Deadly Myths of Fukushima

Selections from symposium "The Medical and Ecological Consequences of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident" New York March 11-12 by Helen Caldicott Foundation & Physicians for Social Responsibility. It isn't over. Danger to women, children, wildlife. Radio Ecoshock 130320 1 hour.

Download/listen to the Radio Ecoshock show in CD quality (56 MB) or Lo-Fi (14 MB)

POISONED FLAG

Last week I sent out by podcast a pathetic audio press conference from the New York City symposium. I called it "Poisoned Flag". Two U.S. sailors tell their stories of being soaked with radioactivity aboard the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan during the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan.

The sailors tell a harrowing tale of being exposed to radiation blowing from Fukushima, over a period of two months, as close as one mile from shore. They were not told of the accident until weeks later, were never properly tested for exposure, received no preventative treatment, and even now get no medical help from the Navy.

Allegedly forced to sign waivers releasing the Navy from any responsibility, the pair are among more than a hundred American sailors suing TEPCO, the Japanese nuclear plant operator.

If you missed that, find it on the Radio Ecoshock web site at ecoshock.org. Click on "past programs" and you'll see this special news audio available for free mp3 download.

Or download the 28 minute press conference here: "Poisoned Flag" in CD quality or Lo-Fi

This press conferences kinda says it all for the common person. We do not get support from the governments allegedly elected to protect our interests. It's easy to see where we all stand when it comes to the military industrial nuclear complex: in the dark and in the radiation zone.

THE MEDICAL AND ECOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF FUKUSHIMA

In this week's Radio Ecoshock show we hear straight from the conference "The Medical and Ecological Consequences of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident" held at the New York Academy of Medicine, March 11th and 12th. My thanks to the Helen Caldocott Foundation and Physicians for Social Responsibility for getting out the truth about Fukushima, about the on-going impact of the Chernobyl nuclear plant explosion, and the radiation still with us from atomic testing. We'll hear scientists and activists explode the myths behind the catastrophe of March 11, 2011 at the TEPCO Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear complex.

From speaker Mary Olson, you hear about the unreported higher impact on women, children and babies. We hear a report about disappearing wildlife at Fukushima and Chernobyl from Dr. Timothy Mousseau, Professor of Biological Sciences, University of South Carolina. Arnie Gundersen from Fairwindes, David Lochbaum from Union of Concerned Scientists speak out. Plus everything you wanted to know about Cesium, but were afraid to ask, from Dr. Steven Starr, University of Missouri.

That leave me little time to speak. Please listen to the "Deadly Myths of Fukushima".

LISTEN TO THIS RADIO ECOSHOCK SHOW right now.



MYTH #1 THE ACCIDENT IS OVER



Akio Matsumura

This is the huge lie politicians and power companies most desperately want you to believe. I present a clip from the Q and A period, from Akio Matsumura, Founder of the Global Forum of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders. Who is he? Lets just say Mr. Matsumura meets with world leaders one on one. As he tells us, when he was invited to dinner with the Japanese Prime Minister, the whole cabinet was invited to join them. What did he tell them?

1. Japanese children will be part of giant nuclear experiment for hundreds of years.

2. Nobody knows where the nuclear fuel has gone, or what state it is in.

Government policies are based on wishful thinking, says Matsumura, because "Fukushima has no time". That is, the radioactive threat will last and last, beyond us and our descendents.

Then Kevin Kamps, Radioactive Waste Specialist for the non-profit group "Beyond Nuclear" demolished the "it's over" myth when interviewed by Karl Grossman Chief Investigative Reporter for VVW Hamptons TV. You'll hear some of that interview.

See that whole series of Karl Grossman interviews at the 2nd year anniversary of Fukushima conference in NYC on You tube here.

In just one of a thousand examples that the Fukushima accident is far from over, just listen to Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds.com in that morning Q and A session on March 11th at the symposium. That's right, 400 tons a day of groundwater is mixing with the loose hot nuclear fuel. The contaminated water is being pumping into hundreds of temporary holding ponds that are not rated to withstand an earth quake over 6.0. Fukushima gets lots of earth quakes.

MYTH #2 AMERICAN REACTORS ARE SAFER



David Lochbaum, Union of Concerned Scientists

You think so? Think the next nuclear melt-down isn't just waiting for the USA? Here are two quick clips from David Lochbaum, nuclear engineer from the Union of Concerned Scientists, again from that morning Q and A session. He explains the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission can't even enforce the "no-brainers" like putting vents on the aging Mark I reactors (as every other country has done except maybe India).

Or this one: why can't the NRC force the California nuclear reactors to meet the fire codes? They've had about 25 years to comply, and still get granted more time?

Lochbaum says Californians have won the nuclear lottery - they better hope their number doesn't come up like Fukushima.

MYTH #3 WOMEN AND CHILDREN ARE BEING PROTECTED



Mary Olson, NIRS

This is one of the most important lessons of this symposium. A stream of scientists and investigators have found women, girls, and babies are far more sensitive to radiation than the 30 year old healthy male used to set acceptable radiation standards around the world. If you aren't outraged about what you are about to hear, you aren't paying attention.

You get clips from a presentation by Mary Olson, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Southeast. She spoke on "Gender Matters in the Atomic Age".

MYTH #4 JAPAN WILL RETURN TO NORMAL



Dr. Steven Starr

This talk March 11th is titled: "The implications of the massive contamination of Japan with radioactive cesium" by Dr. Steven Starr from the University of Missouri (and Physicians for Social Responsibility).

Here is a bio page on Steven Starr and another one with some of his history against nuclear weapons.

Find out everything you wanted to know about Cesium, but were afraid to ask. Yep, the kids get it first. Europe and Japan are loaded with Cesium from Chernobyl and Fukushima. A nice dusting hit the American West coast in 2011 too. Cesium never goes away, even though the news media stops reporting on it, and the government stops inspecting food.

MYTH #5 CHERNOBYL IS AN EDEN WITH ANIMALS RETURNING; JAPAN'S WILDLIFE IS RECOVERING TOO



Dr. Tim Mousseau

Dr. Tim Mousseau, Professor of Biological Sciences, University of South Carolina. We hear a ten minute excerpt from his talk "Chernobyl, Fukushima and Other Hot Places, Biological Consequences".

The story that Chernobyl has become a wild Eden after the accident was founded on zero scientific studies. Mousseau and his team did the studies. They found one third fewer birds even 25 years after the Chernobyl accident. Many fewer insects and species of insects. There are so few mammals that the Ukraine had to install a petting zoo, to provide for the Chernobyl tourists who came to see all the famous wildlife (but they don't see any).

Same again in Fukushima, except the spiders there are doing better, now that there are so few birds to eat them. Radioactive "Eden" isn't going so well, and won't for hundreds of years.

DO BIRDS SMOKE?

Some so-called "experts" in the Ukraine and elsewhere in the nuclear establishment tried to suggest the growing death rates after Chernobly were only due to alcoholism or psychological stress. It's important to find out what happened to the wildlife, who apparently don't smoke or drink. We don't know if birds were psychologically depressed on reading news about the Chernobyl accident, but somehow I doubt it. Mousseau blows up that whole argument, and gets us outside the human-centric paradigm. As Helen Caldicott says, we humans are not the only living things with genes to be damaged by nuclear mistakes.

GETTING THE TRUTH ABOUT FUKUSHIMA OUT TO YOU

As mainstream media fails to report on this frightening new science of nuclear accidents, we have to depend on independent producers. In coming shows, Radio Ecoshock will bring you more from the conference. Maria Gilardin of TUC Radio San Francisco will also bring you more, at tucradio.org. Another stalwart of nuclear truth telling is Robert Knight, host of 5 o'clock Shadow on WBAI New York.

We'll hear directly from Helen Caldicott speaking at the NYC conference next week on Radio Ecoshock. She promises that a book with the full proceedings will be available in the next 6 months or so. That is very important for the record, as these things get buried so quickly by the pro-nuclear lobby and the mainstream media.

I'm Alex Smith. We are out of time. Join us next week.

Please help pay for this program if you can. Make a donation from our main blog at ecoshock.info - or subscribe to the show with easy monthly donations at our web site. Thank you to all those listeners who make Radio Ecoshock possible.

Alex Smith

host/producer

Radio Ecoshock

The C.I.A., Nigeria and Germany

Three stories, 3 hosts, 3 continents. Professor John D. Steinbruner on a new report to the C.I.A. about disruptive climate change. Ecoshock's Gerri Williams with Jonathan Kaufman, EarthRights International. Why do big oil companies pay for spills in developed countries, and get away with murder in Nigeria? From Berlin, Daphne Wysham with expert Hans Verholme: the fantastic growth of renewable energy in Germany. Radio Ecoshock 121128 1 hour.

LISTEN TO OR DOWNLOAD THESE FREE MP3 DOWNLOADS FOR THE PROGRAM

Full show in CD quality (56 MB)

Full show in faster downloading, lower quality Lo-fi (14 MB)

The John D. Steinbruner interview (18 min) in CD Quality or Lo-Fi.

Gerri Williams interviews Jonathan Kaufman of EarthRights on Nigeria (24 min) in CD quality or Lo-Fi

Daphne Wysham interviews Hans Verholme in Berlin (18 min) in CD quality or Lo-Fi

WHAT DOES THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY KNOW ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE?

John D. Steinbruner

A new report to the C.I.A. advises the intelligence and security community to prepare for disruption in a warming world.

The title of the assessment from National Research Council is “Climate and Social Stress: Implications for Security Analysis.” You can read the full text of this report here.

In a strange irony, presentation of this report to the C.I.A. was temporarily postponed, as the capital closed down due to a violent storm, Hurricane Sandy.

Our guest is John D. Steinbruner. He's a Professor of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, and chairs the 14-member panel of experts who conducted the analysis for the intelligence community.

If I were in the C.I.A., I would certainly have paid attention to the Russian heat wave of 2010. At least one nuclear reactor, and another Russian military base with nuclear materials were cut off and threatened by fire, which was stopped only by extraordinary measures.

DOES DISASTER MAKE BIG GOVERNMENT WEAKER OR STRONGER?

Let's consider climate and government. A major climatic event might destabilize a central government, or it might make it stronger.

Take the case of the Pakistan floods of 2010, which covered an estimated one fifth of the land area in this nuclear-armed country. There could have been social break-down, but my understanding from people in-country was the government looked after its own supporters first, and may have been strengthened by disruption in areas where they had weak control anyway.

Even considering U.S hurricanes, we could say the poor response of the Bush administration weakened the federal government. The anti-FEMA meme (the right wing conspiracy theory that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is planning concentration camps, etc.,) grew stronger after Hurricane Katrina. The idea that central government was incompetent, and less necessary, accelerated after 2005.

By contrast President Obama's team response may have strengthened public perception of the necessity of a strong central government. There was less hostility to Federal aid and demand for more of it.

Given the likely role of warming oceans and rising seas adding to the damage from both hurricanes, we can see the possibility of even worse future climate events affecting the ability to govern all over the world.

Consider Mali, that central African country suffering from long-term drought that may be linked to global warming. Islamic fundamentalists, carrying weapons taken from fallen Libya, have taken over the northern part of the country. The whole of the North Africa Sahel is drought-stricken and at the same time politically unstable.

Dr. Steinbruner and I spend more time looking at the flash point of Pakistan and India. Water needed to irrigate Pakistani crops, to feed the people, is dwindling in the Indus River, as glaciers and snowfall decline upstream in India. The Pakistani government blames its old enemy India, but is climate change the real culprit?

I ask Steinbruner how seriously the C.I.A. takes climate change. That's a difficult question as the Agency just closed its climate change office. Were they ducking Republican attacks on climate, ahead of looming budget cuts across the board in the Federal government? Did the C.I.A. climate operation just go underground (it's what they do for a living)? Or is the Obama Administration just not that interested in climate information? We don't know.

What we do know is the National Research Council report was well received where it was presented, and Dr. Steinbruner hopes it assist all the government agencies get ready for possible "climate surprises" coming up.

Unfortunately, the NRC was only tasked to look at the next ten years. The biggest surprises might come a decade or two later. Climate change is definitely a subject for long-term study and planning.

At least we know: the government has been told.

I have to wonder, how much will the intelligence agencies share with other government agencies, and the public? As we learned from 911, critical information can become compartmentalized. Right now, governments in some countries are either publicly denying climate change, or trying to avoid talking about it. If their intelligence agencies see a real threat, will we even find out in time to protect ourselves?

Climate change is a global problem unfolding in various ways across the world. A massive flood in Beijing or Mumbai might begin a financial or political domino effect reaching us at home. The report suggests a network of rapid information sharing between America, her allies, and other governments - as fast-developing climate events arise. But Pakistan considers things like rainfall statistics a national secret. India wants to sell the info to the U.S. Satellites can only do so much.

John Steinbruner has blogged about a book by Fred Guterl, the Executive Editor of Scientific American. It's called "Fate of the Species: Why the Human Race May Cause its Own Extinction and How We Can Stop It." Find an abbreviated version of that book here at Scientific American.

I ask Dr. Steinbruner whether the panel of National Research Council experts considered the possibility that runaway climate change could bring about the human extinction.

THE POSITIVE SIDE OF CLIMATE DISASTERS

One surprising result of the National Research Council study was the possibility of building better communities.

Climate instability may not be all bad. Tyrants may have a harder time subjugating people where climate stress changes communications and social relations. The victims may unite into new political formations.

Maybe people will develop a larger sense of a shared Earth.

It seems that people engulfed in the climate emergency, whether they live in Asia or the Rockaways of New York - have to create an instant community of self-help. Just look at the way Occupy movement members jumped in to help in the hardest hit areas. They were very effective, without government help.

Maybe we'll see more localization and resilience developing, as big weather events strike with more regularity. Will a more stressful climate change social organization?

John D. Steinbruner has written a lot of technical books on security and public policy, but also a novel "The Secular Monastery". It's an intriguing look at a society where information is used for the public good. That is a novel idea. Find more about that book here.

OIL CRIME AND JUSTICE IN NIGERIA

Jonathan Kaufman

Next we turn to unreported news: huge oil spills continue in Nigeria. In America, BP may pony up over 4 billion dollars in damages for their Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico. But in Nigeria, none of big oil corporations are fined for their decades of pollution. The fisher people lose their livelihoods; vast areas of the Niger Delta are plagued with oil spills and leaks.

But the government of Nigeria gets most of its income from oil revenues, not from taxpayers. Leaders there know where the money comes from, and more or less work for the oil multinationals like Shell, Exxon/Mobil and the usual suspects.

American and European multinationals are dodging the law and wreaking havoc with nature and local people. From the Washington studios of WPFW Pacifica radio, Ecoshock correspondent Gerri Williams reports.

Gerri's guest is Jonathan Kaufman, an attorney with EarthRights International. That organization finds ways to give a voice to the dispossessed, polluted and wronged in countries where justice is in short supply.

Kaufman describes the on-going oil mess in Nigeria, and the lack of redress. America imports lots of Nigerian oil, as does Europe. But hardly anyone covers the corruption and outright murder going on there.

What to do? The Shell oil company is being sued for damages in a local court in the Netherlands.

IF CORPORATIONS ARE "PEOPLE" THEY SHOULD BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE

Others have brought a suit all the way to the American Supreme Court. The discussion there should concern all of us. As you know, corporations have been designated as "persons" - people with rights. The current Supreme Court strengthened those corporate rights in the case of Citizens United.

But as Kaufman explains, there is a law dating back to the pirate days of 1789, as America's fundamental laws were drawn up. As I understand it, any person profiting from illegal action abroad could be brought to justice in an American court. Well.... corporations are "persons" - so this law should apply to big oil companies like Exxon or Shell. All of a sudden, lawyers are trying to argue corporations cannot be held responsible for things like genocide or pollution they cause or fund. They can't have it both ways.

So this is an interview for those interested in the mysteries of Nigeria, but also for everyone following the legal rights corporations are claiming for themselves, versus the public interest.

Find Jonathan Kaufman's blog here.

Gerri Williams did a great job getting this interview.

GREEN ENERGY SUCCESS IN GERMANY: HOW DID THEY DO IT?

Hans Verholme

Last summer, Germany - that industrial power of Europe - had enough renewable energy to sustain their entire grid. Daphne Wysham from the Institute for Policy Studies was in Berlin to find out how they did it. Daphne is the long-time Earthbeat Radio.

In Berlin, sitting beside the River Spree, outside the new German parliament buildings, Daphne sat down with energy and climate expert Hans Verholme.

The interview is important, because Verholme describes what works to make a country go for green energy. The population gets involved because they can make money at it too. Distributed energy is more important than giant wind or solar farms, and more resilient.

The struggle to keep the big energy and transmission corporations from ruining the green revolution never ends, Verholme says. But so far it's working in Germany, and Verholme has good advice for people in North America who want that same energy security along with a safer climate.

I wish I had a transcript of this interview. Anyone wanting to volunteer should email me at radio [at]ecoshock.org so we don't get duplication.

ECOSHOCK MATTERS

Again my thanks this week to all those who donated to keep Radio Ecoshock going. The "Donate" button is at the top right of this blog. Your donations let me concentrate on developing big stories.

The Kevin Anderson show two weeks ago continues to reverberate. Discussion continues on that blog item. Please note I added a link to the full transcript provided by a Radio Ecoshock listener. That's very helpful.

The Cabot Institute, who hosted Anderson's lecture "Real Clothes for the Emperor: Facing the challenges of climate change" posted a video of the whole lecture on this page.

Craig K. Comstock wrote about Anderson's talk in the Huffington Post, and linked to the Radio Ecoshock show.

Another listener sent me a link to another block-buster speech of climate bleakness. I'm working on that for your program next week.

This has been Radio Ecoshock. Find more free mp3 downloads at our web site, ecoshock.org

I'm Alex Smith. Thank you for listening.

SUDDEN & ABRUPT CHANGE

It's a fine time for bad news bears. World floods continue, this time in Asia. The Arctic has an ozone hole. Oh yeah, the global financial system is on the edge of bankruptcy.

The economic system and the ecosphere are at risk of massive and abrupt change.

From the popular financial blog "The Automatic Earth" writer "Ilagi" on the European banking mess, and blowback to America.

Boston Globe journalist Dianne Dumanowski reads from book "The End of the Long Summer" (our former stable climate).

Two part interview of Alder Stone Fuller on the risk of abrupt and violent climate change. It's not just James Lovelock. Dozens of major scientists warn heating could rise up to 8 degrees C. in a decade, with extreme weather all through. It has happened before. Time to "shock-proof" our basic system.

Radio Ecoshock 111005 1 hour.

CREDITS

Ilargi courtesy of theautomaticearth.blogpspot.com

Author Dianne Dumanoski reads from her book "The End of the Long Summer: Why We Must Remake Our Civilization to Survive on a Volatile Earth "

Alder Stone Philip from alderstone3.com

Economy news mashup courtesy KaputtRadio

Some background music by Vastmandana at soundclick.com

Small slice from "Blame It on The Boogie" by Michael Jackson

--------------

All eyes and ears are on the rumblings of a financial crash in the European banking system. Our correspondent from "The Automatic Earth" (one of the top 3 finance blogs) reports from Europe.

Ilargi says Greece is a distraction from the bankruptcy of American banks and governments. He also says more debt cannot solve too much debt. The Ponzi scheme (which holds our pensions and savings as well) has to end somewhere.

With a nod to OccupyWallSt.

Greens need to pay attention, Ilargi says, because any money needed for things like solar conversion, mass transit, new energy grid, are being tossed away right now to the black holes of banking and derivative debt. We will leave our children no options. They may fight for bare survival, eating up the last of the Earth.

Whatever happens financially, our second guest, Alder Stone Fuller, says massive climate change can no longer be avoided.

The IPCC shows slow steady growth of heat and rising seas. Alder Stone says reality is nothing like that. We will go through a long period of extreme weather, and possibly a sudden jump of more than 8 degrees in a decade.

Listeners and readers, I want you to know the idea of rapid climate change is not fringe science. On January 2010, I interviewed Dr. Michael MacCracken, one of America's leading scientists. He was a principle author of a collection of papers called "Sudden and Disruptive Climate Change".

Earlier, in December 2007, I interviewed a specialist in ancient plant life, Dr. Bob Spicer of Open University in the UK. He described previous greenhouse worlds for us. We know the world climate can change to very different states.


Such wild swings in climate have happened many times in Earth's past. We can find them in the geological record. The last 10,000 years were abnormally stable.

Alder Stone taught advanced climate theory in his own academy in Eugene Oregon, and has now moved to New England. He's doing roving workshops, and setting up an online course, to learn about "Type II" climate shift, and Gaia theory.

The Intergovenmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC has given us loads of graphs showing a gradual rise of heating and sea level. That is "Type I" climate change. In this program, you hear what experts fear, and the media never talks about, "Type II" climate shifts.

After giving us the bad news, Alder Stone Fuller talks about coping skills, and the need to keep going as survivors. In addition to "The End of the Long Summer" by Dianne Dumanowski, Alder strongly recommends we read two more books:

1. "With Speed and Violence" by UK journalist Fred Pearce, and
2. "Deep Survival" by Lawrence Gonzalez (and his sequel "Everyday Survival")

The survival books look at humans who have lived through incredible problems, accidents and challenges - to find the traits that helped them survive when others don't. "Everyday Survival" goes further, describing ways we might all need as the economy, climate and other problems go out of control.

Fred Pearce, who has also been a guest on Radio Ecoshock, interviewed dozens of top scientists on the possibility of an abrupt climate shift. Everybody should know this, especially government planners. But they won't read it, unless you do, and tell them to get with the real program.

If a sudden shift of climate is possible, we must learn "adaptability" skills, and shock-proof our basic systems (water, food) as Dianne Dumanoski wrote in her book "The End of the Long Summer". Dianne was a journalist for the Boston Globe for several decades. She reads several short passages, just for this program.

You must hear the audio interviews in this Radio Ecoshock show, to get the big picture.

Alex Smith
Radio Ecoshock

WILL THERE BE RIOTS?

The economy, says billionaire Warren Buffet, has fallen off a cliff.

"The economy, ever since we talked in September, we talked about it being an economic Pearl Harbor, and how, what was happening in the financial world would move over to the real world very quickly. It's fallen off a cliff.

And, not only has the economy slowed down a lot, people have really changed their behavior, like nothing I've ever seen. Luxury goods, and that sort of thing, have just sort of stopped. And that's why Wal-Mart is doing well, and I won't name the ones that are doing poorly, but there's been a re-set in people's minds."

Well, finally. As the Earth is being poisoned and devoured by billions of humans, as people shopped the planet to death, there has been a re-set in people's minds. We all know that needed to happen. We just didn't know the banksters would loot the economy, like Baghdad after the invasion, at the multinational sunset.

The sudden crash has already cause riots in several European cities, including normally quiet Iceland. Are big riots inevitable in the United States? Will the kicked out and cheated suffer quietly without justice?

You are listening to Radio Ecoshock. I'm Alex Smith. We'll talk to Peace and Securities expert Professor Michael Klare. He says America should expect widespread unrest. I'll also interview Jason Bradford, the radio journalist and pioneer of relocalization. We'll talk about alternatives, including the possibility of a food-based currency. In beans we trust.

All that plus uppity women from Britain, a quick shot at the me generation, and yet another dose of horrible climate news.

Before we go further, here are some links from this week's show.

Our first guest, Michael T. Klare

Radio interviews by our second guest, Jason Bradford

Here you'll find the best guests Jason mentioned, including people like Bill McKibben, and Richard Heinberg. Jason also recommended the blog Casaubon's Book with Sharon Astyk


Gaming the Apocalypse from theonion.com

Our featured artist is Joel Plaskett at
http://www.joelplaskett.com/

This Canadian artist just released a 3 CD special called, what else, "3". We hear "Through and through and through."

Read More...are there riots in our future?

SOLAR TO SAVE US

Calif. scientist Nate Lewis says CO2 is rising rapidly - and why only Solar can power the Earth.

This includes Repodcast clip from ABC National's "In Conversation" with Robyn Williams. Robyn finds Nate frustrated with the gush of greenhouse gases in the last few years. We are going the wrong way, while conferences conference, politicians talk, and consumers take teeny tiny green steps.

That leads to disaster, but scientist Lewis quickly knocks out the nuclear option. By his calculation, we would have to start building a new nuclear power plant, starting today, every day, basically forever, to meet the world's power needs (they only last about 40 years, and so we never quite make it, given the developing world's needs.) Nuclear really is no answer.

But the Sun has more than enough. A single hour of the Sun energy striking the Earth, if we could capture it all, is equal to the total power consumption of our entire current civilization.
Lewis explains that we can get enough solar, and build a civilization with it. We just need to get going. It is an impassioned speech, one of many scientists trying to get humans to act, while action is still possible.

Then Wall Street insider of Climateer Investing explores solar market & new tech that could do the job. This interview is almost half an hour, from a person plugged into the multi-million dollar trades in alternative energy. Our guest explains how solar energy subsidies by governments can lead to some strange results. In fact, in some cases, subsidies might even be a transfer of wealth from the poorest people/ratepayers to the wealthy (who actually install the solar capacity, in part paid for by the rest of us...)

We talk about what is going on overseas in solar, and whether the big oil companies were sincere when they bought solar companies (you guess....) Best of all, we peak into the hot new solar tech coming online - especially thin cell solar, which is reaching the Holy Grail of alternative energy: it can be build at the same cost as coal. Why would we ever use coal, if clean solar can do it cheaper? And the Google boys are in the race, with their company Nanosolar. Lots of info on what could be the world's most important topic: how solar energy could power the next civilization.


Plus our look at who owns India's Tata, and why World Bank is financing Tata Ultra Mega coal plants as "clean energy." Just recently, the United States, Britain, and other OECD countries announced a multi-billion dollar clean energy fund. The World Bank is supposed to run it.

Unbelievably, an arm of the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) is funding a $4.4 billion project to build five 800 MW coal-fired power plants in India - and they are calling it "clean coal". It even qualifies under the "Clean Development Mechanism" under the Kyoto Protocol! That's it: burning mega coal to save the planet.

We give the details on this "Tata Ultra Mega" project - and learn about "supercritical" coal burning. Yes it is more efficient, but it will still release millions and millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere - in a state renowned for it's sun power. Wrong way Jack.

I always wonder who the mega-billionaires are, who could stop a project like this. We investigate Tata, and find a maze of Parsi charities own a big chunk. The Parsi (also spelled Parsee) are a tiny (less than 100,000 people) minority in India, who arrived from Iran many centuries ago. They are very successful business people, and own India's largest industrial conglomerate: Tata. It is the same Tata who just announced a cheap people's car, that will soon flood the roads, and skies, of India.

The Parsi are renowned for their charity. So even though a Tata is still CEO, he doesn't really own control. However, there is one large block of stocks owned by another Parsi giant, the Mistry family. Palonnji Mistry took up Irish citizenry, now becoming the richest Irish citizen! But his whole empire runs out of Bombay. Remember, Tata also bought out the English steel industry, now known as Corus.

Anyway, these are the people who may help wreck the climate of India, while trying to help their own people get the electricity they need to develop. The ideals are good, the technology choice is absolutely suicidal. We hope Tata Group will reconsider, and go solar.


Ecoshock show 080411 1 hour CD Quality 56 MB or Lo-Fi 14 MB

Production Notes: Our feature ending song is "Until the Day is Done" from new album "Accelerate" by R.E.M. Participating stations can cut it, if you need more time for local station announcements.