Gulf Coast Life

The concept of birthright citizenship dates to English Common Law, and it was codified in 1868 by the ratification of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and was upheld in 1898 in a Supreme Court ruling called United States v. Wong Kim Ark, and it was further strengthened in 1940 when Congress passed the Nationality Act. President Trump signed an Executive Order that claim “The 14th Amendment has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States,” and says that only children born of at least one citizen parent will be a U.S. citizen. We get some clarity and context with two immigration attorneys, one with the ACLU and the other who has worked on immigration law for nearly 50 years.

On Saturday, July 19 there will be a daylong gathering in Fort Myers to begin a conversation about moving the City of Palms toward openly becoming a Compassionate City. One that holds empathy, dignity, and care at the core. The organizers are calling for educators, civic leaders, healthcare workers, artists, entrepreneurs, faith voices, and anyone really, who want to join the conversation about the importance of compassion and empathy and how to find ways to build them into the community. We talk with three of the people involved with Saturday’s event to get a preview and to talk about compassion.

When it comes to the ways global climate change impacts the world’s oceans things like melting ice caps and glaciers, and what’s called thermal expansion — that’s when water takes up more volume as its temperature goes up — are probably what first come to mind. Or how increased water temperatures impact sea life, like recent, widespread coral bleaching events off Florida’s coast and around the world. Or even how changes in temperature and salinity can alter ocean currents, which are crucial for regulating global climate and weather patterns. But, an overlooked aspect of this story is how increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases the acidity — or the pH level — of the world’s oceans.

Right now our public debt is about 97% of our GDP. The last time we had a ratio that high was around World War II. A key number that economists are focused on right now is how much interest the U.S. Government is paying to manage the national debt. Right now, we’re paying almost $1 trillion dollars per year in interest. That is more than we spend on the military budget and almost as much as we spend on healthcare, including Medicare and Medicaid, every year. So, in order to get an overview of how the U.S. national debt works, how the government borrows money to service the debt or even pay it back, how we’ve found ourselves in a place with such a high debt to GDPT ratio, and how concerned we all should be, we talk with the author of a recent piece in The Journalist’s Resource titled “The national debt: How and why the US government borrows money.”

The world filled with portable devices and electric cars that we’ve come to rely upon is mostly powered with lithium-ion batteries. Most of the lithium-ion batteries we use require cobalt. Most of the cobalt that’s being used in these batteries is extracted from the ground in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and much of it is sent to China to be processed for the global market. The Blood Diamond initiative in the 1990s sought to raise awareness about, and eventually create systems to mitigate the use here in the U.S. of, so-called ‘blood’ or ‘conflict’ diamonds that were being mined in places like Sierra Leone and the DRC where workers were being mistreated and profits were fueling war. Our guest was instrumental in the Blood Diamonds initiative, and is now leading the new Blood Battery Campaign that’s modelled after it.

Thunderstorm Aversion or storm anxiety is when dogs experience significant fear or anxiety during storms. Loud noises are the most obvious trigger, but dogs can react to other storm-related cues like lightning flashes, the sounds of wind or rain hitting the home, changes in barometric pressure, and even static electricity in the air. We learn about Thunderstorm Aversion and ways veterinarians try to help dogs and their owners. And we learn about a three-year, double-blind, placebo-controlled study of a new treatment that’s hoping to become a medical solution.

We get some insight into the long and challenging journeys dementia caregivers are on from two men who became caregivers themselves after their wives were diagnosed with dementia. Dan Moser’s wife Maria was diagnosed with what’s called Frontotemporal Degeneration (FTD) in 2015 and he was her caregiver until she passed away about two years ago. During that time, he pivoted away from his work as a bike and pedestrian safety advocate toward dementia caregiving, a role he continues to this day. And Jeff Edwards’ wife Bunny was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2018 and he’s still taking care of her. Jeff retired from a 50-plus year in radio a couple of years ago and since then has been producing a podcast called GUTPUNCHED that explores the challenges of dementia caregiving, and shares resources they've found, and as he puts it “their heartbreaks and their little victories.”

The fear of deportation is growing for hundreds of thousands of immigrants across the country after a recent ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, which allows the Trump administration to revoke their Temporary Protected Status (TPS). The Trump administration also continues efforts to make good on its pledge to deport 3,000 people per day. Florida leads the country in the number of local law enforcement agencies partnering with ICE to deport undocumented people. And recently, the Trump administration has enacted sweeping travel bans and restrictions on citizens from some countries in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. To help us understand these new immigration policies and the impact here in our state, we talk with Fort Myers Immigration Attorney Ricardo Skerrett.

This Thursday, June 12 WGCU’s Documentary Unit will premiere the new film “Rising: Surviving the Surge.” It features dramatic storm footage, powerful stories of resilience, and insights from scientists, first responders, and community leaders to provide a wake-up call to the reality of storm surge that we all now know is possible on a very personal level. And it offers a vital reminder to be prepared for when it matters most. We discuss the making of Rising and some of the lessons we've learned from the storm that forever changed Southwest Florida.

President Trump has signed 157 Executive orders since taking office in January. Many of them are well-within the authority of the President. But our guest is sounding the alarm about what he says are actions that exceed the authority given to the Executive Branch under the U.S. Constitution — powers meant to be shared with other branches of government, or that defy Supreme Court interpretations of what the law and the Constitution mean as historically understood.