New Thinking for a New World

Humanity is hardwired to value the valuable, to conserve even to hoard treasure. The atmosphere, the oceans, earth’s ecosystem are vital to life, yet we essentially view them as free goods. The inevitable result is overconsumption, waste and pollution. Paula DiPerna’s key insight in her new book, Pricing the Priceless, is that the only way to break the cycle that is obviously damaging, perhaps destroying the temperate environment that mankind needs to prosper is to pay for the environmental services we consume every day.

Why, she asks, do markets value companies like Uber—which provides a convenience that we can live without— at almost $100 billion, but the atmosphere essential to life that we are filling with toxic waste gases at $0?

DiPerna, who is a policy expert and author, recently joined host Alan Stoga for a New Thinking for a New World discussion of Pricing the Priceless: The Financial Transformation to Value the Planet, Solve the Climate Crisis, and Protect Our Most Precious Assets.

Donald Trump continues to make history: he is the only American president (serving or former) ever to have been criminally indicted. He already faces two separate indictments and trials, with the strong possibility of one or two more before the end of the year. That would set a record for presidential indictments that will last a long time.

A former president standing trial is extraordinary on its own; a former president standing trial while running for re-election is terra incognita for the U.S. judicial system. On the one hand, it is a fundamental principle of American jurisprudence that all citizens are equal under the law. On the other hand, how can judges and prosecutors balance a candidate’s free speech rights and the need to campaign, with the discipline of a courtroom? Moreover, think about the consequences. What happens if Trump is convicted? What if he loses the trial, wins the election, and is imprisoned? Can he take office?

(Spoiler alert: yes!)

As they say, it’s complicated. Joon Kim, an experienced prosecutor and former acting US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, unravels some of those complications. His brief in this episode of New Thinking for a New World is not the politics of Trump's unprecedented situation, but the legal and judicial aspects of the mess that the former president has created for himself and for the rest of us.

What do you think? Should Trump stand trial?

The planet “Earth” should probably be called “Water” since 70% of it is ocean. Of course, that also means any discussion of climate issues should start with the oceans. Increasing temperatures, rising sea levels, declining biodiversity, growing acidification and other changes driven by climate change have profound impact on the overall degradation of the planet and on mankind’s future.

Marine biologist Asha de Vos knows as much as anyone about our blue planet. She has done pioneering work on blue whales, the largest animal on earth, and founded Oceanswell in 2017, Sri Lanka’s first marine conservation research and education organization. In 2021 she was awarded the Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize.

Asha recently joined New Thinking for a New World host Alan Stoga for a conversation about her work in Sri Lanka.

A few days ago the world watched in amazement as Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the infamous paramilitary Wagner Group, turned his ambition from defeating Ukraine to challenging the Russian army and—although he continues to deny it—Vladimir Putin himself. Wagner’s fighters seized some Russian territory and rapidly advanced towards Moscow, before abruptly halting, accepting a deal negotiated by Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko, and standing down.

Details are still in short supply, but it’s hard to imagine that this brief insurrection won’t have consequences for the war on Ukraine, for Russia’s relations with its few allies, and—most importantly—on Putin’s future.

Yevgenia Albats, Distinguished Journalist in Residence at NYU’s Jordan Center in forced exile from Russia, thinks that Prigozhin is a “dead man walking.” Maybe Putin, too?

Do you think this is the beginning of the end for the Russian dictator?

"When you strike at a king, you must kill him” ― is a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson

Although inflection points are better judged in retrospect, OpenAI's release of ChatGPT late last year may have touched off a new era in how mankind relates to machines—perhaps in how civilization works. From medicine and legal briefs and sonnets in the style of Shakespeare to John Lennon’s long-dead voice, the combination of generative artificial intelligence and massive computing power is producing endless wonders across wide ranges of human activity, some trivial but some incredibly sophisticated.

"What can't AI do?" is the question. The answer seems to be, "Anything a human can do, AI can do better."

Because of that perception, right or wrong, the only thing growing seeming to grow faster than AI's capability is hysteria about AI's capability. Suddenly industry leaders are warning about the risk of humanity’s extinction by an ever more powerful AI and pleading for regulation to save us from their creation and its future iterations.

But once Pandora’s box has been opened, can it be closed? Can artificial intelligence actually be regulated? Can what happens in thousands of labs worldwide, who have access to unlimited computing power and open-source code, be controlled? If so, how and by whom? Who decides what’s good and what’s bad?

Rebecca Finlay, CEO of the Partnership on AI whose stakeholders include many of the biggest players in North America and Europe, is thinking deeply about these issues and is optimistic that there are positive answers. She recently joined host Alan Stoga for a New Thinking for a New World podcast.

We didn’t ask ChatGPT what it thinks, because we care more about what you think. Can AI be regulated?

Russia's invasion of Ukraine seems likely to be one of those seminal events that will divide our future histories: BI and AI. That's obviously true for the combatants, but for many others as well.

Consider the small country of Georgia, with less than 4 million people, located at the eastern end of the Black Sea, and sharing an almost 900-kilometer border with Russia. Like Ukraine, it is another part of the former Soviet Union as well as a country that Russia wants to control again. But, liberated by the collapse of the Soviet Union, a significant majority of the Georgian people have demonstrated a strong desire to escape their history and geography and to pursue a future integrated into Europe. Unfortunately for them, neither Putin's Russia—which several years ago seized and still holds 20% of Georgian territory—nor the governing political party, Georgian Dream, share that aspiration.

What happens next? Another hotspot that could lead to another war? Or a country that has the chance to lever Western support for Ukraine to secure its own future as a Western democracy?

Nino Evgenidze, executive director of the Economic Policy Research Center in Tbilisi, Georgia has strong views on what should happen and what the West should do. Listen to her discussion with New Thinking for a New World host Alan Stoga and tell us whether you agree that Europe and the United States ought to use sanctions and other tools to make Georgia safe for democracy on our website https://tallbergfoundation.org/podcasts/georgia-on-my-mind/

Join us as we revisit our conversation with Johan Rockström, renowned earth scientist and Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. A year ago, he shed light on the gravity of our situation, stating that "for the first time in human history, we face a planetary emergency." Astonishingly, this remains an urgent reality even today. Recently, an article titled "Safe and just Earth system boundaries" was published in Nature on May 31, providing further insights. For the first time, scientists have meticulously evaluated and quantified not only the boundaries within which humanity can safely operate, but also those that ensure fairness and justice for all. In an era where scientists often present their findings in a measured and objective manner, Rockström's assertion that "Human pressures on earth have reached dangerously high levels" carries immense weight and demands our attention. Tune in to our podcast episode and listen to the thought-provoking perspectives of Johan Rockström, as we delve deeper into the critical issues surrounding the survival of our species.

Are you listening? If so, what do you think? And, more importantly, what are you going to do?

This podcast was first published on June 23, 2022.

Over the last several months, there have been a series of extraordinary developments in the Middle East that could have almost as big an impact on the shape of the new global order as Russia’s war on Ukraine. Consider even a partial list:

The only thing that is clear is that a new Middle Eastern political order is under construction, one in which the United States and Europe are likely to have considerably less influence than they enjoyed over the past century.

Gilles Kepel, one of France's leading experts on the Middle East and a regular columnist for Al-Monitor, recently shared his thinking about these profound changes with New Thinking for a New World.

Listen and tell us what you think: Will the Middle East be more peaceful and prosperous without the United States playing a dominant political role?

India's backstory is largely unknown in the West. Between the 1st and 17th centuries AD, the country had the world's largest economy, controlling as much as one-third of global wealth. But that seemingly endless prosperity was followed by almost 500 years of decline as India was plundered and pushed aside by modern powers.

Fast forward to 2023: India is the world's most populous nation with one of the largest economies. The three trillion dollar Indian economy is expected to grow faster this year than any other major country in the world. Foreign investment is pouring in, partly looking for a safe haven from China's geopolitical ambitions and partly seeking to participate in India's new dynamism.

The man who has presided over this renaissance—Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in office since May 2014—is a global rock star. Indeed, some pollsters make the case that he is the most popular leader in the world. He has brought a degree of stability to a country where political violence used to be endemic and somehow produced an economically and geopolitically resurgent India. His and the country's importance are recognized by India's 2023 presidency of the G-20, as well as the West's aggressive courting of Modi and India as rivals to Xi and China.

Yet Western (as well as some Indian) critics worry that Modi's version of democracy is too autocratic and inward-looking, too rooted in Hindu nationalism to be sustainable. And they are skeptical that India has an economic model that can sustain the kind of outsize growth that transformed China from a country with lots of people to an economic superpower.

Milan Vaishnav is a senior fellow and director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington and an accomplished India watcher. He shared some answers in a recent New Thinking for a New World podcast.

What do you think: Will India continue its evolution to become a global power?

Sudan is at war with itself. The revolution that drove Omar al-Bashir from office after 30 years produced coups, conflict and military rule rather than peace, democracy and prosperity. Today two generals—Abdel Fattah al-Burhan of the Sudanese Army and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo of the Rapid Support Forces—are locked in mortal combat for control. The price of their rivalry is enormous: hundreds dead, millions displaced internally and across borders, spreading hunger and disease, and a crushed economy.

The tragedy of Sudan is compounded by the risk of broader conflict in the Horn of Africa, which abounds with deep-seated conflicts and tensions. There is a real possibility of a regional war, stoked by outside powers, which would have consequences far beyond Khartoum. So far the diplomats have failed to find even a temporary solution.

Unraveling all this is complicated, so in this episode of New Thinking for a New World, we turn to Samah Salman, a Sudanese businesswoman and civil society leader. At the moment she is in Washington D.C. trying to help her country find peace.

What do you think?