Can the Amazon Be Saved?
New Thinking for a New World - a Tallberg Foundation Podcast
12/11/24
•32m
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What happens in the Amazon is of planetary consequence. Its rainforests influence weather and rainfall around the world. Its rivers account for 1/4 of the available fresh water on earth. Its drainage basin is more than twice as large as that of the Congo River in Africa, which is the world's second-biggest. It harbors an estimated 10% of the planet's known lifeforms.
Our guest this week on New Thinking for a New World is Fernando Trujillo, Colombian marine biologist, 2024 Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize winner, and National Geographic Explorer of the Year. Trujillo, who is a global expert on river dolphins, leads a team that is working to keep the Amazon's freshwater basin alive. That is particularly important at a time when the region is suffering from record drought. River levels are low—in some cases historically so—and water temperatures are at intolerably high levels, especially if you're a fish. Continuing deforestation makes everything worse, of course.
Obviously, none of the consequences of the Amazon wasting away would be good for any of us. Can it be stopped? Listen as Trujillo explains his search to answer that question.
Please tell us what you think here.
Previous Episode
Tyranny’s Most Dangerous Foe
December 5, 2024
•40m
Winston Churchill is alleged to have written that "A free press is the unsleeping guardian of every other right that free men prize; it is the most dangerous foe of tyranny.” Thus, it should be no surprise that at a time when clear majorities of people in most democracies don’t trust their governments or their politicians, they also don’t trust their media or the journalists that produce it. Literally, you can’t have one without the other—and today most of us have too little of both.
María Teresa Ronderos is trying to change that.
She is an accomplished Colombian investigative journalist, co-founder of the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism (CLIP), and a recently announced winner of the 2024 Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize.
Ronderos believes that the only way to defeat the misinformation and disinformation that corrode our democracies is with honest, deeply sourced, smart journalism. She also believes that if social media is too often the bête noire of both democracy and journalism, information technology properly used is the best antidote. Overall, she believes that good journalism is not only still possible, but is more essential than ever.
Do you agree?
Next Episode
Best New Thinking: Politicians, Cartels, Murders, Oh My!
December 19, 2024
•33m
Politics in Mexico has long been a blood sport: not only “winner takes all,” but also incredibly violent. Last month’s national elections—when the country's first female president won with a record number of votes and by a record margin of victory—demonstrated both trends. President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum’s Morena party (founded and still controlled by outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador) won huge national and state legislative victories. But the electoral campaign was punctuated by more than 100 political assassinations, as well as widespread kidnappings, forced disappearances, attempted murders, and attacks on family members and campaign staff—all by drug cartels competing for turf, control of markets, and quiescent politicians.
Even worse, this kind of political violence seems to be on the upswing in other parts of Latin America from Central America through the Andean countries and even into Chile. Why? The simple answer seems to be that controlling local, state, and national politicians is good for business—even if that sometimes requires killing those who have other ideas.
Can the cartels be stopped? Is Mexico becoming a narco-state? Is the infection spreading too fast in too many places to be contained?
Answers require a deep understanding of the cartels. That’s where Chris Dalby, an expert on cartel violence, comes in. He is a journalist and founder of World of Crime, which investigates and documents how the cartels operate. Listen as he explains what the Mexican cartels want and how they are getting it.
What do you think: Can Mexico beat the cartels or will the cartels beat Mexico?
*This podcast episode was originally published on July 11, 2024, and has been re-released.
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