked as the most important problem by 4% of respondents coming behind health care, race relations and racism, the government and poor leadership and immigration and economic problems as well as the issues

ranked ahead of climates and the environment. one democratic candidate -- many democratic presidential candidates talking about the issue of climate change, one recently was senator bernie sanders, here is what he had to say on climate change. [video clip] real,mate change is climate change is caused by human activity and climate change is causing devastating harm in our country and throughout the world. and i agree with those scientists who tell us we have a short period of time to transform our energy system away from fossil fuel to energy efficiency and sustainable here is my promise as we transition away from fossil

fuels, we will not abandon communities that have relied on fossil fuel jobs. rebuild. we will create millions of jobs modernizing our electricity grid and building the wind, solar, and other sustainable energy that our country and the world desperately need. we will expand high-speed internet and broadband services america community in and we will guarantee the right of all workers to form unions without threat or intimidation from corporate ceos. as some of you may know, i have

introduced sweeping climate change legislation. others have introduced different ideas. the bottom line is for the sake of the future of our country and our planet, we have got to act and act now. senator bernie sanders on the campaign trail over the weekend. about whatw you more presidential candidates are talking about. what separates the democratic candidates and president trump's energy and environmental platform. for this first segment, we are just asking is climate change a top 2020 issue for you? republicans, 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000. independents, 202-748-8002. it is all part of our 2020 issue series we have been running this week on the washington journal.

on monday we talked about the economy and economic issues and tuesday it was immigration and today it is energy and the environment and tomorrow will be health care issues and on friday we will talk about education. that is our focus for all three hours of our programs this week. we will talk with rodney first out of honey brook, pennsylvania , republican about climate change in 2020. how high of an issue is it for you? high.: it is not real the biggest thing with me with have a lotnge is you of people talking about destroying a lot of things and spending a lot of money. that is not going to fix anything and my whole thing is i am a big science guy. i love watching the science channel and stuff. i have been listening to these

microbiologists and microbes are how the atmosphere began in the beginning. plan at nasa for mars, terraforming. mars does not have an atmosphere, it is all gases and stuff. we already have an atmosphere, alter these microbes and produce oxygen? inwe were to cultivate them a laboratory and send them into the high altitude weather balloon and have a remote release program that releases them into the atmosphere -- they are single celled organisms that would multiply and divide on their own. host: as we talk about climate change in the 2020 campaign, do you think we are getting anywhere on that topic? caller: no, i don't. all i hear is like bernie

sanders, $16 trillion. i am a carpenter. put me under. i have to drive every single day, gas prices will go through the roof, my business will go under on fuel costs. i run generators, compressors, everything evolves around gas. right now, gas prices are low. i don't hear anybody talk about this microbiology stuff. host: i appreciate you bringing it up. sydney is next out of glen bernie, maryland. good morning. caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. as a nurse and a science person, i probably should call back tomorrow. afterwant to comment

listening to president trump, every time i hear him speak, he says a lot, but he doesn't really say anything. he never really answers the question. then hearing bernie sanders, he gets very specific and i think that is one of the things i see in our extremely absent current president, that there is just a lot of words that come out. i don't see a lot of action, there are no specifics. my concern, of course, climate change. i have family that live in south florida. i travel to asia. concern about the melting icebergs at the poles. even this fire in the amazon rain forest. somebody that is ultra intelligent to see the weather patterns we have been

witnessing over the last 5 to 6 years have been horrendous. the floods, the fires. i think it is a big topic on this campaign trail for the next year. i think we are a little bit behind the curve ball. i have grandchildren and i am very concerned about the future of humanity. sydney -- we saw -- therejecting washington post noting perhaps a change of position. -- thesaid he might president said he might revisit

.he package the country would reject the g7 offer because it had not been -- in the wake of those fires raging in the amazon. one other picture to show you out of the g7. rounds,ture making the the empty chair -- the meeting .f g7 leaders to discuss attendingent's aides that meeting. steve is next out of san luis obispo, california. how important is the issue of climate change to you in california? caller: good morning. i am a physician.

the newman journal of medicine almost -- saying climate change is the most important issue in the world. it is changing our health dramatically and in ways that people don't even imagine. president trump says he wants clean air. he doesn't understand about greenhouse gases in the troposphere making everything more extreme. small particle contamination, micro particulates. 6 cause of number death. it is a big lie technique that is going to make everybody look at their 401(k) and not understand what is happening,

that we must get electrification. we must get wind, must get away from fossil fuels. it is almost too late. don't give up, we must do it. the health effects are incredibly bad. the heat affects, there will be places around our nation and the round world that will increase tenfold. two hot heat days that you can not even work or exist outside. don't believe trump, he is only wanting reelection, only wanting his own welfare. host: did you vote for president trump in 2016? caller: no. i have a copy of time magazine from 2004.

read that and you will see what a charlatan this man -- the big lie, con man, nothing man. it is amazing how much people save my 401(k) looks good, i will vote for that guy. steven california. steve mentioned reliance on fossil fuels. the editorial board of usa today saying the fossil fuel wealth of this country endangers planetary health, and answer that synthesizes the world's calamitous love affair with fossil fuels is to reduce it. weaning the world off of fossil fuels is imperative to avoiding catastrophic destruction. fossil fuels have large societal benefits and represent wealth in the ground.

for people and planet, wealth without health is a losing proposition. ds his piecet en this way, the idea that we cannot increase energy development without emissions is obsolete. as opportunity expands for millions living in poverty, the innovation industry means we can meet rising global energy needs and drive global solutions. here is what is happening on our social media pages. it is climate change a 2020 issue for you? >climate change is the issue for america. it will produce millions of jobs, which will protect the economy. science is telling us there are major problems, let's listen to

the experts. bill saying the climate has been changing since the beginning of time. i will vote on the economy, period. we only have one earth and it is my top voting issue. ben saying it is the top of the list. republicans, democrats, and independents. randy out of wisconsin, good morning. caller: good morning. that guy from california, he wanted to be a professor or doctor or something. what he said was very -- you cannot believe that. that is one man's opinion. i have a 12th grade education and i will give you common sense. dinosaurs, we know they were here 350 billion years ago. what took care of the dinosaurs? wasn't it something to do with air pollution from a meteorite

striking the earth that cut out the sun? what was it like around here may be a million years ago? it is called mother nature. you are not going to change mother nature. i don't care how much money you send at it, climate change is a way to take more money out of people's pockets and give it to somebody that probably doesn't deserve it. you have to look at the earth. i know how it spins and turns on its axis over millions of years. found dinosaur bones at the north pole. how does it happen? we are living in a small part of this world. they used to heat everything with wood and coal. host: what is happening in wisconsin? city government officials preparing to do things to

address the impact of climate change in the future? caller: i see nothing. we have some manufacturing around here, but there is nothing anybody is talking about as far as climate change. people.ther nature, like this hurricane coming at us .ow we have floods up here. we know it floods and we go right back to doing our own thing again. it is mother nature. host: the storm he is talking about, tropical storm dorian. puerto rico still in recovery. dorian expected to strike puerto rico's southern coast early this morning. forecasters expecting a relatively tame storm.

puerto rico, the territory still recovering and this storm expected to test some of the vulnerable parts, particularly the power grid. steph is next out of los angeles. how important is the climate issue to you? caller: yes, how are you? i am seth. sincesue is pretty severe 65% of -- there is produced by coal power stations. regulation for companies to dispose coal fly ash.

i had a situation where i was experiencing shortness of breath a few years ago -- around 4:00 a.m. then i read about the coal fly engineering.g geo many people like to call it chemtrails. america isue is going to have to find or figure humane way or creative way of disposing this coal fly ash so that americans do not suffer. host: republican out of virginia, good morning. is thismy only comment always seems to be more of an issue around election time, all

election drama and then we sort of slide off the board. it is useless rhetoric that has been going on for years and i read recently, we have countries around the world taking positive isps, banning plastic, which a big issue for me and here we are, we are the world leaders and we have made very few positive steps toward climate addressing these issues or the overuse of plastic in a reasonable way. as far as, we have been talking about fossil fuels and it has been rhetoric for us. you have one party saying we will get rid of the coal mines and they don't seem to understand the consequences for thousands of families. -- whoevero be some

is in office to make actual steps and not just talking about it. host: what would be the consequences in virginia if that happened? hader: i think -- we have several months in the area -- mines in the area that have closed. families have been impacted. we still have families we need to take care of people that need jobs. you cannot say we are going to do away with coal mines. you are turning people out in the cold. this has been their livelihood for generations, some of them. there has to be some kind of reasonable conversation and actual action. the to reasonably deal with

issue, do i believe fossil fuels are a problem? yes, i do. i also believe we have to deal with people. host: you said in the beginning banning plastics is a big issue for you. why? caller: because i think you can look at our oceans. it is a really serious thing. of thisseen pictures mass and some people say it is as big as texas. our ocean life is dying and we seem to be totally unconcerned with that. toave to believe -- we have go from talking about these problems into actually making some kind of steps toward addressing them. itse plastic backs, i admit, is convenient. i would be more than willing to deal -- do away with that to see how we are impacting the world and if the truth about plastic

is some of this stuff will last thousands of years and there is nothing we can do about that, .ut we need to look at that now i am an old woman. i have been hearing this for 25 years. what reasonable steps have we taken? i know the big deal is plastic straws. issue.hat is an what about plastic bags? what about people that manufacture these things that are not going to disintegrate that end up in our ocean? teresa -- host: mentioning the issue of the climate and the environment she believes only comes up during election time. it has certainly come up this election season. democratic presidential candidates talking about climate change at their rallies and events. here is senator elizabeth warren speaking about it recently. [video clip] 1990's,in the early

climate change is something that our country and scientists around the world are beginning to come to. they are starting to get it. here is the deal. early back and look, 1990's, democrats and republicans were working together. this was not a partisan issue. everybody wanted to make sure we got this right. they are talking about, should the epa have more power? how are we going to make these changes in time? and then along came the coke others -- koch brothers. i see you have heard of the koch brothers and have some strong opinions about them. brotherse the koch and oil companies and polluters

and they get together and say if congress gets serious about this climate business, that will cut into our bottom line. so they have an investment decision to make. they could say we will stop investing in fossil fuels. they don't do that. they could say we are going to invest in all the new cleanup technology plan -- cleanup technology. they don't do that. they invest in politicians. they put their money in washington and understand it, knowis the part -- do you who they sent to washington on the front lines? it is the bought and paid for experts who deny climate science. host: senator elizabeth warren on the campaign trail back from

earlier this month. all of these events we are showing, you can watch them in their entirety at c-span.org, easy enough to search the search bar at the top of the page. taking your phone calls asking you is climate change a top 2020 issue for you? sheila in connecticut, democrat. what do you think? caller: yes, first of all, climate change is real. it goes back way back. in 1991, there was a keep america beautiful campaign that had said -- there is an indian in a canoe looking at all the pollution in the background and that is when all the changes came from the epa. look at this on youtube. there are smokestacks and garbage everywhere and there was a keep america beautiful campaign and we cleaned it up whatever needed

to happen, it happened. now there is no program like that. there is garbage, nobody cares. the president just does not get it. --re is all these people refugees everywhere because of climate change, storms -- it is obvious to most people and yet, he cannot see it. what is going on there? i don't get it. it is still going on like elizabeth warren was saying in the 1990's. these people, all they care about is the money. plastics are in everything. isis in our dirt, there fiber in the water from our clothing. we are full of it. the earth is not going to last forever. we are contributing. mother nature, yes, that is god's business.

host: are you hopeful about the future? is how i feel. host: brent in new york, independent, you are next. back during the first earth day in the early 70's, there was a guy claiming that by 2000 we would be in another ice age. then you got al gore claiming the icecap would be melted by 2013, 2014. that did not happen. there are people that want to fundamentally change america from a capitalistic to a communist or socialist society. instead of starting a civil war to do it, they are getting

people involved in the new world order which involves people from and theyd the world are coming up with the world is going to end soon. they have been doing it for years. i think it is good we learn and and make changes to make things work better. changes you think those are coming too fast or not fast enough? , they want them to come too fast. they want to turn america into a socialist country or a communist country. the thing is, these people need to china. take your arguments to china and

see how far you get. host: brent mentioning al gore. 2000ll take you back to seven, al gore receiving the nobel peace prize for his work on climate change. [video clip] species, areman confronting a planetary emergency. a threat to the survival of our civilization gathering destructive potential even as we gather here. there is hopeful news as well. we have the ability to solve this crisis and avoid the worst, though not all of its consequences if we act boldly, decisively, and quickly. however, despite a growing number of honorable exceptions, too many of the world possible leaders are best described in the words winston churchill described those who ignored adolf hitler's threat, "they go

on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, all-powerful to be impotent." today, we dumped another 70 million tons of global warming pollution into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet as if it were an open sewer. tomorrow we will dump a slightly larger amount with the camilla to concentrations trapping -- the cumulative concentrations trapping more and more. the earth has a fever and a fever is rising. ago. al gore from 12 years you can check that out at our website, c-span.org. jeffrey is next, beltsville, maryland. caller: i have a thing to say. i think everybody is forgetting about what the bible say.

god told noah he would not destroy the world, man would destroy the world. we have a president sitting in the white house and all he thinks about is giving people power over the epa and the environment to do what they want to build things like they did in south dakota to build a pipeline, whatever. now they want to build other things other places. the world is going to have a big problem with climate change. look at the arctic, it is melting. look at alaska. not even that far from me, annapolis, maryland. now the land is getting covered with water. let's get our brains together. we know climate change is for real, but all this president has in mind is greed. he did not want obama to do anything about climate change.

to told us man is going destroy the world, not him, but man and we see it every day. look what happened to the amazon. host: that is jeffrey in maryland. actionsthe president's this week when it comes to alaska. president trump instructed sonny perdue to exempt alaska's national forest from logging restrictions imposed nearly 20 years ago according to several people briefed on the issue. the move would affect more than half the world's largest intact temperate rain forest. it would undercut a sweeping clinton administration policy which has survived a decades long legal assault. you can read more on that in the

washington post. wayne out of south carolina is next. republican, good morning. caller: good morning. i agree somewhat with the last caller about climate change. it is kind of in -- incorrect what he said. saide book of genesis, god there would always be four climates, four seasons. change is so real, why is it the last several winters that new york has been andred in blizzards breaking all kind of records for nor'easter's and storms? why is it if climate change is real? host: are you seeing any impacts of climate change where you are in south carolina? lost wayne. paul in west palm beach, florida, independent. caller: thank you for taking my

call. people like al gore, elizabeth warren, and many people -- politicians running for president, these people go on private jets, polluting the air. they should set an example first. aretries like india, china, you going to preach to them? what about those countries? are they going to do anything about that? it used to be called global warming in the 2000s. now we call it climate change. why? if one thing goes wrong, they can point to that. disappointed. god is in control, god will take care.

host: steve, south carolina, good morning. forer: i am so thankful c-span and "washington journal." zone.s the real no spin i am disappointed this has to be reduced to politics. this is a nonpartisan issue and concern. i don't have to take sides on this issue. it is a shame we can have a productive discussion. if you are conservative -- i am conservative leaning and i am concerned about climate change, but if i talk to my republican friends, they look at me like i have a third eye in the middle of my head. toasted is basically at -- charlston is basically at sealevel. we have nuisance flooding, so water comes in the city streets new moons and high tides.

last year we had 42 incidents. the year before that, thirtysomething incidents. it is realities. sea levels are rising, we can see it on the coast. we have people here who are conservative, fishermen tell you they do not catch the same fish they used to because fish are sensitive to temperatures. people further up the coast are not catching the fish we used to catch. there is a documentary called "sea change," and it covers the coastal zones from northern georgia into south carolina and north carolina and there is a place in savanna -- you have to go over a causeway to get to it. the park ranger says people cannot even get here now. the roads get covered by title

-- get todal and even covered by tidal flow and even school buses cannot pick up children. in the arctic zones, villagers are having to move -- they are having to pick up their villages and move. they say marine mammals and fish are migrating further north all the time. it is happening, it is reality. can man do anything about it? i don't know. a fact thatr because of the reduction of chlorofluorocarbons -- the ozone layer is repairing itself. nine countries in antarctica, they monitor that all the time. it is working. can science do anything about this other problem? i don't know, but to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear is

dangerous. people on the coast can see it, these people do not have political agendas, it is a reality. host: you said it is a shame we cannot have a productive discussion on this issue. when was the last time we were able to have a productive discussion on the environment in this country? caller: i am not sure we have ever been able to have one. people start choosing political sides at the time you mention it. you are in a nonpartisan position running the show and you would know better than anybody, you cannot have it. illinois, line for democrats, good morning. caller: hello. about theke to speak environmental impact -- we have economic, we could solve a lot of these problems by addressing the issue. powered powercoal we take 99.9% of the

fly ash. worked in a lot of energy around the country, solar plants and nuclear plants and as an electrician. energygoing to have an shortage. we could solve a lot of these issues like the plant built in the hobby desert where they use reflectors to generate power. there is no pollution, they use like mirrors and create the heat from the mirrors into a conductor and create superheated degrees and run a power plant that way. also, parts of wyoming and stuff, the wind never stops. host: you have worked in a lot

of these places. what is the future of energy production in this country? is it all of those together? is there a place for coal? caller: i think we should still use coal also. -- itly problem with coal is not the fly ash, it is the nitric oxide. so much up. old power plants are the problem, not new power plants. depending on the type of coal you are using, wyoming has the clean coal. that is great coal. they have low sulfur and low moisture content. i think the real problem is the grit. we don't have an energy problem, we have a grid problem where we cannot move the amount of energy

we need. to keep the grid the way it is, it is supply and demand. host: thanks for the call from illinois. tom is next out of new jersey, republican. caller: good morning. i just want to say i am not a climate change denier, i just don't believe that we can do anything to change it. basically, in the 1860's there that wasi ice age and well before the industrial revolution take place. i think they said it had something to do with a volcano. if we can't get all these other countries to do the same thing -- i was down in st. lucia in the 1990's and i watched them off a cliff near

the resort i was staying at. if you can't get other countries pollutiony these standards, all we are doing is we are going to soak the american people for more money and it will bring us down to where we are not going to be able to do anything about climate change. host: are you ok in this country preparing for the impacts of climate change? the cities and states spending money? caller: i remember when i was a kid in the 1960's and stuff and there was a ford motor plant and they had been dumping paint and it washed into the river and killed all the fish. that is when they started realizing we have to start cleaning up this environment. i watched over the years. it is not a fast process, it is

a slow process and we are getting there. to say this is the amount of money we need to invest and to take that out of the economy, you know what i mean? you are asking a lot. that is where i am at. host: thanks for the call from new jersey. i want to play a clip of andrew wheeler, the epa administrator from earlier this summer saying the u.s. is doing better than the perception is -- that it is more of a perception problem when it comes to the environment. [video clip] >> every year since the country as a whole is getting better or worse? every year since 2001, more people have said kidding worse than getting better, often by large margins. we need to fix this perception and we need the help of the press. the public needs to know how far we have come as a nation

protecting the environment and here are a few environmental indicators that need more attention. from 1970 to 2017, the u.s. reduced the 6 main criteria air pollutants 73% while the economy grew over 260%. between 2000 and 2017, fine particulate matter concentrations dropped by 40%. according to the world health organization, the u.s. has some of the lowest fine particulate matter levels in the world, more than five times below the global average and well below france, germany, mexico, and russia. from 2005 to 2017, the u.s. reduced co2 emissions by 14 -- 14%. global emissions have increased over 20% since 2005. host: epa administrator andrew

wheeler from back in june. linda is next in maryland. is climate change a top issue for you in 2020? caller: the environment certainly is. i think climate change is a red herring. off allvolcanoes going over the planet and magma rising and solar cycles that will impact us. if we threw all of our money at the problem, i don't think it would save us, necessarily, i think we have to bring back old-fashioned conservatism in certain areas. buying everything from china where they have no epa is really shortsighted and makes us feel better. i think sustainable farming, local things being made would be the best thing we could do for our environment. host: when you say climate

change is a red herring, are you saying you think man's impact when it comes to a change in climate versus nature's? ? impact -- nature's impact? caller: yes, i think we never talked about the historical changes in climate and we don't talk about things happening right now that are greatly impacting the weather, the climate, the health of the planet in general. host: that is linda in maryland. this is frank in new york, democrat, good morning. like i say before, climate change is a real thing. cycleaw the end of a where we are entering a new phase and there is a certain in itsof global warming natural cycle. fossil fuels contribute a great

deal to the environment deteriorating. phased like to see that out into electric and wind and solar. we should be paying attention to the climate, but we also should be paying attention to our business. if we do this, job restructuring will be a major problem because a lot of the industries that are functional today are going to be facing out. host: the former vice president biden wants to do a zero emissions -- net zero emissions by 2050 when it comes to our power grid. you you think that a 30 year timeframe sounds appropriate? thirty-yearink the timeframe is a beginning to it. i don't think it will happen like that overnight. there is going to be a lot of

opposition. we have a lot of oil money in our politics. i would like to see the rhetoric from both parties end. i want to see more issues being discussed. i want them out there doing their job. . am a former democratic chair i was instrumental in electing .- mario cuomo i am sickened tired of the rhetoric. -- sick and tired of the rhetoric. i don't like most of the democratic candidates right now. they are leaning on issues, unsure of themselves and at this point in time, i have become a moderate and resigned as democratic chair. host: do you remember when president carter created the department of energy? caller: yes, yes, yes, great man. i love the man. the man is an amazing man.

he did and he did very well with it. .he man is a humanitarian if i may say something on the immigration issue. to me, i would not build a wall. i would put the military there. i would stop illegals coming in, register them, give them health care and after they become citizens, then i would give them a right to vote and not before. host: considering you work for the carter administration, want to take viewers deep into the c-span archive into february 1977. this is president carter on the -- the creation of the department of energy. [video clip] at this point, i have made all of us realize we have to act . the congress has already laid many of the issues for presidential legislation.

beginning to direct an effort to develop a national energy policy. many groups of americans will be involved. will ask20, we congress for its help in acting copperheads of legislation. comprehensive legislation. the amount of energy wasted that could be saved is greater than the total energy we are importing from foreign countries. we will also express development of rich coal reserves in an environmentally sound way. we will maintain strict safeguards of necessary, atomic energy production. is split among 50 different agencies and

departments in the federal government. i will ask congress for its help in combining many of these agencies into a new energy department to bring order out of chaos. host: president carter from 1977. the question is is climate change a top 2020 issue for you? caroline in texas, what do you think? caller: yes, are you there? host: yes, ma'am. caller: my thing is like i said. i don't really care at this point. it is not my generation that .crewed all this stuff up i probably won't live much longer, so i don't really care. screwwhat generation did all this stuff up? caller: it would be the ones that invented all this krapp computers- crap like

and cell phones. little babies running around with cell phones and games on them. all that stuff. the environment got screwed up with the chemicals. i used to work in a semi conductor business and -- carolyn in texas. steve in missouri, independent, good morning. john.: good morning, thanks for taking my call. let's first get rid of the big .ie just like the health care this is going to cost $100 trillion. there are commonsense solutions we can do and i will throw a few out there. withwould be wrong everybody getting solar panels and then you get a break -- that would probably cut your heating bill or

electric bill in half and then you could pay it like pay for your solar panels through your bill and you would be saving money. the hurricanes, this might sound like a stupid idea, but why can't you cool the water in front of the path of the hurricane instead of dropping a nuclear bomb in the hurricane like trump's idea, can't you ice ande plane loads of cool the thing down so you can get less of an impact? and like pollution, if they put it on a one-way slide into outer space, a one-way rocket and get it out of here. just a few ideals and i think electric cars are pretty good. we need to tackle all these fires like a military type deal. our military, we have the biggest military in the world. they are going to have to work

on fires and stuff like that and that is all i can think of right off the bat. in pearls is jim river, new york. caller: good morning. first of all, there is a book and a movie based upon the book and the book's title is "merchants of doubt." the book discusses the tactics used to challenge the overwhelming science which supports the fact that climate change is in large member -- measure based upon the actions of human beings. it discusses the fact that the same tapic -- tactics used by industrye -- tobacco are being used by the industries involved in petrochemicals, et cetera, to challenge climate change. the second point in the book which is important is science is

a chair -- scientists are terrible communicators and easy to challenge. the people hired by metro chemicals are masters at weaving words. and boths of doubt" movie gived overwhelming consensus that climate change is man-made. more stick around, plenty to talk about today. weak discussion -- joining us, andrew light to talk about the effects of climate change on the united states and later, nicolas loris will talk about the economics of environmental policy. we will be right back. ♪

♪ >> in the late 1850's americans generally trusted the congressman but not congress as an institution. nor did congressman trust each other. i 1860 many congressman routinely armed not because they were eager to kill their opponents but out of fear that their opponents might kill them. >> history professor and author joanne freeman will be our guest on "in-depth," sunday. her latest book is "the field of blood." the other titles include "the essential hamilton," and "the ."fairs of honor join our live conversation. and then on "afterwards," been

how chooses -- looks at whether evangelicals are choosing political power over christian values. argument is dangerous and it contributes to keeping a system in place that takes accountability out. i think it is also an easy way to bring in something like evangelicalism and any other faith and use it as a way to get the, which seems like about worst possible way to use faith. >> watch booktv every weekend on c-span two. >> sunday night on "q&a," amy wax on free expression on college cut campuses and the conflict around the opinion piece that she co-authored in the "philadelphia inquirer."

all cultures are alike. we were trying to tout a code of behavior as being one that was particularly functional and suited to our current technological demo that a capitalist society and comparing it to others cultures which aren't as functional. we gave some examples. that immediately caused a firestorm. >> that's 8 p.m. eastern on "q&a." >> "washington journal" continues. host: our first guest this as weg is andrew light, try to understand the impact in response to climate change. want to start with the paris climate of word. can you explain what that agreement seeks to do and how? guest: sure. i was on the u.s. team, i was a negotiator for it with the obama administration and what it tries to do is really bring the world

together so that you get enough commitments are enough countries with enough time to stabilize an increase so that we don't hit the worst impact's and effectively what it does is create a global regime where every country comes forward and puts forward their own initial target. the targets are not forced on them, everyone picks the wrong target and there are these binding rules that require you to die bulge how you're going to hit the target, your progress along the way, things like that. and then it requires countries to go back to the table every five years to make new pledges we can hit so that these stabilization goals that are effectively to try to stabilize temperature increase over what it was in the past at about three and a half degrees fahrenheit and then maybe do better. host: why is that important? guest: david that target? already we are having tremendous

climate impact just because of the temperatures humans have already caused the planet to warm. human activity has over because the planet to warm one degree celsius over preindustrial times . we have thousands of studies that show its having an impact on the weather and agriculture, on health across the world. we want to limit as much of that is possible and adapt to the world we have created as best we can. host: your title was climate negotiator question mark guest: --?negotiator guest: yeah, i was -- negotiator? guest: yeah. host: what do you do in the creation of that kind of agreement? bigt: we have too been buckets of things. we go to the summits every year, they last about two weeks and you slowly build up -- we have been doing this since 1992, we slowly build up a set of agreement so that the world can work on them collectively

because no one country can solve the climate problem. everyone has to pitch and together. the second thing that you do is a lot of bilateral negotiations. you go to other countries and try to help them do better, work , technical assistance, cooperative programs. my primary responsibility was going back and forth to delhi to work on multiple tracks, 15 tracks, we had cooperation with india so that they could put forward other ambitions. host: what has many impact of the trump decision to withdraw from the paris climate agreement? guest: the process is still ongoing. one of the great climate ironies of our time is that the first day that the united states can legally get out of the agreement will be the day after the 2020 election. it has to do with when the agreement went into force in became binding.

so the impact is, really, this is the most important impact. americans are less safe and less competitive. the united states is the only country pulling away from the agreement, isolated with respect to the rest of the world on this. the agreement has created tremendous opportunities for investment around the world, especially to help other countries, especially bigger developing countries achieve their goals under paris. take the top dozen or so pledges and a created a $23 trillion investment opportunity. president trump takes us out of that and other countries are not as interested in making deals with us because apparently we don't care about climate change or their problems. if you take a map of political instability around the world in you place it over a map of climate vulnerability, it's a most identical. places where we have traditional security interests like the middle east, these countries don't have worries about climate

change being real, they believe it's real, they are concerned about it. but the united states is just not there. pulling out of paris is one of the ways we demonstrate that. out, ahat would pulling map of that, what would it tell us? guest: it's a dangerous threshold for climate change, the increase of 3.5 degrees fahrenheit over what it was in the preindustrial level. some parts of the united states of already reach that. one of the biggest hotspots is around the new jersey, new york, connecticut area, all of it has gone over to degrees celsius. around the northern border around canada, parts of the west coast, alaska has gone well above because the northern latitudes are warming faster. andre already seeing that that those areas are seeing a decrease in fishing stocks, hits in the agricultural sector, increase in rain events, increase in droughts.

other things, like wildfire season in california last year was absolutely devastating. these climate induced impacts are already creating these vulnerabilities around the united states. we have the national climate assessment that i work on that breaks the united states down into 10 regions, people can go the fourtht's national climate assessment, download the report on the region to see how climate change will impact them now and in the future. our guest this morning is andrew light, professor at george mason university and a senior fellow at the world resources institute. taking your questions on for minds for republicans, democrats, and independents as usual. is thes calling, what world resources institute? nonprofit nonpartisan institute just down the street here in washington, d.c. and we

work on all environmental issues, climate change, energy, water resources. we are really data-driven. our approach is to really look at a problem and understand it, the inputs and outputs in terms of climate impact and in terms of contributions to other environmental problems, coming up with innovative solutions and scaling them up with about eight other offices around the world. we are really working with other them tos to help achieve environmental sustainability of some sort. taking your questions, kathleen is up first. caller: thanks to c-span for always bringing such important topics to the american public in bringing experts like mr. light on. i wanted to just mention that carter, he put solar panels on the white house for a while. you guys were talking about carter earlier. mr. light, thank you for your work. i wanted to ask you about wind

turbines and the creation of energy in the u.s.. i believe that texas is in the number one position. if you could talk about that, the increase in the u.s., and i also wanted to ask you about the senator sanders climate change governor in his, who i really only just became aware of during the debates. if you could talk about those two plans and if you could compare the plans? i want to ask c-span to do a access to energy for elderly people. my 91-year-old mother just had her electric turned off by dayton power and light, whom she has been a customer of for 60 years for being 30 days late with the bill. they turned off her electric when it was in the high 80 degrees, 90 degree weather. they turned her energy off for 30 days late. if you could do a show -- her hospice nurse told me that they

walked in to tons of houses in the middle of the winter and in the summer where dayton power and light has turned off elderly people's electric. if you could do a program on that issue i would appreciate it. thanks. always appreciate recommendations on future segments. there's a lot there that kathleen brought up that she wanted you to discuss. i'm herere, sure, partly on the nonprofit organizations are not going to get into the details on different candidate plans. before peoplet doubt i did in my personal capacity work with president in sleep us campaign. he produced six really remarkable very, very thorough plans relating to climate change. they are part of the public record now and i hope that other candidates and other people in

the current administration takes a look at them and sees what we did with those. with respect to wind power, great question. one of the really interesting that we cant things do, top three i would say in the united states right now is to the carbonized -- de carbonized the electricity sector. we basically want to get to net zero emissions by 2050. in order to do that you need to begin to move aggressively towards d carbonized and -- de .arbonizing wind and solar are great ways to get there. droppede of solar has 90% in the last decade and it is now cost competitive. it's even cost competitive in india and other countries as well where renewables really are

competitive of fossils. wind is one of the best options we have. why is 2050 the horizon? why not sooner or later if it's going to be impacting people who are trying to move out of these sectors that they had been working in or families have been working in for generations? guest: if we could move faster, that would be great, but this is a global goal and i think it will take an enormous amount of work. a big transformation not only in electricity but other industrial sectors. it seems like an -- like a reasonable amount of time even with aggressive action. host: who determines what's reasonable? do, many studies, the hundreds that have been done, the biggest ones are the intergovernmental panels on climate change, scientists from around the world, they do what

are called assessment reports, not new science. there have been five sons we started discussing this seriously internationally. if you look at their analysis, they can lay out pathways where we can actually get to those kinds of figures, but it takes aggressive action. there are other organizations like the international energy agency and others who have looked into these pathways. if we could do it faster, that would be great, but i think that this is an achievable goal and it's not too late. however if we say didn't get or 2050, it2030 just it's more expensive and harder to hit these goals. you imagine that what we might do would be something like over some target climate goal in the future and come back to sequester carbon, somehow, getting carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere using traditional means like trees or artificial means but you would still get damage that happens at the higher thresholds so as much as you can you don't want to cross.

new eagle, pennsylvania, michael, republican. caller: good morning, good morning, really appreciate you coming on this morning to talk with people. i have a court -- a couple questions. what you mentioned about infrastructure, particularly the new york austin corridor? asphalt harking lots when i go there. an incredible number. and buildings with no trees. there's nothing to cool their. as far as cooling, i have some facts from nasa. the average global surface by .15ture seems to drop degrees centigrade since 2016 and with recent snowfalls in australia -- they are having to record cold winter down under, similar to our 100 year snowfall that hit the rockies, the cascades and other mountains. but anyway, it seems that the

global surface temperature is on the decrease since 2016. what type of vaccination is there? guest: the clear exhalation for that is that 2016 is the hottest year on record ever measured. the last five years have been the five hottest years on record . 2016 was the spike, there has been a slight decrease but the overall trend is increasing decade to decade. in fact, the eight hottest years on record have been on the last 10 years. as always going to be actuated year to you year and so that accounts for 2016 and now. but if you take a decade average, the best way to look at trends in temperature, it's steadily going up. and the only excavation we have four why this is happening is because of human activity. trying to sort of understand those increases in temperature by looking at observations combined with different kinds of climatological models, if you

take out human a cavity from increasing greenhouse gases that cause this warming problem, you can't get to the temperatures that we are experiencing now, let's unfortunately what's happening. i wish it were different but it's not. you worked on this global agreement. who do you think is best equipped to battle climate change? is it countries? itthe united states is states? local governments? where is the ability to actually make the difference? unfortunately -- the ability to make a difference is everywhere. the federal government has a huge role to play in this but they are just not doing it right now. the trump administration is a moving aggressively to roll back all the things that were done in the last administration to make it possible for the united states to hit its targets and for other countries to hit their targets. by default, the leadership in the united states at the federal it had been

tremendous, there was a huge outpouring from governors, leaders,usiness university leaders who have moved forward to try to reduce emissions in their jurisdictions in order to hit the u.s. targets . if you add them altogether it's about 3600 separate entity. if they were all one country, those 25 states, those hundreds of cities and companies and universities, putting them altogether to look at them it would be the third largest economy in the world. it's really big and they are actually making an impact right now on the ground in terms of helping to achieve these targets. who has made the biggest impact? guest: california, because of their size and they have been on climate policy for decades. for example, one of the most important things that you can do to address this problem is price the pollution. effectively carbon the dioxide acted like a pollutant, causing harm.

it goes into the atmosphere and it causes warming which causes harm. what you want to do is not make it free to pollute. this is how we have handled sulfur dioxide, mercury, lead, and other problems we have had in the environment. you can put a tax on it, do it to a regulatory mechanism, come up with tradable permits. california has done this. they have an economy wide standard so that all co2 in california is priced in the following way and aggressively they have work on regulations even when the u.s. has pulled back, like vehicle mileage standards. the obama administration wanted to hit vehicle mileage to and bys a 51 miles per gallon 2025. the administration freezes it and it's only going to cost your average american family $500 per year because we are not by 2025. increase -- increasing mileage standards. tell a 40 recently cut a deal with four major automakers so

that they will voluntarily conform to the californian standards without worrying about this going to the courts or the epa trying to hold them back. major automaker just joined the coalition and we expect others will as well. they are really leading the way on climate action. there are others. washington state has done a lot, new york state. the 25 governors in the u.s. climate alliance, that's about half the country that has a governor really leading on the area trying to achieve some of these bigger goals when the federal government is not. host: connor's bill, indiana, gary, democratic line. caller: thank you for what you do, you are keeping it real in america. the stuff you're talking about, it's been a real problem for the factories since the industrial revolution, but all the hydrocarbons started getting put in the air and having that effect on it and everything.

valid scientific proof, the exxon mobil people the big boysthers, from the big companies, they keep slipping under the rug so that they can just make it and say don't tell anybody that we made more money that way. can i tell you something, man? it's so anti-humanistic to do that. took on zero is right about it, it's a real problem. lastly, mr. light, thank you for you preach the truth and just keep talking the way you are talking. i will see you later, man. guest: thank you very much. host: do you want to touch on the green new deal and whether that is something presidential campaigns should include as part of their platform? the: it's it -- guest:

green new deal is an exciting idea out there floated by alexandria ocasio-cortez. and others. it's a resolution, not a bill, it doesn't give a pathway to the carbon eyes and work increasing the share of the electric vehicles in the economy but it sets big aspirational goals. it's gathered a huge amount of excitement from younger people which is what we want to see. that's how you're going to get the kind of responsible engagement by citizens in our democracy to make sure that their leaders are paying attention to this problem. are now beginning to see a few campaigns come out and fill in those spots to come up with different kinds of policies on that and i think we will wait and see through this election cycle like who wraps their climate plan in the language of the green new deal. whether they do or not, what's most important to look at are the details of the plans as they come forward. are they achieving the kinds of targets that we want to see?

it -- host: is it realistic? you'redepends on what talking about. in terms of aspirational targets, like the climate ones, i think we can actually get to net decarbonization by 2050 for these kinds of things. we can get very strong along the way by 2030 if the united states and the federal government joins this coalition of states, mayors, and business leaders acting on climate change right now. there are other parts of the green new deal that bring in entitlement reform and other things like that. we will just see to what extent different candidates or even this administration might need to link how we think about these kinds of issues with climate policy. and july is our guest, a senior fellow at the world resource institute, taking your

phone calls for another 20 minutes this morning. phone calls for republicans, democrats, and independents as usual. we will put those numbers on the screen as we hear from william in manassas, virginia. independent, go ahead. >> thank you for taking my call. i'm an engineer by training. practicing. having worked for coal-fired and nuclear plants, there was a lot of screaming about acid rain. 60 minutes did a piece, there was a lot of denial from the coal-fired plant owners. basically we came out with electrical principles to clean as weoke that came out are threatened to be find.

--question for your guest is what really makes sense is the for 20 years over time, that may even probably discussion more. just talking about, you know, it's not going to make a dent. what will make us more safe or get other people's interest in to talk about the climate change would help. i couldn't agree more. going back to look at the report from before, created by an act

of congress since 1990's, there have been four so far. the last one was released by this administration. are several hundred authors, half from the government, half from nongovernmental participants. if you look at that, think a good way of paraphrasing it is that it is about health. it's about the health impacts of climate change. it's just tremendous. if you look at the loss of work hours, if we don't do something about climate change, don't hit these international stabilization roles, by the end of 2100 we could be seeing losses of $160 billion per year to the economy just from lost work hours. we did see deaths because of extreme heat to the tune of tens of thousands of people costing $140 billion annually to the economy. when you look at how those areas are different, if you bring in action on climate change so that

we do stabilize and work with other countries to stabilize and prevent the higher increases in see the damageu is cut by half almost across the board. the same thing is true with air quality across the board. the problem here is that if you are a member of a vulnerable population, the elderly, children, poor people, you are already sort of suffering disproportionate health problems right now just in general. climate change makes all of that worse. the degree that there are inequalities in the system driven by these different kinds of economic factors, they just get worse under climate change because those vulnerable populations are not in as good a position to make themselves safer. valley college, new york, peter, republican line, good morning. is such a huge subject, i will try to be brief

as possible. you should have a guy like joe bosnarti on as a guest, he debunks a lot of this. as far as the climate accord and us pulling out, i think the president do the right thing because countries were not required to make changes in china. i agree that the planet is warming, but we have been warming for the last 12 thousand years. the last ice age was 150,000 years. were we responsible for that? were we responsible for the planet getting warmer? there's a lot of hysteria regarding this, particularly with the democratic candidates. the economy is doing great, we defeated isis. everything is pretty good. the democratic party really doesn't have any issues. so basically they are trying to scare the public into voting for democrats because of climate change.

the shorelines, more building is being done by the water. in fact, look at politicians like al gore. the hugest state that he has, the heat and the air-conditioning there? president obama's wife just purchased a huge estate in martha's vineyard, huge and by the water. think they are afraid that the waters went to bury them under the ocean? guest: to the caller's claim that the planet has formed in the past, that's absolutely true. the excess greenhouse gases are being put there in the atmosphere. that's what caught last that's -- that is what is causing the warming. we have not seen this for the last 1800 million years. probably more if you use other kinds of proxy data sets.

more important than that, we haven't really moved up to this concentration, forcing the warmer temperatures. this has been incredibly fast. things that usually happen over a geological timescale are happening in a biological timescale and plants and animals have evolved over this time of the earth's history and they cannot adapt fast enough and that is where we will see these really important, huge ecological and biological and human impacts caused by it. with respect to the claim about the paris agreement being good to get out of because chime -- china doesn't have to do a thing until 2030, unfortunately the present is just wrong about that. every country initially got to set their own target but there was a lot of pressure. we spent about a year negotiating with the chinese of pushing them to do more, they pushed us to do more until their president and our president announced top lines on joint targets before we actually finished.

they did that in november of 2014. looking at the chinese targets under that, they are in almost the ambitious theory of target is 2030 but there's no way they can achieve that by waiting until 2029. for example, they want to replace 20% of the total energy supply with nonfossil sources. if they do that that's the equivalent of replacing all energy from all sources in the united states to nonfossil sources. that's a huge amount to do. they can't pledge to do that in 2015 and wait to start doing it until 2029. they have to start doing it now and that is in fact what they are doing. they are already lowering the carbon intensity of their economy, reducing the amount of carbon dioxide per unit of gdp that the economy produces. in 2009 they pledged that they would try to do this to the tune 25%, 30%. they have already achieved and surpassed that target and will

do more. these other countries are working really hard to achieve these targets and the u.s. is the only country in the world pulling back at a national level and not participating in the process. -- host: sharon, good morning. morning.es, good mr. light, i would like to address something i see everywhere. i'm not technically savvy about this, but everywhere that i go i see individuals sitting in sometimes 15,s, 20, 25 minutes, elders scouring receipts. younger people who actually live in their vehicles, eat in them, text in them, music, whatever. even these temperate seasons, some even with the windows down are running the motors, running ac with the windows down.

this is crazy. i asked the driver's ed instructor do you ever address idling and he seemed to imply no, we really don't. because parents, deniers might sue. to me this is a very large problem. host: idling vehicle. guest: this brings up an important point. tackleway you can try to climate change, it's changing human behavior, trying to get people to voluntarily take measures so that they are not idling their cars, voluntarily say putting solar panels on their house, doing other things because they believe in it and want to do something but the problem is too big to wait for those kinds of behavioral changes. everything that we do everyday value,oduces positive all the kinds of things absolutely genuinely on ambiguous state good things to

do unfortunately usually contributes to the problem because we live in a fossil fuel infrastructure. things that's incredibly important, of the top three things the u.s. needs to de-carbonized the electricity supply and the other is to electrify transportation and come up with more ways to take carbon out of the atmosphere and sequester it and store it using plants and other means. on electric vehicles that's one of the ways. idling of -- idling electric vehicles wouldn't give the same amount of pollution like you get right now with an internal combustion engine. that's why this is a structural problem, a design problem. we need to make it possible for people to go through their lives as they had been before, no conspiracy here to take over an american way of life. what we want to do is to make it possible to grow the economy, continue to live lives as they were before without unintentionally contributing to

the problem that will hurt them down the road. salem, oregon, john. caller: i agree with the color from new york on a lot of his points, talking about the politicians like obama, al gore, they talk the talk but they don't walk the walk. his amng i'm tired of tired of you guys, climate change fanatical's that are fear mongering. that's exactly what you are doing. even if you institute all of the programs you want to do and get us totally off fossil fuels and you go wind and solar and so forth and the united states was to do that, the effect on the .limate would be so minimal the only way that this could be achieved would be -- it would have to be a worldwide effort. guest: i totally agree.

we can't do it by ourselves. it's a global problem. the omissions in one parts of the world going up cause problems equally to all parts of the world but we are not going to get progress in a world need to goo where we unless the united states is fully participating. we are the second largest greenhouse gas emitter in the .orld other countries want to move forward as well and will have an easier time, the leaders of the other countries have an easier time convincing the governments and their people to take more ambitious action if they see the united states also taking action . i'm not really a fanatic about anything. what we're looking at here is a wherehreat right now about half of all americans today said that they have been personally impacted by climate change or they know someone who has. that will increase in the future and if we want to get to those solutions, i'm confident that we

can do that in a way that grows the economy. statesics right now, 33 have already lowered their emissions and increased economic growth and it's entirely possible to do this in a reasonable way. host: what you say to the callers who call in about this, who have called in in the past who say in the 90's i heard we only had two beers left and hear how that we only have a few -- what do you say to those folks who are skeptical about making changes in hearing this sort of timeframe. i'm not comfortable with a can of language either, never have been. the idea that you have a decade and it's over just isn't true. mentioned,things i the intergovernmental panel on climate change that came up with a big group last fall about whether it is feasible for

possible to these targets, one of the things that has come out of the visit we only have until 2030 and it's just not true. in 2030ething happens and we are all doomed. it does get more expensive if you don't achieve it pretty far into her you want to be. it gets harder, it might mean that we are going to have to double down and deploy technologies that we can't even imagine existing right now. we mentioned solar and wind a everything and above kind of guy. we want to capture carbon dioxide from fossil fuel plants. there are a number of solutions that we need to move forward. the problem is, it gets more expensive the longer that we wait in the will be harm's by climate change, but you can't

pull back from them once they happen. you want to try to not exceed these thresholds, you need to try to hit these targets there. host: ralph is here in d.c., independent, good morning. caller: good morning, great conversation. make. of points to andrew yang has been talking about molten salt reactors. wanted tokilled they keep a water reactor to produce newtonim. produce it requires none of these they class holes and it's at one third the price. from your callers the arguments in hearing is that we are

approaching the wall at 70 miles per hour, so i hit the brakes, nothing has happened yet. that's the logic. it's like -- well, he beats his wife. the other people in the swimming pool, why shouldn't we? these inane arguments that we should do nothing because the world hasn't exploded yet and we should do nothing because other people may not do anything are completely ridiculous. guest: i cannot speak to that particular technology the caller was talking about but this is a great opportunity to talk about what the federal government can do. .ongress can do a lot there are republicans who want to forward on climate change but they are worried about the politics of it. one of the things that we see and hear a lot about here on capitol hill is that there is

ample support for some kind of innovation platform coming from with othercan side kinds like battery storage, potentially using hydrogen and other things like that. i think that there is also will for this as well as to extend the tax credit programs going out there for solar and wind, extend that to capture sequester. this is something republicans and democrats have agreed on in the past. progressg to make until we see much more concentrated and concerted federal action. california, democratic line, good morning. great: thank you for the program. i would like to issue a challenge to my fellow americans, these climate deniers calling it on the republican line, i would challenge them to turn on -- turn off rush

limbaugh and fox news and watch al gore's film rather than just taking potshots at it. sit down and watch it. video with climate sampleshowing the core reflecting the beginning of the industrial age with the carbon samples. it's called burn the operators manual. you might even be able to show that on one of your channels. it's fantastic. teacher incience kansas, a republican who explains global warming to nonbelievers. primarily one of the things he and they makene

their plans toward saving our planet. guest: this is true, looking for the last five administrations, we have seen increases and didn't -- decreases in concern from the white house and we have never seen the pentagon back take yourit, they mission seriously to protect the homeland and american interest abroad. they cannot mess around with the one or two scientists out there the disagree with the global consensus. the preponderance of the evidence shows that it makes threats worse. it's also a catalyst for conflict that with other issues can make things worse. we know for example that there was a drought that precipitated the syrian civil war that was unprecedented. the science on this looks like the drought was driven by human activity.

the degree to which humans have warmed the planet, it has caused about one million farmers to leave the countryside and come into the city. the assad regime made things worse. along with the conflict that arrested from that. but it contributed to it. this is something that i agree we should take to heart. mike, houston, texas, republican, can you make it quick question mark caller: yes. compliance. climate change is about if you listen to what we say and shut off rush limbaugh, no one gets hurt. faceless, unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats manage the affairs of our daily lives and we have to give up private property rights and comply with daily activities. all of these predictions that occur don't seem to affect politicians on the left.

they can fly in their private jets, they can have two homes, but they will not be the first -- the point is, where is the measurement to say when climate change is over? it's like racism. it's a card used to play for decades. there is no exit strategy. there is no timeline. when you set goals for your life you have goals and you measure the timeline to achieve them. guest: this is where the caller is just mistaken i think. we went through a process of three decades negotiating targets for where the world and adapt to the world as it warms. codifyinge process, it in clear language to limit

temperature increase to two degrees celsius, where it was in the preindustrial time, lower celsius,at 1.5 degrees with an increase in temperature, we know that that world is worse two degrees. but it is a goal, it is a concrete target internationally agreed-upon by all countries in the world except for the united states. the only thing, the biggest thing holding back the world right now is our country that refuses to participate in the process that we in fact lead on to create this international consensus to achieve goals and take them seriously which would nothieving them require americans to give up any private property or something as scary as that. host: andrew light, quebec again. guest: thank you. we continue the discussion on the environment and future of u.s. energy production. we will be joined by nicolas

loris of the heritage foundation. and later we take a look at the candidate stance on environmental issues, zach coleman will join us from politico. we will be right back. ♪ >> labor day weekend that american history tv, saturday at 8 p.m. eastern, a discussion about abraham lincoln and native americans. sunday at 4 p.m. on "real america," the film invasion of southern france. monday, labor day, 8 p.m.

eastern, the commemoration of the 1400s anniversary of the virginia general assembly held at jamestown. explore the nations past. every weekend on c-span3. >> in the wake of the race -- recent shootings in el paso, included dayton, ohio banning high-capacity magazines and restricting firearms by court and preventing individuals convicted of misdemeanor hate crimes from purchasing a gun. live coverage begins wednesday, september 4 at 10 a.m. eastern on c-span and c-span.org and if you are on the go, listen to our live coverage using the free c-span radio app. >> watch booktv for live coverage of the national book festival, saturday at 10 a.m.

eastern, coverage including interviews with ruth bader ginsburg on her book, my own words. david shroyer, whose book is the heartbeat of wounded knee. sharon robinson talks about her book, child of the dream. sharon atkinson, author of the british are coming. and thomas malone of the m.i.t. center for collective intelligence discusses his book, super minds. that's live, saturday on booktv on c-span 2. >> "washington journal" continues. host: the deputy director for economic policy of the heritage and foundation, nicolas loris, back behind the desk. will you start by defining what that's job is? guest: tricky within itself. when the obama administration

theyooking at green jobs included everything from trash collectors to people who work in goodwill. they were involved in reusing and recycling. conventionally more people talk about the energy economy and what that looks like. installing, the numbers are mixed. i would like to see green energy economies that drive innovation forward and doesn't rely on government subsidies. what is it comparable to in terms of numbers of workers or jobs related? it's difficult to say based on the numbers you use. compared to other industries, they are certainly growing and that's great. markets, people are

demanding renewable power and is this is are demanding to use 100% renewables and the demand is driving production and that's ultimately what we want to see, competition among the energy sources when they are being subsidized through targeted tax credits. that's just allocation with subsidization taking resources away from other sectors in the economy. that's not actually creating growth, it is shifting it to politically preferred sectors of the economy that doesn't really do us any good, it only helps the people lobbying to get the handouts. host: in this election cycle several democratic candidates are calling for moving towards a net zero emission in the economy. greench more with the economy have to achieve?

guest: 80% of our energy needs are met through conventional oil and natural gas and if you have 80% of our needs in the world bus needs coming from these, you the tax andlicies regulate these out of existence. even if renewable costs are coming down and becoming more cost competitive with conventional sources of energy. it is still going to take a lot to shift to a net zero economy. host: is anyone tried to estimate what the cost would be? is it less than the cost of climate change? estimate i every have seen from peer-reviewed literature from m.i.t., things that we have produced at the heritage action for him, the cost of the green new deal, it

seems that the cost of these policies are going to outweigh both the benefits in terms of climate reduction, but also any type of cost from climate change itself. you are talking about multiple trillions of dollars across the economy. energy is such a critical component of everything that we make and do that when you force higher energy prices on american consumers and businesses, you are not just paying more for your electricity or at the pump, you are paying more for food, health care, and education. it has huge ripple effects throughout the economy. host: we are talking about the economics of environmental and energy policy. republicans, (202) 748-8001, democrats, (202) 748-8000, independents, (202) 748-8002. deal,ning the green new

alexandria a cause you cortez announced the green new deal. [video clip] it's a big day for us of that forgation, a movement, frontline communities all over the country. today is a big day for people who have been left behind. today is a big day for workers and appalachia. a big day for children who have been dirt -- breathing dirty air in the south. today is a really good day for families who have been enduring the injustices of thinking dirty or have seen their living rooms flooded with the waves of the rising sea level. today is a think a really big day for our economy, the labor movement, the social justice movement, indigenous peoples and

people all over the united states of america. today is the day that we truly embark on a comprehensive agenda of economic, social, and racial justice. climate change and environmental challenges are one of the biggest existential threats to our way of life. not just as a nation, but as a world. threat, we must be as ambitious and innovative in our innovation as possible. what have you done to talk about the economic cost of the green new deal. guest: part of the problem is the plan is a nebulous lee

there are not good policy descriptions in the model and we attempted to use the federal government's own energy administration model to model what the cost would be to achieve. theye timeframe that wanted to achieve, the model essentially broke. it couldn't handle such a ramp-up of reducing conventional fuel. up the carbon tax and impose regulation on the conventional industry and we found millions of jobs lost per year. these are significant costs for negligible climate benefit. down, we areg talking about mitigation of a few tenths of a degree celsius with a few centimeters on the sea level rise within the same timeframe. policies really have been all costs with no benefit.

done these have all been at heritage.org? guest: that's right. host: joseph, democratic line, go ahead. caller: good morning. if you could allow me to make a quick personal testimony regarding the issues, last year i bought a plug-in vehicle that has given me 50 miles of electric energy each day and turns out it gives about 120 miles per gallon, combining electric and gas. , put solar panels on my roof 47 of them. i follow a plan based diet. i'm not bragging about anything, but it's not really costing the anything but it has given me better health. it's kind of a no-brainer. i would kind of like to ask a question here teargas regarding the recent united nations study

that came out of a month ago, this is not the first one the u.n. has done regarding the environment, but i would like to bring out -- bring up what i would refer to as a very inconvenient truth that came out in that report. specifically talking about the cattle industry. much it contributes damage to the environment, you know? serious issue and people make fun of it, kind of, saying that they will take away our cows or whatever, but i would like to make reference to a documentary on netflix, anyone piece,ted in this lobbyists the cattle industry have. the documentary is entitled "cowspiracy." guest: more props to you for having an electric vehicle and

installing solar panels. i'm all for those choices. my concern is when other people are paying for them. if you look at the tax credits for electric vehicles with federal and state subsidies they can be over $10,000 per vehicle oft largely accrue to some the wealthiest americans. you have middle america paying for subsidized choices of rich folks. not what we want to see out of competition and choice, those policies subsidizing the choices of the wealthy and resulting a lot of corporate welfare. commentards to the beef , it's certainly true that with methane emissions, the cattle industry is contributing to climate change and you see industries innovating with plant waste innovations, with lab grown meat. things are happening at the market level. people are making choices. the market is driving decisions at the production and consumption level and that is

ultimately policy. confident the market will drive innovations fast enough to avert the cost of climate change in the future? guest: putting it in perspective is important. i am less worried about catastrophic costs as was mentioned the previous panel. we need to look at the international community. the future of greenhouse gas emissions will overwhelmingly come from the developing world. innovationd is more to allow people to adapt to climate change in the near term by building more resilient and durable infrastructure, as well as looking at long-term solutions to make sure people have the energy needs they demand because we have nearly a billion people without access to reliable electricity.

also meeting environmental targets. host: temple, georgia. judy, a republican. caller: hey. can you hear me? country isat, this headed downhill like a snowball heading to hell. all you socialists that want to control our lives and tell cortez we are not going to kill our cows. that is the way i feel about it. host: that is how judy feels in georgia. brenda in chickamauga, georgia. caller: i don't believe what she just said. i can't believe anybody would say that, and i can't believe what he said about poor people and the average people is the burden of the cost of this. when is it we were never -- ever

were not the burden on us little people to make innovations? you can't append on big corporations. he talked about we don't want to subsidize -- like this man with the electric car. how many billions of dollars have a given tax cuts to these corporations that don't pay anything down? they could care less about how much we breathe. they can go by an island somewhere. -- buy an island somewhere. guest: that's a great point. we should be talking about getting rid of all energy subsidies, not just the one for electric vehicles or renewable power. we should get rid of subsidies for coal and natural gas and nuclear. if you look at the market, this is a trillion dollar market. these guys don't need help from the federal taxpayer to meet these energy demands. it is either subsidizing economic losers like -- or

providing corporate welfare to companies that don't need help from the taxpayer. i completely agree with you. we should eliminate the federal government picking winners and losers, not continuing down the path of government intervention. host: which sectors get the most when it comes to the government subsidies? guest: it depends on how you measure it and how yo -- what you consider a subsidy. if you look at immediate expensing, i don't consider that a subsidy. the tax cut bill applies it to everything now. that is not really a subsidy. on a per megawatt hour basis, the renewable power that generates the biggest benefits from the subsidies, for they stand to benefit the most. at the same time you've had a lot of historical treatment for the oil co. and gas and coal and gas and coal

sector. host: if we got rid of them, how much would that say the government on the annual basis? guest: potentially $10 billion a year, if not more depending when you consider a subsidy. not to mention the ethanol mandate which was once posed as a good idea. now you have most environmentalist opposing the ethanol mandate because of the environment of destruction it has caused. there are 70 different ways the government intervenes into energy markets -- so many ways the government intervenes in the energy market. dear allowing for more innovation. it will be the good ideas that move forward, not the ones with no support from lobbyists and politicians. host: jim a republican,. caller: thank you for taking my call.

back in the 1950's when i was a teenager, there was a lot of talk about an ice age coming. new york was going to be buried in 100 feet of ice. age?happened to this ice is it the same thing about global warming? yeah, i think that is one peoplereasons a lot of have skepticism about climate science and climate policy. a lot of predictions about m&a climate catastrophe, whether it is global warming or global cooling have not come true or any real political sessions for making these predictions and not coming true. given --net intergovernmental panel contribute half of it to man-made activity, but i don't think we are heading towards

catastrophic warming. the real dire scenarios for you see several meters of sea level rise and super extremes just are not born in reality. they make assumptions that don't see you becoming true based on both climate projections but also the use of energy resources around the world. certainly notd to call it a hoax but we need to not fear mongering about the future of catastrophic climate change. democrat. a caller: i just wanted to mention subsidies. coal power plants get five megawatt hour subsidies. what about the coal trains and the mines. what is it cost to build a new power plant today? you are talking about at least half $1 billion. guest: we should get rid of the

subsidies. there was a reason the percentage of coal has dropped about 25% over the past decade. it cannot compete with cheap natural gas. far fewer new coal power plants being built in the u.s., although that is not the trend around the world. you are seeing more coal mines or exports for consumption in places like china and india who were building coal-fired power plants at a rapid clip. host: milton, florida. good morning. caller: thanks for taking my call. it's funny we are talking about climate change. i just got a book yesterday called "the mythology of global warming." i'm only on page eight or , but the caller talked

about being a teenager in the 1950's. it talked about that. says, and the media proclaiming the oil countries were destroying our planet because of global cooling. if we don't do something, the earth could drop 20 degrees. that the climate normally changes up and down throughout the years? is there really science behind it? it talks about 30,000 scientists that disagree with climate change phenomena. -- seeingyou saying the impacts of climate change were you live? caller: it is hot and it's cold. when i was a kid, it was hot down here and then it got cold again and hot again. it is hot definitely.

is it hotter than normal? no. i was in alaska in the early 1990's. i worked in a hotel. it was the hottest on record in alaska during the summertime, 91 degrees or something like that in fairbanks. then it was the coldest on record that year at -68. to me the climate goes up and down all the time. in florida.s ron guest: the climate changes because of human activity and natural variation. it can be anything from the different trends in ocean oscillation. it can be volcanic eruption's. there are a number of factors that change the climate. it does not matter what is driving climate change. risk toether it poses a certain communities, certain

areas in the united states and around the world, and to the costs of the climate policies outweighing the benefits. what i see from a lot of the energy policies proposed by the left with the green new deal is significantly outweigh the benefits and would not do anything to really protect against the changing climate, no matter what the cause. host: explain how the urban tax works. -- carbon tax works. guest: eventually it would impose a fee on each ton of carbon dioxide emitted, primarily targeting the energy industry as well as the agriculture industry if you account for methane emissions and the emissions coming from the natural gas industry as well. essentially the goal of a carbon tax is to price that allegedly

externality of co2 and internalize those emissions. the problem with taxing co2 is that you are not internalizing a pollutant like he would smog -- you who would smog or have known risks. you are trying to mitigate warming. a carbon tax but really result in a huge tax on the energy industry, a huge tax on american consumers and businesses, but not internalize. host: what other countries have imposed a carbon tax? guest: canada tried. it floundered a little bit mostly because they have been a number of giveaways to actually not changed very much behavior. australia has tinkered with it a little bit. they have gone back from it to put -- implement and get because it was unpopular and they did not see much environmental benefit from the carbon tax.

if you look at a number of places in europe that have either proposed a trade system or carbon fees, those policies have been wildly unpopular as well because they are not deriving the climate benefits they were promised. you saw the yellow vests protesters in paris for a reason. people are upset with paying more and more for energy and more and more for goods and services that they pay for and not seeing any change in the climate. that is why these policies in the united states and around the world are very unpopular. people care about climate change and are increasingly caring about climate change, but on the list of policy priorities it falls near the bottom and it has for decades. oft: we have nicolas loris the heritage foundation taking your phone calls. republicans, democrats, independents. bob is out of victoria, texas.

caller: good morning, gentlemen. i would like to say climate change is the weather. one day it is hot, when date is cold, one day it rains, the next day you have a drought. the professor that was on there talked about how wonderful california is. the reason they have wildfires is because they do not keep their forests intact. when a tree dies, it stays there until it falls down. any little spark can burn it up. angeles is written -- ridden with feces and every thing else. you take northern mexico -- host: we will stay on environmental policy. what specifically have you studied what it comes to the economics of environment of policy when it comes to california? guest: a lot of subsidies and

mandates that have driven families to pay higher costs and driven businesses out of california to states where the economic climate is much more enticing than california despite the great weather california has. he brings up a good point about forest three. that has been 8 -- forestry. that is been a big problem and a lot of western states. it's a culture of not properly maintaining the forests and resulting in essentially kindle to allow these forest fires to burn without proper management. it will exacerbate the risks and exacerbate the costs. host: vanessa and washington, d.c. a democrat. caller: i wanted to make a comment. i find it interesting the heritage foundation, the republican party, those are the only ones who don't seem to know there is global warming going on.

a lot of interesting these fossil fuel corporations and organizations are paying them a lot of money for their campaigns, et cetera. i find it interesting it is not ok to subsidize for the green new deal, but i'm supposed to subsidize farmers because of tariffs. it's good for the goose but not for the gander, and that is my issue. guest: i largely agree with you. i don't think we should be subsidizing farmers because of bad trade policies because this is essentially a tax on consumers. it is problematic not just for energy policy, the tariffs on solar panels, potential natural gas and exports, these are raising costs on consumers. i agree with you there is global warming and we have been in a warming period for a while, ever

since we came out of the little ice age. i would disagree with some of the left of how much warming we are expected to see from increased greenhouse gas emissions and i think sometimes the media portrays each wildfire event or each hurricane as attributed to human activity when even the united nations framework on climate change and the intergovernmental panel say that is not the case. neither does the united states natural climate assessment. i like to look at what these reports actually say with regards to trends in extreme weather events and natural disasters. they show even with increased greenhouse gas emissions you are not seeing more frequent and intense natural disasters. host: in terms of historically when it comes to subsidies, what energy sector has received the most? what is your thought on helping new technologies get off the ground and the role the

government can play and should play? guest: historically it has largely been oil and gas and coal because they dominated the energy sector for such a long time. on a per megawatt hour basis more recently it is wind and solar and renewable sources of energy. for successful innovation coming out of the united states is utilizing the department of energy's natural labs. they are tremendous resources we have that lead to a whole bunch of innovations and new technologies coming to the marketplace, or research we have seen at the department of defense. look at the internet and gps. these came from dod research endeavors and then entrepreneurs took the ideas and made them commercial success stories that we have today. we could do that more by opening up access to the natural lab,

look at what they're doing, push technologies to the marketplace and have a terminus about of success with innovation stemming from government research. host: i want to dive back into the c-span archives. 1985. carl sagan testifying before the senate about the impacts of the greenhouse effect, but alternative sources of power and their development in the decades to come. [video] thate best estimates are at the present rate of burning of fossil fuels, the present rate of increasing minor infrared absorbing gases in the atmosphere, it will be a several cent degree -- sent a great degree temperature increase on the earth by the middle to the end of the next century. that has a variety of consequences including redistribution of local climates glaciers andng of

an increase in sea level. there is concern on a somewhat longer timescale about the collapse of the west antarctic ice sheet and a general rise of many meters in sea level. o, we have a kind of handwriting on the wall. certainly there is more research to be done but there was a consensus. the idea that we should immediately stop burning fossil economicsuch severe consequences that no one will take it seriously. there are many other things that can be done. one has to do with subsidies for fossil fuels. more efficient use could be encouraged by fewer government subsidies. secondly there are alternative energy sources, some of which

are useful at least locally. certainly one that might be a more general use. whichission power plants, are in principle possible. on a longer timescale, the prospect of fusion power. fission and fusion power plants no infrared vent active gases and therefore whatever other problems that may provide, they do not provide a greenhouse problem. , carl sagans loris talking about the issues we are talking about this morning. guest: you just put a different timestamp on that 2019 and it's what a lot of people are saying today. we have heard fusion is around the corner for a long time, for renewables being cost competitive. we have heard that for decades

yet they only supply a small percentage of our electricity generation. the costs are coming down. that is what we want to see. if we illuminate the preferential treatment and allow energy policy to be consumer-centric, that is when we derive the most innovation. some of the dire predictions have not come true. yes, the arctic is warming and we have seen melting. the antarctic has been growing in most seasons. some climate productions come true and some don't. you are not seeing the huge multiple meters of sea level that somected climatologists have made back in the 1970's and 1980's. you are seeing a steady rise instead. some of these things we can adapt to overtime. we should have sensible policies to allow people to adapt to climate change over time rather than creating more energy costs in the u.s. and around the world. host: let's chat with callers.

les and gilmer, texas. -- in gilmer, texas. caller: i hear you talk about the environment all the time and the gases and getting rid of fossil fuels. let me touch on a couple of things. i have not hurt anybody that ever talked about this -- how many people across the united states own a boat? they get on the water and have recreation with their families. are going to get into an electric boat? how are we going to ship things across the ocean with an electric ship? iffar as the methane gas, you help the people get out of the streets of california, from san diego up to seattle, washington, a lot of methane right there would probably be

erased from the atmosphere. is a reasonnk there that oil has been overwhelming supplier of our transportation sector for a long time. it is affordable and reliable. even in places like europe where they jacked up the taxes to the point where the price of petrol is eight dollars to nine dollars equivalent, they are largely using cars that run on gasoline and diesel. there has not been a massive switch over to electric vehicles or biofuel powered vehicles. that is not to say biofuels or electric vehicles cannot be a bigger part of our energy and transportation future. the market is going to drive that demand. it has a big obstacle to overcome because we have so much oil. it has been a huge success story in the u.s. we are the world's largest producer of oil and we have been the largest producer of natural gas for a decade now, which has

yielded tremendous economic and geopolitical benefit by sharing this energy and trading it with our allies. host: diane, independent. good morning. caller: thanks for taking my call. i have listened to these environmental shows and i have talk once heard anyone about technology with the cell phones, the computers. there are billions of cell phones being held in the hands of people that never shut off. tell me it is not leading a carbon footprint. i only use my cell phone for emergencies. i can't stay on it longer than five minutes. it gets so hot. -- they would rather go after cow gas and light bulbs

and everything else, but nobody ever talks about the cell phones. host: have you looked into the environmental impact of powering cell phones? guest: i have it but there is environment of trade-offs for everything we make and do. if you look at the batteries for electric vehicles, there was a campaign now worried about the child slave labor that goes into mining material for lithium-ion batteries. no matter what we are producing, whether it is the rare earth materials necessary for cell phones or defense technologies or for solar panels, all these activities have environmental costs. that is part of the problem with some of the grand environment of policies. abilityre reducing the for the united states to harness our resources, you are only going to ship activities to

other countries where they are less safe and certainly not done in an environmentally friendly manner. you are not improving the mi meant. you are -- you are not improving the environment. you are making it worse off. rey on twitter wants to talk about the green new deal. you consider cost due to damage infrastructure, the military, naval forces, environment of gdp?ees, guest: we run the energy information administration. that is solely an energy model. we don't factor in those costs. there are some of those costs. guest: we run the energy i would like to see the military and civilian infrastructure be better prepared for extreme weather events, no matter the cause. it has been clearly documented that our dod infrastructure is susceptible to flooding in certain areas.

they have a hard time actually building the necessary infrastructure to protect against those extreme weather events. an air force base in nebraska is a good example. it just succumbed to flooding this last spring. 10 years ago, the same thing almost happened. they recognized it was a threat but a permitting timeframe to build the technologies was still in limbo on this last flooding happened. this has been a systemic problem that we have these regulatory paralysis when it comes to building new infrastructure to help us adapt to climate change. overview andonment the legal processes result in these projects being held up for years and sometimes decades. host: philip in michigan, democrat. caller: this is the fastest i've

gotten through and the longest i've been waiting to speak. can you please change your topic to human effect on climate change? we don't really want to stop climate change. andearth tilts on its axis gives us the season. change --p climate look at the weather for phoenix. 90 somethinghigh, for a low. have we studied the side effects to have another mild ice age? host: philip in michigan. i would give the final minute and a half or that topic or other topics we have covered today. guest: if you look at the human effects, it is clear humans are having an impact on climate change. there is disagreement as to how

much of an impact that is and what the future warming looks like when you double greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. we have not talked about nuclear power as an option as well. here is an industry that shows a lot of promise. there are a lot of small modular reactor designs that are completely safe. we have a regulatory process that does not allow them to get to the marketplace. i think people rode off the nuclear renaissance when we had all the cheap natural gas that could not compete -- so that it could not compete. they are confident it can. it can be used for dod infrastructure, used in the developing world for they don't have access to affordable reliable electricity. there was a lot of potential for energy innovation across the board, not just with conventional resources and coal and natural gas, and not just with wind and solar and battery storage. we should be considering all of

these analog markets to drive innovation forward. that best meet consumer needs. host: nicolas loris from the heritage foundation, deputy director of economic policy. always appreciate your time. we the rest of our program will talk about how environment of issues are playing out on the campaign 2020 presidential trail. we will talk with zack colman of politico. we will be right back. ♪ >> in the late 1850's, americans trusted their congressman but did not trust congress as an institution. nor did congressman trust each other. by 1860, many were routinely

armed. not because they were eager to kill their opponents, but they were worried their opponents would kill them. >> joann freeman will be our guest on in-depth. her latest book is "the field of blood." her other titles include "the essential hamilton," and "affairs of honor." join our live conversation. at 9:00 p.m. eastern on afterwards, in his book ", the immoral majority" ben howe examines if evangelicals are choosing political power over christian values. >> the argument is temping but dangerous. they contribute to keeping a system in place that takes accountability out of the system. i think it also is an easy way to bring in something like evangelicalism and use that as a way to get votes, which seems

like the worst possible weight. -- way. >> every weekend on c-span2. >> in the wake of the recent shootings in, el paso, texas and dayton, ohio, the house judiciary committee fall return early to markup three gun violence prevention bills which include banning high-capacity ammunition magazines, restricting firearms from those deemed to be arrested the selves -- to be a risk to themselves, and those convicted of a hate crime from purchasing guns. go, listen tohe our coverage using the free c-span radio app. washington journal continues. host: political reporter zack colman is back with us as we continue our discussion of environmental issues and campaign 2020.

15 month before election day, where does climate policy rank in the minds of 2020 voters? guest: there was a place where drinks and the might of democratic voters, and then the broader public. for democratic voters, communication is showing that liberal voters rank it as the third most important issue. when you see the democratic candidates up there, they are jockeying for the primary voter. the broader electorate is a little lower on the pole, 17 out of 29 issues. but we are seeing is a little bit of emphasis on climate change because of who is being spoken to. see where it comes out in the general election. host: what are the major differences focusing on the primary candidates when it comes to environment the policy? where are we seeing the risks? guest: we are seeing quite a bit

of agreement and that's a credit to the activism on the issue. and a lot of the natural events fueled by climate change. a lot of studies have come out that say we need to be more drastic in our action. we are seeing a lot of public investment calls. billions of dollars to address climate change. bringing in a bunch of different groups -- groups underrepresented in the political process to address these issues that hit people differently but hit all people. differences some are whether someone comes -- calls for a carbon tax or want to allow for more coal, oil and gas with some technology to make sure the emissions don't get pulled into the atmosphere. they are not being talked about in great detail right now. host: you are the folks with the most aggressive climate policies? guest: bernie sanders came up with the most aggressive policy.

jay inslee made it his soul issue or signature issue and he left the campaign. bernie called for a $16.3 trillion plan over 15 years which dwarfs most other people's plans. everybody has called for something big. elizabeth warren called for trillions, joe biden, kirsten gillibrand. host: if you want to talk about your favorite candidate's environment of policies, democrat or president trump's actions on climate and energy, you can do that in the last 25 minutes of the washington journal. republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. zack colman covers energy and it for mental issues for politico. you mentioned jay inslee out. what has been his impact as a candidate running solely on the

environment till issue? guest: he made everybody address it. he was challenging joe biden, having a soliloquy with him. that got biden flustered. has anxtent what it effect on his joe biden having to come out with a detailed plan. jay inslee and so many other people were asking people for more details. whiteslee put out several papers on what he wanted to do on climate change, every little aspect showing it touches every part of life in the economy. everybody else had to measure up to that. host: what are some details joe biden put out? guest: getting to net zero carbon emissions by 2050. deadlines.or earlier net zero carbon emissions technology like carbon capture, which is when you allow gas and coal to be burned but you trap

the emissions to make sure they don't affect the climate and you store it underground. he called her 500,000 more electric vehicle charging stations to help get people to a charger. we don't have enough in this country. he has tried to bring back some the obama regulations he worked on and wants to plus up what he was doing there. host: what is the president's pitch heading into 2020 on energy and the environment? guest: he is trying to find his best way to talk about this. you see him up on the debate stage saying competing with the others who have put out aggressive plans. we need to work on this and work on phasing out coal and oil and gas and have a conversation about it. he said he would eliminate fracking that there is not clear way to do that. host: president trump? guest: no, joe biden.

host: what is president trump's pitch? host: he wants to do more the same -- guest: he wants to do more of the same. he said the wealth of the nation's centers feet. we will not see a change from him. he will not matter who the democratic candidate is. host: does he want to run against the green new deal? guest: his advisors love that democrats are talking about this. he and his advisors think it is insane. it is too ambitious and people not supported. host: let's chat with a few callers. david out of alabama, republican. caller: thank you for c-span. my concerns are with the environment itself and our natural scrubbers which are greenery and trees that are not high enough to get to some of these things.

-- we have so many vehicles around the united states right now. almost every driver could have a brand-new car coming off the line. there will come a point in time where fossil fuel cars will have to be downgraded to the point where they not even being sold. i am a car buff. sometimes we have to take into consideration what the environment needs and what it does not need. host: the think president trump does that enough? doesn't.ell, no he need scrubbers in those factories to help scrub some of this stuff. we can't keep planting stuff in soilround that is going to

our earth. what do you do with all the toxic waste that comes out of everything you try to revert? host: zack colman? guest: i think david brought up good points. one of the 2020 candidates, cory reforestation is one of his signature aims. i think there is definitely a point about transportation here. we don't have the ability to get a handle on climate change if we are not using editions from transportation. people are beholden to their cars at this point. it is a big challenge. that is where most emissions come from, not the power sector or electricity. that is something all candidates are wrestling with. host: you mentioned reforestation. president trump is looking to

boost logging in alaska. that we need sense more trees to capture more carbon, any tree lost is going to be negative for the climate. guest: the story in the washington post looking at president trump the perley asking sonny perdue to exempt million acres that was imposed 20 years ago. something that may be in the works. bridget out of austin, texas. caller: how are you? thank you for both of your work. i wanted to mention john robbins work. out about food revolution. watere 5000 gallons of with the production of one pound

of beef. he researched it and found it was true. cows are so massive and their waste dropping of the planet, it traps heat in our environment. what is happening in brazil, we are losing the rain forests. those of the planet. he said we need our trees to breathe. host: that is bridget in texas. our democratic candidates talking about cows? guest: there is a recognition agriculture brings a lot of omissions. there needs to be some sort of way to reduce those admissions. we are talking about soil, sequestering carbon in the soil. we are talking about having more responsible grazing policies. i don't think that is been nearly as fleshed out his energy policies writ large. there is not enough brought to bear on that. guest: why aren't we going to have a specific democratic

debate about climate change? the national committee said they will not have a single issue debate about anything. it will be too late to include that. we have never seen that, but to the activist point, climate change touches all aspects of life. it affects the economy, your health, the home you live in. they feel this is an issue not getting enough attention and touches every single thing and it needs to be brought to lightfoot candidates are going to do and make sure it is a first-order priority of whoever the democratic nominee is. there is not enough time left. c talked about not having that specific debate. cnn holding a seven hour climate change town hall next week with 10 democratic candidates expected to show up. stephen st. louis, missouri.

caller: hi. i would love to talk about or have a long discussion about different ideas on what can be done to help in this issue of climate change. as i listen on these conversations -- i love the fact the u.s. has. a wide variety of opinions that is great. whenever i hear republicans referring to the democrats as dirty socialist and communist, saying things like why do people talk about cell phones, is because they are not the major contributor to global warming. people say what about the boats? yes, they are a part of the problem but they are not the main contributor to global warming. fuelsagriculture and the burning, and boats are a part of that, but agriculture and fuel are the two contributors. host: you are interested in the topic has a democratic caller.

talks your candidate and about this issue the best on the campaign trail? caller: i agree with what some of you guys have said on the air. sanders veryernie close to my heart. the fact that jay inslee is gone -- i was supporting bernie anyway, but now he has taken a strong stance. if you are going to have an opinion, that is great. issue beforeon an you start getting out there and voicing your opinion to the rest of the world like it is fact. host: stephen missouri. do you want to dive into bernie sanders's plan? guest: he put meat on the bones of the green new deal. at this point the green new deal has been an action plan, a mission statement. he actually decided i will put

some meat on the bones. he's talking about 16 point $3 trillion of spending over 15 half carbonng in emissions by 2030 and eliminating them a couple of years after that. talking about getting zero emissions from transportation, from power, from everything. talking about reducing military spending. making fossil fuel companies pay more. eliminating subsidies. there is some stock in trade that this is bernie sanders type platform. he has always been railing against corporate interests and always try to make the fossil fuel companies pay for what they have done to the climate. here we have some paper. it is something that will raise the bar for a lot of candidates. people have been waiting for this climate plan from bernie sanders? they thought it was interesting he has not come out with one. here it is. host: usa today at with their

latest polling of the democratic primary field. here is where it sits according to the usa today poll that just came out. vice president joe biden retained a wide lead of 32%, 2% higher from the polling back in june. elizabeth warren moved up four point 2 second place at 14%. bernie sanders dropping three points down to third place with 12%. only three other candidates received support about 2%. and california senator kamala harris, andrew yang at 3%. 'rourke and cory booker. let's focus on pete buttigieg. in fourth place. what his climate plans? guest: he has not put out as much details. he has called for a carbon tax,

which was kind of the policy a few years de jour ago. bernie sanders used to promote a carbon tax. his plan that he released, he did not even mention it. pete buttigieg said we will tax carbon emissions that will make burning fossil fuels more expensive. the revenue you would get from those taxes would be given back to people in the form of a rebate. it would not have an actual cost on individuals. this is what economists say is the best solution for directly addressing emissions. a lot of candidates have backed off as the green new deal call from urgency and bigger spending plans. host: frank in california, democrat. caller: what you presented this morning is indicative of what i considered to be the problem.

he split time between actual climate scientist and a climate denier. we have in our country one of two clinical parties that actively denies climate change. that does not happen anywhere else in the world. it is why i think we are doomed on the subject and i find it depressing. host: zack colman on how democrats will frame the climate debate, the averments of the bait heading into the general election regardless of who the candidate might be. host: the caller is correct -- guest: the united states is unique in being the only one that largely uniformly rejects climate science. i think that is what democrats are leaning into. they have done that in the past but it did not resonate with voters with as much as it has now. changes -- what changes?

guest: a lot of scientists came out and said we are falling behind on this. there was a personal interaction with climate change and people are connecting the dots. people that i talked to in places that are conservative acknowledge something is different. you talk to farmers and people in conservative hotbeds. it might be low lands like the carolinas and they know something is changing. it does not mean they like the democratic policy platforms, but there is a recognition it's affecting everybody. host: plano, texas is next. patti. caller: how many billions of years old is this planet? climate changes constantly and in major ways at times. i agree with that. i wanted tow concentrate on solar products. i have solar panels on the house. i love them. here in texas it can get hot.

i have not paid anything except about a hundred $50 in the last $150 in the past 12 months. host: why did you decide to go solar? guest: my neighbors -- caller: my neighbors got one and they said how great it was. i figured i can help contribute alth of the he planet by doing that. yourr what is good for climate. that is what i'm doing. stuff, whyate change did president obama and michelle go by $15 million estate -- 29 acres in fact at martha's vineyard on the seashore? if climate change is that eminent, don't you think this

man is in big trouble? host: zack colman? guest: that's a good point. sea level rising is affecting a lot of communities. you want to have a big seashore property because it is nice to be on the water, but this is threatening people's homes. bc people moving back their homes and putting them on stilts. the insurance markets don't want to play in these areas because they know there is major risk. yang productdrew that we need to do the higher ground. it is not a comfortable thing to think about. president obama's administration through hundreds of millions of dollars to relocate communities in louisiana and alaska. host: how does andrew yang make that pitch? guest: it went over kind of poorly in the debate when he made it for the first time. it is seems you have a level of

wealth a lot of -- that allows you to do that. not everyone that lives in flood prone areas are wealthy. that is the definition of land-use planning. they put people who could not afford better land in areas that would flood out a lot. addressing wehe's need to come to grips with this reality that things are not the same, i think that was appreciated. host: this is andrew yang's climate action plan,'s proposals for energy and the environment from his website. he begins by saying our planet is a mess. we need to bring the full force of america to bear on this problem or we will fail and the world will suffer. his website if you want to see more on that. less than 10 minutes left. we had to alexandria, virginia. richard is an independent. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call. sentiments echo the

of the settlement from alabama. just to say you can't keep polluting at the rate we are doing now. it's important to keep in mind we need to keep abreast of what the arguments actually are. naturerly skeptical by but i feel like there is something happening. my question is this. can you recommend a book or a movie that can bring us up to speed with what some of the arguments are today? i will take my question off the air. thank you. host: what are you reading right now? honestly there are any number of good reporters i can recommend. elizabeth culbert has documented

what's happening right now. her book is about climate change. that's an essential read for people to understand was happening to our planet. host: how long it even covering climate energy issues? guest: eight years. host: do you have a specific beat at politico on this topic? is it everything that falls under that? guest: i think every thing does fall under that. the choices made in the energy environment are obviously going to have an effect on the climate and vice versa. host: zack colman with us for about five more minutes. harrison, democrat. caller: i want to see if i can get zack to expound on the idea andorn and ethanol, especially in our primary politics. it is just my opinion that the ethanol mandate in our gasoline is a bad idea.

i think it is getting proven out. my brother and i were discussing this yesterday. i looked up corn production and how much of it goes to ethanol. these are not exact numbers but it was about 20 billion bushels of corn and a little over 5 billion that was ethanol production. in general we know that social security is the third rail of politics. i wondering if this bad policy of use of corn with ethanol is the third rail of primary politics. ethanol has been entered honestly divisive topic. when we talk about agriculture, climate and agriculture. the groups have shown

amount of corn used for ethanol has led to land-use change to the fact we have fewer trees and have to clear it corn for ethanol. and for fee for livestock. and this is something that is a huge environmental issue. there are people on both sides that think that displacing oil with ethanol is worth the cost. i think the democratic party and activist on the entire mental side have turned a corner on. and they're not pushing back in corn ethanol. host: they going around to iowa and of the caucuses. guest: it is a huge part of the economy there. agriculture is politically powerful in every state. if there is something is exempt from, it is environment allows. host: matt, democrat. caller: thank you for the conversation.

in your eight years of reporting and bringing this up with democratic candidates, who has a plan for actual carbon sequestration technology? there are a few systems that pull carbon of the atmosphere and turn it into liquid fuel. maybe you could touch a little bit on that. host: explain sequestration. guest: carbon capture sequestration is a technology that traps the admissions from whatever fossil fuel you are burning and it does something else with it. whether it is to pump it underground to bring up more oil, or just rapid underground. those are two things you can do with it. big part ofeen a any climate plans. people would rather be silent on what they plan to do with it then directly address it. there are a lot of people in the environmental community

who think it is a license to continue burning coal and oil. people have called for direct air capture which is another form of carbon sequestration. it is taking the air and making sure it does not get anywhere in the atmosphere. it has not been a detailed part of anyone possible and. host: what part of any candidate upon environmental policy have we not talked about that is of interest to you? how you paydea of for all the things people want to do. we are talking about trillions of dollars. i don't want to talk about it because i don't think anyone has put out enough information on it. you cannot just get rid of fossil fuel subsidies and pay for everything that these candidates want to do. they have not been explicit about carbon taxes. i want to see where the math is. host: covering this issue for

politico, politico.com if you want to see his work. come back and chat with us further into the primary and the general season. that will do it for our program. we'll be back here tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. eastern. we will take our c-span viewers over to the center for strategic and international studies. the discussion there ready to get underway on the importance of u.s.-japan-south korea military alliance beginning shortly. [no audio]

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>> the first of three defense related events we are covering live on c-span. for strategic and international discuss these for a conversation with assistant secretary of offense for indo pacific security affairs randall shcriver on the importance of the u.s. japan south korea military alliance. we will bring you the upcoming

debate on the budget request from the pentagon. at 1:30 the news conference of the pentagon with the defense secretary mark esper in the joint chiefs of staff. all of those events are live. this event should get started soon. [no audio]

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strategic and international studies. the conversation with assistant secretary of defense were indo pacific security affairs randall shcriver. they will be talking about the u.s.-japan-south korea military alliance conversation with the korean chair at csi s. of thisshow you some morning's washington journal. host: our first guess is a professor at george mason university and senior fellow at the world resources enters -- institute. as we try to understand the impact and the response to climate change i want to talk with the paris climate accord. can he talk about what that agreement says we need to do. >> i was on the u.s. team for the paris climate records during the obama administration in the state department. it tried to bring the world together so that you get enough commitments from enough countries and enough time to

stabilize temperature increases so we do not hit the worst climate impacts. forward andy comes puts forth their own initial target. the targets are forced on them, how they needed is forced on them. there are these binding rules that require you to divulge how you are going to hit the target and what your progress will be. that requires countries to come back to the table about every five years and make new pledges of increasing ambition so we can hit these stabilization goals which are to try to stabilize atmate temperature increase about three and a half degrees fahrenheit over the preindustrial. . host: why is that important? >> we are having tremendous climate impacts because of the temperatures that the planet has warmed to.

humidity is -- we have thousands of studies now that show it is having an impact on weather and agriculture and health. >> defense cooperation from the united states japan and south korea. our speaker this morning is randall shcriver. he is the assistant secretary of defense for indo pacific since early affairs -- security affairs. served in various u.s. administrations as the deputy assistant secretary of state for east asia and pacific affairs and prior to his civilian service he was an active-duty naval intelligence officer including a deployment in support of operation desert storm and desert shield. he has won numerous military and civilian awards. he i