out i'm really excited about this and i think this is one of the coolest things that we've seen as far as ecology and a whole continent involving numerous countries coming together to do this so the original plan was of this plan was to plan this great wall of trees that is going to be ten miles wide and ultimately forty three hundred fifty miles long and what it does by facts about a dozen countries. but it runs about senegal in the west and then just to djibouti in the east but the biggest problem with growing something of this size and this scope is desertification so where places were. food bowls in places where things could be you know grown and all of this it's much harder now it is and you're right they ran into the heart of swathes of way on that no one is on the want to be able to cultivate the individual trees as they grow and things like that but plans change and they realize that it's not just about the individual

trees it's about how to protect them how to change how you're farming bringing in techniques even though there was one story about an australian visitor who visited said oh you could you know change the land up a little bit like this and then that would mean that man has been carried on like ten two decades in. a car of the lead environmental specials for the global environment facility at the world bank said quote it is not necessarily a physical wall but rather a mosaic of land use practices that ultimately will meet the expectations of the wall it has been transformed into this kind of metaphorical thing there they're changing the land for the better in order to create this you know quote unquote metaphorical idea of a wall a good wall a good one and so those are that's interesting so it's the african union and the united nations food and agriculture organization refer to this now as sort of africa's flagship initiative. to combat land degradation to certification and drought because that as these things are poles water and. learning how to grow in

these areas where they haven't before and really looking at these each techniques because what they have what they've talked about and why this is such an issue is twelve million acres of degraded land has been restored through these these sort of these projects in nigeria about thirty million acres of drought resistant trees were planted across senegal and a whopping thirty seven million acres of land has been restored in ethiopia and for those of us who are in our age group chamonix millennium kind of thing we remember what amount ethiopia was you know there was drought there was famine or kids and now. here we are to a point where they're bringing that back they're bringing not just bring them food as it was through our generation for so long but we've gotten past that we can just bring them food to making it able to grow food and being able to be a food bowl for everyone not just themselves well and that's the thing is like you can't just rely on philanthropy all the time you can't just rely you know i think

we've become i think the upper one percent of this world kind of feels like well if i just give enough money and thrown of money at a problem that fixes it doesn't there's much more beyond that and you know there's a there's a hundred different things that this kind of idea of this wall improves but i do here's a couple of them that they list on their website that goes along with what the u.n. want to list in terms of like how they want to change and better make the environment i think is by like twenty thirty twenty fifty. one of them was the you know the growing improved water security and the know it's also improvement for women too because now when you have these trees growing you have these new practices being built being done there women girls don't have to spend hours a day fetching water because the trees will naturally kind of keep the water in the region. growing fertile land that's obviously one of you know land as one of you mentioned humanity's most precious resource this project does that it also creates jobs it creates green jobs giving incomes to families across the sol i mean that's a huge thing right there when you're building and creating jobs off this that's

monstrously important you know and then finally one of the other ones that jumped out at me it's also starting to it's creating sustainable consumption patterns and basically right. there can grow enough to be there so you don't have to rely so much on imports act you know and imports of food and things like that exactly it's incredible it truly is i wish we were building that kind of a wall on the southern border and. living through tornadoes earthquakes tsunamis and other natural disasters can be incredibly devastating nature a few. even in today's age of technology and human ingenuity is still unmatched even by our own standards of destruction while witnessing nature's wrath in the moment is truly frightening oftentimes the aftermath of such an event can be just a scary in face of the loss of infrastructure and life and it's those nervous moments in which goodness most often shines through and march the state of nebraska

here in the united states had a bomb dropped on it in the form of a bomb cyclon the cause more than one billion dollars in damages to states from the to the state from a very rapid rainfall and heavy snow melt this included over four hundred million and last crops for a state known for its farm and livestock dependence but thankfully nebraska has friends willing to help friends troxel lost a lot of hay farmers from my home state of wisconsin drove to point to all the way to farmers in pennsylvania were seen driving caravans across america's highways and byways delivering food supplies and lots and lots of hay to nebraskans to help them in the time of need kevin and kendra schmidt organized a supply trip to nebraska from stratfor wisconsin after a trip they told the media quote we started off with only two trucks and trailers and at the end of the day we ended up with a truck full of hay personal goods and feed for farmers it feels good to help somebody that is that it most definitely does to those farmers we salute

wow that's a really neat story i think this is something that it sounds sort of cheesy being that i'm from wisconsin but it's true if you grew up there and you know this about the midwest and you know the there's just something very cultural that when things happen we don't think twice about you know when something happens you say what do you need we're going to go find if we have it or someone else says it will bring it we sort of don't wait especially in terms of farmers and we don't wait for these things to happen it's a community effort nobody's competing with each other and this sort of capitalist world. agribusiness beyond that there are these people who that's their livelihood and everybody works together and what you see here is literally people are taking their own trucks their own things and saying look i have a little extra why don't we. and i think this is one of those things that really is what we do need to see more of i think the media doesn't show this stuff but i know

it happens all the time and that's one of the stories about these is that this happens all the time this is what we do when one community needs something. or. other and i often wonder why the media is so. negative. things like. you know they kind of leave it up to local media every now and again but they don't they don't feel good they're only allowed to go there. but the local but we're never going to care about basil which is one of the reasons i like doing these shows like this i mean when you look at the damage that the brass were talking one point three billion. that includes you're saying that's four hundred forty nine million in damages to roads levees infrastructure four million crop losses four hundred million lost what these people are doing i

mean just the. last one hundred percent of their hey hey one of them my mom and dad had a horse farm going to high school one of the base crops running a farm or an industry dealing with animals and farming you need. a new. goes i'm. animal treatment whatever you can say and whether it's. one of these cattle are there for. these kinds of things literally animals starve and one of the worst things you talk to any real farmer not a corporate you talk to any real farmer. seeing their animals start no matter what those animals are going to be used for at the end is heartbreaking and that's not what they want to do and so this is the kind of thing that this is food for those animals you know it's not you know it's not just about your pork chops and your cheeseburgers you know they're saving their lives also i'd like it's pointed out

that tyrrell really doesn't like cows of course you go to their little. system but he still believes that they have to say. you know look i mean i love saying this because you know you mentioned it earlier to farmers know farmers there they know that they're all you know their lives are dependent made sure and when nature turns around and bites you like it has been through quite a change they're going to be there for support they're going to say hey you know what we have to bring it to nebraska that's what twenty six thirty hours ago they had to leave their homes to go boo this incredible story that a lot of people do you would see because they were they caught it like a. viral video shows up it just happened that somebody somebody was driving and saw and that's the only reason i saw it and because there isn't anything aside from a few local news reports they don't do have they just yeah i mean we try to even things out and hear certain days could be worse than others but to me in those

times why wasn't even the need of these farmers and i brassica should have been brought out but that's the thing it's not just about your fun whether graphics and will or will not whether cause a huge huge issue for my commute to work but really understand how it affects everybody and i understand i think this is another one of those things if you understand where your food comes from you understand how things work you know to back up what you were saying. meyers a lycoming county pennsylvania one of the farmers bringing food there from pennsylvania she actually said if it's not. what they want to bring down to them if it's not monetary it's cleaning supplies up it's not cleaning supplies it could be food supplies we're getting a little bit of everything from a little bit of everybody we are farmers farmers help farmers everyone should be taking that lee yeah we are a community and the community of support one of those things called the wall before one of the sixteen volunteers who made the trip to nebraska said we had some

flooding issues here in wisconsin but it wasn't as bad as what we saw in nebraska was ten times worse than we got and that's the other thing you can have your badly yeah you have flooding yes these things can affect you but when you look and say look i made it through this you have it harder. you know it's a simple idea of paying it forward that's a pay it forward let's help each other at the end of the day is not the most important thing to go to see good examples all right as we go to break off watchers don't forget to let us know what you think of the topics we've covered on facebook twitter and you tube and see our poll shows that are. coming up at the walls brings us the good news world literacy in artie's turn of the chavez burger some extraordinary news that in new york the state government is actually fighting back against traffic congestion some plastic trash actually pass something it's incredible all right stay tuned to watching the hawks.

after the previous stage of my career was over everyone wondered what i was going to do next. different clubs on one hand it is logical to sit in the fields where everything is familiar on the other i wanted a new challenge and the fresh perspective i'm used to suppress it. i'm going to talk about football not the or else you think i was going to go. by the way what is the fly here. because i live the he is confident. funny.

lady no. need to. be young. again. we have many things in this world this is it well for everyone and why some people's wants to take our things all the power just for themselves since that is the way that humans. will do. just by the national survival. when customers go by you're just

a place. in elf well reducible our. best undercutting but what's good for market is not good for the global economy. the activity known as journalism is under assault and it didn't start with the trials of julian assange and wiki leaks once it was so noble to report on the nefarious activities of those in power now it is being criminalized free speech is now the privileged few. bests just. right or ok we're four bucks just. to everybody. ok you can smoke this is worth. thirty. tony. this is about a fifteen dollar bad people smoke this one bigger so. you can see

these drugs any city in the united states that you want i. want to get it. i make money. it's one of their. literacy the ability to read and write is one of the most important life skills needed to thrive in today's modern world according to you know the united nations education scientific and cultural organization people with poor literacy skills are twice as likely to be unemployed they make thirty to forty percent less than there are literate coworkers and across the world sixty sixty to eighty percent of those

in prison have below average literacy skills as of twenty eighteen nearly seven hundred fifty million people across the globe still don't have the ability to read and write on the flip side for the first time in human history literacy is no longer in the confines of the rich and powerful but accessible to the masses from ebooks to the good old fashioned library card never before have books and the skills to read them but easier to get one seance on according to the organization for economic cooperation and development it was found that today a mere seventeen percent of the world's population is a literate while back in eight hundred twenty only twelve percent of the population . were literate as they could read and write one of the most compelling and successful ways people globally have increased literacy within their families is through the shared experience of reading so hawk watchers let's celebrate this upward trend in literacy and discover some of the additional ways individuals and groups are sharing the gift of literacy. that's incredible joy from the eighteen

hundreds to yesterday that's incredible news i'm so happy about that i've also heartbroken that they're seventy percent of any of the seven to seven hundred twenty million four hundred twenty million. and even two three years ago they were estimating was that eight hundred million so we've got about fifty million and over the last couple of years and part of that like when you look at the numbers of you say late generation to generation we've been getting more and more literate it really is a power struggle because when you talk about twenty school all of the books we didn't have libraries it wasn't until really carnegie started coming in building these public libraries that you'll see across small towns and really building a structure and having universities where they were public people there weren't library circle to go to so what books you had is what books you had and if you couldn't read them you couldn't read them because they weren't schools either a school system and part of that is why they're so it was a twelve percent and it's literally everyone right at the top because education literacy access to books those were things that were only allowed to the very elite

to the very rich to the very powerful and keeping those away from people was how you kept people working and lousy jobs that were dangerous it's knowledge is power you want to have power and that's the thing it's like i'm really excited to see these numbers and it's part is part of a good show that the it's a must when it's so important we have to protect that that's why it's so important that we have people out there protecting the information and keeping information to the public not just hoard it at the top. and one of those people who is lovely and always wonderful dolly parton little did you know so earlier this year her literacy program which is called imagination library they donated it's one hundred nothing on the book so the library of congress she says she started this charity back in one thousand nine hundred six as a tribute to her father is very hard working a lot if you know anything about her back story. he never learned to read or write

he didn't get to go to school couldn't because that where it was and what she said it's so important to me because if you can teach children to read they can dream and if you can dream you can be a success and you can see that in the numbers and there are obviously if not reading and not being able to read and write puts you in this in this case and being able to is this gift and one of the things that she said that's why it's so important in julie is because you would like i mean we both know what we couldn't do the jobs we do if we couldn't read in your sleep you can't do anything you can't drive a car if you can't read read signs it's also a medical issue there are health issues if you can't read a label on a medicine if you can't read instructions if you can't communicate it's it's a problem with language and reading is the most powerful tools human beings need to truly change in their lives in the make their lives better you know best of so important and when you see i mean the fact that you even have you wouldn't have any

quality of literacy in gender oh yeah same to me too yeah so you've got in the seventy's only around sixty percent of women globally were literate so around the time of one of them i was born only sixty percent of women were literate twenty sixty and that number had gone up to eighty three per grade even three percent literacy until you look as the literacy rates for men are still at around ninety percent across the board and only one in four countries have literacy rates for women above ninety percent and this is this is part of it goes back to whether it's teaching a girl to read or making getting water from your village close are these fundamental make a huge impact and literally make everything better and lower crime i mean like what else do you need to know reading is good looks good good for. cleaning your clothes . there's a new little program called married. some organizations have actually tar identify

those areas where families as you said important can read together the lot listen as the laundry literacy coalition i love this they created lot of laundry and literacy kids consisting of items such as a sofa for parents told to sit together a colorful alphabet rug an open facing bookshelf an assortment of children's books and a set of four colorful puppet animals please let's get that in the water rescues anyone who's ever been in a laundromat can be one of most depressing places in the world new people can sit while their clothes are getting washed and read and learn with their kids so important please keep literacy strong that's how we how we have power in this world where. i am now a bit of good news for one of the biggest service on the planet for york city a move to help the big apple's infrastructure and environment the new york state legislature just agreed to and passed a new budget deal that includes a ban get this single use plastic bags and the new tax on traffic congestion artie's america hurt the america's true chavez has more. after weeks of

negotiations the new york state legislature and governor cuomo signed off on a one hundred seventy five billion dollar budget that includes a ban on single use plastic bags a manhattan mansion tax and a groundbreaking plan to charge anybody driving into manhattan honk if you hate taxes now drivers who cross into manhattan below sixty first street will be hit with the nation's first congestion pricing fees starting at the end of two thousand and twenty the drivers will be charged for electronic readers that are automatically assessing tolls affecting the estimated seven hundred thirty one thousand drivers who travel into manhattan daily wow i didn't know that that will be interesting at the through hopefully it allows less congestion because it gets pretty intense at all times. while similar knishes have been adopted in other cities including london stockholm and singapore new york lawmakers say the plan must not enough money to support fifteen billion dollars in capital improvements. over the next five years the city's m.t.a.

will create a review board tasked with determining total amounts depending on the time of day along with exemptions the funds will be dedicated to upgrading the city's transit system as you know the subways. and the bridges and roads and everything and i'm sure upstate too so i think infrastructure is very important. the new provision also includes the ban of single use plastic bags that are found at grocery stores which often make their way into waterways and oceans displace trickle over i mean even the it wasn't that way i know i sound old but when i was young there was not plastic in the ocean and now it's gotten out of hand new york will join california and hawaii as the only states in the country with such legislation the ban which is expected to go into effect march two thousand and twenty will apply to most single use plastic bags provided by supermarkets and other stores i do think that is a good thing we see too much plastic on the streets and i think it could help the environment it could help the process i'm out of plastic that we waste everything

on the provision allows individual counties to opt into a five cent fee for paperless bags with two cents going to local governments and three cents going to the states environmental protection fund yes good to save the turtles susi susie save the turtles oh my so this video and it was like like a body of water covered in trash like literally the entire service company tries that's disgusting please stop littering save the turtles the budget also includes two other dedicated revenue sources for the subways a mansion tax on manhattan homes that sell for twenty five million dollars or higher and a tax on internet retail sales other agreements in the budget include the closure of prisons eliminating cash bail for misdemeanor or nonviolent a rise and also a permanent annual two percent cap on local property taxes reporting in new york tonight each of us are to. by now most of us have forgotten about the christmas or

yule trees we decorated with such great care just a few short months ago but for the wildlife the by use national wildlife refuge in louisiana your all quality decoration is their new lease on life on march twenty eighth the u.s. fish and wildlife service conducted its annual christmas tree drop in which they haue one copter drop nearly eight thousand new used christmas trees into by you savage marshes the trees will act as natural breakwaters that will slow down wave and wave and water movement they trap silt and encourage the growth of marsh gases why is this so important well for one the wetlands act as protection from floods that threaten cities like new orleans during storms by functioning as natural sponges they create new marsh habitats by building structures that can support native marsh crashes it traps and hold settlements creates more land and a more stable environment for animals and it even serves as valuable training as

you can see for the louisiana army national guard and curious of the new orleans office of resilience and stability sustainability for using some leftover holiday cheer to buy you salvage the second largest urban wildlife refuge in the u.s. for good all right that is our house for you show for you to barely remember everyone in this world we are now told that we are loved enough so i tell you all of you i am tired rovers are not out for a keep on watching all those heartfelt there are great but. my body told me that i belong with the board but my thoughts my mind with that

along with the girls. under the surgery to be a very popular. football person's doctor. i was born a male had a sex change when i was thirty years old. i've now been living as a woman for twenty eight years and i fully regret this. problem should have gone away from by now but they hadn't so these surgeries are nothing more than plastic surgery i've had several female to male friends and you look at it and you just go oh god you paid for that it's horrible nobody can change genders it's impossible. it's delusional it's a mental illness. this is now where one of my bone and flesh of my flesh she shall be called woman because she was taken out. of.

what is due before you came here where did you work before you came here whether you live. in many us states capital punishment is still practiced convicted prisoners can spend years waiting for execution but most of the time the victims' families they are very much in favor the death penalty there are some people because of what they did have given up their rights is live among us some even proven innocent off the years on death row and how many more exonerations is it going to take before we as a society realize that this is not working and we actually do something about. eating is just silly. i'm going to keep it as i live the good feel confident. part of. leave no. need. i d.d.

. and we have this rolls and this is it you know for everyone and why some people's wants to take our things all the power just for themselves and to see whether you. feel much. like.

pro songs protesters clashing with police in ecuador's capital following the rest of the wiki leaks founder and president of the whistleblower of turning the ecuadorian embassy into our. faces possible extradition to the us where he could be tried on allegations of hacking and conspiring with fellow whistleblower chelsea manning speech activists those are the charges in journalism. elsewhere french made weapons may have been used against civilians and for other war crimes in yemen according to league.