Episode 559 The Concrete Business
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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....
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Episode 558 Global Town Hall May 2023
projectsavetheworld's podcast
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...
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Episode 557 Cirrus Cloud Thinning
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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....
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Episode 556 Trees in Stockholm
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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...
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Episode 555 Global Town Hall Apr 2023
projectsavetheworld's podcast
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...
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Episode 554 Russians Who Left Russia
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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...
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Episode 553 Two Experiments at Once?
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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...
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Episode 552 Global Town Hall Mar 2023
projectsavetheworld's podcast
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....
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Episode 551 Two Cheers for R2P
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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, .
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Episode 550 Biochar and Climate
projectsavetheworld's podcast
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: .
info_outlineMubarak Awad was a Palestinian Christian psychotherapist who found that his clients did not need therapy; they needed freedom. So he founded a center for nonviolence, which the Israeli government did not appreciate -- since it created an effective nonviolent intifada. But the work continues, and Metta speaks with Awad and three other leaders in nonviolent resistance: Michael Beer, Andre Kamenshikov (working now from Kiev), and Yeshua Moser Puangsuwan (working from both Thailand and Canada). At least three of the people are optimistic about being able to continue their work, even in the hard post-covid economy.
This series of weekly discussions is produced by Peace Magazine (see http://peacemagazine.org) and Project Save the World (see http://tosavetheworld.ca). On the latter website, you are invited to comment on this podcast episode and endorse the Platform for Survival, a list of 25 public policy proposals that, if enacted, will markedly reduce the risk of the six most urgent threats to humankind.