Month: June 2024

Background Briefing: June 23, 2024

The Heatwave Baking the Planet and the Contrast Between Biden’s Understanding of Global Warming and Trump’s Denial

We begin with the heatwave baking the planet and killing people from Saudi Arabia to Greece and India to the United States. We discuss the political cost of climate denial and the contrast between Biden who calls climate change an “existential threat to humanity” and Trump who has called global warming a “con” and a “hoax” which was invented by the Chinese to make U.S. manufacturing noncompetitive. Joining us is Jeff Goodell, a New York Times bestselling author of seven books, including Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America’s Energy Future, and The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World. A 2020 Guggenheim Fellow and a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, he has covered climate change for more than a decade, and his latest book is The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet.

 

The Sources of Climate Change Denial and a Future Beyond Denial

Then we examine climate change denial and speak with an author of a new book that exposes the sources of denial and weighs the options for a future beyond denial. Joining us is Tad DeLay, a philosopher, religion scholar, and interdisciplinary critical theorist. A Professor of Philosophy at Baltimore City Community College whose books include Against: What Does the White Evangelical Want?, The Cynic & the Fool, and God Is Unconscious, his latest book is Future of Denial: The Ideologies of Climate Change.

 

Is the Putin/Kim Jong Un Pact Alarming or Pathetic as Two Murderous Pariah’s Resume Their Love Affair With Trump?

Then finally we assess how much we should be alarmed by Putin’s pact with Kim Jong Un or disgusted by the pathetic display of two murderous pariahs hoping to resume their love affair with Donald Trump. Joining us is Sue Mi Terry, a former senior CIA analyst and director for Japan and Korea affairs at the National Security Council. Previously, she was the former deputy national intelligence officer for East Asia at the National Intelligence Council. She is the producer of a new film about North Korean defectors, Beyond Utopia streaming on PBS and Hulu.