Award-winning investigative journalist and founder/editor of ConsortiumNews.com, Robert Parry has passed away. His ground-breaking work uncovering Reagan-era dirty wars in Central America and many other illegal and immoral policies conducted by successive administrations and U.S. intelligence agencies, stands as an inspiration to all in journalists working in the public interest.
Robert had been a regular guest on our Between The Lines and Counterpoint radio shows -- and many other progressive outlets across the U.S. over four decades.
His penetrating analysis of U.S. foreign policy and international conflicts will be sorely missed, and not easily replaced. His son Nat Parry writes a tribute to his father: Robert Parry’s Legacy and the Future of Consortiumnews.
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Between The Lines' coverage and resource compilation of the Resistance Movement
Selected speeches from the Women's March in Hartford, Connecticut 2018, recorded and produced by Scott Harris
Promoting Enduring Peace presented its Gandhi Peace Award jointly to renowned consumer advocate Ralph Nader and BDS founder Omar Barghouti on April 23, 2017.
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who helped make our 25th anniversary with Jeremy Scahill a success!
For those who missed the event, or were there and really wanted to fully absorb its import, here it is in video
Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 1 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.
Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 2 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.
"How Do We Build A Mass Movement to Reverse Runaway Inequality?" with Les Leopold, author of "Runaway Inequality: An Activist's Guide to Economic Justice,"May 22, 2016, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York, 860 11th Ave. (Between 58th and 59th), New York City. Between The Lines' Scott Harris and Richard Hill moderated this workshop. Listen to the audio/slideshows and more from this workshop.
Listen to audio of the plenary sessions from the weekend.
Listen to the full interview (30:33) with Jeremy Scahill, an award-winning investigative journalist with the Nation Magazine, correspondent for Democracy Now! and author of the bestselling book, "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army," about America's outsourcing of its military. In an exclusive interview with Counterpoint's Scott Harris on Sept. 16, 2013, Scahill talks about his latest book, "Dirty Wars, The World is a Battlefield," also made into a documentary film under the same title, and was nominated Dec. 5, 2013 for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary Feature category.
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Interview with Kevin Trenberth, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research , conducted by Melinda Tuhus
Record-setting weather events -- vast floods along the Mississippi River and shockingly destructive tornadoes in the South -- have dominated the news in the U.S. for the past several weeks. Up to now, climate scientists have always been careful to say that no particular weather event can be linked directly to climate change. But many climate experts are now linking climate change directly to some of these weather-related disasters.
Kevin Trenberth is head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. funded by the National Science Foundation. In an April interview, Trenberth said he believes that it is "irresponsible not to mention climate change" in the context of extreme weather events – and added that the scientific community is still trying to understand how polluting our atmosphere with billions of tons of greenhouse gases affects tornadic activity.
Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Trenberth, one of the world’s top climate scientists, who explains the cause and effect relationship between climate change and extreme weather events, and suggests this information would be valuable for political leaders to take into consideration when voting on environment and climate change legislation.
KEVIN TRENBERTH: The key thing is that the environment in which all these storms are occurring now is simply different than it was, say, 30 years ago. The global warming aspect from human activities really kicked in around the 1970s, so one of the things I like to do is compare the situation now with the conditions prior to about the 1970s, and what has happened is that the planet has warmed. It's warmed by 1.5 degrees Farenheit as a whole, and going along with that, there is more water vapor in the atmosphere over the oceans; for every one degree F in temperature, there's about a 4 percent increase in water vapor. So all the storms that are forming now are in a different environment where the surface air is potentially warmer and moister and therefore, more bouyant. It can trigger more thunderstorms and certainly provides more moisture for all of the storms that are then forming. So it plays a role in any of these storms that are sufficiently organized that they can tap into this moisture and potentially lead to heavy rains and flooding, as we've seen.
BETWEEN THE LINES: Isn't the flooding we're talking about now on the Mississippi River, is that just related to storm activity or is that related to snow melt, and doesn't this happen at this time every year?
KEVIN TRENBERTH: Well, both, yes. In fact, we have two things that normally happen at this time of year. One of them is that we've got snow melt and the Mississippi River basin is huge and there are large areas, especially in the North, where there's a lot of snow cover that's melting that's helping to feed the Missouri and the Mississippi and other rivers that flow into the Mississippi. And then the other thing that happens is in springtime, we get a lot of storms tracking across the country. They tend to track right through the middle of the country, and under certain circumstances they are in a position where they can tap into tremendous amounts of moisture out of the Gulf of Mexico, which is one of the factors that occurred this time around. One of the consequences then can be quite severe storms, tornadic storms and heavy rain. So we have a combination of both. We had this episode in late April where there was an area in southern Missouri where there was over 20 inches of rain, and quite an extensive area, 500 miles or more that was certainly over ten inches of rain, and a huge area that extended right up into the Ohio River Valley that was more than six inches of rain. So, there were very heavy rains in the region as well as the seasonal snow melt that are feeding the flooding.
BETWEEN THE LINES: Kevin Trenberth, it seems like sometimes when these disasters happen, people say, "There's never been anything like this." But then, if you look at the record, maybe there has. So are you saying according to the actual meteorological records that these things are happening at greater frequency and/or greater strength?
KEVIN TRENBERTH: I would hope so. It's very strange because, ironically, many of the states that have been most affected by the tornadoes and the flooding have representatives in the Congress who have voted against legislation relating to climate change, such as the legislation affected the EPA and their ability to regulate greenhouse gases. So I think these legislators should be asking questions, you know: Why is this happening? Why are we breaking records? You can't blame this all on natural variability. Natural variability is certainly playing a role, but equally, climate change that us humans have something to do with is also playing a role.
For more information on the relationship between severe weather and climate change, visit the National Center for Atmospheric Research Climate Analysis Section website at www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/trenbert.html.
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