Change is fueling more powerful storms and also driving the mass extinction of parasites that are critical to natural ecosystems and could add to the planets si xth mass extinction. We will speak with the elizabeths winning author and scientist colin carlson. Then we look at hurricanene irs impactct on haiti and the caribbean. Hurriricane irma is the strongest and largest storm ever that has come out of the atlantic. It caused devastation throughout haitiribbean, texas, and was severely damaged by this. Amy y and we will hear voices f the earthquake in mexico. The survivors. All that and more, coming up. Welcome to democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. At least four people have died and nearly 6 Million People are without t power in florida after Hurricane Irma made landfall on sunday on the florida keys as a category 4 hurricane. The storm also flooded the streets of downtown miami, turning the citys main strip brickell avenue, into a , threefoot high raging river. Its arrival sparked one of the largest Mass Evacuations in u. S. History, with nearly 7 million ordered to leave their homes. Before hitting florida, irma caused widespread devastation across the caribbean, killing at 37 people and leveling nearly 90 of all structures. It displaced more than 100,000 haitians and destroyed crops in the north of haiti. Cuba has dispatched more than 750 Health Workers to caribbean nations to help assist in the aftermath of the most powerful storm ever recorded over the atlantic ocean. Irma, now downgraded to a category 1 storm, is now barreling across more of florida and then on to georgia, alabama, and mississippi. Well have morere on irma a and change after the headlines. President trump is u using Hurricane Irma ass use to push for tax cuts for the rich. This is trump speaking saturday. Pres. Trump to create prosperity, we will be discussing our plan for dramatic tax cut and tax reform. I think now with what has hahappened with the hurricane, i am going to ask for it to speed up. Amy now mclean tweeted more one for the shock doctrine record books will stop trump uses irma to push for tax cuts while ththe storm is still happening. In mexico, the death toll from thursdays devastating 8. 2 magnitude earthquake has risen to 90 people as rescue teams continue to seararch throughgh e rubble in parts of the s Southen States of oaxaca and chiapas. This is survivor oscar morga in oaxaca. We are practically left with nothing. Did you lose everything . Absolutely everything. A friend came to o help me becae authorities are not helping us. They just cast us by. They are not helping us. Amy well have more voices from mexico on the earthquake later in the broadcast. Meanwhile, in italy, an unexpected flooding in the western port city of livorno has killed at least six people. This is livorno resident, piero caturelli. In all my years, i dont remember a storm like t this tht has caused all this damage. It is incredible. It started around d 10 00 0 p. Md contntinued until l this warnin. In my living memory, there is never been anything like this. Amy the u. S. State department has approved a nearly 4 billion weapons deal with bahrain. The 3. 8. 8illion deal includedes 19 lockheed martinin f16 fightr jets andnd over 20raraytheon antitanank missiles. The e approval of the weapons dl came a after secretaryry of ste rex tillllerson droppeped human rights issues as a condition of the sale. Bahrain is a close u u. S. Ally, home to the navys fifth flflee. In syria, the locacal journalisc group raqqa is being slaughtered silently reports the u. S. Led coalition fired White Phosphorus into raqqa on friday. White phosphorus munitions can burn human flesh down to the bone, and wounds contaminated by the chemical can reignite up to days later, poisoning victims and leading to organ failure or death. The group also reports that u. S. Led Coalition Warplanes have bombed at least 25 mosques since the battle to seize raqqa from isis began in june. Meanwhile, in more news on syria, the syrian observatory for human rights says russian airstrikes near the city of deir ezzor killed at least 34 civilians, including nine children, on sunday. Kenya is preparing to hold a rerun of its contested president ial election next month, after the first election was nullified by kenyas supreme court. The court ruled there were flaws in the tallying process for the august 8 election. At least 24 people were killed in postelection protests. Incumbent president Uhuru Kenyatta will now face Opposition Leader raila odinga again in a new election on october 17. The u. N. High commissioner for human rights, zeid raad al hussein, says the burmese militarys widespread violence against Rohingya Muslims is a textbook example of ethnic cleansing. Nearly 300,000 rohingyas have fled to neighboring bangladesh since last month, as burmese soldiers have killed and raped civilians and burned down whole villages. The burmese government rejected a ceasefire proposed by a rohingya militant group on sunday. In the gaza strip, Health Officials say theyre witnessing a sharp rise in suicide attempts, as the ongoing israeli blockade has made the palestinian territory unlivable according to the United Nations. Among those who have taken their own lives is 22yearold short story writer mohanned younis, who committed suicide two weeks ago. This summer, israeliimposed electricity cuts left gaza residents with power for only four hours a day. This i is red cross president peter maurer. J just for a minute imagine how life is with four hours of electricity, with waste water pump not functioning, with Running Water not functioning. And i think it is the reality at the moment. Amy hes the president of International Committee of the red cross. In kashmir, hundreds of people protested against indian rule and violence by security forces, after Indian Government forces shot dead two people today and another two on sunday. Indian authorities are claiming all four were armed rebels. Indian Government Forces have killed over 140 suspected rebels and deployed t thousands of additional soldiers to the occupied territory of kashmir so far this y year amidst an offensive dubbed operation allout. In london, organizers say as many as 50,000 people marched on saturday to oppose brexit, britains plan to leave the European Union. Today in the british parliament, some Labor Party Lawmakers are planning to vote against the legislation outlining plans for brex, known as t the European Union withdrawal bill. Australia held the largest demonstration for lgbt rights in the countrys history on sunday. More than 20,000 people poured into the streets of sydney to demand equal rights regardless of Sexual Orientation and gender identity. This is australian activist joy kyraicou. I think it is amazing. Lgbtq rightsargest rally. Very proud to be here. I am here with my family, with my wife. We are realally happy to be her, too. Amy in san francisco, residents gathered for a candlelight vigil to mourn the murder of transgender activist, artist and dj bubbles torres, who was shot and killed early sunday morning. Bubbles was a beloved member of the lgbt community, who had lived in san franciscos tenderloin neighborhood for nearly two decades. Prisoner advocates say black Panther Herman Bell was attacked by a half dozen Prison Guards at the great meadow correction facility in new york state last week. The guards reportedly broke two of his ribs, bloodied his face, and damaged his left eye by spraying mace directly into his eyes. 69yearolold herman bell has sn imprisoned for morore than 40 years. And saturday marked the First Anniversary of the largest prison work strike in u. S. History. Y. On september 9, 2016, prisoners launched a nationwide work strike that spread across 29 prisons to include more than 24,000 prisoners. Last year, the strike launched on the anniversary of the 1971 attica prison uprising,s part sparked widespread retaliation by Prison Guards, including in michigans kinross correctional facility. This is prisoner, poet and abolitionist Fred Williams, speaking about the strike and the retaliation in an interview justst recently released by rustbelt abolition radio. Protest the food, the ventilation, the liviving conditions overall. Stood outside, walking in circles, chanting equal work, equal pay. They were calling for other guys to come out and stand with them in solidarity. And it worked. They walked circles of the common area and the crowd grew larger and larger and larger until ththe point where i looked out the window, and it looks like maybe 500 or 600 guys out there. In, emergencyd response team. It took four or five hours. Timeis the first or second that allowed for live ammunition. Amy that was prisoner Fred Williams at michigans kinross correctional facility. In an cardio archive just released because somewhere sent to solitary confinement for nearly a year as retaliation. Today is the 16th anniversary of the september 11 attacks. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. As the country deals witith unprecedented floods and hurricanes, a new study has revealed Climate Change is driving the mass extinction of parasites that are critical to natural ecosystems, and could add to the planets sixth great mass extinction event thats currently underway. The report in the journal science advances warns that about a third of all parasite species could go extinct by 2070 due to human activity. The loss of species of lice, fleas, and worms could have profound ripple effects on the environment and might pave the way for new parasites to colonize humans and other animals with disastrous health outcomes. This comes as scientists are warning that the earths 6th mass extinction is already underway. In a study published last month in the journal proceedingngs of ththe national a academy of sciences,hehe reseahersrs sai billllions of populations ananims have d dappeared from ththe eah, amimiwhat they called a biolocal l nihilati. They said the findings were worse than preously thout. Scientists say the main causes of the mass extinction of wildlife is human overpopulation and overconsumption, especially by theich, the destruction of anals habitats, toxic pollution, and Climate Change. The report also warns that humans will be impacted by this mass extinction, writing the resulting biological annihilation obviously will have serious ecological, economic and social consequences. Humanity will eventually pay a very high price for the decimation of the only assemblage of life that we know of in the universe. Were joined now by two guests. Colin carlson is the lead author of the parasite extinction report published last week. Hes a phd candidate in environmental science, policy, and management at berkeley. And joining us via democracy now video stream, were joined by Elizabeth Kolbert is an awardwinning journalist and a staff writer at the new yorker magazine, where she has reported extensively on Climate Change. Her most recent piece is headlined Hurricane Harvey and the storms to come. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her 2015 book the sixth extinctition. We welcomeme you both to democry now Elizabeth Kolbert, lets begin with you. As you see texas with Hurricane Harvey and now as Hurricane Irma has barreled through the caribbean, making landfall in florida this weekend and heading its way up, c can you talk about the connection between Climate Change and hurricanes . Well, there are a few things that are pretty clear. One is simply that sea levels are rising and sea level rising is accelerating large part in ice melt off of greenland. Levels,ave higher sea obviously, when you get a storm surge, it will go higher and further inland. That is a very basic connection between hurricanes and sea level rise. Then we also know that howicanes draw their power, they get their energy, is from surface waters of the ocean. That is why we get hurricanes in the summertime because they need warm water. The theory suggests and models suggest hurricanes strength will rise as the temperatures get warmer. Youre getting this weird argument about hurricane frequency. That is not clear what will water to the frequency as to pitchers rise, but the strength should rise and we are probably already sing that. The third thing we know is warmer air holds more moisture. Were getting more evaporation. As you get m more evaporation, youll get more rain. Wewe are also seeingng that, to, nonot necessarily y in hurcanes, butn generaral rainfall, tting more of these massive downforce. That is quite well documented. About an you talk there are two things gogoing on. You u have the president of the United States in texas, the leadership, the Republican Leadership there all well known Climate Change deniers. But then you also have the fox, which outside of have been fiercely critical of President Trump. It when it comes to coverage of these hurricanes and it is almost walltowall coverage, explaining everything scientifically, how the surge is happening, except using the words Climate Change or Global Warming or climate chaos. Can you talk about the lack of discussion in this one wall coverage of these severe, more frequent hurricanes that we are seeing . There are ahink couple of things going on. And some of them are legitimate. I dont want to criticize my colleagues in the news media who are trying to do a very difficult job under difficult circumstances, standing outside in hurricane, but any individual hurricanes you alwaysys get this conversation. The behavior of any individual hurricane, there are so many random factors in the weather system, so that is not an event that can be directly traced to Climate Change. So you get this climate desk constant, can we attribute this to, change. The answer is no. We cannot attribute irma or harvey to Climate Change, we can only say these are the kinds of events that had been predicted by the models of Climate Change. Over time, you get these data sets and you can say more and more. I think that people are in a complicated situation right now while hurricane is going on. And this is a political test people accusing journalists of politicizing hurricane and other people point out, look, by pointing out the connection between fierce storms and Climate Change, we are politicizing hurricane. It is actually the reverse. People who are refusing to point that out are politicizing the science. The science is very clear on this. Amy on thursday, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator scott pruitt appeared on cnn. He said daddy any kind of focus on the cause and effect of the storm versus helping people are facing the effect of the storm, is misplaced. On ise need to focus access to clean water, dressing these areas is super fun activities that may cause an attack on water. These issues of access to fuel. Those are things so important to citizens of florida right now. To discuss the cause and effect of the storms, there is a time and place to do that. It is not now. Elizabeth kolblbert . That is always what you get. Someone p put out a. A very cler tweet about how it is never the right time before the storm is not the right time to talk about Climate Change, and during the storm is n not the right ti, after the storm is not the right time. D dust its no storm, isis never the rigight time e tk ababout Climate Change for peope like scott pruruitt. That is clearly w well thoughght out. That is always the t tactic. We, as ththe public, need to demand that people like scott pruitt talk about Climate Change. The fact that scott pruitt runs the epa, someone who is denying and denouncing basic science in this country, is a very scary and should be very scary to people. In reading from your piece the new yorker, you write not as rainfall totals in houston were topping 40 inches, secretary of state Rex Tillerson told congress he was planning to eliminate his departments special envoy for Climate Change. Lamar smith, republican who represents parts of san antonio, chairs the House Committee on science, space, technology, said the better part of his career harassing climate scientists. In a recent oped, at site sponsored by the heritage foundation, he celebrated the effects of Global Warming arguing there were producing beneficial changes to the earths geography. You talk about a town hall meeting in april, joe barton, chair of the Energy Commerce committee, repeated the old denier clouds are the cause of Climate Change. In june, House Republicans introduced a bill to prevent federal agencies such as the department of energy from considering the sosocial cause f Carbon Pollution when fashioning regulation. Elizabeth kolbert, talking about using moments where people are distracted, deeply concerned about, for example, well, last week it was texas. Rex tillerson, the former ceo of the largest private Oil Corporation in the world, exxonmobil, eliminates says he is planning to eliminate the departments special envoy for Climate Change. Well, i think what we have here is it is interestingly true in both texas and florida. Texas governor has also tried to systematically suppressed discussion of Climate Change in a state like florida, which is probably the state in the country that most vulnerable, circling to the effects of sealevel rise. What we have right now, you could say, is an opportunity for citizens of those states to demand an honest conversation. I actually saw a news report the mayor of miami whose republican, had demanded there be a conversation about Climate Change. Some may be people who are witnessing the effects will their politicians that there be an honest conversation. Because unfortunately, they sort of let these guides smatttter on and give us nonsense and dangerous nonsensese. That is becoming increasingly clear. Amy were going to go to break and come back to this discussion and talk as well to colin carlson, lead author of report inducedte change parasite extinction. We have been speaking with Elizabeth Kolbert. Stay with us. [music break] amy this is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace reportrt. Im amy goodman. As the united statates continues to deal with unprecedented floods and hurricanes, a new study has revealed Climate Change has also driving the mass extinction of parasites that are. Ritical to natural ecosystems the report in the journal science advances warns about one third of all parasite species could go extinct by 2070 due to human activity. The loss of species of lice, fleas, and worms could have profound ripple effects on the environment and might pave the way for new parasites to colonizeze humans and other animals with disastrous hehealth outcomeses. For more, were joined by colin carlson, lead author of a report published last week which revealed Climate Change is driving the mass extinction of parasites that are critical to natural ecosystems. Hes a phd candidate in environmental science, policy, and management at berkeley. Still with us, Elizabeth Kolbert , Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist for the new yorker magazine. She reports extensively on Climate Change. So i wanted to start with colin carlson. Talk about what is happening to parasites in the world and why it matters. Good morning. So i think the key thing that we need to get out t there is that there are a lot of things about Climate Change we still dont know. We spent a lot of time in the last 15, 20 years focusing on the extinction of big charismatic wildlife, and thought little about how that might impact their parasites. The direct impacts of Climate Change on parasites have not been as well studied. Our research comes out and sort of does this global survey, and really think through, ok, how good or bad could Climate Change be for parasites . It turns out parasites follow the logic most species do, a handful do a little better in changing, and the vast majority actually do a lot worse. They lose a lot of habitat, faced high extinction rates. Amy cozad talk about why parasites are important in the world. I think one of the cool things about parasites is we have undervalued them for decades. And that means that when it turns out to actually serve important roles in ecosystems, it is all the more startling. Majority ofn be the biomass in an ecosystem. They can be 80 of the links in a food web. They control wildlife populations. They keep populations down. Just like predators do. Just like predators in the 18th and 19th century when we were ,radicating them, parasites are obviously, a hard sell. It turns out they play an important regulatory role. What we think could happen in a with theseimate is very high extinction rates, the loss of that stabilizing role could produce opportunities for new patterns of wildlife in human disease that are genuinely concernining. Amy so you say that parasites are among the most threatened species on earth. Now, it may be hard, colin carlson, in the world you are in as a scientist to understand how difficult it is for laypeople to understand this, but assume no knowledge when it comes to parasites, why theyre important most people think, great, it is good to get rid of parasites. So i think the important thing is, for one thing, the majority of parasites never affect humans. There are over 300,000 potential species of parasitic worm on earth. Of those, maybe up to 1000 at most, affect humans. A very similar thing is true for wildlife parasites. We have this idea that parasites are probably not good most of the time. But most of what theyre doing and ecosystems is directly interacting with wildlife species. Most host parasite relationships are stable. There as some sort of equilibrium, j just like momost ecosystemsms are withououan bimetatal change. What w we think is going to hapn is the destatabilization of thoe pairs o of parasites and their hosts. Just like with most things and Climate Change research, the sort of overarching maximus is change is bad. Theres a massive predictive crisis. Theres a lot of species we still dont know what the impact will be. And so on average, changing ththings from the way they are s probably actually not a good thing. Amy can you give us some examples of common parasites . Sure. Well, there are a lot of parasites in the news these days. I am from connecticut originally. Lyme disease is always in the news. Those have deer ticks in the news because of it. Ticksare also a lot of and worms honor that are threatened. To get back at this role that parasites play, i think what of the most incredible cases that we found in our research is these horsehair worms in japan. They change the behavior of crickets so that they jump into streams. That ends up being the majority of the food that endangered japanese trout eat. Even though the parasites are manipulating host behavior, theyre literally moving energy through an ecosystem and keeping endangered wildlife populations stable. A lot of species like that are the ones in our study that are threatened with extinction. Amy colin carlson, i want to ask about your very interesting background. Our audieience might be surprisd to know w you are born in 1996, york, 31 . You enrolled 21. 21. You enrolled at the university of connecticut at the age of 12. By the time you were 16, you had obtained a bachelors degree in ecology and evolutionary auger fee biology. And another in environment of studies as well as a masters degree in the same subject. In 2011, Business Insider included you in 16 of the smartest children in history alongside mozart, picasso, and the chessmaster bobby fischer. This forve been doing quite some time, be your only 21 years old. Yeah. Amy im wondering about the climate you find yourself in right now, so to speak, the climate going to the top of the country, to President Trump, who talks about c Climate Change asa hoax perpetrated by the chinese. How does this affect your work and your colleagues work, your friends . A few things on that. I grew up in a rural town in connecticut where Climate Change was a very taboo topic. When i go home, i think it still is. I think that is one of the things that has pushed me to this kind of research. I think in the context of not just the current administration, but the current challenge that we face in terms of communicating science to the public, it i is incredibly important that we are transparent and honest about sort of the full impacts of, change, the fact that maybe one or two parasitic extinctions are good, but the majority is bad. I think that level of transparency is a huge part of how we continue to sell Climate Change research. Say aroadly, i would lot of my colleagues, folks i work with, a lot of people have collected data that are part of our study are very worried about the continued status of Climate Change research in the u. S. A lot of our study y relies on Museum Collections. Those are a Huge Foundation of biological research. We have done Museum Collections to understand change of over time. There isiso way we could have done our study without them. M. I knknow a lot of fofolks are worried about Museum Collections and other biological collections being defunded in the coming years. We are already seeing some funding cuts for graduate andarch in ecology evolutionary biology. Hopefully, that will not translate into more funding cucuts. In the coming years, it is absolutetely criticacal we conte to support these programs, continue to Fund Research that makes the links between where we have been ecologically and where we are going. Amy explain more why Museum Collections matter. So our study is reconstructive in many ways. It is the first to map out this many species of parasites at once. We look for records of where parasites have been to reconstruct their habitat. It is a very topdown approach. End up doing that and practices we take a set of museum specimens that have coordinates attached to them. It will be an island in the pacific. We will have the longitude and latitude. That goes into a database that feeds our models. Our study is basesed in large pt onon u. S. National parasite collection, which h is currently housed at the smithsonian. There are over 20 million specimens in the collection. We have mapped out 150,000 records for thihis study. I was a those almost exclusively, in some form or another from either Field Research by biologists or Museum Collections. We use collections in a lot of research this way. We use it to say come here is where species have been. Here the conditions they have been found in. For ourhow we can predictions of the future based on those records. This is an absolutely indispensable role that collections play. Amy i want t to bring Elizabeth Kolbert back into the conversation, author of the sixth extinction. Workou put colin carlsons am the significance of this report, in context and explain further the sixth extinction . We are referring to the idea that we are in a mass extinction event so that there have been five, what are called major mass extinctions over the course of the history of camino, multi over the last billion years or so. The most famous of all of these of the dinosaurs, which in all likelihood, caused [indiscernible] now the idea is because of what we humans are doing to the extremely have elevated extinction rates and we are either, by different definitions, heaeading into, w e arare in another mass major potentially major mass stanchion event. One of the hallmarks of a mass extension event is t that you gt extinction across different groups of animals. To the very, tiny very large. It is sort of an indiscriminate event and takes a lot of different groups out at the same time. So if you were in a a mass extitinction event, yoyou would expect v very elevated extinctin rates across virtually all groups, including our friends the parasites. Amy and what most interested you, Elizabeth Kolbert, a about this science advances report, colin carlsons work . I think colin makes an important point, which is we are is aware everyone tigers are in terrible trouble, elephants are in terrible trouble, giraffes are in terrible trouble. Almost always talking about charismatic animals and what is happening to them. Point, it isthe the Little Things that run the world. Very tiny invertebrates and microorganisms that make the world work. And the way we know it. When youre messing around with that, when youre messing around that we very tiny world are not really paying a lot of attention to, you can get the really, really big impact that in part because you do not even know what was going on. Amy we were talking about the political context that is taking place right now in washington. President trump has just nominated the republican oklahoma congressman Jim Bridenstine to head nasa, the National Aeronautics and space administration. Bridenstine has no science credentials and has repeatedly denied the human impact on Climate Change. Nasa conducts a significant amount of global Climate Change research. In 2013, congressman bridenstine took to the house floor to demand preresident obama apopole for fundining Climate Change research. Global t temperaturres stpepd risising 10 y years ago. Global t temperarere changes, wn ey e existcorrrrelate witith s n output a and ocean cycles. What we absolutely no,o, o oklaa willll have tornadoes. S. Whwhen thehe cold jett strtreams the warm gulf air. And we also knknow that th president spends 30 timeses as warmingey on global researarch as he d does on thehe weatheher forecasting andd warns. For this gross misallocation, the people of oklahoma are ready to accept the president s submit and i intend to legislation to fix this. Any code that was oh, congressman Jim Bridenstine. President t trump has now nominated him to be head of nasa. I want to get b both of your responses, but it beginning with Elizabeth Kolbert. And forcefully coming is a pretty characteristic nominee of visit administration to position traditionally been held by very eminent scientist. You are seeing this wholesale undermining of science, scientific inquiry at the top of the u. S. Govovernment. And you have to say yourself, who does that t benefit . Scienentistsenefit and it certalyly does nott benefifit the public. Agenda,re i is obviously an and as i said, it is a pretty scary one when youre having people at the very top of the u. S. Government who are basically peddling patent medicine, it is really not a happy situation. Amy colin carlson, as a scientist yourself, your response . I think it is incredibly concerning to see science not pery deep prioritized de ties, but actively worked against by the administration. The view from the ground is a lot of researchers are incredibly worried about our ability to keep d doing research that is scientifically ethical, that is validid but present isss like climatete change objective. Be funded toty to do that research. I think thisis is one in a set f decisions by this administration that really do give us reason to be worrieded. That said, i think r is some Silver Lining and that i know this has brought out a lot of passion among scientists my work with an scientists across the country. I think k this is givingng us a chance to shine as a community. I think this might in some inadvertent way lead to productive four years of research. Amy colin carlson, in your report on parasite biodiversity facing extinction and redistribution in a changing climatate, what most surprised resultsone of the core varied a little bit in the study is that with the kind of models that we use, human parasites repair sites that sprayed human diseases like that deer tick, dont actually have any in nearly better or worse chance in a changing climate. It is kind of a lottery. We have known this about Climate Change and extinctions for a while. We know there are factors that make some do better and worse, but really for pierce six species, because theyre dependent on wildlife and because wildlife are already threatened that such off a high rate, what we think is going to happen is a pretty high across the board extinction rate, like elizabeth was talking about, regardless whether that affects humans or wildlife. Ourrates were predicting shockingly high. H. It is definitely a lot more than we expected going in. Amy i want to thank you both for joining us. We will continue to discuss this issue, the issue of the intensity and frequency of hurricanes and Climate Change. Colin carlson, coauthor of the , and Elizabeth Kolbert, author of the sixth extinction. Her latest piece is headlined Hurricane Harvey and the storms to come. When we come back from break, we will go to florida to talk to edwidgeewinning author danticat. And we will talk about or hear from voices of survivors of the mexico earthquake and speak with kim ivives about what took place in haiti when Hurricane Irma struck. Stay with us. [music break] amy singing live last night. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. At least four people have died and nearly 6 Million People are without power in florida after Hurricane Irma made landfall sunday in the florida keys as a category 4 hurricane. The storm also flooded the streets of downtown miami, turning miamis main strip into a three foot high raging river will stop the storm sparked one of the largest Mass Evacuations in u. S. History with nearly 7 Million People ordered to leave their homemes. We go now tuesday quits one of them. We go to florida to speak with the awardwinning haitianamerican writer Edwidge Danticat. She lives in miami, but had to evacuate to orlando. How are you . Where are you now . And your thoughts on what is taking place in your state . Good morning, amy. Thank you for checking in. I am fine. I am doing much better than a lot of other floridians. We had to evacuate on thursday i live notea too far from downtown miami. We are part of an extended evacuation area. Noticeded with two hours to drive up to orlando where we have friends. The road was i have never seen anything like that. We were driving about 10 miles an hour most of the way because we were among some of the 6 million or so people who were told to evacuate. Drive. A very long we got to orlando hoping for a weaker version of the storm. Is a shortage of gas, so people we could not clearly state totally. The storm did come last night, a weaker version. There was a light of wind. I am not sure what the damage is out there now because we havent been able to go out. We dont have any power where i millionthing like 7 dont have power. But were ok. Survive and are ready to return and see what happened and what we can do to help. Amy i want to ask you about an issue that also played people as Hurricane Harvey was hitting texas where in houston, Something Like 85,000 young status, aredaca allowed to stay, live, and work in this country, and in the midst of the horror of that hurricane, President Trump pulls daca. I want to ask about temporary protected status for more than 50,000 haitians. Innr status set to expire july. But after pressure from immigrant rights activists, the Trump Administration extended the temporary protected status for six months, meaning again they could threat the face of deportation in january. Are you hearing concern about this as people are fleeing, as millions were forced to evacuate . Edwidge . We may have just lost Edwidge Danticat, who was speaking to us from orlando. She actually lives in miami but is one of the 7 million evacuees in florida. Were also joined in studio by kim ives. It is really important to talk not only what has happened in the United States, but Hurricane Irma was the largest to cross the largest ever in the atlantic. The death toll from Hurricane Irma has reached at least 27 in the caribbean and the number is expected to rise as the hardest hit areas are reached. Cuba has also suffered, but no reported deaths. The entrepreneur Richard Branson has called for a Disaster Recovery Marshall Plan for the caribbean. Cuba has already sent more than 750 Health Workers to antigua, barbuda, saint kitts, nevis, saint lucia, the bahamas, dominica and haiti. While haiti avoided a direct hit from irma, the hurricane still caused substantial damage in a country ststill recovering from the e 2010 earthququake and Hurricane Matthew last year. Irma displaced more than 100,000 haitians and destroyed crops in the north of the country. Kim ives joins Edwidge Danticat to talk not only about what has happened in florida, but what has happened on the island of haiti. Kim, welcome to democracy now thanks, amy. To the gps question, close to 60,000 haitians who are facing deportation in january, this is really a triple whammy because most of haitis Foreign Exchange comes from remittances, from people working in the u. S. , so that is going to be cut off. Theyre going to go into a country which is debilitated not only since the earthquake, but here came matthew. W. Homes wereeir damaged in the flooding in the winds that hit southern florida. So it is a terrible situation for the haitians in florida. But for haiti, it was also bad because you have to take 11 2016, the, october 4 country, the southern peninsula, was hit by a category 4 hurricane. That was matthew. That destroyed 80 of the grains, 85 , the corn, rice, pease comes out of that southern peninsula. That was wiped out. 40 of the fruit comes out of that part of the country. So it was the north that was picking up the slack, if you will. That area has now been hit by irma. Hadhould also say the south a threeyear drought before the hurricane, so there is the sort of climactic whiplash going from drought to these floods. The new climate is so volatile, it is really hurting g countries like haiti, which in the last six years, has gone from the seventh to the third most vulnerable,. Amy because haiti did not get direct hit, because of its devastation, it is impacted by ways that most people are not talking about. But it is a glancing blow, which was stillll devastating for farmers in the north. People had their crops wiped out by flooding and by wind. It is then a terrible blow to a country which is already foodand secure. Amy can you talk about the massive outbreak of cholera since the earthquake and how that fits in here with what is happening now . That is the huge dilemma come is that cholera was brought to the country by the United Nations. Occupation troops, which have occupied the country for the past 13 years. They came in after the 20 2004 coup detat and were supposed to be there for six months. 13 years later, ththeir supposey whining down to leave on october 15. This is not the case. Theyeyre just being replaced theyre just replacing soldiers with policicemen and women. Have a cholera epidemic, the worst in the world, brought by nate police peacekeepers back in october 20 10, 7 years ago. Cholera is a waterborne disease. It is with sewage gets in your drinking water. When you have this massive flooding, youre definitely going to see a huge spike in cholera cases in haiti. Amy just update us whenen you talk about peacekeepers, youre talking about you and peacekeepers. Peacekeepers. In the latest responsibility the yuan has taken for this outbreak. How many people . E . About one Million People, maybe 100,000 have died. Those figures may be conservative because a lot of people are not registered who do die. Cholera the u. N. Finally admitted last year thaht the responsese was notot gre, bt ban kimoon, when he was going out, made a sort of half apology. But they have not given any reparations to haiti. Taken to the courts here in new york city, but the courts keep saying the u. N. Has immunity. Amy i want to go to the former u. S. Secretary general ban kimoon. Quick let me at the start directly addressed the haitian people. The United Nations to clear regrets the loss of life and suffering caused by the cholera outbreak in haiti. On behalf of the United Nations, i want to say very clearly we apologize to the haitian people. We simply did not do enough with regards to the cholera outbreak and its spread in haiti. We are profoundly sorry for our role. Amy we are profoundly sorry for our role said ban kimoon as he was leaving as u. N. Secretarygeneral. As we wrap up, the significance of what he said and did not say . Stopping short of saying it was u. N. Troops that brought the cholera into haiti. So they avoided this because, legally, they will be liable. But it has been brought by the institute for justice and democracy in haiti, brought a suit which has been rebuffed in the u. N. Claim system and also rebuffed in the United States courts here. Amy and before i go, i was asking Edwidge Danticat before we lost heher, power is out to have of the people of florida come so it is difficult even to that phone call, but the issue of tps, and haitians dealing with this terrible hurricane and having to leave . They are going back close to 60,000 who will be sent back. It is a triple whammy. They lose the remittances. They lose their homes. Now theyre going to be sent back to haiti, which is suffering food insecurity. Amy unless President Trump changes his mind. Kim ives is an editor at haiti liberte. We and in mexico, the death toll from thursdays devastating a. 2 magnitude earthquake has risen to 90 as rescue teams continue to search through the rubble and parts of the southern states. Over the weekend, a journalist spoke to survivors from the , thequake in one all caps city hardest hit by the earthqhquake. My name is maria. And ththis is where my momother lives. My mother died the day of the earthquake whilele rescuing g my niece and sisterer. I in a town where w we are lalacking many things. The children are lacking them, too. O. Wewe dont haveve water. These p people, those in the e , help us morere than ever. One has to helpp solidarity with our people and help us because we donont have e anywhere to o. We donont have anywhere tuesda. We are staying in ththe streets. In the open air and sometimes it rains and we have to o see where we can s stay. Thihis is where my bed wawas. I rann outside and successfully grabbed my daughters. It was this tree trununk that fl on our bed i had to movove the t trunk. This is where we are staying in the backyard the e guys we arare still at risk that thehe house wiwill fall down and thehe governmement helelp and help frm the municipal govovernment has t arrived. D. Ththey came toto visit us at the street corner. R. Of until now, we have not had any help from the government. The only one time we will receive somomething. The of the people government did not bring us anything. We dont have water. We dont have electricityty. We dot haveve electricity. For example, in this moment, [indiscernible] it is scary because e we dont have light. We need some kind of food that we can it. The cityes from hardest hit by last weeks earthquake offff the coast of mexico. That does it for todays broadcast. Democracy now is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. Email your comments to outreach democracynow. Org or mail them to democracy now p. O. Box 693 new york, new york 10013. [captioning made possible by democracy now ]
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