2010-09-01T13:28:06.094-07:00

Radio Ecoshock Show September 3rd, 2010GO STRAIGHT TO THE TRANSCRIPT, with lots of links and downloads.[Radio show starts with a clip from "Fire" by Arthur Brown, 1968][plus news radio clips...]Welcome back to Radio Ecoshock. Thanks to the 22 college and community stations that carry this show - and Green 960 AM and online, in San Francisco.And you downloaders and podcast subscribers! You amaze me. I don't keep close track of statistics, but I happened to check downloads of the Radio Ecoshock program for June. These shows come from a dedicated server (ecoshock.net) - so I know how many one hour shows, past and present, are carted away by hungry ears.The total in June alone? Over 31,000 downloads. From all over the world.It's my privilege to report for you. Find out listing of all our 2010 programs, with links to every program from the past 5 years, here. It’s all free mp3’s. Load up your computer or IPOD. I claim no copyright on my work – so go ahead and share these programs with people who need to hear them.---------In the Summer of 2010, the world witnessed more signs of climatic instability on a grand scale. The Arctic Ice again retreated to near-record levels. In the United States, new heat records were set in many states. In fact, 17 different countries set all-time heat records this past Summer, from Latin America through Africa and the Middle East to Russia.In Pakistan, floods beyond imagination created the world's largest humanitarian disaster.But the harbinger, messenger from the future, took the Russian people into uncharted Hell. Moscow, at the latitude of Alaska, boiled in the weather of Cairo, while gasping smoky air equivalent to two packs a day of cigarettes, for every man, woman and child.Russian leaders, who bragged global warming would be good for that Northern country, got a taste of the coming century.Scientists are still debating whether the abnormal heat, drought, and fires in Russia were caused by climate change. But we know for certain: this is the future, in the coming century, as temperatures climb, as the greenhouse atmosphere thickens with the exhaust of our fossil civilization.Let us see what we can learn. About how people and governments act under stress. About our vulnerabilities. About our chances of survival.In the radio show, we go straight to Moscow, talking with Vladimir Tchouprov of Greenpeace Russia. He's got news that never made the mainstream news.That is followed by more analysis from Dmitry Orlov, author of "Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet Example and American Prospects." Dmitry has been scanning the Russian language press and blog, while talking with people inside and outside the country. Dmitry has some suggestions for survival.Are you interested in your food supplies? We squeeze in a clip from a press conference with Lester Brown, on the Russian grain export ban, and the impact of climate on world food stocks.Can we even comprehend these grand events, these warning signs?I'm Alex Smith, and let's get started.[READ MORE with all the links - plus 15 lessons from the Russian disaster.][...]

2010-06-30T21:21:30.890-07:00

Go straight to Show transcript, with all the links.

Mainstream media carefully dances with the government, as they release the bad news in the Gulf of Mexico, one little bit at a time. For almost two months, we have heard the chorus: the only sure way to fix this oil volcano is through a relief well. All those other methods were really burning time, but no worries, the ultimate solution is coming in early to mid-August. Everything is going well, according to BP and all their talking heads.

Deep down in the blogosphere, a fellow writing as "dougR" at theoildrum.com, and as SHR at godlikeproductions.com - wrote a detailed explanation of why the relief wells may not work at all. His argument centered around tiny clips and insinuations that all was not as it seemed.

Several knowledgeable writers at theoildrum, some of them oil drillers themselves, didn't like dougR's theory, and noted his lack of solid data or sources.

But now, we find just a few mainstream news stations preparing us for this very scenario. The relief wells may not work. On June 28th, 2010 the New York Times published an article by Henry Fountain. The title "BP Discussing a Backup Strategy to Plug Well".

BP says they are just planning a backup, even if it is never needed. They would install some kind of undersea pipeline system, to divert the leaking oil to an existing oil platform, miles away.

The New York Times finds experts who acknowledge the lower well casing could be so damaged that the relief wells may not work. An anonymous technician working on the relief project says the lower pipe may have, quote "been enlarged by the high-pressure flow of oil over the past two months."

What a surprise! Exactly the theory proposed by dougR. In my Radio Ecoshock blog I have a link to a 2 hour long podcast conference with dougR, a.k.a. SHR done by Godlike Productions. Or just search theoildrum.com for dougR - and be prepared for a barrel load of controversy.

Yet the bad news of no relief keeps leaking out like the oil. Here is ex-President Bill Clinton talking with Wolf Blitzer on a CNN news program associated with Fortune magazine. Clinton suggests the well may have to be blown up, because the relief wells may not work. What does he know, that we don't?

But first, let's go straight to an interview with scientist John Kessler, just back from a research mission at Ground Zero where the Deepwater Horizon drill ship sank. Kessler is using this eruption of methane, thought to be 40% of what comes out of that BP pipe in the Gulf - as an example of what might have happened when the Earth went into a killer hot zone 55 million years ago. Will methane emissions from the Gulf disaster change our climate? We find out, from a scientist who knows.

READ LOTS MORE ABOUT THIS SHOW, WITH TONS OF USEFUL LINKS….

2010-06-23T19:49:59.521-07:00

GO straight to the Full Transcript with links now.Coast to Coast AM covers the Gulf:RICHARD C. HOAGLAND: "Gas explosion, 50 miles off Louisiana, that you can imagine. Think Mount St. Helens, underwater. What that would do is create a cloud of incredible toxic material, which would then drift with the winds over the shore, where there are millions of people..."GEORGE NOORY: "What about a tsunami?"R. Hoagland: "The next step is you would get a tsunami."Oh please. And some of this garbage went out over hundreds of stations on Coast to Coast AM. Other radio programs promised millions will die, when "the Gulf volcano" blows up.It gets worse. I expect this to triumph on You tube. But the whole story, based on un-named geologists, inside government sources, and, wait for it, aliens, was reworked by DK Matai - and reposted on sites that should know better, like the Huffington Post. Really. Listen to the Hoagland interview, and then read Matai - it looks like a paraphrase to me - and neither cites any sources we can check.As far as I can tell, the original source for these Gulf terror stories is Richard C. Hoagland, who explained it all on the George Noory Show. The same theory was remade by Dr. Bill Deagle, on Bill Ryan's Project Avalon show. And what do all these people have in common?DR. BILL DEAGLE: "This is being driven by trans-dimensional super-beings, the Gods of the ancient world, the same ones like Apollo, Appoleon - there's a whole list of the names. And I can actually give you the names. If people want to know they can go back to James Wier's Book of Demonology, 1535. They are sequestered in the Vatican Library if people are listening that know about this..."- Dr. Bill Deagle, talking to Bill Ryan on the Project Avalon podcast June 16, 2010. Deagle's explanation of the coming Gulf explosion and tsunami are so close to that given first by Richard Hoagland, that host Bill Ryan remarks on it. Deagle says he got it all from his own sources. The theory all sounds sort of possible, with lots of faux geology thrown in, but really, all of the above people, Hoagland, Deagle and Ryan, believe aliens run the show here on Earth, and probably caused this spill, for their own nefarious purposes. Meanwhile, as we'll hear from Stephanie Mencimer, an investigative reporter for Mother Jones magazine - the far-right and some Tea Party movement agree the Gulf spill is a plot to move Dixie into horrible FEMA camps - while Obama kills off America with the dreaded carbon tax.Have we lost our collective minds? Why do Americans love to terrorize themselves?I'm going to make a bold prediction. The BP well is not going to cause the Gulf of Mexico to erupt into a world-ending volcano. Millions of people will not die because of this. There will be no tsunami.Any of these so-called experts could find that out by simply asking a few sane scientists. That's what I did for this week's show.We'll ask Dr. Samantha Joye, an expert on both oil and the deepwater Gulf about these viral fears. More important, Dr. Joye is just back from a research mission in the Gulf, to measure those underwater plumes of oil and gas. You'll get the latest. Then we go to the Chief Scientist of the big conservation group Oceana, Dr. Michael Hirshfield, to investigate a REAL threat to the Gulf: masses of methane are accumulating under the sea - and leaking out into the atmosphere as potent climate changing gases. What does that mean for sea life, and for the oil industry?I guess the point is: the Gulf gusher is so horrible, with so many real unknown consequences - we don't need crank radio to muddy the waters, and frighten people with goblins and ghouls.Three interviews, and then I return to our deepest fears, looking at the cranksters who love to wind us up, with bed time stories. And I finish with one more rumor about geopolitics - why America needs BP to feed the war machine.READ MORE with all the supporting links.[...]

2010-06-16T19:46:46.008-07:00

Around the camp fire, humans tell horror stories. About goblins, and dark conspiracies of death. Soon after the shock of the BP Oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the cranks rolled out new tales that tell us a lot about the human mind, and how we react to environmental tragedy.

While the deadly rig explosion, the oiled wild-life, and the lost jobs are no joke, I can't resist rating the wildest theories, coming from non-existent mystics, far-out blogs, right-wing radio, and even mainstream TV.

Radio Ecoshock rates the conspiracies that strain the mind - plus a few strange facts that may be too true.

FEATURE INTERVIEW: DR. JACK ALPERT

Then a rare radio interview with Dr. Jack Alpert. He helped bring us seat belts, was a corporate trainer in Silicon Valley, and founded his own research institute at Stanford.

Jack calls for radical population reduction. He explains why consumption could lead to more terrorism, and wonders if we are heading into a more violent age, as resources run out.

Most importantly, Jack Alpert discovered a type of blindness in the human brain - something even the brightest people can't compute. This may explain why we don't tackle problems like Peak Oil or climate change. A dynamic interview on key problems, including how to avoid a damaged future. In fact, Alpert says we can all have more "stuff" - if we think it through and act.

READ MORE, WITH TRANSCRIPT AND LOTS OF LINKS....

2010-06-09T20:57:43.663-07:00

While oil gushes out of the Gulf, and the economy staggers toward the exits, scientists continue to investigate our longer future.

For example, could it get so hot that large parts of the heavily inhabited Earth would have to be abandoned? And I ask two popular bloggers, why are most of the public blissfully unaware of how heat kills? Do you know the operating temperature of your skin? No, it is not 98.6, or 37 degrees C.

Scientists predict more extreme heat waves, as the planet warms. They are already happening, with more records set in the North America, Europe, Asia and Australia every year. Pakistan just set a new all-time record - over 53 degrees, or 129 Fahrenheit. Over a thousand people just died in India from heat stress.

Who goes first? If you guessed the elderly, you are only partly right. Babies and teenagers are on that list. And anyway, won't all of us be seniors someday, as the heat increased?

Never mind. You and I will have air conditioning. Until the power goes out, as it regularly does during heat waves.

And despite all the images on TV, heat kills more of us than tornados, hurricanes, or lightening, combined.

We'll thrash through that with John Cook, the Australian host of the Skeptical Science blog, and then with Stuart Staniford, a techie and energy specialist writing in the Early Warning blog. We investigate the new paper by two scientists who set out the limits of human endurance in the heat. We don't have far to go to reach those limits, in many of the most populated parts of the planet. Just keep burning fossil fuels, burning forests and raising cattle, and our grandkids could inherit a world too hot to live in.

Then, for something completely different, scientist Mark Moffett tells us how ants adapt to climate. When I hear these bugs have agriculture, including pesticides, I begin to wonder if ants are the next civilization, after us.

Listen to this week's program for our three interviews. And get all the links you need to follow up in our extended blog entry below.

Of course there are sensible things we can do, to stay alive in the coming heat waves, and stop cooking our grandkids. Like getting off fossil fuels very quickly. Changing over our cities from heat sinks to natural cooling centers. And using community planning to care for those most at risk. We'll have to save that for a future Radio Ecoshock program.

READ MORE (with links to find out more about heat stress, record heat waves, and the new science predicting an over-heated planet)

2010-06-02T21:19:20.372-07:00

This program is really two tied together. It's about oil activism, with ideas you can use. Then a funny but serious speech on media activism, by Andy Bichlbaum of "The Yes Men".

In the first half hour, Radio Ecoshock covers the various anti-BP and Gulf Spill protests arising spontaneously around the United States, and abroad. This includes a couple of protest songs, including one by the Raging Grannies of South Florida, and another by Code Pink in Houston - that you can use. Plus more practical tips on using black plastic and signs to get your protest going. Go ahead, paint it black.

I also give an update on the four places where the next great spill threatens: the East Coast of both the United States and Canada (especially the Chevron super-deep drilling off Newfoundland); the Canadian Arctic (where the government is aggressively seeking bids, with no environmental assessment, and no hope of stopping a leak); the Alaska Arctic (where Shell has been told to half drilling plans); and the new tanker threat off Canada's West Coast.

If anything positive has come out of the Gulf disaster, these other places are at least getting a break, while authorities re-evaluate the risks.

THE YES MEN!

In the second half-hour, we switch to media activism as demonstrated by "The Yes Men". I recorded a speech by Andy Bichlbaum (university professor and professional hoaxman) at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives in Vancouver. It includes multi-media clips from "The Yes Men Fix The World" DVD.

More ideas on how activists (that's you!) can use the media to get out the right message... finally. Have fun, and save the world at the same time.

READ MORE (with some helpful links)

2010-06-01T10:13:59.143-07:00

Who knows why the podcast attachment fails to make Itunes?

Anyway, for those who missed it, here it the talk by Dr. Bill Rees, who questions whether our archaic brains can cope with our present situation.

Alex Smith

2010-05-26T11:35:58.572-07:00

What makes a mild-mannered biology professor call for a planned collapse of the economy?

Canadian scientist Bill Rees would know. He was an inventor of the ecological footprint concept, and has been measuring our impact on the planet for decades.

Now he's worried about survival. Ours - and all living systems.

I'm Alex Smith. As I welcome you to Radio Ecoshock, many capitals have been war zones. Not just in Somalia, but Bangkok, Thailand, Kingston, Jamaica and even Athens. Another is flooded in Poland. Most Western capitals wrestle with deep economic worries, as stocks drop daily, as cities and states totter on the edge of bankruptcy.

The largest American river delta is flooding with oil, during the warmest three months on record.

The causes are well-known, but why can't we solve anything? Is it possible technology has outstripped the slow evolution of human brains? Are we too stupid to survive?

In this program, you will hear a mile-stone lecture by Dr. Bill Rees. About our three brains: the reactive reptile stem, mammalian emotions, and the late-coming attempt at rationality. Which wins?

Rees was invited to address a meeting of World Federalists in Vancouver, Canada. Conspiracy theorists and New World Order freaks can relax. The venue was almost incidental, to this summary of four decades of research into the human predicament.

Even here, technology intervened. The mouse cord was too short to allow Dr. Rees to stand near his computer. The professor, inspiration to more than one generation of ecologists, stood by my bare microphone, speaking 53 minutes without notes. His delivery was perfect, the message pressing and clear.

From a room in the Unitarian Church in Vancouver Canada, April 15th, 2010, here is Dr. Bill Rees. The title is "Is Humanity Inherently Unsustainable?"

READ A FULL TRANSCRIPT OF THE BILL REES SPEECH HERE


After explaining years of research showing humanity has passed a biological condition known as "overshoot" - Rees is examining an evolutionary weakness in the human brain, which may explain our failure to react to dangerous threats to our own survival.

That was Professor William Rees from the University of British Columbia. He is the co-inventor of the ecological footprint, and a Fellow of the Post Carbon Institute. This speech was recorded by Alex Smith of Radio Ecoshock, hosted by the Vancouver Chapter of the World Federalists, on April 14th, 2010.

As the BP oil sinks into the American shoreline, we ended this show with a new song by California song-writer Dana Pearson, heard first on Radio Ecoshock. "Black goo goo (is bad for you)".

Alex

2010-05-20T11:29:34.837-07:00

“Look. I’m going to do my best to end up in a kind of hopeful optimistic place. But – I am by nature, by sort of profession, I am kind of a professional bummer-outer of people. So we’re going to have to deal with that for a little while. Because there’s no use not. We need to figure out just where we are, in order to figure out where we need to go.”

Yes, it's ugly being Green these days. That was Bill McKibben, opening a speech in Colorado, touring with his new book "Eaarth", the post-Copenhagen capitulation to a new and damaged planet. Download the whole speech as an mp3 from our Climate 2010 page.

I'm Alex Smith. This is Radio Ecoshock, where reality becomes the new horror genre.

Not the oil blowing into the Gulf of Mexico. Not the BP dispersants, the largest chemical experiment on the ocean, ever. Not even the phony permits, non-existent backup plans, the cover-up.

The real unreported tragedy: nobody gets this story. Humans now know they are shifting the climate toward a Greenhouse world. We just had the hottest January to April global temperatures ever recorded. Over 200 scientists just put out a warning, that press didn't bother to print.

And yet the Green champions in the Senate still brought out a bill calling for more offshore drilling. The Canadian government still approves even deeper wells on the East Coast, drilling now as you hear this, with even less hope of recovery from an accident. And they want to do it in the Arctic, on the West Coast.

The shame, we say, is that we didn't get a chance to burn all that oil, to send the carbon into the atmosphere, where some will fall back into the ocean anyway, into the Gulf of Mexico, and all oceans, turning them acidic, killing off life at the basis of the food chain.

Nobody wants to say, if we cared for our children and grandchildren at all, if we cared about the world, we would stop all oil exploration, anywhere, today. Call it off! The atmosphere can't take another drop hauled out from under the sea, from under the land, from the Tar.

We will all drive away from this accident, as though the Greenhouse world isn't coming, arriving slow and almost unstoppable, visible and denied.

In this Radio Ecoshock special on the coming Greenhouse World, I'll interview Melanie Lenart, a scientist from the University of Arizona, and author of the intriguing new book "Life in the Hothouse - How A Living Planet Survives Climate Change."

Plus clips from a new speech by Professor George Kennedy from the University of California, Riverside. Title: "What Awaits Us In the Greenhouse World" (transcribed in the full blog entry below).

And I'll review a book "The Cretaceous World" - the time of the dinosaurs - which may give us a clue where we are heading next.

READ MORE (with loads of links)

2010-05-13T10:20:50.074-07:00

Today, more cars are sold in China than in the United States. Chinese companies, many state-owned, are traveling the world to buy up oil to power them. We are already going to extremes to keep our own fossil economies going - blowing the tops of mountains for coal, the horrible tar sands, and now super deep ocean drilling, like BP's Gulf of Mexico blow-out.Ours is a fossil economy. Every day, humans burn up fuels made from 5 million years worth of solar power, stored by ancient plants. We are burning it all, at a rapid rate, loading up the atmosphere with greenhouse gases.In fact, all our resources, from metals to rainforests, are being used up, turned into waste, at an incredible rate. Developed economies continue neo-colonialism, as multi-national corporations, larger than countries, drag out "unobtainium" even from war-torn, collapsed countries like Sudan and the Congo.Meanwhile, thanks to the glory of television and advertising, far from developed countries, all humans struggle to join in the final party. If everyone consumed even as much as Europeans, much less North Americans, it would take three to eight planet Earth's to do it. Billions want more, and WE still want more. A collision of unimaginable proportions is coming.Pretty well everyone senses a collapse is inevitable, as natural reality, and the laws of physics, interrupt our endless expansion of population and consumption. The only question is: will we drain Earth until it dies, or will we at least try to plan something else?There is an alternative. It is called "Degrowth". A planned and willing movement to end the mad economic system of endless growth, based on endless consumption and pollution. An admission that really, to survive, humanity needs to shrink out demands upon the planet. To plan out a smaller economy, and lower personal ecological footprints.It is time.This is Radio Ecoshock. If you go over our past programs, you'll find dozens that lead to degrowth. Like Cecile Andrews on the "Simplicity Movement". Like everything we've ever done on climate change. I suspect most Ecoshock listeners, when they investigate degrowth, will feel like they are coming home. Finally, a name for what we know.On April 30th, 2010 I attended and recorded one evening from a three day conference on Degrowth. It was historic, the first such gathering in North America. European intellectuals and activists have been leading the development of Degrowth. They have a long history and much wider recognition. The first International De-growth Conference was held in Paris in April of 2008. There was another, the 2nd Conference on Economic Degrowth for Ecological Sustainability and Social Equity, held in Barcelona, Spain in March 2010. Each was remarkable for the wide range of academics, and even government officials who attended. The need to limit greed, and find alternatives to endless growth, is better known in Europe.But a shrinking economy, even though that is obviously in the cards, is still shocking in the heartlands of buy-more, the United States and Canada. So it was a welcome beginning to find 300 people gathering in Vancouver, Canada, for the first Degrowth meet-up on this continent.In this program, you will hear just a few samples from many presentations there, and nothing from the lively discussion circles hashing out the new vision, and new rules of living on a limited planet.I'll start with a brief introduction by conference host and author Rex Weyler, a founder of Greenpeace, a member of the Vancouver Peak Oil Executive, and now the Degrowth movement. We'll also get a short impression of the Barcelona Conference, from Tom Walker.Then it's time for heavy lifting. The ugly reality of our near total dependence on fossil fuels that are running out. Even without the tragedy of climate change, Peak Oi[...]

2010-05-06T09:26:33.024-07:00

Black oil, millions of years old, gushes out of a gash in the Gulf of Mexico. One of the world's largest companies, BP, formerly British Petroleum says it's 1,000 barrels a day, then 5,000. Satellite photos suggest 25,000 a day. In a closed session at Congress, BP admits they don't know - it could be 40 to 60,000. The Governor of Louisiana prepares for 100,000 barrels. The "spill" is really a man-made underwater volcano of oil.

I'm Alex Smith. This accident taps a primeval fear in the human mind. Something dark and uncontrollable rushes out of the Earth, poisoning the global oceans. Could that really happen?

Madness ensures. Right-wing radio's Rush Limbaugh suggests the giant rig Deepwater Horizon was bombed by environmentalists. Others say a North Korean submarine did it.

During two administrations, BP lulled regulators to sleep, with assurances and campaign contributions. All that dirt will leak out too.

Meanwhile, 20,000 feet below the Gulf Waters, the giant Macondo field spurts out a relentless wave of fossil carbon, suspected to equal a new Exxon Valdez spill, every three days.

So many victims, so many tales to tell.

In this Radio Ecoshock report you'll hear from the activists who knew this was coming.

* Riki Ott, marine biologist, fisherwoman, and the conscience of Valdez, Alaska, checks in from New Orleans.

* Antonia Juhasz, oil researcher from Global Exchange, introduces us to BP - and it's lobby in Washington. Antonia wrote "The Tyranny of Oil: The World's Most Powerful Industry – and What We Must Do To Stop It."

* Peak Oil guru Richard Heinberg looks at the big picture impact. His famous books are "The Party's Over," "Peak Everything," and "Blackout". Richard is a founder of the Post Carbon Institute.

* And former Shell Oil executive Anita Burke finds the inside track, and the real culprits.

We'll end with a new song, "Corporate Catastrophe", written about the spill by Dana Pearson, and heard first on your Radio Ecoshock.

READ MORE with tons of links to follow the Gulf gusher story.

2010-04-29T12:24:02.930-07:00

This Ecoshock program features two interviews. We start out talking about South America, and how changes to the Amazon rainforest could impact the climate of the whole world.

I also cover two jaw-dropping stories this week:

#1. the complete fake-out as General Motors claims to pay back billions to the American and Canadian governments. Wow, car sales must be great! Nope. The whole thing was a sham, as GM used some TARP money to repay the government. Kinda like paying your mortgage with your VISA card.

#2. the giant Canadian media chain Canwest failed to report it’s paper the National Post, and denialist “journalist” Terrance Corcoran – are being sued by Canadian scientist Andrew Weaver for libel. Details below – but the point is, we hear all about the opinions of the pro-fossil fuel guys, but not the news they are being called liars by top scientists. It’s more media censorship on climate affairs, in my opinion.

Then we switch gears, looking at how the evolution of our brains has failed to keep up with the problems generated by technology. Meanwhile, brain and psychological research is being used against us, in the consumer society. Don't miss this important interview with Dr. Deirdre Barrett of Harvard, as we discuss her new book "Supernormal Stimuli."

Let's start with the situation in South America, touching on the recent Cochebamba climate conference, the drought situation in Venezuela, and then the Amazon climate debate.

Avatar director James Cameron was just in the Amazon, meeting with tribes people who will be displaced by a new dam slated for the deep jungle.

I'll give you the links you need to track all of this. And we feature a new Earth song by Vanessa Richards, called "Occupying Army."

READ MORE

2010-04-22T10:40:24.065-07:00

If I feel a strain this week, it's not because of the volcano blowing planes out of the sky over Europe. Unless the larger Icelandic volcano nearby goes off, scientists say the dangerous ash will not really cool the planet much. It may damage our economy more in the short run. But the biggest-ever suspension of air travel reduced carbon emissions for a few days, and taught a few people how to take a train, or use video-conferencing. Every cloud has a silver lining.No, my worry is about this week's program. All I have is an interview with a top scientist, a recording of Congressional testimony, and a reading from James Hansen's latest book.Sounds less exciting than a volcano, or Tiger's latest mistress expose...But wait, what if I told you half of the recent ice melt in the Arctic was not caused by extra greenhouse heat? What if rivers running dry, and people dying by the millions, all came from the same cause?Did you know there is fast-warming, and slow warming? That smog could be heating and hiding warming at the same time? So much, that we could experience a permanent burst of heat, taking us past the 2 degree safety mark, in just a matter of days?Science can be way ahead of Hollywood when it comes to danger and mystery. Welcome to the Radio Ecoshock special on BLACK CARBON.It is as evil as it sounds. Black carbon comes from incomplete combustion. It happens naturally from forest fires - although some of the great fires are not so natural. Warming has already shifted rainfall patterns and brought earlier dryness - from Australia to California to Greece and Africa.A lot of black carbon comes from diesel engines - the highway trucks, public buses, construction equipment, generators and trains. These particles are too small to see. Photo blow ups reveal diesel carbon looking like tiny meteorites, with rough surfaces and pock-marks. Those surfaces get coated with pesticides and other toxic chemicals, making it directly past our body defenses, into our blood streams. You can find out more in my Radio Ecoshock special for April 25th, 2008 "Highway to Hell, How Smog Kills". Grab that free from our archives at ecoshock.org.The short story is low-level smog greatly raises the number of heart attacks. As Dr. Joel Schwartz of Harvard reveals, patients die quickly in their homes, or on the streets, DOA before they reach the hospital. This happens all over the world.But black carbon haze goes much higher than our office towers. It floats up into the atmosphere, browning out the Sun - over New England in the Summer, over the West Coast cities, over the whole of Pakistan and Northern India, over much of China. And, as we'll learn today, these dark particles absorb heat directly from the Sun, helping to overheat the world.The haze also reduces the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth, reaching our crops, by as much as 10 percent. A huge loss of agricultural productivity.Even when they land, most often collecting on mountains, and in the Arctic, black carbon speeds up melting of snow and ice. That change of Albedo adds to warming, and the abnormal run-off adds to both drought inland, and rising seas everywhere.And strangest of all, we could probably fix the black carbon problem comparatively cheaply. But if we fix it quick, the climate could suddenly turn on us, heating up the world. Damned if we do, and damned if we don't. Welcome to the ironic universe.I'm Alex Smith. Let's find out about black carbon, before it kills us.READ MORE including all the links you need plus...* a quick summary of expert testimony on black carbon to the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, chaired by Representative Ed Markey. * and clips of what the world's biggest coal companie[...]

2010-04-15T14:51:49.673-07:00

Get back to where you once belonged. Get your hands dirty, with this week's grow-op on Radio Ecoshock.We'll hear from the young farmers movement, with film maker and dirt farmer Severine von Tscharner Fleming of Greenhorn Radio. Community supported agriculture, organic, getting out, or grow where you are, feed the city, from the city.Our second guest, Sharon Astyk, says we need a nation of farmers. As the oil and fertilizer get scarce, as climate disrupts the rivers and the crops, we all may need to know, how to feed yourself from the ground up. Places to start, ways to get going.Radio Ecoshock digs in."Greenhorns" - it's an old term from the American West, meaning a beginner. And Severine is part of a movement of new farmers. Many have not come from farming families, and so they need to start from scratch. Severine describes many ways to get started. She took courses at an agricultural college, while working each summer on an organic farm. The Severine went around the world "WOOFING" - Working (Willingly) On Organic Farms. It is possible to follow the crops, learn from many different farming techniques, and get "free" room and board, in return for your hard work.Severine also decided she was an animal person. Some folks specialize in raising vegetables, others fruit and nut trees, but our guest felt most at home with animal husbandry. So Severine traveled to Switzerland, where some of the world's best small-scale dairies still operate. Learning to make cheeses in the old ways, and how to handle cows, in humane ways.She also worked at Community Supported Agriculture (CSA's). This is an excellent way for beginning growers to get going. Expensive land can be a barrier to new farming. You'll need some capital to prepare and plant, and banks don't want to lend to greenhorns.But CSA's can be set up on leased or rented land, or even, as we'll hear, on state or city owned land (where available). You get the end consumers, the "eaters", to pay for the coming crop up front. Then, as various crops come in, the customers get a box of the freshest organic food anywhere, every week.There is another variation, for those with access to a producing orchard, where customers (usually in the city) pre-pay for the crop from a specific tree. When the fruit comes in, they often pick it themselves, getting bushels of fruit the day it ripens.I expect, as the economy tightens (and it will), and as more unemployed people want good food, that governments everywhere will look for plots of land that could be used for local food production. CSA's could be the way to go - unless you have that lucky inheritance, or hard won savings, to buy your own property.Either way, as Severine tells us, only 6 percent of farmers are under the age of 35 in America. The vast majority are around age 57, and want to retire soon. That is going to leave a huge gap in food production, and a possible loss of knowledge. And that is why the Greenhorns movement is finding new ways to support young people who want to get growing.For example, when I was doing subsistence farming in Canada, I was lucky to find the very last of the old-time farmers still around. I went out to help them, herding in cows, or shoveling shit, which is honorable work on the land (especially if you get a pickup truck load of manure for your own big garden - that's gold!). But we didn't have a Wiki or contact with like-minded folks around the country.Now the Greenhorns and many blogs provide that. You'll find a country growing knowledge Wiki at thegreenhorns.net - plus a lot of other resources. And maybe keep your eyes out for collections of old Mother Earth News magazines, plus the Rodale publications.SHARON ASTYKWhat a great r[...]

2010-04-09T09:06:09.879-07:00

In the Spring of 2010, the East Coast of the United States was nearly drowned in an extreme precipitation event. Ditto parts of Australia, and Rio in Brazil. This is the other half of "global warming" - global wetting. Scientists have been warning about it for years - now it's happening. Can anyone say "Extreme Rainfall Events?"

Right afterwards, Eastern Canada went way above any temperature records, hitting summer beach weather, the eighties - 25 degrees C - in the first week of April. Still, hardly a single Network weather person mentioned "climate change". That's because a George Mason study shows that 67% of "weathercasters" believe that global warming is a natural event, and 27% think it's just a scam that isn't happening at all.

About half of those authoritative (but good looking!) faces on TV, telling us about the weather, have a degree in Meteorology. The other half just have the pretty or handsome face. Practically none have any scientific training in climate - but they talk like experts anyway. It's very damaging.

Our first guest says humans are very close to climate collapse. David W. Orr is a Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics, at Oberlin College, in Ohio. He's been a pioneer in greening higher education. He advises many leaders and foundations. His latest book is "Down to the Wire: confronting climate collapse."

Gaia theorist James Lovelock has just given another disturbing interview to the BBC in London. Lovelock claims it's too late, we shouldn't waste our money on things like wind energy, but spend it all on adapting to the inevitable climate shift. How do you answer that?

Another worry proposed by Lovelock, is that climate change may not develop as a steady rise in either temperature or sea levels. It might happen as sudden jumps and reversals. He says previous climate records show a long-term heating can include intervals - perhaps decades or more - of cooling as well. Given all the global cooling nonsense from last winter's snowfall in the U.S., can any climate action plans can survive unsteady weather?

But Lovelock is making increasingly bizarre statements as well. Like this one: China is planning on moving it's population to Africa. Really? In this show I look into "Twelve Batty Things About James Lovelock".

I raised Lovelock's worries about irregular progression of climate change, partly because of another paper almost unknown to the general public. A theoretical ecologist at University of California Davis, Alan Hastings, says that climate tipping points may not be predictable at all. According to his work, there may be no signals or warnings, before a radical shift. For example, temperatures could go up rather suddenly, and stay there.

Hastings' paper didn't get much press, but it's quite important. As far as I can tell, Radio Ecoshock has the only original interview on the new paper from this distinguished scientist.

I'll send out a second blog entry, with more links for you to follow.

Enjoy,

Alex

2010-04-01T13:30:30.288-07:00

How to make buildings that use 10% of current energy needs.

Here is a bonanza of links you want for this Radio Ecoshock special on Passivhaus and Net Zero construction, including two free workshops.

The full workshop by Guido Wimmers on Passivhaus, held at the Sustainable Building Center in Vancouver, is just over 80 minutes long. You can download the whole recording by Alex Smith of CFRO, here:

Part 1 49 min CD Quality 46 MB or Lo-Fi 11 MB; Part 2 CD Quality 39 MB or Lo-Fi 9 MB

Guido Wimmers Ecoshock interview from 100402 show, 21 min CD Quality 20 MB or Lo-Fi 5 MB

BUILDING SANITY An earlier one hour workshop on super-low energy houses, office & municipal buildings with Dr. Guido Wimmers. Over 12,000 already built in Europe. Reduce Fossil fuel consumption, bills & emissions (!) by 90%. Ecoshock Show 080613

A blog where you can see photos of Austria House, Canada’s first true Passivhaus building. (Takes a minute or two to load all the photos, be patient, wait before scrolling down…)

#2 Jamee DeSimone on Net Zero construction building in Ontario, Canada. Straw bale insulation, sustainable materials. Vancouver 100313 1 hour CD Quality 56 MB or Lo-Fi 14 MB

Tom Pittsley solar mass windows, video page. Tom’s web page.

Another you tube video on passivhaus, this time from
Nabih Tahan, a Berkeley architect, explaining the theory behind a "passive house".

Here is what this show is all about: (READ MORE)

2010-03-31T09:42:24.389-07:00

NOTE: A FULL BLOG WITH ALL THE LINKS WILL BE POSTED THURSDAY APRIL 1ST

Unless you are a farmer or one of the last rugged outdoors adventurers, 90 percent of your time on Earth is spent inside buildings. We are snails who don't know we are snails.

Naturally, we dream of the perfect home. That's a cheap day-dream. It's expensive to really do it. But the biggest cost, whether you build, buy, or rent - is the energy needed to run all these buildings. Eighty percent of the long-term cost of a building is energy use, not construction. And that is before peak oil and climate pressures really kick in.

Our electricity provider has already announced an increase of 25% over the next three years. Given the new oil demand from China, and more oil use by exporting countries, the cost of oil is just going to go up and up. Will it reach a point where you have to decide between heating or cooling your home or office, and eating? For some of our poorest citizens, that's already happening.

For you personal security in troubled times, and for national security, we need to slash the energy used in buildings. Did I mention that numerous studies show buildings contribute more than a third of carbon emissions to our overloaded atmosphere?

I'm Alex Smith. This Radio Ecoshock program is all about solutions. You will hear a prominent pioneer in the "Passivhaus" technique - buildings that use as little as 10 percent of the energy guzzled by our current structures. I'll interview architect Guido Wimmers, and tell you where to download two free passivhaus workshops. You'll get ideas that can revolutionize new building, and help guide renovations to existing ones.

We'll talk to another construction pioneer, Tom Pittsley. He's testing a super-low energy house in Massachusetts, where the windows grab solar power to heat the home, even in New England winters.

Then we'll listen in to another workshop, this time on a Net Zero building project in Ontario Canada. Jamee DeSimone explains how to use planet-friendly materials, including lots of straw, to make long-lasting energy misers. Again, you'll be able to download the full workshop, for free.

The building industry has been key to the economy in many countries. But many of the sky-scrapers and carbon-copy mansions won't survive Peak Oil and climate disruption. Already, as I explained in the Radio Ecoshock Show for June 6th, 2008, some of the old structures built during the cheap energy era are being torn down or retrofitted at a huge cost. I'll put a link to the program, called "Building Madness" in my April 1st blog for this show.

We can't afford to keep wasting massive amounts of energy, and we can't live in the future climate if we do. Join me, in this exploration of new ways to go, from the ground up.

Alex

2010-03-25T11:40:33.470-07:00

You know we are going to run out of civilization's life-blood: fossil fuels. And if we burn what's left, the climate will tip into a mass extinction event. Meanwhile, barking madness seems to be the only growth industry. Is it time for more pills, booze, or end-time religion?

Our first guest says there may be some hope left. Shaun Chamberlin's blog is called "dark optimism" - and that may be as good as it gets. Shaun is part of the "transition movement" in Britain. He's the author of the new book "The Transition Timeline, for a local resilient future," ...and, part of an upcoming report for the British Parliament, on a scheme to give everyone an energy quota.

Read more, to get info and links on

1. getting your energy quota (TEQ’s)
2. the transition town movement around the world
3. new hope for renewable energy (from Lester Brown)
4. Americans expect collapse (Fox News trails Radio Ecoshock…)
5. student action to replace lawns with food plants at the University

Don't miss this one.

Alex

2010-03-20T10:19:11.671-07:00

So sorry I sent last week's show. Just a slip of the old finger, typing in the wrong date.

This really is the Radio Ecoshock show released March 19th, called "Surfing Waves of Trouble."

Enjoy.

Alex

2010-03-18T14:46:44.695-07:00

This is Radio Ecoshock - on the triple threat. Peak Oil, climate change, and the crumbling economy. How will you respond?KURT COBBTime after time, Kurt Cobb gets those questions ahead of the curve. Kurt is an independent writer on energy and the environment. Find his features on Energy Bulletin or The Oil Drum, and more. Kurt is a founding member of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas - USA. His work is published in Europe as well.I've been running a series of interviews about collapse. Scientist Tim Garrett told us a massive economic breakdown might be the only way to save the climate. We've heard from Keith Farnish in the UK, and both Dmitry Orlov and John Michael Greer in the USA.Last week, we used a gentle definition of collapse from Dennis Meadows. He said "'collapse' is a process where things go down, out of control." We get Kurt's take on collapse, and what to do about it.Like Dmitry Orlov, Kurt looks at the example of the former Soviet Union, and Russia today. One sign of collapse, he says, is the breakdown of the public health system. But is that just in Russia? Consider this: AIDS deaths in Russia are frightening. Americans think that's all in the past. Now we find out, the leading cause of death for African American women, aged 25 to 34, is HIV/AIDS. It's at epidemic levels in the nation's capital, running at about 3 percent. Few of those people have health care. Is it possible Americans could also experience a climbing death rate, as the economy deteriorates?I think the current American pre-occupation with health care, and all the Obama capital tied up in it, could be a recognition of greater social difficulties, perhaps even of collapse.Find Kurt Cobb's blog here. We'll hear more from Kurt Cobb next week, on Radio Ecoshock. In this week's program, I play a sample from the remarkable end-of-career conversion by Professor David Goodstein. He's the American physicist, until recently the Vice-provost of the California Institute of Technology. Out of the blue, in 2004, Goodstein produced the seminal book "Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil".Two short sample clips of David Goodstein, recorded for the film "Crude Awakening, The Oil Crash" from Lava Pictures. Get your taste, at oilcrashmovie.com or on You tube.Time to move on. I interview Carolyn Baker. CAROLYN BAKER - SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER Our whole system is built on dwindling fossil energy, pollution, economic bubbles, and fraud. Now what are we supposed to do?Looking for answers, we find Carolyn Baker. She's been a psychotherapist, and adjunct professor of psychology and history. Carolyn has been searching ahead since the 1990's. Her latest book is "Sacred Demise: Walking the Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization’s Collapse." Check out Carolyn Baker's blog here.http://www.carolynbaker.netFor one thing, we talk about an article posted in April, 2009 - titled "Economic Recovery - No Thank You". I have to agree, with regrets. On our program, we recently had a scientist, Tim Garrett at the University of Utah, who explained we either collapse the fossil economy, or face deadly climate change. It's time for a new sustainable civilization to arise. The longer we wait, the greater the pain, and the less likely we will succeed in doing it.Carolyn is offering a new online course, to help people prepare for rising energy prices, climate disruption, and economic hard times. It's called "Navigating the Coming Chaos of Unprecedented Transitions". That's something they don't teach in the Harvard Business School[...]

2010-03-19T17:42:03.864-07:00

This is Radio Ecoshock - on the triple threat. Peak Oil, climate change, and the crumbling economy. How will you respond?

Hear indie journalist Kurt Cobb ask and answer some of the embarrassing questions. We start out with collapse, and try to recover, just like everybody else.

Our second guest, Carolyn Baker, has already moved into post-peak reality. Her books, her blog, and her seminars help people prepare, physically and psychologically. Living in the slump, and coming out whole.

We'll round up with the big cover-up in the North. Canada's oil patch prime minister appoints climate deniers to key research boards, slashes research, and muzzles top scientists.. Shades of George Bush! How they keep Canadians, and the rest of the world, in the dark. That is Graham Saul, of Climate Action Network, interviewed by Stephen Leahy.

All to 350 tunes, let's go.

Full details, with links, in the next blog entry.

Alex

2010-03-11T11:17:31.248-08:00

NOTES AND LINKS FOR THIS WEEK'S SHOW:Why do media run "scandals" about climate science? They get full page ads from car and oil companies, and they don't give a damn about our future. It's all in the latest ratings, the quarterly profit statements.But why do we accept it? You know why... today, there's a good chance you got in your car, turned on a coal-fired light bulb, ate an agro-business meal. We want to believe we are not guilty of polluting the atmosphere.Some people need to believe that so badly, they are ready to shoot the messengers. Literally. Our climate scientists.And this anger (at unemployment, declining health care, degraded nature, who knows what all) - is developing from a cult of the few, into a mass movement. The madness of crowds, as we head into the greenhouse world.That is what this Radio Ecoshock program is all about.CLIVE HAMILTONWe go to Australia, to talk with Clive Hamilton. He's a Professor of Public Ethics, supported by Australian National University, and the University of Melbourne. Clive is lighting up the media, with a fantastic new series on climate denial. Plus his controversial new book "Requiem for a Species, Why We Resist the Truth About Climate Change."His previous books include Affluenza, Growth Fetish, Scorcher, and Silencing Dissent.I've been reading about harassment and death threats to climate scientists, most recently in an excellent 5 part series by Clive Hamilton. The most recent installment, published in Scientific American, has the sub-head "Researchers must purge e-mail in-boxes daily of threatening correspondence, simply part of the job of being a climate scientist."Clive Hamilton is a Professor of Public Ethics, supported by Australian National University and the University of Melbourne. Previously, he founded and ran a progressive think tank called the Australia Institute.His five part series includes: February 22, 2010: Bullying, lies and the rise of right-wing climate denialFebruary 23rd: Who is orchestrating the cyber-bullying?February 24th: Think tanks, oil money and black opsFebruary 25th: Manufacturing a scientific scandalFebruary 26th: Who's defending science?- all published on the ABC National web site. I wouldn't have believed the death threats and low blows, if I hadn't heard Stephen Schneider's own story. If I hadn't talked with other climate scientists who say the same. As we heard from Clive Hamilton, the world's best climate scientists, and green activists, are under attack.Now we'll hear directly from one of them. STEPHEN SCHNEIDER Stephen H. Schneider is Professor of Environmental Biology and Global Change at Stanford University. He's a Senior Fellow in the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. Schneider has advised the federal government during the Nixon, Carter, Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama administrations. He is one of America's pre-eminent climate scientists, one of the driving forces behind the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.We'll hear an exclusive interview with Stanford's famous climate scientist, Stephen H. Schneider. His latest book has been frozen out by major media. His teaching has been harried by attacks from climate deniers. Schneider talks candidly about death threats, and attempts by some in Congress to charge him as a criminal. Shades of Joe McCarthy, as humanity reacts to the bad news - with more madness.The interview comes in a telephone conversation between Professor Schneider, and one of the few indep[...]

2010-03-11T11:14:35.177-08:00

This is the Radio program, "Doubt Is Our Product".

Apparently, Blogger/Feedburner can't reliably send the enclosures any more, if there are links in the posting.

Find all the links for this show in the following blog entry.

Alex

2010-03-10T18:34:06.352-08:00

Once again, the Blogger/Feedburner combo failed to send the actual radio program.

So, once again...here it is.

Alex

2010-03-04T11:22:10.034-08:00

Collapse is the new in thing. Columnists in collapsing newspapers write about it. Historians tell us it's coming. Prominent economists predict it. We all expect it.What is collapse? Definitions vary from uncontrollable downturns, all the way to great culls in our population.Lets start gently, with mild-mannered professor Dennis Meadows, one of the original authors to "The Limits to Growth". Here is a clip from a film prepared September 2009 for leaders and billionaires at Davos, Switzerland:"The Danger of CollapseTechnically speaking "collapse" is a process where things go down, out of control. For example, if a building collapses, it falls down not under the control of anybody. Societal collapse is for the key indicators of our society--material standards of living, peace, trust in the government, and other things, to fall, without control.Collapse is NearThe situation for us is kind of like living in a city which has earthquakes, let's say Tokyo or San Francisco. I can tell my friend in San Francisco that with 100% probability there is going to be another really big earthquake in San Francisco-absolutely, no uncertainty about it. But when, that is the question. And how big? These are really important questions. We don't have any idea when. It could be tomorrow; it could be thirty years from now. The same thing with collapse. I know that the current growth in population and in material use cannot continue--absolutely, with 100% probability, that it is going to stop. When? How? How seriously? We have no scientific way to make predictions." [end of Meadows transcript]Fine. It's like a building in Chile, if you expect it and prepare for collapse, or a concrete pancake in Haiti, if you don't. Next week we'll look at a more dangerous definition of collapse.In this program, we'll hear two of the most prominent voices. Dumb media calls them "collapsniks". I have much more respect. Dmitry Orlov keeps piercing the veil with his insights, gained partly from his bridging the gap between the former Soviet Union, and the increasingly dysfunctional United States.John Michael Greer has moved from the edge of mysticism, into a thought leader for alternative culture. You won't find either one on your father's radio stations. This is Radio Ecoshock.[Dmitry Orlov interview, 25 minutes, available separately as an mp3 on our Peak Oil page]Many people take their lead on collapse from the work of Joseph Tainter, the Head of the Department of Environment and Society at Utah State University. His book "The Collapse of Complex Societies" was published in 1988. Tainter looks at past civilizations, from the Maya to the Romans, to see they fell down. To quote from Wikipedia: "Tainter argues that societies collapse when their investments in social complexity reach a point of diminishing marginal returns. He recognizes collapse when a society rapidly sheds a significant portion of its complexity."Let's hear a short clip from Joseph Tainter, found at archeologychannel.org[Tainter reading]"Modern society, doom-sayers tell us, may be destroyed by pollution, over-population, global warming, energy shortages, or collision with an asteroid.Economists argue the opposite: that as long as we remain entrepreneurial, we can overcome all challenges. Most of us hope the economists are right, but wish we could understand better why societies succeed or fail.Societies regularly face wars, catastrophes, ch[...]