Carnegie Council Podcasts

In this episode host Hilary Sutcliffe explores . . . accidents from another angle. There is one thing we thought we knew about accidents, that they are accidental, no-one's fault, simply the result of human error. But author and journalist Jessie Singer’s in her compelling book There Are No Accidents shows that whilst one person dies by accident in the United States alone every three minutes these deaths are in fact far from accidental. The majority are not random acts of God but are the predictable and preventable if only money and power were not prioritized at the expense of ordinary people. For more, please go to carnegiecouncil.org. 

This interview was recorded on December 16, 2022. Solar radiation modification may one day be needed to reduce climate risks, but great uncertainties remain, and more research and inclusive governance is needed to assess it, says Maarten Van Aalst, during a  C2GTalk. That requires discussions at all levels with people from a range of political and ethical backgrounds, in ways which respect different perspectives. Van Aalst is director general and chief science officer at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), having assumed that role on February 1, 2023. Before that, and at the time of this recording, he was director of the International Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, the reference center on climate risk management for the international Red Cross Red Crescent movement. Van Aalst is also coordinating lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC WGII) and member of the European Advisory Board on Climate Change under the European Climate Law. For more, including translation into 中文, Español, and Français, please go to C2G's website.

Current iterations of AI are increasingly able to encourage subservience to a non-human master, telling potentially systematic untruths with emphatic confidence. Senior Fellow Anja Kaspersen, AIEI Board Advisor Kobi Leins, and Carnegie-Uehiro Fellow Wendell Wallach argue that AI is closing, not opening, many pathways for work, meaning, expression, and human connectivity. To read this article, please go to carnegiecouncil.org.

Governing climate-altering technologies fairly will be very challenging, because of a democratic deficit, a transparency deficit, a coherence deficit, and an accountability deficit in global governance systems, says Kumi Naidoo in a C2GTalk. Nonetheless, it will be crucial to put justice at the heart of these considerations, by ensuring balanced participation of peoples, rooted in science, and in a spirit of redressing past injustice. Kumi Naidoo is a South African human rights and climate justice activist. As a 15-year old, he organized school boycotts against the Apartheid educational system in South Africa. Naidoo was later part of the leadership that sought to establish the African National Congress (ANC) as a political party and he then served as the official spokesperson of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), the overseer of the country's first democratic elections in April 1994. He was previously secretary-general of Amnesty International, international executive director of Greenpeace International, and has led several other organizations, including the South African National NGO Coalition (SANGOCO), CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, and Africans Rising for Justice, Peace and Dignity. For more, please go to C2G's website.

In this episode, host Hilary Sutcliffe explores . . . expectation from another angle. Her guest David Robson delves into the science of expectation in his award-winning new book The Expectation Effect. They discuss how changes in our expectations can have dramatic effects on our bodies, minds, actions, and life outcomes. For more, please go to carnegiecouncil.org. 

As a UN vote in February revealed, the world is divided on how to respond to Russia's continuing war against Ukraine. In this Ethics Article, Carnegie Council President Joel Rosenthal says that, for the sake of global security, "common interests," like protecting civilians, must be forged when there is disagreement on values. To read this article, please go to carengiecouncil.org. 

In this episode host Hilary Sutcliffe explores . . . ourselves at work from another angle. She talks with Gabriella Braun about her intriguing book All That We Are: Uncovering the Hidden Truths Behind Our Behaviour at Work, which in a series of compelling stories about company problems, strips away the outward trappings of status, power, and even our skills and experience, and shows that what goes on beneath, and in our past, is what really drives our behavior. They discuss how this knowledge can empower us to better understand our colleagues and ourselves making the work place a kinder, better place to be. For more, please go to carnegiecouncil.org. 

Caribbean countries have led the global push to limit warming to 1.5°C because the impacts of going above that would be so severe for their future wellbeing. In a C2GTalk, University of the West Indies' Professor Michael Taylor said it was important for the region to be involved in the research and governance of solar radiation modification, because decisions may soon be needed as to whether it could be an option to keep temperatures down. Taylor is professor of climate science and dean of the Faculty of Science and Technology at the Mona campus of The University of the West Indies (UWI). He is the co-director of the Climate Studies Group, Mona (CSGM) which is a center of regional thought and expertise with respect to climate change science for small islands and the wider Caribbean. He is a coordinating lead author for Chapter 3 of the Special Report on 1.5 Degrees of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Taylor has also received the Silver Musgrave Medal for Science from the Institute of Jamaica and is the 2019 ANSA Caribbean Laureate for Excellence in Science. For more, please go to C2G's website. 

A new space boom is underway. Commercial activity is multiplying, and new state actors are developing space programs. Subsequently, ethical concerns are emerging regarding the responsibilities of these actors and how to adapt space governance policies to protect space security. Brian Weeden, a space sustainability expert from Secure World Foundation, joins Amelia Mae Wolf to give listeners an understanding of these ethical challenges. For more from Wolf on space sustainability, check out her recent article for the Tony Blair Institute. For more, please go to carnegiecouncil.org. 

As competing factions in Sudan wage war for the fourth week since tensions erupted, civilian suffering intensifies. What does the escalating conflict mean for the country, the region, and the world? Christopher Tounsel, associate professor of history and interim director of the African Studies Program at the University of Washington, joins Doorstep co-hosts Tatiana Serafin and Nikolas Gvosdev to map the strategic importance of Sudan to global trade and security. What is at stake if U.S.-led talks to broker peace fail? How has the Sudanese diaspora in the U.S. and around the world changed the face of the conflict? Can a civilian led democratic movement come to power in Sudan? For more, please go to carnegiecouncil.org.