Bill McKibben: 'Simply Too Hot: the Desperate Science and Politics of Climate

Award-winning Investigative Journalist Robert Parry (1949-2018)

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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The Resistance Starts Now!

Between The Lines' coverage and resource compilation of the Resistance Movement

"The man who predicted Trump presidential win now says Trump impeachment could happen," AM Joy with Joy Reid, MSNBC, Jan. 21, 2018
"Sketchy Kazakh money finds its way into Trump dealings," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Red flags seen in many Trump real estate deals," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Secret Money: How Trump Made Millions Selling Condos To Unknown Buyers," BuzzFeed, Jan. 12, 2018
"The Scandals of Donald Trump: Presidential Edition," The Atlantic, May 15, 2017
"Here's what we know so far about Team Trump's ties to Russian interests," Washington Post's ongoing compilation
"What Comey Was Investigating, Explained," The Moscow Project, Center for American Progress

"Donald Trump's Financial Ties to Russian Oligarchs and Mobsters Detailed In Explosive New Documentary from the Netherlands," Dutch TV documentary, Alternet.org, May 12, 2017
Ongoing compilation of Trump's creeping authoritarianism," MotherJones.com
Full resource list ...

SPECIAL REPORT: "The Resistance - Women's March 2018 - Hartford, Connecticut" Jan. 20, 2018

Selected speeches from the Women's March in Hartford, Connecticut 2018, recorded and produced by Scott Harris

SPECIAL REPORT: "No Fracking Waste in CT!" Jan. 14, 2018

Jen Siskind Jennifer Siskind, local coordinator for Food and Water Watch, describes the campaign to stop fracking waste in Connecticut, which so far has led to fracking waste bans in 34 towns around the state. Interviewed by Richard Hill on Mic Check, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT

SPECIAL REPORT: "Resistance Round Table: The Unraveling Continues..." Jan. 13, 2018

Lindsay Kanaly The panel discusses Trump's long history of racism and the Republican voter suppression juggernaut confronting Democrats leading up to the 2018 elections. Special guest: Lindsay Kanaly, a lead organizer of the Women's Marches planned for Jan. 20, 2018. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill on Resistance Roundtable, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT.

SPECIAL REPORT: "Capitalism to the ash heap?" Richard Wolff, Jan. 2, 2018

Richard Wolff, Economics professor Richard Wolff declares U.S. capitalism to be beyond repair and suggests the need for a radical alternative. Interviewed by Richard Hill

SPECIAL REPORT: Maryn McKenna, author of "Big Chicken", Dec. 7, 2017

Maryn McKenna, investigative journalist and author of Big Chicken, talks about the widespread use and dangers of antibiotics in commercial poultry, beef and fruit production. Interview by Bill Duesing, Richard Hill and Guy Beardsly on WPKN's Organic Farm Stand.

SPECIAL REPORT: Nina Turner's address, Working Families Party Awards Banquet, Dec. 14, 2017

Nina Turner, president of Our Revolution, talks about the fight ahead for progressives as she receives the Working Families Organization Award for Exceptional Leadership Towards Advancing Progress. The event was held in Meriden, CT. Produced by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Dec. 12, 2017

Working Families Party of CT talks strategy and issues for 2018.
Lindsay Farrell, executive director of the Working Families Party of Connecticut, discusses the state's electoral landscape and lays out the issues and strategies that could lead to progressive victories in 2018. Interviewed by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Dec. 9, 2017

Disturbing developments in the Trump/Republican Agenda
Focus on the tax bill, destruction of our public lands, North Korea and Trump's private CIA. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill. Special guest: Jo Macallero of Rise and Resist.

SPECIAL REPORT: On Tyranny - one year later, Nov. 28, 2017

Professor Timothy Snyder, author of the highly acclaimed resistance manual On Tyranny, discusses his book and offers a fresh assessment of the state of our beleaguered republic. Timothy Snyder, history professor at Yale, is introduced by Stanley Heller, administrator of Promoting Enduring Peace, a Connecticut-based organization that sponsored this event at the United Church Parish House in New Haven on Nov. 28. A brief interview with Snyder conducted by WPKN radio producer, Richard Hill, follows his talk.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Nov. 12, 2017

Lynne Ide, director of program and policy with the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut, talks about the current state of health care coverage in Connecticut. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Nov. 11, 2017

Focus on the Republican tax plan, the just-released autopsy on the Democratic Party, and Internet censorship by Google, Facebook and Youtube. Including an interview with Hilary Grant, a lead organizer with Action Together Connecticut, who discusses the local results of the recent election, with hosts Richard Hill, Scott Harris and Ruth Baumgartner WPKN producers

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Two leaders from Redneck Revolt, an anti-racist, anti-capitalist movement, talk about their work organizing with white working class people in Suffolk County, New York. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Bruce Gagnon, coordinator for the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, describes the extent of -- and motives underlying -- the vast US network of military bases around the globe. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resisting U.S. JeJu Island military base in South Korea, Oct. 24, 2017

Joyakol, South Korean peace activist and singer, discusses the crisis on the Korean peninsula and focuses on the resistance to the U.S. huge military base being constructed on Jeju Island. The event was sponsored by the Greater New Haven Peace Council and this audio was recorded by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.
Joyakol discusses Americans' biggest misconceptions about the conflict between North and South Korea and the U.S., Interview by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.

SPECIAL REPORT: John Allen, Out in New Haven

John Allen, founding director of the New Haven Pride Center, Connecticut, talks about his new LGBTQ television show, Out in New Haven, which presents a range of political and cultural issues to the community. Interviewed by Richard Hill on WPKN's Rainy Day Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018.

2017 Gandhi Peace Awards

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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THANK YOU TO EVERYONE...

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.

Between The Lines on Stitcher

Between The Lines Presentation at the Left Forum 2016

"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.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker "Dirty Wars"

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.

Listen to Scott Harris Live on WPKN Radio

Between The Lines' Executive Producer Scott Harris hosts a live, weekly talk show, Counterpoint, from which some of Between The Lines' interviews are excerpted. Listen every Monday evening from 8 to 10 p.m. EDT at www.WPKN.org (Follows the 5-7 minute White Rose Calendar.)

Counterpoint in its entirety is archived after midnight ET Monday nights, and is available for at least a year following broadcast in WPKN Radio's Archives.

You can also listen to full unedited interview segments from Counterpoint, which are generally available some time the day following broadcast.

Subscribe to Counterpoint bulletins via our subscriptions page.

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Simply Too Hot: The Desperate Science and Politics of Climate

Posted Oct. 25, 2017

Excerpt of Yale University speech by Bill McKibben, author, writer and climate activist, founder of climate activism organization 350.org, recorded and produced by Melinda Tuhus

Writer and activist Bill McKibben spoke at Yale University on Oct. 10, addressing the urgency of taking action to slow down climate chaos. In the wake of many recent disasters predicted by climate scientists – including the deadliest forest fires in California history and three of the strongest hurricanes ever to hit the U.S. mainland and Caribbean – McKibben talked about the pace of climate change and the people's and politicians' response to it.

McKibben wrote "The End of Nature" in 1988, the first book for non-scientists that explained the concept of climate change. He later co-founded the group, 350.org, which has led a global campaign to raise awareness about the impacts of climate change, especially on poor nations and low-lying islands whose people have contributed the least to create the climate crisis.

McKibben now travels the world raising the alarm about the dire consequences of climate change and urging people to take immediate action to reverse it. During his talk at Yale, he pointed out that although coal plants are being phased out and renewable energy sources are growing by leaps and bounds, the planet is not winning the battle fast enough, and hence is losing ground. Between The Lines' Melinda Tuhus recorded McKibben's Yale speech, titled, "Simply Too Hot: The Desperate Science and Politics of Climate" and brings us the following excerpts.

BILL MCKIBBEN: There is resistance underway every place around the world now, as I say, and it's beautiful to watch. So much leadership provided by frontline communities and especially, I think most gratifyingly over the last five years, by this rapid emergence to the leadership of indigenous traditions around the world. You saw what happened at Standing Rock last autumn – a beautiful, beautiful, powerful gathering. It didn't surprise me because the people who organized it, we've been working with for years. They are great leaders. It's a good sign that the oldest indigenous wisdom tradition on the planet is meshing now powerfully with the newest – that the word that comes from the sweat lodge and the word that comes from the supercomputer is the same word. (Applause) And now people gather in their numbers. These were 400,000 people on the march in New York city – until the Women’s March in January, the biggest marches about anything in this country in a very long time. And it wasn’t just this country; it was as usual all over the entire world.

I think I want to close just showing you a couple of pictures that illustrate in my mind the kind of drama of this moment in which we find ourselves. You know, there are sort of tropes that go on in one's head, that fit the human mind, and one of them is the battle of the small against the very large, the David and Goliath story. These are our friends in the Pacific in those islands like Vanuatu and Tuvalu and the Marshalls and Micronesia and the Solomons that will probably be underwater by the end of the century. But their slogan is, "We are not drowning; we are fighting!"

When we were marching in New York, they cut down on each island a single tree and made a big, traditional war canoe. And they took them to Newcastle (Australia) in the Pacific, which is the biggest coal port in the world, and there they used them for a day to blockade the port and keep the largest warships in the world in harbor so they couldn't come out without running them over. It was a brave and beautiful action. It's been one of the reasons that's galvanized Australians into opposing this crazy plan for this giant coal mine. And it illustrated perfectly this trope that the small and the many against the few and the very big. We saw the same image from the Pacific Northwest the next year. This was when Shell Oil announced it was going to drill for oil in the Arctic.

Think about that for one minute, by the way. Scientists said that if you warm the planet, the Arctic will melt. Shell and its ilk paid no attention and went ahead, and what do you know, the Arctic melted. Having looked at that did the leadership of Shell Oil say, "Huh, maybe we should go into the solar business instead. This seems to be not working out." No. The leadership of Shell Oil said, "It's melted up there now; it will be easier to drill for oil."

And in Seattle and in Portland, for days they blockaded the two giant drilling rigs with small craft. We called them kayaktivists, and it was beautiful, and it threatened more brand damage to Shell that was more than they could contend with. And by the end of the year, Shell said, "Well, we didn't find enough oil in the Arctic. We're going home." Really what they found was a lot more trouble than they could with, and so they turned tail and ran, and that was a very good moment. (Applause)

But we need lots more moments like that. I guess the way to say this is, the planet is now way, way outside its comfort zone. That's what it means when the Arctic is melting, when coral is dying. Because it is way, way outside its comfort zone, we need to be outside our comfort zones, too. We need to be doing much more than we are doing now, because it's manifest that what we are doing now is insufficient – that's why the temperature keeps going up. All we are asking for is a world a little bit like the one we were born onto – a little bit of ice at the top and the bottom, the odd coral reef in the middle.

That's not a radical demand; that's a conservative demand. Radicals work at oil companies. If you get up in the morning willing to make your fortune by altering the chemical composition of the atmosphere; and you are willing to do it after scientists have told you it will happen and you are willing to do it after you've seen it happen, then our job is to check that radicalism (applause). And it is our job to check it fast.

For more information on climate change and Bill McKibben's climate activism, visit 350.org.