Too Hot to Handle!

THIS WEEK: rebroadcast of interview with Canadian environmental historian Colin Duncan, by C.S. Soong of KPFA listener-supported radio (Pacifica) in Berkeley, California. This "Against the Grain" show was originally broadcast May 5th, 2008.

Must-listen radio - so we really "get it" - our strange new future, coming fast, with climate change (no matter what we do.)

Then: an interview with activist singer/songwriter David Rovics, along with samples of his songs.

Here is the blog/script for this show:

Radio Ecoshock Show script 080523 "TOO HOT TO HANDLE"

[quick opening clip from George Michael "Time to Pray"]

Yes, the wounded skies above, say it's much too late.

Pop back a few anti-depressants. This is Radio Ecoshock, I'm Alex Smith

Do we have still have time? Pop star George Michael asked the millions watching the finale of American Idol 2008. He sang of the time of guilty men, in front of a giant screen image of a red and molten world.

That was almost as close as this TV parade of geezer rock came to the real world this year. As though climate change really existed on the Fox network.

But we are all still climate deniers - aren't we? Our eyes watch video of stormy times. Dying bees mean higher berry prices. At the malls, we are still shopping until the end of the world.

Even the experts have trouble internalizing the climbing data of warning, the models of fire, flood, and extinctions. That is one reason I find our next interview so important. A quiet Canadian environmental historian wakes up at his desk. He smells the smoke. The planet really is a tinderbox. Now it is real. Where do we run? What can we do?

Called "Too Hot to Handle" we'll hear veteran Pacifica Radio host C.S. Soong interview Dr. Colin Campbell. The weekly program, called "Against The Grain" is fairly famous in California, and downloaded heavily across the United States. In it, C.S. Soong and his co-host Sasha Lilley take on all kinds of issues, from social justice to peace activism - and the environment.

A Colorado listener suggested this program for Radio Ecoshock. I listened, and realized even after my own work on climate, I still hadn't really grasped the enormity of the social change we are about to experience. Should I call up Colin Campbell and ask him all the same questions?

I don't think so. When someone does it right, it is time for me to step aside, and deliver the straight news you need to know. Colin Duncan doesn't shout. He just cuts the old oil world out from under you, and shows you the tough new future underneath.

With the kind permission of C.S. Soong and his co-producer H.N. Youan, here is "Too Hot to Handle" as broadcast on KPFA Berkeley, May5th, 2008.
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That was a rebroadcast of the program "Against The Grain" with host C.S. Soong. It was originally heard on KPFA listener-supported radio in Berkeley, California on May 5th, 2008. Find the program archives at againstthegrain.org.

While academics help us re-arrange our mental furniture, radio music can reach the whole person. We've featured music from activist song-writer David Rovics on Radio Ecoshock several times. Now we'll talk to the dude himself.

[interview with singer/songwriter David Rovics, from Oregon]

Find a lot of free music and albums for sale at davidrovics.com. David is appearing in Victoria, B.C. on June 5th - and in Vancouver the next night, June 6th at the Maritime Labour Centre. It's all part of a benefit for Iraq war resisters. Many musicians and artists will join David that night.

I chatted with David Rovics for a bit. He was a puzzled that youth activism seems to have fallen asleep, compared with the 1990's - and his audience is getting older. We talked about Barack Obama, as you heard - because the recent crowd of 70,000 plus that showed up to Obama's rally was the first sign the Nation has not really fallen asleep in front of the TV.

After 6 years of grinding war, peace organizers are having a harder time getting crowds out to protest. Is it because everybody knows the next President will have to end it, before America goes completely broke? Or have the corporate spinners really won...I doubt it. There is a time when people feel like beaten slaves, and a time when slaves rebel.

But as the machine puffs out more deadly greenhouse gases, do we really have the time to wait? No time to waste.

Next week, we are going back after the money. Where will America find the balls and the bucks to create a new fossil-free economy? Can a corrupt system make the change? Or will the boys for war toys grab the last of the cash for their mad dream of global domination.

The oil cost of the Iraq war, and the master plan to control planet Earth from space, next week with special guest Bruce Gagnon. If you want to do your homework first, watch the video "Arsenal of Hypocracy" on Google Video (or in pieces on You Tube.) Then join us next week, on Radio Ecoshock, as we fall into the next vat of toxic truth.

[Blog only:]
By the way, I love the email from listeners. Email me at: radio at ecoshock.org. One beloved listener said he like the show, but found it a little depressing. A little depressing! Where have I failed you! This is the most depressing show on radio!

Seriously though, I love life a lot. Every day, I take time to notice the beauty, the irony, the people and things that make me glad to be alive. Fear and reality are important, but inner gratitude to be alive is what motivates me to make every show.

We know that the love of nature, and our inner power, feed each other. This goodness, implanted into each of us, will finally make us better.

Because I experience that process, every day. I despair but never give up.

arrrgh. I'm sounding like Hilary Clinton!

Tune in next week for Star Wars, oil wars, climate conversion, and corporate conspiracy on Radio Ecoshock. And check out our web site at www.ecoshock.org.

Alex