climate

Global climate change isn't an if anymore, it's a when, according to journalist Mark Hertsgaard. The planet is going to get warmer, and Hertsgaard says that only the "climate crooks and climate cranks" are still in the denial business. But legislation is stalled in Congress because those very same crooks control the purse strings of the politicians who make the decisions. How do the members of Generation Hot, like Hertsgaard's daughter Chiara, make it? Mark joined Laura in studio to discuss that and more in the second part of a two-part interview, this one focusing on the big picture, covered in his new book Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth.

Though there is little hope for a binding international agreement from the current round of climate talks held by the United Nations in Cancun this week, there is something different about the conversation. Tina Gerhardt reports that countries who are in attendance at the talks aren't talking about future consequences of global climate change, but instead talking about the crises they are suffering right now. From drought to floods, weather patterns are shifting and across the world, people are feeling the pain.Tina is reporting from the Cancun talks this week for The Nation, and she joins us to give us an update on the situation, who's there, who's not, and what, if anything, we can hope for as a result of the talks.The environmental and climate justice movement isn't just about saving polar bears from melting ice, argues writer and 350.org founder Bill McKibben. It's about rebuilding connection and community, changing the way human beings live, and working in solidarity with human rights organizations across the world to improve all of our lives. And the biggest stumbling block to the growth of a global climate justice movement? It's right under our noses: our own Congress.Bill McKibben is a recipient of this year's Puffin/Nation Prize for Creative Citizenship, and he joins us in studio for a special one-on-one chat with Laura about the state of the climate justice movement, the Cancun talks, Obama's failure to act, and what we can do to change things before it's too late.

The death in the Senate of the Kerry-Lieberman climate bill this week, Charles Komanoff argues, "clears the way for genuine solutions to global warming­­—solutions that ordinary Americans can understand and support." But many others, including David Roberts of Grist.org, say that no climate bill will pass while certain structural roadblocks remain: chief among them, the need for a 60-vote supermajority in the Senate. Could better policies rally enough public support to defeat the massive special interests allied against climate legislation? Or do we need to face facts and defeat the filibuster before we can get any legislation through at all?

"It was a Sister Souljah moment," says Bill Fletcher Jr. of Bill Clinton's support for Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln in her primary battle against insurgent Bill Halter. Lincoln, of course, is one of the Democrats whose refusal to support the Employee Free Choice Act keeps labor from expanding its base. Labor came out for Bill Halter, but the party elites supported Lincoln and helped her keep her seat. Bill Fletcher joins us via Skype to break down the Arkansas primary as well as other Democratic and Republican primaries around the country, including the victories of Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman in California. While BP oil continues to clog the Gulf, people's livelihoods and lives are being destroyed along with fish and birds. Our friends at Green For All bring us this story of one company, one small group of people, being impacted by the disaster.