World of Possibilities (Politics)

Today, nano particles are in our food, cosmetics, and hundreds of other items. And this is just the beginning of what is projected to be a $1 trillion nanotech industry within a decade. Yet its presence and perils are only on the radar screens of a handful of environmental activists. To date, the U.S. has established no regulations on the development or proliferation of nano particles -- and the European Union is just starting to examine the issue.This hour we’ll hear from four experts who...

War has shaped the lives of people in northern Uganda for the past two decades. Impunity for widespread crimes and grave violations committed during the war is pervasive, and there has been very little victim/community input into top-down plans to implement justice and accountability. Yet sustained peace depends on recreating communal solidarity, building advocacy networks, giving rape survivors, ex-child soldiers and orphans a voice and enabling them to be agents of recovery. For the last...

Global climate change is here. And only now, as our nation is ravaged by hurricanes, floods and droughts, is this new reality becoming all too obvious. But indigenous people in isolated communities around the world have been sounding the alarm for decades. This week we’ll meet indigenous messengers from Alaska and Peru who say it’s not too late to use traditional knowledge to reconnect with Mother Earth. And we’ll learn about a powerful new exhibition at the National Museum of the American...

The science of man-made global climate change is irrefutable. New heat records, drought worse than the Dust Bowl, epic floods, hurricanes and tsunamis: the signs of ecological collapse are everywhere.Yet politicians financed by climate change deniers continue to delay action, fearing its effect on bottom-line profits. What, then, can we do to reverse course without wrecking our economies?Today we’ll speak with two eminent scientists, a conservation biologist and an environmental engineer,...

The crunch is on. Nature and humanity are both running off the rails and governments stand seemingly helpless before the juggernaut. But all is not lost. Into the breach are stepping new players, inventing strategies to transform the way we do things on many levels at once. And they’re forging surprising alliances in the process. In this program we’ll hear about two initiatives that seek to move the needle on issues of increasing urgency, one by influencing governmental policies on climate...

Around the world, languages, cultures and ecosystems are disappearing at an alarming rate, erasing richness vital to our survival. Based on interviews conducted at a major international conference on biocultural diversity held at the American Museum of Natural History in New York in April 2008, this program examines how diversity is also re-emerging even as the old ways are dying.

In its breakneck pursuit of modernization, China has given nature a back seat to its turbo-charged industrial development. Now, with drought, desertification, and extreme pollution, China's leaders are beginning to realize that better treatment of its natural capital is vital to the country's survival. Today we'll speak with a leading Chinese landscape architect who is redefining the relationship between humans and nature with an ingenuity that sets a new standard for innovation itself and...

Like "Made in Japan" a generation ago, the "Made in China" label has long been viewed by Americans as a low-cost, low quality knock-off of a costly original designed and manufactured in more advanced nations. But these days China is transforming itself from the world's factory into the world's laboratory. That's creating vast new opportunities for green innovation. Two leading Chinese entrepreneurial innovators in renewable energy ask why the nation that pioneered many such technologies is...

Host Mark Sommer continues his journey across the communities lying above the Marcellus Shale Play, a gigantic natural gas deposit stretching under the Northeast United States. In this program we hear the conflicting ideas and conflicted emotions of those living and working in the Southern Tier of New York State, where gas "fracking" is proposed but not yet underway.

"Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." This most famous phrase from the U.S. Declaration of Independence places happiness at the front and center of the role of government. Today we'll hear from the Minister of Happiness in the Royal Kingdom of Bhutan, where Gross National Happiness, rather than Gross National Product, is the preferred measure used to guide national policy. We also hear from a Seattle city councilman who's been inspired by Bhutan's example to propose similar indices...

As we seek ways to make both our economies and food supplies more sustainable, we would do well to look at what worked for hundreds of years before modern technology gave us both greater productivity and greater vulnerability. In this program we visit with specialists from around the world who are combining the newest techniques of sustainable agriculture with ancient practices of subsistence forest farming to create food production systems robust enough to weather the unpredictable extremes...

Thirty-five years ago the war in Vietnam came to an abrupt end, yet for millions of Vietnamese soldiers and citizens and for thousands of American veterans and their descendants, a legacy of diseases, disabilities, and unexplained symptoms echo down the decades. During the war, some 4.5 million Vietnamese were exposed to highly toxic dioxins sprayed by the American military. Today we'll hear from a range of individuals from varied sectors and backgrounds who've gathered together in support...

In a global culture dominated by the impatience of youth, counted in nanoseconds and fueled by "just-in-time" supply chains, everything needs to be done "yesterday" since today is no longer soon enough. Today we'll hear from two individuals who've slowed their pace even as they've quickened their creativity and deepened their appreciation for those things that speeding causes us to miss.

Our failure to protect and respect innately sacred natural places is a direct reflection of our loss of connection to the land and water that sustain us - and a harbinger of self-destruction. These sacred places are sometimes known only to their ancestral guardians and the peoples that have long revered them. Others are those special places in our own neighborhoods where we go for solace, reflection and refreshment. Today we'll travel to remote regions of the planet where indigenous peoples...

Most of us take life for granted. But what happens when we're forced to think hard about whether we want to live? Suicide and the impulse to attempt it are a great unacknowledged epidemic in public health today. It not only scars those who try it, but all those who care about them, often for life. This is the story of Steve Fugate, a self-described ordinary guy who found himself thrust into the crucible of suicide at close hand and chose to express his grief and redemption in a most unusual...