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9-11 Air Traffic Controllers Tell Their Story; Study Says Trees Reduce Crime; New Way of Getting Big Sound out of MP3 Player

Aired August 17, 2002 - 13:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ANNOUNCER: Today on NEXT@CNN, how air traffic controllers at work on September 11 watched the terrorist attacks unfold.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For those 11 minutes, I knew, we knew what was going to happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: And what they did to avert a worse disaster.

Also, a new study says trees offer more than shade. They also reduce crime rates.

And new ways to get great big sound out of that little MP3 player. All that and more on NEXT.

RENAY SAN MIGUEL, GUEST HOST: Hello and welcome to NEXT@CNN. I'm Renay San Miguel. James Hattori is on assignment.

You know, most of us remember exactly where we were September 11, 2001 when we heard that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. Indeed, it is a day most of us would never forget, and the memories are even stronger for people who were directly involved in dealing with the attacks. This week, some of the air traffic controllers who were working on the East Coast that morning told their stories. Miles O'Brien has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): In dimly-lit FAA radar rooms up and down the East Coast, they track the trails of terror, but like all of us, they were in the dark. There was a stray voice on the radio, "we've got planes" it said, a panic call from a flight attendant to the American Airlines operations center, and then the transponder, which enhances radar signals, went silent on American Airlines Flight 11.

WILLIAM YUKNEWICZ, FAA AIR TRAFFIC DIVISION ASSISTANT MANAGER: When we had a loss of communication and transponder, we considered it at that point in time a possible hijacking.

O'BRIEN: American 11 was now losing altitude and heading south. Controllers did what they could to track it, seeing if other pilots saw the plane, at one point asking United 175. It too was hijacked. It too flying fast and low and homing in on New York.

FRANK HATFIELD, FAA AIR TRAFFIC DIVISION MANAGER: The air traffic controllers in the Eastern Region, out of 6,000 airplanes were able to identify four aircraft whose sole mission in life was to avoid detection, flying low, flying fast, shutting off all electronic means of communication. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the equivalent of finding four needles in a haystack.

O'BRIEN: They assumed the plane would land and the hijackers would make demands, but then Controller Mike McCormick saw this scene on CNN.

MICHAEL MCCORMICK, FAA AIR TRAFFIC MANAGER: I knew at that time this was, in fact, an attack. We knew that the World Trade Center was a target of a previous attack and this was, in fact, another attack.

O'BRIEN: He also knew in an instant that United 175 was headed the same way.

MCCORMICK: Probably one of the most difficult moments of my life was the 11 minutes from the point I watched that aircraft when we first lost communications to the point that aircraft hit the World Trade Center. For those 11 minutes, I knew, we knew what was going to happen.

O'BRIEN: Controllers inside Newark Tower watched in horror as the plane turned north over New York Harbor and aimed for the South Tower. Minutes later, in the tower at Washington's Reagan National, they watched as American 77 aimed right at them, took a 360-degree turn, then smashed into the Pentagon. No one left their post.

LINDA SCHUESSLER, AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: I think we were all looking at each other in disbelief. Is this actually occurring in the national airspace system? It was unheard of before. But again, we had jobs to do. We were tackling our jobs. We were gathering information, making decision. On a personal note, I had a husband out at Dulles, had a 9:30 flight, did not even enter my mind until about 3:30 that afternoon.

O'BRIEN: These are the controllers who issued the order to shut the entire system down. For two and a half hours, they worked frantically to get every plane in the air on the ground. Who knows what they might have thwarted.

O'BRIEN (on camera): These days, the communication between air traffic control and NORAD has been greatly streamlined. A controller is really only a button push away from scrambling the fighters. What used to take several minutes and several calls, now takes only a matter of seconds.

(voice-over): And more than anything, controllers now have a mindset. They know the radar targets they track may themselves have a target.

(END VIDEOTAPE) SAN MIGUEL: NASA has found more cracks on its vehicles -- not the shuttles this time, but the movers that carry shuttles to the launch pad. The cracks are in the bearings of the crawlers, which have been around since the Apollo missions of the 1960's. The concern is that if a crawler breaks down, it could leave a shuttle stranded halfway to the pad. NASA is still figuring out how to fix the problem and whether it will affect the next shuttle launch.

NASA's not the only agency with cracked equipment. Amtrak shut down service on its high-speed Acela trains on Tuesday, after finding cracks in the shock absorber assemblies. Eight of the first 10 trains inspected had the cracks. Some that passed the inspection were put back in service, but a closer look found more cracks, so the fleet came to a halt again on Thursday. Amtrak used conventional trains to cover the schedule, but they don't offer the 150-mile-an-hour speeds and comforts of the Acela trains.

The U.S. government is the world's biggest technology consumer, but what is it getting for its money? Critics say many government computer systems are outdated or flawed, and vulnerable to cyber terrorism. Tim O'Brien has that story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TIM O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): You can't blame the Federal Aviation Administration for trying to replace outdated computer equipment in airport control towers. But at $1.7 billion, the project is costing almost twice the original estimate, and is four years behind schedule.

The Internal Revenue Service isn't much better. According to the General Accounting Office, the IRS spent nearly half a billion dollars to upgrade its computers, but still lacks trained personnel to run them, and may have failed to collect as much as $30 billion in unpaid taxes as a result.

The Department of Veterans Affairs built a new online system for submitting forms, only to learn that the information sent to other offices still had to be printed out and mailed because department computers were not compatible.

TOM SCHATZ, CITIZENS AGAINST GOVERNMENT WASTE: Everywhere you look in the federal government there are problems with computers: Incompatible systems, computers that don't give the information they're supposed to, systems that simply don't work.

O'BRIEN: The failures in information technology come at a time of heightened concern about homeland security.

Congressman Tom Davis, who chairs a House subcommittee on technology, says government computers are vulnerable to cyberterrorism.

REP. TOM DAVIS (R), VIRGINIA: I don't think there's any question that we have vulnerabilities to our critical infrastructure, to our computer systems throughout government. IVAN ELAND, CATO INSTITUTE: I think a cyber attack would probably be used by terrorists in conjunction with a biological, chemical, or nuclear attack to impede the response of the emergency preparedness people.

O'BRIEN: With momentum from 9/11, the Bush administration plans to spend a record $50 billion to upgrade the federal government's information technology.

MITCHELL DANIELS, DIR., OFFICE OF MGMT. & BUDGET: This will be a major assignment of the new Homeland Security Department. And clearly it's going to cost a few billion dollars more in the next few years to make our systems less vulnerable to invasion.

O'BRIEN: Daniels says a business case will have to made for all expenditures. But the idea that the government can catch up to the private sector in information technology may be wishful thinking.

(on camera): The private sector is not saddled with the same intelligence and national security concerns as the government, and the government doesn't have the same profit motive that drives private industry.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAN MIGUEL: Well, private industry in India is testing a new kind of computer that's designed to change the world. Makers of the $200 Simputer want to make 21st century technology available to people with little money or education. Ram Ramgopal has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RAM RAMGOPAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Life moves at its own pace in this village, just two hours from India's technology capital, Bangalore. Yet, this is the test bed for the Simputer, an Indian handheld computer that its makers are convinced could transform the lives of hundreds of millions of people across the country.

This day in Somarvalli (ph), the makers of the Simputer have sent a model of their machine to be tested by villagers like Thimmaya (ph), a farmer, and youngsters like 12-year-old Thambi (ph), and his school friends, who are amazed to see a device that can do so many things.

"This pocket-size computer will help me with my studies," Thambi (ph) says, "for arithmetic and science. It even sings songs and tells stories in my own language."

While the Simputer looks like a PalmPilot, it's actually a powerful, full-featured machine that runs on the open-source Linux operating system. It has a high resolution LCD screen, up to 96 megabytes of ram, 16 megabytes of flash memory, modem and text-to- speech capability, all for a price tag of just $200, if, as the inventors hope, production can be ramped up to a couple of hundred thousand units a year.

SWAMI MANOHAR, SIMPUTER CO-INVENTOR: When we started, the idea was to find some means of taking the benefits of information technology to a much larger population of the world.

RAMGOPAL: And that population, its inventors say, lives in developing nations, with little or no education, and limited understanding of English.

To overcome that obstacle, the menus are picture-driven. And to enable people to be able to share one Simputer, each villager has access to an individual smart card, which personalizes the device. The Simputer Trust has been careful when it comes to licensing its technology, saying it wants to make sure the manufacturers don't pursue profit above everything else. It's also in talks with state governments across India to get the device into the tiniest of hamlets.

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SAN MIGUEL: You can find more information on the Simputer and other stories in our show on our Web site, cnn.com/next.

ANNOUNCER: Ahead on NEXT@CNN, the needs of ranchers, against the needs of the oil industry.

And, later: The game of enticing TV viewers to keep watching, even during commercials.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SAN MIGUEL: A couple of tiny differences on a single gene may help explain why humans can talk while apes can't. Apes have been taught to communicate in sign language, but they can't speak aloud. Research published in the journal "Nature" says a gene called Fox-p2 seems to be involved with the facial and jaw movement needed for speech. Researchers compared the human Fox-p2 with its equivalent in chimps and gorillas, and found two small variations. The scientists say those variations emerged in homo sapiens less than 200,000 years ago, at the time that modern humans were starting their own branch on the evolutionary family tree.

Well, speaking of apes, the king of the apes might have an easier time getting around the jungle these days. According to scientists at Leeds University in England, liana vines, the type of vine Tarzan swings on in his movies, are spreading rapidly in real-life jungles, perhaps too rapidly. Lianas can reach 800 feet long and one-foot thick in diameter, and they hinder the growth of trees, often breaking limbs and blocking sunlight. Liana vines are found in rainforests in Africa, South America and the South Pacific. And on top of the deforestation many of those areas suffer, the researchers say lianas may pose a major threat to the jungles in which they thrive.

A study of trees in the United States came up with some surprising results: They can actually help reduce crime. Keith Oppenheim explains from Chicago.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KEITH OPPENHEIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Walking down the street, you may not even notice them, but, according to a new study, trees do a lot more than give shade. Nine years ago, environmental scientists at the University of Illinois decided to look at the impact of greenery in the inner city. They chose two Chicago public housing projects, both of which had some buildings with lots of trees nearby, and some with practically none.

FRANCES KUO, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS: From a scientific point of view, it's really a set-up made in heaven, because you have identical physical settings, and people who are assigned to those settings blindly, and the only thing that really differs from one building to another is the amount of greenery around it.

OPPENHEIM: The researchers hired local residents to gather the data.

ESTHER DAVIS, RESIDENT: Well, I noticed, well, where there was no trees, there was more violence.

OPPENHEIM (on camera): Indeed, in terms of crime, the data in the study revealed a drastic difference. Violent and property crimes were nearly twice as bad in sections of the buildings where vegetation was low, and, conversely, doubly improved where vegetation was high.

(voice-over): Why? One explanation: Greenery creates a natural gathering space for neighbors, and, ultimately, stronger ties to a community. Such ties can create an atmosphere where children are better supervised, and buildings better watched.

These surprising results led the study's authors to make strong recommendations.

WILLIAM SULLIVAN, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS: Mayors and city councils and urban planners and landscape architects should insist that there be nature at every doorstep.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAN MIGUEL: Another study of nature shows birds are picky about their neighborhoods. University of Arizona ecologists found that public parks in wealthy neighborhoods of Phoenix had more wild birds, and more species of birds than parks in poorer areas. The scientists don't know why. The type of plants and trees in the park don't seem to make any difference. The researchers are investigating several possibilities. Perhaps wealthier homes have more bird-friendly landscaping, bird feeders and dog water bowls. They're also looking at whether roaming cats or proximity to industrial areas could play a role.

The province of Alberta, Canada, like much of North America, is suffering through drought. But in Alberta, the drought is worsening a long-term water shortage. And the dry times are causing conflict between ranchers and oil companies. Mark Stevenson of Canada's CTV Network explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) MARK STEVENSON, CTV CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Like many Alberta ranchers, Don Bester is running out of feed for his cattle because of drought.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What's the matter?

STEVENSON: Making matters worse, Bester says nearby oil companies are sucking up water from rivers and underground aquifers, draining his land.

DON BESTER, RANCHER: This was a flowing creek, and it is completely dried up. It's gone. What we are trying to attempt here to save this fresh water and the problems of Alberta.

STEVENSON: Bester leads a local group of ranchers trying to force the oil industry to use less fresh water, water oil companies pump underground to force oil out of constipated reservoirs. Last year, they used more water than Calgary and Edmonton combined.

(on camera): Last year, Alberta issued the industry permits for 278 billion liters of fresh water, water ranchers say is wasted.

BESTER: We could supply cities like Calgary and Edmonton for the same amount of water the oil companies are using, and they'll still have enough left over.

STEVENSON (voice-over): Oil companies say they're increasingly using alternatives, like recycled water and carbon dioxide, but it's not always an option. Still, the industry is growing, and so too is its thirst for fresh water.

DAVID PRYCE, ASSOCIATION OF PETROLEUM PRODUCERS: We see an increasing need for water, and that's why it's important to be looking for the alternatives.

STEVENSON: The province says it's reconsidering the amount of water used by the oil industry as part of a long-term review, but Don Bester doubts nearby oil companies will be forced to conserve any time soon. Meanwhile, he says ranchers suffer while water is wasted.

BESTER: Something is wrong. We have to have some sensibility and some proper management here.

STEVENSON: But Bester has more immediate concerns. His cattle are already eating their winter feed. When it runs out, he says, they'll have to be sold or slaughtered.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: Coming up, bringing law and order to the wild, wild net. Police in Nigeria and Russia go after online scam artists.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SAN MIGUEL: You may have received one of these e-mails yourself, supposedly from a wealthy Nigerian who just needs a little help from you to get his millions out of Africa. It's a scam, of course, but a lot of people have fallen for it. Now, Nigerian police are trying to stop the scamsters. Jeff Koinange has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SHAHLA GHASEMI, E-MAIL SCAM VICTIM: We lost close to $400,000, and when I find out, after all of this, we are victims.

JEFF KOINANGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ghasemi and her doctor husband were contacted by a man posing as a Nigerian government contractor. What made her believe the initial information was that the man knew exactly who the Ghasemis were.

GHASEMI: Somebody back in Nigeria and left the money for your husband as a will. And I believed that, I said, if somebody doesn't know us, how can he leave the money for us?

KOINANGE: A few more questions, and Ghasemi was convinced the letter was legitimate. Their share of the money: $27 million, and all they had to do was send a lawyers' fee of $7,500. The Ghasemis complied.

But there were further requests for more money, and close to half-a-million dollars in transactions later, and the Ghasemis were broke. In letters, phone calls and especially e-mails, con artists pose as sons of former military dictators laying claims to millions of dollars in off-shore accounts. Others still say they're chiefs of villages with exclusive access to oil and diamond concessions.

Here in Nigeria, it's referred to as 419, a colloquial for advance-fee fraud, and, just last month alone, over 50 arrests were made in Nigeria. Internet cafes in Lagos' busy commercial district make it easy for scammers to reach would-be victims with the simple click of a mouse.

No one would talk to us on camera when we were here, because they say they know names of some of the scammers, and they fear for their lives.

(on camera): This is Nigeria's equivalent of the wall of shame. Frontier-town-like wanted posters, where police here offer rewards for information leading to the arrest of Web scammers and fraudsters.

(voice-over): The Nigerian police are even setting up a Web site where victims can report these scams, www.nigeriapolice.org. These days, with the help of Interpol and the U.S. Secret Service, police here are locating and shutting down local Internet sites used by scammers. They're also pushing for legislation that will lead to the deregistering of banks that accept large cash transfers from dubious sources.

GHASEMI: We are also victims of financial terrorism. We need to get help from our government to maybe get our money back, not only me, all the victims. And also I'm going to fight, I'm not going to give up. And the time I will give up if I make sure anybody getting any proposal from Nigeria, they read it and laugh and throw in the garbage.

KOINANGE (on camera): Police here in Nigeria admit that the fight against 419ers is an uphill battle. The best advice they can offer is that when in doubt, apply the basic rule of thumb -- if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAN MIGUEL: Well, that is some advice that some marriage-minded men probably wish they'd listened to before they signed up for Russian brides on a Web site. You guessed got it, it's another Internet scam. And Jill Dougherty has this report.

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JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It looks like a match made in heaven: Western men seeking Russian women through the Internet. But Russian police warn, love online is a tempting target for criminals.

Working on complaints from men in the U.S., Canada and Australia, police from the Russian Interior Ministry broke up one scam operating out of a dilapidated apartment in the heartland of Russia, in the city of Yoshkar-Ola. They arrested the brains behind the operation, a 21- year-old computer whiz, his 19-year-old buddy and two female accomplices.

Police showed us their videotape of the arrest, and explained how the scam was carried out.

The Western men got in touch with what they thought were attractive young Russian women through Internet sites. The messages from Russia seemed sincere. One said: "I can't wait to see you. I'll even bake you your favorite meat pies."

ANATOLY PLATONOV, CYBER CRIME DIVISION, RUSSIAN INTERIOR MINISTRY (through translator): In the West, there are plenty of people who believe these sweet messages because they're written by professionals, and, as it turns out, not by women.

DOUGHERTY: The messages were actually written by the two young computer criminals. The Internet pictures were of women who had nothing to do with the scam. The passports and I.D.'s shown on the site belonged to the female accomplices. It didn't take long before the requests came: "Please send me money for my ticket, for my visa."

The money arrived through Western Union. The cyber criminals extorted a total of $56,000 before they were caught. Western men who've been fooled like this have started an online black list, warning other men to watch out.

Though this online deception was run by amateurs, Russian police say it's just a matter of time before organized criminal groups get in on the action, using the brain power of young Russian computer whizzes to carry out their schemes.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: Coming up in our next half hour, more new uses for mobile phones in Asia. Punch in a number and compete on a TV quiz show, or play video games in a bar.

And crop circles -- proof of alien visits, or proof that some people weren't paying attention back in science class? Those stories, and much more, are still ahead. First, we'll take a quick break, and then get the latest headlines from the CNN newsroom. Don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SAN MIGUEL: Welcome back to NEXT@CNN. Portable sound systems have come a long way since the heyday of the boombox. In fact, some of today's lightweight speakers don't really look like speakers at all.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(voice-over): It may look like you're blowing up a beachball, but these are actually portable hot air speakers, manufactured by Ellula. At only two inches high when deflated, they easily fit into a backpack. Plug them into a wall, or use six AA batteries for portability.

You can amplify the sound of your Gameboy, use them with your MP3 player, or enhance your favorite DVD movie on your laptop.

The plastic skin allows the speakers to resonate and magnify sound. And you can choose from a couple of different styles and various colors.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAN MIGUEL: Now, if you want to try something a little smaller that does not involve hot air, you could always go for this new sound bug. You attach this to any large surface, such as this glass pane, and you've turned it into a sound system.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(voice-over): The Olympia sound bug works on any hard, smooth surface, like glass or a table top. Attached to a suction cup, give it a clockwise turn. Like the inflatable speakers, the sound bug connects to devices such as laptops and MP3 players. You can adjust the sound level by moving the audio switch from soft to loud. Three AAA batteries power the sound bug. A sleep switch automatically shuts it off when the audio source is turned off.

The sound bug has a weaker sound than the hot air speakers, which are comparable to conventional compact speakers. The systems each cost about $50. The sound bug is available now at soundbug-us.com. And you can grab the hot air speakers at ellula.com, or wait until they're available in stores in October.

(END VIDEOTAPE) SAN MIGUEL: You can do a lot more with today's mobile phones than just have a conversation, and that's especially true in Asia. Lian Pek reports on two new ways to play with your phone.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Which is the second most widely spoken language in the world?

LIAN PEK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The entertainment industry is game for a new challenge. Faced with a shrinking pool of couch potatoes, TV producers are going interactive to keep viewers glued to the box. Case in point, the upcoming quiz show, "Everyone Wins." To be launched in both Hong Kong and Singapore, it's all about getting home viewers in on the game. All they need to do is pick up their hand phones and text in their answers.

ROBERT CHUA, ROBERT CHUA PRODUCTIONS: Having this interactive, the component, you're getting the audience to be watching the program live. This is what's important. So it will not be taped and watched later. Because once it's taped and watched later, people skip the commercials.

PEK: But even the viewers don't skip the commercials now.

ANDREW CHETHAM, GARTNER GROUP: The medium knows that you can't rely on advertising. Not only is advertising going down, it may not be there as a business model in the future.

PEK: And the business model of the future seems to lie in the humble mobile phone.

CHRIS MONG, GOWITHU.COM: Mobile phone has become like a personal butler. As simple as remote control to a TV. It's your personal access to multi-media extravaganza.

PEK: Chris Mong is the brains behind GoWithU.com, the Hong Kong software developer that's putting Internet connected plasma screens into cafes, clubs and restaurants, turning them into instant game arcades. To play, all you need to do dial up a phone number. Your mobile handset becomes the de facto games console.

(on camera): We used to think some lower scaled computer keyboard would do the trick, but technology always surprises. The mobile phone is today's hot new gateway to the interactive world, simply because nearly everybody has one. As for those who don't, it's only a matter of time.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: Still to come, climate change, and why many accuse the United States of blocking efforts to control it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SAN MIGUEL: A cloud hangs over South Asia, and a new report says it's killing people by the hundreds of thousands each year. A two- mile thick cloud of pollution has built up over the years from forest fires, wood burning stoves, industry and cars. A new study by the United Nations says the haze blocks the sun's rays by as much as 10 percent, affecting crop yield and monsoon rains. The pollution also worsens the death rate from respiratory illness.

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FRED ECKHARD, U.N. SPOKESMAN: The cloud, known as the Asian Brown Haze, has caused a minimum of hundreds of thousands of premature deaths annually across Asia. The scientists even suggest that the death toll may even run into a million or two. The cloud is also damaging agriculture and disrupting weather systems, including rainfall and wind patterns.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAN MIGUEL: The U.N. says the cloud is not just Asia's problem. Winds can spread the pollution halfway around the globe in a matter of days. The report was released in anticipation of the upcoming world summit on sustainable development later this month in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The Johannesburg meeting is a follow-up to the historic Earth Summit held 10 years ago in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. One of the much- heralded agreements coming out of that meeting, a treaty to combat global warming. But a decade later, many consider the treaty a failure. Gary Strieker explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY STRIEKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Facing climbing temperatures, melting ice caps and swelling sea levels, world leaders at the Rio Earth Summit 10 years ago joined in a united response to global warming, signing a treaty to limit emissions of greenhouse gases, such as those contained in auto exhaust and industrial pollutants, widely blamed for climate change.

Yet in the last decade, global emissions of greenhouse gases have continued to increase. And many environmentalists now regard the climate change treaty as a failure.

DAN BECKER, SIERRA CLUB: It's been a failure primarily because the big industrial polluters, led by the United States, have failed to clean up our act.

STRIEKER: And the treaty has not satisfied industry.

WILLIAM O'KEEFE, MARSHALL INSTITUTE: It set a goal to prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system, but no one could define what that was. So you have an objective to achieve something that no one can define.

STRIEKER: The Rio Treaty started with voluntary efforts to reduce emissions. And it wasn't legally binding. According to critics, not a very effective method of control. (on camera): But the conference did provide for a way to set mandatory limits on emissions, and that was the purpose of the conference in Kyoto, Japan five years ago.

(voice-over): The conference resulted in the Kyoto Protocol, requiring industrial countries to cut their emissions to less than 1990 levels during the next 10 years. Nearly all major industrial nations have now ratified the protocol, including the European Union and Japan.

But not the United States.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Kyoto Protocol was fatally flawed in fundamental ways.

STRIEKER: Last year, the Bush administration rejected the protocol, saying it would harm the U.S. economy without any guarantee it would have an effect on climate change.

O'KEEFE: To meet our obligations, we would have to reduce energy use in this country by 30 percent. That's the equivalent of shutting down all manufacturing or taking all cars off the road.

STRIEKER: The United States also maintains it's unfair to require only industrial nations to cut emissions, while fast growing developing countries like China face no such restrictions.

But critics say because the United States produces more than 36 percent of global greenhouse gases, its decision against Kyoto has wrecked any chance of effective measures against climate change.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If the United States had taken a leading role in trying to make this a meaningful agreement, which President Bush's father signed, then I think the whole world would have turned around.

STRIEKER: There is still disagreement among scientists about the link between greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. But there's general agreement that the earth's temperatures are rising, and that human activity has pumped enough greenhouse gases into the atmosphere to exceed levels not reached for more than a half-million years.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAN MIGUEL: For more on the climate change treaty and other stories in our show, check out our Web site, cnn.com/next.

ANNOUNCER: Up next, computer software that does a pretty good imitation of a human in a chat room. But who wants to spend hours conversing with a machine? We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SAN MIGUEL: Many deep friendships have developed between people who met online and got acquainted in chat rooms and with instant messages. But how about an online friendship with a bot? They're more popular than you might expect, as Bruce Francis reports. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRUCE FRANCIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Leslie Desmond isn't chatting with another teenager, or worse, someone pretending to be another teenager. She's talking to a chat bot, that's short for robot, designed for "L Girl" magazine.

LESLIE DESMOND, CHAT BOT USER: It's almost like you're talking with a real person, but you can like definitely tell that it isn't a real person that you're talking to. It's like the way that she answers back, it's like a normal person would talk.

FRANCIS: And for those who don't want to talk to a normal person, there's always Austin Powers. New Line Cinema, which like CNN is owned by AOL Time Warner, allows you to chat with Austin, who can even come up with a spy name for your boss. Reuters, the BBC, and Ebay all have chat bots, really just software, all talking to instant message users. They are all developed by ActiveBuddy. Steve Kline is the CEO.

STEPHEN KLEIN, ACTIVEBUDDY CEO: We were all born with the ability or sort of the programming to be able to learn how to converse. And by the time we're a year and a half old, we can do that. But computers, you have to do other things. Why shouldn't you just be able to converse with a computer? And that's really our product.

FRANCIS: Users tend to chat with their digital buddies for hours, so marketers love it. And marketers could learn a lot about who's chatting. So even fans like tech consultant Kevin Werbach urge caution.

KEVIN WERBACH, TECHNOLOGY CONSULTANT: I think that there certainly is a risk of privacy damage if your interactive buddy or the advertisers that employ it took individual data and used it in a way that people weren't comfortable with.

FRANCIS (on camera): ActiveBuddy's clients tend to use the technology to build brands, not just sell goods. ActiveBuddy says that it and its clients respect the privacy of its users.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAN MIGUEL: OK. What if you're not so concerned about the imaginary friend in the computer, and more concerned about the real life stranger who will be your college roommate? Some colleges now offer a Web-based roommate selection service that gives students more say about who will share their dorm room. Eric Phillips has that story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ERIC PHILLIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): While workers put the finishing touches on the first-ever on-campus housing at Kennesau State University, the school has become one of the first to allow students to hand-pick their rooms and roommates online. ROBIN CRAWFORD, SOPHOMORE: I knew what I wanted in a roommate.

PHILLIPS: Much like a dating service, the software program called WebRoomz directs students like sophomore Robin Crawford to fill out detailed personal profiles.

CRAWFORD: Like I said that I never smoke. I put I never drink.

PHILLIPS: The computer generates a list of those who are most compatible. It's how Robin met two of her roommates.

CRAWFORD: I think having the details helps me a little bit. There's still a little bit of apprehension, moving in with people that you don't know. But I think because the details are there and I have chatted with them on the phone, that helps me feel a little bit better.

PHILLIPS: Junior Tyler Fishback had a different scenario.

TYLER FISHBACK, JUNIOR: I knew my roommates offhand, so I could just put their names in, I didn't have to worry about the administration mixing it up.

PHILLIPS (on camera): For Kennesau State University students, this new technology means being in control. For the university, it means filling 1,058 brand new beds without shuffling a single piece of paper.

KATHY ALDAY, STUDENT LIFE DIRECTOR: There's a lot of staff time that's devoted to matching roommates, changing rooms around for people, and processing that information. Having WebRoomz allows that to be done.

JONATHAN BEACHER, WEBROOMZ: This is a totally paperless process. There's no contract to sign. There's nothing, no checks to mail in.

PHILLIPS (voice-over): And university officials are hoping little to no roommate frustration.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: When we come back, crop circles meet science. And the results may not please people who like to believe anything is possible.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SAN MIGUEL: The success of the movie "Signs" has people talking about crop circles. For some of those people, crop circles are evidence of visits by aliens, or at least a sinister government conspiracy. Our Beth Nissen talked to an astrophysicist to get a scientific take on what's possible and what's not.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Crop circles are intricate, seemingly mystical designs that since the mid-1970s have periodically cropped up, usually overnight, in a field. They are also the latest field of battle between science and pseudoscience.

LAWRENCE KRAUSS, ASTROPHYSICIST, CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY: Pseudoscience is based on ideas that are either non-testable or, in fact, have been tested and have come up disagreeing with the experiments. Many ideas that are just simply wrong.

Crop circles are a perfect example, because for some reason, as often happens, immediately people said aha, it's aliens. Well, that's an interesting hypothesis.

NISSEN: But not a hypothesis that can be tested. And anyway, a hypothesis already disproven. In 1991, two humans, Doug Bauer and Dave Chorley, admitted that they, not aliens, had been making crop circles in England at night for 13 years. Step by step how to directions for ever more complex designs have since been published on the World Wide Web.

KRAUSS: In science, once you propose something and test it, if your hypothesis doesn't agree with the observation, we throw out the hypothesis, no matter how beautiful it is. It's gone.

NISSEN: Pseudoscience doesn't play by those rules. It allows, even encourages, inventive guesses, strange coincidences, popular theories, with or without evidence.

Doug and Dave's confession aside, some Americans will continue to believe that aliens might have made the crop circles. And maybe landed in Roswell, New Mexico a few decades back, and might well have visited Earth more than once. It's possible, right?

KRAUSS: To have some perspective on what's possible and what's not possible, you have to have some grounding in science. And unfortunately in this country right now, the level of scientific literacy is extremely low. Fifty percent of Americans, in a survey by the National Science Foundation, did not know that the Earth orbited the sun and took a year to do it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "STAR TREK")

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Scotty, I've got change the laws of physics.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NISSEN: More Americans connect the laws of physics to science fiction than science. Few have any grounding in space. Know, for example, that travel between Earth and the nearest star would take almost 100,000 years at conventional rocket ship speeds.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "STAR TREK")

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Warp speed, Mr. Zulu (ph).

(END VIDEO CLIP) NISSEN: Few know that even if something like "Star Trek's" warp speed was possible, and Earth physicists haven't ruled that out in principle, a cross-galactic trip would still be almost unfathomably challenging.

KRAUSS: To send a spacecraft out at the speed of light, or near the speed of light, no matter what technology you use, will require an energy which is equivalent to the entire energy used by humanity at the present time. It's very, very unlikely that any civilization could actually make it here.

NISSEN: Krauss and other scientists say it is especially hard for Americans to accept limits of physics, of possibilities. Part of the problem is our democratic tradition, our belief that majority opinion rules. It doesn't in science.

KRAUSS: When it comes to science, there's sometimes only one side. In fact, that's what makes science so powerful.

NISSEN: There's something else, a law of nature, American nature.

KRAUSS: I think that, in fact, Americans have a special predilection towards believing in these type of things because of the American mentality that anything is possible. The notion that some things are simply not possible seems to go against the grain.

NISSEN: He said it, I didn't.

Beth Nissen, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAN MIGUEL: Good pun, whoever said it. We're out of time. But here's a look at what's coming up next week. What's next for the Earth Summit agreement designed to protect the world's plants and animals? We'll look at the biodiversity treaty 10 years later.

And if you've ever seen spectacular slow motion film like this, chances are it was shot with the fastest camera in the West, or the East for that matter. Our Bruce Burkhardt, of course, had to check it out.

That's coming up on next. Until then, we'd like to hear your comments. You can e-mail us at next@cnn.com.

Thanks so much for joining us this week. For all of us, I'm Renay San Miguel. See you next time.

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