reaction to was this moment. the part of the opening ceremonies that involved an 11-minute-long tribute to the national health service, the british socialized health care system which they love. seeing that must have been a cognitively dissonant moment for an american conservative politician who is running for president in part on the basis of his claim that obama care is nudging us closer to the stall in stalinist hellscape of socialized medicine which of course nobody wants except for all of these people who have been living with it for decades who apparently like it so much their country decided to do a long, ornate, very theatrical pageant about it with lots of dancing for 11 minutes before an international audience. it went on and on and on about how much they love their national health care system. they bragged on inventing peter pan. and mary poppins. they bragged on the industrial revolution. they bragged on britain's role in inventing the internet, and they bragged on the stalinist

hellscape of socialist medicine they love so much as a country. oh, to see mitt romney's face at that moment in the opening ceremony. but alas, this particular brand of awkwardness for mr. romney and his presidential campaign actually came up again yesterday on the second leg of what has turned out to be mr. romney's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad trip abroad. mr. romney was addressing a group of wealthy campaign donors in israel, and he said to them this. quote, do you realize what health care spending is as a percentage of the gdp in israel? 8%. you spend 8% of gdp on health care. you're a pretty healthy nation. # we spend 18% of our gdp on health care. 10 percentage points more. so mr. romney in israel praising with an almost childlike sense of wonder the israeli miracle of how they have kept their health costs so low with great health outcomes as a result. do you want to know the secret

of how israel keeps its health costs so low while still getting great outcomes? they have a nationalized health system. they have sort of an extra socialized version of romney care, by which i mean obama care. the government in israel forces you to have health insurance. the government heavily regulates the insurance plans and tells them exactly what they have to cover. the plans even have to cover people who have pre-existing conditions. you ever heard about that as a possibility here? it is essentially the same stuff as romney care, and, therefore, obama care, except it is slightly more socialist in israel, and they love it and it's working. just like the brits love it, and it's working there too. which all makes total sense in policy terms. unless you are the guy in the middle of this who is accidentally praising it in israel or who is sitting through the ornate dancing pageants about it while you are trying to run for president on the united states on the basis of this whole idea being a horrible idea, which, of course, you yourself once pursued when you were a governor of a northeastern liberal state. but stepping on that particular rake was arguably one of the

better moments for mr. romney, at least on the israel leg of this trip. while in israel, mr. romney's foreign policy adviser, a bush/cheney guy you see here, he blundered unnecessarily close to accidentally starting a war when he made a statement to the press that was widely interpreted as giving israel the green light to start a war with iran at which point we, the united states and our military, would have their back in said war. we would join their war if they started it. and when i say his remarks were widely interpreted to mean that, here's what i mean. i mean look at these headlines. adviser, romney would back strike against iran. romney backs israel if needs to strike iran, aide says. romney says he would back unilateral israeli strike on iran. after a few hours of those eyebrow-raising headlines, after a few hours of those floating around the world, the romney

campaign tried to take it back, which makes you wonder why they said it in the first place. what? you didn't think about bombing iran before you went to israel and starting to talk about it? really? then there was the next rake that they stepped on, this one as a million-dollar-fund-raising event also in israel where mr. romney sat at the right hand of sheldon adelson, the casino billionaire who says he will spend $100 million or more to defeat president obama and elect mitt romney the next president. while sitting next to sheldon adelson, who is currently under justice department investigation for allegations of bribing foreign officials to advance his chinese gambling interests, mr. romney asserted something quite strange about something quite sensitive. he attempted to describe wildly inaccurately the economic disparity between israelis and the palestinians who live under israeli control. he described that economic disparity as about 2-1 when really it's about 20-1.

but more importantly than wildly getting his numbers wrong, mr. romney also said that the comparative wealth of israelis and the comparative poverty of palestinians is due to culture. he said, quote, culture makes all of the difference. so if you're an average dude living in the west bank and you make less than the average dude living in tel aviv, you can blame your inferior culture, mr. palestinian. after everybody and their mother freaked out about that, the romney campaign tried to make things better by explaining that mr. romney also thinks cultural inferiority explains why mexicans are poor, too, and ecuador. that's why the people of ecuador are poor. as you might expect, that did not make the palestinians feel any better about this. a senior aide to the palestinian president telling "the "washingto "washington post," all i can say is this man need as lot of education. he doesn't know the region. he doesn't know israelis, he doesn't know palestinians. to talk about palestinians as an inferior culture is a racist statement. i've never heard this from any israeli, to be honest.

he should know that the palestinians will never reach their economic potential under israeli occupation, and if he doesn't know this fact, this man has a lot to learn. the harm he has done to american interests throughout the region is enormous. so, yeah, the romney campaign is also trying to walk that back. they're now saying, quote, this was not in any way an attempt to slight the palestinians, and everyone knows that. that's part of the quote, actually. everyone knows that. really. everyone? see, think about it. in that context, given what else happened, the health care system stuff is retroactively less embarrassing, isn't it? i mean, relatively speaking, if you had to pick one of those to hang around your neck for the rest of your life, might pick the health care thing. think about the trip overall. in london, he insults britain's preparedness to host the olympics. he suggests that the british people may not turn out to support the olympics. he discloses what was supposed to be a secret off-the-record meeting with the head of mi6.

he forgets the leader of the labor party he's meeting with, calling him "mr. leader" instead. he sets through the pageant at the opening ceremonies at the olympics, and then he caps it all off with his reference to looking out the british prime minister's backside. >> to look out of the backside of 10 downing street and see a venue having been constructed. >> the british press gave him a pass on that one because of the whole difference between american english/british english thing. the british press generously concluded that the word "backside" must not mean over here what it means over here. actually, you guys, you know what? backside is backside. it's the same everywhere. he said he was looking out the backside, but that was just the first leg of the trip. leg two was israel, the awkward boom ranging praise for the socialized health care service there, almost starting a war with iran, and then saying palestinians are poor because of their inferior culture, you want to take it back, take it all back.

undo it all. retroactively don't take this trip. mr. romney is now on the final leg of this trip, which is poland. upon landing in poland, he was greeted by a crowd of ron paul supporters. polish ron paul supporters. ron paul revolution, poland style. the reason that candidates take trips like this when they're candidates is to show they're capable of doing this if they got the job. they're capable of representing america on the world stage. we're supposed to look at this trip by mitt romney and think, yeah, he could be president. he'd be a good president. but this sort of thing isn't just a campaign thing. it isn't just a hypothetical what would he be like sort of thing. mr. romney now, whether or not he's elected, now represents to the world the opposition view in american politics. i mean, the republican party in, you know, sending mr. romney abroad on this trip, wants the world implicitly to look at mr. romney and see him as what their party has to offer. not just our country, but the world. he's the opposition view in american politics. and mr. romney will now be returning from the trip abroad

to find a republican party here at home that is still quite desperately trying to cut the cord with the republicans that the world in our own country most identify with republican presidential leadership. as mr. romney was leaving on this foreign trip, it was announced that george w. bush, the last republican president, will not be going to the convention that will nominate mr. romney next month. and as mr. romney returns from this trip, it is announced that former vice president dick cheney will not be going to the convention either, mr. cheney telling abc news he plans go fishing instead. so the olympics, not just the trip, but the metaphor, is apt here. this is a passing of the torch. the republican party this week is insuring that the existing torch holders are, in fact, going to hand it over. but the guy they're trying to hand it over to at this point in his campaign seems more apt to light himself metaphorically on fire with that torch than to run it anywhere. joining us now is john harwood, cnbc's chief washington correspondent and a political

writer for "the new york times." mr. harwood, thank you for your time. nice to see you. >> hi, ms. leader. >> you can call me anything. after five days of vacation at this point, i'm impervious to insult. john, how are republicans in d.c. reacting to this -- to the romney overseas trip? is it accomplishing the goals the campaign had for it? >> not entirely, but not -- it's not failing entirely either. i talked to one senior republican strategist today who said, look, the london stuff was embarrassing. and i understand the controversy about the things he said about palestinian culture. but what mitt romney really wanted out of this trip was what he got on the front pages of every newspaper in the country, which was a picture of himself at the wailing wall. it sends a message to conservative jews or jews who may not have voted democratic, but also to conservative christians, evangelicals who have adopted the cause of israel as something that is core to their political set of beliefs,

and that could be successful and could wash over a lot of the words that have been said. but i've got to say, rachel, i think one of the things from the trip that will live longer than any of the stuff we're talking about is what he said today to david muir of abc about taxes when he said he couldn't recall if he had ever paid a lower rate than 13.9%, which is what he paid in 2010, the one return we have. and when he said he had been audited by the irs, they're both going to fuel efforts to continue raising this question. that's where republicans think mitt romney has a real problem. >> it does tell you that story line, which, of course, is the democrats' favored story line here, their most favorite, if not just one of the pantheon for them at this point that is going to this live. i was struck by one particular thing he said in the david muir interview today, which was about him having taken advantage of

tax loopholes and other ways of evading -- avoiding taxes in the legal sense. he said, if i -- i'm paraphrasing -- if i had paid a dollar more in taxes than i absolutely had to, i would not be qualified to be president. when mr. romney's father disclosed all those years of tax returns when he was running, one of the revelations is that he did not take advantage of every loophole, every means of avoiding taxes that he could have. wasn't mitt romney, in effect, saying that by doing that, his dad wasn't qualified to be president? >> i thought it was a very unusual statement, and i'm not sure that most americans would look at somebody with an income of more than $20 million a year, as we've seen from both of the years that he has given us some data on, that they would regard it as an essential qualification that you pay the absolute minimum on taxes. you know, every time warren buffett goes out and speaks in favor of president obama's plan to raise taxes on the top end, people say, well, warren buffett ought to keep quiet. if he wants to pay more taxes,

he should just write a check to the irs. i haven't heard anyone say that would be an act of stupidity or disqualification from office. >> it's at contrast with his own father given his father's record on that specific subject, i felt, when i saw that today, i thought, oh, this one is not going to go away for a while. let me ask you one other issue on the foreign policy thing. at the same time vice president cheney and george w. bush are announcing plans to not be there at mr. romney's convention, the democrats today announced a keynote, prime time high-profile speaking spot for their convention for the democrat's last president, for bill clinton. do you see any advantage in one of those two very different approaches to these parties' recent governing past and the republicans pretending they don't have a recent governing past and the democrats so boldly embracing clinton? >> it's a striking contrast, and bill clinton is a big asset for democrats, in part, rachel, because mitt romney is going out on the stump and deriding barack obama by making a contrast to bill clinton. saying under bill clinton, we followed one set of policies and things worked out a lot better than under obama.

first of all, the policies weren't all that different, but more importantly, he's going to be the keynote at the convention and set the tone and make the economic argument that he can better than almost anybody else in american politics. that's a big advantage. the bush and cheney decisions aren't too much of a surprise. everyone knows they left office terribly unpopular and mitt romney doesn't need that extra baggage. >> john harwood, cnn chief correspondent and wrietder for "the new york times," thank you very much. good to have you there. >> you bet. >> what john is saying about making the economic argument against mitt romney and who is the best economic talker on the democratic side, if you don't think that bill clinton is that person, the other democrat, you probably think is the best person on that is elizabeth warren. we found out today that on the same night that bill clinton is going to be addressing the dnc, so, too, is massachusetts senate candidate elizabeth warren. the democrats seem focused on this economy thing.

all right, we've got a best new thing in the world coming up. it's about a bronze medal. but it's a best new thing. how could that be? stay with us. [ male announcer ] we got a real mom

and the family car to do an experiment. we put a week of her family's smelly stuff all in at once to prove that febreze car vent clips could eliminate the odor. then we brought her family to our test facility to see if it worked. [ woman ] take a deep breath, tell me what you smell. something fresh. a beach. a clean house. my new car. [ woman ] go ahead and take your blindfolds off. oh!! hahahaha!!! look at all this garbage!!! [ male announcer ] febreze car. eliminates odors for continuous freshness, so you can breathe happy.

if you're for abortion, against abortion, if you're for it, in what instances would you allow for it? >> i'm prolife, and i'll answer the next question. i don't believe in the exceptions of rape or incest. i believe that the only -- >> can i get a little applause for forcing the rape victim to

bear the child of the rapist? can i get a little applause for that, please? the dividing line between main stream politics and fringe politics moves really fast now on the american political right. before the 2010 midterm elections, it was anathema, even anti-abortion, conservative republican party politics, it was anathema to say even if a woman became pregnant because she was raped, the government should force that victim to terry to term the pregnancy that was the result of the rape. even for the down the line, hard core antiabortion, right to life politicians, exceptions in anti-abortion laws for women who were raped or were the victims of increst were not a controversial thing. for a party in turmoil trying to build itself back up after being reduced to essentially a rump position by two consecutive devastating elections at the end of the bush/cheney years, one of the things that bubbled to the surface was a newly radical anti-abortion position. that included the government cracking down on rape victims and incest victims, in a way that nobody ever thought would become mainstream.

in the 2010 u.s. senate races, it was not just ken buck from colorado who you saw there a moment ago, but also christine o'donnell from delaware, also sharron angle from nevada. she said for a teenage girl raped by her father, the government forcing that girl to carry the pregnancy to terms would be like turning lemons into lemonade. it was also joe miller from alaska that year. it was also rand paul from kentucky. five republican party nominees to the united states senate ran for office in 2010 by saying they would force rape victims and incest victims to carry any resultant pregnancy to term. all of those senate candidates were defeated, except, of course, for rand paul. but that was not a 2010 fluke. that was not a flash in the pan from that very conservative election year. turns out that was the direction of the new normal and republican party politics. since then, republicans in states all across the country, alabama, idaho, indiana, kansas, nebraska, oklahoma, louisiana, georgia, arizona, have all changed state laws to crack down on rape victims.

not on rapists. on rape victims and incest victims. stripping the immunity they have traditionally had from strict new abortion laws banning abortions at a specific time, and even now at the federal level. this week in the house of representatives, tomorrow in the house, republicans in the house tomorrow will bring up for vote a new ban on abortion access after 20 weeks in washington, d.c. the ban essentially targets victims of rape and incest in a way they have never been targeted before. it does not exempt them from these new restrictions. what did rape victims and incest victims do to deserve this? why this change in republican politics? i mean what was onceonce anathe

even among antiabortion politicians is now mainstream republican politics. even as they have moved so dramatically and so quickly and so far on this issue, that does not mean that the american public has moved very much on this issue. that means that as the republican party has gone this way and the american public have stayed here, a chasm has opened between public opinion and what the republican party is now offering in terms of policy. a breach like that is one that any opposition party worth its salt will take advantage of. yes, into the breach the democrats are now stepping. they're now pressing their advantage on this issue. >> i have never felt this way before, but it's a scary time to be a woman. mitt romney is just so out of touch. >> mitt romney opposes requiring insurance coverage for contracepti contraception, and romney supports overturning roe versus wade. romney backed a bill that outlaws all abortion, even in cases of rape and incest. >> there's so much we need to do. we need to attack our problems, not a woman's choice. >> i'm barack obama, and i approve this message. >> that ad from the obama campaign is running in florida, iowa, nevada, new hampshire, north carolina, ohio, virginia, and colorado. now, the romney campaign has reacted to this ad with outrage,

calling it false. they're saying it is not mr. romney's position that the government should force rape victims and incest victims to carry a pregnancy to term and give birth if they become pregnant as a result of those crimes. now, it's true mr. romney at times has said that is not his position like his position in the "national review." but at times, mr. romney has also said that that is his position. >> if hypothetically roe v. wade was overturned and the congress passed a federal ban on all abortion and it came to your desk, would you sign it? yes or no? >> i agree with senator thompson, which is we should overturn roe v. wade and return these issues to the states. i would welcome a circumstance where there was such a consensus in this country that we said we don't want to have abortion in this country at all, period. that would be wonderful. i'd be delighted. >> would you sign the bill? >> let me say it.

i would be delighted to sign that bill. >> that was mitt romney running for president last time around saying he would be delighted to sign an abortion ban for all abortions period. and usually when you go out of your way to say all abortions, period, you mean all. you mean no exceptions. when mississippi was considering a ban on not just all abortions but even likely some forms of hormonal birth control with their so-called personhood amendment last year, he went on the fox news channel with mike huckabee and told mr. huckabee that he would have absolutely supported legislation like that in massachusetts. >> would you have supported the constitutional amendment that would have established the definition of life at conception? >> absolutely. >> so as the republican party's attitude toward rape victims and incest victims has changed dramatically just over the last few years, mitt romney has taken both sides of this issue. as his campaign is now screaming about one of his two positions on the subject being used in campaign ads and as the press

investigates these protests, tries to figure out whether or not mr. romney is justified in complaining about this ad, i have a thing to say. you really do have to look up from the beltway and into the rest of the country on this one. there is a way to sort this out. this is not a hypothetical issue anymore. in nine states the republican party in the past two years has instituted new abortion bans for rape victims and for incest victims. republicans explicitly and deliberately going out of their way to change state law in those states so the government will now force rape victims to bear the child of their rapists. republicans in the house of representatives are going to vote tomorrow on another new abortion ban, again for rape victims and incest victims in washington, d.c. this is not theoretical. this is not hypothetical. this is easy to figure out. here's how you do it. here's how i would do it if mr. romney or his campaign would ever talk to me. mr. romney, do you agree with what your party is doing on the subject in nine states and what they're trying now to do at the federal level? do you agree with these new laws

being advanced by your party, or do you disagree with them? easy question. i would love to know the answer. i have no idea what he would say.

and now a break from the

and now a break from the rather extreme heat of the summer of 2012 to remember cold. specifically the cold of february 10th, 2010. here is how that cold was reported. at least in some circles of the conservative media. >> poor al gore. we should get a camera outside his house.

is he home? is he worried about this? is he seeing his bunk collecting snow outside fox? it's unbelievable. >> yeah. so it was the snowstorm that disproved global warming. the anchor person on fox referring to climate change activists in that report as warmists. because, you know, if winter happens, then global warming is a fake. also, if sunrise happens, that means there's no night. the american politics of science just now, just this past weekend, has just gotten much less idiotic and much less predictable. we've got a hot one tonight for the interview. please stay with us. that's ahead. i stepped on the machine, and it showed me the pressure points on my feet and exactly where i needed more support.

i had tired, achy feet. until i got my number. my dr. scholl's custom fit orthotics number. now i'm a believer. you'll be a believer, too. learn where to find your number at drscholls.com.

on march 24th, 1989, an oil tanker hit a reef off the coast of alaska. the ship spilled more than 11 million gallons of crude oil into prince william sound. killing fish and birds and coating the beaches in very sticky, toxic, black gunk. responders went to work with the same technology they used for decades and are still using now. the always uninspiring and occasionally just useless boom.

also industrial paper towels. the oil industry's low-tech answer when things go oops. after the 1989 spill, exxon set to work scrubbing the name off the wrecked ship itself. the following year, they rechristened the exxon valdez the exson mediterranean, and then the sea river mediterranean, and then the sr mediterranean, and then the plain old met trainian. they had sold the exxon valdez to a company that named it the dong fang ocean. then it had a collision with another ship, which left the old exxon valdez fit only for scrap then it was sold again and renamed again, and i kid you not, they renamed it the oriental nicety. the oriental nicety? yeah. which we all know is the exxon valdez, will now be sailing into a ship-breaking yard off the western coast of india, over the

protests of environmentalists who say the ship has asbestos on board and it's too dangerous to break up. thanks to a new ruling, that's where it's going to be turned into scrap. it's finally going away. turned into a pile of junk metal even as thousands of gallons of the oil that it once carried still persists to this day on the alaska coast. the fortune global list of the 500 richest companies in the world just recently came out aga again. of the top ten, seven are oil companies. exxon alone made $41 billion in pure profit just last year. wow. oil companies are almost as great at making money as they are terrible at cleaning up their messes when things go wrong. just about exactly two years ago, a pipeline ruptured along michigan's kalamazoo river. the company that owned the pipeline had ignored cracks and corrosion in that pipe for five years. when the pipe finally and perhaps inevitably gave out, the company did not respond or even

realize anything had gone wrong for 17 hours after it broke. by that time, more than 800,000 gallons of tar sands oil had spilled into the river. tar sands oil is not like regular crude oil. it sinks. doesn't float on the top. it sinks, and it sank to the bottom of the kalamazoo. so the company spent two years trying to invent new ways to clean it up, how to shake it loose from the bottom of the riverbed so they could wipe it up on the surface with the old bad technology. the name of the company that owned the pipeline is enbridge. the federal government fined enbridge more than $3 million, which is roughly lunch money for a company with annual revenue in the hundreds of millions. two years after enbridge's disaster on the kalamazoo river, two years almost to the day, look at what's happened now. another enbridge pipe has burst. this time in wisconsin. the spill happened on friday in a field.

the "milwaukee journal sentinal" reporting, quote, one horse and one cow in the pasture apparently were the only eyewitnesss to the geyser that sprayed up oil 1,000 feet southwest of the pipeline. along with the horse and the cow, enbridge noticed this time that something had gone wrong, so they did shut off the pipeline. the washington post says, though, even so, six very large tanker trucks worth of oil spilled out. and that was not even the only oil spill in wisconsin this month. a truck spilled 54,000 gallons of west. it got into wells that people use for drinking water, although they won't be doing that anymore. all of this is happening while state regulators try to get accountability from a company who spilled coal ash into lake michigan back in october. energy companies are good at making money. they're bad at cleaning up their mistakes. because they're so good at making money, it can be difficult to trust what they're telling you when you suspect they're making mistakes. they can pay for a lot of speech.

consider their new moneymaker. hydraulic fracking. hydraulic fracturing. they blast a toxic liquid into the ground, breaking up the rock, and releasing natural gas and sometimes leaving homeowners nearby with tapwater they can light on fire. or not. back in february, the university of texas announced the results of a new study, new study shows no evidence of groundwater contamination from hydraulic fracturing, awesome, sounds great. and then you learn, as the world did last week, that the lead scientists also works for a fraking company in texas. he sits on the board of a texas fracking company and holds stock and gets a nice annual fee. meanwhile, folks who live near fracking in texas are waking up to brand new earthquakes in their neighborhoods. one county has experienced 11 small quakes since early june. they used to have no earthquakes ever in that texas county, ever. now they've got deep injection

wells, and they're getting enough earthquakes that insurance companies are starting to market earthquake insurance to the homeowners there. maybe they could ask the scientist who sits on the fracking board if the fracking is causing the quakes. as we worry over the associated calamity when we dig and drill and blast and mine and frac this stuff out of the ground so we can set it on fire for fuel, as we marvel over just how astonishingly rich you can get if you're the one selling this, the fundamental question of what the cost is to all of us, even if you don't spill it, the question of how much this costs all of us is of course a matter of huge contention and huge political fighting. and it is a matter of huge contention and huge political fighting that just changed a lot because of something that was done this weekend by our next guest. stay tuned for the interview tonight. it's next and it is a big deal. hold on. [ male announcer ] we did a febreze experiment

with the azerbaijani wrestling team. ♪ can febreze air effects defeat the smelly air in their gym for good? [ man ] what can you smell? [ inhales deeply ] a lot of flowers. it's on the zingy side of floral. potpourri factory, maybe. you can take off your blindfolds now. oh my gosh. [ laughter ] [ male announcer ] success. victory over odors, for good, both here and in your home. febreze. breathe happy.

for the past 30 years, the mcarthur foundation has given what are commonly described as genius grants. you can be any age, working in any field. there's no warning you're even being considered, and then one day, bingo, here's $500,000. you show exceptional promise in whatever it is that you do. go do more of it. go do more of whatever it is you want to do with this no-strings-attached $500,000. the people who get a genius

award each year, the list of folks when it comes out, they tend to be not well known people. there are exceptions, but most of the names are not names you have instantly heard of when they win the prize. if you look at the list, the further you go back in time, the more mcarthur genius grant names you recognize from the old list. that makes sense. if the genius award recognizes people who show great potential. right? the idea is that they will get to be famous later. this year will be the 31st year of mcarthur genius grants, 31 years. our guest for the interview received his mcarthur genius grant 30 years ago, in the second year that they were giving them out. as a professor of physics at uc berkley, as a senior scientist at the lab, as a physicist, it was a big deal that someone as highly esteemed and accomplished as professor richard muller described himself as a skeptic on the issue of climate change.

he argued there were problems and he doubted whether global warming was happening. because of those views, it was not necessarily a surprise when he launched a new project to study the voracity of global warming data, his single largest private backer was the charles g.koch foundation. it provided almost a quarter of the foundation. that's koch as in charles and david koch, the conservative billionaires who got that way by inheriting their father's oil company fortune. they're oil zillionaires. while, of course, their funding of this project did not come with strings attached, frankly, the koch brothers do fund a lot on what happens on the "global warming is a hoax" side of things. but richard muller's latest study was an independent scientific endeavor, and the results are the opposite of of in accord with the funder's political positions.

when professor muller was invited to testify before a house subcommittee on the environment last year, he reported there that contrary to his previous beliefs, to his expectations, his preliminary analysis showed that, indeed, there is a global warming trend. then six months after delivering that information to congress, professor muller declared publicly that global warming is real, and he said he was no longer skeptical of the data about which he had once voiced doubts. >> a new study finds global warming is real and that the science behind it is not impacted by bias, bad data, or cities that act as heat islands. >> the existence of global warming, i think, is pretty much beyond dispute now. i think we have closed the last remaining questions on that. >> muller's study is getting a lot of attention because it was funded in part by a foundation backed by charles and david koch. they are oil billionaires and climate change deniers. today no one can deny that extreme weather is here to stay. >> that was last november. that was a bombshell. now here's another. look at this from the "new york

times" this weekend. richard muller writes, call me a converted skeptic. three years ago, i identified problems in previous climate studies that in my mind threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. last year, following an intensive research effort, i concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. i'm now going a step further. humans are almost entirely the cause. joining us now for the interview is professor richard mull ore f the future burke energy project and of the new book. his new book is called energy for future presidents. thank you very much for your time tonight. nice to have you here. >> thank you for the invitation. >> first let me ask, especially as a non-scientist, if i screwed any of that up explaining how you got to this the position you just detailed in the "times." >> i think it was accurate except for the characterization of the koch foundation that always gave us a completely open hand and indicated no preference

for what our results would show. >> fair and smart of you to point out, and i appreciate you doing that. i do -- i did try to insist that there was no implications there was any funding, no strings attached to the funding, but i think as was noted in the nbc "nightly news" report as well, the fact that they were among your funders is part of the reason why, i think, your position on this, your evolution on this, has received so much attention. do you see why people might put that sort of political shine on what it is you have done? >> well, we try very hard to be objective and nonpolitical. we're hoping that by doing so and sticking by the highest standards of science that we will help cool the debate and bring together everybody. science is a small realm of knowledge on which universal agreement is possible and likely. and i'm hoping we can settle the science so the more contentious issues, what to do about it, can then be debated. on that point, why, in your words, is it important to know specifically if and how much

humans are the cause of global warming, admitting that global warming is happening, obviously, is step one. why is the second step so important in terms of policy and coming up with a way to cope with this as a civilization? >> well, if we are a cause, we can do something about it. if we're not at cause, it's a solar variation which we ruled out in our study, then it's hopeless. we just have to wait for it to happen. but if we're causing this, we can do something about it. and i am personally concerned not with the current global warming, which i think has been quite small, but real. it's with the future global warming that the danger lies, and we need to recognize where that danger is coming from and then look for a solution. >> what were some of the other factors besides solar variation? some have described that as sunspot.

some other areas that you thought might have reflected the data in the past that you remember able to rule out with the current round of research? >> well, the main one was a variation in the sun. there were volcanic eruptions that have affected the climate, and we see those. they're very short-living. a volcanic eruption tends to cool the planet for about three years. we were concerned about effects such as el nino and the gulf stream. those cause variations, too, and we're able to see that, but they were short lived. the remarkable thing is when we took those out, the fingerprint of solar variation was just absence. the shock to me was the carbon dioxide curve was right on. at that point, i was very surprised. i had to been, i'd like to think, coming pleatly open minded, and so when we got that fit in a relatively simple way, in way that doesn't need

programs, the curve certainly matches that of carbon dioxide. at that point my opinion finally formed. >> you go on to say correlation is not cause sigs because the correlation is very strong. an alternate explanation for why temperatures have gone the way they have. given what you see in the correlation between carbon dioxide and temperatures, do you think that the level of reduction we'd have to have in carbon dioxide is so great in order to affect temperature that it would have to be a global economic shock, or would we be able to reduce carbon dioxide in a way that's economically sustainable? >> i think there are two key things that we can do. one of them is a global effort towards energy efficiency and conservation. i think that's realistic. but the biggest thing is -- and this will be controversial.

the biggest thing is a switch away from coal and to the one thing that can replace it in the poor countries, which are going to produce most of the carbon de dioxi dioxide, natural gas. we have to make fracking clean, so that countries such as china and india can switch. natural gas produces one-third the carbon dioxide of the coal for the same energy. if we don't do this, i don't think -- i don't think we have a chance. >> and if we can figure out a way to do it without it causing earthquakes and lighting our drinking water on fire, i think a lot of people will follow you down that path. >> exactly. >> but i don't think that's hard. it requires more than $3 million fines. but clean fracking, the technology there is something which, i think, is achievable, and it's something that we really have to aim at, because nothing else can be afforded by the poor countries. unfortunately, china is already, by the end of this the year, producing twice the carbon dioxide of the united states. and it's growing very, very rapidly. so we have to come up with a technology, a technology that can be afforded by the developing world. >> professor richard muller of

the berkeley earth surface temperature project at uc berkeley, thank you very much for joining us tonight and for being populist enough in your approach to this position that you did it in an op-ed in ""the new york times". that everybody could read. thank you, sir. sometimes, i feel like it's me against my hair. [ female announcer ] weak, damaged hair needs new aveeno nourish+ strengthen. active naturals wheat formulas restore strength for up to 90% less breakage in three washes. for strong, healthy hair with life, new aveeno nourish+ strengthen.

for strong, healthy hair with life, to find you a great deal, even if it's not with us. [ ding ]

oh, that's helpful! well, our company does that, too. actually, we invented that. it's like a sauna in here. helping you save, even if it's not with us -- now, that's progressive! call or click today. no mas pantalones! okay. best new thing in the world today. imagine you just won a medal in the olympics. it is the first medal your country has won in these olympics. and you won this medal on your birthday. if you can imagine that feeling, you have some idea of the excitement of this guy, felipe kitadai of brazil. he won a bronze on saturday in judo. he was so happy to have the medal that he decided he would not take it off, even for a

second, which we know now because he has asked the international olympic committee for a new one to replace the medal that he broke when he wore it into the shower. he was reportedly trying to keep the medal from getting wet by clutching it in his teeth while he was in the shower. honestly, for me, that raises more questions than it answers. i mean if you want to keep your medal from getting wet, why would you put it in your mouth? aren't mouths also wet? also, what's the problem with it getting -- never mind. brazil has asked the international olympic committee if felipe kitadai could have a new medal since he broke his. the ioc has said yes. but that's not the best new thing in the world today. really, if you won an olympic medal, maybe you too would be too excited to take it off, even in the shower, maybe just that first day you got it, especially if that that day was your birthday. i have no judgmes about this, whatsoever except to be super psyched that this guy fees so great about this thing he so righteously did. overseas ups and downs.

myth mitt romney picks up a prestigious endorsement in positively and while getting slammed in pakistan. a high-level diplomat jumps ship. and close call a chinese mother being hailed a hero after pulling her husband and child from harm's way. i'm lynn berry. those stories and more, straight ahead. this is "first look" msnbc. we are going to begin wit foreign controversies. after the first two stops in three countries caused more head scratching than high praise, mitt romney got an endorsement today. he wraps up with a speech in

warsaw. brian mooar joins us from washington with more. >> reporter: mitt romney trying to send subtle messages about president obama but headlines are altogether different. in poland, mitt romney received the blessing of lek walessa. >> translator: be successful. >> thank you so much. >> reporter: instead of a focus of sweeping photo-opes, today, about his latest dustups. the republican candidate heaped praise on the israeli culture and economy. that deeply offended palestinians, already angry that romney declared jerusalem the israeli capital. >> this does not help those