How Do We Fix It?

Earth's global average temperature in 2021 was the sixth warmest on record, according to  two new reports  issued this week by U.S. Government agencies. Scientists at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies report that collectively the past eight years were the warmest since modern record keeping began in 1880. The research adds to overwhelming evidence of climate chang...

Our first episode of 2022 is all about a constructive response to the calamitous events of one year ago: The January 6th riot at the U.S. Capitol. On January 5th, a coalition of organizations, led by  Ideos Institute , will host the first annual  National Day of Dialogue . We discuss this invitation to all Americans to push back against deep divides. We also explore the need fo...

The Forever Pandemic, Omicron, Build Back Better, Biden, Putin, China, What's Trump got up his sleeve? The media gave these stories ad nauseum coverage in 2021, often marching in lockstep and suffering from a painful lack of imagination about what should be the big news of the day. But what about underreported stories: The important news that most of us missed? Richard and Jim...

Gerrymandering, low turnout elections, negative campaign ads, and increased polarization are all part of the flawed, fractured U.S. political system. Here we examine the case for constructive changes to how candidates for public office are elected. Our guest,  Rob Richie , has been the leader of the non-profit advocacy group, FairVote, since co-founding the organization in 1992. He has been i...

The huge difference between slogans and solutions is a key theme of this episode. While demands to “de-fund the police” or replace entire police departments with something new might sound good in theory, these ambitious experiments in public safety may backfire. Our guest is Minneapolis civil rights lawyer and activist  Nekima Levy Armstrong . Her recent  New York Times op-ed — “Black Vo...

A crucial step in preventing the next global pandemic will be knowing where this one came from. Did SARS-CoV-2— the virus that causes Covid-19— jump from animals to humans, or was the outbreak the result of a lab leak? The world still doesn’t know the answer.   This episode is part two of our wide-ranging interview with  Alina Chan , a postdoctoral scientist who co-wrote an  ex...

Two years after the known human case of COVID-19, the mystery of the origin of SARS-CoV-2 remains unresolved.  Did the virus emerge from an animal in nature, or could it have accidentally leaked from a research lab in Wuhan, China? Shockingly, the world appears to be no closer to knowing the crucial answer. In this first of two episodes, we get a brief explanation of the growin...

"This book is a message from autistic people to their parents, friends, teachers, coworkers and doctors showing what life is like on the spectrum," writes our guest, author  Eric Garcia  in  We're Not Broken . "It’s also my love letter to autistic people. For too long, we have been forced to navigate a world where all the road signs are written in another language.” Garcia, who...

Not long ago, most of us embraced social media as a life-changing opportunity to connect with friends and family all across the world. Today, public opinion, including members of Congress from both parties, has turned far more negative. Facebook, Twitter, Google, YouTube, and other tech giants are accused of corrupting our democracy, spreading disinformation, and fanning the fl...

As world leaders discuss the planet's future at  COP26  in Glasgow, climate change remains a massive challenge and a source of fierce debate. While  two-thirds of Americans think  that the government should be doing more, it's tempting to throw our hands up in despair and think: "There's nothing I can do." Climate scientist  Katharine Hayhoe  begs to differ.&nbsp...

Many millions of Americans are heading back to work — in person — for the first time since the pandemic hit. During this time of remote meetings and working from home, many of us learned new skills, and perhaps, forgot our old ways to work and successfully collaborate with colleagues. This episode is a timely and very personal reminder of how to make meetings better and develop  str...

From local school board elections to state legislatures, an impassioned nationwide debate has erupted over allegations that Critical Race Theory (CRT) is being taught in public schools. Anti-CRT bills have been passed in more than two dozen Republican-led states. What do we mean by Critical Race Theory? What are these laws aiming to accomplish? How will they affect schools in the US? We share a li...

Never before in living memory has America been as politically polarized as it is today. We are divided by our politics,  Facebook  and other social media sites, and by  news media .  Nearly half of us  have stopped talking with someone about political topics as a result of what they said in person or online. Our culture of contempt is dividing us all and making A...

Imagine a future where smart machines are more intelligent than humans. That future may be coming much faster than we think. The stark implications are considered in this podcast.  The former Chief Business Officer at Google X, Egyptian entrepreneur  Mo Gawdat  has long been at the heart of the artificial intelligence revolution, deeply involved in engineering, robotics, a...

This episode addresses a great problem of our age: How do we curb the enormous power of giant technology companies and limit the disruption caused by them and their products? 20 years ago, we lived in an era of digital utopianism when most people thought that the internet would give us new freedom to find information. But we didn't anticipate many of the most disturbing technological changes....

The line between our “civilized” lives and wild, unpredictable nature seems to have gotten a little thinner lately. Nature is great, but it can also be dangerous if we don’t show proper respect.  This show is about awkward encounters with bears, mountain lines, gulls and other wild creatures. We also discuss "killer trees" with best-selling science writer,  Mary Roach , author of the new...

"I now believe the 9/11 Truthers I encountered were canaries in the coal mines of American society," writes our co-host, Jim Meigs, in the current issue of  City Journal . In this episode we hear about conspiracy theories, those who believe in them, and the corrosive impact of paranoia on American political life. Richard interviews Jim about his work at  Popular Mechanics  in the ye...

Only  four in 10 Americans  say they have a lot of trust in the news media. That's a big problem for our democracy. While journalists are supposed to tell the truth and get the story right, just  35 percent  of right-of-center voters have some trust in what they see in the news. Democrats and independents are much more likely to trust journalists, but Americans of almost&n...

For much of its history, the United States kept the rest of the world at arm's length. What happened in the decades after the 1941 military strike on Pearl Harbor, and several years after the 9/11 attacks, could be seen as an aberration. The sudden, chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, the  Taliban  takeover, and resulting humanitarian disaster may lead to another American foreign p...

Successful politicians on the right and left often use anger and resentment to build support for their campaigns. "A lot of our politics is dignity politics," argues Stanford political scientist, Francis Fukuyama , our guest in this episode. "It's one group saying, 'look, you are not taking us seriously. You disregard our rights and we demand a different kind of world.'" We discuss whether identit...

In this special episode, Richard and Jim have an extended conversation around six solutions to help us manage the pandemic more successfully, and improve responses to future public health emergencies. 1.  Have a more realistic view of the virus.  This includes understanding that the virus won't go away anytime soon. Clear, honest communication from the media and gover...

America is facing a reading crisis, and this has profound impacts on how we engage with the world. The number of adults who read books for pleasure  fell by more than 30%  in less than 15 years.  Researchers found  that Americans watch TV three hours a day, but spend less than 30 minutes reading.  "Reading is seeing the world through someone else's eyes," says our guest,&n...

Our relationship with our stuff is broken. What was once fixed is often tossed into landfills. Repairs today are more expensive than the prices of many new clothes, gadgets, and household appliances. The U.S. has 5% of the world's population, but consumes about 30% of the world's resources and creates almost a third of the world's waste.  Large manufacturers restrict the repair...

Democracies around the world are under threat from populist movements, demagogues, and dogmatic extremists who use disinformation, conspiracy theories, shaming, cancel culture, and other tactics to weaponize social media and challenge our ability to distinguish fact from fiction and truth from falsehood. In  his new book , our guest, best-selling author, journalist, scholar, an...

The spread of the Delta Variant is a  rapidly growing threat  to public health, especially in states with low vaccination rates. But cases of COVID-19 are still  holding steady  in regions where more than 60% of the adult population had at least one shot. The disparity comes at a time of triumph with increasing evidence that the vaccines offer extremely high rate...