mr. mckibben: i take your point about the environmental racism. in the case of flint, i would underscore it by reference to the fact that the emergency ,anager made these decisions one of eight emergency managers across michigan which somehow had been imposed on the city where there are majority black populations. no coincidence. also the financial dimensions of what we learned in flint. would you concur that in addition to the racial dimension of it, there is also the austerity economic policy at the root of the short sighted decisions that were made in flint, the systematic over a period of years, depletion of state aid to cities, not just flint, but other cities in michigan, that played a role in the optionsing available, and then they made this terrible decision to save a few bucks by diverting from the previous water supply that has caused this calamity that's going to last for years and , and the kids going up will grow up with that led? but the crucial decisions are , also crucial here, that we need to reinvest in the infrastructure of our

mr. mckibben. add heibben: you could started turning green in his role as the hulk. [laughter] mr. mckibben: mark, just to make absolutely clear, sometimes there are people who have described natural gas as clean energy for america. could you describe what you mean by clean energy and could you talk about the campaign you help wage about fracking in new york state, ultimately successful with governor cuomo's cooperation? mark ruffalo: sure. for a long time, people in the environmental movement felt natural gas was going to be the bridge fuel to the future. but what we came to find out and what science has consequently proof is natural gas is a gangplank to a more rapidly changing climate. natural gas is 100 times more damaging a greenhouse gas, heat trapping gas, than co2 in a 70-year period, which makes it particularly dangerous. to keep seem to be able it from leaking no matter how hard we try and where we try to do it. we thought weins were making by transitioning to natural gas have basically exploded in our faces. accidenthink it is any climate change is -- has accelerated much

mr. cummings, for actually referencing the honorable congresswoman. >> i am bill mckibben from vermont. it is good to be here in what is the hottest year that we have ever recorded on this planet. it is a great pleasure for me. the last few times that i have come to washington dc i have ended up in jail. so this is a much nicer surrounding and we are in a country with a lot of people that are distrustful of our political system and i hope that as a committee we are able to provide them with some reasons in order to be less distrustful going forward. >> i am a advisor for hillary clinton and i am honored to be here. >> thank you very much to all of our committee members. it is a tremendous honor to serve with all of you. and so i would like to note that one of our members is not able to join us today. but she will be with us tomorrow. wendy, as many of you know is an expert and she will be joining us again in the morning. also seeded with us are two of the many individuals who are giving us support throughout the weekend andrew grossman and ms. taylor. and so many folks are not going to