Wednesday, August 26, 2015

The Uknown Climate (replay)

Summary: Unknown tipping points, with Dr. Alan Hastings. Dr. David Orr, author of "Down to the Wire: confronting climate collapse." Plus Twelve Batty Things About James Lovelock. And why TV weathercasters never mention climate change. Radio Ecoshock 150826 (replay from 100409)

A new season of Radio Ecoshock, reporting from the front lines of climate change, begins next week - September 2nd. Stay tuned!

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In the Spring of 2010, the East Coast of the United States was nearly drowned in an extreme precipitation event. Ditto parts of Australia, and Rio in Brazil. This is the other half of "global warming" - global wetting. Scientists have been warning about it for years - now it's happening.

In the summer of 2015, the media attention is on the drought in the West, and the super fires. But this show reminds us, the pendulum will swing the other way for millions of people. Extreme weather will bring record floods somewhere in the world again this year.

WHY WEATHER CASTERS DON'T TELL YOU ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE

Right afterwards in 2010, Eastern Canada went way above any temperature records, hitting summer beach weather, the eighties - 25 degrees C - in the first week of April. Rhode Island hit the 90's. Still, hardly a single Network weather person mentioned "climate change". That's because a George Mason study shows that 67% of "weathercasters" believe that global warming is a natural event, and 27% think it's just a scam that isn't happening at all.

About half of those authoritative (but good looking!) faces on TV, telling us about the weather, have a degree in Meteorology. The other half just have the pretty or handsome face. Practically none have any scientific training in climate - but they talk like experts anyway. It's very damaging.

Our first guest says humans are very close to climate collapse. David W. Orr is a Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics, at Oberlin College, in Ohio. He's been a pioneer in greening higher education. He advises many leaders and foundations. His latest book is "Down to the Wire: confronting climate collapse."

TWELVE BATTY THINGS ABOUT JAMES LOVELOCK

Gaia theorist James Lovelock has just given another disturbing interview to the BBC in London. Lovelock claims it's too late, we shouldn't waste our money on things like wind energy, but spend it all on adapting to the inevitable climate shift.



Another worry proposed by Lovelock, is that climate change may not develop as a steady rise in either temperature or sea levels. It might happen as sudden jumps and reversals. He says previous climate records show a long-term heating can include intervals - perhaps decades or more - of cooling as well. Given all the global cooling nonsense from last winter's snowfall in the U.S., can any climate action plans can survive unsteady weather?

But Lovelock is making increasingly bizarre statements as well. Like this one: China is planning on moving it's population to Africa. Really? In this show I look into "Twelve Batty Things About James Lovelock".

TIPPING POINTS MAY ARRIVE UNANNOUNCED

I raised Lovelock's worries about irregular progression of climate change, partly because of another paper almost unknown to the general public. A theoretical ecologist at University of California Davis, Alan Hastings, says climate tipping points may not be predictable at all. According to his work, there may be no signals or warnings, before a radical shift. For example, temperatures could go up rather suddenly, and stay there.





Professor Alan Hastings

Hastings' paper didn't get much press, but it's quite important. As far as I can tell, Radio Ecoshock has the only original interview on the new paper from this distinguished scientist.

I've added a few minutes from Dr. James Hansen on radio in Australia.

Music credits: "Slow Me Down" by Emmy Rossum, Album: "Inside Out" 2:34; "White Flag" by Dido, Album: "White Flag EP" 4:00 "Enjoy Yourself (It's Later Than You Think)" Guy Lombardo, 1949.

Clips: James Hansen from ABC National Australia "Late Night Live" hosted by Philip Adams; James Lovelock from BBC.

Be sure to tune in next week for the new season opener!

Alex

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

IT'S WRONG TO WRECK THE WORLD

SUMMARY: From the University of Oregon, Kathleen Dean Moore delivers an artful talk about our attack on Nature, and hope of reviving love instead. Recorded in Vancouver. With readings from her work & original songs by Libby Roderick ("The Lifeboats Are Burning" and Tempting Eve ("We Are"). Radio Ecoshock 150819 (replay from 120502) 1 hour

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

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I record a lot of speeches, and listen to many more. This talk by Dr. Kathleen Dean Moore of Oregon State University is one of the best speeches of 2012.

The title was "It's Wrong to Wreck the World: Climate Change and the Moral Obligation to the Future". The presentation was organized by Simon Fraser University, in their Continuing Studies in Science and Environment program.

Kathleen spends every summer on a remote island off the coast of Alaska. She's in touch with Nature there, and at home in Oregon. In this artful, moving speech, we get some readings from her work - examples of why her books are so popular.

Find out more about Kathleen Dean Moore at her blog at riverwalking.com

Her latest book, a collection of 1500 short essays about our obligation to the future, is called "Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril." The writers are among the most famous people in the world, all speaking for the rights of the next generation(s).

"Morality" sounds boring. This speech surprised and moved me. It will do the same for you.

NEW MUSIC

The program also premieres a new original song by Libby Roderick: "The Lifeboats Are Burning", and a song inspired by a Radio Ecoshock Show - "We Are" by the new band Tempting Eve in Sydney Australia.

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

I Have A Confession To Make (Replay)

Emerging threats analyst and author Robert Marston Fanney on new frontiers of climate change. Dr. Alex Rogers of Oxford: State of the Oceans 2013. Radio Ecoshock 131016 1 hour.



Illustration by Marek Okon for Luthiel's Song by Robert Marston Fanney.

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WE ARE IN TROUBLE

Yes, we are in trouble. Last week, in this interview with Nicole Foss, we peered into the impending crash of the economy. It may dance on for a while using funny money from the Federal Reserve and other central banks. But fall it will.

A mere Depression would be good news, if the climate could stay the same for humans and all creatures. But even during hard times, we'll keep on dragging more and more dirty fossil fuels out of the ground. It's a burning party, maybe a funeral pyre.

Coming up we'll talk it all through with emerging threats analyst and author Robert Marston Fanney. You'll also hear an interview with a top marine biologist from the UK. Alex Rogers is the co-lead author of the new State of the Oceans 2013 report.

Alex reminds us that global warming is more a story of the oceans than our experiences of floods, fires, and storms on land. Most of our excess carbon is going into the sea, changing its chemistry, temperature, and the basis of the food chain. The ocean is where it's happening, and the ocean is a news nowhere land where reporters don't go, and humans don't care.

Going through the emerging science, I'm also alarmed to discover big changes in Antarctica can reshape our world. Climate change is like the many-headed Hydra. We think we know it, but we don't. The Earth is re-arranging in all the places humans don't look: at sea, at the poles, deep in the melting permafrost, and in the farthest forests and mountain tops.

In our opening show this Fall of 2013, climate scientist Paul Beckwith suggested warming could come very suddenly, even in a decade or two. A new paper by Morgan Schaller and James Wright of Rutgers finds, as Joe Romm writes, "When CO2 Levels Doubled 55 Million Years Ago, Earth May Have Warmed 9°F In 13 Years". It's a shocking example of what could happen.

The helpful Rutgers press piece on this study is here.

Business and political leaders have already announced they expect, or will tolerate a doubling of CO2 levels from the pre-industrial level of 270 parts per million to over 600 parts per million. We are already on our way, touching 400 parts per million this year, and adding more carbon faster every year, as the fossil fuel party expands around the world.

Canada, Australia, the UK, Europe, Brazil, and every country who can is promising to develop more fossil fuel resources. We are investing billions, possibly trillions, into more mega-coal mines, more fracked gas and Liquid Natural Gas plants, bigger tar sands and shale oil projects. Humans seem intent on fossil suicide.

Next week we'll talk with Morgan Schaller to find out what can happen in a mere 13 years on this fragile planet.

2047: WHEN OUR HOTTEST YEARS BECOME OUR COLDEST YEARS

Look at it another way. Another paper released this week says that by 2047 the coldest years will be hotter than the warmest years of the last two decades. We've already set new temperature records, and those will be the old years we look back on.

This paper was published in the Journal "Nature", by a team of post-grads at the University of Hawaii, led by Dr. Camilo Mora.

In an article by Justin Gillis of the New York Times, Dr. Mora says: quote

Go back in your life to think about the hottest, most traumatic event you have experienced.” “What we’re saying is that very soon, that event is going to become the norm.

Do it. Remember the heat wave you prayed would end. The day the sun seemed to be the enemy. You waited impatiently for the cooler darkness. That's the new day in 2047. Just 34 years from now. How old will you be then? How about your kids or grand-kids?

Other scientists suggest a concerted effort to kick the fossil fuel habit, going with reduced energy from renewable resources, could delay that heating by at least 25 years. That's more precious time for humans to move away from the rising seas on the coast, to re-think the whole food supply system, to work out ways to survive the coming heat. We must at least give our children that time.

WHY THERE WILL BE MASS EXTINCTIONS AROUND THE EQUATOR

That climate hydra pops out of this new paper again. I thought, and many scientists have suggested, that climate change would be less stressful around the equator. Most models suggest the extra heating will be the most extreme in temperate areas, and even more closer to the Poles. Certainly that's where we see the big news stories, about storms and fires in North America, Europe and Russia. Plus those crazy heat waves developing around the Arctic.

Dr. Mora says it only takes a small change in the tropics to create major damage. Why? Because the plants and animals there developed into a stable climate that doesn't change much during the year. Even a degree or two, combined with some changes in ocean or atmospheric currents, could bring down the rainforests, wreck the coral reefs, and cause mass extinctions of species. Tropical plants and animals are less able to adapt.

We simply haven't thought it through. Our unintentional geoengineering of the Earth has created a maze of cascading changes beyond our imagination. We are heading to a different world, if we survive to see it.

I'm asking for your help. I'm asking you to use every engine of communication, and every link to all the people you know, to raise the alarm. Join with me in this pledge I make for Radio Ecoshock: say it. We will speak the truth about what we are doing.

Our political and corporate leadership is bankrupt and dangerous. They don't know what they are doing, or their short-term gain seems worth risking the whole future. We let them, because we are comfortable and most of us too well fed. Geared to hunt and migrate as a species, now we have super powers to travel and kill. All of us have a thousand energy slaves to serve us delicacies every day. We're addicted to fossil fuels.

I don't know what twelve-step program can break us out of this master complex. I don't know if we will survive the fossil trap. But we have to try.

Nobody want to hear this. Your friends and family don't. But honestly, when we add up the science and our experiences in the real world, when we look the unstable weather in the face, there is no choice but to speak up.

Forget the envy of a better car or truck. Forget chasing paper wealth. Look at the young innocents and the other un-knowing species, the other passengers on this planet. Even in small steps, whatever changes we can make in our own lives matters most. Whatever sign we can make, whatever we can do, matters now.

Become a climate activist. Start with this interview with Robert Marston Fanney.

ROBERT MARSTON FANNEY ON EMERGING CLIMATE THREATS



Download/listen to this Robert Fanney 34 minute interview in CD Quality (31 MB) or Lo-Fi (8 MB)

We begin with Robert Marston Fanney reading from the introduction to his new book "Growth Shock, Tragedy and Hope at the Limits of a Finite World".

"I have a confession to make. One that is not easy to vocalize. One that is equally difficult to listen to. My confession is not one of a personal nature. I am not revealing my own, petty, individual sins. Instead, I’m making a confession for us all. A revelation of the ongoing and maturing tragedy of our race. One we will each need to be made aware of soon if we are to effectively act. For the age of excess is rapidly coming to a close and we are now entering a difficult and hard to manage age of consequences.

My confession is simply this: we are in trouble...
"

We'll get to the book, but that isn't why I called Robert. He captured my undivided attention with his searing analysis into large-scale patterns of climate change, based on real-time events happening around the world, right now. That's in his blog called "robertscribbler" at wordpress.com.

There it is, the scientific maps and satellite shots of extreme weather events and danger, brought together in ways we can all understand. Then Robert tops it off with analysis that I think raises whole new questions about our future together.

Maybe that's Fanney's previous training as an intelligence analyst, and years gathering scientific and technical assessments, as Editor for Jane's Information Group's emerging threats books, magazines, and electronic publications.

But there's another side to Robert Fanney that helps him imagine the future. He's the author of the science fiction series Luthiel's Song, which attracted a cult following, including many artists. You heard a few snippets written for the book "Luthiel's Song: Dreams of the Ringed Vale" by multi-media artist Ethan Jackson.

Details on composer Ethan Jackson here.

STATE OF THE OCEANS 2013



We humans have always believed the sea is so vast we can't seriously damage it. A new report warns this isn't so. It's called "The State of the Ocean 2013: Perils, Prognoses and Proposals". We've reached one of the lead authors, Professor Alex Rogers of Somerville College, Oxford, and Scientific Director of IPSO, The International Programme on the State of the Ocean.

The informative press release about this State of the Ocean is here. It contains a fast summary of the gravest concerns.

Copies of the report can be found here.

The United Nations' latest climate report concludes most of our carbon pollution is falling into, and damaging, the oceans rather than the land.

Download/listen to my 16 minute interview with Alex Rogers in CD Quality (14 MB) or Lo-Fi (4 MB)

HELP RADIO ACTIVISM

That's it this week for radio activism. Download our past programs and help the cause at our web site, ecoshock.org.

Our opening music was DANCE Live at the Labyrinth at Shambhala Music Festival 2011. That closes the show as well.

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Alex Smith on Post Carbon Radio

In the summer of 2015, it's another blistering week in North America, and around the world, as weather records fall. It's 105 degrees, or 40 degrees Celsius outside my studio in British Columbia Canada. The ocean-side city of Portland Oregon experienced back to back days over 100 degrees. A heat wave blasted the East Coast of the United States and Canada. Europe is cooler this week, after a blazing heat wave followed by freakish storms.

This same day, a city of 100,000 people in Iran experienced a combination of heat and humidity equal to 163 degrees Fahrenheit, or 74 degrees Celsius.

This El Nino year could be the record-shattering jump in global heating we've been warning is on the way. Welcome to your hotter world.

This week on Radio Ecoshock we turn the tables. Alex Smith is the guest on Post Carbon Radio, as broadcast on KWMR West Marin Community Radio outside San Francisco California. We go for the big picture on shocking climate change, and the eternal question: can we do anything about it? Let's go to Post Carbon Radio hosts Karen Nyhus and Bing Gong.

Download or listen to this Radio Ecoshock show in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

Or listen on Soundcloud right now!



Post Carbon Radio has grown into a really important climate radio source you should bookmark and add to your list. Or you can subscribe on Itunes. For example, here is their description of the previous week's show:

"We interview Victor Menotti, Executive Director of the International Forum on Globalization, and Claire Greensfelder, Co-founder of Women’s Global Call for Climate Justice and Senior Advisor on Climate and Energy for Women in Europe for a Common Future and Women's Environment and Development Organization. Both guests are veteran observers of the UN climate negotiations, and were in Bonn, Germany in June for the UNFCCC climate negotiations leading up to COP 21 in Paris this December. What happened in Bonn?

What can we expect in Paris COP 21? Is the 2 degree target enough to stop catastrophic climate change, and is it even achievable?"

The Post Carbon Radio show is found here on Podomatic: http://postcarbon.podomatic.com/

Speaking of good alternative radio, don't forget "TUC Radio" with host Maria Gilardin, also in Northern California. "TUC" stands for Time of Useful Consciousness. Her latest show is a speech by one of the world's top climate scientists Hans Joachim Schellnhuber. The talk comes from the conference "Our Common Future" held in July 2015. This program also contains some of Schellnhuber's remarks at the Vatican.

You can find a complete listing of TUC Radio shows, with free mp3 downloads here on radio4all.net. Maria's TUC Radio site is here.

ALEX ON CLIMATE CHANGE

Co-host Karen Nyhus begins with this:

"In my observation, the American press has dropped off its coverage of climate science in the last 5 years. The British press, by contrast, including the UK Guardian, have not, but they have also taken heat since you started broadcasting for putting out what others call “climate porn.” There’s a lot of debate about how to communicate climate science, if your goal is to inspire people to action, which presumably any non-denier wants. You’ve covered a lot about communication, despair, and climate change psychology.

You did a show recently called “How to Avoid Thinking About Climate Change. Can we start your thoughts on the responsible balance in journalism between telling hard truths and couching it in terms which can either motivate or discourage people? What have you learned in the past decade?
"

Alex: One thing I’ve learned is that mass media news realized we pay most attention to threats, and so the saying “if it bleeds it leads”. It’s true that programs I do with solutions get fewer listeners and downloads than very threatening news. Some have suggested our brains are really like hard drives that collect threatening information, so we can survive better the next time it happens.

Here are my notes on what I said:

Norwegian eco-psychologist Per Espen Stoknes tells us why public concern about climate may be falling, even as the science becomes more certain. His book is called "What We Think About When We Try Not To Think About Global Warming". Stoknes talks about 5 D's of Denial :distant (happening somewhere else), doom, dissonance, denial, and identity.

He also speaks of "apocalypse fatigue". The concern is the more fear and guilt, the more people become passive, and less likely to be activists. Anyway it's more pleasant to daydream about the new truck, a new dress, or the Kardashians. We all want to doubt climate science because we don't see how we can change (and that helps us want to believe industry disinformation about climate change.

According to Stoknes, psychology also shows that if new information requires us to change our identity, the new information loses; identity will over-ride the facts in our brains.

SOLUTIONS: social networks (we are more likely to install a solar panel of our neighbor does; a study showed that what neighbors do is very important, more important than a scientific argument, or even paying someone to change); making the climate framework more supportive; also we need to offer better stories. Also such simple things as labels can "nudge" us into making better buying decisions (for example the requirement to show what the annual operating cost of an appliance is).

As with other psychologists I've interviewed, Per Espen agrees it is appropriate to feel grief, but not to let that rule our lives. We should be able to open our hearts more after grief, and then let it turn into motivation.

The web page for Per Espen Stoknes is here.

My full Radio Ecoshock blog on the interview with Stoknes is here.

You can download the mp3 of that interview here.

Aside from psychological barriers to communicating climate change, there is also the educational problem. The science and our experiences of changing weather are all so new, even to climate scientists. There are new terms being invented to communicate things we’ve never seen before. None of this was taught in school (something we need to address) - so we all need to go back to school. You tube videos by scientists on climate change are a good place to start. Incidentally, I've found that on You tube, searching for "global warming" is more likely to bring up denial crap, and "climate change" is more likely to bring up real science.

BIG STORIES AT THE POLES

In this Post Carbon Radio show I also talk about the two biggest stories in my opinion - both of them at the poles. We have the melting permafrost, gigantic fires, and more methane emissions in the Arctic (not to mention rapid ice melt from Greenland, and disappearing sea ice). Antarctica is also a huge story. We thought it was stable or even getting colder, but ice is melting there too.

Karen and Bing ask me what has most surprised me in climate news lately.

The biggest surprises for me are the number of new studies, some coming out in just the past month, which say that certain climate processes are irreversible. We tend to wish that if we just change our actions, we can go back to the way it was. That’s a common human wish mechanism. But if you think about it, time only moves in one direction, and generally so does nature. I'm developing a new show for September on "Unstoppable Climate Change".

New studies show that ocean heating is now irreversible. And the melting of Greenland, with all that sea level rise, is probably irreversible in any time frame that matters to us. Likely permafrost melting is also beyond that tipping point where it can be stopped.

The third big shocker comes from one of America’s top climate scientists, Dr. James Hansen. He was with NASA, and back in 1988 warned Congress about climate change. If only they’d listened then, or if only they’d listen now. Hansen has a new scientific paper coming out with shocking news about sea level rise. The oceans could rise as much as 20 feet by 2050 he says. We hugely underestimate the speed and amount of Greenland ice melt, among other factors. It looks like the doubling time for ice melting is much shorter than we thought, doubling anywhere between 5 and 20 years, not a hundred or two hundred years.

Sea level rise will mean a lot to ports like Los Angeles and ocean-side communities. But it will hit Florida and the East coast much harder. Elsewhere in the world, most major mega-cities are on the ocean, and millions of people farm ocean-side river deltas. All of that may have to be abandoned. Not all scientists agree on this one yet, but Hansen has been only too right about climate change, for the past 25 years.

LYING TO OURSELVES

But my biggest worry is our common human ability to lie to ourselves. We are a very imaginative species. That is mainly how science was developed - to check reality in the outside world, without relying solely on our beliefs.

Science was invented, partly by Sir Francis Bacon in the 1600’s, because of our proven ability to create schemes like angels dancing on pins, that do not mirror reality. It’s impossible to over-estimate this ability to create alternative schemes that are not based in reality.

The Internet has just added more power to that, when you consider all the schemes based on an imaginary planet hovering around, and many other conspiracies. So we spin up all kinds of fantasies based around climate change as well, and these do not help us act appropriately to save ourselves. The idea that geoengineering is already happening with chemtrails is just one example. Or the way supposed scientists working with fossil fuel companies try to blame changes in the Sun for global warming, a theory long disproven.

I'm concerned we will all keep drifting along burning fossil fuels, and accepting false solutions from our leaders, until it's too late. Recently President Obama said he believes there is such a thing as "too late".

Bing asks me: "What is the mildest, most hopeful climate perspective you consider credible?"

I think the best vision would be an emergency program to convert ourselves toward green energy, combined with global climate justice. This might lead to a new carbon-free economy which also reduces some of the other stresses caused by wealth inequality, within the developed world, and between all countries.

CLIMATE MOBILIZATION

The discussion of emergency action leads to another of our recent guests, the psychoanalytical psychologist Margaret Klein Salaman. She talked to us about the climate mobilization pledge, found here. The historic example of mobilization during World War Two has been used by many climate leaders and thinkers. Hilary Clinton has used that example, as have Executive Directors of many NGO's, including Lester Brown of Earth Policy Institute. He was one of the signatories of a 2008 letter to President Barack Obama, calling for an effort like the World War Two mobilization, but this time to fight climate change.

Klein Salaman says psychoanalytical work helps a patient accept conflict, within themselves. For example, you might both love someone and hate them. We will have similar mixed emotions, because in spite of our climate knowledge, the fossil powered world around us is almost inescapable on an individual level. Still, we feel guilty about our energy use.

Another psychological defense against really knowing about climate impacts is "wilful ignorance". It's when you "know enough to know you don't want to know any more." We may start reading an alarming article on climate change, then quickly move on to another news item, and "forget" about it. The person could learn more about it, or really throw their lives into it, but claim they are not experts, not scientists, so they bear no responsibility.

Margaret started a Facebook group, now run by others, called "Climate Change. It's Personal". It's about how we as people live in these times. We don't have to experience the climate crisis alone.

Find my blog on Margaret Klein Salaman here.

Your can listen to or download that interview with Margaret here.

MY OPINION ON THE PARIS CLIMATE TALK IN DECEMBER

Bing Gong asks me about the Paris climate talks.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has underestimated all the changes so far. They thought Arctic sea ice would start to disappear around 2050, rather than 2007. The process involves a consensus among governments which include carbon producing countries like the United States, Saudi Arabia, Canada and Australia, who all have interests in keeping the status quo.

The idea of a 2 degree safe limit is not safe at all. And that’s what they are aiming for, and will fail even at that. Our current path is heading toward 8 degrees Centigrade warming by 2200, which means extinction for most species including ourselves.

Even worse, the plans for staying within 2 degrees C of warming all assume geoengineering to remove the CO2 from the atmosphere, a technology that does not exist, and won’t likely exist on a scale needed, like to remove 10 billion tons of CO2. We don’t have any industry on that scale. Even iron ore mining only manages to get 1 billion tons a year. So we are lying to ourselves again, which guarantees failure.

Sorry, but that's the way I see it. We should still try to pressure our leaders. I expect a large turn out in the streets of Paris, and in every major city, as common people plead for climate protection.

LOCAL ACTION

Karen says "For those of us who put little faith in that process, where do we turn? Bolivia held a people’s climate summit in 2010, which Bing and I both attended along with thousands of people from around the world. But the formal political powers ignored it. What is the role and the power of civil society, regular people organized into movements, nonprofits, unions, and the like, in the struggle to reign in climate change?"

My reply: as you may know Pope Francis just hosted a gathering of the most climate-aware city mayors around the world. The most progressive climate action is happening at the municipal level, which still has more connection to direct democracy, than Congress, which has been bought off by the Koch Brothers and other oil producers. So I encourage people to literally think globally, but act locally. Get involved with city hall, but also create the new reality we want and need by things like community gardens, total recycling of products, putting shopping pressure on retailers and producers. Use the market place as a ballot box.

Of course we also talk about the big drought in California, and what El Nino means to weather.

EL NINO, CLIMATE AND WEATHER

This El Nino looks ready to create the hottest year on record. Not just by a fraction of a degree, but a significant warming. New records for the first six months have been set globally, but also in many places. We had a 30 day heat wave here that broke records. It felt like the future for sure.

But there were high heat deaths in both India and Pakisatan. Central Asia heated up strongly. Extreme heat in Spain, Portugal and Italy. London England was very, very hot. Alaska is not, as is part of Siberia. Even the Australian winter was warmer there than usual, and records were set in South America.

Our science of El Nino and La Nina is still in early stages. There’s a lot we don’t know. For example, with the flash floods in Southern California be enough to off-set the tendency to drought? So far experts say we would need extended rainy periods, for a couple of years to end the drought, and that hasn’t happened. We don’t know how this combination will work.

Strangely, it almost seems like the warm El Nino waters in the Eastern Pacific broke off into a huge blob of unusually hot water off the U.S and Canadian Pacific coast. That’s partly responsible for our heat wave here. We don’t know for sure what caused it, of how often that may come again. Vancouver, which is normally a rainy city, is now on Stage Three water alert, meaning it is illegal to water lawns. Vancouver with brown lawns is something I’ve never seen before.

To get more current El Nino science and predictions,I recommend Robert scribbler’s blog at robertscribbler.com

BURSTING THE CARBON BUBBLE

We talk about Radio Ecoshock guest Jeff Rubin when we discussed his new book "The Carbon Bubble: What Happens To Us When It Bursts"?

Jeff Rubin was the chief economist for a major Canadian bank. He discovered that the basis of the Canadian economy was unstable, being increasingly dependent on expensive Tar Sands oil. Now that the price of conventional oil has crashed below $50 a barrel, the Canadian dollar, stock market and economy have crashed. The current government based its budget and its politics all on Western oil. They deny we are in a Recession, even though Canadian and American bankers say we are.

Similar scenes are playing out in North Dakota and Texas over fracking. Fracking is expensive, because you have to continually drill new wells, and borrow money to do it. There have been worries that the fossil fuel energy crash in the United States could be as serious, or more damaging, than the 2007-2008 housing crash. Big banks and pension funds are heavily invested in fossil fuels. If those loans go bad, that could trigger a crash. That’s partly what Rubin was writing about.

In any case, as many people know, most of the so-called reserves claimed by big oil companies will have to be left in the ground, because they are too damaging to the climate. We can’t burn them. Again, those big energy company stocks are based on the value of their reserves as much as current profits. They could fall, and if they don’t diversify into renewable energy, they will crash as badly as buggy whip makers did when horse transport was replaced by cars.

COULD WE BE WINNING?

Moving on from finance, we talk about causes for hope. I recently interviewed Dr. Jeremy Leggett on "Winning the Carbon War.” Leggett runs one of the larger solar energy companies in Britain. He’s also an expert in all kinds of energy. Like many of us, Jeremy went through a period of despair, as we failed to act. But he’s been collecting statistics that show renewable energy is being built much faster than things like new coal plants, or even gas generating plants, all over the world. We may be winning more than we know, even though it’s just a start.

After doing this for a decade, what gives me hope?

My main hope rests with the younger generation. Older people have shown they are unable to change their minds and lifestyles. Often they fall into religious excuses for their denial. But younger people were raised in a more scientific age, and question a lot of things. They also have grown up with fast-moving social networks that could communicate the movement we need to avoid the worst form of climate change.

That is partly why I am dabbling with composing electronic dance music with climate themes. I’m hoping the artistic community can inspire people where science and education may have failed. You can listen to my climate music on the Radio Ecoshock soundlcoud page here. In fact, I end this program with one of my climate songs as posted on soundcloud. It's called "Great Longing".



WHY "RADIO ECOSHOCK"?

As we wrap up, I add this:

The reason I called my program Ecoshock is due to the medical state of shock. You survive something terrible, like a fire or a car crash, but seem unable to move further to save yourself. You may be in a state of shock. I think we are in a state of shock about the climate, and we need to treat ourselves, almost in a mass medical manner, to get out of it.

Back in the 1970’s, Alvin Toffler suggested our civilization is so complex and changing he coined the term “future shock”. Now we have “climate shock” and “ecological shock” in general.

Think about people who have been blown out of their homes by tornados, again, or flooded out where floods have never been seen before. Will they finally vote for climate action candidates, or will their reliance on old beliefs just make them more resistant? Can humans respond to this crisis never seen before in literature, in the Bible, or anywhere? That’s the drama we are now living in – the biggest drama in our hundred thousand year existence on this planet, as allegedly intelligent beings.

NEW SEASON SOON!

I thought you might put up with my thoughts in this Post Carbon Radio show. But don't worry. I'm already hard at work lining up the real scientists, authors and experts for the new season of Radio Ecoshock, as soon as September begins.

My special thanks to all the correspondents who send me climate and environment news tips all through the year. I can't always reply to each, but many of these tips end up being new Radio Ecoshock shows. Thanks to Jack Wolfe for helping with the show Facebook page. And of course I thank all those people who donated money to keep this program going. I feel blessed and grateful for the opportunity to cover this beat.

Alex