Who is Vladimir Putin?
New Thinking for a New World - a Tallberg Foundation Podcast
10/06/22
•38m
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As the Russian invasion of Ukraine ebbs and flows, the whole world is watching—and wondering. What does Putin want? How far will he go in his efforts to subjugate Ukraine? Does he have limits? Has he, as Angela Merkel said a few years ago, lost touch with reality? If so, then what?
By the time historians can answer those questions, it will be too late, certainly for thousands of Ukrainians and Russians, and conceivably for the rest of us. Meanwhile, one of the best places to find answers might be in a recently published biography, simply entitled PUTIN by Philip Short.
Short is a British journalist with a long career as a foreign correspondent in Moscow, Beijing and Washington for the BBC, The Economist and The Times of London. He is also an accomplished author, having written biographies of Mao, Pol Pot and Francois Mitterand.
Short recently joined the New Thinking for a New World podcast to discuss how Putin looks at the world, what turned him away from a partnership with the West, and the risk that his war could go nuclear.
What do you think?
Previous Episode
Worth Repeating: Don’t Fool with Mother Nature!
September 29, 2022
•40m
We live in an era of accelerating, disruptive climate change. This isn’t about the random bad storm, but about systemic, dramatic shifts in climate that manifest as extreme weather of all sorts: wet bulb temperatures that threaten life, droughts destroying crops, floods of Biblical proportions, shrinking ice caps, etc. Change is everywhere, with catastrophic consequences that every credible forecast says will worsen.
But how can we understand the reality of those changes? What’s actually happening in the Arctic and in the boreal forests, in the Amazon and in Africa? How do changes in those disparate ecosystems relate to each other and to places where most of us live? What’s likely to happen next, and what can we do about it?
To look for answers we recently organized a conversation among Ugandan veterinarian Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, Colombian Amazon expert and a friend of its indigenous people Francisco Hildebrand, and Finnish fisherman, scientist and village head man Tero Mustonen. All are deeply knowledgeable about the realities of their ecosystems, and even more deeply committed to finding solutions to the challenges thrown up by the changing climate. Our discussion was moderated by Maarten Koets, and hosted by Vamvakou Revival and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).
This episode was originally published on May 26, 2022,
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No Normal is the New Normal
October 13, 2022
•38m
We live in a world of converging crises. War in Europe, food and energy insecurity, historic flooding in Pakistan and historical drought in the US, COVID shutdowns in China, American and European sanctions that disrupt supply chains...the list goes on. The good old days probably were not as good as we now like to remember, but they certainly were more predictable.
We can forget about that new normal thing we hoped would emerge as the pandemic receded: No normal is the new normal.
But life goes on. We need to make decisions about a future that is blurry at best. Imagine that you're a CEO of a big company. How do you cope with a world that seems to be spinning off its axis? How do you find workers when you need them, decide where to open new plants, assure a reliable supply chain. And what do you do about climate change?
Our guests on the New Thinking for a New World podcast are in the business of thinking about converging crises and trying to help corporate executives cope with them. Tom Armstrong is president of Madison River Group, which specializes in advising on climate change and Earth systems outcomes. Diane Osgood is a sustainability strategist with deep practical experience in the real world. How do they help corporate leaders not only peer around the corner, but formulate strategies that make sense in our changing world?
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