Progress and Denial

In last week's Radio Ecoshock Show, we talked with Professor Michael T. Klare, about the looming possibility of social instability or riots, even here in North America. Can't happen here? There was a riot in downtown Montreal, Canada on March 15th. The march to protest police brutality ended up with smashed store fronts, burned police cars, and over 200 arrests.

Meanwhile the European think tank called "LEAP/Europe 2020" says America is likely to have outbreaks and riots due to a lack of a social safety net, in these difficult times, plus the hundreds of millions of guns owned by citizens.

We could discount this as just another think-tank ploy, but LEAP also predicted the sub-prime real estate melt-down in the United States. This time, as Claire Gatinois reports on truthout.org, quote:

""If your country or region is an area where firearms are in mass circulation" (among big countries, only the United States is in that situation) LEAP indicates, "then the best way to deal with the dislocation is to leave your region, if that's possible."

In any event, some Americans will "leave their region" simply because of hurricanes, droughts and recurring floods caused by climate change. In fact, that's already happening in the super-dry West, as well as Florida and the Louisiana coast. The first American climate refugees.

In this program we'll catch the latest wave. We interview one of the few independent environmental journalist still standing, Stephen Leahy. You'll hear what author and activist Bill McKibben told a business audience in Indiana on March 11th. And a scorching hot speech by Oakland activist Van Jones at the recent Powershift09 conference in Washington D.C. Right-wing radio nut Michael Savage calls Jones a thug. President Obama calls him his "Special Advisor on Green Jobs".

I've got lots of other audio goodies - and baddies - another roundup of Horrible Climate News, a laugh and a song. Radio Ecoshock.

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