Former Diplomat Strobe Talbott: Global Governance and Climate Change

Host Marcia Franklin talks with Strobe Talbott, a former journalist and diplomat who was the president of the Brookings Institution from 2002 to 2017. Talbott, who wrote for Time magazine for more than 20 years, has also penned a dozen books.

Franklin and Talbott talk about his passion for the subject of global warming, and whether the issue is still on the political radar for politicians and the public. His book, Fast Forward: Ethics and Politics in the Age of Global Warming, suggests political and societal solutions for reversing climate change.

The two also discuss his views on global governance, about which he writes in The Great Experiment: The Story of Ancient Empires, Modern States, and the Quest for a Global Nation. Talbott also sits on North American Executive Committee of the Trilateral Commission. The two discuss some Americans' fears of a "One World government."

Talbott, who was Deputy Secretary of State under President Bill Clinton, specialized in working with the new independent states of the Soviet Union. He talks with Franklin about a scandal in which Russian spies were found to have been living in the United States for many years. The two also discuss Brookings Mountain West, an offshoot of the Brookings Institution in Las Vegas, which examines public policy issues pertaining to the Intermountain West.

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Originally Aired: 12/16/2010

The interview is part of Dialogue's series, "Conversations from the Sun Valley Writers' Conference," and was taped at the 2010 conference. Since 1995, the conference has been bringing together some of the world's most well-known and illuminating authors to discuss literature and life.