welcome to our program, tonight we continue our assessmentnt of president obama, his administrati, and the challenge that lie ahead and we begin with fareed zakaria. >> i think what barack obama is trying to do on foreign policy in the broadest sense is almost a kind of rebalancing of american foreign policy. when he came in, we were, in my opinion, mass civil overly committed to a few crisis spots in the world, which had absolutely dominated our time and energy and attention and if you would step back, charlie and said to somebody, you know, the 20 years after the cold war the united states is going to snd half of that time, absolutely obsessed with iraq and afghanistan, they would have said, you have got to be kidding, you have got all of these challenges, the rise of

asia, the resurgence of latin america and all we are doing is iraq and afghanistan? you know, this is the eighth century, we need to get out of that into the 21st century. i think obama is trying to do that. >> rose: and we continue with the author of the climate war, eric pooley, the deputy editor of bloomberg businessweek. >> a little over a year ago we had a big victory and it passed with a l ofelp from th prident, but the reaction against that bill's passage was so intense and the senate was scared to act, there were a lot of senators that thought if i come out for this bill, you know, i am going to run into a buzz saw when i run for re-election because of all of the misinformation and all of the lies and the people who didn't step up, the guy who could have made the difference was barack obama, now he could have said look we can't do an economy wide cap, we have got to beat a tactical retreat let's just do the power sector let's just do the utilities and he could have gotten that done. >> rose: and gina kolata of

the new york times is here to help us understand some new developments in alzheimer's. >> nobody has ever survived alzheimer's. they have been cured of cancer, heart disease but never survived alzheimer's so why do you want to even know you are getting this thing? and the reason there has been this big push to do this kind of research is that in order -- people think by the time you have alzheimer's it is kind of too late to help you, so many brain cells, you can't bring them back, there is nothing you can rely do. so in order to make a difference you have to find people early, and test treatments on them. >> rose: fareed zakaria, pooley and kolata, next, funding for charlie rose was provided by the following.

captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. rose.

>> rose: we continue this evening with an assessment of president obama and his administration and the challenges they face. last night we talked to former deputy of ste richa armage tonight havfareed zakaria, he is a columnist and editor of newsweek international and hosts fareed zakaria on cnn his most recent books include the future of freedom, a liberal democracy at home and abroad and the post american world. i am very pleased to have him back at this table. let me begin before we talk about the president and foreign policy today, this is the cover of newsweek, a mosque at ground zero, underneath a test of toll rants by fareed zakaria. tell me what this symbolizes to you. >> i think it sbolisore than anything else a question of -- the challenge of democracy, and the challenge of american democracy, because the gut reaction everyone has to the idea of a proposed mosque which is really an islamic center close to ground zero, it is not

on ground zero, the gut reaction i think we all have is, you know, there is a sense of unease, there is a sense is that the right thing there is a sense that maybe this is going to provoke a reaion among pple, and u n see the reaction. polling 60, 65 percent opposed but american democracy is not just about mob rule, it is not just about the tyranny of the majority, it is about fundamental rights that we believe in, that is what the bill of rights was about, the bill of rights is an anti-democratic document, it says no matter what the majority thinks, these rights are sacrosanct and the first of those rights, the first amendment is freedom of religion. so for me it actually was as for mike bloomberg a very fundamental test of american democracy. >> rose: tom friedman and others have said it is an important statement that we allowed this to happen.

on the other hand, people like newt gingrich say it cannot happen, it is offensive to the people who died at 9/11. >> well, 100 muslims died in 9/11 or something like that, i can't imagine it is offensive to them. gingrich's position is frankly strikes me as strange, he is an intelligent enough man that i have to wonder whether this is political opportunism, he says we shouldn't bld a mque nea ground zero until they allowed churches to be built in saudi arabia. and you don't know where to begin with that, i mean, saudi arabia doesn't have elections should we have a monarchy until they hold elections in saudi arabia? why is american constitutional progress dependent on what happens in saudi arabia. and there is an even broader question which is, people need to understand that this mosque or islamic center is not a representative of al qaeda, you know, the idea ttecause al qaeda says they are acting in the name of islam, any islamic

symbol should be banned or forbidden is not just to buy al qaeda's argument, i have been trying to think about what an analogy would be and it would be like saying that you should never build a cross anywhere because the ku klux klan used crosses, you know, it is to concede an argument that really is about what the extremist argue that the 100 people who died in 9/11 were muslim, they would have loved to see a mosque noring them, the 800,000 new yorkers who are muslims they would be delighted to see a mosque. >> rose: what is the biggest misconception about islam? >> in the world today? >> probably that most muslims are -- have a kind of politicized conception of their religion, i mean most muslims as far as i can tell and i am not a religious person at all, i haven't been naah mosque for 20, 35 years. >> rose: your parents are

muslim? >> yes, and i was brought up that way i am just not a particarly religious person, i think i sealed my fate when i became the wine critic for a magazine. >> rose: that will do it. >> but i think that most people, most muslims, like most people, they, their conception of their religion is religious, they are trying to live a good life and trying to raise their family, they are trying to do their jobs, they are not sitting there asking themselves how do we yes, sirect the cal fate and immove sharri a in the united states, all of these .. conceptions are highly ideological conceptions a small group of extremists do hold. >> and in the same way, most christians are not trying to proselytize as many fundamentalist christians are trying to proselytize because of a deep belief in christianity. >> precisely, to be fair will is a problem in islam that doesn't exist in christianity which is islam has been high vakd by a group of extremists, they speak

in the name of islam, there are not enough muslim moderates that denounce them, all of these problems are real, of course, the weird thing is, the guy who wants to set up this islamic center is one ofhe muslim moderates who has been denouncing al qaeda, denouncing extremist, denouncing terrorism, so if we acknowledge there is a struggle here, surely we should be encouraging this guy rather than demonizing him. >> when sam huntington, professor at harvard died, i assume he was a professor of yours because you wrote this really remarkable kind of tribute to him, because he was controversial, because he predicted a clash of civilizations. >> yes, he was my dissertation advisor at harvard and when i went to foreign affairs magazine i brought with me the manuscript copy of the clash of civilizations is the first article i brought to foreign affairs and we published it on my first -- the first issue that i was the managing editor. >> what was your dissertation on? >> late 19th century american

foreign policy a whole different subject, a different time i can tell you more about chester arthur than you want to know. >> where is the clash of civilizations today? >> i think the real clash of civilizations, and i do think huntington kind of got this wrong, is within islam, there is a real battle taking pla tween th extremists and the moderates, it is a hugely consequential -- it is consequential to the fate of islam and consequential to the fate of the world, because it trance agendas that. but islam is not like communism it has no appeal to nonmuslims that's .. why i never thought the analogy which he made to the cold war or something like that is the same. we worried about the lure of communism. >> rose: thought it would be the great battle to come in the same way that when the soviet union was stilliable, u. viet unionwas the great contest. >> exactly. and what we worried about was, you remember, in the 40s was italy going to go communist? is france going communist so we

funded all of these journals. >> and every country in africa. >> precisely. here you have the problem of tensions between muslims and nonmuslims which is real, but islam has no appeal to nonmuslims, so, you know, it is inherently self-limiting. >> let me move to the obama presidency. has he been successful? in being able to communicate to the lamic world america from the care row speech and more? >> he has been very successful at resetting america's image in the world, but i don't think he has been able to transform it, there is a whole bunch of new polls that came outlast week that suggest that america's image in the arab world is almost back to where it was under bush. now, part of that is there was a kind of -- part of that is that there was a hope about obama that he simply couldn't fulfill, i mean, there are a whole bunch of people thought he would somehow magically change the

world. but i think that to a broader extent, it is that there is still that frustration about the arab israeli peace process, there is still the frustration .. among ordinary arabs that united states decides to support the saudi arabia monarchy, all causes dissatisfaction with the united states. obama is a kind of gentler version of those, but there isn't a a fundamental change. >> rose: howo u assessis reign policy today beyond the middle east and in a larger sense have we seen emerging any kind of obama doctrine? >> i think what obama is trying to do on foreign policy in the broadest sense is almost a kind of rebalancing of american foreign policy. when he came in, we were, in my opinion, massively overly committed to a few crisis spots in the world, which had absolutely dominated our time and energy and attention. and if you would step back,

charlie, and sd to somebody, u know,he 2 yrs after the cold war, the united states is going to spend half of that time absolutely obsessed with iraq and afghanistan, they would have said, you have got to be kidding, you have got all of these challenges, the rise of asia, the resurgence of latin america and all we are doing is iraq and afghanistan? this is the eighth century. we need to get out of that into the 21st century. i think obama is trying to do that. he has begun to limit the commitment in iraq, most dramatically. >> rose: so you see a strategy behind a variety of initiatives? >> do i do. >> rose: and there is a plan, there is a strategy, there is an over arching sense of what we need to do? >> .. so you scale down in iraq, you are scaling down in afghanistan, and afghanistan he decided he was going to build up, but to build down, i mean he gave the military a very clear sense, look, i will give you the troops you need, but you have got 18 months, and when those 18

months are over we begin to scale back. and then -- >> rose: every time you talk about it -- >> well, you clearly there is a division within the administration on this. >> rose: right. >> but then look at what he is doing, he is trying to deal with russia, reset relations there, deal with the issue of nuclear proliferation, trying to build a relationship with china that is more productive and i think tim geithner on that front doesn't get enough credit for working the chinese rer relationship very well. >> strategic economic dialogue. >> to get them to be more amenable on currency issues that they have been, building relationships with india, a very important trip to india he is going to take, i think drawing away from crisis spots, focus on the big great power relations, ironically it is a kind of henry kissinger in foreign policy, president obama would shrink back if they heard that but it is. >> you saw him say it was kind of bush with compassion?

>> i think that -- i think that rich is looking at -- if you look at the specifics, he hasn't overturned bush did in iraq, he hasn't overturned anything -- >> even though they expected him to over turn certain policies about gaun guantanamo know and r things. >> it was foolish to say definitive to do it, bush said he wanted to close guantanamo by the last year he just. >> rose: couldn't figure out how to do it, where you would put them. >> precisely. if you look at this in the context of the new initiatives, much more active diplomacy with russia, an arms agreement with russia that the bush administration would never have done. he -- they are reaching out to china, and reaching out to independent, i can't i think that part is different, bush was more fund lent meantly ideals and ideology driven, he wasn ideology you would call him a liberal imperialist. >> rose: he also believed in this idea that he became enraptured which was democracy,

the spread of democracy. >> so did the liberal british in the 19th century. >> that was his deep philosophy. >> absolutely and if you look at his presidential museum what he is doing is setting up, you know, freedom center and by the way, back to the mosque issue, i think it is interesting to point out, i don't think george w. bush would have been on the same side as newt gingrich or sarah palin on this, bush for all of his flaws really believed in the idea that muslims were decent people, that islam was a great religion, that it had been highjacked. >> he not only believed it but said it. >> and he said it repeatedly, there was part of that idealism came out of -- really came from his heart. >> i think bush gets a bad rap for being an evil person. i don't think he was that, i think he was largely an in competent president, but he was a a person who had a very good heart and it showed on africa, he tripled the program for the aid.

>> rose: and m malaria. >> malaria, right. president obama is presiding over a america which is more strapped for cash so he is going to be looking stingy, i mean this is going to be a big theme of american foreign policy for the next ten years, we are going to be very con strained fiscally, because of what is happening at home domestically, i think that the growth numbers, the projections the administration has made are likely to be quite -- >> to put it another way is how you create growth without adding overwhelmingly to the deficit. >> right. d how long can y do it? there is this debate that keeps taking place between the deficit hawks and the stimulus people, let's say you do another stimulus, let's say paul krugman is right and we needed a larger stimulus, he wanted a stimulus that is about $400 billion. >> rose: he probably was right at the beginning. >> he may have been right but here is the question, charlie, suppose you spend that money now, suppose you spend it then, then what? at some point the money runs out and the private sector has to start investing and hiring. but the government can't just keep spending this money --

>> they haven't starting investing in hiring? >> theirst reason they are not referring is because there is no demand for product. and certainly no demand for products that would require them to build new factories, in other words, they could was the existing factories to produce. so no businessman is going to pass up an opportunity to make money because he doesn't like barack obama, but it is certainly -- >> rose: no but you are a making an investment because you make a judgment about the future. >> right. and that's where i was getting to. so in the longer term, exactly there is the sense of unease where we are going with the debt, with healthcare reform with regulory reform and i think the president obama have not put that through because you can't -- when you to the stimulus what you are almost saying, to answer your fundamental question why, you know, why are we not getting the kind of growth we want, there is a certain sense in which we are trying to pump back the economy to get back to where it was 2006, 2007. >> rose: right. >> but that was an economy

fueled by absolutely unsustainable credit expansion. people were maxed out on their credit cards, they were maxed out on their mortgages. so edmund phelps the nobel prize winning economist had a good piece in the times, you can't bump back this economy to where it was. there is going to be a period where individuals work out their balance sheets, you know, they cannot get back to the debt levels. >> rose: and how long is the fallow period likely to be. >> it is an interesting question, and what electorial cycle will it coincide with? >> it will not coincide with the next mid terms. i think we are going to have a longer period of sluggish growth than people realize mainly because of that, you just can't -- you can't get back to where we were because where we were was unsustainable. >> rose: you know lots of heads of state and lots of people who deal with heads of state, what is the assessment of president obama by other leaders? >> i think it is fair to say

that with a few exceptions there is no -- there is no great overwhelming sense of respect, admiration, i think people think he has been a breath of fresh air, i think by and large they like the policies, i think if you look on reign policy - >> rose: butpersally -- >> personally he is not connected and i think that is maybe two reasons, one he has been consumed with economic issues, he has been consumed with -- >> rose: that's a time when you have economic issues that you should be able to connect, because it is a hackneyed phrase but i feel your pain. >> yes but i just mean in terms of the time spent, he had to cancel two trips to independent knees i can't, for example, one of the ways you connect in these things is not to have those large ministerials where there are 20 heads of state it is one-on-one when you go to countries, hehasn't been able to d that, he also is an intellectual who has strayed into politics, i don't think he is a people person in quite the same way. >> what do you think of his team?

>> i think that he has -- it is a pretty good team, i think, you know, you could always quibble but here is how i put it, he has got probably the best secretary of defense in american history. >> rose: some way exactly. >> think about that. >> rose: and. >> and the only competition comes from robert -- >> hillary clinton has been a surprisingly good secretary of state, surprisingly because it isot wt sh led a brthed for most of her career but what she has decided to do is recognize that she is probably not the president's key strategic advisor, but she has become america's great spokesperson around the world, america's great salesperson, i was with her in kenya and we did a town hall meeting together and she was fantastic, much better than any secretary of state i have seen, because she is a politician, and she is incredibly bright and he is very well briefed, so she could talk about kenya land reform and agricultural policy, and hear the audience eating out of her nds. the white house i think the depp any national security advisor

runs a very tight, well coordinated ship, so i think on the whole it is better than people -- >> than what? >> you noticed there isn't even from the republican right that much criticism of obama's foreign policy and that tells you something. >> rose: let me talk quickly about afghanistan, though. i mean, you heard others have said, you know, they are not sure what the definitions of winning, they are not sure what the goal is, because it is very broad. they are not sure how you can create the kind of policy they wantwhatheyant clearly is an afghanistan government on its own that can withstand the taliban, and not be a haven for al qaeda. that's it and they want to build civil institutions that will enable them to do that. >> that is pretty much it, i think the reality is, as long as we can get some level of stability in afghanistan which means a an afghan government tht broadly speaking has legitimacy and the ability to control its

borders, you can say that you have accomplished something and start leaving, anything more, chare, y have to remember this is the third poorest country in the world that has been ravaged by 30 years of civil war, and has deep ethnic and tribal divisions within it. if we are going to wait until it becomes, you know, france, we are going to be spending a long time. again here, i think -- i don't understand why people are in a haste to cut and run. i 19we have a plan, the idea is general petraeus has another year to try to regain some momentum, to push the taliban back and we start withdrawing. fundamentally, we have got to get into the 21st ntury, america's future is not going to depend upon what happens in the mountains of afghanistan. it is going to depend on what happens in asia as china is rising, it is becoming an economic and strategic competitor, we have to have a cooperative relationship with them and yet hedge in the way that we need to by building relations with india, with japan, with australia.

that is the cockpit of power, of world politics in the 21st century. we are stuck in the eighth century trying to adjudicate between sunnis and chicago as. >> rose: but do we have an option? do we have -- >> yes. >> .. we cannot do it? >> we cannot do it? >> we can scale back. i always thought that biden's plan made a lot of sense and people say, well, we couldn't have as good of intel presence if we didn't have the numbers we have. fine. you know, maybe you give up a little bit, there is no perfect solution here, but the idea that you need to have 150,000 troops in afghanistan in imperpetuity unless you have some perfect counter in insurgency strategy for what? >> do you see some growing sense that this is, as you suggested a war of another century not where america's energy and application ought to be? >> i think the country has moved on, i think absolutely. >> rose: basically saying to the president get this over with? >> yes, and i think all of the people around the world who think we are the great

imperialist, i would tell them if only you lived in american, the average american wants nothing better than to get the hell out of the world. >> rose: you wrote a book -- >> -- >> all right. this is the dimension of the world today different than it was when you wrote that book, what, two years ago, three years ago? we have seen china go through changes, continue to grow, to continue to have relationships around the world, economic relationships, we have seen china refuse to be engaged in any kind of serious sanctions against iran. >> i think when i wrote that book, i was envisioning the rise of a post american world and the rise of the rest and was going to take a decade, the financial crisis dramatically accelerated the forces i was describing, and you do see a world thats quite different. it has been transformed, the economic reality we all know, all the growth in the world practically is coming out of the

emerging markets that's why american companies are doing so well, the secret behind american companies is they get cheap capital here and find cheap labor somewhere else and they all sell into emerging markets that's where 50 percent of the growth is. >> and emerging markets means china and india and indonesia. >> brazil, south africa, they are all growing over 5 personality percent, turkey is 11 percent. >> rose: per quarter. >> but the big changes of the mentality what i have been struck by, you go to china, i was there last month and they now think that they understand how to run things, how to run their economy better than we do, so what chinese officials said to me, you know, hank paulson used to come to us when he was a -- goldman sachs and treasury secretary and you the chinese need to make your financial system more like ours, the americans, and he paused and said, i don't think we will be getting those speeches anymore. and they look back at the ten years and they say, look, during the boom years, we raised interest rates, we tightened

credit, so that we kept things under control, and then when the wheel turned we were able to ease up on credit, we were able to lower interest rates, we were able to spend money, we did the right thing, the americans did it all wrong. so there is a real sense of chinese confidence, maybe even chinese arrogance right now. >> as the soviet union fell aart we didn't do much, brez cinosky wrote a book about this to create a new world, true? >> absolutely, yes, yes. but now look we look tapered in which we know china rather than falling apart is growing, and will be the dominant economic power. what is this strategic imperative for the united states knowing that reality? >> so if you look at every great power rise in history, and this was actually my dissertation about many years ago, every time you had a great power rise, it has disrupted the international system. the rise of germany, the rise of japan, the rise of russia, the

soviet union, because you can't find a way for it to fit into the existing order so it tries to over turn the existing order, the one exception was the rise of the united states in the late 19th century and that worked because britain decided as a matter of policy it was going to strategically find a way to accommodate and partner with the united states. so i think what we have to ask ourselves is, is there a path here, where the united states and china can achieve enough strategic partnership that the global system stays stable? because otherwise, if you end up with a strategic rivalry between the united states and china, whether it is the largest economy in the world or just the second largest economy, you are going to have a very different world than the world you and i are living in now. it will be a world more like the cold war where countries will have to pick sides and proxy fights, there will be arms races, and that means a very different world from the kind of happy world of globalation that we have come to expect.

>> rose: thank you for coming. it is great to see you. >> as always, charlie. >> rose: we continue our series of summer conversations about the challenges facing president obama in an assessment of what he has been done, has done and his administration has done we now talk about the environment and climate change, joining me is eric pooley, editor of businessweek magazine, power brokers and the fight to save the earth. i am pleased to have him back on this program. welcome. >> hi, charlie. >> rose: tell me this. what -- this is what the book is about. bill clinton says a rivetting tale of the very first aount of t epic american campgn to get serious about global warping. >> well, three years ago, charlie, i saw that the debate was shifting from the science to the politics and economics, which is where i live the and breathe so i wanted to chronicle that, i wanted to write a

politicalhriller, if you will, about the fight to save the earth, you know, trillions of dollars at stake, the future inhabitable of the planet, potentially, all coming down to americans ability to grapple with this problem because the rest of the world is waiting for us to step up on this. that is why copenhagen didn't go anywhere because we didn't get it done. now, i was a little naiïve. >> rose: didn't go anywhere because we the united states didn't get it done? >> we said in there without a a mandatory cap on carbon, the rest of the world is waiting for america to step up with a cap to prove to them that we are not going to leave them high and try the way we did in kyoto, they already agreed to one and we alone among the industrialized countries of the world did not ratify that treaty. so their lesson of kyoto is don't do it again until the u. proves it is serious about this. >> because for most of the last century and up until recent think we were the largest polluters in the world. >> so they expect huh-uhs to get

our own house in order before we ask them. >> we started on prosperity in front of the chinese and the independentians more than a century so we really have to lead, so the book, i? what naively thought if i tracked this thing full time from 2007 to 2010, that in the course of those three years we would have something to show for it, that it would be a book with a happy ending but a fun my thing happened on the way to the signing ceremony, we didn't get it done, the u.s. senate has failed to act and i knew i would find a lot of climate wars, i am embedded with people on all side of this battle, but i didn't expect that it would turn into a who done it, a murder mystery and that there would be so many culprits involved, it is a little bit like agatha christie's murder on the orient express where everybody has a role in the killing. >> rose: that's why clinton described it as a rivetting tale. >> who did you embed yourself with >> well, with fred crupp in the

environmental defense fund because they are the original architects of the cap on carbon. we used it once before on sulfur dioxide to lick acid rain and it worked and the idea was to try to get on carbon, so i used environmental defense fund assort of the birth of an idea, and showed how it evolved through time. then i embedded with people on the other side of the battle, with coal lobbyist. >> like whom? >> well the american coalition for clean coal electricity, they are the folks that subsidize millions of dollars of spending to try to tell people that coal is clean and they want to solve this problem, but they never actually support any of the bills that come out. they are really in the delayer camp, and then i have people in the denier camp like myron bell of the competitive enterprise institute whose position on this changes according to the hour, it seems, but basically he always is consistent that he doesn't want to do anything to reduce emissions, either because there is no problem or because

there is a problem but we can't stop it, or because it is natural variability, there is a huge disinformation campaign out there to pry to prevent. >> al gore believe they won that battle and don't have to speak to it anymore and deniers have no real praise to stand? >> i think that was a big mistake, al gore is another guy i embedded with, and he and the environmental community back in 2006 or 2007 made a decision that they weren't going to engage on the science anymore, they were going to declare the debate settled and let's move on. and even though the scientific debate is largely settled, that was a mistake, because it ceded the messaging ground to the de insiders and the skeptics, i don't use that for everybody, i reserve it for the paid professional pr guys whose job it is to sew doubt and confusion about this issue. >> rose: and you said you are looking for the culprit. >> uh-huh. >> rose: is there one culprit?

>> there are many, many culprits, there are a lot of them and i didn't expect to find such a big battle in the west wing. one of the culprits, frankly, is barack obama, he has t taken on this sue to the extent he needed to to get a bill passed. >> rose: even though he said that his priorities at the beginning of his administration and his stimulus bill, education, the environment and healthcare. >> larry summers, the economic advisor has told people that he saw this as two blades of a pair of vissors, the stimulus would be one, and the cap would be the second. well we have the scissors with one blade now because we didn't get the cap done. the cap would bring an enormous amount of private investment off the sidelines that's why it would be -- >> cap and trade. >> cap and trade is a system that requires you to have a permit to, if you are going to spew a ton of carbon dioxide oxide into the atmosphere. so it sets up a trading program between different emitters so that you can buy yourself permit

this is is a way to smooth out the costs, it is technical, but the important part is the mandatory declining limit on pollution. we have never solved the pollution problem without a mandatory declining cap. >> rose: right. >> and that is what ised at the heart of this. it has worked before and it has been demonized by the right, and by some people on the left, and it is a crying shame because as a result of not being able to get this done, we are going to go back to litigation, and regulation what jonbenet balance the republican from michigan called the floorous mess that will face us if we don't deal with this problem in the legislate picture. >> rose: the democratic congressman. >> yes. >> from michigan. >> from michigan. >> rose: often known as a man who understands and protects the auto industry more than any other guy. >> who also understand this is is a serious problem that we have to deal with. >> rose: is the issue when everythings said and done, we have got to put a price on carbon? >> yes. the issue is money. the issue is money. the issue is putting a price on

carbon, which drives up costs for fossil fuel producers, obviously, there are ways to cushion consumers from that price increase. and the bill that was proposed is filled with great ideas to make sure that this price signal which hits the generators, the people that are burning coal to create electricity doesn't hit the consumer so that there were a lot of scare tactics out there, charlie, that helped kill this bill, people said it is going to double the cost of electricity, it is going to drive up household costs by $1,000 a year, all the best estimates said it would be maybe 70 to 150 bucks a year in 2030. not much money. >> rose: is this all another variation of the kind of things that killed healthcare reform over the years? >> oh, absolutely. >> rose: campaigned during the clinton year that killed healthcare and made it such a tough battle for obama in 2010? >> absolutely. let's remember, the wax and marquee climate bill psed the use represeatives in june of 2009, so a little over a year

ago we had a big victory and it passed with a lot of help from the president. but the reaction against that bill's passage was so intense and the senate was scared to act, there were a lot of senators that thought if i come out for this bill, you know, i am going to run into a buzz saw when i run for reelection, because of all of the disinformation because of all of the lies and the people who didn't step up the guy who could have made the difference was barack obama, now he could have said, look, we can't do an economy wide cap we have to beat a tactical retreat let's just do the power sector let's just do the utilities and he could have gotten that done, but he never came out for a specific bill, although as you say he did talk about this as a priority, and he did a lot of good work in eps and in the department of energy. >> so why didn't he? >> because of the politics. he decided to do healthcare instead. simple as that he decided i am going to do one tough thing in 2009 and it is going to be healthcare reform, climate is

going to take a backseat. >> okay. should we criticize him for at, though? >> wl imlad part of what he wanted on healthcare reform. >> rose: could he have both, are you argue he could have gotten healthcare and climate change if he had just pushed harder? >> i think he could have tried. i think we would have found out if it had been possible if he had started the beginning of 2010, with a real push on this. it would have taken three things, charlie, it would have taken sustained communication to the public, it would have taken deep commitment on policy, it would have taken good old fashioned politicking, i think it would have been possible to get the utility only cap just on the power sector, that is 40 percent of the emissions in the untry,that's a b deal, i think you could have got it done he didn't even try. >> rose: he is also trying to deal with the economic i economy, i am not here to defend him but he had to deal with the economy. >> the economy and the economic meltdown is another culprit that made it much harder here, president obama talked about climate action as being something that is good for the economy, as something that creates jobs, so if he believes

that then the economy shouldn't necessarily stop him. >> so his failure in your judgment, and the reason we do not have the kind of climate bill that many expected from the administration and the congress and from the country, and the leadership of copenhagen enis because the president did not make it a sufficiently high priority? >> i would say it is a key factor, absolutely, he pursued what his aides described to me as a stealth strategy, they would talk about this, mostly to the base, they wouldn't talk about it to the public at large and didn't get a prime time address on it until after the bp oil still and even there he didn't come out in favor of the cap, but they lost lindsey gram who may have helped them a lot. >> >> because of immigration and harry reid. >> right. so harry reid came out and said we are going to do immigration before we do climate and energy, and gram -- >> rose: because it was important to his reelection as senator. >> although there was no immigration bill and. >> rose: gram gram said count me out. >> i am out of here, getting hammered by his base why should i be here taking this friendly

fire from the republicans if the democratics aren't serious about getting something done. >> after bp president obama made a speech in pittsburgh and basically said this gives us an opportunity now to go full bore ahead. >> tha that was a thrilling momt for people in the climate and clean energy commuty, it looked like he was going to fight. but then when he came to the oval office address he didn't do it, in fact you know what he said, charlie, he said we don't know exactly how we are going to get there. that's a direct quote. we don't know precisely how we will get to this clean energy future. >> rose: right. >> instead of saying i have the road map right here and it is called -- exactly called follow me and he didn't do it. and i understand why he didn't do it, there are political reasons not to do it but here we are in the hottest summer in history in the hottest year in recorded history, so far, coming on the heels of the hottest decade in history with beat the record set by the previous decade, which beat the record set by the decade before that,

what are we waiting for? when are we going to get started here. >> rose:. >> >> et let me go back to copenhagen? was that our failure? it was didn't fact the chinese were not prepared to make any kind of -- >> the chinese did their part of the blame, there is no question about it. but the chinese don't need a cap as much as we do. the chinese have centralized authoritarian rule. they are shutting down maybe i saw a piece in the paper today, 20087 dirty old factories on -- in extent of this year by edict, they are shutting them down. they are spending $9 billion a month on clean energy. they are stealing our bacon here, charlie, we need a market in carbon in order to get into the tape with the chinese in the clean energy race. we are getting left behind. what is really happening, we are so worried about saving 20th century jobs we are not trying to get 21st century jobs. >> rose: i mean the argument often is made notwithstanding

how large polluters they are, notwithstanding, you know, that they are going full speed ahead in terms of what they consider the essential economic growth, but at the same time they are pouring money into alternate sources of energy so they are leading in the development and therefore may be the source of awe null technology. >> so american corporations that want to move on this are doing joint ventures in china, one of the characters in my book. >> rose: doing the job in china. >> yes. in china. the ceo of duke energy is one of the main characters in m book, fascinating guy because you never know exactly where he is going to be, and he has a joint venture called green gem a carbon capture and storage facility trying to pump co2 beneath the sea bed, he is doing it in china, partly because there is no chinese character for nimbe, when they want to get something done they do it and we are -- the fear is we are losing the ability to do big things here in this country. >> rose: this made the chinese think their system works better than ours? >> you know, in some ways it is

easier but i still wouldn't swap them. >> where are we now? >> now we are at a place where the next battle in the climate war is going to be the attempt to strip epa of the power to regulate co2. and there are going to be senators who are going to try to take away that power which comes from a supreme court ruling in 2007. obama is going to be in the middle of that fight trying to save that power for the epa, because in january the epa is supposed to start regulating stationary sources that big power plants and factories that emit co2. that is going to be lost in aven ery single one those he sites is going to be litigated that is what was meant by the glorious mess. the whole cap and trade idea was meant to avoid all of thi this litigatiod all of this regulation, and it was a republican idea. and since we have not been able to succeed we are going from a a period of compromise between environmentalists, the epa and corporations into a renewed period of battle, and it may be

we have to battle for a couple of years before we are ready to go back and try to do another piece of legislation. >> rose: do you think this will be one of the big battles after the midterm elections or not? >> i think that th numberare going to be even harder after the midterm and it may be -- >> rose: in congress in terms of republicans that may be opposed -- >> and democratics that may be opposed to it, it is not just republicans and it may be until after the next presidential election before we can get serious about this at the federal level again. >> rose: so what happened to what i assume was a large constituency for doing something about climate change? before we go, i mean, last night on this program, a guy who is not an environmentalist, per se, in foreign policy and defense policy, rich armitage, secretary of state when i ask him about the challenges facing the country and the president, this is one of the things he said. roll the tape. >> if you look around, our newspapers this morning, floods in china, terrible floods in

pack tan is, 1,000 year record heat in russia, floods in the midwest, we have got to come to grips with this climate. we have got to. now, i can't -- i am not smart enough to tell you something strange but something is strange, you don't have 70 inches of snow in washington, record heat is summer, and also the wettest july in history in the space of six months. >> rose: i show you that just for one reason, that is clearly these are the kinds of things that are out there. i thought there was a consensus, a consensus and a majority that climate change that was an issue that had to be addressed. >> this is a majority, there is a majority of americans and there is even a majority in the senate, the trouble is, you need a super majority, you need 60 votes to get anything done in the united states senate, so we are fighting over the last ten here, i think it is possible to get here, it may take a few more years before we are really able

to do it and i think we need to walk before we run, that's why i think we ought to try just the power sector first and then move on to the rest of the economy. but the fact is, rich arm a damage is right, armitage is right this is a national security issue and we are running out of time. >> if you want to know more, the climate war, true believe iferz, power brokers and the fight to save the earth, it is a tick tock of what has happened with respect to the players and with respect to the issue of ing something the planet and the environment. and climate change. eric pooley, thelimate war. back in a moment. stay with us. alzheimer's dispeez is one of the most devastating illnesses known to human kind, it affects millions of people worl worldwie robbing victims of their memories and ultimately their lives, fortunately a series of recent discoveries can help to diagnose alzheimer's long before symptoms emerge. researchers hope that early diagnosis will allow dork

doctors to treat alzheimer's before it is too late, joining me is gina kolata a science writer for the new york times, she has been rocket on alzheimer's for the past month, i am very pleased to have her back on this program, here is her story in the new york times, and early warnings on alzheimer's, 100 percent accuracy found in study reports. researchers report a spinal fluid test can be 100 percent accurate in identifying patients with the significant memory loss who are on tear way to veloping aleimes disease. this is major. >> it is actually a culmination of a lot of research, charlie, what they have been trying to do for about ten years now is find ways of doing early diagnosis, as you mentioned. and what was es interesting here i have to qualify this, this is 100 percent accurate in one group of patients. they found -- every one of these patients had gone on to have alzheimer's disease and they went back and looked and every

one of these patients had this particular signature in their spinal fluid. soor every one of those patients the spinal fluid predicted they would get alzheimer's. >> and those who didn't have -- >> if you did not have that signal you were not going to get alzheimer's it looked like, in this population, the question is like suppose -- how let's say the test is out there in the real world and you have people who have all sorts of other things wrong with them too, maybe it wouldn't be that good, but what is really amazing is they have gotten good huff to have this kind of results even with a population, a research population, these are people who are all in their seventies, but they were selected because they generay didn't have a t of other oblems th them, but what is interesting about this whole development here is that you might say why do you want to have a test that would tell wow you are going to get a disease which there is no treatment? and it is a devastating disease, nobody has ever survived alzheimer's, people have been cured of cancer, heart disease, they have never sure strived alzheimer's disease. so why do you even want to know you are getting this thing. and the reason there has been

this big push to do this kind zero research is that in order for people to think that by the time you have alzheimer's, it is kind of too late to help people, so many brain cells, you can't bring em pk, tre i nothing you can really do. so in order to make a difference you have to find people early, and test treatments on them. and that is what drug companies are doing, more than 100 drugs being tested now, and there is this test and another test which is really major too, a pet scan that can show in your brain the brain changes with alzheimer's that normally are found only on autopsy. they can show it in people who are developing alzheimer's, they can find it in people who have alzheimer's, it is extremely accurate. >> rose: then the question arises if you have these tests that indicate that -- >>ight. >> rose: -- what can you do? >> well that's the problem for people now, because there is no treatment. and researchers say to me in the future, they think you may go in like when you are in your 50s like you have a colonoscopy you may have an alzheimer's test

when they have dreams, they are preparing for that at a because they are so optimistic they will have treatment. and they are preparing for that day because they say, alzheimer's starts as early as 20 years orr before you ever have a symptom, and that is the time to stop it. because if you wait until you are getting your memory -- your memory ibeg lost, it is probably too late to make a a difference. >> rose: let's assume for some reason, you know, you begin to war i and you do whatever testing and it indicates, can you delay it? >> no. >> rose: nothing? >> nothing. what you -- >> no cure, i mean delay it? >> you can't delay it there is nothing right now. there is a lot of things being tested you could enter a a clinical trial. >> rose: right. >> but there is nothing proved to delay it or prevent it. you could get long-term care insurance, you might want to do that, you could make all of your plans, you know, because get your affairs in order. >> rose: right. >>ut basically you have a diagnosis of a fal disease. and it is uniformly fatal. >> rose: why is alzheimer's so hard? >> well part of the reason is it

wasn't even recognized as a disease until the 1980s people thought it was a normal part of aging so researchers really lagged behind a lot of other diseases. people were still saying oh, you know, you are just senile, it is just senility. so once they started recognizing it was a disease they -- it is it is a brain disease, what brain disease can you cure? you can't cure parkinson, you can't cure multiple scpler row sister louehrig disease, it is hard to figure out where to go with this and it is only very recently that they discovered some real clues that can help this renaissance in drug development where people think they know what to do, what kind of drugs to develop that might actually make a difference. it remains to be seen, but for the first time people are really optimistic, they say we know now what to do to try to fight it early, we can find signs of this disease ten or 20 careers before they ever get it. >> rose: is genetics playing a role in this? >> to a certain extent.

if your family members have it, you have a higher risk, but most -- they don't have many, they have a few genes that are absolute predictors you are going to get alzheimer's but it is so rare only a few families have them, for most people, it is kind of like a bolt out of the blue, it is probably genetics but they don't know what the genes are, here is a field that is just sort of moribund and all of a sudden there is this explosion of knowledge and information and discoveries like the one i wrote about today, which just is changing everything. >> rose: brain fit financials general? >> not at all clear that is going to protect you from alzheimer's. >> rose: if you do all kind of gymnastics with your minds? >> that is totally not proven, you can do it .. but there is no really good evidence that is found credible. >> rose: that people don't use it as much -- >> there is no evidence on any of that stuff. i know people sell it, i know they promote it, it probably

doesn't hurt to do it, but if -- even though they will tellou it will ke a difference, if you look at the data at the evidence it is just not there. >> rose: is the most important thing to come out of this story and the results that you talk about, the spinal tests, tests with the spinal fluid that if you want to know you can know, and if you want to take this test, you can do it? >> you can -- >> rose: today? >> yes, because it is commercially available, but i keep adding to caveat, there is no way to slow or prevent the disease yet. >> rose: so if you know, you just know? that' it? >>es. and t everybody wants to know. >> rose: right. so why is this so important? because -- >> it is so important because they need -- first of all it is important because it raises this question of clinical judgment a doctor's clinical judgment and your preferences. because here is a test that is actually out there and probably in the next year, the pet scan, which is extremely accurate is

going to be out there too, so they are going to be tests that will let you know, if you want to know. >> rose: what is the thing that you are looking at and writing about and thinking about th is the most exciting leap forward? >> my problem is whatever i am writing about i think is the most exciting thing in the world. so right now, i think alzheimer's is the most exciting thing in the world. because i sort of single mindedly focus on things and this year i am doing a series on alzheimer's, so every story -- >> rose: for the new york times. >> for the new york times and everything i write amount at this say wow there is no idea that he were at this stage of development. i had no idea we were so close. and this is a really, really scary disease. and theidea that they could be getting this close to actually making a difference is just at son anybodying to me. >> rose: every day i hear about somebody's parent who they have told me, you know, my father has alzheimer's. >> so sad. it is just unbelievably sad, it is the leading cause of death,

it is uncurable and for people who are watching and taking care of them, after a while the person with alzheimer's doesn't know you but you know that person and what are you going to remember? a person who doesn't know who you are anymore? it is really sad. >> rose: thank you very much. >> thank you, charlie. >> rose: gina kolata from the new york times, remarkable story today. funding for charlie rose was provided by the folling. funding for charlie rose was

of a place like this in a book and it's a completely different experience to see the history on the walls. it's a place. it's a site. you can touch it. you can feel it. you can smell it. i didn't know that they were detained here and i just can't imagine how they must have felt. these walls do talk and they tell us what the experience was of the immigrants who actually stayed here and what they had to go through. ♪

(male narrator) from 1910 to 1940, tens of thousands of immigrants entered the united states through the angel island immigration station, all over its walls, carvings in many languages reveal a unique story about those who came through. the building and its history was forgotten and nearly lost until california state park ranger, alexander weiss rediscovered it in 1970. that moment began the long journey to save the immigration station, to preserve the stories that the carvings tell and to help us remember their sad but important place in american history.