projectsavetheworld's podcast: Recent Episodes
Metta Spencer
Let's save the world by 2030. Our Platform for Survival aims to prevent war and weapons (especially nuclear); global warming; famine; pandemics, massive radiation exposure; and cyberattacks—and adopt “enabling measures” (global economic, security, and governance reforms).
Leonid Kosals and Matthew Light are professors of criminology at the University of Toronto. Both study corruption, especially in Russia and the post-Soviet states. Here they report on changes in that region and factors that determine the severity of corruption. For the video and audo podcast: https://tosavetheworld.ca.
Erin Hunt and Yeshua Moser-Puangsuwan work for Mines Action Canada, which supports the global ban on anti-personnel mines. The Baltic states, with ther justifiable history of fearing Russia, are about to withdraw from the treaty unless NATO countries can talk them out of it. For the video and audio podcast: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-685-updating-landmines-action
Rnnald St. John is a retired epidemiologist who worked in government and the WHO to limit the impacts of pandemics. Neil Arya is a family physician in Waterloo, Ontario, who recalls his climic during the SARS epidemic, which St. John was in charge of controlling. They talk about the new Treaty that has been adopted, which is intended to ensure that health resources are distributed equitably in the next pandemic. For the video and audio podcast: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-684-a-pandemic-treaty
Robert Quinn works through Scholars at Risk to protect academics whose search for truth is being constrained anywhere in the world. He helps the to migrate to safe countries. Marc Spooner is Canadian professor of education who also studies the relationship between academic freedom and democracy. For the video and audio, https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-683-academic-freedom
This month we talked about our own disabilities with words in ageing; about dying and how to use our defunct bodies later, and about Gaza; AI; psychedelic drugs; DNA research; and the future of life after the transition to "stellar" civilization - the thing beyond capitalism. For the video, audio podcast, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-682-global-town-hall-may-2025.
Seth Klein heads a project that is part of David Suzuki's climate work. It will offer Canadian youth opportunities to work in the climate emergency as intensely as in World War II – a time of extraordinary efficiency. Can we make such a speed-up transition again? What is the main obstacle? We discuss. For the video, audio podcast, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-681-seth-klein-and-emergencies
Robia Akhtar, Tariq Rauf, and Earl Turcotte are experts on nuclear weapons negotiations. They are especially concerned these days about the recent military exchanges between two nuclear-armed states, India and Pakistan. They discuss the challenges and the extraordinary importance of achieving global and permanent nuclear disarmament. For the video, audio podcast, and comments: http://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-680-nuclear-diplomacy.
Peter Ward is a paleontologist who has described some of the earth's previous extinction events. He's worried about the one we may be creating now – and he worries about the attack on science that is going on in the US today. At the University of Washington, people are being laid off today. We can't save the world without science. For the video and audio podcast, https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-679-a-paleontologist-and-rice-paddies.
Oleksandra Romantsova, Dmitry Gurin, and Sergey Davidis talk about their new organization, People First, which seeks to protect prisoners of conscience in Russia who oppose the war against Ukraine. Their primary objective is to establish that, when a peace agreement is reached, the prisoners and Ukrainian children who had been abducted and placed in russia foster homes will be the first to be released and sent to their original homes. For the video and audio podcast, https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-678-people-first-and-russia.
Victor Kogan Yasny joined us from Moscow and told us that the military economy was booming but not business. Also, we talked about the strange shift of young American males toward Trump. The main explanation was Rose Dyson's: the profitable business of violent video games, which trains males to kill effectively. For the video, audio podcast, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-675-global-town-hall-april-2025.
There is one surviving branch of the Helsinki Citizens Assembly: in the south Caucasus. Arzu Abdulleyeva, Natalia Martiroosyan and Alexander Russetsky belong to it, and in the Netherlands, Marten van Harten. They discuss the Nagorno Karabakh war and the new peace agreement, yet to be signed. Jill Carr-Harris steers the conversation. For the video, audio podcast and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-764-progress-in-the-south-caucasus
Ulyana Horodyskyj Pena was recently in the Arctic and the Andes looking at glaciers, which have turned dark from falling soot and fabric particulates. She shares experiences with two senior Arctic scientists, Maria Pia Casarini and her distinguished husband Peter Wadhams. For the video, audio podcast see https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-673-black-glaciers.
Jessica Walton works with CyberPeace, an NGO based in Geneva that offers free cyber security advice to civil society organzations worldwide.to protect themselves from crooks on the Internet. W discuss the merits and disadvantages of keeping information private. For the video, audio podcast, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-672-cyber-peace
Qjiel Mariano is a young indigenous man from the Philippines whose studies at York University's program in global Health is supported by Pegasus, the organization that Neil Arya founded and now chairs. Here Neil interviews Qjiel about several topics, especially the indigenous medical systems that Qjiel is studying. https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-671-indigenous-healtlh-perspectives
Frances Flannery and Elizabeth Blackman are two of the three co-founders of an organization called "Bio-earth" which discusses some of the philosophical traditions that influence the kind of actions people take in the physical world, especially regarding climate. For the video, audio, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-670-religion-and-climate.
Aaron Tovish is a livelong peace organization leader. For several years his primary goal has been to promote a policy whereby the nuclear nations would all adopt a treaty promising not to be the first to attack another country with a nuclear weapon. The next step would be to disarm the existing nukes. Here he argues the case. For the video, audio podcast, and comments, https://tosavetheworld.ca.
Peter Carter, Lyn Adamson, and Brian von Herzen agree that the most effective way of addressing global warming might be to cut the $3 trillon annual expenditures on subsidies to fossil fuel industry. Since Elon Musk has promised to end all subsidies, let's challenge him to eliminate the ones to fossil fuels. The challenge is in finding a way to present such a demand with organized impact instead of separately and being ignored. For the ideo, audio podcast, and comments; https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-668-gobal-town-hall-mar-2025
William Forstchen is a military historian who has written 50 books, including a novel about the aftermath of an electromagnetic pulse bomb. John Hallam is an Australian peace activists who has worked for nuclear disarmament since 1977. For the video, audio podcast, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-666-the-emp-bomb.
Kathi Futornick and Mihael Caruso are Rotarians in Oregon, especially interested in environmental degradation caused by militarism. Kathi shows some slides that she'd used for a talk in Istaenbul recently, when thousands of other Rotarians gathered to discuss the same issue. For the video, auto podcast, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-665-rotarians-on-peace-and-environment.
Pakisa Tshimika is a Congolese public health doctor in Kinshasa, where he heads the Mama Makeka House of Hope. Neil Arya is a aily physician in Waterloo, Ontario and the founder of Pegasus, an institute for health care workers and social scientists. For the video, audio podcast, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-664-peace-and-health-in-congo.
Mary Kaldor, a retired professor at LSE, has been one of the leading peace researchers and activists in the world since founding the Helsinki Citizens Assembly at the end of the Cold War. She is on th UN Commission on Disarmament now and is writing a book about the world order. She gives Metta a peek at this big work and together they speculate about the kind of institutional lgoal changes that are coming. For the video, audio podcast, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-663-mary-kaldors-new-world-order.
Canadian Pugwash members Paul Meyer (former ambassador for disarmament), Adele Buclkley (firner member of Iternational pugwash's council), an Robin Collins (long time officer of the Canadian branch) discuss yesterday's conflict between Trump, Vance, and Zelenskyy and speculate about the outcome of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. For the video, audio podcast and comments; https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-662-ppugwashites-discussing-wars.
Mickey Huff is a history professor at Ithaca College and director of Project Censored, and organization that originated in Sonoma, California. We tallk about the need for citizens to have access to information that, too often, is suppressed in the regular press. Huff does not blame the government so much as corporate interests, though he points out that the US has interfered with elections in other countries for decades, so it is hypocritical to complain about disinformation campaigns from abroad now. For the video, audio podcast, and comments: https:/tosavetheworld.ca/episode-661-censorship.
Brian von Herzen, the CEO of the Climate Foundation, describes his project – the development of large seaweed farms in the oceans around Asia (their first one is near the Philippines). The algae are anchored to a circular platform that is lowered at night so the algae can absorb the nutrients that lie in the deeper levels, and then is raised in the daytime to use photosynthesis and provide food for the increasing human population. For the video, audio podcast, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca-episode-660-marine-permaculture.
This open conversation has Tom Hedberg lamenting the stat e f US democracy and blaming Fox news. Moji Agha proposes a solution involving small groups. Charles Tauber's solution is therapy to deal with past traumas. James Thring wants quicker action to stop the bloodshed while it is ongoing - especially to protect the Palestinians. Meteeta likes the idea of therapy for millions by "barefoot therapists" on Zoom, but agrees with Thring that the urgent matter is to stop the violence immediately; she would institute stronger measures for the UN to require countries led by aggressors to replace their government with one that will comply with international law. For the video, audio podcast, aand comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-659-global-town-hall-feb-2025.
Arthur Kanegis and Melanie Bennett produced a film about Garry Davis, who declared himself a world citizen but a citizen o no other country. Now they run a series of meetings developing a world citizenry. or the video, audio podcast, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-658-the-world-is-my-country
Climate scientists Tom Goreau and Peter Wadhams are puzzled about two new events in the Arctic: On February 2, the North Pole was melting. And earlier there was a sharp increase in a number of gases and aerosols -- all except methane, which you might expect. For the video, audio podcast, and comments: https:/tosavetheworld.ca/episode-657-arctic-climate-puzzles
The insurance industry should be investigating the costs and risks of technological interventions to mitigate climate change, but they are not. Robert Tulip, Dennis Garrity, Brian on Herzen, and Sev Clarke have been planning ways to change the industry's approach. Marilyn Krieger joined us as a Caliornia homeowner. For the vieo, audio podcast, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-655-insurance-and-climate.
Metta forgot to record the first 25 minutes. Then discus insurance and wildfires in LA, AI, climate, and the use of AI to control weapons, especially nuclear ones. Peter Wadhams, Marilyn Krieger, Brian von Herzen, Peter Wadhams. For the video, audio podcast, comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-654-global-town-hall-jan-2025.
Laura Kahn is a public health expert and co-founder of One Health Initiativr. Her ost recent book, One Health and the Politics of Covid-19, investigates whether Covid emerged from the wetmarket of Wuhan, China. She concludes not, since there were no Covid antibodies found in any of the 400+ animals tested in that market. For the ideo, audio podcast, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-653-the-politics-of-covid.
Tom Goreau's father and grandfather were important figures in the story about the impact of nuclear testing on health and the environment. Today he heads the Global Coral Reef Aliance, but here he recalls the dramas in which his family have been significant players. For the video, audio podcast, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-652-bikini.
John Washington is a journalist who specializes in immigration issues, which he believes have been made into a "political football" by politicians who misiform people about the dangers that the newcomers bring. In fat, they are an economic asset. For the video, audio podcast and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-651-asylum
Thomas Hedberg heads, and his old friend Thomas De Laoughry belongs to, an organization promoting the spread of accurate medical information. But they are perturbed to recognize the power of organizations that are devoted to undermining reality and promoting falsehood. For the video, audio podcast, and commnets: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-650-since-goebbels.
Anuradha Shankar, Hemakumara Gunasekara, Rohan Savarimuttu, and Thayaparan discuss with Jill Carr-Harris and Rajagopal the prospects for reconciliation between Sinhala and Tamil people in Sri Lanka, in view of the election of a new government. For the video, audio podcast and comments see https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-649-sri-lankan-reconciliation.
David Harries gave a talk recently about accountability and Metta Spencer found the concept helps explain the puzzles about why voters around the world are angry and ousting incumbent politicians. So they talk about how acountability is harder nowadays and needs to be fixed – but how? For the video, audio podcast, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-648-whos-accountable.
Rebecca Shoot heads Citizens for Global Solutions nadLawrence Wittner, a professor emeritus of history, State U of New York at Albany, is on her board. They discuss the arrest warrants issued for Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu and the gradual emergence of international law over time.
Shorena Lortkipanidze, Nino Chkobadze, and Nano Saralishvili, activists and scholars in Tbilisi, Georgia, have seen protests for the past three weeks in all towns of their country – reactions against the decision of a newly elected Pro-Russia party to defer entry to the European Union. Jill Carr-Harris, an expert on nonviolent protest, leads this exploration of the crisis. For the video, audio podcast, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca'episode-6 45-georgian-women-talk-democracy.
As a Soviet scientist, Roald Sagdeev knew Yevgeny Velikhov longest. The American scientists Richard Garwin, Frank von Hippel, and Thomas Cochran worked closely with Velikhov during the Gorbachev years, mainly to demonstrate experimentally how safe it would be for both sids to disarm their nuclear weapons. For the video, audio podcast, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-644-velikhovs-friends
Trump expresses outrage – but what is it really about? Please send Metta Spencer a video about what makes YOU seethe in daily life. Her theory: Democracy can’t hold people accountable anymore. The US election shows the hostility that most Americans feel toward urban elites, blaming us smart-ass city-slickers for making their lives miserable by running unaccountable corporations, bureaucratic government, big science, and big media with high-tech and digital inventions. The Democrats should have asked Americans what really infuriates them. It’s not about money. It’s about the humiliating inability even to manage one’s own daily life anymore. For the video and audio: https:/tosavetheworld.ca/episode-641-why-trump-won
Proposal: Let people appeal to panels of citizens selected by sortition for protection from unjust or unworkable digital tech and bureaucratic rigidity. Metta ranted about YouTube's deletion of years of work and important conversations about climate. Attendees from 5 countries discussed this and COP's failure at Baku. We hope to have the video back on our website in a couple of weeks, but you can watch it sooner on Substack or listen on Libsyn.For the video, audio podcast, comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-642-global-town-hall-nov-2024
Irakli Kakabadze and Shorena Lortkipanidze are in Tbilisi, watching the uprising being suppressed in the streets, while Konstantin Samoilov describes the situation in Uzbekistan for those opposing Russian political influence. For the video, audio, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-643-georgian-resistance
Trump expresses outrage – but what is it really about? Please send Metta Spencer a video about what makes YOU seethe in daily life. Her theory: Democracy can’t hold people accountable anymore. The US election shows the hostility that most Americans feel toward urban elites, blaming us smart-ass city-slickers for making their lives miserable by running unaccountable corporations, bureaucratic government, big science, and big media with high-tech and digital inventions. The Democrats should have asked Americans what really infuriates them. It’s not about money. It’s about the humiliating inability even to manage one’s own daily life anymore.
Alexander Likhotal and Metta Spencer discuss current global affairs shortly before the US election. Likhotal, once Mikhail Gorbachev’s closest aide and spokesman, is now a professor of international relations in Geneva. You can watch this whole video on Substack here: https://projectsavetheworld.substack.com/p/episode-640-likhotal-on-the-future?
Douglas Roche has been Canada's disarmament ambassador and a senator, as well as s leading anti-nuclear weapons activist on the world stage. In his mid-nineties, he continues to write articles and books. For the video, audio podcast, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-638-douglas-roche-on-peace.
Fergus Watt has led the Coalition for the UN We Need, which was planning the NGO portion of the recent Summit of the Future at the UN. Both Paul Werbos and David Levai attended and the three people discuss the outcome of the conference. For the video, audio podcast, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-637-after-the-summit-of-the-future.
Daniel Bodansky and Jesse Reynolds are both professors of international law. Robert Chris is a geography professor and advocate of geoengineering. All three guests worry that there is no strong constituency demanding faster adoption of climate repair, for it is urgently needed. For the video, audio podcast, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-636-governing-geoengineering.
Tony McQuail is an organic farmer in Ontario who also belongs to a farmers group working on climate issues. Alan Slavin is a retired physics professor; Sheldon Harvey is a Navajo artist in Arizona. We discuss the challenge of maintaining food production while reducing the harm done by poor agricultural practices and aks what the optimum plans are for saving the soil. For the video, audio podcast, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-634-land-and-and-climate.
Wouter van Dieren is a Dutch activist who worked on the Limits to Grwoth book in the 1970s. Viktor Jaakkola is a member of the Finnish youth activist organization Operaatio Arktis, which works on communicating scientific knowledge. We discuss the perilous present climate situation and ways to perhaps stimulate greater public engagement, including with the participation of celebrities. For the video, audio podcast, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-633-lets-get-them-talking.
Ye Tao is the founder of MEER, an organization that promotes the potential use of mirrors on land to reflect heat back into space. John Nissen and Herb Simmens are both leaders of HPAC, the Healthy Planet Action Coalition, which considers the possible effects of various proposals for cooling the planet -- especially the Arctic. For the video, audio podcast, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-532-sai-or-why-not/
Kare Moran is CEO of Ocean Networks Canada. Peter Fiekowsky has founded an organization promoting climate restoration. We discuss her organization's task – collecting data about the oceans, especially data that may help clarify the potential value or risks involved in proposed climate solutions. For the video, audio and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca .
Arlie Hochschild, professor of sociology U. California, discusses her new book, Stolen Pride, which explains the political shift among white males in a former coal-mining town from Democrat to pro-Trump, who helps them externalize blame for their downward social mobility. For the video, audio podcast, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-627-stolen-pride.
David Levai is working with the ISWE Foundation to develop an independent global citizens' assembly to complement the United Nations but represent the whole human population -- the individuals, not states. We discuss whether such a body could work effectively by meeting on Zoom instead of in person For the video, audio podcast, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-630-fixing-democracy-to-fix-climate.
Franz Oeste and Clive Elsworth have been working on methods of removing methane from the atmosphere. Peter Fiekowsky follows and has supported their work, as well as an earlier proposal to use iron salt to oxidize methane – an idea that would still work but may not be as effective as Oeste's new ideas.
Stewart Prager is one of the founders of the Coalition of Physicists for Nuclear Threat Reduction. Roohi Dalal is an astronomer who has been a fellow with that organization, through which the members have been reaching out to physicists across the United States and now abroad. For the video, audio podcast, and comments: https://tosavetheworldca/episode-626-physicists-against-the-bomb.
Marc Jaccard heads British Columbia Energy Commission. John Feffer heads a project on Just Transition. They discuss whether (and how) resources can be conserved and pollution minimized while economic growth continues - and what such growth would look like. For the video, audio podcast and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-624-sustainable-economies.
Simon Dalby, a professor emeritus at Wilfrid Laurier University, discusses the importance of fire for human security, previously mainly because if the use of combustion for weapons' firepower, but now for its causal connection to the climate crisis. For the video, audio podcast, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-623-firepower-and-security.
Carole Holmes is the current co-chair and Lorraine Green a previous co-chair of GASP, while Janet Hudgins is active in Seniors for Climate. These are two of the 52 organizations in Canada for people who work to keep this planet in livable condition for their grandchildren by blocking climate change. For the video, audio podcast, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-622-grandparents-and-climate.
Cloud physicists Diego Villaneueva and Jasper Kok explain the potential and also the risks of a new method of climate interventions: the thinning of mixed-phase clouds, which are sometimes made of ice and sometimes water.
Climate experts Peter Wadhams and Brian von Herzen discuss hydrogen energy and kelp with Katia Emami and Mohammed Haque, who worry about brutal governments in their homeland, and Sandy Greer, who worries about the rights of indigenous Canadians.
Jessica Wan models climate processes. She explains to Patricia Quinn and Robert Tulip that the effects of marine cloud brightening may be beneficial today, but not by mid-century, when the climate will be warmer. Such an intervention done locally will have global effects that are hard to predict, so it is important to do research now about these processes. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-621-oceans-and-spray.
Franz Oeste keeps coming up with new discoveries about cooling the planet. Now he says that white clouds produce OH radicals, which destroy methane. Clive Elsworth works with him. We dscuss it with a financial manager, Sander Epema, Robin Collins, and David Price. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments; https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-618-combined-way-of-cloud-cooling.
Robert Tulip is a leading member of the climate change webinars Healthy Planet Action Coalition. Robert McNamee is founder of Lucent Bio, an organization that produces a soil amendment from rice husks. He had been actively engaged in the experiment led by the Haida tribe on British Columbia to increase the population of salmon with iron fertilization of the ocean. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-617-ocean-fertility.
Konstantin Samoilov, Roman, Maksim, and Nick are all Russian men who fled from their homeland to avoid being sent to kill Ukrainians. They are all finding it difficult or impossible to immigrate to another country of their choice. This is typical; most escapees are treated with suspicion in Europe, North America, or indeed most other countries now when they apply to immigrate. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca.
David Mitchell is a climate change scientist who is exploring the possibility of reducing global warming by seeding cirrus clouds at the poles during the winter months, thereby allowing some of the infrared radiation under to atmospheric blanket to escape into outer space. Paul Beckwith is a climatologist who holds regular video lessons about developments in global warming. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-615-thinnning-icy-clouds.
Heidi Pearson is a professor marine biology at the University of Alaska Southeast, where there are lots of whales. She is concerned about them, since they are injured and traumatized by the noises of ships and sonar. She studies dolphins too, and compares them intellectually to other land-based animals – especially primates. One indicator of their intelligence is the existence of brain cells that are known tospecialize in empathy — imagining the experiences and thinking of others. For the video, audio podcast, transcript or summary and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-612-whales-dolphins-monkeys.
Heidi Pearson is a professor marine biology at the University of Alaska Southeast, where there are lots of whales. She is concerned about them, since they are injured and traumatized by the noises of ships and sonar. She studies dolphins too, and compares them intellectually to other land-based animals – especially primates. One indicator of their intelligence is the existence of brain cells that are known tospecialize in empathy — imagining the experiences and thinking of others. For the video, audio podcast, transcript or summary and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-612-whales-dolphins-monkeys.
Peter Victor is a professor emeritus of environmental studies at York University. Ron Baiman is a professor emeritus of economics at Benedictine University. Both are concerned with the economic implications of the current urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas from the atmosphere. Can it be done without causing such cut-backs in the economy that will create hard times for the whole human population – especially the poor? Victor has published studies of the question specifically for Canada. Baiman believes that, if technology changes enough, we can all live well and reverse global warming. For the video, audio podcast, transcript or summary and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/decoupling-economic-growth-and-carbon-emissions.
Lou Kriesberg, Peter Wadhams, Richard Denton, Charles Tauber, Sandy Greer, John German and Alexey Prokhorenko are alarmed by the US Supreme Court's Chevron decision, the infirmity of Joe Biden, and the continuing war crimes against the Palestinians. But Wadhams finds joy in extreme hydrogen car races and lots of people like the idea of creating committees for Project Save the World activism. We'll do a survey. For the video, audio podcast, summary and comments, https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-613-global-town-hall-june-2024.
David Henkel-Wallace, Franz Oeste, Clive Elsworth, Jeff Shrager, Peter Fiekowsky, and Rocio Herbert are all exploring the new discovery that clouds (the white ones that reflect sunlight back into space) also cool the planet in another way: by adding hydrochloric acid to the atmosphere, which has an independent cooling effect by destroying methane molecules. This may give us a new way of cooling the planet. Adele Buckley has a question. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-611-thanks-to-chlorine.
Suzanne Reed and Doug Grandt belong to HPAC, an online webinar coalition of groups promoting technologies of climate repair. Lawrence Martin is a Cree environmental leader in Canada. We discuss the importance of including indigenous people in all phases of any planning for experiments on climate repair to be held in their territories. For the video, audio podcast, transcript see https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-610-stakeholder-inclusion.
Hugh Pope spent two years editing and publishing his late father's book about Athenian democracy. He became convinced that it is a superior form of governance that can be adopted even today, and indeed it is being used as citizens' assemblies, which government sometimes establish as a way of reaching consensus about issues that could not be addressed through regular representative institutions. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments; https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-609-shall-we-try-athenian-democracy
Hugh Hunt, Daniel Rosenfeld, and Steven Rogak are all engineers who are eagerly studying the potential. use of salt water spray to whiten clouds and reflect sunshine back into space, thereby reducing global warming. Adele Buckley is an engineer who is skeptical about the value of trying to keep the Arctic frozen at this time. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments see https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-608-shall-we-whiten-clouds
Jonathan Lauderdale is an oceanographer and ocean climate modeler at MIT, the alma mater of Peter Fiekowsky, who is now promoting research into the effects of sprinkling iron into oceans. It makes phytoplankton multiply, which removeds CO2 from the air, so that some of it sinks and sequesters carbon. For the video, audio podcast, summary and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-607-iron-oceans-climate.
Barbara Leger talks about her peace work in Ukraine; Bill Geimer shares his desire for Canada to become more independent of the US. We hear about the situation in Kashmir, the purge of military leaders in Russia, and the use of platforms in the ocean to grow seaweed. For the video, audio podcast, summary and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-606-global-town-hall-2024.
Flower Msuya, Ole Mouritsen, and Paul Carnell all are scientists studying various aspects of seaweeds. Also, Flower helps local producers, Ole experiments with cooking, and Paul helps governments save coastal ecosystems. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-605-eating-seaweed.
Laura Kahn is a leader in the field of "One Health," which studies the interdependence of human, veterinary, and environmental health issues. She authored a book about the increasing resistance of microbes to antibiotics and antiviral medications, mainly because of over-exposure. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-604-anti-microbial-resistance.
John Nissen, Robert Tulip, Doug Grandt, and Robin Collins belong to webinar groups studying Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI) as a way of cooling the planet by the same means as volcanoes do. Greg Evans is an expert on aerosols at U of Toronto. We discuss the pros and cons of attempting such a project at full scale. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-603-imitating-volcanoes.
Ulrike Lohmann and Blaz Gasparini are cloud scientists studying the potential climate effects of various geoengineering proposals – especially cirrus cloud thinning, stratospheric aerosol injection, and marine cloud brightening. Adele Buckley asks them whether the Arctic ice could be saved by brightening clouds in a warmer climate.
Mark Winfield is a professor specializing in energy policy; Ronald Baiman is a retired economics professor who promotes climate repair technology now; and Arthur Edelstein is an expert on computer privacy. They discuss the changing public opinion about carbon pricing.
Louis Kriesberg mentioned the protest movement at US universities, and Peter Wadhams commented rom the view in Italy. Bil Leikam and Marilyn Krieger told us about opossums and Alexey Prokhorenko lamented the deteriorating state of affairs in Russia. We talked about how to enforce international law.
Aria McKenna works with the Healthy Planet Action Coalition, a group that endorses a more open exploration of the possibilities of climate repair. Robin Collins and Adele Buckley, both active in the Canadian Pugwash Group, are also now convinced of the necessity of using such technological solutions.
Oswald Petersen is working on an intervention to reduce methane from the atmosphere with iron salt. Peter Fiekowsky, in California, is endorsing this project with enthusiasm. They explain the current plans to climatologist Paul Beckwith and Canadian Pugwashites Adele Buckley and Robin Collins. The new plan is to use airplanes to disseminate the iron instead of their original notion, towers.
In this the Paleocene giant animals roamed the earth. Kate Lyons and Alessandro Mereghetti are scholars studying the extermination of those creatures. Some people believe that a way to protect our climate may be to repopulate our arctic with wooly mammoths and other animals. We discuss this.
On this monthly town hall meeting we discussed human similarities to animals and the nature of mind and the management of nuclear waste. To see the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-596-global-town-hall-mar-2024.
David Mitchell (and his colleague Ehsan Erfani) are pointing out that the high cirrus clouds are like a blanket warming the planet. If we poke holes in the blanket, we release heat. Likewise, by seeding the cirrus clouds in the winter at the poles, we can release excess heat from our world. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-595-thinning-cirrus-clouds
Gwynne Dyer's new book, Intervention Earth, is really about geoenginering and the urgency of studying the numerous proposals for cooling the planet faster than by simply reducing carbon emissions. For several years, Dyer and his wife Tina Viljoen have been filming numerous interviews with experts on climate, aware earlier than most other people that the only possible way to avert global catastrophe would eventually depend on the application of some such measures at scale. At last, that reality is becoming recognized by scientists, but much more needs to happen to change public opinion in time. Therefore, Dyer devotes the first half of the book to convincing the reader that, like it or not, we must start iimmediately getting ready. An edited transcript of this conversation will appear in the April 2024 issue of Peace Magazine. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments, see https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-594-its-time-to-geoengineer-climate.
A chat with whale and Arctic experts Edwina Tanner, Krys Chutko, and Joe Roman discuss the impact of the big sea mammals on our environment and the way human activities have decimated them. Surprisingly important is their digestive system, which affects the proliferation of phytoplankton. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-583-whales-do-poop.
News: Franz Oeste has found several other aerosols that can demolish methane in the atmosphere even faster. Clive Elsworth explains with slides to Peter Wadhams and Adele Buckley For the vieo, audio pocast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld,ca/episode-591-new-aerosol-discoveries.
Discussing foxes, monkeys, bison, and cats are Bil Leikam and Alexey Prokhorenko. Then we talk about war with Richard Denton and Charles Tauber, and about nuclear waste with Sandy Greer. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-590-global-town-hall-2024.
Is economic growth lethal for the environment? Francesco Mellino and Richard Sandbrook discuss the dilemma and a recent journal that Mellino edited for C-40, the organization of mayors around the world who are collaborating for urban sustainability. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and to comment: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-598-green-economics.
Ricardo Letelier and Peter Fiekowsky know that phytoplankton created the oxygen in our atmosphere. Now maybe they can help us again by removing CO2 from the atmosphere and sending it to the ocean depths. But do phytoplankton respire it out too quickly for that to work? And would a good new volcano do what Mt. Pinatubo did: cool the planet by feeding the phytoplankton and making them multiply and take our more carbon dioxide? For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-592-tiny-green-things.
Shaun Fitzgerald is director of the Centre for Climate Repair at the University of Cambridge, which studies various technological proposals for removing carbon and cooling the planet. We discuss the various options for potentially re-freezing the Arctic and saving ice on Antarctica and Greenland. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-588-the-climate-at-cambridge.
Brian von Herzen, Paul Beckwith, and Peter Wadhams are climate scientists who generally favor the rapid deployment of marine cloud brightening to the Arctic to cool the planet by increasing albedo. Adele Buckley does not favor that approach because it would be easier to do cloud brightening elsewhere. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-5
Andre Kamenshikov is a Russian peace worker who has lived in Kiev for several years. Boroys Wrzesnewskyj is a Canadian who is very active in the large Ukrainian Canadian community. Both are engaged in supporting the Ukrainians defence against Russia's aggression. Andre is working now to help expatriate Russians inform their friends and relatives at home about the reality they experience in exile. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-586-reading-russian-minds
Simon Dalby, Neil Craik, and Byron Williston are all Canadian professors in Waterloo who study the ethical and political considerations around the use of technological solutions to global warming. They agree that we are now in an emergency but this does not excuse rashness. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca-episode-585-ethics-and-climate.
Vamik Volkan is a psychoanalyst who studies the psychological dynamics of international relations – the conflicts that are perpetuated over long periods because of the general tendency to identify with one's ancestral community and to refer to its historic traumas to justify its current or recent political or mlitary relations with other groups.His books point out how psychoanalytic patients do change, but usually only after several years of treatment. For the video, audio podcast, transript and discussion: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-584-transgenerational-trauma
Peter MacLeod leads a Canadian company, Masslbp, which organizes "citizens assemblies" – gatherings of representative samples of populations selected by "sortition" – to inform public policies. MacLeod began this activity when he was a university student and both B.C. and Ontario were holding citizens assemblies to explore electoral reform. His experience influenced Ireland to use that process to decide about abortion and other controversial issues. We owe this innovation to the ancient Athenians. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-583-governing-by-juries.
Marilyn Krieger, Richard Denton, Bill Leikam, Sandy Greer, and Charles Tauber. Monthly conversation time, this one about animal diseases, vaccination, radiation hazards, citizens assemblies, proportional representation, and the abused of migrants by right wing politicians in Europe. Inviting participants to watch the new "Cool Thinking" series that begins on Feb. 5, to discuss ways of cooling the Arctic. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-582-global-town-hall-jan-2024.
Jens Orback heads an NGO in Stockholm, the Global Challenges Fooundation, which addresses all existential threats to humankind. This is a get-acquainted conversation with him which compares the positions taken by his group to those that are being explored with high priority by.Project Save the World. They are working seriously toward the Summit of the Future, scheduled for next September at the UN.
Alexander Likhotal, now a professor of international relatons in Geneva, was formerly executive director of Green Cross International, appointed by Mikhail Gorbachev, whom he served as press secretary both during and after Gorbachev's presidency. His pessimism about the future is based on the universally shared conclusion that 2023 has been tragic in many countries and for many failures. We discuss Zelinsky's policies in Ukraine, the prospects for an end to the war in Ukraine, and the tragic war in Israel and Gaza.
Global warming will submerge most of Tuvalu, but Ambassador Falefou is at the UN, mobilizing support for his country's survival. For a billion dollars or two, it is possible to raise the elevation and enable the society to continue as a sovereign country in Oceania. That is less expensive that removing the whole population to other countries, which may otherwise be necessary. The Tuvaluans plan to become the first "digital nation."
Dr. Mukete Tahle Itoe is a judge in Cameroon and the leader of a humanitarian organization that seeks to provide security for the refugees and migrants in his country. There are over 700,000 internally displaced persons there, victims of the violence that has been going on since 2017 as a result of the "Ambazonian" separatist movement of English-speaking citizens. Some 80 percent of Cameroonians speak French and have created a unitary system of government that is opposed by the English-speaking 20 percent. Itoe himself is seeking harmony, not secession, and wants the situation in his country to be better-known in the rest of the world.
The war in Gaza has been going on all month, so we talked most about it. Shane Steinman, Alan Haber, Paul Werbos all want a solution that does not involve exclusive sovereignty. Andre Sheldon and Alastair Farrugia both promote changes in process. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-577-global-town-hall-nov-2023.
Both Konstantin Samoilov and Andre Kamenshikov have left Russia because of their opposition to the war. Jill Carr-Harris is a Gandhian leader in India. We discuss the possibilities and risks of producing educational forums about nonviolence to millions of expatriate Russians. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-576-empower-russian-escapees.
Aaron Wolf is a geography professor at Oregon State University. He heads a program teaching graduate students to work out treaties and other agreements among countries with transboundary disputes over water – mainly rivers that run through their lands. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-575-rivers-and-peace.
Leila Harris is a professor in British Columbia who studies the political and social aspects of water. She began with a dissertation on the methods of irrigation in Turkey and more recently has spent time in African townships, seeing how the access to abundant clean water affects the social relationships among neighbors. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-574-water-security
Cynthia Rosenzweig is a professor at Columbia University who studies the connections between food security and climate change. She reports that the number of hungry people has markedly increased since the Sustainable Development Goals were promulgated, promising to reduce it. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-573-fiid-security-and-climate.
Nicole Redvers was invited to discuss her book about indigenous medicine, The Science of the Sacred, which is described by Amazon: “Modern medical science has finally caught up to what traditional healing systems have known for centuries. Many traditional healing techniques and medicines are often assumed to be archaic, outdated, or unscientific compared to modern Western medicine. Nicole Redvers, a naturopathic physician and member of the Deninu K’ue First Nation, analyzes modern Western medical practices using evidence-informed Indigenous healing practices and traditions from around the world–from sweat lodges and fermented foods to Ayurvedic doshas and meditation. Organized around various sciences, such as physics, genetics, and microbiology, the book explains the connection between traditional medicine and current research around epigenetics and quantum physics, for example, and includes over 600 citations. Redvers, who has traveled and worked with Indigenous groups around the world, shares the knowledge and teachings of health and wellness that have been passed down through the generations, tying this knowledge with current scientific advances. Knowing that the science backs up the traditional practice allows us to have earlier and more specific interventions that integrate age-old techniques with the advances in modern medicine and technology.”
Paul Werbos jokes about Shroedinger's cat, Marilyn Krieger tell us about California's cats, Andre Kamenshikov describes the present state of the Russia/Ukraine war as like the Western front of WW1 and Gordon Edwards reminds us that Canada was first to practice vitrification of nuclear waste. What a Global Town Hall! For the video, audio podcast, transcript and discussion: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-572-global-town-hall-oct-2023.
Maj. Gen. Robert Latiff is a retired US military officer who was responsible for new technological means of intellligence-gathering. Now retired, he teaches a course every year at his alma mater, Notre Dame University, focusing on the ethical issues and principles governingn the use of such new weapons. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and public comments, https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-571-new-weapons-and-ethics.
Bill Leikam and Marillyn Krieger update us on the work of California naturalists -- re beavers and butterflies. After that, there was usually strong disagreement among participants about the Ukraine War, with some placing much of the blame on the US, but Andre Kamenshikov replying eloquently from Kiev. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-570-global-town-hall-sept-2023.mp4
Joel Salatin is a farmer who has turned a degraded farm into one that contains 8 percent organic matter in its soil – an achievement he attributes to using perennial plants, which can sequester large amounts of carbon and which are hosts to methanotropic bacteria. He teaches his skill to young would-be farmers. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-569-farming-sustainably.
Tariq Rauf and Erika Simpson discuss the risks around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and the health effects of plastics. Paul Werbos had annoyed the Russians by photographing an Arctic coalmining town.Jo Hayward-Haines is delighted by the proliferation of pollations gardens in place of lawns. For the video, audio podcast, comments, transcript: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-568-global-town-hall-aug-2023.
Nandita Basu is a professor at U. of Waterloo who studies the processes on farms and wetlands that affect the pollution of water in lakes. She is a modeller, so she collects data about fertilizer use and animal manure around the world, combining the data to see overall patterns is the whole data set, since particular areas differ. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-567-water-sustainability.
Tom Goreau talks about coral reefs and biorock, and James Baird shows a long power point presentation of his concept, Thermodynamic Geoengineering, which develops the differential in heat between the top and bottom of a stratified ocean to produce what physicists call "work." For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-566-small-island-developing-states.
Jill Carr-Harris interviews three Indians about the civil unrest in Manipur between the Kuki and Meitei people. Dr. Deben Bachaspatimayum, who lives in the area, explains the historical and demographic background of the struggle over land rights. Rajagopal suggests holding meetings by third parties, not the fighting communities, Father C.P. Anto describes the refugee camps and Lily Khawbung recounts the appalling story about the abuse of Kuki women. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments, https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-565-manipur/.
Two Russians, Konstantin Samoilov and Victor Kogan Yasny, struggle together about whether to compromise with an evil political and military system. Vladimir Krasnov views his decision to leave from a more pragmatic perspective., while Jill Carr-Harris and Shorena Lortkipanidze report on the attitudes of Georgians and the Russians who are living there. We also talk about Bangladesh's violations of human rights and the views of Leda Raptis, a Greek immigrant to Canada who puts the current struggle into the context of an earlier one involving her own country. For the video, audio podcast, transcripts and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-564-global-town-hall-july-2023.
Rebecca Shoot heads the Citizens for Global Solutions in the US. Andreas Bummel heads Democracy Beyond Borders, and Alexandre MacIsaac heads World Federalist Movement - Canada. We discuss ongoing steps toward holding nations and their leaders accountable for adherence to international law (especially against aggression) and ideas for developing a democratic World Parliament. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, summary, and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-563-next-global-governance/
Peter Wadhams is an expert on Arctic sea ice. He tells us about the extraordinary warming of the oceans this year. Scientists don't have an explanation. Andre Kamenshikov has been traveling in the post-Soviet countries, interviewing the men who fled from Russia to avoid being sent to war. Nivedita Das Kundi was recently in St. Petersburg for a conference and we talk about the war. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-562-
Hashem Akbari is a professor of civil engineering at Concordia University. His research studies the temperature of cities with the effects of global warming, the shade of trees, the technological changes in buildings, such as lightness of color. Robin Collins asks him to compare these factors with other matters, such as heat pumps, insulation. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, summary, and public comments, see https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-561-heat-islands-and-trees.
Olivia Ward and Metta Spencer discuss current global issues with Bob Rae, Canada's ambassador to the UN. Metta is concerned about the plight of Russian men who left their homeland to avoid being sent to fight against Ukrainians. Rae sees immigration policies regarding refugees as determined by individual nation states, and the same goes for the enforcement of international law, the issue that Olivia poses here. We will have a rule of law internationally when al the nation states commit to fulfilling that goal. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments column, https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-560-canadas-bob-rae-at-the-un/.
Ray Cumming is with the Lafarge company, which manufactures concrete, the most common building material in the world and the source of about 8 percent of human-made carbon dioxide emissions per year. The industry is trying hard to find ways to create strong concrete that does not emit carbon, and Lafarge has invested in a California-based company, Blue Planet, which makes concrete that is strongly carbon-negative -- it sequesters more carbon from the atmosphere than is emitted in the process of manufacturing it. Adele Buckley questions Cumming about the commercial viability of such products. He says that the engineers who design concrete structures are notoriously conservative and slow to pick up new possibilities. For the video, audio podcast, transcripts, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-559-the-concrete-business.
Lyn Adamson is concerned about the dispute among peace activists about the Ukraine War. Some of them, while acknowledging that Russia's invasion of Ukraine was a war crime, are willing to let Putin keep the lands that he has acquired, just to win some kind of ceasefire and end of the violence. Others believe that international law must be enforced. Andre Kamenshikov clarifies some facts about the origin of the war -- the was in the Donbass when it was invaded in 2014 and can testify that it was not a civil war but a real invasion. Paul Werbos then discusses the need for a UN office of existential threats to handle such dangers as the new artificial intelligence. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, summary, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-558-global-town-hall-may-2023.
David Mitchell thought of the idea that thinning cirrus clouds would allow heat to escape from the world, and that the winter clouds at the poles would be the optimum clouds to thin. Blaz Gasparini is, like Mitchell, continuing the research on the matter, largely by modeling. Stephen Salter is working to design a suitable nozzle for marine cloud brightening, so he shares their interest in the properties of clouds. We discuss whether much can be gained at this stage from actual experimentation with either the winter cirrus clouds or brightening the low-lying summer clouds in the near-Arctic. Probably it is better to wait a year or so to see if current research answers some of the preliminary questions that would enable actual small scale experimentation to be worth the steep. costs. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-557-cirrus-cloud-thinning.
Bjorn Embren was the man in charge of renewing Stockholm's urban forest -- especially the trees along roads and other public places where the soil. was seriously compacted. He learned at a conference in Hannover that porous rocks can provide a hospitable environment for tree roots. He began to line the bottom of trenches with heavy stones and above them a mixture of small pebbles and biochar. The heavy stones allowed for enough stability for traffic. He add water with nutrients for a couple of years and ensures that there is opportunity for oxygen to reach the roots. He uses the city's waste as a source of biochar, which helps clean the water from streets that would otherwise contaminate the city's waterways and the Baltic seas. The healthy urban forests have impressed other Nordic countries to emulate Stockholm's innovation. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, summary, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-556-trees-in-stockholm.
Tariq Rauf describes the seriously worsening threat of nuclear war during this conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The consensus of opinion is still pro-NATO in Europe, but the nuclear arms control treaties have been abrogated and all sides are warning of their intentions to "keep up" in any race. This includes China, which is building up rapidly now, so that the superpowers will be three. Peter Wadhams describes the extraordinary heating of the Arctic ocean now -- up by 13 degrees! -- and the fact that the scientists cannot explain it, so they tend not to talk about it as much as the shocking facts would seem to require. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, summary, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-555-global-town-hall-apr-2023.
Konstantin Samoilov and Alexey Prokhorenko are among the hundreds of thousands of Russian men who fled Russia to avoid being sent to Ukraine to kill Ukrainians. Andre Kamenshikov had already left Russia for Kyiv, and is now traveling in Central Asia meeting other emigré Russians. Doug Saunders is the international affairs columnist with the Globe and Mail and is writing a book now about the plight of migrants who have difficulty finding a place to settle that will accept them. We discuss the predicament of these Russians and what can be done to help them create new lives. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-544-russians-who-left-russia.
Franz Oeste, Clive Elsworth, and Peter Fiekowsky are working on several climate change reduction experiments that arose from the study of Ocean Iron Fertilization. They would not use iron salt aerosols in the Arctic, for example, but titanium, since it is white and does not discolor the ice and snow and interfere with the planet-cooling albedo effect. Stephen Salter is developing nozzles and specific plans for marine cloud brightening in Hudson Bay. The purpose of this forum was to consider whether the two innovations could be explored at the same time, both on Hudson Bay. This does look feasible. However, even with both cooling mechanisms operating simultaneously, it is unlikely that they can cool Hudson Bay enough to retain ice in the summer. We discuss whether the demonstration of ice retention is a necessary condition for persuading the Canadian government to pay for such projects. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-553-two-experiments-at-once.
The war in Ukraine is on our minds, with some attributing it to the US. We talk about an old song by Buffy Sainte Marie, “Universal Soldier.” Is the military industrial complex the cause of war or is it the lack of effective world government? Who are the war criminals and who will arrest them? Then we talk about the recent IPCC report. Franz Oeste tells us about a potential way of reducing global warming by using iron or titanium oxide to remove black carbon from the atmosphere and send it into the oceans instead of the stratosphere, where it would be dumped onto the Arctic ice and snow. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-552-global-town-hall-mar-2023.
Alex Bellamy is a professor at the University of Queensland who heads an institute on Responsibility to Protect. James Simeon is a professor of Public Policy and Administration at York University, where he specializes in human rights and refugee law. We discuss several conflicts in which the so-called "R2P" doctrine has (sometimes successfully) saved lives, though it has often failed to be implemented as needed. At present the greatest help that can be given to persecuted people is to open the borders and admit them with open arms. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments, https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-551-two-cheers-for-r2p.
Benoit Lambert is a Quebec entrepreneur devoted to promoting the use of biochar as a means of reducing global warming. Alan Bates is an author who has written several books about global warming and also specializes in promoting the use of biochar in innovative ways, such as as an additive to concrete and to restore the fertility of soil in farmland and forests. We discuss such projects as the urban forestry campaign in Stockholm, which used waste products as biochar for planting large numbers of trees in the city. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-550-biochar-and-climate.
Peter Wadhams, an expert on Arctic sea ice, tells us that the Antarctic and Arctic are both losing ice at the same time instead of alternating by the seasons as usual. Alexey Prokhorenko, a Russian who fled to Poland in opposition to the war, tells us that all the Russian expatriates agree that the Russian government must be run by a strong parliament, not a strong presidency. Marilyn Krieger is concerned about the blizzards covering California now and the anxiety people feel about the mountain lions that she is trying to protect. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments, https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-549-global-town-hall-feb-2023.
Guobin Yang is a professor of sociology and communications at the University of Pennsylvania. Yangyang Cheng is a physicist and Research Scholar in Law and Fellow at Yale Law School specializing in U.S.-China relations.Ellen Judd is a professor emeritus of anthropology, University of Manitoba with a long specialization studying rural China. They discuss the policy changes that have occurred throughout the pandemic, including the long period when westerners in lockdown envied their Chinese colleagues, who were allowed to travel freely. But the later lockdown there was extreme, not so much because of the national policy but because local authorities did not use half-measures in enforcement. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-548-china-and-covid.
Brent Constantz is the CEO of Blue Planet, a company that makes limestone aggregate for concrete from demolished concrete and CO2 from industrial flues. It is about 40% carbon dioxide, mineralized and locked out of the atmosphere permanently. Peter Fiekowsky joins us also from Silicon Valley, and Pugwashites Derek Paul, Ellen Judd, Peter Meincke, and Michel Duguay question Constantz, eager to learn how this remarkable concrete is produced. and where it will be used. A large Canadian company, Lafarge, will be building plants to create carbon negative concrete. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and public comments; https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-547-can-concrete-be-carbon-negative.
Lawrence Martin in a Canadian singer and politician now heading a maritime conservation council for the indigenous communities around Hudson Bay. Megan Sheremata is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Toronto who studies the environment of the eastern shore of Hudson Bay. We discuss the various technical possibilities for cooling that body of water with Professor Stephen Salter and Paul Beckwith, a climatologist. One method would be cloud brightening; another might be thinning the cirrus clouds of the region, which tend to warm the planet. That would allow heat from the planet to escape. A third possibility might be to thicken the winter ice by spraying the surface with warmer water from below. All have potentially negative consequences as well as good ones. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-546-chilling-hudson-bay.
Enrico Coiera is Director of Health Informatics at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. Ronald St. John is an infectious disease expert who led Canada's SARS response and Pan American epidemiology for the World Health Organization. Both men and our own Adam Wynne discuss the recent breakthroughs in the use of artificial intelligence in identifying and responding to the COVID19 pandemic and now even more uses in health care. Coiera warns that the new AI system ChatGPT is good at "truthiness" but unreliable as a source of medical information for patients. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-545-ai-and-pandemics.
Hashem Ackbari is an engineering professor at Concordia U who studies heat islands. John Stone was chair of a committee in the IPCC. Eric Davies collects seeds of big ancient trees and grows saplings from them. We discuss ways of using trees in cities to insulate buildings and reduce heating and cooling costs. It is more expensive to raise trees in cities than in natural forests, but their survival is greater where people are around to look after them. Many alien trees species are taking over and replacing native trees, with detrimental effects for the ecological niche, including for the soil and the animals living in that habitat; Norway maples are especially harmful, and have taken over Toronto's ravines. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-544-why-trees-in-cities.
Bill Leikam tells us about a fight between two of his foxes. Alexey Prokhorenko report in from Warsaw, and we discuss the plight of Russian men who left the country to avoid being mobilized to kill Ukrainians; now they may be unable to get visas to Western societies because the NATO countries are excluding Russians -- even those who are themselves opposed to Putin. There is a discussion about the desirability of promoting a ceasefire now. Andre Sheldon describes how war has hardened people's hearts and claims that Naomi Klein and Beatrice Fihn are uniquely able to help combine the peace and climate movements. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-543-global-town-hall-jan-2023.
Thomas Goreau works to protect the earth from climate change -- both onland and in the oceans, where he is trying to save coral reefs. Joanna Campe is director of Remineralize the Earth, an NGO promoting the use of rock dust soil amendments. Tom Vanacore owns a quarry that supplies rock dust to farmers. Goreau notes importance of mixing biochar with rock dust and aging the compound; otherwise it may make plants grow less. Almost all the nutritive elements in our food come from the minerals in rock and are being depleted by current farming techniques. But farmers are learning to remedy the problem now. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-542-remineralize-the-earth .
Karen Scrivener is a professor in Switzerland who specializes in concrete research. Peter Fiekowsky is an entrepreneur and writer about climate restoration. Martin Halliwell advises builders on the use of innovative concrete with low carbon footprint. They agree that too much concrete is used by designers who are overly conservative, and that the rebar is a disadvantage for sustainability. They do not agree on the possible costs and feasibility of producing carbon-negative concrete. Karen thinks the extraction of calcium from seawater is far too expensive. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-541-carbon-concrete-and-climate.
Lawrence Martin in a singer and Canadian politician of Cree heritage. Brian von Herzen is an expert on ocean permaculture - especially kelp farming. Peter Wadhams is an expert on Arctic sea ice and methane. These people discuss two potential projects -- to refreeze parts of Hudson Bay year-round, and to harvest kelp and manufacture such commodities from it as bio-stimulant for plants and fodder for ruminant animals to reduce their production of methane from enteric digestion. For the video, audio podcasts, transcript and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-540-kelp-and-ice-in-hudson-bay.
In geologic history, extinctions have occurred after high levels of atmospheric CO2, when oceans are stratified and archae were well fed and proliferated, producing hydrogen sulfide, a poison often called "swamp gas." Here Franz Oeste, Brian von Herzen and Paul Beckwith discuss the possibility that current conditions on earth are leading to such an extinction. They are not much worried, believing that the proliferation of phytoplankton will help cool the planet, and it is the heat that causes ocean stratification, which is the condition necessary for these other dire conditions to arise. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-539-is-swamp-gas-in-our-future
Stephen Sheppard was a founder of the Urban Forestry department, U of British Columbia, where Lorien Nesbitt is now an assistant professor. David Price retired after a career in forestry modeling for Canada's Natural Resources department. We discuss with several Pugwashites the health challenges of urban trees and the value of planting them as a means of cooling the cities, mainly through their transpiration, "exhaling" of water vapor. The foresters all agree that the health and comfort of living in cities would be improved if most of the lawns are replaced with trees, and possibly whole local blocks can be devoted to small urban neighborhood forests. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-538-our-urban-trees.
Darryl Stellmach is an anthropologist who teaches emergency management at the University of Tasmania in Australia. This is a new career for him, after some 20 years of work coordinating responses to emergency crises around the world, initially with Doctors Without Borders. He became increasingly aware that interventions provided by humanitarian workers often are not implemented as expected because the local communities have alternative views that clash with the aid. Because humanitarian workers shift from one setting to another rapidly, they may not develop cultural insights to transcend the problem, whereas anthropologists working in the same area may have a deeper rapport with the affected populace. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-537-complex-emergencies.
Frank von Hippel, Emeritus Professor of International Affairs, Princeton University, had a big influence with Gorbachev in ending the Cold War and promoting nuclear disarmament. Erika Simpson is an Associate Professor of International Affairs, Western University. Gordon Edwards is president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility. They point out that the recent publicity about a breakthrough in nuclear fusion is meant to deceive the public into considering it as a great day for sustainable energy, whereas the real research was done by nuclear weapons scientists for the sake of the continued development of nuclear weapons. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-536-fake-fusion-story.
Gregory Dipple studies mine tailings, Peter Van Straaten is an agro-geologist who studies the application of minerals as fertilizers. Thomas Vanacore owns rock quarries and studies the application of rock dust. Here they discuss the present state of scientific knowledge about the benefits and potential risks of the dual-purpose application of rock dust and mine tailings to farmland. Dipple believes that the most serious gap in knowledge concerns the possible addition of greenhouse gas because of the otherwise appropriate application of such soil amendments. They consider ways of encouraging the government to support progress faster because of the urgency of the climate threat. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-535-rocks-mine-tailings-climate.
Peter Jones is a professor of international relations at the University of Ottawa and director of the Ottawa Dialogues, an organization that develops "backchannel" communications between nations that are in conflict. Often the two sides take the public position that they will "never negotiate" with each other, while in fact they are conducting unofficial meetings – or at least authorizing citizens to carry out such meetings. This is "track two diplomacy." The term also can apply to the kind of contacts that civil society organizations conduct without authorization, or even against the wishes of their governments, because they wish to lower the acrimony between the two sides and create conditions that in the future may allow negotiations to take place. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld,ca/episode-524-track-two-diplomacy.
Adeyemi Adesina, John Orr, and Ryan Zizzo are all experts on concrete. They advise construction companies and architects on how to use materials efficiently and with minimal emission of carbon dioxide during construction and afterward, throughout the structure's lifetime. John Orr particularly emphasizes the value of reducing the amount of concrete used in construction, for it is one of the leading sources of greenhouse gas and global warming. It is possible in most cases to design buildings that meet al the standards but use much less concrete. Another source of reductions is the use of more concrete that does not require such a long period of curing. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-532-use-less-concrete.
Lonnie King has been the chief Veterinary officer of the United States. He also created a department in the Center for Disease Control addressing zoonotic diseases -- ones that originate in animals and spread to people. His new publication emphasizes the recent trend (over about 25 years) for new diseases to emerge and spread widely, and suggests ways of bringing researchers together in teams to find the ecological conditions that create disease "hot spots." Much of the solution will come, he thinks, from allocating funding more through national and regional organizations. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-531-global-health-tomorrow.
Hans Kristensen works with the Federation of American Scientists studying nuclear weapons all around the world. Pavel Podvig is also a nuclear weapons analyst, but he specializes in the Russian bombs. We discuss the trends on thinking among the strategists who control all the nuclear nations' arsenals: Is the risk increasing or decreasing, over all? Kristensen says the recent developments have contradictory effects, both motivating those who would like to acquire more such bombs as a means of security, while also convincing others that the bombs are more dangerous than they are helpful. Podvig takes the same view and believes in the persuasive efforts of the states parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode/530-nuclear-weapons-today.
The Pugwash inquiry is concerned here with a proposal to brighten clouds over Hudson Bay, retaining some ice year round. The experts here are Alan Gadian, Stephen Salter, Michael Diamond, Paul Beckwith, Peter Wadhams. The consider the challenging problem of estimating the effectiveness of this intervention. Much of the complexity results from the dynamics of the multiple factors -- the way the clouds of different altitudes react differently, the impact of water vapor, altitude, temperature, the changing amount of light in different seasons, etc. Although the mathematical modeling gives a specific prediction, it may be necessary to check it with a real-life experiment, and we have to decide whether Hudson Bay is the best place to carry out such an experiment. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-529-clouds-and-climate.
Paul Werbos is discouraged about the failure of COP27, but was excited about a zoom meeting in China where the Chinese seem eager to set up an internet-regulating system; he would like to combine that with the Guterres and Biden desire for an office to manage all existential threats. Opinions in the group were divided as to whether a ceasefire in the Ukraine war would allow Putin to recollect his forces for another round in the war or whether he would go for a real peace settlement. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-527-global-town-hall-nov-2022.
john Liu witnessed the transformation of t he Loess Plateau in China resulting from the work of the local people who made terraces, enriched the soil, and planted trees. Since then he has been engaged in promoting ecological camps in other parts of the world for people to volunteer their labor. Both Heather Schibli and Joyce Hostyn are Canadians who build Miyawaki forests, often in urban areas. The see their work as part of a larger project of changing culture so that people love each other and appreciate other living entities. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-528-
Dr Sandy Greer is an activist in Blyth, Ontario, near the potential site of a repository for low-level nuclear waste from power plants. Erika Simpson is a professor of political science at Western University; both women, and Adam Wynne are concerned about the potential for radioactive dangers if the large existing amount of nuclear waste is buried in deep repositories. They consider it to be somewhat safer to keep the waste above ground in hardened containers until, perhaps, in a hundred years or so it will be possible to use a new scientifically established procedure for disposing of the waste. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-526-burying-nuclear-waste.
Professors David Beerling and Noah Planavsky are both experts in the innovative practice of "enhanced rock weathering," which crushes rocks such as basalt and applies the powder to soil as a way of improving the quality of the soil and also capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and sequestering it. Planavsky is not only a computer modeler but also the founder of a company that farmers hire to apply this technology. We consider the financial implications of using this innovation widely. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-525-rock weathering.
Adam Hochschild's new book, American Midnight, records the dramatic and deplorable phase of hysteria in the United States during and shortly after World War I. The details about the violation of civil liberties can only shock, for numerous instances were even worse, in Hochschild's opinion, than during the Trump presidency. The book presents numerous profiles and biographical sketches of prominent figures during the period; we discuss Woodrow Wilson, Eugene V. Debs and Emma Goldman. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-524-hochschild-on-american-midnight.
Nathan Funk is a professor of peace and conflict studies, Conrad Grebel College, University of Waterloo. He studied Middle Eastern religion and international relations a American University and in Syria, and his wife is a professor of Persian background. We discuss the relations among the various faith communities and how to conceptualize the relationship between "spirituality" and religiosity. Funk also emphasizes the emphasis of the local cultural, historical, and material circumstances and the Mennonite tradition of working at the community level on conflict. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-523-religion-and-or-peace
Douglas Hooton, professor emeritus of civil engineering at University of Toronto, Chris Cheeseman of Imperial College in London, and Michael Barnard are experts on concrete. Because concrete is the source of 8 percent of the world's carbon emissions, we must urgently develop concrete that is carbon neutral or even carbon negative. Hooton describes the challenges and the current government plans for Canada to reach carbon zero by 2050 – but is it possible to reach that much earlier and even capture and lock away massive parts of the carbon already in the atmosphere? One determining factor is the cost. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-522-concrete-in-canadas-future/
Carl Gershman was the head of the National Endowment for Democracy for 37 years. In 2004 NED awarded Seymour Martin Lipset a medal for his work on fostering democracy globally. That is when he and Metta Spencer met, so they talk a little first about Lipset. Then they discuss the bright spots that Gershman sees in the contemporary polarized world, though the anti-democratic forces are nevertheless powerful. Can a system of sovereign democracies suffice to bring about the changes required to prevent a global catastrophe? Gershman thinks positively about that. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-521-the-fate-of-democracy
Thomas Homer-Dixon is the founder and director of Cascade Institute, a Canadian think tank that is studying several problems that are converging upon us all simultaneously, mostly complex systems connected with climate change. They are working on the methane being emitted by thawing permafrost, and believe that some help may come from growing mosses in the region. He is also concern about the fact that some potential interventions against climate change are not being investigated, though it is clear that we cannot survive if we just try to reduce our carbon footprint and live simply while letting nature take care of our problems. It is too late for that; we must be ready to act to stop the disasters, and we must do scientific research beforehand. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-520-what-to-do-about-climate.
Brad Bass and Ole Hendrickson are both ecologists and both are section editors for Project Save the World; they monitor the contents of the comments column, among other good deeds. They both are professionally concerned with the quality of water in our waterways, so we discuss first the current state of the wetlands on the southwest coast of Hudson Bay, which is said to be emitting methane. This bothers them less than some of the other sources of methane that result from human activities. One of Brad's concerns is the cause of cyanobacteria, which is toxic. Metta got a bit snippy about Ole's general criticism of geo-engineering, for reasons that may become apparent in future episodes. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-519-our-waterways.
Alexey Prokhorenko and Andre Kamenshekov have both left Russia and are opposed to that country's aggression. They discuss the routes that refugees can take when fleeing Russia. The group of participants in this town hall favor organizing via Zoom those male Russians who fled to avoid being mobilized into the military. They could be effective in influencing public opinion back a home. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-518-global-town-hall-oct-2022.
Nivedita Das Kundu is an international relations expert who was born in India and educated in Russia and Ukraine. She is able to describe vividly the attitudes that most Indians share about their friend, Russia, which has helped them in many ways. But they also are friendly toward Ukraine, where many Indian students study medicine and engineering in the universities; they are stranded there now, but the Indian government has just advised all foreigners to evacuate Ukraine, though many of the students want to remain. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-517-asia-russia-and-ukraine .
Franz Oeste is one of the scientists who discovered the important role of iron dust in moderating the climate, fertilizing phytoplankton, and creating whiter clouds with greater albedo. Oswald Peterson is working on a project to put this discovery to beneficial use in the current crisis, and Peter Fiekowsky is a Silicon Valley activist and entrepreneur whose book, Climate Restoration, discusses this and other useful technological solutions to the climate crisis. Yes, it is possible to restore the climate to preindustrial levels. Whether we are ready to pay enough to do it -- that's another question. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-516-cooling-with-iron-salt/
Alexey Prokhorenko was an interpreter in Moscow until Putin mobilized troops in September to fight in Ukraine. Like almost a million other men, he left the country and is staying temporarily in Istanbul. Because he arrived without a long-lasting visa, he has to leave the country every few months to re-enter from elsewhere. There are more such Russian "draft evaders" in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Georgia than Istanbul and the local people ask about their opinion of the war, sometimes feeling like excluding those who are not opposed to the war but simply wanting to save their own skins while approving of the aggression. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-515-russians-in-exile. Then scroll down and share your own thoughts about this topic.
Sandy Smith, Heather Schibli, and Michael Rosen are foresters and arborists who often work with trees in urban areas, including farmland. They agree that we an expect only negligible early effects on global carbon sequestration from planting forests in cities, and that the urban environment makes such forestry difficult. Nevertheless the many services provided by trees make such a project highly desirable, even as a climate control measure, for among other factors, the temperature of cities with forest canopy is about ten degrees less during hot periods than without trees. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-514-forests-in-cities. After watching or listening, post your thoughts on the comment column.
Brian von Herzen is director of the Climate Foundation, working on developing seaweed permaculture. David Demarey is a farmer and soil chemist. Thomas Vanacore owns a quarry and is an expert on farming with rock dust. They discuss the potential use of rock dust, biochar, and seaweed extract in a mixture to improve the fertility of soil while retaining the nutrients in it and preventing run-off to pollute waterways and oceans. Fortunately, such a mixture can attract and sequester large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere, becoming a major mechanism for climate restoration, while even improving the immune systems of animals and people who consume the food from such soil. For the video, audio podcast, transcripts, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-513-carbon-soil-amendments.
Peter Fiekowsky just visited the Blue Planet plant yesterday and shows photos of its operations to Chris Cheeseman and Michael Cook, British engineers who are working to develop a new component in cement. Blue Planet is producing limestone aggregate for concrete that is so carbon-negative that it offsets the CO2 emissions that inevitably result from the production of Portland Cement. These two innovations might very well combine to increase the negative emission level of concrete enough to capture and sequester 40 or 60 gigatons of carbon from the atmosphere every year -- enough to restore our atmosphere's temperature to a comfortable, sustainable level. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-511-lock-up-carbon-in-concrete.
Paul Rogers, a professor at Bradford University in England, discusses his book Losing Control, which has been rewritten for the new edition. We mainly discuss the conditions leading to the current war in Ukraine and the troubling likelihood that neither side can win and so a negotiated compromise must be the outcome. Because the Russians are probably willing to use nuclear weapons rather than concede defeat, the outcome will have to give them some portion of their demands, however unjust it is or how contrary to international law. Will this reality lead other countries to demand nuclear disarmament and to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons? For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-511-ukraine-dilemmas.
Monia Mazigh is a writer and activist from Tunisia who immigrated to Canada where she had to organize support on behalf of her husband, who had been imprisoned in Syria. Her engagement with this cause brought public attention and she has worked on human rights issues since then, as well as running for political office, teaching at the university, and writing novels. We discuss the political developments in the Middle East and the reasons for the failure of the Arab Spring, including the recent referendum in Tunisia, when the president was able to suppress all political opposition after several years of real democracy. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-510-since-the-arab-spring.
Stephen Salter has been designing a nozzle to spray extremely tiny drops of sea water into the clouds, which they will whiten thereby and increase the amount of sunshine landing on the earth surface below. Peter Wadhams is an expert on Arctic sea ice and he and climatologist Paul Beckwith are enthusiastic about using this way of retaining some ice on Hudson Bay during the summer months. Adele Buckley questions them about this, and all four Arctic experts agree that it is a project worth more extensive exploration and, if Canadian indigenous people like it, the support of the Canadian government as a demonstration project for potentially more extensive application in refreezing the Arctic Ocean. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-509-hudson-bay-ice
David Waltner-Toews is a epidemiologist and veterinarian with an expansive vision: He addresses "zoonoses" -- diseases that are shared by animals and people. This inter-disciplinary project also looks at ecological systems and interactions among the creatures that live together in them. Some organizations practicing “one health" focus as much on the environment as on the health of animals and people. There are grounds for expecting further spread of zoonotic diseases because habitats are being disrupted by development and people can easily travel great distances before they know they are sick. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-508-organizing-health-research.
Leonid Yurganov is a scientist who measures the methane emissions all around the world with spectrometry from satellites. He has twenty years' data on the subject by now. Peter Wadhams specializes in the study of sea ice and the methane being released in the Arctic. Yurganov shows some maps of the north pole area taken from his instruments at different times. Much more methane is being emitted lately than previously, and much more in the winter than the summer. We are worrying a lot now about the potential for bursts of methane from the sea. However, there is more methane being emitted gradually from permafrost on land. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-507-arctic-methane.
Project Save the World hosts a town hall on the last Sunday of every month. Here we talk about beavers, wind, cooperation with Russian scientists, mental illness and suicide among youths, spirituality and consciousness, and the predicament of Russians who oppose the war but may be conscripted. Guests include Bill Liekam, Peter Wadhams, Franklyn Griffiths, Marilyn Krieger. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-506-global-town-hall-sept-2022 .
Prabhat Jha, M.D. is an epidemiology professor at Dalla Lana School of Public Health, U of Toronto. He has been studying the causes of death in India and Africa and notes that the Covid pandemic is far weaker in Africa than the Delta version was in India. WE discuss the changing trends in smoking, breast cancer survival, and suicide. The study in India reveals surprising numbers of death from snakebite, and there are solutions available for that -- maintaining local supplies of antivenin. He finds that lactovegetarians are more susceptible to death from cardiac disease in India. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-505-deaths-around-the-world .
Robert Schaeffer is a sociologist who specializes in macro-level global trends – notably globalization. He sees the period of globalization as ending now, and attributes much of the world-wide swing toward right-wing politics to the popular reaction against its economic effects. (He also attributes some of the effect to the consequences of partitioning states, which typically creates more belligerent societies.) The notion that different ethnic or national communities should each have their own state is a pernicious notion behind the desire for separatism. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments: tosavetheworld.ca/episode-503-the-globalized.
Reiner Braun is Director of the International Peace Bureau, the oldest world-wide umbrella organization of peace groups in the world. We discuss the speech given the night before by Vladimir Putin, who is holding a referendum to incorporate the occupied territories of Ukraine into Russia, and who has warned that attacks on the Russian homeland (which would include those portions of Ukraine) will meet with nuclear weapons. Braun sees negotiations as the only peaceable solution. Both he and Metta agree that there is a need to redesign the institutions of world order, since the current situation shows that the previous liberal order has been broken. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-504-next-phase-of-the-ukraine-war.
Nicole Redvers was invited to discuss her book about indigenous medicine, The Science of the Sacred, which is described by Amazon: “Modern medical science has finally caught up to what traditional healing systems have known for centuries. Many traditional healing techniques and medicines are often assumed to be archaic, outdated, or unscientific compared to modern Western medicine. Nicole Redvers, a naturopathic physician and member of the Deninu K’ue First Nation, analyzes modern Western medical practices using evidence-informed Indigenous healing practices and traditions from around the world–from sweat lodges and fermented foods to Ayurvedic doshas and meditation. Organized around various sciences, such as physics, genetics, and microbiology, the book explains the connection between traditional medicine and current research around epigenetics and quantum physics, for example, and includes over 600 citations. Redvers, who has traveled and worked with Indigenous groups around the world, shares the knowledge and teachings of health and wellness that have been passed down through the generations, tying this knowledge with current scientific advances. Knowing that the science backs up the traditional practice allows us to have earlier and more specific interventions that integrate age-old techniques with the advances in modern medicine and technology.”
Guest:
Nicole Redvers
Rajagopal and his wife, Jill Carr-Harris, are Gandhian leaders of a civil society organization in India, Ekta Parishad. They have several ashrams where they train uneducated youths to take the initiative in their villages to challenge corrupt practices and hold officials accountable for providing services to the poor. They have led a march across india for up to 100,000 poor people, who were going to Delhi, but the government came to meet them and passed legislation allocating land to the poor, though more can be done along those lines, and providing direct payments of cash to poor people. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments, see https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-477-civil-society-in-india .
Stephen Zunes is professor at the University of San Francisco, where he teaches about strategic nonviolent action. He recounts the invasion of Western Sahara by Morocco after the withdrawal of the Spanish colonial government. Morocco has organized the migration of an overwhelming number of Moroccans into the occupied territory, and this has been supported by the U.S, and France, though the World Court and E.U. courts do not validate the Moroccan position. Zunes points out the success of nonviolent resistance depends on the smartness of the strategizing. He is optimistic because there is so much awareness growing about this approach. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-501-western-sahara-and-beyond.
Rebecca Fannin is a business journalist with several financial magazines. She has published several books about the transformation of India and (especially) China into corporate and technological entrepreneurs. One of her early books was Silicon Dragon, about China. Now, because of Covid's travel restrictions, she has confined her reporting trips to the heartland of the US, where she sees real changes in the "rust belt." New companies, such as Intel, are building new plants there to make computer chips and even automotive parts with three-D printing technologies. Is the rural culture there changing as as well? For the video, audio podcast, comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-500-silicon-usa.
Mustafa Bahran teaches physics at Carleton University and was formerly Yemen's minister of energy. He notes that the war has been at least paused for six months. The question is whether the Houthis are just collecting weapons for another round of fighting or whether the extended truces will turn into a ceasefire. He discuss the ideology of the Houthis, who are “Zaini,” a sect of Shiites who believe that some of them, the Hashemites, are descendants of the Prophet Mohammed and entitled to rule. However, most of them (as most of the other religious people in the world) are moderates. Bahran's group of Yemeni academics are planning to create a university which they will teach on Zoom from wherever they are now living. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-499-postwar-yemen.
Ed Broadbent led the NDP for 15 years, then the government-funded institute Rights and Democracy and now the Broadbent Institute, which promotes social democracy.
This is one of our regular town halls. Oded Grajew in Sao Paulo tells us about the upcoming election in Brazil. Lula is the better environmentalist. Erika Simpson, Joni Arends and Robin Lloyd speculate about the dynamics behind the failure of the NPT Review Conference to reach a consensus document; Russia was the reason, but was it about the Zaporhizhzhia power plant? Alexey Prokhorenko says there is concern in Moscow about the possibility that Russians will not be able to travel to Europe. He favors charging a fee, with the money going to aid Ukrainian refugees. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-496-global-town-hall-aug-2022.
Jefferson Tester is a professor of engineering at Cornell University, where he is establishing a district heating system on campus. Last year he showed the general design, but now he has completed digging a hole three miles deep there. The rocks at the bottom have a temperature of 90 degrees, so cold water poured down there can be pumped back up at a temperature that can heat every building on campus. We talk about the expense (high!) and the potential for using this technology across the country. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-498-more-geothermal-energy.
David Demarey is a soil chemist and farmer; Tom Vanacore owns a quarry and makes rock dust; John Sewuster is an expert on seaweed farming; Ted Wysocki is a farmer, and Ryan Brophy is an agronomist. What they have in common is a conviction that mixing rock dust, biochar, and seaweed produces a soil amendment that can not only improve the quality of soil and the food that it produces, but also capture significant amounts of carbon dioxide from the air and sequester it, while reducing the emission of nitrous oxide and other pollutants to the environment. This would save far more money than the cost of switching to this form of agriculture. For the video, audio podcast, and comments column, https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-497-rocks-biochar-seaweed
Bruce Conn is a professor of One Health at Berry College and and invertebrate biologist with special interests in insects and bivalve mollusks, so we talk about various mosquito-borne diseases and the services provided by oysters and clams to clean sea water. Antibiotics have been used to fatten cattle (apparently it takes a lot of energy for an organism to fight off pathogens, and when the antibiotics help out, its saves cattle energy and they put on weight!) the manure has components that probably harm all kinds of bacteria, friendly and not. Bacteria can be friend or foe, and so can earthworms. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and sometimes) comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-495-biological-pests-and-allies.
Brian von Herzen is an expert on seaweed. He is creating platforms in the ocean that are farms for kelp. Wave-powered pumps bring nutrients up from the depths to enable the seaweed to thrive, and around them are vast numbers of fish, that come "for the good stuff" the seaweed provides. About a quarter of the plants fall off and sink to the bottom of the ocean, taking with them carbon from the atmosphere that will be sequestered for hundreds of years. The rest of the seaweed is sold for food, fertlilizer, and other compounds, including a bio-stimulant to be sprayed on crops to make them healthier. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-493-seaweed.
Craig Stephen is a public health professor and One Health expert who began as a veterinarian. Nowadays he teaches by telling stories that show the connections between the narrow medical problem and the environment or social circumstances that are involved. Often, he says, by reducing the risks of the undesirable behavior (eg. drug use), we empower people to see options that are available that allow them to abandon the bad behavior, whereas we would fail completely if we just told addicts at the outset to stop using drugs. We discuss whether it is better to approach problems locally or globally. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-494-empowering-wellness.
David Matas is a Canadian international lawyer who published an article in the Globe and Mail suggesting a mechanism by which Canada could charge Putin with the crime of aggression and make it dangerous for him to leave Russia for he might be arrested in other countries. First Canada would have to sign the treaty making war aggression an international crime. David Harries tends to agree with Matas that the progress should be incremental toward getting international agreement enabling the enforcement of international law. Metta likes Matas's proposal but wants stronger measures soon thereafter. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-492-prosecuting-putin.
John Liu was a television producer and cameraman in China when he was asked to make a documentary film about the Chinese government's project to revive the degraded loess plateau – a region that had been the center of a cradle of civilization. A thousand years ago it had become a desert because of the poor animal husbandry, the cutting of the forests, and the practice of farming on slopes without terraces. But in the new China, the local people were paid to hold off their harmful practices and paid to revive the land. Liu's beautiful film won many awards and fascinated him with learning more about ecology, so he has made that work his second career and deepest passion. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comment column; https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-491-ecology-and-chinas-loess-plateau.
Kehkashan Basu recently attended the Non-Proliferation Conference. James Simeon discussed the new effort to merge a "nexus" of three issues: humanitarianism aid, development, and peace. Unfortunately there can be contradictions in the approaches. Peace issues are about political conflict, and conflicting political or military enemies do not like for organizations to provide humanitarian aid to their enemies. Do some peace activists want peace so much that they minimize the seriousness of the particular issue in dispute? Joan Kerr and Richard Denton discuss this. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-490-humane-vs-political .
John Moore was responsible for China's geoengineeing work at a Beijing University. He explains to climatologists Peter Wadhams and Paul Beckwith his proposal to set up underwater panels of unwoven fabric in channels around Antarctica where warm water is flowing under the Thwaite Ice sheet. As a result, the glacier will melt and calve off as iceberg into the ocean. Placed properly in the channel, such panels can keep the warmer water out and hold the glacier in place. This technological project would take about thirty years to build. Moore would like the 29 nations that have pledged to protect Antarctica to contribute funds to create such an arrangement to prevent global sea rise. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-489-saving-antarcticas-ice.
Amy LeBoeuf's young son contracted Bartellosis from a cat scratch, and her search for medical care led her to found an NGO in Louisiana that educates people about zoonoses – diseases that are transmitted between animals and people. Her search created a friendship with Amanda Elam, the founder and CEO of Galaxy Diagnostics, a company that specializes in diagnosing zoonoses. This is the main topic covered by One Health, the new medical/veterinary/environmental discipline that studies the interaction among these sources of disease. For the video, audio podcast, or transcript: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-488-sharing-zoonoses.
Marilou McPhedran is a Canadian senator who recently attended the first meeting of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. We discuss the 77th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Dina Zisserman Brodsky is a Russian Israeli professor who recounts the opinions of Russians toward that atomic bomb. Sam Lanfranco is working on managing the integrity of the Internet. We discuss the declining awareness of civics on the part of young people and the culture that celebrates violence as a way to resolve problems. For the video, audio podcast, transcripts and comments, https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-487-uninformed-politics.
Michael McFaul, the US Ambassador to Russia during the Obama administration, is now a professor at Stanford who heads an institute that supports democracy movements around the world. They bring activists for training programs where the trainees offer useful advice to the US about the great problems now facing democracy. He doubts that there is any group within Putin's entourage who are likely to try to stop him if he does even worse things than at present -- such as using nuclear weapons or allowing the Zaporizhia nuclear plant to melt down. Great changes have to be made after this war to bring a rule of law closer to reality. For the video, audio podcast, transcript or comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-486-a-diplomat-for-dissidents.
Peter Wadhams specializes in ice and glaciers. We discuss ways of stopping the runoff of water from Greenland and Antarctica, and of insulating icebergs while towing them to places that need freshwater. We worry about whether Russia will continue to prevent the export of grain from Ukraine, despite having agreed to allow it. Alexey Prokhorenko answers questions about the effect of sanctions in Russia, where he lives. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-484-global-town-hall-july-2022. Then you're invited to post comments on the website.
Maria Puerta Riera is a Venezuelan political scientist living in Florida. Lester Kurtz is a sociologist at George Mason University who has taught several years in Korea. William Geimer is a retired law professor who left the US for Canada because of his disapproval of US wars. They discuss the current dynamics in Asia and the expansion of China into Africa and, to a lesser extent, Latin America, fllling the gap left by other global powers.There's also talk about whether museums about a particular war should focus on opposing war in general or holding the perpetrators accountable for their atrocities. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments; https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-485-todays-global-hot-spots.
Dmitri Makarov is the youngest member of the Moscow Helsinki Group's three-person chairmanship, replacing an extraordinary woman, the late Lyudmilla Alexeeva. That group was founded in 1976 by Yuri Orlov and other Russian dissidents, pretending to offer "assistance" to the Soviet government in fulfilling the commitments it had made in the Helsinki Final Act to protect the human rights of all citizens. Of course, the regime cracked down, punished them, and broke up all Helsinki Groups in Russia, though others sprang up in other countries. When Glasnost began, it and other human rights groups came back to life and the Moscow Helsinki Group is still functioning, despite its opposition to the "special military operation" against Ukraine. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-482-moscow-helsinki-group.
Peter Phillips studies the handful of people who control the global investment money. Harry Glasbeek, a retired law professor, also worries about the control that the corporations have over national governments. James Simeon is focusing primarily on the tragic displacement of people by war, and the use of forced migration as a weapon of war. Simeon is more optimistic than Phillips and Glasbeek that incremental solutions are possible and even occurring now. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-483-corporate-power-whats-next .
Drs. David Heymann and Ronald St. John are epidemiologists who have worked on various forms of the SARS virus, including Covid 19. Here we discuss GPHIN, the system Dr. St. John developed for monitoring the outbreaks of diseases around the world faster than the WHO could do at the time. Similar techniques are being used now in Sitata, the company that he heads today. Dr. Heymann says that Covid 19 is the fifth in a series of similar diseases that have emerged since the "Russian Flu" killed a million people in the late 19th century. The world does not pay equal attention to all new diseases, but tends to invest most in solving the ones that affect rich countries. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: Https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-481-stopping-pandemics.
Whitney Lackenbauer is a professor at Trent University who studies the Canadian North. He is especially enthusiastic about the Rangers who work in their home regions of Canada's Arctic, mainly to provide human security for their local neighbors, but they also support the maintenance of cultural practices, such as the ability to build snow houses: "igloos". Regrettably, Russia's invasion of Ukraine has brought a pause to some of the research work being done by all the countries of the region. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-480-arctic-resilience.
Both Both Bruce Flattery and Arthur Edelstein are interested in nonviolence, including especially Gandhi's and Gene Sharp's thinking. Is there any way of applying nonviolence to stop the war in Ukraine? We consider the possibility of Ukrainians' using civilian based defence against an invasion by Russia, along the lines of the resistance by Danes against Nazis in World War II. Such a plan would require advance planning, and it is probably too late for that now. It is more likely (though still very unlikely) that Russians would bring down their own leadership. for the video, audio podcast, transcript and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-479-nonviolence-against-war.
Alex Neve was Secretary General of Amnesty International of Canada until a couple of years ago. We discuss the effectiveness of letter-writing campaigns; the question of cultural relativism as a way of evading the duty to defend human rights; and the "enforcement gap" -- the lack of mechanisms for enforcing international laws in general and human rights laws in particular. Do we need a United Nations police force to apprehend war criminals when they are they are doing the atrocities instead of waiting to put them on trial afterward? For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments, https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-478-amnesty-international. Then add your comments.
Mary Olson has been analyzing data from the Hiroshima bombing on the health effects (especially cancer) on survivors who were exposed to ionizing radiation. She has found that for every exposed male who contracts cancer, two exposed woman did so. There are also far greater impacts on infants and small children than on grown-ups. She and physician Dale Dewar believe that this information has been deliberately suppressed. Angela Bischoff, Director of Ontario Clean Air Alliance, points out the the PIckering power plant, as a Candu reactor, emits vast amounts of tritium in water vapor to the atmosphere near Toronto, and Tritium is a carcinogen. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-476-women-and-radiation.
Zviad Adzinbaia is a displaced person from Abkhazia, a region that was part of Georgia until the Russians attacked in two different incidents several years ago. He has studied political science at Tufts University, where he develped a program to monitor and take action against the disinformation campaigns run by Russia. His t-short reads "#suspendKremlin" because his group was social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to removed all accounts that are controlled by the Kremlin, in view of their history in disseminating lies. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-475-disinformation . Then she your thoughts or other information our website page.
Sam Lanfranco is an economist now serving on the governance board of the Internet. Reiner Braun is the Secretary General of the International Peace Bureau. We talk about the vulnerabilities in using and becoming dependent on the Internet, but also on the opportunities still available to us too use it for staying in touch with Russians and carrying on citizen diplomacy. We agree that it may be desirable to make the Internet into a utility controlled by the public. We also agree to try to set up conversations with Russians using Zoom. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-474-lets-talk-to-russians .
Evelin Lindner and Linda Hartling both wrote Ph.D.. dissertations on the subject of humiliation. They see it as a form of domination that, like shame, deeply wounds a person and may be the motivation for a war. Yet shame itself can contribute usefully to society, and it must be invoked as a way of inducing people to behave well. In this conversation, we consider the difficulty of holding people accountable for their actions while preserving the dignity of the human person. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-473-humiliation.
Stellan Vinthagen is a sociology professor at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, specializing in nonviolent direct action for social change. He notes that civil resistance has not less successful for the past 15 years or so in ousting dictators. This is because organizers of movements have not devoted enough attention to political preparation before calling people to public demonstrations. Also, dictators have learned some new ways of controlling protesters. The use of social media platforms has actually been used against the protesters because they can be traced by their phones. We also discuss the challenge of assisting dissidents in other countries, and of authorizing the removal of rulers who violate grave international laws. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-472-direct-action-for-humanity .
Jonathan Granoff and Ward Wilson are experts on nuclear weapons; Joan Kerr specializes in community gardening and IEEE, but they all discuss nukes during this schmooze session. Jonathan and Ward assert that they are the realists, whereas the hard-nosed nuclear weapons strategists are living according to several myths that are manifestly untrue. Ward shows that the Japanese did not surrender because of the bombing of Hiroshima but because the Japanese entered the war and were advancing rapidly at the same time as the atomic bombings began. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/epiaode-471-myths-and-warfare .
Lori Stahlbrand is a professor at George Brown College. Debbie Field is coordinator for the Coalition for Healthy School Food. Both are deeply concerned about the sustainability of food security. They believe that food should mostly be produced locally, and with reference to the indigenous knowledge of people who have lived in the region for centuries and know the conditions of the soil and ecosystem. But the solution to sustainable food involves many different levels of action, from the personal and individual to the geopolitical. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-470-food. Then share you own thoughts on the comment colujmn.
John Manza was Assistant Secretary General for Operations in NATO; Frederic Pearson and Alvina Pearson are retired professors at Wayne State University, and Erika Simpson is a political science professor at Western University. All are knowledgeable about NATO's nuclear strategy. They discuss the new plans arising from this week's NATO summit and how likely Putin is to use a tactical nuke in the Ukraine war. This is unlikely unless Russia is losing. But this winter, the gas shortage in Europe is likely to weaken the European commitment to sanctions. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comment column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-469-tactical-nukes-in-ukraine. Then share your own ideas on the comment column.
Alyn Ware, a Right Livelihood laureate, reports that the laureates as a whole are taking climate change and nuclear weapons to the International Court of Justice and the Human Rights Council. Paul Werbos is troubled by the difficulty of getting advanced technical information about energy production to the people who actually can introduce the real changes. Alyn suggests that he send the information to the International Renewable Energy Agency. Charles Tauber reports on his free training online of lay people in Nepal, Sudan, Ukraine, Turkey, and elsewhere as ‘barefoot psychotherapists” for people suffering from the trauma of war and migration. Sandy Greer reports on her campaign against the burying of nuclear wastes in Ontario. Glen Anderson describes similar problems near Hanford, Washington. Rose Dyson reports that the Trans-Mountain Pipeline has been declared economically unfeasible. Alexey Prokhorenko in Moscow worries that there may be a ceasefire that will only freeze the conflict, so that it begins again within a couple of years. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-468-global-town-hall-june-2022. Then share your views.
Nancy Ruth and Lois Wilson have both retired after serving in Canada's senate. Marilou McPhedran is currently serving there. Nancy worked largely on gender-based issues while Lois focused on human rights and now, in retirement, on a United Church network to promote a guaranteed basic income. Marilou had been an educator about human rights issues and joined us from Vienna where she was attending the first meeting of states parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comment column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-467-women-senators. After watching, share your thoughts on the comments column.
David Harries was educated and worked as a nuclear engineer. Leon Kosals is a sociologist professing criminology at University of Toronto, and James Simeon is head of McLaughlin College, York University. David answers Leon's question about whether nuclear winter is a real possibility (yes, but mainly if there is escalation). They both agree with James that war is an existential threat now and must be controlled, which wil involve significant changes in the UN. Though the SDGs are essential, top priority may best be assigned to potential existential threats, which now means that we need means of enforcing international law, especially against leaders who perpetrate aggression against other states. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-466-nuclear-winter-and-war-criminals. Then share your thoughts in the comment column.
Konstanty Gebert is a Polish journalist with a special interest in covering genocide. We discuss the Rwandan and Nazi genocides - the precursors and the circumstances that enabled especially the Germans to become repentant and therefore a moral leader in Europe by accepting over a million refugees. Now Poland is welcoming huge numbers of refugees from Ukraine, and the psychological dissonance is difficult because the EU was punishing Poland for the undemocratic status of its democracy. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-465-pre-and-post-genocide. Then share your thoughts on the comments column.
Bruce Kidd was an Olympic athlete who became an academic scholar specializing in kinesiology and sport. He has been president of Scarborough College at the University of Toronto and advises government and sports associations. We talk about the connection between political and sports rivalries and the ethical standards to maintain when disciplining countries and athletes for cheating. Should countries that have launched aggressive wars be allowed to participate in world sporting events? Should certain sports be banned for being too dangerous to the players? If so, which sports? And what criteria should be relevant in making such a decision? For the video, audio podcast, transcript and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-463-sports-and-geopolitics. Then scroll down and share your thoughts.
Dale Dewar and Georgina Bartos discuss Canada' plans to store radioactive wastes near the Ottawa River. Alexey Prokhorenko reports on the state of mind prevailing in Moscow, and Charles Tauber offers to help Russians who need counselling about the war. Leda Raptis tells us about her cancer research and the plight of black male scientists in Canada. Bill Leikam is burning off some karma by looking after grey foxes and George Wilobo is planning a peace conference in Uganda. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-457-global-town-hall-may-2022. Then share your thoughts on the comment column.
Richard Denton, Barbara Birkett, and Neil Arya are all Canadian physicians who are deeply engaged in International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War Canada and concerned to end the war in Ukraine. The people they know are overwhelmingly in favor of Ukraine, but now worrying that Russia is likely to win the war and keep Ukrainian territory. We discuss ways of overcoming the Security Council veto so as to impose a globally-satisfactory solution. What would happen if the Security Council did pass a motion requiring Russia to withdraw? Would Putin comply? When then? For the video, audio podcast, transcript and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-464-health-and-war-in-ukraine. Then share your thoughts in the comment column.
Before Landon Pearson became a Canadian senator, she had raised five children and lived with her husband Geoffrey Pearson in several countries where he worked in embassies. In Moscow he was Canada's ambassador and, since her children were grown by then, Landon visited schools playgrounds, observing the childrearing practices, then wrote a book, Children of Glasnost: Growing up Soviet. What are the effects of this collectivity-oriented system on the political values of today's Russian adults? She now directs an institute at Carleton University on the Rights of the Child. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-458-political-socialization. Then share your own thoughts about this issue on the comment column.
Guest: Landon Pearson
Liz Carmichael is an Oxford professor who spent the last four days in ceremonies observing Elizabeth's 70 years on the throne. She was moved by it and shared her feelings – though Rachel Small did not see the monarchy the same way, but described them as exploitive of indigenous people, among other bad traits. We talk about the meaning of monarchs as standing outside of politics. Matt Legge thinks the attitudinal gap is generational, for he has no particular feeling for royalty, though his parents do. He holds conflict resolution workshops. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-462-royalty-assimilation-like-button. Then scroll down and share your thoughts.
Budd Hall is a professor of adult education in Victoria BC and co-chair of a UNESCO project on community-based research. Beginning in Tanzania in the 1970s, he helps local citizens discover questions to which they need answers and which are "researchable." Often people in the community collaborate with academic scholars to produce reports that are useful to the public. This trend has implications for making universities more relevant to their communities. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and public comment column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-461-community-based-research. Then share your own thoughts on the comment column.
Stephen Devereux studies famine. He has developed a scale for assessing the severity of food insecurity and has compared 70 recent historical cases of famine. Many of them are complex situations involving conflict, some actually caused by the political actions of states' policies, as in Afghanistan now sanctions are maintained against the Taliban to pressure them to protect the rights of girls to education, though the effect is to violate another human right-- the right to food. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comment column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-460-famine-why-and-when. After watching, post your own thoughts.
Guest: Stephen Devereux
Olivia Ward is a journalist who covered numerous wars, including the Soviet war against Chechnya. Michael Beer works with Nonviolence International, which has developed a list of potentially helpful suggestions for speeding up the end of the war in Ukraine. Much depends upon the communication among Russians and their knowledge of the situation, as well as of ways to organize opposition campaigns with a minimum of personal risk in a country that has become nearly totalitarian. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and public comments column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/tosavetheworld.ca. Then share your thoughts on the comments column under the video screen.
Martin Palous was spokesman for the Charter 77 movement in Czechoslovakia, which succeeded in ousting the Communist regime. Active in Civic Forum, he became the Czech Ambassador to the United States and then the Permanent Representative to the United Nations. We talk about what might have been if the Soviet Union had not collapsed and, possibly, if the security of Europe had been turned over to the OSCE instead of NATO. We disagree a bit but agree on the importance of promoting human rights as the best way forward now. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-456-human-rights-and-politics . Then share your thoughts on the comments column below the video. Guest: Martin Palous.
Mubarak Awad was the leader of the first intifada in Palestine, which was entirely nonviolent and highly effective. Ivan Marovic was one of the leaders of Otpor, the nonviolent movement that ousted Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia. We talk about the relevance of their strategies to the situation of the Ukrainians who are under bombardment. Marovic point out that some Ukrainians have adopted nonviolent methods, not because the think they should do so but because they lack other options. For Mubarak, however, the point is that all human beings are equally children of God and one must not kill them. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-455-nonviolent-palestine-serbia-ukraine. After watching, share your ideas on the comments column. Guests: Mubarak Awad, Ivan Marovic.
Alan Haber, Ellen Thomas, and Odile Hugonot Haber are all American peace activists working with World Beyond War and Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. Alan was a founder of Students for a Democratic Society in the 1960s. Judy Rebick is a Toronto-based activist and professor at Toronto Metropolitan University and was founder of Rabble. All of us are discouraged about the lack of progress in abolishing nuclear weapons or even stopping the war in Ukraine. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-454-frustrated-organizers. Then. share your thoughts in the comments column below the video.
Brad Bass, a status professor of environment at the University of Toronto, has two projects. He studies the impact of fertilizer run-off to Lake Erie and other freshwater lakes. This problems creates toxins that may enter our drinking water. Fortunately, Brad can remove phosphorus from water, mainly with plants. Planting more trees in cities will reduce or eliminate floods. Brad is also interested in designing “vertical wetlands,” that clean the air and water by combining particular species of plants and animals or fish. He is mentoring high school and university students who like to do environmental research. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-453-the-great-lakes-and-algae. Then share you thoughts on the comment column.
Gisela Ruckert is active in Fair Vote Canada and an advocate of citizens assemblies as a deliberative process in democracies. Three other participants in this discussion, Joyce McMillan, Bernard Dreano, and the host Metta Spencer all had participated in the Helsinki Citizens Assembly during and immediately after the Cold War. The HCA was a self-selected group, unlike those of currently popular citizens assemblies, which as recruited through sortition, as are juries. HCA brought together Western peace activisits and pro-democracy dissidents in the Eastern bloc. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-452-citizens-assemblies. After watching please post your thoughts on the public comments column.
Brydon Gombay lived in Uganda for several years until the rise of Idi Amin made it necessary to leave. Martin Klein is a retired professor of African History, University of Toronto. Much of his research as a political scientist was in Senegal. We discuss the languages, music, philosophy, religion, and political dynamics of Africa, and the impact some of the leading cultural figures are having elsewhere in the world. For the video, audio podcast,, transcript and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-451-african-culture-in-the-world. Then share your own thoughts about this issue.
James Turk is director of the Centre for Free Expression at the Toronto Metropolitan University. He discusses the difficulty of finding consistent criteria for evaluating the content of social media and regulating its decency and fairness. Indeed, freedom of speech is not absolute, but censorship is generally the worst way to manage it. Instead, it is more promising to look at such services as Twitter and Facebook as businesses and to develop business models that do not encourage the worst excesses. One way would be to encourage competition by allowing a person's material from one platform to be transferred to another. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-450-freedom-of-expression. After watching, share your thoughts on the public comments column below the video.
Ralph Lysyshyn has served as Canada's ambassador to NATO, Poland, Belarus, Russia, Uzbekistan, and Armenia (some of those concurrently). He was warned by a previous ambassador to Russia that some people in the military and security services will never accept Ukraine's independence and would try to overcome it someday. Now they have. We talk about Russia's nationalism, especially that of Putin, who is less under the influence of oligarchs now and closer to those nationalists. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-449-memories-of-a-diplomat. Then share your ideas on the public comments column under the video.
Hugo Benedetti is an economist and expert on blockchain currencies; Paul Werbos is an expert on all matter cyber, especially Artificial Intelligence; Maria Puerta Riera is a political scientist from Venezuela; Peter Venton is an economist. They are all concerned about the potential of crypto-currencies to destabilize the world's economic system, for blockchain technologies can enable levels of anonymity that preclude regulation and monetary adjustments to manage such factors as inflation. Blockchain also wastes huge amounts of energy and is harmful to climate. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-488-blockchain-and-the-economy. After watching, share your thoughts on the public comment column.
Betty Reardon is a professor emeritus of peace education at the Teachers College, Columbia University. Hers was a graduate program, unlike the peace studies undergraduate program that Metta taught at U of Toronto. She notes gladly that the legitimacy of peace as a discipline has been achieved now, and that her graduates have gone on to do professional work in government, civil society organizations, and businesses. Nowadays she is working to help bring educated, professional Afghan women to the US and other countries. Evidently the younger Taliban want to educate girls, but the government is now run by old men who are blocking that change. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and public comments see https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-447-teaching-peace. Then share your own thoughts about this in the comment column.
Angella MacEwen, John Foster, and Francisco Wulff are all economists; Alex Belyakov is a Ukrainian journalist who covered the Chernobyl disaster. There was a debate about whether Canada's fossil fuels may help Europe transition away from Russian sources or whether nuclear power is a better solution. There was another debate about whether the democratic states should continue trading with regimes that do not try to protect human rights and democracy, or whether "we are all sinners," and therefore should not discriminate against countries that behave atrociously. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-446-energy-governance-and-war. After watching, share your ideas on the comments column under the video.
Malcolm Potts is a professor emeritus of public health who, as an obstetrician, was sent to Bangladesh in the 1960s to help thousands of women who had been raped and impregnated by soldiers during the recent war. Males (including male chimpanzees) are aggressive because testosterone increases violence and risky behavior. To create peace, he would like more women to be legislators. He says that when abortion is outlawed there is no change whatever in the numbers of abortions but an increase in the number of deaths from unsafe abortions. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-444-sex-war-and-abortion/. Please share your thoughts on the public comments column there.
Anda Serban is a community organizer and peace activist in Costanza, Romania -- near the border of Ukraine. She describes the living conditions and uncertain plans of the refugees fleeing into her country, and the prospect that Putin's apparently successful use of nuclear weapons as a deterrent will increase the appetite of other countries for such arsenals of their own. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-443-on-romanias-border/. Then you are welcome to post to our public comments column.
Alastair Edgar and Erika Simpsons are Canadian professors of international relations. Borys Wrzesnewskyj has served four terms as a member of Canada's parliament. They discuss the origins of the current war in Ukraine, including the eastward expansion of NATO and the lack of assertive intervention by the UN Secretary General, for which he is now compensating. Can Xi and Modi influence Putin to refrain from using tactical nuclear weapons? Borys holds that Ukraine's wheat production and export through Odessa to some of the most vulnerable countries shows that the UN must point out how the whole world will be harmed if Putin's war succeeds. For the video, audio podcast and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-441-who-can-influence-putin/. After watching, share your thoughts on the comments column.
Andre Kamenshikov was awakened by a bomb falling; that told him that the war was starting in Ukraine. He and Alexey Prokhorenko in Moscow agree that the greatest danger may come when Ukraine is winning so decisively that Putin feels desperate and may use a tactical nuclear weapon. The discussion turned mostly on how to influence Putin to accept defeat; both hope we can prevail on Xi or Modi to use their influence. But Putin's family might have influence, if we could persuade them – perhaps his daughters – to use it. What could the West trade to Xi: agreement on his suggestions for Internet regulation? For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-442-global-town-hall-april-2022. Then scroll down and share your own thoughts on the public comments column.
Katey Walter Anthony is a professor who studies permafrost and methane at the University of Alaska. She scouts the countryside looking for the thousands of new lakes that are forming as the permafrost melts. From some of them, methane bubbles are entering the atmosphere, and she can set fire to them to make sure they are really methane. No one can be sure whether these portend grave risks to our own survival but it is clear that they have serious implications for global warming, though perhaps less than the possible disasters from fossil fuels. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-440-methane-and-permafrost/. After watching or listening, post your own information about this issue on the public comments column.
Hilal Elver is a law professor who has served as the U. N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. She points out that Madagascar is the first country to have experienced famine caused entirely by climate change, but now COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine are also causing food insecurity. Many different aspects of hunger (e.g. economic, human rights, agricultural innovation, nutritional, governmental regulation, equal access to markets) should be considered in a unified way if famine is to be prevented. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-438-the-right-to-food/. Then scroll down and post your thoughts on the public comments column.
Tamara Lorincz is studying the military impact on global warming. Paul Maillet is a retired Canadian colonel who works full time now in peace services. Tamara's analysis of the Ukraine war places most of the blame on NATO – especially the US. Maillet is most concerned with finding ways to protect people now and stop the war. Both agree that the OSCE is a better organization to manage the security needs of Ukrainians, Russians, and other Europeans than NATO. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and public comment column: https://tosvetheworld.ca/episode-439-off-ramps-in-ukraine/.
Justina Ray is a scientist who is trying to save all kinds of wildlife. Her specialty is with carnivores, so she has spent time tracking rare wolverines in the Canadian Arctic. There she also was able to see herds of caribou in all directions, as far as the eye can see. Those herds are diminishing now, partly because of climate but also because of development in the region -- oil and gas, mostly -- so she must regularly inform government decision-makers about the risks. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-437-saving-caribou-and-wolverines/
Hugo Benedetti is a professor in Chile who teaches courses about Blockchain and other crypto-currencies. Here he explains how the system works, and answers Metta's questions about how it can be used to help dissident Russians whose funds are blocked by the sanctions. Evidently this not going to be of much value to oligarchs, for it is easy to trace large amounts of money. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-436-crypto-currencies/ . Then scroll down and post your own thoughts.
Real Lavergne has been head of Fair Vote Canada and Alexandre MacIsaac worked on elections for the government before becoming CEO of the World Federalist Movement of Canada. We discuss whether voters are astute enough to make good judgments -- and if at all, under what circumstances. Clearly, deliberation is a big part of effectiveness, and Real favors the use of many such groups, chosen by lottery to be representative of the general voting population. Such groups can generally reach better decisions than experts and politicians -- a fact that is called "the wisdom of the crowds." For the video, audio podcast, transcript, or public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-435-elections-and-citizens-assemblies/. The please add your own thoughts to the public comments column.
Peter Wadhams and Paul Beckwith, both climatologists, note that the IPCC has changed its attitude about the urgency of handling global warming, partly because the astonishingly rapid melting of ice in the Arctic and Antarctic. Some experts say they never expected to see warming in their lifetime like we've seen in the past week. Paul tells us about the stupendous amount of water in atmospheric rivers, which may turn north and melt the ice, revealing lower levels of volcanic debris from generations past. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-434-help-the-ice-is-melting/ .
Richard Denton, a leader in the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, had introduced me to a California lady who had led over 100 tours of Russia to teach Americans that "Russians are not enemies." We invited Richard to join us in the chat with her and, when she did not turn up, he and Metta chatted as old friends in the Canadian peace movement. Although they did not disagree, Richard expressed the more optimistic views, for example, about the power of cross-border friendships as a means of preventing war. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-433-two-canadian-peace-workers/.
Adele Buckley is a retired physicist and Pugwash activist who manages a listserv of articles on Arctic security issues. David Harries has served as a military officer in the Canadian Arctic. Adam Wynne is Metta Spencer's assistant. we discuss the vulnerability of the undersea cables and the weakness of Canada's presence with equipment in the Arctic, though Russia is expanding there and other countries see their own interests there. UK is holding naval exercises now in the Barent Sea, with some 35,000 participants from many different countries. Although the "World Order" that is familiar will probably be replaced, it is unclear what we should expect the "new normal" to be. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and public comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-432-the-new-normal/.
John Kirton is a political scientist a U of Toronto who studies the G7 and G20. For many years he has headed a project to monitor the effectiveness of these two organizations. At their meetings, the member states each make over 500 commitments, many of which are quite specific, with real numbers promised. His research group checks to see how well they have each kept their promises, and apparently people in Ottawa and the other countries take their "ratings" seriously. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-431-the-g7-and-the-g20/. After watching, scroll down and share your own thoughts and information about the issue in the comment column.
Andre Kamenshikov is a Russian-American living in Kiev. Alexey Prokhorenko lives in Moscow. The Russian attack on Ukraine began over a month ago, and both report on military situation. So far, the bombings in Kiev have spared the southern suburb where Andre lives. Alexey recognizes that his hardships are minor compare to those of people in Ukraine, but he says there are shortages as people stock up on buckwheat and other staples. The most important stresses are the broken friendships, though one never knows whether one will be the one in 10,000 who gets arrested and jailed for 15 years, e.g. for holding up a sign saying "Two Words." Saying "No War" is forbidden, but even "two words." We give him our warm wishes and expect to stay in touch. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comment column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-420-global-town-hall-mar-2022. Then please share your own thoughts on the comment column.
Mary Ellen Francoeur is a Sister of Service who works against war. Neil Arya is a physician who has chaired the peace organization International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War Canada. He also maintains a clinic for refugees in Canada. They are both appalled at the war in Ukraine - not least at the fact that it is drawing our own resources and attention away from equally urgent issues. But the conversation reveals another disappointing truth: that during a war, peace activists find their usual long-term recommendations ineffective in stopping the bloodshed and protecting the victims. The desire of the Ukrainians for weapons is understandable, yet tragic, for in the long run, militarism does not create peace. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments, https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-429-peacemakers-during-a-war/
Paul Werbos is a "founding father" of artificial intelligence. His friend Jerome Glenn is head of the Millennium Project, an organization devoted to studying future global crises. Glenn describes the plans of UN Secretary General Guterres to revise the UN and make it oriented toward futurology. Guterres would like to transform the Trusteeship Council into a body representing multilateral stakeholders, which might include nations, business corporations, and unions, among other global entities. Werbos is more concerned about the possibility of a collapsed internet, for crucial information is not getting to the decision-makers who need it. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-428-our-future/. After watching, scroll down and share your own thoughts about these issues.
Paul Dorfman has worked for UK, Ireland, and France as a regulator of nuclear energy, and he assures us that it is no solution to our climate change problems. It is too expensive, too slow to build, and too dangerous for too long a time. It will be vastly quicker and cheaper to develop wind and solar. Yes, the intermittency is a problem and we may have to adjust our behavior to live within its constraints for a time, but there is no real alternative. And that transition is occurring, and quicker than most people realize. By 2025 the world will have built enough wind and solar power to almost equal the amount now being produced by fossil fuels and nuclear combined. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-427-no-future-for-nuclear. After watching, scroll down and add your thoughts to the comments column.
Paul Maillet is a retired colonel from the Canadian military and a full-time peace activist. Sam Lanfranco is a retired professor of economics and a member of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). We discuss the lessons and dilemmas for policymakers from the unexpected invasion of Ukraine. He fully expects the Ukrainians to prevail eventually because it would take a million soldiers to occupy a country of 44 million if they fail to cooperate. But in the meantime the destruction may be ghastly. We discuss nonviolent resistance strategies and the new way of fighting with economic measures. Sam Lanfranco joins us late but can report on discussions within the Internet governing bodies as to how. best to use the Internet during and after this conflict. For the video, audio podcast, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-426-postwar-ukraine/. For the video, audio podcast. transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-426-postwar-ukraine/.
Ted Kesik is an engineer who teaches in the architecture faculty at U of Toronto, where he specializes in building materials and constructions that contribute to social resilience. With 300,000 immigrants coming to Canada each year, new dwellings must be built and the deteriorating infrastructure repaired and expanded. Urban drainage systems are inadequate, so we must either rebuild or use less water per person. As high-rise condos age, there will be more incentive to clad them with insulation and replace windows. Concrete and steel are going to be produced with zero net emissions, partly because of the competition with mass timber construction. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments; https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-425-building-sustainably/ .
Ernest Thiessen's Ph.D. thesis was a search for an algorithm with which to solve conflicts by seeking to maximize the preferences of all parties to the dispute. He found one independently, not knowing that John Nash had already solved the problem (and Nash won a Nobel prize for it). Now he has a company that provides a software that can be used to find the optimum solution to a dispute that is locked in a stalemate. He can always improve on the status quo, though in real life hardly ever achieve 100 percent satisfaction. For the video, audio podcast, transcripts and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-424-rational-dispute-settlement . After watching and seeing some of his other videos, you may want to post to the comment column just below the video on our website.
Ellen Thomas held a vigil outside the White House for many years. She favors a bill that is brought to Congress every year but never voted on: to shift money from nuclear weapons to a useful economy. Canadian activists Robin Collins and Earl Turcotte disagree about the best policy for Ukraine. Turcotte thinks it is realistic for Ukraine's allies to defend it militarily, while Collins considers Biden right in holding back, since Putin might respond with nuclear weapons. Both agree that there is a confluence of two contradictory impulses because of Putin's threat: a desire to abolish nuclear weapons because their risks are made so apparent, but also a demonstration that they can be valuable deterrents. NATO will not go to war against Russia because he has nukes, and if Ukraine had kept theirs, he would not have attacked them. This is a terrible message but convincing. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-423-ukraine-and-nuclear-weapons.
Ben Rawlence is a British writer whose recent book, The Treeline, recounts his tour of the world around the Arctic circle, as he visited indigenous people living in all the northernmost countries. Their lives are being affected adversely by global warming, which is allowing trees to grow farther in the north than before. Different countries are forested with different predominant species, but the effects are generally negative, for the trees exacerbate the warming. Even caribou cannot survive in some of their former habitat. Rawlence has created a college in England that offers programs on topics relating to the environment and climate. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comment column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-422-arctic-trees. Then share your own thoughts about this topic on the comment column below the video.
Harriet Friedmann is a sociologist, expert on the world food system. She worries that there are economic factors limiting the opportunity for farmers to adopt the newest and best methods of farming. Tom Newmark, who lives on his regenerative farm in Costa Rica, was formerly the head of a multinational food corporation, and he believes that all the major corporations are fully aware that the standard current agricultural methods are failing and must be replaced. He believes that these companies are taking the lead in promoting the changes that are inevitable because essential; there is no alternative. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comment column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-421-regenerative-farming-and-money.
Erin Hunt explains why the meeting is unable to proceed for the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons: the Russians cannot arrive because the airspace is closed to Russian planes. Talk shifts to the causes of the Ukraine War and how to end it. David Burman sees it as caused largely by Western obliviousness to Russia's security concerns. This view is generally qualified by the notion that Putin would have attacked anyhow, and just uses NATO as an excuse. The talk gets more animated when there is a discussion about having Ukraine surrender but continue the conflict with nonviolent Civilian Based Defence. For the video, audio podcast, comments and transcript: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-420-whay-does-stop-the-war-mean/
Ole Hendrickson is a retired ecologist who also spends a lot of his attention on the risks of radioactivity. Here we talk about the renewed danger of Chernobyl and other Ukrainian reactors, which have been taken over by the Russian invaders. Then there is a conversation about Canada's forests -- especially the wonderful potential for urban forests and urban national parks. Hendrickson also explains the controversy over reprocessing waste fissile material. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episodes-418-biodiversity-plus-radiation/.
Olivia Ward has been the Toronto Star's reporter from previous Russian wars - especially Chechnya. Erika Simpson is a political science professor specializing in NATO. Alex MacIsaac is the new director of world federalism in Canada. Real Lavergne was the head of Fair Vote Canada and Martin Klein is a professor emeritus of history, U of Toronto. We discuss the four-day-old war in Ukraine and its causes, including early enticement of Ukraine to believe they might be admitted to NATO, and even whether Putin is mentally unhinged. We consider various possibilities for a solution, including the Minsk Agreements, and the possibility of becoming a neutral state. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-417-end-this-war/.
The February Town Hall found activists dispirited over Russia's attack on Ukraine, with only Abraham Weizfeld offering justifications for it. Some were concerned about the risk of radiation from Chernobyl and Ukraine's other nuclear power plants, which Russians now control, but possibly not properly. Finally we discuss the changes that need to be made to renovate the "world order" that had been fairly successful since World War II but which has not prevented this calamity. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-419-global-town-hall-feb-2022/ Under the video there is space for your comments.
With Russia's war against Ukraine underway, four guests discuss the notion of creating a zone of peace, not only in Ukraine but also in the south Caucasus. Christopher Mitchell, who has studied peace zones as an academic, meets with two of his former students: Irakli Kakabadze, who now runs a Gandhian institute in Tbilisi, Georgia, and Guguli Maghradze, formerly a member of Georgia's parlliament and now director of a peace program at Tbilisi University. A Canadian peace activist, Lyn Adamson, joins in the discussion, much of which involves an assessment of the potential for creating a zone of neutral countries. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, or comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-416-ukraine-caucasus-as-peace-zone/
Ingeborg Breines was a director specializing in gender issues at UNESCO at the end of the Cold War – a time of optimism, when there was reason to hope that democracy would spread around the world and that the OSCE would be the paramount international organization for Europe and the other northern countries of the world. We talk about the impending war against Ukraine and the need for UN peacekeepers in the Donbas region and the possibility of the General Assembly reclaiming authority over issues now handled by the ineffectual Security Council. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-415-culture-of-peace-in-2022/
Metta Spencer was invited to speak to the fellows of McLaughlin College, York University about climate change. Her title, “How to Subtract" reviews five of the possible methods of either shielding the planet from the sun's heat with whiter clouds or removing carbon from the atmosphere to store it in the soil or concrete. Spencer chose these as the most promising partial solutions, though of course the essential solution will simply be to cease emitting greenhouse gases. Wadhams and Petersen were participants in the zoom meeting and explained their approaches during the Q and A period. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, or comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/how-to-subtract/.
On the day following Putin's decision to recognize the breakaway Donbas republics of Ukraine, both James Simeon and John Foster are preoccupied with the apparent imminence of a major war in Europe. Simeon studies forced migration, which he attributes largely to the prevalence of protracted wars. We don't need another new war! Foster studies pipelines and explains the risks that will come from canceling the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that would supply Germany and other countries with gas at a time when the supplies are already low. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-413-ukraine-migrants-and-pipelines. After watching, scroll down and post your thoughts on the comment column.
David Miller, a former mayor of Toronto, now is founding an institute for C40 Cities, an organization of global megacities cooperating to reduce climate change. David Hochschild, the Commissioner of Energy for California, is also fully engaged in the reduction of global warming by his own state. Here they compare notes about their respective efforts, which have been more successful so far than the work of their national governments. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-412-cities-states-and-climate. After watching, scroll down and share your own information about these matters.
Lorraine Rekmans, the president of the Green Party of Canada, complains that the police, as can be expected, have treated the protesting truckers vastly more leniently than they normally treat indigenous protesters, who are normally far more civil in their acts of disobedience. David Webster, who has engaged in protests in Canada and on behalf of the East Timorese independence movement, concurs. Jill Carr-Harris, a Gandhian organizer of protest movements in India, notes that the farmers' protest has been influenced, as all movements in India still are, by the Gandhian tradition, which is highly disciplined. All the guests are concerned by the loss of democracy, notably in the US, but also in Canada. The failings of Canada cannot properly be attributed to American white supremacy. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-411-how-to-protest-well/.
Alexander Likhotal has been one of Mikhail Gorbachev's closest advisers and now is a professor in a Geneva school of diplomacy. Here he discusses various of Vladimir Putin's possible motivations, none of which are very praiseworthy. He says that the current Russian threats of war against Ukraine are not really about Ukraine, but are motivated by Putin's concern about his country's status in the world, especially vis a vis the West. Likhotal also believes that Belarus is more important to Russia than is Ukraine. Maintaining significant military bases in Belarus would be strategically important in any attempt to separate the Baltic states from the rest of NATO. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comment column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-408-likhotal-on-putin.
Ann Frisch worries most about the possibility of nuclear war, including by unintended escalation if the current war between Ukraine and Russia intensifies. Kehkashan Basu, a student at the University of Toronto, notes that she had been told not to go to campus, lest there be problems with the protesting trucker drivers who are attempting to stop Canada's requirements for vaccination and mask-wearing. This leads us into comparing the strictness of police in protests against these right-wing rowdies with their treatment of minorities who protest more civilly. Subir Guin mentions his chief worry: the Modi government of India, but we lack enough time to discuss that. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comment columns: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-410-ukraine-plus-the-truckers/.
In this monthly town hall, we spend an hour discussing the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, plus the Swiss Without and Army movement, the search for a place to bury nuclear waste in Canada, the Humanity Rising project, the protection of habitat in urban areas for grey foxes, and a game theory strategy that is helpful for mediators. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-409-global-town-hall-2022/. Then scroll down to the comments column and share your own information or ideas on one of the topics we discussed. You can discuss these issues indefinitely here.
Pavel Palazhchenko has been interpreter and close aide for Mikhail Gorbachev since early in Gorbachev's tenure as Soviet leader. Before that, he served as interpreter in the foreign miinistry, especially to Eduard Shevardnadze. He interpreted all the international negotiations in which Gorbachev played such a historic role in ending the Cold War. He remains in close touch with the 91-year--old Gorbachev. who remains in isolation because of the pandemic. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comment column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-406-palazhchenko-on-gorbachev/.
Pervez Hoodbhoy is a physicist in Islamabad. Pakistan. M.V. Ramana is a physicist from India now living in Vancouver. Both are concerned about the potentially catastrophic effects of nuclear war and even the non-explosive but detrimental effects of radioactivity on health and the environment. They discuss the political relations among the nuclear weapons states and the prospect for nuclear disarmament -- which they both consider bleak. They also worry about the effects and economic prospects of the widely-proposed small modular reactors, which are expensive and unlikely to be as numerous as some suggest as a solution to climate change. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-307-nuclear-india-and-pakistan/.
Ellen Judd is an anthropologist specializing in China; Barry Stevens makes films, mainly about war; and Zachary Jacobson is a mathematician concerned about global warming. As a schmooze day, this conversation was unplanned; everyone gets to discuss a favorite topic, and the discussion turned to the difficulty of addressing China's obvious human rights violations within a fair abd constructive context instead of exacerbating tensions. Is it right to consider the current forcible integration of the Uyghurs as "genocide"? For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-405-china-and-human-rights/.
Jenni Harris's family owns White Oaks Pastures, a farm in Georgia USA that raises and processes animals in ways that sequester more carbon than they emit. Cows, for example, are allowed to graze and are rotated from one paddock to another, day by day, thereby adding their excretions and stirring up the soil just the right amount. The slaughter and packing of meat occurs on the farm, which offers an organic restaurant, general store, guest lodging, and training programs on regenerative agriculture. We discuss the health and climate impacts of this approach to farming. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-404-meat-and-climate/.
Alan Haber was the first president of Students for a Democratic Society; William Geimer was a lawyer who defended some of the leaders of that 1960s movement against the Vietnam War. They worry about the descent of the US into Fascism. Doug Saunders and Oswald Petersen tend to agree that the support for democracy is on the upswing in Europe and will win every election that is honest; the right is winning only by twisting the voting system. Petersen's own work is the removal of methane from the atmosphere with the dispersal of nanoparticles of iron salts. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-403-climate-and-fascism/.
Vasily Yablokov is a staff member of Greenpeace in St. Petersburg. He notes that there has been a significant change in Russian public opinion about climate change during the past two years -- but that nevertheless the majority of the population remains rather oblivious to the issue, though Russia is the country that already is suffering most from it. There are only 30 monitoring stations along the long Siberian coast. Greenpeace may be doing research with Sergey and Nikita Zimov, the Siberians who maintain Pleistocene Park and who are concerned about the emissions of methane from thawing permafrost. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, or comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-402-russian-greenpeace/.
Sandra Leigh Lester advises architects about ways of making buildings more sustainable, healthful, and beneficial for the wider community. Claire Adamson is a retired architect in Montreal. They both have issues with the fashionable ways of renovating homes. Adamson dislikes the trend toward "open kitchens." Lester says some of her clients want granite countertops and other things they don't need; they should pay more attention to such things as valves to keep sewage from backing up into their basements. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comment column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-401-sustainable-buildings/.
Ashrith Domun in a chemical engineer working on the de-carbonization of vehicles. Craig Smith is a retired engineer who served as president of a construction corporation and more recently cao-authored a book with William Fletcher: "Reaching Net Zero..” Ashrith reports that the larger the vehicle, the more difficult the challenge in making it move sustainably. But trains are fairly easy to decarbonize; they just change over to. green hydrogen, and this can be done within the next five years. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comment column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-400-tomorrows-transport/.
Michael Lynk is a law professor and the current Special Rapporteur on the situation of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. For almost six years he has observed the plight of that community, but without visiting the Occupied Territories at all; the government of Israel refuses to allow a representative of the United Nations to enter Israel or the Occupied Territories. Only a few other countries maintain such a rigid control over a community (such as the Rohingya or the Uyghurs). Lynk maintains that the government of Israel will never relent in its oppression of the Palestinians unless the international community intervenes with strong demands, but he reports that almost all countries maintain a willful blindness about the illegality of the Israeli occupation. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-399-occupied-palestine/.
Tom Green is the leader of Vesta, an organization that is planning to grind olivine down to sand-size, then sprinkle it in the oceans just off the beaches, where water is not deep. The waves will roll the grains of olivine around and hasten its dissolution into the water. This will change the (now excessive) carbonic acid bicarbonate, an alkali. By doing this on a large scale, the overall acidity of the oceans will be slightly reduced, allowing the water to accept more CO2 from the atmosphere. For the video, https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-398-how-to-make-the-oceans-less acidic/. Then scroll down and add to the comments column.
Doug Saunders is back from Europe, well recovered from Omicron, and talking about his research on neighborhoods. Brennain Lloyd is busy in North Bay, Ontario, defending us from the Canadian government team that is looking for a place to bury nuclear waste. Dr.Richard Denton is perturbed by the failings of our political system to protect human security, which would certainly not involve the purchase of fighter planes. Doug opens the biggest controversy at the end of the show before leaving: his endorsement of the use of reprocessing as a source of material for nuclear power in the future. This issue will be addressed another time! For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-397-nuclear-waste-inter-alia/ . After watching scroll down and post your response on the comment column.
Vandana Shiva holds a Ph.D in particle physics, but is best known for her work as an advocate for the protection of nature against commercial exploitation. She joined the Chipko movement to protect forests in India, gradually earning what she calls her “second Ph.D." from those brave women, who know so much about the diversity of planets and animals in their region. She runs a farm that develops organic methods and participates in regenerative agriculture movements worldwide. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-396-saving-trees-seeds-and-earth/ . After watch, scroll down and share your own ideas in the comments column.
Davidson Akhonya in Kenya described the plight of the desperate displaced persons he is trying to assist, and requests help from us in the West. His email address: elgon.peace@gmail.com. Andre Kamenshikov, who lives in Kyiv, was visiting his sister in Russia. He theorizes about Putin's motives for massing troops on the Ukraine border. Because Elizabeth Renzetti was experiencing Omicron, we talked about Covid, but Metta consulted Dr. Ronald St. John to clarify some of the issues we did not fully understand; his remarks are available at the end of the show. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-394-or-challenges-in-2022/.
After watching, add your thoughts to the comment column.
Oleg Kozlovsky works for Amnesty International in Moscow, researching the cases of individuals in his country whose human rights may under attack by the. state. He explains how the vague laws are used to suppress dissent among citizens. And these repressive and unjust measures have taken their toll; it is harder now to organize a street demonstration, for example, when people know that they may be jailed or fined for showing up. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, or comment column, https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-395-foreign-agents-for democracy-in-russia/ . Then scroll down to the comments column and share your own information and ideas about the subject.
John Delmar is a retired lawyer and still-active painter in New York City. Here Metta asks him about his father, the actor Kenny Delmar, whom she recalls as the preposterous character Senator Claghorn. Then John shows some of the paintings he loves, and several of his own, telling a little story about each one. They are all abstract and generally colorful. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments column, https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-393-delmars-art/
Hugo Benedetti is a professor of economics at the business school of the University of the Andes in Santiago, Chile. He describes himself as a "centre-rightist," and expresses some apprehension about the economic policies of the new government, which will take office in March. Although he says that life has improved by all metrics in Chile over the past 30 years, except for the rising levels of inequality, that factor alone is responsible for the unrest that has grown there. Two years ago the country experienced serious riots, yet there was no agreement as to the nature of the grievances. The right and left parties became more polarized, so he is satisfied that this particular electoral victory was best for the country (apart from its likely economic changes) because it forestalls further riots. He discusses the nature of the constitutional changes that are expected. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-392-childs-new-government/.
Erika Simpson and Marianne Larson are both professors as Western University, Leon Kosals at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, and Kekhashan Basu is an undergraduate student at the University of Toronto, and the founder of an organization for youthful activists around the world. We discuss their efforts to promote global citizenship as a value among students, and the constraints that instructors encounter when innovating with such topics, when they are not on the prescribed curriculum. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-391-globalizing-education/
On the last Sunday of every month activists working against six global threats get together by Zoom to discuss their current concerns. Here we talk about a bill in Quebec that bans the wearing of religious symbols in classrooms; the conflicts between Russia and Ukraine and between Poland and Belarus; the desirability of re-designing the United Nations and abolishing the Security Council (not everyone agreed on that!), and our general satisfaction with the outcome of an election in Chile. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments columns: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-390-global-town-hall-dec-2021/.
John Feffer is editor of Foreign Policy in Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies, and now edits our own policy sector on economics for Project Save the World's website and talk shows. Here he discusses the Russian ideas about the Green New Deal proposals with Vasily Yablokov of the Russian Greenpeace organization, Tatiana Lanshina, a Russian economist, and Arshak Makichyan, a youthful protester for Fridays for Future. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments columns, see https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-387-russia-and-the-green-new-deal/
Peter Wadhams, the sea ice expert, and Paul Beckwith, the Ottawa climatologist, both attended the COP26 meeting in Glasgow. They report on the continuing heating of the Arctic and the other global perturbations of climate resulting from that. "You cannot negotiate the melting point of ice," insists Wadhams, who describes the melting of Greenland's ice sheet. Even lagging scientists admit now that the Arctic is warming 3 times as fast as the rest of the world, but Beckwith claims that this is a great underestimate; he put it at 4 to 5 times as fast. The politicians are clueless, uninformed, and continuing to subsidize fossil fuels. That is the issue that must be stopped. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-389-the-hot-arctic/.
Maria Puerta Riera is a Venezuelan-American political scientist in Florida; Thomas Ponniah teaches social science at George Brown College and Harvard. Both share Metta's anxiety about the spread of authoritarian regimes and the obvious threats to democracies, even in such countries as the US. Is this because of some deficiency in the education levels of the current voters? Ponniah argues that the left has paid too little attention to material, financial inequality during the past several decades, focusing more on cultural differences within a given society, and that it is highly desirable now to re-prioritize. For the video, audio podcast, transcript or comment column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-388-democracy-is-failing.
Drea Klein Bergman loves the UN and also thinks it needs lots of improvement. She is executive director of Progressive World Federalists, and she works with young people putting on model United Nations meetings. We talk about various proposals for making the UN more democratic, including of course by abolishing the veto power of the "permanent five" members of the Security Council. An even bolder plan would create a parliamentary assembly, but it is not clear how to make it elected by individuals, not nation states. Metta proposes using cell phones and having voters everywhere on earth choose a delegate to represent everyone according to their birthday. A virtual UN would have some real advantages over the current one, where delegates have to travel to meetings. The big disadvantage is that fact that time zones are incompatible. Drea is enthusiastic about forming a post-UN Model organization for youths who have gone through the experiment in university or high school. For the video, audio podcast, transcript or comment column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-386-imagining-world-governance/.
Brent Constantz is CEO of Blue Planet, a company that makes limestone aggregate for concrete from demolished pieces of concrete plus carbon dioxide, which he captures from nearby plants that would otherwise emit it into the atmosphere. This means that the aggregate pebbles that he produces are very carbon-negative -- absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere. Although the cement component of concrete is the largest contributor of CO 2 in the whole concrete-making process, with Constantz's technology, the amount of CO2 mitigated by his aggregates is so great as to strongly offset the sources from manufacturing the cement. He is planning to establish 400 plants in China to capture and sequester carbon in concrete. There is an enormous global potential for mitigating carbon by locking it up in building materials. For the video, audio podcast, transcript or comments column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-383-making-carbon-negative-concrete/.
Adele Buckley, Elizabeth Riddell Dixon, and Ernie Regehr are all experts on the Arctic and its geopolitical and military issues. Elizabeth describes the international legal disputes among the states surrounding the ocean. She is perturbed over common “fear-mongering“ about Russia's intentions, and argues that their claims to an extended portion of the ocean are not unusual, but have been preceded by Denmark's similar assertions, which were mainly overlooked, and even by unusual claims by Canada. The region has many reasons for cooperative relations and she expects that these claims will be adjudicated and solved peaceably. Ernie describes the numerous bases that the Russians maintain along their lengthy Arctic coast, but agrees that the purpose of these military installations is primarily to support the local municipalities. Siberia is warmer than Canada's Arctic, and the northern population is many times larger. Adele points out that the public there (as indeed in Canada) is not well-informed about the looming threats that climate change poses. However, scientists and academics do continue to have productive intellectual exchanges. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments columns: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-385-arctic-security-now/ .
Alexey Prokorenko is an interpreter in Moscow; Pauline Rosenau is a retired political scientist in Houston; Peter Jones is a professor of design at OCAD, and Peter Phillips is a retired professor of sociology, Sonoma State University, who has a book about the people who control global capital. We discuss much of the world's leading bad news stories – the dominance of capital in determining international relations; recent revelations about US teams paid by the Pentagon to kill ISIS without regard to the rules of war; the prospect of a major war between Russia and Ukraine; and how to reorganize voting so as to create the possibility of overpowering the "bad guys." For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-384-why-were-anxious-now/ .
Claire Nelson is a geochemist who studies the cycle whereby volcanoes spew CO2, which falls as acidic rain, dissolving rock and carrying minerals to the sea, where the carbon falls to the ocean floor for millions of years until the tectonic process folds it in and a volcano spews it out again. The point of this research is to find ways of speeding up the transfer of excess CO2 from the air to the seabed. She intends to inject it into basalt, where it will stay in solid form a very long time. The use of negative emissions is going to be an essential factor in solving the climate crisis, and this is one promising technology. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-382-how-to-turn-air-into-rock/ .
John Foster knows lots about pipelines; Mary Ellen Francoeur is a Sister of Service; and David Harries worked as a peacekeeper in many countries. We talk about how to relate to undemocratic states, and then about a webinar that Harries admired – between Jane Goodall and Jonathan Granoff. Evidently they expressed differences in their conception of human security, for Goodall wanted to include not only the human population but animals, plants, and even the non-living parts of our planet. Metta was irritable throughout the show, demanding that rhetorical differences be put aside to work on my concrete challenges to humankind's future, but Mary Ellen continues to express hope.For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/381-democracy-and-humanbitys-future/
Mark Z. Jacobson, a Stanford professor, has developed a model showing how it is feasible for the world to shift to 100 percent clean, renewable energy. His model takes account of the emissions from fossil fuels, of course, but also other pollutants that affect public health. When you combine these effects, it is apparent that the transition to clean energy will be a lifesaver and a great saver of energy too. Jacobson opposes the investment in nuclear power, which is far from lacking its own carbon emissions, when you count the work involved in mining, transporting, processing, and hiding and guarding the ingredients. Moreover, nuclear is far more expensive and will take far too long to create additional plants. Jacobson criticizes the US new infrastructure bill as containing many flaws, most of the “pork barrel” features. The question that Metta raises is whether public opinion and political structures can change quickly enough to meet the timeline for restraining the world's temperature in the time frame that has been accepted in COP meetings. Jacobson says that is is possible, and that 60 countries are on track to meet their pledges, but Metta continues to regard this as overly optimistic, and to argue that other methods are needed to give us additional time; these include cloud brightening and iron salt aerosols. This debate will. continue. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-380-can-we-solve-global-warming-in-time/
Anastasia Karimova, formerly a journalist in Russia but now a democracy activist in the US, explains why most Russians do not worry about climate change: they simply don’t trust any authorities anymore, after being “poisoned” with misinformation so long. We talk about the peat fires in Siberia and even a mountain burning inside in Canada. Then we turn to our various opinions about climate change, agreeing only on this: that the Glasgow COP26 meeting did not fulfill its responsibilities. Zachary Jacobson believes that nuclear power is going to be necessary. Both he and Art Hunter are extremely pessimistic about human survival, given the difficulties in mobilizing adequate responses. Metta challenges them all to choose among the various methods for removing carbon from the atmosphere and otherwise buying time for the necessary energy transformation. Hunter insists that the solutions have to involve austerity of living standards and a reduction in the size of the human population. Metta concludes by expressing disappointment that the group had spent time in fatalistic predictions of disasters and little in discussion potential alternatives. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, or comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-379-climate-fatalism/
Olivier Rubin is a political scientist who studies "slow beginning" disasters, which are harder to get politicians to address than are such sudden shocks as earthquakes. He was already studying epidemics before Covid and now also studies anti-microbial resistance — a crisis that claims some 700,000 lives each year but is little recognized. We discuss other risks, such as cyber threats between countries, against which it is difficult to mobilize opposition by civil society. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-377-politics-of-disaster/
Matthew Gillett has been involved with war crime for many years. He spent time in Afghanistan intervening to protect victims of human rights abuse, some of which were related to cases that the International Criminal Court would consider. Later he became a trial lawyer in The Hague for the ICC. Here we talk about the changing international laws about war crime and crime against humanity. He is pleased that the law has recently changed so that the deliberate instigation of famine to civilians as an act of war now applies to civil wars, whereas it had formerly applied to international conflicts. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-376-prosecuting-war-criminals/
Monika Wohlfeld teaches at the Mediterranean Academy of Diplomatic Studies in Malta, and Father Bob Holmes is the peace and justice director of Basilian Fathers. He often leads tours to Israel and Palestine and works with the Christian Peacemakers Team in Hebron. Today both guests discuss the ways in which many democratic governments are doing a bad job of defending the rights of minority or indigenous populations that they should instead be protecting: the refugees seeking admission to Europe at the Polish border and in the Mediterranean, the Palestinian children trying to go to school in Hebron, and the Wetsuweten people whose land is to become the site of a pipeline, against their wishes. We discuss ways of improving the institutions that are serving us so poorly, and Bob reminds us of the people he knows who are bravely standing up against these cruelties. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-376-whose-security-should-we-defend/
Can clouds save the Great Barrier Reef? Daniel Harrison may find out. He is a scientist ad Southern Cross University in Australia and he leads a project that will spray nano-particles of sea water into the air, where he hopes they will rise into the stratocumulus clouds and evaporate. The remainder, a tiny bit of salt, will attract other water vapor to form tiny droplets that, because they are so small, will be whiter than the other droplets in the cloud. This extra little bit of brightness will make the cloud reflect somewhat more of the sun's rays back into space, thereby cooling the water below - and the corals that live there. Since a large part of the huge reef has already bleached from previous heat waves, the point is to prevent the whole heat from destroying that whole ecosystem. Right now, Harrison's team is focused on developing a nozzle that can produce such a fine mist of seawater, for the size of the droplets is crucial. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-374-saving-the-corals/
Both Stephen Salter and Alan Gadian are British scientists who know, more than anyone else, how to solve the climate change crisis.They are working on cloud brightening--producing whiter clouds over the oceans to reflect sunlight back into space. This would involve spraying salt water through fine nozzles. The water would evaporate and leave tiny salt crystals. Tiny new droplets will form around these crystals – small and therefore white – and move around, shading the surface below from the heat. Done on a large scale, this can actually re-freeze the Arctic ice and cool the subtropical regions, where hot air starts moving toward the Arctic. We discuss other ways of removing carbon from the atmosphere. Both men agree that it is a big mistake to believe that climate change can be solved by reaching “net zero emissions." The carbon already in the atmosphere would remain there; it has to be actually removed, which may be possible with this innovation. But there is little public awareness of the possibility, and even COP26 did not consider it. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-373-what-cop26-didnt-talk-about/
Dave Grossman is concerned about the increasing rates of suicide and opioid deaths, which science is now linked to sleep deficiency. Apparently people are sleeping less now than in previous periods, and this can be blamed largely on the popularity of video games, which are immensely profitable to the producers. Grossman has previously published books about the strong relationship between video games and mass killings. Here he list many suggestions for wakeful people. These include the use of melatonin, eye masks. and the bedroom thermostat. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-372-maybe-you-need-more-sleep/
Real Lavergne works with Fair Vote Canada to change Canada's voting system to one of proportional representation. Reiner Braun, the Executive Director of the International Peace Bureau, shares Frank Kroncke's deep worry about the continuing dangers of the nuclear weapons. While Metta agrees that proportional representation is a more democratic system, she worries about whether voters today are “too dumb for democracy" -- i.e. whether the average voter is well-enough informed and objective enough to make rational decisions about the issues that face us all. She asks Frank, who had served time in prison during the Vietnam War for sabotaging US draft records, whether a prison run democratically would work, whether the prisoners could make rational decisions. Reiner, Frank, and Metta share stories about the militaristic political beliefs that prevailed during their youth in World War II and afterward. You can watch the video, listen to the audio podcast, read the transcript, and then comment here: https://tosavetheworld.ca/Episode-371-war-prisons-and-voting/
Ayad Al Qazzaz is an Iraq-born sociology professor in California; Mustafa Bahran is a Yemen-born physicist at Carleton University and formerly the Minister of Energy in Yemen. They share a common conviction that the current crisis in Lebanon is just the latest in a series of disasters resulting from the country's sectarian constitution, which specifies that each of the main governmental offices be held by a member of a particular religious community. As a result, politicians in Lebanon are corrupt and all loyal to their religious community, as opposed to the Al Qazzaz notes that the French imposed this system on a reluctant population, but that it cannot easily be reversed. Moreover, the U.S. imposed a similar sectarian constitution on Iraq after the recent war there, and similar effects can be seen there today. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, comments column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/370-what-sectarianism-has-done-to-lebanon/
Corey Levine and Olivia Ward have both worked in Afghanistan during wartime. Pakistan-born Tariq Rauf, who is familiar with the country, works in Vienna, tracking the development of nuclear weapons technology in various countries. Tariq cites figures from a report on "The Cost of War," which leads to a discussion of drone killings. Are they less ethical than other possible means of fighting? What are the psychological effects on the remote drone-launcher? This brings us to questioning the rationale for the west's fight against the Taliban and whether alternative means may be effective in curbing their war against women. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comment column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/369-the-warriors-conscience/
Edward Struzik mainly studies the Arctic, but his new book, Swamplands, covers bogs, marshes, swamps, and fens -- squishy places that can be found all over the planet, though not much in temperate or tropical areas. These wetlands are stinky (from sulfur dioxide) and buggy, so people have often drained them in order to get farmland and more agreeable places to live. However, they produce peat – a substance that sequesters vastly more carbon than even tropical rainforests. Today peat is still being used as a fuel, but probably the cheapest and most effective way of keeping carbon in the soil is to preserve all existing peatlands. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/368-why-save-the-swamps/
Episode 367. Claudia Wagner-Riddle is an agrometeorologist; she studies how agriculture affects climate change -- both the production of plants and animals. The quality of soil is a key factor. Various essential bacteria in the soil produce nitrous oxide and other compounds of nitrogen, which plants require, but which affect air and water negatively in several respects. By recycling animal manure, farmers can adequately replenish the nutrients in their soil, but about half of the people on the planet today are alive because they eat food produced by synthetic fertilizers, which have been seriously mis-used and are causing climate problems as well as other environmental stresses. And the ruminant animals (notably cattle and dairy cows) also emit methane in the process of digesting grass. These are complicated problems to solve, and Wagner-Riddle does not favor the widespread proposal to end the maintenance of cows. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/367-your-food-and-things-that-fall-from-the-sky/
Episode 366 Tony McQuail is an Ontario organic farmer; Jill Carr-Harris is an activist working for landless peasants in India. Both of them are critical of large, high-tech, monoculture agriculture. Organic farmers do not use chemical fertilizers, but since 50% of the food on the earth today is there because of fertilizer, we have to ask whether it is possible to feed the current and future human populations without using chemicals. This is an urgent question because fertilizers also harm the environment in multiple ways. Jill says that all over India she sees small and medium-sized farms that are adopting "natural" agricultural technologies, and there is a two-year-long strike by farmers in the northern areas of India against the Modi government's new laws, which favor the consolidation of land holdings into large farms. For the video, audio podcast, transcript or comments column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/366-can-organic-farms-feed-us-all/
Episode 365 Robert Read, Rose Dyson, Dale Dewar, Ayah, Richard Denton, and Alan Haber are among the many people who attended our monthly global town hall. We discussed Anti-vax ideas, plastic waste (including a new method of disposal by bacteria), the change of Ryerson University's name, and the new attempt to reduce fossil fuel investments. Everyone is invited to post comments and articles on the comments column of our website, where each talk show has its own page. See https://tosavetheworld.ca/365-global-town-hall-october-2021/
Barbara Wien is a professor of peace studies at American University. She has long been engaged in creating similar programs at other universities, and explains here the content of the programs and the importance of assigning the students to work in NGOs as part of their training. During the past twenty years, many peace curricula have expanded to include environmental issues. Also, the US Institute of Peace, where Barbara once taught, has adopted more progressive values, whereas it was formerly constrained by a leadership that did not like to move ahead of the State Department. Barbara and Metta expressed different assumptions about the proposal by the International Centre on Nonviolent Conflict to replace the Responsibility to Protect doctrine with a different approach, Right to Assist, which would legitimize the actions of outside organizations to assist protesters and dissident in opposing the abuses of their own government. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/364-why-you-should-major-in-peace/
Bruce Schneier teaches cyber security policy at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard. He points out that in cyber crime, offence is far easier than defence. Too often, victims of phishing are blamed, whereas legal reforms are needed that will hold manufacturers responsible for defects in their software. The public's vulnerability is increasing, especially with the rise of the Internet of Things, for many of the computer-controlled gadgets we own cannot even be repaired. Before we can use a new product, we generally have to click (without reading) a long statement that exempts the producer for any liability for its failings. Countries differ in their regulations, and it is unlikely that Russia, China, or even the US will agree to any international norms that restrict the advantages they may possess seek to acquire. It is legal for Facebook or any other privately-owned platform to refuse to advertise, even if this seriously limits freedom of speech about political and social issues. No one can predict how serious the threats may be for the future development of Artificial Intelligence, but Schneier takes the matter seriously and respects those who are working to limit the potential damage.
For the video, audio podcast, transcript, or comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/363-whos-controlling-the-internet/
Tim Brodhead, Roy Culpeper, Richard Harmston, and Peter Meincke are all long-time members of a progressive Ottawa organization, The Group of 78. Now celebrating the group's 40th anniversary, they reminisce about its founding: a period during Pierre Trudeau's second term when domestic concerns loomed so large that other matters were hardly considered. King Gordon and the parliamentarian Andrew Brewin wrote an open letter to the prime minister complaining that the threat of nuclear war needed a more vigorous action by Canada. They collected endorsements from a diversity of prominent Canadians, received a good response from Trudeau, and formed an organization that continues today. There is an annual two-day meeting, plus frequent luncheons with guest lecturers, mainly on international issues. However, there is less response from the present government than preceding ones. Though the Group of 78 partners with other like-minded organizations in addressing certain important progressive issues, there are also controversies within the group. Among these are the desirability of nuclear power, Middle Eastern politics, and whether economic growth is compatible with sustainability. Yet the Group has successfully held amiable conferences dealing with these Issues. The next annual conference in 2022 will deal with the question of economic growth. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, or comments, https://tosavetheworld.ca/362-what-has-the-group-of-78-done-for-you/
Often the question arises whether China will adhere forever to its expressed policy of never being first to use nuclear weapons. Ellen Judd sees no reason why it would change, and Aaron Tovish agrees. Both of them also agree that China's unlikely to go to war against Taiwan so long as there is no real change in Taiwan's claims. There have long been extensive trade relations between the two regimes. Tovish is part of a group that has written an open letter to the heads of several nuclear weapons states calling for a common declaration of No First Use policy. They want to gather thousands of endorsements over the next month. That letter will be accessible on the comments column of this show. Geimer suggests that the NATO states could also declare that they want to remain part of NATO for most purposes, but do not want to be included in any “extended deterrence" promise from the U.S. Geimer is creating a peace school in Victoria, B.C. and his email address is visible on the screen while he is speaking about the school. For the video, audio podcast, transcript or comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/361-will-china-keep-its-no-first-use-policy/
Alain Denault is an expert on Simmel's theories about money, but this conversation was mainly about the probable global catastrophes, which he attributes to capitalism. He and Metta share pessimistic views, but she sees benefits as well as dangers in globalization. She also presses him to propose a workable alternative to capitalism. He complains that her arguments were popular decades ago, after the USSR dissolved, but that they are pointless now. But he foresees a collapse of the global corporate system, which he thinks will lead people to look to their regional or local authorities for aid to simply survive. Metta claims that only organizing people at the transnational level offers as prospect of success. Alain believes that the regional solution will not work, but that it is the only thing that can realistically be expected. He predicts that the survivors may later try to form some relationship linking these local or regional polities. For the video, audio podcast, transcript or comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/360-what-can-replace-capitalism/
Kelsey Gallagher is a researcher at Project Ploughshares. He focuses on Canada's participation in the global arms trade. In 2014, Canada began a contractual sale of light armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia. Since then, evidence has accumulated showing some of those weapons being used in war zones. This contravenes the condition attached to the sales. However, the Canadian government has declined to cancel the contract. Project Ploughshares is pushing for them to do so. In addition to these sales, Canada supplies components of weapons as well as LAVs to the US and several other countries, including Turkey. The Turks have been supplying other countries with these weapons including Azerbaijan for its war in Nagorno-Karabakh. Canadian sniper rifles have been seen in other wars though Canadian law specifies that no sale can authorized to any country where there is substantial risk of armed conflict. That would also rule out Libya, where Canadian weapons have been seen. The Arms Trade Treaty to which Canada is a signatory specifies that no country is allowed to sell weapons to any country that has been officially put under sanctions by the United Nations itself. There are reasons to emphasize the importance of converting arms manufacturers to peaceful uses both as a way of preserving jobs and as a way of protecting the investments of shareholders. For the video, audio podcast, transcript or comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/359-if-you-are-building-weapons-you-need-a-new-job
Johannes Lehmann studies biochar and its Brazilian precursor, Terra Preta, which the Indians created thousands of years ago by charring household waste and burying it. This creates extremely fertile black soil, which does not degrade for many centuries, but sequesters carbon in the soil indefinitely. Today's farmers can benefit from biochar as an "amendment" to their soil. This is useful both as a way of inproving the productivity of farming (so as to feed the extra billions of humans who will be born in this century), and a way of removing carbon from the atmosphere and sequestering it permanently. Biochar has been found to be the most cost-effective and beneficial agricultural method for combatting climate change. However, it can be mis-used, so the user must follow the instruction on the labels. Unfortunately, there is almost no market for biochar yet, since the general public has not become familiar with its benefits. One proposal is to require fertilizer manufacturers to include a certain percentage of biochar to their product, since this will enable the farmer to use less fertilizer, though biochar itself is not a fertilizer. it simply enables more of the nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium to be retained in the soil. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/358-why-you-need-a-market-for-biochar/
Claire Adamson, Barbara Birkett, William Ryerson, and Doug Saunders share their worries about climate issues that they think should (but may not) be addressed in Glasgow at COP26.
Ryerson will give a talk there about the effect on the climate of educating women and girls, thereby giving them more opportunity to achieve their desired family size (which is generally reduced thereby). He makes series dramas on television and radio to provide role models that change public norms about gender and reproduction.
Doug Saunders believes it is unnecessary and even undesirable to reduce consumption levels in order to reduce carbon emissions.
The panelists worry that the IPCC has under-estimated the warming effect of methane.
It will be a huge challenge to plant two billion trees. Actually, many more must be planted, since 90 percent of all planted trees die within a year or two. There are also laws limiting the import of trees from abroad, but these have not actually prevented the spread of diseases from invasive species. The panelists have not seen strong evidence as to whether the new practice of planting trees by drones is effective.
Ralph Martin studies organic farming, which does not use fertilizer, except manure. He favors pasture-fed beef, not meat from corn – but we waste 40 % of all food. For the video, audio podcast, transcript or comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/355-fertilizer/
Michael Barnard and Angela Bischoff discuss the previous successes of Ontario governments in promoting renewable fuels, and the causes of the recent reversals. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/354-great-renewable-energy-in-ontario/
Tariq Rauf, working at the IAEA in Vienna, discusses the rationales for and against promoting the adoption of No First Use policies by nuclear weapons states. For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/353-no-first-use/
Rebecca Johnson, Ward Wilson, and Danny Harvey see this decade as decisive for solving nuclear weapons and the climate. Must a country quit NATO to join TPNW? For the video, audio podcast, transcript and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/361-nuclear-nato-and-climate/
Peter Wadhams, a leading expert on sea ice, looks for solutions (e.g. cloud brightening and iron aerosols) to the release of methane from the shallow Siberian Sea. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/351-methane/
Mary Kaldor sees "new" wars (e.g. the Afghanistan one) as unlike WW 1 or 2. Her proposed alternative, human security, would have the UN address crisis situations. For the video, audio podcast, transcript or comment column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/350-new-wars-and-human-security /
John Burroughs works in NY with Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, based at the UN. He discusses international laws determining the legality of using nuclear weapons. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, or comment column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/349-laws-against-the-bomb/
Samantha Nutt founded and manages Warchild Canada, an NGO that supports 500,000 youth in war-torn areas. We discuss their "catching up" radio school courses. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, or comment column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/348-warchild-in-canada/
Neil Arya and Jonathan Down are leaders in the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War - Canada, and Alan Haber organizes events in Michigan. For the video, podcast, transcript, and comment column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/347-local-and-transnational-peace-work/
Ed Broadbent led the NDP for 15 years, then the government-funded institute Rights and Democracy and now the Broadbent Institute, which promote social democracy. For the video, audio podcast, transcript or comment column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/346-social-democracy/
In this Global Town Hall we discuss cloud brightening, comparative health care systems, farms in India, a campaign against nuclear weapons and climate change. For the video, audio podcast, transcript, or comment column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/345-the-world-in-september-2021/
James Dorsey is a journalist who has long covered the Middle East and Asia. Here he describes the relations among states and jihadist since the Taliban's victory. For video, audio podcast, transcript, and comment column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/344-asian-geopolitics-in-2021/
Michael Beer works with Nonviolence International; Martin Klein is a retired professor of African history; Paul Maillet is a retired colonel and peace ethicist. For the video, audio podcast, transcript or comment column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/342-geopolitics-and-civil-resistance/
Nadezhda Kutepova was born in Mayak, Trisha Pritikin in Hanford, both in the place where their countries made plutonium. As lawyers, they defend the victims. For video, audio podcast, transcript, or comment column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/343-hanford-and-mayak/
Andrew Futter teaches about nuclear weapons at the University of Leicester in UK. We discuss whether AI could launch nuclear war, and new technological threats. For video, audio podcast, transcript, or comment column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/341-teaching-about-nuclear-weapons/
Dilip Simeon is a historian in Delhi who discusses the current political trends in India as the current version of the Hindutva nationalist movement. For video, auto podcast, transcript, or comment column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/340-autocratic-india/
Eric Walberg and Metta Spencer were on different sides of a divide within the global peace movement during the 1980s. Here's where they stand today. For video, audio podcast, transcript, comment column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/339-old-peaceniks-update-debate/
David Cortright was the leader of SANE in opposing nuclear weapons. He is a retired professor of peace studies at Notre Dame, and writes about sanctions. For video, audio podcast, transcript and comment column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/338-organizing-and-teaching-peace/
Alon Ben Meir is a professor at NYU; Bernard Dreano is a French expert on the Middle East. They see confederation as the solution to Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For video, audio podcast, transcript and comment column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/337-israelpalestinejordan/
Cheryl Stroud is Executive Director of the One Health Commission, which studies and attends to the linked health issues of humans, animals and the environment. For video, audio podcast, transcript and comment column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/335-one-health-revisited/
David Gallup is president of the World Service Authority, which was founded by the world citizen Garry Davis. Its passports help refugees travel internationally. For video, audio podcast, transcript, and comment column: https://tosavetheworld.ca/336-being-a-world-citizen/
Gary Samore was “WMD Czar" for Obama; Tariq Rauf works at IAEA in Vienna. They discuss nuclear subs, a post-START treaty, Iran, and North Korean nukes. For video, transcript, and discussion see https://tosavetheworld.ca/334-us-nuclear-negotiations/
John Hallam is an Australian anti-nuclear weapons activist. Here we talk about the No First Use policy, plus US relations with China, and the electro-magnetic pulse. See video, transcript and discuss here: https://tosavetheworld.ca/333-no-first-use/
Karen Hamilton teaches courses in Israel and Palestine; Abraham Weizfeld lives half time in Palestine. Both Canadians discuss the the relationships in that region. Watch video or transcript and discuss here: https://tosavetheworld.ca/332-canadians-in-israel-and-palestine/
Pauline Rosenau, a professor of public health at U. Texas, Houston, studied visited nursing homes in many countries. She compares the quality of their care systems. See as video or transcript: https://tosavetheworld.ca/331-health-care-policy/
Erin Hunt works at Mines Action Canada and attends many disarmament conferences as an NGO. We discuss the numerous upcoming meetings this fall. Watch video and discuss here: https://tosavetheworld.ca/330-disarmament-drama-backstage/
Dr. Ronald St. John is an epidemiologist and co-creator of Canada's Global Public Health Intelligence Network, which was quicker than WHO at spotting outbreaks. Watch the video and discuss: https://tosavetheworld.ca/322-gphin-for-health/
Shaazka Beyerle studies corruption at George Mason University. She says that the safest reform is for civil society groups to make demands without pointing fingers. Watch and discuss here: https://tosavetheworld.ca/321-corruption/
Mike Simpson has long worked in civil society and is now a political candidate in BC, where the heat dome and wildfires make the climate emergency the top issue. Watch video and discuss here https://tosavetheworld.ca/320-canada-and-climate/
Andre Kamenshikov, living in Kiev, talks about Navalny and other Russian political events; MacDonald Scott discusses the settlement of Afghan refugees in Canada. Watch and discuss here: https://319-refugees-and-dissidents/
Arvind Singhal, a professor of communications in Texas, is an authority on social learning, and the impact of fiction and storytelling on culture. We talk about TV.
Cora Weiss has been a prominent peace activist since leading a delegation to Hanoi during the Vietnam War. She recalls her career, including as IPB president.