captioning sponsored by newsur productions, llc >> nawaz: good evening. i'm amna nawaz judy woodruff is away. on the newshour tonight: "urgent concern." a whistleblower sounds the alarm, leading to warnings from the intelligence comnity watchdog and sparking a fight between congre and the white house.en >> i shouldn't have done that. i should've known better, but in didn'ti'm really sorry. >> nawaz: racism and regret. canadian prime minister justin trudeau apologizes after revelations that he wore blackface on multiple occasions. plus, between the lines. a conversation with joy harjo, the new poet laureate of the uned states, and the first native american to fill the role. >> you can time travel in a poem. you can get to know people in a poem. and poetry is a place you can come to when you have no words.

>> nawaz: all that and more, on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provid by: ♪ ♪ >> kevin. >> kevin! >> kevin? >> advice for life. life well-pland. learn more at raymondjames.com. >> bnsf railway. >> consumer cellular.>> nd by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century.

>> carnegie corporation of new york. supp innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the vancement of international peace and security. at carnegie.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: and individuals. >> this program was made possible by the corporbltion for broadcasting.tr and by cutions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> nawaz: president trump is insisting he has not made any improper promises to any foreign leader. that followed reports of a whistleblower questioning actions by mr. trump, including communications with a foreign leader. the intellence community's

inspector general called it an "urgent concern," but the administration hasefused to share it with congress. we'll discuss all of this, after the news summary. iran today threatened an "all-out war" if attacked byu. th or saudi arabia. fou.ign minister mohammad zarif issued that warning, after rising tensions over a drone- and-missilattack on saudi oil facilities. a u. saudi officials have dismissed iran's denial of responsibility, and yeerday, secretary of state mike pompeo called the attack an "act of war." today, pompeo wain the united arab emirates for talks with gulf leaders, and hended to zarif. >> i was here in an act of gndiplomacy, while the for minister of iran is thatening all-out war, to fight to the last american. we're here to ild out a coalition aimed at achieving peace and a peaceful resolution of this.at my mission set. that's what president trump certainly wants me to work to achieve. >> nawaz: pompeo left the region today to return to washington. united nation inspec meanwhile, arrived in saudi arabia to investigate thes. atta

also today, iran announced that president hassan rouhanind foreign minister zarif have now received u.s. visas to attend the u.n. general assembly in new york, next week. in afghanistan, the taliban have struck again, this time in the southern provie of zabul. a truck bomb killed 20 people outside a hospital. ambulances ruschd through the s, and doctors tended to nearly 100 wounded, including children. separately, officials in eastern afghanistasaid a u.s. drone attack, aimed at islamic state fighters, misfired, and killed 30 civilians. a court in japan today cleared three former utility executives of negligence, in the fukushima nuclear plant disaster. o in mar2011, an earthquake triggered a tsunami that all but destroyed thplant, sending radiation spewing across the countryside. thousands of people were left homeless, and some protestede today outse court today. ?> ( translated ): how could they rule this w we cannot understand, and cannot

accept it. for the past 8.5 years, there are many people who were forceom to evacuate heir home and hometown, and are still looking for a place to live. >> naw: the court ruled today that, at the time of the tsunami, the japanese governmee did not requclear plant executives to ensure absolute safety. this was the only criminal trial related to fukushima. back in this country, remnts off tropical storm imelda have led to heavy rains and flooding in the houston, texa. officials today reported more than 1,000 people rescued or evacuated so far. forecasters said some placesup could enetting 40 inches of rain. hurricane humberto, meanwhile, brushed past bermuda, with winds of 125 miles an hour. ndere were reports of some damage on the isbut no deaths. the white house today withdrewna the noon of jerey byard to lead fema, the federal emergency management agency. the nomination was pulled over what the administration called an unspecified personal issue. fema has not had a full-time administrator since brock long

resigned last february, over questions about his use of government vehicles. on capitol hill, eugene scalia, the nominee for secretary of labor, defended his pro-business record today. scalia has spent mos his career representing corporate interests on employment issues. democrats argued, that makes h the wrong choice to defend american workers. scalia said he has acted as any good lawyer should. >> i am not necessarily my clients. i will seek to defend them, to vindicate their rights, but that doesn't meathat i necessarily think what they did was proper. son ofaz: scalia is th tonin scalia, the conservative supreme court justice who died in 2016. h the u.se has passed a stop-gap spending bill to prevent a government shutdown at month's end.at it sailed through today, and went to the senate, which is also expected to approve it. the bill funds federal operations through november 21.

president trumwon a round in epfederal court today, on g his tax returns private. a federal judge blocked a california law that says presidential candidates must relee their returns to quali for the state's presidential primary ballot next march.th president also filed a federal lawsuit today to block a subpoena for his tax returns, that from prosecutors new york. and on wall reet today, the dow jones industrial average lost 52 points to close at 27,094. the nasdaq rose five points, and the s&p 500 was virtually unchanged. and there is word that bir numbers in north america have plunged by nearly three billion since 1970. that's a 29% decrease, according to a study based at corntyl univer it was published today in the journal "science." now, the study estimates the u.s. and canada now haven bout 7.2 billrds. it says the common house sparrow and eastern meadowla ss have suffere of the biggest losses. and, the washington monument reopened to visitors today, for

the first time in three years. e stone obelisk had been closed to replace its aging elevator and to enhance security syems. first lady melania trump was on hand for today's ribbon-cutting, astudents looked on. the monument is the tallest building in washington, at 555 feet, and officially opened in 1888.on still to comhe newshour: a whistleblower comes forward, sparki "urgent concern" from the intelligence community watchdog. m canadian priister justin trudeau is mired in scandal, after admitting to wearing blackface. how far along are lawmakers inct takingn to curb gun violence? and much more. >> nawaz: we return now to our top story, the escalating stand-off between congress and the trump administration over a whistleblower's complaint,

that was deemed an "urgent concern" bthe intelligence mmunity's inspector general, michael atkinson. atkinson met with the houseom intelligencettee this morning behind closed doors cout the complaint. the chairman of thmittee, representative adam schiff, hijoins us now from capito. congressman, welcome back to the "newshour". you spent almost four hours with mr. atkinson behind closed dos today. what did you learn today that led you to believe you urgently need more infmation about that complaint? >> there doesn't seem to be any dispute over the fact that this complaint is urgent and credible. that is apparently not the basis it's been withheld us. rather than the department of justice weighing in with the office of director of naional intelligence, that director is depriving us of the complaint because he says it's beyond his isrisdiction. that means that urgent matter is going unaddressed. it also means that someone is giving these marching orders to the director. f we want d out is the white house involved in that?

we need to know, frthkly, whethewhite house is also a subject of the complaint because the idea that so could weigh in whoig's the subjt of the complaint and essentially quash it would cause, i think, the whistleblower statute to be meaningless. eere are two imperatives, one is photo find out e formation necessary to protect the country, and cond is we need to protect both the whistleblower and the wholepr ess of being able to blow the whisting onimpropriety. >> the window was nearly four hours withmr. atkinson. you gotanswers to none of the questions laid out for us? >> no, we got answers to a great many questions. we got answers to this is the first time a director of national intelligence has ever withheld a complainfromng ss. whether credible or not, the practice has always been to provide it to congress. he it wasfound to be credible, urgent and it is unprecedented to b deprived this way. it was also clear from the stimonthathe department of

justice has weighed in in a way that it never has before in a thistleblower complaint. it's also clear, nk, that the issue is not the classification of the nytelligence. eople have said, well, teder presidents have ass that they have the right to declassify intelligence or provide classified information to the congress. that's apparently not the issue either. an the question is why is this being withheld from congress? is this an effort to cover up impropriety? who does the complaint involve? and most seriously, if this i urgent and they're not allowing congress to deal with it and they're not allowing the inspector general to deal with it, it's goaing unressed and we're at risk. >> nawaz: if it's not related to declassification, some reports i'sure you've seen say the complaint is related to a series of actions, not anyng discussion as was earlier reported. is that your understanding? >> you know, i don't know whatco thplaint has to say in terms of its specifics, so i can't answer that question, but i can tell you that, you knoow,

there's speculation about whether this ivolves a presidential communication. even if it involved a , presidential communicatid i don't know at this point, that doesn't mean that the privilege covers it ifhat communication 't about a crime or fraud. the president doeave the privilege to be corrupt. no one in the administration has the privilege to be corrupt, and the privilege always gives way if it is about evidence corruption. so it is not as simple sas saying, well, if it involves a communication, then they hava right to withhold it. we have seen time and time again on the issue of privilege, the administration makes claims ofiv ege merely to deny congress information where no privilege could apply. so, at the end of the day, we're going to need to get this complaint and weare going to get this complaint, and we will, i think, expose those who are trying to stand in the way. >> nawaz: t, sir, after the briefing today you said you knew other institutns were involved in keeping you from getting that

complaint. do you know that the white house is inknlved? >> w that the department of justice is involved in trying to prevent us from getng this complaint and we kcoow bill barr's hiory at the jutice department as reviewing his role as essentially a defense lawyer in terms to have the white house involvement, we don't have that confirmed, i think, from the inspector general, wo isn't ableeak t'to that, isn't authorized tspeak to that, but we do know from the communication we've received thom the director of national intelligence thaey're claiming some privilege may apply. well there's a narw category of people, the president an people around him, that would even hold the prospect of potential privilege. so i think the d.n.i. has pointed where the problem lies even if that's not his intention. >> nawaz: it's been reported mr. atkinson didn't disose whether the complaint involves the president. do you believe it does? >> it certainly seems it involves someone higher than the the d.n.i.of ife he d.n.i. says it's beyond

our jurisdiction and the inspector general told us this is squarely within the responsibility to have the d.n.i., it means there are a higher authority, and therey aren't mople in position to give orders of direction to the leader of the intelligence community. so, you know, there are certainly a lot of indications but we don't have confirmation of that. we also don't know whether this is a situation where the subject of the complaint has actually been given e complaint and, of course, that heightens the concern that evidence may be destroyed or covered up. >> nawaz: sir, very briefly, that d.n.i. joseph mcguire will be testifying before you next week. that is it you hoe to -- what is it you hope to learn from him? >> we want to call on him to explain to the american people why hers the first diector of national intelligence to withhold a whistleblower complaint from members of congress and how the whistleblower statute can work if tat ce and if they are

vetoing congress' acces as to tt informatiod. we hope the n.i. will reconsider and provide the information to congress, but if not he going to ow the american people an explanation and at the end of theday the only thing will bed satis with is the provision of the complaint and if the d.n.i.s meets her responsibility which is to tell the whistleblower how they can come directly to congress, that's what the statute provides and us far he has ben unwilling to follow the statute. naw: congressman adam schiff, chairman of the house intelligence k mmittee. thu, sir. >> thank you. >> nawaz: canadian prime minister justin trudeau is embroiled incandal, after three separate instances have emerged showing trudeau in blackface. the first image surfaced a overnigh was quickly followed by the others. it's become the new focus next month's canadian elections. william brangham has the latest.

>> this is something that i deeply, deeply regret. >> brangham: the prime minister spent the day trying to containa m indage from images of brown- and blackface makeup. the controversy erupted after "time" magazine published a photo of trudeau at an "arabian nights"-themed gala in 2001. he was 29 at the time, and teaching at a private school. his initial response came last night, on his campaign plane. >> iwas something that i didn't think was racist at the time, but now i recognize that it was somhing racist to do, and i am deeply sorry. >> brangham: tru admitted to wearing blackface when he sang the jamaican song "day o" at a high school talent show in the 1990s. and today, the canadian news site "global news" released video of a third instance of trudeau in dk makeup, also from the '90s. hours later, the prime minister addressed the scandal again,n

winnipeg, manitoba. >> it was something that minimizes and takes advantage of a reality that i have not had to live with, of being discriminated against, of being rginalized, judged for the color of my skin.ha >> bra all of this comes just five weeks before a general election, with the prime minister and his ruling liberal party facing aough fight to hold their parliamentary majority. his main rival, and leader ofsi the opon conservatives, ripped into trudeau last night. >> what canadians saw this evening is someone with ak complete l judgment and integrity, and someone who's not , t to govern this country. >> brangham: todgmeet singh-- son of sikh immigrants from ind and leader of the new democrats-- called the images of trudeau "troubling." >> how do you-- how you lhek someone inye that's, that's mocked the lived reality that i've lived? but more importantly, that so many canadians have lived.

>> brangham: ithe past, trudeau has often cast himself as a champion of multiculturasm, welcomingra syrian refugees arriving into canada, and surrounding hielf with a diverse cabinet today, a number of his liberal arrty followers said they e stking with him, but the scandal has cast new doubt on his political future. also in winnipeg today, trudeau said he would not rule out the existence of additional photos, given the fact that he did not remember these instances. joining me now to talk about the fallout is elamin abdelmahmoud. he is an editor at buzzfeed, and the cohost of "party lines," a podcast about canadian politics. elamin, welcome to the newshour. this obviously comes at a, frankly, terrible timi for the primister, right as this election campaign is gearing up. what is your sense of the fallout from all of this? >> right, so we are fortunate in this country to have a shmuch ter campaign period, while the u.s. is still somehow

reliving the 2016 campaign, we have a 40-day campaign period. so this is about the worst time for the prime minister to haveis ome out because we're about eight days into it and it will wrap up october 21. so, as you can imagine, we have a saying that's constant that campaigns matter and the reason they do is, when an event like this ppens, it ca totally, completely shift the course of the campaign. for the past fewys, the liberals, trudeau's party, has been harming this message about afthrdability, about howy're going to help the middle class, no one's talking about that today and eryone's taking about all of the comments he's made aboutacism, his history with being a very woke prime minister as compared to these photos that just came out. >> reporter: and my understanding is this dovetails with what the coservatives have been trying to attack him on. >> right, the conservatives have been trying to deliver the meage that justin trudeau is not as advertised. most of that argument has been

been about hisbe taxation policies, they say he's gng to do one thing but actually is doing another, but when it comes to this case, justin trudeau is probably most well known outside of this country fr all of t sort of like performances of being a prerttty woke f understanding of social justice kind of prime minister. so when you have a situahon likeis that is just coming to light now, it kind of gives a bit more credibility to their notion that justin trudeau is not as advertised. 's frank lay shock that rudeau himself wouldn't have addressed this e intervening years, whenever he became a member of parliament, when he became the leader of his party, when he became prime minister, he's had plenty of time and opportunities to educate people on this. the way it's coming out now does not look for him. >> reporter: given the concentrated nature of camigns which you describe -- which frankly in america we would love a 40-day campaign -- is your

sense that, given that,hat this is going to move the needle in a substantial way against him? >> i mean, listen, it's the only conversation tre is in canadian politics yesterday that wasn't there yesterda e before tection and up until the first few days of the campaigneriod, the polls have been reflecting a relative sort of tie between the liberals ands thees conservatwith the mvp being a long distant third.is ind of upsends that because in the next few days we'll see justin trudeau apologize and apologize again. he made a second apology today. i don't think he's put it to bed, a lot queions to answer. so when we say campaigns matter, what we rn eally me, over just a couple of days, how you handle a situation like this can either give you momentum or make you stuck in a rut that these are the onquestions you take. you can imagine in a 40-day period, ife ends up taking questions about this for five, six days in a row, that's a eignificant fraction of that

campaign prioand, so, inked really shift the omentum of the campaign, but happened yesterday, last night, hasn't been 24 hours, so it's a ittlo bit arly to tell on that front. reporter: here in the u.s., blackface imgery, pretty much everyone understands that's racist icons. do the canadians have a similar appreciation for blackface in history and seeing it as racist clark cay chiewrs? >> i have to tel, l yothis country, being canada, we've skated with this international reputation of not being an escially racist country, not having that deep history of racism. but we really have struggled th having quality n nversations about racism, the multiculturalismis country. this is a moment to have those conversations becau, yeah, like every single year we see sories about colledents or somewhat famous people in canada who end up dressing up in

blackface and brownface and being criticized publicly for it, so we struggle with it the u same way t. does. i think we don't have the at'station they do, and th kind of fortunate, but we have that sort of long history here, too. >> reporter: the prime minister today said he had a hard time seeing how racist this rough his layers of privilege. is that going to work as an excuse for people? are people going to say, okay, i can understand that, you are the son of a pme minister, you maybe didn't appreciate this, or is that not going to fly? >> look, the fact of the matter is when the photo of him in the aladdin costume came out, what happened, he was 29 years old, and you pull any 2u year-old out from the street and hopefully you would think they know better, even as henversation of a blackface and brownface has evolved from 2001 as they are aow. we've come a long in society in terms of talking about theses es more, but it's not like

it was less racist then. so when he said hes had layers of privilege that helped him not see that that was the case, i believe him. i think he takes th seriously. but, at the same time, i think he has a bit of a history of talkin abo words like discrimination or privilege, words that are very popular on the progressive left, but not really a lot of histoing probed on whether he really understands what those mean. so i think this is maybe an opportunity to have a more fulsome conversation about that and see what tha looks like.e. >> reporter: elamin abdelmahmoud, thank yo very, very much for being here. >> my pleasure, thank you for having me. >> nawaz: stay with us. coming up on the newshour: nearly two decades after 9/11, why is the cost running guantanamo bay rising? the climate crisis, and the price inaction.

plus, the first native american u.s. poet laureate on art and history. now, white house officials have been meeting with publicans in congress about a potential plan for a gun bill. n ile president trump hanot ighed in on what sort of proposal he would back, republican senators are feing pressure to take some action on the issue. to help us understand where thin stand, i'm joined by ournd own lisa desjardins. iv

>> a conservweb page why would it be leaked to them? well, this idea was to expandro universal bacd. someone in the white house were bushing this by putting this out on a conservative web page before it readlly ha any legs, it undermined it. it essentially killed that plan. so whan.you have here is forces behind the scenes really tryingf to luence the president against working on universal gu background checks or an an expansion of background checks which is somethingmany in the senateare talking about. >> reporter: every time there's a high profile mass shooting, we have this conversation again. where is the public on is? that pressure going to do anything? >> i think you can see th

public pressure is building and that goes back to senator mcconnell, he made e of his strongesstatements yet this week ability where he is on this issue and what he wants to see happen. let's listen. >> we need some guidance fromt the presid abut what kind of proposal that would make a difference, he would actually sign into law. i think, given the multiple horrendous shoonotings august, we owe it to the american people to act. >> rep strongest statement that he says he wants to do something. i have not heard that from him before, and it'noecret why on our poll with npr and marist, poles from abc, nbc all show 89, 90% of americans support a panding universal background checks or going tore universal background check. here's the political thing, though, am na, when u askme women, almost two thirds of women, want a ban on

assault-style weapons. so republicans need those female votes. theyrvous about this isst with women next year and so are manufactures, amna. today colt, one to have the manufactures of the ar-15, one of the semi-automatic assault style weapons, say they won't sell the weapon anymore commercially, only providing it for military contracts. they say there isoo much supply and no longer demand that consumers have stopped buying the gun. >> nawaz: with all the talks, with some of the high profile people on the hill continuing the talks briefly, is there a time li for the actions? >> not a strict time line. coress will be in session this timeext year, buthere's a difficulone,it's difficult to py legislatn in a presidential year and thacloser than anyone thinks because this month congress is only in session another week and a half, then they take two weeks off, three weeks in october, november is thanksgiving, so it's really this month and next month, everyone realizes is a critical window on this issue.

>> nawaz: critical window. we've got to stay on top of this. our lisa desjardins, tou very much. >> you're welcome:. >> nawaz: the cost of running guantanamo bay's prison and court system jumped by nearly $90 million from 2013 to 2018, even as the number of prisoners there has decreased. that is according to a new analysis from carol rosenberg at the "new york times." and she joins us on the phone from guantanamo bay, cuba. carol, welcome back "newshour". help us understand that the number of prisoners have gone down but somehow the cost has gone up. how is that possible? >> there are number of things going on. the prison buildings were set up as temporary, expeditionary war on terror sites, and they opened, you know, in 2002, and many of the buildings and structures that they have been using are that much older and

have needed repairs andd replacement andmaintenance. the price of keeping la sodier, mostly national guard, in uniform has also ne up across the years, and this detention center of 40 prisonerss ha 1800 soldiers, that's 45 troops for every prisoner. 1800 soldiers plus a staff of probably around 300 or more civilian contractors. in addition, guntanamo is just plain expensive. it's down here inba. everything comes in by airplane or barge. everything hasa markup. construction has a markup. extremely isolated, expensive place to run this kind ne operation. >> nawaz: the pri left there now, i imagine as they stay there longer, and we don'tl know exwhat will happen next, you outlined in your report that it costs more to ca for older prisoners. explain that part of the

equation to me. >> we've had a number of instances in recent years of hehathcare conditions thae required the military, the navy medical unit to call in experts they hen doing them for a while, but, you know, as people age, they get, for example, colonoscopies, they get basic heart condition tre andar care. there's one prisoner here who had a degenerative disc disease that ended up with him bei paralyzed in his cell, incontinent, and the u.s. military mounted a surgical suite of a neurosurgeon to fix his back, or at least to start working on his spine, and after that one surgery, he need four more across the span of eight or nine months. every complicated medical procedure that takes place down here relies on people coming in to carryit out. >> nawaz: te me about the 4

minute you mentioned. why are they still there? how many are facin what about the rest who haven't been charged? >> the first thing to understand is that guantanamo started off in substance kind of likd e aw. p.site, a prisoner of war site. this is not a presumption all of em are guilty of war crimes. the u.s. brought them here as b.o.w.s of this unusual war, saying they wanted to take them off the battlefields. then, among them, they found a certain number or they broug certain number that they wanted ba charge with war crimes. best known are py the five men accused of conspiring in the 9/11 attacks. but the majority of them are mec who i haveme to call the "forever prisoners." they're indefine detainees on this war in terror. people have called this the forever warecause there is nobody on the other side to surrender, how do you e war on terror? so these m many of them, may be

here the rest of their lives, and what's happened under presidt trump is that the military recognized that this is no longer expedionary or temporary detention, they're planning for enduring detention, they're planning for anoer 20 or so years of holding these men. as you probably recall, president obama said he wants to close it, he wanted to move some of the men to the united states and hold them in either military tior federal det sites, depending on how they would be charged, and congress blocked. the political will in the united states is to keep them here, so, under the tdministration, the pentagon is planning to hold them, if not forever, for the next 20 or so years. >> nawaz: carol rosenberg, covering guantanamo bay as deeply andxtensively as you have, do you see any future in which guantanamo bay is actually

closed? >> well, certainly not because, first of all, this is a functioning naval station, it's a navy base. 6,000 people live here. sailors and their ilies, contractors of te 6,000as2,000 are sociated with the prison of 40 prisoners, and there have been no will will any of the administrations to want to get rat of the base. it's got an airstrip and a court and the pentagon coiders it a strategic asset. but if you're askg ether or not i perceive them closing the prison and getting rid of thela prisoner, to me it's unimaginable. >> nawaz: carol rosenberg of the "new york times" joining us on the phone from guantana bay, cuba. thank you, carol. >> my pleasure. >> nawaz: the united nations has called clima "defining issue of our time." a n. panel has estimated thatit

s likely the planet's temperature will rise by at least by 2.7 degrees farenheit a between 20 2052. that can lead to more extremeha weather anher conditions. but those estimates may be on the re conservative side. there were new estimates this week-- from french scientis- suggesting the temperature rise between now and 2100 could be much higher.co business andmics correspondent paul solman focuses on the extreme risks asem some of the worst scenarios. his story is part of our "making sense" series, and part our contribution to "covering climate now," a global llaboration of more thanab 300 news outlets to enhance coverage of the climate story. >> so look, you can start to see erosion along here... >> reporter: economist martin weitzman, four-plus years ago, on the homtead he built onhe north shore of massachusetts. >> the water has risen a couple of inches at least, in the time, in the 40 years i have been living here. >> reporter: a usually

understated, math and data driven theorist, weitzma who died in the past few weeks,di began as a climate catastrophe skeptic. >> i was wondering, how could it be possible that mere human beings could change the climate in a serio way? >> reporter: but geologic samples of carbon dioxide going back millenniaidegan to scare him. >> we were way outside the historical range for at least 800,000 years, and we're climbing very strongly.he at t current trajectory that we're on, we're going to blow right past the doubling ofio carbonde. we reporter: and what might that mean for homes likzman's? his former student, gernot wagner. >> last time concents of co-2 were as high as they are today, we did in fact have sea flevels up to 20 meters, t higher than today. well, 66 feet and this house is gone. >> reporter: what really shocked led to histhough, an book with wagner, "climate shock," was probability math.

>> what scared me was how much probability there was out there in extreme events.'s and orrisome how little we know and how high the probability is of some catastrophic temperature. >> reporter: how much hotter? >> six degrees centigrade, 11 degrees fahrenheit, thaods a planet nwould recognize. >> reporter: wagner is now a professor at n.y.u. >> marty's insight on this was, he looked back to the consensus science, hundreds of climate scientists analyzing the most likely developments. >> reporter: now this is the famous bell curve. estimated future temperatures increasing from left to right; the likelihood of any given temperature indicated by how high the line is at that point. here's the hump of the curve.s that's where ikely to fall. temperature will be between here and here.en but if you keep going... >> there is this tail. a

ayd there mall probability of being all theut there. we can't exclude that. >> reporter: weitzman's rigorous estite of what's called theti "tail risk" is what transformed environmental economics. nc there's about almost a 10% chance of anase of ?.5 degrees centigrade. >> reporter: but 1 i mean, that is just one chance in ten. i have been at the racetrackve long enough to know how rarely a 10-1 shot comes in. >> it's not that rare. you buy fire insurance for probabilities that are much lower than 10%. you buy car insurance, the probability has a much lower than one in 10 over a lifetime. so this is well within the range of things that we like to insure against. >> reporter: soon after our time with wagner and weitzman, though, things seemed to be improving. >> in that we rt of had a handle of growing thglobal economy while not growing co-2 emissions. >> reporter: because we wouldn't

be using as much coal, for example. alternative energy was replacing fossil fuels. >> for example, yes.. well, turns out that happed about three years ago or so. last year, we again had more emissions than the year prior. this year, we have more em.sions than the year befo so, yes, temperatures are rising, sea levels are rising, but what frightening, puts the shock into climate shock, if you will, is, year after year we add more co-2. and that icrrease in the se is increasing. >> reporter: one reason the rate is incasing? the hotter it gets, the more energy we use to keecool. >> if the world as much electricity for air conditioning as the u.s. currently does, then we would use as much electricity for air conditioning as we do for everything right now. r orter: just look at southe asia, says economist catherine wolfram.

>> if you look at the hottestn placese u.s., miami, it's not as hot as the coolest places in india. and so the potential growth in air conditioner demand in india is enormous. >> reporter: now, both wolfram d wagner stress that air conditioning is a blessing, pecially given global warming. >> extre heat simply kills. >> reporter: but to the extent that a country like china or india becomes wealthier, and people start putting in air conditioners... >> which for the most part is a good thing. fewer people dying because of heat wav. >> reporter: yes. but that then is going to contribute to the acceleration at we're talking about. >> if the energy produced is through fossil energy,es. >> reporte w marty more along his property inwalked gloucester? >> yes and no. more worried because there's increasingly more science that

tells us hings may well be worse than we had previously thought. le worried, hopeful, becau etere's a lot happening too. kids on the stre millions of them around the world advocating for the right policies. >> reporter: the insurance policies weitzman and his student were urging in back in 2015. >> economics 101, right, price up, demand down, don't ask economists which new technology will come into play. all we are doing is setting the right price and getting out of the way. > r> that'sht, let a thousand flowers bloom. we can't know today what thatol future tecy isoing to bring, so let's put a price on carbon that incentivizes carbon- free technologies and the winner will take all. >> reporter: and, says wagner today, more countries, a states in the u.s. have begun doing what weitzman urged. >> india has a coal tax. china is experimenting with

emissions trading. states here in this country are experimenting with the kinds of policies that we ought to have at the federal level. we don't, yet. but the emphasis is on yet. there's only so long we can pretend nothing is happening and walking wrong direction. >> so here is a wooden walkway that has been lifted up by high tides that will come over it. >> reporter: so you mean this was flat before? >> yes, yes. when it was constructed, it was flat. careful. >> reporter: business and econics correspondent paul solman, stepping ever more carefully, in massachusetts and new york. az >> nthere is a fresh voice ese days leading the poetry world. joy harjo is the first native american to serve as poet giureate of the united states. tonight, she wil her

inaugural public reading at the library of congress. she is a member of the muscogee creek nation, who grew up in oklahoma. jeffrey brown recently sat down with harjo in tulsa to tk abouher life and career. it's part of our ongoing series on arts and culture, "canvas." >> brown: a recent nht at the oklahoma jazz hall of fame in tulsa. ♪ ♪ the leader of the band, blowing her saxophone, is a poet. and not just any poet. joy harjo, a member of t muskogee creek nation, is the new poet laureate of the united stat, appointed by the library of congress, to begin her term this month. >> it's quite an honor. and what is especially exciting to me is that i'm carrying this fo's for americans, but for indigenous peoples, in particular. >> brown: you feel that? >> yes.

and it becomes a doorway. yes, we're human beings, and h yes, some of us are poets. some of us are aronauts. some of us are really good at fixing cars. but we're human beings. and some of us write poetry.so ant makes a doorway of pe. >> brown: so people were surprised you moved home, huh? >> yeah, they were. >> brown: harjo, now 68, grew up nahere in tulsa, in a mixeve and white working class neighborhood-- child of a beautiful mother of mixed cherokee and european ancestry who loved to smeg, and a handreek father harjo adored, but whose drinking would lead to the end of the marriage. does it ma sense, when you look back to that gi, then to now? >> well, she still has the samee that i do. you know, there's still music. i never thought i'd be a poet. if you lived in this neighborho, that wasn't a career. there were no poets re. >> brown: in her memoir, "crazy brave," harjo writes of a

childhood of joy and discovery, but also great pain-- including a stepfather who abused her mother, and eventually pushed harjo to leave home for the institute of american indian arts, then an all-native school in santa fe, new mexico. a en-agemother, she late attended the university of new mexico, where she was involved in '60s and early '70s native rights movement. art was her first love. she coinues to draw and paint to this day. poetry didn't come until her 20s. >> poetry came along at that time and basically put a pen in my hand. d that's how i came through it. and it had a lot to do with investigating history and finding a voice, when i felt at i had no voice. >> brown: she would go on to write nine volumes of poetry, including the brand "american sunrise," often examining personal, nati and

national histories bound together. she traces her ancestorso the once-thriving indigenous civilization that populated the southeastern u.s. before being forcibly removed. harjo recently taught at the university of tennese in knoxville, where she wrote the poems for her new book,ne including the "i returned to see what i would find, in these lands we were forced to leave behind." >> i came there, we were living up on a block that my great- great-great-great grandfather, monahwee, i knew he had stood there when he used to go to knoxville to steal horses-- aull, they weren't really stealing them, b the horses were on stolen property. and i looked down into thos, beautiful troward those beautiful mountains, and asked, well, i heard my spirit ask: "what did you learn here?" and that's how it started. >> brown: in oklahoma, harjo took us to the historic creek council house in okmulgee, what became theapital of e

displaced nation in 1867. a plaque outside commemorates another distant relative, samuel chicote, who was bn in alabama and served as principal chief of the creek nation here. this is a history that most heople probably don't know. the whole removal,rail of tears. >> no, usually i think mostth americank the trail of tears is one trail, and it's cherokee, but there were many trails of tears. even the navajo people had a trail of tears. and now there's another trail of tears comi up from the south. >> brown: you connect those-- what's going on now at the border, to... >> definitely. because there was no border before. it wasn't that long ago, just a few generations.wn >> bthere's the continuity of history which we explored inside the council house, now ae cultural c.. >> he was a creek journalist and

shet. he's often publied in some of the anthologies. >> brown: is he going to be in yours? >> yes, of course. he>> brown: ...and there's world we live in today, where harjo has a residency in a tulsa art prram. and, among many other things, is editing a w anthology of native poets. you came of age at this moment of a very strong native political movement for civil rights. and i wonder, where are >> back to the beginning. >> brown: backwards? >> yes. these times are very similar to the times of andrew jackson, the times of indian removal where, you know, hatred, the utter hatred-- not everyone. it's not everyone. t, i think those forces hatred are really a relatively all part of the population. but whatever this force is, it's the same for that said natives weren't human. it's the same force that came in ansaid, well, you are more powerful if you have more money thannyonelse.

or, that you're more powerful if you have light skin, or if you're male. there's something about that that's destructive to everyone. because we were all created by a creator who loved us.wn >> bnative rights, women's rights, poetry, music-- which she didn't take up seriously until her 40s-- and a sense of history. history is people. history is stories. it's poetry. and that's what i love about poetry, and that's how poetry teaches me. poetry has taught me you can timeravel in a poem. you can get to know people in a poem. and poetry is place you can come to when you have no words. >> brown: and when t perfornce is over, the sax-playing, history-seeking, poet laureate relaxes by shaking it all out on the dance floor. for the pbs wshour,

i'm jeffrey brown in tulsa, oklahoma. >> nawaz: artist toyin ojih odutola is best known for her detailed portraits, primarily done in black n ink. she's the subject of this week's "brief but spectacular."ni thrian-born artist recounts her family's relocation to the american south, and how tradition and identity has seeped into her work. tonight's piece is also part of our ongog "canvas" series. >> i always like to put people in positions that look veryit awkward, and look like they'reto abouo something, or theyet just did sng. so there's nothing to pin them down. you don't quite know where they're going to go. that's my way of fighting thatat expectation that peove about blackness, about black

pele and black stories. as a black person, i'm trying to play with that and, and play with ourwn expectations within our community about what we can do and how we can look and what stories we shod tell. >> i was born in east ba nigeria. came to the u.s. at a young age and found my way to the south, which, depending on who you ask, can be a tgedy or the best thing that ever happened to me. it was definitely a culture shock. i was a new thing in my school, and i was different and foreign. and even amongst kids that looked very similar to me, there was a difference or an otherness that they didn't want to interact with. i remember mmom was pretty worried, so she got me a coloring book of my favorite character from the "lion king"im called. and so i remember her, like, liowing it to me just before we

left, and she wa, "do what yos can." i discovered drawing, and so that became this other world that i could get lost into. y i got into portraiture was simply because i wanted to see not just myself but people like me. and then as i got older, it became more about just stories, when you're an artist of color in particular, people tend to be very biographical. like, they like to have the biography come in front of the content, instead of actually seeing whayou did. having characters kind of frees me from that obfuscation, and people can actually engage withh the picture anstory that i'm trying to tell. when people say"black experience," they are often looking outside-in. i can't change this. so, how do i get people to understand what it feels like be in somethg you can't control? and yet, systematically, you're being treated a certain way because of that. so the only y i could see myself fightg that was to make it a topography, to make it a pendscape. and through thatle can

actually traverse it and understand. for me, drawing made my world less small.ac and so, in mof drawing and creating drawings, i hope to make the world less small for other people. my name is toyin ojih odutola, and this is my "brief but spectacular" take on having a vivid imagination. >> nawaz: and you can find additional "brief but spectacular" episodes on ourit we pbs.org/newshour/brief. on the newshour online right now, there have been 530 probable or confirmed cases of a lung illness tied to vapingci rettes, according to the centers for disease control and prevention. and a new, eighth death linked to vaping, today. we recently asked har audience to their questions about the disease, and now we share answers from the f.d.a. ld the americg association. that's on our website, www.pbs.ornewshour.ur and that's the newshour for tonight.

i'm amna nawaz. join us online, and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you, and we'll see you soon. >> major fundi for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> bnsf railway. >> consumer cellular. >> financial services firm raymond james.nd >>ith the ongoing support of these institutions >> this program was made possible by thcorporation for public broadcasting. ns to your pbsut station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by

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

hello, everyone, and welcome to "amanpour & co." here's what's coming up. >> my father's alive, sir? >> i believe so. >> hollywood superstar brad pitt tells me about his new space epic, what it means to be masculine and vulnerable.an d then -- >> the conflict, displacement and migration. >> the catastrophic threat of the climate crisis. the u.n.'s human rights chief ys it's also a threat to our abright to life in a susta world. plus, microsoft president brad smith on why governments need to get real about regulating big tech. "amanpour & co." is made