Hello everyone, I'm Xiaowei. I work at the Eastern Rim Foundation consensus RISC-RND team. So this is a lightning talk of the consensus PySpec. So you can find the code base with this URL or the QR code. And this is a CC0 open source Python project. Now we have like more than 100 contributors so far. And most of them are actually Eastern Rim Core Devs. Thank you for your contributions. OK, so this project has three main purposes. So first, this is the center of Eastern Core consensus space. And second, it is also an executable and verifiable Python program that you can use it to run the consensus logic with. And the third, it's also our test factor generators for the CL clients, the consensus layer clients, to test their implementations with. And so if there's new features that we are thinking about to apply it in the consensus side, like the BeaconChance side, so you might try to prototype it with the markdown files that I will introduce later. And we implement it in markdown files and we'll do the test. And the test vectors would be generated with the Python programs test case, like the PyTest if you have used Python before. And for clientings, they can download the test vectors to test their implementations. So if you understand this process, you can see that the spec is now important and unique component in the whole CLR&D process. And it also helps us to find some very basic bugs before clientings started to actually prototype and test it. Also it helps clientings to sync with the core specs more efficiently. The reason why we chose Python instead of other language was that because it's probably, I think Python is probably the most readable programming language for most developers. Like you can say, Python just should have code. OK, now let's see how to read it. I shouldn't stand here. So this is the specs folders. And here you can see some, the blue ones are the many hard folks that already be implied. And the yellow, green parts are the working progress features. Also inside one of the directory, you can find that the specs are actually written in the markdown files. The most important entry might be the beacon chain and that's also for choice or P2P interface in it. And we can define the constants and configurations just like you are writing markdown in the tables. So it looks like this. And we also define the classes, the SSZ containers. So these objects are for the consensus objects because we use it to do the serialization in the consensus object. Also this is the example of the state transition functions. We can just write down the Python functions in the code block of the markdown files. And also you can see there are some assertions. So if the input is, if the assertion throws exceptions, then we could say that, OK, the input is invalid because it doesn't pass the test. There are some more useful links for you to understand more about the spec itself. And also, so this is an L, I so-called L in the PySpec in the setup.py file. So it is the program that helps us to parse the markdown files and convert them into a Python program. So the readers, they don't have to read in the .py file. They can just read the markdown files, which are more readable. You know, example of, so if the phase zero is the base layer of all consensus specs. And out here, if you want to understand out here, you have to merge, extend the phase zero specs and the new features in the out here. And as well, the Bellatrix, they have to merge three of them. So I have one minute left to do how to use PySpec. And so installation is easy, just install from Py API or from source code with this command. OK, this is a very basic hello world example. And this is a simple tool. You can just write the hello world into the gravity of the beacon block. And in the first line, you can import the whole many Bellatrix specs as we need it to speak like that. You can use it as a playground and see the example code in PySpec to try to play with it. OK, this is how to write your first PySpec test case. OK, there are already some existing helper functions to help you to prepare the beacon block or to manipulate the beacon state with. And there are some assertions here. Those are for us to set our test scores of this test case. And the important part is here, like you can see there are some PySumYout comments. It is for us to output the test vectors. For example, this one, we output the pre-state. And the side become blocks. And the post state. So output file will be there. And this is a pure function for the client is to test with. OK, documents. If you want to see my document, you can see the URLs. And OK, so this is the most important page, actually. So how to contribute with PySpec? If you are interested in helping with consensus layer on the, I think PySpec is a really good start to learn and contribute with. And there are some different labels that you can participate in. And you can do it from just fixing a little typo or to submitting a bug report. And if it's got a set, I think the EF will be happy to give you the rewards. And we also have looking for some in-house resource for PySpec implementations. So if you are interested, feel free to reach out to me or if you want to participate or have any questions. Thank you. Thank you, Shou.


Greetings and welcome to the Introduction to Astronomy. In this video we are going to look at the black body curves and UBV filters lab and look at the some of the material that you need there. Now there is some background material for you to look at in terms of spectra and filters and even the color index to learn a little more about that. But what we're going to look at here are the two simulators, one looking at the filtered light simulator and then looking at the black body simulator. So let's go ahead and take a look at the filtered light simulator first and as we open this up we will see a number of different things. We will see the simulator up here which will show the source that's being emitted and then its spectral distribution. This is the filtered transmission for the filters that you can place in the racks in between and this is what will be detected and then the detected color. Down here you will see the details about the light source and you can change the type of the light source from a black body to just a bell curve or to a straight flat curve or even looking for example at the sun. So you can change the different type of spectra of light source and you can change the filters. We have the U or ultraviolet filter, the blue filter, the visual filter, the red filter, atmospheric filter and you can also add your own filter and over here it shows you what wavelengths that that filter will allow to transmit through. So right now we're on the visual filter and the visual filter allows these wavelengths so things way off here in the red are not transmitted and way down here in the violet are not transmitted. So we can look at a quick example of how this works and for example if we wanted to take this visual filter and drag it up into the filter rack you can see how things have changed. Now that we are looking at this through the visual filter note how these two look very similar because that is the transmission. Those are the only wavelengths that can get through. So all of these other wavelengths over here and over here that were being emitted by the source are not being transmitted and this is a thing that is important because astronomers often want to study just those specific wavelengths emitted by various atoms and this filter then the filters then allow them to filter out all of those other areas. Now you can add multiple filters to this if you like so you could put for example ultraviolet filter in here and a red filter and what you'll notice now is that there is nothing getting through why is that? Well the red filter only lets through red light the ultraviolet filter only lets through ultraviolet light they don't have any overlap so the transmittance is nothing. So depending on the filters that you put up there you may get or may not get all of the light being transmitted. Now let's take a look at a little bit at the other lab that you look at and that will be the light and filters we're looking at the other simulator here and that is the black body simulator now you have a couple different things to look at here first of all it'll show the black body curve itself for whatever temperature you choose and that can be shown down here you have a couple of options to either highlight the area under the curve or indicate the peak wavelength for you and you can add multiple curves to this so for example if you wanted to look at a second curve and add another curve in that was at a much higher temperature you can now compare how it's a source at 9,000 degrees or so will compare to a 6,000 degree source what do we notice? Well let's indicate peak wavelength there and peak wavelength there notice how they are quite different and in fact you can look over here and see that the peak wavelength is much shorter for the higher temperature and that is a part of Veen's law that tells us that the higher the temperature of a black body the shorter the wavelength of its peak emission the other thing that we look at is the area under the curve that tells us the total amount of energy being emitted and that is given in the second column over here in this little box and we can see that the area under the curve is significantly higher for the green the green line then it is for the red line that means that regardless of where the temperatures are this green is giving off far more energy here all this energy more than the red is giving off this little bit down here so not only is it going to be giving off a shorter peak wavelength off towards the ultraviolet here but it is also going to be giving off far more energy and therefore be far brighter as well now the other thing that you'll look at on this and let's reset it and finish this up we look at the filter tab will show you four different filters that are often used in astronomy the ultraviolet filter the blue the visual in the red and we looked at these in the other simulator as well so it will tell you it'll show you here you know what is the transmission for each filter well ultraviolet allows in these wavelengths blue the visual filter and the red filter and you can then move this adjust the temperature for example to find out where things match up better and if you look here you know there we're reaching the peak of the red type filter out here so it peaks out much further and if we want to look with a peak of the blue filter is much further out so they're going to also look at different types of stars they're going to give us different way different energy transmissions based on the color of the star and we can then use what we call a color index often used is B minus V and that is essentially showing how much energy is being transmitted in the blue filter here and how much energy is being transmitted in the visual filter here and if you subtract those two magnitudes it will then tell you the temperature of the star so this B minus V color index which will change as we change the temperature so if we make that temperature much cooler watch how that B minus V gets larger and larger and larger and that is because we are now giving off very little cool to cool object is going to give off very little blue light relative to the visual light and therefore will look very very red in our examples if we go the other direction now that number gets very small because we are giving off lots of blue light and much less red light so it becomes negative as you have to recall that this is magnitudes and a large magnitude means a very faint object so the magnitude of the blue value would be smaller than the magnitude of the red value or the visual value so this would be a larger number a larger value meaning it is a it's going to be a smaller magnitude so smaller magnitude here means brighter and that is important to look at when we look at B minus V when that is negative that means that you had a smaller value and subtracting a bigger value and that can give you a negative and that means that's when you're getting to these objects that are very very hot and it all has to do with the way magnitudes are defined in terms of very small numbers meaning very bright objects so if we look at the numbers here just as an example at this object is you know is fainter in the red then it is in the visual then fainter in the visual then in the blue and fainter than the blue then it is in the ultraviolet just looking at what the magnitudes are remember that they're always backwards so that finishes up looking at the three simulations that you can be looking at for this lab we'll be back again next time to look at another one of these simulations so until then have a great day everyone and I will see you in class


This is a School of Security Studies sponsored seminar series and this is the third year running. The point of the series is to showcase the vibrance and diverse research that our early career scholars and our PhD students are doing across the school. So we've, you can find us on the worst news YouTube channel for previous seminars and, yeah, and watch this space we have much more coming up from after Ross's but let's roll back I'm super excited to have Dr. Ross peel here today. And Ross is a research and knowledge transfer manager in the Department of War Studies and the Center for Science and Security Studies here at King's College London. And Ross today is going to be talking about the very topical important discussion of the title of this presentation is a different kind of nuclear weapon. Russian abuse of Ukraine nuclear power plant so this is no doubt going to be a very great conversation we have. Ross today is a joined also by Professor Tracy German who is a professor in conflict and security at the Defense Studies Department here at KCL. Welcome you both so glad to have you as part of the series. Um, so for you the audience what happens now is I'm going to hand over the virtual floor to Ross he's going to present his working paper for about 20 minutes or so before Tracy offers some commentary discussion and then we open it up to you the audience for any feedback comments questions a broader Q&A you can either raise your zoom hand to ask the question live or you can pop it in the Q&A box, and I will ask it to Ross. So without further ado Ross I'm going to hand over the virtual floor to you. Thank you very much for that introduction and great to be here and really happy to be able to share some thoughts and ideas about what's been going on about the nuclear power plant situation in Ukraine as part of this wider conflict. So this is a caveat upfront by saying this is all against the background of the wider international concerns and the potential that we're facing at the current moment for the fears around the escalation of this into a into a nuclear conflict. We have to also remind ourselves all the time when we're working on this and I'm always kind of very conscious of it. That this is a real situation where a lot of people are struggling and in great suffering and losing their lives every day and so it's important that, whilst I'm focusing on one specific aspect of this conflict to keep in mind that there's a much broader situation going on. With that said, allow me to just briefly introduce myself a little more so I've been at King's now for about three and a half years in the Center for Science and Security Studies. Prior to my time at King's I was in the nuclear engineering technical sector in the in the power plant side of the house. And so my work on warfare international relations and so on is relatively new and before that I was 100% hard science technical engineering kind of person. So I'm hoping that as I bring the that sign of things to this discussion today that Tracy will be able to support us with more of her Russia expertise and will be able to come together into a to form something much more complete than I would alone be able to deliver. I'm doing a lot of current work on nuclear security and safeguards international risks of exporting small modular reactors what we call SMR naval submarine reactor safeguards and a whole range of other stuff as well. So what I'm going to be talking about during this is first of all what is the current situation in Ukraine with its nuclear power plants, the risks that are faced over there as a result of this and why people in the public as well as experts are concerned. I'm going to try to make some suggestions about why this has been happening in the first place. I want to touch on the use of disinformation by both sides in this conflict. And finally try to maybe start suggesting what could be done about this to to address it to stop it happening again. So just briefly, you'll see here first of all what we have in term in Ukraine in terms of nuclear facilities. Around half of Ukraine's electricity is provided by nuclear energy or was and this comes from 15 different reactors, which are at four sites and the most interesting ones for this discussion is Zaporizhia in the bottom right of this of this map that you see here where it has six reactors and this is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe as the as the media has been at pains to remind anyone who was reading the about this story. We also had some activity at Chernobyl, the former nuclear power plant site, but this was more of a kind of temporary occupation which which lasted only a few weeks. However, the situation at Zaporizhia is has been an occupation of the site which has continued since the 4th of March. Now, whilst the planet has been occupied is still been operating. So it's been operated by its Ukrainian staff under the supervision of Russian experts from the state nuclear company Rosatom. And it has been also under the control of Russian military forces who've been securing the facility and making sure that it operates in in line with their expectations, let's say. Now, over time there's been some concerns about what's been going on there primarily to do with the impacts on the personnel and the staff who work there kind of working in in the very stressful conditions, which is not great when you're supposed to be controlling a nuclear reactor and need to give you a full concentration to it. And we've also seen a lot of accusations of the use of this facility as a Russian military base from which it can launch missiles and so on without fear of retribution by Ukrainian forces. And more recently than that though we've seen an increase in shelling of the plant and both sides blame each other for this shelling on upon the nuclear facility with daily reports of new damage to the plant and new damage to the to for instance the power lines that supply it and its supply and through which it would normally transmit energy to Ukraine, but for most of the time now which receives power from other power plants in order to maintain safety functions. The recent development was at the start of September we had a visit from the International Atomic Energy Agency on their international support and assistance mission to Zaporizhia the Isams mission. And they conducted a few days of of inspections and so on for a variety of different reasons, and they've left two staff behind who will remain there permanently on rotation with others but the intention certainly is to have a permanent IAEA presence from the international community until this conflict is brought to some sort of conclusion one way or another. And to just put this geographically in the context of Russian forces, you'll see that the Zaporizhia power plant as indicated by this blue icon is now kind of right on the border and really has been for months this situation the front hasn't moved around the power plant although you can see that the there have been advances of Ukraine recently in the north around Kharkiv and also in the south around Kherson we're kind of anticipating that this front around the nuclear power plant may be a little slower to move, because of you know what might happen as Russian forces are put under pressure around that power plant we certainly don't want any, any dramatic and drastic action being taken there. So what are the risks. So I included an image at the front of this presentation of when I was kind of talking to the media and I've done a lot of talking to the media about risks on this and the way I characterize it is in this way that we're kind of. There's a lot of risk here there are the direct risks that could result from shelling on the plant which would cause damage to the point where nuclear material can be released and escape from the various layers of containment and steel and concrete that are put in place to prevent damage if those are penetrated by shells and missiles, or we're looking at indirect consequences because nuclear power plants, even when they're shut down. They don't immediately become inert and they need cooling water and certainly in the case of this plant it needs water to be passed through the reactor and through some pools that in which the old used fuel is stored because the used fuel remains very hot for a long time. What passes through takes the heat away and keeps everything nice and relatively cool. If we lose that access to that cooling water or the electricity to the pumps that supply it, either from offsite power plants or from diesel generators to produce that electricity on site. We're looking at a situation where the fuel will start to heat up and potentially cause things like melting of that fuel what we call the meltdown, or fires inside the reactor and so on, all of which, though leads to the same thing to this unacceptable radiological consequences, what is the term we use in the industry. And effectively this means a release of radiation that will cause public health consequences of the severe of a serious nature. And we're looking at the potential for spreading what we call a plume a cloud effectively of nuclear material being carried by the wind moving within Ukraine and potentially internationally in a lot of different directions be that towards Europe, Africa, the Middle East or even Russia. And the image I've shown, I've got at the bottom there is from a, it's from a media prediction of what might happen at Fukushima. Just about 11 years ago so this is not a representation of Ukraine obviously, but this is one of the ideas of what plume can look like when radioactive material is transported by wind over great distances. So why this is happening. This is a question that I've kind of been being asked a lot. And for anyone who wants to kind of understand why Russia is keen to control this plant or what they have to gain here there's not really one solid concrete answer unfortunately. So as I can, I think we can all appreciate trying to peer into the mind of Vladimir Putin, and see what his intentions are is a bit like trying to read a crystal ball. But I'll try and make some suggestions here and look forward to hearing what Tracy might say as an alternative explanations that I haven't thought of, or perhaps where I've overstated something. So looking at a range of things, something that's been talked about a lot is weaponization of energy in order to use that energy in order to achieve various things to to either power Russia and Ukraine or to deny access to energy to others. And this is in the context of a much wider debate around whether Russia is weaponizing energy against Western allies of Ukraine. So looking at potentially is this a distraction tactic in order to pull a media and buy the public attention away from the wider war, and focus us on to nuclear power plants and certainly the media has a very strong desire to look at nuclear power and nuclear power risks, rather than the situation with what's going on on the ground on a day to day basis. So is this potentially a political or propaganda victory that Russia is seeking to win here by showing that they can control this very important strategic target. Is it potentially to deprive Ukraine of energy, and this is going to be particularly important as we go into the winter months and in the context again of that wider energy shortage that that we're facing globally at the moment. Russia hoping Ukraine will capitulate in the face of energy shortages in that bitter winter coming up. Military use of secure facilities, so using the facility as a missile launch base and other military facility, against which they know a Ukrainian response is fairly unlikely. In order to push that energy into Russia or control Crimea. Are we looking at potentially the acquisition of nuclear material for various purposes, either the theft of the nuclear fuel for use as nuclear fuel in Russia in the same type of reactors or in a weapon. Is it possible that Russia is seeking to plant false flag evidence, quote, evidence of a Ukrainian nuclear weapons program something they've claimed exists in the past. And so they're looking to put something in that plant that will lend credence to that claim. Is it to be used as a new kind of nuclear weapon, is it intended that under certain circumstances and conditions they might choose to purposefully cause this this unacceptable radiological consequence. They have, they have taken control of this plant and want to use that as a way of legitimizing their presence, because if they can control the strategic assets and things does that kind of give them a some sort of de facto legitimization of Russian control. Or finally is this is this was this an accidental acquisition on the east bank of the Nipah River. They've managed to acquire this as a result of pushing the front lines to the river now they can't simply withdraw and leave this vulnerable strategic point on guarded. So a whole range of potential possibilities there and I'm suggesting things with no particular leanings towards one theory or the other on this slide I'm simply kind of laying out a whole range of possibilities. One thing I will say is that these may have changed dramatically over time. You know they were they were Russian forces were moving that way very quickly at the start of the war. And we're also pushing towards the South Ukraine nuclear power plant so moving up towards this facility if I go back a few few more moving up past Mikhailov and up to this this South Ukraine nuclear power plant that was a front that we saw emerging before the war kind of the Russian advanced ground to a halt. So all of these different possibilities out there and we're not really sure which one it is. Now disinformation is a key point for me and we've seen in this conflict, both sides blaming the other for the shelling that is taking place at the plant. So, Ukraine has been repeatedly made the claims that Russia perpetrating the shelling for various reasons than the same Russia has claimed that it's Ukrainian nationalists or terrorist groups who are perpetrating the shelling. And both are blaming the other and claiming that well what why would we show the plant we have things to lose Russia is saying we would show up we would be shelling our own soldiers. Although this this claim for me has limited weight given how much the reports of how much Russian conscripts are struggling even then within their own country at the moment. Whether or not the Russia would be willing to sacrifice a few of its own soldiers is a point I'm speculating about in order to uphold this narrative. And Ukraine is equally saying well why would we shell our own plants with our own people inside of it it makes no sense. Now, this is muddied because in this conflict we've seen demonstrably false claims from from both sides. And the Russian ones I think are well known to most people the Ukrainian ones perhaps not so well known but we saw one recently where Ukrainian strategic command was put on Twitter was putting out a supposed screen grab from a Russian general saying that he would rather destroy the plant and blow it up and let it fall back into Ukrainian hands and this was demonstrated to be false later on. So no one has the real high ground here. One of the wider issues of course we have as well as the possibility that Russia has to use the phrase painted itself into a corner it can't now back down from this invasion and from its occupation of the plant without losing face because it's gone in there with it with a certain mission and a certain set of objectives that is claimed and now to kind of leave would be to to admit that it's either failed or to try and create a narrative to say those objectives have been achieved, which will be quite difficult. And what we've seen in the wake of that isam's visit as well in the and the report that came from it was a lot of pressure from Russia on the IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency to to to print in its report the claims Russia has made and Russia is saying you know we have told you that the the shelling has come from Ukraine so why aren't you putting that into your report. And the IAEA is always is very very keen to avoid getting putting into its reports anything that it doesn't substantiate itself and anything that could be politically motivated and it always is very very careful to remain a completely neutral unbiased organization that reports purely on the basis of of observable fact. So in terms of the latest situation on the ground, and this is a rapidly evolving situation so it's very hard to kind of come to a conclusion on this or provide a much detailed book. The latest situation we're seeing is that the plants have been until recently in cold shutdown, which is, they've been shut down and brought to a state where the risks of a nuclear release are lowered. It doesn't mean they are cold room temperature but more than like they're at 93 degrees I think is the correct temperature. So this increases their safety situation but it also means that they can't generate any of their own electricity supply their own safety functions and so they're dependent fully on getting power from off site and on there on the emergency backup diesel generators in order to provide their own energy. There have been suggestions that unfortunately because the power lines have after a period of being let off for a few days let's say they're now being shelled again. And they are now endangered again so we're seeing the plants starting to consider do we need to start back up in order to provide put us put ourselves in a potentially more risky situation but in order to have another safety backup, which will help us be be safer in another way. The annexation of several regions of Russia, following these sham referenda is a great concern, because now Russia is saying effectively to the people at the plant, well this is ours now you're all going to have to reapply for your own jobs. And something we've seen coming from this most most recently is the capture and detainment of the directors of the plant so the director a couple of weeks ago was kidnapped for a few days and released a few days later. Details of what happened to him in that time I haven't been able to find but he has since stepped down from his position as director. And just in the last 24 hours we've seen the deputy director of the plant has been kidnapped as well. I've seen suggestions this is in order to interrogate them in order to gain information on how they can force the plant staff in order to to leave and hand over control but that's only a suggestion I've seen by someone that's not got any evidence that I've seen to back it up. And so the main points that I want to talk about though in terms of research going forward really is what can the international community do. And this is at two levels what can we do about Zaparizia and the situation now, and this ranges from providing additional support to the IAEA and condemning any actions that might be taken by others that would raise the threat. So actions by primarily Ukrainian and Russian forces that would raise the threat of what is going on there, the IAEA certainly wants to lower the temperature around the plant. And encouraging compliance with international law. So for instance, specifically the, the paragraphs of the Geneva Convention amendments, which say you should not attack facilities that contain what they call dangerous forces and by which they mean nuclear power plants and dams that hold back large bodies of water because damaging these facilities would have widespread impacts that are not limited to just military consequences. And, and encourage further verification, so support the IAEA and its mission to go out there and report on on the ground truth of what is happening. And more widely than that to find out really what's going on what is the origin of this shelling and put beyond doubt who is responsible for this if whichever side it may be. In short term as well we need to think about how to prevent recurrence, and this involves reviewing from an international relations and other perspectives how we got here, what led to this conflict and what led to a nuclear power plant being made considered a reasonable target. And then we can improve international law and, and potentially take other measures that will prevent a recurrence of this given that not everybody holds international law in the same regard. And then also to think about nuclear security. So, it's not reasonable in my opinion, and I may not really in the opinion of anybody in the nuclear sector I talked about to say, well it's now up to you to figure out how to respond to a hostile conflict as it would be unreasonable to expect them to hold that off if the National Army can't defend a country. But to think about what what is the correct appropriate response if you are attacked, is it to shut down the plant and hand it over. Is that the correct thing to do, as much as difficult as that might be and and it certainly would be for Ukraine. It's not about the spent fuel given that you can't you must you might be able to shut down the reactor there will still be a large amount of nuclear fuel on that site that needs safety functions, ensuring over it to keep it cool and prevent damage and danger. And is the solution, as some have argued, the movement to mobile transportable or floating nuclear power plants which will be able to effectively lift up the anchor, as it were, and and sail away in the case of conflict. It's not a solution where these things can retreat but does it also place them at greater risk of easy hijack and theft, or taking over by foreign forces. And moving towards a point where we're learning safety and security lessons from this so making sure that we're getting security and safety risks as low as is reasonably practicable. And so the requirements can ensure that the other area of reasonable so going beyond reasonable and ensuring against these threats that are beyond the reasonable request of a nuclear power plant or nuclear power plant operator to manage. So, a few words in conclusion, though, is really we need to be from my point of view is thinking about how we can balance the need for a just green energy transition. We're trying to spread the benefits of people peaceful nuclear technology against the threat landscape of out there because if we're moving from a position where the threat landscape is no longer terrorists and organized crime gangs, but includes foreign military invasions. How can we, and how can we ensure that we are operating to provide safety and security at nuclear power plants such that nuclear energy can play a vital role in that just green energy transition. And that is very difficult given that even within my lifetime we've seen the Cold War end, in quotes, and we've gone through huge train changes in international relations and issues and tensions. But a nuclear power plant is designed to operate for 40 to 60 plus years. So how can you design today a system that is able to address all of the uncertain threats of the future. How can we justify continued use of nuclear energy in this new threat environment, and I certainly hope so because I'm a big proponent of nuclear energy, but we have to be objective, which is hard given the ambitions of many countries. So weighing the risks and benefits in an uncertain future is incredibly difficult, and the decision on energy policies of course a matter for an individual states. And all of this again I would place in that context of, well we've, as Western Europe and beyond we've designed it depended for many years on Russian fossil fuels to supply our energy needs. We so we need to avoid trying to have a fossil fuel fixed to this we need to stop thinking about well solution to this is to go back to fossil fuels and instead treat this threat as an opportunity to make a positive transition towards more green energy in a way that is safe and secure for all. And I'll stop there so thank you very much for your attention. Thanks, Ross. A couple of thoughts from me there and actually I'm going to start with your final points there about the safety of nuclear power and nuclear power plants, moving forwards as as part of our kind of green energy transition. Because when you look at Russia's actions in Ukraine but also what they're thinking has been with regards to warfare in the 21st century and this sense of attacking critical national infrastructure, nuclear power plants have obviously formed a key part of our critical national infrastructure and are therefore key targets and, and that then brings me on to, you know, my point you were talking there about the why, why Russia is targeted, why it's seeking to control it. And I think I agreed with all of your points on that round circle, but I wrote down this kind of essentially the broad overarching aim is to undermine the will to resist of both Ukraine, the Ukrainian government the Ukrainian people but also I think more critically those outside of Ukraine. So, supporters in the West and elsewhere because nuclear power plant, holding that to ransom essentially has such big implications doesn't that threat of attacking your slide with the risks the direct and indirect risks I think brought that home very, very clearly. That one of the reasons I think Russia has focused on this is very much about the fact that there are no borders, if something happens, as we saw obviously with Chernobyl in in the 1980s. So, yeah, I would absolutely agree with all of your points and just leading up to that broader overarching, well, undermining the will to resist. You also talked about towards the end there about law of armed conflict international humanitarian law and how what Russia's doing violates it. And I think that's a key point moving forwards, because the last thing that we want to see as a repetition of this. In future. And the fact that there would be no discrimination between competence and non competence if something were to happen, and some kind of either strike or accident which led to some kind of release in this path on is going to be very, very indiscriminate isn't it. And not proportional in terms of the law of armed conflict. This is going to have a very, very significant impact. And it's, it's, it's a very, it's a really interesting aspect. Not just of this conflict but of war in general. And how these installations should be being protected. And or not, because they are, you know, they can be used as is in this case to such great effect. And I thought you made the case, particularly the coming winter of depriving Ukraine of energy moving forwards I think it's seeking Moscow really seeking to take it a longer term. And I'm less convinced that the one point I'm less convinced that is that it's, they found themselves accidentally in charge of this one. Most of you know that actions I think have thought behind them in terms of holding on to this particular asset and I, I'm less convinced by the, the accidental holding of it. But otherwise, yeah, absolutely, I would fundamentally agree with, with all of your points there. Yeah, the, the points about accidental I think is also undermined by, I remember in late February early March watching this very narrow spike travel up towards South Ukraine nuclear power plants and there was some theories that they were going to then sweep southwards down towards Odessa and and I was kind of thinking they seemed to me to be be lining straight for this second nuclear power plant so. And then when that kind of halted and got caught off I was, you know deeply relieved but it still hasn't obviously prevented a complete takeover of Zaporizia. And yes I agree that I don't think they've been left accidentally holding this one I think it's, I think it's correct what you say I'm just trying to present I guess all of the options. Absolutely. And I think, when we look at, you know, what Russian military scholars have been writing about warfare in the 21st century for the last, the last decade or so. The lessons that they've learned from watching others and their own action is that you, it's not necessarily about seizing and holding territory, it's about trying to destroy estates or an actor's economic potential, it's about going for regime change it's about being able to to coerce to pressurize without necessarily having to hold a wide territory and I think the nuclear power plant in this case offers some of those options. Yeah, I would agree. I'm going to ask probably a really naive question because I'm not an expert in this topic at all but you know just as a, as a, you know as someone who's watching the news and who's interested and also has some interest and, and some expertise and in war and warfare I just. And for me another example of how, how we understand and organize ourselves in global politics just does not seem fit for purpose. Again, right. The idea of kind of the states like Tracy was saying, you know, it's, it's not about, well it is in this case there is territory right but it's so much more and this nuclear power plant is such a great example of this right example of this in which powerful people are powerful forces undermine global politics, not through acquisition of territory per se but through economics through environmental, through all of these migration, all of these different things that defy our very nation state kind of borders and I just wonder for you Ross I mean you've reflected upon some things about what the international community can do but I just feel like we're in the spine we're like strengthen these laws but these laws again are underpinned by this understanding autonomous nation state actor right and I just, I wonder if you've reflected in your own research, can, can we be a bit more creative or imaginary or visionary of how we can think about our global order that actually can, you know, address or respond to these. There's no emerging security issues anymore they've been enduring right they've been around for a while so I just wonder if you have you reflect upon that or can you reflect upon that at all. Yeah, I'll provide a. So this, this is, as I kind of tried to suggest at the beginning a little or all a little new to me this idea of thinking in terms of our theories and scholarship and and international law and all the rest of it and I'm still kind of working hard to get to grips with all of this so I'm. I'm prefacing all with that to kind of say that if I say something naive or a bit off then that's why. But I was having a conversation yesterday with a colleague of mine Emily Sturzel who's going to be giving one of the presentations in this series later about international law actually. And, and she and I, mainly she are working on a, an outline for a conference moment where we're kind of saying. In Western Europe, and this conference is particularly about Germany become overly enamored of constructivism and post structuralism and all these things and we operate on the basis of an international order where everybody comes together and has all these organizations with rules and laws and all the rest of it and we see realism almost as a kind of thing of yesterday and the past where you know we don't do that anymore we've had war over here and we didn't like it so we've decided that war can't happen again in Europe. And have we become so deeply ingrained with that that we've lost sight of the fact that for other states, not that far away realism is still absolutely the, you know, the currency of choice or what have you. If the world is still viewed in that way by others then it doesn't matter how we view it if others with whom we have to coexist view it very differently. So, I think the needs to be kind of as exactly as you say all those laws and things don't necessarily matter to others in the way they matter to us. And so, I don't necessarily have a solution or proposition or an idea of something we can do instead. But I think at least we need to recognize that others just don't care about these things the same way that perhaps we might do. I think and Tracy would probably weigh in on this as well too but there's, I mean, it's also understanding what motivates Putin right that would enable you know why he is escalating things or making particular decisions and and and appreciating that is not something that's, you know dismissive or he should just follow rule of order but you know or brutal law but you know there's a, there's like a hurt empire a claim for a reimagining of you know the Soviet Union and, and I mean Tracy it'd be great for you to weigh in on that too but I think you know my own gender expertise and I'm just thinking I'm like this, there's such a need to not lose face and to appear powerful right and are forced to be reckoned with and then, unless I see it from you know a gender lens unless he's given some sort of way out right or a way to save face from the, from the West per se, you know we're in this perpetual bind of escalation but it'd be great. You know Tracy for you to weigh in about you know, it does the imagining of empire play into this or you know or what do you think is motivating Putin. I think this sense of status definitely weighs heavy and has done for you know, many, many years and most of the time that Putin has been in power at this sense that Russia had not been has not been treated as a great power, which you know Putin and those around him perceived the country to be to be that particularly the United States treated it with disrespect. And the sense of growing US unilateralism, particularly in the early 2000s, the withdrawal from the ABM treaty, for example. The sense that the US was going about its business doing you know what it wanted to do on the international stage without consulting others. And from Putin's perspective this sense that you know, we as a great power, i.e. Russia we should be consulted we should have a voice on all of these things. You talked about empire there and I think there's two issues with that I think Russia as a former imperial power is unusual because it's borders remain contiguous with, you know, those those territories that used to be part of Soviet empire and then obviously the Russian empire before but but also this sense that Russia as a great power should have spheres of influence where its interests are prioritized over those of others, and you know that sphere of influence according to those, you know, in the Kremlin, the Russian security elites is essentially that the post Soviet space and I think that is, you know, when we look at Russian foreign policy behavior over, you know, the last decade or more actually, we can see that kind of these, these status anxieties this desire to be recognized as a great power, but also deep anger that it's not being treated as one. I've got some questions for you Ross. So, someone has just an anonymous person has said do you think that the situation will push the EU towards using nuclear energy. And do you think that seeing how quickly events are unraveling this moving to nuclear energy is the only solution to utterly complete a green transition for more sustainable future. Second question, how much do you think this change would be possible if the EU, given how important the disagreements between countries are on this kind of energy is. Okay. Let me just reopen that so I can see the first question again. So I, I've seen quite a few countries expressing interest in nuclear energy as a result of this and the renewed interest in it. So when you look across the EU you see hugely different views on nuclear energy, hugely different histories of nuclear energy based on, you know, many years ranging from, for instance, Austria, which is completely opposed and has regularly put in place legal challenges to the use of nuclear energy in other countries where it sees this as opposed to EU law. So for instance when we had a competition in the UK where we were kind of talking about government support towards new nuclear power plants Austria opposed that in the courts. And I think it only kind of got resolved in a in a Brexit situation effectively. Similarly Germany has has sought to exit from nuclear power and wasn't keen on nuclear power even before Fukushima but when Fukushima came along it was a good trigger to to really be able to get out of it. Other places like the UK for instance we've been more kind of allowing things to gently slip away. And there's a great book on the history of nuclear in the UK where one of the chapter titles is years of hope and disappointment and I think that sums up the way things have gone in the UK quite well. However, to the question the change now we're seeing is that a lot of countries are starting to to really go in for this. The UK was already on a path towards new nuclear and has really leapt upon that now and I'm expecting by the end of this year actually some big announcements from from government and Rolls Royce about new stuff going off. Germany is engaged in some kind of debate about whether or not to prolong the life of its existing nuclear power plants and there are voices saying we should bring back online the old ones that were shut down early for no good reason. And various other places as well. In terms of is this the solution for Europe, I think what we really probably will need isn't is an all options solution. I think a personal preference would be to see as little fossil fuel as part of that as possible. I think there's still in a lot of quarters a desire to see it as as a war between nuclear nuclear and you know nuclear and fossils and then renewables these three sides. And what really needs to happen is we need to embrace the, the kind of coming together of renewable energy and nuclear power to kind of complement each other, in order to really be be beneficial. Is that possible within the EU, given these disagreements, I think it is possible and I think it is starting to happen that different countries will have different, different views on that. I think it's the best and possibly only way towards probably only way towards a green transition toward and an ecologically just green transition. Great. Okay, next question is from Henry, Henrietta Wilson, and she says hello. Thank you everyone for really interesting useful session. Ross just wants you to say something about Ukraine's disinformation anything that you're aware of and are there particular themes of this disinformation and ways it might be being challenged. I knew somebody asked me this. So I've, it's difficult because I've been kind of following this issue in a, I don't have any funding to do this but I'm really interested so I'm keeping an eye on it on the side kind of way for the last six months or so. And therefore I don't have a kind of document to draw on with all these examples sadly otherwise I would have, you know potentially had something more documented. I cited that one particular example of something being attributed to a to a Russian general saying that he would, it was kind of a if we can't have it nobody can attitude towards the power plant. And there have been other things I've seen as well claims about kind of Russia doing this Russia doing that. That have been very difficult to substantiate to the point where it is slightly suspicious, let's say. I would say that there haven't been a lot of other things coming back the other way from the Russian side where they've been a lot of claims that have been very difficult to substantiate and I would say many of the Russian claims seem frankly implausible, if I may. What else have we seen from from the Ukrainian side. I don't have any for any proper examples for you Henry I'm afraid at this point but perhaps we can pick up this conversation later, and I'll try to pull a few things out. Did that answer the question in full. I think it probably did. Oh, we have. Yes, you just said thank you so that's fine with that. And the last point was is it being challenged and I did not see that it's being challenged I haven't seen kind of anyone challenging this I mean it's it's possibly being challenged by Russia. I haven't been kind of following Russia's side of this very as diligently so I'm not so sure if that has or not but I suspect it probably has and that claim about the Russian general actually was debunked by by Western sources. I'm not the one who are kind of coming along and saying this doesn't make sense and and all that kind of thing so yeah. Yeah. Oh, you have another question that popped in by Ronald says thanks for an excellent presentation. If the power plant goes out of control what happens next there another Chernobyl type disaster. I laugh very awkwardly and nervously at that made worse because of concrete. It can't be built second question will it be equivalent to another kind of nuclear weapon and 10 mt tactical weapons strategic warhead. What is the effect in military terms. Okay, great question. Thank you. So, let's go out of control and we are looking at. Let's say worst case the worst case is kind of that combination of direct and indirect means I mentioned before so seeing in parallel military strike that breaks open the one or more of the reactors in combination with no ability to to cool it. And in the worst worst case and we're looking at something like something like what happened at Fukushima where the biggest issue was not only is this thing exposed to the air, but because of the huge disruptions to all the logistical communication transport everything around then you couldn't get anybody in to do anything about it very easily. So if you are in that situation then you're looking at potentially that that plume of radioactive material, which might be, you know, ranging in size from an intensity from very little all the way up to fairly catastrophic and I know there's fairly qualitative terms. So, that's the worst possibility really is that release of radioactive material that travels on the wind, potentially to great distances and then is deposited down onto the ground. In that case we'll be looking at advising people to remain indoors and avoid going out and that kind of thing but you could see consequences as we saw at great distance as we did in Chernobyl, post Chernobyl where even in the UK we saw stuff falling on radioactive material falling on the grass, the sheep eating the grass and then those sheep no longer being able to be to be used in the food chain and that kind of thing. More close to Ukraine obviously then you're going to see much more severe effects because these things are always worse close to the source, so you might see essentially evacuations of people and that kind of thing. With evacuations I must caution because it's been shown repeatedly that actually the impact on Fukushima survivors who were evacuated was far worse for them in terms of psychological impact. It would have been had they remained in place and just accepted a very very low dose of radiation so evacuation is certainly not the immediate solution. Remain indoors for 6000 years. No, so until this sort of thing until it effectively comes down after the atmosphere and is rained down onto the ground at which point it's much harder to breathe in and to be and to get it on your skin and that kind of thing. But Fukushima for instance people were evacuated and then they spent quite a lot of time scraping up the ground scraping up all the layers and that kind of thing off the surface. So this is, you know, I'm kind of cutting across multiple timelines and solutions here but I can talk about this more if time allows. I just want I don't want to spend ages on it in case there's other stuff that comes in but I will come back to this if we want to this time at the end. And question will it be equivalent to what kind of nuclear weapon. Very difficult to say anything from very small up to, you know, not not severe because the explosion part of it doesn't occur. We're not talking about a nuclear explosion where you're seeing huge fireball of devastation rain out from the middle. And it's more about the the fallout portion of your nuclear explosion so the sprinkling of nuclear material in low concentrations over a wide area and the potential impacts of that. And I can't put a equivalent mega tonnage if you like on it. I don't know the intensity and even modeling, you know, the amount of fallout that will come from a from a different size nuclear weapon is very dependent on a lot of factors. You got another question that came in Ross, I think it's really interested, you know, in the implications of. So Stuart asked Russia's activity surrounding the plant seems dangerous calculate it rather than accidental and fits the bill of hybrid warfare when considered with other activity. Our Western analysts understanding Moscow's ambition and intense surrounding the seizure of the plant noting Russia's propensity for risk and the psychological damage this could cause NATO members. Wow. Okay. Right. Yeah, I know right. It's it's that whole thing again of. Can you peer into the mind of Putin. So our Western analysts understating London Moscow's ambitions and intent. Well, I'll say again when I'm kind of mentioning accidental I mentioned that very much as a as a possibility as an option, amongst many others as a theory of what what could be the motivation here and so on. So, and I'm not necessarily putting that forward as as the answer, it was more of a possibility. So our Western analysts understating Moscow's ambitions and intent. I think potentially in public, they are. I think that we're kind of, I've not seen much public statements on the why and the what are they hoping to achieve and this kind of thing. It might be purposeful in order to avoid creating public panic, because people are very afraid and you know, to some extent rightly of nuclear power and and the potential impact that could result from something like this. In private I suspect they are probably more more concerned about this. But I, for instance, when I've done media stuff on this have to be very careful when I'm asked about, is this going to happen is this going to blow up or we all going to be be harmed and that kind of thing. I'm just I'm sorry I'm just reflecting on your question for a moment to give me a second. This other point about Russia's propensity for risk is very very interesting and I think it was something I kind of maybe hinted at in my talk without stating outright is I from the reading I've done and, you know, which isn't wide or detailed because I don't have a great experience in Russia, but it does seem to kind of indicate that in Putin's mind there's there's a thing called Russia, which is, you know, perfect and must be preserved and protected at all costs. And there are these other things that live in it called Russians which are very much acceptable as sacrificial lambs in order to protect the wider Russia. And I think sometimes we don't necessarily appreciate that because we look at it from our own perspectives whereby we don't necessarily view the citizens of our own countries in in the West, more often in that way, as people who are should happy to give their lives in order to protect the nation state in all circumstances, and that it's our right as experts or leaders or technocrats or whatever you want to call people in charge let's say or people who have power. You know, we don't view them as having the right to decide that for us that we should go out and give our lives for something. So, yeah, Russia's propensity for risk I think in this is something that is perhaps not as well considered as it should be. I've said repeatedly that I don't think they are going to purposefully damage this thing to the point where it causes a massive release of radiation. And that is partly motivated by the fact that I don't think they would want to take that risk of that cloud drifting instead of in a in a Europe direction in a Russia direction, but it's it's I'm always very careful to China, put any numbers on that or to to state how likely I think that is because it's very impossible is well not impossible it's very very difficult to say and I think any calculation of it would probably be wrong. I'll stop there. I mean these are certainly likely and really important conversations and yeah I mean me not being a Russian expert or a Putin expert at all like there's some decisions. It appears that he's made or been responsible for that has made me step back and yeah you do have to I think key to all of this and like you said it's also an impossible task is trying to really understand the motivations. And again, Tracy in the last like minute would ask you to reflect upon I guess Stuart's question there too. Yeah, I, I was, I think, probably Putin, the Russian security elites have very much probably correctly assessed Western appetites or not for any kind of risk. So, I think Ross, I mean both during his presentation but also in answer to the last question really brought home the dangers surrounding this particular power plant but nuclear power plants in war on on battlefields in general. And my senses that yeah I'd agree with you, this is probably calculated from the Kremlin. I'm not a fan of the term hybrid warfare I think this is warfare. This is a state using all all means at its disposal to achieve what it wants to achieve. And, you know, the sense of I go back to this, you know, seeking to threaten and intimidate not just the Ukrainians seeking to undermine their will to resist not just them but all of those around that are supporting Ukraine. And I think this what's happening at the power plant kind of fits that model. But it's incredibly on cherry discussion. Yeah, on that bleak note I mean. Yeah, I, I don't even know I'm left speechless too. I think the news unfold in and particular and yeah Ross, you're right there's this the reflection of real politic. But I think us who are interested in international relations more broadly and war, more specifically and broadly. I think we need to use a multiple theories and perspectives at it as a tool kit to understand because I'm, I don't think it's ever just one theory right and one totalizing theory or perspective and, you know, Putin and Western forces are illuminating very clear right you can see different strategies. Yeah Tracy agree with you about the hyper warfare this is just multiple tools that you know Russian particular is using. And you see other states other state actors using multiple tools as well for to increase their sphere of influence, and to be heard. So in the world, world stage right and it's, it's, you know, it's, it's not new that you know people or states who feel like they've had a marginal status will resort to violence extreme forms of violence often to finally be heard to be finally listened to and so this also makes I think us as scholars and practitioners to reflect upon again is our, our systems and structures of world order fit for purpose right and, you know, if the if the points or the hope is to avoid escalation of violence and war, is it fit for purpose so these are just broader questions for us to, you know reflect upon us as scholars and those interested in, in global politics, more broadly. I want to thank you Tracy and Ross for Ross for presenting something so brilliant and important and timely and raising these sobering questions and for you Tracy for weighing in on your expertise and further sober analysis of, you know, where we go from here to how we might get out of the situation these are I guess ongoing important questions and debates to have and thank you audience for listening and for engaging in asking those difficult questions. Yeah, I'm left this seminar again is why I love sharing it as I'm always left. I'm feeling a little bit edgy Ross and Tracy if I'm honest after this seminar but you know intellectually stimulated and engaged and this is, this is the whole point of the series so I thank you so much for being a part of it. We let the audience go and everyone goes on their cheery Wednesday afternoon Ross I'm just going to leave final words for you if you have anything final you'd like to say. Okay, thank you very much. And yeah no one ever comes to talk to me if they wanted to hear anything cheery unfortunately is the store I've set up myself as the nuclear power plants in war guy. But the last thing I'll say I guess is that what happens next with with this is going to be critical and one of the risks that we are looking at at the moment in terms of research is the IAEA the International Atomic Energy Agency's role is to verify that all nuclear materials in the world in civil use remain in civil use and are diverted weapons purposes, and they've kind of to this point stated that they will not do any work on that of that nature looking at occupied facilities where the material is out of the control of the state now. So there's a question going to be raised I think quite soon unless the situation changes of what is the greater risk to not verify that material and risk it falling into the wrong hands out of international oversight, or to legitimize Russian control over this power plant through carrying out those inspections. So this is something that has come up only in the last 24 hours really as something that we've been asked about. So, I guess I'll just leave that as the final thought of what is really the kind of the cutting edge of what's going on with with the research at Kings in this area. Thank you very much and look forward to you know amplifying your research as it's produced in a material form as well too so thanks again Ross for sharing support work again thanks Tracy for coming and offering some really important expert reflections and again you the audience for asking those really important questions. So everyone have an afternoon. The best we can aim for this point. Well thank you very much everyone thank you thank you Tracy.


Dear learners, welcome to this lecture on the unit titled Nature and Significance of Political Theory from the course, Recent Political Theory, from the AIME First Semester Program in Political Science under KK Handik State Open University. I am Dr. Avijit Pnya, Assistant Professor in the Discipline of Political Science at KK Handik State Open University. Political theory is a core component of the discipline of political science. While theory refers to a body of systematic knowledge, political refers to matters of public concern. At the most general level, political theory is a body of knowledge related to the phenomenon of the state. Thus, political theory denotes a systematic knowledge of political phenomena. In other words, political theory is a study of the concepts and principles that people use to describe, explain, and evaluate political events and institutions. Political theory is basically a generalized statement of our political life, which outlines the conceptual framework for synthesizing knowledge. There are different connotations of different theories and their concepts. There are different views on political theory forwarded by various scholars at different times. Some of them include the views put forward by Aristotle, Cobain, Germino, Held, Eastern, Weber, Hume, and so on. Now, the study of politics and political phenomena has had a very long tradition. It originated in ancient Greece. Political theory has been evolving since its inception. Aristotle asserted, man by nature is a political animal and he who by nature and not by mere accident is without state is either above humanity or below it. Political theory mainly deals with normative and theoretical questions and debates issues like liberty, justice, equality, democracy, et cetera. It analyzes certain basic questions such as how should the society be organized? Why do we need government? What is the best form of government? Does law limit our freedom? According to David Held, quote unquote, political theory generally aims to explain things coming out of political life. Then Karl Popper says, theory is like a net with the help of which one can catch the world to understand it. Andrew Hacker defines it as a combination of disinterested search for the principles of good state and good society on the one hand and a disinterested search for knowledge of political and social reality on the other. Political theory deals with the ideas and principles that shape constitutions, governments, and social life in a systematic manner. It clarifies the meaning of concepts such as freedom, equality, justice, democracy, secularism, and so on. It proves the significance of principles such as rule of law, separation of powers, judicial review, et cetera. This is done by examining the arguments advanced by different thinkers in defense of these concepts. Now, let us examine the distinction between political theory and political thought on the one hand and political philosophy and political science on the other hand. Political theory is the study of the phenomenon of the state, both from the philosophical as well as empirical points of view. The terms such as political thought, political philosophy, and political science all are concerned with explaining the political phenomenon. Yet, political theory is distinct from them. The distinction of political theory from other terms such as political thought, political philosophy, or political science for that matter are as follows. Political theory and political thought. It is generally believed that political thought is the thought comprising of the theories and values of all those day-to-day activities, policies, and decisions of the state and which is a bearing on our present living. Political thought has no fixed form and can be in the form of treatises, speeches, political commentaries, et cetera. What is important about political thought is that it is based on a particular period of time since the policies and programs of the governments keep changing from time to time. Thus, we have Greek political thought or Roman political thought of ancient period or the political thought of the medieval ages. Political theory, on the other hand, is a systematic speculation of a particular writer who talks specifically about the phenomena of the state. This speculation is based on certain hypothesis which may or may not be valid and may be open to criticism. Theory provides a model of explanation of political reality as is understood by the particular writer or thinker. As such, there can be different political theories of the same period. Also, political theory is based on certain disciplines, be it philosophy, history, economics, or sociology. Lastly, since the task of theory is not only to explain the political reality but also to change it or to resist change, political theory can be conservative, critical, or revolutionary. Political theory and political philosophy. Philosophy is called the science of wisdom, wisdom about this world, human beings, or God. This wisdom is all-inclusive and tries to explain everything. When this wisdom is applied to the study of political phenomena or the state, it is called political philosophy. Political philosophy belongs to the category of normative political theory. It is concerned not only with explaining what is but also what ought to be. Political philosophy is not concerned with contemporary issues but with certain universal issues in the political life of man, such as nature and purpose of the political organization, the basis of political authority, nature of rights, liberty, equality, justice, et cetera. The distinction between political philosophy and political theory is explained by the fact that whereas a political philosopher is a political theorist, a political theorist may not necessarily be a political philosopher. For example, David Easton is an eminent political theorist but is not considered a political philosopher. Though theory deals with the same issues as political philosophy, you can explain them both from the philosophical as well as empirical points of view. In other words, while political philosophy is abstract or speculative, political theory can be both normative and empirical. A political theorist is as much interested in explaining the nature and purpose of the state as in describing the realities of political behavior, the actual relations between state and the citizens and the role of power in the society. As has been pointed out by Arnold Prech, philosophical explanations are theories too but they are non-scientific. Political theory is concerned both with political institutions and the ideas and aspirations that form the basis of those institutions. However, we must not forget that though we can analytically distinguish between philosophy and theory, a political theorist is as much interested in explaining the nature and purpose of the state as in describing the realities of political behavior, the actual relations between the state and citizens and the role of power in the society. As has been pointed out by Arnold Prech, philosophical explanations are theories too but they are non-scientific. Political theory is concerned both with political institutions and the ideas and aspirations that form the basis of those institutions. Now, coming to the distinction between political theory and political science, we find that as a discipline, political science is much more comprehensive and includes different forms of speculation of politics, such as political thought, political theory, political philosophy, political ideology, institutional structural framework, comparative politics, public administration, international law and organizations, et cetera. With the rise of political science as a separate discipline, political theory was made one of its subfields. However, when used specifically with emphasis on science as distinct from theory, political science refers to the study of politics by the use of scientific methods in contrast to political theory which is free to follow intuition. Political science is concerned with describing and explaining the realities of political behavior, generalizations about man and political institutions on empirical evidence and the role of power in the society. Political theory, on the other hand, is not only concerned about the behavioral study of political phenomena from empirical point of view but also describing the goals which states, governments, societies and citizens ought to pursue. Political theory also aims to generalize about the right conduct in political life and about the legitimate use of power. Thus, political theory is neither pure thought nor philosophy nor science. While it draws heavily from all of them, yet it is distinct from them. Contemporary political theory is trying to attempt a synthesis between political philosophy and political science. Now, let us discuss the significance of political theory. The objective of political theory is to train citizens to think rationally about political questions and assess correctly the political events of our time. The importance of political theory lies in providing, firstly, a description of the political phenomena. Secondly, it provides a non-scientific explanation based upon philosophy or religion or a scientific explanation based upon empirical studies. Thirdly, it provides proposals for the selection of political goals and political action. And, fourthly, it provides a kind of model judgment. Examples of such a political theory can be found in Plato's Republic or Raus's Theory of Justice or Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Now, the significance of political theory may be discussed as follows. Firstly, it helps us to explain various concepts. The significance of political theory lies in the clarification of various concepts used in our day-to-day social and political life. That clarification of concepts is very much necessary in each area of study, whether philosophy or science. Political theory examines systematically and clarifies about the values that inform political life, values such as freedom, equality, and justice. It explains the meaning and significance of these concepts and other related concepts. It clarifies the existing definitions of these concepts by focusing on some major political thinkers of the past as well as present. Political theory helps us to understand and manage social life. Political theory helps in planning the future and maintaining peace and harmony in the society. A very scientific analysis of our political life enables us to control our social life by understanding and solving its various problems. The study of political science facilitates the understanding of the causes of conflict and violence in society and provide insights for preventing them. Political science helps us to live in a political society by providing us ways to prevent political and social crisis. Social criticism. Political theory engages itself with various problems and provide solutions. Primarily, political philosophy is concerned with what is right and wrong in our social life. Anything that occurs in a society is deliberated upon and political philosophy addresses and analyzes normative concerns in the context of the basic norms of a particular society. Social reconstruction. Political philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, McCavilly, Mill, MacPherson, and others have discussed the issue of social reconstruction. The proposals of the political thinkers gave insights of various social instabilities and their possible solutions, though their concepts cannot be taken as the absolute truth. These insights from their thoughts are valuable in solving the problems of our society. Political theory depicts the effort to attain knowledge through various goals and processes in a political society. The significance of political theory has come to acquire center stage in the contemporary world as present day issues assume a global dimension. So dear learners, in our lecture, we have tried to investigate the meaning of political theory. Then we have also tried to examine the distinction between political theory and political thought on the one hand and political philosophy and political science on the other hand. And finally, we have also tried to analyze the significance of political theory. Thank you, dear learners.


I had seen a very provocative statement you made that you thought to be a vegetarian in New England might be an unethical choice. Yeah, you know how many letters we got from that? We're still getting letters. You're going to get even more when you defend it here. We're still getting letters. Yeah, nope. You know what? I got the worst letter from my dad.   That's what I said. You can either make peace with the vegetarians now or you can antagonize them further, but explain why vegetarians have blood on their hands. Well, if you just look at the landscape we have behind us, what you're looking at is an open space ecology that was built on pasture. New England, iconic New England landscape, though what we consider beautiful farmland was built by the dairy industry and by taking advantage of our greatest advantage, which is fantastic grass. Our greatest advantage is not growing vegetables out this window, though we do it here and we make money doing it. It's not the most productive use of the ecological resources and the ecological resources are pointing towards eating meat.  I'm suggesting that you include meat in a very diverse and complex diet that includes grains and vegetables and, to a certain extent, fruits when you support a local ecology in our area. Pure vegetarian diet, you are ultimately leading yourself to support a monoculture diet of fruits and vegetables that are coming from someplace else and probably Mexico and probably the Midwest and increasingly beyond. With a lot of food miles, too. With a lot of food miles, I mean, that doesn't support anything in the long run. I mean, the real true sustainability is we're talking long run. I think you have to look at the life cycle of an ecology and say, what is the best thing that the land is telling me to grow? If you're in New England, it's not vegetables. All the great cuisines of the world, Chinese, Indian, French, Italian, and I'm not talking about Hote French and Hote Italian, I'm talking about the true peasant cuisine from which Hote came out of. Meat was in those rotations because they needed fertility in the soil. That's from the beginning of agriculture. All the farmers knew that. What we've replaced is chemical agriculture, NPK, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium. Those go back into the soil in lieu of manure. Okay.  And I mean foreseeable future, like our grandchildren are going to eat. If you're suggesting that vegetables are the only way to go, I don't believe that's the right way. Well, I thought Michael Pollan made a great point in the omnivores dilemma, too, which is that if you really converted everybody to a vegetarian lifestyle, we wouldn't have these farm animals. They're raised for our benefit. And it's not that they would be extinct, but you would have a tiny population of pigs and cows and chickens. Right. And by the way, I think what I am pointing to without meaning to, I think, is that this farm is a great representation of a possibility for the future where animals and vegetables are raised together. Very few farms, even the ones that are organic, local, and sustainable, raise both meat and vegetables anymore, because the inefficiencies of doing that are great. When we pay the real cost of food, which I think this place that we're sitting in represents, we will see more and more animals and vegetables coexisting. And that's when I think we can cut down on the amount of meat we eat, but use the resources of animals on a farm in an intelligent way.


Good afternoon. Welcome to Babies and Toddlers Can't Wait. Babies and toddlers can't wait. Learning begins at birth. During the first five years of life, babies' brains develop the connections that influence the way they think, feel, behave and learn throughout their lives. Babies who are born prematurely have significant health needs or who are born with a genetic disorder may have delays in their development. Even babies who are healthy from day one may not progress at the same rate as other babies. How can we help them? Babies can receive special education services in their homes. The services are provided at no cost to the family. If you know of a baby since developing along both developmental you can make a referral to the early development work and early development network services coordinator will help the family with the paperwork that is needed in order to receive a free evaluation. This services coordinator serves as the single point of contact for the family and team members. The early network services coordinator can also help the family access other community resources that they might need such as WIC, food stamps weatherization services for their home or respite care for their child. There are several steps to making a referral for a child birth to three. You can refer them to the early development network. The services coordinator will contact the family within seven days to do the paperwork discover what the family's concerns are for the child and contact team members. Team members may include an early childhood special education teacher, a speech language pathologist a physical therapist, an occupational therapist a deaf educator or a teacher of the visually impaired. These team members will do an evaluation of the child in the home with the parents present so parents can answer questions and ask questions and the child will feel most comfortable. After the evaluation is complete the evaluators, a representative from the school and the parents meet together in a multidisciplinary team meeting. They decide if the child will qualify for special education services. If the child qualifies, the team develops an individualized family services plan based on the concerns and the child's needs. Parents participate in the decision making every step of the way and the services are provided in the child's home or day care setting. These services might come to the child weekly or monthly depending on the child's needs. The IFSP or individualized family services plan team meets again in six months to talk about the child's progress and make changes to services or goals to meet the child's current needs. Babies and toddlers can't wait because they learn quickly and we need to respond to their ever changing needs. Services are also available for children three to five years old. In this case there isn't a services coordinator to help the family but an early childhood special education teacher or a speech language therapist from the local school district can help the family with the paperwork. The evaluation can be done at school at home or at day care for a child three to five years of age. Again the team meets after the evaluation is complete to determine if the child qualifies for special education services. If he qualifies for services the team develops an individualized education plan. The services can be provided for the child at school at home or day care. How do you know if a child between the ages of birth and five years old needs an evaluation or services?  One resource that you can go to is the ESU8 web page. We have an entire page developed for early childhood. On this page you can find a developmental checklist for three to five year olds. You can find a developmental checklist for birth to two year olds. Some developmental milestones that are based solely on their communication needs. Is he saying enough words? Are the sounds that he's mispronouncing normal for a child his age? You can also find other resources such as do pacifiers and sippy cups cause a speech delay? Or where can I look to find other resources for my family? We also post workshops for parents from time to time on this page. I think you're the only participant. Who can make a referral? They have concerns about their child's development. Parents can make a referral, the medical staff preschool teachers or day care persons. Although anyone can make the referral nothing happens as far as an evaluation or services without parental consent. You can contact the early development network or the educational service unit or your local school district superintendent. Thank you for helping us contact families of young children in your community. If you would like development wheels brochures or speech development charts to share with parents in your school district or in your community please contact the educational service unit or send an email to ruth at esu8.org Thanks.


It's not about how you start but it's about how you finish and to cap off this 2020 season the Ravens finished against the Bengals and they finished in a major way but before we get into this of course y'all know this is my post game thoughts where we talk about the previous game in this case the Ravens and the Bengals and y'all know we do the live streams after every single Ravens game but not everybody can be a part of those live and not everybody can rewatch those because we can go on for a while so these are the more condensed versions of those and this this is all for y'all man I appreciate y'all thank y'all for making this such a fun season we had a whole lot of fun whether the Ravens won whether the Ravens lost I just I appreciate y'all a lot man thank you for making team keep it clean what it is thank you for just helping it grow and being a part of the growth so thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you this has been a super fun season and we ain't done yet that's the best part about it we ain't done yet oh that's a beautiful thing so Ravens of course they play the Titans next week at 1 p.m. on Sunday just in case any y'all hadn't heard it already I'm sure you have by now but that's the schedule anyway in this game just to start off with Lamar Jackson Lamar Jackson he he's just continued to be amazing man he has continued to be amazing yes he did have a couple of hiccups this game back-to-back where hunt their defensive linemen tip to his passes in a row the second one ended up being an interception but besides that Lamar Jackson he was on point throwing that ball all over the field getting the different guys involved now he only did complete 10 passes but he threw three touchdowns and he ran for I think what 97 yards I believe so Lamar is he contributes in so many different ways and as we know just a threat of him it helps the running backs be even better even better because defense has got to worry about Lamar taking off too and we know how much of a special player he is but we see more and more of it every week when he's making guys miss when he's completing these crazy passes and whatnot we just it gives you that much more of an appreciation for one Lamar Jackson so shout out to him shout out to the Ravens for allowing him to play his game shout out to him for playing his game and what we've been talking about every week especially the post non-team keep it clean Lamar ever since he came back from missing that Steelers game he has just been on another level before the Steelers game he was sort of like this throughout the season but after he missed that Steelers game and came back it's just been it's been up it's been straight up he's been doing great JK Dobbins in this game beautiful beautiful game from him he continues to establish himself as a feature back Gus Ellis in this game that the usual the usual Gus Ellis is just so powerful man and even Mark Ingram he got a little piece of the pie to Justice Hill got a little bit duvanae of course y'all know the play that they run with duvanae but yeah they they all did that thing the running game if they ran for 404 yards they were like 25 yards I think away from the record but it's okay as long as they got a win in that record today that's all that matters moving to the passing game Hollywood he had two touchdowns today which is a beautiful thing one of those touchdowns came when he was in the slot and another touchdown came from him just not giving up on the play while Lamar was running Hollywood was running they were both running to the right Lamar hit him in stride boom back in zone touchdown so it was nice to just it's been nice to see that chemistry continue to come through especially when we needed to the most then Miles Boykin Miles Boykin I was really happy for him especially happy that Lamar hit him in stride on that play Lamar trusted him and he delivered and we've been seeing how recently those two that their chemistry is getting a lot better and they've been on the same page a lot more when it comes to the passing game and then that's very important because you need everybody clicking on all cylinders the offensive line in this game they they did a really good job it was interesting with the Ravens deciding to go with Tristan Cologne Castillo over Matt Scurra and I think that really says where the Ravens stand with Matt Scurra moving forward so with Tristan Cologne Castillo he did a great job as he did when he went against the Steelers he did a phenomenal job then and he continued that and the offensive line overall I mean you think they did pretty good if they ran for 404 yards because this all starts with the offensive line it all starts with them if they have a bad day everybody has a bad day so shout out to the offensive line now Greg Roman Greg Roman in this game again for the most part for about 99% of the game he did a great job 99% of the game just that 1% was that one play on that first drive where it was third and 10 and they did the Lamar keeper I just I didn't like that at all wasn't feeling that at all but overall it was a really good game he got different guys involved and that's what you got to do again using all your weapons to make your offense that much more dangerous now defense defense in this game they got two interceptions Chuck Clark he had one of them Marcus Peters he had the other one and the defense they did a little bit of bending but they didn't break it all even with their backs against the wall after two really bad passing affairs calls on Marcus Peters I really thought they were gonna get a touchdown I thought they were gonna I knew they were gonna force for you AJ Green to touchdown since that's his last game but Raven say no we ain't going out like that we don't care if it's AJ Green last game we don't care if it's his first game we don't care we not going out like that and Marcus Peters ended up getting that pic almost all they should have been a pic six but he was like you know whatever it is what it is and it was a beautiful thing to have him back thought we were gonna get Jimmy back for this game but it's okay they obviously didn't need him yet Marlin Humphrey he had a pretty quiet game but that's a good thing for a cornerback it's a real good thing if you having a quiet game because the Sean Elliott he was quiet this game as well Chuck Clark was pretty quiet for the longest until he got his interception but it wasn't a bad quiet for those guys Anthony Avery he is somebody that has been coming to his own he got some guys some real good guys in front of him that he's been learning from but now he's been he been holding it down to he's found himself in position a lot more over the past couple of weeks than out of position when it comes to making plays on the ball so Anthony Avery's game it is it has stepped up a lot so shout out to him glad he's been doing a great job now to pass rushing this game we saw some glimpses here and there of the good past rush but it wasn't consistent didn't need to be but it wasn't consistent this is sometimes with Bowser would be chasing a little bit with Jude on would be but they just couldn't get there but again they didn't need to now with wink one thing that I want to point out that I loved in this game is that wink he had the cornerbacks pressing he had those cornerbacks manned up they were right in front of their receiver jamming them at the line and I love that I love that because we've seen so many games with a receipt or with a cornerbacks excuse me a back way off of the receivers and they have all this space to work underneath but wink said no y'all are playing up on these boys today and they did a phenomenal job one thing that I noticed from this this team today and it's something that we talked about in the preview was them wrapping up they did a pretty good job tackling and the effort the effort was there from all three phases of the game there was one play where I believe it was Giovanni Bernard but maybe it was a different running back where he broke he broke for a long run and it could have been a touchdown and he ran past Marlon Humphrey initially but Humphrey was like hold up I'm a track star and he hawked them down and caught them and and it's plays like that they make such a big difference because again bingles didn't score a touchdown had Marlon Humphrey given up on that play we could have been having a whole another conversation right now about the score think the game still would have been the same but it would have been a whole different score but shout out to Humphrey not giving up Patrick Queen there was a play where you could just he was feeling it man and they needed this they needed this but he burst through the backfield and tackled the running back in the backfield and it was just a beautiful thing him and Jude on on that same play they both did and we need that that confidence booster going into this Titans game next week they need that confidence booster so and I'm glad that the Ravens took care of business in this game the way that they did because something that we also talked about in the preview I did expect them to win and I expected to win by 21 or more and they did more than that but it would have been very questionable if this Ravens team if they were to struggle with these bingles if they would struggle with these bingles it would have been pretty scary and my guy Josh Hoffman made a very good point and he and he worded it best he said if these Ravens if they would have struggled with the bingles then what would they do in the playoffs what would they have done in the playoffs but they took care of business and just because they took care of business in a major way does not guarantee that they would do the same thing in the playoffs to the Titans but it does set them up a lot better in the playoffs than had they just barely come out of this game against the bingles so Ravens closed it out man they took care of their business they did what they had to do and they closed it out and that's so important again it's not how you start it's how you finish throughout this season the Ravens have had plenty of tough games they've had plenty of games where a lot went their way and then some other ones where didn't so much go their way but they're here now 11 and five they made it out this first part but now it's about to get that much tougher now it's about to get that much more difficult now it's about to get that much more harder but this is what they built for this is what they built for and these guys they got everything they need to get it done now it's just a matter of doing it team keep it clean I love y'all I appreciate y'all again thank you for making this such a great year and let's see what these Ravens got in store for us in these playoffs appreciate y'all