Michael Cohen notes the human tendency to move towards a central authority figure or unifying entity, which serves as a remedy for war. Tariq Rauf discusses the growing nuclear dangers, revealing that no arms control treaty is currently in force between Russia and the United States. He reveals that the New START, which was meant to limit nuclear weapon numbers, has been suspended by Putin. Russia has also refused to resume inspections, causing concerns over the development of new weapon systems.

With no formal implementation of the New START, each country could increase their nuclear deployed weapons, already stored, by at least 1000 to 1500. Rauf also raised concerns about the potential introduction of artificial intelligence into the nuclear command and control system, which could lead to automated launches.

In May, there will be discussions on controlling AI in Geneva, but primarily in relation to conventional weapons, not nuclear weapons. The U.S. has the capability to launch an attack anywhere in the world within an hour using conventional weapons. Rauf also mentioned China’s involvement in the buildup of nuclear weapons, predicting that they could have 1500 nuclear weapons by 2035, leading to a trilateral arms competition.

Finally, Rauf criticized Canada’s passive stance on these issues, following NATO and the U.S. lead in building up nuclear weapons and reinforcing their role in NATO strategy. He concluded by warning of the dangerous situation that could quickly spiral out of control due to geopolitical tensions and the absence of arms control treaties.

Metta Spencer asked about Putin’s threat to move nuclear weapons into Belarus and the initiative by some U.S. Senators to prohibit AI control of nuclear weapons. Rauf confirmed both instances, highlighting the complexity and high-stakes nature of the situation.        

Al Jubitz said that the real enemy as war itself and the tools of war, emphasizing the need to challenge militarism as a threat to survival.

The discussion also addressed China’s potential role in global politics. Tariq Rauf shared that China had offered to mediate between Ukraine and Russia, but this proposal was dismissed by the US and NATO. He highlighted China’s neutrality, and its desire for the war to end, despite the West’s policy to confront China politically, militarily, and economically.

Rauf pointed out that China’s approach to aid in Africa, focusing on infrastructure development, contrasts with the West’s extractive involvement. However, he also noted China’s contentious territorial claims in the Pacific, which have created tension with neighboring countries.

The conversation shifted to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, and the challenges of securing a ceasefire. Rauf noted the reluctance of both sides to stop fighting and the fear that providing Ukraine with advanced weapons could escalate the conflict. He also addressed the controversial idea of strategically defeating Russia by breaking it up into smaller entities, an idea which he stated has gained traction among some US conservatives.

Metta Spencer asks about the locations of any potential fractures in Russia, citing historical ethnic divisions such as Chechnya and Armenia. Tariq Rauf suggests a divide between Slavic and non-Slavic Russians (Tatars and others). He notes the possibility of breaking off Siberia, where resources are drained for Moscow’s benefit, and where there’s a feeling of neglect. He also mentions the influx of Chinese men marrying Siberian women due to a gender imbalance in China, although he clarifies that these are just observations.

In a humorous interlude, Michael Cohen hypothesizes about a unifying global threat, like an extraterrestrial invasion. Tariq Rauf responds by highlighting the rise in nationalism, even in humanitarian crises.

Metta then invites Alexey Prokhorenko, a Russian living in Warsaw, to share his perspective. Alexey validates Tariq’s comments about Siberia, adding the issue of young Russian men dying in wars. He observes a potential long-term Chinese influence in Siberia. Although he feels somewhat disconnected from Russia, he expresses a shift from optimism to a more balanced view regarding Ukraine’s future offensive against Putin’s forces.        

Metta Spencer discusses the situation of Russian men fleeing Russia to avoid being conscripted to fight in the war. According to Andre Kamenshikov, approximately 40 men are at risk of being extradited and deported back to Russia due to treaties between Russia and countries such as Kazakhstan. Some of these men are considered criminals for refusing to join the army. One potential solution discussed is for these men to immigrate to Canada, either through regular immigration processes or by entering the country on a tourist visa and then claiming refugee status. However, these processes can be slow and aren’t always successful.

Alexey Prokhorenko confirms that the threat is real for those living in countries like Kazakhstan due to Russia’s influence there. He mentions that economic challenges also drive some refugees to return to Russia. Alexey also discusses Dmitry Medvedev’s controversial statements about punishing those who have left Russia to avoid mobilization, suggesting that it may represent a drunken attempt to regain political power and favor.

Later, the conversation switches to climate change. Peter Wadhams, an expert on Arctic ice, discusses the rapid warming of the ocean, particularly in the Arctic, where warming is occurring seven times faster than other parts of the world. He mentions an alarming 13-degree increase in the seas north of Newfoundland and Labrador. He criticizes the scientific community for their silence regarding these extreme warming rates, stating that there is currently no explanation for such rapid temperature increase.        

Metta Spencer questions whether there can be any effective interventions to reverse such an extraordinary degree of ongoing heating. Peter Wadhams agrees, citing examples such as the northeastern Atlantic and Siberia where warming rates due to methane explosions are causing significant concern. He mentions that such topics are often avoided by scientists unless they can offer a solution. Peter Brogden then brings up the question of whether the recent warmth in eastern North America could be similar to the end of the ice age that occurred around 10,500 years ago. He wonders if there could have been a larger rise in temperature then, which could provide insight into our current situation. Wadhams notes that the temperature rise we are experiencing now is unprecedented and sudden, making it quite alarming.

Bill Leikam asks about the potential effects of losing the ice caps at both the north and south poles on the Earth’s orbit. Wadhams mentions that he and a colleague had written a paper on this topic, suggesting that changes in ice distribution could change the Earth’s rotation rate. He suggests that current satellite technology might be able to measure these changes accurately.

After the discussion on climate change, the conversation switches to Charles David Tauber’s work in Croatia. He works with people in conflict countries, teaching them how to deal with psychological trauma. Tauber mentions the desperate need for this work in countries like Congo, Burundi, Liberia, Syria, and Turkey. He also asks for contacts in these areas to expand his work.

Erika Simpson then shares that she is preparing for the Canadian Peace Research Association meeting at York University, which will feature 30 speakers from Canada and around the world.       

Metta Spencer, a 2022 recipient of the association’s Lifetime Achievement Award, was praised for her impressive list of publications. The conversation then shifted to the topic of violent video games, with Rose Dyson linking them to increased incidents of mass murders. David Grossman, a psychologist, was cited for his research showing a correlation between mass murders and obsessive video game playing. Concerns were raised about the addictive nature of video games and the financial burden they can cause. Charles David Tauber mentioned the prevalence of gender-based violence and emphasized the importance of restorative justice and rehabilitative treatment at the village and individual level. Rose Dyson mentioned efforts to address issues of human sex trafficking, with different bills currently under discussion in Ottawa.        

Rose Dyson and Charles David Tauber plan to connect over email. Erika Simpson then shares her recent work on media related to NATO spending, especially Canada’s relatively low spending (1.27% of GDP), and nuclear burial sites close to the Great Lakes. She cannot recommend her students to work abroad or provide therapy online in Tauber’s program due to university policies and lack of training. Tauber explains that they mostly work online, and Metta Spencer adds that students can be trained to provide therapy via zoom.

Michael Cohen suggests a nature-centric therapeutic approach, after which the conversation turns towards wildlife. Marilyn Krieger recommends a book on animal communication and discusses her local work on the impacts of urbanization and climate change on wildlife. Bill Leikam talks about monitoring two gray foxes and an associated documentary. He amusingly shares a tale of a ‘fox divorce.’ The conversation ends on a jovial note with a promise to reconvene in a month.

TRANSCRIPT

This is a machine generated transcript that probably contains errors. Do not cite it without checking for yourself by watching the video and catching any obvious errors. 

Metta Spencer  00:00

Hello, friends. How’s everybody today? Welcome. Here’s global town hall for April of 2023, and I have six people here with me. It’s terrific. Welcome and here comes somebody else. Oh, somebody with a foreign script. I’m not sure whether that’s Georgian, or some kind of different kind of script anyway. So we will soon find out who are. Oh, this is somebody with. Okay.

Adam Wynne  00:53

That’s  Greek Metta.

Metta Spencer  00:55

Is that Greek?

Adam Wynne  00:56

I think is that Leda Raptis?

Metta Spencer  00:59

Yeah, could be Leda. Anyway. So we have here Leda, and we have Michael Cohen, and here comes somebody named KelleJ ly and we have a somebody called iPhone. and I don’t know who that is. Who is iPhone, which one of you claims to be at telephone?

Al Jubitz  01:18

That’s Al Jubitz calling in.

Metta Spencer  01:20

Alright, hello Al.

Al Jubitz  01:23

I’m trying to figure out the iPhone part.

Metta Spencer  01:26

That’s fine as long as we get acquainted. and here’s somebody named Kelley. Hello, Kelly. I think you’re a newbie, right?

Kelley  01:35

Yeah. I’m Kelley. I interviewed you almost a year ago I think. I’m in Humboldt County, California.

Metta Spencer  01:41

Sure. I remember that very well. Yeah, you have a very interesting talk show you interview people? Well, I know it has to be interesting, even if it was me. So it was fun. Very nice.

Kelley  01:55

I interviewed someone recently on the war. and it’s very surprising to me how the anti war movement is so it, like supportive of Putin, and she was supportive of. So that’s been my, you know, I’m anti war just like everybody else. But at the same time, I’m, I would hate to be left alone and not helped. If marauders were coming in my house. I’m not that pacifist.

Marilyn Krieger  02:28

Why is it supportive of Putin? That’s my question. Why is the anti war movement supportive of Putin?

Kelley  02:36

That is my question as well. That’s the question that I have today that I, you know, usually watch on YouTube and not join in.

Metta Spencer  02:45

Let’s get people’s thoughts about that, because I don’t know the distribution. I’d love to see a poll, what, you know, if somebody really would do a poll of peace activists, or, you know, people that we normally are in contact with, to see what the distribution is, but it is it is unpleasant to me to realize that there are an awful lot of people who would just be perfectly happy to have well, I won’t I won’t comment further because you are on the same wavelength. Listen, let’s let’s see what people think about this. Let me start with Tariq because to Tariq Rauf I presume you’re in Vienna. You’re home, right?

Tariq Rauf  03:32

I am. Hello, Metta. I am in Villach. Villach is in the Alps in the border with Italy and Slovenia but in Austria.

Metta Spencer  03:40

Oh. Okay. Well, are you on vacation or?

Tariq Rauf  03:45

I am on a small vacation? Yes.

Metta Spencer  03:49

Well, good. Have a good time. You can’t be doing skiing there now can you?

Tariq Rauf  03:55

Well there is still some snow on the top of the tallest mountains, but I’m a little bit below.

Metta Spencer  04:02

Okay, listen to what this question is very interesting, one that Kelley has raised. Although her face has just gone blank I don’t know where you went here Kelley. Why don’t you comment on that Tariq. Tell us your impression of of how that looks from Europe.

Tariq Rauf  04:23

Well Europe is solidly behind Ukraine. Even though people are having to pay higher prices for food and energy, but they are still solidly behind Ukraine and the effort to have a Ukraine recover its lost territories.

Metta Spencer  04:49

Okay, so you, you are I don’t know what circles you travel in. You’re, you’re pretty much in officialdom almost, aren’t you? So But if we if we asked grassroots  people, activists that might be the kind of people who would tune in on this show, then, by the way, I’m going to start calling it a forum, if I can remember to because it sounds more dignified than a show.  Anyway, the, what would European activists say? I would you say that the distribution is anything like, favorable to the Russian side?

Tariq Rauf  05:37

I think public opinion is divided in certain sectors. So I wouldn’t say that it’s favoring Putin. But so there’s a large segment that is supporting Ukraine, and there is a small section that is anti war. They’re not pro Putin. But they say that they can see some reasons why the Russians did what they did. If I can put it that way.

Metta Spencer  06:09

I can see that too. But it doesn’t. It doesn’t excuse it. Anyway, here. I talk too much. Let’s see what other people think. Others? Leda, I think you’re going to be your you’re one of the people who have spoken on this before. So I’ll let you…

Leda Raptis  06:28

Well, I sort of agree with Tariq in the sense that I mean, if Bush, for example, 20 years ago, could say that the Iraq was a threat to the US and this is why they invaded. Iraq iswhat 12,000 miles away from the US? And if that was sort of acceptable. What is Putin gonna say now where the NATO is just next door to them? Of course, that doesn’t excuse nothing excuses, the bombing and all of that. But, I mean, we have to have a bit of none of the to have the moral high ground, none of the two superpowers. But as the little ones, what do we do? Well, would you say stop the fighting both sides, no expansion of NATO, and no, and Putin to go back where he was.

Metta Spencer  07:28

Okay, to remind people that we have a website, called tosavetheworld.ca. And it’s, there’s a separate page for each of the forums that we run, including the monthly global Town Hall, which this is, and if you go to the website tosavethe world.ca, look for videos, or just enter the number of the show or the title of the show, it will take you to the specific page where you can watch the recording once I get it up, because sometimes it takes me a little while. And then there’s a place where you can comment. So I encourage and even urge people to share your points of view in writing, after you know, if it has anything to do with what we’ve talked about in this forum. So we can continue the conversation there online. and you can go there and see what other people have written. So we have some other late comers or not late, you’re in good time. There’s Peter Brogden. Hello, Peter.

Peter Brogden  08:39

Hi.

Metta Spencer  08:40

And we have another Peter, Peter Wadhams. I presume you’re in Turin, Italy. Is that right Peter?

Peter Wadhams  08:46

Yeah.

Metta Spencer  08:47

Okay. and Michael Cohen. Tell me more about Michael Cohen, because I think we’ve interacted but I have to say, I can’t remember much about it, Michael.

Michael Cohen  08:59

Well, I’m here because there’s an authority, like Putin, that people respect even though they don’t like the outcomes and they don’t know what this authority is. But they keep, we keep traveling towards some central figure or some central something that unites us and therefore is an antidote or a remedy for war.

Richard Denton  09:30

And also Al Jubitz is trying to get on.

Tariq Rauf  09:34

Oh, okay. Okay, thanks, Metta, and, Adam. I wanted to talk about increasing nuclear dangers. We now have no arms control treaty in force between Russia and the United States dealing with nuclear weapons.

Metta Spencer  09:52

Sorry, you mean to say that the New START is something has gone wrong there?

Tariq Rauf  09:57

Yeah, the New START has been suspended on the 21st of February. President Putin announced the suspension of New Start. And also, Russia has not agreed to resume inspections, which were suspended because of COVID. So the United States was ready to restart inspections but the Russians said they were not ready to do so. Also, in November of last year, the two sides were supposed to meet of all places in Cairo to talk about mutual concerns about each other’s implementation of New Start. The Russians are concerned that the United States is not dismantling strategic bombers and nuclear submarines carrying missiles in accordance with New Start, and the Americans are concerned about the new weapons systems that Russia is building. So the Russians cancelled this meeting, the bilateral consultative commission, supposed to be held on the 30th of November. They canceled it one day in advance. So with the suspension of New Start on the 21st of February, neither side is now formally implementing it. Although both countries the Americans and the Russians have said that for the time being, they will not exceed the limits of New Start. But we don’t know how long this will last. The Russians further added that as long as the United States and NATO have the policy of strategic defeat of Russia. This is what the US Defense Secretary said earlier in the year, that the US policy is to affect the strategic defeat of Russia. and so the Russians have said as long as this policy is in place, the war will not stop in Ukraine, they will not implement New Start, and they are not ready to talk about any new follow on agreement on nuclear arms control. So many in the arms control community are now very concerned that if New Start were to completely collapse, both countries could immediately increase their nuclear deployed nuclear weapons, the ones ready to launch by at least 1000 or 1500 each. They don’t have to make new ones. They already have these weapons in storage, not deployed, and therefore they are not accountable and to start, so all they need to do is move them out into the field and install them on nuclear submarines, put them back on bombers. So we would end up instead of about 1550 nuclear warheads, each with about 3500 warheads for the US about 2600 warheads for the Russian Federation. We don’t know whether the treaty prohibiting nuclear weapon testing, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty will survive. The Russians have made some noises about the requirement to resume nuclear weapons testing. The US has said that if any country resumes nuclear testing, the US will restart nuclear testing in Nevada, and I understand that the United Kingdom quietly encouraged the US to reopen Nevada so that the British could also test their weapons in Nevada, which they’ve been doing for the past 30 years or so, before the Nevada Test Site was shut down by the US. So the other big concern is artificial intelligence. and people are concerned that if artificial intelligence is introduced into the nuclear command and control system, then the human potentially could be taken out of the decision chain. We could potentially have automated launch of nuclear weapons. If the computers or early warning systems on either side, detect what they think is a preemptive attack by the other side. This is highly dangerous, and the situation can ramp itself very quickly out of control. So, later in May, there will be some discussion in Geneva on controlling artificial intelligence but that is more in the context of conventional weapons, not so much nuclear weapons. And then I’ll make two more points and then i’ll stop. The US is what they call prompt Global Strike and precision guidance munitions, which were actually started under Bush Senior and then perfected under Bush Jr. Where the US Defense Department has the capability now to launch an attack anywhere in the world on one hour’s notice using conventional weapons. And so this is the, for the Russians, this is now a new threat because they do not have the advantage in high technology, silicon chips, computers that the US has, so they are going to respond with making more nuclear weapons, and also threatening satellites in space. As if one can knock out satellites in space, then the internet is disabled. Also global communications are disabled and if those are disabled, the US’s prompt Global Strike will be blinded and will not be able to work. Finally, China is involved in the big buildup. Estimates are that by 2030, they could have 1000 nuclear weapons by 2035 by 1500 nuclear weapons. So now we are entering not a bilateral arms competition but a trilateral arms competition. and then when we add to it nuclear powered submarines for Australia, that further complicates the situation in the Pacific. Now, unfortunately, Canada has been a complete bystander on these issues, and has been meekly going along with what NATO and the US is doing on building up nuclear weapons, on reinforcing the role of nuclear weapons and NATO strategy. And we find the Canadian voice on arms control absent, and also, the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs global affairs, Canada, unfortunately, is not providing any funding to peace groups and civil society. In Canada, on the other hand, they are giving big amounts of money to the Nuclear Threat Initiative, for having a website on the International Partnership for Disarmament verification. And also, Canada fits into this new group that was set up a few years ago by the US, called creating the environment for nuclear disarmament. So this, the goal of this is to, that nuclear disarmament is not possible unless we create a particular environment and nobody knows what this environment is. And as long as the war continues in Ukraine, and then as long as we have the policy of strategic defeat of Russia, we have got into another sort of a circular situation which tense which there’s a risk of it hurtling out of control. So that’s my schpeel for now.

Metta Spencer  17:50

Okay. I have two questions first, and then other people will, no doubt one is has to do with this Belarus thing. I think Putin was saying he was going to move nuclear weapons into Belarus, and the other is, I believe, Ed Markey, and some other people in Congress or Senator have taken the initiative to to prohibit AI control of nuclear weapons. Do you can you comment in either both of those?

Tariq Rauf  18:21

Yes. So Russia in February when they also when they announced the suspension of New Start also said that, given that now, this is a proxy war between NATO and Russia, Russia will move nuclear armed bombers into Belarus and by June and also build silos or deploying ballistic missiles, or mobile ballistic missiles in Belarus. And they have, the Russia emphasized that just like American nuclear weapons in the five NATO countries are under US control the weapons, Russia puts in will be under Russian control. As regards Senator Markey and his colleagues, they have put forward a bill that would prohibit the use of AI in connection with nuclear weapons systems. We don’t know whether there will be sufficient support in Congress, 67 votes in the US Senate to get this bill through and to make policy. Even if it becomes policy, there is no assurance that in fact, AI will be kept out of the nuclear weapons command chain. Because officially It is said that only the President of the United States has the sole authority to launch nuclear weapons, but in practice, that is not true. The defense secretary, the chief of the military, also can launch nuclear weapons if they think that the President is dead, or the National Command Authority in Washington is no longer operational. So there is a lot of fudging in this area.

Metta Spencer  20:04

Has the President had any comment made any comment at all?

Tariq Rauf  20:09

No he has stayed away from this, even when some time ago when President Biden went into the hospital, and he temporarily transferred executive authority to the Vice President. This was I think, for 12 hours of whatever when he was under general anesthesia. That is where this question came up about the sole authority of the president. But he didn’t make any comments. His officials made comments that only he, only the President has the authority or in the case when the Vice President is acting president, he or she would have that authority.

Metta Spencer  20:51

Okay, other people, you must have thoughts and questions.

Al Jubitz  20:58

My name is Al Jubitz. Metta, thank you for this forum. I come to you all from Portland, Oregon, USA and the world prevention initiative. and under the management of Dr. Patrick Hiller, we’re trying to prevent war. So as it relates to Ukraine, we failed, and so I asked my quit myself, what could we have done to prevent that war? It? Immediately I go to my rotary training, I’m been a Rotarian a long time. and we have a pretty solid basis of value basis of goodwill and friendship. The thing that Michael Cohen was saying, caught, caught my attention. and I’ve got to I’ve got a phone call coming in. Let me delete it. Okay. So I think what I’m feeling is that the silence of nature could be our guide here. We all have an inner soul, or whatever we call it and I know that nature reading, when I go out into nature, on a hike, or even visually, just looking at nature, I get re re centered, let’s say. And I’m thinking that the peace movement and the environmental movement ought to merge, and or that we adopted the environmental movements language to preserve the earth. And in everything we do in the military field, we need to question on the basis of the Earth, morality is great. But people get fearful and don’t trust other people. So morality only goes so far.

Metta Spencer  22:53

I’m gonna interrupt you here, because I’m aware that, I was told anyway, that Tariq has a limited amount of time to be with us, and make us really an extraordinary expert on nuclear matters. He’s in, in Europe now. and I want to give, I want to allow a comment and discussion based on his his comments, and probably

Al Jubitz  23:20

I will finish in 30 seconds because of ties, ties to nuclear,…

Metta Spencer  23:25

Alright, take 30 seconds, but I really want to get back to the nuclear

Al Jubitz  23:31

[Inaudible] our enemy is not Putin or Zelinsky, or anyone. It’s war, and the tools of war, which are weapons. and we’ve got to start calling out militarism, as the enemy of survival and nature.

Metta Spencer  23:47

Okay, thank you. Now, I’m sure that there are some other people here who are as alarmed by Tariq’s comments as I am, and want to pursue some of these threats or dangers. So this is the time to talk about that. Yes, Leda.

Leda Raptis  24:15

I’m wondering, I just don’t know. But what do you think could be the role of China? Because the advantage of China of course, it’s a bigger power, but at the same time, up to now, they had not taken sides, you see. So they might, might maybe, I don’t know, it might act as mediators, useful mediators. Everybody else is in one side or the other it turkeys with NATO. Do you know and so on?

Tariq Rauf  24:40

Yes. China made the comments that they wanted to mediate between Ukraine and Russia. They put out a 12 point peace proposal a couple of weeks ago, which was criticized and dismissed by the US and NATO. That they didn’t feel that the Chinese had any role in mediating between Ukraine and Russia.

Leda Raptis  25:06

So that’s expected.

Tariq Rauf  25:08

Yeah, a few days ago. Finally, President Xi Jinping call to President Zelenskyy. But we haven’t seen any reports as to what was discussed between the two. As you know, the US has threatened China that if they supply any weapons to Russia, there will be major consequences. The Chinese have said that they are neutral, they are not supplying any weapons, and they would like the war to end. So at the moment, Western policy is to exclude China, and to confront China on a broad area, both political, military and economic.

Leda Raptis  25:50

So politically in what way?

Tariq Rauf  25:54

Politically, like any role that China may wish to play between Russia and Ukraine, or provide assistance to developing countries in Africa or elsewhere. They feel the Western position is that Chinese economic assistance to poor countries in Africa is increasing Chinese influence in Africa, and they don’t want that to happen.

Leda Raptis  26:22

There’s already so much influence of the West in poor countries in Africa. I mean, what’s what’s the problem if the Chinese do it a little bit too?

Tariq Rauf  26:31

Well, the Chinese actually are building railways, they’re building hospitals. They’re building infrastructure for poor countries.

Leda Raptis  26:38

Yes.

Tariq Rauf  26:39

Which the West did not build they made promises. But, they did not build, so the Western involvement in a lot of African countries is extractive. They’re extracting minerals in the air and elsewhere. The Chinese have not yet done that. We don’t know whether they will also do it in the future. But for the time being, many African countries are going to China, when they think that they need money to build hospitals, roads, there are some countries that are landlocked, and the Chinese have built railways for them that through which they can send their exports to ports. So all of this is criticized in the West, that the Chinese are doing it for selfish reasons, and not to help the poor countries and the only people who can help the poor countries are the West, conveniently forgot forgetting that it was the West that colonized Africa and it was Western countries that did the slave trade.

Leda Raptis  27:37

Yeah.

Tariq Rauf  27:40

Well, nobody remembers.

Metta Spencer  27:40

Okay.

Leda Raptis  27:42

Well we remember but, I mean, this is why I’m just wondering, okay, this is one thing that the Chinese do that we don’t like. But then if they try to intervene, why just throw them out? I don’t know.

Tariq Rauf  28:03

Well the Chinese are also claiming a lot of islands in the Pacific area, and also waters that are claimed by Vietnam, Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries. So that has created some tensions in the Pacific as well, with China’s neighbors. This is all for economic gain, potential deep sea mining, fisheries and so on. So China is not entirely blameless either.

Leda Raptis  28:37

Oh, yeah, too. Perfect. Nobody is but okay. He used to stop a war.

Metta Spencer  28:42

Leda. Let’s have Richard Denton, have a crack at the microphone, please. Okay. Well, thank

Richard Denton  28:51

Okay, well thank you very much Metta, again I also want to thank Michael Cohen, and Al Jubitz but, for their comments. Right now, international physicians for the prevention of nuclear war IPPNW is having their first in person meeting in Mombasa, and they’re coming out with a statement wanting a ceasefire. Now, the statement says also at the moment that they want Russia to withdraw its forces from Ukraine. To Tariq then to me, I see this as a precondition to a ceasefire, and therefore can’t see that Russia would be acceptable to that. What is your comments on a ceasefire and people putting in preconditions?

Tariq Rauf  30:01

Yes, this is a very controversial issue. So those who support those who call for a ceasefire, I criticize that this means that Russia gets to keep the territory that it has conquered. And that this will then freeze the situation, as we have in Cyprus, between India and Pakistan and Kashmir, and so on. And there are others who say we can only have a ceasefire, once the Russians have withdrawn and ceded all territory occupied by Russia. So it’s a no-win situation on either side. The one view is that the Russians would like to draw out this war till the end of the year, the US then we’ll get into presidential elections next year, there is already fatigue among the Republicans and the right wingers in the US in terms of the amount of money provided to Ukraine for armaments, and also in Europe. So it’s really a very murky situation, and one would think that the UN Secretary General would be more active, but unfortunately, he has not been that active. So this war unfortunately going to continue for several more months, if not longer.

Metta Spencer  31:15

What do you think he could do? That he’s not doing?

Tariq Rauf  31:20

Well, I think it’s the right, way too late now, as earlier on, he should have gone and used his office and influence and called for a meeting, and set up a meeting between Ukraine and Russia, didn’t need to have the President’s he could have the foreign ministers or others, but he didn’t. He was perceived as being more leaning towards NATO. He is a former prime minister of Portugal. and a lot of his actions he has been perceived to be favoring the West. I don’t know whether that’s a fair conclusion. But that is the view among some of his critics, that he was not forceful enough. earlier on.

Richard Denton  32:04

So then Tariq, what do you see, as a way to get a ceasefire? I mean, I think Lula from Brazil there has said that, you know, we’re not interested in war, we’re interested in peace. You’ve got many countries and the Pope have wanted this. We in Rotary? I think certainly, would like to see this. We have a Rotarian who has a computer program called Smart settle, that can help with mediation. It’s based on the works of John Nash, the Nobel laureate from years ago movie A Beautiful Mind. and so I think there are ways to have a as a ceasefire and negotiation. But what is your solution?

Tariq Rauf  33:06

I really don’t see a solution because more weapons are going into Ukraine, and Ukraine is being set up to launch this counter offensive in the next few weeks. They believe that Russia has exhausted itself with its advanced weapons. Russia has not shown good general shape, Russia has not been able to interdict the supply lines in Ukraine. So the view among American generals is that the defeat of Russia is quite achievable. All we need to do is provide Ukraine, the wherewithal and the Ukrainians will do the fighting, and achieve this objective. So until this policy changes, the fighting will continue. and you can find something similar on the Russian side. They will also want to continue fighting because they don’t want any advances being made by Ukraine.

Metta Spencer  34:01

As I understand it a lot depends on the access to fighter planes. and so far that’s not been given to Ukraine. Is there any prospect of that changing?

Tariq Rauf  34:15

While this has always been the case, whenever Ukraine ask for something, they get it and immediately they upped the ante. But the US and the West has provided Ukraine with these so called HIMARS which are very accurate artillery systems, and other artillery systems they are reluctant to for the time being to provide fighter jets because they do not want Ukraine to attack targets inside Russia, because they feel that once that happens that will escalate the war even further, and it could drag NATO into a direct war with Russia. At the moment the dying is being done by the Ukrainians. It’s not being done by the Americans, Canadians or NATO countries. And that’s what they are afraid of. So they want to give Ukraine enough not to have a crippling defeat. But they don’t want to give Ukraine that much more, that they can not only recover the lost territory, but also make inroads into Russia, because the policy of Ukraine is that Russia now needs to be broken up further into constituent elements. So that Russia can never again be a threat in Europe, and that is also the policy of some of the arch conservatives in the US. This was a policy in the time of SR. Bush, and he stopped a Cheney-Wolfowitz and others from pursuing this, it came back on the agenda under Bush Jr. But then with Obama and so on is sort of receded. and now once again, these people say that this is now the time and that’s what defense secretary Austin has said very clearly. Strategic defeat of Russia means not only a military defeat, but breaking up some of its constituent republics to Palestine and others and so on, so that only a rump Russia is left, and they tried to encourage China to see if they want to grab Siberia or break off Siberia into an autonomous or separated region. If that happens…

Metta Spencer  36:19

Do you mind elaborating on that? Because I’ve heard that statement, but I’ve never heard anybody specify where these breaks are going to take place? I mean, it seems to me that that most of the ethnically specific territories, you know, like touch Chechnya, and, and well, Armenia and so on, most of the places that are distinctively cultural, culturally separate, have already more or less become independent. and I don’t know that the rest of Russia is that diverse, so that there’s any logical place where you would, you would fragment the country? Do you? Can you say where if they were going to break it up, where would they break it?

Tariq Rauf  37:12

They want to break it to a rump up the Slavic speaking Russians, because there are still non Slavic Russians, Tatars, and others, I talked at the tip of my tongue, I don’t have all these other nationalities. But there are several others, who are ethnically not Slavic. But for a long time, they’ve been part of Mother Russia, going back to the Czar’s time, and so on. So they want to fracture that. and then if they can have Siberia, because Siberia already feels that Moscow is not paying enough attention to it. A lot of resources from Siberia, pay for buildings and roads in Moscow, and so on. Only, there are only a couple of cities in Siberia that can be considered modern, if you go outside of Vladivostok and others places is still very much a rural economy, people have a really hard time dealing there. Already, a lot of Chinese money is coming in a lot of also, you know, this is ethnically different, because of the China’s one child policy. Many girl babies were either not born or they were…So there is a shortage. So we have an overhang of men. So these men are now going to Siberia to marry Russian women. When you Siberian women, I’m told, I don’t many of the men are drunk, so they’re rather have left some money and is not drunk out of his mind. So but I know this is a sensitive thing. and I just am saying what I’ve read, I don’t necessarily know whether this is true or not.

Metta Spencer  38:56

Oh, my goodness, well, that’s a new one for me. I’m gonna go there.

Leda Raptis  39:02

I’m gonna go there.

Tariq Rauf  39:03

Sorry?

Leda Raptis  39:03

I’m gonna go there (laughing). You have an excess of men of course. Married 50 years, so…

Metta Spencer  39:14

I don’t think it’s funny. I think it’s very, very reasonable. But I think we should concentrate on the nuclear issue because we, I think there are things that that Tariq can answer that not many other people can.

Michael Cohen  39:30

Can I add a comment?

Metta Spencer  39:32

Yes, please.

Michael Cohen  39:34

Do people here think that these all these factions could unite. If we just discovered that Mars is going to attack our planet and take over as we think extraterrestrials are coming around already.

Tariq Rauf  39:51

I mean, look at Sudan. The British Arrow will only evacuate British citizens they will not evacuate anyone else, even though some British Somalis, a Brit, British Sudani citizens were evacuated by the French, the Americans are doing the same. So here where you have citizens of  many countries, you would think the humanitarian issue would be such that they would evacuate whoever needed evacuation. But again, nationalism is at play, just as it was with the vaccine diplomacy for COVID. So unfortunately, this nationalism in the human race is becoming worse rather than better for the in the short term.

Metta Spencer  40:32

I want to see whether or not it may be that Alexey Prokhorenko, now in Warsaw has anything special to say to Tariq about the the comments on the military situation? What’s the perspective in Warsaw these days, Alexey?

Alexey Prokhorenko  40:54

Well, hello, everyone. I’m very happy to see you again, one month later. Thank you, Tariq, for such insightful comments. In fact, your remarks about Siberia demonstrate that you have a very profound knowledge of the subject. Indeed, you, you, you painted a very precise picture very, very, very precise and concise, including the population including alcoholism, whatever. and let’s add to that many young men, mostly young men, in a man of reproductive age dying in the war, the picture will be even more gruesome than it may appear. As which means that in the long run, the cloud of China will be even stronger in Siberia than it is now. I, actually I living in Warsaw, I’m becoming, unfortunately, or fortunately, a bit estranged from Russian politics, because I have been in the country for more than half a year for seven plus months already. Which means I get,…

Metta Spencer  42:25

We should, and I should have introduced you as a Russian living in Warsaw, and someone who left Russia in order to avoid being conscripted and sent to kill Ukrainians, right? So that’s why may, keeps us in touch with your homeland.

Alexey Prokhorenko  42:48

Well, my contacts are limited to talks with my friends, to reading different mass media to reading telegram channels. But I don’t have the fresh feeling I had back in September or October, when I first came to Turkey, and then to Poland. My perspective has become a little bit stale. It was predictable, but it so happened. and I feel kind of out of touch with all the nuances of each situation, there only applies to everyone else. Right. and I kind of, I kind of get some anecdotal evidence of [inaudible] looks of how it might develop, is remember, I was optimistic last time, was quite optimistic about the spring. Well, tide has changed a little bit. and now I’m more balanced in my predictions, my opinions, shame on me. But I might have been overly optimistic about the spring. The Ukrainian offensive is not beginning yet. We don’t know how it will go. Because Putin’s forces are very well entrenched, very, they have very good fortifications, which means that the battle will be severe, unfortunately, and it most certainly will not be the last battle of the war. and I don’t know what what really will become of it.

Metta Spencer  44:39

Well, let me let me pose a question that is a little bit closer to your own situation. and that is that as you know, you’ve already on one of my forums when I had a conversation with two other, you and other men who have are Russian who have left Russia. One of them in Tashkent because he left about the same time you did to avoid being conscripted and sent to, to fight in the war, because he’s opposed to the war. Now, since then, Andre, the other man who’s been living in Kyiv for many number of years, contacted me and asked me to see what I could do to help, to help some of the other people in your situation only maybe a little bit worse, because some of these people. I don’t think you’re in danger of being extradited and deported and sent back to Russia. But according to Andre Kamenshikov, something he knows about 40 cases of men who are to some extent, vulnerable to being sent back because there is an extradition treaty between Russia and some of these other countries, notably Kazakhstan. If any, any Russian that is indicted as a criminal can be, they can require them to be extradited and deported back to Russia. So some of these people are considered criminals, just because they refuse to be inducted in the army. For he knows him about 40 cases where they may be in grave danger. If you look at today’s New York Times, this is, there’s a big article about I think it’s on the front page, at least on my Kindle version of The New York Times an article about the situation of Russian men who are in exactly that predicament. and as some of you may know, Dmitry Medvedev recently actually made a statement to the effect that they should go send, kill these people, you know, execute them, wherever, even if they’re, they don’t come back to Russia, they should obliterate them. Now, I know exactly the conditions under which he expects to do this. But it is that alone, I should think, would give sufficient grounds for anybody in that situation to be able to claim to be a refugee. And now I have been one of the, one of the people that Andre was mentioning, is a Russian who got in touch with me the day before yesterday, we had a long conversation about whether or not I can help him immigrate to Canada. As I understand it, it takes forever to get immigration papers, and he’d be send it back it would be over by then. But a better option, according to my friend Doug Saunders, is for them for such a person to come on a tourist visa, business visa, and, and then, once they’re in Canada, that they want to be refugees. and that way, they have a better chance of quickly getting in. That doesn’t mean, it’s quick, because this man has already applied for a visitor’s visa six months ago, and it hasn’t happened yet. So I intend to do what I can to help him and to other people in his situation. But I want to recruit any of you folks who want to participate in, in this kind of rescue mission, to contact your MP and to see what can be done to save these people because they in some cases, it literally may be a life and death matter. I may be exaggerating, but it certainly is a serious matter for all of them. Am I saying this correctly? Or does anybody have any amendments to make in what I just said. Alexey, do you think that is an accurate…

Alexey Prokhorenko  49:02

Well, this is a this is accurate to a certain extent, because Russian influence in countries have in the former Soviet republics, like Kazakhstan, like Armenia, like even Georgia, in spite of the former war with Georgia, in spite of the fact that Russia has occupied parts of that country, about 20% of Georgia is occupied by Russia right now. In spite of all of that, Russia still has a very strong lobby group who really influence in those countries. But for what I know, there’s been only one case when a Russian refugee, I think it was an officer a an intelligence officer. He was deported from Kazakhstan, I think, but it was just a separate case. He was, there was kind of trial I was something, but it was. I think that’s one year ago…

Metta Spencer  50:03

Excuse me, I think that is the case of the guy mentioned in describing detail, in today’s New York Times article I think it probably is.

Alexey Prokhorenko  50:12

I’ve gotta, I gotta read the article definitely thank you for for this. But I think the, I think there is a bigger risk for the people living abroad living in countries like Kazakhstan, it’s quite an objective risk, I’m not suggesting any solution to it, because now, it’s not any obligation of those countries to help Russian refugees economically, some people come back because they don’t find a job. They don’t find it, they don’t have money to live on. That drives them back to the country. Some were leaving, when the draft began, mobilization in September, some were leaving, just they left their coffee, literally, they left their coffee on the counter. and they jumped on board of a plane and left. It was it was crazy. and then they were probably expecting to kind of wait a little bit, a couple of days or weeks, till things settle down. But things haven’t settled down. and not everyone, by far not everyone has the means to live that long without a job without speaking the local language of whatever. Well, as for Dmitry Medvedev, he’s said to have drinking problems. Because he has never really been shown in public for months, which is strange for our era of video communications, it could have happened, like 10 years ago, or 20 years ago, you could have appeared in newspapers only, but now it’s strange for a politician of that magnitude, to never be shown on TV or whatever, on online videos anywhere. And all that he is, he is very scandalous in what he is writing, he makes very, very outlandish remarks about using nuclear weapons. So he’s like, there was a politician named Zhirinovsky. Maybe he died one year ago, he used to be like a clown of our politics. Now his place is not vacant. It has been taken by Medvedev. So once the war began, but probably he is trying to, to regain his position, to actualize himself as a successor to Putin again, probably that’s that’s how he’s trying to earn his position, earn back the trust of Putin and his cronies. and that’s, that’s how it looks. So I would really rely on his words, literally. But that’s probably the, that probably indicates the sentiment. So if they, if someone introduces any kind of punishment for those who have left the country due to my mobilization or whatever, I’m afraid that the public will embrace that problem. It’s not a matter of life and death. But if there is some punishment, the people who will welcome that, given the degree of propaganda that is now being bestowed on people’s heads and noone will oppose it anyway.

Metta Spencer  53:57

Okay, thank you. Well, it’s not very, very helpful news. But we’ve, we’ve gone around and around a little bit. I’m open now for anybody who wants to talk about something different. I noticed that Peter Wadhams is here, and Peter is always good for some controversial information about Arctic ice. Do you have anything, Peter that you want to bring us up to date on, about about that, by the way, before we drift too far off from that, there is an article in The New Yorker now about the notion of using little glass, nano bubbles, tiny, tiny bubbles made of glass, which they would scatter on ice in the Arctic, and this would slow the melting of the ice. And the name of the game is to slow the melting of the ice. So I’m interested in whether or not I had heard about this before, but the New Yorker article treats it as a serious proposition. and I hadn’t taken it seriously. Tell me what you think about that. and then other, other news of the day about our melting world.

Peter Wadhams  55:23

Okay, well, obviously, the news about Ukraine is far more important. But still, firstly, this bubbles, glass beads, this, as far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing to it at all. That’s…

Metta Spencer  55:41

I’m sorry, say it again,…

Peter Wadhams  55:43

There’s nothing to it at all, that the person who invented glass beads, Leslie Field is from, from, from US, believes in it, and she’s been doing lots of experiments where you take very small glass, originally glass beads, and then finally, tiny segments of glass that you you put down over ice where it’s melting. And it’s the idea is to prevent the ice from melting off or to prevent it from melting too quickly, and then that way you, you can work with areas of ice that are still around when they shouldn’t be. And that’s applies to lots of areas in the world where you really need to keep the ice present. But she’s only done those experiments in a small areas, sort of ponds, and I’ve worked with her, and I just don’t believe that it’s doing anything. So that’s, that’s the glass beads. That was for the rest of what’s going on at the moment that the big threat seems to be that, that the ocean is warming very much faster than it used to be. And in fact it’s now reached a factor of seven compared to the speed at which the, the ocean surface waters were warming. So this is a huge acceleration or exponential growth in, in sea, sea water temperatures. and nobody knows why it’s happening. It’s a factor, it is  a factor [inaudible] seven in the Arctic compared to other parts of the ocean. So it used to be when, when I was working in the Arctic a lot, we’d have about two to three times the speed of of warming in the Arctic compared to other parts of the ocean. and we’d we’d have to work on that basis of what, how fast various other other parts of the world’s were warming up. But now that reflector has just gone up to seven. Oh, I’d heard of four, that it was that the Arctic was melting four times as fast as the rest of warming were four times as fast as the rest of the world. But now you’re saying seven times as fast?

Metta Spencer  58:40

Peter, I mean, I hate to be, you know, put, put it this way. But look, if it were two or three degrees, and there are various kinds of geoengineering, if you’ll pardon the expression, we don’t like to use the word, but technical, technological interventions that might slow it down. But if you’re talking about 13 degrees, it’s game over, isn’t it? Is this anything available that can possibly slow anything that’s going 13 degrees warmer than it’s supposed to be, right?

Peter Wadhams  58:40

Yes, if you look at the seas throughout north of Europe, that is the Barents Sea, [Caspian Sea?], the seas around Spitsbergen that’s seven times, which is just incredible, because that’s the amount of warming which will get rid of all the sea ice very quickly, and we’ll make other changes as well. And in fact, the temperature changes have been incredible as well. When you look at those the biggest warming has been in the seas northeast of Europe. So the northeast of America that is Canada, the very, very waters that we thought about being the place we should go to to preserve sea ice, are instead in fact, it’s warming the fastest of all there. And they’ve been measurements of a warming of about 13 degrees in the seas north of Newfoundland and Labrador, and 13 degrees is simply not something that ever happens before you, you get, you get changes in climate, changes in, in weather systems, changes in, in everything now. But it’s always us something measurable something you can handle, like two or three degrees. and then that’s it. But this is now.. Yes, that’s right. It’s a game over situation. But when we look at the oceanographers who are working there, it’s only just been discovered how rapid this growth is. and, and they’re all that they’re sort of numb, would you normally, when you look at ocean scientists, they’re always very confident about, they measure something in the ocean, which is a bit odd, they’ll say, we have discovered that such and such a sea is now warmed up by one degree. It is always we have discovered because they really like to discover things that they can publish and get promotions on. But in this case, we’ve got some, they are incredibly hesitant to say we have discovered, because if they say, people accept that, that this is going on, they have to try and explain it. And there’s absolutely no explanation for why there should be such a rapid, huge growth rate in temperature of North Atlantic water. It’s something which can’t be explained. So therefore, scientists say nothing about it, until they can come up with some explanation. So it’s mysterious silence coming from the scientific community about these extraordinary warming rates of the ocean.

Metta Spencer  1:02:31

Well, I mean, I’d settle for no explanation for why, if somebody had a good explanation for what to do about it. But if there’s nobody with, with anything, like as, as effective, an intervention as would be required to reverse heating of that magnitude, right?

Peter Wadhams  1:02:53

Yes, right. There’s no, there’s no known way that if you if you look at say, ne Northeastern Atlantic, and it’s warmed up by that amount, what can you do? What do you do? There’s nothing that you can think of that you can actually do that will stop stop that. It’s a bit like the in Siberia, the, the the warming rates that are going on, because of methane outbreaks, sort of methane explosions going on, and that, that have huge amounts of heat involved there. And not to mention the fact that a lot of the tundra has caught fire and is far burning away, perpetually. But there’s still not enough known about how you might possibly deal with it, or people to talk about it. So again, there’s a sort of [code of] silence of matter about the problems with with with Siberia and Siberia and methane outbreaks, that’s another forbidden this forbidden topics that the scientists don’t like to talk about, unless they can see some solution. And if they don’t see the solution, they just hope that nobody will notice that it’s happening

Metta Spencer  1:04:29

Peter Brogden.

Peter Brogden  1:04:30

Ya I think in the question regarding warmth in eastern North America for short periods that we’ve [inaudible] and you’re saying that all the warm water off the coast of Labrador is quite remarkable. and it is it possible the same cause of a warm that happened at the end of the ice age that is about 10 and a half 1000 years ago? That the temperatures that were measured, but we’re basically to my ice cores of Greenland. and of course, they don’t show the peaks that clearly, because after all, the ratio of the isotopes that they are using to measure really wouldn’t change quite fast enough. If they had, like we have had this past spring even three or four days of real warm weather. And I’m just wondering whether there could have been a larger rise in temperature than they possibly seven to 10 degrees, at that time, when the ice changed so quickly and started melting very rapidly. Throughout well, I’m talking about Algonquin Park area in particular, if you can picture where that is in Ontario. With it, that was quite a bit of evidence that there were extreme water flows, because there were things were held back because of the ice dams and things like that. And these extreme water flows have produced wells, through the grinding up of rocks, that got circulated in the world and things like that. So it was evidence that there was remarkable workload in small creeks by small creeks, virtually negligible these days. But obviously, the traces could be quite warm weather to know much more about present thinking on that?

Peter Wadhams  1:06:32

It depends if we we’re talking about these kind of fossil flows, so to speak of the way the world was in June, into the last ice age, so [you test one] thing, but the things that are happening now are unprecedented and sudden, and this this, this temperature rise is very sudden and frightening. For that reason that you don’t expect water to warm up that quickly, what’s warming it?  You have to supply heat to warm the water. And if you’re, if you’re looking at the Northeast Atlantic, then you’re you’re dealing with a part of the world that where you think you have some confidence about how warm it is, how it changes with season, you’re, you know you think about all the people who have worked up there, and sailed up there, Wilfred Grenfell, and so on, and they, they know what temperatures the water will reach. And so everything is, you feel confident and happy about it, until suddenly, you’re going to take a thermometer out, and, and it gives you temperatures that’s 10 or 13 degrees warmer than it has any right to be. It’s a frightening discovery, and nobody knows how to explain it.

Metta Spencer  1:06:32

Bill Leikam do you have a thought about it?

Bill Leikam  1:08:06

Yeah. I’ve got a question for you Peter. Either one of you. It seems to me that as we lose the ice caps at both north and south, that that must be having an effect upon the orbit of the Earth. Because when we had a full, let’s say, Arctic and Antarctic, layers of ice and so forth, that stabilized our planet, but with it going away, what’s the effect of that? Well, actually, that’s

Peter Wadhams  1:08:52

Well actuatlly that’s a good point. The, in fact I, I wrote a paper about that with a colleague. I’m not quite sure that I can remember the point we made. But, the person who thought about that a lot was Walter Munk. and he’s, he’s kind of God. Well actually he died recently at the age of 102. But he is the sort of God of oceanography. He, everybody acknowledges him as, as the person who, who did more in oceanography than anybody else, he’s a great man, and we wrote a paper together on on changes due to sea ice and what he was doing, and he thought, Well, look, you’re, you’re, you’re dumping all this extra ice onto the onto the ice sheets, and you’re, you aren’t changing the rotation of the Earth as you’re changing the, the what’s the name of this, I am trying to remember my O level physics it’s the, the when you have something rotating with a bigger moment arm…

Peter Brogden  1:10:15

They call it Coriolis force…

Peter Wadhams  1:10:17

Well, it is this moment of inertia. But anyway, the thing is, you will change the rate of rotation of the Earth by a tiny amount. If you alter the where you, where you put the ice. If you melt the ice, or you, or you just redistribute it, put it somewhere further away from the equator, or closer to the equator, it’s, how far it is from equator that matters. So we we wrote that up and then he died soon after that. and we that was that was it? As far as

Metta Spencer  1:11:00

Did they measure it, if there had been a change in the in the orbit or something, I don’t know what the word is. But if there had been a change, wouldn’t it wouldn’t have been detected by some, I don’t know, satellites or something?

Peter Wadhams  1:11:15

Oh, yes, I mean, I’m sure the date the time we wrote that was some time ago, a few years ago. But what you can do now is use this satellite called grace, which means gravity, gravity satellite, you is it’s two, it’s very, very clever. It’s actually two satellites, close together, a few kilometers apart, flying around the world together. and as he flat, they’re very heavy, deliberately heavy. And when you fly over the edge of a continent, like the edge of Greenland, the satellite that’s in the lead speeds up because of the change in the mass that’s underneath it, and then the second satellite catches up on it. So and they are very, very accurate lasers to work out how far they are apart. So these satellites slightly changed their relative positions, or through, or through the orbital period. and, and you can work out how, how heavy that is, well, how heavy is the ice underneath? So it will tell you the volume of the Greenland ice sheet for instance, which you can never do before. So that that ought to also show what would happen if you bolted the amount of ice due to this satellite orbit thing. So I’m sure that, that we can we can measure it and somebody has measured it I’m sure. So it all in theory is can be solved, and we can see what’s what’s going on. But I don’t know if that’s been done properly or whether it’s been sort of left.

Metta Spencer  1:13:17

Okay thank you. Okay, now some other folks here haven’t, we haven’t talked about. Some of you are newbies, people don’t recognize if you haven’t spoken yet, and if I don’t know who you are, why don’t you put your hand up and let’s get acquainted. Anybody. Here, let’s have a gallery view. So those of you who have not spoken yet, and whom I have not recognized, I can do so, anybody? All right, well, that’s not the what we’ll do next, we’ll go to somebody that we do know. How about to Charles Tauber? Let’s get back in touch with Croatia.

Charles David Tauber  1:14:00

Hi, well, for people who don’t know where I am and what I’m doing, I’m in the town of Vukovar, Eastern Croatia, one of the first battles of the war here 30 years ago. And I’m working mostly online all over the world, with various people in conflict countries on teaching how to deal with traumatization, psychological traumatization and it’s pretty shocking, right now. The situation in Congo, Burundi. Liberia is pretty awful. We’re trying to get in touch with people in northern Syria, as well, and in Hungary, sorry, Turkey. and by the way, if anybody has contacts in these places, please send them to me and, we will contact them. There is very little psychological work going on in these places. What there is is very short term. and it’s desperately needed, and it’s, it will have impacts not only immediately, but for generations. Because we know about the transmission, we’re certainly seeing that in Congo. In Congo, it’s pretty shocking right now. There are lots of children who have been thrown out of their homes by their parents, simply because the parents can’t afford it. They’re former child soldiers, etc, etc. So there’s a very great need for with children and young people there. And Liberia, there’s a great deal of drug addiction from the Civil War 20-30 years ago, and we’re working with a with a drug rehabilitation unit there. We haven’t had contact with Sudan yet. I would like, again, if anybody has contacts there, I would like to. The yeah, we’re working, we’re working virtually 24 hours a day, it’s fair to say, and I’m thoroughly and totally exhausted. We’re trying to write letters, I’m trying to write stuff, but I’m not really getting to it. I don’t know what to say.

Metta Spencer  1:16:55

Well let me ask you about About Romeo Dallaire’s project with child soldiers. I have never been able to get an interview with him, I should keep trying, I guess. But, but I know he has some project. and I don’t know whether he’s actually got people on the ground in, in places like Congo actually working with a child soldiers, or is this? What What? What does that operation have to offer if anything?

Charles David Tauber  1:17:26

I don’t know, I wrote their head of operations, whose name is Shirley Thompson. I wrote her a letter, didn’t get an answer. From what I can see they’re in Halifax. And from what I can gather, they’re doing mostly material aid. But we think that, and we’re trying to work with a couple of groups in Burundi and in Congo, who are doing work with the children directly. As I say, it’s pretty awful stuff. They don’t have money, they don’t have staff. We we want to train at least some of them. and by the way, anybody here who has any contacts and wants training, it doesn’t cost anything to you. It costs me a bit of time, but I, I really love working with people. So I really love doing these groups. So anybody should write to me.

Metta Spencer  1:18:40

If you have a desire to be a barefoot therapist, Charles is your man, right?

Charles David Tauber  1:18:48

Yep, yep, and well we’re also doing a lot of work in Nigeria now. We have a couple of groups in Nigeria and in Nigeria there’s a great deal of trafficking to all the Central African regions but also obviously to Europe and huge numbers of of trafficked women and some trafficked men as well. It’s yeah, [inaudible]. This is horrible stuff, and we’ll we also were traumatized by, by the way, it’s still going on here. If you go into a cafe or a restaurant here, and bear in mind, the war ended in 95. You still get a lot of drunken  people who are talking about their own traumatization. Nobody’s doing anything except giving lots and lots of drugs in weird and wonderful combinations. It’s very disturbing. and one of the first jobs I have when we get a new client is to get them off drugs. and of course, that’s a slow process. You can’t just stop it. You can’t just… you do it at all.

Metta Spencer  1:20:11

Can you do it at all? I mean, feeling that, that, you know, that sometimes it never, never works.

Charles David Tauber  1:20:19

No, it doesn’t sometimes. and we’ve had some, but you have to have enormous amounts of patience and persistence to do any of this work.

Metta Spencer  1:20:39

Well, you know, I speak for all of us I’m thinking saying that we really thank you for what you do every every time you come on. I want to give you a round of applause. and thank you.

Charles David Tauber  1:20:54

Thank you.

Metta Spencer  1:20:54

Erika Simpson has joined us. Hello, Erika. How’s everything in London, Ontario? You gotta unmute?

Erika Simpson  1:21:05

Uh, no, I know, sorry. I’m trying to multitask, as usual, Metta. I’m doing well, I am preparing the as we speak the final speakers list and the program for the Canadian Peace Research Association meeting, which will be at York University. So nobody that is here, except for Rose Dyson is going to be a speaker. But I do have 30 prominent speakers from Canada, and also across the world. So it’s exciting, but it’s also a lot of work. Because I have to get their biographies and headshots and time program and order, catering and all that. So it goes on and on, but that’s why I’m at work on a Sunday afternoon, very wet and cold out.

Metta Spencer  1:21:56

Yes, we should announce who you are that you’re the president of describe your organization.

Erika Simpson  1:22:02

It’s a scholarly association of peace research workers, not workers, academics, activists, and a few diplomats, and they meet every year at a different university in Canada, as part of the Congress of the humanities and social sciences. So if you would like to join it is at this point, very expensive to come to the Congress, because you’re supposedly late. So it’s over $400. But if you had registered before, it’s fairly good for retired and also students. and there’ll be a lot of students this year. and Metta was the honorary recipient of the Canadian Peace Research Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2022. So we were really honored to have her there, and we are still featuring Metta’s curriculum vitae on our website, I believe it’s got 50 pages of publications. It’s 90 pages long. It’s crazy. But anyway,…

Metta Spencer  1:23:05

It’s just big font.

Erika Simpson  1:23:08

It’s really long, but it’s great. It’s full of publications. So this what we’re doing. good work.

Metta Spencer  1:23:14

Good work, I mean, I wrote,…

Erika Simpson  1:23:16

Well Rose Dyson received it the year before that. We awarded it to both Rose and to you in 2022, and so Rose, I got to tell you a funny story about Rose because Rose gave a lecture and I showed it to my students the other day, and this student wrote in and said she wanted to meet with Professor Dr. Dyson, and she wanted to correct Dr. Dyson. and so I said well before you get into correcting her, what is it you want to correct her about? She says, Well, she referred to this video called a first shooter assassin. It really should be and it was something else. And I say to myself, this is my life correcting students about the name of a video for Dr. Dyson. You know what I don’t think that’s important enough for me to, to email Dr. Dyson. She made a tiny error video wrong. It’s not assassin first shooter. It’s war of warfare. God knows. But anyway, that’s what I deal with.

Rose Dyson  1:24:17

Well, I’m glad they found it useful, Erika.

Erika Simpson  1:24:19

Oh, yeah.

Metta Spencer  1:24:22

What’s your student somebody who was playing the game? I mean, I’d be interested if peace studies students go out in their spare time and play shoot ’em up video games?

Erika Simpson  1:24:33

Yeah, well.

Rose Dyson  1:24:34

They probably do. There has to be reasons why video games are one of the best stock options there are best investments you can make on the stock market. At least they were a couple of years ago. I don’t think they’ve gone down that much. They’re still very popular and, and frequently featured and promoted even on the CBC, and people wring their hands and wonder about why there are so many mass murders As you know Metta, you, you have interviewed my colleague, US Lieutenant Colonel David Grossman, who also a psychologist who’s written extensively and done research on the subject and traces the rise of mass murders in the US and to some extent around the world with the introduction into the market to popular culture commodities of a violent first person shooter video games. So there I’ve got my pitch in.

Metta Spencer  1:25:35

You know, one of the interesting things I found in his book, and that book is now three or four years old, he said that every single case, every without exception, every one of these kids who had done a mass murder in like schools, or wherever, that they had been practicing on video games. And in fact, they develop their skills, you can become quite a good marksman by using this video game, because you you actually can be quite a sharp shooter because of doing it. But every one of them had been obsessed with video games. That has to be a serious thing,

Rose Dyson  1:26:17

But the industry lobbyists are extraordinarily successful in managing to avoid having attention focused on these games as a causal factor. I mean, considering the mass murder, in Canada that took place a couple of years ago in Nova Scotia. Yeah, the people that I work with Grossman and others, say that the trajectory of those murders comes right down in the playbook of Grand Theft Auto series, but the mass inquiry that was launched at considerable government, government and taxpayer expense on it, they didn’t even touch that subject, although we did try to get them to focus some attention on it.

Don Smith  1:27:03

So is that psychologist she mentioned Rose, and this is Don Smith. Is the psychologist you mentioned. Dr. Grossman?

Rose Dyson  1:27:10

Yes. David Grossman.

Don Smith  1:27:13

What was his first name?

Rose Dyson  1:27:15

David Grossman.

Don Smith  1:27:16

Okay, so interestingly, I’m online and I’ve just recently met two people who were, and they were trying to change it, or this is a tangent from the purpose of this meeting. But I recently met two people online who are in debt, like somebody said, there’s somebody with $18,000 of debt, from video games, because in these competitive games, you know, you have skills, but if you pay money, you can level up and get extra powers.

Rose Dyson  1:27:51

Yes, yes, it’s addictive, and I think the World of Warcraft is one of those games where individuals are encouraged to pay something like $15 a month just to participate these games, but they have become so addictive that they do lead to debt in many cases. In fact, there’s a there’s some sort of a therapy session, developed online called [inaudible]holics. Anonymous is sort of patterned after Alcoholics Anonymous. But, yes, addiction is a very serious problem, and the gambling aspect of it too which it carries over into sports now, you know, this also morphed into esport, which is becoming a popular thing with all the problems that have been involved in with us for some time, with addictive gambling.

Metta Spencer  1:28:37

Interesting.

Charles David Tauber  1:28:38

Erika, if any of your students or any of your activists, want training, also in working with perpetrators, we stand recommended. We’re more than willing to do that to start online groups.

Rose Dyson  1:28:56

What do you mean by perpetrators, Alex or Charles?

Charles David Tauber  1:29:01

I mean, people who are committing GBV sorry, gender based violence, sexual violence, abuse of children, all the rest of it. We’re seeing an enormous amount of it, and our point is that the answer is not to put them in jail, because they’re just going to be with other people who are doing the same things in the jails. So you absolutely have to have treatment, you have to have restorative, rehabilitative justice in terms of this, in other words, deal with, treat them as not so much punish them as treat them. And that has also cultural implications. Some very large ones, again, in places like Nigeria Congo here, but this is stuff If we do we teach people how to do that.

Rose Dyson  1:30:04

Well Erika there’s another person coming into the conference that works precisely in the field that of trying to address issues of human sex trafficking and so on, and the dangerous that you envisage, and that’s Charlene Doak-Gebauer who’s based in in, in your area in London, Ontario. She is chairing an international organization to, called Internet Sense First and she has meetings once a month or so I participate on behalf of Canada. But we do have at least one participant from Nigeria, I do not remember her name offhand. But she has also talked as you have Charles about how serious and widespread the problem of sexual exploitation and human trafficking is in in your part of the world? I yeah, I don’t know that specific treatments and approaches have been established. But there’s a discussion of that happening. and of course, all, or most countries around the world are trying to do something about bringing forward legislation and we have it in Canada here,  there must be about two or three different bills that are being discussed in Ottawa as we speak. But this has been going on for a long time with not much without so far, much evidence of success.

Charles David Tauber  1:31:40

Well, we think that you that it’s very difficult to do this at national levels, or at academic levels, that you have to do it at village level and at individual level. and so that’s where our concentration is, because I mean, and this goes back to several WHO reports, World Health Organization reports that are saying that 90% over 90%, and I repeat that number, over 90% of people who should be getting some sort of psychological assistance are not getting it.

Rose Dyson  1:32:20

Yeah Charles, I’d like to talk with your permission, I’d like to put you in touch with this individual in.

Charles David Tauber  1:32:28

Oh Absolutely.

Rose Dyson  1:32:29

Yeah. Now your email address is…

Charles David Tauber  1:32:33

On the chat.

Rose Dyson  1:32:34

Okay, thank you.

Charles David Tauber  1:32:37

If it’s not on the chat, I’ll put it there again.

Erika Simpson  1:32:39

Metta, Apart from if I could just interrupt for a minute, I did do a lot of media in the last two weeks a lot. and I see Alexey is here. So once again, this was on NATO spending, Canada’s relatively low spending 1.27% of GDP. The guy in Hamilton attacked me so much that our media relations guy heard about it and said, this is crazy. and he listened to it. It was just this diatribe by the announcer about how Canada needs to spend more. So I said to him, Well, how much do you want to spend 2.5%-3%. Anyway, so a lot of the media, I did a Hill Times article on the 2% as well. and then the other thing the media has really focused on in the last month is this nuclear burial site. I wrote an article for the Hill Times on that. But that was not the focus of the media. The focus was Elizabeth May and seven other MPs held all these meetings in Ottawa, maybe Richard, you were involved. I know that quite a few people, Bill Noel and so on were involved in just informing Members of Parliament about the risks of a nuclear burial site, so close to the Great Lakes, essentially 46, 50 Miles less than 50 miles from the Great Lakes and in the Great Lakes water basin. So I have been working on that for the last 10 or 11 years. It’s been a busy month. Metta. What was NATO, NATO spending, nuclear burial, and then also, what Rose is pointing to which my students also Rose just to reassure you also watch Charlene online. and so they are very aware of her email address and her London based charitable foundation. So that’s all going ahead. There’s 2000 students, so maybe a couple of them will decide, a lot of them are nurses or in med, pre med school or medical hot, you know, health sciences. So maybe they’ll go, but I can’t recommend them Charles to go to Africa because we’re not allowed to recommend that students travelled to outside of Canada because of insurance reasons. So I will be the last person that can help you to recommend that students go to Africa just I’m not allowed to do that. It’s a danger. We That’s the end. Sorry, we

Charles David Tauber  1:35:01

Sorry, we work mostly online.

Erika Simpson  1:35:02

Yeah, Charles, I know what you work on. I’m just telling you, I can’t recommend that university students go and live and work locally, without.

Charles David Tauber  1:35:10

No they don’t have to go and work locally, they can do it online.

Erika Simpson  1:35:13

I won’t be recommending it, I will recommend Charlene’s Charitable Foundation based in Canada, but I just can’t start doing international ones that I don’t that are working locally in Africa. Just I can’t do that as a professor. But that’s all. Um, as far as nuclear burial and native spending, I think maybe your callers are interested in that. and then I’ll be quiet. Thank you for this opportunity, Metta.

Metta Spencer  1:35:40

Charles, I also think you’re saying that you can train them to do it by zoom. Right?

Charles David Tauber  1:35:45

Exactly. and that’s exactly what we do.

Metta Spencer  1:35:49

They don’t have to go there, they can sit at their computers and do therapy. I’m barefoot right now but I am not doing therapy. .

Charles David Tauber  1:36:01

That’s right we have a lot, we have about 20 groups like 15 groups like that. That works. and they’re extremely grateful because they, they continually say to me, Hey, nobody’s listening to us, and that’s the key to all of this listening, that they’re not getting the pressure of their exposure, these people are exploding.

Erika Simpson  1:36:32

But Charles you’ve got to understand, as a professor, I cannot recommend students give counseling and therapy by Zoom to abusive people who are pedophiles and so on, I would be the last person to do that. I can’t do that. Don’t you understand that?

Charles David Tauber  1:36:49

Fine Erika do what you want. I’m expressing a need to consume what I do.

Erika Simpson  1:36:56

I just want to be on the record, we just we can’t do that at universities. We are not even trained.

Metta Spencer  1:37:05

Yes. Go ahead.

Michael Cohen  1:37:08

Could I add that I’ve worked with students. and we’ve used, what’s happening is that people are being the nature of people who’s being abused by abusive relationships, especially in early childhood, they stay right on. But what we do, is we have them go back to nature in their backyard, and they put that no, this is all funny and everything. But when you do this, and we have studies that show this, whenever you do this, in the moment that you do it and continue in moments like that you do that this disappears. and I put, I put students together for years, and in a community and this all disappeared, because every time it happened, you would go back to where you’re being abused, your nation is being abused in the moment. and you reverse that by having a tree, talk to the treeness in you. and you talk to the treeness, in it and the words that come out, unify.

Metta Spencer  1:38:10

Okay Michael, I don’t have much more time. But I would like to, I have not given the floor yet to the wildlife of California. and we have Marilyn and we have Bill Leikam here who work with foxes and big cats. So I want to know how their animals are faring. In California Hello, Marilyn.

Marilyn Krieger  1:38:37

Okay, first of all, I want to address something that Michael, Dr. Cohen was saying. I was just wondering if you have read an immense world by Ed Yang? And the reason why I’m mentioning that is that because you were, you were talking about nonverbal communication and verbal communication, etc. and that is a fabulous book, and it’s about how animals communicate in different ways and how important their senses are and things like that. and so I just wanted to mention that to you. As far as…

Michael Cohen  1:39:17

We have 54 senses that we don’t use, we say we have five, but we use 54. and when they have those 54 connecting, this disappears. Go ahead. I’m sorry to interrupt.

Marilyn Krieger  1:39:29

Okay, well, you might you might enjoy, you might like to read this book. It’s wonderful. and I’ll put it on the chat in a minute. My, the work I’m doing is just so local. It’s not this wonderful international stuff that I’m hearing you know, which is just opening my eyes, my ears to listen to all this. And as you know, I’m working with our local mountain lions and bobcats and I’m interested in the how urbanization as well as climate change is affecting their behaviors. But what’s happened is it it’s it has really progressed to all the wildlife, okay? And it’s even expanding, its expanding beyond that. I’m right now writing an article. I’m hoping I’ll get it done within the next couple of weeks, and it is about how everything is influencing everything and how people are doing not so fabulous things that having just even little things that are having immense impact on wildlife. So I’m working on that. There’s some other things too, that I’m, I’m working with about connectivity. Also, with some native groups, as far as stewardship, okay. With the lamb. So anyway, a little bit about what I’ve been up to.

Metta Spencer  1:41:02

Okay. Bill how are your foxes?

Bill Leikam  1:41:05

Well, with with only two foxes to monitor they’re doing, they’re doing very well, I have to. I’m studying the behavior of the gray fox, and it’s the first study of its kind in the world. Never happened before. and I’m getting a lot of good publicity out of it. There was a documentary that was just made about my journey over to Zurich, Switzerland, because I was collaborating with Dr. Katharina Weikl, at the university. and the documentary is posted on our website, I run the urban wildlife research project, and if you go there.org If you go there, you can check it out. Check it out, check out the documentary, and see more of what I’ve been up to [inaudible]..

Metta Spencer  1:42:10

Last time we talked, your two foxes have had a marital spat, and one of them attacked the other one. Have they divorced? Or have they reconciled?

Bill Leikam  1:42:24

Oh, no. They’ve reconciled. But I think I mentioned one time that I did actually document our gray fox  divorce.

Metta Spencer  1:42:35

Oh, no, I didn’t know that. Really? Okay.

Bill Leikam  1:42:38

I did.

Metta Spencer  1:42:39

Exactly. How does a divorce take place? Does one of them simply go off with another partner? Or do they have a little ceremony?

Bill Leikam  1:42:50

Now the male took off with another female. But in that case, in the case of the, in the case of the cultures, it’s not the male that does anything. It’s the female that chooses who she’s going to be with, and so in the case of the divorce, she just convinced Brownie was his name. She just convinced him to come with her.

Metta Spencer  1:43:22

So she seduced him.

Bill Leikam  1:43:24

Yeah.

Metta Spencer  1:43:29

The Adventures of California grey foxes. That’s uh, you know, I like to have our soap opera ending for this kind of conversation. So thank you very much for this little drama. and we will get back together in another month. Does anybody have anything? Oh, Alexey’s gotta big heart showing. Let’s let’s put your your heart, oh  no, it didn’t show it went away. Anyway, is we send you our love too Alexey, there you go. Thank…

Alexey Prokhorenko  1:44:03

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Metta Spencer  1:44:05

Okay, everybody send love to to Warsaw, and if you have any leftover, send it to the right people in Russia. Okay.

Alexey Prokhorenko  1:44:15

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Metta Spencer  1:44:17

Surplus love is gladly appreciated to be distributed among worthy Russians. So thank you very much for for coming everybody. and we will get back together again, please another, maybe overnight, but maybe a couple of days. I will put up the recording of this on our website to save the world.ca You can look at it and then you can comment on it, and you can share anything there your your chat will be visible. and you can argue with each other or correct each other as you like. Okay. All right, guys. Okay, bye.

Alexey Prokhorenko  1:45:01

Thank you Bye bye. Thank you.