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Novelist and activist Arundhati Roy and 350.org co-founder and author Bill McKibben were both featured in a "60 Minutes" segment that aired Sunday night. (Photo: CBS News/60 Minutes)
Interviewed by CBS's "60 Minutes" for a segment that aired Sunday night, writer-activists Arundhati Roy and Bill McKibben argue that the Covid-19 virus now sweeping the globe has exposed the limits of humanity's ability to negotiate with or control nature's awesome powers--especially now that the geophysical and biological systems of the planet have been so pushed to their limits by human activity and pollution.
"We tend to forget that the physical world still is in charge," said McKibben, author of numerous books on the climate crisis and the co-founder of the global advocacy group 350.org. "I've spent, you know, 30 years trying to get people to understand that physics and chemistry matter. That you can't spin them. They don't negotiate. They're not gonna compromise with you. You have to do what they say."
As noted in the segment--titled "What will be the new normal after the coronavirus pandemic?"--world history is rife with examples of great social upheaval, whether wars or natural disasters or pandemics, leading to surges in human and social advancement. But as Roy points out, so much of what the United States, for example, has been spending its vast resources on turned out to be useless in the face of the Covid-19 outbreak.
"If [the coronavirus] were a war, then nobody would be better prepared than the United States," laments Roy, award-winning novelist and longtime human rights activist, in her interview. "If it were that you needed nuclear missiles or depleted uranium or bunker busters or tanks or submarines or whatever it is, there would be plenty. But there aren't swabs. There aren't gloves. There aren't masks. There isn't medicine."
Both McKibben and Roy argue that there is no reason that life should go back to what it was like before the virus struck.
Asked if the crisis should be seen as an opportunity to do things differently going forward, "what choice does one have," McKibben responded. "I mean, the dumbest thing to do would just be to set up all the pins in the bowling alley one more time exactly the same way," he said.
Instead of returning to the frequent "dystopian" reality of a hyper-polluted world, Roy acknowledges that it is time for humanity to reflect on some of the silver linings the pandemic has provided and ready the battle for a more sustainable and just future.
As Roy wrote in an essay in the Financial Times last month:
Whatever it is, coronavirus has made the mighty kneel and brought the world to a halt like nothing else could. Our minds are still racing back and forth, longing for a return to "normality," trying to stitch our future to our past and refusing to acknowledge the rupture. But the rupture exists. And in the midst of this terrible despair, it offers us a chance to rethink the doomsday machine we have built for ourselves. Nothing could be worse than a return to normality.
Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.
We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.
In his comments, McKibben said that maybe humanity does "still have a window to take a step back" from its addiction to endless economic growth and fossil fuel-driven society. "And if we do, maybe the Earth will meet us halfway," he says.
If the world is able to "flatten the carbon curve" in the same way it is now desperately trying to flatten the curve of the infection rate, he concluded, "then people might look back in 50 years at this time and thank us, you know, instead of curse us. 'Cause those are the two possibilities."
Watch the full segment:
Trump and Musk are on an unconstitutional rampage, aiming for virtually every corner of the federal government. These two right-wing billionaires are targeting nurses, scientists, teachers, daycare providers, judges, veterans, air traffic controllers, and nuclear safety inspectors. No one is safe. The food stamps program, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are next. It’s an unprecedented disaster and a five-alarm fire, but there will be a reckoning. The people did not vote for this. The American people do not want this dystopian hellscape that hides behind claims of “efficiency.” Still, in reality, it is all a giveaway to corporate interests and the libertarian dreams of far-right oligarchs like Musk. Common Dreams is playing a vital role by reporting day and night on this orgy of corruption and greed, as well as what everyday people can do to organize and fight back. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support. |
Interviewed by CBS's "60 Minutes" for a segment that aired Sunday night, writer-activists Arundhati Roy and Bill McKibben argue that the Covid-19 virus now sweeping the globe has exposed the limits of humanity's ability to negotiate with or control nature's awesome powers--especially now that the geophysical and biological systems of the planet have been so pushed to their limits by human activity and pollution.
"We tend to forget that the physical world still is in charge," said McKibben, author of numerous books on the climate crisis and the co-founder of the global advocacy group 350.org. "I've spent, you know, 30 years trying to get people to understand that physics and chemistry matter. That you can't spin them. They don't negotiate. They're not gonna compromise with you. You have to do what they say."
As noted in the segment--titled "What will be the new normal after the coronavirus pandemic?"--world history is rife with examples of great social upheaval, whether wars or natural disasters or pandemics, leading to surges in human and social advancement. But as Roy points out, so much of what the United States, for example, has been spending its vast resources on turned out to be useless in the face of the Covid-19 outbreak.
"If [the coronavirus] were a war, then nobody would be better prepared than the United States," laments Roy, award-winning novelist and longtime human rights activist, in her interview. "If it were that you needed nuclear missiles or depleted uranium or bunker busters or tanks or submarines or whatever it is, there would be plenty. But there aren't swabs. There aren't gloves. There aren't masks. There isn't medicine."
Both McKibben and Roy argue that there is no reason that life should go back to what it was like before the virus struck.
Asked if the crisis should be seen as an opportunity to do things differently going forward, "what choice does one have," McKibben responded. "I mean, the dumbest thing to do would just be to set up all the pins in the bowling alley one more time exactly the same way," he said.
Instead of returning to the frequent "dystopian" reality of a hyper-polluted world, Roy acknowledges that it is time for humanity to reflect on some of the silver linings the pandemic has provided and ready the battle for a more sustainable and just future.
As Roy wrote in an essay in the Financial Times last month:
Whatever it is, coronavirus has made the mighty kneel and brought the world to a halt like nothing else could. Our minds are still racing back and forth, longing for a return to "normality," trying to stitch our future to our past and refusing to acknowledge the rupture. But the rupture exists. And in the midst of this terrible despair, it offers us a chance to rethink the doomsday machine we have built for ourselves. Nothing could be worse than a return to normality.
Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.
We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.
In his comments, McKibben said that maybe humanity does "still have a window to take a step back" from its addiction to endless economic growth and fossil fuel-driven society. "And if we do, maybe the Earth will meet us halfway," he says.
If the world is able to "flatten the carbon curve" in the same way it is now desperately trying to flatten the curve of the infection rate, he concluded, "then people might look back in 50 years at this time and thank us, you know, instead of curse us. 'Cause those are the two possibilities."
Watch the full segment:
Interviewed by CBS's "60 Minutes" for a segment that aired Sunday night, writer-activists Arundhati Roy and Bill McKibben argue that the Covid-19 virus now sweeping the globe has exposed the limits of humanity's ability to negotiate with or control nature's awesome powers--especially now that the geophysical and biological systems of the planet have been so pushed to their limits by human activity and pollution.
"We tend to forget that the physical world still is in charge," said McKibben, author of numerous books on the climate crisis and the co-founder of the global advocacy group 350.org. "I've spent, you know, 30 years trying to get people to understand that physics and chemistry matter. That you can't spin them. They don't negotiate. They're not gonna compromise with you. You have to do what they say."
As noted in the segment--titled "What will be the new normal after the coronavirus pandemic?"--world history is rife with examples of great social upheaval, whether wars or natural disasters or pandemics, leading to surges in human and social advancement. But as Roy points out, so much of what the United States, for example, has been spending its vast resources on turned out to be useless in the face of the Covid-19 outbreak.
"If [the coronavirus] were a war, then nobody would be better prepared than the United States," laments Roy, award-winning novelist and longtime human rights activist, in her interview. "If it were that you needed nuclear missiles or depleted uranium or bunker busters or tanks or submarines or whatever it is, there would be plenty. But there aren't swabs. There aren't gloves. There aren't masks. There isn't medicine."
Both McKibben and Roy argue that there is no reason that life should go back to what it was like before the virus struck.
Asked if the crisis should be seen as an opportunity to do things differently going forward, "what choice does one have," McKibben responded. "I mean, the dumbest thing to do would just be to set up all the pins in the bowling alley one more time exactly the same way," he said.
Instead of returning to the frequent "dystopian" reality of a hyper-polluted world, Roy acknowledges that it is time for humanity to reflect on some of the silver linings the pandemic has provided and ready the battle for a more sustainable and just future.
As Roy wrote in an essay in the Financial Times last month:
Whatever it is, coronavirus has made the mighty kneel and brought the world to a halt like nothing else could. Our minds are still racing back and forth, longing for a return to "normality," trying to stitch our future to our past and refusing to acknowledge the rupture. But the rupture exists. And in the midst of this terrible despair, it offers us a chance to rethink the doomsday machine we have built for ourselves. Nothing could be worse than a return to normality.
Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.
We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.
In his comments, McKibben said that maybe humanity does "still have a window to take a step back" from its addiction to endless economic growth and fossil fuel-driven society. "And if we do, maybe the Earth will meet us halfway," he says.
If the world is able to "flatten the carbon curve" in the same way it is now desperately trying to flatten the curve of the infection rate, he concluded, "then people might look back in 50 years at this time and thank us, you know, instead of curse us. 'Cause those are the two possibilities."
Watch the full segment:
"How the government reacts will tell us so much about how far down the road to autocracy we are," said one lawyer.
A U.S. judge on Friday ordered the return of a Maryland resident who the Trump administration mistakenly deported to a prison in El Salvador last month, according to The Associated Press.
Prior to issuing the ruling, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis called the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia "an illegal act."
The judge, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, gave the Trump administration end of the day of the day on Monday to bring him back to the United States.
Supporters outside the courtroom cheered as the judge handed down her order, according to The Washington Post.
Responding to the ruling on social media, U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said: "This is a big win. Now Trump must comply with the judge's order."
Immigration lawyer Ava Benach wrote: "The right decision. How the government reacts will tell us so much about how far down the road to autocracy we are."
The right decision. How the government reacts will tell us so much about how far down the road to autocracy we are.
[image or embed]
— avabenach.bsky.social (@avabenach.bsky.social) April 4, 2025 at 3:27 PM
Abrego Garcia was among hundreds of people the administration expelled in mid-March to a notorious megaprison in El Salvador after targeting them for alleged gang ties.
In a court papers filed earlier this week in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) acting field office director admitted that the removal of Abrego Garcia on March 15 "was an error."
Abrego Garcia was deported despite the fact that in 2019, a U.S. immigration judge ruled that he could not be deported to his native El Salvador because he would likely face gang persecution there.
"Corporations get let off the hook, Musk gets insider information, and the American people get hosed."
The latest U.S. agency in the crosshairs of billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency is reportedly the Federal Trade Commission, an already-understaffed department tasked with preventing monopolistic practices and shielding consumers from corporate abuses.
Axios reported Friday that at least two DOGE staffers "now have offices at" the FTC. According to The Verge, two DOGE members "were spotted" at the agency's building this week and "are now listed in the FTC's internal directory."
The Verge noted that the FTC is "a fairly lean agency with fewer than 1,200 employees," a number that the Trump administration has already cut into with the firing of some of the department's consumer protection and antitrust staff.
At least two of Musk's companies, Tesla and X, have faced scrutiny in recent years from the FTC, which is now under the leadership of Trump appointee Andrew Ferguson, who previously pledged to roll back former chair Lina Khan's anti-monopoly legacy.
Emily Peterson-Cassin, corporate power director at the Demand Progress Education Fund, which referred to the operatives as Musk's "minions," said Friday that "DOGE is yet again raiding a federal watchdog tasked with protecting working Americans from Wall Street and Big Tech."
"The FTC has worked to stop monopolistic mergers that would have led to higher grocery prices and is now gearing up to go to court against Meta's social media monopoly," said Peterson-Cassin. "It's no surprise that at this moment, while the economy is in freefall and fraud is on the rise, DOGE is choosing to raid the federal watchdog that protects everyday Americans and threatens corporate monopolies and grifters."
News of DOGE staffers' infiltration of the FTC came as Trump's sweeping new tariffs continued to cause global economic turmoil and heightened concerns that companies in the U.S. will use the tariffs as a new excuse to jack up prices and pad their bottom lines.
Ferguson pledged in a social media post Thursday that under his leadership, the FTC "will be watching closely" to ensure companies don't view Trump's tariffs "as a green light for price fixing or any other unlawful behavior."
But Trump has hobbled the agency—and prompted yet another legal fight—by firing its two Democratic commissioners, a move that sparked fury and has already impacted the FTC's ability to pursue cases against large corporations.
Peterson-Cassin said Friday that "the only winners" of DOGE's targeting of the FTC "are Trump's billionaire besties like [Meta CEO] Mark Zuckerberg and especially Musk, who now stands to gain access to confidential financial information about every company ever investigated by the FTC, including the auto manufacturers, aerospace firms, internet providers, tech companies, and banks that directly compete with his own companies."
"Corporations get let off the hook, Musk gets insider information, and the American people get hosed," Peterson-Cassin added.
"The president single-handedly wiped out Americans' retirement savings overnight and subjected businesses to intense whiplash with his increasingly erratic and chaotic policies that continue to drive consumer and business uncertainty."
Alarm over U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs continues to grow, with stocks plummeting and JPMorgan warning that "the risk of recession in the global economy this year is raised to 60%, up from 40%."
After China announced new 34% tariffs on all American goods beginning next week, The Associated Press reported Friday that "the S&P 500 was down 4.8% in afternoon trading, after earlier dropping more than 5%, following its worst day since Covid wrecked the global economy in 2020. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1,719 points, or 4.3%, as of 1:08 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 4.9% lower."
Noting the state of Wall Street this week, Groundwork Collaborative executive director Lindsay Owens declared in a Friday statement that "Trump has officially brought the economy to its knees."
"The president single-handedly wiped out Americans' retirement savings overnight and subjected businesses to intense whiplash with his increasingly erratic and chaotic policies that continue to drive consumer and business uncertainty," she said. "To call this an economic downturn is an understatement; Trump is marching us straight into a depression."
Political and economic observers have been publicly wondering for weeks if Trump is intentionally crashing the economy. Further fueling those fears, he ramped up his trade war on Wednesday by announcing a minimum 10% tariff for imports, with higher levies for dozens of countries. Although he claimed those steeper duties are "reciprocal," his math "horrified" economists and has been called "crazy."
Responding in a Thursday note titled, There Will Be Blood, head of global economic research Bruce Kasman and other experts at JPMorgan wrote that "if sustained, this year's ~22%-point tariff increase would be the largest U.S. tax hike since 1968."
"The effect of this tax hike is likely to be magnified—through retaliation, a slide in U.S. business sentiment, and supply chain disruptions," states the note, which came before China's announcement.
As Bloomberg reported:
Several Wall Street firms on Thursday warned of a U.S. recession, with some making it their base case, after... Trump announced major levies on goods imported from countries around the world. Other economists, including those at JPMorgan, said the hit could be big, though they are taking a wait-and-see approach before revising their projections.
The announcement rocked global financial markets, and the S&P 500 suffered its worst day since 2020. Trump, speaking on Air Force One on Thursday afternoon, said he was open to reducing tariffs if trading partners were able to offer something "phenomenal."
"We are not making immediate changes to our forecasts and want to see the initial implementation and negotiation process that takes hold," the JPMorgan note says. "However, we view the full implementation of announced policies as a substantial macroeconomic shock not currently incorporated in our forecasts. We thus emphasize that these policies, if sustained, would likely push the U.S. and possibly global economy into recession this year."
The team also pointed out that the United States is in potential danger no matter how other countries are ultimately impacted, calling a "scenario where rest of world muddles through a U.S. recession possible but less likely than global downturn."
As Common Dreams reported last week, in anticipation of Trump's tariff announcement, Goldman Sachs published a research note projecting that the odds of a recession in the next year are 35%, up from 20%.
Other financial industry research firms that have recently warned of a possible recession include Barclays, BofA Global Research, Deutsche Bank, RBC Capital Markets, and UBS Global Wealth Management, according to Reuters.
"This is a game-changer, not only for the U.S. economy, but for the global economy. Many countries will likely end up in a recession," Olu Sonola, head of U.S. economic research at Fitch Ratings, said in a late Wednesday note about the levies. "You can throw most forecasts out the door, if this tariff rate stays on for an extended period of time."
Experts have made similar comments to the press in the wake of the president's Rose Garden remarks on Wednesday. Time on Friday shared some from Brian Bethune, a Boston College economics professor:
"[Consumers] are not even going to the grocery store and paying more for vegetables because there's none available from Mexico, or going to Whole Foods, for example, and finding the big sections of fresh fruit are being shut down. They haven't really felt the full impact [yet], and they're already saying something isn't right," Bethune says.
However, while some economists... are more cautious in their discussion about a possible recession, Bethune says it's "inevitable." The question, he says, is just how long until it happens and for how long will it occur? He sees Trump's admission of there being " some pain" on the horizon as only proof of the inevitability.
"At least they [the Trump administration] are not pretending that it's not disruptive, but they're basically soft-selling it, reflecting their ignorance about the way business operates," Bethune claims.
Also on Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the latest U.S. jobs data. Although the unemployment rate rose from 4.1% to 4.2% in March, the economy added 228,000 jobs, which was better than expected.
However, economists warn of what lies ahead. As University of Michican economics professor Betsey Stevenson put it, "Today's jobs report is like looking at your vacation photos after you had a horrible car crash on the way home."