07/21/22 07/21/22 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! pres. biden: climate change is an emergency. i'm going to use the power i have as president to turn these words into a formal, official government action. amy: as heatwaves scorch the united states, europe, asia, and africa, president biden vows to take more steps to address the climate crisis but stops short of declaring a national

climate emergency. we will speak to the center for biological diversity. a new study finds u.s. greenhouse emissions have caused nearly $2 trillion in damages to other countries. we will go to uganda to speak with vanessa nakate look at how the climate crisis is causing widespread drought in rica. >> horrible reality of the climate crisis is that while communities and africa were in the global south are on the front lines of the climate crisis, they are not on the front pages of the world's newspapers. amy: we will speak with george monbiot in britain were temperatures were shattered this week, sparking fires across london. we will also talk to him about the war in ukraine and the race to replace boris johnson. all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now! democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman.

a federal appeals court in georgia has ruled the states near total ban on abortion can take effect immediately. the 2019 law outlaws abortions once fetal cardiac to what he is present. it also changes the definition of a natural person to include fetuses that have formed in utero after just a few weeks before many people even realize they are pregnant. the law provides for limited exceptions for rape and incest but if i survivor must first file a police report. in a joint statement, the amick and civil liberties union, the center for reproductive rights, and planned parenthood said "this is a highly unorthodox action that will immediately push essential abortion care out of reach for patients beyond the earliest stages of pregnancy." across the state, providers are being forced to turn away patients who thought they would be able to access abortion immediately change in the course of their lives and futures, they said.

the house of representatives votes today on a bill guaranteeing access to contraceptives under federal law. house democrats introduced the bill after supreme court justice clarence thomas suggested in a concurrent opinion to the dobbs v. jackson case overturning roe that he is open to reviewing previous rulings on marriage equality, reproductive rights, access to contraception, and other issues. russia's foreign minister says the kremlin is seeking to seize more land in ukraine than just the eastern donbas region. on wednesday, sergey lavrov told a russian state news agency that peace talks with ukraine had failed and that russia seeks to control a large swath of southern ukraine. this comes as the biden administration warns russia is preparing to formally annex parts of occupied eastern and southern ukraine this fall, when it will force residents to move their assets to russian bankand to apply for russian citizenship. on capitol hill, ukraine's first lady has appealed to the united

states congress for more heavy weaponry. olena zelenska's address to a joint session came as the war entered its sixth month. >> i appeal to all of you on behalf of those who were killed, those who lost their arms and legs, on behalf of those who are still alive and well, and those who wait for the families to come back from the front line. i'm asking for something now that i would never want to ask for, i'm asking for weapons. weapons that will not be used to wage a war on somebody else's land but to protect one's home and the right to wake up alive in that home. amy: in may, president biden signed aill granting ukraine $40 billion in humanitarian and military assistance, by far the largest u.s. foreign aid package in decades. zelenska's request for more weapons comes as the senate is considering a national defense bill that would see the u.s. spend a record-shattering $846 billion on the military in the next fiscal year. that's $45 billion more than the record request president biden

made earlier this year. in brussels, belgium, leaders of the european union say russian gas is once again flowing through a pipeline under the baltic sea to germany albeit at a reduced volume. the operator of the nord stream 1 had taken a pipeline off-line for 10 days of scheduled maintenance earlier this month, prompting fears among european leaders that russia would cut off supplies entirely. europe remains highly dependent on russian gas despite you sanctions targeting other russian commodities. here in the united states, dangerously hot weather will impact millions of people again today. in texas, forecasters predicting a high of 109 degrees in dallas and 115 in wichita, paul's. the extreme heat field wildfires outside vortexes that have burned thousands of acres and destroyed 16 homes.

president biden travels to massachusetts wednesday to outline your efforts to combat the climate crisis and spoke from a former coal plant in somerset, which is be converted into a plant to make supplies for offshore wind farms. biden said he would give $2.3 billion to fema to help communities become more resilient to heatwaves, drought, and wildfire. he called the current state of the climate and emergency but stopped short of declaring a formal. ration. pres. biden: this is an emergency. i will look at it that way. i said last week and i'll say it again loud and clear, as president i will use my executive powers to combat climate crisis and at the absence of congressional action. amy: his speech came as more than 100 million people in the united states are under heat advisories. europe suffers from searing drought across much of africa leading to widespread crop failures and hunger. after headlines, we will spin the entire show on the climate crisis.

house committee provided a trove of emails and documents detailing how trump and his allies sought to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census in order to help republicans win elections. the documents' release came as the committee on oversight and reform wrapped up a years-long investigation, concluding senior trump administration officials added the citizenship question in order to deliberately exclude noncitizens from the count. the census bureau estimates 18.8 million people were left out of the most recent census, with communities of color undercounted at far higher rates than in previous censuses. this week the committee's democratic chair carolyn maloney introduced the ensuring a fair and accurate census act. she said -- "it is clear that legislative reforms are needed to prevent any future illegal or unconstitutional efforts to interfere with the census and chip away at our democracy." in wisconsin, the republican speaker of the state assembly

says president trump recently called to urge him to overturn joe biden's victory in the 2020 election. the revelation from robin voss this week came after trump attacked voss on social media as a rino, a republican in name only, who was letting democrats "get away with 'murder'." voss was asked about the interaction by matt smith of the milwaukee abc affiliate wisn in an interview that aired tuesday. >> when is the last time you talk to president trump? >> within the last week. >> before or after he tweeted about you? >> before. he makes his case, which i respect. he would like us to do something different in wisconsin. i explained it is n allowed under the constitution. he has a different opinion and put the tweet out. amy: robin vos has previously echoed trump's false statements that the 2020 election was rigged but has not moved to decertify joe biden's electoral college win in wisconsin. in arizona, the state republican party's executive committee has

censured state house speaker russell bowers after he told the house january 6 committee that trump and his lawyer rudy giuliani pressured him to overturn joe biden's 2020 election victory in arizona. arizona republican party chair kelli ward confirmed bowers' censure this week in a statement declaring him "no longer a republican in good standing." kelli ward is a former arizona state senator. according to politico, she and her husband are under investigation by the justice department after they joined an effort to deliver false slates of electors to congress certifying trump, and not biden, the winner of the 2020 election in arizona. a former white house aide to donald trump went on a racist and sexist rant this week, just after he met with the lawmakers investigating the january 6 capitol insurrection. garrett ziegler posted the 27-minute rant as an audio file to his telegram page, where he verbally attacked witnesses who've provided damning

testimony against the former president and railed against leaders of the house select committee on the january 6 attacks. >> they probably do hate the american establishment and most people in general. this is a antiwhite campaign. if you can't see that, your eyes are freaking closed. they say need -- they see me as a young christian who they can try to basically scare. amy: ziegler went on to use misogynistic pejoratives to attack two former women colleagues who testified against trump, cassidy hutchinson and alyssa farah. president trump's personal attorney rudy giuliani has been ordered to testify to a grand jury in georgia as part of a criminal probe into efforts by trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election. fulton county district attorney fani willis revealed wednesday that giuliani has been ordered

to testify on august 9 after he failed to appear at a hearing earlier this month. the investigation appears to be focused on 16 georgia republicans who signed up as fake electors after joe biden won georgia. but the probe also appears to be aimed at trump's request to the georgia secretary of state in january of 2021 that he find enough votes to declare trump the victor in georgia. in washington, d.c., the government rested its case wednesday in the trial of president trump's former top adviser steve bannon, who's charged with criminal contempt of congress for refusing to cooperate with the house select committee on the january 6 attack on the capitol. this evening, the committee will hold its eighth public hearing in a prime time hearing that will be carried by all the major u.s. television networks. committee chair bennie thompson, who is recovering from covid-19 from isolation, will appear remotely. the hearing will feature two white house ais who quit on january 6, white house deputy

secretary sarah matthews. last january, matthews tweeted on the one-year anniversary of the attack -- "make no mistake, the events on the 6th were a coup attempt, a term we'd use had they happened in any other country." at this evening's hearing, lawmakers will show unseen outtakes of video trump made to supporters on january 7 when he resisted pressure from aides to condemn the violence. tonight's hearing begins at 8:00 p.m. eastern time. democracynow.org will be livestreaming it in its entirety. we will air extended excerpts on fridays broadcast. the united states has repatriated a guantanamo bay prisoner to his home country of afghanistan. the u.s. released him last month after he was jailed at guantánamo bay for 15 years without trial. a federal court ruled his detention was illegal and ordered his release. human rights group reprieve says

he suffered severe physical and psychological torture during his stay in guantánamo, including being beaten, hung by his wrists, and deprived of food and water. of the remaining 36 prisoners now held at guantánamo, 19 have been cleared for release. el salvador's president nayib bukele has extended a nationwide state of emergency citing the risk of criminal gangs. it's the third time bukele has extended emergency rule since marc when he gnted authorities sweeping powers to arrest and try people without due process. tens of thousands have since been arrested. amnesty international says the crackdown has led to massive human rights violations, including thousands of arbitrary detentions and violations of due process, as well as torture, ill-treatment, and the deaths of at least 18 people in state custody. on tuesday, relatives of people swept up in the crackdown took to to the streets of san salvador in protest. one mother, maria sebastian amaya, said the police are arresting and jailing innocent people simply because they live in poor neighborhoods. >> we know our families are not

related to the gangs. if we live in those communities, it is because we don't have anywhere else to go. we have to live there because we are poor and the police arrive and capture whomever is there. they do not do a background check. nothing. i demand my son's freedom. amy: and protesters in panama have brought much of their nation to a halt, setting up roadblocks to demand more jobs, relief from soaring food and fuel prices, and an end to official corruption. over the weekend, panama's government agreed to lower fuel prices and opened talks with protest leaders over curbing the cost of some food and medicine, but demonstrations resumed this week after those talks fell apart. this is cesar ochoa, a union leader who led recent protests of construction workers in the city of santiago de veraguas. >> after the 1989 invasion when the gringos intervened in our nation, from that moment the

alleged democracy was installed in our stake but it is a democracy that robs the poor to feed the rich. it is a democracy that has been ruining the lives of all of us. amy: and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman, joined by my democracy now! co-host nermeen shaikh. hi, nermeen. nermeen: hi, amy. welcome to all of our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. amy: today we are spending the hour looking at the climate crisis across the world from europe to asia to africa to here in the united states. on wednesday, president biden travel to somerset, massachusetts, to outline new efforts to combat the climate crisis including expanding offshore wind power and giving $2.3 billion to fema -- the federal emergency management agency -- to help communities become more resilient to heat waves, drought, and wildfire. biden's speech came as more than 100 milln people ithe united states are under heat advisories.

he spoke at a former coal plant which has been turned into an offshore wind facility. pres. biden: climate change is literally in existential threat for our nation into the world. so my message today is this, since congress is not acting as it should and these guys here are but we are not getting many republican votes, this is an emergency. i will look at it that way. i said last week and i will say it again loud and clear that as president i will use my executive powers to combat climate crisis in the absence of congressional action. amy:hile president biden repeatedly described the climate crisis as an emergency on wednesday, he stopped short of declaring a national emergency -- a move sought by many progressive lawmakers and climate activists. we go now to jean su, energy justice director and senior attorney at the center for biological diversity. she recently co-wrote a report

detailing how the president could use his emergency powers to address the climate crisis. jean, can you talk about what it would mean if he does declare a climate emergency and what does it mean that he did not do it yesterday? >> absolutely. right now for the first time president biden -- amy: you seem to have broken up but we are going to go to another clip of president biden speaking yesterday in massachusetts. pres. biden: that is why today, can the largest investment ever, $2.3 billion across the country to build infrastructure that is designed to withstand the full range of disasters we have been seeing up to today. extreme heat, drought, flooding, hurricanes, tornadoes. right now needs of people

suffering from extreme heat at home, so my team is also working with the states to deploy $385 million right now. for the first time, states will be able to use federal funds to pay for air conditioners, set up community cooling centers and schools where people can get to these extreme heat crises. not a single republican in congress stepped up to support my climate plan. not one. let me be clear. climate change is an emergency. in the coming weeks, i'm going use my power as president to turn these words into formal, official government action the appropriate proclamations, executive orders, and revelatory power the president possesses. [applause] when it comes to fighting climate change, i will not take no for an answer. amy: jean su, use the term

"emergency" five or six times, but did not declare a national climate emergency. it's significance? >> yes, so president biden did not declare a climate emergency yesterday. we absolutely need him to do at. it is an credible rally cry of president biden can actually articulate we are in a climate emergency and unleash all the tools in his toolbox as president to really combat the crisis in front of us. the other part of the climate emergency declaration is that it signals the ente world tt president biden is no longer going to have a confused or slow walk to climate policies, that he's going have an all hands on deck approach to the suffering that we are all experiencing right now across the world. nermeen: jean su, your organization, the center for biological diversity, was involved in litigation against trump's use of emergency powers

to build the wall along the mexico border. could you elaborate on that case and how it might be relevant today? >> absolutely. i personally litigated that case. in that case, president trump declared what is happening at the border as an emergency. it isn't an emergency we know immigration is happening across the border. it was known for some time. we also know the pinch points of where that was. in terms of that case, he actually took money from the military after congress said no, you can't have more than $1 billion at that point, and he went against congress, redistribute it that money toward construction of the border wall illegally using emergency power that is only allowed military spending to be redirected for military purposes to help the military.

several groups litigated against presidentrump for abusing his emergency power, going against the will of congress to do that type of border wall construction. eventually, that case was mooted out because the biden administration stopped constructing. one district court did find it was illegal for president trump to use those military funds in that way because it was not actually going toward helping the military. nermeen: could you outline, what are the measures that biden could take in the event he does declare an emergency? >> absolutely. the biden administration, if they declare a climate emergency, unlocks additional emergency powers as well as ordinary powers to deal with the climate emergency. some of the emergency powers from perry powerful tools to turn off the spigot for fossil

fuels. one of them would be to reinstate our crude oil export ban which has allowed the fracking an explosion of oil in the permian basin. another is to actually stop offshore drilling right now that is happening in the ocean. and another power would allow him to stop hundreds of billions of dollars every year that private corporations like like rock, all of our private banks, are sending abroad to build fossil fuel lanes and poisong and endangering communities there. amy: so if you could also respond to what should happen with senator manchin now that he has scuttled the climate deal, saying he would not support a climate bill in the senate? >> unfortunately, we have wasted too much time thinking about senator manchin and waiting on congress.

one of the mistakes we have made since biden began is there wasn't an explicit focus on legislation. in fact, he is always had these secular powers at his fingertips to combat climate with the full force of his executive quiver and we're asking him to move on that. he did not move on that and waited for senator manchin. he cannot wait any longer. his exec of power should have been used on day one at the same time as pursuing legislation. now that we have seen congress is in flux again and people are still waiting on the whim of senator manchin and whether he is going to say yes or no, we don't have time for these games. we cannot afford those games. we have to go full force on executive action. amy: a meme has been going around saying the coat brother still own a lot of real estate but their best investment may be the manchin they bought in west

virginia. jean su, thank you for being with us, energy justice director and senior attorney at the center for biological diversity. coming up, we're going to uganda to speak with a climate justice activist vanessa nakate about the time it crisis in africa. and then we will go to britain where records have been smashed around heat and speak with george monbiot. stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: "living in denial" by british-ugandan musician michael kiwanuka. this is democracy now! i'm amy goodman with nermeen shaikh. as we look at who bears the brunt of the climate emergency. a new report finds greenhouse emissions from the united states caused nearly $2 trillion in damages to other, mostly poor,

countries through heatwaves, droughts, and crop failures since 1990. this includes $310 billion in damage to brazil, $257 billion in damage to india, $124 billion to indonesia, $104 billion to venezuela, and $74 billion to nigeria. scientists at dartmouth college published their research in the journal climatic change and say it could shape international climate negotiations between poor nations and rich nations that burn more coal, oil, and gas. meanwhile, a new greenpeace u.k. report makes the link between the climate crisis and the legacy of colonialism, which it says "established a model through which the air and lands of the global south have been used as places to dump waste the global north does not want." a study by care international pound the 10 most underreported humanitarian crises in 2021 were concentrated in the global south

with six in africa alone. for more, we go to kampala, uganda, to speak with climate justice activist vanessa nakate, author of "a bigger picture: my fight to bring a new african voice to the climate crisis." in a twitter thread this week, vanessa lamented how little the western media covers the disproportionate impact of the climate crisis on africa. vanessa, welcome back to democracy now! tell us what the world should understand about what is happening not only in uganda, but on the african continent as we deal with this global climate emergency. >> thank you so much. it is important for the world to know the climate crisis has been affecting the lives of so many people right now. when i speak for my country, because of the rising global temperatures, we have seen changes in weather patterns

that have caused events like floods and droughts. currently, over 500,000 people in the region are starving because they have no food to eat. when you go beyond uganda, we're seeing a drought that has left over 20 million people with no access to food in the horn of rica. so what i want people to understand is the climate crisis has been here, has been impacting the lives of so many people on the african continent, which is responsible for less than 4% of the global emissions. but while africa is on the front lines of this crisis, it is not on the front pages of the world's newspapers. nermeen: vanessa nakate, as you point out, africa is responsible for less than 4% of global emissions and the cumulative population of africa is just over 70% of the global popular

-- 17% of the global population. you recently retweeted an article headlined "seven stunning facts about how climate change is hitting africa the hardest." among those facts, almost a quarter of a billion africans will face water scarcity in just three years, that is by 2025. in southern africa, tropical storms displaced half a million people in just three months this year. and one in three deaths from extreme weather occur in africa. can you elaborate on this and why you think the coverage of this is so limited? >> well, first of all, the media has a huge responsibility to cover the climate crisis, but it has a much bigger responsibility to cover the climate crisis and

a few places where people are already suffering some of the worst impacts. we talk about thgs like food scarcity, water scarcity, these are things that are already happening right w in the african continent. for example, in a region in uganda, people are struggling to find something to eat, to find water. in the horn of africa, over 21 people are traveling to find food, to find water -- over 20 million people are traveling to nd food, to find water. people's livestock is perishing. when we say water scarcity is going to be a challenge for so many people in the african continent, in just three years, that doesn't mean -- it is something thais happening right now. when talk about people being forced to leave their homes to find somewhere to stay, it is not that it is coming in a few

years, it is something that is already unfolding. we know over 86 million africans are going to be forced to leave their homes t look for places where they can stay, where they can exist because of the cmate crisis. when we talk about the climate crisis, what is going to escalate and affect so many communities, 70 people in just a few years, it doesn't mean the crisis is coming in those years. it means it is already happening right now but it will make the lives of so people harder and affect so many community's. nermeen: a recent study showed on top of this massive climate crisis that africa is facing that many countries in africa, 11 of them, we'll have spend five times more on climate adaptatation than they do on health care. among these 11 countries, cameroon, chad, the drc, and

sudan. these countries are among the least to contribute to global emission. on average, they emit 27 times less per person than the global average, not even the average of countries in the north. could you explain what climate adaptation involves and why there's so little financing for it for these countries that face the worst effects and have been responsible for so little of the emissions? >> yes. first of all, i'll say that is one of the horrible inequalities of the climate crisis, that those who are not responsible are suffering the worst impacts. and they have to spend so much for adaptation of their communities. we know $100 billion was promised for vulnerable communities, vulnerable countries that are on the front lines of the climate crisis, but

it was only promised and was not delivered. but it is important for people to know the $100 billion is no longer enough. the climate crisis has pushed so many countries in africa and in places where they cannot adapt anymore. we are experiencing loss and damage in so many places, so now the demand is not just for mitigation and adaptation. there is a demand for loss and damage -- what is already happening. as the climate crisis escalates, people cannot adapt. people in the horn of africa cannot adapt to start invasion -- starvation, the loss of their livelihoods, their culture, their identity as this crisis -- we have moved from demanding $100 billion saying even that is no lger enough. more climate finance is needed.

real money for communities to be able to adapt, be able to mitigate, and also in addition to that, to address the loss and damage that is affecting so many people. amy: vanessa nakate, i think what is happening in the united states is a microcosm of what is happening in the world. president joe biden created an office of climate change and health equity within the health and human services department to prepare the nation's health care system to deal with the growing and inevitable disparate health effects of extreme heat and dangerous storms and worsening air pollution. while that office has been created to deal with climate affects, the inequity of them, congress has not funded it. and then you look at the rest of the world and the relationship of the united states, the massive effects of our policies in climate and the effects it

has on places like africa. but i wanted to ask you about the war in ukraine and talk about this coming together of both the effects of the war in ukraine on africa as well as coming on top of this ongoing climate emergency. >> yes, i will start by saying we are in a system that is allowing so many of these problems to happen. it is like we are in one room and if one part of the room is affected, eventually, the entire building will come crumbling down. if it is a puzzle, if one piece of the puzzle is missing, and the puzzle can never be complete. so the system can never be complete of one of the things is not well. and we know the war in ukraine is a war being funded by fossil fuels. many activists, many people have been organizing to demand a

shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy because we have seen fossil fuels are not only destroying our planet in the lives of so many people, but also fueling and funding wars in many parts of the world. it is important to note we have to change the system to address many of these challenges. what was created by president biden. that is one of the things we are trying to talk about that the communities are being impacted right now. they do not have the sources to put in place the necessary bodies to help people address issues of health when it comes to the climate crisis, but the countries in the global north have the resources to adapt. but they are not extending these resources to the most affected communities. when we see how the climate

crisis is impacting the health of so many people on the african continent and beyond that across the global south, many of the countries don't have that much needed resources to address the chlenges. so the global north has the resources for themselves, but it is hard to extend those resources for the community's on the front line, for the communities that did not caus this crisis. because if we are to address climate change, then we should not need -- leave anyone behind. nermeen: you've spoken out against the east african crude oil pipeline also being built by the french oil giant total and the giant national offshore oil corporation. if and when it is completed, it will be the longest heated crude oil pipeline in the world. can you talk about your concern about this pipeline and specifically the areas that it

is expected to runhrough? >> yes. the pipeline is expected to go from uganda to -- many of the worries we have, especially as activists, is this pipeline is going to displace thousands of people in uganda and also tanzania. it will go to a nuer of national parks, affecting the wildlife habitats. it is going to go through over 200 rivers. it is going to go through native soil. freshwater lakes. over 40 million people depend on the waters of lake victoria. so there are worries about how -- the water sources of people in our community, how it will impact national parks. but above all, how it impacts our planet and leads to the rise

of global temperatures. as activists, we face many challenges, especially in our communities or pple think we are against the development of our country. we are not against the development of our country, we want the best for our country and we know there is no future in the fossil fuelndustry. what are countries need is transition to clean energy, a transition to renewable energy. because this is something that will help lift people out of poverty. because i know and understand that our countries are trying to lift their communities out of poverty. professionals at total are taking advantage of this, knowing how much oil and coal and gas are causing so many challenges in many communities. we are seeing some -- it is important for people to know we want the well-being of our communities, the well-being

of the people in our countes, the well-being of the economies of our countries but we don't want it funded by fossil fuel. becae there is no future in that. we want to transition to renewable energy, clean energy, to ensure we not only have healthy people, but we also have healthy economies, healthy planet, a healthy planet and a healthy future for all of us. amy: vanessa nakate, thank you for being with us, climate justice activist joining us from kampala, uganda. author of "a bigger picture: my fight to bring a new african voice to the climate crisis." coming up, we go to george monbiot in britain, stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: "in the gale" by yo-yo ma. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with nermeen shaikh.

we go now to britain, which shattered its record for highest temperature ever recorded tuesday with the london fire brigade declaring a major incident in response to huge surge in fires across the capital. this comes amidst a heat wave scorching much of europe. more firesn france. britain's national weather forecaster said this week that the high temperatures are now a fact of life amid concerns the country is not prepared for the heat. for more, we're joined by george monbiot, author, environmental activist, and guardian columnist where his latest piece is headlined "this heatwave has eviscerated the idea that small changes can tackle extreme weather." his 2021 article "capitalism is killing the planet -- it's time to stop buying into our own destruction" has just won the the orwell prize for journalism. george, welcome back to democracy now!

why don't you first describe what it is like in britain right now, why this is so unusual, and what are the remedies? >> by comparison to what many other parts of the world have been suffering, particularly india this year and large parts of sub-saharan africa, you might not think it is very much, two days of 40 degree centigrade heat, but for britain, which is famous for its mild if not to say rher chilly and rainy climate, it was a massive shock stepping outside and feeling like you are walking into a fan because of the hot wind blowing off the streets into her face. it felt wrong. it felt like something has gone very badly awry here in this famously chilly and mild climate.

bust all the records. we saw wildfires which are totally unfamiliar in the parts of the u.k. where they happened. and it looks like a glimpse of a future that is rushing toward us all too quickly. these are the sort of weather events that climate scitists were saying, well, we might see this two degrees or three degrees of heating. here we are at 1.2 degrees centigrade of global heating and eat has already come. nermee i would say i lived in london not very long ago in cambridge and london and i remember that we did not even have fans, much less air conditioning, so it is really staggering this heatwave. i want to ask about how people are responding, what steps are being taken to avert this climate crisis?

in the piece we just cited, you offer a scathing critique of the way we are dealing with the crisis, focusing on what you term "micro consumerist." could you explain? >> sure. what we're saying to the environmentalists, 're facing e greatest existential crisis humidity has ever faced, the potential collapse of our life support systems, domino effect until basically inhabitable space on the planet collapses into completelyifferent state for which we did not evolve. this is the biggest of all existential crises which humanity has ever faced. in response, we are saying we want you to not you so many plastic bags and replace your plastic straws. it sounds ridiculous but this is genuinely what a large portion

of the environment of movement has been doing. -- environmental movement has been doing. what happens when you do that is far from making it easier to make change and far from telling people, look, there's something is you can do so you can buy into this, very low threshold, turn people off altogether. people say, they can't be serious. obviously, it can't be that much of a problem if the solutions are so tiny. so this isn't something i need to worry about. those who have a bit more knowledge of it, well, they must feel like being taken for idiots. how can that solve anything? how's that going to fix the issue? but unfortunately, the micro consumer bollix is the narrative within the media but also a lot of environment organizations. when you approach those

organizations and say, look, this isn't going to cut it. these small criminal changes your calling for even slightly bigger ones than the ones i mentioned, in no way commiserate with the scale of the crisis we face. they say, well, we can't t too far ahead, we don't want to provoke a fight. we have to reach people where they are. frankly, their theory of change is just wrong. incremental change can never develophe transformation which is required in situations like this. in fact, probably in the situation. it just does not deliver. the only thing that delivers quickly and effectively is system change. and whilwe have been messing about with these ridiculous micro solutions, the radical right has instituted a global insurgency and has achieved system change, tearing down

democracy. it is tearing down the equality before the law. it is tearing down basic rights, human rights, tearing down regulation, tearing down tax, ripping out everything and changing the system to suit billionaires, to suit oligarchs, predatory corporations. we've been saying, yes, we are not a bit worried about asking for too much and they are succeeding. what it proves is you can do system change, a partially come approved it in the most horrible ways, and failure to demand that system change has been a big part of the reason why we are stuck where we are and why there is been almost no effective measures to invest the greatest of all crises. some of us know exactly what w want. we want what i call private sufficiency public luxury where we have our own domain at home where we have our own home and

necessities we need in that home but if we want luxury, we should pursue it and it the public domain because there's just simply not enough physical or ecological space for everyone to pursue private luxury. if everyone has a private jet and a supercar, we just burn through everything if that were the case. if everyone in london had their own swimming pool and their own tennis court and art collection, london would have to be as big as england in order to accommodate that. england be the size of europe. where would everyone else live? it is just impossible. this whole idea we can all become millionaires is impossible for two reasons. one, some are super rich and some are super important that extreme wealth defends exportation but secondly, there is not enough planetary space to permit that but enough space for everyone to he public luxury. public swimming pools and public tennis courts and public

transport. that creates space for people rather than taking it away. because we are sharing those resources, the impact per capita is much, much smaller. that is one part of it. we need the approach where we say we live within planetary boundaries but above the welfare boundaries so everyone has a good life without rupturing systems. we need the approach toward an ecological civilization and we need participatory democracy, building on the ideas of the practice in places like brazil and iceland and taiwan where there are great examples of how we can take back our politics and run them ourselves. some of us are very clear about the system change we want to see, but very few of us are actually prepared to call for that system change. and that has been our great failing. nermeen: george, i would like to ask about your recent book

"regenesis: feeding the world without devouring the planet." we were just speaking to vanessa nakate, the ugandan climate justice activist, who is telling us aut what the effects of the drought have been in the horn of africa and elsewhere. so if you could talk about the argument you make in the book come in particular, why you think animal -- our agriculture is particularly ruinous? >> first of all, many thanks to vanessa for her brilliant activism. she is such a wonderful person. thank you for having her on your program. it has become clear to me looking at it from e global perspective, as a whole, it is now as important to stop animal agriculture as it is to leave fossil fuels in the ground. we're not same people in somalia should stop keeping animals, that is clearly their only lifeline but for the great majority of people in the united

states, for people in the u.k. where i am, we have just got to stop eating animals because that is the primary environmental driver of destruction. so agriculture as a whole is a major course of -- because of loss, extinction, land-use, freshwater use, one of the major causes of climate breakdown water pollution from air pollution. by far the biggest chunk is from animal agriculture combat there with the fossil fuel industry. as the driver of mass destruction. plant-based diets are much more benign but you can go further than that and now we have these new technologies, including precision fermentation which is basically producing protein rich foods not from the flesh and secretions of animals, but from single celled organisms, from microbes. it is a sophisticated form of brewing.

there are many, many good things about this because it greatly reduces the environmental impact of producing your protein-rich foods but importantly company can be done anywhere. you don't need to have fertile land. you don't need to have water. you don't need the other elements to be able to produce food from farming. so it can be done and it horn of africa and across the middle east and north africa, producing basically a microbe which can be turned into virtually anything. i think this could be the only chance now for companies -- sorr for countries to break thei dependency on the multinational companies which are controlled in global trade or you have four corporations not controlling 90% of the global grain trade which leaves those countries incredibly vulnerable. they are at the end of a long and highly fragile foodchain come the global food system

itself has lost its resilience and beginning to look very much like the financial system in the approach to 2008. and if it breaks,t will be ose poor nations which hit first and worst, the absolute cutting of of potentially food imports were some of those nations. a lot of that food passes through chokepoints. one of those chokepoints is more or less completely close now which is the turkish straights do russia's invasion of ukraine. last year we saw another of the chokepoints, the suez canal because the ship got wedged across it. had those two things coincided, the foodchain would simply have snapped in about a quarter of the world's people would have been without food almost instantly. one of the things that the global food system has done is switch from stocks to floats. basically, floating atea a container ships. if those can't pass, then the shelves are instantly empty.

what this gives you is the opportunity to break that formula. i can't see any other easy way forward for countries where they landed just cap support people that depends upon imports that are dependent on buying food from hard currency markets with soft currency and they are extremely vulnerable to famine and food insecurity. amy: i want to turn to how one television station in england covered this week's heatwave. in this clip that has gone viral , gv news anchor bev turner interviews meteorologist. >> we all like nice weath but this will not be nice weher. this will be potentially lethal weather in a couple of days. it will be brief but brutal. >> john, so this -- i want us to be happy. i don't know something's happened to meteorologist to make you more fatalistic and harbingers of doom because all

of the broadcasts, particularly on the bbc, every time i turn it on they are talking about the weather saying there is going to be tons of fatalities. haven't we always had hot weather? i mean, 1976, that was hot, wasn't it? >> no. we are seeing more and more records, more more frequently and more severely. amy: this has been compared to the movie "don't look up." your response to this and then if you can comment on the british prime minister's race and where the final two candidates stand on this critical issue? >> so, people say "don't look up" was an example duration but the news anchors were not as stupid and as blinkered as the news anchors in that segment you have just seen. when i saw "to look up" it was like my life flashingefore me, this is all so familiar

including completely losing it in a tv studio where i could not take anymore, the banality, upidity and i'm sorry to say, i just burst into tears, which is slightly mortifying. there when i saw "don't look up" i felt vindicated cause that is the human way to respond to this utterly ridiculous, infuriating situation where these total more on's are just dismissing the greatest threat to human welfare there has ever been. how else can you respond to it? kudos to john for keeping his cool and i didn't because i would have been bashing my head on the table. anyway, yes, so we're talking about totalmorons we have a race between two to grab the home the titanic as it starts going down. brackets of the conservative party. you could not have two less suitable people for high office of any kind at all, let alone to

be prime minister of this country. but they are going to be chosen not by the country as a whole, but by the members of the conservative party. about 200,000 people, mostly elderly, almost entirely white, mostly male living in a particularly prosperous part of the country. what these people have to do to become prime minister really is to appeal to the worst instincts of humanity, and that is how they went. both are well equipped to do that. basically our and concentrated form come the worst instincts of community. and they would be utterly devastating. we have had the wor prime minister ever perhaps e form of boris johnson and it looks like they will continue that glorious tradition, basically the conservative party has become now that it has been stripped of all moderating influence is a channel for the demands of the most predatory and destructive forms of

capital. amy: let's just say the british prime minister addressing parliament just said force johnson "asta la vista, baby." >> here we are -- like amy: we

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