captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening. i'm judy woodruff. on the "newshour" tonight, a new intern paints a dire picture of the damage climate change will cause without drastic actions. then, the disappearance of a "washingto after his visit to the saudi consulate in turkey. and the impact of rising waters as a result of climate change on a tiny island in the chesapeake bay. >> it's ironic, the chesapeake bay over the years has provided a living for the folks here, and now it's the chesapeake bay that is threatening the island, threatening to take it away. >> woodruff: all that re on tonight's "pbs newshour."

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>> the william and floraonewlett founda for more than 50 years, advancing ideas and supporting institutions to promote a better world. at www.hewlett.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: and individuals. s >> togram was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by conions to your pbs station from viewers likyou. thank you. >> woodruff: a grave new warning today about a warming world. the united nations' intergovernmental panel on climate change says chances of preventing t worst effects are

fading. the group says net carbon emissions must drop drastically by 2030-- and it says that will take unprecedented action. william brangham will have a full report later in the program. a nehurricane is taking aim the florida panhandle. the storm dubbed "michael" moved past western cuba today, headed into the gulf of mexico and toward landfall by mid-week. forecasters say it could become a major hurricane with winds topping 110 miles an hour. climate change figured in today's announceme of the nobel prize in economics. yale climate change figured in today's announcement of the nobel prize in economics. yale professor william nordhaus won for his work on climate and economic modeling, including a proposed carbon tax. romer of new york university was honored for his research into technological innovation. president trump predicts the battle over supreme court nobrett kavanaugh will

spur democrats to vote repu, in the mid-term elections. kavanaugh won senate confirmation on saturday. today, in orlando, florida, the president said sexual assault allegations against his nominee re a "hoax." >> it was a disgraceful situation brought about by people that are evil. and he toughed it out. we all tou and i have to thank the repu senators that fought so hard for this, because it wasn't easy. woodruff: later mr. tru returned to the white house for a ceremonial swearing-in of kavanaugh. the official swearing-in was saturday night. ote president says he does plan to fire rod rosenstein, the deputy attorney general. rosenstein hasenied he talked of recording mr. trump or removing him from ofce. today, he flew on air force one to the president's event in orlando, florida.

mr. trump said they have "a very good relationship." in indonesia the official death toll has reached nearly 2,00in last month's earthquake and tsunami-- with up to 5,000 still missing. excavators in the ravaged city of palu continue digging in buried neighborhoods. officials say the deadline to stop searching is thursday, but ould be extended. brazil is headed for a presidential roff after a far- ght candidate nearly won outright, in sunday's first round. jair bolsonaro is a former army captain and now lawmaker. he finished far ahead of leftist candidate fernando haddad, a former mayor of sao paulo. brazil has been roiled by corrupti, crime and a crumbling economy. on wall street t industrial average gained 39 points to close at 26,he nasdaq fell 52 points and the

s&p 50slipped one point. ard, former president george w. bush's daughter bawas married on sunday at the family compound in kennebunkport, maine. her father walked her down the aisle as her grandfather-- rmer president george h.w. bush-- looked on. she and her new husband craig coyne will live in new york. still to come on the "newshour," a new climate report forecasts a dangerous future unless action is taken; the disappearance of a "washington post" journalist; the next steps in working with north korea to secure a nuclear deal and much more. as we reported, the i.p.c.c.-- the u.n.'s consortium of climate scientists-- has said that if the world community doesn't reduce carbon emissions

drastically, millions of people across the planet will suffer but as william brangham reports, heeding that warning now is a da challenge. >> reporter: the u.n.'s latest report-- put together by over 90 authors and edittrs from 40 cos-- is probably the starkest, most dire warning yet about the severity oate change, and the cost of inaction. the report says that unless the world immediately begins reducing the burning of coal and oil and gas that drive up global temperatures, the world will suffer tremendous consequences. by as early as 2040-- just 22 years from now, the u.n. says global food supplies will be threatened by inng droughts and heatwaves; low lying nations could be flooded by rising sea-levels, potentially iggering huge flows of refugees. fierce storms and wildfires will grow in intensity, costing billions in damages and lives lost.

to keep even more drastic impacts at bay, the u.n. report urges the governments of the world to cut their carbon emissions eno limit global warming to just 1.5 degrees celsius-- that's about 2.7 degrees fahrenheit-- above pre- inal levels. but that would take a near- revolutionary change in how the industrialized world creates electricity, grows food and moves people and goods around. the u.n. acknowledges that" there is no documented historic precedent" for the changes needed to prevent even worse disaers from coming. today's report is to date one of the strongest calls to action, and with me are ople who have spent their lives studying climate change and our responses to it. ra policy fellow at the woods hole research center, and chairman of "arcc 21," a network of scientists working to draw attention to the effects of warminon the arctic.

and gavin schmidt is a climatologist d chief of nasa's goddard institute for space studies. he's co-founder of the climate science blog "real climate." gentlemen, welcome to you both. >> thank you. gavin schmidt, to you first, this report from the u.n. is an incredibly stark warning. how do you read it? >> basically, this report is telling us things that scientists have known for a long time, that climate change is already ocrring, and it really doesnt take very much more for it to become a very, ver serious issue, not just for coastal envits but for agriculture, for the arctic, for many, many different aspects of the planet, and this report saying, well, you know, if we want to limit this, if we want it to not get out o contr, we need to act very, very quickly in order to do that, and the time for doing so is running out. >> yang: rafe pomerance, you have spent decades acting as a

bit of a pal revere getting the country to recognize these threats. many of our viewers may know you from the wonderful deep dive the "nework times" did about our dawning, our understanding of climate policy. looking at this report, do you think that this will finally be the thing that moves the >> i think this report is really important, the amount of attention it's gotten has been huge, i deserves i see each report that comes out as incremental, adding to public understanding, building political will. i don't there's a single report that makes all the difference. so, yes, it's important. it adds the momentum, but, in and of itself, it's part of a sequence of >> yang: gavin schmidt, let's just say that world leaders decide they want to keep warming somewhere near this 1.5 degrees celsius mark. how severe do the emissions cuts

have to be? what do we have to do? >> so the allenge ahead of us, regardless of where -- what temperature we're going to end upat, are that we need to reduce carbon emissions by just about 70% to keep carbon dioxide -- >> yang: 70%? even more to keephe temperature constant. basically the temperature targets, 1.52, 2.53, what's going to happen depends on how ng it takes us to get to that point. so these are very, very large shifts in how we produce energy, how we transt ourselves, how we grow our food, and it can'tbe done overnight. there's a lot of inertia in the system, just in the physical system but also in the economy, in innovation, in systems that need to evolve fast in order to get us down to those levels.

>> yang: rafe, let's say world leaders do come to you, you have been knocking on their door for decades, and say we've seen the light, we want t. enact change what are the top things you want them to address? >> first, t me say the prerequisite is political will. for a world leader to ask t question, they have to have the desire to do that. unfortunately, this momenttan the uniteds is one of our worst. our leader says that this problem is a hoax, he's takg us out of the negotiations, et cetera. given your assumption that world leaders want to step up, there are four areas they have to work ne. numbers r&d, research and vavelopment. inon. we need cheap substitutes, we can do that. we're sp some money, but this must be a much higher priority on the screen. we have a agency that's supposed to come up with radical changesl funded 300on a year, the pentagon is at 5 billion.

so this has to be a much bigger priority. wewe need to control the other greenhouse gases like methane, nitrous oxide, and, where we can, which is mostly carbon and the energy system, we ought to be pcing i the tax is the most efficient mechanism we have. it needs not only to exist in the united states, it has to exist globally. we can do that, if we lead. without the united states, thing happens. the u.s. congress is the most imrtant body, i still maintain, in the world on this, and the reason is they won' act, and if they won't act, our negotiators can't nve. nober three is decarbonization. we know how to d that through roological systems like growing forests, ing soil management and so on. that takes some carbon out. then there are a whole series of technologies proposed to remove carbon. they're ag the early . you have to low interest costs, lower the environmental impact, but that's another partf the

r&d. and finally, which this heport excludes, is solar radiation management. i call it the pentatubo strategy, where you put partics in the atmosphere to reflect sunlight. >> yang: dramatic. dray practicematic geoengtoeer. there's there, we have no research in the programming now. we can't tell pele what the risks are or the benefits, we just know it works in the natural world. >> yang: gavin, rafe is talking about a lot of solutions but rightly signaling there has en the political will thus far to do tha. do you have any reason to hopewi that w change course? >> there's a lot of political will elsewn the world and at the local and state levels, even here in the u.s. i find myself talking to people who are involved in local and regional and national but perh fs noteral level efforts that are really bearing

fruit and, so, i think that this notion thatth eveing rests on congress to fix, i think they have a role to play, but there's a lot of movement going on elsewhere in the world, in europe, in china, japan. there's a lot of new things moving alonghere. so i'm not totally in despair. but the key thing to remember from this report is that it's clear that the best time to have reduced emissions was 25 years ago, but the second best time to reduce emissions is right now. >> do you have that optimism? are you in despairet? >> well, that's not where i go, spair. it may be warranted, but i don't go there. >> yang: i just ask this as someone who's been pushing thiso up a hill for so long. >> right. eeat we're seeing now that we didn't0 years ago is climate change impacts in the rearview mirror. in other words, everything wasf sort projected back there. n' was coming, but we did

really see it. it was invisible. osw we see what's happened. two examples, m of the coral reefs in the world are dead because thdocean has war sufficiently to bleach them. secondly, the arctic is unraveling. that will begin to emerge as a major source of emissions if we don't halt the warming. then it egets more ou of control. so future generations face huge challenges. we are in this, we have t manage it over the long run. the sooner we get at it, the be rer. >> yang:e pomerance, gavin schmidt, thank you both ver much. >> woodruff: today in turkey, president recep tayyip erdogan r creased the pressure on saudi arabia, afprominent saudi journalist disappeared in istanbul. he was last seen on tuesday entering saudi arabia's

nsulate in instanbul, seeking paperwork to marry his fiance. nick schifrin reports on what might haveappened to this important writer inside the consulate. >> reporter: jal khashoggi has been a singular, solitary voice, the lone saudi journalist willinto criticize saudi leaders. that criticism has apparently leftilenced. >> thank you all for coming. >> reporter: khashoggi's a t "washington post" columnd prominent former editor. he used to be a saudi government advisor and supported saudi modernization efforts led by crown prince mohammad bin salman. >> he is doinghat we demanded of him to do. so why am i being crical? simply because he is doing the right things the wrong way. very wrong way. >> reporter: khashoggi criticized what he described as mohammad bin salman's silencing dissent. leading women's activists have been jailed. shia activistsbeen sentenced to death. >> the environment in saudi arabia does not allow for constructive criticism, or

constructive debate, a discourse, about lively matters, matters that are going to affect us the future. >> reporter: in istanbul, khashoggi's supporters protested ide the saudi consulate, where turkish officials say he was murdered, his body dismembered, and flown out of the coun saudi's istanbul consul general mohammad al-oataibi gave a tour of the consulate to try and prove kashoggi hadand gone safely. >> ( translated ): jamal is not at the consulate, nor in the kingdom of saudi arabia, and the consulate and the embassy are working to search for him, and we aed about his case. >> reporter: but today turkish alesident recep tayyip erdogan, said that deni wasn't enough. >> ( translated ): the consulat officials cave themselves by saying "he left here." the obligated to provide proof of this claim. >> i am concerned about it. i don't like hearing about it.ll

hope that will sort itself out. right now, nobody ks anything about it, but there are some pretty bad stories going around. i do not like it. >> cash khashoggi never considered himself the opposition-- only someone with faith in his country, and in freedom. in "the washington post" this weekend a blank space where khashoggi's column would have been. the headline: a missing voice. fred hiatt is that newspaper's editorial page editor. >> what about his voice has been to vital and what about his voice drew you to him? >> the unique voice i think because he really knows saudi arabia. he's been a jost there for a long time. he was somebody who knows the people who r the country, as well as the ordinar folks, and he's a real w patriot wrote from the point of view of wanting the regimen saudi

arabia to do the right thing, and i think what made him unusual was, youwa know, h willing to take these risks for himself, including leaving the country, going into ele and being a truth teller bause he had hopes that saudi arabia might really move in the right direction. i should say he has hopes saudi arabiaight move in the right direction. and he was trying to kind of be a positive voice, pushing the in that direction. >> you refer to the risks he took. did express concern for his safety? >> i don't think anybody t pected something like the wo what is being speculated now, but i think, you know, when he left the more than a year ago, he said there are a lot of people in saudi arabia who can't speak the truth, they're in jail or being muzzled. i have the opportunity, if i

give everything up in my country, to go out an continue to speak the truth. i think he knew, you know, that put potentially relatis at risk, it put -- you know, no exile feels completely sanguine, at the same time, i don't think anybody would have competed something like what we're most afra of now. >> i spoke with the state department earlier and all they wld say is we are closely following the situation. is the u.s. doing enough? >> i think, you know, jamal was a resident of the united states, he was a columnist for the "the washington post." that puts the united states government in a position to demand answers. if it is true, and we continue to hope beyond hope that it's not true, fit is true that a foreign government lured one of its own citizens into one of its

diplomatic properties on foreign soil and then had himurdered, it's unprecedented in modern times, we've never seen anything like that, and thereno way, seems to me, that congress or an american administration could just go back to normal relations with a country that would do that. so the administration and congress, in our view, should be asking or answersand asking for information and doing it a lot more loudly and insistently than what we've heardo s far. >> fred hiatt of "the washington post," thank you very much. >> thank you. joining me is robin wright, sheis "the nker magazine" and is a distinguished scholar at the woodrow wilson nationalal natienter for scholars. you heard fred hiatt describe how there should not be a normal u.s.-saudi relationsp if this is true and we've heard outrage

from multiple senators of multiple sides of the ideological spectrum saying there should be a break in u.s.-saudi relatiothis is true. is that possible? is the kind of break between the u.s. and saudi arabia possible? >> i doubt it. the fact is saudi arabia is central to the trump administration's policy in the middle east. saudi arabia coz his firs destination as president. there was enormous pomp and ceremony when he arrived. saudi arabia is central to his attempt at a peace plan between israel and then palesians, central to his counterterrorism program, his own son-in-law who is his chief advisor on the middle east is a very closed personal fri of mohammed bin salman, the crowned prince allegedly linked to the fate of this wonderfuicl saudi cr and my long-time friend jamal. so the prospects of this changing anything, i think, are

unlikely. e bigger question in som ways for saudi arabia is what impact does this have on foreign businesses looking to or had been thinkingg about invest the kingdom? that big time money is essential to the prince's planso develop the kingdom, diversify the economy beyond the and there may be some who will wonder about the legitimacy, the commitment of the crowned prince to genuine reform given his track record since takg over last year. >> given his need for sommer of the reforms andrn investment, what does this say about saudi priorities under salomon. >> i think salman is ruthless when it comes to silencing critsics. he talks about reforms and rights for women after turning

around and arresting them after giving them the rights and one was sentenced to death. there are those who were the moderate clerks condemning and speaking o against sunni or islamic extr some of them have been picked up and sentenced to death. j al has said, there is under the current leadership very little if any room for criticism or questioning. >> and quickly,robin wright, president trump has criticized journalists, he has praised authoritarians. does that kind of talk have any impact on this event that we're talking about today? >> i think thedea -- human rights has generally not been very important in the trump administration and hasn't madeit n important part of its foreign policy. the fact this is a jrnalist criticizing a country and leadership very close to the trump administration, i doubt if it wl produce any kind of

immediate or significant iact. >> robin wright, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: stay with us. coming up on the "newshour" it's politics monday on the race for control of congress; michael lewis discusses the critical mission of government d residents of a small island contend with rising waters due to climate change. but first, the secretary of state visited north korea yesterday to continue negotiations with the regime there over its nuclear program. it's a process that has seen i ups and its downs, and as john yang reports, this visit produced some guarded optimism. >> reportewas all smiles around the table for a sunday lunch in pyongyang-- where north korea's nuclear arsenal was the main menu item. later, secretary of state mike

pompeo reported "signint progress" in his talks with north korean supreme leader kim jong-un. >> we had a good, productive tnversation. as presidemp said, there are many steps ang the way and we took one of them today. >> reporter: the north's state- run television echoe positive tone. the two sides agreed to establish working-level talks on a second summit between president trump and kim. pompeo also told rep that the north agreed to allow teinspectors at a nuclear site the north says it demolished last spring. the administration expressed doubts that the site had actually been destroyed. sieghecker is former director of the los alamos national laboratory. he's visorth korea several times. >> there have been so much skepticism about whether what the north koreans did actual would make a difference or not, where they would make it easier for them to test. so it's a big deal to actually let someone come in and to evaluate whether

that really sets back the test sites significantly. it's an important confidence building measure as far as i'm concerned. >> reporter: president trump's confidence is already running high. he recently expressed a fondness for the north korean leader he once derided as "litcket man". >> we fell in love. okay? no, really. he wrote me bel letters. >> reporter: the president'sop advisers have remained more skeptical of shifting from talk in 2017 of "fire and fury" to "falling in love." instead, they insist u.s. sancti until the north's nukes are gone. china's support is also critical to any north korean nuclear disarmament. but maintaining beijing's support is complicated by a growing trade war and other deep tensions. eoat was clear today as po met with chinese foreign minister wang yi. >> ( translat ): we urge the united states to stop this kind

of mistaken actions. we believe china and t u.s. should stick to the correct path of cooperation and win-win, >> i regret that the strategic dialogue between our two countries was something that you all chose not to undertake. >> reporter: china's role aside, there's no framework yet for dismantling north korea's nuclear arsenal. but siegfried hecker notes that pyongyang haput aside further nuclear testing. no testing means they will not be able to improve the sophistication of their nuclear weapons and particulhat i would be worried about is making the weapons smaller or to continue to develop, you know, the hydrogen or a thermonuear bomb capabilities. >> reporter: the next steps are unclear, including the possible timing of that second summit between the leaders. for the pbs newshour, i'm john yang.

>> woodruff:back to politics here at home and fallout fromhe weeks-long feud over now-justice brett kavanaugh's confirmation process with tamara keith ofpr and shawna thomas of "vice news." hello to both of you. it's "politics monday." seems like the brett kavanaugh thing wentn for months. in truth it was only, what, a month or two. but what is the -- can we tell right now what the political fallout from it may be? >> i think it's hard to know right this second. what we do know is that, in the midst of it, "pbs newshour" and marist had a poll and, oveathe course o week, there was a dramatic shift among republics in terms of the energy that they had heading teinto the mrm elections. now, does that energy and enthusiasm hold for the next couple of weeks?cl r. you know, the emotion of

happiness is generally not as emotionor strong as th of rage and outrage. but one interesting thing that thought about when i traveled with the president to his rally the kansas, and he very quickly termed this not to be a celebration offi cing brett kavanaugh but going on the attack against democrats for what they did in this process. he ver qickly turned it into his base against the angry mob, democrats.d, the >> woodruff: shawna, which suggests he thinks that's the effective way to use this. t well, to show that he got a win out s and if you give him more republicans he will continue to get wins. but i think t angry mob construction, mitch mcconnell used similar words after the vote, a troublesome one for therooms. because the women on thhill, we saw the protests, i was about

something birabout violation, about the ability to have some kind ofn powerhis situation, and i think if you dismiss that belittle it or think it's going away, that is something especially won running for the house will try to use. >> woodruff: so we may see a rect oppositional configuration, if you will, of this mob description that the president came up with. >> yeah, president trump on air force one was asked what message do you have he women that are devastated by the outcome after brett kavanaugh was accused of sexual assault? and president trump said i don't think there are women wweh devastated, i don't think that exists. president trump might be talkiom to different than we are, and he is just dismissing it out of hand. that probably works just fine with his base but, you know, as i talked about before in that

poll, republcan enthusiasm jumped to get close to where democratic enthusiasm and the enthusiasm of females votwho have been riled up and angry and frustrated eve since 2016 and not just frustrated but volunteering and donating and ruing for offic >> exactly, and that running for office point, and the thing is there areot more women running for office this time. it's going to be an historic election, but a lot of those women are on the democratic side. peop looked at the numbers. there are just not as many republican women running for the t time. if they're democratic women, they have the energy, and you're going to give them a chance to have a ve that's against kavanaugh, that's against trump, d that is against this feeling that you are not taking them ratic women who are running are going to take advantage of that. >> woodruff: tam,ou mentioned a poll. there is a poll that showed -- and we talked about this last

week to some extent -- that shows, yes, democrats are still ahead for many of these house races in play this year, but that the dynamics there arean ng a little bit. >> yeah, and you're talking about "thington post" poll that is out today, and, in some waysit's a battleground poll, it looks at the map of the districts that are executive, and it -- competitive, and it sayshere are a lot of very close races in this relatively e map of district that are competitive. most of those tight races, close races are in districts that president trump won. president trump won those districts,ny cases, by a large margin, and the fact that they're closes i giving democrats reason to feel comfortable. >> woodruff: and we've seen that coming, shawna, coming, haven't we? these house races that are in here tend to be in places democrats feel more comfortable.

>> exactly. i mean, a lot of the ones are taeting the house races where currently a republican is in the seat but hillary clinton won th district in the 2016 election so that will give them reason to believe there are democrats up for gho could come and vote if they could convince them and get them out. >> woodruff: theon senate, the other hand, and we've talked about this, too, tamara, is such that a lot of these states that are in p are red states, states where donald trump did very well, democrats are worried. >> yeah, whereas house side it's a map that is pretty good for demthrats, on senate side it is an historically terrible map for mocrats heading into this, the fact that they even think that there's a marginal chance that they could come out ahead is a sign that this is a unique year. but, you know, you went tono h dakota and did some reporting there, that's a state

democratu know, if lyve any hope of taking back the senate, they reeed the i ng on to north dakota, and heitkamp in pubc polling is significantly behind at the moment. >> woodruff: you were in west virginia, shawna. dr>> yeah. >> wff: joe manchin had a tough race. it's a republican state. what sit looking like? >> one of the things we saw were that some of these people who we consider sort of swing conservative democrats, they seemed to like the fact that joe manchin was the lone democrat who voted for bt kavanaugh. t ey thought it was him representing whey want, and these are people who voted for trump but also support manchin, and it seemed -- and this was an unsign terrific focus group ptht was 12 pe, but seemed that if manchin was trying to connect

to people who would vote for him, he probably did it pretty well, and the democrats in the icoup aren't going to vote for the repu. te woodruff: and it is a state-by-shing. as you mentioned, heidi heitkamp voted against juke judge kavanaugh and that factors in. "politicsonday." thank you both. the report on my trip to north dakota this weekend, we'll have that -- a look at that tomorrow night, the heidi heitkamp kevin cramer race. ss woodruff: as we have been reporting, addg enormous global challenges like climate change require more than just individual action-- they require the leadership of active, engaged governments. in his new book, "the fifth risk," bestselling author rachael lewis reports on the trump adminion, and its approach to staffing the federal wivernment.

iam is back with the latest installment of our newshour bookshelf. he began by asking h explain the book's title. >> it's the risk you're not imagining. it's the thing you're not teinking about when you're worried about wer you're worried about. and the beginning of this story is the federal government, a portfolio of risks that h been managed, most of which we we're not thinkiomng about, risk that a nuclear bomb didn't go off, or that we don't a havn accurate picture of society, and you move across the government, it's breath taking how many mission critical things there are and how it's being done in spite of thts vagueit hostil that society has to its own government. >> your reporting really covers the periodfter trump i clearly going to be the president and the transition that goes on when one

administration switches to the next. how would you characte,er broadly speaking, how that transition happened and what occurred? >> so there's what's supposed to .appen and there's what happen what's supposed to happen is that the outgoing administration spends nine months and a osousand people's time building bricks a the administration. the obama administration did this and the idea was, the day after the election, whoever won would send hundreds of people in the government to get the briefings, and the trump administration did not show up. they have a lot to learn what ese agencies are doing. >> the book has so many fascinating vignettes of people who work within these different federal agencies, and i wonder if there's one story that stands out to you that's emblematic of this larer issue that you're talking about? >> well, the larger issue of the problem of the ignornce of the mission and, as a result, putting e wrong person in. i mean, there are hundreds of

exhiples. but, i one that's easily described is inside the department of agri alture, there chief scientist, and this person is responsible for distributing three dollars billion in research grants every year. now, this is going to agriculture research. most of it, one way or the other, now associated with climate change, how wre going to continue to grow food and graze sheep and milk cows in a different climate, and it's a serious issue. it's the planning for the food now.ly of 50 years from the person who was doing that was a very distinguished research scientist, agriculturist named cary roteky. world class authority on climate o ience. placed him had no science background at all.

replace people who know something with loyalists who have no idea what the mission is the is a theme that runs right through the administration. >> does the mission suffer -- i mean, obviously, you could atlok hat kind of a transition and say that seems a drastic shift in proctors but these bureaucracies largely have a career staff that are there largely permanen sy. doesn't thff keep the mission going for the most part? >> so of theop 6,000 career civil servants in the federal workforc quit or were fired the first year of the trump soministration. already, you can see a gutting of the civil service. and the idea that these people are lazy or stupid or dead weight on socty, i think it's the most sinister idea ave in this country right now, i really do. they are very mission-driven people, they're ver knowledgeable pple.

>> they're not in it for the money for themselves. >> that's right you don't take the job to be rich and famous you take the job because you really care about the thing. they're the government, and without those people this place collapses. >> being this society? this society. it's not like the government is a tool that we might use to address the biggest problems that we have, it's the only tool for most to have the biggest problems. you deal with climate change, that's going to be fromhe government. you deal with anything having to do with science and techology, all the very basic research is done with government -- through the government because if it's not going to pay out in the next ten or 15 years, industry doesn't want to have anything to do with it. ane future is driven by what the government doe it has been in this country forever. i mean, you don't get the interneat net or the iphone without the government, you don'get g.p.s. without the government. we are drastically cheating future when we treat the vernment the way we treat it. it's not just trump. we have been doing this f

several decades, this playing with the idea that the government is the problem and not the solution, he i just the ultimate expression of the problem. i think of it a this exquisitely important machine that we have allowed through our own neglect to accumulate rust through the decades andowe's come in with a sledge harm and we're going to pay with a price if we don't pay attention. >> in the last third of the book, you talk abo the centrality of government data and how important that is, and there's few passages in where you list a lot of ways the trump has been scrubing data, removing farm animals being afeudsed. financial afuse, fema data after the hurricane. what is with that. >> all the climate change data. there'reat to the weather data being accessible. it is not ideologiril. it's beenn by narrow

financial interest >> financial interests. someone has a business that's going to be more profitable if this information is notai ble, and, so, it's ranchers who want the be able to abuse animas or it's a weather company that doesn't want the aeather cayta publicly accessible be they want to h able to sell it to people. >> after talking wl these different officials working within these cruciagencies, what scares you the most? what keeps you up? my the broad thing, and it's the fantastipennia of this moment. we're going to look back unless we s drasticalft course and say there were many moments ure e we cheated the f the way we behaved in the presen and i think that's been true for while, but i think it's really true right now. >> the book is "the fifth risk." michael lewis, thank you so >> thanks for having me.

>> woodruff: and finally tonight, a look at a place right here in the united states where scientists say the effects of climate change are plain to see. john yang traveled to tangier island in the chesapeake bay-- a tiny speck of land that is shrinking as the sea level ses. >> reporte the sun is barely up, but the watermen of tangier, virginia, have already been out on the chesapeake bay for hours. one after another, boats shuttle back and forth into the island's tiny harbor carrying their wlicious cargo: chesapeake blue crabs,ch thrive in these waters. they've provided a livraihood for geons of residents on .his bit of mud and marsh 12 miles from sho >> i'm a commercial crabber, my son's a commercial crabber, my father was a crabber, grandfather, great grandfather... >> reporter: james eskridge is the mayor of tangier, known to everyoney his childhood nickname-- ooker.

like the other60 or so residents of t island, his life is defined by the water. >> we harvest crabs, fish, oyster clams and it's all about the seafood. it's what-- it's how we put food on the table. it's how we put our kids through college. >> reporter: now, the water is menacing tangier's very existee. >> it's ironic, the chesapeake bay over the years has provided a living for the folks here, and now it's the chesapeake bay that is threatening the island, threatening to take it away. >> reporter: while tangier island has been shrinking for centuries, battered by the bay's relentless waves, scientists say the problem is accelerating. folks here say thi tidal flooding is not unusual after a big nor'easter le the one that just blew through because it pushes up all the water from the east, but some fear this could be the future of tangier. the army corps of engineers netimates tangier has lost ly two-thirds of its land acss since 1850-- that's about

1,40s. if nothing is done, scientists say, it may have to be abandoned in the not too distant future. >> i mean it's... it's dramatic if places. >> reporter: earl first came to tangier in 2000. he returned in015 and spent 14 months researching his new boo"" dchesapeake requiem,"ailed portrait of this distinctive community. he said the changes in the intervening years were striking. >> there was a lot lland. the western end of the boatet channel is 75 ider than it was when i was here 16 or 18 years ago now. the uninhabited marsh island that forms the northern third of tangier was a pretty solid expanse of marsh back in the late 90s. and today it's a loose macramé of, you know, strands of marsh just pocked all throughout with water. >> reporter: the dire fate of the island runs through swift's

narrative. at its core, though, it's a look at its people. >> a community out on the edge al the american experience that helps define the breadth of that experience. a place that-- unique is word that's over used today, but a place that is truly unique. >> reporter: it's a place so deolated that virtually all residents are descfrom the first settlers, who arrived in 1778. e crowded cemeteries are filled with parks, pruitts and crockettia their victorn version of the itthodist religion still permeates the comm alcohol is not sold here and signs of faith are everywhere-- even the municipal water tower. and then there's the tangier oalect. it echoes the speetheir ancestors, who came from the southwestern coast of england.

the isolation has also ftered an unusually strong bond among its residents. >> i did not understand how different the sense of community,he meaning of community is here from its definition and in most mainline towns. and to reach the rest of america requires effort, and time, and at certain times of the year a rrtain amount of danger. orter: talk of the island's future is hard to upoid. >> it's a preoion that never leaves them. their entire lives are tied up. >> reporter: islanders want a bua wall to surround tangier. with a $30 million price tag, the army corps of engineers says it would be cheaper to simply move everyone to the mainland. >> a lot of folks, myself included, we really don't go there, like, thinking about having to abandon the island, move somewhere else. >> reporter: much of the debate surrounding tangier'onfuture focusehat's causing the island to shrink. scientists say rising seawater,

e used by man-made climate change, makes fect of the waves even worse. "ooker" eskridge see only the erosion. >> we can see thioeffects of erdaily weekly for sure. but thsea level rise these... things just look the same to me as it did when i was a boy. i've been working today for 50 years and pretty much day in day out and i just don't seeny difference in the sea level. >> reporter: the debate has y awn national attention, largcause 87% of the island's voters went for president trump, a climate change skeptic. that prompted cnn to visit last summer. >> i love donald trump as much as any family member i got. >> reporter: after the idoadcast, the president called es and told him the island would be around for hundreds of years more. >> there is-- there there's a great distrust of expertise, scientific expertise. >> reporter: author earl swift. >> i think at the heart of it is that you have two different

kinds of data being collected. the outside experts tend to rely empirical data. and tangiermen rely on much more ecdotal style of data collection which is that they go out on their boats every day and th >> reporter: the shrinking land isn't the only threat to tangier's future. there's also the shrinking population as young people ntave. k rollmet the island's combined school-- rough 12-- is 54. the lowest it's ever b three grades have a single student. >> i mean, you could ask any of ndour high school students probably most of them would say i wouldn't mind living here if there was justy. job opportun >> reporter: tangier native nina pruitt has workeat the school for 36 years, the last 14 as principal. >> we have four senils now. three of them, want to be nurses. and they know thers only so many nurses that tangier island can support and they know that there is not a choice about

coming because there's nothing to do. >> reporter: for many of tangier's young meit's a choice between following their elders onto the water or moving away. >> i love working on the water but it's not guaranteed money. i mean, today i could make a couple of thousand dollars. tomorrow, i could go backwards and lose a couple hundred dollars. >> reporter: we met 19-year-old cameron evans on his first vis back to tangier after he left for virginia's wesleyan university in norfolk, virginia. >> it's a big change. i mean, i had only six people in my class. now i've got 400 some people in va class. >> reporter: considers himself a tangierman through and through-- he crabs in the mmers and hunts ducks in the winters-- but his professional interests-- photography and maybe journalism-- would be hard to pursue here. >> i guess it's a struggle to d lance between carrying on a tradition ving on the island or doing a different career off t island. like i said before, nobody's really tried berng a photogran here and working for a company outside the

island. fully maybe i can be the first one and then carry on that tradition by ling here and possibly raising family here. >> that's not realistic or fair. with dire predictions about climate change. >> reporter: with dire predictions about climate nyange, some warn the desperate fate this sland faces could eventually face coastal cities like miami and new york. >> whether we decide to ettervene with whether we decide tot sink. that decision is going to inform what we do the next time and the rtime it that the time af that. in some ways it's a terrible candidate for that job. mait's small, it's gettinger all the time in terms of population. but we don't get to choose what the first is. you know it's kind of thrust upon us and tangier'it. >> reporter: as this singular community hopes to be saved, rather than surrendered to the sea. for the pbs newshour, i'm john

yang in tangier, virginia. >> woodruff: on the newshour online right now you can listen to the oping of "american wolf," nate blakeslee's narrative nonfiction bout the world's most famous wolf, which is our october pick fone the newshouryork times" book club, now read this. find that and more is on our web site, pbs.org/newshour. and that's the newshour for tonight. on tuesday, we kick off a five- part weekly seriesethinking college. i'm judy woodruff. r all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> bnsf railway.

>> consumer cellular. >> financial services firm raymond james. >> supported by the rockefeller foundation. >> supported by ththjohn d. and ine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful rerld. nformation at macfound.org >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. ank you.

captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> you're watching pbs.

hello, everyone. welcome to "amanpour and company." here's what's coming up. a five-star tour of the star with the renounced physicist, neil degrass tyson, who shows us the intergalactic connections betweenpace and our military. ♪ plus, aan violin perform by one of the world's best. daniel tells me how his family history led him to music. and h daniel wetzel became the president of the prestigious julliard school.