reduced canopy from the indiscriminate harvest and allows the sun to drythe amazon e forest floor,roblemg to the fire haza. fire and smoke plus reduced vegetion actually chang the micro-climate, decreasing the rainfall and further increasing fires. it's a vicious cycle that is broken by careful tree harvests. as chris uhl learned, e ees grow backif youive em. s scovery len even bigger: if ranchers and farmers could use their land more efficiently and for longer periods of time, perhaps both developmentalting new and environmental needs could be accommodated. it has to do with the difference between extensive and intensive agriculture. and byinnsive" we aning about as a viable alternative is, that a g pofdwiite,l taeaafteyer now, t tineacapoaustainable. of course, narrator: read there are some successfumodels. near belém, small farms have been practicing intensive agriculture for decades. by mixing a variety of crops and by using locally produced organic and mineral fertilizers, thanontinue to farm the same piece of la fony e nepstad: these systems include trees or other perennial crops,

the cure may be found where the .roblem is most acute-- down on the farm. .arry petersen reports. >>80-year-old dr. earl merkel has been practicing in rural kansas for more than half a century. >> we had people come to the aror and beg me not to quit. ew deporter: but it's hard recruiting new doctors for the lart of america's heart land. o kansas, 97 of its 105 counties are considered underserved. five counties have no doctor at all. >> it's scary because we don't ysve as many physicians as we need. o reporter: so the university of kansas opened up a branch of its medical school in salina, iat it calls the smallest itdical school in america. it's now on its second class of eight students. >> i cannot wait to bond with the people and feel a sense of belonging. >> reporter: students like julianne rathburn bring one more n ing-- a desire to work in rural america. workou know everybody. everybody knows you. and there's a sense of loyalty and respect. hereeporter: but there is one drawb drawback-- a rural family doctor in america makes on average about $70,000 a year, a specialist, say a

mmke - the roblem worse../....at... when... health care costs are the most stubborn element of the nation's long-term buddet woes.but could plans reduce the overall cost of programs like medicare do so without increase health care coots... in the end?willl.. keenedy ...examines the issue... in our ...'search for mediiare. (voo medicare is a lifeline for millions of seniorr... ome of the moss vulnerable people in ur society.(sot - john clark/council on aging)"it's not an accident that people are livinn longee. and i have absolutely no doubt that that's directly related to medicaree whicc has allowed the access to qualitt hhalth care for people 65 and over." (graphic-budget) in 2011, medicare spent more than 549 billion dollars on health care coverage for 48.7 million people. the dollar amount is roughly 15 percent of the national bbdget... and 21 percent of all u-s health caae spending.(vo) the government accountability office lists medicare as a "high-risk" programmin need of reform... in part becauue of its vulnerabilityyto ra

that is the roblem. we don't know. we don't know what the truth is.hearing all these different arguments from political groups. how are we supposed to sort this out? >> that is exactly the problem. the film does exactly that. a sort of present the and permit the concerns and then leave it at that. they don't put forward any of the irrefutable facts that sort of a lay those concerns. so we do what we're doing right now. we try to get the message out, point out where the movie goes wrong tomake sure that people are informed when they step into that theater so they don't come out with a skewed view of the practice. tom: it seems like fracking is, at the very least, whether you're for it or against it, at the very least, the places that are doing it, the states that are doing it a thrill to. they are absolutely giddy about their jobs and the money that they are collecting, the taxes they are collecting for their states, and it is providing the future. we keep talking about we won independence, energy independence in this country. gosh, it just seems like

we can't just keep borrowing money and raising taxes and roblem to go away.nt to the president. as the speaker said, we want to sit down with the president waoerbgs wan, we want to talk spefrs. w specifics. we put an offer on the table. he out of hand rejected that. where are the specifics, and the discussions, nothing is going on. meanwhile people of this country are the ones who suffer. we ask the president, be specific about the spending, so we can address the wasteful spending in washington and address the problem. martha: eric cantor and john boehner saying they want a face-to-face, they want to sit down, roll up their sleeves and hammer out something. kevin mccarthy went to the cameras right after that, he said there are 72 hours extremely critical in this fight that are coming right now. also i want to mention one other thing and that is just crossing from nancy pelosi who says that she does not think that the debt ceiling issue is part of this fiscal cliff discussion, which is interesting, because that is different than the plan that timothy geithner