[captioning made possible by democracy now!] ♪ from pacifica this is democracy now! alle did hear later that the facilities, all the refineries went into voluntary shutdown mode and when that happens, they often have to go through the process of burning off these excess chemicals. it is a dirty burn so you can see the black smoke. unfortunately, that adds thousands of pounds of cancer-causing chemicals to the air. amy: historical, apocalyptic, these are the words being described -- used to describe hurricane harvey, the largest

rainfall in continental u.s. history. we will go to houston to get our petro etch a on the unfolding environmental crisis as oil refineries and chemical plants release thousands of pounds of airborne pollutants. plus, we will speak with naomi klein. she has a message to the media -- talk about climate change. we will also speak with one of the world's best-known climate -- ntists, dr. james -- theink the people question people are asking is what is the impact on humans of this hurricane and there are substantial impacts on sea level , the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere and therefore the amount of rainfall, and also the strength of storms. humans are already impacting all of those to a substantial degree. amy: all that and more, coming up.

welcome to democracy now, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. in texas and louisiana, at least 30 people have died, more than 17,000 people are in shelters, hundreds of thousands are under evacuation orders, and all past u.s. rainfall records have been shattered as tropical storm harvey continues to wreak climate chaos in houst, the fourth largest city in the united states. around 4:00 a.m. this morning, harvey made landfall for a second time, just west of cameron, louisiana. in texas, a third of harris county -- which encompasses houston -- is currently underwater. houston officials have imposed a mandatory curfew between midnight and 5:00 a.m. exxonmobil says harvey has damaged at least two of its refineries, causing thousands of pounds of chemicals to be released into the air.

residents in crosby, texas, are being evacuated amid concerns a chemical factory damaged by harvey could explode. on tuesday, the world meteorological organization spokesperson claire nellis explained how harvey's devastation is linked to climate change. >> what i think we can say is that the fact that we do have climate change, our atmosphere is warmer and contains more moisture. it means when we have a hurricane or tropical cyclone like this, then when an event does occur, climate change does very likely increase the associated rainfall. that climate change per se does not cause tropical cyclones. amy: harvey is the third 500-year flood to hit houston in the last three years. by the time it is finally over the storm may be characterized

as a once in a thousand year flood. thousands of national guardsmen have been mobilized to rescue stranded residents. mexico has also offered to assist in the disaster response, -- response. deadly extreme weather fueled by climate change continues worldwide. in mumbai, india, at least six people, including two toddlers, died in flash flooding caused by torrential downpours tuesday. meteorologists are warning the rain will continue in mumbai for at least the next 24 hours. downpours also inundated parts of istanbul, turkey, tuesday, turning major streets into raging rivers. the u.n. security council has condemned north korea's lastest missile tests, including the launch of an intermediate-range ballistic missile that flew over the japanese island of hokkaido on tuesday morning. this is the japanese ambassador to the united nations, koro bessho. the firstatement strongly condg the most recent ballistic

missile launch line north korea, and alsow over japan demanding north korea immediately cease all such actions. this demonstrates the unity of the security council and sends a strong and clear message to north korea that the international community will not accept its reckless behavior. amy: the security council did not to impose further sanctions against north korea. both russia and china urged negotiations and blamed the u.s. military activity on the korean peninsula for escalating tensions. in aghanistan, airstrikes have killed more than a dozen civilians in the western province of herat on monday. the u.s.-backed afghan military carried out the strike, and initially claimed the victims were taliban members. but residents say all of the victims were civilians, mostly women and children. in washington, d.c. a grand jury has indicted 15 members of turkish president recep tayyip

erdogan's security detail on felony charges for attacking a group of peaceful protesters in washington, d.c. in may. video from the scene shows turkish president recep tayyip erdogan looking on during the assault, which came just after erdogan was welcomed to the white house by president trump. it's not clear if erdogan gave the order for the attack. it left nine anti-erdogan protesters hospitalized. "the washington post" reports special counsel robert mueller's lawyers have issued several subpoenas to washington lobbying firms, demanding information about their interactio with the consulting firms of former national security adviser michael flynn and former trump campaign chairman paul manafort. among those subpoenaed our s former to -- manafort' lawyer and spokesman. both men have been at the center of the ongoing investigation into the trump campaign's ties

to russia. defense secretary james mattis has temporarily frozen president trump's ban on transgender people serving in the u.s. military. on tuesday, mattis said transgender troops will be allowed to continue serving until a review of the issue is finished. trump's proposed ban, first announced on twitter, also faces multiple lawsuits, including from the aclu. president trump is headed to springfield, missouri today, where he'll give a speech calling for an overhaul of the tax code. trump has proposed proposed slashing the corporate tax rate from 35% to a mere 15%, and cutting taxes for the richest americans. trump's tax overhaul efforts are being led by two multi-millionaires, treasury secretary steven mnuchin and national economic council director gary cohn. both are former goldman sachs bankers. and in wisconsin, six people were arrested after one person locked themselves to a piece of heavy machinery to stop the

construction of the enbridge line 3 pipeline. the proposed line would carry tar sands oil from alberta, canada, to a terminal in superior, wisconsin. it faces sustained resistance from indigenous nations and environmental activists in both the u.s. and canada. those are some of the headlines. now,is democracy democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i am amy goodman. joining me is renee phelps, a resident of houston. renee? renee: think good as my family is ok and i hope everybody else is surviving. in texas and the louisiana at least 30 people have died and more than 17,000 are in shelters . hundreds of thousands are under

evacuation orders and all past rainfall levels have been shattered. the fourth-largest city in the united states -- harvey made landfall again near cameron, louisiana just before the texas border. nearly a third of harris county remains underwater. the county is home to over 4.5 million people and includes houston. while the rain has largely moved east into louisiana, the houston area remains in a state of crisis as rivers continue to rise and two large reservoirs are overflowing. concern is also growing over the environmental and public health impact of the storm. houston is home to the country's largest refining and petrochemical complex. according to the environmental defense fund, more than 1 million pounds of air pollution have been released into the air as petrochemical plants were forced to shut down by the storm. at least 10 oil refineries have been shut down so far. amy: workers at exxonmobil's oil refinery in baytown said the facility "partially sank" after it flooded and that exxon was

authorized by state environmental officials to release excess emissions while it shut down. in beaumont, flooding at another exxon refinery damaged equipment that captures sulfur dioxide, causing it to release amounts that far exceed the company's permits. this comes as state officials shut off air quality monitors to protect them from storm-related damage, and are relying on facilities to self-report any toxic fumes they release. in april, a federal judge ordered exxon to pay nearly $20 million in penalties for releasing about 10 million pounds of toxic substances like benzene. meanwhile, authorities have evacuated homes near a chemical plant in crosby, texas, over rising fears the plant could explode. the plant was flooded by the storm and lost power. for more we go to houston where we're joined by bryan parras, organizer with the sierra club's

beyond dirty fuels campaign and tejas, texas environmental justice advocacy services. bryan, we spoke to you monday morning. can you give us an update from the petro metro, from houston, the fourth-largest city in the country, and tell us where you are in relation to these refineries and what are your concerns? event this is a historic by all means. i live just east of the eastern ship trail where the largest concentration of refineries and chemical plants began and starts. just yesterday we have been getting reports of all of the things that you mentioned and i just want to read one here. the national response center operated by the u.s. coast guard released more than 30 calls for

spilled gasoline, crude oil, petroleum, and the release of contaminants. these again are just self-reports. they shut down the monitors. we have no way of really knowing the complete impact from these facilities. and right now in port arthur, we are seeing the same situation play out. the largest refinery in the u.s. has shut down and our quest for power has rendered us powerless against the awesome forces of nature. we have to do better, amy. amy: you mentioned the port arthur facility. many people understand the storm and floods may recede in houston as it heads east toward the louisiana, so talk about where port arthur is and your concerns

of the storm heading into that area. port arthur is not the only town with a refinery as the storm heads east, is that right? that is correct, it is just to the east of us about an hour and a half away. beaumont is nearby and other smaller cities, and we are seeing the exact same situation play out that i reported on monday that i experienced on sunday night and that is an even worse situation actually, because people are tweeting bright now, port arthur is trending on twitter his people are begging to be rescued from their homes. that is the rescue -- reality right now. another refinery city, petrochemical city is experiencing this same thing, and with all of the refineries there i imagine they are having to do the same thing. we have seen some gas leaks here in laporte that resulted in very

and hydrogenmical chloride, and this gas mixed with the moisture in the air makes hydrochloric acid which is a corrosive that can damage eyes , skin, and intestines. that has since stopped, but these are the real dangers of these facilities being on the coast and near millions of people. amy: just to put this in context , you are talking about galveston bay, a quarter of all oil refinery capacity in the united states, the gulf coast has half the refinery capacity of the entire united states and in port arthur that you are talking about, they have shut down the largest oil refinery in the united states. we are talking about massive facilities here. , toxice a two or -- tour

isr of this area and it going right through what many call cancer alley, more and more refineries. the people closest to these plants, and crosby also, i think it is a peroxide factory that could eventually explode. the people who live closest to these refineries, who are the most vulnerable? bryan: just to get to the crosby situation, i have not seen any updates in about 10 hours, but a chemical plant in crosby, texas was in critical condition as of yesterday night after its refrigeration system was inundated and the backup power generators failed, raising the popper -- possibility that a volatile chemical reaction would lead to an explosion. that is still unfolding. i have not seen any updates, but

the people who live along these facilities are by large part, minorities, people of color, low , and theseunities other areas like crosby, these are rural communities, low income. port arthur, same situation, low income, largely african-american in port arthur. it is incredible that this storm has hit not one petrochemical center but four now. corpus christi, houston, texas, port arthur beaumont, and now making its way into louisiana and lake charles. amy: as we conclude the interview with you, and hopefully we will check in with you over the coming weeks and months of this flooding playing out, can you speak finally on what you are hearing locally in terms of notifications about what you are describing to us

and briefly what people need to understand if they have concerns? should they go to your website or other phone numbers? bryan: we have had a great wealth of leadership. i have a lot of movement mothers and sisters. .e have learned a great deal i just want to take a second to acknowledge the 12th anniversary of hurricane katrina, and thank all of the incredible women who thisshown leadership and regenerative energy that has kept us going. we have learned a lot and what folks need to do now is take these situations and learn from them. moment such an important , not just for us here on the gulf coast but for the entire country. i want to thank organizations and individuals who have in at the forefront of helping us

better understand and prepare for the situations. there are many organizations, tejas, check us out on facebook and twitter. amy: are you concerned that toxins will be released that would have never been allowed to have been released before, using this hurricane, this tropical storm as an excuse? bryan: it is possible. that is the really scary part. we do not know. we are at the behest of the same industries who are making these dangerous chemicals, and that is the most stressful part of these storms, the unknown and the constant state of stress of what might happen. amy: thank you for being with us , organize with the beyond dirty fuels campaign. his texas environmental justice advocacy service speaking to us from the petro retro, houston,

the fourth-largest city in the country which has been described as apocalyptic. as we report on the toll from flooding after hurricane harvey, which has now reached so many lives. i want to turn to houston chief police art acevedo who was speaking on tuesday when he announced the death of an officer who drowned while reporting for duty. >> unfortunately, in the darkness sergeant perez drove under an underpass that is about 16 half feet, drove into the water and died in a flight, in a drowning type event. , and oncean find him our dive team got there it was too treacherous to go under and look for him so we made a decision to leave officers there , becausentil morning as much as we want to to recover him last night we could not put more officers at risk.

amy: that is houston police chief art acevedo. the police chief has spoken out against a new law set to take effect on friday in the midst of -4 that letsalled sb police check the legal status of those detained. this is chief acevedo on democracy now. withouto you do that forcing racially profiling is beyond me. our people are focused, they want to keep people safe, and they know that going after cook's and nannies and gardeners who do not bother everybody is not in the best interest and something we are not interested in. amy: that was the houston police chief, on democracy now. two storms happening for people here. you are talking about the storm

harvey and also talking about the crackdown on immigrants in texas. on4 slated to go into effect friday. renee phelps, you have been covering prisons and immigrants rights issues for democracy now and texas where you are from. talk about what acevedo was just talking about as well as what is happening at the prisons. as people evacuate all over, prisoners themselves are not free to evacuate. renee: that is right. many immigrants are concerned about going to the shelters and leaving their flooded homes so chief acevedo was out there with the mayor. he has been telling people who are undocumented, do not be afraid to leave your house and ask for help at the shelters. the have to reiterate these assurances to people over and over again because as before has

created so much fear. it is a public concern that people might be afraid to seek help and could lose their lives. we spoke to caesar espinoza yesterday who works with undocumented immigrants. i saw them in pictures out of the convention centers where people are in vacuum it into, and they have big hats that say them and help people identify them as service providers to undocumented residents of houston who need to know how to apply for fema. maybe a member of their family is a u.s. citizen and might be able to apply and help the family. they are in these facilities and buttressing the efforts of law enforcement officials who are in a sticky situation. withheld and not go into effect on friday if a judge who is considering whether or not it is constitutional,

makes their decision before then. amy: it briefly is? renee: a law that asks police -- allows police officers to ask immigrants they detain for their immigration status. the harris county jail is downtown, right next to buffalo bayou. it is on our website and we can show you the jail when it was not flooded, right next to the bayou. the harris county sheriff's department stated they have not evacuated despite this flood. have not the inmates been evacuated and are safe and accounted for. the jail has food and water, access to phone lines. they tweeted the company that provides phone services has waived their jail calling services for 8000 plus inmates to call their loved ones. i want to say briefly there was

an interesting exchange between a prisoner, who was at one of two facilities that are flooded, the ramsey unit and another unit, they are very, very close to water. they were in pretoria county where the river was at its crest , 15 feet over its crest, not set to go down sunday. they saw water coming up and use the phone to say, people are not evacuated in us and we need you to make calls and raise concerns . that happened and we saw some of these prisons evacuated. you can see they are very close veryter, in some cases close to galveston so we are glad to see that happen. we know there are many prisons as the storm heads east so we are concerned about what is going to happen and will keep an eye on that. amy: thank you very much. when we come back, we will go to naomi klein, who has a message

for the media -- talk about climate change. we will also be joined by one of the country's leading climate scientists, dr. james hansen. then we will talk about the red cross. stay with us. [♪ musical break]

amy: i know love is all i need

by rodney crowell, although i think the people of houston need more than that. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. with renee phelps who is from houston, texas. renee: as we continue our coverage we are joined by naomi klein, the best selling author of several books, including "this changes everything: capitalism vs. the climate." her latest piece for "the intercept" is titled "harvey didn't come out of the blue. now is the time to talk about climate change." amy: she writes "now is exactly the time to talk about climate change, and all the other systemic injustices from racial profiling to economic austerity that turn disasters like harvey into human catastrophes." naomi klein joins us now from her home in toronto. welcome to democracy now. you have a message to the media. naomi: hello, amy and renee. i want to thank your earlier for all of the

tremendous work he has been doing in exposing the toxic risks and unequal burden of this extremely toxic industry. my message is this is not a time for some misguided idea of what is polite and what is appropriate about what we can talk about. you hear this from a lot of journalists, they do not want to politicize a human catastrophe by talking about climate change, which is a controversy all subject to really should not be, especially should not be in the midst of a storm they say over and over again is unprecedented. you turn on any coverage and hear that word over and over again, that you hear very rarely is a next nation for why the word "unprecedented," "record-breaking," why these words have become meteorological cliches. we hear them all the time

because we are breaking heat records year after year. we are seeing record-breaking wildfires, droughts, storms, as the baseline is higher. nobody is saying that climate change caused the storm. what we are talking about is what are the superchargers of the storm, the accelerant that took what would have been any debt -- a disaster in any situation and turned it into this human capacity. one of those is climate change. the presence of this highly unregulated, toxic industry that is so unevenly distributed with communities of color bearing the greatest risk. another extremity is poverty. if you cannot organize your own evacuation because you do not have a car, you are stuck. another is racism. if you want to get to dry land

but you are hearing the border checkpoints are staying open everywhere where the highway is not flooded, then you are not -- you are less likely to seek safety. these are accelerant's to a disaster that would have happened anyway, and it is the job of journalism to provide key facts and context for people to understand our world. , withouthese contexts an open discussion of climate change, without hearing from people like james hansen that we are about to hear from here, it seems like an act of god, like it came from nowhere. if that is the case then we are going to employ the discussion, what could have been done to prevent it, which is a very important discussion to have. we are also not going to talk about what we can still do to lower emissions very rapidly to prevent a future filled with many more such mega-storms and

other climate accelerated disasters. .my: it is very interesting certainly the media, a lot of the media is extremely critical of president trump. he flew into texas yesterday. yes, there was a lot of criticism but they praised him for going there, but there was almost no discussion of him being a climate denier. if you watch the media, and i am not even talking about fox, i am talking about msnbc and cnn, almost 24 hours a day on texas and on the tropical storm, the hurricane, almost no mention, almost no mention of climate change although they are devoting all of their time to this. we do not have state media in the united states, but if we did, you have to ask how it would be any different. we know the trump administration has cleansed websites of certain words.

what about the media, have they done the same? naomi: effectively, they have. we are seeing the cleansing happening at the white house filter down to the media. it is not just about the federal politicians, it is also about state politicians in texas and the louisiana who systematically deny climate change. if you are denying the reality that the earth is warming than you are not going to prepare in the same way for what we are seeing now, for these unprinted dent -- unprecedented events. if you deny the reality that the earth is warming and humans are a major contributor in this, you will just go ahead and rebuild the oil capital of the united states exactly how it was as if there is no connection between this very industry that is being hit right now, and the storm itself. if we did talk about it we would

be having a very different discussion, a discussion about what financial responsibility companies like exxon mobil have for a storm like this. a company like exxon that was doing its own research into climate change in the 1970's and papers,ng peer reviewed saying it is happening, forecasting events like this and then when the world got serious about lowering emissions exxon was a leader in spreading this about then doubt lies reality of climate change. there is a legal discussion to be having here and that is the kind of discussion we need to have. of course this disaster is being seen through a political lens. there is endless debate about melania's ridiculous shoes, talk about the double standard between how various congresspeople have voted to

new aid to storm struck jersey and new york and now they have their hands out for texas. this is all a kind of politics that fits inside this conventional partisan lens. it is being politicized, just in a way that does not challenge the fact that the failure to take climate change seriously, the creation of an economy that is so profoundly unequal and when you see this exposed in a moment like this, has been a profoundly bipartisan affair. it is a much more complicated discussion to have, but think about what happened in the aftermath of a terror attack. the same politicians were not worried and they do not wait to get all the information before they blame an entire religion for a single bombing. what we are seeing is similar to what used to happen after a school shooting when you would hear from the nra crowd right away, don't talk about gun

control, you are politicizing this. finally about five years ago people had just had it and said, this is exactly the time when we have to talk about guns. don't tell us we cannot talk about it when people are seeing the tremendous human cost. that is when we want to talk about it and the same is true on climate change which is why now, forget manners, this is about reality. amy: naomi klein, i want to thank you for being with us. we have a link to your piece at "the intercept," as you give this message to the media. her most recent book "no is not enough: resisting trump's shock politics and winning the world we need." we will link to your piece at "the intercept," "harvey didn't come out of the blue: now is the time to talk about climate change." we turn to the world-renowned climate scientist dr. james hansen.

he has been called the father of climate change awareness. in 1988, hansen first warned about the dangers of climate change when he testified before congress. at the time, he was nasa's top climate scientist. he would go on to become the nation's most influential climate scientist. dr. james hansen, welcome back to democracy now. you come to estimates this catastrophe, historic, apocalyptic, these are all words that can be used to describe climate change, climate chaos, but those links are not being made. can we make those links? dr. hansen: yes, they are very clear links and we mentioned three of them. one is sea level. sea level was stable for the last thousand years but with the beginning of changes in atmospheric composition caused by burning fossil fuels mainly, the planet is getting warmer and sea level has begun to go up because the ocean is getting warmer and because ice is melting. on a global average it has gone

up about 20 centimeters, about eight inches, however it is not the same every place. along the east coast and the gulf coast it is larger than the global average, a good foot. that is this significant contribution to the magnitude of the storm surges that drive the water onto houston and the other regions. that is one thing. another is the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere is increasing because the atmosphere is getting warmer. therefore, the amount of water being dumped during the storms ,s larger because of the human global warming, human made global warming which is now more than one degree celsius. the simple equal a for how much water vapor is in the atmosphere with regards to temperature would be several percent, but in

addition, the distribution of the storms that release the moisture is changing. we are getting more of the rainfall in extreme large events. that is a significant factor. and then the third thing is the strength of storms. thunderstorms, tornadoes, tropical storms all get their energy from the latent energy of water vapor, and because the atmosphere now holds more water vapor the strength of those storms can be greater. so there are substantial human made effects on these storms. it is not debatable now. these are all well-established facts. amy: so what do you say to those who seem to be reading out of a handbook we are very familiar with over the decades, the tobacco handbook.

you cannot say this particular cigarette caused your lung cancer. causedsay climate change this particular storm or hurricane? dr. hansen: you cannot say the location and timing of each storm, of course, is very chaotic. however, there is research that shows the likelihood of the kind of event where we had here where things stalled and we had continued rainfall for several days, the chance of that happening is actually probably increasing. that is a research topic now. but because the arctic is warming faster than the planet on average, it does affect the jet stream and the chance of storm blocking where the stalls. that is very likely also influenced, the chance of that happening has been increased by

global warming. nee: dr. hansen, i have been watching the flooding and lived through it. many houstonians remembered kayaking through the neighborhood during a flood just last year. you said these seem to be much more frequent, these extreme weather events, for people whether or not they are climate change believers or deniers, they are experiencing this. they are experiencing a president coming down to the gulf coast tuesday, the same president that withdrew from the u.n. climate agreement, the paris climate agreement. you have been watching that closely. what do you say to trump and how we should move forward? he has withdrawn from the climate agreement and yet we see the u.s. diving headfirst into these extreme weather events, so where should we go from here in that regard? dr. hansen: i think we need to educate him about the fact that

the actions that are needed to begin to reduce emissions rapidly actually make sense from a conservative standpoint. we need to make the price of fossil fuels honest by including their cost to society. , it willthat gradually actually improve the economy, create jobs, and do it in a way ideas. so there is really no reason, if you could just get educated about this, i think we could -- there are conservative thought third,, james baker the george schultz who recognize this, who understand this, and he has got to start listening to these people. we could actually move rapidly to reducing emissions. amy: dr. james hansen, one of the top climate scientists in this country but a couple years ago you were arrested, maybe

because you are one of the top climate scientists, arrested protesting the keystone xl pipeline. when president trump came into office one of his first acts was to sign on to the dakota pipeline and the key line -- keystone xl. and you talk about the connection of pipelines like these to what we are seeing right now in texas? dr. hansen: yeah, exploiting the tar sands makes no sense at all because they are very carbon intensive. it takes a lot of energy to get that stuff out of the ground, to refine it, to make it usable, so it does not make any sense for us to develop those because what the science shows is we are going to actually have to extract some of the exes carbon out of the atmosphere. so to go to all of this expense to find a new way to get more of it to put in the atmosphere just not make sense economically or scientifically or in any way.

that is basically the connection. amy: it will be interesting, dr. hansen, if you have any final comments moving forward, we have seen trump recently resend obama regulations of how to build federal projects and to take climate change projections into account, for example rising sea levels, flood projections. those are no longer in place. houston is going to go through a major rebuilding effort, in fact a large swath of the texas gulf coast. any thoughts on what needs to be in place there as they move forward? dr. hansen: it does not make sense to build a lot of infrastructure on coastlines unless we can stabilize sea level, and that is going to be a very hard task. so we have got to be aware of what is going on as we do need to take actions to slow down climate change, that it is going

to take time. we have not yet felt the full impact of the gases that are already in the atmosphere just because the delays in the system. it takes decades for the ocean to warm up and for ice sheets to melt. so there is consequences for young people that are already built into the system. that is why young people have filed a lawsuit against the trunk government to try to get them to take -- trump government to try to get them to take the actions necessary. amy: we are going to post that now on democracy now.org, a children's lawsuit. the dakota access pipeline has just send the rain forest action and greenpeace, talking about them as ecoterrorists who hinder their building of the dakota access pipeline. just today in the news in wisconsin, six people were arrested after one locked themselves to a piece of heavy

machinery to carry tar sands from alberta, canada to wisconsin, facing resistance from indigenous leaders and others. dr. hansen: i am helping some of these people who have been arrested by trying to help them in their defense, trying to get them not penalized for what they have done because they are just trying to draw attention to what is crazy policies. but i think the main thing that most people should be doing is not locking themselves to pipelines, but trying to influence the democratic process. there is an organization citizens climate lobby which is now more than 300 chapters in the united states and more than 75,000 members. they are talking to their congress people, writing letters to the editor, and i think that is the most effective thing that most people can do.

those few people who are going out and locking themselves to the pipeline, i will try to help them when they go to court, but it is hard to win those cases. amy: and you yourself got arrested, feeling this strongly about it. i wanted to ask if you have a final comment about the media, if you have been watching the networks, and i am not talking but those who are considered the oppositional media, cnn and msnbc, almost not a mention. dr. hansen: it is shocking because it is not a case of scientists disagreeing. it is clear that things that i mentioned are well understood why the scientific community and the media should be reporting on that. james hansen, we will speak to you after the show about the children's lawsuit that your granddaughter is involved in. scientist top climate in nasa and now the director of

climate science, awareness, and solutions at columbia university's earth institute. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. we hear a lot about the red cross now being in houston. what does that mean? we will look at the red cross. [♪ musical break]

"weary" by really -- solange. >> the devastating storm killed more than 1800 people and forced more than one million people to evacuate. the government and major aid agencies like the red cross were widely criticized for failing to adequately respond to the disaster. instead, local residents took matters into their own hands, launching relief and recovery and mutual aid efforts such as the common ground collective. amy: as many across the country and world are searching for ways

to help houston's residents, we are looking at failures of the right across -- red cross from haiti. joining us is scott crowe, author and anarchist. he is the author of "black flags and windmills. carolina,ham, north jonathan katz is with us. he is the author of "the big thek that went by: how world came to save haiti and left behind a disaster." his new article for slate is headlined " the red cross will not save houston." jonathan, talk about why you believe the red cross will not save houston. what are your concerns? jonathan: i guess there is two big things. one is specific to the red

cross, the american red cross. they have frankly a terrible track record when it comes to disaster relief and part of the problem is we do not really know what they are doing. it is an incredibly opaque organization. i was trying to get information about exactly what they are up to in the disaster don't -- zone, how much money they think they will need, how much they have raised so far, and they do not like sharing those details which is very much at peace is what we have seen in the past to make it hard to evaluate their work. it is part of this narrative of disaster and this kind of quick hit donation response where people think by giving small and medium sums of money to an organization like the red cross that they are going to be able to solve a problem like a massive catastrophe like the one we are seeing in texas. but history shows us is it does not work that way. amy: this week, facebook made

headlines when it decided to steer donations away -- away from the red cross to a little-known chair the -- charity. npr launched an ongoing series of investigations into the american red cross. one of their articles headlined "how the red cross raised half $1 billion for haiti and built six homes." you were in haiti. can you talk about the specifics of projects they have been involved with, and the lack of accountability? jonathan: there is a complete lack of accountability, that is exactly it. the case in haiti and be very hard to talk about exactly what the red cross did because they have been so opaque and not forthcoming with information about what they were up to. they complained a lot about that investigation was a damning investigation, the fact they had so$488 million and

little to show for it and they could not even turn around and point to the things they had done. when the hurricane hit haiti, they only had three full-time staffers on the ground and what they did is swung their whole operation into the direction of what they do really well, raising enormous amounts of money barry quickly -- very quickly, and they do that by being incredibly vague. they will use extremely vague terms like "shelter," we will help you provide shelter for people. they were not telling the people in the united states that were meant theyat shelter were going to give people tarps and when those tarps frayed, they would give them more tarps. they had no capacity, experience, or ability to build real houses. when npr did the investigation and found there were only six actual houses that had been built with that half a million

dollars, the red cross was upset with how that headline made them look but could not respond because doing so would have required leveling with the people that gave them money and telling them, we did not ever mean we were going to build houses because we do not have to do that. i am afraid we are going to see the same sort of thing happen in texas and possibly louisiana where the red cross is saying, invest money, we will use it to save lives, and not telling us what they do with it and not creating a result. amy: and gail mcgovern, her background? jonathan: she came from at&t. that is one of the big criticisms the red cross has gotten in her leadership, is that eventually it has become a very corporate organization that operates according basically to the logic of a lot of corporate america. we are not going to tell you what we are doing and we will not give you any way to hold us

accountable. the track record has been phenomenally bad under her. there are probably some people in the organization that are happy with the amounts of money she is continuing to be able to raise, even under this withering criticism, but they have lied to congress when there have been investigations, have resisted all forms of oversight, and when people like me and the press and them and go in investigate their projects and try to figure out what they are actually using the money for, where the money is going, we are incredibly vague and put up all kinds of roadblocks. amy: thank you, jonathan -- >> thank you, jonathan. there is a website called no red cross.org that lists a lot of different organizations like the black women's defense league and other organizations in houston gathering volunteers and supplies, and my own sister tried to volunteer with the red there were several

hours of training and registration to get involved, and she is looking at other community opportunities. i want to bring into the conversation someone who has a lot of experience with this, scott crow. in these last few minutes, can you talk about how you have gone to houston since the flooding sawted, it briefly what you in the streets, interesting collaborations between some of the anarchists who were first responders to do relief, and others from the houston area with their boats, the kind of scenes you saw and why there is a need for decentralized relief post storms like this. scott: i think jonathan lays it out really well, the failure of the lead -- red cross. it is a giant era craddick organization -- bureaucratic organization. they focus on economic interests first and i think that is important to know because they

leave out marginalized communities, rural communities, prisoners, undocumented communities, all of these are left out because they want to get business as usual back in. after katrina where the red cross would come in two places where they need medical met -- medical attention and give them free food because they have one-size-fits-all. what we have seen in modern society is we need centralized disaster relief. small, autonomous communities can be first responders and actually build for the longer-term without actual governments or things like the red cross. like in houston the other day, we saw people of all political persuasions that might not agree, that might be in the street arguing with each other around a political campaign, were all there doing the same thing. from was hundreds of folks world communities and fishing communities waiting to get in, and you had in our guests on the ground doing distribute --

anarchists on the ground doing distribution of food and water. >> some of these people were associated with the anti-fastest protest question -- anti-fascist protest? antifa are the same people who are now on the ground building relief all across houston and the gulf coast in areas that were not being talked about. there are multiple distribution centers being set up by multiple coalitions, lack lives matter, inifa, and working conjunction with people who may be politically opposed to them outside of a disaster area. disasters revealed the commonality of humanity more than anything, and since man-made climate change is real and coastal communities are under so much pressure to do this, this is going to become more common and we will need more decentralized disaster

relief efforts to happen. i think we need to think about that as people in our communities to begin to build resilience now for the next disaster whether it is economic, political, ecological, or war. your final thoughts on the anniversary of katrina, moving forward? scott: it is sad that we have not learned that much, nonprofits are still heavy-handed in their responses. remember the importance of grassroots communities, people to do it block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood. amy: scott crow, thank you for being with us. on the anniversary 12 years later of katrina, it is important to remember what an important force at the can -- became. i also want to thank jonathan katz. .hat does it now

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