08/25/16 08/25/16 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from pacifica, this is democracy now! mr. trump: hillary clinton ran the state department like a failed leader in a third world country. run like a third world country. accccess inors and exchange for cash. she sold it. mrmrs. clinton: what trumump has said i is rididiculous. statek as secretary of

was s not influenceded by any outside forcrces. amy: new questions arise over hillarary clinton and the clintn foundation as ththe ap reveaeals that more than half of the private citizens she met with as secretary of state had donated to the clinton foundation. was she selling access to the state department? we will speak to two guests investigative e journalist david , sirota and former bill c clinn speechwriter paul glastris. then to senator bernie sanders. mr. sanders: i want to introduce you to a new independent nonprofit organization called our revolution, which is bernied by the historic 2016 presidential campaign. amy: bernie sanders has launched his new political organization called "our revolution," but the -- over 2600 watch parties were held to witness the launch. at the group is a ready facing its first crisis as the majority of its staff have abruptly resigned. we will find out why.

we will speak with claire sandberg and larry cohen. all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. in italy, the death toll continues to rise from a devastating 6.2-magnitude earthquake. at leaeast 247 peoplple are confirmed dead. dozens morore people are still missing as search and rescue teams are using everything from bulldozers to bare hands to scour the rubble for bodies and survivors. the earthquake struck centraral italaly early wedndnesday morni. homemes, churches,s, stores, and even a hototel collapsed as peoe were sleining. this is a local resident speaking wednesday about the earthquake. last night i woke up with a

sound that sounded like a bomb. it was deafening. it was also disheartening because everything was collapsing on me. tonight, we think we will slelep togethther with our r relativesd friends in the tents there providing us. amy: this comes as a 6.8-magnitude earthquake also struck burma on wednesday, killing at least three people. in afghanistan, at least 12 people have been killed in an attack on the american university in kabul. seven of the victims were students. the attack began with a car bomb explosion. gunmen then forced their way into the university and opened fire. so far, no one has claimed responsibility for the attack. two weeks ago, american university of afghanistan temporarily suspended campus operations after two teachers, an australian and an american, wewere kidnapped at gunpoint. in news on colombia, government officials and farc rebels signed an historic peace accord during a ceremony in havana, cuba, on wednesday. the signing is the latest step

in the efforts to end one of the world's longest conflicts, which began in 1964, has claimed some 220,000 liveves. more than 5 million people are estimated to have been displaced. speaking in havana on wednesday, farc peace negotiator ivan marquez celebrated the historic agreement. >> i believe we have one the most beautiful of all battles, the battles for peace in colombia. today we closed in havana, cuba, the peace process we have most urine for. land, democracy, victims, policies, weapons also the limitation of the accords as international eyes look on. among others, these are the elements of an agreement that will need to be converted, sooner rather than later, by referendum and a norm to guarantee a future with dignity for all. amy: in news from the campaign

truck, hillary clinton has slammed a new associated press investigation into her meetings with benton foundation donors while she served as secretary of state. investigation reveals more than half the private citizens she met with had donated to the clinton foundation. this does not include her meetings with u.s. or foreign government workers or representatives. in response, clinton has called the investigation absurd and said "there is a lot of smoke and there is no fire." she has also said the investigation is incomplete, but the ap says it has been asking for the schedules for three years and that what has been released does far covers only half of her four-year tenure. on the host a debate clinton foundation afterer headadlines. meanwhile, b british politician nigel farage joined donald trump at a campaign rally in mississippi farage was one of wednesday. the leaders of britain's campaign to leave the european union, known as brexit. trump has praised brexit, saying

the british people were "taken -- had "taken our country back." farage did not endorsese trump n wednesdaday, but he did slam hillary clinton. citizen,as anan americann i would not vote for hillary clinton if you paid me. you can beat the pollsters. you can be the commentators. you can beat washington. and you will do it by doing what we did for brexit in britain. amy: donald trump appear to flip-flop on his immigration proposals during a town hall posted by fox news sean hannity that was b broadcast on wednesdy night.t. trump has made the mass deportation of 11 million undocumented immigrants one of the cornerstone proposals of his campaign. but at the town hall, trump appeared to go back and forth, at times saying that he'd be willing to work with some

undocumented people to pay back taxes so they could stay in the country. many commentators have pointed out this proposal is very similar to the plan put forward by jeb bush, whom trump derided earlier in the campaign as being too soft o on immigratioion. many havave also pointed o out t undocumented immigrants already do pay taxes and are required to pay any ode back taxes as part the processes to legally stay in the country. sean hannity has acknowledged advising the trump campaign saying "i never claimed to be a journalist." the turkish military deployed tanks and special operations troops into northern syria wednesday babacked by the u.s. r force. the offensnsive helped the free syrian army take the town from isis control. the operation was a major escalation of f turkey's rorolen the e ongoing syrian w war.

it came as the v vice president joe e biden visited ankara on wednesday. the pentagon says the u.s. launched airstrikes and helped advise the operation. meanwhile, the united nations team has concluded that syria's al-assasagovernmentnt and isisis militants hahave carried out repeateded chemical weapons in 202014 andia 2015. the repoport accususes him of ie using chlorine gas and accuses isis of using mustard gas. a new investigation by bloomberg businessweek has revealed police in baltimore have been secretly testing an aerial surveillance system that records the movement and actions of baltimore residents in real-time from a low-flying plane. the technology has been adapted from the u.s. military's surveillance programs aimed at detecting roadside bombs in iraq. the plane is equipped with multiple cameras that can record 30-square mile swaths of the city at a time. the plane is the creation of the private company persistent surveillance systems. the project is bankrolled by

john arnold, a former enron trader and hedge funder. the plane has been circling above baltimore since january without the public ever being notified. meanwhile, in new york, a new report says the new york police department intelligence bureau frequently broke rules while surveilling muslim-american residents after the 2001 september 11 attacks. the report was issued by the office of the inspector general for the new york police department tuesday. it says the agency failed to offer information about the role of undercover cops and informants in intelligence gathering, and let deadlines pass during investigations. the inspector general office says the violations demonstrate the need for continued oversight of the new york police department. in kashmir, another protester has been killed and as many as 50 people wounded when indian security forces opened fire and threw tear gas at crowds of protesters. residents say the confrontation came after indian troops descended on the neighborhood, beating people and destroying a

tent that was to host a meeting about kashmir's independence. it's at least the 70th confirmed death in kashmir since anti-india protests erupted on july 8 after indian security forces killed a prominent kashmiri independence leader. on wednesday, the indian home minister traveled to kashmir for a two-day visit aimed at diffusing the protests. ethiopian olympic runner feyisa lilesa is expressing concern about going home after he raised his arms in an "x" as he won a silver medal in the marathon to protest ethiopia's human rights abuses against his ethnic tribe, the oromo people. for over two years, the oromo have staged massive nationwide protests against the ethiopian government. the protests were initially sparked by the government's plan to lease a forest to private developers. ethiopian forces have responded with a brutal crackdown against the oromo protesters, killing hundreds of people. this is feyisa lilesa's wife,

speaking about her husband's olympic protest. >> i was very scared at the time, but i was not surprised because i know him. he was burning inside when he sees on social media evil being beaten and arrested. so i was not sururprised becausi know he is a lot of anger inside. amy: in louisiana, the interior department's massive lease sale for oil and gas drilling in the gulf of mexico a attracted a rerecord low number of bids on wednesday. only three companies expressed any interest, bidding on only 24 of the 4000 tracts. industry experts blamed low oil prices for the low number of bids. on tuesday, four environmental activivists were arrested protesting the lease sale -- which came only one day after president obama toured flood damaged neighborhoods in baton rouge. some areas are still submerged in feet of standing waterer two weeks after the floods.

the rainfall in baton rouge is the worst it has been in recorded history, and close to 175 years. in washington, d.c., hundreds of people rallied in opposition to the $3.8 billion dakota access pipeline as a judge delayed his ruling in a federal lawsuit against the army corps of engineers over the pipeline's approval. the standing rock sioux tribe, which filed the lawsuit, says it was not sufficiently consulted before the corps approved the 1168-mile pipeline. the district court judge said he would announce a decision in e suit by seseptember 9. in north dakota,a, thousands of indidigenous people from dens sf tribes have gatherered at the sacred stotone spirit campmp to block k the pipeliline'ss construction. on w wnesday, campmpeaders announunced they wouldld continu the camp until the next trial date. this is vic camp. >> we need each other.

we also stand together in unity to protect sacred water and mother earth. in andes and shall grandchildren -- our lives a and chilildren and grandchildren. amy: amnesty international says its sent a delegation to sacred stone spirit camp to monitor the police and law enforcement response to the ongoing protests. scscientists have discovered a w planet they say could have earthlike coconditions and maybe even liquid water on itsts surfrface. the planetet has been namedd proxima b. scientists say the planet may be home to life. and students at the university of texas at austin carried thousands of dildos to their first day of classeses to protet texas' new concealed carry law, which h allows license holders o legally carry guns on campus and inside university buildings. the new open carry laws went into effect on august 1 -- the

same day texas marked the 50th anniversary of a mass shooting at the university of texas at auststin when an engineering student and marine veteran opened fire from atop the university clock tower, killing 14 people on camampus. this after he killed his mother and his sister. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. new questions have arisen this week over hillary clinton and the clinton foundation. on tuesday, the associated press published a new investigation revealing that while hillary clintoton served as secretetaryf state, more than half of the private citizens she met with had donated to t the clinton fofoundation. the ap investigation comes a afr a three-year battle to gain access to state department calendars. the analysis shows that at least 85 of 154 people hillary clinton had scheduled phone or in-person meetings with were foundation donors.

this does not include meetings clininton held with u.s. or foreign government workers or representatives, only private citizens. these 85 donors contributed more than $150 million to the foundation combined. calling into cnn's ac360 wednesday, clinton slammed the investstigation. mrs. clinton: there is a lot of smoke and there is no fire. this ap report -- put it in context. it excludes nearly 2000 meetings i had with world leaders, plus countless other meetings with u.s. government officials when i was secretary of state. it looked at a small portion of my time. and it draws an inclusion anand made the suggestion that my meetings with people like the gates, or -- melinda nobel prize winner, or somehow due to cononnections with the foundation instead of their status is highly respected

global leaders. that is absurd. these are people i was proud to , who any sesecretary of state would have been proud to meet with to o hear about their work and their insight. amy: the ap says it has been asking for the schedules for three years and that what has been released thus far covers only half of her four-year tenure. republican presidential nominee donald trump, who himself has donated $100,000 to the clinton foundation, has accused clinton of selling access s to the state department. mr. trump: going to end government corruption. hillary clinton ran the state department like a failed leader in a third world country. run like a third world country. she sold favors and access in exchange for cash. she sold it. amy: questions have also arisen ovover what wiwill happepen to e clinton foundation if clinton

wins the presidency. according to a new report in "the wall street journal," the clinton foundation will stop accepting corporate and foreign donations, b but an exception my be made for the clinton health access initiative. "the journal" also reports that former president bill clinton will leave the board, but that chelsea clinton plans to stay on it. well for more, we are joined by two guests. david sirota is the senior editor for investigations at the international business times. his most recent article is titleded, "was there 'pay y to ' at the clinton foundation?" we're also joined by paul glastris, editor in chief of the washington monthly. he was president clinton's chief speechwriter from 1998 to 2001. we welcome you both to democracy now! paul glastris to these your reaction revelations of the associated press? >> i read the story carefully. i think secretary clinton kind

of got it right. this was an eyebrow raising piece of math that said half of the private sector people she met with in her first two years were clinton donors. basically, there are two issues here. one, did she have special -- the people who gave the foundation, did they have special access and , two, did the access get them anything? on a special access part, that piece of math that the ap story shows suggests that. i think that is what people are paying attention. but it is the 85 people are 1% of the clinton foundation donors. there are 7000 donors. 85 got access. then you look at the individual highlighted in the story most of they are people like the holocaust survivor and human rights activist. there e are people like mohammed younis, who created the micro finance revolution that has

lifted millions of the most destitute people out of poverty, people who are running aids campaigns in africa. for the most part, these are people that have no hillary clinton for years, even decades. hamid younis and hillary clinton were doing microro-finance in arkansas in 1985. what these people seem to be, at least from the evidence of the story am a are part of hillary clinton's longtime network and they also happen to be people who gave to her foundation. they don't seem to be people who gave to her foundation in order to g get to know clinton. there people who gave to her foundation because they know clinton. that is an important distinction. amy: david sirota?? ifmy reaction to it is that you look at some of these individual examples, i think paul is right, it is hard to argue that their donations to

the foundation got them access. a lot of these people in the ap story are people who knew her. i think we should pull back and look at not just what the ap reported, but at the next is between the donors of the clinton foundation, major corporate donors, major foreign government donors, and what business they had with the state department. look, the clinton team, the foundation, the campaign is saying this is not going to happen if she is president. the question then becomes, why was it then allowed to happen when she was secretary of state? the secretary of state has a huge amount of power over a huge number of issues and policies and contracts, for instance, that many of these donors had an interest in. we did a series on, for instance, arms exports and how many of the governments that gave big to the clinton foundation saw huge increases in arms export authorizations from the state department and the state department is the chief

regulator of arms exports. there have been stories about , liken governments giving algeria gave $500,000 to the clinton foundation at a time when it was lobbying the state department on human rights issues. wallad a situation at "the street journal" reported where hillary clinton herself intervene in a case dealing with taxes with ubs, the swiss bank, and suddenly after that, ubs began donating big to the clinton foundation. there are many examples -- there are oil companies, another i should mention, right now that oil companies are giving big to the clinton foundation while lobbying the state department, successfully, for the passage of the alberta clipper, the tar sands pipeline. again, there are many examples where the people and corporations that were lobbying the state department were giving huge to the clinton foundation. do we know that money made those deals and access ababout thosee deals happen?

i don't think we know. but the key point is, ethics rules have typically been in place in states and at the federal level that have said we want to prevent the appearance or the potential conflicts of interest because we understand that if the appearance or the potential for conflict of interest is there, we cannot know if those conflicts are operationalized. that there are so many ways for them to be operationalized that we need to prevent the potential an appearance of a conflict of interest were potential appearance of conduct of interest. that is what is at issue. amy: can you respond to that, paul glastris? >> that as a whole lot of examples, and i can't respond, you know, to each one individually, but i think we have n now two big investigatio. one by the ap, the other as a result of the conservative judicial watch lawsuit that the --various members of

x members of the clinton foundation and others trying to get meetings with secretary clinton. in virtually every case, the secretary's people made the right choice. ex-clinton foundation official wanted a visa granted to a soccer player who recommended a felony, the answer became no. when the crown prince of bahrain wanted a a special meeting with senator clinton, secretary clinton, they said, , you know, let's have a go through official channels. and he got the meeting, which is of course what he should have done. when mohammed younis asked for help because the government of bangladesh was sort of destroying his leadership team at the bank that he created and the entire international community said that was wrong, she did act.

so in each of the situations where we have these internal records of what she did and who she met with, she did the right thing. i don't think there is a lot of dispute about that. we don't know what happened in these other instances, but we have had this kind of deep forensic now from some very, very -- with some very, very good data and it has shown a very tight ship and ethical set of choices. you can always raise these issues, but the f facts we have from this reporting pretty strongly shows that there were not favors granted for any of this. and it's a no favors -- david, go ahead. >> the bahrain example is a very good example. we saw that the e-mail came in from the clinton foundation for the crown prince of bahrain is the clintonllion to

foundation. i don't think anyone is when a sit up and say the crown prince of one of the top leaders and editorial regime is giving money -- we have not heard anyone argue that money from dictatorss typically comes because dictators want to reduce poverey in the world. so money is coming into the clinton foundation from the crown prince. the clinton founundation reaches out to the state department and says he is a good friend of rulr where the obama administration roles. moreover, the decision to sell arms to this or that country, though the state department is the regulator, the ultimate regulator, these are made in interagency discussions pushed more by the pentagon and the white house and other parts of the g government than a anywhere elsese. there is no indidication t that bahrain was, by putting money into the clinton foundation, it was influencing the defense department that wanted to sell

these weapons. you can question whether they should or should notot have. theyey were in t the middle of orchestrating the irran thing and they had arresested sunnnni natitions. if you likike the iran deal, you have to balance that out. so this is aa funcnction of what the clinton foundation and the clinton global initiative is. and d they are basicic business >> here's the question, paul. why were these leaders, let's say of these middle eastern dictatorships, why were they giving that money? these are sophisticated, politically sophisticated donors , them and corporations. they are repeatedly giving money to the clinton foundation. i don't think you are arguiuingi have not heard anyone argue the saudi regime or another dictatorial regime is giving money to the clinton f foundatin because theyey really, and a a p well of their hard, t ty want to help poor childrenen or solve povertrty. they are repeatedly giving money

to the clinton foundation at a time they are seeking entirely controversial arms d deals. therere was a saudi deal with te state department says it wasas hillary clinton's pepersonal top prioiority to get one of the biggest saudi ararms deals througugh, thehe israelis are raising concerns about it. it went through. the money flflowed in to the clinton -- the clinton -- toto e clinton foundation. why were the donors giving? what did they think they were getting? the critics of this say what it ended up being was intentionally a way that donors saw way to curry favor with the state department on controversial issues. >> two points. one, the reason n e clintonn state department and the enentie obama administration was willing to give a lot of arms to the saudis and the bahrainis, is they were to bring the saudis and bahrainis while trying to

open negotiations with iran. everybody knows this. we do not need to f find some nefariouous payoff in n order to understand the policy. yoyou can agree with a policy or disagree with a policy, but if you are in favor of the opening of iran, it is hard to say they should not havave sold these ars to the sunnis.s. they werere trying to kekeep a balance e of power g going in or toto bring some kind of peace ad resolution to these nuclear issues. on the clinton globalization, the point i was trying to make, the whole business model of this thing is, get rich people and governments to empty their wallets in order to help poor africans who cannot afford aids drugs. 11 million -- ththat the raini money and saudi money was spent on training midwives in ethiopia or lower-priced eight strokes for 11 million people. so that was the business model. you u can say it isis a terrible business model, they should not

have set it up -- find, undederstand, it looks bad. but that is with the money went for. it certainly leaves open questions as to whether that money bought influence. all i'm saying, the deepest investigations we have had, this ap story and the judicial watch story, showed that is not the case. amy: david sirota? >> look, i think you are right to say that the clinton foundation has done projects and is involveved in efforts that ae laudable and philanthropic. but again, the deeper policy question here goes back to whether a potential copley to of a conflict of interest should have been permissible at the state department andnd what this money potentially bought. i want to go to onone other poit about the appearance of conflict of interest. i have heard a lot of pundits defending the clintons saying

there is an appearance of conflict of interest in a live potential and that is all that can be proven. a lot of these same pundits, these democratic pundits looking at a republican situation, they would be screaming about how this is a huge scandal. the key on the appearance of conflict of interest is, if we want people to believe that their government is doing things in the right way, in a way that democracy is not being sold, that contracts are not being given out on the basis of preference of many going into a private foundation, appearances actually matter. it is not something to poopoo. the optics are not just some talking points. the optics matter in a democracy when people -- the public i is asked to believe it's government is acting on their behalf. in this case, the clinton people send understand those questions cannot exist which was president, butut why was it allowed to exixist when she wasn

such a powerful position as america's top -- amy: we're going to talk about what should happen with the clinton foundation, if you are clinton became president. we are speaking with david sirota, of the international business times. ,nd also paul glastris president bill clinton speechwriter for a number of years and now the editor of the washington monthly. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. as we e continue our debate on hillary clinton and the clinton foundation, on tuesday, the associated press published a new investigation revealing that while clinton served as secretary of state, more than half the private citizens she met with had donated to the clinton foundation. republican presidential nominee

donald trump w wasn't -- has accused her of selling access. last n night clintonon called io cnn with anderson cooper. mrs. c clinton: what trump has said is ridiculous. my work as secretary of state was not influenced by any outside forces. i made policy decisions based on what i thought was right to get -- the american safe and protect u.s. interests abroad. the foundation is a charity. neither my husband nor i have ever drawn a salary from it. you know more about the foundation then you know about anything concerning donald trump class wealth, his busininess, hs tax return. amy: donald trump urged the justice departrtment to appointa special prosecutor to investigate if donors to the clinton foundation got special treatment from the state department. mr. trump: the clintons made the state department and the same kind of pay for play operation as the arkansas government was.

now, think of whwhat happened bk then. think about it. and i love the state of arkansas , but i tetell you what, t theyw what went on. they know and they are not happy. paid the clinton foundation huge sums of money and throw in some big speaking fees for bill clinton, and you got to play. you got to do what you wanted to do. it is pretty sad. this is in front of the state department. this is in front of the state department. and long before that, you should have seen what they were doing in arkansas. same old story, folks. the amount involved, the favors done, and the significant number antimes it was done require expedited investigation by a special prosecutor immediately. immediately. immediately. amy: donald trump gave $100,000

to the clilinton foundation himself. we are speaking to david sirota senior editor for investigations , at the international business times. his most recent fees "was there , 'pay to play' at the clinton foundation?" paul glastris is the editor in chief of the washingtoton monthy and was president bill clinton's chief speechwriter from 1998 to 2001. paul glastris, special prosecutor, what do you think about that? >> not going to happen. a silly donald trumpism. the point i was making before the break, and i i agree was dad sirota, the appearances raise questions. the appearances of these donorss who also h have business in frot of the statete department raise questions. speakingng a special prosecutor, we have just had twowo deep investigations, sort of like random audits, of whether any of this is true. we now have scores of examples of a attempts to gain access, attempts to get favors. in every case that we have on

the record, through these investigations, we see that hillary clinton and her staff did the righght thing. dodoes that mean in every case they did the right thing? nono, but we know more about hillary's state department and the inner workings of the decisions and we have on almost any cabinet secretary that one cacan think of. in the bush administration, george w. bush has administration, his father had the points of light foundation. people were giving money to the points of light foundation, a charity, not unlike the clinton foundation, and we don't know anything about who gave, what favors were asked for, what access there was. partly because the bush administration expunged, accidentally, all of its e-mails. but partly because nobody asked those questions. ,my: let me put --david sirota respond. as we wrap up, what should happen to the clinton foundation if hillary clinton were to become president, this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and

peace report. i'm amy goodman. >> the obama administration has barely -- has not prosecuted wall street after the financial crisis. the fbi said ---- raised questis about what it found. i think politically, the idea of the obama and the administration investigating hillary and bill clinton is not going to happen. there are still a lot of issues swirling around in the other issue outstside is bill clinton was paid millions of dollars from companies personally for speaking engagements at the very same time these companies were lobbying the state department. a special prosecutor, the only real way to get subpoena power to uncover and find out what really fully happen. paul mentitioned there weree investigations, but ththat did t have subpoena power and you are sort of at the mercy of freedom of information act west the obama admininistration itselelfs power over. point thatul's george h.w. bush also had a foundation when his son was president? >> certainly, this is an issue

that has existed for a long time. a lot of people in the public are saying, at leaeast it is a good thing there is more scrutiny happening on this set of issues, presidential foundations and the like. it will be interesting to see what happepens moving forward. i am a journalist. i don't offer up what should happen, i think there are folks out there, critics on the republicans, purely opportunistic artisans, if you will, saying it should be shut down. clintons have agreed to this, an effort effectively on wanting the foundation to preserve what it does that is good, but unwind an extra kate the relationships from it. i think that is likely to happen in some of them although, "the washington post" i believe reported the promises they have made will not fully and all of the kinds of donations that are at issue here that we are

discussing today. amy: paul glastris, do you think it should shut down or president clinton should step down from the board, the discussion now that chelsea clinton would remain on the board? >> a melancholy about the whole thing because this is spectacularly successful organization at helping millions and millions of deserving poor people around the world. you extricate the clintons from that and you extricate the polititical juice and energy and vision behind that so it will not be the same organization that it was before, and i think that is why the obama administration thought it was ok and the right choice to keep it going, to allow what h happenedo happen. the given all of these questions, i suppose it is really t the only sensible thin. i don't know i if it makes sense for chelsea to run it or not. i have not really thought that through. if she is one of the president

of the united states, i think it should probably be wound down as david said, the best parts get going. i'm just a little sad about it because it has done a tremendous amount of good. amy: we will leave it there but continue to follow this issue. i want to thank paul glastris of the washington monthly, former president bill clinton's speechwriter. and david sirota, we will into your pieces at the international business times. when we come back, bernie sanders has launched a new organization. there were 2600 parties last night to hear him speak will stop we will have a debate. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. senator bernie sanders and his supporters have launched a new political organization called "our revolution." it seeks to support the next generation of progressive leaders, empower millions to fight for progressive change, and elevate the nation's overall political consciousness. more than 2600 watch parties were held across the country wednesday night to watch sanders launch the new group. mr. sanders: i want to introduce you to a new independent, nonprofit organization called our revolution, which is inspired by these historic bebernie 2016 presidential campaign. over time, our revolution will involve hundreds of thousands of people. these are people who will be

fighting at the grassroots level for changes in their local school boards, in their city councils, in their state legislatures, and in their representation in washington. not only that, they will be involved in major ballot items dealing with campaign finance issues, environmental issues, health care issues, labor issues, gender-related issues, and doing all that they can in every way to create an america based on the principles of economic, social, racial, and environmental justice. amy: former presidential candidate and senator bernie sanders went on to reiterate his concerns about the trans pacific partnership or tpp. mr. sanders: i have worked with president obama for a number of years and he is a a friend of

mine, but on the issue of the tpp, the transpacific hardship, his support -- very strong support -- for that proposal is dead wrong. i intend -- [applause] i intntend to work with trade unions all over this country, environmental grgroups all over this country, religious groups all over this country to do everything that ii can as vermot senator to defeat the tpp if it comes up in congress in the lame-duck session. [applause] sanders: now, the tpp, as is always the case, supported by wall street. it is supported by corpoporate america, supported by all of the big money issues. but i believe if we stand together, we can in fact

defeated. amy: that was senator sanders speaking last night at the launch of our revolution. he was in burlington, vermont. reports of emerged of political tumult within bernie sanders' own team. over the weekend, eight key staffers abruptly resigned in a dispute over the group's leadership and legal structure. that was more than half of the staff. well, for more, we're joined now by two guests in washington, d.c. larry cohen is a leader of our best incoming board chair of our revolution. he was a senior advisor to bernie sanders and past president of communications workers of america. he was also the first super-delegate for bernie sanders. and we are joined by claire sandberg was the former digital organizing director for bernie sanders' campaign. on sunday, she resigned as the organizing director for our revolution. larry cohen and claire sandberg, welcome to democracy now! larry, the significance of this new group that has been launched with 2600 parties around the country launching it last night?

>> amazing. i was at one of the events in washington, d.c., in a small apartment totally packed with more than 80 people. incredibly enthusiastic. just as important we, as you said, across the country, 2600 events and another 200,000 people turned -- tuned in on their own to watch the live stream. the enthusiasm for this across the country is amazing. i was in iowa this weekend with a big statewide community organization. the enthusiasm there, across nebraska were the new incoming head of the democratic party was actually at the same event with me last night who came in to lead the party from the v victoy in the nebraska caucus. so i think it is literally from one end of the country to another, activists so enthused about t what we can do together. amy: claire sandberg, you are part of the bernie sanders

campaign. you were the organizing director for our revolution, but right before it launched last night, you and more than half the staff quit. why? >> yes. --l, last monday as we were as the staff at our revolution was -- i'm sorry, there is an echo. last sunday as the staff for our revolution was preparing for a very busy week during up for the launch event last night, we learned that jeff weaver would be stepping in -- to actively manage our revolution, which was a decision that was met with unanimous concern among the entire staff at our revolution. amy: jeff weaver was the campaign director of bernie sanders during his presidential campaign. >> yes.

jeff was the campaign manager at the organization. and all of us who worked on the campaign who moved over to our revolution did so based on the promise that jeff weaver would not be involved in our revolution or his role would be struggling constrained as it -- strictly constrained as a legal advisor or board member who would have somewhat of a token role. but it became clear -- or were two main concerns among the staff. one, we all saw how jeffrey in the campaign and there were a number of concerns about that. secondly, just's leadership -- jeff's leadership had already hamstrung our revolution before it even launched specifically just decision to constitute the organization as a 501(c) four, which prevented us from doing effective ballot organizing for candidates, also down ballot

fundraising. amy: why is that? >> jeff has gone on the record admitting he wanted to form the organization as a 501(c) four for the express purpose of accepting billionaire money, which of course flies in the face of what all of our supporters are so excited about, that we were taken a country back from the billionaire class without visa billionaire money, $27 at a time. larry cohen, yourr response? >> the board of our revolution will be key leaders from the various movements that make up progressive america, civil rights environment will justice, from people who are running for office, and there will be no contributions from billionaires and i guarantee that. i think it is unfortunate that the staff left. they're good people. jeff has worked with bernie for

30 years. he is very close to bernie. our revolution is not about jeff or me or claire, it is about the hundreds of thousands of people that are network across the country my job as board chair, the board will be all volunteers. support those networks and to continue the political revolution that we saw in this campaign and that has its ancestry from the many movements in this country. amy: claire sandberg, the e idea that it is larger than any one person and what you could not be a part of it moving into the future given that you so clearly endorse the tenants of the organization, you know, that is political philosophy? >> it was in a pushing decision for all of us. we thought about it for some time. the majority of the staff who resigned did not do so until

almost a week later on sunday when seven people resigned. thinking veryter hard about it, expressing our concerns repeatedly saying we did not think we could work for jeff. i was a the concerns were really twofold. under jeff'sf -- leadership, the organization would not be well run given how we saw that he ran a campaign. secondly, jeff wanted to take the organization down this path ,f accepting billionaire money specifically, chosen a legal structure for the organization that had already prevented us from doing effective organizing for candidates like tim canova who has talked about how we have left him hanging. which is true. as the group was formed as a (c) (4), we could not mobilize

thousands of supporters locally in miami or across the country to participate in his field operation because we cannot talk to him. the same thing -- amy: explain what you mean by this. >> a 501(c) four organization has a number of problems with it. one, federal officeholders cannot be involved in those organizations, so there is a real question about whether bernie could even be involved as a spokesperson, as someone who could send out e-mails. secondly, candidates cannot coordinate with 501(c) four organizations. we cannot have private not public conversations about, for example, how to mobilize volunteers or what voters we are talking to. we can't make sure we are not duplicate efforts, calling the same voters twice. amy: larry cohen, what about this? >> i'm not going to get into a legal wrangle with claire.

i think the key is, all of us on the board believe we will mobilize millions of people. we are not here to run campaigns. that would be a different kind of organization. we will mobilize millions of the tpp.ainst we will enable people to donate to campaigns. we will be involved in eight ellet measures on the website right now ourrevolution.com. it ranges from getting big money out of politics to single-payer health care in colorado. we will be supporting great candidates from one who is running for congress in seattle to people running for school board. this is not -- none of us on this board and the design of this is not to run campaigns. the design of this is really to continue the political revolution. amy: on wednesday evening, senator r sanders stressed the importanance of electing progressivive candidates at the local level. mr. sanders: as americans, our goal must be to elect progressives at every level.

and i want to menention just a w of the progressive candidatess who our revolution will be supporting. and there will eventually be over 100 of them in every region of our country, candidates from the school board to the united states senate. vernon miller, a native american, is running for the school board in nebraska. and let me tell you, we need hundreds of candidates all over this country to run for school board. [applause] mr. sanders: so i wish vernon the best of luck. jane kim is a member of the san francisco board of supervisors, and she is running for the state senate in california. either way, their state senate

districts are like the equivalent of the entire state of vermont. it is not a small thing. [laughter] mr. sanders: i campaigned with cam when i was in san francisco. she will be e a great addition o the california state senate when she is elected. amy: that was bernie sanders last night in burlington, vermont. the miami herald has a headline, "bernie a no-show for tim canova in the south florida battle against u.s. representative debbie wasserman schultz." larry cohen, do you know why? >> i would not call him a no-show. amy: he just did not mention him in this list of people he was talking about supporting, and he was so significant in going after wasserman schultz and supporting canova before the democratic convention. >> unless a mistake was made, i'm certain tim canova is on the list that was put on the website last night. huge amounts of money have been raised directly from donors, but

through the e-mails from the bernie sanders campaign and from our revolution. bernie has not campaigned since the convention in philadelphia for anyone. he is actually writing a book, so i don't think he is running away from tim canova at all. i think the question is, when does bernie go back on the campaign trail? that is not what our revolution will manage. what we will manage and support, are these networks of support people pushing to reform the democratic party, as i mentioned, at the state level like jing club, at the local level, independence like to have candidates running for the city council in california. in many cases, democrats and in many cases, not. that is the story here. , what will sandberg you go on to do given that you have donated your recent life to

bernie sanders and our revolution before you quit? >> myself and the others who resigned will fight to continue the political revolution however we can undo the hope we -- do the work we hope to do in this organization in some fashion. amy: thank you for being with us, claire sandberg, former organizing director for our revolution and larry cohen, incoming chair of our revolution. that does it for our broadcast. a very special related happy birthday to julie crosby. 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!]

e[>@o aa8?8?p?p?p?p?p?p?>

mike farrell as dr. keeling: co2 and the greenhouse effect. co2 is very powerful. it's a very big job to do. if it t weren't for carbonon die and the greenhouse effect, life on this planet would be almost impossible. earth would look like this. just a great big snowball. soso, who discscovered this thingng, this grereenhouse effect? here's this gentleman, johnhn joseph babaptiste fouour. fourier was napoleon's favorite scientist. napoleon took fourier on his ill-fated junket to egypt in 1798. egypt, as you know, is a very warm country, and the heat in egypt made a very strong impression on fourier. he loved it. became obsessed with heat. poor guy suffered from a lifelong case of rheumatism. anyway, he began investigating the origin and the nature of heat. what exactly

kept the sun's radiation from bouncing off the surface of the earth and escaping out into space? fourier realized something was holding all that heat in place. he decided it was the gases in the earth's atmosphere that somehow combined to form a blanket that acted like a greenhouse to hold in heat from the sun. if those gases didn''t exist, all thehe sun's heat would bounce off the earth and escape out into space and the earth would be almost ts cold as mars. only problem for fourier after that was when he back, france was always too cold. middle of july he'd walk around his house in paris, his body wrapped up in blankets, all the fireplaces blazing away. he believed that just as the gases in the atmosphere were beneficial to the earth by acting like blankets to hold in heat from m the sun,n, that keeg his body wrapped in blankets was beneficial to his own health. and arguably it was, until one time a b blanket k kid him when he tripped on it and

fell down the stairs. [laughter] fourier was a great scientist. we owe him a huge debt. but what exactly were the gases that enabled the grereenhouse effect? roughly 30 years later that question troubled an irish scientist named john tyndall. scientists at the time thought that all gases were transparent. but if that were true, how could any one of them block infrared or heat escaping from the earth? was there a gas that wasn't transparent? tyndall tried, couldn't find one. then he noticed that the gas that was pumped into the laboratory--in those days they called it coal gas because it was extracted from coal-- tyndall found that for heat rays, coal gas was opaque as a pint of wood. but he was looking for a gas that was naturally found in the atmosphere. coal gas wasn't. so he analyzed it and he found that coal gas contained carbon dioxixide, which was naturally found in the

atmosphere, and like coal gas, co2, carbon dioxoxide, was opaq. so, it was co2, carbon dioxide, that blocked infrared radiation, kept in heat, kept it from leaving the atmosphere. now, here is co2 and the greenhouse effect at work in a large city, probably london, around 1890. a forest of smokestacks had sprung up, some as tall as a 40-story office building. now, at that time, do you suppose anybody actually ststopped and took a l look arod at all that smoke and soot in the air and wondered, where's all that stuff going? is it all maybe just staying up there? and what if eventually it did, could enouough of it be enough o warm up the planet? svante arrhenius wondered. arrhenius was a swedish physicist, chemist actually. first person who really wondered about global warming in a serious scientific sort of way. around that time, someone said

they're evaporating entire coal mines into the atmosphere. we still are. arrhenius wondered how long co2 stayed in the atmosphere. hehe also wondered if in time the amount of co2 accumulated to thehe point where, sasay, it were doubled, could it be, seriously be enough to warm up the planet? intereresting question. was then. is now. he, uh, began on christmas eve, day and night sitting at his dedesk in the kitchen doing thousands and thousasands of calculations to determine what difference, if any, a doubling is co2 from pre-e-industrial levels would make. coming up with an answer took him almost a year. imagine, on a modern computer how long would that take? about 30 s seconds? poor arrhenius. [laughghter] arrhenius estimated that a doubling of the co2 would raise temperaturures worldwidede by 56 degreeees centigrade, or 9 to 11

degrees fahrenheit. as you know, one degree celsius equals 1.8 degrees fahrenheit. arrhenius' number was actually a bit high. modern computers say--estimate a rise of 4.5 to 7.2 degrees fahrenheit. but even 9 degrees fahrenheit didn't seem like a whole lot to arrhenius. especially in sweden, where on-- [laughter] on a winter night without sofia, it got pretty cold. [laughter] so arrhenius thought this temperature rise could be a good thing. when he finally re-entered society and presented his s findings, there was s some interest, but it didn't last. so he moved on to other things. eventually won a nobel prize. not for carbon dioxide, but for something else entirely. sofia never did retuturn. nor, sadly, did she ever get to be a scientist again. she lived as a single mom in poverty. raised her baby boy to be a scientist lilike she was, like s dad. and in time that scientist

fathered another, gustaf arrhenius. years later gustaf studied global warming. made some very key discoveries, and wound up working in california on the sameme faculty i was.s. see how i it all comes around? [laughter] interesting, isn't it? after arrhenius, no one else thought about a link between carbon d dioxide and global warming for a long time. 40 years later, in 1938, a british coal engineer, guy callendar, said the same thing, that sooner or later, this burning of fossil fuels could warm up the earth. but did anybody pay attention to callendar? no. everybody was paying much more attention t to this guy.. [hititler speakiking german]n] [german n crowds cheering] they thought he was much more of a threat t than carbonon dioxid. which at t the time hehe was. and where am i in all this? 1938? here i am.

innocent little david keeling, 10 years old, from the outskirts of chicago, taking a piano lesson. [classical piano playing] i loved bach, mozart. you know, for a while i actually made money, which my family badly needed, playing classical pieces on the piano for women's luncheons all over chicago. i sort of hated it. the thing was, i was too shy to just ask for m my money and lea. so i'd stay for the whole damn luncheon. [laughter] and it'd just be me and 200 ladies and watercress sandwiches and these long lectures on how to prepare eggnog for the holidays. [laughter] it might have killed any professional musicical career i might have had. [laughter] but i never stopped loving the music. and then i loved science, too. but you know what i loved more than anything e else? i loved mountains. everybody has a first memory.

maybe it explains the whole rest of their childhood, whole rest of their lives. when i was 4, my parents took me on a trip to the rocky momountains, colorado. oh, man. there i am, sitting appropriately on a rock. i think it was the first time in my life that i really felt totally good. whole. at one with the universe, you know? the air was so pure, so sharp. it was so beautiful, remote. i loved the silence, too. can a child so young sense that something is holy? [classical piano playing] after we came home, i started keeping an album in which i pasted nothing but pictures of mountains. [chuckles] i did that for years. many years. one night my father took me out on the front lawn and showed me this. the night sky was so much more

alive then. he taught me to recognize the constellations. you could still see them then. stars were so bright, so numerous, they seemed almost as close to a part of the scene as the grass and the trees. later, inside a darkened room in our house, he showed me how the phases of the moon come about. he carried the earth, represented by a globe circling around the sun, a big electric light in the middle of the room. there was also a smaller globe which represented the moon. began a lifelong curiosity and passion about the universe that i have never lost. [chuckles] well, one e day around the fourh grade, we got a new teacher. this teacher began telling us that the phases of the moon of the moon were caused by eclipses. [laughter] by the moon passing between the earth and the sun. huh? i was horrified. and i raised my

hand--she ignored me. finalllly- she kept going; i cocouldn't std it. i stood up, i said, miss spencer, that's wrong. that's not true. you're talking about an eclipsese. that's wrong. she gave me a look, told me to sit down and shut up. [laughter] i always had a problem after that with ignorant people in positions of authority.. [laughter] you know, like congress, for examample. [laughter and applause] later on, at the university of illinois, i began a mamajor inin chchemistry. only y problem wasi didn't know what i really wanted. probably would have preferred physics, but the war was on, they offered only one course in physics. so o i sort f drifted into chemistry. i wondered if maybe i didn't even like chemistry. didn't like laboratories. hated being cooped up in them. i i was always tryig to get away, be in the mountains. had visions of going to graduate school out west.

figured, you know, maybe i could. then out of nowhere, a neighbor of ours who was a chemistry professor at northwestern offered me a graduate fellowship. i accepted without even applying to any other schools. bubut was it w what i really wa? every chance i got i'd dug out and head west. my professosor began to wonder if maybe he'd made a great big mistake. then one day i picked up a book. "glacial geology and the pleistocene epoch." now, i didn't even understand the title. but i found it fascinating, really. it was about mountain glaciersrs during the last ice age. and i imagined myself climbing mountains while i measured the physical properties ofof the glaciers. it's a very carar vision, y you know? i saw myself doing science in nature.88888888ob

i spotted my professor... [classical piano playing] dr. brown, casually talking to some other faculty members. so i wandered over. he was saying, "you know, i'd

say the amount of carbon dioxididis a freshshwater stream would be about the same asas the amount of co2 in the air around the stream." i took a deep breath and i said, uh, well, you know, dr. brown, that's a very interesting notion, but why do you suppose that would be the case? he gave me a look. i said, i mean, isn't it possible there there'd be something, say, maybe in the water that would make a difference? i was afraid he was gonna say, "keeling, what are you doing up here? why aren't you downstairs crushing rocks?? [laughter] but he didn't. he sort of smiled and said, "hmm. well, you know, if you feel so strongly about this, why don't you just go out there in the field and prove i , you know?" i said, well, thank you, sir. [laughter] i will. you see, i knew that was an experiment you couldn't possibly perform downstairs in the dungeon. but actually, i didn't know anything about memeasuring carbon dioxide.

and it seemed like nobody else did either. i sat down and read all the literature i could find, and most of the work on c02 was being done in scandinavia. now, you know, you think of the scandinavians as being very tidy, very efficient, nicely organized people. but his whole operation just didn't add up. they used chemicals to make their measurements. and the measurements they got were t taken by different technicians in a lot of different locations all over scanandinavia, and they fluctuated wildly. they ran the gamut from 150 ppm to 400 ppm. ppm--that's parts per million. in other words, their highest measurements were 3 times as high as their lowest. now, i thought about it. it seemed to me that measuring had to be done carefully, strictly. it would be a two-part process. first you had to cacapture a specimen of air, always in the same place. that was the easy part.

i designed a large glass flask, and a local firm in pasadena made a bunch of them for me. there was a pressurized seal on top to create a vacuum. you'd have to remember to hold your breath so none of your own co2 would get mixed inside the flask. you'd take off the seal, let the air flow into the flask, then pop the seal back on. then you had a specimen of air inside the flask. but how do you measure it? well, that was the hard part. i needed a device that could measure carbon dioxide in smalll quantities, and d there was nothing. no such instrument was available anywhere. i finally found an old article from 1916 that described a-- a manometer. a device called a manometer. it was originally designed to calculate air speed, but it seemed with some adjustments it could do the job and offered the best possibility of being accurate. so, i modernized the design and engaged the same firm that

the flasks to construct the instrument from my drawings. and of course all this took time. about a year, actually, but nobody was bothering me. [laughter] dr. brown had gone off to jamaica to write his next book. when i finally finished the manometer, had it tested out, so i decided i'd take air regularly,y, every 4 hoursrs for a number of days, and always from the same place. the roof of mudd hall. the geology building at caltech was not an ideal place, and i knew it. we were in the middle of a city. air would not be as pure as in nature, and the co2 content wowould vary, as there s at times heavy traffic nearby, some industry. but i had to stay around. louise was very pregnant at this point, and, uh, she could go into labor at any time. so, i set up a camp downstairs at mudd hall, took naps on a cot. didn't get a lot of sleep. when i wasn't home, i made sure

to have a phone nearby. one night, i'm actually home, and--bang, louise goes into labor. n now, it's a littttle bt bebefore 9:00.0. i'd taken the t reading atat 8:00, thehe next os due at 12:00, so shehe has 3 hours. [laughter] yeyeah. we get into the cacar, we drivio the hospspital, louiuise goes io the delivery room, and i proceed to pace in the waiting room. that's the way we didid it then. it got to be 10:00.. i i keep lookiking at the e dooo the delivevery room. c come on, lolouise... [laughteter] 11:15. next readiding is at 1 12:00. what do i do? 11:30. 11:35. that's it. i gotta go. [laughter] i run downstairs, jump into my car--fortunately there's not a lot of traffic. i make it back to the geology building. midnight i'm back on the roof. take the air sample, back downstairs, back to the hospital. louise is still... 2 a.m. 3:00.

3:30. i run back downstairs, back to the campus. 4 a.m., back to the hospital. 8 a.m., back on the roof. make it to the hospital 8:25. tell me the baby was born at 8:17 a.m. march 26, 1955. it's a boy. we decided to name him andrew. a little later, i went back to caltech, back to the cot in the basasement. at noon i have to take another reading and then go backck to te hospital. and i do. and louise is fine. so is the baby. so is the manometer. [lauaughter] near as i can tell, it's totally accurate. so, it's finally time to answer my question to dr. brown. but there was this huge drought going on in southern california. no freshwater streams. so, 7 weeks later, louise and i and little drew get into a borrowed

pickup truck and off we go to big sur, california. first night we pitched a tent in the middle of the redwood forest next to the big sur river. [sound of rushing river] a little chilly. just before 10:00 i go out of the tent and louise is inside nursing. and i'm holding the flask and i looked around. oh, man. the sky y overflowed with stars. they shone down through the tops of the redwoods. oh, my lord, it was fabulous. 10:00 i go and stand on a little wooden footbridge over the big sur river, hold my breath, pull off the stopper, let the cool night air rush in, put the stopper back on. then i go down and do the same thing with another flask in the river water. we had a great time. in two days i filled up 9 flasks.. [laughter] drove back to pasadena and i analyzed the results. one thing really hitit me. afternoon numbers were perfectly uniform. 310 ppm.

all the readings of the water in the river were just slightly higher. there was slightly more co2 in the water. because there were leaves, decaying vegetation held there by the rocks. so, congratulations. dr. brown, i was right. write up my findings. i--heh-- didn't think of calling the newspapers--stop the presses. i think about it now, the whole thing took me almost two years. why did it take so long? well, i was having fun. but the real reason, the whole process just fascinated me. and the really real reason, i had to get it right. and so far i had. what i had done was work out the basic foundations of the science. now, the i.g.y., thousands of scientists from all over the globe, europeans, americans, working together with russians for the first time since the

cold war began, were going to give planet earth its very first physical exam. in the 1950s, human beings knew very little about the planet on which we live. one area we really knew nothing about was climate. tell you something about the i.g.y. it spoiled everybody. it seemed there wawas an endless barrel of money for almost almomost any experiment you wand do. why? the cold war. scientific advancements like radar and the atomic bomb helped us to win the last war, and climate was a big deal if you wanted to do bombing missions or send out ships, launch invasions like d-day. it helped to know the tides, the weather. so the mililitary was willing to spend whatever it took. for example, to learn if navy submarines could fire nuclear missiles from beneath the ice at the north pole. fortunately, i didn't have to work on any of the strictly military research. and thank god we never had to use any of the nuclear related developments.

we didn't know it then, but we'd never have that same level of support and freedom again. we got to measure co2 at the south pole, on mauna loa, all over the earth. and indeed, the level everywhere in the atmosphere was the same. we'd watch the numbmber in 5 yes climb from 310 to 315, and we made some extraordinary developments, discoveries. been known since the 19th century that plants breathe almost like humans do, but it was thrilling to see that measured on a global atmospheric scale. see, the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere is a little higher at night when plants shut down. it reaches a high point every morning just before dawn and begins to drop at sunrise, and reaches its low point in the mid-afternoon. same story with the seasons. spring, summer, when trees are full, they store up co2, so there's less of it in the air. and then in the fall and the wiwinter, when they y lose their

leaves, the co2 goes back intoto the atmosphere, then there's more of it. these little jagged spikes, the very slight variation you see, in winter, and this is summer. isn't that interesting? isn't it nice? co2 went up every year. 1959 co2 was 316. by 1963, it had risen to almost 319. that year, i felt very lucky. i was 35 years old, louise and i i had 3 children n, drew, ralph, and emily. i was living out my dream. running my o own program, doing science in nature. life was good. in those days, southern california seemed a beautiful, inexhaustible place. there's a lovely little bluff near our house in del mar, where we'd stand at night and look out at the ocean. [sound of waves crashing] no one would disturb us. our neighbors were mostly farmers, coyotes, deer, maybe a few skunks.

more about them later. we'd stand up there with the kids and we'd look at the same great night sky i used to look at with my father. and i'd point out the same constellations. in 1957, if you look carefully, you can spot sputnik on the horizon. russians launched sputnik, the first artificial satellite, as part of the i.g.y. it was a big achievement for them and a big e embarrassment r us. suddenly the russians were leading in space technology. may 1961, president kennedy went to congress to ask them for special funding to put a man on the moon. and so the space race was on. and it was expensive. money for focusing on other planets had to come from somewhere, so of course it came from programs focused on this planet. programs like ours. which was one of many that were scheduled for cancellation. what do you do? i went to washington, i had meetings. they'd say, well, you've already done carbon dioxide, keeling.

why don't you do something else? i'd say, no, i'm not finished. you know, i smiled a lot. i've never been a shmoozer, but i said, hey, hi, hey! how ya doin'? hey. in the end they permitted the program to survive, sort of. we lost the south pole. had an analyzer on a ship and another one on a plane. we had to shut them down, too. couldn't afford to keep our technical director at mauna loa, so if we had any technical problems, we'd have to shut that down, too. and of c course we...had 'em. sure enough, there w were problems. . so, there was nothig to do but pull the p plug, turn out the lights, just shut the whole damnmn thing down. in february, march, april of 1964, there were no precise measurements of f atmospheriric2 being made anywhere on e earth. then that spring, the nsf, the national science foundation, gave us enenough new funding to

pay for one additional technician, so at least we limped on, but we were going. 1968, louise and i had 5 5 kids. 4 boys and a girl. we'd go on camping trips, the whole family, to the northern cascades, out to glacier, sit around the campfire and look up at the mountains in the moonlight. the kids, usually ralph, would say, hey, dad, this co2 going up, is that bad? i told him it was too early to tell, but i really wondered. co2 by the late sixties was at 325. did slow down a bit briefly in the early seventies. in 1973, '74, the arab oil boycott-- remember that? president nixon was telling everybody they had to drive 55 miles an hour and keep their thermomostats at 6 68. imagine that? most of us did.

we had a pretty good team at the office by then. i have to admit i had a reputation for being a hard man to work for. i hahad to bebe. they werere always t tryio shut us down. i just couldn't tolerate mistakes. i checked everybody's work. i couldn't help it. i--i really didn't trust computers. especially the small ones. [laughter] i never have. i mean, you never know. just to be sure, i'd have my staff do all the data processing by hand, with paper, pencil, and slide rule. we did it that way for years. i know. but there's alwaysys tht one chance. as it is, no one ever challenged our data. it's completely unassailable. but, you see, monitoring is science's cinderella. unloved and poorly paid. out there in the world of funding, there was no respect for what they call time studies. it's a catch 22. how do you

establish that a time study is worthwhile? it takes time. [laughter] time is very central to the problem with co2 stays in the atmosphere a very long time. now scientists generally believe at least half the co2 remains for hundreds of years, perhaps asas long as 50000, or morore. 100 yeyears ago, 1 1914, co2 u p therere right nonow from steel anandrew carnenegie milleded, fm momodel ts henenry ford bubuilt, the year worldld war i broke ou. there's co2 from all those explosions that killed all those men. 500 years. anybody have any idea what was happening in 1414? i think joan of arc was born around then. any case, very little co2 was getting produced. i know they didn't burn joan till much later. [laughter] you see, if co2 has a lifespan of between 100 and 500 years, and co2 being produced right

now when you turn on your air conditioioner could still be up there in 2514. and the fact is, the main thing about co2 is that it accccumulates. it buildlds u. and once it builds up p enoughit sets off a tipping point. remember? like froggy in the water. and then the feedbacks start kicking in. it's comparable to a person who eats a lot of fatty processed foods. for a long time, it's not a problem. but the cholesterol, the plaque, the fatty deposits are slowly building up and junking up the system. and once it hits a tipping point, things start going wrong. that's what we mean by feedbacks. one organ begins to malfunction, and then another. the heart is weaker. as a result, it puts more pressure on the lungs. more tipping points are passed. and all the while, the person goes on eating all that stuff, junk keeps building up until, well, you name it. you know, the expression, the devil's in the details? when it comes to

co2, the devil is really in the feedbacks. here's a simple breakdown of how climate change feedbacks work. as carbon dioxide accumulalates in the atmosphere, it raises temperatures. some of the extra heat evaporates water from the ocean and soil into the atmosphere. all right, so you've got more heat and because you've got more heat, you've got warmer oceans, expanding oceans. the heat pulls water vapor out of the ocean, and so you've got more water vapor in the atmosphere. warming oceans give us melting ice, leaving sea water, which is darker than ice. while ice and snow reflect sunlight, sea water absorbs it. and so you've got warmer seas absorbing momore sunlight anand getting warmer and warmer. then you have warmer landmasses, methane release, more co2, drying forests, beetle infestations, dying forests, dead forests, forest fires, more co2. and you're passing tipping points one after another. you pass too many, one feeds another, whole systems start breaking down. and it goes faster and faster. and suddenly

negative events, multiple emergencieies are happppening at once all over ththe planet. yo'e trying to dedeal with ththem ald you can't. now, of course, we didn't know that--all this back in 1979. i don't think anyone did. we just knew that something was wrong.

when you analyze the co2, you know what we found? an almost perfect correlation between co2 and temperature. here's a record of co2 a and temperarature overr the e past 400,0,000 years. . 't the top, t temperature's at the bottom. as co2 levels went up, tetemperatures went up and o did sea levels. as co2 levels declined, temperatures went down, as did the sea levels. we discovered that co2 acts like a thermoststat. it conontrols clclimate on t the planet. bottm line is, our climate is like a yoyo bouncing back and forth between ice ages and warming periods. we human beings have occupied this planet for over 100,000 years, or 6,000 if you're a creationist. [laughteter] and it's only in the last 150 years, especially in

the last 40, we've been able to understandnd anything ababout or climate and how it basically workrks. there h have been many ice ages, but it was 1860 before we knew there had even ever been one ice age. one. and we had n o idea what caused it. for a very long time, we've labored under a huge misconception that this is the perfect t planet. perfect plananet. the goldilocks p plan. not too hot, not too c cold, jut right. that somehow, there's a normal, well regulated state of being, alalmost like e a we engineneered clockck. and isn''t nice? i mean, this is it, here we are. and if it's ever gonna change, it'll change only very gradually over thousands of years. it's ununderstandable tht we would think so. we've never known anything else. but the truth about climate on this planet is that it's very delicate, precarious. how delicate? as i said before, about as delicate as the health of the human body. bad thingss

happen when your own l little ecosystem goes awry. what's the average healthy human temperature, 98.6? youou've got a temperature two degrees higher, say 101, you're sick. 3 degrees higher, you're very sick. another 3 degrees, you're dead. little 8 degrees, 8 1/2 degrees. many, many times the climate has swung from this to ts and back again. now, this is going way back, 65, 70 million years, the age of the dinosaurs. you see, this was the north pole, also the south pole. dinosaurs, giant crocodiles romped and partied and swam around what is now the north pole. itit was downrit tropical. the arctic sea was their playground, so was the antarctic. how do we know? we found the bones. the last ice age peaked about 18,000 years ago. a third of the earth was

covered with ice a mile thick. here in north america, it covered nearly all of canada, what's now new york, chicago, minneapolis. same story with northern europe, siberia. where was all the water? it was all locked up in ice. and then 11, 12,000 years ago, the climate warmed up again, the ice melted, sea levels wenenup 400 feeeet. 1980. co2 was 341. we get back to the u.s. just in time for the election of ronald reagan. now, i'm a registered republican, always have been. but one of the first things reagan did was take jimmy carter's solar panels off the white house roof. i'd been lucky to get some funding, but then just like the democrats, the republicans took it away. not all of it, just enough to slow us down. so we kept limping along. in a lot of ways, 1980s were a difficult

time. few remember it now, but heat waves killed more than 20,000 americans, most of them elderly, most of them urban poor. hyperthermia. it was the warmest decade ever recorded up till then. the eighties were probably a tipping point, the first one, anyway. in june 1988, in the middle of a huge heat wave, co2 was at 351. jim hansen, the foremost climate scientist on the planet, got invited down to washington. he showed a senate committee the evidence, rising co2 levels, rising temperatures, and said it was finally time to start cutting back on co2 emissions. hansen said, and i quote, "global warming has begun." senators seemed to be genuinely attentive, respectful. they thanked him for coming, said they were very impressed. we thought they were. it was the lead story the next day in "the new york times." it was also one of the lead items on the cbs evening news. we all

thought, great! wow. this is it. everybody is finally gonna get the message, the government's gonna take action, we're gonna get this thing under control. so we thought maybebe we could begn to relax a little. louise and i decided to spend that summer in montana. one day i was out collecting air samples and a neighbor came up to me and she said, "hey, what you doing?" i told him i was carrying out a study having to do with global warming. he said, "oh, yeah, i read something about that recently." i said, "really? what was that?" he said, "oh, i heard it was a myth, something. like a hoax." huh? next day i got ahold of a copy of the local weekly, it was the earth day issue. sure enough, the lead story was entitled "the myth of globobal warming." it quoteded,t were they called, a scientific study that was provided by a national center in washington. included a lot of quotes from

scientists and noted authorities i'd never heard of. you've all seen d dens of thehese storiesyy now, the hoax of global warming, the scam of climate change. they feature quotes from various climate experts, some of whom are meteorologists. climatologists deal with millions of years. something else you hear is, isn't it just natural cycles? in short, no, it's not. the earth's orbit around the sun is not perfectly circular, it can be irregular. and when it is, parts of the earth receive more or less sunlight. when an irregular orbit causes it to receive more sunlight, the earth very gradually grows warmer. but the warming we''re expereriencig now isis happening much more rapidly. when the orbit changes again, the earth starts cooling and eventually we have another icice age. it's worked that way for millions of years. a an ice age followed by a warming period followed by another ice age. but nanatural cycles is s a perfecty valid theory. but it's just not

what's happening now. in fact, today's orbit is such that we're receiving less sunlight, not more. so if you eliminate the human factor, fossil fuels, you can't find anything that's causing what's happening today. natural cycles have nothing to do with it. special interests promote natural cycles as the cause because they don't want us to know we have a problem and that they're the reason we have it. remember the cigarette companies, philip morris and friends, what they did in the 1950s? the tobacco industry created a phony research institute that issued official-appearing reports about how there was no real evidence linking cigarette smoking with cancer, heart disease, emphysema. 9 out of 10 doctors smoke camels. remember that?t? [laughter] 8 of them are dead. [laughter] these are from tobacco industry documents. and this is a real

quote. "doubt is our product." doubt. the industry's strategy does not require winning the debates it manufacturers. it's enough to foster and perpetuate the illusion of controversy. like greed, doubt's very powerful stuff. if you're looking for a reason not to believe something, try doubt. and who vigorously carries on that same mission today of showing doubt, lying to the american public? i mentioned skunks earlier. [laughter] one well-funded source of misinformation is the heartland institute. one of the main reasons i'm here is because of heartland. for years, they've made money by promoting smoking among young people. in the 1980s rj reynolds created the joe camel campaign to present smoking in a much more fun, cool light. heartland was quick to sign on and join in, promoting the youthful joe camel message. back in the nineties, heartland worked with philip morris on a campaign to question the science e linking second-had

smoke to health risks. and now these same people have wormed their way y into our schools, offering books and educational materials to deprived districtss that in many cases have none. with a budget of about $20 million, heartland is now promoting its educational programs about climate change to children around the country. here's their promotion. they've got two main points. one, it's not manmade, it's natural variation. small human impact, flawed computer models, no consensus. two, warming's not harmful, future warming will be modest, and finally, warmer is better. the fossil fuels industry is the most profitable commercial enterprise on the face o of the earth, andnd y want to kekeep it that way. th's why the koch brothers, who have billions tied up in oil, have gotten many members of congress to sign a pledge to vote against any bill promoting any meaningful action on climate

change. 1988, in the interest of certainty, the united nations created the ipcc, the intergovernmental panel on climate change. the ipcc shared the 2007 nobel prize for its work on calling attention to the growing dangers of climate change. it's a peer-reviewed panel of hundreds of highly qualified climatologists from different countries who issue thoroughly researched, relatively conservative reports on the state of the climate. first one was in 1995. very latest one was not quite a month ago. you may have read about it. 97% of the climate scientists who have published climate papers said global warming caused by fossil fuel emissions is unequivivocal. the currrrent score is 97 to 3. imagine your child wasn't feeling well, constant pain, losing weight, couldn't sleep, took her or him to see 100 doctors, 97 of them

said he was deeply ill, required immediate medical care to o save her life, 3 doctors said it's no big deal, kid will be fine. who would you believe? what would you do?

badly out of balance, causing lots of extreme weather with hots getting hotter, colds colder, storms intensifying, wets getting wetter. too much water in some areas, not nearly enough in others. when the history of this time is written, it will show two consecutive winters in 2010 to 2011, 2011 to 2012, when there was no winter at all. december, january of those years, new yorkers relaxed in short sleeves in central

park. there was no winter frost to kill the eggs and mosquitoes or the pine beetles that devastated pine forests from british columbia to new jersey. that was followed by two winters, 2012 and 2013 and 2013, 2014 of massive snowstorms. now, some ask, not unreasonably, if the world is supposed to be getting warmer, why all the snow? well, as the planet warms up, the heat sucks moisture out of one part of the earth, up into the atmosphere as water vapor, and it comes down over another part as rain or snow. hotter air holds more moisture. and when temperatures go down, and they still do in certain places, you've heard of the arctic vortex, the result can be massive amounts of snow. or in a warmer season, as temperatures advance, massive amounts s of rain. here in the west, one thing is for certain, the future holds drought. 2013 was the driest year since records have been kept in california, and all across the planet. snow in

the mountains is one of those nice gifts of nature. it's beautiful. it's also quite useful. snow-covered mountaintops are like giant benevolent water towers. snow pack provides water for more than a billion human beings. in the spring it flows down the mountains, feeding great rivers like the yangtze in china, ganges in india, or the colorado in the western u.s. but in the andes and the alps and the rockies, the mountain snow pack is disappearing. here in southern california, by the 2020s, the loss of snow pack could threaten almost half of our water supply. another aspect of the drying problem is wild fires. fire seasons are now almost 3 months longer than they were in the 1970s. and more important than anything else, the drying climate is going to affect our ability to grow food. the midwestern american farm belt has been under stress these past 4 summers. here's a preview of the world of our children and grandchildren. these are

projections from ncar, a federally funded atmospheric research group. in 2030, southern california will be a severe, but not quite extreme drought. by 2060 to 2069, it and much of the west will be in extreme drought. same story with mexico, central america. there will be a solid band of drought running through much of the u.s., southern europe, also north african and the middle east. if millions of people, maybe hundreds of millions, can't grow food and feed their families, they will migrate. they have no choice. what do they do if they can't? desperate people take desperate measures. military is staying up late these nights preparing for dealing with millions of climate refugees. also for dealing with failing states and the insurgencies and civil wars that follow. the civil war that's raging now in syria was caused initially by a drought that last from 2006 to 2010. small farmers could no longer grow crops to feed their families, so they moved to the cities and could find no jobs. syrian government failed

to help. the result was an uprising that's become a long drawn out civil war. the other problem is too much water. larger, more intense downpours are becoming more common. in 2012, flash floods left a quarter million homeless in bangladesh. major storms ravished china and the philippines where 80% of manila was under water. in 2013, floods overwhelmed parts of england, germany, central europe, northern india, alberta, canada, vietnam. what contributed to the storm surge in hurricane sandy was the fact that the sea level off new york has increased by nearly a foot over the last 100 years. in 2007, the ipcc projected a possible global sea level rise of two feet. today, some ipcc scientists are predicting between 5 and 6 feet. what would a 5 1/2 foot sea level rise look like on new york?

there's a projection. this was the real thing. major american cities like miami and new orleans cannot survive a sea level rise of 5 1/2 feet. what's happening right now is thatt the arctic is warming up twice as fast as the planet as a whole. in 30 years since 1980, we've melted 80% of arctic ice, ice that was in place for about 125,000 years. the greenland ice sheet covers 80% of greenland, and it's melting. unlike the arctic ice, greenland's ice is land-based. when it melts, sea levels will rise. richard alley, who was regarded as the world's leading authority on ice, told a house panel that if global temperatures rise by even 3.6 degrees fahrenheit, the entitire greenland ice sheet is doomed. if the greenland ice sheet melts, the world seas will

rise by 23 feet. now, this isn't gonna happen next week, maybe not for centuries, but alley says that with the rise of 3.5 degrees, it's guaranteed to happen. and here is the real wildcard is permafrost. permafrost is relatively permanently frozen land, all of it left over from the last ice age. one quarter of the northern hemisphere is home to a tremendous amount of permafrost, and it's melting. there's alaska, what they call drunken trees and drunken houses. same thing in siberia, northern scandinavia. underneath the arctic's permafrost is methane. over a period of 100 years, methane is 20 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. some of the permafrost is a mile thick and it holds twice much carbon as the atmosphere does right now. it isn't all gonna melt at once. but one projection is we'll see a melting of about 10 feet of worldwide permrmafrost in this

century. and there's also a tremendous amount of methane buried under the ocean floor. there's methane deposits there that have been held in place by permafrost lids. as the ocean warms up, these lids are beginning to leak. we're seeing methane chimneys now bubbling up off the coast of arctic siberia. what can we do? the chair of that last ipcc assessment is rajendra pachauri. he recommends immediate and very deep cuts in pollution levels if, and these are his words, if humanity is to survive. pachauri said, "climate change is for real. we have just a small window of opportunity and it's closing rather rapidly. there's not a moment to lose." that's what he said in 2007. now, please, don't make the mistake of p presuming thiss all 50 or 100 years away. spencer weart, the leading climate historian on the planet, said recently, "by the late

2020s, it will become painfully obvious to even the most diehard climate deniers that something is terribly wrong. we just have to hope it isn't too late." i went on measuring co2 until the day i died. fought off every government effort to take over my program. i spent the--that last day, june 20, 2005, hiking in the bitterroot mountains with my son eric. the co2 count that morning was 382.4. what do you think it is right now? anybody know? you may recall it reached 400 for the first time this past may. last month in march it reached 401.6. greenhouse gas concentrations are now at levels not seen in human history and not perhaps--in perhaps 3 to 5 million years. 3 million years ago, sea levels were 80 feet higher than today. the question

is, is there any way to avoid the worst? in the 25 years since jim hansen went to congress, the u.s. government has never enacted a coherent program to effectively deal with global warming. it's possible to safely, gradually remove co2 from the atmosphere. it would take many years, probably cost trillions of dollars per year, but progress on this and other solutions is slow because the basic funding isn't there to support the research. so i'll leave you with this. for 130,000 years, human beings anatomically identical to us with brains and native intelligence on a level with ours lived on this planet. one generation followed another and nothing ever changed. and then the climate changed. it warmed up. sea levels rose. people came out of their caves, enjoyed the stable, relatively benign climate we've taken for granted for the past 10,000 years. within 5,000 years, we had writing, first cities sprang

up, all the advances that characterize modern civilization came about--learning, science, the arts, medicine. the new climate was stable. it's been remarkably, uniquely stable for the past 8,000 years. it's the only climate we've known on the only planet we have. and we've had a civilized world because we've had a civilized, stable climate. and now we're in danger of losing it. it's said that humankind is on a journey from the caves to the stars. if so, it's been a journey fraught with challenges. and at each of them, we have overcome those who would lead us back to the caves, who would stop us-- the fear mongers, the haters, the doubters, the liars. today it's the propheteers who would fill you with doubt and lull you to sleep, ask you to deny your very senses. we have the ability to face what confronts us, what is needed is the will. if you

love your children, if you want to salvage a world for the children of your children, i urge you to find the courage to join with others of like mind, sound the alarm, and demand that those in power act in the best interest of future generations of this planet. time is short. [applause] p8p8p8p8p8s8s8s8wxw8w>