Deciding Factors by GLG

The fact that the climate is changing is an incontrovertible fact. If we do nothing – or fall short of what is needed – human beings as a species are headed toward unprecedented disaster.  

Our guest in this episode, Dr. Ruth DeFries, Professor of Ecology and Sustainable Development at Columbia University and Co-founding Dean of the Columbia Climate School, is one of the people committed to addressing the factors driving climate change and helping us see a path other than the one we are on. 

In this episode, Dr. DeFries discusses how we’ve passed humanity’s climate “period of grace” and why we should immediately reduce planet-warming emissions while preparing for an unstable climate future.  

There are many voices in the United States that government has struggled to hear, thus failing to consider every point of view when it comes to policy making. While government has made progress in listening to marginalized communities, much more work remains to be done. 

In this episode of Deciding Factors, our guest played a large part in moving government closer to the goal of including these groups in the discussion, listening their voices in order to create policy that can better benefit every American. Ashley Allison was deputy director and senior policy advisor of the White House Office of Public Engagement during the Obama Administration. Her portfolio included managing a team that worked with the LGBTQ, Muslim, African American, disability, and entertainment communities. Allison’s primary policy focus at the White House was criminal justice and policing reform. 

Virtually everything we do in our lives today relies on technology. Yet, between five and six million Americans still don't have access to high-speed internet. And while that number is startling, it has fallen significantly in the last four years. 

In this episode of Deciding Factors, Ajit Pai, former Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, talks about the role his administration played in decreasing the digital opportunity gap, and the work that’s still to be done. Ajit also speaks about the FCC’s plans for 5G, and changing regulations for media ownership that will help local news teams compete with Big Tech. 

On January 8, 2021, two days after rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, Twitter permanently suspended President Donald Trump’s account on the platform. Though responses to the ban split along partisan lines, Trump’s suspension from Twitter has deep roots in a piece of legislation that draws criticism from across the political aisle: Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which grants tech platforms immunity from liability for the speech of their users. 

In this episode of Deciding Factors, Matthew Perault, Director of the Center of Science & Technology Policy at Duke University and former Director of Public Policy at Facebook, discusses Section 230’s legal context, wide-ranging impact, and political stakes. He explores why, 25 years after Section 230’s passage, the provision is in the spotlight – and how it can be made to better reflect today’s online world. 

As we approach the end of 2020, it’s difficult to reconcile the conflicting signals and assess the outlook for the world’s fight against COVID. On the one hand, pharmaceutical companies have collaborated to accomplish what many scientists call a miracle in developing not one but several effective vaccines. On the other hand, in the month of December alone we saw over 3,000 COVID deaths in a single day in the United States – our highest ever single day total and eclipsing the death toll on 9/11. And across the globe populations remain divided in their willingness to adopt measures most medical professionals think are required to effectively combat the spread of this deadly pandemic. 

In this episode of Deciding Factors, we talked with Dr. Michael Osterholm, Regents Professor, McKnight Endowed Chair in Public Health and Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota, and author of the 2017 New York Times bestseller The Deadliest Enemy, about the outlook for the world’s fight against the deadly pandemic and the prospects for vaccine efficacy and distribution.   

In this episode of Deciding Factors, Admiral John Polowczyk discusses how, after he was asked to lead the White House supply chain task force, he saw it as a duty as a naval officer. What’s more, because members of his own family worked in the medical profession, he felt a personal sense of urgency to succeed in getting the necessary supplies in the right hands. He assumed responsibility and took charge of the operation to move it forward. 

More than six months into the pandemic, COVID-19 is still not under control in the United States. With cases continuing to rise in what looks like to be a severe second stage of infection, the hope for a vaccine is a lifeline for both the mental health of individuals and an economy stretched thin.  In this episode of Deciding Factors, Jeff Kindler, the former CEO, Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, talks about how – though a challenging endeavor— vaccine development for COVID-19 is a massive collaborative effort between academia, private industry, and government institutions. He stresses that the vaccine is essential but the road to it’s development and distribution isn’t as easy as moving from one square to the next. 

In this episode of Deciding Factors, Dr. Stephen Ostroff, former Acting Administrator of the Food and Drug Administration and former Deputy Director of the National Center for Infectious Diseases, discusses what the U.S. learned about COVID-19 in the six months since the initial lockdown orders, the logistics behind developing and distributing a vaccine, and how politicization has been a roadblock to addressing the crisis.  

A significant change in the fundamental dynamics that shape the Middle East may have recently taken place, marked by the recent Israel-UAE “Abraham Accord” that formalizes what was a pre-existing relationship between those two unlikely allies. In this episode of Deciding Factors, Ambassador Dennis Ross, Counselor and William Davidson Distinguished Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, discusses the impact of the Abraham Accord and why the stability of the Middle East remains important even amid the myriad global crises we now face. 

While other countries have managed to contain COVID-19 and have now cautiously reopened their schools, the United States has not succeeded in suppressing the infection which is still showing up in record numbers throughout the country.  In this episode of Deciding Factors, Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician, public health professor at George Washington University, and Baltimore’s former Health Commissioner, discusses how the pandemic has impacted schools, students, and teachers, and what reopening looks like as COVID-19 continues to surge.