Amanpour and Company

>> hello, everyone and welcome to Amanpour and Company.

Here's what's coming up.

The threat to Taiwan, Washington wargames, a Chinese invasion Mir warns of conflict.

I get a view from the ground from writer and activist Brian Hugh.

>> I think the average citizen knows more than the journalists.

>> Elon Musk's new Twitter gamble.

I get the latest on what removing verification badges could mean for disinformation.

A tale of shipwreck, mutiny and murder.

The acclaimed writer brings us the fascinating story of castaways descending into chaos from his new book.

Plus -- >> We are just at the cusp of may be the most ambitious climate action that we've seen in the U.S. and around the world.

>> protecting our planet.

Executive Director of -- of Earth Day initiative talks about the high-stakes work of track -- of tackling climate change.

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Thank you.

>> welcome to the program, I am in New York sitting in for Christiane Amanpour.

When Russia tried to take over Ukraine last year it spent -- sent chills up the spines of thousands miles away.

The island has been under the thumb of China for years.

Many residents living in constant fear that Beijing, like Moscow, will one day try to invade.

The United States is worried about the scenario, it Congressional select committee wargame in Chinese invasion.

The committee's chair saying it revealed the need to arm Taiwan to the teeth.

The commander of U.S. in specific -- Pacific Command said U.S. military has done a lot of work and taken lessons learned from the war in Ukraine and applying them to the U.S. war in Ukraine.

He warned the Chinese threat to Taiwan is closer to us than most think.

With me now it is a Brian Hugh, he is a Taiwanese American writer and an activist.

Welcome to the program live with us from Taipei.

Just to continue on this, just today China's Foreign Minister has warned of dangerous consequences for countries that intervene in Taiwan.

On the surface, this is language we've heard for years now, but given today's climate, how do you interpret it?

>> I think China is hoping other countries in the region do not intervene in the event of a Taiwan contingency.

China would stand to lose a lot in terms of not only just the lives lost but also the economic impact, as well as other countries in the region would feel threatened by China potentially targeting them next.

You have escalation rhetoric, there's controversy of comments made by China's ambassadors in the Philippines threatening the 100 50,000 Filipinos in Taiwan.

It's a question if China will step up its rhetoric to dissuade other countries from proceeding on Taiwan's behalf.

>> This comes as we continue to see this Theatrics, well coordinated visits between Taiwanese officials, the president just coming to the United States to visit with the speaker in California, obviously this following then Speaker Pelosi stripped trip to Taiwan last year, which really rattled nerves in China, and of course that precipitates these military exercises that we've seen, as I've said, it's also highly choreographed, it's all centered around where you live, your home, what is the reaction to all of this have the choreography around it all between these two countries for years?

>> there definitely is concerned about the threat of a Chinese invasion.

Taiwan has dealt with it for decades, so it's not new.

Even during the visit after the live fire exercises that China conducted, it did not cause as much panic as is often perceived and international media or is misinterpreted because of the fact that the population is used to the threats and often is China making noises.

There is cause for concern because this is not China launching an invasion tomorrow.

There would be a heavy blow to China and China would have to take on a very risky, adventurous move.

But it is hoping to have pretax the more drilling to get more experience, for not just potentially an invasion, but the blockade that would be a way to try to force Taiwan to negotiate and compromise to China's will.

>> As we mentioned in the intro, the threat of a village area invasion is something that U.S. officials, military officials as well have been talking about publicly, I would say with more regularity over the past year or two and even offering specific dates in which they think it invasion could take place as soon as 2025.

Vermeer perspective, from your colleagues, is this more helpful or harmful to have these speculations really made public like this?

>> It is a question, I think this is what's debated, for example, U.S. military officials offering these dates are trying to encourage the Kai Reed scope -- Taiwanese government and society to take more action to stave off an invasion, when the exercise does occur, there's not as much panic and it doesn't translate into them preparing for what to do in the event of an invasion or block a or other scenario, but then I think once all these dates are around, it also pushes China to take more drastic action because then they don't want to look weak.

They do want to look as though they are making steps to take Taiwan and prepare for that.

Also, this rhetoric does also push China to more extreme and aggressive action to threaten Taiwan to psychologically intimidate it in project power.

>> there is a concern Taiwan could be more complacent if we are constantly talking about these perceived threats and a potential invasion.

This is something you could say, we are used to it, it happens all the time, that having been said, we have seen an increase in Taiwan's military budget and expenditure over the past few years and increase from $50 million in 2022 to close to 20 billion and it's projected to go up to 21 build and by 2028.

That dwarfs where China's military budget is, when you hear reports from the leaked classified documents that were just revealed earlier this month, that the United States assessment is that Taiwan is not prepared for an invasion right now, how alarming is that for you to hear?

>> for example, the military draft was we -- was re-extended to one year and this was risky for the Taiwanese President but it was carried out after the invasion of Ukraine.

That has the frame by which calling for further steps for military readiness, but when the U.S. or other western powers continually try to pressure Taiwan, sometimes it feels like an imposition.

That might do more harm than good, I think the hyperbolic rhetoric about the threat of invasion has dealt with this for decades, and just talk about it as though it will happen tomorrow, it may lead to sustenance.

What's interesting about the Chinese drills is that because they occur on a daily basis, it becomes a repetitive news item.

There's not a sense of the intensifying threat, just more plans in the background.

In terms of appeals or attempts to do this, there has to be a more carefully crafted message then continuing fear mongering or pull out these times on which China might take action.

>> It was notable to hear from the president on her recent trip to the United States, she went to New York first and then she went to Central America and stopped in California, but when she was in New York, she had said that Russia's invasion of Ukraine was viewed as a wake-up call for Taiwan.

Do you agree with that?

>> I think so, I think there's more discussion of the potential possibility of an invasion after Ukraine, it's interesting to think about that after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, there's more focus on what will occur after Taiwan then there was when there was live fire chills conducted by China around Taiwan after the visit, which was close to Taiwan during the third crisis.

It was actually seeing these images worldwide and how other countries in the world, particularly the U.S. reacted to the invasion of Ukraine that cause Taiwan to think more seriously about the threat of a Chinese invasion.

These exercises had less of an impact.

>> also, potentially having an impact our elections in Taiwan coming up at the end of the year.

When you talk about the Taiwanese President visiting the United States, it didn't go unnoticed that the predecessor in the member of the party, which is historically been closer aligned to China, was making a first-ever visit to China at the same time, how is that interpreted at home?

>> that's great, its claim to be the only party to conduct relations with the Chinese, his party.

They were enemies in the Civil War and then they came to Taiwan and they reinvented itself.

It's also the former authoritarian party in Taiwan, so former -- the former President visiting China is to show that we can talk with China a way that they cannot so you should vote for us.

That does point to how the next election cycle that is coming up scheduled for January of next year, a lot of questions at stake are what allies should Taiwan pick internationally, should you tried to build relationships and hope that they drop the threats at you despite the fact that they want closer relationships to politically control you at the end of the day or to build stronger ties with the U.S. and Western powers and other regional allies to counterpart the threat to China?

I think that it's a question voters will go to the polls to decide on.

>> I want to ask you about that debate, thank you for correcting me, the former KMT parties cultural minister, your former cultural ministers seem to imply recently in a New York Times piece that all of this is indeed more harmful within Taiwan, that you are starting to have citizens turn against each other on this issue on whether reunification would be better longer term, or whether it's now the time to really hunker down and fight for independence period she highlights a generational gap as being a major player, she spoke to a fisherman who told her many young Taiwan residents absorbed in their mobile phones, socializing and other leisure pursuits seem oblivious to the danger.

I know you had a pretty visceral reaction to this piece, tell us about your response.

Claire she is the former Minister of culture who visited China.

When he was in power and under her administration, there was a youth led movement in 2014 that was the occupation of the Taiwanese legislator for a month in protest of a trade agreement for China that allowed for investments into the Taiwan service sector industry, but it would sell sensor because of concern about China, and that provoked a lot of backlash.

It seemed very strange that there was one of the largest movements in Taiwanese history with 500,000 people taking to the streets on March 30, 2014 with that claim that young people are indifferent and not paying attention and are absorbed in their phones, then it's a kind of framing of the debasement's about the relation were China, framing it as economic engagement will cause China to drop the threats.

It is provoking China to building stronger ties with the U.S., this is a similar narrative circling in regards to Russia and Ukraine saying Ukraine was invaded because it got too close to the U.S. and provoked Russia into action.

So the affiliated groups are saying that.

Circulating narratives that the U.S. would try to destroy Taiwanese semiconductors in the case of war.

Some mergers on this information at this point.

>> We will have to have you on to talk about the economic applications.

You mentioned TSMC and its impact there as the predominant chipmaker for the world.

So we will have to have you back.

Think you so much, really interesting conversation.

Turning down to a roller coaster ride that keeps coming from Twitter.

Elon Musk is making good on his pledge to remove verification badges from the likes of journalists, celebrities and academics.

Those who did not sign up to pay for the service.

The decision was confusing users over the veracity of information and who is actually behind each account.

He was asked about removing the blue checkmarks and the possibility that it could release chaos in an interview with the BBC last week.

>> I think the media is a driver of misinformation much more than they would like to admit that they are.

But access a different question.

What you are sort of saying who knows best, the average citizen or someone who is a journalists.

I think in a lot of cases it's the average citizen that knows more than the journalist.

>> here to discuss is someone who knows Twitter.

The former global chair of news for the former company.

The era of Internet has no doubt amplified misinformation and I do want to talk to you about that and the impact that this could possibly have on users now that these blue check marks, these verifications have been removed.

What is your reaction?

Like there's a lot of misunderstanding about what that blue checkmark represents.

It's perceived to be a signal of the elite.

But the intention of the blue checkmark is simply to say that the person tweeting is who they say they are.

It doesn't mean that what they are tweeting is correct information, it could be false information or that they are an important person or not, it just verifies their identity.

By removing that verification, this is just another move that Elon Musk has made to sort of unleash chaos on the platform.

Because now anybody can pretend to be anybody else.

Some Twitter employees will try to take down account Center spoofing, but it's now a very, very difficult process.

>> this isn't just a hypothetical, I want to put up one example of just a few hours into the new move by Twitter and you already see what you just laid out in real time, the New York City government had an authentic Twitter account they were representing and all of a sudden, once they put up a tweet that said this is the authentic Twitter account representing the New York City government, this is the only account run by the New York City government.

Responses said, no, you are not, this account is the only authentic Twitter account.

That's just one example, I saw one earlier of Hillary Clinton saying that she was going to be running in 2023.

Talk about just the impact that could have on the spread of disinformation and Twitter's potential role as a source for media and information going forward.

>> Twitter has never been perfect.

It had a lot of problems, but it was critical -- global infrastructure for information that Elon Musk as vandalized.

By removing the verification, we are just going to continue to see exactly what you're talking about, which is, anybody can pretend to be anybody else and you can buy a blue checkmark, which gives you the illusion of being a legitimate source, but it's just a transaction.

So all of a sudden, legitimate sources like the city of New York, lose their verification status, which was an important signal for the audience, some other random person could appear to be that source, this is just day one and we already see the chaos that it -- that could ensue.

>> hi Lost my blue verification checkmark, I don't really care, a lot of my colleagues did, life goes on, I still use the site but I have to say it is much harder to navigate.

This was sort of a go to platform for me in the morning because I had cultivated a list of people and sites that I have followed, and that was my go to information hub, and I would go there first before getting confirmation before following up on a specific story.

That has become that much harder but it does seem Elon Musk has it out for the media specifically.

While the company may say this is another way to get more revenue, which I don't disagree with, they are cash strapped, do you think this was the only way they could have gone about it?

>> Clearly not.

If it was about revenue, this would be a colossal failure.

Travis Brown reported -- tweeted -- in fact, I think it's Travis Brown, there's no blue checkmark.

But since early April, there has only been a net gain of about four or five paid verification accounts.

So this is not a revenue driver and I think it has a lot to do with Elon Musk's frustration with the media.

We see that manifesting in various ways.

He's punished, for example, New York Times.

He took away the New York Times blue checkmark a few weeks ago.

Why, who knows.

He punished NPR by labeling them as government-funded -- first, there was different terminology that was very misleading.

While NPR is government-funded, it was clearly targeted punitive again some reporting that he clearly didn't like.

>> on that note, we still now see that Chinese, Iranian, Russian state media losing their state affiliated warning, which was always a hub of exactly what that is.

For viewers and readers to read that knowing that it is state sponsored and affiliated.

That is all gone.

It seems that some of these sites and accounts get more protection and are rewarded from this change while he continues, in that interview with the BBC, to say that he thinks the average citizen knows more than journalists.

>> All of this points to the fact that Twitter is a declining asset.

Used to be very important, Twitter always had problems, they should've extended the verification process to anybody who could prove their identity.

They should've done that along time ago to dispense with the notion is being the elite.

He said he was going to come in and fix all of that, but he hasn't fixed it.

And he has now broken things that were working just fine.

>> Twitter is rolling back protections for transgender people.

Specific language involving hateful speech and policies surrounding that in its policy used to read, Twitter prohibits targeting others that intends to degrade or reinforce negative or harmful stereotypes about a protected category.

This includes targeted, Miss Jen during or dead naming transgender individuals.

That second line isn't there anymore and it's causing concern.

Can you speak to that?

>> there's a reason why the policy specifically called out transgender individuals, who we already know are subject to a lot of abuse online.

By removing that line and keeping it broadly targeting of others, it removes that added protection and gives -- first of all, there aren't nearly as many people on twitter who are looking for a content as there were before he fired a great deal of them.

But even now, it sort of giving license to not take down those harmful tweets when they appear.

It's very concerning.

>> it's not as large as other platforms and social media sites.

It has about 300 million users.

What is your prediction about the future of the company?

>> Twitter has never been nearly as large as most other platforms that has always punched above its weight.

That's face it, that's where journalists and politicians and CEOs, and other influencers got a lot of their information, and those people then would amplify that information.

So, we in journalism would retweet and put it on the air where it reaches exponentially more people.

That's why President Trump was using Twitter so actively to sort of rally his base and why it was so powerful.

Not because of just the -- not because of the smaller numbers of active users, but rather that amplification.

I think we will see a slow decline of Twitter as it becomes filled with much more complicated, difficult, hard to verify content and it's just sad because there really is no replacement.

>> it has turned into an seems to be leading to a cacophony of chaos.

It is sad because it was a useful source.

It's unfortunate that this is what it's turning into.

Thank you so much for your time.

>> glad to be here.

>> The error has no doubt amplified misinformation, but the bending and twisting of the truth has always been part of human nature.

Best-selling author David grand drove into -- dove into the history books and found a fascinating tale of shipwreck castaways who descended into chaos on a desolate item in their fight over the true story of what actually happened.

The book is called the wager, a tale of shipwreck, mutiny and has cap the attention of Martin Scorsese, whose turning it into a film.

David grand, welcome to the program, congratulations on the book, I loved it.

I have to say I look forward to my evening, whatever time I could get to devour the book.

It's fascinating.

>> As the best news and author could ever hear.

>> Let's talk about your research because you came upon it when you are going through electronic files of British archives back in 2016 and you were specifically focused on mutiny as a topic, researching mutiny.

Why the fascination?

>> It has always been one of my pet obsessions of mutiny of what is it within a military organization, which is an instrument of the state that's designed to create order, what is it that suddenly caused members to rebel?

Is it the extreme laws, or could there be something rotten at the core of the system that justifies the rebellion and perhaps gives it some sense of nobility.

So that was always an issue and a theme that interests me that led me to the story.

>> In the research you come across the Journal of a midshipman who would become the grandfather of the poet Lord Byron.

His time on a British warship was called the HMS wager that sink off the coach -- coast of Chile in 1740.

Set the scene, what is the wager?

>> the wager was a British warship that set off on a secret mission during the Imperial war between Great Britain and Spain.

It was on this secret mission to try to capture a Spanish Galleon filled with treasure, which was known as the price of all the ocean.

Pretty soon, almost everything begins to go wrong on this journey.

First they have to get around Cape Horn at the tip of South America where they encounter the most violent seas possible.

It's the one place and the earth where the seas travel 13,000 miles around the globe uninterrupted, so they accumulate an power.

Waves can dwarf a 90 foot mast.

You have the strongest current on earth and then you have currents that can accelerate 200 miles per hour.

Hermann Melville compared it to a dissent into Don till's Inferno into hell.

They come around the horn and they are battered and they suffer from scurvy outbreak MA eventually wrecked.

>> It would be an arduous trek today.

You took it and I want to talk to about that.

But back then for the Navy and these warships, he described them as the wooden world themselves.

How difficult was it for the ships to endure all of this back then?

>> In many ways they were the engineering marvels of their day , they were these lethal instruments used for battle, but they used fortresses designed to be the homes for hundreds of seamen who live together as a family for as long as three years at a time.

They could fly, depending on the sides of the ship, as many as 18 sales, but they were extraordinarily vulnerable to the elements of storm and see because they were made of very perishable materials, which was wood.

It could take as much as 4000 trees to build the single warship, so you would have warms -- see worms that would burrow holes into the bottom, you would have bats and termites.

So, they were very vulnerable and they were especially vulnerable on this voyage.

>> Even for successful voyages back then, these sailors endured an awful lot.

It's not just the winds were the rough seas, it scurvy, it's splinters.

Talk about the difficulty that you described in the book in actually recruiting enough sailors, because they knew what they were in for and it led to the British government and authorities having to seas man off the streets.

>> It's madness.

So, the British Navy had exhausted its supply of volunteers, so it dispatched these armed pressed gangs to go to towns, ports and cities, and they went eyeball you and if you look like you had any signs of a mariner, the round hat or the checkered shirt or even a little tar on your fingerprints because they were used on ships back then, they would CZU, kidnapped -- they would seize you and kidnap you and take you out of the gang.

Even after the press gang did their work, they needed about 2000 men altogether.

What did they do, they took the extreme step of rounding up soldiers from a retirement home, these men were -- these men were in their 60's and 70's and many were missing an assortment of limbs and some were so sick they had to be lifted on stretchers onto the ship.

So the seeds of destruction were really planted from the very outset.

>> Tell us about your experience on wager Island and how it corresponded with the records you read in your research for this book?

>> Wager Island is very remote.

When they wreck there after suffering so much on the journey, they thought this might be salvation, and it turns out to be completely inhospitable, short of food, virtually no food.

One British Captain compared it to a place where the soul the man dies in him.

Before wanted to fully understand what the castaways had been through, so I found out the smartest thing I've ever done, but I found this Chilean captain who had a wood heated boat to take me there.

He took -- he sent me a photograph of the of the boat.

-- of the bow.

We had to journey about 350 miles to get there, so I got a real taste of the terrifying seas just being tossed about.

Sometimes I had to sit on the deck, I couldn't move.

I listened to an audible recording of Moby Dick, which is probably not the widest -- wisest thing to done.

We made it to wager Island and it was an important visit because it was a wild desolation.

It's windy, it's cold, the temperature hovers around freezing, and it's always raining or sleet.

Like the castaways whose journals I had read, I found no food, bits of celery, that was about it, and I could finally begin to understand why that British officer had said it was the place for the soul of a man to Diane.

My soul might've died if I had to stay there.

>> you had the luxury of Dramamine, but that's a different story.

>> I was an experiment for every seasickness drug you could take.

I'm not much of an explorer, so I had the patch behind me, I had that little weird band on my wrist.

And it still didn't really work.

>> That gives us a picture of what these sailors had to endure of these months stranded on wager Island.

Really no resources available, they were running low on food supplies and it was very difficult for them to navigate hunting, finding any sort of marine life until they were surprised, really, and as luck would have it, they had saviors come to them in the form of a Patagonian tribe and it was an indigenous tribe there that is acclimated to the region over hundreds of years and had been able to navigate through the island, through the resources, becoming more resource a bowl, diving and for fish and really just making it seemed that it was quite easy.

They traveled in canoes that had been fire lit.

I would like for you to read a passage about this encounter in the short-lived help that this tribe provided for the sailors.

>> they had adopted to the region so well that NASA, when they thought about putting people into space, actually win and study to see how these people adapted to the circumstances.

So they had offered the castaways a lifeline -- and I will read you a short passage.

One morning when the captain awoke, he discovered that all had gone.

They strip the bark from their shelter and slipped away and their canoes, taking with them the secrets of their civilization.

Could we have entertained them as we thought.

The midshipmen lamented it would've been a great assistance to us, given that the castaways behavior had prompted this -- he added they did not expect to ever see them again.

>> What were the circumstances behind their departure?

>> The castaways were beginning to descend into warring factions and violence and they were also on Imperial mission and shared many of the racist attitudes that were feared -- fueled by the British Empire.

This idea that it was superior to others, so some of the castaways mistreated them, and at some point they said, we are outta here.

They had been going out and bringing them back food and at some point they said, it's enough, so they disappear, and after they go, the castaways only descend further into a state of depravity, into murders, anarchy and some of the men succumb to cannibalism.

>> really, the rivalry that I find most fascinating between these two very different men, Thursday captain, a ship captain who rules on an order driven basis.

And he's all about following orders and following the mission, and the other is the charismatic gunner, John Buckley, a natural leader, a bit more rigid, would actually respond to any developments in the moment, and they developed their own two rival camps.

Can you talk about that?

>> So David, who was the captain, tried to set up an Imperial outpost, and he felt the only way it would survive is if you remain their commander if he remained on the ship, and for them to be governed by the same regimented rules that had worked on the ship.

The gunner was an interesting figure because he did not come from the aristocracy's -- aristocracy.

So even though he was considered the most skilled seamen on board and a distinctive leader, he would've never had a chance to be a commander on a warship of that class structure.

On that island, in that democracy of suffering, he suddenly is this distinctive leader and more and more the men begin to gravitate to them.

So they represent these two powerful opposing poles.

One who is champion the idea of duty and sacrifice and patriotism and order.

Basically the old rules.

And John who says, in this state in nature we can no longer be governed by those rules and he is invoking such phrases that would resonate with us today in resonated with the American resolution -- Revolution.

He uses the phrase life and liberty to stir the men.

>> we end up finding out that he moved to the new land, to what would be the United States.

>> He did.

>> you couldn't find much information on him.

It is a fascinating development in the story.

Ultimately, these two groups much smaller end up surviving, the survivor from these groups, end up making their way back to England.

The end of the story, perhaps the most anti-climactic -- claim of this entire book.

Without revealing too much for our viewers, were you surprised at how this story ended?

>> Yes, I think it tells us a lot about systems of power.

A few of these castaways from each faction make it back to England and there is -- they are summoned to face a court-martial where they could be hanged.

So they published their competing accounts, hoping to save their lives, and this leads to a war over the truth, a war much like what we experience today.

There was misinformation, disinformation and allegations of fake journals, the kind of fake news at the time.

>> It is a fascinating book and a fascinating story and I am not surprised that Martin Scorsese is turning it into a movie.

I would love to have you back on just to talk about that experience.

Really appreciate your time.

Thank you and congratulations on the book.

>> I pleasure, thank you.

>> The U.N. agency has revealed that global sea levels are rising at double the previously recorded rate.

The world meteorological organization's report, which has been released right before earth day on Saturday, shows Antarctica CIs receding to record lows last year and shows oceans were at the warmest on record.

As the Biden administration commits another billion dollars to the international effort to combat climate change, we asked the climate activists if there's any hope of avoiding disaster.

>> thank you so much for joining us.

The most recent climate science reports, I don't know if I can find any optimism in what they are saying and Xavier Becerra and how we are passing by all those benchmarks that we earlier agreed to to try to keep climate emission slow.

>> it's tough as far as having optimism, but this is what we live in when you work in climate change and climate action.

The way I described the last few years is a time of both high hopes and high anxiety where these dire warnings keep coming out, but also, we are just at the cusp of may be the most ambitious climate legislation and climate action we've seen in the U.S. and around the world.

It's an interesting dichotomy of both our wins, but also setbacks, and also what happens for what we see in the environmental community is the winds are quickly followed by setbacks and we see ambitious legislation followed up by whittling away at the details and may watering things down or projects being approve that really push us in the opposite direction and fuel process -- projects continuing to go forward at the same time we say we are pushing for a more clean energy future.

So the dire warnings we see coming out of this is nothing new.

It's really just increasingly alarming as far as the more recent ones where it's like, in less than a decade we could see us crossing that threshold that has been a barometer for votes.

We need to stay below 1.5 degrees Celsius temperature increase to stay away from some of the most alarming effects of the climate crisis.

>> threw two interesting things that I see in the report.

U.S. Secretary-General was calling this report the how-to guide to diffuse the climate timebomb and the other part is that it's asking for countries like the U.S. to start curbing emissions may be 10 years earlier than other developing countries.

>> I want to adjust the name of the report because I think there's a lot even in that name.

The two themes that I see playing out with recent developments in the climate movement and a focus on getting into the details, so providing a roadmap, so it's even in the name where these are civil -- the solutions that have come forward to actually solve things, for so long we had seen general calls for climate action words like, we have to take action on climate but not really getting into the details.

What's happening as we see people getting into the details that provides a roadmap forward.

So there are a big five solutions that various folks in the media have latched onto that we can tackle right now with deforestation.

And the other piece that I see is a trend is the way people are talking about this is being real about it, calling it the climate crisis, calling it a timebomb and actually pointing out that this is an emergency and a crisis and using that language, I think both of those pieces are providing a roadmap forward but also being real about it and using the language appropriate for it is great, getting back to your question about bringing developed countries on board 10 years faster than a lot of developing countries, this has been one of the crux of the problem for decades trying to solve this.

There is argument that the developed world contributed much more massively to the climate crisis with emissions over decades before the developing world caught up with those emissions, so arguably, the developed world should shoulder more of the burden in bringing admissions down.

>> since the last Earth Day the Biden administration has passed the inflation reduction act, which set aside some $370 billion to -- for carbon emission reductions, green technology initiatives, is that enough?

Is the money getting out, will it work.

>> The short answer is no, it's not enough, that said, it is really the largest piece of climate legislation that this country has ever seen and probably just because of the size of the U.S., that the world has ever seen.

That's what I was alluding to earlier, mentioned that it was a time of tying Zaidi, we see these big developments, we see ambitious legislation that a lot of us had thought was dead because it really had stalled in that climate action that was coming out of this administration the last couple of years, all the sudden the inflation reduction act comes out and it's really quite ambitious, it is not really what the climate wants or what scientists say that we need to bring emissions down to stay below that 1.5 degrees -- threshold, so there's that and the other piece that makes it complicated is the legislation is not a ban on emissions or a ban on fossil fuels, it's not even a tax on emissions or fossil fuels, it's really providing incentives for people to move things in a positive direction.

There's a lot in there around tax incentives and tax credit so that people can take advantage of buying electric vehicles, to electrify their homes, to make it more energy efficient.

There's a lot more that people have to take advantage of but the projections of how much the legislation will bring down omissions depends on people taking action.

That makes it more complicated because it's not an outright ban, it's not saying you cannot use fossil fuels anymore after this date or even putting a tax on it.

Really people would respond to even more strongly than credits, so it's a complicated picture in that, if not enough, even if everyone took advantage of it, but it depends on people taking advantage on credits and incentives that a lot of people may not be aware of.

I know people that have made retrofits to their homes, and after they did they realize that they could not have gotten subsidized for this, and we need a big public messaging campaign around this to get people on board and say, you want to move things in the right direction on climate change.

There are things you could do that would benefit your wallet, your home, your lifestyle and bring emissions down.

>> We can look at the reduction act as a large piece of climate legislation that's working in maybe the right direction, there are a lot of concerns from environmentalists that the Biden administration has also issued more permits for fossil fuel drilling than the Trump Administration did at this point in that presidency.

>> The environmental community is quite upset about the idea that this White House said they were going to be ambitious on climate action, we did see progress, a great deal of progress, but then these fossil fuel infrastructure projects continue to get approved.

This is what we have seen for decades, if you are in the environmental community or the general public is paying attention to this, it's two steps forward, one steps -- one step back and this is how it always is.

Putting money towards clean energy but continuing to subsidize fossil fuels.

We make efforts around reducing emissions but we are still approving projects that are going to make a emissions rise for decades to come.

Some people are pretty upset in the environmental community about the recent approvals of some infrastructure projects in Alaska.

There are dire warnings from experts about what that will do to our climate change goals, and this is just part of the course, unfortunately about how this goes as far as making progress when we take steps back and what the environmental community would like to see is in end to fossil fuel projects.

We are not getting anywhere by continuing to locker selves in for decades and it makes economic sense.

In a lot of cases renewable energy are more cost-effective than these fossil fuels.

>> given the by demonstration ran on such a pro climate agenda , what's the report card on the administration so far?

>> I guess if we are judging this administration on a curve, -- it's a lot more ambitious than anything that has come forward.

So there is that.

So I do think that people have got in more realistic about climate change in the last few years, so there was a lot of pressure on Biden as he was running for office, to please the younger demographics of people, people who care about climate action, the environmental community overall, the demands became more ambitious because the climate crisis has become more dire.

So there was a lot of pressure to make those commitments, and then, it looked like for a while the administration was altering on following through and some of the orders that have come out of the White House on climate change really have been unprecedented.

We have not seen anything like this as far as climate action in the U.S. or really around the world, just given the size of the U.S. new so, that is great, but then we have a lot of setbacks.

I think if we are not judging on a curve, it could be a low B as a report card.

If we are judging on a curve, it could be a higher B.

>> last month there was a report by the White House Counsel economic advisor and there's obviously other powers that the presidency has, and it was pointing out that the federal government should reassess what kinds of incentives and disincentives we put in the way and lots of other parts of our society.

Are we subsidizing farming in certain areas, are we kind of creating other kinds of risks after wildfires with what we actually put money out with?

>> I think that report you are referring to is really interesting for a couple of reasons.

On the Wednesday and, it's interesting the White House is saying it out loud.

This is something people have known for a long time and a lot of folks have talked about for a long time.

The idea that we are continuing to make bad decisions where we say that we want to take action on climate change and make our country more resilient to the effects of climate change or just more resilient in the face of potential disasters, but then we subsidize things that are really going to push us towards disaster and throw billions of dollars at areas that really shouldn't be built there, whether it's prone to floods, prone to wildfires, whatever the potential natural disaster is, we do things that just don't make any economic sense and put the governments money behind it.

On the other hand, the administration said it, I don't think that there are any concrete plans as of yet to do anything about it because there is a lot of pushback.

So I've heard examples of communities that have had reports around this area is really going to be prone to wildfires in the future, and it was really just looking at this situation going forward, trying to put a realistic perspective on how certain communities might be vulnerable to wildfires.

In the community in which this report was released was really up in arms after that in the report had to be buried because people did not want to hear it, even though it was stating the facts.

It didn't say anything would be done about it, but people didn't want to hear it.

I think in some progressive communities that lean towards being more environmental, even those communities can be a bit hypocritical when it comes to building in an area where you should not be building.

I think that what we need overall is a really holistic, all hands on deck look at how do we reduce emissions and also make ourselves more resilient?

How do we put money towards moving things in the right direction and stop putting money towards moving things in the wrong direction.

We are throwing money away because we are subsidizing things we know will be more vulnerable.

They aren't as resilient as other options we could put in place.

That White House report really names the issue.

Now it would be great if we could get people on board to act on it.

>> One of the storylines we've seen in the last few months, this has been around since the popularity of Bitcoin, but the idea that cryptocurrencies and basically the mining of them is so energy intensive, that there's a report from the University of New Mexico recently talking about how mining Crypto is as bad for the environment as raising cattle, mining gold.

>> We have known for basically the entire existence of Crypto that the process to create it is really bad for the environment.

It moves us in the wrong direction on climate in missions , related to what I was talking about before about a lot of communities not really wanting to accept the reality, even people who really care about climate action and with robust support for climate action, I do think turn a blind eye to this idea that Crypto is moving us in the wrong direction.

I think there is some hypocrisy there about saying that we want climate action even among certain groups that would really want that and then people not really being willing to face the reality when it comes to Crypto because it's something they are very excited about.

>> this week you had a virtual event and one of the themes that you focused on was how to be a climate communicator.

You say that there is a distorted perception of how people feel about climate initiatives in this country, so how do we change and how do we decrease the gap between how people feel about climate and what type of action to take?

>> One thing we talk about in Earth Day initiative is being a climate communicator.

While more than seven out of 10 people support robust climate action, people estimate that number to be far lower.

The reason is, there is what folks in the environmental community and climate communications committee have called a spiral of silence around climate change.

While most of us support climate action, people don't talk about it.

There are various reasons.

I find people are intimidated to talk about it.

I'm not a climate scientist.

I don't really want to dig into that or get into an argument on such a complicated issue, don't -- people don't want to rock the boat.

It has been a controversial issue so people don't want to get in an argument with their friends or family, but that means that there's not a lot of discussion about something that people actually support.

So if people talk about it, you start to realize, I care about climate action, you care about climate action, most people around us care, a lot of studies show that you are one of the most powerful influences on the people around you.

If I start talking about it and say I'm going to a climate straight, do you want to come, or there's this webinar on climate action I was going to attend, or any number of things that I'm doing in my own life to bring down my own emissions, if I talk about that, you are much more likely to get involved and more likely to realize that we share this thing in common and that the number is seven out of 10 people support robust climate action rather than feeling like you are very alone on this topic.

>> JOHN, Executive Director of the Earth Day initiative.

Thank you for joining us.

>> really important conversation there.

Finally, a different lens on disability in the media and society at large.

British focus dedicating five special covers to disabled trailblazers.

The magazine's editor-in-chief said it's dynamic, daring and disabled issue is a necessary and overdue education for all.

Volk worked with the Institute of blind version to bring out a braille version May 5.

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