Our Blue Planet
New Thinking for a New World - a Tallberg Foundation Podcast
07/06/23
•14m
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The planet “Earth” should probably be called “Water” since 70% of it is ocean. Of course, that also means any discussion of climate issues should start with the oceans. Increasing temperatures, rising sea levels, declining biodiversity, growing acidification and other changes driven by climate change have profound impact on the overall degradation of the planet and on mankind’s future.
Marine biologist Asha de Vos knows as much as anyone about our blue planet. She has done pioneering work on blue whales, the largest animal on earth, and founded Oceanswell in 2017, Sri Lanka’s first marine conservation research and education organization. In 2021 she was awarded the Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize.
Asha recently joined New Thinking for a New World host Alan Stoga for a conversation about her work in Sri Lanka.
Previous Episode
“When you strike at a king, you must kill him”
June 27, 2023
•38m
A few days ago the world watched in amazement as Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the infamous paramilitary Wagner Group, turned his ambition from defeating Ukraine to challenging the Russian army and—although he continues to deny it—Vladimir Putin himself. Wagner’s fighters seized some Russian territory and rapidly advanced towards Moscow, before abruptly halting, accepting a deal negotiated by Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko, and standing down.
Details are still in short supply, but it’s hard to imagine that this brief insurrection won’t have consequences for the war on Ukraine, for Russia’s relations with its few allies, and—most importantly—on Putin’s future.
Yevgenia Albats, Distinguished Journalist in Residence at NYU’s Jordan Center in forced exile from Russia, thinks that Prigozhin is a “dead man walking.” Maybe Putin, too?
Do you think this is the beginning of the end for the Russian dictator?
"When you strike at a king, you must kill him” ― is a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson
Next Episode
Trump Agonistes
July 13, 2023
•39m
Donald Trump continues to make history: he is the only American president (serving or former) ever to have been criminally indicted. He already faces two separate indictments and trials, with the strong possibility of one or two more before the end of the year. That would set a record for presidential indictments that will last a long time.
A former president standing trial is extraordinary on its own; a former president standing trial while running for re-election is terra incognita for the U.S. judicial system. On the one hand, it is a fundamental principle of American jurisprudence that all citizens are equal under the law. On the other hand, how can judges and prosecutors balance a candidate’s free speech rights and the need to campaign, with the discipline of a courtroom? Moreover, think about the consequences. What happens if Trump is convicted? What if he loses the trial, wins the election, and is imprisoned? Can he take office?
(Spoiler alert: yes!)
As they say, it’s complicated. Joon Kim, an experienced prosecutor and former acting US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, unravels some of those complications. His brief in this episode of New Thinking for a New World is not the politics of Trump's unprecedented situation, but the legal and judicial aspects of the mess that the former president has created for himself and for the rest of us.
What do you think? Should Trump stand trial?
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