The tools to fight climate disaster, the NBA postseason is here: 5 Things podcast
On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast: The tools to fight climate disaster
National correspondent Elizabeth Weise is back to outline what humanity can do to reverse course. Plus, the mayor of Mariupol, Ukraine says 10,000 civilians have been killed there amid Russia's invasion, reporter Cady Stanton talks about exhibits increasingly showcasing the LGBTQ community, the Labor Department will give its latest inflation outlook and the NBA postseason is here.
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Hit play on the player above to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript below. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
Taylor Wilson:
Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson and this is 5 Things you need to know Tuesday, the 12th of April 2022. Today, a glass half full look at fighting climate disaster. Plus the latest glance at inflation and more.
Here are some of the top headlines:
- The U.S. has ordered non-emergency government staff to leave Shanghai. China's largest city is under a tight lockdown amid a COVID 19 surge in recent weeks.
- Gunmen have killed a family of eight outside Mexico city, including four children. A motive is still not clear.
- And President Joe Biden has announced new federal regulations targeting so-called ghost guns. The rules will go after privately made firearms that can be assembled from do-it-yourself kits. The weapons lack serial numbers, making it hard to trace the owner.
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Last week's United Nations climate report painted a dark picture. If humanity does not act now to stop greenhouse gas emissions the planet could warm as much as three degrees celsius. National Correspondent Elizabeth Weise, told us on the show last week that at those temperatures major cities will be underwater, unprecedented heat waves will define summers, terrifying storms will become more frequent, and millions of plant and animal species will go extinct. But there is a sliver of hope.
Elizabeth Weise:
Yeah, so that climate change report is pretty depressing. I mean, you got to admit, they're basically saying if we don't act now we're going to reach three degrees celsius. And a lot of really bad things happen if the climate warms three degrees celsius, and we don't want those things to happen. And they happen within the lifetime of our grandkids, some of them.
But as I was talking to the scientists and to the climate experts, they all, every single one of them, stopped and said something that really struck me, which is, we know we have the... If you ever watch The Six Million Dollar Man, "We have the technology." We know how to do this. Fifteen years ago, even a dozen years ago, we could not have shifted to wind power or solar power because it was too expensive. I mean, it was just ruinously expensive, but those prices, it is so cheap now. Wind power is down 72%. Solar is 90% cheaper than it was in 2009, so we could make this shift tomorrow. And that's what each of the scientists that I spoke with said. We can solve this problem, we're just choosing not to. It's not that any miracle of science has to happen. It's not that there has to be a technological breakthrough. At this point it's political. And as the Secretary General of the UN said, it's not even really political. It's that there are corporations and people who are making a lot of money off of the current situation and they are pushing hard to make sure that we don't change it as quickly as we need to. It's very clear that we're going to get there just because carbon neutral energy is cheaper now, but it's now this race, we have to get there quickly. We can't take all the time in the world.
One thing I think people don't realize is how quickly this is already happening. Last year, in 2021, 13% of U.S. power generation came from solar and wind energy. And that's a remarkably large number considering that it was down near one a decade ago. And that's happening mostly because it's cheap. And if you want to produce cheap power, that's how you do it. The good news is it's already happening. We just need to speed it up a bit. And the other thing the researchers said is the more we do this, the better we'll get at it, and the cheaper it will get. One of the guys said if you think that solar and wind are cheap now, wait a decade. Wait til we've figured out how to do carbon capture and make it cheap and effective. I mean, America, we have the smartest best engineers and researchers in the world and when they really put their minds to these things, and they've got money behind them to start implementing stuff, things get cheap. And I mean, we can do these things. We have the capability.
Taylor Wilson:
You can find a link to Elizabeth's climate reporting in today's episode description.
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The Mayor of Mariupol, Ukraine says Russian troops killed more than 10,000 civilians over the past six weeks as they've tried to capture the strategic port city. Mayor Vadym Boychenko again accused Russian forces of blocking humanitarian routes in and out of the city, and he gave new allegations of Russian forces bringing mobile cremation equipment there to dispose of victims' bodies. He said they've taken bodies to a shopping center where there are storage facilities and refrigerators.
The issue of dead bodies lying around Ukrainian cities has become increasingly clear in the days since Russian forces pulled back from much of the country before their expected next push in Eastern Ukraine. They've left the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, but the nightmare there continues. Workers are exhuming bodies from a mass grave that was set up in a churchyard. Andriy Feoktistov was hoping to find his brother who was shot and killed.
Taylor Wilson translating for Andriy Feoktistov:
"After he was killed he was left there for three days, then we brought him to the morgue. We had to put him outside because the morgue was full. And he stayed there outside until he was brought to the massive grave."
Many Western leaders have called the scenes in Bucha and other towns war crimes. And investigations continue into exactly how Russian military killed civilians there. Even though Russia has pulled back many of its ground forces over the past week to resupply, shelling from the air continues. A particularly brutal tactic that has often killed civilians and destroyed residential areas.
Meanwhile, Russia appointed a seasoned general to lead its offensive on the Eastern Donbas region. And a senior U.S. defense official said yesterday that a large Russian convoy is moving toward the Eastern city of Izium, with artillery, aviation and infantry support. More artillery is also being deployed near the city of Donetsk.
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A Gallup poll out last month found that 7.1% of U.S. adults identify as LGBTQ. That's twice the percentage from 2012, just a decade ago when Gallup first measured identity. It's also jumped significantly from last year when the poll showed 5.6% of U.S. adults identify with LGBTQ. And as that number increases, exhibits and archives are showcasing the community's history. Reporter Cady Stanton has more.
Cady Stanton:
So for the article I talked to some organizers at some LGBTQ history and cultural museums in the United States. There's only a handful of them that focus on those specific topics, but they play a really pivotal role for the community because members of the LGBTQ community have faced historical erasure after decades of marginalization and discrimination. So as a result of that, these museums do a really good job of taking data about LGBTQ history that was historically relegated to just organizational and institutional documentation to create a fuller picture of what that history looks like.
In particular, I focused on the upcoming opening of the American LGBTQ+ Museum in New York City. It's not set to open until 2024, but given the high rates of LGBTQ tourism in New York City it's meant to have a really large and wide audience, both for people who are members of the community and for allies. A lot of it focuses on historical events, such as the Stonewall Riots and the Stonewall Rebellion in New York City, but then also just decades and decades of activism, including items like posters and diaries. Given those decades of marginalization, the history looks a little bit different than it does for other communities, which have had their history written out and documented very clearly in textbooks. So it's a little bit nontraditional in how showcase that history, but it gives a really fuller picture of queer culture being able to use those other artifacts.
So there's only one museum that is specific to LGBTQ history and culture in the United States, and that's in San Francisco, the GLBT Archives in San Francisco. But the New York City Museum, which is set to open in 2024 will also expand on that. And then there's also a lot of other museums that aren't so focused on public outreach, but are more archives, so for research. And there's one, the Stonewall Archives, in Florida, and then a couple of other archives in San Francisco. But something I learned researching the article that was very interesting was that a lot of these museums and archives are located in very well populated and urban areas so they haven't historically been incredibly accessible to people in more rural or non-urban areas. So as a result a lot of the archives are also becoming digitized and creating more opportunities to become accessible online and not just in the physical space in the cities.
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The Federal Labor Department will give an updated look at inflation today when the latest consumer price index is released. Last month's CPI report showed 7.9% inflation over the past 12 months, the highest one year increase in decades. And the index out today is expected to show that prices shot up 8.4% from 12 months earlier. That's according to economists surveyed by the data firm FactSet for an Associated Press report. Rising prices have been especially clear at the grocery store. A recent U.S. Department of Agriculture report warned that all food prices are predicted to increase over the next few months.
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The NBA post season is here. The playoffs begin this weekend, but first it's time for the play-in tournament, which tips off tonight. The tournament involves a series of winner- take-all games featuring the teams seeded 7 through 10 in the Eastern and Western conferences. And up for grabs are the final two playoff spots in each. Tonight we'll see both battles of 7 and 8 seeds. First, the Brooklyn Nets host the Cleveland Cavaliers, followed by the Minnesota Timberwolves hosting the Los Angeles Clippers. Then tomorrow the 9 versus 10 games with the Atlanta Hawks hosting the Charlotte Hornets, before the San Antonio Spurs head to New Orleans to take on the Pelicans. The winners of tonight's games advance automatically to the playoffs, while the losers will play the winners of the 9-10 games. Those 9-10 teams will need to win their first match up in the second game to make it in. Once the playoffs get into full swing this weekend, a number of players are expected to return from injury to help their teams try to march to the NBA finals. Paste BN Sports' Jeff Zillgitt fills us in on their impact.
Jeff Zillgitt:
Steph Curry is the one guy I'm really looking at because if we go back, we just got done talking about the MVP race. Well, if we go back to the start of the season through November, early parts of December, Steph Curry was our MVP. I know we don't decide it after two months, but he was playing the best basketball in the league and I think he has the ability to transform that Warriors team just a little bit.
I think Robert Williams of the Boston Celtics is another one. If the Celtics can advance to the point where he's able to return, he's so pivotal to what they do, mainly on the defense end. But when you talk about what he does offensively, he's a player you don't have to run a play for. He is a pick and roll guy. You can just throw the ball up for him. But defensively, when you look at what he does with Marcus smart, that sort of inside-outside defense, the Celtics to make that deep run and to continue being one of the best teams post Christmas, post All-Star break, in the league Robert Williams is going to be a key factor.
Taylor Wilson:
You can watch tonight's games on TNT before tomorrow's action on ESPN. And stay with Paste BN Sports throughout the playoffs for fresh coverage every day.
Thanks for listening to 5 Things. A reminder, you can find us on Spotify, Apple podcasts, your smart speaker device, or wherever you find your audio. Thanks to PJ Elliott for his great work on the show, and I'm back tomorrow with more of 5 Things from Paste BN.