Archives for April 2020

New Research Finds a Link Between Fires, Children’s Health and Gross Domestic Product

A view of Delhi Jean-Etienne Minh-Duy Poirrier Flickr/CC license

Setting fires to clear land for planting crops, or crop burning, is a common practice in many places around India. And as you can imagine, this kind of burning emits terrible air pollution.

My guest today, Prachi Singh, has uncovered a link between that kind of air pollution and the height of children who are born to mothers who were impacted by that air pollution while pregnant. 

Prachi Singh is an associate fellow at the Brookings Institution, India Center and a PhD candidate at Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi. Her research analyzed height and weight ratios of children who were exposed, in utero, to air pollution events like crop burning and forest fires. She finds a significant correlation between low weight and low height ratios and exposure to this pollution. 

But her research goes further than that. She demonstrates how low height and weight ratios stemming from this exposure impacts India’s entire economy, including taking a significant toll on India’s Gross Domestic Product. The peer reviewed research is cutting edge and has broad global implications.

We kick off discussing the impact of what is known as stunting on children’s health before having a conversation about her research methods and the significance of her findings. 

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Today’s episode is the second installment in a series of episodes that will be published over the next few months that showcase the research and work of the Sustainable Energy Transitions Initiative. SETI is an interdisciplinary global collaborative that aims to foster research on energy access and energy transitions in low and middle-income countries. Currently, SETI is housed at Duke University, where it is led by Professors Subhrendu Pattanayak and Marc Jeuland. To learn more about SETI, follow them on Twitter @SETIenergy.

What Kim Jong Un’s Health Rumors Teach Us About North Korea

If you have been following news recently out of the Korean Peninsula, you may have seen a report that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was gravely ill. He had, according to this report, undergone heart surgery and was fighting for his life. The thing is, we have no way of knowing whether or not this is true.

Patricia Kim joins me to discuss the significance of the rumor about Kim Jong Un’s ill-health. She is the senior policy analyst with the China program at US Institute of Peace. We also analyze what we know about North Korea’s experience with COVID-19, and what lies ahead for nuclear diplomacy between the United States, North Korea, South Korea, and China. 

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The Geopolitics of COVID-19 | With Ian Bremmer

Even before the coronavirus pandemic, the world order was undergoing some profound shifts. China was rising. The USA, under the Trump administration was abdicating its traditional role as a global leader, and global institutions were seemingly getting weaker. So how does the COVID-19 pandemic layer on top of these trends?

Ian Bremmer is the President of the Eurasia Group and GZero Media. He explains how and why the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting great power politics and geopolitical shifts.

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A View From Congress, With Representative Ami Bera

Congressman Ami Bera

Congressman Ami Bera is a Democrat from California who serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and is chair of the subcommittee on Asia and Pacific.

He is also a medical doctor who has long championed global health issues. Last November he served on a commission on pandemic preparedness convened by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC that issued a series of recommendations that today looks rather prescient.  

We spoke just a day after President Trump announced that the United States was freezing funding for the World Health Organization and needless to say Congressman Bera strongly disagrees with that move. And it’s his reasoning I think that is most instructive.  He does a really good job of explaining why preventing clusters of COVID-19 from taking hold in poorer countries is required for securing the US homeland, and how the WHO is critical to that effort. 

We cover other ground too, including what the trajectory of the outbreak looks like here in the United States, and how that trajectory might shape US politics and foreign policy.

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Why Don’t More People Use Clean Cookstoves?

Photo credit: Karan Singh Rathore / www.sanjhi.org via US State Department. CC license/flickr

For years, the global development community has struggled over the problem of dirty burning cookstoves. These are typically rudimentary stoves that burn wood or other biomass — and in the process emit harmful smoke indoors. Nearly three billion people around the world cook their meals this way, leading to environmental damage and illness. Indoor air pollution attributed to dirty burning cookstoves kills millions of people each year.

The solution to the problem of dirty cookstoves should be straightforward — just replace cookstoves that emit harmful pollutants with cleaner burning, improved cookstoves. Indeed, there are a great variety of efficient and clean cookstoves available today. But so far, these improved cookstoves are not being used at anywhere near a scale commensurate with the problem. The solution might exist, but consumers are often not using these better cookstoves. 

My guest today, Subhrendu Pattanayak, sought to learn why people who would benefit the most from improved cookstoves are not using them. He is the Oak Professor of Environmental and Energy Policy at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy. In 2019, he published the results of a five year study with co-author Marc Jeuland of communities in rural India that offers some key insights into the barriers of increasing demand for cleaner burning cookstoves.   We discuss these findings at length in our conversation.

Today’s episode is the first installment in a series of episodes that will be published over the next few months that showcase the research and work of the Sustainable Energy Transitions Initiative.SETI is an interdisciplinary global collaborative that aims to foster research on energy access and energy transitions in low- and middle-income countries. Since 2015, the network has expanded to include over 150 researchers, policymakers, and practitioners working in the field of energy from over 35 countries. Currently, SETI is housed at Duke University, where it is led by Professors Subhrendu Pattanayak and Marc Jeuland.  SETI’s research addresses the most pressing energy challenges faced by low- and middle-income countries, from clean cooking in Senegal to micro-hydro power in Nepal to coal divestment in Chile. To learn more about SETI, follow them on Twitter @SETIenergy.

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Uncovering Corruption in Sudan Following the Fall of Dictator Omar al-Bashir

A note from podcast host Mark Leon Goldberg: I have taken the extraordinary step of removing this April 2020 episode from the archives. The interview focused on a report published by The Sentry purporting to expose corruption in Sudan during the reign of the now-deposed dictator Omar al Bashir. The report upon which this interview was based has been removed from the website of The Sentry. The Sentry would not provide for me an on-the-record explanation of why this report was removed.

Venezuela Sinks Deeper into Crisis

On March 26th, the United States Department of Justice did something very unusual. In a press conference, Attorney General William Barr unsealed indictments against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and top regime officials, alleging drug trafficking and narcoterrorism.

Previously, when the Trump administration declared Maduro to be an illegitimate leader it was done on the assumption that such a move would inspire defections among Maduro loyalists–particularly in the military and security services. That assumption was proven incorrect. Now, Venezuela has two rival governments with Maduro still in control of most state institutions and Juan Guaidó backed by the United States and most western powers. 

On the line with me to discuss this is Keith Mines, senior advisor for Venezuela and Colombia at the United States Institute of Peace. We kick off discussing the indictments, how they fit into US policy toward Venezuela and whether or not this move may succeed in helping to dislodge Maduro from power. We also discuss how COVID-19 is impacting domestic politics in Venezuela and what role the United Nations might play in helping mediate a resolution to this crisis.

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Governments Around the World Are Using COVID-19 as a Pretext to Crack Down on Human Rights

There is a coronavirus human rights crackdown. Regimes around the world are using the pandemic as a pretext to erode civil liberties and trample human rights to further entrench themselves in power.

Philippe Bolopion, deputy director for advocacy at Human Rights Watch explains how the pandemic is impacting human rights around the world.

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What Political Science Can Teach Us About How Different Countries Are Handling COVID-19

Incheon airport in South Korea / Jens-Olaf Walter via Flickr CC license

What explains why some countries are responding to the coronavirus more effectively than others? One branch of political science, called comparative politics, offers a useful lens to understand how differences between countries are affecting governments’ response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

Sofia Fenner is an assistant professor of political science at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania who explains what comparative politics and political science can teach us about how governments are responding to this crisis.

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