Peter Russell's forthcoming book gives a history of sovereignty, but the panelists are thinking about what comes after it — how to transition from a world of sovereign nation states to a global federation -- or some other alternative means of governance. Fergus Watt promotes World Federalism; Robert Schaeffer is skeptical about the direction we're heading; and John Feffer is already collecting a transnational community of leaders. Metta doesn't choose among these approaches but supports them all.

Rebecca Fannin is an American business journalist who, since the early 1990s, has written about the new corporations in Asia; for financial magazines, plus two books about China and one largely about India. She now offers a webinar on venture capital. She and Metta discuss the connections between business interests and political and social values.

Barbara Birkett, Saul Chernos, Evnur Taran, Jase Tanner, and Adam Wynne called into Project Save the World's monthly Global Town Hall this time — mainly to discuss Covid-19 with Metta. In April, we're all locked in our homes speculating about the future: When (if, indeed ever) can we safely open up again? Will the world globalize more or retreat further between closed borders?

Adam and Margo Koniuszewski created the Bridge Foundation as an organization to bring together people (especially young scientists) from various countries -- especially Canada, Poland, and Switzerland. Adam tells Metta about their current initiative: a competition between teams of young experts to manage a hypothetical cyberattack against Poland. This is, in effect, a “fire drill" for reality. But, because of Covid-19, they will have to carry out the event online.

Metta Spencer, who launched Project Save the World two years ago, reviews the policy proposals that seem most likely, if enacted simultaneously, to reduce the threat of the six most serious global catastrophes facing humankind: militarism, global warming, famine, pandemics, nuclear contamination, and cyberattacks. They cannot be solved in a step-by-step sequence, for they are a system and most be resolved together.

Project Save the World invites activists around the world to an open videoconference on the last Sunday of each month. Here Metta Spencer hosts friends in the US, Canada, Croatia, and India in the month when the pandemic spread worldwide. Several of the callers are Rotarian activists and we mainly discuss the use of therapy to handle trauma.

Luke Griswold-Tergis and Michael Loranty frequently go to a research station called Pleistocene Park, which is run by a father and son, Sergey and Nikita Zimov. They tell Metta that the Park shows that herds of large herbivores reduce the soil temperature. This can keep permafrost from melting. More research is certainly needed.

Rukiye Turdush is a Canadian activist who works on behalf of her ethnic community, the Uighurs. These inhabitants of northwest China are experiencing what the former diplomat Charles Burton calls “cultural genocide.” Together Rukiye and Charles describe to Metta the “re-education camps” where Uighurs are confined if they display any of their traditional cultural preferences — especially an Islamic lifestyle.

Ed Struzik is a writer who travels through the Arctic every summer, observing the changing landscape and the challenges that the Inuit people face in adapting to the fastest-warming area of the world. The trees and shrubs are moving into the tundra. Lightning is more frequent, causing wildfires that exacerbate global warming. Struzik cannot reassure Metta with any upbeat ideas for reversing this catastrophic trend.

In our monthly Global Town Hall meeting friends discussed such topics as the impact of mining on Guinea's rainforest, the prospect of shifting to 100% renewable and non-nuclear energy with storage, a plan to ring bells in Hiroshima Day, a project training “barefoot therapists” to help their peers in conflict zones, the Great Lakes Peace work in Africa, and a plan to create a network of NGOs against nuclear contamination on April 28.