02/13/14 02/13/14 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] >> from pacifica, this is democracy now! it is a climate emergency. governors have declared states of emergency from louisiana to new jersey due to the massive snow and ice storm. this comes as california is facing possibly its worst and is in 500 years temperatures top 60 degrees fahrenheit at the winter olympics in sochi, russia. as 100 olympians call on world leaders to take action on

climate change, we will speak with meteorologist jeff masters of the weather underground and bill mckibben. the to north carolina. last week's coal ash spill there is one of the worst in u.s. history. did state regulators intentionally block lawsuits against duke energy in order to shield the company where republican governor pat mccrory worked for 28 years? we will speak with amy adams. she recently resigned from the north carolina department of environment and natural resources. all of that and more coming up. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. at least 13 people have died and inr 550,000 have lost power a massive snow and ice storm across the eastern united states. the national weather service called the storm in event of

historic proportions. governors have declared states of emergency from louisiana to new jersey. we will have more on the story after the headlines. president obama has issued an executive order raising the minimum wage for federal contract workers. hundreds of thousands will see a wage hike from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour. at the signing ceremony, president obama noted if the minimum wage reflects actual gains in the economy, workers would be getting paid even more. it good for the economy, but it is the right thing to do. there's a simple, moral, principal at stake. if you take responsibility and work as hard as these folks were, -- work, you work full time, you should not be living in poverty. not in america. jobsority of lower wage are held by women. many of them have children they are supporting.

these are americans who work full-time, often to support a family, and if the minimum wage had kept pace with our economic productivity, they would already getting paid well over $10 an hour. >> a recent study from the center for economic and policy research says if the minimum wage were kept in line with productivity gains since 1968, it would now be more than double $11.72 an hour. in a shift, president obama also announced the new wage increase will no longer exclude workers with disabilities. advocates were initially told the executive order would not apply to disabled workers employed for a special program that pays them sub minimum wages. the decision prompted an outcry that apparently led the white house to reverse course. in his remarks on wednesday, obama said the principle of being paid a fair wage "applies to all of us." the senate has approved a measure that would lift the debt ceiling until march 2015.

the vote came after enough house republicans joined with democrats to back hiking the debt limit without conditions, undermining the long-standing republican insistence on an offsetting amount of cuts to social spending. the senate measure passed on a partyline vote of 55 to 43. the nation's two largest cable providers have announced a merger. comcast will buy time warner cable the cost of more than $45 billion in stock, a deal that would come less than a year after comcast completed its acquisition of nbc universal. the merger still faces approval by regulators and shareholders, media reform advocates have expressed opposition saying the deal would give comcast unprecedented control over the media landscape. in a statement, the group free press that "in an already uncompetitive market at high prices they keep going up and up, a merger of the two biggest cable companies should be

unthinkable." the united nations is warning of ethnic religious cleansing in the central african republic after uncovering a mass grave. at least a dozen bodies were found at a camp run by muslim rebels in the capital. more than one million people have been displaced since it during fighting erupted last march. human rights advocates are warning syria has endured its deadliest violence to date in a three weeks since peace talks began between the assad regime in the opposition. the syrian observatory for human rights says an average of 236 people have been killed every day since the u.n. brokered negotiations opened in geneva late last month. reported 50ludes a people in aleppo today. the geneva talks face potential collapse with no movement between the two sides on the future role of president bashar al-assad.

the afghan government has released a new group of prisoners from the former u.s. prison at bagram, again, over white house objections. the obama administration has lobbied intensely against the prisoners released, accusing them of attacks on afghan civilians and u.s. troops. but the afghan government has said there was insufficient evidence to justify their continued imprisonment. were freedsoners earlier today, following a group of close to 40 last month. other news from afghanistan, to u.s. servicemembers were killed and four were winded on wednesday in an attack from men in and ask -- and afghan army uniforms. in a series ofst insider attacks on nato troops by afghan soldiers. a pakistani judge has ordered the country's intelligence agencies to hand over a prominent activist who went missing last week. karim khan was seized from his home just days before he was due to travel to europe to speak

about the impact of u.s. drone strikes. some of his abductors were reportedly wearing police uniforms. his brother and son were both killed in a 2009 drone strike that destroyed his home. in addition to public activism, karim khan has engaged in legal proceedings against the pakistani government for their failure to investigate the killings of his loved ones. on wednesday, the lahore high court ordered pakistani forces to produce karim khan from custody by a week from today. you can go to democracynow.org for our segment about karim khan from wednesday's broadcast. to japan,mbassador caroline kennedy, visited the southern island of okinawa wednesday amidst local protest against the u.s. military presence. kennedy met with okinawa was governor who has agreed to relocate a u.s. base from a densely populated urban area to or more reload -- remote

location. but a decades long movement of okinawa residents has opposed the base altogether and pushed for ousting u.s. forces off the island, citing environmental concerns and sexual assaults by u.s. soldiers. since 1972, u.s. servicemembers have been accused of over 5800 crimes, including 26 murders and 120 eight rapes. at their meeting, committee pledged cooperation while the governor urged the u.s. to address local concerns. >> hopefully, we can work together to keep the momentum moving forward for progress. >> there have been many incidents, accidents and environmental problems associated with the bases, and i would call on the abbasid are kennedy to do everything in her power to help bring about a complete resolution to these issues and reduce the burden of okinawa -- on okinawa of u.s. bases. >> kennedy faced a protest from

a crowd of several hundred. critics have denounced her visit as an anti-gesture as she wanted the meeting with the recently reelected mayor of nago, the town where the base is to be moved. the mayor campaigned on a pledge to block construction of the replacement site. republican senator rand paul has filed a class-action lawsuit against the white house and the nsa over the bulk collection of u.s. telephone records. teaming up with the right wing libertarian group freedom works, senator paul said the nsa's mass retention a phone data violates pricey rights while offering no intelligence gains. >> the interesting thing is, as we have looked at this both that the intelligence committee level and through investigations by the media, there is no evidence that there is been one terrorist caught or detained or prevented uniquely on this information. i'm not against the nsa. i'm not against spying or looking at phone records.

i just want you to go to a judge, have a person's name and individualize the warrants. >> the senator says his suit will seek to cover every american who has used a phone in the last five years. he expected to reach the supreme court. a new study says at least 28 people have died in school shootings since the newtown massacre 14 months ago. moms demand action reports 44 school shootings since newtown, an average of one every 10 days. there have been at least 13 school shootings in the first six weeks of 2014. former new orleans mayor ray nagin has been found guilty on federal corruption and bribery charges. say he received cash and gifts from city contractors, steered a home depot contract to his family business, and helped quash a committee benefits agreement that would have required home depot to hire local residents at above market rates. nagin rose to national

prominence during the botched response to hurricane katrina and the subsequent permanent displacement of thousands of residents. he maintains his innocence and has vowed to appeal. jury deliberations have begun in the murder trial of a florida a blackshot dead teenager in a dispute over loud music. in november 2012, michael david dunn old up next to a car of teenagers at a gas station to ask them to turn down their stereo. following an argument, he shot eight or nine times into the vehicle, even after the teens tried to drive away. he fatally hit 17-year-old jordan davis. the young men ever got out of their car and no weapons were ever found inside. dunn fled the scene with his fiancée instead of calling the police, went to a hotel, and ordered pizza. he claims he saw weapon, feared for his life, and acted in self-defense. but in testimony during the trial, his fiancée said at the time dunn never told her he saw

a gun. in closing arguments, the assistant state attorney urged jurors to convict him. gun, jordan davis had a that defendant would have never left the scene. gun, hen davis had a would have called the police. if you was truly acting in self-defense, he would not have been running for everybody. he would not have lied to the police. he would not have changed his story. >> the shooting death has prompted comparisons to the death of trayvon martin. dunn's attorneys have invoked the stand your ground law into the prosecutors in the case also unsuccessfully tried once killer, george zimmerman. as with the zimmerman trial, prosecutors have ignored the issue of race during the proceedings. deming letters written by dunn

during his pretrial imprisonment were never introduced to the jury. road family members that he thinks the justice system is biased in favor of african-americans. he wrote -- and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. >> welcome to all our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. governors have declared states of emergency's from louisiana to new jersey due to a massive snow and ice storm. the national weather service memo issued wednesday call the storm in event of historical proportions, identifying it as "catastrophic, crippling, paralyzing, choose your adjective." the storm has already been blamed for at least 13 deaths.

the while, 550,000 people have lost power in the southeast due to the storm. or than one third of them in georgia were highways across the state are closed because of icing and downed power lines. federal offices have been closed in washington, d.c. >> for more we go to jeff masters, director of meteorology at the weather underground. arbor,ining us from ann michigan. give us the lay of the land right now throughout the east coast of the united states. >> this storm is bringing snowfall rates as high as three inches per hour right now to the philadelphia area. an inch an hour in new york city. they have already had a foot of snow in baltimore. georgia and south carolina, of to a half-inch of freezing rain and ice that cause the power outages. huge storm is one across the eastern part of the united states or several weather patterns? >> know, it is just one big nor'easter.

you're going to get a lot of power outages in the northeast today. >> explain the significance of this come of this historic nature, particularly in the south. it is paralyzing places like south carolina. >> it is not often you get a half-inch of ice and south carolina and georgia. the last time they saw a storm like this was back in 2000 when we had about half a million people lose power in an ice storm. alabama. of snow in you don't see snow there very often. storm do you compare this and the many snowstorms we have had already while in the west they're still continuing massive drought? >> remarkable thing about this storm is it occurs at the tail end of a very long period of intense winter we have seen over the eastern u.s., but at the same time, the western u.s. has been struggling with record drought an all-time high temperatures in january. the weather has been in this schizoid mode where it is

usually cold and the eastern half of the u.s. and unusually warm in the western half. >> what is causing this, since it is one major ice storm? >> you can always look at the jetstream to try and look at what the weather is doing. the jetstream acts as the boundary between warm air to the south and cold air to the north. right now that jet is very far to the south over the southeast u.s., which allows a lot of cold air to spill to the south out of canada and create the cold conditions we need to form this kind of an ice and snow storm. >> you have written at the airport in philadelphia, received six inches of snow or more and it would be the first time since record-keeping began -85ing the winter of 1884 that philadelphia has had four separate six inch or greater snowstorms in the winter. talk about what the trend and can you relate come at you know, so often the climate change

deniers mock anyone who connects this kind of freezing weather with global warming. the what kind of links would you make? >> we have to understand that, change is affecting all weather problems regardless of the season. we do expect climate change to affect jetstream patterns in winter storms. unusualparticular, this jetstream pattern that has been so persistent is something that could arise out of climate change. we don't often see the jetstream locked in a place like this and not budge for a period of months. avenuekely, one research being explored, is we remove a lot of sea ice in the arctic, warming up the arctic more than the rest of the planet. that can have impacts on the jetstream, causing it to slow down and not move quite as quickly and lock in place for

these extended periods like we're seeing. >> jeff, thank you for being with us, director of urology at weather underground. when we come back from break, we're going to go to vermont to middle barry to speak with bill mckibben, director of 350.org and author of, "oil and honey: the education of an unlikely activist." did we had to north carolina which has in the greatest coal ash spill, one of the largest in history. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

recorded in august 2012. part of the big ask campaign. a grassroots movement to get industrialized countries to reduce carbon emissions every year. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. juan, i'm glad you got into work today.

>> the snow was definitely falling more than an inch an hour this morning. while governors have declared states of emergencies from louisiana to new jersey to to the massive snow and ice storms, other examples of extreme weather are being seen across the globe. california is facing possibly its worst drought in 500 years. russia, temperatures have topped 60 degrees fahrenheit at their winter olympics. --nwhile, in britain, guests 100 miles perr hour. the river has risen to its highest level in decades. >> joining us now is 350.org cofounder bill mckibben for joining us from his home in firm on. his latest book is, "oil and honey: the education of an unlikely activist." you can go to democracynow.org to read the first chapter. arth."uthor of,

talk about extreme weather but the east coast is facing with this massive ice storm in the west coast expensing a drought like they haven't seen in some 500 years. of course the conical u.s. is only about 1.5% of the surface of the planet. jeff masters and his great colleague at the weather underground have done a remarkable job of chronicling what is going on all over the world. what happens now is ready much every day someplace on this planet, we are breaking records that have stood for centuries or even in the case of california, perhaps millennial records. the situation in the u.k. is really unbelievable. if you look at the images -- people have been keeping records there for a long time. january was the rainiest january

by far they've ever recorded. it comes on the heels of year after year like this. one of the mayor's of the affected town said yesterday, last year this was a 100 year flood we were expressing and this year it is a lot worse. this is the kind of crazy weather that scientists said will mark the advent of climate change in its early stages. and it should be the warning we need to actually do something. so far, our leaders have not taken up that challenge. u.k. andntioned the flooding in the 100 mile per hour winds. the prime minister said wednesday the government would provide relief grants for homeowners and businesses affected by the recent severe weather. >> it is clear we are seeing more extreme weather events and i suspect will go on seeing more extreme weather events so we need to do everything we can to improve the resilience of our country. let me repeat as i said yesterday, when it comes to this

lease effort, money is no object. we will spend what is necessary to help people, communities get through this difficult time. i have to say things are likely to get worse before they get better because of the very high levels of rainfall we have seen and we see very serious high winds as we speak here in the house today. whatever can be done to help, will be done. >> david cameron canceled his planned trip to the mary lee's because of the weather. in a report published this week by the national academy of sciences says the world needs to invest tens of billions of dollars a year in new shoreline defense against rising oceans or we will face mind-boggling costs in the decades to come. in a worst-case scenario, the report says almost 5% of the world's population could be exposed to flooding at the start of the next century, and the damage could surpass 9% of future global gdp each year. bill mckibben, your response? >> none of this should come as a

surprise if people have been paying attention. climately what scientists and campaigners have been saying now for the better part of two decades. i wrote the first book about this for general audience, literally, 25 years ago. these are exactly the sort of things scientists said would happen. there happening somewhat more quickly and a larger scale, most because scientists, by their nature, are conservative and under predict. is the fear of scientists palpable. that is why so many of them are out there getting arrested to stop things like the keystone pipeline, speaking out in all the ways they can think of. we have got to not just, as the british prime ministers said i'm a money is no object we will do what we can to get people back in their houses -- well, that is good and well, but the place we really need to be spending money and energy and attention is in

keeping this problem from getting worse. the climatic disruption you see today comes with a rise in global temperature of about one degree celsius, 1.8 degrees fahrenheit. if the scientists are correct -- and so far they have been underestimating -- than before this century is out, that will be closer to seven degrees or eight degrees fahrenheit. every computer model we have shows the planet that just becomes the scene of ongoing emergency response efforts. that is what civilization will amount to. >> i want to get to the keystone xl in a moment. but i want to turn to the winter olympics. the motto at the winter olympics in sochi, russia is "hot, cool, onrs" and temperatures there wednesday soared past 60 degrees, making it warmer than sundays at the 2012 summer olympics in london. sunny weather has melted snow and exposed huge patches of

grass on ski and snowboard runs. this part of her report from sochi by in -- nbc. >> we are headed up the mountain. we are on track for the warmest weather in the history of the winter games. that is what you get when you hold the games in a subtropical area. at the summit, there is some snow, but on the layout, and a lot of what you see is just bare dirt and rock. where there is no, the warm temperatures tend to soften it, melt it. the changes the skiers a strategy, even the types of skis they use. >> that is a report from sochi. more than 100 athletes competing in this year's winter olympics have called on world leaders to take action on climate change in advance of next year's u.n., talks in paris. they issued a letter written by u.s. ski team member andrew newell saying -- "time is staff only something we do not have on our side."

related news, new study finds just 11 of the previous 19 withdrawal of the host cities will be cold enough to reliably host the games by midcentury and only six will be viable sites by 2100 of global warming projections prove accurate. you rarely hear athletes weighing in in this way, yet 100 have signed on to this statement. >> this is an axis digital problem for winter athletes. -- existential problem for winter athletes. watched, skiing in sochi, the reports are unbelievable. to pack theirg race suits with snow to stay cool enough to keep competing. the cross-country racers are turning into a farce because the course is so sloppy that the snow is turning to oatmeal.

winter, which we are all busy complaining about at the moment in the states because were having a big snowstorm, winter should be a part of life on this planet. but it won't be going forward past a certain point when the temperatures are high enough for the sort of freezing the water at the latitudes we're talking about will become a rare event instead of a normal one. if you are a skier, skater, snowboarder or someone who just cherishes some of those moments, then you will be out of luck along with all the rest of creation that depends on cold stretches. >> bill, i want to ask about the response of some government officials with federal and local to the continuing extreme weather. for instance, after superstorm coast,ere on the east there are billions of dollars

being planned by the federal government, new york, new jersey, to build barriers against rising sea levels. each means, the taxpayers will have to pay for this. rather than pressing that corporate, corporations in the private sector reduce emissions and reduce the amount of time a change that is occurring. but they seem to be willing to spend the billions of dollars of taxpayer money as barriers against rising sea levels. >> politicians as a rule enjoyed the construction projects more than they do standing up to big interest. at this point, we have no choice but to build fences but even more pressing, have to stop pouring carbon into the atmosphere. if the planet keeps warming on the trajectory it is on at the moment, there will be sea halls -- seawalls high after protect most of the earth. that is why it is so appalling

that at the same time that we have seen these effects firsthand in the united states, we are busy -- well, and the obama administration, of his eight years of the obama administration, we will double to mystical production. we are exporting coal at record levels for the rest of the world. of tracking across the u.s.. none of this is compatible with the planet that took climate change your sleeve. >> this is a key teaching moment. the entire country in the u.s., and as you point out in many is payinghe world, attention to the weather, tuning in to, radio, going online to see, what can we expect? alls watching television last night. i did not see -- i'm not saying i saw every channel by any means -- but in a national broadcast, while the weather was the p, not aon was nonstop i'

mention of global warming or climate change. even when they do talk about it, for years, they are treated down.portrayed the good news is, people are figuring it out on their own. the polling data shows a huge percentage of americans understand we are changing the climate and want us to do something about it. the latest a couple of days ago polla yield hold -- a yale showed americans and we needed to take action. the bigger problem is in washington and in the state capitals were people are in bed with the fossil fuel industry. you can tell in washington when you look at projects like keystone, you can tell in the states and cities when they continue investing retirement in the very companies that

are making sure no one will have a safe place to retire to. a few great cities, more and more all the time, seattle, severn cisco, providence have divested and fossil fuel companies. maybe after events like this, a few more will step up. we sure hope so. massachusetts -- legislature may be the first to divest its funds. let's hope they're paying attention to boston today as the snow comes down and the wind whips around. >> you mentioned keystone. in january, a long-awaited and viral impact statement from the state department found the keystone xl tar sands pipeline would do little to slow the sandsion of canada's tar it would not exacerbate the problem of greenhouse gas emissions. business week has reported a subsidiary of erm, the company behind the report, worked on the alaska pipeline project, which

is owned in part by transcanada. climate news also reported the company's analysis of greenhouse gas emissions is based in part on estimates of the jacobs consultancy, which it describes as "a group that is owned by a big developer and hired by the governor government, which probably favors the project." with intellectual and systematic corruption in the state department of keystone, there's enough public scrutiny the report itself could not be completely bogus and if one reads it, it makes it very clear scenariohey say, in a where the world attempts to constrain carbon, keystone would make a huge difference. the place is that it makes no difference is if we are making offered to do anything about climate change and just flooding the atmosphere with carbon from every direction, and they say this little bit more from the

keystone pipeline won't hurt that much. if we are trying to do something about climate change, which theoretically all of our governments are committed to doing, then it makes a very big deal. it is the equivalent of adding 6 million new cars to the road. practical powerful, point, it is a really important and powerful moment of decision for the president and the secretary of state. their biggest foreign-policy failure of the first obama administration was almost certainly a catastrophic copenhagen conference which ended in complete failure. -- aiming for another one in paris in 2015. for that to be more than just another round of empty promises, someone is going to have actually have to say, we are going to leave some fossil fuel in the ground someplace. the reserves we have art identified here and around the world have about five times the

size we need to take the planet redline our-degree site is and government have laid out. that is why keystone has become one of the biggest rallying points for the environmental movement in generations in this country, brought more people into the streets than anything else. partly the complete destruction of the oil forced in alberta and partly the danger of leaks and spills along the pipeline route, but largely it is the understanding that even if that oil makes it safely to the refinery, it is going to spill into the atmosphere in the form of carbon and drive up global warming yet again. that in the understanding the president by himself without asking john boehner can stop this project cold should he choose to do so. >> can you talk about why you feel the keystone xl is such a critical issue? why people are going to washington and march and planning to get arrested once again, wife years ago you went

to the white house and over 1200 -- why a few years ago you were to the white house and over 1200 got arrested? for those not familiar with the keystone xl poplin, why it matters so much? >> 830,000 barrels of oil a day coming out of canada to the gulf of mexico to be exported abroad. that is a lot. it is not just oil. it is the dirtiest oil on the planet. even the state department report found the oil is 10% to 70% more carbon intensive than the other 10% to 17% more carbon intensive than other heavy crude. it is disgusting stuff. it is a place where the u.s. president can act unilaterally. nobody is naïve. they understand the u.s. congress isn't going to do anything useful about, change. that means the president has to do what he said he would do when he ran in 2008. he said, it is time to into the

tierney of big oil. so far, his administration has been very, very helpful to big oil on this continent and around the world. this is a case where we need him to stand up. progressives, there is one other not so small study last year brothers mighth make as much as $100 billion and profit off this pipeline over its 40 year lifespan. $100 billion. veryoesn't have to guess widely was some of that money for what political use it will be put to in this country. turn to the senior manager of the american petroleum institute. she defended the pipeline on our show earlier this month. >> first of all, we had a debate about whether it is oil sands or

tar sands. quite simply, we are producing oil and oil and gas products. there is no tar been produced here. that is just a terminology depending on what side of the fence you sit on. >> bill mckibben, your response? i'vell, as a geologist, always called it tar sands. if you want to go look at it, you will get a sense of what is happening. basically, her industry is turning a vast swath of area into a functional equivalent [indiscernible] i've never seen anything quite like it. i've seen some pretty bleak environmental disgraces around the world. process, it will run up canada's carbon emissions about 38% between now and 2030, precisely at a time when everyone in the world knows we need to be reducing carbon emissions. canada is turning to the kind of petro state under the harper

government. the same is happening in australia. in certain parts of this country, with the help of the federal government, the same thing is going on. we are creating huge sacrifice zones and in the process, creating huge amounts of carbon pollution and huge amounts of wealth. that wealth is being used to make sure nothing ever changes politically. >> bill, i want to play part of president obama's comments in 2012 when he appeared in cushing, oklahoma, to announce his support for transcanada to build the southern leg of its keystone oil pipeline from oklahoma to texas. >> over the last three years, i've directed my administration to open up millions of acres for gas and oil exploration across 23 different states. we are opening up more than 75% of our potential oil resources offshore. we have quadrupled the number of operating rigs to record high.

we have added another new oil and gas pipeline to encircle the earth and then some. so we're drilling all over the place. right now. that is not the challenge. that is not a problem. the problem in a place like cushing as we are producing so much wailing gas in places like north dakota and colorado, that we don't have enough pipeline capacity to transport all of it to where it needs to go. >> bill mckibben, if you could respond to president obama said and then talk about further what he said he could do unilaterally. >> anybody who thinks the president has been [indiscernible] should listen to the speech over and over. forget about the pleasant words in the state of the union. this is the bottom line speech.

tocame with a promise expedite all the permits and things for the southern leg of the keystone pipeline, which is already flowing and making life worse for people in places like port arthur, texas. already the victims of really egregious environmental injustice. the president could be doing plenty. he could be making it harder, not easier, for the oil industry. open the arctic oil drilling. he could be not opening big swaths of offshore cardinal slope u.s. for oil drilling. he could close down instead of continuing to open up more of the river basin for coal mining. here's an important one. [indiscernible] the coal industry is trying to build a bunch of massive works in the pacific northwest in order to export coal off to

asia, where it will will do just as much damage on the planet as if it were burned here. the federal government has not forced those companies to include the climate effects of those projects and their environmental assessments. all they're looking at is narrow questions of what will happen very close to the ports themselves. the federal government could do that in a minute. if they did, those ports would never be built. the obama administration has done a couple of useful things. they have to do with u.s. automobile mileage and with new controls on power plant pollution in the u.s. that is causing us to burn less cold here a little bit, although, our co2 emissions climbed again last year. but it makes no difference whether we burn this stuff at home or abroad. the secondhand smoke from burning coal is exactly is dangerous to the climate as if we burned it here.

so while we somehow think it is ok to export this stuff abroad nextto me. me.akes no sense to our task is to keep as much of it in the ground as humanly possible. it is the only place it is safe. >> you mentioned the issue of what is happening abroad. a lot of attention is focused on the battles of expanded fracking in the xl pipeline. at the fossil feel industry is busy at work around the globe get plant government and other parts of the world and europe and third world to allow more fracking, to allow more explication of fossil fuel resources. your sense of the ability of a progressive movement to stop this worldwide push? >> is a big challenge. 350.org i guess is the only group that works only on the climate crisis around the world. we work in pretty much every country except north korea. people doingat

great stuff around the world. there are people at the moment blocking access to proposed huge new coal mines in australia, for instance. our colleagues everywhere agenda kind of work. building out solar and wind wherever we can. where we have been able to go on the offense is this divestment movement that has spread around the world. oxford university published a study saying it was the fastest growing corporate campaign in history. universities, colleges, churches, city and state governments, pension funds -- all now starting with an exhilarating pace to cut their ties with fossil fuel industries. it is one place where there is some real hope. of all fromt experience in south african apartheid, a generation ago, where this was one of the key tactics. it was desmond tutu, one of the great leaders of that fight, who issued this call saying if you

could see what happened in africa from famine and drought as climate change spreads, you would know why we ask you to take up this tool again and try, try to weaken the political power of these oil giants. we can't bankrupt exxon, but we can begin to politically bankrupt them. and we have to. we can no longer solve this problem one lightbulb at a time. as desmond tutu pointed out, the entire continent of africa only brings about one thing percent of the world's fossil fuel. about 1% of the world's fossil fuel. it is a systemic problem. it will change when we can we weaken theer -- power of these companies. >> the civil disobedience in washington in march, what are the plans for it? >> i'm not in charge. these are students doing this themselves. xl dissent.

i think the message they're coming to washington to bring his, democrats don't take you for granted that they will always vote for you. young people voted for barack obama and record numbers. in 2000 eight when asked what their lead issue was, it was climate change. they did not show up in 2010 to vote because in the meantime, the copenhagen conference had come and gone and it was pretty clear the obama administration was not committed to doing much climate change. we have to take stronger steps over time to get the message across. this is the dimmer -- generational problem of all time. young people will be in washington. if we don't get things under control soon, the prime of their lives will be spent on nothing but the reaction to enlist disaster of the kind we see around the u.s. and around the world today. >> bill mckibben, thank you for being with us, director of 350.org. his latest book is, "oil and

honey: the education of an unlikely activist." you can go to democracynow.org to read the first chapter of the book. also author of, "eaarth: making a life on a tough new planet." happy birthday to your wife, sue. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. when we come back from break, we go down to north carolina to find out what has happened with this coal ash pit with duke energy. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

>> this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. we turn now to north carolina, the site of one of the worst coal ash spills in u.s. history. earlier this month, up to 27

million gallons of contaminated water and 82,000 tons of coal ash spilled into the dan river after a pipe burst underneath a waste pond. that is enough toxic sludge to fill more than 70 olympic summing. the river has turned gray for miles, and environmentalist said they found arsenic levels 35 times higher than the maximum said a federal regulators. now, a new report has raised questions about the relationship between duke energy and the administration of republican governor pat mccrory who worked at duke for 28 years. the associated press has revealed over the last year, following the election of heaven are mccrory, north carolina's environmental agency has blocked lawsuits over duke's coal ash ponds three times, eventually shielding all 31 ponds from potential lawsuits. the agency proposed settlements for a fraction of duke's worth the did not require duke to clean up the ponds. >> north carolina regulators are

seeking to delay one of those agreements and what environmentalists call an attempt to buy time until the public outcry subsides. beyond his work for duke energy, governor's campaign and affiliated groups have received more than $1 million in recent years from duke, its political action committee, executives, and their immediate families. the state agency has also admitted it wrongly declared arsenic levels in the dane -- dan river safe after the spill. arsenic in one sample was actually four times higher than maximum levels for prolonged contact. the governor recently visited the site of the accident. some of our side sampling at this point in time are pretty confident the water is very safe and we are just finalizing some further tests. >> governor mccrory's former employer duke energy has apologized for the spill, pledged to clean dust clean up its toxic waste.

showdeclined to be on the citing weather difficulties and outage concerns that have tied up in north carolina staff. for more we are joined by amy adams. she was a regional supervisor at the state environmental agencyr! what this feel it's to happen and why you quit. left partlysaid, i in protest. there were some significant changes that happened in 2013 in the agency. first, where the regulatory form act that requires us to look at regulation, but up our

ties our environmental regulations first. ourur regulations, arguably strong as our water protections and those are the ones that were the first targeted. there were other changes in the administration such as budget cuts, staff reorganization, limits on the power try to limit local authorities ability to regulate their own environmental standards. there were a lot of changes that went on. of course, you heard me speak our customer moving away from treating the resource and the citizens of north carolina as our customer in treating the industries that we regulate as our customer. so that was partly why i felt i could no longer perform my job in state government, that i was going to have to leave in order to protect the environment. >> could you talk about the times the state attempted to issue to a regulatory

preclude federal government involvement? >> right, well, what they did with the lawsuit was a stepped in at the last moment and instead of having do could face environmental groups in federal court, when the state steps in as the plaintiff, they're in a position to make an agreement through the courts with duke directly and cut out any public involvement. that is why we are trying very much to intervene so the citizens of north carolina can have a voice at the table in the lawsuit. >> here the citizens brought the lawsuits, but when the state intervened, they thought this was good, significant, the state would take over and had a lot of clout and would force duke in the settlements, but instead they actually stopped action? >> right. by stepping in, what they did was they shielded duke from potential higher funds or potential more extensive

remediation of pollution impacts , because they became the plaintiff and therefore, that put them in the position to say what the penalties would be and what the remediation would be without that public input. >> you mentioned you have spoken before about john's kovar. could you say who he is and what his role has been in all of this? >> he was appointed secretary shortly after pat mccrory took office. he was instrumental in rewriting the mission statement for the agency. he was also the one that was instrumental in pushing and as theing the customer industry seeking permit. >> and what was his sister before he joined government? >> he had been the ceo of wildland restoration, wetland restoration company. before that, he had been ceo of

several other companies. arguably is quite talented at taking businesses that have been in the red and putting them in the black. so i'm sure that was part of why he was chosen by mccrory. mccrory has stated that one of his goals for north carolina is to grow it economically. it seems to be even at the sacrifice of some of our environmental rules. pox on wednesday, we reached duke energy's director of corporate relations tom williams and said duke has not been given special treatment today. with northtionship carolina, [indiscernible] they are our regulator. they are treated as such. because an individual used to

work for duke it would be giving us special treatment, is simply is not true. he used to work for duke. that is not a secret. to anotherm duke company and then ran for governor. with north carolina is no different than other five states. that is all i can say. it is within his right to appoint a secretary of the department. >> duke energy spokesperson tom williams. amy adams, governor mccrory's minor.with duke is not he worked there for 20 years. do you feel he is still working for duke in some ways? >> we can argue and we can debate about their interaction and whether it is beneficial or detrimental to the state. what i can say is we have the perfect set up right now north carolina with the governor who is familiar with duke, who is in

a position to push legislation forward that would launch north carolina as a leader in energy efficiency and renewable energy. we have duke utilities who arguably have some of the best technology and are in a position financially, technologically to explore spreading our energy base way beyond fossil fuels. we have this great set up where we could be utilizing the governor's relationship with duke and duke's resources to sustainable energy future for north carolina. but instead, we are worrying about whether or not there is a detrimental effect to this relationship. when it could be used to promote north carolina as a leader. >> amy adams, could you tell us about the latest historic ash spill, the consequences or the

dangers of this ash spill? >> right. we know there are some pretty significant health impacts as far as we have seen cancer, urological disorders related to: ash. now this particular spill, we have seen the numbers change. we heard as much as 82,000 tons. we have heard the numbers about [indiscernible] what i want to point out, the sampling right after a spill is only a snapshot of what is going on. we have some very long-term repercussions that we need to be very conscientious of. it is going to take a long time from now to determine what the real ecological damage is to this river, even if we decide that we haven't poisoned our own drinking water, we have poisoned the ecological balance in that river. >> amy adams, thank you for being with us, coordinator for forces.ian

she was a regional supervisor the state of terminal agency until last year. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your comments to outreach@democracynow.org or mail them to democracy now! p.o. box 693 new york, new york 10013. [captioning made possible by democracy now!]

[captioning made possible by kcet television] [distant voices] >> i'm yuval sharon. i'm the artistic director of the industry, which is a company for new and experimental opera here in los angeles. and i'm also the director of our current production, "invisible cities."