the light unprotected soil is swept up in the winds, causing the dust t storms that are blown over chinana's cities and beyond its bororders. on the plateau, the researchers realized that progressive degradation of the environment trapped the local population into a life of subsistence farming.g. it's a a process s that hasas od throughout t the world where poor agricultural communities find themselves overusing their land in order to survive, depleting its fertility and further imimpoverishing ththemselves. one thing that became apparent early on is the connection between damaged environonments and hum p poverty. in many pararts of the world, tthere's been a vicicious cycle. continuous use of the land has leded to subsistence agrriculture.. and generation byby generation, this has further degraded ththe soils. the vital question we have to ask is, can this destctive prococs be reversed? [indiststinct announcncements] 15 years ago, chinese and internanational experts were confidenent it could be. they decided that to prevent further erosion, it was necessary to cease farming on certain key a

when you'reening talking about the presence of nuclear weapons, chinana plays e united states like a fiddle all the time in international relations. amy: before we go to break, then we will be joined by glenn greenwald, so duterte is coming to the white house? >> donald trump says come anytime you're in washington, come by. after we published this, senator lindsey graham said he m may jon with democrats who are callili for trump to postpone that trip so they can discuss these issues. i do think -- what is interesting, he just declared martial law in the south of the country, duterte take did, and he is doing it in the name of fighting terrorism. that part of what duterte is doing has long been aided by the united states, the cia, military intelligence. islamistme of fighting rebels. duterte is now adopting that rhetoric just like bush and trump pulls the obama a different terms for. in a way, seems as though duterte is outsmarting trump in terms of how this is all playing. amy: jeremy scahill is going to stay with us co-founder of the , intercepept and host of the nw weekly podcast,