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Water Finally Receding in Texas After Parts of the State Experienced Extreme Flooding; Can Melting Arctic Ice Be Refrozen?. Aired 4-4:10a ET
Aired May 07, 2024 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
COY WIRE, CNN 10 ANCHOR: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are in this world. Let`s smell the flowers and cool the soup.
Let`s get our minds right and take this into Tuesday in an awesome way.
Remember tomorrow`s #YourWordWednesday. So submit your vocab word and definition in the comment section of my most recent post @coywire on
social. Put your school mascot, teacher`s name in there too, if you`d like, and we`re going to pick a winner to work into tomorrow`s show.
All right. We start today in Texas where water is finally beginning to recede after parts of the state experienced extreme flooding. As we told
you yesterday, some areas are swamped with two months` worth of rain in just five days.
Search and rescue teams are scouring the streets looking for people in distress. So far, at least 200 people have been rescued from homes and
vehicles in Harris County, which is home to nearly 5 million people. It`s the most populous county in the state.
Officials report that at least one person has died in the flooding. Rivers haven`t swelled to this level since Hurricane Harvey in 2017.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRANDON MOSLEY, TEXAS GAME WARDEN CAPTAIN: It appears to be potentially even more devastating in some parts than Harvey. So we definitely got a lot
of rain in a quick amount of time. And that`s one of the things in East Texas, we don`t get the runoff. And when you have these flash flooding
events, many times, unfortunately, they catch people off guard.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WIRE: Now, although the water has started to recede in some areas, officials say overall the water levels are still dangerously high. So to
all of our friends in Texas, please stay safe.
Next up, we head to New York City where Columbia University is canceling its school-wide commencement ceremony planned for next week. It instead
will hold smaller events due to security concerns. Columbia is where pro- Palestinian encampments started a few weeks ago and then spread to colleges and universities all across the country before police shut them down.
Pro-Palestinian protests already interrupted some graduation ceremonies last weekend. As we`ve discussed, many colleges and universities have
endowments, which are basically big sums of money acquired largely through donations. And pro-Palestinian protesters want their schools to divest
those endowments or take money away from Israeli companies, from companies that work with Israel or create weapons for Israel.
Next, we head to Iran, a country that is currently sanctioned by the U.S. and its allies. So what is a sanction? It`s when a country punishes another
country financially. In this case, the United States and several other countries don`t buy products from Iran or sell products to them. That`s
because Iran supports Islamic terrorist organizations and has violated nuclear agreements.
CNN`s Fred Pleitgen shows us how Iran is trying to work around these sanctions, working with countries willing to defy the U.S.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): An international trade fair in one of the most sanctioned countries in the world. It`s called the
Iran Expo and it`s the Islamic Republic`s attempt to market its products to businesses willing to defy U.S.-led sanctions.
(On camera): Iran`s leadership has said that in order to try and beat the sanctions, what they want to do is develop their own homegrown industries,
like the automobile industry, and then hopefully export items like these around the world.
(Voice-over): Tehran showcasing everything from heavy machinery to food products, hoping for international buyers. It seems like a tall task. But
as large economies like Russia and China increasingly find themselves under Western economic pressure, the Iranians hope they`ll be more open to doing
business with Tehran. We even met a parliamentarian from Mali, saying he`d do an interview but only in Russian.
Right now we have dynamic growth in the medical sector in the first place, he says, and we`re also interested in widening cooperation in the oil
sector and also general trade.
Iran`s economy has been ravaged by what the U.S. called maximum pressure, design that the U.S. claims to compel it to stop its support for extremism,
halt its crackdown on protesters and agree to a tougher nuclear deal.
Unemployment and inflation are high while Iran`s currency continues to devalue. Iran is working with other adversaries of the West like Russia.
The cooperation we have in the energy sector and agriculture, education and development, and the contact between our scientists, in all these
directions, we can take further steps, Iran`s president said at a recent meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. And Iran wants to rely not only
on oil and gas but also on manufacturing. The country`s deputy industries minister tells me.
The reality is that sanctions have two faces, he says, the damaging side but the other side is that it makes you believe in your capabilities and
become independent. But the Iranians acknowledge Western sanctions are a major hurdle not only when it comes to making their products but also
trying to sell them abroad.
Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Tehran.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WIRE: Pop quiz, hot shots.
What do you call a piece of sea ice formed in the ocean?
Floe, iceberg, glacier, ice dam.
If you said floe, you are correct. An ice flow forms from ocean water. An iceberg forms on land, then breaks off from a glacier into the ocean.
Arctic sea ice has been shrinking for 46 straight years. In fact, NASA says we`ve lost enough Arctic ice to fill the entire state of Alaska. One big
question is, can anything be done?
Well, an ambitious group of problem solvers have an idea, create new ice by pumping water from below. Check this out.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): Can you refreeze melting Arctic ice? This startup says it`s developing a way to do so.
ANDREA CECCOLINI, CO-CEO, REAL ICE: We were in Alaska, we did a submersible pump, we made a hole in the ice, we pumped water. Within hours, it was
solid frozen. It is as simple as that.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A study says the Arctic could be free of sea ice during the month of September by the 2030s, about a decade earlier than
previous projections. And this would have dire ripple effects right around the world.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Since the 1980s, the amount of sea ice that`s more than a year old has roughly fallen by half. We`re currently losing about
six centimeters every year.
CECCOLINI: So if you re-ice, you can add an extra 70 centimeters of thickness. It`s as simple as pumping water on top of existing ice.
Basically you expose the sea water to the cold temperature of the atmosphere and it will freeze very, very quickly. We know that works.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: UK-based company Real Ice plans to use automated underwater vehicles powered by green hydrogen. They use small pumps to
bring water from below the ice to the top, creating a lake that freezes, thickening the ice sheet.
CECCOLINI: Why would we do it from under the water? It seems complicated. In reality, operating underwater is actually making many things simpler and
more controlled.
If you think the opposite, operating on top of the sea ice in the middle of the Arctic, you`re facing very, very cold temperatures, high winds, all
sorts of precipitations from the sky.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The project is currently in the early testing stages. They aim to be working with underwater prototypes in 2024 and are planning
to test the re-icing on an Arctic bay in 2027.
CECCOLINI: This is a preservation of a habitat, exactly like a tropical forest or a coral reef.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WIRE: All right, this is something you have to see. Look what happened to the U.S. team`s boat during a practice race in Bermuda. The boat, flipping
over on its side during the SailGP event on May 3rd, five of the six team members went into the water. Thankfully, there were no serious injuries.
It turns out, one of the team members accidentally pressed the wrong button, inverting the wing and causing the boat to capsize. The U.S. team
was unable to compete for the rest of the race weekend due to damage to the boat`s wing.
In today`s story getting a 10 out of 10, it`s Italy versus France. We`re not talking about a soccer match. Five years ago, Italy dethroned France as
baker of the world`s longest baguette. But French bakers just said, ready or not, here we crumb. They came back with a baguette that`s longer than a
football field. It measures 461 feet. That`s 235 times longer than a traditional baguette, which is a long, thin, crusty loaf of bread, in case
you didn`t know.
France has baked its way back into the Guinness World Records. Now that`s what I call breademption.
All right, powerful people, thank you for joining us today. Shout out to Mrs. Cunningham`s class at Bell School in Minot, North Dakota. Go Beavers!
And to the Railsplitter at Lincoln Park Middle School in Michigan, keep on chopping, baby.
Have a wonderful Tuesday, everyone. See you tomorrow for Your Word Wednesday, and you better bring it.
END
