Kevin is joined by Dr. Najib Saliba, Metropolitan Philip, and Samuel Noble to discuss the current crisis in Syria as well as the controversy surrounding the pending attack by the US.

Several business organisations in Northern Ireland have written to Stormont ministers calling for support with their rates bill.

More than a year on, some heads say they still do not know when their Raac-hit schools will be rebuilt.

This study investigates the well-being of healthcare professionals in India, with a specific focus on the detrimental effects of the pandemic on their mental and physical health, including stress, burnout, and fatigue. This research examines the roles played by calling, mindfulness, and compassionate love as essential resources in promoting the well-being of healthcare professionals. Utilising structural equation modelling (SEM), the results reveal a significant cause and effect relationship between calling, mindfulness, and compassionate love and their influence on overall well-being. Furthermore, the study identifies a noteworthy parallel mediation effect, demonstrating that mindfulness and compassionate love serve as mediators in the relationship between calling and well-being. This research offers practitioners invaluable insights into the effective utilisation of mindfulness and compassionate love practices to enhance the overall well-being of healthcare professionals.

Aim/Purpose: This study examined learning during the COVID-19 crisis, as perceived by preservice teachers at the time of their academic studies and their student teaching experience. Background: The COVID-19 crisis is unexpected. On one hand, it disrupted learning in all learning frameworks, on the other, it may create a change in learning characteristics even after the end of the crisis. This study examined the pro-ductive, challenging, and thwarting factors that preservice teachers encountered during their studies and in the course of their student teaching during the COVID-19 period, from the perspective of preservice teachers. Methodology: The study involved 287 students studying at teacher training institutions in Israel. The preservice teachers were studying online, and in addition experienced online teaching of students in schools, guided by their own teacher. The study used a mixed method. The questionnaire included closed and open questions. The data were collected in 2020. Contribution: Identifying the affecting factors may deepen the understanding of online learning/teaching and assist in the optimal implementation of online learning. Findings: Online learning experience. We found that some of the lessons at institutions of higher learning were delivered in the format of online lectures. Many pre-service teachers had difficulty sitting in front of a computer for many hours—“Zoom fatigue.” Preservice teachers who had difficulty self-regulating and self-mobilizing for study, experienced accumulating loads, which caused them feelings of stress and anxiety. The word count indicated that the words that appeared most often were “load” and “stress.” Some preservice teachers wrote that collaborating in forums with others made it easier for them. Some suggested diversifying by digital means, incorporating asynchronous units and illustrative films, and easing up on online lectures, as a substitute for face-to-face lectures. Online teaching experience in schools. The preservice teachers' descriptions show that in lessons taught in the format of lectures and communication of content, there were discipline problems and non-learning. According to the preservice teachers, discipline problems stemmed from difficulties concentrating, physical distance, load, and failure to address the students' difficulties. Recommendations for Practitioners: In choosing schools for student teaching, it is recommended to reach an understanding with the school about the online learning policy and organization. It is important to hold synchronous sessions in small groups of 5 to 10 students. The sessions should focus on the mental wellbeing of the students, and on the acquisition of knowledge and skills. Students should be prepared for participation in asynchronous digital lessons, which should be produced by professionals. It should be remembered that the change of medium from face-to-face to online learning also changes the familiar learning environment for all parties and requires modifying the ways of teaching. Recommendations for Researchers: A change in the learning medium also requires a change in the definition of objectives and goals expected of each party—students, teachers, and parents. All parties must learn to view online learning as a method that enables empowerment and the application of 21st century skills. Impact on Society: Teachers' ability to deploy 21st century skills in an online environment de-pends largely on their experience, knowledge, skills, and attitude toward these skills. Future Research: This study examined the issue from the perspective of preservice teachers. It is recommended to examine it also from the perspective of teachers and students.

Aim/Purpose: Vis-à-vis management of crisis and disaster situations, this paper focuses on important use cases of social media functions, such as information collection & dissemination, disaster event identification & monitoring, collaborative problem-solving mechanism, and decision-making process. With the prolific utilization of disaster-based ontological framework, a strong disambiguation system is realized, which further enhances the searching capabilities of the user request and provides a solution of unambiguous in nature. Background: Even though social media is information-rich, it has created a challenge for deriving a decision in critical crisis-related cases. In order to make the whole process effective and avail quality decision making, sufficiently clear semantics of such information is necessary, which can be supplemented through employing semantic web technologies. Methodology: This paper evolves a disaster ontology-based system availing a framework model for monitoring uses of social media during risk and crisis-related events. The proposed system monitors a discussion thread discovering whether it has reached its peak or decline after its root in the social forum like Twitter. The content in social media can be accessed through two typical ways: Search Application Program Interfaces (APIs) and Streaming APIs. These two kinds of API processes can be used interchangeably. News content may be filtered by time, geographical region, keyword occurrence and availability ratio. With the support of disaster ontology, domain knowledge extraction and comparison against all possible concepts are availed. Besides, the proposed method makes use of SPARQL to disambiguate the query and yield the results which produce high precision. Contribution: The model provides for the collection of crisis-related temporal data and decision making through semantic mapping of entities over concepts in a disaster ontology we developed, thereby disambiguating potential named entities. Results of empirical testing and analysis indicate that the proposed model outperforms similar other models. Findings: Crucial findings of this research lie in three aspects: (1) Twitter streams and conventional news media tend to offer almost similar types of news coverage for a specified event, but the rate of distribution among topics/categories differs. (2) On specific events such as disaster, crisis or any emergency situations, the volume of information that has been accumulated between the two news media stands divergent and filtering the most potential information poses a challenging task. (3) Relational mapping/co-occurrence of terms has been well designed for conventional news media, but due to shortness and sparseness of tweets, there remains a bottleneck for researchers. Recommendations for Practitioners: Though metadata avails collaborative details of news content and it has been conventionally used in many areas like information retrieval, natural language processing, and pattern recognition, there is still a lack of fulfillment in semantic aspects of data. Hence, the pervasive use of ontology is highly suggested that build semantic-oriented metadata for concept-based modeling, information flow searching and knowledge exchange. Recommendation for Researchers: The strong recommendation for researchers is that instead of heavily relying on conventional Information Retrieval (IR) systems, one can focus more on ontology for improving the accuracy rate and thereby reducing ambiguous terms persisting in the result sets. In order to harness the potential information to derive the hidden facts, this research recommends clustering the information from diverse sources rather than pruning a single news source. It is advisable to use a domain ontology to segregate the entities which pose ambiguity over other candidate sets thus strengthening the outcome. Impact on Society: The objective of this research is to provide informative summarization of happenings such as crisis, disaster, emergency and havoc-based situations in the real world. A system is proposed which provides the summarized views of such happenings and corroborates the news by interrelating with one another. Its major task is to monitor the events which are very booming and deemed important from a crowd’s perspective. Future Research: In the future, one shall strive to help to summarize and to visualize the potential information which is ranked high by the model.

Aim/Purpose: This study examines the impact of decision-making, crisis management, and decision-making on sustainability through the mediation of open innovation in the energy sector. Background: Public companies study high-performance practices, requiring overcoming basic obstacles such as financial crises that prevent the adoption and development of sustainability programs. Methodology: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has led to the closure of businesses in Iraq, a survey was distributed. To facilitate responses, free consultations were offered to help complete the questionnaire quickly. Of the 435 questionnaires answered, 397 were used for further analysis. Contribution: The impact of crises that impede the energy sector from adopting sustainable environmental regulations is investigated in this study. Its identification of specific constraints to open innovation leads to the effectiveness of adopting environmentally friendly policies and reaching high levels of sustainable performance. Findings: The impacts of risk-taking, crisis management, and decision-making on sustainability have been explored. Results show that open innovation fully mediates the relationship between the factors of risk-taking, crisis management, decision-making, and sustainability. Recommendations for Practitioners: The proposed model can be used by practitioners to develop and improve sustainable innovation practices and achieve superior performance. Recommendation for Researchers: Researchers are recommended to conduct in-depth studies of the phenomenon based on theoretical and empirical foundations, especially in light of the relationship between crisis management, decision-making, and risk-taking and their impact on sustainability based on linear and non-compensatory relationships. Impact on Society: This study provides a reference for organizations with similar cultural backgrounds in adopting sustainable practices to minimize pollution in the Iraqi context. Future Research: A more in-depth study can be performed using a larger sample, which not only includes the energy industry but also other industries.

Over the past decade, the terms "crisis" and "crisis management" have become increasingly popular topics of interest for business professionals and management academics alike. According to the Institute for Crisis Management (2013), "Newsworthy business crises have been on a steady upward trend since 2009.

Chancellor Scholz’s three-party coalition government has fallen apart

Published on behalf of SAP Concur. Are companies relieved of their duty to care for the wellbeing of their employees during this lockdown period? Angelique Montalto, Regional Sales Director at SAP Concur, clarified the situation: “Organisations owe it to their employees...

Over 3,500 Balochistan schools are closed due to a teacher shortage, revealing a severe educational crisis.

A combination of images shows the World Health Organisation logo seen near its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland and a test tube labelled "Mpox virus positive". — Reuters/File

The World Health Organisation will convene a meeting of its Emergency Committee on November 22 to...

Jamie Foxx embraces powerful daily mantra following health crisis

Jamie Foxx revealed the daily mantra he lives by after surviving a health scare back in April 2023.

The Oscar winner took to his official Instagram account on Tuesday, November 12, to share his powerful...

Critics of Italy's Piracy Shield are not difficult to find but, with its powerful and influential proponents rarely far away, getting heard is a considerable challenge. Not to mention getting anything done. After calling for the platform's suspension and meeting resistance in the wake of the recent Google Drive blocking blunder, AGCOM board member Elisa Giomi has gone public with a laundry list of concerns. It pulls zero punches.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

In a country where millions go to bed hungry every night, 40% of the total food produced is being wasted annually.

Students wearing face masks walk along a street amid smoggy conditions in Lahore on November 21, 2023. — AFP

RAWALPINDI: As intense smog continues to choke residents across Punjab, the provincial government on Tuesday ordered the closure of public and private schools and a...

JOAQUIM Forn was Catalonia’s interior minister until he was arrested for his role in the October 2017 independence referendum. He has been in jail since.

THE NATIONAL

18th December 2018

Exclusive by GREG RUSSELL

Forn has also been on hunger strike for two weeks, one of four prisoners taking this drastic course of action. Here, he talks about his incarceration, the forthcoming trials and Europe.

What is your view of events such as the continuing refusal of European leaders to take up your cases; and the way Spain is lurching further to the right almost every day?

I am worried that Europe turns its back on the situation we are in. What is happening is a clear violation of civil rights and liberties. In Spain, an involution is happening as a consequence of a weak left that is being dragged by the discourse of the PP (People’s Party) and Ciudadanos (Citizens) and also due to the rise of the extreme right with Vox.

Europe should not be unconnected to this regression and should position itself in defence of our liberties.

The political prisoners have a huge amount of support with daily protests outside Lledoners – does that support give you more strength?

Absolutely. Some of us have been for more than a year in pretrial and preventative detention. First in prison in Madrid and now in Catalunya.

These last few months have been very tough and we have been able to overcome them thanks to the support from our families and the societal mobilisation that there is in Catalunya.

From the prison courtyard we can hear the chants and shouts of support. Without this great support, the situation would have been more difficult to bear.

You have been on hunger strike now for two weeks, are you not worried that this protest can damage you?

We have not imposed a time limit upon ourselves. Our hunger strike aims to denounce the inaction of the Constitutional Court (TC), which has not reviewed our appeals. Some of these were submitted a year ago. The court, who should be the guarantor of our rights, is acting subordinate to political interests and is denying us access to European justice.

What we are enduring in Spain should not only worry independence supporters. Any democrat should react to this arbitrariness. We are clearly worried about the possible consequences to our health. The medical services from jail check us daily. We cannot forget that our trial is starting next month and that we should confront it in the best possible condition, both physical and mentally.

The TC judges have said they will hear you appeals next month (and will hear some cases before then) – do you believe that they will stick to that timetable?

From the moment we started the hunger strike, the TC made some moves. This week, it has started to resolve five of almost 30 appeals that all the defendants have presented.

Next week it will continue to resolve other appeals. It is clear that the TC knows it has not acted according to the law and should face our complaint.

How do you view the world’s response to what is happening in Catalonia?

I would like there to be a bigger awareness of what is happening in Spain. The governments of both PP and PSOE (Spanish Socialist Party) have dismissed dialogue, which is the political way, and have ended up imposing criminal law solutions against the political demands of millions of Catalans.

The fact that in Europe, in the 21st century, we are talking about exiled and imprisoned politicians should worry the European states and citizens. The crisis being lived in Catalunya should speak to all democrats. The debate about liberties is very alive in Europe and the world, so we cannot turn our backs as if this debate does not concern us.

How worrying is the prospect of not receiving a fair trial?

Without a doubt, we are very worried. In any case, I see the trial as an opportunity. We are not in the pretrial proceedings any more, so now the accusations need to be argued with proof.

The prosecution wanted to create the narrative of rebellion and sedition, based on the police reports from the Civil Guard and the National Police. The German courts have compellingly ruled out these crimes. The trial will be broadcast live, with the presence of international observers.

I have not lost faith and I truly think that with the criminal code in hand, the only possible sentence is absolution.

Is there anything else you’d like to say?

I would like to thank the Scottish people for showing their solidarity and support. We have received hundreds of letters and postcards. We cannot answer them all which is why I want to take this opportunity to thank them for their gesture.

???????? Pats play bully ball

The post Tom Brady’s career crisis ???? appeared first on Boston.com.

President Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric ran high in the run up to the US midterm elections. He called the migrant caravan making its way north through Mexico an invasion. He even sent troops to the southern border between the US and Mexico to keep out the migrants. But now that the Democrats are in control of the House of Representatives, President Trump may not have as much power as he used to in executing his immigration policies.

Also: Maria Mendoza and Eusebio Sanchez were deported from the US to Mexico, leaving their four children behind. Now their eldest daughter, Vianney, is looking after her siblings; Jose Antonio Vargas talks about his life in the US as an undocumented immigrant; Terrell Jermaine Starr on the difficulties of being a black reporter in Ukraine; Plus, why some passports are more valuable than others.

(Members of a family reunited through the border wall between Mexico and United States, in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state, Mexico. Credit: Herika Martinez/Getty Images)

If you’re feeling panicked about money in these uncertain times, I want you to hear me on this:  You are not alone. You will be okay. People all across the country are wanting to know how the COVID-19 virus will affect their finances. Here are some of the top questions I’m getting about how to handle money during this trying time. What should I do to protect myself and my family right now? Conserve your financial resources. This means cutting unnecessary spending, like cable television, eating...

One-third of charities have had vacancies on their board for more than a year, the NCVO finds

David Margulies examines how SIAC’s mission is to be the go-to resource for public safety leadership when it comes to the issue of electronic security.

Charlottesville, VA — Coal miners with black lung disease commonly face various mental health issues, including thoughts of suicide, results of a recent study conducted by researchers from the University of Virginia show.

Washington — The opioid epidemic has had a wide-ranging impact on U.S. workers, but employers who support recovery can help, a new policy report states.

Portland, OR — Episodes of agitated student behavior – including verbal abuse of fellow students and teachers, as well as physical acts such as hitting, weaponizing school supplies, and destroying school or student property – may foster a “disrupted learning environment” that puts teachers’ safety and health at risk, according to a recent report from the Oregon Education Association.

Washington — A third of teachers and nearly 2 out of 5 school administrators have experienced verbal harassment or threats of violence from students during the COVID-19 pandemic, results of a recent American Psychological Association survey show.

Dive into how systems integrators can leverage advanced video analytics to enhance retail security and proactively combat the evolving challenges of shoplifting.

Dover, DE — More than half of public school teachers have been the target of verbal aggression or threats by a student in the past three years, according to a recent survey conducted by the Delaware State Education Association.

Washington — The state of workplace safety and health protections in the United States is a “national crisis,” according to Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, which has released its annual report detailing the hazards that workers face every day on the job.

Washington — Health care workers are reporting burnout and poor mental health at levels higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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In May 2024, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released its annual HIV surveillance reports. The new data show a continuation of year-over-year reductions through 2022 in the estimated number of new HIV infections in the United States.1 But disconcerting trends among Latino people — the country’s second-largest racial or ethnic group after […]

The post The U.S. Latino HIV Crisis — Ending an Era of Invisibility was curated by information for practice.

Imagine there's a virus living inside you. This virus is harmless. Most of the time. But then, something causes it to change and it could kill you unless you take one dose of a powerful drug. Now imagine there is a critical shortage of this drug. This is the scary scenario at the heart of the debut novel by Hanover resident and Dartmouth professor Charles Wheelan. It's called The Rationing, but this isn't a book about a disease. It's a political satire about how the United States government handles the unfolding public health crisis. Personalities clash. Political ambitions get in the way of productive discussion. Fake News opportunists muddy the waters and foreign countries take advantage of a vulnerable United States. Charles Wheelan joined NHPR's Peter Biello to talk about his new book.

Two strong earthquakes measuring 5.9 and 6.8 on the Richter scale surprised the Cuban population on Sunday.

The recent flare-up of conflict in the Middle East, particularly triggered by the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran by a suspected Israeli airstrike, represents not only a humanitarian and political crisis but also a looming energy crisis ahead. As tensions between Israel, backed by the United States, and Iran, along with its allies like Hezbollah and other Middle Eastern states, intensify, the risks to energy resources and supply routes, both on land and at sea, are becoming increasingly evident. The region's significant oil and gas reserves, crucial to global markets, are now under threat, and any disruption of these supplies could have far-reaching consequences for energy security worldwide. The assassination of Haniyeh, a central figure in Hamas, has ignited a dangerous new phase in the already volatile Middle East. Iran, a key supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah, has found itself at the heart of a growing coalition of Middle Eastern countries rallying against Israel. This development risks drawing the entire region into a broader confrontation, with profound implications not just for regional stability but also for global energy markets.

As student absenteeism reaches record highs in schools across the United States, new research finds that student absences are linked to lower teacher job satisfaction, raising concerns that this may exacerbate growing teacher shortages.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The United States and China, the world's two biggest carbon polluters, agreed to cooperate to curb climate change with urgency, just days before President Joe Biden hosts a virtual summit of world leaders to discuss the issue.

The agreement was reached by U.S. special envoy for climate John Kerry and his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua during two days of talks in Shanghai last week, according to a joint statement.

The two countries "are committed to cooperating with each other and with other countries to tackle the climate crisis, which must be addressed with the seriousness and urgency that it demands," the statement said.

China is the world's biggest carbon emitter, followed by the United States. The two countries pump out nearly half of the fossil fuel fumes that are warming the planet's atmosphere. Their cooperation is key to a success of global efforts to curb climate change, but frayed ties over human rights, trade and China's territorial claims to Taiwan and the South China Sea have been threatening to undermine such efforts.

Meeting with reporters in Seoul on Sunday, Kerry said the language in the statement is "strong" and that the two countries agreed on "critical elements on where we have to go." But the former secretary of state said, "I learned in diplomacy that you don't put your back on the words, you put on actions. We all need to see what happens."

Noting that China is the world's biggest coal user, Kerry said he and Chinese officials had a lot of discussions on how to accelerate a global energy transition. "I have never shied away from expressing our views shared by many, many people that it is imperative to reduce coal, everywhere," he said.

Biden has invited 40 world leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping, to the April 22-23 summit. The U.S. and other countries are expected to announce more ambitious national targets for cutting carbon emissions ahead of or at the meeting, along with pledging financial help for climate efforts by less wealthy nations.

It's unclear how much Kerry's China visit would promote U.S.-China cooperation on climate issues.

While Kerry was still in Shanghai, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng signaled Friday that China is unlikely to make any new pledges at next week's summit.

"For a big country with 1.4 billion people, these goals are not easily delivered," Le said during an interview with The Associated Press in Beijing. "Some countries are asking China to achieve the goals earlier. I am afraid this is not very realistic."

During a video meeting with German and French leaders Friday, Xi said that climate change "should not become a geopolitical chip, a target for attacking other countries or an excuse for trade barriers," the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

On whether Xi would join the summit, Le said "the Chinese side is actively studying the matter."

The joint statement said the two countries "look forward to" next week's summit. Kerry said Sunday that "we very much hope that (Xi) will take part" in the summit but it's up to China to make that decision.

Biden, who has said that fighting global warming is among his highest priorities, had the United States rejoin the historic 2015 Paris climate accord in the first hours of his presidency, undoing the U.S. withdrawal ordered by predecessor Donald Trump.

Major emitters of greenhouse gases are preparing for the next U.N. climate summit taking place in Glasgow, U.K., in November. The summit aims to relaunch global efforts to keep rising global temperatures to below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) as agreed in the Paris accord.

According to the U.S.-China statement, the two countries would enhance "their respective actions and cooperating in multilateral processes, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement."

It said both countries also intend to develop their respective long-term strategies before the Glasgow conference and take "appropriate actions to maximize international investment and finance in support of" the energy transition in developing countries.

Xi announced last year that China would be carbon-neutral by 2060 and aims to reach a peak in its emissions by 2030. In March, China's Communist Party pledged to reduce carbon emissions per unit of economic output by 18% over the next five years, in line with its goal for the previous five-year period. But environmentalists say China needs to do more.

Biden has pledged the U.S. will switch to an emissions-free power sector within 14 years, and have an entirely emissions-free economy by 2050. Kerry is also pushing other nations to commit to carbon neutrality by then.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry tells NPR that the U.S., China and other major emitters aren't doing enough to stem climate change.; Credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images

President Biden is pledging to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50-52% from 2005 levels by 2030.

It's an ambitious goal that requires transforming much of the economy. Renewable energy would need to make up half of the U.S. power supply from roughly 21% currently. Electric cars make up about 2% of sales now — by 2030, at least half, potentially all, new car sales would need to be electric, according to estimates. Many industrial manufacturing facilities would need to use technologies that haven't been developed.

It's part of Biden's effort to get the U.S. on track to reach the goals of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement to keep global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. Former President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the agreement but Biden has formally rejoined.

John Kerry is Biden's special envoy for climate, a position that involves meeting with countries around the world about efforts to stem emissions.

He calls the threat of climate change "existential."

"That means life and death. And the question is, are we behaving as if it is? And the answer is no," Kerry said in an interview on NPR's All Things Considered.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity and includes extended Web-only answers.

Interview Highlights

Is this more a matter of shoot for the moon and if you miss, at least you'll land among the stars?

No, I think it's achievable. And I think that people who've really studied this, analyzed it and thought about it for a long period of time believe it is achievable.

Already the [car] marketplace is moving towards electric. I mean, you know, Joe Biden didn't create the value of Tesla as the most valuable automobile company in the world. The market did that. And the market did it because that's where people are moving.

The scale of change that you're talking about in the timeframe that is required is something we've never seen in human history.

Let me put it to you this way. How many politicians, how many scientists, how many people have stood up and said, "This is existential for us on this planet"? Existential. That means life and death. And the question is, are we behaving as if it is? And the answer is no.

So why are younger generation folks so angry? Why are they standing up and demonstrating and asking adults to accept adult responsibility to move our nations in the right direction? Because the scientists are telling them that. They learn about this in high school and college. They read. They know what's happening. They know we're experiencing the hottest day in human history, the hottest week, the hottest month, the hottest year. And we see the results. Fires, floods, mudslides, drought, crop disruption, ice melting in the Arctic, run the list.

Climate change is still seen as a partisan issue in the U.S., and Republicans could take over Congress next year. A Republican could win the White House in three years. So why should global leaders view this as a reliable commitment from the United States when GOP leaders have not bought in?

For two reasons. No. 1, when Donald Trump was president of the United States and he pulled out of the agreement, 37 governors in the United States, Republican and Democrats alike, stood up and said, "We're still in." And states, those 37 states, have passed renewable portfolio laws. So at the state level, people are moving because they know it's better for their state. It's a safer, better delivery of power to their state, and it's the way it's going to move.

The second part of the answer: Masses of capital, trillions of dollars, are going to move into the energy market, which is the largest market the world has ever seen and going to grow now. Multiple double-digit trillions of dollars of market. And no politician can come along and tell those banks, or those asset managers or those investors or those venture capitalists or the companies, the corporations that are doing this, they know this is where the market's going to be in the future.

If the $2 trillion infrastructure and jobs plan that the president has put forth does not pass the Senate, does this goal to cut emissions in half by 2030 effectively die with the bill?

Well, it doesn't die, but it certainly takes a blow, a serious one. But the companies I've talked about are going to move in this direction no matter what. I mean, if you look at the biggest companies in America, these folks are all pushing to get this done because they know that the world is going to be better off and that their businesses are going to be better off if we do that. This is a real challenge for all of us, and I think people are waking up to it all around the world.

Let me ask you a question. Why do you think 40 heads of state, including President Xi of China, President Putin of Russia, Prime Minister Modi of India, huge populations come together and say, "We have to do this"? Do they know something that some of these opponents of it don't know or aren't willing to admit? I mean, the only leader in the entire world that saw fit to pull out of the Paris agreement was Donald Trump.

But it's so easy to make commitments and we haven't seen countries follow through on those commitments.

This is accurate. They're doing things; they're not doing enough. There are very few countries that are doing enough. Most countries are not. And of the 20 countries that equal 81% of all the emissions, they are the critical ones that have to do more. And we're among them. We are 15% of all the world's emissions. China is 30%. Does China need to do more? Absolutely. All of the 20 need to do more.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.