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United 2

A plan to build the world's first airport for launching commercial spacecraft in New Mexico is the latest development in the new space race, a race among private companies and billionaire entrepreneurs to carry paying passengers into space and to kick-start a new industry, astro tourism.

The man who is leading the race may not be familiar to you, but to astronauts, pilots, and aeronautical engineers – basically to anyone who knows anything about aircraft design – Burt Rutan is a legend, an aeronautical engineer whose latest aircraft is the world's first private spaceship. As he told 60 Minutes correspondent Ed Bradley when he first met him a little over a year ago, if his idea flies, someday space travel may be cheap enough and safe enough for ordinary people to go where only astronauts have gone before

The White Knight is a rather unusual looking aircraft, built just for the purpose of carrying a rocket plane called SpaceShipOne, the first spacecraft built by private enterprise.

White Knight and SpaceShipOne are the latest creations of Burt Rutan. They're part of his dream to develop a commercial travel business in space.

"There will be a new industry. And we are just now in a beginning. I will predict that in 12 or 15 years, there will be tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of people that fly, and see that black sky," says Rutan.

On June 21, 2004, White Knight took off from an airstrip in Mojave, Calif., carrying Rutan's spaceship. It took 63 minutes to reach the launch altitude of 47,000 feet. Once there, the White Knight crew prepared to release the spaceship.

The fierce acceleration slammed Mike Melvill, the pilot, back in his seat. He put SpaceShipOne into a near vertical trajectory, until, as planned, the fuel ran out.

Still climbing like a spent bullet, Melvill hoped to gain as much altitude as possible to reach space before the ship began falling back to earth.

By the time the spaceship reached the end of its climb, it was 22 miles off course. But it had, just barely, reached an altitude of just over 62 miles — the internationally recognized boundary of space.

It was the news Rutan had been waiting for. Falling back to Earth from an altitude of 62 miles, SpaceShipOne's tilting wing, a revolutionary innovation called the feather, caused the rocket plane to position itself for a relatively benign re-entry and turned the spaceship into a glider.

SpaceShipOne glided to a flawless landing before a crowd of thousands.

"After that June flight, I felt like I was floating around and just once in a while touching the ground," remembers Rutan. "We had an operable space plane." Rutan's "operable space plane" was built by a company with only 130 employees at a cost of just $25 million. He believes his success has ended the government's

monopoly on space travel, and opened it up to the ordinary citizen.

"I concluded that for affordable travel to happen, the little guy had to do it because he had the incentive for a business," says Rutan.

Does Rutan view this as a business venture or a technological challenge?

"It's a technological challenge first. And it's a dream I had when I was 12," he says. Rutan started building model airplanes when he was seven years old, in Dyenuba, Calif., where he grew up.

"I was fascinated by putting balsa wood together and see how it would fly," he remembers. "And when I started having the capability to do contests and actually win a trophy by making a better model, then I was hooked."

He's been hooked ever since. He designed his first airplane in 1968 and flew it four years later. Since then his airplanes have become known for their stunning looks, innovative design and technological sophistication.

Rutan began designing a spaceship nearly a decade ago, after setting up set up his own aeronautical research and design firm. By the year 2000, he had turned his designs into models and was testing them outside his office.

When I got to the point that I knew that I could make a safe spaceship that would fly a manned space mission -- when I say, 'I,' not the government, our little team -- I told Paul Allen, 'I think we can do this.' And he immediately said, 'Go with it.'"

Paul Allen co-founded Microsoft and is one of the richest men in the world. His decision to pump $25 million into Rutan's company, Scaled Composites, was the vote of confidence that his engineers needed to proceed.

"That was a heck of a challenge to put in front of some people like us, where we're told, 'Well, you can't do that. You wanna see? We can do this," says Pete Sebold.

Work on White Knight and SpaceShipOne started four years ago in secret. Both aircraft were custom made from scratch by a team of 12 engineers using layers of tough carbon fabric glued together with epoxy. Designed to be light-weight, SpaceShipOne can withstand the stress of re-entry because of the radical way it comes back into the atmosphere, like a badminton shuttlecock or a birdie.

He showed 60 Minutes how it works.

"Feathering the wing is kind of a dramatic thing, in that it changes the whole configuration of the airplane," he explains. "And this is done in space, okay? It's done after you fly into space."

"We have done six reentries. Three of them from space and three of them from lower altitudes. And some of them have even come down upside down. And the airplane by itself straightens itself right up," Rutan explains.

By September 2004, Rutan was ready for his next challenge: an attempt to win a $10 million prize to be the first to fly a privately funded spacecraft into space, and do it twice in two weeks.

"After we had flown the June flight, and we had reached the goal of our program, then the most important thing was to win that prize," says Rutan.

That prize was the Ansari X Prize – an extraordinary competition created in 1996 to stimulate private investment in space.

The first of the two flights was piloted, once again, by Mike Melvill.

September's flight put Melville's skill and training to the test. As he was climbing out of the atmosphere, the spacecraft suddenly went into a series of rolls.

How concerned was he?

"Well, I thought I could work it out. I'm very confident when I'm flying a plane when I've got the controls in my hand. I always believed I can fix this no matter how bad it gets," says Melville.

SpaceShipOne rolled 29 times before he regained control. The remainder of the flight was without incident, and Melvill made the 20-minute glide back to the Mojave airport. The landing on that September afternoon was flawless.

Because Rutan wanted to attempt the second required flight just four days later, the engineers had little time to find out what had gone wrong. Working 12-hour shifts, they discovered they didn't need to fix the spacecraft, just the way in which the pilots flew it.

For the second flight, it was test pilot Brian Binnie's turn to fly SpaceShipOne.

The spaceship flew upward on a perfect trajectory, breaking through to space.

Rutan's SpaceShipOne had flown to space twice in two weeks, captured the X Prize worth $10 million, and won bragging rights over the space establishment.

"You know I was wondering what they are feeling, 'They' being that other space agency," Rutan says laughing. "You know, quite frankly, I think the big guys, the Boeings, the Lockheeds, the nay-say people at Houston, I think they're looking at each other now and saying 'We're screwed!' Because, I'll tell you something, I have a hell of a lot bigger goal than they do!"

"The astronauts say that the most exciting experience is floating around in a space suit," says Rutan, showing off his own plans. "But I don't agree. A space suit is an awful thing. It constrains you and it has noisy fans running. Now look over here. It's quiet. And you're out here watching the world go by in what you might call a 'spiritual dome.' Well, that, to me, is better than a space suit because you're not constrained."

He also has a vision for a resort hotel in space, and says it all could be accomplished in the foreseeable future. Rutan believes it is the dawn of a new era. He explains, "I think we've proven now that the small guys can build a space ship and

go to space. And not only that, we've convinced a rich guy, a very rich guy, to come to this country and build a space program to take everyday people to space."

That "rich guy" is Richard Branson, the English billionaire who owns Virgin Atlantic Airlines. Branson has signed a $120 million deal with Rutan to build five spaceships for paying customers. Named "Virgin Galactic," it will be the world's first "spaceline." Flights are expected to begin in 2008.

"We believe by flying tens of thousands of people to space, and making that a profitable business, that that will lead into affordable orbital travel," says Rutan. Rutan thinks there "absolutely" is a market for this.

With tickets initially going for $200,000, the market is limited. Nevertheless, Virgin Galactic says 38,000 people have put down a deposit for a seat, and 90 of those have paid the full $200,000.

But Rutan has another vision. "The goal is affordable travel above low-Earth orbit. In other words, affordable travel for us to go to the moon. Affordable travel. That means not just NASA astronauts, but thousands of people being able to go to the moon," he says. "I'd like to go. Wouldn't you?"

By Harry Radliffe

United 3

For 300 years, the sea has been closing in on New Orleans. As the coastal erosion continues, it is estimated the city will be off shore in 90 years. Even in good weather, New Orleans is sinking. As the city begins what is likely to be the biggest demolition project in U.S. history, the question is, can we or should we put New Orleans back together again?

Life has been returning to high and dry land on Bourbon Street, but to find the monumental challenge facing the city you have to visit neighborhoods you have never heard of. On Lizardi Street, 60 Minutes took a walk with the men in charge of finishing what Katrina started.

Correspondent Scott Pelleyreports.

Before Katrina, "There would be noise and activity and families and people, and children, and, you know, I haven't seen a child in a month here," says Greg Meffert, a city official who, with his colleague Mike Centineo, is trying to figure out how much of the city will have to be demolished.

Meffert, who is in charge of city planning, says it is "very possible" up to 50,000

houses will have to be bulldozed. Right now, most of the homes in the city are uninhabitable.

Meffert faces a difficult task. Every time he goes to a house site here, he says, "It's one more knife in me that says, 'She did another one. She did another one,'" explains Meffert, "she" meaning Hurricane Katrina.

When you walk through these neighborhoods and you see the houses, you get a sense of the pain of the individual families. But you don't get a sense of what has happened to the city of New Orleans itself.

It is estimated that there were 200,000 homes in New Orleans, and 120,000 of them were damaged by the flood.

The part of the city known as the lower Ninth Ward received some of the heaviest flooding. The houses are splintered block after block after block, almost as if the city had been carpet-bombed in war.

Meffert says that before the storm, New Orleans had a population of 470,000-480,000 people. Realistically, he thinks that half of those residents won't be coming back.

The possessions of thousands of families, the stuff collected over lifetimes is suddenly garbage, clawed up into mountains in city parks. With so much gone already, should New Orleans pick up right where it was?

"We should be thinking about a gradual pullout of New Orleans, and starting to rebuild people's homes, businesses and industry in places that can last more than 80 years," says Tim Kusky, a professor of earth sciences at St. Louis University.

Kusky talks about a withdrawal of the city and explains that coastal erosion was thrown into fast forward by Katrina. He says by 2095, the coastline will pass the city and New Orleans will be what he calls a "fish bowl."

"Because New Orleans is going to be 15 to 18 feet below sea level, sitting off the coast of North America surrounded by a 50- to 100-foot-tall levee system to protect the city," explains Kusky.

He says the city will be completely surrounded by the Gulf of Mexico just 90 years from now.

Since this story aired on Nov. 20, there has been considerable discussion about whether New Orleans really is sinking, including on CBS News' blog, Public Eye.

"That's the projection, because we are losing land on the Mississippi Delta at a rate of 25 to 30 square miles per year. That's two acres per hour that are sinking below sea level," says Kusky.

That process could only be slowed, in theory, by massive restoration of wetlands. In the meantime, while Kusky's advice is to head for the hills, some New Orleans residents are hoping to head home.

Vera Fulton has lived most of her 81 years on Lizardi Street and returned to her home recently for the first time since being evacuated.

"When they say 'storm,' I leave. I can't swim and I can't drink it. So what I do, I leave," says Vera, who has lost her home to two hurricanes.

Vera is intent on coming back. "I don't have no other home, where I'm going?"

Three generations of Fultons, Vera's son Irvin Jr., his wife Gay and their son Irvin, 3rd, live around Lizardi Street.

Irvin says his house is "just flat" and he didn't have insurance.

That's the dilemma. The only thing they have left is land prone to disaster. They want to rebuild, and the city plans to let them.

At Vera's house, Mike Centenio, the city's top building official, told 60 Minutes homes can go up as long as they meet what is called the "100-year flood level."

The federal government had set a flood-level, but didn't figure on a levee failure that would flood parts of the city.

The official level is several feet off the ground. If people meet the requirement, they can rebuild their homes, despite the fact that we saw, for example, a refrigerator lifted to the top of a carport by the floodwaters.

Asked whether allowing people to rebuild makes sense, Centenio says it is "going to take some studying."

Right now, he says the flood level requirement is the law.

Twelve weeks after the storm hit, no one has an answer to where people should go. An estimated 80,000 homes had no insurance, and for now, the biggest grant a family can get from the federal government is $26,200.

Those without flood insurance face an uncertain road ahead, trying to piece their lives and homes back together.

"I don't think any of us get to be made whole. I don't know of anybody that's even getting back to where they were. It's just a matter of how much you lost," says Meffert.

No one wants to risk more losses until the levees are fixed but there is not a lot of confidence in that. There's evidence some of the levee walls may have failed from bad design or lousy workmanship.

Fixing them is up to Colonel Richard Wagenaar, who told 60 Minutes, that by next summer, the levees will withstand a Category 3 storm. But for a Category 5 storm, Congress would have to double the levee height to 30 feet.

Col. Wagenaar says building a 30-foot flood control system around the city could take five to ten years, and cost billions of dollars.

Asked whether he would live in New Orleans if the levees were restored to pre-Katrina levels, Col. Wagenaar said he would, after a long pause.

"There's a lot of long pauses in things I think about these days," Wagenaar added.

Another thing that gives you pause is the fact that one of the world's largest pumping systems can't keep the city dry with broken levees.

60 Minuteswas there in September during Hurricane Rita. Crews were fighting with everything they had, cooling a pump with a hose and a coat hanger. When the station flooded during Katrina, Gerald Tilton dove under water to open valves.

Since then, Tilton and his men have been living at the station. "Most of us, our homes have been destroyed but a large number of us are still here doing the job that we get paid to do," says Tilton.

Tilton says he hasn't seen his home since the storm hit and only took one thing from the house when he left: his diploma. "I graduated from Tulane last year and that was the one thing that I wanted. I know it might sound crazy."

But sharp minds and heroism couldn't stop a second flood.

It took another two weeks to dry out and count the losses. Now, inspectors with laptops are identifying ruined houses.

"Every house in New Orleans is loaded into this database," explains Centineo. The

reports are sent instantly to a computer at city hall, where the database is linked to aerial images of every address, both before and after.

When the reports are in, they will know how many billions it will take to rebuild, but not where that money is coming from.

Mike Centineo showed us, at his house, that you can't appreciate the loss until you walk through the door. He lost pretty much everything in his home. "We've lost a lot. What hurts is family photos. They went under water and I pulled them out to try to salvage what I could," Centineo says.

Centineo says he understands, probably better than any building official ever has, what the victims of Katrina are going through. "I'm one of them, that's true, I'm one of them."

He is one of about 400,000 people still unable to come home. That's the worst part now, the deflation of the Big Easy.

There are too few people to pay taxes or keep businesses going. The world's largest domed stadium doesn't have a football team; In New Orleans, these days, not even the Saints go marching in.

Meffert has some clear feelings on whether the nation should commit billions of dollars and several years to protect the city.

"Is it commit or invest? I mean this is the thing that that people miss. The country has to decide whether it really is what we tell the world what we are. Or are we just saying that? Because if we are that powerful, if we are that focused, if we are that committed to all of our citizens, then there is no decision to make. Of course you rebuild it," says Meffert.

By Shawn Efran/Rebecca Peterson

Unit 4

For much of 2005, the news out of Iraq has overshadowed what has been going on in Afghanistan, where 18,000 U.S. troops are still fighting and dying along the Pakistan border in battles with the Taliban, al Qaeda and other Muslim extremist groups.

The rest of Afghanistan, at least compared to Iraq, appears relatively peaceful. But the country is facing another threat to its stability — its growing addiction the production and trafficking of heroin, which is controlled by some of the most powerful people in the country.

Correspondent Steve Kroftreports.

Afghanistan is now the world's largest exporter of heroin, and the opium used to produce it, supplying 87 percent of the world market. And it is creating an infrastructure of crime and corruption that threatens the government of President Hamid Karzai.

The heroin trade begins with fields of opium poppies grown in almost every province of Afghanistan. Last year, according to the U.S. state department, 206,000 hectares were cultivated, a half a million acres, producing 4,000 tons of opium, most of which was converted into 400 tons of illegal morphine and heroin in laboratories around the country.

How much opium and heroin is that?

"It is not only the largest heroin producer in the world, 206,000 hectares is the largest amount of heroin or of any drug that I think has ever been produced by any one country in any given year," says Robert Charles, who until last spring was assistant secretary of state for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, overseeing anti-drug operations in Afghanistan.

Charles says Afghanistan is producing more heroin than Colombia is producing cocaine.

After 25 years of war, it is the country's main cash crop, contributing nearly three billion dollars a year in illegal revenues to the Afghan economy, which equals 50 percent of the gross national product.

The laundered proceeds are no doubt funding much of the rebuilding of Kabul, which is experiencing a major construction boom.

But the best way to illustrate the sheer volume of the drug trade is to tour the basement vault underneath Afghanistan's Counter Narcotics police in Kabul, where one and a half tons of heroin, just seized in the provinces, was awaiting destruction.

One and a half tons of pure heroin is much larger than the biggest shipment ever seized in the United States, and once cut and repackaged it is worth hundreds of millions of dollars on the streets of a western city.

Yet the seizure is less than one percent of all the heroin produced in Afghanistan last year, production which has increased more than 2,000 percent since 2001.

"That acceleration should be sending a blinking red light to all of us right now. Drug

money is going to accelerate the disintegration of democratic institutions," warns Charles.

What is happening, Charles says, is the transformation of a poor, war torn country struggling with democracy into a narco state where power emanates from a group of drug kingpins far more powerful than the new government.

The process began in 2001 when the United States forged military alliances with powerful warlords and used their private armies to drive al Qaeda and the Taliban out of the country.

But some of Afghanistan's biggest warlords also happen to be some of the country's biggest drug lords. Now that they are part of the government, often in high places, a few are even charged with eradicating the drug traffic that many people believe they're still involved in.

One former warlord suspected of being involved in the opium trade is Hazrat Ali, whose private army fought against al Qaeda at the battle of Tora Bora. In appreciation of his efforts, he was placed in charge of security for Nangahar province until he resigned recently to run for parliament.

He also happens to be named in a United Nations report as one of the provincial officials suspected of being heavily involved in drug trafficking.

Ali doesn't deny that the heroin business flourishes in the region but denied that he is involved in the trade. "No. You can ask anyone. I am opposed to drugs. If everyone was like me, there wouldn't be an opium plant in Afghanistan."

60 Minuteshad no difficulty finding people to make the allegations; proving them is another matter since there is virtually no criminal justice system in place to pursue them.

In all of Afghanistan there are barely 100 people in jail for drug offenses, most of them small time players.

Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai, who is considered honest and well intentioned, outlawed the cultivation and trafficking of opium three years ago, but has neither the power nor the prosecutors to enforce it.

"It is the top priority. Not one of the top — the top priority now," says Karzai.

"There have been lots of reports that many of the people in the provinces, many of the former commanders, have been involved with drug trafficking in the past. And some believe still continue to be involved in drug trafficking," Kroft says.

Karzai agrees. "A lot of people are still involved in drug trafficking," he says. "Maybe even there are people in the government who may be involved in drug trafficking. Drug trafficking, drug cultivation, poppy cultivation, was a major way of life in this country. Now that the country's going back toward stability, now that we have a better hope for tomorrow, that we have hope for tomorrow, the Afghan people have begun to distance themselves. Slowly, slowly."

Things are moving much too slowly for the country's top law enforcement officer, interior minister Ali Amad Jalali, who resigned last month after complaining about the lack of progress in stemming the opium trade, and bringing government officials involved in it to justice.

Last June, his elite Afghan anti-drug force, trained and assisted by the British, raided the offices of Sher Muhammed Akhundzada, the Governor of Helmand Province, another warlord widely suspected of being involved in the drug trade.

They seized nine and a half tons on opium, but the investigation went nowhere. Governor Akhunzada said the drugs were not his but that they had been seized by police and were just being stored at his headquarters.

He showed 60 Minutes a locker now loaded with another two and a half tons of opium. "This is opium that we confiscated. We have to keep the confiscated opium in a safe place. And this is where we keep it," says Akhunzada, through a translator.

Not everyone bought that argument, especially the chief counter-narcotics officer for Helmand Province. When the investigation stalled, Abdul Samad Haqqani went on Radio Liberty, which is funded by the U.S. Congress, and denounced the governor as a major narcotics trafficker.

Haqqani has since disappeared and President Karzai says he would look into the matter.

As for the tons of opium in the Governor's administrative office, Karzai wasn't the least bit surprised.

"It's almost half of the economy," he says. "Why would it surprise me if there was poppy found in a governor's office? Or administrative offices? Whether they were confiscated or whether they belonged to somebody. In both cases, it doesn't surprise me."

Asked how his government would deal with the governor amid these allegations, Karzai says the governor asked to be removed.

"This governor of Helmand, he has come to me a number of times to say that he is

tired of working in Helmand precisely because of these allegations," Karzai says. "He says, 'Well remove me' and we have not removed him. Because right now, under the circumstances, any replacement would find it difficult to continue the fight against terrorism the way he's doing it there — in that province and at the borders."

Karzai went on to say that no investigation was needed and that the governor could be removed and assigned to other government work.

"We don't need an investigation on him," Karzai says. "We will remove him from his place and bring him to do some other government work. Maybe he should become a senator or something."

Antonio Maria Costa, director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, says he has pleaded with Karzai to do something about senior officials and governors involved in the drug business.

"These people who have been involved, senior officials and governors who were involved in the drug economy should be removed," says Costa. "Removed from office and possibly removed from the country."

Costa says the need to fight terrorism and defeat the insurgency should not be used as an excuse to ignore the opium trade. "I think it is the responsibility of the Afghan government and the foreign powers assisting it to fight both narcotics and the insurgency. I will say that fighting one is equal to fighting the other."

The British, who have overall responsibility for counter narcotics in Afghanistan, and the Americans, have limited their role to assisting the Karzai government in training anti-drug units and providing occasional logistical support for their missions to confiscate opium and destroy drug labs. So far they have destroyed 150 labs.

The American military has no direct role in counter narcotics. Its responsibility is fighting terrorism and providing security and stability. If U.S. troops come across opium they can take action but it is not part of their mission.

Robert Charles says the U.S. military has limited resources to commit to the effort and feels that aggressive action could disrupt the flow of intelligence. "It is easy to say, 'We will get to this issue in time' the way we get to other social issues. But we don't have time."

And Charles doesn't think it is just a threat to the mission. "I think it is a threat to the Democracy. Why is it a threat to democracy? First, it has a potential for public corruption. Second, it funds the violent elements in society. Finally, it sends a signal that the rule of law doesn't matter."

One U.S. counter-narcotics official told Kroft that corruption is worse in Afghanistan than it is in Colombia, and estimated that 90 percent of the police chiefs are either directly involved in the drug business or protecting those who are.

The British trained mobile unit says it is under orders to stop police cars and official motorcades as well as ordinary buses. Official vehicles are the preferred means of transporting opium.

There have been a few small successes. The government has stepped up a modest poppy eradication program, and with the help of the U.S. state department is trying to persuade farmers to grow alternative crops.

The number of acres of poppy under cultivation actually dropped 20 percent in 2005, although opium and heroin production remained about the same.

In the village of Kushkak, farmers told 60 Minutes that they voluntarily quit growing opium poppy after the government promised to build them health clinics, schools and roads. But the promises have not materialized and they are growing impatient.

"We did promise them alternative livelihoods," says Karzai. "We have told them that they should stop growing poppy, that we'll be there to help them. And if we don't do that, people out of desperation will go back to poppies, and we should not allow that."

But illegal profits from the opium and heroin trade are not only helping warlords and corrupt officials expand their influence over the government. There is evidence that some of the money is ending up with the Taliban and al Qaeda, who elicit tolls, protection money and drugs from traffickers in areas they control.

"Narcotics is such an insidious, creeping, potentially lethal problem in that country that it needs to be elevated to a rank that is commensurate with that threat," says Charles.

Asked whether he is saying that this issue is as important as fighting terrorism, he said, "I am."

Unit5 The Global Warning

The North Pole has been frozen for 100,000 years. But according to scientists, that won't be true by the end of this century. The top of the world is melting.

There's been a debate burning for years about the causes of global warming. But the scientists you're about to meet say the debate is over. New evidence shows man is contributing to the warming of the planet, pumping out greenhouse gases that trap solar heat.

Much of this new evidence was compiled by American scientist Bob Corell, who led a study called the "Arctic Climate Impact Assessment." It's an awkward name — but consider the findings: the seas are rising, hurricanes will be more powerful, like Katrina, and polar bears may be headed toward extinction.

What does the melting arctic look like? Correspondent Scott Pelley went north to see what Bob Corell calls a "global warning."

Towers of ice the height of 10-story buildings rise on the coast of Greenland. It's the biggest ice sheet in the Northern Hemisphere, measuring some 700,000 square miles. But temperatures in the arctic are rising twice as fast as the rest of the world, so a lot of Greenland's ice is running to the sea.

"Right now the entire planet is out of balance," says Bob Corell, who is among the world's top authorities on climate change. He led 300 scientists from eight nations in the "Arctic Climate Impact Assessment."

Corell believes he has seen the future. "This is a bellwether, a barometer. Some people call it the canary in the mine. The warning that things are coming," he says. "In 10 years here in the arctic, we see what the rest of the planet will see in 25 or 35 years from now."

Over the last few decades, the North Pole has been dramatically reduced in size and Corell says the glaciers there have been receding for the last 50 years.

Back in 1987, President Reagan asked Corell to look into climate change. He's been at it ever since.

In Iceland, he showed 60 Minutes glaciers that were growing until the 1990s and are now melting. In fact, 98 percent of the world's mountain glaciers are melting.

Corell says all that water will push sea levels three feet higher all around the world in 100 years.

"You and I sit here, another foot. Your children, another foot. Your grandchildren, another foot. And it won't take long for sea level to inundate," says Corell.

"Sea level will be inundating the low lands of virtually every country of the world, ours included," Corell predicts.

To find the sights and sounds of the arctic melting, there are few places better than a fjord in Greenland, with a glacier just a short distance away.

Pelley stood on a huge block of ice that had split off from the glacier and had dropped into the sea — a big iceberg.

"This part of Greenland is melting faster than just about any other. To get a sense of the enormity of what's happening, consider this: The ice that is melting here is the equivalent of all the ice in the Alps," Pelley explained, standing atop the iceberg.

That's more than 105 million acres of melted ice in 15 years. Just four minutes after Pelley cleared off this berg, part of the ice caved in.

60 Minutes got a bird's-eye view of how unstable the ice is becoming on a flight with glaciologist Carl Boggild.

Boggild anchored 10 research stations to the ice. But every time he comes to visit, the ice and his stations have moved.

Flying over the ice, Pelley noticed lots of fissures and crevices breaking through the ice.

Asked what causes this, Boggild explained, "This is actually the ice flow, where you have so much tension in the ice that it cannot stick together. And it breaks and opens a crevice which goes about 150, 200 feet down."

The ice is also melting on the sides, Boggild says.

High overhead, Pelley remarked that one could hear the water running.

"It's like a small river," Boggild said.

A leading theory says those little rivers lubricate the bottom of the ice sheet, helping it move off the bedrock and out to sea.

And there may be no stopping it. Arctic warming is accelerating. It's a chain reaction. As snow and ice melt they reveal dark land and water that absorb solar heat. That melts more snow and ice, and around it goes.

There's long been a debate about how much of this is earth's naturally changing climate and how much is man's doing. Paul Mayewski, at the University of Maine, says the answer to that question is frozen inside an ice core from Greenland.

With funding from the National Science Foundation, Mayewski has led 35 expeditions collecting deep ice cores from glaciers. The ice captures everything in the air, laying down a record covering half a million years.

"We can go to any section of the ice core, to tell, basically, what the greenhouse gas levels were; we can tell whether or not it was stormy, what the temperatures were like," Mayewski explains.

60 Minutes brought Mayewski back to Greenland, where he says his research has proven that the ice and the atmosphere have man's fingerprints all over them.

Mayewski says we haven't seen a temperature rise to this level going back at least 2,000 years, and arguably several thousand years.

As for carbon dioxide (CO2) levels, Mayewski says, "we haven't seen CO2 levels like this in hundreds of thousands of years, if not millions of years."

What does that tell him?

"It all points to something that has changed and something that has impacted the system which wasn't doing it more than 100 years ago. And we know exactly what it is. It's human activity," he says.

It's activity like burning fossil fuels, releasing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The U.S. is by far the largest polluter. Corell says there's so much greenhouse gas in the air already that more temperature rise is inevitable.

Even if we stopped using every car, truck, and power plant — stopping all greenhouse gas emissions — Mayewski says the planet would continue to warm anyway. "Would continue to warm for another, about another degree," he says.

That's enough to melt the Arctic — and if greenhouse gases continue to increase, the temperature will rise even more. The ice that's melting already is changing the weather by disrupting ocean currents.

Corell points to floods in the U.S., heat waves in Europe; and 60 Minutes wanted to know about the catastrophic 2005 hurricane season.

"The one thing I think we can say with a fairly high degree of confidence is the severity of the storms, how strong the storms, these cyclonic events like hurricanes and cyclones in the Pacific, are going to get — they're gonna be more severe. Now one thing that is in doubt is whether there'll be more of them," Corell explains.

"The oceans of the Northern Hemisphere are the warmest they've been on record. When they get up in that temperature, they spin off hurricanes. Well, if it goes up another degree, it's gonna spawn these with more intensity," Corell says.

The name "arctic" comes from ancient Greek meaning "Land of the Great Bear."

But the warming climate is threatening this icon of the arctic, the polar bear. Flying above the sub-arctic region of Hudson Bay, Canadian scientist Nick Lunn is hunting polar bears in a 30-year study that tracks their health. It's the job of his assistant Evan Richardson to take them down with a tranquilizer dart.

Once tranquilized, Lunn carefully checks the bear with a pole, without getting too close.

The polar bear is the largest predator on land. Native people in the region say he'll even hunt humans, but not on the day Pelley joined Lunn: with the tranquilizer, the bear was awake but immobile.

The scientists knew this bear by his tattoo. His history is written chapter and verse in the "bear bible."

"This is the record book of all the bears that have been handled by us or Manitoba Conservation," Lunn explains.

The study began at the Wapusk National Park, because the bear population was thought to be the healthiest in the world.

Lunn's annual checkup records changes in fat, dimensions and an inventory of weapons. The polar bear uses its teeth to hunt primarily one thing — seals. That's where arctic warming comes in.

Polar bears can only hunt on the ice. Lunn says the ice is breaking up three weeks earlier than it did 30 years go. He's now finding female bears 55 pounds lighter — weaker mothers with fewer cubs.

Asked how the bear population has changed since he started his research, Lunn says, "When we first started doing this research, we've done inventories in the mid-80s, in the mid-90s. Both times we came out with an estimate of approximately 1,200 animals for what is known as the western Hudson Bay population. The numbers now suggest that the population has declined to below 1,000."

The bears are unlikely to survive as a species if there's a complete loss of ice in summer, which the arctic study projects will happen by the end of this century.

There are skeptics who question climate change projections like that, saying they're no more reliable than your local weatherman. But Mayewski says arctic projections done decades ago are proving accurate.

"That said, the skeptics have brought up some very, very interesting issues over the last few years. And they've forced us to think more and more about the data that we collect. We can owe the skeptics a vote of thanks for making our science as precise as it is today," says Mayewski.

One big supporter of climate science research is the Bush administration, spending $5 billion a year. But Mr. Bush refuses to sign a treaty forcing cuts in greenhouse gases.

The White House also declined 60 Minutes' request for an interview. Corell, who first studied the issue for President Reagan, believes the climate change facts are in, even if President Bush does not.

"When you look at the American government, which is saying essentially, 'Wait a minute. We need to study this some more. We can't flip our energy use overnight. It would hurt the economy.' When you hear that, what do you think?" Pelley asked.

"Well, what I do then is, I try to tell them exactly what we know scientifically. The science is, I believe, unassailable," says Corell. "I'm not arguing their policy, that's their business, how they deal with policy. But my job is to say, scientifically, shorten that time scale so that if you don't push out the effects of climate change into the long, long distant future. Because even under the best of circumstances, this natural system of a climate will continue to warm the planet for literally hundreds of years, no matter what we do."

Unit6 The Coal Cowboy

America's dependence on foreign oil - President Bush called it "an addiction" in his State of the Union address - has become a threat to the country's economy and security.

While the president spent much of last week promoting energy alternatives of the future, like hybrid cars and fuels made from wood chips, the governor of Montana, Brian Schweitzer, says there's something we can have up and running in the next five years.

What he has in mind is using the coal, billions of tons of it, under the high plains of his home state. The governor tells correspondent Lesley Stahl he wants to use an existing process to turn that coal into a synthetic liquid fuel, or synfuel.

The plan is controversial, but Gov. Schweitzer - half Renaissance man, half rodeo cowboy - seems ready for the challenge. In fact, he sounds like he's ready to take on the world.

"Why wouldn't we create an economic engine that will take us into the next century, and let those sheiks and dictators and rats and crooks from all over the world boil in their own oil?" Schweitzer said at a press conference.

Schweitzer has called them rats and crooks and hasn't held back on bit. "Hugo Chavez, the Saudi royal family, the leaders of Iran," he said. "How about the countries that end with 'stan'? Nigeria? You tell me. Sheiks, rats, crooks, dictators, sure."

He's a governor with his own foreign policy and no one is calling Brian Schweitzer a wuss. He says flat out that his plan will change the world, and that the key to the country's energy future is buried in the grassy plains of eastern Montana.

"Probably about half of eastern Montana has coal underneath it," Schweitzer explains.

Montana is already mining a small fraction of its coal.

But unlike the deep shaft mining done in West Virginia, Montana coal is surface mined and there hasn't been a fatal accident in 15 years. The governor took 60 Minutes down into one of those huge pits.

"We are surrounded by energy," Schweitzer said. "There's no going down into a mine. It's a road. They drive right out of here."

"But, let me ask you something. Coal has such a bad reputation" Stahl said. "It's dirty. I can feel it. I'm gonna be filthy. I can smell it. It's awful, awful, awful. How many of these would you have to dig out to produce enough of what you're talking about to make it make sense?"

"If we got to 20 of these kinds of pits, we could produce a serious amount of energy for the future of this country," the governor said.

It's not enough to completely break our addiction to foreign oil, but a start. Most coal today is used for electricity but the governor's plan is to turn Montana's billions of tons of untapped coal into a liquid diesel fuel for our cars.

Schweitzer wants to take coal that's been pressurized into a gas, and then use something called the Fischer-Tropsch process to convert that gas into a clean diesel fuel, similar to what is made at a demonstration plant in Oklahoma.

The governor handed Stahl a jar of this synthetic fuel, which looked and smelled clean. "Chanel No. 37," Schweitzer said, laughing. "It is diesel. You can pour that in your diesel car or truck right now.

"

The Fischer-Tropsch process does have a track record, along with a sinister

history. It was first put into wide-scale use in the Nazi era, when Hitler had few oil-rich allies. Ninety percent of his Luftwaffe planes ran on coal-based fuels

Later on, South Africa, also isolated because of Apartheid, used the process.

"So, here you have these horrible regimes, and now we want to take their technology. There's something kind of … spooky," Stahl said.

"Science is neutral," said Schweitzer. "They were pushed against the wall, because they couldn't get oil. We're pushed against the wall because the oil is so expensive."

The price tag to get his plan rolling - $1.5 billion - is a bargain, the governor says, now that crude is trading around $60 a barrel.

Dr. Robert Williams, a senior energy scientist at Princeton, agrees.

"At the oil prices that we expect for the long-term, it would be economic," Williams said.

Stahl told Williams about the jar of diesel Schweitzer showed her. Is this synthetic fuel going to be that clean and smell that good?

"Oh, yes. The Fischer-Tropsch diesel is a superb fuel," said Williams. "Not only is [it] cleaner than conventional diesel, but it also leads to improved engine performance."

And he explained why the process works environmentally.

"The reason this works and is much cleaner is you're not burning coal. You're instead gasifying coal," Williams said.

"And, therefore, things don't go up into the atmosphere?" Stahl asked.

"Well, when you gasify coal, you can take the pollutants out," Williams explained.

"You're saying before the coal is ever burned in any way, you can separate out the bad stuff?" Stahl asked.

"You do that very early on," Williams replied.

The new Fischer-Tropsch plants, Schweitzer says, wouldn't have the traditional smoke-belching smokestacks associated with today's coal-fired power plants. But he does acknowledge there would be some emissions.

"There would be less than one percent than you get in a plant like this," the governor

said, pointing at smoking smokestacks in the background. "This is old coal technology. We're talking about the new way."

But even in the new way there's an environmental problem, and it's a big one: carbon dioxide, which, while not a poison, is the No. 1 cause of global warming.

"Carbon dioxide will be generated at a rate that would lead to greenhouse gas emissions that are twice those for conventional crude oil," said Williams.

Williams says this process will produce twice as much carbon dioxide than traditional petroleum if you vent the CO2 to the atmosphere.

But Schweitzer has promised not to do that. "This spent carbon dioxide, we have a home for it. Right back into the earth, 5,000 feet deep," the governor explains.

He plans to sell that carbon dioxide to oil companies that use it to boost the amount of oil they can pump. "It's called enhanced oil recovery. It's worth money to the oil business," Schweitzer said.

The sales pitch keeps coming: Schweitzer says the fuel will not only be cleaner, it'll be cheaper, too.

"We can produce this fuel for about $1 a gallon. We have gas taxes, depending on what state you're in, of 60, 70, 80 cents a gallon. So, do the math," he said.

"You know, it sounds almost too good to be true," Stahl said.

"Well, that's what got me excited," Schweitzer replied.

He's been so excited, he's been traveling the country selling his big idea. But back home they say he can be arrogant.

"Are you a little, let's say cocky?" Stahl asked.

"When I have a vision, I get single-minded about it. I say, 'I'm going to continue to work on this until we get her done,' " Schweitzer said.

That cowboy bravado is just what you might expect from a guy who grew up roping calves on a Montana ranch.

"We have a little bit different way of looking at the world. And I think it's about self reliance," Schweitzer said.

And, yet, the cowboy is a bit of a geek who went to graduate school to study soil

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