projectsavetheworld's podcast

Jeremy Paltiel, Ellen Judd, and Jeff Mahon are Canadian experts on China. They worry about the currently changing trade relations among Canada, the US, and China, which are inextricably tied to geopolitical relations. For the video and audio podcast, see https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-699-china-in-the-world

John Clammer is a British sociologist who has lived and taught in Asia for many years, dividing his time between Japan and India. He is studying disasters now and teaching a course on solidarity economics. Here he, Jill Carr-Harris, and Metta compare the two countries with regard to peace and energy policies. For the video and audio podcast: https://tosavetheworld.ca/india-and-japan-at-peace.

Alyn Ware a tireless organizer for peace and climate action, is expanding into artificial intelligence. In this episode, he shares recent activities within his group, including parliamentary efforts on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament, as well as related discussions on AI governance. Listen to the audio: https://tosaveworld.ca/episode-709-lawmaking-beyond-nationalism

Tariq Rauf is a specialist on nuclear weapons at the IAEA. Ernest Yanarella authored a book, The Missile Defense Controversy. They discuss the transition from "Star Wars " Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative -- and Trump's plan for a 'golden dome' to protect Americans from nuclear-armed missiles.

Irakli Kakabadze is a nonviolence activist; Arsen Kharatyan is a journalist; Vakhtang Maisaia is a political science professor. They are all appalled by the repressions of the current Georgian regime on the Georgian people. The party in power, Georgian Dream, is now firmly aligned with the Kremlin.

Timmo Gaasbeek began as an irrigation engineer. His work in Cambodia, Sri Lanka, and Sudan have familiarized him with the challenges now facing the Sudanese, who numbered 50 million before this war began, and who are mostly now hungry or starving. For the video and audio podcast, see https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-705-famine-today or https://projectsavetheworld.substack.com/p/episode-705-famine-today

Parag Kadam and Theri Reichlin were foresters who work on the preservation of forests for sequestering carbon. They describe their jobs and how they are helping to combat climate change.

This is a private monthly meeting of PSTW members, this time focusing entirely on the genocide in Gaza. The video has not been edited at all. Member will come back on August 31 for a Global Town Hall Meeting, which is open to the public. Please sign in if you attend.

Tom Goreau specializes in the ecosystem of coastal oceans, especially coral reefs. He shows that the beaches around the world are eroding badly but he has a way of protecting them with electric rods that break up the incoming waves. For the video and audio podcast, https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-702-coral-reefs-and-beaches

Marjan Ehsassi practiced law many years and then decided to focus on the relations between citizens and government, where she thinks the big problems lie. So she's been studying citizens' assemblies and whote a Ph.D. dissertation on it -- which became a book. Since Project Save the World is planning an inquiry on zoom that will resemble a citizens assembly (though we won't call it that because we can't recruit by sortition), we consulted her for advice about the design. For the video and audio podcast, https://projectsavetheworld.substack.com/p/episode-595-how-to-do-a-citizens  

Chad Baum is a professor in Denmark who has, with his colleagues, conducted a massive global public opinion survey about attitudes toward geoengineering. It was published in Nature. Here he describes the findings. For the video and audio podcast, https://tosavetheworld.ca.

Ivan left Russia rather than kill Ukrainians. Mikhail Elizbarashvili and Charles Tauber helo escapees and deserters such as Ivan and Konstantin Samoilov,, who escaped to Tashkent and created a breakfast club for people in his situation. For the video and audio podcast, https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-698-russian-escapees-and-deserters.

Stephen Zunes, Jorgen Johansen, and Jill Carr-Harris area all specialists in nonviolent resistance, having worked and studied the history of such opposition movements in many different countries. They agree that it is important to build community but that short-term tctics also should be developed for meeting urgent situations. For the video and audio podcast: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-691-resistance.

Meir Amor is sociologist and an Israeli peace worker.Paul Meyer is a retired diplomat, formerly Canada's ambassador for disarmament. Jill Carr-Harris is a Gandhian organizer. Maryam Nayab Yazdi is a Canadian-Iranian human rights worker. For the video and audio podcast: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-690-middle-east-today

Norbert Stute is a retired Austrian hematologist who created a remarkable website directory to hundrds of thousands of organizations that are devoted to making the world better. Rachael Mellor, his assistant, writes updates on the guides to various categories. Jill Carr-Harris works with Project Save the World and Ekta Parishad in India. For the video and audio podcast: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-688-better-world.

John Washington is a journalist who covers migrants, especially from Latin America. Sheila McManus is a historian at the University of Lethbridge; Petra Molnar is a lawyer at York University and Jill Carr-Harris is a Gandhian organizer in India. They discuss the way international migrants are now being excluded and refused entry in many countries, especially under the influence of Donald Trump. For the video and audio see https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-687-migrants-and-deportation.

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.

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-accountability.