for crimes conversations of great minds i'm joined by bill mckibben bill is an author environmentalist and activist in one thousand nine hundred eighty eight he wrote the end of nature in my opinion the heir to rachel carlson carson's silent spring and since then gone on to write more than a dozen notable books about the environment and our human impact on he's the co-founder and chairman of the board of the grassroots organization climate change organization three fifty dot org which is coordinated fifteen thousand rallies in one hundred eighty nine countries since two thousand and nine and two thousand and ten the boston globe called in the nation's leading environmentalist and time magazine described him as the world's best green journalist and recently he was elected a fellow of the american academy of arts and sciences is latest book earth with a double a making a life. on a tough new planet is a guide to living on our fundamentally altered time bill welcome tom good to be with you as always thank you great to have you with us first off you're in d.c. this week for a very special

why you're passionate enough about this to go out there and risk arrest where you know dan choi bill mckibben in iran the power should conference earlier this year called what do you do when the president's just not in t.v. and experiences protesting in front of the white house cheney himself at the white house gate and really helping don't ask don't tell to get repealed was a very powerful i think for bill and so when he was designing this action he really did mine so dan said that he would take part in it and volunteered me to and i was happy to do it and you know it was it's a very very important issue but more than anything else it's you know it's something that the president has the power on is either approve or disapprove he doesn't need congress to do it this is one of the things where. we really get to see does he need what he said on the campaign trail when he said after i'm elected the earth will begin to heal well let's talk about why this is such a big problem for so many environmentalists right when it comes to tar sands and trying to extract oil from there they are really says a

establishment are not addressing and recognizing as legitimate so that when you have figures like bill mckibben go in front of the white house or wendell berry another great sort of moral voice occupying the governor's office in kentucky over mountaintop removal and bill and wendell are friends of mine and i've spoken to them about this it there is a feeling of that's all we have left that the mechanism of piecemeal and incremental reform that is the hallmarks of a democracy is broken it doesn't work and it doesn't work precisely because of the issue we mentioned before that there is a pipe bipartisan control. by the corporate state that at this point there is no way in america to vote against the interests of goldman sachs or exxon mobil are christ i want to thank you very much for joining us tonight and i'm correct i think you'll be here on october eighth protesting in washington d.c. to october sixth several states that taping so hopefully will see it and thanks so much. thank you. now still to come a glimmer of hope tonight when it comes to getting cell phone records without a warrant and n

our dependence on fossil fuel very very quickly we're sort of finished and bill mckibben who's been leading this protest in washington and was arrested two days ago in front of the white house with those protesters has been one of the very courageous voices. for probably two decades since right. the end of nature on this issue and yet human behavior has not adapted and the power really has if anything made things worse with the shredding of kyoto so. i think there's a moral imperative upon those of us who care about the planet and those of us who care about the country to carry out these acts of civil disobedience on the other hand i don't think we can be naive and if you ask me to put down money i'd say you're probably right probably won't work but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't get out and try because as things on ravel we enter a situation where to quote. the best blackhole conviction in the worst are full of passionate intensity we have some very frightening proto fascist movements around the tea party the lunatic fringe of the republican party. is becoming empowered because of thi

and bill mckibben an enviromentalist, author and organizer of the ongoing protests in washington thisk. bill mckinnon, why these protests? what are the key problems you see with this project. >> you know, this has turned into the biggest civil disobedience action in the environmental movement in a generation. the reason is that these tar sands in alberta is a big deal. it's the second largest pool of carbon on earth after the oil fields of saudi arabia. jim hanssen of nasa who was arrested today, really the world's foremost climate scientist, said as he was speaking this morning, if we go ahead and begin tapping these unconventional energy sources of which the tar sands are the biggest example, it is-- and i quote-- essentially game over for the climate. since for once obama can stop a project without having congress in the way, this has become the focal point. these arrests have actually now over 500 people, the numbers are just growing and growing day after day. >> brown: we're go into some of the details. as a general proposition you support this. why do you think it should go thro

. >> bill mckibben, thank you for joining me tonight. >> thank you, chris. >>> "the rachel maddow show" is up next. good evening, rachel. >> good evening, chris. and thanks to you at home for staying with us for the next hour. updates ahead on the storm track of hurricane irene on the east coast. the evacuation underway in the carolinas, and the preparations being made for the impending march of the storm up the eastern seaboard. >>> also, dick cheney's new book reveals the war he regrets not starting while he was vice president. >>> and also some election results that do not bode well for the celebrated tea party movement and their highly paid celebrity spokesmodels, glenn beck and sarah palin. that is all coming up this hour. >>> but we begin tonight with the front-runner once removed for the republican presidential nomination. mitt romney has been the front-runner for months now, right up until about five minutes ago when rick perry, the governor of texas, cannon balled into the race and swamped everybody else. mr. romney had been leading every national gallup poll for the republica