the pandemic and geopolitics. I'm Joe Lauria, editor-in-chief of Consortium News. And I'm Elizabeth Voss. It's often been said, in fact, history shows, that before there can be radical change in society, there must first be a collapse of the old order. We are potentially at such a rare moment when the combination of an historic pandemic and a global economic unraveling has left us contemplating what transformations may be in store. Domestically in the United States, we can ask whether the US will emerge with a better health care system, a more equitable economy, with a totalitarian system and a police state, or whether it will all revert to the status quo ante. But change may not only be afoot at home for the US, but also abroad, and abroad dominated by the United States since the end of the Cold War. With us to discuss the geopolitical ramifications of the COVID-19 crisis are our guests, journalists Patrick Lawrence and Garrett Porter, as well as former Australian Ambassador Tony Kevin. Welcome all of you to CN Live. So let's start with Patrick. Of course, China-US relations are grabbing all the headlines right now. The Republicans are scapegoating China to deflect from the Trump administration's huge failings in managing this crisis, much like the Democrats scapegoated Russia, which 2016 lost to Trump. Even The New York Times is getting in on the act as they did in Russiagate by pumping out a story on Wednesday in the US in which it said that China had been sending false messages about a national lockdown and causing panic without giving any evidence and even saying that the intelligence agencies wouldn't give them evidence. So I want to ask you broadly, Patrick, how do you see the political and economic impact of the pandemic affecting America's standing in the world? And you wrote a piece of consortium news along those lines recently. Can the US emerge from this as still the permanent power in the world? All right. I think a somewhat complicated answer, Joe. There is power. We love complicated answers. We like complicated answers. OK. We're going to get one. All right. There is power to consider. And whatever standing the United States may have lost, and I think it's probably considerable in political capitals in Europe and Asia, our preeminence, I think it's probably wishful thinking to expect this to somehow go by the board. I don't see that. I think China is going to take a rather serious hit, mostly on the economic side. But the United States, I think we're long past the point where we have been able to project ourselves as any kind of model to be emulated. I think our extremely poor performance by way of COVID-19 seals the coffin on that. It's plain that we are willing to take every sorted advantage of this crisis to press our enemies. We have our perceived, our chosen adversaries, please. We have the Pentagon putting in for $20 billion of additional funding for Asia-Pacific operations. We have something approaching a full court press on Iran, Venezuela. This is what I mean by power. I don't see that there is a very great deal in the road ahead that is going to stop that. But I think that the nakedness of our insistence on, we need to say it now, imperial hegemony is plain to all. And I will make one other point. Our standing with the Europeans was never very good. Trump made a very good job of destroying that way back in 2015 with the Iran Accord and then the climate Accord and the NATO doings and all that. The Europeans are yet more furious with us and yet more disappointed. I will point to one thing in the matter of Europe. Macron, I have quite mixed feelings about the French president. But I do give him high marks for getting out there and saying Europe needs an independent voice on the foreign policy side. Let's watch for more of this. We'll speak more about Macron later, Elizabeth. Yeah, Patrick, I wanted to ask you how the corporate press's COVID-19 coverage differs from the Russiagate narrative. And whether you find it to be more or less dishonest, in what ways and in what fashion? I haven't actually made a connection. The Russiagate coverage is now behind us. We seem to have lost interest in the Russians. The ineffectiveness of that so-called narrative is exhausted. What I think we're looking at now and I fear this has not reached its high note yet, we're tipping into a yellow peril that parallels that matches the Hearst era. This is getting very, very worrisomely out of hand. And my remark here, Elizabeth, is that you're Australian. You may be clued into this perhaps a touch better than others. We can do this to China. We can demonize China. But we must not forget the Chinese consciousness with very, very high value to equality with the Westerner. If we push them too far into the corner, I wonder whether we're not looking at a sort of Versailles moment where I do not think the Chinese have anything like the aggressive designs that we assign to them. No, I don't see that at all. But if we continue to take full advantage of this virus fit and push them into a corner, we could see them in a sort of jacket-of-the-box fashion coming back in spades. We really don't want that. It is not the moment. One rather wishes that for once in one or another theater, the Middle East, Venezuela, China, somewhere, we could transcend our preoccupations with preeminence and recognize the common cause here. So far, not a go. Thank you, Patrick. Garrett, I want to turn to you now. If you can't hold off on responding to some of the things Patrick said until we run through our questions with you. Emmanuel Macron, who Patrick mentioned, told the Financial Times last week in a very interesting email, he sort of showed a very curious transformation. And we won't know whether he meant it or not until this crisis is over. But what he said is that the age of globalization was over. And the age of neoliberalism is over, according to a Financial Times editorial. So I want to ask you, are we looking at the end of these twin pillars that has proven to be what is so much wrong with the world in the past 40 years? I think that there is indeed a reason to believe that this crisis does spell a renewed phase of a long-term crisis of neoliberalism in world politics and finance. And of course, this is not the beginning, but rather the last or at least a very late stage of this process because over the past 40 years or so, we've had a process by which neoliberalism has prospered and gained a power for centrist governments throughout the Western world. And then we have, of course, the inevitable reaction against that beginning both in the United States and in Europe, but particularly emphasized perhaps by the Trump victory in 2016. And this has been, I think, rightly understood by most objective observers or analysts as a clear indication that the reign of neoliberalism, the reign in which the financial elites have had free reign to amass great fortunes through the, with the help of the states in Europe and the United States has started to weaken and is near a point of an inflection point if it hasn't already passed that. And now I think we are seeing in this pandemic the obvious worst case scenario for neoliberalism and the only sort of thing that the people who are, the people who've benefited from neoliberalism over the last few decades could feel good about is the fact that despite the pandemic, you have the US Congress nevertheless acting as though nothing has really changed very much in their response to the pandemic. And so we are in the situation where one would normally expect to have an explosion of protest and a movement rising very rapidly to push back. And yet nothing of the sort is now on the horizon. And one must ask whether there is a real possibility of anything like that developing over the coming year. I think this is really the question that must preoccupy anyone who has any conscience or who's thinking seriously about the crisis. Well, Gareth, you've actually preempted my question, which was basically what you've just said. I was going to ask you about what's going to be the reaction when the populace of multiple Western countries really realize in a visceral way the enormity of what's been done to them economically in response to COVID-19. And I was gonna ask, can we expect a surge that might even be violent and would dwarf the Brexit and Trump election scenarios that we saw in 2016 in all words. Well here, of course, I think you do have to distinguish among different countries in terms of both the potential for protest and the actuality of it. Of course, France, you have a situation where protest has already been very strong and even violent or perhaps I should say the reaction to it has been violent. But in any case, France represents one sort of extreme case and I think the United States represents thus far at least the opposite case where in fact, the people who have been mobilized have been those who have been manipulated by the Trump administration, not in favor of really radical change with regard to financial and economic policy, but rather to uphold a set of policies that Trump obviously hopes to continue without really any radical shift. Although you have to acknowledge as well that the crisis imposes certain minimum requirements just to keep the economy going and I think that's what we've seen so far. But nevertheless, I think in the United States the question remains whether there is potential here for any alternative to the Democratic Party or not and thus far the situation does not look very positive in that regard. And just today, Jeffrey Kay had a tweet which I thought was quite important in terms of its insight, which was just to note that the US public has been so atomized and so powerless over the last couple of decades, particularly the last 15 years, that this constitutes a crippling, my term, a crippling weakness in the face of this crisis. And that's the most worrisome thing that I see about it. Garret, thank you very much for that answer. We'll turn now to Tony Kevin in the Australian capital, Canberra. Tony is former ambassador to Cambodia and Poland. He was a diplomat in Russia as well. Tony, thanks for coming on. Let's start to China now as we're laying out all the pieces of this. It appears very much now to be the focal point and also between you as Australian and Chinese relations, Foreign Minister Murray's pain starts talking tough this week against Beijing as well, echoing the Republicans and some Democrats too. How do you see the West's relations changing with China in this situation? And then I wanna also ask you about Russia. Are they off the hook as Patrick suggested in this right now? Thank you. My first time on Zoom, for Australia. Your second time on Zoom, but that's, nobody's counting. Okay, for Australia, we are perched very uncomfortably on a knife edge between our political alliance with the United States, the strategic alliance with the United States and our overwhelming economic relationship with China, which is far and away our largest trading partner, investment partner, source of educational students that keep our universities alive. A large proportion of our population is now Chinese. We are very uncomfortably poised. Having said that, I'm struck by the incredible forces of inertia in our politics, that even though the world has been turned upside down by COVID-19, our foreign minister and even our shadow foreign minister, her opposition counterpart are still running along in the old furrows, still mechanically jumping to the orders from the United States, still being effectively a satellite. And this latest stupidity of Australia taking a leading role in calling for a so-called international inquiry into the conduct of China and the WHO. It's going to be another kangaroo court. It's going to be another MH-17. It's going to be another Syria war crimes chase. It's very distressing and disappointing that our political class doesn't seem able to recognize the enormity of the change that's happened in the world. And if I could say a little bit about that very briefly. What I'm struck by is the way COVID has brought home to us, firstly, as others have mentioned, the instability and the cruelty of the globalization model, how it effectively turns a large part of the world into very vulnerable serfs, if not slaves, and how those people, the underprivileged and the elderly, the demographic of the elderly, disproportionately copying the cruelty of the pandemic. Now, the encouraging thing I see is that countries are coming together most countries, with the rather notorious exception of Sweden at the moment, are coming together rejecting the cruelty of social Darwinist eugenics. The idea that we can put our elderly people out on the hillside to die has been vociferously rejected by people as dissimilar as some Scott Morrison, my rather pathetic prime minister, and Vladimir Putin, whom I rather admire. And that view that our society has built on families and families, whatever their composition, have a sense that elderly people, their grandparents, are to be loved and respected and taken care of. To me, that's the most encouraging thing. So I've thrown out a lot of stray leads here and I'll stop there. Tanya, I'd like to ask about whether you think that we can compare this crisis to 9-11 and the response of the US to 9-11 with the response to COVID-19. In other words, do you think that we should look for a worsening and an intensification of US warmongering, especially towards China as we've been discussing so far? Or do you think that it's finally gonna be this tipping point where the US is kind of forced to scale back it's foreign intervention? The answer to your very important question is that it all depends on whether the US can succeed in pinning the origins of COVID-19 on China, whether they blame the wet market or whether they blame the Chinese CBW laboratory in Wuhan. They will be trying very hard over the next few days to make China seem to the world like the culprit. But there is a very strong counter narrative that you know and it's not a conspiracy theory. There are facts that Fort Detrick chemical and biological weapons laboratory had to close down in July because of maladministration of protective quarantine, the very dangerous viruses and substances in there. It's a fact that the commanding officer of Fort Detrick was sacked. It's a fact that America sent a team of mediocre athletes, so-called to the international military games in Wuhan. And it's a fact that they all stayed in a hotel 300 meters from the Wuhan livestock markets. And it's a fact that that hotel subsequently became a major source of concentration of the virus. Now, here we get into more speculative territory. There are videos floating around of indeterminate people in civilian clothes, apparently smearing saliva with some sort of substance added to it onto guardrails in public transport in Wuhan. Now, there's probably a lot more of that sort of stuff around. If the Chinese government, at the moment, it's only been at the level of social media posts by senior people in their private capacity. But if the Chinese government goes to full hog on saying, well, actually, the Americans planted this virus here and it was a deliberate attempt to destabilize our society, possibly to destabilize our political system. And if that gathers legs, you won't have another opportunity like 9-11 because the thing about 9-11 was the world is swung behind the United States in a mood of moral outrage and sympathy. I don't see that happening yet on COVID-19. And I don't think the United States is anywhere near at the point of credibility that it quickly assumed on 9-11. You're watching CN Live. We're discussing the pandemic and geopolitics. We've laid a lot of issues now on the table and like to open this up for discussion. Let me stick with you for a second, Tony. Well, before I ask one question, my feeling and the three of you might disagree with me is that the time for investigation and blame and pointing fingers and recrimination should be after the world has come together to defeat this virus. I think that is what we should be focused on now and not the politics of that. We, of course, in the US by complete coincidence, there was a presidential election and I think even then the politics should be left aside until we get closer to November. But Tony, earlier Patrick said that he thought that China would take a hit economically on this. And I think in a phone call that we had, a private phone call we had a couple of weeks ago, you said that you thought China, and I could be wrong, may someone else may have told me this, that China would actually gain economically by that. We have America floored and the Chinese are back online again. They are starting to produce again. Wouldn't that give an economic advantage to them? I believe so, yes. I think that analysis is correct. China has shown incredible resilience in the face of what seemed like a huge disaster now and we've got a death toll of 45,000 in the US, approaching 20,000 in Britain, smaller but highly significant numbers across Europe. China now looks as though it got off relatively likely and in retrospect. And it's got the disease under control and it's got the social mechanisms to keep it under control. So yes, it's China's world now. I think for the asking. And China also has a model of globalization, the One Belt One Road Initiative, which is largely continental based. It's not maritime based primarily, although it has a maritime element certainly. But it's moving forward methodically through the Eurasian continent, attracting all sorts of interest as far away as in Europe. I sort of feel we're almost getting back to a Marco Polo world where China reached a center and Europe's a periphery and people like Macron know it and they're trying to sort of get on board. And America is a way over there in another continent, in another global system really. And I sort of think that America might be forced over the next few years to pull back on the North and South continental mass, North and South America. And basically China's going to be calling the shots with Russia in support in the Eurasian landmass. Patrick, yes, please jump in. And to exactly disagree with you, but let me put it in the form of a question. The talk now is all about supply chains and all that, right? The Americans, the English, the British, numerous on the continent, Macron was talking about this himself. We need to reduce our material dependence on well-established supply chains. You know, the obvious starting point is pharmaceuticals, but it hardly ends there. I think that's what the French president meant when he started discussing the end of globalization. So in this way, China's, what do we know? China's first quarter results were calamitous, right? And economic results, forgive me. And I think it was the first contraction since Deng Xiaoping's day. I'm not quite sure they're going to be the winner, and I meant on the economic side, okay? Strictly on the economic side. Maybe you could respond to that and let me put a big question mark at the end of it if I may. Well, obviously China's production slumped enormously because of a massive amount of social distancing measures that were put in place that shut down the economy very rapidly and broadly. I expect that to recover recently quickly now because people now in China know what they're dealing with and they know how to get production moving again while stopping the outbreak starting off again. I think Macron is right that globalization is coming to an end, but with one exception, and I come back to my Marco Polo metaphor again, I think that at the luxury end in goods and services, globalization will continue. Just as, you know, it was economical to bring spices to Europe from the East Indies and China region in the Middle Ages, it's going to be economical to keep a form of globalized political dialogue which is very expensive going, and it does need people getting together physically from time to time. It's going to be possible to have expensive high-end international travel, but I think when it comes to production, what COVID-19 has brought home to us is the cruelty and inequity of the model. We've just had it, I was listening on the radio just now in Singapore, the problem of the barracks of underpaid construction laborers from elsewhere in Asia, these are now the source of the pandemic revival in Singapore. The Singaporeans are belatedly realizing that you really have to look after the underclass, and this is happening all over the world now. People are realizing that we rich white people can't go on profiting from the slavery really of Bangladesh, shirt makers and so on. Something fundamental has to change. International trade will certainly shrink and there'll be a lot more focus on producing things at home that are strategically important like medicines and like medical equipment. We're not going to find ourselves in a world again where we're stuck at the end of a supply chain where the ventilators and the masks can only be made in low-wage countries. Garrett, do you want to jump in and comment on that? I was going to basically agree about the notion that China will recover relatively rapidly and probably will take advantage of the fact that they are going to be well ahead of the curve compared with the United States in that recovery yet. So I think that that's going to be one factor, but I must say that below the level of just the immediate economics, there's another factor here that interests me that we haven't talked about yet. And that is the potential impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the question of the national security policy of the United States and the national security state of the United States. And I've done a bit of writing about this already and intend to do more. My thinking here is that this situation could represent sort of a perfect storm for the national security state should represent a perfect storm for the national security state given any sort of normal set of politics, domestic politics in this country. And that's because on one hand, you have this very dramatic illustration of just how totally wrong the conception of national security that has been dominant in this country has been for so many decades. And on the other hand, you have the fact that you have a military that is still trying to sort of maintain the momentum as close as possible to the normal momentum that it has. And in the process, we have this drama that took place on the theater Roosevelt with Captain Crozier trying to save the sailors on board his ship, thousands of sailors who were in danger of being caught up in a pandemic on board the ship. And at the same time, back in Washington, the brass of the Navy and of the Pentagon, really not indicating that they cared one whit about the health of the sailors, really upset that he made public this problem. Now we have a situation where Crozier has emerged as something of a hero and the families of the sailors and the sailors themselves clearly are not only unhappy, but I would say there's a lot of anger toward the Navy and toward the Pentagon over this incident. And it's not just aboard the theater Roosevelt. There are other ships, naval ships in the Far East that have also had a problem of coronavirus outbreaks and similar problems have similar political situations have arisen between the crew and their families and the policy being pursued by the Pentagon. That raises the question of whether there could be a movement of families of sailors and soldiers who are unhappy with the fact that the Pentagon has so obviously expressed a disdain for the health and welfare of the people that are serving them as soldiers and sailors. Now there's also a brand new poll out of the families and veterans and the families of military personnel that shows that more than 70% of these people wanna get completely out of Afghanistan as soon as possible and believe it's time for the United States to start withdrawing from its conflicts around the world. So there are these signals that there's a potential here for more political activism among the veterans and families of soldiers and sailors. And that presents, from my point of view, an opportunity for people who've been pushing for fundamental change in the question of the national security state, including myself of course, to take advantage of this and try to see if there couldn't be a modest movement to push people in Congress to bring about some investigation of the fundamental question of whether we've been on the wrong track in terms of, quote, national security or not and what should be done about it. Eric, you wrote a piece for us about this very issue on the aircraft carrier and you cited a study that was done by two former military high-ranking people. What did that study say? I think that was very interesting. Well, they were suggesting that they do in fact believe that it's likely that there will be a lot of pressure on the military budget in the immediate future and that the Pentagon is not gonna get the kind of appropriations that they've been accustomed to and that they're going to have to really rethink the whole notion of where we're going in terms of military policy. That remains to be seen. I think that's a possibility. And I think these two things that they're talking about in terms of economic pressure on the military budget and the things that we've seen happening within the families and sailors aboard the ships in the Far East could be a second element of this reality as it unfolds. So, I mean, this presents just a new opportunity whether it's gonna pan out or not's another question but it's the closest we've been to a sort of inflection point similar if you will to what happened after the Vietnam War when the Pentagon was under a lot of pressure and had to agree to reduce budgets for several years. That's a great point and it's a great issue you've raised here fundamental to what we're discussing the future of the American empire and how it will be affected by this pandemic. Patrick. You have two constituencies now that are plainly identified as vulnerable in this quite apart from all that the ambassador said about the neoliberal model in general. You have the healthcare system and big pharma and you have the Pentagon, right? They are obvious targets for reconsideration here. As I wrote in a column for you Joe if we can't get a proper socialized medicine in the United States on the back of this crisis I don't know what it will take equally if we can't get some kind of minimum grip on the Pentagon budget. What will it take, right? But note, I'm all for Gareth's thought but both of these constituencies are right out there on the offensive. I honestly think we must be very careful with the word should. I concluded long ago that should is a very dangerous word in our dictionary, right? What should happen and what will happen are often very different things. And we're all in agreement here. I'm certain of that about the military budget. It's a sine qua non on getting anything else done and the healthcare system. But both of these constituencies are on a quite visible offensive if you watch them closely. I think we need to be very careful about what we expect. I must confess I'm very disappointed. I don't see any kind of a groundswell of somebody used the word earlier. We're atomized, we're an atomized people, right? One of the really admirable things about the French is they have a beautiful political tradition and they haven't let it go entirely, right? We don't share that. We're a very alienated people. And I don't think we have yet re-achieved the capacity we had in the 60s and 70s when Gareth and I met one another, right? To convene, to join together, right? We're all just looking out for ourselves, right? And the remedy for this bloody crisis could not be worse in this regard. Stay away from one another, right? So I just wish to add a cautionary to my entire vote of approval for what Gareth said. Patrick, I'd like to follow on from that comment and just ask you how easy it's going to be. And I hate to focus too much on the U.S. in the segment, but to ask how easy it is right now for Trump to outlaw the Democrats on issues economically and in terms of health care as well. And what do you think that will look like in the months to come? They're in a real duel for a street cred, aren't they? Right? Forgive me, I find it difficult to take either of them seriously. I don't have a great answer for you, Elizabeth, because I think they're just like kangaroos. They're all over the place, whatever needs to be said. I'm sure most of us have seen this egregious advertisement Biden campaign issued on China. Yikes, you know? Who's gonna out-synophobe the other, right? Right. But let us stay with substance, all right? Whatever Trump may say to out-left, as you say, I haven't heard that from you before. Whatever he may say, I caution, don't take it too seriously, it's an election year, right? Ditto, Biden. Yeah, perfect, thank you for that. Tony, you are in Australia, is he right to say that they're just kangarooing each other as he suggests enough? Seriously, there have been 5,734 soldiers infected in the U.S. military, sailors and soldiers, 25 deaths. You also wrote a piece for us about what impact this would have on the American Empire. Does that play a role? The fact, carrying on from what Garrett talked about on the aircraft carrier and other carriers, that these soldiers themselves are, for example, there was a lot of talk about attacking Shia militias in Iraq, Iranian-backed Shia militias in Iraq, and the brass pulled back, one of the reasons being they were afraid of the infections that could come to their soldiers. So what impact does the pandemic, except have directly on American military operations on the world and in the future, whether there will be a retraction of U.S., the military footprint of the U.S. around the world as a result of this pandemic? There are a number of strands to the potential answer to that. I suppose one for me would be the personal power dynamic between Trump and Pompeo, Pompeo representing that aggressive, mendacious CIA-influenced deep state, which basically has no rules except whatever it takes to win. And I don't see any change whatsoever in Pompeo's thinking or in the thinking of what I would call the deep state behind him. Now, Trump is a completely unguided missile. He could be influenced by foreign statesmen. He could be influenced by Macron. He could be influenced by Putin. He could go in any direction, really. We just don't know if he's an unguided missile. I think that the groundswell that the U.S. is overextended militarily and strategically, which comes through in people like Tulsi Gabbard. It comes through in people like Andrew Bakavich. It's real and it's going to have an impact. But against that, there's what I mentioned right at the beginning. There's this incredible inertia of the U.S. drive to power, the institutional weight of it, the difficulty of turning that aircraft carrier metaphorically speaking around. I just don't know. Garrett? Yeah, I'm just gonna say that with regard to the politics of U.S. empire and the present situation, what you have is a tension, obviously, between the desire of a lot of people in U.S. politics, including Pompeo in particular, who is a devotee of Zionism and loyal to the Netanyahu government to a great extent. On one hand, and people in the Pentagon are by no means interested in going to war for Israel against Iran. They don't wanna have anything to do with the idea of a war against Iran. This is a very firm position in which the Pentagon has been holding now for quite a few years, and it's become stronger, much stronger, not weaker over the last couple of years, as Iran has demonstrated much more convincingly that it has the wherewithal to cause a great deal of damage to the U.S. and its allies in case a war does break out. So I think that there is a very strong disposition on the part of the Pentagon against really taking a big risk of going to war with Iran. On one hand, and on the other hand, they have this very pronounced emphasis now on preparing for war with Russia and China. That's their meal ticket. That's what they get their money, that's what they plan to get their money for for the coming years. And at the same time, of course, practically speaking, there's no possibility that they can go to war with Russia or China. It's simply totally unrealistic, and they know it. So to me, there is a great deal of sort of pretending about the U.S. position militarily in the world at this point, perhaps more than ever before in its history. The reality is that we're not gonna be going to war with anybody of any consequence. Yeah, we'll pick on Venezuela, or we'll pick on somebody else in Latin America, but none of the big major players in the Middle East or in the Far East or Europe. Well, that's interesting, Garrett, because on Wednesday, Trump tweeted a warning to Iran that he would destroy any gunboat that comes near an American ship in the Gulf, which is what are the American ships doing in the Gulf anyway? But so you don't see a war at all with Iran, despite all the rhetoric, despite Pompeo chomping at the bit to do this, and before him bolting, or they use the cover of COVID to launch such a war, or against Venezuela, can we also see that? Garrett, please, go on. Yeah, I'm not going to issue a blanket statement that war with Iran is impossible, because we've already seen a couple of instances where Pompeo has managed to maneuver Trump into a position where with Iran being a little bit less cautious, we could have had a war breaking out. On the other hand, I am not convinced that Pompeo's position is really that stable or reliable in terms of remaining in Secretary of State position for the remainder, even of his term necessarily, and certainly not beyond that. I think there's a good chance he'll be gone by the beginning of next year. Pompeo's vulnerability, the most pleasant thing I've heard all evening, I have to say, but here's my question. That tweet about authorizing the Navy to destroy Iranian gunboats or whatever, was that an effort to prop up the oil price? Possibly, yeah, who knows? That it definitely could have that implication. It sure had that kind of reek, you know? Yeah, yeah, I don't take it very seriously. Otherwise, perhaps it could have had that intention, yes. So all of you, does that mean that the US military action in the midst of the pandemic is less likely or remains unlikely because of what Garrett said, that the US can't pick on any really major powers, maybe Venezuela. So in other words, the pandemic is not changing really the calculus of depending on terms of war. I would say it remains unlikely.  I think it's going to turn very ugly. My pet subject, Russia, is virtually forgotten on the sidelines and I'm sure the Russian people will be very relieved by that. But it's going to be war by every means short of shooting and it's going to leave international institutions very vulnerable. And we're going to ask the question, can the international multilateral system emerge strengthened by this or weakened by this? And at the moment, I think the jury is completely out on this. I think what's interesting about the American military posture as we now have it is the Garrett's point, the hollowness of any notion that we will, you know, in fact, find ourselves at war with our chosen strategic adversaries. The entire point of the American military posture now seems to be purely self-perpetuation. And I wonder where this will lead us in time, right? In previous eras, we had our chosen adversaries and there was the realistic possibility of going to war, Iraq and so on and so forth. But as Garrett astutely said, it's out of the question we would have a war with China or Russia, we now have the Pacific fleets saying that it must be equipped to face the People's Liberation Army, what? Do we know how big the people's and where would that battlefield be, right? So it becomes somewhat nonsensical. And I watch in coming years where this will lead us when the nonsense of the American military posture becomes cleaner as one hopes it does. I really think that we have to talk not about geopolitics but about the domestic politics of the national security state in the US. I mean, that's really what this is all about. And that's what really interests me. And in my study of the national security state, what I've found is that you've hit the nail on the head. It's never been about anything else but the self-aggrandizement of the bureaucracies and the individual people who have been leading them, the senior figures in the CIA and the Pentagon and the services. They're the ones who've profited or who have gained power and prestige and all the rest of it, not the United States as a nation, obviously. And that's what this entire organization or set of organizations has really all been about since the beginning of the Cold War. And that really is the reality that has escaped the entire political process in the United States has simply never been discussed because we've always assumed that there was some there, there that's really been the substance of what the national security state has been about. And there really hasn't been ever. My point better said, yeah, thank you. The question of whether the United States could again become a sort of a moral instrument for the world. Interest me as an Australian, as an Australian who have a lot of American friends and connections in my family life, I would hate to see America shrink to a sort of a self-perpetuating military and no moral message for the world. I can't see though that the present political elite in America of either the Democrat Party or the Republican Party has the vision to see that. And I find that profoundly depressing that I can be talking to gentlemen like Gareth and Patrick and can see the wisdom and the breadth of vision there in you. Why doesn't that translate through the level of American politics? How is American politics going to break through to a higher moral level? Ambassador, what we have now, I urge you to consider is not the cause of anything, it is the consequence our moral hollowing out is not at all new, right? Let's pay attention here, it's generations back, right? It's Vietnam and pre-Vietnam, the disgrace of our political process and the manner in which Raytheon's quarterly results dictate geopolitical realities. This has been going on a very long time, right? It is, I think if something good can be said about our moment it's becoming crisis and Gareth used the phrase we may be reaching an inflection point and so we can look forward to some progress. But what we have now is not at all new, right? You know, I spent many years abroad, people used to tell me how terrific America was. I remember especially, oh, you Americans can change on a dime, right? And I used to say to myself, we're terrible at changing, we never change anything, right? But we had our change in 1776 that we don't want any more change after that, that's the history of the United States, right? Patrick is absolutely right about this. This is a key point that simply is not understood at all in American politics or in the commentariat, shall we say that the great weakness of this country is that for as long as anyone can look backward on our history, we have not had a movement that has been capable of changing the trajectory on which the country has been on. And that's why we are so bereft at this moment of having any hope of turning around this situation. I mean, this is a moment which is ready-made, tailor-made for the emergence of a new movement. However, whether it's a new party, whether it's an NGO, whether it's a set of social groups that coalesce or whatever, it's not happening. And I think this is deeply rooted in the nature of this society, and this is what is going to foil any of the solutions that we might offer at this point. I'm sorry to say, and I'm the last person really to give up on the idea that there must be a solution. This was my point earlier, Gareth. Remember the old expression, la luta continua, right? La luta doesn't continue on in America. We're just not on the page, we can't pull it together. It's a terrible recognition to arrive at. I think it's a shame that we're finishing up on such a downbeat note. I was hoping we'd all move forward, but I'm mindful of Patrick saying that I should be, avoid using the word should. Here I am, shoulding all over the place. You're not a journalist, your dictionary is different, Ambassador. So in Australia, which continues to be America's little satrap, obedient, subservient, nobleman over in the South Pacific, we hope you guys can get it together, we really do. Ambassador, I take it you're in agreement with Hugh White on these matters, huh? Very close to Hugh, except I don't believe Australia's solution is to become a military, a great military power. I think it would bankrupt us. Let's think for itself, huh? As it's bankrupting the US perhaps. We're not necessarily done, Tony, I wanted to, Patrick said that this is a generations long problem and position, and he's right, but I think it's getting worse. And I recently compared two similar incidents and the way it was reacted to in the US. And that was the revelation of the Milai massacre during the Vietnam War, and the revelation of the Baghdad massacre in the collateral murder video. In the Milai massacre story, you had actually had a whistleblower who wrote to Congress, Mr. Ridenauer, and Congress listened to him. He wasn't punished. And then they actually had an investigation. Yes, they tried to cover it up, and they did actually charge one out of many American soldiers to pardon that massacre, Lieutenant Cali, and he served only a few months, but nonetheless there was an investigation and a prosecution, where if you look at the collateral murder, the whistleblower was thrown in jail for 35 years and the journalist who published it, unlike Sy Hirsch who revealed the Milai massacre, we wanna pull surprise for that. The journalist who revealed the collateral murder is sitting in a jail in London right now. Haven't we gotten worse, America, the way 50 years later, and the way we deal with these? Dear colleagues, dear colleagues. You know, I would just say that I don't think there's really been any fundamental change. I think we're faced with the same dynamics in 2020 that we were in 1970s, 1969, 1970. In fact, just to add to what you said, Joe, we need to understand that the Milai massacre was not just Lieutenant Cali and a few other lower level soldiers. This was the result of high level policy that had been adopted by General Westmoreland. Westmoreland was the war criminal who should have been accused. And yet he was cleared by a process that, you know, was really a cover up all the way to the top of the US military. And so that's the reality. It's the politics of cover up that still exists and which always existed in the US military, abetted by politicians and by journalists, I'm sorry to say, who failed to uncover the story then as well as more recently. Yeah, but I argue it's worse because you just, you decided Westmoreland. Who was the general or the higher commanders who ordered those helicopter pilots to fire on those innocent civilians in Baghdad? Do we know? That's a good point. We don't. You're right. We don't. Joe, you mentioned without mentioning them by name, the French and the one who broke my lie. Well, I would mention there, Daniel Ellsberg. There's another name, of course, and that's Edward Snowden who hasn't come up in this discussion. But he's important, I think, because I read his autobiography with great admiration. He could see the power of the American national security state. He could see it was out of control. He was brought up within it. And he was very much a foot soldier of it. And yet somehow he found the wherewithal and the courage to do what he did. And he finished up successfully getting political asylum in Moscow where you'll probably remain for a very long time. I think he's important because if you see him, you see where the rebellion is coming from in Macron, for example. You can see where the rebellion is coming from in that wonderful lady, the chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel. The Anglo-sphere and Britain and Australia and I suspect Canada will go on being America's last loyal puppets when I hope Europe, Europe will have started moving in a different direction. And that in itself, and this is all being very hopeful, that in itself will inspire the liberal younger cohorts in the United States. People like Tulsi Gabbard and AOC to really get up there in politics. And to add to your point about Snowden, I'd just like to add that one of the reasons, one of the biggest reasons that he was able to get asylum in Russia was thanks to the efforts of Julian Assange and Sarah Harrison. And essentially thanks to documents that were buoyed, I believe, by Stephanie and Maritzi, we know that as a result of Assange's help averaged towards Snowden, talks to basically stop, his prosecution were stopped in the tracks. So I just wanted to add that point, but yes, Snowden, Assange, Manning, all really luminary figures of our current era, for sure. Ambassador, as a diplomat, how realistic is it of us to expect the Europeans to turn this corner and find a voice of their own as Macron is encouraging? Many Germans are impatient. The German business community, for example. But, you know, we spent many years being disappointed on this point. Now is the moment. Now is the moment. And it's never the moment, right? That's been what's been... You're a good one to answer this question. What's the thought? I can just set up the possibilities. So I can't answer the question. There's been one good development, surprisingly, and it's Brexit. Britain has acted as a dead weight for decades. And now that's hopefully come to an end with Britain out of Europe and firmly in the Five Eyes Intelligence Strategic Network. There's a bit more room to move, I would hope, for countries like France and Germany and Spain and Italy to be a little bit more bold in their foreign policy. Now, the Eastern fringe, of course, is very unstable. Nobody knows what Hungary's going to do. Nobody knows what Poland's going to do. Nobody even knows what Sweden's going to do. Maybe the Baltics will stay out of this more adventurous Europe. But there are a lot of interesting possibilities in Europe now. Could I just ask another follow-up question, Mr. Ambassador? What about NATO? What is the future of NATO? Is it teetering towards something very different? Could it fall apart? Or is it one of the ways in which the United States can still maintain control? Look, I think NATO is very close to redundancy. It's not achieving anything very much. And the Russians can put a gas pipeline down the middle of the Baltic to northern Germany. And NATO can do absolutely nothing about it. When the NATO people parade their tanks up and down the Russian border in countries like Estonia and Latvia and Lithuania, and they see the Russians are not scared, they see they're having absolutely no impact on Russian foreign policy, rather than contrary. Yeah, I think NATO is becoming a bit of a redundancy. Well, it has been a redundancy for quite a while, but my question is, is it possible that it could really fall apart? I mean, could we see the Europeans essentially decide to be independent militarily of the United States? I think governments are reluctant to tear up institutions. I think it's more likely just to hang on there and become forgotten about. I mean, we had a thing in the Southeast Asia called CETO. Does anybody remember what CETO is now? CETO was never formally abandoned. It just stopped being talked about. Of course, NATO, after the Cold War ended, began out of theater operations. I think it goes against their charter and first of all in Kosovo and then Afghanistan. So to see a really independent Western Europe, independent from both Russia and the United States would require, I think, as Garrett said, a NATO to become CETO. And also to reestablish social democracy in Western Europe. And it's quite interesting, your take on Brexit, Tony, that the removal of Britain, it actually has a positive impact on perhaps on Western Europe without having a very neoliberal Britain way it down. Could this interstate interventionism that Macron is talking about against all the dogmas, he said? And he's thinking the unthinkable. But this crisis has made him think that they have to return to a social democratic model. My question is, on the military side, yes, abandoning US out of theater operations in the future, like Afghanistan or Kosovo, and whether they can revive a real social democratic system, refund their national health services, as we saw Italy has been eroded, hasn't just been the NHS and Britain. The Italian health system, the French health system has been under enormous privatization pressures as well. So can we see a model for the whole world, an truly independent Western Europe militarily and also in its social system? I think that's one way we can assign some optimism to Gareth's earlier point about what might come out of this.  And I think what you just suggested is one way we can reasonably say yes, maybe that's one way to look for a move forward. That's my thought. I would say that maybe we might be in a 1815 moment here that if we can, after the horrors of the Napoleonic Wars, the exhaustion of Europe, we might see a concert of Europe coming together. We might see some rules of behavior among essentially quite conservative states. That was interesting, wasn't it? They were all conservative states. They all held back social liberalism for many decades, but they did keep the peace for about 40 or 50 years until the Crimean War. And clearly Russia is gonna be a part of that and clearly France and Germany are gonna be major parts of that. I can see good prospects for continental Europe, finding new protocols, finding new rules of the game, going back to the old diplomatic courtesies.  We have become so habituated to demonizing our adversaries of the day, we really need to return to international courtesies. And I think that's coming. Brother, somebody has something positive to look forward to here. After all the things we've had to say. Indeed, as Tony wanted to end the program on an optimistic note, I think we will end it right now. So I wanted to thank Patrick Lawrence in Massachusetts for joining, sorry, Connecticut. Yeah, near the Massachusetts border, sorry about that, Tony Kevin in Canberra and Gareth Porter in Northern Virginia, Arlington for joining us to discuss, just scratch the surface of the geopolitical ramifications of this pandemic. And since I don't see this pandemic ending anytime soon, maybe we can reconvene this panel in a couple of months and see where we're at. So thank you all again. And thank you to our audience and to Elizabeth for joining us on CN Live.


Water, water everywhere, at least almost everywhere around California, one to two weeks of rain coming our way. A lot of people have questions. What is this rain? What are these storms going to do for us? What will they do to us? What are the impacts and what should you do to prepare yourself? Well, luckily, we have some experts coming up next right here on OES News in depth. All right, Sean Boyd here at Cal OES headquarters in Sacramento, California. We are Skyping right now at the National Weather Service Sacramento office and we have four experts who have joined us to talk about the weather, this crazy weather that we're having right now. With us is Alan Haynes from the National Weather Service California Nevada River Forecast Center. Liz Bryson from the Department of Water Resources as well as Brooke Benjamin and Michelle Meade both from the Sacramento office. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being here with us today on this lovely, lovely wet day. Welcome. Thanks for having us. Hey, we appreciate it. Listen, obviously the reason we called you up today, we wanted to talk about this very wet weather that we're having. We've been used to drought for the last several years obviously here in California. This to me, it reminds me of what we used to get. Is this normal? Is this what our normal used to be? Well, you kind of have to put normal into context. This particular storm that we're currently seeing right now would be constituted as a normal storm. However, the system, the weather system that we're looking at for this weekend is one of those out of the average storms, meaning we haven't seen rainfall rates or runoff potential in 10 to 15 years and in some locations 25 years. There's that much moisture that's going to be coming into central and provisions of Northern California this coming weekend. Okay, so what you're saying then is this heavy precipitation is going to affect California as a whole, both from Northern California through the central coast all the way down to Southern California. Am I getting that right? Yeah, there are going to be more winter impacts across the Pacific Northwest and then the very wet heavy precipitation is more from the central and southern Sacramento valleys into the San Joaquin valleys and then also into the Sierra Nevada, central and southern Sierra Nevada. Okay, now one of the things that I've been reading about is this elusive and mysterious atmospheric river. We've heard about this, especially going back to December a couple of years ago when we had some very strange, well, we had a lot of weather that came through Northern California in December and then for the El Nino, we had an atmospheric river that kind of fell apart. What is an atmospheric river? Tell me if you would in everyday average Joe terms and what does it mean to our weather pattern and what we're getting right now? The easiest definition I think, go ahead Brooke. I was just going to say an atmospheric river is basically a very long plume of moisture that travels across the Pacific Ocean and then when it hits the West Coast, wherever it hits along the West Coast, then that's where the brunt of the storm occurs. It's typically a very narrow band of very heavy precipitation. Okay, good. So how is this atmospheric river, this band of precipitation, what does it have in store for us and how far out can you predict? How far can we predict it? Well, there's pretty good confidence that in the next seven day forecast that this is definitely going to be impacting California and in terms of what this will bring, the major impacts of course are going to be widespread flooding that occurs, especially across where the actual plume hits, which will be generally from the I-80 corridor southward from about Tahoe to Kings Canyon if you want cities to kind of put it in perspective. And besides widespread flooding, that's urban flooding, that's small stream flooding, that's our main rivers that are also going to be flooding. The soils are already saturated from the current or from the recent storm that we just had. So there's also going to be a higher likelihood for mudslides, debris flows, power outages. So there really is going to be a wide array of impacts to California. And really obviously it depends on where you live depending on the level of flooding and the type of flooding that you may or may not encounter. You were saying that this is a once in a 10 to 25 year kind of a storm. That takes us back to 1997. And if anybody was here in 1997, obviously from December into January we had great snowfall in December and then the snow elevation, if I'm memory serves right, kind of raised a little bit, went a little higher and then things started to melt quite a bit.  But is that what we're preparing ourselves for now is maybe something that could potentially arrive to that magnitude? There will be certain areas in the Central Valley, the Cosumnes River, Old Ferry, Hamilton City, there are areas that are already running high and the amount of snowfall, like you mentioned, we've gotten some pretty good snowfall just in the last 24 to 48 hours that it's going to continue into tonight. So we are going to see some elements of the January 97, but I don't think it's going to be as widespread, but folks who do have a memory of 97, especially like I said in the southern Sacramento Valley and the San Joaquin Valley, we do anticipate the impacts there to be a little more intense just because of the saturated soils and the flat nature of the valley down there. There's really no place for that water to go once the rivers and streams are filled. Is that correct, Liz? Pretty much. Yeah. And Liz, again, is from the Department of Water Resources. OK, so we just go ahead and add something here. Yes. Regarding this, you know, a lot of a lot of times people are concerned about the snowfall, the lower and mid elevation snow that fell. They look at the 97 event and see that, you know, think of that as a big contributor. It is a contribution, but it's not as big as maybe you might think because the physics involved you're looking at. There's not a lot of heat and cold rain, so you're not really melting a lot of snow, but the little bit, you know, shallow snow layer in the mid and lower elevations, especially that can add a little bit, maybe on the order of 10 percent to the volume, the main impact of the rising freezing levels with these atmospheric river events is that you're the whole basin is contributing runoff because water is flowing through the snowpack at higher elevations and down into the base and into the river systems. And that's where we really get the biggest effect is just is having the whole basin contribute to runoff. Right. Now, since we're talking about elevations and snowpack, they just conducted, I believe, the latest or first one of the year, I guess, the snowpack measurement analysis. What can you tell me about from a meteorologist's point of view, looking at the drought, looking at the water content? What are you seeing now? And what is it telling you? So, yeah, the snowpack is running below normal in terms of water content for this time of year. If you look at we've had a lot of warm systems so far this year, so a lot of it has been liquid. And we've been fortunate in a way that reservoirs been low. So in terms of runoff, we've got wet basins, we've got full or we will have full reservoirs for what we can store for this time of year. What we we will be adding snowpack this week, which will help. What we're going to have to look for down the road is you want a bigger snowpack that will be able to runoff and recharge the reservoirs in the spring and early summer. That has yet to be determined. I think it will it happens to some degree farther south in this year, but up north here, we probably want to see more of a snowpack in terms of water supply. But as far as what we can store, we're pretty much going to be there by early next week. OK, so looking at then long term forecasts as far as, you know, the models are showing you, what can you say in terms of being hopeful or maybe maybe just taking a look at what the forecast holds with regard to getting the weather cold enough to getting the kind of temperatures that we need at the right elevations to bring us the kind of snowpack that we need. What are the models saying? Well, we can look out what about a about a week at the end of the future and week to 10 days and looking out, they do look to be a little cooler systems next week, not not, you know, for real low elevation snow, but sort of mid level. So that'll help. But it's really a question of what comes after that in terms of for the rest of January, February or kind of the main snowpack building months. So those are what we're going to have to watch to see how the overall water supply picture will evolve. But this what we're having so far is really helpful. This is the best we've seen in some time in years for water supply. OK, and obviously, there are people who are going to be seeing this. They're going to be watching the news. They're going to be reading the paper, listening to the radio, looking at their phones about the weather that's headed this way, especially coming into this weekend. What should people know? What should they do from a weather point of view? In terms of preparation? Sure. Well, the big, yeah, the big heads up is that Friday during the day at least should be dry. So everyone should really try to utilize that day to prepare for this heavy rain event that will be happening Saturday through Monday. So some of the things we're suggesting are simple, such as clearing out your gutters and nearby storm drains, because we definitely expect ponding of water and flooded roadways. If you live near a small stream or river, keep in mind that those levels are definitely going to rise quickly over this weekend. Other preparedness tips? So for folks who are traveling, especially in the mountain roads like you all know, we've had rain and snow, but because the soils are so saturated and we're looking at such high rainfall amounts on the Sunday through Monday timeframe, not only are rock and debris flow is going to be increased, but it's not just going to be the burn scars, it's going to be any higher terrain that is susceptible to rock and mudslides during rain events. Those are going to increase. So we definitely recommend that you take a look at the Caltrans quick map and check the road conditions. And keep in mind, there could also be a lot of power outages across parts of California. And if there's a lot of water, it may be difficult for the utility companies to get around and restore power quickly. So I always tell my friends and neighbors to be prepared for at least a couple of days of not having power. So have some extra food that is Irish and make sure you have lots of extra blankets to stay warm. Absolutely. Listen, great advice. We appreciate it. Are there any final thoughts before we let you go and get back to your work today? We've been coordinating with all of our neighbors, the Department of Water Resources, the Flood Operations Center, the California Nevada River Forecast Center, and all the forecasters at the Weather Service will be here 24 seven monitoring the any flooding that does develop and the forecast that go into those flooding models. We also want to remind folks that we are anticipating quite a bit of urban flooding. So always remember, turn around, don't drown. You don't know what is under that water. So we want to keep you safe and especially at nighttime people take for granted that the road is still there and it might not be. So just remember, turn around, don't drown and stay safe out there. Absolutely. And of course, if they want the latest information, they can keep an eye on the social media from both the National Weather Service, DWR, Cal OES. We want to thank Michelle Mead and Brooke and Alan from National Weather Service as well as Liz Bryson from DWR. Thank you so much for chatting with us and giving us some great information, some great advice, stay safe as well. And we'll keep an eye on the weather just like you folks.


Well, I don't believe that there is a hell So why don't you come with me to where I practice religion? I have no interest in religion I don't believe in God.  I Don't believe that there is a hell in the first place Hey Christians, let's give a little context when we're sharing the gospel Just going up to somebody or a friend or family member and saying you're going to hell if you don't believe in Jesus It doesn't bring them to Christ because they don't understand why why are you why would I be going to hell? And it turns them off to the gospel message Equally if you go up to somebody and say Jesus loves you and leave it at that you're not giving proper context Why does Jesus love me? Does that mean I got to change anything about my life? Well like great Okay, I'm just gonna carry on with the rest of my life. The first approach produces Hostility towards God the second approach produces apathy, but in order for it to make sense to somebody We need to give them the full picture the good news God created us in his image the bad news We've all rebelled against God and severed that relationship with him and are all deserving of his punishment because of it And the good news Jesus came to save us from our sins to take the punishment that we deserve for our sins against God On himself He rose again on the third day and we ought to believe in him today as our savior trust in Jesus follow for more Christ centered content


My name is Cindy Baxter. I have been chasing deniers for 25 years and I am the author of Exxon Secrets where we reveal funding of the denial campaign by ExxonMobil. In the early days we used to see every day there would be a press conference organised by the International Chamber of Commerce and the Global Climate Coalition, where they would just hold press conference after press conference denying the science of climate change with Richard Linsen, with Fred Singer and a whole bunch of those old guys. They've been around since their very early days. And who were the groups who were behind them? It was the Global Climate Coalition and the International Chamber of Commerce, but the Global Climate Coalition in those days was just all the big oil, fossil fuel companies, big oil, big coal, big car companies and all of that. They were the whole lot swung in behind the Global Climate Coalition. And later on Shell and BP were the first ones to leave and then so many others left due to public pressure that they transformed themselves into an association of associations. But then they closed their doors after Kyoto, after the US didn't sign Kyoto, so they said their job was done. So Exxon was one of the members of the Global Climate Coalition? Exxon was a very active member, especially in the latter years, Exxon and Mobil. They were both very active members of that. And so since then you've continued to follow Exxon's funding of Denial's group? That's right. Well when Bush walked away from Kyoto, everybody went Exxon. And so that's when we really started to look into Exxon a lot more. And it was during those years that we decided to set up a website to track, to show people Exxon's funding.  And it was really difficult to get on the phone and talk to somebody and say, Fred Singer is related to this think tank and that think tank and this think tank and they're all funded by ExxonMobil. So we developed a website that showed that whole pattern of the one scientist with all these different think tanks that they were associated with and the funding that they all got from Exxon. So that's when it really kicked off. And actually that's when a lot of climate scientists started to get angry because they realised that they thought they were having a scientific debate but they realised that actually it was very politicised and that the fossil fuel industry was behind a lot of the denial that they were fighting on a daily basis. So the scientific community was starting to become aware. What about the general public? The general public, not so much in those days. I mean the idea was actually to get the journalists to actually acknowledge the fossil fuel funding and I don't know, it was around early 2000s that we managed to get some newspapers to say every time they quoted one of the deniers that they would say they were industry funded and that was a huge breakthrough. That's when it really started getting going when they started talking about they were being industry funded and it took a long time before they decided not to cover them at all. Could you talk about what kind of money is involved with Exxon? How much money have they funded to denialist groups? Well, from what we know, from Exxon's own 990 documents which they have to file with the Indian Revenue Department in the US 30.9 million was spent on 49 different think tanks that were funding Climate Denial from 1998 to 2014. Now obviously there was money going into them before 98. Mobile was a really big funder of those guys and Exxon was certainly funding them way before we sort of picked up the Exxon mobile after the merger. And what other ways were Exxon trying to involve I guess the political process or the IPCC process? Not so much the IPCC process although in 2001 Exxon's lobbyist Brian Flannery was trying to get the words human enhanced to remove from the text of the final SPM. This was the third assessment report? Third assessment report, yeah, the third assessment report. But in the rest of it, Exxon was along with all these other companies in the GCC they ran a really effective campaign against Kyoto. Their line was it's not global and it won't work. And so they really, Lee Raymond who was the CEO of Exxon from 93 to 2005 he was at the forefront of this with the American Petroleum Institute and they were really pushing the idea that what about China? What about China? And they said you know in so many years time and ten years time China is going to be a bigger emitter than the US. But of course China at that point was not the biggest emitter it was nowhere near the biggest emitter and the US was. And so they basically sort of set up this whole blame China thing blame China in the future, blame China now as China's emissions started going up. And China of course they knew that China was not going to act and start stopping emissions, cutting emissions until the US did until they took that responsibility. And here in the talks it's commonly known as CBDR common differentiated responsibilities which in the convention the industrialized countries agreed to go first. But then sort of in the by the mid 90s it was all like what about China? And that blame China line came from the oil industry and I believe we traced it back it actually came from Exxon. Could you reflect on the significance of your research into Exxon funding given this latest series of articles from LA Times and inside climate news about what Exxon knew? Well I think you know what Exxon knew I think you know we always knew that they had very good climate scientists in the IPCC process. And I always used to look at his name and think well hold on there's an Exxon funded scientist but everyone I talked to said no no he's straight up he's a good climate scientist and he was very good you know and he's still publishing he published with people like Bert Boleyn. And so we sort of knew that Exxon was doing proper science and I know that Exxon says now that the science the proper science that they were doing that they were always transparent about it they weren't. But then what I think the most important thing about what Exxon knew is what Exxon did next. And that was the funding of the absolute denial of of climate science and the funding of these huge campaigns against the climate science. And I think you know there was there was a 98 there was a memo that was published it was an API memo and it was basically a record of a meeting in which Exxon was at and the southern company but plus a number of think tanks that Exxon was funding. And that was that I don't know if we'd never knew if it got carried out because it got leaked but essentially it was the campaign against Kyoto and US signing of Kyoto and the whole premise was to place uncertainty in the minds of the public and the minds of the media and victory would be achieved when Kyoto was seen as an outlier. What's your comment on Exxon's response to the inside climate news article facing the emphasis on all the positive scientific research and really downplaying the meeting? Well exactly Exxon's doing a complete straw man look over here you know that's exactly what they're doing there they're just completely avoiding the conversation about denial I've seen Exxon's talking points and they're sticking to them rigorously and it's all about of course we did proper science of course we did and that's not the point and some people are getting that but others are taking it you know on on board and saying yeah well they did do proper climate science but that's when you but that's not looking at what Exxon did and you know in Exxon's also we've seen recently they've been going after inside climate news and sort of trying to say trying to allege that the inside climate news is a sort of as a nonprofit funded organization with a particular point of view so they've been really trying to shoot the messenger and point everybody in a completely different direction but you know we've been getting the message out that Exxon what Exxon did was fund climate denial centre of the climate denial campaign the other defence that Exxon has is that the funding that they supplied to these conservative groups wasn't necessarily the climate denial it was for possibly other purposes well no but we know that's not true because we've seen their 90s and we've seen their documents where they have to list the funding and there was a couple of years where they actually slipped up and really sort of noted in the public funding of their list of who they were funding you know they would say it was their climate campaigns climate energy research, climate education fund and there was one year where we saw that they did very little in their public document but then we got the 990 and they really listed out in that 990 what it was for and it was for their climate change campaigns it was very clear they said it themselves could you tell us the story about your investigation into Willie Soon's links with fossil fuel companies well yeah Willie Soon was, he was we started looking into him because there was I mean he was always, he was from the George C. Marshall Institute which is the next unfunded organisation and his cohort Sally Balliunas who was also at the Smithsonian Institute so we started looking into the funding of these guys and the Smithsonian was, you know in the US you get the very open, transparent freedom of information law so we applied to the Smithsonian to get a list of the funding that Willie Soon had received and we found that from 2001 to the present day Willie Soon has been funded to the tune of 1.25 million from fossil fuel, only fossil fuel interests and he's only been funded by them and one of his pay has been funded by those guys since 2001 so we can see that but he was funded by the American Petroleum Institute and others all the way back to the beginning of his career in the early 90s he's been linked up with those fossil fuel funders since for his entire career and what is the correspondence between him and the fossil fuel companies that describe how do they characterise the research that he's providing Well that was very interesting because we then went back and got a second lot of Could you talk about how you, how did you get hold of that information and then we'll do it We then went back and got a second lot of freedom of information request, we actually asked for the correspondence between him and his funders and that's where it became really interesting because some of the deliverables that he listed were to give evidence based on his research to the house of on the hill to the house of congress and to the senate committees and it was very clear between the conversations between him and his funders that he was there to confuse the science Willie Soones big thing has been the sun climate connection which has been totally proved to be wrong, there is the connection the graphs go in different directions so you can see that he was plotting with those companies to actually obfuscate the science and he was also with those companies it was very much, it was a very collegial discussion, you could see that they were quite friendly and oh look I'm doing some more stuff can you give me some more funding and it was all very friendly because you know, hi, there was a point at which suddenly Exxon didn't give him any more money and that was in a very interesting email that one and also the other thing that Willie Soones did was he was part of this paper in 2007 which said that global warming wasn't happening, the Arctic wasn't melting and polar bears were going to be fine and that was money from Exxon, the Koch Brothers and the American Petroleum Institute Could you talk about this latest revelation where two Greenpeace investigators had went under cover and posing as fossil fuel companies? Well that was very, yeah, exactly I mean the Greenpeace investigation has really revealed what we've thought has been happening a lot of the time, there's one particular scientist called William Happer and he's been he's given so much evidence on the hill in Washington, he's given so much climate-denying evidence and he's basically what we've Greenpeace set up a sting I guess you could call it pretended to be a fossil fuel company and asked him if he and others would write papers and not disclose, challenging the link between coal and climate change and pro-CO2 scientific papers but not disclose his funding and he was agreeing to do that Another person in this investigation was William O'Keeffe which he has a long history he was head of the Global Climate Coalition he then was at the American Petroleum Institute he was at the George C. Marshall Institute he's another person who's been at the center of this there's emails in there showing him coaching encouraging these guys to apply to the Donors Trust which is a dark money foundation which we know, well we strongly suspect gets lots of fossil fuel money to try and hide it's a laundering process so nobody actually knows where the money's coming from so he was very much encouraging a lot of these scientists to go and get money from there The Donors Trust is like the dark money ATM I think probably as a result of the campaigning that us and a lot of others have done like on the Koch Brothers and Exxon funding these funders were like no longer willing to Exxon willing to show their faces and actually be mailed for funding these people and so the Donors Trust was set up it's only been going for a few years to funnel that money, to launder that money through to these denial campaigns and so there's millions and millions have come from this trust for example Mark Morano and his Climate Depot which is associated with the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow they call themselves CFACT he got four million to set up this trust from the Donors Trust to set up Climate Depot that's what we think it wasn't because we don't actually have the details of it but it's a very suspicious couple of different foundations that are laundering process So what role does these kind of investigations and do civil society groups like Greenpeace play in the effort to reduce emissions? Well essentially I mean the moment you say I mean the US is or I mean I think the most obvious example is the US and the US is failure to come on board with Kyoto the US is failure to act on climate change until very recently and so that's had the world's biggest emitter for a very long time it's failure to actually do to act on climate change is direct result of this climate denial because the US media, the US public have been very much in doubt as to whether the science is real all that sort of stuff essentially why, what happened is that if there's funding of these right wing think tanks and these neoliberal think tanks the rest of their agenda is a very right wing agenda it's like less taxes, small government all that sort of neoliberal agenda so what they've done is they politicised climate science so it's almost like left and right now you know if you're on the Republican in the US these days you don't accept the science of climate change you don't believe in it it's actually had a huge effect on US legislation it's why the US has not been able to act and I mean look at the presidential campaigns today there's not one single Republican candidate who accepts the science of climate change so yeah it's had a huge... so I think in exposing that we're starting to shift the public we're certainly starting to shift the media in the US but there's still a long way to go what role does resources like Skeptical Science have in having communicated with scientists to respond to the misinformation? Well Skeptical Science is great because it actually can give you and give a lot of media some understanding of the reality behind the science and the ridiculousness of the claims that these deniers have been making and I think it's played a fantastic role and when people don't understand it and especially journalists they go to SkepticalScience.com and they can actually get the full truth about what these deniers are saying and there's also the 97% consensus which has been absolutely huge it's tweeted by Obama it's been absolutely huge and actually convincing people because it's one of those facts that people see they say oh okay 97% of scientists agree with this people don't want to be in the 3% so I think it's had a huge impact as well So we're only a couple of days away from the end of COP how do you think it's going and what should you expect from the last week? Everything is open we still don't know we're hoping to get agreement that we should keep warming to 1.5 degrees as someone said yesterday if the world whether we can actually get to 1.5 we can limit warming to 1.5 it's going to be very very difficult if you aim for 1.5 we might at least keep warming below 2 and that's the most important thing that's the most important thing in play here because if you look at 1.5 to do that you need full decarbonisation by mid-century of our energy system and also you need to get the if you have less warming then less finance is going to be there for adaptation and finance is a huge issue here there's going to be less compensation that has to be paid for the liability for the loss and damage that countries and people are suffering that they can't adapt to so it's right at the centre of all of this we're stuck on finance, we're stuck on loss and damage the US is worried there's anything about compensation and liability but as one of the small island state ministers said the other day if we don't have that much warming you won't have to pay so much so why don't you get on and cut emissions but what we've also seen is very much sort of a push by the oil producers, the Saudis absolutely rolling out anything, blocking everything and also big coal coal countries like India blocking with their coal companies all behind them and everything blocking progress and that's you can see the influence of the fossil fuel industry coming through and people ask me I've worked on climate change for so long they ask me what would you do to stop climate change Cindy and I say full words separate oil and state and that's it if you break that influence between the fossil fuel industry and governments you'll actually get movement because the people want it people want to see it work


We're now going to take a look at some of the integrals that we use in fluid mechanics and we'll begin with the line integral. And so what we'll do, we'll begin by defining some arbitrary vector field A and we'll also define a curve and the curve is where we're going to be doing the line integral on so we'll call this curve C and we'll say the curve is going in space from A to B and along that curve we will have some differential element ds and there will be a vector in the direction of ds. I'll put a unit vector in and over this differential element let's assume that the vector, our vector field A is this. So it has some value over that small differential element and let's write ds in terms of a vector so ds written in vector form would then be the scalar value multiplied by the unit vector that we set in the direction n. So let's assume that we're wanting to evaluate the line integral from A to B along curve C and so for evaluating this what I'm going to do in the integral I'm going to put a C showing that we're integrating along a curve and we're going from A to B and we would have our vector A and the way that we do this is we use our dot product. That would give us the vector component along the direction ds and that is the way that we evaluate a line integral. Now it turns out sometimes in fluid mechanics you'll want to evaluate one of these line integrals with a closed curve so where the curve closes upon itself and you might do that for example if you're looking at quantifying the circulation about an airfoil you can measure the velocity field integrated along a closed curve that would tell you the bound circulation on that particular airfoil but if C is closed so we might have a curve that looks like this and then I'm going to draw the differential element here ds and that is a vector and again we have our vector A so if the curve is closed the way that we do this in fluid mechanics is we will close the sign in the integral it's no longer a C and we'll put a little arrow on that and that arrow would indicate the direction with which going around the curve is being viewed as being positive so that is an integral around a curve and again to evaluate it is just the dot product of our vector field that we're interested in and ds and so by convention quite often in fluid mechanics what we will do is we say counter clockwise is positive and if you have a hard time remembering that imagine yourself walking around the curve so here you are you're walking along imagine that you're walking in the area the area that you're integrating around is always to your left and so that's an easy way to remember or just remember counter clockwise is positive okay so that's the line integral that's one that we use typically for evaluating circulation but there can be other things you might look at in fluid mechanics.