Brexit and the EU, Corn Cob Biochemicals, Syrian Children

Brexit and the EU, Corn Cob Biochemicals, Syrian Children

Top of Mind with Julie Rose

  • Oct 11, 2017 11:00 pm
  • 1:42:33 mins

Brexit and the EU Afterward Guest: Sir Michael Leigh, Senior Fellow, German Marshall Fund of the United States, Former European Union Official Brexit negotiations are finally, in earnest, underway between British officials and the European Union. But they’re hung up early on something. The EU wants to talk about the terms of the breakup – who gets what, who reimburses whom – in the split. Britain doesn’t want to talk about that just yet, it’s more interested in establishing what a relationship will look like after the breakup. What’s Next for the National Monuments? Guest: Robert Keiter, JD, Director of the Wallace Stegner Center for Land, Resources and the Environment, Wallace Stegner Professor of Law, S.J. Quinney College of Law, University of Utah The US Secretary of the Interior – in an internal memo published by the Washington Post – is urging President Trump to shrink the boundaries of several national monuments designated by previous presidents. That includes two very controversial ones in Utah – the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, which was created more than 20 years ago, and the Bears Ears National Monument created just last year. Other national monuments on the list are recommended for changes that would allow mining or commercial fishing. President Trump has not said what he’ll do. The fact is, it’s not entirely clear what he can do where national monuments are concerned.   Corn Cobs Make More Efficient Biochemicals Guest: Basudeb Saha, Associate Director of Research at the Catalysis Center for Energy Innovation, University of Delaware So much of the plastic in our life is made from petroleum, and manufacturers have been trying to replace petroleum with the sugar from plant materials like corn so that our disposable takeout containers and plastic spoons don’t rely on drilling for fossil fuels. But growing all that corn takes lots of fertilizer, and extracting the sugars requires chemicals and lots of water, so are we really protecting the environment with products that are made from plants instead of petroleum?  Stories from The Apple Seed Guest: Sam Payne, Host, The Apple Seed Sam sits down for a chat with storyteller Josh Goforth. Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an Guest: Denise Spellberg, PhD, Professor of History and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Texas at Austin, Author, "Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an: Islam and the Founders" Freedom to practice one’s religion is embedded in America’s Constitution, but not all faiths get the same vote of confidence here. A survey by the Pew Research Center asking Americans how warmly they felt about various religions ranked Islam dead last. Atheists, Mormons, Hindus, Buddhists, Evangelicals, Catholics and Jews all get a warmer reception than Muslims in American public opinion. And nearly half of US adults surveyed believe there is a natural conflict between Islam and democracy.  But, research done by University of Texas at Austin historian Denise Spellberg shows the founding fathers – and Thomas Jefferson, in particular – were thinking of Islam, right along with other faiths – when they enshrined the freedom to worship in our Constitution Cries from Syria Guest: Evgeny Afineevsky, Documentary Filmmaker, “Cries from Syria” A report by UNICEF earlier this year concluded that children have paid the heaviest price in the Syrian Civil War, now in its sixth year. Thousands have been killed. Nearly two million inside Syria are out of school, because their schools have been destroyed and because schools have been repeatedly attacked during the war.  UNICEF says nearly six million children in Syria now depend on humanitarian aid – food, shelter, medicine – for survival. Almost half of them have been forced to flee their homes and are now living as refugees in conditions only slightly better than the danger they left behind.  It’s a tragic situation, which filmmaker Evgeny Afineevsky witnessed personally in making his HBO documentary “Cries from Syria.”

Episode Segments

What's Next for the National Monuments?

31m

Guest: Robert Keiter, JD, Director of the Wallace Stegner Center for Land, Resources and the Environment, Wallace Stegner Professor of Law, S.J. Quinney College of Law, University of Utah The US Secretary of the Interior – in an internal memo published by the Washington Post – is urging President Trump to shrink the boundaries of several national monuments designated by previous presidents. That includes two very controversial ones in Utah – the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, which was created more than 20 years ago, and the Bears Ears National Monument created just last year. Other national monuments on the list are recommended for changes that would allow mining or commercial fishing. President Trump has not said what he’ll do. The fact is, it’s not entirely clear what he can do where national monuments are concerned.

Guest: Robert Keiter, JD, Director of the Wallace Stegner Center for Land, Resources and the Environment, Wallace Stegner Professor of Law, S.J. Quinney College of Law, University of Utah The US Secretary of the Interior – in an internal memo published by the Washington Post – is urging President Trump to shrink the boundaries of several national monuments designated by previous presidents. That includes two very controversial ones in Utah – the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, which was created more than 20 years ago, and the Bears Ears National Monument created just last year. Other national monuments on the list are recommended for changes that would allow mining or commercial fishing. President Trump has not said what he’ll do. The fact is, it’s not entirely clear what he can do where national monuments are concerned.

Cries from Syria

24m

Guest: Evgeny Afineevsky, Documentary Filmmaker, “Cries from Syria” A report by UNICEF earlier this year concluded that children have paid the heaviest price in the Syrian Civil War, now in its sixth year. Thousands have been killed. Nearly two million inside Syria are out of school, because their schools have been destroyed and because schools have been repeatedly attacked during the war.  UNICEF says nearly six million children in Syria now depend on humanitarian aid – food, shelter, medicine – for survival. Almost half of them have been forced to flee their homes and are now living as refugees in conditions only slightly better than the danger they left behind.  It’s a tragic situation, which filmmaker Evgeny Afineevsky witnessed personally in making his HBO documentary “Cries from Syria.”

Guest: Evgeny Afineevsky, Documentary Filmmaker, “Cries from Syria” A report by UNICEF earlier this year concluded that children have paid the heaviest price in the Syrian Civil War, now in its sixth year. Thousands have been killed. Nearly two million inside Syria are out of school, because their schools have been destroyed and because schools have been repeatedly attacked during the war.  UNICEF says nearly six million children in Syria now depend on humanitarian aid – food, shelter, medicine – for survival. Almost half of them have been forced to flee their homes and are now living as refugees in conditions only slightly better than the danger they left behind.  It’s a tragic situation, which filmmaker Evgeny Afineevsky witnessed personally in making his HBO documentary “Cries from Syria.”