It is already too late to stop rampant climate change? An emailed blog posting asks: "Do we just enjoy the time we have left?"
Scientist James Lovelock thinks so. He wanted the sub-title of his new book "Vanishing Gaia" changed from "Final Warning" to "Enjoy it while you can."
Is it really that serious? We'll hear top American and British administrators say it is.
But I want to contrast the response by two scientists: James Lovelock, who at age 90 plans to blast out into space, and NASA's James Hansen, the first world-class climate scientist to put himself up for arrest, to stop mountain top mining in West Virginia, this week. (Hansen was arrested, along with 31 others, including actress Daryl Hannah, on a West Virginia road, outside a humoungous toxic coal ash dump.)
Doubting coal barons, the black secret of George Soros, U.S. climate dodgers in Canada - from outer space to the deepest pit - enjoy yourself. This is Radio Ecoshock.
The program is also loaded with music clips – from Guy Lombardo’s opening 1950 hit “Enjoy Yourself (It’s Later Than You Think)”, another version by The Specials UK concert, samples from country music star (and anti-mountain top removal activist) Kathy Mattea, talk and music from Tom Petty, an oldie by Lee Dorsey – and a lot of fun clips, including stuff from the trailer for “Skipjack” and even Winston Churchill.
But the question is deadly serious. Should we give up?
Find all the video and audio links used in this Radio Ecoshock program here. Click on through to the source material – on our climate crisis.
READ MORE
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Thursday, June 18, 2009
AMERICAN CLIMATE CHANGE
The star of today's Radio Ecoshock Show is the American climate.
We'll start with the most important Press Conference of 2009: the release of the multi-agency report "Global Climate Change Impacts In the United States". It's the list of violent storm warming, heat wave predictions, cities and parts of whole states either going under-water, or roasting without water. Everyone will know the climate is badly out of balance.
Welcome to our special coverage of new report "Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States" from the White House briefing. After years of denial, terrible changes already happening in U.S.
This one hour version of Radio Ecoshock contains:
a) clip from Dr. Jane Lubchenco (see bio notes below)
(b) full presentation of Dr. Thomas Karl (outlining terrible impacts for the U.S.)
(c) analysis interview with Joe Romm, from climateprogress.org
(d) full presentation by Dr. Jerry Melillo (more terrible impacts)
Plus a special interview with Dr. Anthony Barnosky on his new book "Heatstroke, Nature in an Age of Global Warming"
This is the most important report on climate change ever released by the American government. The picture is bleak. Many Southern U.S. cities will become hot like Baghdad during the summer. Crops will burn out.
On the coasts, new flooding estimates show more than 3 feet of sea level rise before 2100 - enough to flood New York subways, rail-lines, and much more. That doesn't count surges from storms expected to be much worse.
Please listen to this compelling audio.
The book "Heatstroke" is also quite important. Antony Barnosky is a field researcher and curator at University California Berkeley. He realized climate change was coming in the early 1980's - and set out to document how Nature (especially small mammals) responded to previous climate shifts. He fears mass extinctions for many reasons, especially since there may never have been a warming starting in an already warm period, and likely never one so fast (one century) as we are inflicting on the Earth. Solid science from 30 years of research shows big problems for all the creatures of the Earth, as we continue to pollute the atmosphere.
Radio Ecoshock 090619 1 hour CD Quality 56 MB or Lo-Fi 14 MB
Production Notes:
Presentation recorded from official release of the report at the White House, April 16th, 2009.
Here are quick bio notes of speakers:
Dr. Jane Lubchenco, Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans & Atmosphere and NOAA Administrator
Dr. Thomas Karl, Director of the National Climatic Data Center, lead for NOAA’s climate services, and a
lead author of the report
Dr. Jerry Melillo, Director of the Ecosystems Center at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole,
Mass., and a lead author of the report
There is no copyright music. It is OK to take clips out for your own use in non-profit radio, to blog or pass on to friends.
Those with a shorter public affair program can use this 24 minute version, if you remove the Green 960 Station ID at 14:03
U.S. government Press Conference Video and slides here.
Get report copy here.
Get the word out there!
Alex Smith
host
Radio Ecoshock
We'll start with the most important Press Conference of 2009: the release of the multi-agency report "Global Climate Change Impacts In the United States". It's the list of violent storm warming, heat wave predictions, cities and parts of whole states either going under-water, or roasting without water. Everyone will know the climate is badly out of balance.
Welcome to our special coverage of new report "Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States" from the White House briefing. After years of denial, terrible changes already happening in U.S.
This one hour version of Radio Ecoshock contains:
a) clip from Dr. Jane Lubchenco (see bio notes below)
(b) full presentation of Dr. Thomas Karl (outlining terrible impacts for the U.S.)
(c) analysis interview with Joe Romm, from climateprogress.org
(d) full presentation by Dr. Jerry Melillo (more terrible impacts)
Plus a special interview with Dr. Anthony Barnosky on his new book "Heatstroke, Nature in an Age of Global Warming"
This is the most important report on climate change ever released by the American government. The picture is bleak. Many Southern U.S. cities will become hot like Baghdad during the summer. Crops will burn out.
On the coasts, new flooding estimates show more than 3 feet of sea level rise before 2100 - enough to flood New York subways, rail-lines, and much more. That doesn't count surges from storms expected to be much worse.
Please listen to this compelling audio.
The book "Heatstroke" is also quite important. Antony Barnosky is a field researcher and curator at University California Berkeley. He realized climate change was coming in the early 1980's - and set out to document how Nature (especially small mammals) responded to previous climate shifts. He fears mass extinctions for many reasons, especially since there may never have been a warming starting in an already warm period, and likely never one so fast (one century) as we are inflicting on the Earth. Solid science from 30 years of research shows big problems for all the creatures of the Earth, as we continue to pollute the atmosphere.
Radio Ecoshock 090619 1 hour CD Quality 56 MB or Lo-Fi 14 MB
Production Notes:
Presentation recorded from official release of the report at the White House, April 16th, 2009.
Here are quick bio notes of speakers:
Dr. Jane Lubchenco, Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans & Atmosphere and NOAA Administrator
Dr. Thomas Karl, Director of the National Climatic Data Center, lead for NOAA’s climate services, and a
lead author of the report
Dr. Jerry Melillo, Director of the Ecosystems Center at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole,
Mass., and a lead author of the report
There is no copyright music. It is OK to take clips out for your own use in non-profit radio, to blog or pass on to friends.
Those with a shorter public affair program can use this 24 minute version, if you remove the Green 960 Station ID at 14:03
U.S. government Press Conference Video and slides here.
Get report copy here.
Get the word out there!
Alex Smith
host
Radio Ecoshock
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Climate Catastrophe - Can the Economic Crash Save Us?
News can be a poison sometimes. Newspaper owners learned years ago that people buy frightening headlines. The motto of TV news: if it bleeds, it leads. The most horrific stories get top billing.
We all need to turn away from time to time, to those we love, to amazing Nature, and the trivia that convinces us for another day.
Lately, the climate news is too shocking even for Radio Ecoshock. In the last two weeks, I've been rebuilding myself, and listeners, with back-stop nourishment. We had programs on your food security, and how to be the change you desire.
Meanwhile, I've looked for a way to communicate the probability of catastrophe, without knocking out our will to live, and our activism.
HERE ARE THE LINKS YOU'LL WANT FOR THIS RADIO ECOSHOCK SHOW:
Thomas Homer-Dixon
Presentation to the UK Parliament's Peak Oil & Gas Subgroup May 6 2009
http://www.4shared.com/file/103698157/e5a0c9c/thomas_homerdixon.html
Q and A session at UK Parliament presentation
http://www.4shared.com/file/103698159/e9e2219b/thomas_homerdixon_q_and_a.html
PowerPoint Presentation
http://www.4shared.com/file/103698158/9ee5110d/thomas_homerdixon_ppt.html
All from this site: http://appgopo.org.uk
(and thanks to Ecoshock listener Chris from Riseup.net for tipping me off to this speech!)
Phil England and Climate Radio
www.climateradio.org
Hope shows up in the most improbably places. In the last half of this program, after an overview of our predicament, we'll explore how the economic crash may delay the worst of climate disruption. Isn't that twist? We may get time to save the ecosphere, due to our incompetence and criminality.
Hang in, as Phil England of Climate Radio arrives with experts calling for a planned economic contraction to save the remains of the natural world. He'll interview Tim Helweg-Larsen, Director of the Public Interest Research Centre at www.pirc.info.
Phil has a regular program on Radiance FM in London, UK. That's in our second half hour, along with a little black depression humor, called the "Global Meltdown Darby".
Before that, you'll hear an overview of climate and Peak Oil, from Professor Thomas Homer-Dixon. I've prepared a digest of his new presentation to a Committee in the British Parliament. It's crammed with science and analysis from his new book "Carbon Shift", including a re-think of how we can respond, given the near bankruptcy of governments and financial institutions.
But first....
The Horrible Climate News
READ MORE....
PHIL ENGLAND CREDITS:
"To listen to this programme and for a list of references visit the Climate Radio archive at www.climateradio.org. The 300-350 Show is made for ResonanceFM in London and syndicated free to not-for-profit community radio stations and independent media outlets around the globe. The programme is named after what is now believed to the safe level in parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This finding is based on the work of James Hansen and his team in a paper titled "Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim." [http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.1126]
The Global Meltdown Darby performed by the Irish poet known as "Grassy Knoll".
The Thomas-Homer Dixon piece contained a clip from the new movie trailer "Steam Bath" with action man Val Kilmer. Find the trailer here:
http://www.ecorazzi.com/2009/03/13/val-kilmers-global-warming-steam-bath-flick-gets-a-trailer/
We also played a clip from "The End of the Age of Oil" by David Rovics http://www.davidrovics.com.
Find all our past Radio Ecoshock programs at our web site.
Alex Smith
your host.
Radio Ecoshock
We all need to turn away from time to time, to those we love, to amazing Nature, and the trivia that convinces us for another day.
Lately, the climate news is too shocking even for Radio Ecoshock. In the last two weeks, I've been rebuilding myself, and listeners, with back-stop nourishment. We had programs on your food security, and how to be the change you desire.
Meanwhile, I've looked for a way to communicate the probability of catastrophe, without knocking out our will to live, and our activism.
HERE ARE THE LINKS YOU'LL WANT FOR THIS RADIO ECOSHOCK SHOW:
Thomas Homer-Dixon
Presentation to the UK Parliament's Peak Oil & Gas Subgroup May 6 2009
http://www.4shared.com/file/103698157/e5a0c9c/thomas_homerdixon.html
Q and A session at UK Parliament presentation
http://www.4shared.com/file/103698159/e9e2219b/thomas_homerdixon_q_and_a.html
PowerPoint Presentation
http://www.4shared.com/file/103698158/9ee5110d/thomas_homerdixon_ppt.html
All from this site: http://appgopo.org.uk
(and thanks to Ecoshock listener Chris from Riseup.net for tipping me off to this speech!)
Phil England and Climate Radio
www.climateradio.org
Hope shows up in the most improbably places. In the last half of this program, after an overview of our predicament, we'll explore how the economic crash may delay the worst of climate disruption. Isn't that twist? We may get time to save the ecosphere, due to our incompetence and criminality.
Hang in, as Phil England of Climate Radio arrives with experts calling for a planned economic contraction to save the remains of the natural world. He'll interview Tim Helweg-Larsen, Director of the Public Interest Research Centre at www.pirc.info.
Phil has a regular program on Radiance FM in London, UK. That's in our second half hour, along with a little black depression humor, called the "Global Meltdown Darby".
Before that, you'll hear an overview of climate and Peak Oil, from Professor Thomas Homer-Dixon. I've prepared a digest of his new presentation to a Committee in the British Parliament. It's crammed with science and analysis from his new book "Carbon Shift", including a re-think of how we can respond, given the near bankruptcy of governments and financial institutions.
But first....
The Horrible Climate News
READ MORE....
PHIL ENGLAND CREDITS:
"To listen to this programme and for a list of references visit the Climate Radio archive at www.climateradio.org. The 300-350 Show is made for ResonanceFM in London and syndicated free to not-for-profit community radio stations and independent media outlets around the globe. The programme is named after what is now believed to the safe level in parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This finding is based on the work of James Hansen and his team in a paper titled "Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim." [http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.1126]
The Global Meltdown Darby performed by the Irish poet known as "Grassy Knoll".
The Thomas-Homer Dixon piece contained a clip from the new movie trailer "Steam Bath" with action man Val Kilmer. Find the trailer here:
http://www.ecorazzi.com/2009/03/13/val-kilmers-global-warming-steam-bath-flick-gets-a-trailer/
We also played a clip from "The End of the Age of Oil" by David Rovics http://www.davidrovics.com.
Find all our past Radio Ecoshock programs at our web site.
Alex Smith
your host.
Radio Ecoshock
Thursday, June 4, 2009
BE THE CHANGE Climate Conversion
This program explores how green leaders are converting to climate activism. And how you can move from spectator to citizen action.
You'll hear Forest Ethics co-Founder Tzeporah Berman in a moving speech, going to a new climate group Power Up Canada. United Church Pastor Bruce Sanguin gives us a new vision of Gaia-friendly Christianity. And Maureen Jack-LeCroix explains her calling to "Be the Change" - as host of the recent Be The Change Circles event in Vancouver. There's more... Arran Stephens of Nature's Path, and two conference guests - but first, here are some links to help you dig further.
BE THE CHANGE EARTH ALLIANCE
http://www.bethechangeearthalliance.org
You Tube video of founder Maureen Jack-LeCroix - why she devoted 10 years to Gaia and founded Be The Change Circles.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smLyRHo7aS0
ECOSHOCK PROGRAMS ON CLIMATE, DRYING FORESTS AND FIRES
BURNING DOWN THE WEST Wildfires stoke the carbon load. Ecoshock Show 071116 (1 hr) Interview: Dr. Tom Gower, saying fires in N. Canada make positive feedback; speech by Temperate Rainforest activist Pas Rasmussen - why she is now a climate activist as well. Echoes by Andrea Reimer of the Wilderness Committee. New research on the Rockies burning by Lara Kueppers; were California fires climate change?
http://www.ecoshock.net/eshock/ES_071116_Show.mp3
CURRENT PLAGUES - FUTURE FORESTS Can forests keep up with global warming? Ecoshock Show 070706 1 hour
Dr. Clive Welham on ravages on pine bark beetle in Rockies; Dr. Del Meidinger speech "Future Forests" to 6th N.A. Forest Ecology Conference.
http://www.ecoshock.org/cfro/2007/ES_070706_Show.mp3
RISING SEAS, DRYING WEST Ecoshock Show 080815 Top IPCC organizer & U of Arizona Professor Jonathan Overpeck speech at Washington U. After updating the world climate report, Overpeck predicts climate impacts on North America. 1 hour CD Quality Lo-Fi 14 MB http://www.ecoshock.net/eshock08/ES_080815_Show_LoFi.mp3
Drying of the West with National Geographic author Robert Kunzig; the first Carbon Tax in North America in B.C. (and what it means for the U.S.); censored Canadian scientists - speech clip from Dr. John Fyfe, IPCC author. Oh yeah, and some hope. 1 hour. Ecoshock show 080222 Lo-Fi 14 MB
http://www.ecoshock.net/eshock08/ES_080222_Show_LoFi.mp3
TZEPORAH BERMAN SPEECHES
Climate Conversion - Tzeporah Berman speech Be The Change Un-Conference, Vancouver May 23, 2009. 16 minutes Lo-Fi
http://www.ecoshock.org/downloads/ecoshock/ES_Tzeporah_Berman_090523_LoFi.mp3
A CLIMATE OF CRASH AND CHOICE Finance & elections. Mike Whitney on Wall Street mess -Bush's plan to grab the money & run. Voting for climate action. Brianna Cayo Cotter U.S. PowerVote.org; Tzeporah Berman speech introducing PowerUpCanada.ca. Also Rep Ed Markey web cast on new Green Jobs initiative. Plus some fun (e.g. George Carlin) and music. Ecoshock Show 080926 1 hour
Lo-Fi 14 MB
http://www.ecoshock.net/eshock08/ES_080926_Show_LoFi.mp3
Tzeporah Berman at Bioneers Conference October 2006. About 20 minutes.
http://www.ecoshock.org/cfro/ES_Berman_Bioneers_061021.mp3
POWER UP CANADA
http://www.powerupcanada.ca/
THIS WEEK'S ECOSHOCK PROGRAM BEGINS....
Dear extra-terrestrial visitor,
Things are past serious here on Planet Earth. Our top scientists, the people who study and measure, warn the web of life is headed toward utter catastrophe, possibly in just ninety years. The ocean, source of our oxygen and mother of most life, is turning acid due to our carbon pollution. Our once stable climate, the basis of our agriculture and civilization, is undergoing violent change.
As I record this, smoke from forest fires - hundreds of miles away in the mountains, is filling our great city. I can smell the distress, and it's only June, not even fire season yet. Last night, as we watched TV news, a reporter showed the tinder dry conditions on Vancouver Island. "My God" said my companion, "that is the rain forest. The rain forest, untouched by fire for a thousand years or more, could burn."
It's only a matter of short time. The great pine forests of the Rocky Mountains have been killed by global warming. They stand dead, valley after valley, each long trough visible from space, waiting to burn. Each great tree is a tower of carbon taken from the atmosphere. Now it will go back, in great bursts of fire that nothing can stop. A burp of carbon worse than the Indonesian rain forest fires of '97-'98. Greenpeace predicted this in 1994, in a report called "The Carbon Bomb". Now, it's happening. Here in the Rockies, all from California right up to the Yukon. Even the boreal forest, clothing the North, is burning out more carbon than new trees can gather. Vast forests will convert into grasslands or scrub deserts.
We don't know how far all this new carbon, coming in the next decade, will push the climate.
The carbon whirlwind is still of our own making. Will you be a witness? Or will you be the change we need?
This is Radio Ecoshock. I am your host, Alex Smith.
READ MORE
You'll hear Forest Ethics co-Founder Tzeporah Berman in a moving speech, going to a new climate group Power Up Canada. United Church Pastor Bruce Sanguin gives us a new vision of Gaia-friendly Christianity. And Maureen Jack-LeCroix explains her calling to "Be the Change" - as host of the recent Be The Change Circles event in Vancouver. There's more... Arran Stephens of Nature's Path, and two conference guests - but first, here are some links to help you dig further.
BE THE CHANGE EARTH ALLIANCE
http://www.bethechangeearthalliance.org
You Tube video of founder Maureen Jack-LeCroix - why she devoted 10 years to Gaia and founded Be The Change Circles.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smLyRHo7aS0
ECOSHOCK PROGRAMS ON CLIMATE, DRYING FORESTS AND FIRES
BURNING DOWN THE WEST Wildfires stoke the carbon load. Ecoshock Show 071116 (1 hr) Interview: Dr. Tom Gower, saying fires in N. Canada make positive feedback; speech by Temperate Rainforest activist Pas Rasmussen - why she is now a climate activist as well. Echoes by Andrea Reimer of the Wilderness Committee. New research on the Rockies burning by Lara Kueppers; were California fires climate change?
http://www.ecoshock.net/eshock/ES_071116_Show.mp3
CURRENT PLAGUES - FUTURE FORESTS Can forests keep up with global warming? Ecoshock Show 070706 1 hour
Dr. Clive Welham on ravages on pine bark beetle in Rockies; Dr. Del Meidinger speech "Future Forests" to 6th N.A. Forest Ecology Conference.
http://www.ecoshock.org/cfro/2007/ES_070706_Show.mp3
RISING SEAS, DRYING WEST Ecoshock Show 080815 Top IPCC organizer & U of Arizona Professor Jonathan Overpeck speech at Washington U. After updating the world climate report, Overpeck predicts climate impacts on North America. 1 hour CD Quality Lo-Fi 14 MB http://www.ecoshock.net/eshock08/ES_080815_Show_LoFi.mp3
Drying of the West with National Geographic author Robert Kunzig; the first Carbon Tax in North America in B.C. (and what it means for the U.S.); censored Canadian scientists - speech clip from Dr. John Fyfe, IPCC author. Oh yeah, and some hope. 1 hour. Ecoshock show 080222 Lo-Fi 14 MB
http://www.ecoshock.net/eshock08/ES_080222_Show_LoFi.mp3
TZEPORAH BERMAN SPEECHES
Climate Conversion - Tzeporah Berman speech Be The Change Un-Conference, Vancouver May 23, 2009. 16 minutes Lo-Fi
http://www.ecoshock.org/downloads/ecoshock/ES_Tzeporah_Berman_090523_LoFi.mp3
A CLIMATE OF CRASH AND CHOICE Finance & elections. Mike Whitney on Wall Street mess -Bush's plan to grab the money & run. Voting for climate action. Brianna Cayo Cotter U.S. PowerVote.org; Tzeporah Berman speech introducing PowerUpCanada.ca. Also Rep Ed Markey web cast on new Green Jobs initiative. Plus some fun (e.g. George Carlin) and music. Ecoshock Show 080926 1 hour
Lo-Fi 14 MB
http://www.ecoshock.net/eshock08/ES_080926_Show_LoFi.mp3
Tzeporah Berman at Bioneers Conference October 2006. About 20 minutes.
http://www.ecoshock.org/cfro/ES_Berman_Bioneers_061021.mp3
POWER UP CANADA
http://www.powerupcanada.ca/
THIS WEEK'S ECOSHOCK PROGRAM BEGINS....
Dear extra-terrestrial visitor,
Things are past serious here on Planet Earth. Our top scientists, the people who study and measure, warn the web of life is headed toward utter catastrophe, possibly in just ninety years. The ocean, source of our oxygen and mother of most life, is turning acid due to our carbon pollution. Our once stable climate, the basis of our agriculture and civilization, is undergoing violent change.
As I record this, smoke from forest fires - hundreds of miles away in the mountains, is filling our great city. I can smell the distress, and it's only June, not even fire season yet. Last night, as we watched TV news, a reporter showed the tinder dry conditions on Vancouver Island. "My God" said my companion, "that is the rain forest. The rain forest, untouched by fire for a thousand years or more, could burn."
It's only a matter of short time. The great pine forests of the Rocky Mountains have been killed by global warming. They stand dead, valley after valley, each long trough visible from space, waiting to burn. Each great tree is a tower of carbon taken from the atmosphere. Now it will go back, in great bursts of fire that nothing can stop. A burp of carbon worse than the Indonesian rain forest fires of '97-'98. Greenpeace predicted this in 1994, in a report called "The Carbon Bomb". Now, it's happening. Here in the Rockies, all from California right up to the Yukon. Even the boreal forest, clothing the North, is burning out more carbon than new trees can gather. Vast forests will convert into grasslands or scrub deserts.
We don't know how far all this new carbon, coming in the next decade, will push the climate.
The carbon whirlwind is still of our own making. Will you be a witness? Or will you be the change we need?
This is Radio Ecoshock. I am your host, Alex Smith.
READ MORE
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