CLIMATE WAR

SUMMARY Humans pumping more carbon, faster, than in last 66 million years. Lead author Dr. Richard Zeebe from U of Hawaii. From The Center for Climate and Security, Shiloh Fetzek on origins of Syrian conflict, Ret. Brigadier General Gerald Galloway, on what the Pentagon knows about climate threats. Radio Ecoshock 160330.

Humans are tossing more carbon into the atmosphere ten times faster, and in much greater quantities, than at any time in the last 66 million years. We'll talk with the lead author of that study, Richard Zeebe.

Then, with the turmoil of the Middle East spreading into Europe, Africa and beyond, we ask two specialists on the driving role of drought, heat and climate change. Our guests are analyst Shiloh Fetzek and retired American Brigadier General Gerald Galloway.

I'm Alex Smith. Welcome to your world.

Download or listen to this Radio Ecoshock show in CD Quality (56 MB) or Lo-Fi (14 MB)

Or listen on Soundcloud right now.



RICHARD ZEEBE: MOST CARBON, AND FASTEST IN 66 MILLION YEARS

In the Guardian newspaper on the 21st of March, we find this headline: "Carbon emission release rate ‘unprecedented’ in past 66m[illion] years." It then says "Researchers calculate that humans are pumping out carbon 10 times faster than at any point since the extinction of the dinosaurs."

To understand what this staggering situation means, we go to a new paper published the same day in the journal Nature Geoscience. The title is "Anthropogenic carbon release rate unprecedented during the past 66 million years." The lead author is Dr. Richard E. Zeebe. He's published or co-authored about 75 scientific papers since the 1990's. Richard is a Professor at the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology at the University of Hawaii.

From Honolulu, we welcome Richard Zeebe to Radio Ecoshock.

We are looking for clues to our current fling with heating the world. I'll bet many listeners hear "66 million years" and think this will be all about an asteroid hit and the end of the dinosaurs. But really the focus of this paper is on a climate changed world about 10 million years closer to us, around 56 million years ago.

I've had a couple of scientific guests who describe relatively rapid global heating, say in 50 years or less, but always moving from a time of massive glaciation toward a warmer period. The Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum or PETM, is more useful for us, because there was a spike in global temperature even when the Earth was already ice-free.

One reading of this new paper is that perhaps we have been lulled to sleep by earlier paleoclimatology. We looked back at ice cores, for example, and decided climate change is a long drawn-out process, so we have time to change our energy systems and adapt. Zeebe and his co-authors say this research uncovers: "a fundamental challenge in constraining future climate projections."

Then finally, his team ends with this short statement: "future ecosystem disruptions are likely to exceed the relatively limited extinctions observed at the PETM." It sounds like we are in a free-fall where conditions on Earth may become hotter and more changed than the hottest period known to science since the dinosaurs. That's frightening.

The stunning new research paper was published in the journal Nature Geoscience on March 21st, 2016. Here is a link to the abstract, But if you use the link provided in the Guardian newspaper article, and wait patiently for a few seconds, the full paper shows up in your browser as a .pdf file. It's one of the most important papers so far this year. This interview with Richard contains some stunning perspectives on where we stand, and where we are going.

Listen to or download this 15 minute interview with Richard Zeebe in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

SYRIA: THE CLIMATE CONNECTION WITH SHILOH FETZEK

A new kind of creeping war is developing in Europe. It constantly threatens to re-appear in the United States and Canada. Meanwhile bombed cities spread across the Middle East . We hear rumors that climate change is a hidden factor driving Middle East discontent. Is it true?

Our guest Shiloh Fetzek writes about deep connections hardly reported by the press. Shiloh provides research for a non-governmental organization called "The Center for Climate and Security" - where she is a Senior Fellow for International Affairs. She is also Senior Fellow for Environment, Climate Change and Security at International Alert in London.

Shiloh Fetzek

In an article about Syria with Jeffrey Mazo, Fetzek writes:

"More than 70% of the country’s freshwater resources come from transborder flows, the bulk from Turkey via the Euphrates River."

What is the over-all status of that regional river water system. Has Turkey taken more, and left less, via up-stream dams? Is precipitation lower? How much is "water politics" and how much real climate pressure? We talk that through.

It is fair to say the agricultural collapse in Syria was badly mishandled by the Assad regime. As Fezak tells us, the Assad government cut fertilizer subsidies, and subsidized prices for farm diesel, at the critical time, during the drought.

When rainfall is low, farmers all over the world try to pump up the difference from ground water. Why didn't that work in Syria? For one thing, as we've said, the subsidies for diesel fuel needed to run the pumps was cut. But the real problem developed over time. The Syrian government favored large scale agriculture of water-hungry crops. The irrigation system was often based on open canals, which lose far too much by evaporation in the hot desert sun.

All over the world, displaced peasants and farmers are moving toward cities that are not prepared to handle their numbers. One author described Earth as slum city. Why was this global movement so much more serious in Syria? That's because there were already over one million refugees from the Iraq war living in Syrian cities. That's added to hundreds of thousands of long-time refugees from Palestine. Even the slums were full when the Syrian families started pouring in from the countryside. They lived in tent camps on the outskirts with no services.

Do we know for certain that displaced Syrian farmers formed part of the opposition to Assad government, or added to attempted revolution? Those statistics are not available. We do know the farmers were very upset with the lack of aid, and the way most of the country's wealth was channelled toward an ethnic minority living near the coast. It was a tinder box of discontent. Some of those same families are now in tent camps in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. Some of them made it to Greece, and on to Europe. Some of them drowned trying to get out.

When I study climate projections for the Middle East during the second half of this century, most sources predict even fewer water resources, greater desertification, and longer periods of dangerous heat. That heat, linked with humidity in some Gulf regions, is projected to go beyond the tolerance of humans to go outdoors. I wonder if we will see an even greater exodus, even more migration - to anywhere cooler.

We've had several guests who explain the medical consequences of a high heat-humidity index. But hardly anyone can explain the social impacts of finding more days too hot to go out, too hot to work, and nights too hot to sleep. This is a hidden factor that can drive individuals crazy, and societies to the breaking point.

Listen to or download this 21 minute interview with Shiloh Fetzek in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

THE MOSUL DAM: THE NEXT MEGA-DISASTER IN THE MAKING

Before winding up, I would also like to point out this critical article at The Center for Climate and Security: "US Embassy in Iraq Issues Mosul Dam Failure Warning". It's incredible.

The dam in Mosul Iraq could break.

Here are some points from a Factsheet issued by the U.S. State Department, courtesy of the Climate and Security article: (any bold type is my addition)

"The State Department Factsheet lists a series of ways in which the failure of the Mosul Dam and the resulting floodwave will have catastrophic consequences in a region already facing significant threats, and gives new meaning to the concept of “cascading disasters.”

Here is a sampling of some of the potential consequences of a dam failure drawn from the factsheet:

The approximately 500,000 to 1.47 million Iraqis residing along the Tigris River in areas at highest risk from the projected floodwave probably would not survive its impact unless they evacuated the floodzone. A majority of Baghdad’s 6 million residents also probably would be adversely affected— experiencing dislocation, increased health hazards, limited to no mobility, and losses of homes, buildings, and services.

The flood will severely damage or destroy large swaths of infrastructure and is expected to knock offline all power plants in its path, causing a sudden shock to the Iraq electricity grid that could shut down the entire Iraqi system.

Two-thirds of Iraq’s high-yielding irrigated wheat farmland is in the Tigris River basin and probably would be heavily damaged.

Some parts of Baghdad would be flooded, which could include Baghdad International Airport.

Much of the territory projected to be damaged by a dam breach is contested or ISIL-controlled, suggesting an authority-directed evacuation is unlikely, and that some evacuees may not have freedom of movement sufficient to escape.

Evacuation warnings that occur in the narrow window between the detection of a breach and the impact of a flood wave would be subject to electrical blackouts, technical and bureaucratic delays, or rejections by communities that probably would not grasp the urgency and scope of the threat, suggesting that prior awareness of risk could improve mobilization time in the event of a breach..."

It's huge, and so far, no one is acting to prevent this catastrophe!

It's not just Iraq. Check out this article: Peter Gleick on Syria: Water, Climate and Conflict. Climate Change and Trouble with Pakistan's Reservoirs and Dams"

SURF AND LEARN RESOURCES ON SYRIA'S CLIMATE CONNECTION

Shiloh and her colleagues, including Francesco Femia, sent me a good list of articles for further research. Here are some of them. Surf and learn!

Syrian climate change, drought and social unrest. NOAA on climate change and Mediterranean droughts. April 2012: The Other Arab Spring: Tom Friedman writes an Op-Ed on the subject, citing the work of the Center for Climate and Security, and interviews with others.

February 2013: The Arab Spring and Climate Change: The Center for Climate and Security and partners release a multi-author volume on the subject, edited by Caitlin Werrell and myself and including a preface from Anne-Marie Slaughter. Our own piece in the volume includes a slight update of the 2012 article on Syria, as well as a look at Libya's post-conflict water and climate woes. Dr. Troy Sternberg writes about climate, China, Egypt and wheat prices, which builds on his previous journal article in Nature.

January 2015: Climate change in the Fertile Crescent and implications of the recent Syrian drought: Kelley et al publish a study in PNAS which makes an important contribution to the literature. While we had drawn a connection between the dramatic precipitation decline in the Middle East and Syria from 1971-2010, the drought in 2006/7-2010/11, natural resource mismanagement, and social unrest, this study demonstrated that the drought that lasted from 2007-2010 was "2-3 times more likely" because of anthropogenic climate change. Big deal.

February 2016: Spatiotemporal drought variability in the Mediterranean over the past 900 years. The recent study by Cook et al.

Still thirsty? Here are more key resources on Syria, and the climate change connection, from Shiloh:

https://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/sais_review/v035/35.1.werrell.html

http://www.preventionweb.net/english/hyogo/gar/2011/en/bgdocs/Erian_Katlan_&_Babah_2010.pdf

http://thebulletin.org/climate-change-and-syrian-uprising

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00263206.2013.850076#.VucBdZwrKUM

WHAT DOES THE PENTAGON KNOW ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE? GERALD GALLOWAY

There are institutes where top scientists regularly prepare projections of a world thrust into severe climate change. You can bet there are parallel "war-rooms" where the military plans out their role in a stressed-out warming world.

Here to tell us about preparations and planning in the American military is retired U.S. army Brigadier General Gerald Galloway. He is a Visiting Scholar at the US Army Corps of Engineers Institute for Water Resources. After 38 years in the U.S. Army, Galloway joined the faculty of the University of Maryland. He's worked at Westpoint and the White House, always with a focus on sustainable water use. Gerald has three Master's degrees, and a Ph.D. in Geography from the University of North Carolina. He is also a member of the Security Advisory Board at The Center for Climate and Security.

Gerald Galloway

There are plenty of high-placed politicians who continue to question the importance of climate change to our security. Does the Pentagon think it's real? Yes indeed, says Galloway. The American Military has involved climate change in all their planning. There have been a series of reports for the Pentagon, including this one which found that climate disruption is a far greater threat than terrorism.

Dr. Galloway specialized in water resources for decades. And for decades we've heard about the coming water wars, especially in the Middle East. Have they arrived? Surprisingly, the answer is "no" and "not yet". Galloway says that so far nations have managed to negotiate reasonable water deals with each other, realizing that water supply is so vital, the only other option is war.

Here is a fascinating Al Jazeera article, with excellent coverage by Mansur Mirovalev, explaining why Uzbekistan may be the location of the first real water war. I'd love to have Mirovalev on this show, but so far I've been unable to reach him.

It doesn't take an expert to see that many millions of people in Bangladesh are going to be displaced by sea level rise in that low-lying country. When they move, there is no where to go, in a region already heavily populated and impoverished. Could that become a military situation?

I'm also thinking of China, and their war on terror with the Muslim Uyghur people on their Western flank. That's also part of a region expected to be hit harder by desertification, and temperatures too high for traditional crops. I'll bet that's a watch-point for the American military as well.

But the classic cases so far are in North Africa and the Middle East. Libya is constantly water stressed. Egypt is barely coping, and now has to import most of it's grain. The drought that hit Syria for several years also impacted southern Turkey, Iraq, and the list goes on. Gerald Galloway gives us a tour.

THE U.S. MILITARY - THE WORLD'S LARGEST SINGLE EMITTER OF GREENHOUSE GASES

On a tactical level, the armed forces have to work out how to power themselves in a world where fossil fuel use becomes constrained. I ask Gerald what the U.S. military doing to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels. We are also told the United States military is the largest single user of fossil fuels in America. Is there an awareness that all those emissions are actually fuelling a more dangerous world, through climate change?

FYI, the US military was exempt from reporting on greenhouse gas emissions under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. They lost that exemption in the Paris climate talks of 2015.

It's fascinating to get Galloway's insider view of how the Pentagon is working to (a) adapt to a changing climate (b) reduce its dependence on fossil fuels and (c) think about how to protect America, it's allies, and American interests in the coming climate disruption. Despite the misgivings many of us have on all this, it's still true that when hurricanes or typhoons flatten a country, or millions of desperate people need aid, it's usually the U.S. military that shows up for large-scale food drops, evacuations, and medical aid. We expect the American military to be there to help.

Along those lines, the new Canadian government under Justin Trudeau has announced a return to Canada's long-term role of using their military for aid in emergencies, and peace keeping, instead of war. We'll see.

AMERICA: STILL NOT READY FOR ANOTHER GREAT FLOOD

In the 1990's, Gerald Galloway chaired a report for the White House on the Great Flood of 1993, along the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. Parts of the south have flooded again this year. In fact, we've seen more extreme rainfall events in many parts of the United States. Galloway says we are NOT prepared for flooding well beyond the ordinary, and could do a lot more to prepare for that aspect of climate change. You can read Galloway's 29 page report here. A lot of military planning is necessarily kept secret. But I think climate response is not a good candidate for secrecy, because we all face a global problem. Is there a way for the Pentagon to involve the American public more on this issue?

I would like to thank The Center for Climate and Security for helping to arrange this interview with Retired Brigadier General Gerald Galloway.

Listen to or download this 19 minute interview with Gerald Galloway in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

JUST A MATTER OF TIME BEFORE FIRST NUCLEAR TERRORIST ATTACK?

One final word: background news reports indicate the Belgian/French terrorists were planning an attack on a Belgian nuclear facility on the outskirts of Brussels, but felt too pressured by police searches to wait. Washington had already warned Belgium of lax security at privately run reactors there. Footage of a Belgian reactor official was found in a terror hide-out. A security guard for a Belgian reactor company was shot dead on Thursday. Two employees with complete clearance to the Belgian Doel nuclear power station left to join ISIS in Syria in 2012. What did they tell ISIS?

Belgium is about the size of the State of Maryland, or one and a half times the size of Wales in the UK. A plane crashing into poorly stored spent fuel there, or a bomb inside a reactor, could irradiate the entire country. Instead of confronting the mega-risk, the government of Belgium keeps extending the life of already old and unsafe reactors. That's a kind of self-terrorism.

A dirty radioactive bomb, or even blowing up a working reactor, remains the golden dream of those who hate. The United States, Canada, pretty well every European country, and even dear old Australia are always prime targets for nuclear terrorism.

In her weekly nuclear update, Australian campaigner Christina MacPherson reminds us of this:

"Nuclear terrorism a possibility in Belgium – and elsewhere. But oh no, not in Australia! Except – has everyone forgotten Willy Brigitte? Brigitte was sent to Sydney in 2007 as part of a cell that trained terrorists in Pakistan, with a plan to bomb the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor, was convicted in France."

Keep up with Christina here on the Web, and here on Facebook.

We only have to slip up once, and they only have to win once, to illustrate why nuclear power is not safe for anyone. There is still time to shut down the nuclear industry.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

COMING UP

Assuming nothing too big blows up in the next week, our next program asks: in the face of government unwillingness to protect a safe climate, is revolution is justified? Stay tuned, and thank you for caring about our world.

I am fundraising partly to pay for a new web page and blog set up, which should communicate this important message better and farther. If you would like to help Radio Ecoshock keep going, please consider becoming a monthly supporter. Find out how here.

BROKEN FUTURE NEWS

Welcome to another round of Radio Ecoshock. I'm Alex Smith, with two of the world's top climate scientists talking about the severe challenges we face right now, and in the future. From the United Kingdom, we have Dr. Kevin Anderson, who pulls no punches. Then Rutgers distinguished scientist Alan Robock tells us why geoengineering might not be a good idea. Open your ears and your mind to what's coming next.

Download or listen to this Radio Ecoshock show in CD Quality (56 MB) or Lo-Fi (14 MB)

Or listen on Soundcloud right now!



DR. KEVIN ANDERSON TELLS IT LIKE IT IS

Dr. Kevin Anderson is a Professor of energy and climate change at the University of Manchester, UK. He's also Deputy Director of the Tyndall Centre, a multi-university project for the study of climate change. Kevin has advised the UK government and European Union.

Find Kevin's web site here.

As I reported in my Radio Ecoshock show in 2012:

"In a devastating speech at the University of Bristol Tuesday November 6th, 2012, Professor Kevin Anderson accused too many climate scientists of keeping quiet about the unrealistic assessments put out by governments, and our awful odds of reaching global warming far above the proposed 2 degree safe point.

In fact, says Anderson, we are almost guaranteed to reach 4 degrees of warming, as early as 2050, and may soar far beyond that - beyond the point which agriculture, the ecosystem, and industrial civilization can survive.

Kevin Anderson is from the UK's premier climate modeling institution, the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, and the University of Manchester. He delivered the speech 'Real Clothes for the Emperor, Facing the Challenges of Climate Change' at the Cabot Institute of the University of Bristol in Britain."

Read my blog about all that here. A Radio Ecoshock listener made this transcript of that talk.

The speech is still a great listen. Download or listen to the audio of Kevin Anderson in Bristol in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

NOW WE GET THE UPDATE

Is Kevin Anderson more optimistic 3 years later. Hardly. Practically nothing has been done about greenhouse gas emissions in the real world, and years of climate talks have not made any progress.

Still, we talk about new science, and our increasing focus on the details of what will happen as climate disruption sets in.

The climate denialists like to says that climate scientists fly about the world to conferences. Personally, I think these scientists should do exactly that, to meet and match up research. If there is a last plane flying, these are the people who should be on it.

But Kevin Anderson has taken the whole issue to heart, saying each of us must make personal sacrifices. He's pretty well stopped flying. Yes Kevin was just advising the World Bank at a conference in Iceland, but he took a more fuel efficient solution: a rather unpleasant trip on a merchant marine ship. The waves were wicked he told me.

Dr. Anderson will attend the Paris climate talks later this year. He can go by land, using the Chunnel. It's loud and clear. All of us have to re-evaluate who we are and what we do. Are you bored with winter, or just bored, and want to fly to an exotic location? Be sure and kiss the kids and grandkids goodbye, as you add to their future misery...

We talk about new science showing climate change is speeding up, and what it all means. He's a powerful voice, don't miss this interview.

Download or listen to this new Radio Ecoshock interview with Dr. Kevin Anderson in CD Quality or Lo-Fi.

ALAN ROBOCK on NUCLEAR WINTER, GEOENGINEERING AND CLIMATE CHANGE

What if geoengineering to save the climate turns out badly? What could go wrong? Alan Robock has some questions, and the science to back them up.

As a Distingushed Professor of environmental science at Rutgers University, Alan has published over 200 peer-reviewed scientific papers. He's an Editor at the important Earth Sciences journal called "Reviews of Geophysics". Alan has been a lead author in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

I also ask Dr. Robock about another application of climate science: what happens if there is an exchange of nuclear weapons. Could that stop global warming?

Download or listen to this new interview with Dr. Alan Robock in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

WHY GEOENGINEERING MAY NOT BE SUCH A GOOD IDEA

I do a lot of research for each guest. To be honest, I don't have time for detailed notes on this week's interview with Alan. It's very powerful, and loaded with science and reality - as befits a major contributor to science, and to the web site realclimate.org.

Instead, I'm going to give you my notes on a web presentation by Alan Robock and some of his students.

Find this online article here.

Reasons geoengineering may be a bad idea

Climate system response

1. Regional climate change, including temperature and precipitation

2. Continued ocean acidification

3. Ozone depletion

4. Effects on plants of changing the amount of solar radiation and partitioning between direct and diffuse

5. Enhanced acid precipitation

6. Effects on cirrus clouds as aerosols fall into the troposphere

7. Whitening of the sky (but nice sunsets)

8. Less solar radiation for solar power, especially for those requiring direct radiation

9. Rapid warming when it stops

10. How rapidly could effects be stopped?

11. Environmental impacts of aerosol injection, including producing and delivering aerosols Unknowns



12. Human error

13. Unexpected consequences (How well can we predict the expected effects of geoengineering? What about unforeseen effects?)

Political, ethical and moral issues



14. Schemes perceived to work will lessen the incentive to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions

15.Use of the technology for military purposes. Are we developing weapons?

16.Commercial control of technology

17. Violates UN Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques

18. Could be tremendously expensive

19. Even if it works, whose hand will be on the thermostat? How could the world agree on the optimal climate?

20. Who has the moral right to advertently modify the global climate?



We find a graph showing (a) warming at our current emissions rate up to 2050 (b) SRM by dumping 3 Million tons a year into the Arctic only from 2008 to 2030 (b) Dumping 5 million tons a year into the tropics in the same period, and 10 million tons a year into the tropics.

The Arctic experiment seems to lower Earth's mean temperature by about .2 degrees C, which could be said to counter-act or gain about 20 years in the emissions pathway. After stopping in 2030, the heat level regains entirely the original pathway upward without geoengineering.

The 5 million tons a year into the Tropics has a of about .4 degrees C, but as soon as it stops, it starts an upward curve parallel to the un-geoengineered curve, but lower by about .1 degrees by 2050.

The 10 million tons a year causes a significant drop in temperature, going from .8 degrees C above the 1951 to 1980 mean in 2020, to about .3 degrees below that mean temperature (-3 on the chart). That's a drop of 1 degree C. However, when geoengineering stops in 2030, the temperture rises again to about .1 degree C of where it would have been anyway, or 1 deg C warmer than the 1951 to 1980 mean temperature.

The Arctic drop expands over much of the Northern Hemisphere, but doesn't affect the Southern Hemisphere much. So it would affect acidity or rain and lakes, and reduce sunlight to both crops and solar power installations, in the Northern Hemisphere. The impacts don't stay in the Arctic. The impacts seem greater in Russia's north than in North America.

Precipitation also drops, the planet gets drier as it gets cooler. The tropical drop affects the whole world, but precipitation is greatly impacted in certain spots, like Northern Australia. The precipitation changes more than the temperature.

Note that the Arctic sea ice continues decline even with the 3 MT year drop in the Arctic, not much differently than having not done it at all.

"Both tropical and Arctic SO2 injection would disrupt the Asian and African summer monsoons, reducing precipitation to the food supply for billions of people."

ALAN ROBOCK ON NUCLEAR WINTER

Alan and I discuss "nuclear winter" in our interview. I ask him if he thinks a major nuclear war would lead to human extinction. Unlike Helen Caldicott, he's not so sure it would.

Alan tells us about the "Toba event" that scientists think occured about 74,000 years ago. A huge super-volcano erupted in Indonesia (leaving a hole and lake today). The sun was blotted out for several years, likely decimating plants and animals.

Genetic scientists chimed in that research into the X and Y chromosomes of humans seems to show a "bottleneck" possibly around the same date. Some scientists speculate that humans declined to around 10,000 individuals (for the whole of planet Earth!). That would explain why most of us share some of the same genes.

If we could survive Toba, Robock says, some people somewhere might survive the nuclear winter after a war.

We also talk about what would happen if India and Pakistan got into a "minor" nuclear war, with the smaller weapons they have. There is no "minor" nuclear war. Aside from the millions of people dead, again the cities burn with so much dust that the sun would be dimmed - all over the world! Crops in North America and Europe would suffer greatly. Food shortages would appear.

That means that any nuclear exchange anywhere happens to all of us. We can't just push it aside as a matter in some foreign lands. That is also why nuclear weapons can never be used. We really only bomb ourselves.

ALAN ROBOCK AT THE NYC SYMPOSIUM ON THE THREAT OF NUCLEAR WINTER

Title of Robock talk at the New York City Symposium: (in the morning of Day One, February 28, 2015):

"Nuclear Famine and Nuclear Winter: Climatic Affects of Nuclear War, Catastrophic Affects to the Global Food Supply"

You can listen to or download this 19 minute presentation by Alan here. It was delivered at this "Symposium: The Dynamics of Possible Nuclear Extinction l February 28-March 1, 2015 at The New York Academy of Medicine" sponsored by the Helen Caldicott Foundation (my thanks to Helen, and Dale Lehman of WZRD radio for recording this 19 minute talk).

You can find audio of all the speeches from the Symposium available for free download here.

In ground burst type of nuclear explosion, fires start with tremendous smoke, but also parts of the ground are blown into more particles in the air. Some obscure the sun, some reflect it, so very little sun reaches the ground. That causes rapid drops in surface temperature, devastating crops.

The smoke in the air also heats the upper atmosphere, which then destroys ozone. More ultraviolet radiation reaches the ground, also devastating for life.

Nuclear winter would be more cold, dry, and dark at the surface, but loaded with ultraviolet light.

The problem has not been solved.

In the 1800's one volcano caused such cooling it snowed in July, crops suffered in the "summer that never was". That's nothing compared to nuclear war.

Reagan and Gorbechov had info from both Russian and American scientists telling them a nuclear war has no winners, only losers in a nuclear winter. They both said that information from scientists helped them end the arms race.

There are now 9 nuclear nations. The current arsenal can produce a nuclear winter that would last decades. A smaller local war would not create freezing conditions at ground level, but would be terrible where it occurred, and create severe effects on agriculture around the world.

CITIES BURN

1906 Earthquake in San Francisco filled the land with smoke, firestorm for 3 days. All buildings but stone ones gone. Same in Hiroshima.

There are about 16,400 nuclear weapons in the world now. Russia has 8,000 US has 7,000. Other countries only have a couple of hundred each. That's all it takes to be a deterrent.

As in our interview, Alan spoke about the hotspot of India and Pakistan - the subject of a study, with 50 Hiroshima size weapons. It would create 6.5 million tons of smoke. Even 5 million tons of smoke can affect climate. 20 million people would die directly. He shows a movie of where the smoke would go.

Most would go into the stratosphere, beyond the level of weather, where rain cannot wash it out. So it would cover the world and last for about a decade. (Inadvertent geoengineering?) It would become 1.5 deg C or 2 degrees Fahrenheit colder. That would be "climate change unprecedent in human history, colder than the Little Ice Age" (10:20)

Two other climate models were run to check this simulation. All three found basically the same results.

In China, the largest food producer, for about 10 years rice would be down about 20 percent, winter wheat 40%; in the U.S. corn would go down by about 20%, soybeans 15%.

But it's much worse than that. The actual bombs of today are much, much more powerful than the Hiroshima-sized bombs used in these studies. One Trident submarine can produce about 1,000 Hiroshimas. The U.S. has 14 Trident subs, and that is just half the American arsenal.

That could be 150 million tons of smoke, and 7 or 8 degrees C colder! Every possible target in Russia and the U.S. had a possible 9 nuclear bombs targetting it. Even with just one on each target, we can still produce the same amount of smoke.

14:40 "yes this would solve the global warming problem" "I did a calculation, if you produce that much smoke and you stop producing CO2, the global warming is gone".

15:04 "So what's new in this work? A nuclear war between any nuclear states using much less than 1% of the current nuclear arsenal can produce climate change unprecedented in recorded human history" "Such a 'small' nuclear war could reduce food production by 20 to 40% for a decade."

They revisited nuclear winter calculations made in the 1980's, and the current US and Russian arsenal can still produce global temperatures below freezing. Old 1980's computers were less powerful than an Iphone. Now modern models confirm those results.

They can only test this theory in little bits, using analogs, like winter cold.

WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?

New START treaty signed between Obama and Medyev (sp) signed in 2010. In 7 years, each side would bring arsenal down to 1550 per side. Due to a loop-hole on bombers, it might actually be about 2,000 nuke weapons each. That could bring world total down to about 5,000 weapons.

If instead the U.S. and Russia went down to about 200 each, like other nations, that could be enough to prevent a complete nuclear winter. "We wouldn't be able to produce enough smoke to actually cause temperatures to go below freezing, and sentence the entire world to famine."

Maybe a billion people would die with just a nuclear war between India and Pakistan.

The late Carl Sagan, a leader in nuclear disarmament in the 1980's said: "For myself I would far rather have a world in which the climatic catastrophe cannot happen, - independent of the viscisitudes of leaders, institutions, and machines. This seems to me to be elementary planetary hygiene, as well as elementary patriotism."

"We've already banned biological weapons in the world, chemical weapons, land mines and cluster munitions."

Support ICAN the international campaign against nuclear weapons wants to ban nuclear weapons.

Ends with Dr. Zeuss quote: "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not."

HEATHER WOODBURY - AS THE GLOBE WARMS

As the climate crisis deepens, we don't know how to grasp it. That's when we call in the arts, our pathway to the heart and the inner brain. Heather Woodbury has a one-woman play with a huge cast for this coming Earth Day. Heather has been recognized in the performing arts with awards. Her work has spread into books and public radio, and inspired many.

Now Heather is launching a climate change novel on stage. It's called "As the Globe Warms".

Listen to or download this interview with Heather Woodbury (10 minutes) in CD Quality.

In this program I play a quick clip from "As the Globe Warms" the audio eco-comic novel by Heather Woodbury. The clip comes from here.

Here is a 2.25-minute scene from Episode Nine.

The whole series will be finished and available on Earth Day this April 22nd. I love that Heather tested this piece in Florida and Texas, where climate change dare not say it's name...

Here is a description of the new audio play, from the PR blurb:

"Timely and entertaining, 'As The Globe Warms' humorously explores surviving on a planet veering toward social and ecological crisis; Gripping,funny and sexy, the drama crucially connects the dots between climate change, America’s religious-secular polarity, and economic inequality. The protagonists are a working class family on the brink of extinction who befriend Tea Partiers, desperate scientists, off-the-reservation-Evangelicals, and come together via a strange form of eyewitness testimony from bees, bats, polar bears, and frogs.

Woodbury, an OBIE-winning actor and recipient of the Spalding Gray Award, is known for novel-sized solo works that combine serial storytelling with high-wire performance. *What Ever*, her 1990s stage tour-de-force, was adapted and broadcast on public radio, hosted by Ira Glass, and published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Filmmaker Richard Linklater (*Boyhood)* likens being engrossed in her serial works to "living INSIDE a novel." Laurie Anderson calls her "an incredible one-woman Dickens." And The Irish Times writes of her work "What if the great American novel turns out to be a piece of theatre?" (Fintan O'Toole)"

LISTEN TO The Newest Episodes from the current podcast here.

WATCH a scene from the original crowd-funded webcast here.

KEEP TRACK OF RADIO ECOSHOCK

Keep track of Radio Ecoshock on Facebook, by Twitter, on our Soundcloud page, and our web site, ecoshock.org.

I appreciate the people who hit the "Donate" button on this page. You are funding the program!

I'm Alex Smith. Thank you for listening, and caring about your world.

Heat and the Rising Sea

Coming up in this Radio Ecoshock show: what you and your government are not being told about the threat of rising seas. Plus, how climate change was a driver of civil war in Syria - and Yemen. We finish up with a frank talk about thawing permafrost and why millions of Russians think global warming is a good idea. More of the talk usually left unsaid - right here on Radio Ecoshock.

We don't very often hear about what is happening in Russia, especially now with the latest freeze in relations. So I'm happy to bring you this next interview about how the Russian north is thawing, and what that means for their economy, and the people who live there. Will disappearing permafrost change the future for the whole world? You bet it will.

Guests: Dr. Robert Nicholls, Dr. Colin Kelly, Dr. Nikolay Shilomanov

Listen to or download this Radio Ecoshock show in CD Quality (56 MB) or Lo-Fi (14 MB)

Or listen on soundcloud right now!



DR. ROBERT NICHOLLS: WHAT GOVERNMENTS AREN'T BEING TOLD ABOUT RISING SEAS

Scientists on Radio Ecoshock have warned that sea level rise, not heat, may be the biggest and most costly threat of climate change. We know coastal cities around the world are endangered. But are governments getting the best advice from official bodies like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change?

A new report from researchers at the University of Southampton in the UK says "no". Their commentary, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, says critical risks are not being communicated.

The lead author for the paper "Sea-level rise scenarios and coastal risk management" is Professor Jochen Hinkel. He was on Radio Ecoshock this past February. Here to explain the new work is co-author Robert James Nicholls. He's an award-winning Professor of Coastal Engineering at the University of Southhampton. I reached Dr. Nicholls in the Maldives, an endangered island nation in the Indian Ocean.

Dr. Robert Nicholls.

The commentary we talk about was published in the journal Nature Climate Change. It is titled "Sea-level rise scenarios and coastal risk management"

Right at the opening of Nicholl's published commentary, the authors say the IPCC, quote:

"aims to understand and reduce uncertainty, a viewpoint that is quite different from the one of coastal management, which aims to reduce risks. Unfortunately, this is not spelled out clearly both within and beyond the IPCC reports."

The difference is rather large. Essentially if you look at sea level risk as a large Bell curve, the IPCC scientists take the conservative view that the central assumptions are the most likely, so that's what they tell governments. That's where under 1 meter sea level rise by the year 2100 comes from.

But wait. There is a 33% chance, shown as a fat tail of probability extending away from the main curve, that sea level rise will be far more serious. The most "extreme sea level rise" is what coastal planners on the ground want to know. Once they know how bad it could get, they can decide what berms, levees, dams, or tidal control measures will be needed. Once you spend some billions of dollars on coastal defences, you don't want to find it breached within 50 years.

The paper authors also say the Intergovernmental Panel results are not 100% reliable, because they are based on models, and even those model results are hard to understand. It sounds like we really don't know.

There's another huge problem, and that is when we try to interpret these global mean sea level rises to local realities. I've seen science saying, quote:

"Sea levels across the Northeast coast of the United States rose nearly 3.9 inches between 2009 and 2010".

We'll talk to the author of that work, Paul Goddard, in an upcoming Radio Ecoshock show.

That big rise along New England is temporary. It is attributed not to land sinking, but to changes in ocean currents. So it's not a simple equation for sea level rise. So much depends on other local conditions.

The highest global mean sea level rise prediction corresponds to the worst case IPCC scenario, which they call "RCP8.5". That is the course we are currently on. What would such a world look like, when my 5 year-old grandchild is an older man?

I'm concerned that governments, and our listeners, picture a gradual sea level rise which takes a century to really matter. But the forerunners can arrive much sooner. I'm thinking of things like hurricanes, storm surges, and super-tides. If sea levels go up faster and further than the middle-ground IPCC estimates, what would we see around the world?

Should governments try to prepare for the conservative, let's say optimistic, assessment of sea level rise? Or should they prepare for the extremes, even though that may cost many more billions of dollars in the short-term?

Nicholls tells us the most advanced countries in preparing for high sea level rise are the UK, the Netherlands and Germany. London, he says, can be protected for hundreds of years. They are already making plans for 2 meters of sea level rise by 2100.

New York is very vulnerable, as Hurricane Sandy showed us. New York City is not spending a few billion dollars to build the three tidal surge control gates it needs for the 3 entrances to their harbor. But at least, Nicholls says, NYC is built on solid rock, so flood control can work.

As I heard in a recent speech by Jeremy Jackson, that is not true for Miami. The land under Miami is very porous. There is no way to stop incursion by the sea. Jackson says that city will have to be abandoned. In our interview, Nicholls says some island nations in the Pacific will also have to be abandoned, and they know it.

To hear a longer presentation by Dr. Robert Nicholls, try this one: "Adaptation to sea-level rise" at the Geological Society of London, 2012 Shell Lecture, on You tube here.

Download or listen to this Radio Ecoshock interview with Robert Nicholls in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

DID CLIMATE CHANGE CONTRIBUTE TO THE CIVIL WAR IN SYRIA? DR. COLIN KELLEY

Scientists have predicted climate change could lead to instability within some nations, and war. Long-time listeners may recall my February 2010 show with clips from a speech by Gwynne Dyer, author of "Climate Wars". After interviewing top military people in many countries, Dyer concluded that wars driven at least in part by climate change are an inevitable part of our future history. Find those clips in this show.

In a report released in October 2014, the U.S. Pentagon said the same thing. See my links to that Pentagon paper below. Now we have the first peer-reviewed study saying climate wars are not just the future. One may already have happened, in Syria.

We have the lead author of a new paper with us, Dr. Colin Kelley. Colin is a post-doctoral fellow and visiting scholar with the Geography Climate Hazards Group at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

His paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy, or PNAS, is titled "Climate change in the Fertile Crescent and implications of the recent Syrian drought".

Dr. Colin Kelley.

SYRIA IMPLODES

To sum up, in 2006 a multi-year drought appeared in Syria and its neighboring countries. After three years of drought, more than million Syrian farmers left their land, and went to the city to try to survive.

Syrian cities were already overcrowded. The population of the country zoomed from about 5 million in 1950 to over 20 million today. We don't know exactly how many refugees from the Iraq war streamed into Syrian cities, but it's thought to be well over 1 million people.

The government of Syria made the situation worse by helping intensive agriculture in North East Syria, considered the "bread-basket" of the country. Before the drought, about one quarter of Syria's GDP was based on wheat. That disappeared with the drought. Was it a mistake to promote such a water-intensive crop as wheat?

Have there been droughts in Syria before? Of course. But Colin Kelly and his associates calculated that the odds of a multi-year drought more than doubled with climate change. They concluded the overcrowding and crashing economy could not have happened without global warming. The authors don't call climate change a "cause" of the Syrian civil war, but a "catalyst" helping it happen.

Therefore, this is likely our first case of a "climate war". And like everything else about climate change, it arrived decades before the experts expected it!

Part of this stage was set by the 2011 study from NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They found "Human-caused climate change [is] a major factor in more frequent Mediterranean droughts". The NOAA paper of 2011 said sea surface temperatures are the primary driver of drought in the Mediterranean.

I asked Colin Kelley if his research could apply to other countries, particularly those who felt instability or the "Arab spring" around 2010-2011. He said the climate factor was not likely associated with regime change in Libya or Egypt. But his team is now investigating the impact of climate on the problems in Yemen. Yemen is notorious for mass hunger, even starvation, and it gets very little rain lately.

Download or listen to this Radio Ecoshock interview with Dr. Colin Kelley in CD Quality or Lo-Fi.

You can read what Joe Romm at Climate Progess had to say about Syria and civil war here.

See also: Pentagon Report: U.S. Military Considers Climate Change a 'Threat Multiplier' That Could Exacerbate Terrorism by Zoe Schlanger of Newsweek 10/14/14.

The Dept of Defense press release is here.

The actual report "Department of Defense 2014 Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap" was publicly available but has since been pulled from defense.gov. But it's still available for online reading here.

THAWING PERMAFROST AND THE RUSSIAN ECONOMY: DR. NIKOLAY SHILOMANOV

We live on a strange planet. Few people realize that almost a quarter of the land in the Northern half of this world is frozen. Under a thin layer that thaws under the summer sun, the land there is always frozen. It's called permafrost, and it extends from Alaska, across Northern Canada, Scandinavia, and finds another giant kingdom in the Russian north, in Siberia.

New science confirms the world's permafrost has been slowly thawing. Now with climate change, that pace has quickened. Here to explain what that means for society and the economy of Russia, is Nikolay Shilomanov. Nikolay is an associate professor in the Department of Geography at George Washington University and an Arctic researcher.

DR. Nikolay Shilomanov

What is permafrost? Shilomanov says it is just frozen dirt. It has to stay frozen for two years running to be called permafrost.

In North America, the small population of the permafrost lands have become accustomed to it. They have adapted to a solid icy foundation. In fact, they depend on it.

It's different in Russia. Due to the Soviet experiments in populating and industrializing their Arctic, there are over 5 million Russians living on permafrost. These are not aboriginal settlements, but serious cities with modern conveniences.

All the infrastructure to support those cities, and for the large oil and gas industry, is built on permafrost. As it thaws (land thaws", only ice "melts") - there is a real challenge for the foundations of buildings, and long projects like pipelines. About 25% of the world's gas reserves are found in permafrost lands.

Previous research used living materials like pollen or tree rings to study the Arctic past. Now a group from the Alfred Wegener Institute managed to measure time and temperature in land ice by taking ice cores from spikes of ice going down into the Permafrost. This is important, because biological markers, like tree rings or pollen, can show the temperature in the summer. But not what is happening in the winter, as the ice samples can.

It turns out that there was a long period where the summers were cooler than today, but the winters were warmer. Until recently, we didn't know that.

Nikolay is quite frank in saying that millions of Russians want more global warming. They are tired of long, cold winters, and see real advantages (for them) in a longer growing season.

This interview is based on the paper in Nature Geoscience "Long-term winter warming trend in the Siberian Arctic during the mid-to- late Holocene" by H. Meyer, et al Find the abstract here.

Here is a good article about this new research into Permafrost, found in E&E News.

Also see this authoritative article from the Afred-Wegener-Institut in Germany. It's interesting to note that despite the "cold war" between the U.S. and Russia, German and Russian scientists are still cooperating on tracking the impacts of climate change.

THANKS FOR LISTENING!

As always, I appreciate the brave minds who are willing to follow the adventure of living in this new age, the Anthropocene. The science isn't always easy for me, or for you, but we struggle together to understand, and then to act.

My special thanks to all the people who contribute real money to this Radio Ecoshock project. You keep it alive!

Don't forget to check out our soundcloud page. We're are heading toward 20,000 listens there.

Alex Smith

host and producer of Radio Ecoshock, as broadcast on 87 non-profit radio stations, in the U.S., Canada, UK, and Australia, and around the world on the Internet. Now in our 8th year.

NUCLEAR EXTINCTION IS POSSIBLE

SUMMARY: Famous anti-nuclear activist Dr. Helen Caldicott warns nuclear extinction still looms - a threat as great as climate change. Then author David Bollier explains the new Commons on the ground and in cyber-space. Radio Ecoshock 150211

Welcome. I'm Alex Smith.

You know, beyond abrupt climate change, there's another way humans can wipe themselves out with technology. A thermo-nuclear war can do it, and those 16,000 nuclear warheads are still on alert - even more after the revival of the cold war and the civil war in the Ukraine. You may not want to hear about it, but this threat is ugly and real. Helen Caldicott, the world's greatest anti-nuclear activist joins us.

Later in the show, we'll hear from an expert in the commons - the wealth we all share, outside the grip of capitalism, the markets, and almighty money. Author David Bollier explains.

Download or listen to this Radio Ecoshock show in CD Quality (56 MB) or Lo-Fi (14 MB)

Or listen on Soundcloud right now!



HELEN CALDICOTT - NUCLEAR EXTINCTION IS POSSIBLE

Helen Caldicott is an Australian medical doctor. In fact, she is a pediatrician - a children's doctor. Perhaps that is why she is so concerned about the impact of all things nuclear on children - and on their future. Most than 40 years ago, in 1971, this young doctor spoke out against nuclear weapons testing by France in the Pacific islands.

Here is just one paragraph from the bio on her web site

"While living in the United States from 1977 to 1986, she played a major role in re-invigorating as President, Physicians for Social Responsibility, an organization of 23,000 doctors committed to educating their colleagues about the dangers of nuclear power, nuclear weapons and nuclear war. On trips abroad she helped start similar medical organizations in many other countries. The international umbrella group (International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War) won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. She also founded the Women’s Action for Nuclear Disarmament (WAND) in the US in 1980."

Caldicott's work on warning the world about the dangers of the triple melt-down at Fukushima Japan culminated last year in a Symposium in New York City "The Medical and Ecological Consequences of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident l March 11-12, 2013". The online archive of those speakers (free video) continues to be an important resource. Find those here.

Helen and I could talk for hours about unsafe nuclear reactors, and the plot to sell more of them to developing countries. We could talk at great length about the ongoing reactor meltdowns at Fukushima Japan.

But I called Helen about a story nobody wants to hear about, even though it could threaten us with extinction as much as climate change, and maybe sooner than climate change. Her next a symposium is coming up in New York about the "Dynamics of Possible Nuclear Extinction". That will be February 28th to March 1st, at the New York Academy of Medicine.

The speakers list for this symposium is simply stunning. Apparently a lot of powerful minds realize the clock is still close to midnight for a devastating nuclear war. The speakers come from universities and major institutions in several countries. Yes Noam Chomsky will be there, and other names you would know. But there are more deep researchers, and some activists, who cover some very dark topics.

Here is the listing for just the first session, on Day One, February 28th.

"* Investigative journalist Eric Schlosser, author of “Command and Control,” who will discuss multiple nuclear accidents and near misses.

* Seth Baum, co-founder of the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute, will discuss the catastrophic risk of nuclear war.

* Max Tegmark, professor of physics at MIT, a Swedish-American cosmologist, will discuss the threat of artificial intelligence and of computers launching a nuclear war with no human input."

Your hair should be starting to rise about now. Mine is.

Yes, we thought this was all over. Nuclear war is just a shadow of the past, isn't it? Not really. Helen and I discuss the realities.

An accidental nuclear exchange is still very much part of those realities. The nuclear weapons systems of both Russia and the United States (who between them hold over 90% of all nuclear weapons) - are still set on hair-trigger alerts, pretty well dependent on no computer error. You have experience with computers. Do they make mistakes?

There is also a cyber-war going on right now. Government computers, some even in the Department of Defense, have been hacked. Maybe it's just a matter of time before a terrorist group, or even a teenager in a basement, launches a nuclear missle. Is that beyond possibility?

Humans make mistakes too. Helen tells us about the shadowy world of men waiting in silos. The President has three minutes or less to decide whether to authorize a launch. The man with the nuclear button, loaded in a device called "the football" follows President Obama every where he goes.

Meanwhile, all these missiles and bombs are getting old, starting to decay in facilities that are corroding. That's another grave danger. The list goes on until Helen finally says "I don't know why we are still here" - why we have survived this long.

Caldicott also tells us humans missed the chance to ditch all these nuclear weapons that can never be used. Following the deals to reduce missiles and bombs agreed to by Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev, President Clinton inherited an alcoholic Russian president Yeltsin, presiding over a fallen state. That was the time, Helen says, the opportunity to make a deal with Yeltsin to demolish the nuclear arsenal. Bill Clinton, says Caldicott, didn't have the military credibility, or the guts, to do it. Opportunity missed.

Now we see that Russia depends heavily on its nuclear arsenal to keep the United States out of places like it's former "colony" the Ukraine. Despite heavy propaganda hoping to drum up a new Cold War, millions of Americans and many European states hope America will avoid a major conflict with Russia.

THE IMPACTS OF NUCLEAR WAR

But what happens if arch-enemies India and Pakistan create a nuclear exchange?

Helen Caldicott: "A small nuclear war between India and Pakistan using only 100 nuclear weapons the size of Hiroshima would create what's called 'nuclear autumn'. There would be so much dust and oil deposits and radioactive fallout shot up into the stratosphere - it would cause a very big fall in temperature and over a billion people would starve the crops would fail, over a number of years. And that's only 100 weapons."

So this is where nuclear war and climate change cross paths. Even a limited nuclear exchange would cause a few years of global cooling. But that dust is eventually washed out of the atmosphere, going back to whatever warming was happening. So it isn't geo-engineering that accomplishes anything.

Of course the "dust" of a nuclear explosion is really all the toxic materials found in a modern city. That would be toxic to breath, even if it wasn't also radioactive.

NUCLEAR WINTER - THE OPPOSITE OF CLIMATE CHANGE

One of the speakers at the NYC Symposium is a well-known climate scientist: Alan Robock. Robock has worked with scientist Paul Creutzen. It shows that a full nuclear war between America and Russia would not create "nuclear autumn" but a full-blown nuclear winter.

Alan Robock, Rutgers.

This "winter" would likely be years, perhaps a decade, where the sun could not penetrate the dust clouds to reach the earth. Therefore all plant life would die, and humans also.

Additionally, a big nuclear war would destroy the ozone layer. When the sun finally returns, you would experience third degree burns in 3 minutes outside, and go blind.

Here is what Caldicott says:

"One of the speakers I have at the Symposium is a man called Alan Robock who is a Professor of Meteorology at Rutgers University. He with a guy called Creutzen has done pioneering work about what happens meteorologically if there is a nuclear war.

It would only take a thousand bombs dropping in a hundred cities. But in fact there are two thousand bombs ready to be launched. Now the nuclear exchange would only take about half and hour to an hour between Russia and America.

And as the cities burn, and they are now filled with toxic chemicals, oil refineries, rubber, plastic, timber, you name it. As they burn, a huge cloud of toxic black radioactive smoke will be injected into the stratosphere. It will remain there for over 10 years. It will block out the sun, almost totally, for ten years, producing a tremendous lowering of temperatures and a short ice age, during which most creatures on Earth, including humans, will freeze to death in the dark."

She adds, "we are talking about the end really of creation, in a certain sense."

We have a previous parallel on the planet. The Chicxulub crater in the Gulf of Mexico, near the Yucatan Peninsula, was blown up when an asteroid hit the Earth 66 million years ago. Scientists found that plants all over the world died as dust from the impact blacked out the Sun, likely for years. Many animals went extinct, and a new age began. Is that what we could create with a nuclear war?

If you can make it to New York City at the end of February, the actual symposium is cheap. Something like $60 a day. I don't know when, or if, another major gathering of people of this stature will happen again. It will be historic.

If you can't make the symposium, the entire proceedings will be broadcast live over the Internet, from this site.

Older people remember the massive marches against the madness of nuclear weapons. Literally millions of people marched to tell their governments to get rid of nuclear weapons. (We can never use them, as you see). I worry younger people just didn't grow up with that nuclear fear, and think this has somehow been solved. It hasn't been solved, and festers like a constant threat to all of us, and everything on the planet.

To be honest Helen, when I read through your list of topics for the symposium, I had the reaction I think many of my listeners might experience. First I was angry, that we still have to deal with all this nuclear madness, and then I wanted to just run away and think of something else. That's pretty common isn't it?

Nuclear weapons are so threatening, we have barriers to overcome, just to get people to allow themselves to listen.

Who will warn the world, and lead us against nuclear madness, when Helen Caldicott eventually retires? Where are the new sane young people?

Good luck Helen, and thank you for never giving up.

Here is my reading list from Helen's seven books that I think you should read. You could start with the latest book she edited: "Crisis Without End: The Medical and Ecological Consequences of the Fukushima Nuclear Catastrophe". That was just published in October 2014. But I also recommend "War in Heaven: The Arms Race in Outer Space" written with Craig Eisendrath, and of course her classic book "Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer to Global Warming or Anything Else."

Download or listen to this 30 minute Radio Ecoshock interview with Helen Caldicott in CD Quality (27 MB) or Lo-Fi (7 MB)

P.S. TWO MORE THINGS

At the end of our interview this week, I also ask Helen Caldicott about the recent deal signed by Obama to promote nuclear reactor sales in India.

And there is distressing news out of Fukushima recently, about the number of kids getting thyroid cancer (a sign of radiation poisoning).

At the end of January, a new video was posted on You tube about the real health impacts at the triple melt-down in Fukushima Japan. A resident there, Chieko Shiina said the Japanese government and health authorities are trying to hide a huge spike in thyroid cancer in children living near the accident site.

The Japanese government does not want the health impacts to get out, because they want to restart dozens of shut-down reactors, mainly to save money to import natural gas. Will the Japanese public let them re-start those reactors, some of them also damaged during the 2011 Tsunami?

ON TO THE COMMONS

The news slaps us in the face: 1% of humans will control more than half the wealth of the world. This is the result of what author David Bollier calls "the market state" - that tight marriage of billionaires, mega-corporations, and our former democratic institutions. A host of problems boil out of this paradigm of power, including climate change. We've been told there is no alternative. David Bollier says there is, and it's an idea we've been taught to hate: the commons. His most recent book is "Think Like a Commoner: A Short Introduction to the Life of the Commons".

Whatever that is. It's one of those twisty ideas. The deeper you look, the deeper it gets. David has been at this for 15 years, as an independent scholar, blogger, and writer.

Really, the commons is all around us, in things like the highway system, National Parks and so on. Yet there is a political party in the United States, and in many countries, dedicated to privatizing everything, including prisons, hospitals, and schools. We discuss the forces working against the commons, which is technically called "enclosure" of public wealth.

Another problem with the commons as a tool for survival is our indoctrination. Most of us learned two things in school: the communes all failed, and "communism" is horrible. The multiple failures of the Soviet Union set back communalism for a generation or more.

During the interview, I suddenly realized I totally misunderstood the commons, as Bollier sees it. I was thinking about my own previous experience in the back-to-the-land movement, about enclaves of self-sufficiency like the Amish or something. See the classic "Heavens on Earth: Utopian Communities in America, 1680-1880" by Mark Holloway for example.

But the real commons is not withdrawing into an island. Instead, it is the broad public space we all own.

RADIO ECOSHOCK DEPENDS DIRECTLY ON THE COMMONS

This show is broadcast by about 88 college and community radio stations. These are non-profit organizations, often staffed or dependent on volunteers, who use the public air waves. By the way, none of those stations pay me anything, which is why I am often seeking donations to keep going.

You are probably using a type of the commons right now to read this. Your free browser uses the public commons of cyberspace. There is all kinds of work in the cyber-commons, including open source software, and information hubs like Wikipedia.

But we could do much more, to protect the commons we have left, and to develop new economic models which do not push 90% of the wealth to 1% of the people. Bollier actually gets me hopeful at times (I hate when that happens).

Humans evolved to live in a commons. And despite the 1968 book "The Tragedy of the Commons" - people all over the world work out systems to individuals don't abuse the rights of all. Not only can the commons work, it is working in many places right now. Up to 2 billion humans depend on the commons for their survival. It is the modern capitalist human that is out of step with nature and the reality of the commons. In fact, Bollier makes the argument that implementing this different economic model would be crucial to solving climate change.

From Bollier's web site:

"A growing body of scientific evidence suggests that social trust and cooperation may be an evolutionary reality hard-wired into the human species.4

4, Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, The Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and Its Evolution (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011); Martin A. Nowak, Super Cooperators: Altruism, Evolution and Why We Need Each Other to Succeed (New York: Free Press, 2011). "

David Bollier's web site and blog are a humungous source of info, for beginners and those in depth, about the commons. I was astounded to see Bollier's blog at bollier.org goes back to 2004! That's ancient history in the blog world. He also has a series of free podcasts at the site, great for people to educate themselves from their Ipod or mp3 player.

A couple of his books include the 2012 work "The Wealth of the Commons". He co-authored "Green Governance: Ecological Survival, Human Rights and the Law of the Commons" with Professor Burns Weston.

His latest book, just out really, is "Think Like a Commoner: A Short Introduction to the Life of the Commons".

Here is a superb essay by David Bollier, which can introduce you to work on this whole concept of the commons, and what it can do for us.

Listen to or download this interview with David Bollier in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

The approriate music for this segment is David Rovics song "The Commons". Find folk troubador Rovics soundcloud page here. But I didn't have room to squeeze it in this week. See David perform this song on You tube here.

WRAP UP AND NEXT WEEK

That's our show for this week. Next week we'll talk about the previous great mass extinctions with the British expert scientist Dr. Paul Wignall - and the possibility of our electric grid going down, as just happened when Pakistan went dark at the end of January. Stay tuned to Radio Ecoshock.

Download any or all of our past programs as free mp3 files, from the web site at ecoshock.org.

My thanks to those who supported Radio Ecoshock this week. You make this program (and this blog) possible. Find out how here.

I'm Alex Smith, saying thank you for listening, and caring about your world.