Desalination Vessel Promises to Fight Droughts

Jul 16, 2022

Quebec desalination company looking to expand their technology in Canada, U.S.

Reported Tornado Rips Through Ontario, Leaving Trail of Damage

Jul 26, 2022

Sunday evening, a series of severe thunderstorms ripped through eastern Ontario, damaging homes and downing trees. Jordyn Read has the story.

The Problem with the Next Moon Mission

References [1] NASA Mission To Study Mysterious Lunar Twilight Rays https://science.nasa.gov/science-news… [2] The Apollo experience lessons learned for constellation lunar dust management https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/TP-2006-… [3] Self-cleaning spacesuits for future planetary missions using carbon nanotube technology https://www.sciencedirect.com/science… [4] 2015 NASA Technology Roadmaps https://www.nasa.gov/offices/oct/home… [5] Lunar Dust Effects on Spacesuit Systems – Insights from the Apollo Spacesuits https://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/strate… [6] NASA Big Idea – 2021 Challenge https://bigidea.nianet.org/2021-chall… [7] Electrodynamic Dust Shield for Space Applications https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/2… [8] Spacesuit Integrated Carbon Nanotube Dust Removal System – A Scaled Prototype https://ttu-ir.tdl.org/bitstream/hand… [9] Safety considerations for SPIcDER – Spacesuit integrated carbon nanotube dust ejection/removal system https://www.sciencedirect.com/science…

Select imagery/video supplied by Getty Images Thank you to AP Archive for access to their archival footage.

Trump’s not the problem. He’s a symbol of 4 bigger issues. | Ian Bremmer | Big Think – YouTu be

Aug 1, 2018

Trump’s not the problem. He’s a symbol of 4 bigger issues. New videos DAILY: https://bigth.ink Join Big Think Edge for exclusive video lessons from top thinkers and doers: https://bigth.ink/EdgeIf the problem was just Trump, it wouldn’t be happening in other places around the world, says political scientist Ian Bremmer. All sorts of advanced industrial democracies have people getting angrier and voting more and more against the establishment.Even when their economies are doing well, four factors exist that rip at the fabric of civic nationalism. What’s surprising, however, there is one developed country that isn’t having such issues. What can we learn from them?

IAN BREMMER:

Ian Bremmer is the president and founder of Eurasia Group, the leading global political risk research and consulting firm started in 1998. Today, the company has offices in New York, Washington, and London, as well as a network of experts and resources around the world. Bremmer has authored several books, including the national bestseller The End of the Free Market: Who Wins the War Between States and Corporations?

TRANSCRIPT:

IAN BREMMER: The problem is not Trump. Trump is a symptom.

If the problem were Trump it wouldn’t be happening in other places around the world. We actually see all sorts of countries advanced industrial democracies where people are getting angrier and they’re voting more and more against the establishment.

We saw that with the Brexit referendum, which was before the U.S. presidential election; We saw it in Germany with the rise of the Alternatives for Deutschland, an actively Euro-skeptic party for the first time since World War II; We have nationalists in the German parliament; We saw it with the recent Italian elections where they threw out all of the establishment parties and instead it’s the Five Star Movement and the League, again Euro-skeptic, anti-immigration, populist political forces.

This is very unusual and it’s not coincidence. So why is it happening? One reason is because you have lots of members of working and middle classes that feel like they are not doing well economically and no one in the establishment is going to help them. “So let’s vote for some change. Let’s vote against free trade. Let’s vote against the support of the establishment. Let’s bring in something new.”

Second point. A lot of this is anti-immigration. Demographics have changed an awful lot in the United States, in Canada and in Europe over the past decades and a lot of people feel – people that have come before say “Wait a second! You’re not taking care of me, but you’re going to bring in these new people and these new people who I don’t necessarily like or understand or trust? These new people who are getting benefits—but what about my benefits?! It’s going to cost a lot of money to bring them in. Are they going to steal my jobs? Are they going to cause crime?!” —Even though in the United States we know that first generation immigrants don’t actually cause more crime than those that have lived here.

Nonetheless the willingness to believe that those “other people are bad and a problem” goes up a lot when you feel like your government’s not taking care of you. So that’s been a big piece of it.

A third piece has been the military. You know the foreign policy establishment in the United States has been very willing to support the U.S. getting into wars around the world. But most of the sons and daughters of the foreign policy establishment don’t actually fight in those wars themselves—That’s also true of the political leaders that are responsible. As we know it’s the poor people, it’s the enlisted men and women. They get sent off, their families are left broken, their communities are hindered. They come back – Iraq, Afghanistan – billions upon billions of dollars wasted on these wars, enormous numbers of people that are killed or wounded or have post traumatic stress disorder. They come back they’re not seen as heroes. The Americans and the allies didn’t win these wars. The Veterans Administration doesn’t take care of them.

So as a consequence you see those people getting really angry and not voting for Hillary or Jeb. They’re voting for Bernie Sanders or for Donald Trump.

And then you have technology which is that technology today is increasingly driving people apart. We get most of our information in the United States from advertising companies that view us as commodities, products. They sell our eyeballs and our time on their sites to companies that pay money to ensure that we spend as much time as possible on Facebook and on Twit…

For the full transcript, check out https://bigthink.com/videos/top-10-ia…

Italian island of Sardinia infested with locusts | Focus on Europe

Jul 24, 2022

Higher temperatures lead to huge swarms of locusts. For the inhabitants of the Italian island of Sardinia, this is a disaster. There are not many options to fight back.

Pro-Israel Lobby Pours Millions Into Democratic Primary In Michigan

Jul 25, 2022

AIPAC has spent more than $3 million supporting the opponent of Congressman Andy Levin, who is one of only 27 Jewish members in the House. “In a race where the two candidates combined have raised just over $7 million, this is a huge thumb on the scale,” says Chris Hayes.

EU agrees on emergency plan to ‘face down the threat of a full gas disruption’ | DW News

Jul 26, 2022

European Union member states reached an agreement in Brussels on Tuesday on an emergency proposal to reduce gas consumption as concerns grow that Russia might ultimately cut off already reduced deliveries. The agreement was announced by the Czech Republic, which is currently heading the EU’s rotating presidency. “This was not a mission impossible!” the Czech presidency wrote on Twitter. The extraordinary meeting comes as Russia continues to reduce gas deliveries into the EU, which had depended on Russian gas for 40% of its supply before the invasion of Ukraine in late February. Although Russia has cited technical reasons for the reduction, many in the EU see the move as a weaponization of energy supplies in response to Western sanctions on Moscow over the invasion.

The battles over the proposal began when countries which do not have a heavy reliance on Russian gas, like Spain and Portugal, started raising concerns about what the 15% reduction would mean for their citizens. “To be politically viable in a context of looming gas shortages, high energy prices and overall recession risks, EU energy solidarity needs to be realistically arranged,” Simone Tagliapietra, a senior fellow at the economics think tank Bruegel, told DW. Those countries have been placated with a number of exemptions and derogations. Countries which are not connected to others’ gas networks like the island nations of Ireland, Malta and Cyprus are exempt and nations can drop out of the responsibilities if they are overshooting their storage targets. “The EU needs to establish a compensation mechanism aimed at providing fair payments to EU-relevant gas supply and demand options made available by certain countries to the most vulnerable ones,” Tagliapietra said. “Now is not the moment to revive an old South-North split and allow Putin’s divide-and-rule strategy to work.” Hungary — the EU’s most pro-Russia country — was the only member state to vote against the agreement. Indeed, last week, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto went to Moscow to try to secure an increase in their supply of Russian gas. When asked about Hungary, Czech Deputy Prime Minister Jozef Sikela told reporters in Brussels he did not want to discuss the position of single state. “We have a clear alignment, clear solidarity, and we want to send a clear signal to the world and to the Kremlin,” he said.

Trump Proposes INSANE Tent Cities Across America

Jul 26, 2022

Former President Donald Trump proposes building tent cities around America in one day to house the homeless.

Can western heavy weapons turn the tide in Ukraine? | Ukriane latest

Jul 26, 2022

German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said her country has delivered Mars II multiple rocket launchers and three howitzers to Ukraine. Germany earlier pledged to send the weapons to Kyiv. “We keep our word,” Lambrecht said. Lambrecht’s remarks came a day after the first batch of Gepard self-propelled armored anti-aircraft weapons arrived from Germany to Ukraine. The first shipment had five Gepard tanks. Berlin had pledged 30. Lambrecht said that around 60,000 rounds of ammunition, mainly from the German armed forces, would also be sent to Ukraine. Berlin had initially been opposed to sending weapons to Ukraine. But, after pressure, the government pledged to provide arms from the German army’s stockpiles and the weapons industry. Germany has also been negotiating weapon swaps with other countries in a bid to quickly supply Ukraine with heavy weapons. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Wednesday that talks with the Czech Republic on a tank swap to support Ukraine are nearing completion. Berlin had already agreed with the Czech government on the delivery of 20 T-72 tanks to Ukraine in exchange for 15 German Leopard 2 tanks, but Baerbock said negotiations on the details were still ongoing.

Republican divide widens as Trump, Pence take divergent paths

Jul 26, 2022

For the first time since leaving office, former President Trump on Tuesday returned to Washington, D.C. to deliver a keynote policy speech that laid out his agenda for the GOP as he hints at another White House run. It came just hours after former Vice President Mike Pence took center stage nearby. Sarah Longwell, a longtime Republican strategist, joins William Brangham to discuss.