♪ amy: from pacifica, this is dedemocracy now! >> our students are the ones who suffer the most when educators cannot afford to stay in the classroom. amy: teaches in denver have launched their first strike in 25 years after negotiations for higher pay broke down. we will get the latest, then go to the campus of wright state university in ohio, where faculty members have just concluded one of the longest

public university strikes in u.s. history. then, "the end of ice." >> there is no way of stopping climate change. it is already upon us. we have heat in the oceans and atmosphere that if we stopped all fossil fuel emissions on a dime globally, we are still increase. a three sea on:y: journalist dahr jamail the path of climate disruption. all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. congressional negotiators haveve reached a tentative agreement to prevent another government shutdown that could begin as soon midnight friday. $1.4eal includes nearly billion to build 55 miles of new barriers at the border.

as part of the deal, democrats dropped a demand to cap the number of immigrant prisoners already living in the u.s. detained by i.c.e at 16,500 per day. the deal still needs the backing of the house and the president. the newsws came as trump and former democratic candidate for senate beto o'rourke held dueling rallies in the border town of el paso, texas. trump promised his supporters he would build a wall while mocking the size of o'rourke's rally. at the event, a trump supporter wearing a "make america great again" hat attacked a bbc cameraman. bbc reporter eleanor montague tweeted, "the crowd had been whipped up into a frenzy against the media by trump and other speakers all night." meanwhwhe, beto o'o'rourke, who many believe will launch a 2020 presidential bid, blasted the border wall, saying barriers lead to more suffering and death.

>> in the last 10 0 years, more than 4000 children, women, andnd men have died trying to come to this country to work jobs that no one will take, to be with a family member, to flee horrific deathly and violence and in their countries. minnesota congressmember ilhan omar issued an apology monday after her tweet calling out israeli lobby group aipac's relationship with lawmakers went viral and drew swift rebuke in washington, including from house speaker nancy pelosi. on sunday, congress member omar retweeted a post by journalist glenn greenwald that read, in part, "it's stunning how much time u.s. political leaders spend defending a foreign nation even if it means attacking free speech rights of americans," adding the line, "it's all about the benjamins, baby."

an editor from the "forward" newspaper then tweeted, quote, "would love to know who ilhan thinks is paying american politicians to be pro-israel. bad form, congresswoman. that's the second anti-semitic trope you've tweeted." to which omar then tweeted in response "aipac!" omar's apology monday read, "anti-semitism is real, and i am grateful for jewish allies and colleagues who are educating me on the painful history of anti-semitic tropes." omar went on to offer an unequivocal apology and added, quote, "at the same time, i reaffirm the problematic role of lobbyists in our politics, whether it be aipac, the n.r.a., or the fossil fuel industry." in science news, a shocking new report warns the shocking decline of the world insect populations could lead to the catastrophic collapse of the world's ecosystem.

an estimated 40% of insect species are in decline and could go extinct in the next few decades. insects are vital for their role purifyingting plants, soil and water, recycling natural waste, and protecting crops from pests. the report says that unsustainable, pesticide-dependent industrial agriculture is the main cause of the die-off. but the report also citess warming temperatures as a factor. in yemen, the u.n. is warning that grain supplies that could feed up to 3.5 million people risk ofmonth are at rotting due to the ongoing w. the e flour mills, located in te port city of hodeidah, store grain from the world food program and have been inaccessible since september. yemen is the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, with 10 million people on n the brink of famine.. the itain based humuman rights organizazaon saidd thatt a

u.s.-led coaoalition airststrike -- the britain-based syria observatory fohuhuman ghts rereporta u.s.-l coaliti airstre killedt least civians in wt is belved to be the lt strongld of the islamic statin theheast of t untry. the aiattack ao killedn esmated 19ighters om both syrianovernmenforces a isis. in mexico veteran radio host , jesus eugenio ramos rodriguez was shot and killed saturday, making him the second mexican journalist to be murdered this year. authorities in the state of tabasco are investigating the murder, and the government has repeated its commitment to strengthen protections for journalists. this is alfredo naranjo, a colleague of the murdered reporter, speaking at his funeral. is not a bullet at ramos but at freedom. in more news from mexico, prominent indigenous lgbt activist oscar cazorla was found dead over the weekend in what appears to be a violent attack in the southern state of oaxaca. cazorla was an advocate for muxe culture, a non-binary gender identity stemming from indigenous zapotec culture.

in camameroon, at leasast 4 peoe died when a hohospital wasas sen fire in the sosouthwesternrn tof kumba.a. no o one has claimed responsibilityty for the attack, bubut the cameron government has dashshcam a room -- cameroon government has blamed previous similar attacks on english-speaking separatists. the deadly attack came as a reported 70 people were killed in fighting over the past week in the southwest of the country. back in the united states, in san francisco, honduran and nepali immigrants are suing the trump administration over its efforts to end the immigration program known as tps, or temporary protected status. lawyers representing around 100,000 people from both communities argue that the move is motivated by racism. in a similar lawsuit affecting tps holders from sudan, el salvador, haiti, and nicaragua, a federal judge blocked the trump administration's plan in october, citing discriminatory motivation. the "wall street journal" is reporting american media, inc., which owns the "national enquirer," asked the justice department last year whether it

should register as a foreign agent because it published a magazine that promoted saudi interests and crown prince mohamed bin salman. the revelation came as a recent blog post by amazon ceo jeff bezos placed renewed scrutiny on the media company's relationship with saudi arabia. in his post, bezos accused the "national enquirer" of extortion and blackmail over leaked messages from his then-extramarital relationship. bezos suggested that critical coverage of saudi arabia by the "washington post," which he owns, following the murder of columnist jamal khashoggi, quote, "seem t to hit a particularly sensitive nerve." faculty members at wright state university in ohio ended a 20-day strike sunday evening, the longest such labor action in the state's history and the second-longest at a public college anywhere in the united states. the strike started following the imposition of a contract by the school that educators say worsened working conditions and decreased benefits. this is crystal b. lake, a faculty member from wright state, speaking to democracy

now! >> 15,000 students here are from low incncome families, they are firstt generatation college students, they are veterans, differently abled, they are nontraditional students. most of us are here in the first place because we are deeply committed to thehe mission concerning a wide range of studentsts can benefit from a high-quality degree. we'll have more on this story after headlines with rudy fichtenbaum, president of the american association of university professors. journalists at connecticut's hartford current, the oldest continually publishing newspaper, have announced plans to unionize. staffers say the paper, which is owned by tribune publishing, has suffered from cuts to the newsroom and overall staff and stagnant wages. in a statement, "courant" journalists wrote, quote, "declining revenues and corporate self-interest, marked by decisions without regard for or knowledge of who we are and what we do, only translate to deepening cuts to our resources and standards."

and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. gonzalez. juan welcome to our show. we begin in dedenver, where pubc school teachers prepare for a second day of a strike today after negotiations between the teachers' union and the school district failed to reach contract over the weekend. the denver classroom teachers association is demanding an increase in teachers' base salaries rather than putting money in incentives and bonuses. teachers held a rally monday outside the colorado state capitol after spending the morning on picket lines. this is amie baca-oehlert, president of the colorado education association. >> our students are the ones who suffer the most when qualified, committed, and caring educators cannot afford to stay in the

classroom. [cheers] to stay.rs want there is no place we would rather be than in front of our students every day.. [cheers] [applause] >> but we do not need a bonus tuesday. no. we need reasonable class sizes. we need support for our students. we want a fair and transparent and competitive salary schedule. juan: denver teachers walked out monday following 15 months of negotiations over a controversial bonus-based pay system that educators say leaves them unable to predict their salaries and guarantee financial security. the district's contract with the professional opposition system

with teachers expired last month. teachers are now pushing the district for more reliable wages. thestarting salalary in 2019-2020 school year is $43 ,055, according to the "denver post." amy: several students in denver's school district joined their teachers on picket lines outside of their schools. many complained of chaos inside the schools due to inadequate staffing of substitute teachers and lack of schedules for students. this is denver's first teachers' strike in 7:45 century. it comes just after a historic six-day teacher's strike in los angeles ended with victory for educators demanding smaller class sizes and higher wages. these actions are the latest in a wave of teachers' strikes that began last year in republican-contrtrolled d states like west virginia, oklahoma, and arizona. to henry roman, a denver elementary schoolol teacher and president of the denver classroom teachers association. welcome to democracy now!

explain what you are demanding. . henry: sure. pro-comp,t system is largely based on one time incentives mostly determined by factors outside of the teachers control. this means educators in denver have to largely depend on variable pay that decreases over time. for example, we used to have this one-time incentive based on test scores, like top-performing, high gross 1.5ols that were at thousand dollars. now, they are only $1000. it is hard for educators to financially plan for the future when they haveve to see that kid of variable pay. that is one of the main reasons why many educators in denver are leaving. the normal attrition rate for most school districts is about 10%. but the teacher turnover rate in

to 25%.s 20% every single year, we higher educators.new that is definitely a challenge. juan: in terms of the compensation system that exists now, some of it, according to the district, is meant to definitely not only improve the alsoty of education but especially those schools most in need, there is an incentive for teachers for sure money to teach in the most difficult schools or mode -- or lowest performing schools. do you want to get rid of the entire compensation package or just redesign it? henry: a major redesign for sure, but those bonuses have proven to be an effective. and it is our students that are paying the price for this experiment that really does not work. in denver. issue

we havave a significant teacher turnover crisis due to the w we are compensated in denver. amy: let's go to a striking teacher at danvers -- denver's east. >> i am a science teacher. i am here because i believe all students deserve experienced teachers. there is too much turnover in dps. we hope we can change that through contract negotiations. mys is my third year in dps, fifth year as a teacher. i cannot afford to have a family. my husband and i would like to start planning for that. as it is now, our baby will probably have to sleep in a closet or something, because we cannot afford to upsize our home or anything like that, so we are in a holding pattern. we are hoping that after contract negotiations, we can be in a place w where we can builda

family. amy: let's go to a student who also depart. my name -- who also took part. >> my name is itzalasso karner. every other district has about seven students per every administrator. at dps, there's 15 administrators per student. and they do not even interact with students, and they are getting a lot more money than a lot of teachers that come in every day, put in a lot of time for us. with denver rising up in the economy, it is tough just being a teacher. you go to the teacher parking lot, a lot of the cars have other stickers, a lot of teachers unable to live in the city with money they a are gettg from here. everyone is not ok with this situation. amy: some of the voices on the ticket -- on the picket line. henry roman, we are talking about colorado, a blue state in terms of the governor.

the new government is a democrat. the mayor of denver is a democrat. what difference does that make? it is similar to what happened in california. we were just in los angeles during that strike. in the mayor of los angeles was actually the one who is leading the discussions and negotiations. henry: in this case, the governor has taken a more active role. he basically said he respected our rights to strike. ,e decided not to intervene which is more or less a green light for us to strike. so we welcome his efforts to get both parties together. as a matter of fact, i had a conversation with him last night about where we are. we are scheduled to begin negotiations this morning at 10:00 a.m. it is an open meeting for the

public at that denver public school library. all of our meetings are live-streamed. members, members of the press, we have nothing to hide. what has been problematic is the district has spent about $4 million on bonuses for administrators that are already well paid. that has been a big issue for us whwhen we are struggling in denr and denver public schools. juan: and this whole issue of the bonus system, the impact it has on teachers being able to plan their economic future, can you talk about that as well? henry: yes. it is, at one end, variable pay and ththe fact that it is not compensation. what teachers are demanding i ia pretty durable income.

moving parts.0 it is student growth, top performing high-growth, a bunch of things. it is so complicated that, when they get paid, they actually have no idea how much they are actually making. even payroll has a hard time explaining how teachers are paid. what we want to do is typify the system so it is easy to understand how people are getting paid and how much they are getting paid. we a also would like to have a higher base pay, so our teachers and educators can live where they work and increase basaseple -- base pay so we can recruit and retain experienced educators. amy: is it possible the strike will end today? henry: it is hard to predict.

it is highly dependent on the proposals that the district will bring to the table today. last saturday with our counterproposal, and it is their turn to come to the table with a counter. we will see where that goes, and we are willing to sit down and negotiate for as long as needed. amy: henry roman, thank you for being with us. an elementary school teacher, president of the d denver classroom teachers association. we will continue to follow this. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org. when we come back, we go to dayton, ohio to a strike that was one of the longest in a public college in u.s. history. ♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now!. i am amy goodman with juan gonzalez. juan: as those public school teachers hit the picket lines in denver, colorado we turn now to

, a higher education strike that's received far less attention. in dayton, ohio, faculty members at wright state university have just concluded one of the longest public university strikes in u.s. history. on sunday, the university's administration reached a tentative contract agreement with the faculty union's executive committee, which union members will vote to ratify in coming days. the strike began last month when the university imposed a contract on faculty members that worsened working conditions and decreased benefits. when the administration refused to negotiate, 85% of wright state university's union members voted to authorize a strike. this is history professor noeleen mcilvenn describing some of the faculty's concerns that led to the strike. >> number one is workload. because what that translates to is much less time for each individual student, much less teachersresearch, when have to teteach more and more

students, each student gets less and less, because a human only has so much time and energy in a given day. we would have to spread ourselves so thin that everythingng would give her thtt is the number one issue. there are several others. another one that is concerning to us is job security for non-tenured faculty. amy: wright state university has faced financial problems after burning through $131 million of its reserves in the span of five years. the administration claimed cuts in faculty benefits were financially necessary, but faculty members fought back, saying professors and their students shouldn't pay the consequences for administrative fiscal mismanagement. striking faculty spent twenty days on the picket lines in freezing temperatures, demanding better health care coverage, workload policies, and pay bumps. the professors were joined by union members, local politicians, students, and community members. after the university's administration and faculty union reached a tentative contract, the striking faculty members

returned to class on monday. for more, we go to dayton, ohio, where we're joined now by rudy fichtenbaum, the president of the american association of university professors, chief negotiator for the aaup chapter at wright state university, where he's professor emeritus of economics. rudy fichtenbaum, welcome to democracy now! can you talk about the significance of this strike, what you called for, what you got, and whether you think it is going to pass in the vote? well, i think the significance of this strike is that a group of faculty really stood up for maintaining quality education. one of the things that we have seen is the undermining of public higher education in general as states have cut limitedand opportunities to increase tuition. this has led universities, like

wright state, to look for a variety of schemes to increase revenue. that was exactly because of -- thatcompetence failed, that is what crossed the university, $131 million. what i think is so significant here is that the university then seized on this as an opportunity to try and break the faculty union. this was really never about the money. this was about trying to silence the union, silence the voices of the faculty. it was about power and control. they attacked workload part of the agreement, the employment security for track, the employment system. they changed that unilaterally

when they imposed the contract. and also health care, taking our right to bargain over health care away. this was designed to weaken the faculty union, which had been critical of the spending and priorities of the administration and incompetence of the board in allowing the university to squander $131 million of reserves. juan: the w whole issue of the non-tenured faculty, because obviously most universities keep -tenuredng the non faculty, what were you able to do to get them to participate at 85% of the yes vote on a strike, quite in a compliment for a professional union? tenure trackhe faculty have been organized since 1988, when we voted to

unionize. track onlyure unionized about four years ago, but we have worked together. we started out as two bargaining units and then formed a single bargaining unit. we have always had a unified group of people negotiating contracts. on-tenured faculty tenuredand three faculty members. one of the most part things we were able to negotiate or what we call continuing appointments, which means after a period of six years, they have what is known as a continuing appointment, which means they cannot really be dismissed except for just cause or under certain kinds of financial conditions. one of the goals of thee university was too weaken that,

to stretch that out to at least 12 years and, in many cases, many of the non-tenured track faculty would have never received continuing appointments. we have really seen a big difference in the willingness of faculty toure track speak out and be critical and fight for their students since they had this reduction of having a continuing apartment agreement. this is as important as tenure is for tenure track faculty. ,hat was one of the things that when the university imposed, they try to take the right away from. juan: and while this happened, students tried to keep classes going, in essence bringing in strike rakers? rudy: what happened --

breakers?n strike what happened? rudy: it was a disaster. what they really did was bring in people they called sweepers. there were taking attendance. in other cases, they were sending people in to read out of books. and they knew, even while they were telling the public that everything was normal and classes were going on, they knew that was a lie. and actually took us before the state employment relations board to try and have our strike declared unlawful. and at that hearing, they testified that they were unable to teach the classes. of course, the state employee relations board picked up on that right away and said you had been telling the public all along that you had been teaching them, and now you are here, trying to get us to rule this to be an unlawful strike because you are saying you cannot teach the classes. bedlam.s complete

of classesreports where nobody showed up and classes, after a while, began to be canceled. some clans is that -- some cl asses that were being taught were taught by chairs teaching 6 or 8 classes. amy: and this is amazing -- you continued it right through the popolar vortex. before we wrap up, we are talking about this strike being the longest in ohio state history. it is the second-longest at a public college in u.s. history. can you talk about your concerns about the corporatization of education in this country? yes, i think the corporatization has been part of

an entire neoliberal agenda that seeks to destroy public services and public goods. and higher education in particular, it is leading to privatization of public universities and colleges. what is happening is that these institutions, more and more, are being starved from public resources and have to rely more on tuition. then, when there is no tuition, they are forced to go out and look for a variety of other schemes at raising money. this is something that is really undermining public higher education. and it can lead, as we have seen in the case of wright state, to a real disaster.

this has done a tremendous amount of damage to higher education and is really getting effectively,ere, we are having a university -- having universities that are essentially becoming privatized but without endowments and without the philosophical support that you -- without the support that you would see at most private universities to do this is affecting the quality of education students can get. it is one of the reasons so many schools have turned increasingly to hiring and exploiting part-time faculty and full-time faculty without tenure. amy: we want to thank you so much for being with us, president of the american association of university

professors chief negotiator for , the aaup chapter at wright state university, where he's professor emeritus of economics. joining us from dayton, ohio's pbs station. this is democracy now, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i am amy goodman with juan gonzalez. juan: a shocking new report finds at least a third of the himalayan ice cap will melt by the end of the century due to climate change, even if the world's most ambitious environmental reforms are implemented. the report, released by the hindu kush himalaya assessment earlier this month, is the culmination of half a decade's work by over 200 scientists, with an additional 125 experts peer reviewing their work. it warns rising temperatures in the himalayas could lead to mass population displacements as well as catastrophic food and water insecurity. the glaciers are a vital water source for the 250 million people who live in the hindu kush himalaya range, which spans from afghanistan to burma.

the region is home to the most ice in the world after antarctica and the arctic. more than 1.5 billion people depend on the rivers that flow from the himalayan peaks. amy: meanwhile, an alarming new report has found that more than 40% of insect species around the world may become extinct in the next few decades. although the study's authors point to industrial agriculture as the main culprit, they also lay blame on climate change, citing warming temperatures that have led to sudden decreases in insect population in places like puerto rico, where nearly 100% of ground rainforest bugs have disappeared in just 35 years. this devastating news comes as 2018 was found to be the fourth-warmest year on record. the past five years have been the five warmest since reliable measurements began more than a century-and-a-half ago. we go now to seattle to talk to journalist dahr jamail, author

of four books, including his most recent, "the end of ice: bearing witness and finding meaning in the path of climate disruption." dahr was awarded the martha gellhorn prize for investigative journalism in 2008 for his reporting from the iraq war. last year, he won an izzy award for his ongoing coverage of huhuman-caused c climate change. welcome back to democracy now! thank you so much for driving two hours in a snowstorm to get to seattle to be with us today. can you talk about these latest reports of, once again, precedent-setting climate change related developments in the world? dahr: there are more indications of how far along we already are regarding human caused climate disruption. underscore that we are on a warming trend that is unprecedented, unlike anything we have ever seen since humans have been on the planet.

it is very disconcerting. we can look across the globe and see these giant alarm bells, like the melting of the glaciers in the himalayas, the collapse of insect populations, which that same report said if the ajectory, if trends do not speed up, which they could, we could lose all insects by 2100. even in the continuous united states -- contiguous united states, an expert told me we probably could not have any glaciers left at glacier national park. by just 2030, 11 years from now. he went on to say, along with several other experts, that there could be no glaciers left in the contiguous 48 at all by 2100. think about the implications, not just for the natural

invocations on ecosystems, but like the hindu kush, so many people depend on these glaciers for drinking water and irrigation. so these alarm bells are ringing very loudly around us. those are just a few of the overt ones. juan: in your new book, at one point, you say as a species, we now hang over the abyss of geo-engineered future we have created for ourselves. voraciousistence, our appetite is consuming nature itself. we refused to heed the warnings earth has been sending, and there is no rescue team on its way. dim sense oftty what lies ahead. can you talk about the response of governments and the human race to what is going on? dahr: it is why i think we are in such a grim situation.

i went to many of the hotspots, , therontlines of climate great barrier reef, south floridida, for sealevell rise, d for each place, what we have seen is a catastrophic decline, whether it is biodiversity or the loss of ice in the alasaskan sealevel riseast is starting to accelerate. crises arethese happening simultaneously, held against the backdrop that the majority of the population,n, en in this couountry, with the fosl fuel denial mechanism, even here , we have the majority of people understand that climate destruction is real and something needs to be done about it. bubut like other countries, we have a government that is not

only not doing anything about it stoppingead stopping -- on -- stomping on the gas. against the backdrop of this pathetic government response in any way coming close to what has actually happened to coming close to mitigate this crisis. the cat isis out of the bag and the fact that we are not going to stop. the only question is are we going to be able to mitigate it? the best science now shows even if we have stopped all fossil fuel emissions today, and all government started to react accordingly, most likely, we have a minimum of three degrees celsius warming already baked into the system. we should be h hing global, coordinated response on a

dramatic emergency level. instead, it is business as usual. at least the leading countries, the u.s., china, india, and russia, the leading greenhouse gas emitting countries on the planet, instead of going into an emergency response and mandated areemission cuts, they pretendiding like we can keep kicking this can down the road near the realility is itit is na future crisis. this is hahappening now. as we speak, the great t barrier reef is n-terminal stage. as we speak, we arare already st in motion ththings that will ere glaciers from the contiguous 48 states, probobably well befofore 2100. the amazon is u under graveve, e havingand is already unprecedented warming cycles and droughts. we have to start thinking about that in this way. the future we all thought was

going to bebe so much further dn 2100 and catastrophic, it is happening now. amy: we will break and then come back to this discussion and find out why you left war reporting, which we interviewed you so much about, to cover the issue of climate change. dahr jamail's new book is called "the end of ice: bearing witness and finding meaning in the path of climate disruption." ♪ [music break]

amy: "plastic jesus." goodman with one gonzalez. our guest is dahr jamail, author of "the end of ice: bearing witness and finding meaning in the path of climate disruption." so take us on the journey of your life. from war reporting to climate change, from the highest peak, denali in alaska, to the coralal sea. dahr: it really started when i

saw denali. it drove me to move up to alaska. i wanted to spend as mumuch time as i could in the most amazing planet. the but immediately, in 1996, i was struckck by the crazy weather swings already occurring across alaska at that time. it was very clear to everyone up there, spending a lot of time in the mountains,, what was already upon us then. and then, the iraq war, being oalled to go follow the need provide reporting abouout h howt war was impacting the iraqi people. it is interesting in that covering that for as long as ii did and d the dramatic -- again, how obvious it was early on in that war what was happening, how bad itit was. it was impossssible to land on e

ground. and know that so many iraqis were being killed and tortured. an interesting parallel, to tie this into current reporting on climate disruption, as i can remember acutely, at that time, reporting onon torture, reportig b being carrieds out by t the u.s. military in iq , reporting on illegal weapons and things l like this, , much t on democracy now!, and yet the mainstream media ignored it and of course, most people in this countrtry, it took yearars befot really seeped in how catastrophic that invasion and occupation was for t the iraqi peoplele and, of course, the u.. military. war, goingut of thatt into the bp p oil spill ---- i s living in texas at the time and covered that -- another interesting theme, vevey

obvious in all of these stories, is fossisil fuels. we know the root cause of climate disruption is the burning of fossil fuels. was af course, iraq, thatat war for oil, clear r and simple from day one. and of course the bp oil spill, the consequences of livining ina fossil fuel based economy, and now back again to climate change, where these impacts are upon us. the parallel i want to briring current t now from shariring whi didid about iraq is that i had beenen out on the frfront linesf where climate change is the most obvious. and i am far from the only reporter on this beat,t, and certainly, there a are pley ofof othehers who havave been on it longng than i. t that sd, what want to part is whatsappening right now, as we speak, we are in thi we a in n thera of loss.

we a in a situation erere th plan iss alreadyrrevocably changed. nhe eat barrr reef bng teinal sta. i watherere 2017 7 r the first we of the coral bacachin gvent, ich h we on to kill 30of theherea it blched. lost.next year, 20% was this is why scientists aree referring to t the reef b beingn terminal statage. it probably will not last ananother 10 years. this is ththe single biggestst r ecososysm o on the planet. anand with h sealevel rise, onef th scienentists i interviewed said we could s see not just the ipcc worst-case production by 2100, which is around d six feet toto eight feeeet, w we could ss

muchch as 20 feeeet to even n 3, even by ththen. and if you looook at the collapsing ice sheheets in n the antarcticc -- we j just had anar wherere one of the lelead glacial scscientists studydying, that report t showed a a sixfold increase imemeltinacrorosshe continent since t 1970's.s. thgs arereappening, they are accelerangng, an it is very, very clearhere we e e in ts cris. it is amazing am havinthe same experiee i did iraq, beinon the streetswriting ese report tellingeople at is happening, and en waitinfor the restf the u upry keep up andake and see what is ppppenin th we are in a sisiation where we are talkingbout 2100. in reality, we are talking right now. it is happening right now. juan: can you also talk about

the thawing of the permafrost and the potential impact and significance of this as well? dahr: thahat is rigight. i wentnt up to a town in northen alaska, the northernmost point in that state did i want up there spepecifically to sesee te situation ofof the permafrost, d to deepen my investigigations io methane up there. terrestrial permafrost t is thawing dramatically. it is warming up even tens o of feet below the surface. what is disconcerting is these matererial,t t organic releleasing c02 andnd a small at of methane into the atmosphere. ththat is occurring. ththe scientist i spoke with sas he expects all of the permafrost across northern alaska to be

wewell above freezing, well in advance off 100. permafrost, as it goes underneath the shallow seas of the arctic, contained within it is methane hydrate. data started to thaw out. as the ice cap starts to recede, as oceans warm, both from warmer wateter coming from the atlantic as well as more solar r radiatin coming in fromom above and the atmosphere warming, those hydrates are starting to be released. one of these scientists i interviewed for my book spoke of a paper he had published several years ago, where the normal background rate for methane seeps from a seabed in that area seeps over aane one square kilometer area. squared another one

clement area where there were seepsy 6,000 methane coming from the base of the arctic seabed. mocking president, senator klobuchar, one of the senators running for president, said amy klobuchar announced she is running for president, talking proudly of fighting global warming while standing in a virtual blizzard of snow, ice, and freezing temperatures -- bad titiming. of f her speech, shee looked like a snowwoman, he said. thise continually repeats issue that the countries in a polar vortex, you call that global warming? please ask wayne the process by which the earth getting warmer can mean freezing weather as well as desert of occasion -- desertification. dahr: this is why i call it

climate disruption, not climate change. whenen you inject asas much co2n the atmosphere as we have, it does not just change the climate, it completely disrupts it. that is exactly what the polar vortex is a sign of. opposite of what this individual in the white house -- i am hesitant to really call him any kind of name, it is just still stunning t to me that thee is someone like e this there.. thelet's not conflate weather and climate. so that is one to the other being about the polar vortex is actually a sign of the opposite of what mr. trump is saying. that it somehow negates the reality of climate disruption. when you have destabilized temperatures, when y you havee temperature is not in their normal range, the jet stream,

rather than being steady, it becomes disrupted, and we have these huge flows sometime that come intoto the lower 48, lettig all of that arctic air down here. conversely, you look at the arctic, and temperatures there arare nowhere near as cold as ty normally are. that is a big reason why wewe he the permafrost and methane crisis. on that note, one thing i forgot overd earlier, methane is a 10 year timescale. it is 85 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than co2. the consequences of that methane starting to be released in the possibility of a dramatic, sudden burst coming out all at at anyn literally happen moment. equivalent released co2 wear of half as much

have admitted to releasing into the atmosphere since the industrial revolution began. juan: what hope have you seen in the new young leaders coming forward. i am thinking of alexandra kaiser cortez and -- alexandria oh kaiser cortez -- alexandria ocasio-cortez. this will change how this nation and other nations begin to deal with climate disruption. dahr: i thinknk thesese are valt efforts, very heartening. i look at it now from a perspective that i learned from and indigenous man -- an indigenous man i interviewed. he's who reminded me that western colonial mindset is we

each have rights, whereas indigenous wisdom teaches that we are all born into this world with certain obligations. talking about the climate crisis through that lens, we have a futurebligation to generations to serve and take care of the planet. if we see bill -- if we see people like cortez bring up the green new deal and the sunrise movement behind that, i see these people really acting from that moral responsibility of what can we do to take care of future generationsns, what do we do to try to save a few more spspecies, what else can we do t to take care ofof the planet, especially at a time when governments are notot doing what they're supposed be doing and how they ought to be respondingo this. so iook out d see movements of deeps aseallycts

tetegritand d grtourage a a time when everything seems to be stacked behind us. what we need to remember -- it is so easy to look at the big picture and get completely dishsheartened. what we need to remember is what is my own perersonal, moralal obligation? when i wake up each day, thinking about what i might do, thinking from that perspecective instead of having g hope or comg at it from a more activist perspective, what i really -- when i really come at it with a deep, moral sense of evocation, really does not matter what the results are, it matters am i doing all i can right now? amy: can you describe your journey to the amazon, to the lungs of the planet? dahr: i was privileged to get to go there and go to camp 41, the most famous of the study camps of dr. thohomas lovejojoy, a grt scientist who was also sosometis referred to as the godfather of

biodiversity. he has been studying d down thee since 1960 five. getting to g go into this camp s an extraordinary experience.e. that camp alone has been the producer of over 700 peer-reviewewed public scientifc studies about different aspects from trees to bugs to insects, birds, soils, you name it. getting to go o there with him s profound. i really understood and felt it --my body, when how literally the jungle itself started toto take me in. wheree literally everything from how you feel to how you start looking to things -- art things to even your dreams start to become one with the jungle. by dr. lovejejoy was troubled.d.

if you look at w what is happeng to thehe a amazon with the increasing temperatures, increasing amount of droughts, wildfires, a and human encroachment -- one e of the biggest problems is the amazon being hacked away and being replaced with pastors, so cattle can be raised for beef, all of these things were being -- were becomes a carbon sink. and because of the droughts and warming tempmperatures, there hs periods,een longer from weeks to even months, where it has become a net carbon backe in releasing co2 into the atmosphere. as temperatures warm and other time it disruption impacts intensify over the amazozon, it appears as though we are locked into seeing that happen.

entirely rich biodiversity there is under threat. in the final note on that that he shared was really profound and importanant for people to know. soso many of our pharmaceuticals come from the amazon. if we e are going to be destroyg parts of it t and losing species ththat we do not even knknow ext yet, w we might be takaking out things that we will need in order to develop pharmacaceutics for future diseases that have not even happened yet. from a purely human self interest standpoint, it is an imperative situation to understand what is happening to the amazon and the need to protect it. amy: dahr jamail, we want to thank you for being with us. his new book, "the end of ice: bearing witness and finding meaning in the path of climate disruption." that does it for our broadcast. democracy now! is accepting applications for a full-time one year paid news production fellowship. details are online at democracynow.org. democracy now! is produced by mike burke, deena guzder,

nermeen shaikh, carla wills,