. >> eliot: author of language intelligence, joe romm, thank you for your time tonight. >> thanks for having me, eliot. >> eliot: now explain to those of us who aren't -- sort of living and breathing this all the time, why this arctic icecap is so important in terms of the larger implications for global warming? >> well, it is sort of the arctic icecap is like thate's freezer in some sense and the door is now left open. i mean it's been covered in ice for most of -- thousands of years. and as you expose the ocean, a couple of things happen. first of all the ocean is a lot darker than the ice. so the ocean actually absorbs the sun's light better than the ice so you get this feedback effect. the ocean warms more ice retreats. that's what we're seeing is accelerated feedback. the other thing is of course is the ocean is much warmer than the ice. so when you're exposing, like you said, an area which is the size of almost half the continental united states is now much warmer than it used to be. that's going to change the climate. that's going to change the weather. there is some early evid

ralph nader, founder of public citizen, erich pica, president of friends of earth, carter roberts, joe romm, publisher of climate progress. each was asked to give us their top three choices. after surveying all 12, we counted up all the points to determine the final ranking. aias -- i asked toby heaps to come up here and tell us the final rankings. thank you. >> thank you. in the absence of a drum roll, the winner, the top two scoring presidents in u.s. history were both from a party that today is not often linked to the environment. they were original environmentalists in their own right. teddy roosevelt was named the greenest president in u.s. history according to our poll. many people know his leadership record to secure and protect nature in the u.s. over 230 million acres were helped protect -- he helped protect. he was the original conservationist. he protected the environment from industry and from man because he thought that was an important thing to do, for the environment to be around for us to enjoy and for us to exist. that was a sacred right onto itself. the second winner comes