Parag Kadam's research is comparing the effectiveness of various methods of upholding good standards of forest management. He has worked for an organization that certifies particular companies for maintaining good procedures. Still, as he tells Metta, far more progress is required to save the planet's forests.

Earl Turcotte, chair of CNANW, explains to Metta how the nuclear weapons ban treaty was created. It will enter into effect as international law on January 22, and numerous NGOs are planning events to call attention to it and urge the Canadian government to sign and ratify it. People in other countries are doing similar things. We talk about the prospect that a NATO country can advance the disarmament process by taking a strong stand.

Subha Xavier studies the literary productions of migrants to Francophone countries from elsewhere. She and Metta discuss the psychological challenges of meeting unfamiliar and mixed expectations, as well as the pain of actual racism. She has been "curing" the ballots that were rejected in the recent Georgian run-off election of two senators, and found that these were disproportionately among black voters who welcomed her more because she is a "small brown woman."

Maria Puerta Riera is a political scientist from Venezuela who lives in Florida now and studies the voting patterns of various immigrant populations in the US. She and Metta discuss the support of Trump by many Cuban and Venezuelan immigrants.

Dr Art Hunter is an engineer who has turned his home into a laboratory to experiment with efficient energy use. He shows Metta how he has managed to live off the electric grid for the past 300 days, both by conserving, storing, and generating energy in the household.

Berkeley sociologist Ann Swidler, Globe and Mail columnist Doug Saunders, and Focus on Foreign Policy editor John Feffer join Metta in a conversation about the societal changes that lie behind the rise of right wing populist movements. Ann blames "localism" (as opposed to cosmopolitanism), which is a version of the theory that it is a (justifiable) reaction against globalization.

Paul Copeland, Martin Klein, Louis Kriesberg, and Doug Saunders discuss with Metta the challenge of protecting human rights in situations of ethnic conflicts around the world--currently especially in Myanmar, the Caucasus, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and even (with respect to indigenous rights ) in Canada, New Zealand, and the US.

Craig Smith is an engineer who has been president of a major construction company, which among other projects renewed the Pentagon. He is co-author of a book about global warming, Reaching Net Zero. He and Metta discuss the trend among corporations to become either carbon neutral or, in the case of Microsoft and some others, carbon negative. At the end, the conversation turns toward various proposals to make corporations more accountable in their governance to society's wellbeing.

The Gandhian activist Jill Carr-Harris spent several months in Armenia after her cross-continent peace march was interrupted there by Covid. She had also visited Nagorno-Karabakh before the march, getting blacklisted by Azerbaijan for doing so without their permission. Soon the area was at war, and she recounts to Metta the history that led to it. She would hope for a revival of the OSCE's "Minsk Group," which was supposed to find a lasting solution to the frozen conflict that resulted from the previous war.