The World and Everything in It: December 22, 2022

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning!

A recent test shows promising improvements in fusion energy. Will it live up to expectations?

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: Also a change in Japan’s security strategy in light of the growing threat from North Korea and China.

Plus the Capitol Christmas Tree came from Asheville, North Carolina. We sent one of our reporters to cover the journey.

And Cal Thomas with a Christmas reflection.

BROWN: It’s Thursday, December 22nd. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

BUTLER: And I’m Paul Butler. Good morning!

BROWN: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Zelenskyy in Washington » History at the Capitol last night

CONGRESS: Madam Speaker, the president of Ukraine...

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed a joint meeting of Congress in his first trip outside of Ukraine since Russia invaded in February.

He told lawmakers that relentless Russian attacks on civilian targets have not and will not break the spirit of the Ukrainian people.

ZELENKSYY: If they attack us with Iranian drones and our people will have to go to bomb shelters on Christmas Eve, Ukrainians will still sit down at the holiday table and cheer up each other.

And he said every Ukrainian has one wish this Christmas…

ZELENSKYY: Victory. Only victory!

Ukraine assistance » Hours earlier, Zelenskyy met with President Biden at the White House.

During a joint press conference, Biden officially announced a new aid package to Ukraine, nearly $2 billion in weapons and equipment.

BIDEN: Critically, in addition to these new capabilities, like precision aerial munitions, the package will include a Patriot missile battery, which we’ll train Ukrainian forces to operate.

Both presidents said the Patriot system will significantly upgrade Ukraine’s air defenses.

Putin remarks » Meantime, in Moscow, Vladimir Putin sought to justify the invasion of Ukraine.

PUTIN: [Russian]

He said, "Of course, military operations are always associated with tragedy and loss of life.” But he claimed the conflict was inevitable, adding, it's better today than tomorrow."

During a meeting with military commanders, Putin said Russia is still ramping up its military capabilities, including the combat readiness of its nuclear forces.

He highlighted the new Zircon hypersonic cruise missile, which he said Russian troops will be able to use beginning next month.

Taliban women's rights crackdown » Afghanistan's Taliban rulers on Tuesday banned female students from attending universities. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has that story.

KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: When the Taliban again seized control of the country last year, the group initially promised a more moderate stance—by its standards—regarding women’s rights.

But instead, they banned girls from middle school and high school. They banned women from parks and gyms and restricted them from most employment.

Now comes word that women can no longer attend college classes. The higher education minister has instructed universities to implement the ban as soon as possible.

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Weather » Severe winter weather is greeting holiday travelers this week.

The blast of frigid weather began hammering the Pacific Northwest Tuesday. And tomorrow, the arctic front will spread bone-chilling cold as far south as Florida.

The heaviest snow is expected in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, but Bob Orevec with the National Weather Service says…

OREVEC: We do anticipate a potential for a foot to 2 feet of snow across a good part of Michigan, portions of New York states, any areas that are downwind of the Great Lakes.

Authorities across the country are worried about the potential for power outages and warned people to take precautions to protect the elderly, the homeless and livestock.

Denver Mayor Michael Hancock says his city is trying to help residents without warm housing. But he said an influx of migrants into the city has stretched resources thin and he’s not alone.

HANCOCK: I have talked to no less than 10 mayors this week who are raising the red flag saying we are at a breaking point.

The northernmost regions of the U.S. could see wind chills approaching 70 degrees below zero.

Home sales drop again » The housing market slump deepened in November. Sales of existing homes slowed for the tenth straight month.

Existing home sales fell 7.7% last month from October to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of just over 4 million. And sales plunged 35% from this time last year.

Still, the national median home sales price rose 3.5% in November from a year earlier, to $370,000.

I’m Kent Covington. Still ahead: Japan shifts its national security strategy in light of the growing threat from North Korea and China.

This is The World and Everything in It.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: It’s Thursday the 22nd of December, 2022.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Paul Butler.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. First up on The World and Everything in It: clean energy.

The U.S. Department of Energy announced a breakthrough in fusion technology last week. For the first time ever, a fusion reaction produced more energy than it took to start it. Some scientists think fusion could be the next step toward cleaner and more sustainable energy. WORLD’s Mary Muncy has the story.

MARY MUNCY, REPORTER: In a lab in Livermore, California, physicists pointed lasers at a small, round capsule. They’d been doing this experiment for months—tweaking small things each time.

CASEY: My name is Daniel Thomas Casey, and I'm an experimental physicist working at the NIF here at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Casey was a part of a group of physicists trying to recreate the chemical process that happens in the sun on Earth.

CASEY: What we do is we take isotopes of hydrogen, and we effectively push them together. And in doing so that process releases energy, the isotopes combine together and create helium.

The theory is that in the sun, isotopes are constantly swirling and being pushed together and the energy that’s released when they’re pushed together is what makes our sun burn.

The problem is our sun burns hotter than nearly anything on Earth while creating immense gravitational pressure.

On earth, we can’t recreate that gravitational pressure. So instead we heat these isotopes up, say, about ten times hotter than the center of the sun.

CASEY: So basically, you've got this hollow capsule, you put a ton of energy into this can and it causes the capsule to crush and implode.

Livermore laboratory fired 192 lasers at a target about the size of a thumb. Inside that target is a BB sized capsule. The goal was to crush that BB down to the size of a human hair—forcing the isotopes together—otherwise known as a fusion reaction.

Fusion is actually not that difficult to accomplish. The hard part is creating more energy from the reaction than it took to start it.

CASEY: So we are in a race where we have to make enough fusion energy to outrun those losses. And last week, December 5, Monday, last week, about 1am, we won the race, we made more fusion energy in an experiment for the first time in the laboratory than laser energy we put on the target.

The breakthrough was a culmination of 60 years of research.

U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.

GRANHOLM: Simply put this one of the most impressive scientific feats of the 21st century [Applause]

The fusion reaction produced about 3.15 mega-joules of energy, compared to the 2.15 mega-joules of energy it took to produce it. In itself, that’s not that much energy. It might be enough to boil a pot of water. But the amount of power? That’s what’s interesting.

CASEY: At that moment, it was just for a fraction of a second, but it was more power than all of the sunlight on the surface of the earth.

Power is just energy as a function of time. The amount of energy produced in that fraction of a second was incredible for that amount of time.

But to make that energy useful, that reaction would have to be repeated multiple times a second.

Right now, we don’t have the technology to make it work, but scientists have plans.

ITER AD: Welcome to ITER, one of the world’s most ambitious scientific projects ever invented.

ITER is a joint project between 35 countries to create sustainable fusion energy. The project is a giant Tokamak.

The main component of a Tokamak is a donut-shaped chamber called a vacuum vessel.

An ITER employee explains.

TOKAMAK: The ITER Vacuum vessel is where we will inject the hydrogen gas and heat it to become a plasma so that we can create fusion energy at 150 million degrees Celsius.

The idea is that the plasma will act like the center of the sun and swirl isotopes around creating fusion energy. Then the tokamak will store this energy and turn it into electricity to power the world.

As you might expect, heating things hotter than the sun has some complications.

WARRICK: My name is Chris Warick I’m the head of communications for the atomic energy authority.

In a fusion tutorial, Warrick explained several major challenges to creating fusion energy. The first was the fusion reaction itself, but that’s been proven at least possible, if not yet sustainable.

Another challenge is that the plasma is extremely hot—again, hotter than the sun—and needs something to contain it. Warrick is talking about a particular tokamak named JET.

WARRICK: In the case of burning plasma, we require that to burn potentially continuously but certainly many hours at a time, and if we contrast that with what JET can do. Jet can only operate for 30 to 40 seconds, maybe a minute at most.

Another concern is that the fuel needed may not be as readily available as hoped and that we don’t have the technology to capture the energy once we create it.

The idea that fusion could power the world is still far off. But the breakthrough is a wonder.

Here’s Casey with Livermore labs again.

CASEY: In, you know, the early 1900s, the Wright Brothers showed that a, an airplane could carry people, you know, that airplane did not look a whole lot like the passenger jets of today. But at that moment, we knew what was possible.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: Up next: Japan reverses course on its passive military strategy.

In a major break from its strictly self-defense-only postwar principle, Japan has adopted a new national security approach.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Japan will now reserve the right to strike preemptively in a region with growing threats like North Korea and China.

WORLD’s Mary Reichard recently spoke with Dean Cheng—an expert on Asian geopolitics and military concerns. And she’s here now with that conversation!

MARY REICHARD: Dean, first of all, give us some background here on Japan’s defense-only policy. When and why did that policy come about?

CHENG:With the end of World War II, the United States, and obviously the rest of the allies, basically occupied Japan and Germany. And in the case of Japan, the U.S. was a dominant power. And Douglas MacArthur, as head of the occupation forces, basically helped draft the new Japanese constitution. And prominent in that constitution was what is now referred to as Article IX, which basically says that Japan gives up the right to wage war as an instrument of national policy. At the time, in 1945, through the first few years after the end of World War II, there was even a hope that Japan would be totally disarmed. But then the Korean War broke out. And so what happened after that was the creation of what is now known as the Self Defense Forces. And that's a very important term. The Japanese will correct you if you talk about today's Japanese army, they will say no, it's the Japanese Ground Self Defense Forces. And that goes back to Article IX. The idea is that the military in Japan, the Self Defense Forces, only exist for self-defense purposes. But in today's world with growing cyber threats, missile threats, and the like, there is also recognition that self-defense really probably can't only begin after the enemy has struck the homeland. And this change is recognized that while Japan still technically does not accept war as an instrument of national power, it has to evolve with the realities of technology and politics.

REICHARD: How do China’s threats against Taiwan affect Japan?

CHENG: When the Japanese look at their strategic neighborhood, one of the key things is that a China that controls Taiwan is a China that will then pose a distinct threat to Japan's sea lanes of communications. Japan is dependent on imports for its energy. I believe it is also dependent on imports for food. It certainly is dependent on the seas to export goods. And in World War II, a good part of the victory was earned by U.S. submarine commanders who sank Japan's merchant fleet. So a China that controls Taiwan is a China that would pose a threat to today's Japanese sea lanes and therefore the home islands.

REICHARD: So, what does this policy shift accomplish?

CHENG: So what this basically is saying is several things: one, that Japan with one of the larger defense budgets, although it only spends 1%, a little over 1% of GDP on defense—it's aiming to expand that 2% and 2% of what is the third or fourth largest economy in the world is actually a lot of money—that Japan is going to be prepared to better defend itself in a neighborhood where China has nuclear weapons, North Korea has nuclear weapons, South Korea is now talking about obtaining nuclear weapons, where China has the largest military in the world, with increasingly sophisticated systems and a growing reach. And a North Korea that has fired ICBMs over the Japanese home islands.

REICHARD: Let’s talk about another regional threat, North Korea. How big of a role did Pyongyang’s weapons program play in convincing Japan to change course and how will Japan work to counter potential threats from North Korea?

CHENG: North Korea is obviously a very, very difficult country to predict. It is almost hermetically sealed, even now. It has a leadership whose workings are quite a mystery. What little we do know about Kim Jong Un is that he can act in a remarkably bloodthirsty manner. He had his own uncle executed. And this is a leadership that has been willing to literally allow its own population to starve while pursuing nuclear weapons. So this is not a government that you can treat with confidence. It is a country that has openly kidnapped Japanese citizens and it has fired missiles over the home islands and made very threatening comments about Japan. So I think the Japanese, when they improve their military, qualitatively, when they expand the range of capabilities and policies, are not only talking about China, but even more in some ways, about North Korea because in some ways North Korea is even more unpredictable.

REICHARD: Dean, how close is the military cooperation between the United States and Japan?

CHENG: The Japanese, under the Constitution and under the policies put down by the occupation forces, basically have no allies other than the United States. No formal alliances. The U.S.-Japan mutual security treaty basically committed to U.S. to help defend Japan. A key part of this is that it eliminates the need for Japan to develop its own nuclear capability, which again, would be a huge problem under Article IX, we have extended a nuclear umbrella over Japan. And basically hope that that is enough to deter a North Korean or Chinese attack. The Japanese, however, are with some reason concerned about the United States because of our unpredictability over the last, say, 10 years and have begun to establish separate defense ties—not quite full alliances—with nations like Australia, India, and other countries to basically ensure that there are other great powers who will come to the aid of Japan in the event of conflict.

REICHARD: One final question: some people may not realize that two key U.S. allies in the region, South Korea and Japan, have had somewhat strained relations for a long time. Why is that? And would those countries come to one another’s defense if the need arises?

CHENG: These two countries have—to borrow a loan from Facebook—it's complicated. Their relationship is colored by the reality of Japanese aggression against the Korean Peninsula dating back to the 1500s. It dates back as well to the period of Japanese colonialism at the end of the 19th century and through the 20th century. So there's a lot of bitterness on the part of Koreans—both North and South towards Japan, the colonial occupiers. This has been exacerbated by outstanding geographic disputes. The two are in dispute over an island. The Japanese refer to it as Takeshima. The Koreans refer to it as Dokdo. This is an unresolved issue. So there's a lot of concerns, a lot of bitterness, frankly. Would the two come to each other's assistance? There is no alliance between South Korea and Japan. There are key U.S. bases in Japan that would be important to the defense of South Korea. But whether each country would, in addition, put their own forces on the line is unclear at best.

REICHARD: We’ve been talking to Dean Cheng. He is a Senior Fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. Dean, really informative. Thanks so much!

CHENG: Thank you for having me.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: Well, the Grinch just seems to keep popping up this Christmas. We told you recently about the Grinch in the Florida Keys passing out onions to speeding motorists.

Well, 2,000 miles away in Arizona, the Grinch was apparently a passenger in a vehicle— the only passenger in a car caught driving in the high occupancy vehicle—or HOV lane.

It turned out to be an inflatable Grinch, which apparently, under Arizona law, is not the kind of passenger that allows you to legally drive in the HOV lane.

The Department of Public Safety tweeted that it pulled over the car in Avondale after noticing a “Seusspicious-looking 'passenger.”

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, December 22nd. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: And I’m Paul Butler. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: The Capitol Christmas Tree.

Every year since 1970, the U.S. Department of Agriculture chooses a different national forest to provide the Christmas tree for the Capitol lawn. This year the tree is affectionately known as “Ruby,” a nickname based on the red spruce’s scientific designation.

BROWN: Ruby’s roots are from the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina’s Pisgah Forest. WORLD’s Lillian Hamman is here to tell us about the tree’s long journey to get from there to the Capitol.

AUDIO: [FIRE CRACKLING, PEOPLE TALKING, SAW]

LILLIAN HAMMAN, REPORTER: It’s a cold November morning up in the mountain evergreens of Pisgah Forest. It’s called America’s Cradle of Forestry, because this is where Biltmore Forest School, the first forestry school in America, was established. Rangers in green felt uniforms, government representatives with polished shoes, journalists angling cameras, and members of the eastern band of Cherokee Indians all keep warm with fresh coffee and donuts around a crackling fire.

RODNEY SMITH:  I'm just excited because this is the date we've been talking about the whole time. We've been watching the weather since last Wednesday. They did make the decision to go and so yeah

For most of us, getting a Christmas tree only takes a few hours at most. We dig it out of storage in the attic. Buy it from Home Depot or the Boy Scout lot around the corner.

Ruby played a little harder to get.

A team of workers from across the Pisgah and Nantahala Forests started hunting last December. There are many possible trees to choose from in the one-million acre forest, but after a thorough search, they found the perfect one.

RACHAEL DICKSON: We went out in teams looking for trees that met the criteria that the architect of the Capitol laid out for us—65 to 80 feet tall, beautiful conical shape, no bald spots, really full crown, that sort of thing.

Rachael Dickson is the Pisgah zone silviculturist. That’s a special type of forester who prescribes treatments for improving the health and resiliency of a forest. Dickson didn’t look for trees from a distance. She got up close and personal.

RACHAEL DICKSON: We climbed each individual tree to ensure that the Carolina and Oregon flying squirrel didn't have any Dreyse or cavity nests in the trees before we were able to make that selection.

Where the tree is located is an important factor in the search. The higher the elevation, the more piney and “Christmas looking” the needles on the tree. Roots next to a stream bank ensure good hydration and the least amount of ecological disruption when removed. Easy access to a road means a helicopter won’t have to pull the tree out.

Finally, by July, the crews had selected eight to ten trees as finalists. And Ruby beat ‘em all.

AUDIO: [TRUCK/CRANE]

Now on harvest day, a crane lifts Rachael Dickson to the top of Ruby for one last climb. She dangles from a metal cable, slowly rising 78 feet in the air.

LILLIAN: Oh my goodness

TK: Look at the little ears on the helmet

LILLIAN HAMMAN: oh my gosh

JUDY DINELLE: Now there's women in construction right there.

Dickson secures the crane cables to Ruby’s trunk. They’ll support it once it’s cut all the way through. Then Dickson slowly rappells back down to the ground. As she goes, she collects a few more cones for seeds and looks for any new critters who might have moved in. 

AUDIO: [SAWS RUMBLING]

When her feet touch the ground again, two sawyers stand ready to cut.

Rodney Smith and Matt Eldridge don neon orange chainsaw chaps, cut resistant shirts, and head gear for protection. They’ve cut trees Ruby’s size before. But Smith says never this style of cut.

AUDIO: [SAWS]

RODNEY SMITH: It'll be about a 45 degree angle V that I'll go in and harvest down about a little over halfway through the tree.

AUDIO: [HAMMERING]

SMITH: And then…Matt Eldridge…he'll set some wedges for me. And then I'll come to the other side of the tree and cut in about half of that distance remaining. We'll set one more wedge just to keep the tree from moving. And that's when I'll make sure Matt's ready. They'll make sure the crane’s ready, and then I'll make the final cut. And I'll let them know that I'm releasing the tree.

AUDIO: [SAWS, CHEERING]

In less than ten minutes, Ruby’s floating in the air through flakes of sawdust and the smell of pine. The crane lowers her onto an eighty foot long semi-truck bed where she’s fastened in for a fourteen day tour across North Carolina—from the mountains to the sea.

RACHAEL DICKSON: Seeing her get harvested was a pretty big impact it's kind of an emotional day, because I've spent more time with Ruby than I probably have any other tree… it's definitely a once in a career opportunity…

Following Ruby on tour are 84 companion trees donated by North Carolina farms. They’re for military families and veterans at Joint Base Andrews.

After the Christmas season, Ruby’s wood will be turned into banjos and guitars, and her branches will dress the Capitol lawn as mulch. Ruby also raises awareness for restoration of the red spruce ecosystem. Decades of unsustainable logging and wildfires have left the species endangered.

RACHAEL DICKSON: We're harvesting one tree, but this one tree represents, like, thousands of trees that we'll be able to plant back into the forest.

For now, Ruby stands proudly decorated on Capitol Hill with thousands of ornaments hand-made by North Carolinians. A lighting ceremony at the end of November kicked off the nation’s Christmas season.

CAPITOL LIGHTING: And now we’re going to do the countdown for the lighting of this marvelous tree. You ready? Let's start with 5…

With the flip of a switch, Ruby’s journey came to an end.

CAPITOL LIGHTING: [5, 4, 3, 2, 1…cheering] [“Oh Christmas Tree”]

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Lillian Hamman in Asheville, North Carolina.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: Today is Thursday, December 22nd. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Paul Butler.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. We’re headed into the home stretch–the final busy days before Christmas. Commentator Cal Thomas now with a classic story on the most important way we can prepare for the holiday.

CAL THOMAS, COMMENTATOR: Back in the day when television was in black and white, there was a show called The Millionaire. The storyline was about a very rich man named John Barsford Tipton, who gifted $1 million tax free to people he chose. An aide named Michael Anthony delivered the checks to the always surprised recipients of his generosity.

Some years ago, Pastor D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, turned the story of Mr. Tifton into a modern parable. What follows is a summary of that parable.

Two Europeans who had received the million dollar checks traveled to America to see if they could find anyone here who had also received the gift. When they landed at New York Harbor and began walking down an avenue, they were astounded that everyone seemed to be celebrating Tifton Day. People shouted Merry Tifton to each other. There were Tifton cards and Tifton sale signs in shop windows. The visitors were more than surprised. They eventually walked into a Tifton cocktail party and asked several people if they had received the million dollars. No one knew what they were talking about.

They met a man named Mr. Usurper who said he thought the holiday was about a fat man in a red suit, whose sleigh was led by reindeer. Another said he thought the purpose of Tifton Day was contained in a black book written long ago, and that the book was about how to become rich or something like that. Nobody believed what it was in the book in our sophisticated modern times, he said. But it was fun to celebrate the day anyway.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. And when no one answered, the door opened and there was a descendant of Michael Anthony. He tried to get their attention because he wanted to deliver a gift to someone at the noisy party. But when no one would listen, he left. No one would receive the gift.

Have you received the gift, which is worth far more than a million dollars? Or has that gift been crowded out by the noise and distractions of Tifton parties attended by people who have refused the gift? Merry Tifton to them. Happy Christmas to those who have received the gift Jesus offers. He too stands at the door and knocks. Will you open it?

I'm Cal Thomas.

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: Tomorrow: Our weekly conversation with John Stonestreet on Culture Friday.

Plus, our staff reviews some classic Christmas movies.

And the last Music of Advent from Around the World, this time music from Canada.

That and more tomorrow.

I’m Paul Butler.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

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Go now in grace and peace.

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