with the struggle of the people here to protect their water and to protect their land. amy: we're just back from north to go to where judge john grinsteiner dismissed a misdemeanor riot charge againsnt me. we will brbring you the scene fm outside the courthouse were other people also had charges dropped. then as people across the world have come to join the resistance against the dakota access pipeline, the encampment has become one of the largest gatherings of native a americans and their supporters in decades. people have set up multiple kitchens, a school that teaches lakota languages, radical services to care for those who have come to fight the pipeline. as the first baby is born in the main resistance camp in cannon ball, north dakota, i speak with women and midwives about the importance of reproductive health care on native american reservations. >> one dr. comes and he schedules the women's birth based on his schedule and induces them. so i would say at least 90% of the women will have babies are scheduled on his schedule, and that is not right for our children to be born that way. amy: all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amamy goodmaman. the pentagon has confirmed u.s. special forces are on the ground in iraq and taking part in the battle to retake mosul, iraq's second largest city which fell to isis two years ago. despite president obama's pledge against having boots on the ground, the pentagon said u.s. special forces are on the front lines and finding targets for u.s. airstrikes. the offensive to take mosul is expected to take weeks, if not months. iraqi forces reportedly captured 20 isis-held villages on monday. aid groups fear the fighting will force over residents of one million mosul to flee. courtney lare works with the norwegian refugee council in the iraqi city of erbil. massisis preparing for waves of displacement coming out of mosul.. we are e expecting up to $200,00 indidividual a and around 7 7000 totall fling i in the coming months. this miniature and committed is desperately trying to prepare but this any people is extremely challenging. amy: in news from syria, russia and syria have temporarily halted airstrikes on the besieged city of aleppo in what russia described as a humanitarian pause. a new round of talks are expected to begin tomorrow in geneva. in campaign news, the guardian is reporting donald trump has hired mike roman the former head of the koch brothers intelligence gathering operation to run an election protection effort. for weeks trump has been claiming the election would be rigged at the voting booth. on trump claimed dead people and monday, undocumented immigrants are voting.. mr. trump: they even want to try to rig the election at the polling booths -- believe me, there's a lot going on. they say there's nothing going on. people that have died 10 years ago are still voting. illegal immigrants are voting. i mean, where are the streetsmarts of some of these politicians? >> they don't have any. mr. trump: they don't have any, that's right. voter fraud is very, very common. amy: experts claim cases of voting fraud are very rare. one study by loyola law school found 31 instances involving allegations of voter impersonation out of 1 billion votes cast in u.s. elections between 2000 and 2014. trump's claims of a rigged election have been widely criticized by members of both parties. ohio secretary of state jon husted said trump was wrong and engaging in irresponsible rhetoric. in other campaign news, melania trump has come to her husband's defense following the release of a 2005 video in which he bragged -- in which trtrump is heard bragging about sexually assaulting women. melania described his comments as "boy y talk" and accused tv host billy bush of egging donald trump on. she e spoke with c cnn's andersn cooper. >> those words, they were offensive to me and they were inappropriate. and he apologized to me. and i accept his apology. we are moving on. >> from a woman's perspective, what were your thoughts when you are those tapes? >> this is nonot the man ththati know. amy: in related newsws, nbc has fired billy bush from his job as host at the "today" show following the release of the trump tape. meanwhile, a transcript has been published of a 1994 interview trump did on abc's "primetime live." during the interview trump said, "i don't want to sound like a chauvinist, but when i come home at night and dinner's not ready i go through the roof." trump also said "i tell friends , who treat their wives magnificently get treated like crap in return, 'be rougher and you'll see a different relationship.'" meanwhile, republicans are calling for state department official patrick kennedy to resign after newly released fbi documents suggest he pressured the agency last year to downgrade the classification of emails found on hillary clinton's private server. according to the fbi documents, kennedy offered to allow the fbi to place more agents in iraq in exchange for declassifying the email. the fbi and the state department have denied that a quid pro quo ever existed. a retired four-star marine corps general has plead guilty to making false statements to the fbi during an investigation into leaks of classified information. james cartwright, who was known as president obama's favorite general, admitted he lied to the fbi during an investigation into who leaked classified information to the "new york times" about stuxnet, a secret u.s. cyberwarfare operation against iran. according to yahoo news, cartwright is the 10th person to be criminally charged under president obama in a case related to classified disclosures -- more by far than were brought by any president before him. in news from guantanamo, mohamedou ould slahi has been released back to his home country of mauritania after being held at guantanamo since 2002 without charge or trial. slahi wrote the best-selling memoir "guantanamo diary" in which he describes being severely tortured by u.s. guards. in climate news, nasa is reporting last month was the warmest september on record. 11 of the past 12 months have now broken records. scientists say 2 2016 is almost certain to be the year the -- the w warmest year ever brbreaking last t year's record. , this comes as itit still feels like summer though out much of the east coaoast and midstst toy many cities s expected to set dozens of records. and dr. city, kansas the , temperature reached 101 degrees fahrenheit on monday. in other climate n news, a new study by the united nations has found climate change c could dre 122 million more people into extreme poverty in the next 15 years in part due to the impact it is already having on small-scale farmers. the guardian is reporting exxon mobil has asked a federal court in texas to throw out a subpoena from new york state that would force the oil company to hand over decades of documents as part of a wide-ranging inquiry into whether it misled investors about climate change risks. last year insideclimate news and times"los angeles revealed beginning in 1977, exxon concealed its own findings that fossil fuels cause global warming. the nation's largest police organization, the international association of chiefs of police has issued a formal apology for , the "historical mistreatment of communities of color." the organization represents 18,000 members. alicia garza, a co-founder of the black lives matter movement, told thinkprogress the admission is a positive step toward justice, reconciliation and healing but doesn't go far , enough to address modern-day problems. garza said -- "if the last three years has shown us anything, it's that these deplorable actions are still happening today. black people are dying at the hands of police at the rate of one every 28 hours." in media news, a british-state owned bank has reportedly cut ties to the russian-backed broadcaster rt. the station, which relies on state funds from moscow decried , the momove as a form of a political censorship. margarita simonyan i is rt's editor in chief. >> for us it is absolutely obvious it is politically motivated and this is yet another step, a serious one by britain, to shut us up so we stop telling what we're telling so that the orchestrated choir, mainstream media, which pushehes personal narrative, will not be interrupted and viewers will not get distracted and won't listen to another point of view. amy: meanwhile wikileaks has , accused ecuador of cutting off julian assange's internet access on saturday. assange has been living in the ecuadorian embassy in london for more than four years. over the past week wikileaks has , published thousands of emails from the account of john podesta, the chair of hillary clinton's presidential campaign. amnesty international has accused australia of turning the isisland of nauru into an open r prison to house refugees and asylum seekers. amnesty said the conditions on the tiny south pacific island amounts to torture. this is nina keistat of amnesty. >> what i found was shocking. the level of mental trauma, the level of physical illness, the daily assaults and complete failure ofof the authohorities f the police to do anything about this. the daily humiliation and abuse they are subjected to. amy: in education news, the naacp board of directors has voted to back a call for a moratorium on the growth of charter schools. naacp chair roslyn brock said -- "we are moving forward to require that charter schools receive the same level of oversight, civil rights protections and provide the same level of transparency, and we require the same of traditional public schools." and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. we are just back from north dakota where on monday, hundreds -- i appeared in court -- we're just back from north dakota where on monday i was supposed to appppear in couourt to face a riot c charge for democracy now! reporting on an attack against anti-pipeline protesters. we filmed security guards working for the dakota access pipeline attacking protesters. the report showed guards unleashing dogs and using pepper spray and featured people with bite injuries and a dog with blood dripping from its nose and mouth. democracy now!'s report went viral online and was viewed more than 14 million times on facebook and was rebroadcast on cbs,outlets, including nbc, npr, cnn, msnbc, and the huffington post. days after democracy now! published the video, morton county issued an arrest warrant for me. i was initially charged with criminal trespassing. on friday, as i flew into north dakota, that charge was dropped for lack of evidence. but it was replaced by a charge of writing. on monday, north dakota history judge john grinsteiner refused to authorize the riot charges after the decision was announced, my attorneys spoke out side the courthouse where hundreds gathered to show support for more than half dozen water protectors who were facing charges related to the ongoing resistance to the $3.8 billion dakota access pipeline. this is my attorney tom dickson. >> on friday afternoon, the criminal trespass charge which was a frivolous criminal charge, was dismissed against amy goodman. at that time -- [cheers] at that time we work informally informed there would be a second charge fililed against her, engaging in a riot, a class the misdemeanor charge. we were informed she was to appear before a judge at one clinton you today to hear the charge and to get bond set. this morning, we were informed the judge refused to find probable cause for that charge. i spoke with the morton county statates attorneney this aftern. the case against amy goodman is now dismissed. [cheers] >> let me just say that amy goodman was always a free woman. [cheers] i think when the prosecutor misguidedly decided to file charges against amy goodman, she decided -- he decided to go after the wrong person. intimidated.s not in this rejection of the charges is a complete vindication of the right of a journalist to report on the truth and more importantly, the right of the public to know what is happening with the pipeline and with the struggle of the people here to protect their water and to protect their land. amy: it is a great honor to be here today. rejectge's decision to the state's attorney ladd erickson attempt to prosecute a journalist -- in this case, me -- is a great vindication of the first amendment and of our right to report. that was the scene outside the morton county courthouse and jail in mandan, north dakota yesterday. ,also on after judge grinsteiner monday rejected multiple riot charges for lack of evidence, including the riot charge against me, morton county sheriff kyle kirchmeier said -- "after consulting with the morton county states attorney, i am assured charges are being considered against these individuals. let me make this perfectly clear, if you trespass on private property, you will be arrested." ladd erickson, the state's attorney, told the "new york times,," -- "i believe they want to do the investigation open and think there's any evidence in the unedited and unpublished videos that we could better detail in an affidavit for the judge. the democracy now! video that many have s seen does not have much evidence all you in and." throughout the day monday, authorities dropped to a rejected multiple felony and misdemeanor charges against water protectors, including a felony charge against marcus frejo little eagle, known by his hip-hop artist name quese imc. the state also dropped a felony charge against little eagle'ss nephew, morgan frejo. misdemeanor charges against water defender cody hall were also dropped. democracy now! was on the ground at the morton county courthouse and jail throughout monday and bring you this report. >> by name is ques imc. this water is what brought me here and this water will bring our people back together because this destructive, a natural force that is trying to destroy this water is the same force that dismantled our homes back in the day during the indian wars. what we can know as date of people, not just native people that all people, we have to come back to that water. we have to carry that love of the water in our heart. that water will be here long after we are gone, just like sacred rocks. amy: today you would into the courtroom and you were charged with a felony? >> yes. amy: what was the felony? >> unjust. it was unjust. amy: how long have you been facing these charges for? was a shock. it was scary. over a month. amy: how has that affected you? >> emotionally, i know everybody who is been at the camp, they're going to leave with anxiety, leave with ptsd. a lot of things are going to give you anxiety. it is real. i faced those and i had to pray to release myself from those things because it is real. the thing about it, it is a genetic memory that we have is native people. all of these things we are enduring, we remember that through our genetic memory. our ancestors are with us still. we can make it through the we believe and we strive to live you to full, good lives a be good to ourselves and be good to each other. my name means strong thinker. i'm going to walk into the place where i'm not comfortable at being. amy: you're turning your celfin. yes. amy: there is an arrest warned for you? >> there is an arrest warned for dakota accesse pipeline security. these are guys that had no badges, no names, no license plates. it is intimidating when you see the guys looking like navy seals when you're traveling, documenting. i came as a filmmaker and a digital storyteller and i'm leaving now as an environmental journalist. this is a misdemeanor. amy: why did you decide to turn your celfin today? faith in put our the law. i'm of a sovereign nation. through this full-time, i've been using my travel id come att whicich they have accepted. now i'm going to go in with the same -- just going to face -- this is what anyone will do when you get a warrant, you follow through and help the legal system will support that as well and be as honest as you are coming in. we're just journalists documenting the inaccuracies happening here. i'm a film maker. document expecting to the way the bullying was going on, the way people were being ran off the road, things that weren't true in the morton county police department. we counteracted with drill media. we're going to walk into the jail. looks like i will be serving overnight in the jail. >> my name is angela. i i am a licenensed attorney in colorado. have four luminaire hearings on water protectors who are charged with felonies. regarding circumstances where there alleged to have locked down. we alslso h have five bond hears this afternoon as well for water protectors who were arrested on saturday. one of whom is also charged with a felony. this states attorney's office is overcharging at least the felony cases, if not many of the misdemeanor cases as well. i think it is toto creatate more misperceptions of the water protectors as being able to commit felonies, therefore, you know, more violent or dangerous to the community. i think that is flatly wrong. the judge agreed with us today. our water protectors are unarmed and not dangerous. they are elders and women and children and families at the front lines. this is water that we're talking about, not weapons. >> i am an attorney in kansas city, missouri. i practice about missosouri and kansas. i'm the regional vice president of the national lawyers guild. wewe'rere at thee very early sts of taking a look to see what has happened in terms of the civil-rights violations that have occurred. unfortunately, it seems like e e local l authorities here, the morton county sheriff's department and in fact the state of south dakotota, , looks like there seriously disregarding g e civivil rights s many individus . some of the things that we are taking a close look at right now and probably anticipated some point in the future, filing lawsuits in the u.s. district court would be for the violation of first amendment rights against journalists that have occurred. we have seen particularly the sheriff's department, law enforcrcement, appears to be targetingg journalists. there have been a number of citizenn journalisists arrestedn his to be particularly going after native american journalists as well. please have become increasingly militarized over the years. we saw that in my home state with the city of ferguson and what occurred there. we assume that an east coast in baltimore as well. we know it is not only urban police departments that are heavily militarized, it is the same thing in rural communities as well. i don't t necessarily know thatn and of itself creates something actionable, but from a policy -- public policy standpoint, it is certainly troubling. globallynous people are facing environmental genocide by colonial people, the colonizers and the corporate greed happening. you,is a message to investors and shareholders, divest. more money is no good here anymore. you not wanted here. your dirty oil is not wanted here. the time is now for the shareholders and investors to see what you're up against, the spirit and the power of the people in the beautiful prayers happening, the warriors on the front lines who are standing for land and life, not only for the sake of water here, but for water across the globe. as i always want to say, one day when this is over and we win this right, i want my grandchildren to say and do know in their hearts with their feelings, my grandmother fought for me so i could be here today. >> we came out here to show support to the people in court. we have seen these felonies get dropped today. [cheers] we have been maintaining our peaceful presence and our prayer. we did good today. i don't know about y'all, but i'm going to take some photos and we're going to call that a win. [cheers] amy: special thanks to john hamilton, hany massoud, and laura gottesdiener for that report. when we come back, we'll have more on the standoff at standing rock, and we'll look at the health impacts of oil extraction in north dakota. stay with us. ♪ [music break] amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. are continuing our coverage of the resistance to the dakota access pipeline and the ongoing crackdown against water and land protectors by the morton county sheriff's department. one of the things that's come to light in recent weeks is the widespread use of strip search in the morton county jail. on monday, democracy now! broadcast live from just across the street from the morton county courthouse and jail where i asked standing rock sioux tribal chair dave archambault whether he, the chairman of his tribe, had been strip searched after he was arrested at a protest. what were you charged with? >> disorderly conduct. amy: misdemeanor, low-level misdemeanor. were you strip-searched? >> yes. amy: is this common that for disorderly conduct, your strip-searched? >> i would not know because that was the first, ever got arrested know, i but, you thought it was humorous because i had to take all of my close off and then they wanted to check my grades and i don't have very thick braids for any weapons to hide, so i thought it was pretty crazy and unnecessary to do a strip search and to check my hair, but i excepted. -- accepted. amy: that's standing rock sioux tribal chair dave archambault. another member of the standing rock sioux tribe, dr. sara jumping eagle, a pediatrician who works at the standing rock reservation also says she was , strip searched after she was arrested in taken to morton august, county jail, and charged withth disorderly conduct. >> when i was taken to the jail, first i was taken by a corrections officer, transported from the protest right to the morton county jail. and then when they took me in there, you know, that it take some basic inforormation. one of the things that they do is have you go into a small room and there was a female officer there and we had to take my clothehes off. i don't know, basically -- amy: cavity search? >> know, but i had to squat and cough. that is what she said, squat and cough, and for the orange suit on. i was put in an orange jumpsuit and then i was held there for several hours. initially, my family did not know where i was or did not ash they heard about it pretty quickly and were a able to comen and bond me out or bail me out. i don't know what you call it. i was in there for several hours. amy: how did it make you feel? >> it may be feel -- it may be think about my ancestors and what they had gone through. this was in no way a comparison to what we have survived before. so this made me feel more determined about what i am doing and why i am here. amy: that's dr. sara jumping eagle, a pediatrician and a member of the standing rock sioux tribe. well, on sunday, while we were on the reservation we spoke more , with dr. sarah jumping eagle about why y she, as a pepediatrician, oppoposes the da access pipeline. eagle. dr. sara jumping amy: you are one of the first people arrested during these resistance movements against the dakota access pipeline. when was it and why did you do it as a doctor here? >> you know, i have been involved with environmental health issues for a long time, since we moved to north dakota we have been aware of the tracking and flaring going on in the bakken. i've been thing attention -- paying attention. we're also aware of the issues going on in the black hills with uranium mining and the other contaminations that have occurred across indian country. so as a physician, i am very aware of what the health effects spill byof pipeline ,he dakota access enbridge among our committees, how that spill would directly affect our family members and community members. i went to the protest site to participate in the protests. and on that day -- amy: when was it? >> i believe it was august 12. there had already been some people arrested prior to that trying to stop the machines from going on to the land just north of the camp -- it was actually before the camp had really started. at the sacred stone camp had been there since april. so i went there with the intent of participating as any citizen concerned about our environment would. amy: what was happening that day? >> at that time, there were already machines that were digging up the earth and they were already setting -- they had marked out a path all the way to the river. we did not know all of that at that time. so there were people that were collected along the road that were praying and they were saying different protest chants, basically. there were committed the members of all ages and races there to help us voice our opposition to what was going on. but at the time, it was very traumatizing to see that these machines were coming onto our treaty territory, which is just north of the cannonball river. really not listening to the voices of the people who will be affected if -- when a pipeline spill occurs. amy: can you give us a little history, dr. darah, this pipeline was originally related to be billed above -- slated to be built above bismarck, but they said no, so they moved lower to the reservation? that is our understanding. the decisions that are made regarding pipelines in north dakota, those decisions have to go through the public service commission. and so we were first aware of the dakota access pipeline route in 2014 is when i became aware. so the company had notified the tribe of the route they were going to take,e, you know, probably about 50 of us community y members that attendd and voiced our opposition at that time to the route. the tribe's historian at that time informed the company of the really special and sacred place that that area is. it is called sacred stone camp. it is sacred stone for reason. the confluence of the rivers there had created many stones that were sacred to our community members, to our people, and had been used in spiritual ways for hundreds of years. and so the fact that the company -- and also, that area is a historical place. the cannonball ranch. there are other stories of when our people had to flee the army in the cavalry of places that they would cross, and those are the store places as well. so we knew the company was already planning on violating national laws that have to do with national historic preservation. the graves in the stone effigies that are in that area are also important to our timidity members. -- community members. amy: were you there on september 3? >> when the dog attacks occurred? i was there, but i had already been arrested previously, so i was one of the people named in the slapp suit with a restraining order. i was there but i had to stay 100 feet away. amy: explain what the slapp suit is. >> basically, a name several people, including me tribal chairman and other tribal councilman and other people, but then they added on jane and and john doe on to that. initially, those of us that were not initially named in the slap suit were not aware of that until we were served, which weren't properly served papers in the slapp sued have basically said there's a restraining order on as that we could not engage in protests or be near any dakota access areas. amy: because? >> because we have previously been arrested and identified. the charge that i was charged with was disorderly conduct. amy: explain what you did that day on august 12. say all ofi want to the details but basically, i had gone there to participate in a protest. when the company -- and the puppy who are part of the company were leaving the area, wereachines and trucks going north and south on highway 1806 and they were basically violating our treaty rights. so the actions that i was involved with that day were to protest the company using our treaty lands to facilitate building a pipeline, which threatens our way of life. amy: when you say your treaty lands, can you explain what they are and are some of those lands the army corps of engineers's? >> yes. those plans are included in our treaty territory. 1851 andback at the 1868 treaties, those lands, i believe it is south of the heart river, are part of the treaty territory. and that includes the lands that the army corps has claimed are their lands as well. so that is something that i think hasn't really fully understood by people in north dakota or in the united states. once the lands were flooded, i believe it was 1962, with the dams, the army corps claimed all of the land across the river. that created the lakes. amy: what you think will happen at this point with a pipeline? you think you will be able to stop it? >> i do believe we will be able stop it, specially with the support of our allies across the world. that is something that has given us a lot of hope is that people are recognizing that this is not just a local issue, but it is an international issue. we know there are people around the world they're also fighting to keep their waters clean and fighting for the health of their families and community members. and that is really what i want people to know is that we are average people. we are doctors, teachers, moms. i'm a mother and a wife. we are standing up because we don't want the corporations to make these decisions for my children anymore. i want my children to have clean water. i don't want to worry about, and he hydrocarbons, how much fracking waste has been dumped into our river. we're committed is all across south dakota on this river. those are the things that i thinkk people arare recogngnizid that is s why they are standinig with us and helping usus. speakings doing -- with a non-native person who has come to the reservation casino to see a concert s sp i askedd what he thought t about the pipeline. he said it is the safest way to carry the oil, better than trucks. your response? >> my response is if we need infrastructure here in our committees, -- we do need infrastructure. so the safest way is for us to change jewelry noble energy. right now we are standing here being buffeted by winds that could be harnessing energy from our communities. north dakota should be in the lead of harnessing that wind energy. yes, we are still using fossil fuels and our hope is that we will gradually use less fossil fuels and use renewable energy which we know is healthier for our people and for the planet. amy: as a doctor and pediatrician, what are your concerns right now? >> my concerns are that -- i feel we are part of one of the biggest public health experiments in our lifetime. we really don't know the long-term effects of fracking and hydrocarbons on our bodies. we know that other scientists have identified some of these chemicals that are being put uroo the water as ne integrate receptor, that they interact with our receptors that could affect our dna and our reproductive health. so those are my concerns, how is this affecting my daughter right now as she drinks this water? health, thereof is been recent regulations changed around radioactive waste here in north dakota. how does that relate and canoe explain what that is? >> how that relate is the state of north dakota and the public health apartment in the public service commission had recently voted to raise the level of radioactive waste in the state of north dakota. the level that could be stored here. prior to that, i believe the level was 10 micro curies, and now they have raised it to 30 macro curies. the companies, a lot of times, have been using subcontractors who were dumping radioactive waste in random warehouses, and those are found -- i mean, there are stories like that every year or two here north dakota. of course, they are not front page news in the local media, so those are things that we have to be aware of and continue to fight against the lack of regulation of these environmental waste products in north dakota, and the lack, really, of a public health discussion in our state that have not been given a voice in the public service commission process were really a voice in the media -- or really a voice in the media either. i think they don't want people to be aware of what is happening so we will not be afraid of what is going into our bodies. amy: what t is the s status of e slapp suit? >> right now they have been dismissed. as far as -- i know i recently received an offer in the mail from the prosecutors for a plea deal as well. but i know i'm not guilty of disorderly conduct, so that is my fight that i will continue. and so will many of the water protecectors as well. amy: where do you live? use, north dakota, and have also been a part of the camp. amy: is it on the reservation? >> yes, about 20 miles south of cannonball. amy: thank y you. >> one last thing, i really want to call people to notice that the companies are really trying to commit environmental genocide on our people and the fact that they deem the bismarck -- the city of bismarck was not a safe place to put this pipeline, but then they decided to place it north of our communities, points out to the fact that this is in terminal genocide. it is been attempted in several other communities, including my .riginal community we see a pattern of corporations doing this. as people, we will stand up against that and we will continue to fight for our health and way of life. amy: the issue of fracking and radioactive waste will stop can you explain the connection? >> what happens when they are fracking and pumping chemicals it using our water to score down these holes that they create to then suck it back out, they suck it back through these fracking sox. and over time, because they're collecting so much sediment and minerals, some of that is nationally occurring radioactive materials -- minerals in the ground, but it becomes concentrated in these fracking socks. the fact we're finding thousands of them in a warehouse that has not been monitored at all, how is that affecting the groundwater underneath that is very concerning. amy: that is dr. sara jumping eagle, a pediatrician on the reservation, member of the standing rock sioux tribe. when we come back, we will continue t to look at health cae in standing rock, including health care the resistance camps where the first baby was just born. stay with us. ♪ [music break] amy: quese imc featuring casper. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report, i'm amy goodman. a shout out to the fifth-graders today visiting. we're just back from cannonball, north dakota, where thousands of people have flocked from across the united states latin america, , and canada over the months to join the resistance camps opposing the construction of the $3.8 billion dakota access pipeline. most are native americans representing hundreds of tribes and first nations from across the americas. the ongoing encampment is considered to be one of the largest gatherings of native americans in decades. in the camps, people have set up multiple kitchens. a school that teaches lakota languages and other subjects. medical services to care for the people who have come to join the resistance to the pipeline. just yesterday, a group of indigenous midwives posted online the first baby was born in the camp. well, on saturday at the main resistance camp in cannon ball, north dakota, i spoke with women and midwives about the importance of reproductive health care at the resistance camps and on the reservation. >> melissa rose. amy: can you talk about what you have that up your at the resistance camp? >> we have come with a group of women to be able to support women's health here at the encampment. sovereignty for indigenous people is only going to come about through the support of women in women's health in the same way that we defend and protect mother earth is the same way that we need to defend and protect women and the next generations of children being born, and that is why not only is there fully staffed and run volunteer run clinic here that runs 24 hours, seven days a week at the camp, but there is also now going to be a women's space were traditional midwifery will be promoted and utilized to support the women here. amy: you are a midwife? >> i am. amy: you are from cheyenne river. how far is the reservation from here? the don't know exactly reservation line, but where i live, it is about two, two and half hours. cheyenne and standing rock are connected. there's a highway. amy: talk about what it means to you that there is this women's health clinic, this midwifery clinic on-site. >> i believe, first of all, i am -- what we behalf of do is help in the community in the bond between women and children because the women are the backbone of the communities and the families. it is very important that these healings take place because it has an effect on our children. back ande midwife come is performing the ceremony that needed to be performed from the point of conception until birth and even after birth is very important for the spiritual connectedness of our children with our families. because we are not doing that, we see so many of our children that are lost to drugs and now all in violence and suicide. -- alcohol and violence and suicide. we are having the families involved with the bird. i think that is very important for our people, not only mentally, but spiritually. having that here at the camp is -- i think it is going to be powerful for the women that are here. amy: what happens to women who give birth at cheyenne river? >> right now we have one doctor that comes. he schedules the women's birth based on his schedule and induces them. i would say, like, at least 90% of the women in cheyenne riviver who o have babies are scheduledn his schedule. and it is not right for our children to be born that way. amy: how did that happen? so they don't go into labor at home and when they're ready, come to the clinic or the hospital? >> if they do not have their babies they some whatever due date he gives them, then -- even had other personal family well, ithat said, ok, is my due date, but he wants to have me come in early to schedule a birth. based on his schedule, he schedules them, they get induced, and they're out the door. the xoma's like they're running .attlele through it is not right. amy: melissa, what does it mean to be a native midwife? >> we were discussing this earlier. traditional ties to the women who take care of women in the tribe, the take of the children, and they have a lifetime tide of those children. itit is very important i grow up with those ties anand they're alwaysys connected to their home in their home place in the family. that is what it means. amy: were do you live? >> i live in colorado springs now. amy: what has it meant for you to come to this camp and why did you come here? >> my family is here. my relatives are here. they're fighting a really hard fight, and i have skills to offer them. it i is very mucuch needed here. we f found out even after i got here, how much more is needed than we even knew. amy: what natation are you with? >> -- amy: the battle against the pipeline. why is that a battle that matters to you in colorado springs? >> i am downriver. we are all downriver at some point. we are a all ground zero. everyone in the planet is on ground zero at some point. our first home is water. i am intimately connected with that. i think that is why we are all connected here. amy: so the clinic you're are setting up goes beyond midwifery , as a women's space. explain whwhat your plans are. >> amy, the roots of this is actually goes back to, you know, the recent history of health care for births for indigenous women in north america, in this country in particular, where, for instance, indian health services had a policy of forcibly sterilizing indigenous women. from 1973 to 1976, more than 3000 women were forcibly sterilized -- even women under the age of 21. 1970'screased between and 1980's, that decreased the birth rate for native population in the united states of america 1.8%..8% to so that is genocide. that cannot continue to happen. that is genocide of indigenous women. just the same way this pipeline is the genocide of our mother earth and a genocide of the river and the water that feeds us all, that nourishes us all, just as it did in the womb. that is why we are doing this here to support the women, to come back from that. right now native women -- this space in particular creates the potential, the possibility that women that we can be colonized. not just through birth, but really come back to a place of matriarchy and respecting women in a way that we can also respect mother earth and not lay pipelines in her, not dig out her liver, her coal, just as there are doing and black mesa, just as there are doing all across the world and across the globe. right now we are here, but everywhere people are in your home communities, find out who the native folks are there that are living there. find out what they are battling. find out how you can support them because they're doing it for all of us -- for all future generations, for all the babies to come. we need this water. we need this earth to be healthy, to be beautiful for them to live in. i have come from occupied land in so-called tucson now. there is a coppermine trying to take away -- to take a sacred land from the apache there called oak flat. thosehere we come from, battles are there. i want to make that connection for folks at home to look around you and find a native people around you and the battles they are fighting for. if you can't come here, support them there. amy:y: midwives from cheyenne river reservation. we end today's show with cody hall of the cheyenne river sioux tribe. he had to arrest warrants -- he had an arrest warrant issued for two misdemeanors of land defense action. on monday he learned the charges were dropped. i spoke to cody over the weekend about his arrest. >> the manner in which i was arrested, i was treated like i was the native osama with at least 18 state officers that got out of their squad cars when i was arrested on highway 1806 going up to bismarck. amy: so you were then taken to the morton county jail? >> yes. i was met with state police officers dressed in their gear. also, just really, you know, villain eyes. -- villainized. like i said, fbi wanted to i invoke my rights of silence. amy: have you been targeted since your arrest? >> yes. as i look at side mirrors and rearview mirrors, i have dapl security in their rented trucks they drive around with no license plate on them. i kind of play a game and i will destroy the around a little bit just to see if that vehicle is telling me. sure enough, i get a lot of vehicles tailing me in the city. amy: we also spoke with cody hall about his experience inside the morton county jail, including how he was strip-sesearched. >> as i exited out of the vehicles andnd entered morton county, i came up the elevator. the elevator opened up and i was met with date police. of course, morton county people were there to book people. from there, started the process of the booking. again, went into a private room where they ask you to get naked. they had my arms, kind of like extend your arms out. you are fully naked. they have you lift up your genitals and bend over, cough. it is really one of those tactics they try to break down your mentalnesss of everyday life. not every day do you wake up and say, hey, i'm going to get naked and have someone search me today. -- that is avate private feeling for you when you get naked thomas so. amy: four days later when you are finally released, they had not allowed you to go out on bail or bond for those what drove days, you can before a judge in the orange jumpsuit? >> yes, i sat in the court office in my orange jumpsuit locked, you know, still handcuffed. exited out of the courtroom. as i left the courtroom, there were 20 or so state police all in their bullet-proof vests, everything, just looking like, you know, they're going into action of some sort full they literally had a line from the courtroom to the door that connects you to the county jail me my mother walked out with and as we got to the door, they're opening the door. as i looked behind me, my mother and i, all of the cops then proceeded -- amy: that was water protector cody hall from cheyenne river sioux tribe. the charges were dropped against aa8?8?p?p?p?p?p?p?pópópópópó0óp> mike farrell as dr. keeling: co2 and the greenhouse effect. co2 is very powerful. it's a very big job to do. if it t weren't for carbonon die and the greenhouse effect, life on this planet would be almost impossible. earth would look like this. just a great big snowball. soso, who discscovered this thingng, this grereenhouse effect? here's this gentleman, johnhn joseph babaptiste fouour. fourier was napoleon's favorite scientist. napoleon took fourier on his ill-fated junket to egypt in 1798. egypt, as you know, is a very warm country, and the heat in egypt made a very strong impression on fourier. he loved it. became obsessed with heat. poor guy suffered from a lifelong case of rheumatism. anyway, he began investigating the origin and the nature of heat. what exactly kept the sun's radiation from bouncing off the surface of the earth and escaping out into space? fourier realized something was holding all that heat in place. he decided it was the gases in the earth's atmosphere that somehow combined to form a blanket that acted like a greenhouse to hold in heat from the sun. if those gases didn''t exist, all thehe sun's heat would bounce off the earth and escape out into space and the earth would be almost ts cold as mars. only problem for fourier after that was when he back, france was always too cold. middle of july he'd walk around his house in paris, his body wrapped up in blankets, all the fireplaces blazing away. he believed that just as the gases in the atmosphere were beneficial to the earth by acting like blankets to hold in heat from m the sun,n, that keeg his body wrapped in blankets was beneficial to his own health. and arguably it was, until one time a b blanket k kid him when he tripped on it and fell down the stairs. [laughter] fourier was a great scientist. we owe him a huge debt. but what exactly were the gases that enabled the grereenhouse effect? roughly 30 years later that question troubled an irish scientist named john tyndall. scientists at the time thought that all gases were transparent. but if that were true, how could any one of them block infrared or heat escaping from the earth? was there a gas that wasn't transparent? tyndall tried, couldn't find one. then he noticed that the gas that was pumped into the laboratory--in those days they called it coal gas because it was extracted from coal-- tyndall found that for heat rays, coal gas was opaque as a pint of wood. but he was looking for a gas that was naturally found in the atmosphere. coal gas wasn't. so he analyzed it and he found that coal gas contained carbon dioxixide, which was naturally found in the atmosphere, and like coal gas, co2, carbon dioxoxide, was opaq. so, it was co2, carbon dioxide, that blocked infrared radiation, kept in heat, kept it from leaving the atmosphere. now, here is co2 and the greenhouse effect at work in a large city, probably london, around 1890. a forest of smokestacks had sprung up, some as tall as a 40-story office building. now, at that time, do you suppose anybody actually ststopped and took a l look arod at all that smoke and soot in the air and wondered, where's all that stuff going? is it all maybe just staying up there? and what if eventually it did, could enouough of it be enough o warm up the planet? svante arrhenius wondered. arrhenius was a swedish physicist, chemist actually. first person who really wondered about global warming in a serious scientific sort of way. around that time, someone said they're evaporating entire coal mines into the atmosphere. we still are. arrhenius wondered how long co2 stayed in the atmosphere. hehe also wondered if in time the amount of co2 accumulated to thehe point where, sasay, it were doubled, could it be, seriously be enough to warm up the planet? intereresting question. was then. is now. he, uh, began on christmas eve, day and night sitting at his dedesk in the kitchen doing thousands and thousasands of calculations to determine what difference, if any, a doubling is co2 from pre-e-industrial levels would make. coming up with an answer took him almost a year. imagine, on a modern computer how long would that take? about 30 s seconds? poor arrhenius. [laughghter] arrhenius estimated that a doubling of the co2 would raise temperaturures worldwidede by 56 degreeees centigrade, or 9 to 11 degrees fahrenheit. as you know, one degree celsius equals 1.8 degrees fahrenheit. arrhenius' number was actually a bit high. modern computers say--estimate a rise of 4.5 to 7.2 degrees fahrenheit. but even 9 degrees fahrenheit didn't seem like a whole lot to arrhenius. especially in sweden, where on-- [laughter] on a winter night without sofia, it got pretty cold. [laughter] so arrhenius thought this temperature rise could be a good thing. when he finally re-entered society and presented his s findings, there was s some interest, but it didn't last. so he moved on to other things. eventually won a nobel prize. not for carbon dioxide, but for something else entirely. sofia never did retuturn. nor, sadly, did she ever get to be a scientist again. she lived as a single mom in poverty. raised her baby boy to be a scientist lilike she was, like s dad. and in time that scientist fathered another, gustaf arrhenius. years later gustaf studied global warming. made some very key discoveries, and wound up working in california on the sameme faculty i was.s. see how i it all comes around? [laughter] interesting, isn't it? after arrhenius, no one else thought about a link between carbon d dioxide and global warming for a long time. 40 years later, in 1938, a british coal engineer, guy callendar, said the same thing, that sooner or later, this burning of fossil fuels could warm up the earth. but did anybody pay attention to callendar? no. everybody was paying much more attention t to this guy.. [hititler speakiking german]n] [german n crowds cheering] they thought he was much more of a threat t than carbonon dioxid. which at t the time hehe was. and where am i in all this? 1938? here i am. innocent little david keeling, 10 years old, from the outskirts of chicago, taking a piano lesson. [classical piano playing] i loved bach, mozart. you know, for a while i actually made money, which my family badly needed, playing classical pieces on the piano for women's luncheons all over chicago. i sort of hated it. the thing was, i was too shy to just ask for m my money and lea. so i'd stay for the whole damn luncheon. [laughter] and it'd just be me and 200 ladies and watercress sandwiches and these long lectures on how to prepare eggnog for the holidays. [laughter] it might have killed any professional musicical career i might have had. [laughter] but i never stopped loving the music. and then i loved science, too. but you know what i loved more than anything e else? i loved mountains. everybody has a first memory. maybe it explains the whole rest of their childhood, whole rest of their lives. when i was 4, my parents took me on a trip to the rocky momountains, colorado. oh, man. there i am, sitting appropriately on a rock. i think it was the first time in my life that i really felt totally good. whole. at one with the universe, you know? the air was so pure, so sharp. it was so beautiful, remote. i loved the silence, too. can a child so young sense that something is holy? [classical piano playing] after we came home, i started keeping an album in which i pasted nothing but pictures of mountains. [chuckles] i did that for years. many years. one night my father took me out on the front lawn and showed me this. the night sky was so much more alive then. he taught me to recognize the constellations. you could still see them then. stars were so bright, so numerous, they seemed almost as close to a part of the scene as the grass and the trees. later, inside a darkened room in our house, he showed me how the phases of the moon come about. he carried the earth, represented by a globe circling around the sun, a big electric light in the middle of the room. there was also a smaller globe which represented the moon. began a lifelong curiosity and passion about the universe that i have never lost. [chuckles] well, one e day around the fourh grade, we got a new teacher. this teacher began telling us that the phases of the moon of the moon were caused by eclipses. [laughter] by the moon passing between the earth and the sun. huh? i was horrified. and i raised my hand--she ignored me. finalllly- she kept going; i cocouldn't std it. i stood up, i said, miss spencer, that's wrong. that's not true. you're talking about an eclipsese. that's wrong. she gave me a look, told me to sit down and shut up. [laughter] i always had a problem after that with ignorant people in positions of authority.. [laughter] you know, like congress, for examample. [laughter and applause] later on, at the university of illinois, i began a mamajor inin chchemistry. only y problem wasi didn't know what i really wanted. probably would have preferred physics, but the war was on, they offered only one course in physics. so o i sort f drifted into chemistry. i wondered if maybe i didn't even like chemistry. didn't like laboratories. hated being cooped up in them. i i was always tryig to get away, be in the mountains. had visions of going to graduate school out west. figured, you know, maybe i could. then out of nowhere, a neighbor of ours who was a chemistry professor at northwestern offered me a graduate fellowship. i accepted without even applying to any other schools. bubut was it w what i really wa? every chance i got i'd dug out and head west. my professosor began to wonder if maybe he'd made a great big mistake. then one day i picked up a book. "glacial geology and the pleistocene epoch." now, i didn't even understand the title. but i found it fascinating, really. it was about mountain glaciersrs during the last ice age. and i imagined myself climbing mountains while i measured the physical properties ofof the glaciers. it's a very carar vision, y you know? i saw myself doing science in nature.88888888ob i spotted my professor... [classical piano playing] dr. brown, casually talking to some other faculty members. so i wandered over. he was saying, "you know, i'd say the amount of carbon dioxididis a freshshwater stream would be about the same asas the amount of co2 in the air around the stream." i took a deep breath and i said, uh, well, you know, dr. brown, that's a very interesting notion, but why do you suppose that would be the case? he gave me a look. i said, i mean, isn't it possible there there'd be something, say, maybe in the water that would make a difference? i was afraid he was gonna say, "keeling, what are you doing up here? why aren't you downstairs crushing rocks?? [laughter] but he didn't. he sort of smiled and said, "hmm. well, you know, if you feel so strongly about this, why don't you just go out there in the field and prove i , you know?" i said, well, thank you, sir. [laughter] i will. you see, i knew that was an experiment you couldn't possibly perform downstairs in the dungeon. but actually, i didn't know anything about memeasuring carbon dioxide. and it seemed like nobody else did either. i sat down and read all the literature i could find, and most of the work on c02 was being done in scandinavia. now, you know, you think of the scandinavians as being very tidy, very efficient, nicely organized people. but his whole operation just didn't add up. they used chemicals to make their measurements. and the measurements they got were t taken by different technicians in a lot of different locations all over scanandinavia, and they fluctuated wildly. they ran the gamut from 150 ppm to 400 ppm. ppm--that's parts per million. in other words, their highest measurements were 3 times as high as their lowest. now, i thought about it. it seemed to me that measuring had to be done carefully, strictly. it would be a two-part process. first you had to cacapture a specimen of air, always in the same place. that was the easy part. i designed a large glass flask, and a local firm in pasadena made a bunch of them for me. there was a pressurized seal on top to create a vacuum. you'd have to remember to hold your breath so none of your own co2 would get mixed inside the flask. you'd take off the seal, let the air flow into the flask, then pop the seal back on. then you had a specimen of air inside the flask. but how do you measure it? well, that was the hard part. i needed a device that could measure carbon dioxide in smalll quantities, and d there was nothing. no such instrument was available anywhere. i finally found an old article from 1916 that described a-- a manometer. a device called a manometer. it was originally designed to calculate air speed, but it seemed with some adjustments it could do the job and offered the best possibility of being accurate. so, i modernized the design and engaged the same firm that the flasks to construct the instrument from my drawings. and of course all this took time. about a year, actually, but nobody was bothering me. [laughter] dr. brown had gone off to jamaica to write his next book. when i finally finished the manometer, had it tested out, so i decided i'd take air regularly,y, every 4 hoursrs for a number of days, and always from the same place. the roof of mudd hall. the geology building at caltech was not an ideal place, and i knew it. we were in the middle of a city. air would not be as pure as in nature, and the co2 content wowould vary, as there s at times heavy traffic nearby, some industry. but i had to stay around. louise was very pregnant at this point, and, uh, she could go into labor at any time. so, i set up a camp downstairs at mudd hall, took naps on a cot. didn't get a lot of sleep. when i wasn't home, i made sure to have a phone nearby. one night, i'm actually home, and--bang, louise goes into labor. n now, it's a littttle bt bebefore 9:00.0. i'd taken the t reading atat 8:00, thehe next os due at 12:00, so shehe has 3 hours. [laughter] yeyeah. we get into the cacar, we drivio the hospspital, louiuise goes io the delivery room, and i proceed to pace in the waiting room. that's the way we didid it then. it got to be 10:00.. i i keep lookiking at the e dooo the delivevery room. c come on, lolouise... [laughteter] 11:15. next readiding is at 1 12:00. what do i do? 11:30. 11:35. that's it. i gotta go. [laughter] i run downstairs, jump into my car--fortunately there's not a lot of traffic. i make it back to the geology building. midnight i'm back on the roof. take the air sample, back downstairs, back to the hospital. louise is still... 2 a.m. 3:00. 3:30. i run back downstairs, back to the campus. 4 a.m., back to the hospital. 8 a.m., back on the roof. make it to the hospital 8:25. tell me the baby was born at 8:17 a.m. march 26, 1955. it's a boy. we decided to name him andrew. a little later, i went back to caltech, back to the cot in the basasement. at noon i have to take another reading and then go backck to te hospital. and i do. and louise is fine. so is the baby. so is the manometer. [lauaughter] near as i can tell, it's totally accurate. so, it's finally time to answer my question to dr. brown. but there was this huge drought going on in southern california. no freshwater streams. so, 7 weeks later, louise and i and little drew get into a borrowed pickup truck and off we go to big sur, california. first night we pitched a tent in the middle of the redwood forest next to the big sur river. [sound of rushing river] a little chilly. just before 10:00 i go out of the tent and louise is inside nursing. and i'm holding the flask and i looked around. oh, man. the sky y overflowed with stars. they shone down through the tops of the redwoods. oh, my lord, it was fabulous. 10:00 i go and stand on a little wooden footbridge over the big sur river, hold my breath, pull off the stopper, let the cool night air rush in, put the stopper back on. then i go down and do the same thing with another flask in the river water. we had a great time. in two days i filled up 9 flasks.. [laughter] drove back to pasadena and i analyzed the results. one thing really hitit me. afternoon numbers were perfectly uniform. 310 ppm. all the readings of the water in the river were just slightly higher. there was slightly more co2 in the water. because there were leaves, decaying vegetation held there by the rocks. so, congratulations. dr. brown, i was right. write up my findings. i--heh-- didn't think of calling the newspapers--stop the presses. i think about it now, the whole thing took me almost two years. why did it take so long? well, i was having fun. but the real reason, the whole process just fascinated me. and the really real reason, i had to get it right. and so far i had. what i had done was work out the basic foundations of the science. now, the i.g.y., thousands of scientists from all over the globe, europeans, americans, working together with russians for the first time since the cold war began, were going to give planet earth its very first physical exam. in the 1950s, human beings knew very little about the planet on which we live. one area we really knew nothing about was climate. tell you something about the i.g.y. it spoiled everybody. it seemed there wawas an endless barrel of money for almost almomost any experiment you wand do. why? the cold war. scientific advancements like radar and the atomic bomb helped us to win the last war, and climate was a big deal if you wanted to do bombing missions or send out ships, launch invasions like d-day. it helped to know the tides, the weather. so the mililitary was willing to spend whatever it took. for example, to learn if navy submarines could fire nuclear missiles from beneath the ice at the north pole. fortunately, i didn't have to work on any of the strictly military research. and thank god we never had to use any of the nuclear related developments. we didn't know it then, but we'd never have that same level of support and freedom again. we got to measure co2 at the south pole, on mauna loa, all over the earth. and indeed, the level everywhere in the atmosphere was the same. we'd watch the numbmber in 5 yes climb from 310 to 315, and we made some extraordinary developments, discoveries. been known since the 19th century that plants breathe almost like humans do, but it was thrilling to see that measured on a global atmospheric scale. see, the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere is a little higher at night when plants shut down. it reaches a high point every morning just before dawn and begins to drop at sunrise, and reaches its low point in the mid-afternoon. same story with the seasons. spring, summer, when trees are full, they store up co2, so there's less of it in the air. and then in the fall and the wiwinter, when they y lose their leaves, the co2 goes back intoto the atmosphere, then there's more of it. these little jagged spikes, the very slight variation you see, in winter, and this is summer. isn't that interesting? isn't it nice? co2 went up every year. 1959 co2 was 316. by 1963, it had risen to almost 319. that year, i felt very lucky. i was 35 years old, louise and i i had 3 children n, drew, ralph, and emily. i was living out my dream. running my o own program, doing science in nature. life was good. in those days, southern california seemed a beautiful, inexhaustible place. there's a lovely little bluff near our house in del mar, where we'd stand at night and look out at the ocean. [sound of waves crashing] no one would disturb us. our neighbors were mostly farmers, coyotes, deer, maybe a few skunks. more about them later. we'd stand up there with the kids and we'd look at the same great night sky i used to look at with my father. and i'd point out the same constellations. in 1957, if you look carefully, you can spot sputnik on the horizon. russians launched sputnik, the first artificial satellite, as part of the i.g.y. it was a big achievement for them and a big e embarrassment r us. suddenly the russians were leading in space technology. may 1961, president kennedy went to congress to ask them for special funding to put a man on the moon. and so the space race was on. and it was expensive. money for focusing on other planets had to come from somewhere, so of course it came from programs focused on this planet. programs like ours. which was one of many that were scheduled for cancellation. what do you do? i went to washington, i had meetings. they'd say, well, you've already done carbon dioxide, keeling. why don't you do something else? i'd say, no, i'm not finished. you know, i smiled a lot. i've never been a shmoozer, but i said, hey, hi, hey! how ya doin'? hey. in the end they permitted the program to survive, sort of. we lost the south pole. had an analyzer on a ship and another one on a plane. we had to shut them down, too. couldn't afford to keep our technical director at mauna loa, so if we had any technical problems, we'd have to shut that down, too. and of c course we...had 'em. sure enough, there w were problems. . so, there was nothig to do but pull the p plug, turn out the lights, just shut the whole damnmn thing down. in february, march, april of 1964, there were no precise measurements of f atmospheriric2 being made anywhere on e earth. then that spring, the nsf, the national science foundation, gave us enenough new funding to pay for one additional technician, so at least we limped on, but we were going. 1968, louise and i had 5 5 kids. 4 boys and a girl. we'd go on camping trips, the whole family, to the northern cascades, out to glacier, sit around the campfire and look up at the mountains in the moonlight. the kids, usually ralph, would say, hey, dad, this co2 going up, is that bad? i told him it was too early to tell, but i really wondered. co2 by the late sixties was at 325. did slow down a bit briefly in the early seventies. in 1973, '74, the arab oil boycott-- remember that? president nixon was telling everybody they had to drive 55 miles an hour and keep their thermomostats at 6 68. imagine that? most of us did. we had a pretty good team at the office by then. i have to admit i had a reputation for being a hard man to work for. i hahad to bebe. they werere always t tryio shut us down. i just couldn't tolerate mistakes. i checked everybody's work. i couldn't help it. i--i really didn't trust computers. especially the small ones. [laughter] i never have. i mean, you never know. just to be sure, i'd have my staff do all the data processing by hand, with paper, pencil, and slide rule. we did it that way for years. i know. but there's alwaysys tht one chance. as it is, no one ever challenged our data. it's completely unassailable. but, you see, monitoring is science's cinderella. unloved and poorly paid. out there in the world of funding, there was no respect for what they call time studies. it's a catch 22. how do you establish that a time study is worthwhile? it takes time. [laughter] time is very central to the problem with co2 stays in the atmosphere a very long time. now scientists generally believe at least half the co2 remains for hundreds of years, perhaps asas long as 50000, or morore. 100 yeyears ago, 1 1914, co2 u p therere right nonow from steel anandrew carnenegie milleded, fm momodel ts henenry ford bubuilt, the year worldld war i broke ou. there's co2 from all those explosions that killed all those men. 500 years. anybody have any idea what was happening in 1414? i think joan of arc was born around then. any case, very little co2 was getting produced. i know they didn't burn joan till much later. [laughter] you see, if co2 has a lifespan of between 100 and 500 years, and co2 being produced right now when you turn on your air conditioioner could still be up there in 2514. and the fact is, the main thing about co2 is that it accccumulates. it buildlds u. and once it builds up p enoughit sets off a tipping point. remember? like froggy in the water. and then the feedbacks start kicking in. it's comparable to a person who eats a lot of fatty processed foods. for a long time, it's not a problem. but the cholesterol, the plaque, the fatty deposits are slowly building up and junking up the system. and once it hits a tipping point, things start going wrong. that's what we mean by feedbacks. one organ begins to malfunction, and then another. the heart is weaker. as a result, it puts more pressure on the lungs. more tipping points are passed. and all the while, the person goes on eating all that stuff, junk keeps building up until, well, you name it. you know, the expression, the devil's in the details? when it comes to co2, the devil is really in the feedbacks. here's a simple breakdown of how climate change feedbacks work. as carbon dioxide accumulalates in the atmosphere, it raises temperatures. some of the extra heat evaporates water from the ocean and soil into the atmosphere. all right, so you've got more heat and because you've got more heat, you've got warmer oceans, expanding oceans. the heat pulls water vapor out of the ocean, and so you've got more water vapor in the atmosphere. warming oceans give us melting ice, leaving sea water, which is darker than ice. while ice and snow reflect sunlight, sea water absorbs it. and so you've got warmer seas absorbing momore sunlight anand getting warmer and warmer. then you have warmer landmasses, methane release, more co2, drying forests, beetle infestations, dying forests, dead forests, forest fires, more co2. and you're passing tipping points one after another. you pass too many, one feeds another, whole systems start breaking down. and it goes faster and faster. and suddenly negative events, multiple emergencieies are happppening at once all over ththe planet. yo'e trying to dedeal with ththem ald you can't. now, of course, we didn't know that--all this back in 1979. i don't think anyone did. we just knew that something was wrong. when you analyze the co2, you know what we found? an almost perfect correlation between co2 and temperature. here's a record of co2 a and temperarature overr the e past 400,0,000 years. . 't the top, t temperature's at the bottom. as co2 levels went up, tetemperatures went up and o did sea levels. as co2 levels declined, temperatures went down, as did the sea levels. we discovered that co2 acts like a thermoststat. it conontrols clclimate on t the planet. bottm line is, our climate is like a yoyo bouncing back and forth between ice ages and warming periods. we human beings have occupied this planet for over 100,000 years, or 6,000 if you're a creationist. [laughteter] and it's only in the last 150 years, especially in the last 40, we've been able to understandnd anything ababout or climate and how it basically workrks. there h have been many ice ages, but it was 1860 before we knew there had even ever been one ice age. one. and we had n o idea what caused it. for a very long time, we've labored under a huge misconception that this is the perfect t planet. perfect plananet. the goldilocks p plan. not too hot, not too c cold, jut right. that somehow, there's a normal, well regulated state of being, alalmost like e a we engineneered clockck. and isn''t nice? i mean, this is it, here we are. and if it's ever gonna change, it'll change only very gradually over thousands of years. it's ununderstandable tht we would think so. we've never known anything else. but the truth about climate on this planet is that it's very delicate, precarious. how delicate? as i said before, about as delicate as the health of the human body. bad thingss happen when your own l little ecosystem goes awry. what's the average healthy human temperature, 98.6? youou've got a temperature two degrees higher, say 101, you're sick. 3 degrees higher, you're very sick. another 3 degrees, you're dead. little 8 degrees, 8 1/2 degrees. many, many times the climate has swung from this to this and back again. now, this is going way back, 65, 70 million years, the age of the dinosaurs. you see, this was the north pole, also the south pole. dinosaurs, giant crocodiles romped and partied and swam around what is now the north pole. itit was downrit tropical. the arctic sea was their playground, so was the antarctic. how do we know? we found the bones. the last ice age peaked about 18,000 years ago. a third of the earth was covered with ice a mile thick. here in north america, it covered nearly all of canada, what's now new york, chicago, minneapolis. same story with northern europe, siberia. where was all the water? it was all locked up in ice. and then 11, 12,000 years ago, the climate warmed up again, the ice melted, sea levels wenenup 400 feeeet. 1980. co2 was 341. we get back to the u.s. just in time for the election of ronald reagan. now, i'm a registered republican, always have been. but one of the first things reagan did was take jimmy carter's solar panels off the white house roof. i'd been lucky to get some funding, but then just like the democrats, the republicans took it away. not all of it, just enough to slow us down. so we kept limping along. in a lot of ways, 1980s were a difficult time. few remember it now, but heat waves killed more than 20,000 americans, most of them elderly, most of them urban poor. hyperthermia. it was the warmest decade ever recorded up till then. the eighties were probably a tipping point, the first one, anyway. in june 1988, in the middle of a huge heat wave, co2 was at 351. jim hansen, the foremost climate scientist on the planet, got invited down to washington. he showed a senate committee the evidence, rising co2 levels, rising temperatures, and said it was finally time to start cutting back on co2 emissions. hansen said, and i quote, "global warming has begun." senators seemed to be genuinely attentive, respectful. they thanked him for coming, said they were very impressed. we thought they were. it was the lead story the next day in "the new york times." it was also one of the lead items on the cbs evening news. we all thought, great! wow. this is it. everybody is finally gonna get the message, the government's gonna take action, we're gonna get this thing under control. so we thought maybebe we could begn to relax a little. louise and i decided to spend that summer in montana. one day i was out collecting air samples and a neighbor came up to me and she said, "hey, what you doing?" i told him i was carrying out a study having to do with global warming. he said, "oh, yeah, i read something about that recently." i said, "really? what was that?" he said, "oh, i heard it was a myth, something. like a hoax." huh? next day i got ahold of a copy of the local weekly, it was the earth day issue. sure enough, the lead story was entitled "the myth of globobal warming." it quoteded,t were they called, a scientific study that was provided by a national center in washington. included a lot of quotes from scientists and noted authorities i'd never heard of. you've all seen d dens of thehese storiesyy now, the hoax of global warming, the scam of climate change. they feature quotes from various climate experts, some of whom are meteorologists. climatologists deal with millions of years. something else you hear is, isn't it just natural cycles? in short, no, it's not. the earth's orbit around the sun is not perfectly circular, it can be irregular. and when it is, parts of the earth receive more or less sunlight. when an irregular orbit causes it to receive more sunlight, the earth very gradually grows warmer. but the warming we''re expereriencig now isis happening much more rapidly. when the orbit changes again, the earth starts cooling and eventually we have another icice age. it's worked that way for millions of years. a an ice age followed by a warming period followed by another ice age. but nanatural cycles is s a perfecty valid theory. but it's just not what's happening now. in fact, today's orbit is such that we're receiving less sunlight, not more. so if you eliminate the human factor, fossil fuels, you can't find anything that's causing what's happening today. natural cycles have nothing to do with it. special interests promote natural cycles as the cause because they don't want us to know we have a problem and that they're the reason we have it. remember the cigarette companies, philip morris and friends, what they did in the 1950s? the tobacco industry created a phony research institute that issued official-appearing reports about how there was no real evidence linking cigarette smoking with cancer, heart disease, emphysema. 9 out of 10 doctors smoke camels. remember that?t? [laughter] 8 of them are dead. [laughter] these are from tobacco industry documents. and this is a real quote. "doubt is our product." doubt. the industry's strategy does not require winning the debates it manufacturers. it's enough to foster and perpetuate the illusion of controversy. like greed, doubt's very powerful stuff. if you're looking for a reason not to believe something, try doubt. and who vigorously carries on that same mission today of showing doubt, lying to the american public? i mentioned skunks earlier. [laughter] one well-funded source of misinformation is the heartland institute. one of the main reasons i'm here is because of heartland. for years, they've made money by promoting smoking among young people. in the 1980s rj reynolds created the joe camel campaign to present smoking in a much more fun, cool light. heartland was quick to sign on and join in, promoting the youthful joe camel message. back in the nineties, heartland worked with philip morris on a campaign to question the science e linking second-had smoke to health risks. and now these same people have wormed their way y into our schools, offering books and educational materials to deprived districtss that in many cases have none. with a budget of about $20 million, heartland is now promoting its educational programs about climate change to children around the country. here's their promotion. they've got two main points. one, it's not manmade, it's natural variation. small human impact, flawed computer models, no consensus. two, warming's not harmful, future warming will be modest, and finally, warmer is better. the fossil fuels industry is the most profitable commercial enterprise on the face o of the earth, andnd y want to kekeep it that way. th's why the koch brothers, who have billions tied up in oil, have gotten many members of congress to sign a pledge to vote against any bill promoting any meaningful action on climate change. 1988, in the interest of certainty, the united nations created the ipcc, the intergovernmental panel on climate change. the ipcc shared the 2007 nobel prize for its work on calling attention to the growing dangers of climate change. it's a peer-reviewed panel of hundreds of highly qualified climatologists from different countries who issue thoroughly researched, relatively conservative reports on the state of the climate. first one was in 1995. very latest one was not quite a month ago. you may have read about it. 97% of the climate scientists who have published climate papers said global warming caused by fossil fuel emissions is unequivivocal. the currrrent score is 97 to 3. imagine your child wasn't feeling well, constant pain, losing weight, couldn't sleep, took her or him to see 100 doctors, 97 of them said he was deeply ill, required immediate medical care to o save her life, 3 doctors said it's no big deal, kid will be fine. who would you believe? what would you do? badly out of balance, causing lots of extreme weather with hots getting hotter, colds colder, storms intensifying, wets getting wetter. too much water in some areas, not nearly enough in others. when the history of this time is written, it will show two consecutive winters in 2010 to 2011, 2011 to 2012, when there was no winter at all. december, january of those years, new yorkers relaxed in short sleeves in central park. there was no winter frost to kill the eggs and mosquitoes or the pine beetles that devastated pine forests from british columbia to new jersey. that was followed by two winters, 2012 and 2013 and 2013, 2014 of massive snowstorms. now, some ask, not unreasonably, if the world is supposed to be getting warmer, why all the snow? well, as the planet warms up, the heat sucks moisture out of one part of the earth, up into the atmosphere as water vapor, and it comes down over another part as rain or snow. hotter air holds more moisture. and when temperatures go down, and they still do in certain places, you've heard of the arctic vortex, the result can be massive amounts of snow. or in a warmer season, as temperatures advance, massive amounts s of rain. here in the west, one thing is for certain, the future holds drought. 2013 was the driest year since records have been kept in california, and all across the planet. snow in the mountains is one of those nice gifts of nature. it's beautiful. it's also quite useful. snow-covered mountaintops are like giant benevolent water towers. snow pack provides water for more than a billion human beings. in the spring it flows down the mountains, feeding great rivers like the yangtze in china, ganges in india, or the colorado in the western u.s. but in the andes and the alps and the rockies, the mountain snow pack is disappearing. here in southern california, by the 2020s, the loss of snow pack could threaten almost half of our water supply. another aspect of the drying problem is wild fires. fire seasons are now almost 3 months longer than they were in the 1970s. and more important than anything else, the drying climate is going to affect our ability to grow food. the midwestern american farm belt has been under stress these past 4 summers. here's a preview of the world of our children and grandchildren. these are projections from ncar, a federally funded atmospheric research group. in 2030, southern california will be a severe, but not quite extreme drought. by 2060 to 2069, it and much of the west will be in extreme drought. same story with mexico, central america. there will be a solid band of drought running through much of the u.s., southern europe, also north african and the middle east. if millions of people, maybe hundreds of millions, can't grow food and feed their families, they will migrate. they have no choice. what do they do if they can't? desperate people take desperate measures. military is staying up late these nights preparing for dealing with millions of climate refugees. also for dealing with failing states and the insurgencies and civil wars that follow. the civil war that's raging now in syria was caused initially by a drought that last from 2006 to 2010. small farmers could no longer grow crops to feed their families, so they moved to the cities and could find no jobs. syrian government failed to help. the result was an uprising that's become a long drawn out civil war. the other problem is too much water. larger, more intense downpours are becoming more common. in 2012, flash floods left a quarter million homeless in bangladesh. major storms ravished china and the philippines where 80% of manila was under water. in 2013, floods overwhelmed parts of england, germany, central europe, northern india, alberta, canada, vietnam. what contributed to the storm surge in hurricane sandy was the fact that the sea level off new york has increased by nearly a foot over the last 100 years. in 2007, the ipcc projected a possible global sea level rise of two feet. today, some ipcc scientists are predicting between 5 and 6 feet. what would a 5 1/2 foot sea level rise look like on new york? there's a projection. this was the real thing. major american cities like miami and new orleans cannot survive a sea level rise of 5 1/2 feet. what's happening right now is thatt the arctic is warming up twice as fast as the planet as a whole. in 30 years since 1980, we've melted 80% of arctic ice, ice that was in place for about 125,000 years. the greenland ice sheet covers 80% of greenland, and it's melting. unlike the arctic ice, greenland's ice is land-based. when it melts, sea levels will rise. richard alley, who was regarded as the world's leading authority on ice, told a house panel that if global temperatures rise by even 3.6 degrees fahrenheit, the entitire greenland ice sheet is doomed. if the greenland ice sheet melts, the world seas will rise by 23 feet. now, this isn't gonna happen next week, maybe not for centuries, but alley says that with the rise of 3.5 degrees, it's guaranteed to happen. and here is the real wildcard is permafrost. permafrost is relatively permanently frozen land, all of it left over from the last ice age. one quarter of the northern hemisphere is home to a tremendous amount of permafrost, and it's melting. there's alaska, what they call drunken trees and drunken houses. same thing in siberia, northern scandinavia. underneath the arctic's permafrost is methane. over a period of 100 years, methane is 20 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. some of the permafrost is a mile thick and it holds twice much carbon as the atmosphere does right now. it isn't all gonna melt at once. but one projection is we'll see a melting of about 10 feet of worldwide permrmafrost in this century. and there's also a tremendous amount of methane buried under the ocean floor. there's methane deposits there that have been held in place by permafrost lids. as the ocean warms up, these lids are beginning to leak. we're seeing methane chimneys now bubbling up off the coast of arctic siberia. what can we do? the chair of that last ipcc assessment is rajendra pachauri. he recommends immediate and very deep cuts in pollution levels if, and these are his words, if humanity is to survive. pachauri said, "climate change is for real. we have just a small window of opportunity and it's closing rather rapidly. there's not a moment to lose." that's what he said in 2007. now, please, don't make the mistake of p presuming thiss all 50 or 100 years away. spencer weart, the leading climate historian on the planet, said recently, "by the late 2020s, it will become painfully obvious to even the most diehard climate deniers that something is terribly wrong. we just have to hope it isn't too late." i went on measuring co2 until the day i died. fought off every government effort to take over my program. i spent the--that last day, june 20, 2005, hiking in the bitterroot mountains with my son eric. the co2 count that morning was 382.4. what do you think it is right now? anybody know? you may recall it reached 400 for the first time this past may. last month in march it reached 401.6. greenhouse gas concentrations are now at levels not seen in human history and not perhaps--in perhaps 3 to 5 million years. 3 million years ago, sea levels were 80 feet higher than today. the question is, is there any way to avoid the worst? in the 25 years since jim hansen went to congress, the u.s. government has never enacted a coherent program to effectively deal with global warming. it's possible to safely, gradually remove co2 from the atmosphere. it would take many years, probably cost trillions of dollars per year, but progress on this and other solutions is slow because the basic funding isn't there to support the research. so i'll leave you with this. for 130,000 years, human beings anatomically identical to us with brains and native intelligence on a level with ours lived on this planet. one generation followed another and nothing ever changed. and then the climate changed. it warmed up. sea levels rose. people came out of their caves, enjoyed the stable, relatively benign climate we've taken for granted for the past 10,000 years. within 5,000 years, we had writing, first cities sprang up, all the advances that characterize modern civilization came about--learning, science, the arts, medicine. the new climate was stable. it's been remarkably, uniquely stable for the past 8,000 years. it's the only climate we've known on the only planet we have. and we've had a civilized world because we've had a civilized, stable climate. and now we're in danger of losing it. it's said that humankind is on a journey from the caves to the stars. if so, it's been a journey fraught with challenges. and at each of them, we have overcome those who would lead us back to the caves, who would stop us-- the fear mongers, the haters, the doubters, the liars. today it's the propheteers who would fill you with doubt and lull you to sleep, ask you to deny your very senses. we have the ability to face what confronts us, what is needed is the will. if you love your children, if you want to salvage a world for the children of your children, i urge you to find the courage to join with others of like mind, sound the alarm, and demand that those in power act in the best interest of future generations of this planet. time is short. [applause]

Related Keywords

Vietnam , Republic Of , Mauritania , Montana , United States , Greenland , Australia , Paris , France General , France , Alaska , China , Erbil , Liwa Irbil , Iraq , California , Jamaica , Syria , Aleppo , Lab , Russia , Kansas City , Kansas , Yangtze , China General , Mexico , Manila , Philippines , Nauru , India , Egypt , Ecuador , Ireland , Chicago , Illinois , Morton County , North Dakota , Norway , Miami , Florida , New York , Moscow , Moskva , Canada , Mandan , Germany , Missouri , Texas , Iran , Washington , Bitterroot Mountains , London , City Of , United Kingdom , Bangladesh , South Dakota , Cheyenne River , Colorado Springs , Colorado , Geneva , Genè , Switzerland , Sweden , Ohio , Americans , Swedish , Norwegian , Russian , Britain , Iraqi , British , German , Syrian , Russians , Irish , American , Tom Dickson , Arctic Sea , John Tyndall , Mike Roman , Alicia Garza , Billy Bush , Patrick Kennedy , Ronald Reagan , Julian Assange , Los Angeles , Ladd Erickson , Jon Husted , Mudd Hall , Jim Hansen , Dave Archambault , Mauna Loa , Rajendra Pachauri , Hany Massoud , Jimmy Carter , Philip Morris , David Keeling , John Hamilton , Cody Hall , Margarita Simonyan , States Latin America , Roslyn Brock , James Cartwright , Amy Goodman , John Podesta , John Doe , Hillary Clinton ,