tv France 24 Mid- Day News LINKTV May 19, 2023 2:30pm-3:01pm PDT
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host: welcome to “global 3000”" timely reminders -- the experiences of hiroshima survivors offer clear warnings in the current age of global conflict. essential and scarce -- drought-ridden california needs innovative solutions to curb its drinking water shortages. and the eco-wise danish island of bornholm wants to go climate neutral -- easier said than done. it's been nearly 80 years since atomic bombs were dropped on
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hiroshima and nagasaki, killing more than 200,000 people in 1945, and more in the years that followed due to radiation exposure. the attacks remain the only instances of nuclear weapons used in warfare. according to estimates by sipri, the international peace research institute, there are about 12,700 nuclear warheads in the world. russia has the most, followed by the u.s. and then, after a gap, china, and a few other countries. russia and north korea keep threatening to use their arsenal. while japan's last survivors tell their tales of the horrors of nuclear attacks.
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reporter: guests are always welcome in toshiko tanaka's home in hiroshima, japan. there's someone visiting her almost every day. this 84-year-old has turned her apartment into a meeting place. today, her guests are in from the u.k. toshiko: hello. my name is toshiko tanaka. i survived the atomic bombing in hiroshima. it wasn't always easy for me to talk about it, but i am going to tell you today. reporter: when toshiko tanaka tells her story, it's not only about the suffering she experienced as a six-year-old, or how her entire world was destroyed within seconds, or how the dead and injured filled the streets. the meeting is also about how she learned to speak about those things. she processed her misery by
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turning it into works of art. the schoolgirl engulfed in a cloud of dust, like she was back then, after the blast. a bit of blue sky that gave her hope. the hiroshima survivor is a popular figure. she's one of the few remaining eyewitnesses. she meets up often with her friend haruki yamaguchi, a 29-year-old woman who wants to preserve toshiko tanaka's memories. she educates her students about peace. toshiko tanaka became a first grader on august 6, 1945. suddenly, she saw an american airplane, then a blinding light. she was two kilometers away from ground zero and suffered terrible burns. toshiko: on the way back home, there were lots of people walking towards me with terrible burns. there were more around this
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area, because there used to be a river here. they crouched down and died. there were bodies everywhere. reporter: toshiko tanaka was six years old when she wandered through a desert of rubble, searching for her family home. she found what was left of it. through some miracle, her mother and her siblings survived. but many of her neighbors, friends, and family were never seen or heard from again. toshiko: telling my story used to be too painful. but i don't want it to be that way anymore. now, i'm able to combine those feelings with hope. reporter: when she was 70, she decided to go public with her stories. her hope was that that humanity would learn from the catastrophe. she first had to understand how important her personal testimonial was for posterity.
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now, she's told her story to people from many different countries around the world and she has stayed in contact with them. toshiko tanaka even has friends in ukraine. nearly 80 years after the bombing of hiroshima, the threat of nuclear weapons has returned. toshiko: we talked during a video call. i said, “there's nothing i can do. i hardly have any money and i don't have any influence.” my friend said, “yes, there is something you can do. you experienced the horror of the atom bomb. talk to the whole world about that.” reporter: there's a monument in hiroshima's peace memorial park. but more must be done to keep the memory alive for a new generation. before the g7 forum meets in hiroshima in may, the city will host a g7 youth forum. toshiko tanaka wants to shake
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things up with a simple message -- anyone can make a contribution to peace. the first step is having friends in other countries. she wants all nuclear weapons to be outlawed. but she's no politician and doesn't want to force her memory on anyone. she captivates the audience with her authentic presentation. >> you said we should make friends around the world. can you give us any tips on how to do that? tanaka: well, all you really need is human warmth. it might surprise some people, but i've actually become friends with the grandson of president truman. he was the president who dropped the bomb. and one of the crew members of the bomber plane came to visit me at home. reporter: she says even putin should visit hiroshima, as should all heads of state. this is the children's memorial in hiroshima's peace park.
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many victims were young children, just like toshiko tanaka was. but stone memorials shouldn't bear the responsibility of remembering them. haruki yamaguchi recorded toshiko tanaka's accounts of her experience. now she can tell her story in an app at the locations that were bombed. toshiko: if i look at things in a sober fashion, my time on earth is very limited at this point. i won't be able to tell my story much longer. but this is one way that i can. reporter: many people can no longer tell their story, so toshiko tanaka does it for them. that's her contribution to peace. host: water is our planet's most valuable resource.
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shortages can be fatal -- we people, for example, can't survive more than three days without water. but pollution, waste, and depletion of natural resources are causing water scarcity, a situation made worse by climate change and population growth. two billion people worldwide have no access to clean drinking water. the u.s. state of california is partly solving its supply problems by recycling. reporter: with historically heavy snowfall and rain since the end of last year, the outlook for california's water supply has drastically changed. but experts agree, it is far too early to consider the record-breaking droughts to be over. it will take more than a single wet year for groundwater levels to substantially improve statewide. used water is still a precious resource. the challenge is to make this drinkable again.
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lance thibodeaux is an environmental engineer, working for terminal island water reclamation plant in the los angeles area. it's part of one of the largest wastewater treatment systems in the world. lance: it's important that we make good use to recycle the wastewater. in addition, southern california doesn't want to have to rely on the other areas like colorado and other areas where some of the water will come from. so, we are trying to be independent and utilize the water that we have to its most optimal level. reporter: it is hard to imagine that this stinking sewage water can be treated and transformed into drinking water in less than 40 hours. safe drinking water is a central concern statewide, as nearly a million californians don't have access. that puts them at an increased risk of cancer, liver, and kidney problems. michael ruiz
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has been in the business since he left high school. as a shift superintendent, he walks us through the process of treating wastewater . michael: we're going to start from the beginning. we have two main sewers that feed the treatment plant. you're going to see the debris actually, what we catch first. we do that so that it doesn't impede the equipment downstream. reporter: so you clean the rough --. michael: we've got to clean those rags and the debris, whatever comes to the sewer. anything that you flush down the toilet, anything that can go down the sink -- food waste, papers, rags -- we even found people have managed to get in the toilet -- like, toys come in. reporter: do you feel a peak, like during a break in the super bowl or something? michael: yes, and thanksgiving we get more grease. yeah, so, you are right. reporter: after the coarsest dirt has
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been removed, a biological cleaning process begins. it's called primary treatment. michael: the primary effluent comes in this way and it feeds these basins and the bacteria come here and feeds on the organics that come in and they start to work. you see the little bubbles that pop up now and then here. and when you see those little bubbles, that's basically the transformation of removing the ammonia out of the system. reporter: these are domes made out of a light rock material with fine pores through which air is pumped into the basins. michael: the micro-organisms like fine bubbles. they can't have big bubbles. that way can absorb the air more readily, they don't have to work as hard. so, you want to make a good environment for the bugs, the bacteria, to survive. you want to keep them happy. because this is the heart of the treatment. we are basically taking what
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nature gives us, we are just making it much quicker. reporter: during every shift, water samples are tested to see how many solids have dropped down. some of these solids which are mainly made of bacteria will be pumped back into the sewer to keep the biological process going. michael: we have kids come here, you know. i like to tell them that the bugs have done a lot of work for us and they come in here and basically, we let them go to sleep, they want to go down and settle, right? and so, what happens when they go into this pump, well, they wake up, and when they wake up, they want to eat. that's what i tell them. so when they go over there, they are hungry, they want to eat again, so basically that's what is happening here. reporter: it is hard to imagine that it only took a couple of hours to change the stinky brown sewage water into this. michael: what that mixture becomes looks
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like this. you see the clarity? reporter: after more filtering and some treatment with chlorine, the water is basically good enough to be sent to rivers or used for agricultural or industrial purposes. but to make it safe to drink, a more advanced process is needed. lance: after the conventional treatment, the water receives advanced treatment that consists of microfiltration, reverse osmosis, and an advanced oxidation process. during the microfiltration, the water is pumped at a high pressure through semi-permeable membranes. this removes the suspended solids and some viruses. then the water gets pumped at an even higher pressure through the reverse osmosis membranes. and then the final step is the advanced oxidation process. in this step, uv light and also sodium hypochlorite are used to create hydroxyl radicals that
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destroy any remaining constituents of emerging concern, and pharmaceuticals. reporter: by the end of 2024, this plant will be utilizing 100% of the wastewater. other plants throughout the city of los angeles will need 10 more years, until 2035, to reach that goal. after less than 40 hours of treatment, sewage is recycled into safe drinking water. just thinking back what i saw a couple of hours ago, and this is how it looks like now, so i will give it a try. perfect. cheers. host: germany's northern neighbor denmark topped last year's global climate protection rankings. partly thanks to its ambitious climate targets. denmark wants to cut its co2
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emissions by 70% by 2030. since early 2022, most of its electricity has come from renewables. the country's sustainable future is already taking shape on the small island of bornholm, in the baltic sea. kiyo: i know it doesn't look like it right now, but this island might be the best island in europe, and even the world. not because of its sandy beaches, or its architecture, or year-round warm weather. it's so cold. but because it's maybe the greenest island in the world. all the energy produced here is renewable. they re-use a lot of their waste. and are reviving their struggling economy by becoming more sustainable. but they are running into a lot of all-too familiar sounding problems. problems that a lot of places around the world are trying to solve right now. so how did they become the greenest island?
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can they keep it up? and what can we all learn from them? the first step was to reduce waste. the common problem with islands is that waste can pile up quickly, and can be expensive to ship out. many islands, especially those with lots of tourists like bali, are heavily polluted with plastic and other trash and burn a lot of it on the island. which used to be similar here, too. people already have to sort their household waste into six categories, and they want to up that to 12. and the waste at the recycling yard is divided into 40 categories to make recycling easier and more efficient. how did people react, basically, when you started making more and more categories? brian: when we started this several years ago, it was not a fight, but people were not angry, but they said, what is that?
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but now it makes good sense that they are supposed to sort the waste and we tell them a lot that it's not waste, it's resources. kiyo: looking beautiful. many businesses on bornholm also recycle their own waste so that it doesn't even have to make its way to the recycling yard. like this fiber, which is left over from producing rapeseed oil. henrik: because it's directly from the farmer, you still have a little bit of waste, leaves and stuff like that, which we are taking away also, and that we are pressing into pellets which we're heating with. it's saving money. so, no need to buy oil or gas or anything. kiyo: in this sustainable hotel, a lot of the furniture is made of wood that would have been thrown away. shower water is reused to flush the toilet. but that doesn't mean bornholm is completely waste-free. some hazardous trash still gets
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landfilled. and about a quarter of the trash gets burned. the goal is to sort the waste so well that nothing has to be burned, at the latest by 2032. that's when this plant will have to shut down because it will be too old. the second step was to start producing their own energy and become less dependent on electricity from elsewhere. islands especially are often dependent on the mainland or even other countries providing them with energy, which can become expensive. up until a few decades ago, bornholm's energy came from almost a 100% fossil fuels. but not anymore. klaus: we have solar panels or photovoltaics, we have a biogas system on bornholm, and of course also wind turbines onshore. kiyo: some of the solar panels were developed especially for bornholm, like these windowpane ones. many businesses send their
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organic waste to a biogas facility where it's turned into energy. most of the remaining electricity and some of the heat on bornholm is produced by burning wood chips. although wood is renewable, burning it is one of the dirtiest ways of producing energy. it emits a lot of co2. that's why bornholm is planning to use less of it. another hitch was the same problem a lot of other places have. klaus: people are very, very fond of where they live. i think we all are. and of course, there's discussion always when you put up wind turbines, you can really see them. kiyo: many islanders were against windmills in their back yard. klaus: therefore, our local politicians actually said, well, our strategy is not to put up more wind turbines onshore, we will put them offshore. kiyo: there certainly is enough wind for wind power. bornholm's harbor is already full of offshore wind turbines, which are going to be installed
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a few kilometers off the coast. and on top of that, they face a well-known problem -- what to do when the wind stops blowing and the sun stops shining. the energy produced in peak times needs to be stored for when none is generated. klaus: we're going to pull up a massive energy storage capacity here on molten salt. kiyo: what is molten salt? klaus: basically, it's salt that we will melt. putting in electricity, surplus electricity from the wind turbines when they're arriving. and then when we need energy, then we just put water into that and create steam and then we produce heat and power. so therefore, we kind of contain a lot of energy for a long period of time, actually. kiyo: how big is it going to be? klaus: it's going to be up to the top floor. so, it's going to fill out this entire room, actually. kiyo: that's huge. it won't be nearly enough to store all the excess energy. but if all goes well, the company building it wants to install more on a bigger scale.
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so the original plan was to run on 100% renewables by 2025. is that going to happen, do you think? klaus: definitely not. definitely not. i think we will be very close in terms of the energy system in bornholm. we have to fix land-based transportation, not only on bornholm. i think that's a problem in germany, in the rest of denmark, or in the rest of the world actually. kiyo: like with this electric charging station, which is not as popular as people would have hoped. there are around 20 charging stations scattered across bornholm, which is not a lot. electric cars are still more expensive than gasoline ones, meaning it's a hard switch to make if you're not the richest of regions. once more of them are on the streets though, bornholm plans to use the car batteries to also store some excess energy, which is already happening on a test basis with these electric cars that are owned by the island's municipality. another big problem is this ferry, because it runs on marine diesel and is very dirty.
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there's some discussion about hydrogen or electric engines which are cleaner, but it's still very early days. change can be slower than wanted, especially if you can't just throw money at a problem. klaus: i strongly believe that all people want to do the right thing and the most green thing, but they have to be able to afford it also at the same time. kiyo: that's why a lot of the efforts here are co-funded by eu or governmental programs. or are set up as experiments that companies collaborate on and invest money into. so of course, all of these efforts don't mean the entire island is super green and super eco-friendly. politics, stalling technologies, and missing funds can get in the way and delay progress. but there's still a lot of things that we can learn from this tiny island experimenting away on the baltic sea. you can't just copy what was done here and paste it anywhere. but you can copy the core idea, which is make sustainability the easiest, most logical, and cheapest way of doing things. and where it isn't the case
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yet, we need incentives, like ramping up taxes on fossil fuels, subsidizing electric transport, or investing in experimental projects like this one. >> i am -- >> a global teen. host: this week, our global teen comes from mexico. emiliano: my name is emiliano kaheri jasso berry and i live in cuernavaca, mexico. i have a younger sister. she's 14 years old and she's in high school. my dad is a lighting designer and my mom is a professor of filmmaking.
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[speaking spanish] when i grow up, i would like to be a director, actor, or movie producer. they didn't have the opportunity to study. their education ended after high school. instead, they had to start working at an early age just to make money to be able to eat. studying is something i now have the privilege of doing. that's something i appreciate, and i am grateful to them for that and all they achieved.
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well, you could say that the big global problems that we currently have are insecurity, lack of education, food, and access to water. gender-based violence is one of the worst problems. but let's put it this way, one of the worst things with the greatest effect, in general, is disinformation. well, in my free time, i really like to play basketball. you could say that it's one of my favorite pastimes. i absolutely love it. i also like to do anything related to film, like watch movies or work on productions. i enjoy doing anything that's connected to that.
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host: and that's all from us at “global 3000” this week. thanks for joining us. write to us at global3000@dw.com, and visit us on facebook, too. see you next time. take care. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]
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from berlin. the forgiven forget, maybe -- to forgive and forgot, maybe not. syria joining the arab nations. the president was welcomed back after a 12-year suspension over the civil war in his country. it is a controversial return. also coming up tonight, another new phase of the arab league summit. volodymyr zelenskyy lobbies for closer ties and calling out those who have turned bl
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