Rachel Maddow reviews the timeline of activities around the time when Donald Trump tested positive for Covid-19 and asks why the White House won’t say when Trump’s last negative test was given the importance of that information to the many people who came into contact with him. Aired on 10/05/2020
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John Brennan, former CIA director, talks with Rachel Maddow about how the squandered credibility and evasiveness on the real condition of Donald Trump’s health leaves American inadequately informated and risks rival countries testing a perceived leadership vacuum. Aired on 10/05/2020
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As the number of people in President Trump’s orbit who test positive for COVID-19 continues to grow, we meet a student journalist who is doing what the White House doesn’t want the CDC to do: tracing the contacts of people who may have infected or been infected by President Trump. Benjy Renton, a Middlebury College senior, helped develop a real-time tracking tool to monitor the growing number of people in President Trump’s circle who were exposed or infected with COVID-19. The site is called COVID-19 at the White House and lists over 270 contacts and 25 positive cases, so far. It uses “publicly available information to ensure the American public have access and have the transparency that they deserve,” says Renton.
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Dec 23, 2014
October 30, 2013 Paul Sabin is associate professor of history. His research and teaching focus on energy and environmental history. Today we’ll talk with Professor Sabin about his new book, The Bet: Paul Ehrlich, Julian Simon and Our Gamble over Earth’s Future, which provides a framework for understanding today’s environmental debates.
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More than 30 years ago, economist Julian Simon made a bet with biologist Paul Ehrlich on the future prices of five metals, asserting that technological change and a booming market would keep the country prosperous. But Ehrlich predicted that rising populations would lead to overconsumption, taxed resources and famine. Paul Sabin analyzes this bet and argues that the opposing perspectives of the bettors – faith in free markets versus fear of environmental exploitation – are at the heart of the battle over climate change that continues today. He discusses the history of these opposing sides and the current status of the debate with Associated Press Energy & Environment Reporter Dina Cappiello.
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http://yalebooks.com/yupbooks/book.as…
Promotional book trailer for The Bet: Paul Ehrlich, Julian Simon, and Our Gamble over Earth’s Future, by Paul Sabin (Yale University Press, September 2013)
In 1980, the iconoclastic economist Julian Simon challenged celebrity biologist Paul Ehrlich to a bet. Their wager on the future prices of five metals captured the public’s imagination as a test of coming prosperity or doom. Ehrlich, author of the landmark book The Population Bomb, predicted that rising populations would cause overconsumption, resource scarcity, and famine—with apocalyptic consequences for humanity. Simon optimistically countered that human welfare would flourish thanks to flexible markets, technological change, and our collective ingenuity.
Simon and Ehrlich’s debate reflected a deepening national conflict over the future of the planet. The Bet weaves the two men’s lives and ideas together with the era’s partisan political clashes over the environment and the role of government. In a lively narrative leading from the dawning environmentalism of the 1960s through the pivotal presidential contest between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan and on into the 1990s, Paul Sabin shows how the fight between Ehrlich and Simon—between environmental fears and free-market confidence—helped create the gulf separating environmentalists and their critics today. Drawing insights from both sides, Sabin argues for using social values, rather than economic or biological absolutes, to guide society’s crucial choices relating to climate change, the planet’s health, and our own.
Copyright © 2013 by Yale University.
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Mar 31, 2014
In 1980, the iconoclastic economist Julian Simon challenged celebrity biologist Paul Ehrlich to a bet. Their wager on the future prices of five metals captured the public’s imagination as a test of coming prosperity or doom. Ehrlich, author of the landmark book The Population Bomb, predicted that rising populations would cause overconsumption, resource scarcity, and famine—with apocalyptic consequences for humanity. Simon optimistically countered that human welfare would flourish thanks to flexible markets, technological change, and our collective ingenuity. Simon and Ehrlich’s debate reflected a deepening national conflict over the future of the planet.
The Bet weaves the two men’s lives and ideas together with the era’s partisan political clashes over the environment and the role of government. In a lively narrative leading from the dawning environmentalism of the 1960s through the pivotal presidential contest between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan and on into the 1990s, Paul Sabin shows how the fight between Ehrlich and Simon—between environmental fears and free-market confidence—helped create the gulf separating environmentalists and their critics today. Drawing insights from both sides, Sabin argues for using social values, rather than economic or biological absolutes, to guide society’s crucial choices relating to climate change, the planet’s health, and our own.
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Oct 6, 2020
Filmmaker Sir David Attenborough has been documenting the natural world since the 1950s. In his latest book and film, “A Life on Our Planet,” he offers a grave and alarming assessment about the climate crisis Earth is facing. The 94-year-old Attenborough spoke with William Brangham recently as part of our ongoing arts and culture series, Canvas.
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The Public Witness and Ministry of William Sloane Coffin, Jr.
An associated panel sponsored by Historians Against the War, Reclaiming the Prophetic Voice, Yale Alumni for Social Justice, Yale Peace Coalition.
Webcast made available through courtesy of Radio Free Maine. Presentation may be purchased in a variety of video and audio formats by contacting Radio Free Maine at rleisnerrfm or by writing to: Roger Leisner, Radio Free Maine, P.O. Box 2705, Augusta, Maine 04338.
Event Speaker(s):
Panel Members in order of appearance:
Rev. Frederick J. Streets
chaplain of Yale University
David McDonough
Grandson of the late Dave Dellinger, who was a lifelong non-violent activist and key figure in the anti-war movement. Mr. McDonough attends Wheaton College.
David Mitchell
Vietnam War draft resister who served two years in jail.
Staughton Lynd
Professor of History at Yale, 1964-67.
Michael Ferber
Professor of English at the University of New
Hampshire.
Warren Goldstein
Professor and Chair of History at the University of Hartford. Author of William Slone Coffin: A Holy Impatience (Yale University Press).
William Sloane Coffin
Jr., Yale University Chaplain, 1958-1975
Rev. Allie Perry
Served as adjunct faculty at Yale Divinity School, ordained
minister in the United Church of Christ,.
Recorded: Thursday, April 28, 2005 – 6:00pm
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Energy shortages, climate change, and the debate over national security have thrust oil policy to the forefront of American politics. How did Americans grow so dependent on petroleum, and what can we learn from our history that will help us craft successful policies for the future? In this timely and absorbing book, Paul Sabin challenges us to see politics and law as crucial forces behind the dramatic growth of the U.S. oil market during the twentieth century. Using pre–World War II California as a case study of oil production and consumption, Sabin demonstrates how struggles in the legislature and courts over property rights, regulatory law, and public investment determined the shape of the state’s petroleum landscape.
Sabin provides a powerful corrective to the enduring myth of “free markets” by demonstrating how political decisions affected the institutions that underlie California’s oil economy and how the oil market and price structure depend significantly on the ways in which policy questions were answered before World War II. His concise and probing analysis casts fresh light on the historical relationship between business and government and on the origins of contemporary problems such as climate change and urban sprawl. Incisive, engaging, and meticulously researched, Crude Politics illuminates an important chapter in U.S. environmental, legal, business, and political history and the history of the American West.
Paul Sabin teaches American history at Yale University. He is the author of THE BET: PAUL EHRLICH, JULIAN SIMON AND OUR GAMBLE OVER EARTH’S FUTURE (2013), and CRUDE POLITICS: THE CALIFORNIA OIL MARKET, 1900-1940 (2005). Before joining the Yale faculty, Paul served as founding executive director of the non-profit Environmental Leadership Program. He is a graduate of Yale College and the University of California, Berkeley. He has taught U. S. economic and environmental history at Yale University and the Harvard Business School.
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Transition Studies 