May 6 - A New Report on the Clear and Present Danger of Climate Change; The Fault Line Between Islam and Christianity in Nigeria; The Dire Need for Diplomacy in Ukraine

Full Program

Part 1

With the release today of a report from the U.S. Global Change Research Program that says climate change is no longer a distant threat but is a clear and present danger. Dr. Brenda Ekwurzel who leads the Union of Concerned Scientist’s climate science education and policy work, joins us from the White House where the report was released today. We discuss the report that offers global and regional current and anticipated impacts of climate change on infrastructure, agriculture, human health, and access to water.

Part 2

Then we will look into what help the U.S. might be offering the Nigerian government in its faltering effort to retrieve over 200 schoolgirls captured by Boko Haram whose leader is threatening to turn the girls into slaves. One of the few Westerners to have met with the murderous Boko Haram insurgents, Eliza Griswold, who wrote about her encounter in her book “The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches From the Fault Line Between Islam and Christianity” joins us to discuss the corrupt Nigerian government’s inability to protect its own citizens most of whom live in dire poverty while government officials steal billions from the country’s oil wealth, as well as her article at Slate “Why Fear Boko Haram”.

Part 3

Then finally we speak with a 24-year veteran Foreign Service Officer at the State Department, Peter Van Buren about the urgent need for a diplomatic effort to prevent a war in Ukraine. He spent a year in Iraq leading two State Department Provincial Reconstruction Teams which he wrote about in a book “We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People” which resulted in him being fired and stripped of his security clearance and diplomatic credentials. We discuss the White House’s efforts to punish Putin by preventing American business leaders from attending a gathering Putin has organized, a move that puts the business leaders in a no-win situation of either offending the White House or Putin who might punish them by killing their deals in Russia.