New Climate Activism

We are living in strange times indeed. The world is more unpredictable than ever, as political power is personalized by leaders, and politics create more problems than they resolve. In this podcast, CNN's Fareed Zakaria looks back at a week when Defense Secretary Mattis resigned upon a struggle with Trump over Syria. He discusses with the President of the Council of Foreign Relations, the veteran pundit, Richard Haass, Trump's decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria and decrease troop levels in Afghanistan.

Haass describes Trump as a "radical" who does not believe in the post-Second World War order. Haass also points out that it is futile to expect Trump to change and "grow into presidency" as it was widely expected when he first became President. He underlines that the White House is more understaffed than ever and the President is not even making use of the available staff.

Zakaria questions the following in this podcast: Do we focus too much on the negative? Or is the world really that scary? He debates this query with Niall Ferguson, senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and Steven Pinker, psychology professor at Harvard University.

But the highlight of Zakaria's program is an interview with Greta Thunberg; a 15-year-old climate activist from Sweden. You might know her by now with her straightforward attitude, basically stating that if we do not do something about climate change, we are all going to be facing hell on earth. Thunberg has Asperger's Syndrome, hence her direct manner of expression. The girl has something to teach to all of us. She initiated a protest by not going to school on Fridays to draw attention to climate change, and she caught the attention of students all around the world initiating similar protests.

Thunberg talks to Zakaria about her speech at the UN climate change conference, her protest at the Swedish parliament, and what she is planning to do going forward.