might bemently incapacity en incapacitated but let's kill him any way and let's applaud while we do it. it is sick and bar bear bar barrack. eliot spitzer is up with "viewpoint" next. [ ♪ music ♪ ] >> eliot: good evening i'm eliot spitzer and this is "viewpoint." it's a point of pride for many conservatives to claim that climate change is a hoax and the human contribution to climate change is a fantasy. the harm done that's go to our very survival is getting more and more serious. according to figures out today last month was the hottest july in the 48 states with average temperature of 77-point dress.

.2 degrees oh above the record saturday during the dust bowl of 1936. the numbers show the hottest 12 months on record were recorded between august of last year and july which all goes to support a frightening new analysis published monday that shows .2 of the land surface was hit by extreme summer heat between 1951 to 1980 those figures grew to be between 4% to 13% of the land between 2006 and 2011. my guest in a few moments a coauthor of that study. i quote, it is no longer enough to say that the global warming there is virtually no explanation other than climate change which means that events like the brutal drought effecting much of the midwest the drought that devastated texas and oklahoma last year and russia's worst drought two years

ago can be attributeed climate change. the events have increased from 1951 to 1980 to the past decade with the record heat and droughts. for his part, president obama acknowledges climate change is real, and said as much in in a speech to australia's parliament last year. >> we need to be sustainable. that includes green jobs that combats climate change which cannot be denied. we see it in the stronger fires devastating floods, and the specific islands facing rising seas. >> eliot: problem said quote we're going to continue to push on energy efficiency and but there is no doubt we have a lot more work to do. despite the comments the climate change issue has fallen over the president's agenda. mitt romney who acknowledged global warming as governor of

massachusetts has erased that position. this is what he told a crowd last fall. >> my view is we don't know what is causing climate change on this planet. and the plan to spend millions of dollars is not the right course for us. >> eliot: i'm joining with the dean of climate change climate status, james hansen. author of "storms of my grandchildren, the truth about the coming climate catastrophe and our last chance to save humanity." you are the father of our scientific understanding of global warming. you've written about it since the 1980s. your rhetoric is getting more severe, more edge. why? explain to us the transition and what is happening and at what pace? >> well, everything is happening as we expect it if we continue

to increase greenhouse gasses. but nothing is being done about it. the greenhouse gases are continuing to increase faster and faster. >> eliot: to go back to the early studies that you promulgated when you wrote and testified in the early 80s before congress, you predicted there would be severe weather droughts melting ice caps. you're getting more concern for obvious reason because we're facing a crisis. >> yes, it is a little more serious than we estimated then. the difficulty in getting the public to understand is the large natural variability of weather and climate. i decided in 1988 when i testified to try to make this clear by making up colored dice where this dye represented the

climate that existed then. there were unusually warm summers, unusually cool summer and typical ones. >> you have six sides two warm, two below normal and two above normal. >> right. we used the climate models to say what it would be like by the beginning of this century. we said it would be loaded dice with four sides red. one side blue, and one side white. >> eliot: the four red sides reflecting? >> yes what has happened is four and a half sides red. but what i didn't think about then was the fact that if you're shifting this distribution of temperatures towards hotter and hotter values, then the tail of the hottest ones are going to be very extreme. and those are what we saw in oklahoma and texas last summer moscow the year before and midwest this year. one side of the dice has to be a

special red. this is the wildfires the extreme droughts. >> eliot: what you're saying co2 emissions have continued on the curve that you projected back in the early 1980s. but the impact of that with the accelerateing race of the temperature increase and the tail of that curve is now the disaster extreme weather events that we're witnessing? >> that's right. it's quite a change. here is the bell curve that existed 50 years ago. a very symmetric curve. >> eliot: bringing it back to the dice, two white, two red and two blue distribution. >> right. as we went along the 1990s these curves shift to the right. there is no climate model involved here. this is the distribution of actual temperatures in the summer. >> eliot: that's what i want to make clear. these are numbers based on

actual--unchallengeable-- atmosph actual--unchallengeable--atmosph ere on the ground and in the ocean. >> that's right. and this bell curve has shifted so far to the right that there is a significant number, about 10% of the time, or 10% of the area of the land is covered by anomalies that is more than three standard deviations which would have occurred a couple of tenth of a percent 50 years ago. now it's 10%. >> that's the danger zone. >> exactly. these kinds of anomalies have huge economic impact. >> eliot: to get more technical i hate to do this on a tv show but in parts per million of co2 that is measurable, we're we going from where to where. >> we started at 280 and now it's 390. if we keep going, it's increasing 2 ppm per year. it will get up to 600 this century if we continue.

>> eliot: and when you hit 600 is there a tipping point beyond which there is a point of no return? >> well, we definitely should not go to 600. we're already close to tipping points. if we want to stabilize the climate at a level not much warmer than it is now we need to begin to reduce emissions now within the next few years. >> eliot: to folks out there who say, okay, we have a drought and the price of corn goes up a little bit. explain what the actual impact will be on life on this planet in terms of rising level of the association, in terms of the air ability of the land mass in the united states, our capacity to grow food. species that will be become extinct. what are the actual impact and when do we begin to see those moments? >> ones that i worry about are species is one thing. if we continue, we'll drive to

extensionextinction 20% to 50%. >> eliot: if that happens the entire cycle of nature is thrown off in ways we simply cannot understand. >> yes. we are pushing the system in order of magnitude faster than any faster changes of i climate. >> eliot: the oceans will go up how much? >> that depends. if green land or antarctica go unstable, in my opinion the amplifying feedbacks once the ice sheets melt, are such that it will happen in the century. >> eliot: i red your stuff when the ice sheets melt, they release more methane in the atmosphere and that adds and it loops back.

>> it's the tundra and continental shelves that have the methane that melt. >> eliot: if i gave an answer, would i give at least a b. >> that's partly right. >> eliot: you're hurting me. here's the question. what do we have to do? what can we do and what do we have to do in the near term? >> well, we have to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. that is not as difficult as you think. if we would just make fossil fuels pay for their true cost to society we could begin to move to different energies and energy efficiency. we should be collecting a fee from fossil fuel companies that gradually rises over time. 100% of that money should be distributed to the public. not one dime to the government. if we did that, the people who do better than average in limiting their fossil fuel use would get more in this dividend than they would pay in increased energy prices. >> eliot: the notion here is to make carbon based fuels nor

expensive but you return all the money so you're subsidizing all those energy sources that are not carbon based. >> you're not subsidizing carbon. the problem is we're subsidizeing fossil fuels directly. but also we're not making them pay for the damage they do to human health and to the climate. >> eliot: let me make two points. one, all the data you've shown us is verifiable, accurate, and exactly matches the predictions you made back in the 1980s. back then they were predictions. now they're certifiable facts. second, the proposal that you made of a carbon tax return to the public is a conservative idea. it's based on old fashion market economic of making people pay for the cost of the pollution that they make. >> it should come from conservative people. once they understand the situation. if we don't do that, what we're going to do is reach a point where the government takes over. which is the last thing that the

conservatives want. >> eliot: hubbard, romney's economic adviser has endorsed this taxing of carbon pollution. >> there are a number of conservative who is endorse the idea. >> eliot: i think it's fair to say that somebody who has studied a bit of economics it's impossible for someone who does not understand economics not to endorse that concept. >> i think that's right. >> eliot: dr. hansen's reports are available at www.current.com/"viewpoint." many changes for coming on the program. your groundbreaking work is hugely important. i hope people watch your ted conference and the speech is online. go to our website and read everything that you've written. an aid to mitt romney does the worse thing possible. tells the truth and brags about romney care. that's coming up.

>>it's the place where democracy is supposed to be the great equalizer, where your vote is worth just as much as donald trump's. we must save the country. it starts with you.

>> eliot: corporate ceos say part of america's economics problem is that the tax rates are too high. let's just look at our number of the day. 9%. that's the average corporate incomes tax rate paid by america's ten most profit corporations in 2011. they found that exxon mobile paid just 2% from earnings totally $73.3 billion. cheveron paid just 4%. apple computer, 11%.

and the top ten aren't the only companies with the low tax bill. coca-cola paid 3%. citigroup actually got a refund. it's amazing considering all the outrage when we heard mitt romney only paid 14% on his income. poor mitt. perhaps he paid too much. maybe he should become a corporation. he could save even more money. plus he once said corporations are people. and mitt needs help looking for human. >>oh really? >>"if you ever raise taxes on >>the rich, you're going to destroy our economy." not true! >> eliot: mitt romney has been running for president for a long time. when he dropped his bid in the 2008 race, everyone knew

he'd be back in 2012. but even after all this time his campaign still seems unable to avoid missteps. despite all the pundits screaming over mitt romney's very bad month, polls show within the margin of error in all the swing states but that may not last if all the mistakes keep coming. attempting to push back again the american priority super pac ad accusing romney of ignore workers and their families in a closed plant by bain capital. one thing that romney is avoiding talking about romney care. saying that joe sopic's wife had been okay if they lived in massachusetts. >> if they had lived in massachusetts under governor romney's plan they would have had healthcare. >> eliot: we know how he'll handle the comments. >> i like being able to fire

people who provide services to me. >> eliot: let's bring in politico, thank you. >> thank you for having me back. >> eliot: is this what pundits call a gaffe when someone tells the truth and terribly inconvenient when andrea sol said if they only lived in massachusetts, romney care would have covered them. now romney needs to say that romney care is a good thing? there is no way out for them on this stuff. >> i know andrea well. the example is how bizarre this race is. the massachusetts healthcare law is arguably mitt romney's chief achievement while governor. what andrea said on fox has lit a fire under conservative who is are shaking their hands saying she's giving away the election to president obama by talking about the one issue that romney is weak on and we'll have no legs to stand. rick santorum levied the same

argument. mitt romney is the worse person to nominate because of healthcare. now they're all coming back to that very same argument. it has got to be a frustrating moment for folks in boston who might see that as consider this a slip on andrea's part. >> eliot: it's a slip that she told the truth. you can only imagine president obama is waiting to use that line if one of the debates. he'll say governor romney, let me quote your own campaign spokesperson if they lived under your law which you disavowed which came my law they would have had healthcare, why don't you do the sensible thing and support it. what do they do? how do they talk their way out of this one. >> it is an uncomfortable situation. i'm surprised i don't have more e-mails from democratics seizing on these remarks. mitt romney will have to try to move forward. if you notice through the campaign he has not addressed

health care in large parcel. he has addressed jobs and getting americans back to work. as he heads up this bus tour, i expect that to continue to be the spin. and romney and staffers will say the point is not about this one statement about the massachusetts healthcare law. it's about about an ad that many people, including reporters political analysts say is out of bounds and factually accurate, and that's what they'll likely focus on. >> eliot: even if the ad had been viewed out of bounds and not factually based it how has become terribly important because andrea sol has made it the argument. and the folks highlighted in that ad could have had healthcare and avoided the ravage of cancer and death if they lived in a state where they had healthcare. mitt romney cannot simply talk his way out of this one. enough on that ad.

we'll see how it ripples through the campaign. not necessarily a great day or stretch for president obama. there is viral ad, a music video that speaks to the discomfort that his base has. with some of the decisions he has made over over the past couple of years. ♪ because you cut me off ♪ now your speeches ♪ never soar ♪ as high as unemployment ♪ you took obama-care ♪ so farrering ♪ but you left me like a dog ♪ strapped on romney's car ♪ now you're not obama that i ♪ used to know >> eliot: i gather i'm too old. i gather this is a riff on a popular song that my daughters listen to. there is a line in there that this guy lives at home with his mom. he doesn't have a job. is this frivolous stuff on the fringe or does it speak to obama

campaign. >> a little bit of both. it's a popular song on the radio a lot of. this video has been going around on my friend's facebook page. i'm embarrassed to admit that. it's frivolous but it underscores the problem. there is an unenthusiasm gap of young people between 2008 and now. hope and change has not worked out for them. i think this does underscore how there is an opening for mitt romney to seize on that and to seize it for people who are disenchanted from the record levels of 2008. >> eliot: the hope and change and euphoria that gripped the nation evening among conservatives, there was a sense of new future, a new america being formed before our eyes. that's clearly gone. when you look at the polls pollsters will acknowledge, they have a hard time getting a real sense whether the younger demographics are going to vote and if so, how?

they're all based on cell phones. they can't cut into that group and measure what all this means. when you talk to pollsters do you sense there is a void in terms of measuring the youth vote. >> certainly there is a little bit of a void based on the polling, the technology that is used to complete these kinds of polls. that said, the youth vote and folks between 18 and 29 are targets of both of these campaigns. look at obama's rollout campaign it was on college campuses. mitt romney has not made it quite as much of a focus. he has visited a couple of campuses but it's the youngest section of voters, those who are more likely to support the democratic party, they are the hardest to track and could possibly be an interesting story in 2012 depending if there is someone who brings them out in large numbers. >> eliot: i'll ask you a hard question, but give us the answer. not who is mitt romney's mitt romney

vice presidential choice. but when. >> some time after next week after the bus tour. it does not seem likely to roll out a southland actual pick they will all be joining romney on a tour day date coming up. it might have been for voters if they had a v.p. pick long side marco rubio who is one of the republican party's charismatic speakers, i think he waits. >> eliot: that is going to be a bundle of fun. juanda summers, thank you for your time tonight. >> thank you. >> eliot: we have viewfinder coming up next.

break the ice with breath-freshening cooling crystals. ice breakers.

>> eliot: still to come, syria's leader is clinging to power. but how much longer can he maintain his grip. but first hillary clinton dances again, and when it doesn't fit anywhere wells, we put it in the viewfinder. ♪ i'm mitt romney ♪ let's go party >> i'm romney girl ♪ in a romney world ♪ he's oh so plastic ♪ it's fantastic ♪ ♪ >> so, the number of times a wikipedia page has been edited

predicts the chances for the v.p. slot. we could be looking at vice president season six of buffy the vampire slayer. >> no one at columbia ever heard of him or saw him. it's strange. i'm sure he went there but he's probably smoking pot and attending socialist meetings ♪ he's a boss ♪ with accounts everywhere ♪ he'll dispose ♪ all the dough ♪ he's spanking ♪ you can see ♪ we hate ♪ traps parentcy ♪ if you knew ♪ we would be screwed ♪ spanky spanky ♪ [ ♪ music ♪ ] [applause] ♪ he is rich ♪ you are poor ♪ if he wins ♪ i am rich

♪ overjoyed ♪ if i win ♪ you're unemployed ♪ country's leading conservatives tweeting a person of themselves with chick-fil-a recently became a great way to express opposition to same-sex marriage. limbaugh and this middle age lesbian. >> his end game is to try to give them utopia of what a liberal left wing presidency would be. if karl marx were valuable, i think he would have it, too. ♪ everything is coming up ♪ roses ♪ come on romney ♪ let's go party ♪ come on romney ♪ let's go party ♪ a, a, yeah ♪ come on, romney ♪ let's go party ♪ [ ♪ music ♪ ]

>> little bit too early starting, and still need to elect-- ♪ i'm mitt romney ♪ let's go party ♪ >> i'm just kidding about that one, in some ways. >> eliot: got to love the political discourse we have these days. syria has threatened america before, but this time it comes from an unexpected source. that's next. you want to save money on car insurance?

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if you have an opinion, you better back it up. >>eliot spitzer takes on politics. >>science and republicans do not mix. >>now it's your turn at the only online forum with a direct line to eliot spitzer. >>join the debate now. >> eliot: the civilian casualties continue to mount at syria sinks deeper and deeper into civil war. throw syrian president bashar al-assad appears hell bent on clinging to power the obama administration insists his days at the helm are numbered. earlier in the week the regime

suffered it's highest defection with the sunny y prime minister riad hijab across the jordannen broader. and they've become frustrated with the united states offering more than moral support. america will pay a price for this america is going to lose the friendship of syrians and no one will trust them any more. already we don't trust them. meanwhile, assad's coastest closest ally, iran, sending one of its top diplomats. here steve clemens, he had right at large the washington note and senior fell low and founder of the american strategy program at the new america foundation. steve, thanks for joining us and explain this fraught region of the world. are we doing enough to help the rebels? are their frustration legitimate? >> i think there is always more that can be done.

but in this particular case, you've got the united states working with syria--with qatar saudi arabia and turkey behind the scenes trying to give competency building to the national resistence, and to help with some degree with intelligence and work an arms' henning distance away without sending troops and bombs and outfitting the resistence can large scale military capacity. the reason for that, as i've written recently, the problem is there are real horrors unfolding in syria and it may be soon bosnia, but syria is not just syria. it's a platform for iranian interests and as of late russian interests. what you run the risk of, whatever is done or not done by the united states in europe inside sir are a could lead to real geostrategic shifts one

that ties iran and russia together that we have not seen historically. people need to understand what that means. if russia and iran had been adversaries in the past and have not been comfortable and close as people might suspect given what we've seen in syria, they control the largest fossil fuel and natural gas reserve undeveloped in the world. it would basically tie together the largest geoenergies that will be in position for the next 40, 50 years. you have syria it's a horrible conflict but it is a geoconflict that is very large. >> eliot: the counter argument is if we continue to do nothing that allows assad to remain and we're getting the same result of iran-russia being proxy if we do not intervene.

what i understand, do for us what you did for libya so they're not subject to the attacks of assad. why not do something like that that at least creates a level playing field? >> i have enormous sympathy for the people in the army and enormous people in the street who are fighting for their lives and a different situation. it's a maximummist position just as in libya. you commit to something that takes you deep in the country and into a different type of war and combat than a no-fly zone would entail. in a particular case of intervening inside syria we may get there any way. one of the things that i feel hubble about these positions every bone in my body worries about an intervention because so many innocent people would die. on the other hand i think they've got the chopping block set up for everyone who has

resisted assad if we don't do something. what is it that we can do? the most important thing that can be done we have thoroughfare of money and small arts through saudi arabia and qatar. i think between turkey and others ramps that up, they can expand the capacity that the army has. the problem is what comes after? that's a real mess, eliot. on one hand what comes after could be where the backbone and capacity of syria largely remain in place with some purge of those leaders. if you take the iraq-type example which is essentially to start from scratch and wipe out all of that, you could end up with an ongoing civil war with neighboring nations controlling different factions for a generation for 15, 20 years. that could be a real disaster for the people of syria as well. we need to weigh what we do with what will come next. >> eliot: there is no question none of the options is either easy in what comes down the road

is impossible to predict. you're right, what happened in iraq is a disaster. on the other hand, in libya we got rid of gadhafi and there was some semblance of order. in egypt who knows where it takes us. there is some form of democracy and we don't know where that will take us either. is there a risk of radicalization of the rebel forces if they're not satisfied with what we provide them. and will this turn elsewhere and will that become an independent type of threat. >> i think there is a responsible core but i think they have a very hard time. you have a lot of great leadership and selflessness in the leaders who have stepped down in a way to create a big tent. as i talked to different parts of the resistence from time to time, one of the things that they acknowledge readily is how to pull all the divergent factions together even though they're all opposed to the same thing. each of these--they basically see the end of assad, and many of them are already trying to position themselves, but they've

been unable to coalesce and stand behind a leadership structure in the fsa that i think would be more coherent. they've made some strides. i don't want to take anything away from the achievements they've made. but right now they send shivers down the spines of countries who want to help, and they need to resolve that. >> eliot: chaos in the future, and it's murky at best. steve clemons editor at large for the atlantic. thank you for your insight. >> if you needed any more proof that cutting taxes don't save jobs its coming up. that's my view. with a washington perspective from an emmy winning insider. >>you couldn't say it any more powerfully than that. >> current tv, on the roll. (vo)followed by humor and politics with a west coast edge. >>ah, thank you. >>it really is incredible. (vo)bill press and stephanie

miller, current's morning news block. weekdays six to noon.

>> eliot: coming up, the former general inspector neil barofsky joins me. but first let's check in with jennifer granholm in "the war room." >> tonight we're going to answer the question. what is the matter with kansas. as you know, the united states took a sharp turn to the right last night with a bunch of all traditionultraconservatives being voted into office. we'll tell you who did their bidding and why it's so scary. we'll talk to the mayor of most dangerous city in america. stick around and we'll tell where you that is. >> eliot: wait a minute. you're not even going to tell us what city it is? >> you got to watch. >> eliot: i got to watch now. give it to us in the preview the initials the state something. >> you'll be surprised. >> eliot: more view point coming up next.

we'll be watching. >>join the debate now.