New Age of Super Fires

Three key interviews on new role of fire during global warming. John Betts on super fires and what we can do. Tom Gower on science of burning north lands. Marc-Andre Parisien on mega-fires in Canadian North.

As forest fires rage across the Western half of North America, I've prepared a special show for your summer listening. Last week we heard 3 experts speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meet-up. This week I've pulled three of our best Radio Ecoshock interviews on the new age of super fires.

And there's a super fire raging right now in the Canadian prairie province of Saskatchewan. In the north is a fire burning over 100,000 hectares, about 250,000 acres of boreal forest. Our guest John Betts tells us about the new age of super fires, their causes and what communities and individuals can do to reduce the risk of unstoppable fires in the age of global warming.

I think the unreported fires in the far north of Alaska, Canada, and Russia are a big deal. Those forests were once carbon store houses which now become an addition source of greenhouse gases. If the top of the world burns, vast quantities of once frozen life can also be turned into both carbon dioxide and methane. Everyone in the world needs to know about this story, where ever you may live.

So we'll reach back to 2007, just a year after Radio Ecoshock began. In a short interview, Dr. Tom Gower talks about his research on fires in Northern Canada as a positive feedback loop in climate change. Then from September 2014, Marc-Andre Parisien from the Canadian Forest Service tells us about record mega-fires in the Canadian far north.

By the way, there is a new paper published in July 2015 by the journal Nature showing that climate change is definitely creating conditions for an increase in wild fires - in many parts of the world. The paper is titled "Climate-induced variations in global wildfire danger from 1979 to 2013" and you can read the full text, with helpful graphic maps, here.

The summary says:

"Climate strongly influences global wildfire activity, and recent wildfire surges may signal fire weather-induced pyrogeographic shifts. Here we use three daily global climate data sets and three fire danger indices to develop a simple annual metric of fire weather season length, and map spatio-temporal trends from 1979 to 2013. We show that fire weather seasons have lengthened across 29.6 million km2 (25.3%) of the Earth’s vegetated surface, resulting in an 18.7% increase in global mean fire weather season length. We also show a doubling (108.1% increase) of global burnable area affected by long fire weather seasons (>1.0 s above the historical mean) and an increased global frequency of long fire weather seasons across 62.4?million?km2 (53.4%) during the second half of the study period. If these fire weather changes are coupled with ignition sources and available fuel, they could markedly impact global ecosystems, societies, economies and climate."

I'm Alex Smith. Welcome to another hot summer on Radio Ecoshock.

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

Or listen on Soundcloud right now!



JOHN BETTS: THE AGE OF SUPER FIRES

Are we entering the age of super forest fires? Our guest is John Betts, Executive Director of the Western Silvicultural Contractors' Association in British Columbia, Canada. He's in the gorgeous lake-side town of Nelson British Columbia - right in the path of the dead pines forest fire threat.

John Betts



As a leader in an industry devoted to "managing" our forests, often by removing excess undergrowth, John advocates removing "fuel" from the forests before a disaster strikes. In years past, environmentalists have insisted such decay is natural and the woods should be left to their own devices.

Now it's different. With global warming and warmer winters, the Rocky Mountain Pine Bark Beetle has killed off entire valleys of pine trees. They will eventually burn - and some surround communities in the interior of British Columbia, and soon in Alberta too.

The same problem exists in the United States west, due to other bugs and general drying with climate pressures. Just consider the big fires in Colorado in 2012. The fires in Australia also look climate-related.

Betts adds a further cause: namely our success in stopping forest fires, (he calls it "suppression"). Most of these forests, especially in Western North America, were adapted to cycles of fires. The coniferous seeds could withstand a fire and regrow.

We know from studying forest soils there have been periods of fire for many centuries. But now with water bombers and new techniques, we stop them from burning, in our parks, on private lands, and around cities. John Betts says this means an abnormal amount of dead brush builds up beneath the trees. That's a recipe for a "super fire" - one we can't put out, until it burns out, or gets rained out.

In British Columbia, the dead pines can build into a kind of pyramid structure, just like you might build in a fire pit. That burns so hot it kills off any seeds. In fact, it can sterilize the soil even of helpful fungi and bacteria. So the forest doesn't grow back, and the ecology has been damaged.

Australia may or may not be a special case, with the eucalyptus trees and their oil, which act like instant torches. Note the Eucalyptus has been planted in California, in the U.S. South East, and around the Mediterranean. That could be a big mistake.

But with long drought, and excessive heat, we've seen many parts of the world burn as we've never seen in recent centuries. Consider the 2010 great fires in Russia which claimed hundreds of lives. Just previous to that, Serbia had giant fires, as did Greece and Spain. It's an ominous trend, which John Betts says is no accident.

As global heating continues, and the weather systems are thrown out of whack, we can expect a new age of great fires. Now you know the news before it hits your TV screen or headline. Expect it.

Betts advises communities how to prepare. Things like removing brush, or even if necessary, creating fire breaks around towns. And we should stop our home-building invasion of the woods, particularly in fire-ready areas. Having people living there drives more efforts to put fires out, which leads to the danger cycle again. Or people stay and try to fight the impossible flames, and die as they did in Australia. The government there has changed its advice - now telling people to get out, rather than remaining home with garden hoses against the inferno.

We need a lot of discussion and preparation to make sure our communities are safe, and our forests can return to some kind of natural cycle again - if "natural" is still possible in a big climate shift! It's possible some forests will never return, changing over to grasslands. We don't know yet, as we gamble away the future of the biosphere on a small planet.

Listen to/Dowload the John Betts interview on super fires (24 minutes) in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

FIRE EXPERT MARC-ANDRE PARISIEN

Regular Ecoshock listeners know wildfires in the Arctic are bigger and badder than ever. Scientists predict a huge increase over the coming decades due to changes in climate, and various feed-backs triggered by global warming. Could the whole boreal forest burn down?

New research has taken us deeper into fire behavior in the far north. The paper that caught my eye is titled "Resistance of the boreal forest to high burn rates." Our next guest is one of the authors. Marc-Andre Parisien is a research scientist for the Northern Forestry Centre of Natural Resources Canada’s Canadian Forest Service, located in Edmonton Alberta.

Along with scientists at the Centre for Northern Studies in Quebec, Parisien is an author of the new paper "Resistance of the boreal forest to high burn rates" published in PNAS, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on August 4th, 2014. You would need to be a paid member of PNAS to read this, but find the abstract here.

Marc most of us can barely imagine the size and condition of the great Boreal forest. It runs from Alaska right across the whole of Canada to Labrador - and that's just in North America. There is more in Scandinavia and Siberia.

Television doesn't report on fires in Canada's far north. Most of these blazes run their course with no one trying to put them out. How large can a fire get? A single large fire can be bigger than the island of Manhattan, which is 9,000 hectares, or more than 22,000 acres. One fire in the Canadian province of Quebec was 560,000 hectares, or 1.3 million acres.

This summer of 2014, Parisien tells us, over 4.6 million hectares of forest burned (11.3 million acres) - that is larger than Switzerland. It's a stunning amount of carbon taken from trees and forced into the atmosphere. That is when forests become a carbon source, rather than a carbon sink. It's also a huge burst of black soot, a global warming agent on it's own, and a contributor to the blackening of Greenland.

There are very different estimates for the increase in northern fires as the planet warms. By 2100, some scientists suggest forest fires in that region will increase by 30%. Others have suggested they might increase by 500%. If that becomes reality, we can doubt whether northern forests will continue to exist.

The one possible saving agent, and the point of the paper by Parisien and scientists from a Quebec University - statistically, forests that burned within the last 40 or 50 years are LESS likely to burn again in our time. It looks like there is a kind of negative feedback loop at work here, at least for forest fires. However, I feel all that is uncertain as the Boreal and Tundra continue to heat up much more than the rest of the planet. We're running a big experiment here on planet Earth.

In this interview, Marc-Andre notes that fires are not the only threat to northern forests. As the permafrost melts, trees can lose their hold in soil, tipping over in a phenomenon known as "drunken forests". These can already be seen in Alaska and the Yukon. We may also see changes in hydrology (when it rains or snows) as the planet warms. And forests have already been hit hard by changes in insects, like the Rocky Mountain Pine Bark Beetle which is killing off whole valleys of pines. These were enabled in such great numbers by a continuing lack of winters cold enough to kill them off.

We didn't have time to talk about the other big threat: logging the Boreal forest. It's huge, all for toilet paper and other items we throw away. Find out about endangered Boreal forest logging at Greenpeace here, Forest Ethics here, or Canopy here.

Marc-Andre listed other Canadian scientists who are studying the impacts of climate change on fires and the Canadian northern forests (despite Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister of the Tar Sands). He also recommends this web site: the Canadian Wildland Fire Information System. There you can find all kinds of helpful maps, charts and information. It's a super resource for those who care about what happens in the North. Since the future of the world may be partly determined by what happens there, that's you and everybody else in the world.

Download or listen to this Radio Ecoshock interview with Marc-Andre Parisien in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

TOM GOWER: FIRES IN THE CANADIAN NORTH (from the Radio Ecoshock Show November 16, 2007)

In the last few years, as the North heats up, wild fires have been burning, unreported and unopposed, across the top of the world, in both Canada and Siberia.

The latest climate models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change does NOT include this growing source of carbon.

Dr. Tom Gower was from the University of Wisconsin/Madison, and is now with the North Caroline State University Department of Forestry. In this exclusive interview with Radio Ecoshock, Dr. Gower explains the vast boreal forest of Canada is no longer a carbon sink. It is losing more carbon to wild fires, than the trees can gather up.

Forestry scientist Tom Gower



This has severe implications for our climate - it becomes a positive feedback loop. The snow melts earlier, the fire season is extended, it's much hotter up North (climate hits the Northern pole much heavier) - it all adds up to a big tinderbox waiting for the next lightening strike.

Dr. Gower's research was just published in the journal "Nature" on November 1st, 2007.

As Dr. Gower says, the recent fires in California as child's play compared to the massive fires in northern Canada. There's just no news crews up there.

This is part of a larger special program on Radio Ecoshock on the forest "carbon bomb." As one of our speakers, temperate rainforest activist Pat Rasmussen says, there is more carbon in the trees, by far, than in the whole atmosphere. It that gets released in a short period of years, it will be a "carbon bomb" changing climate drastically.

In the one hour Ecoshock program, we weigh out reports that the California fires were brought on by climate change (maybe, maybe not) - and then look at new science by Dr. Lara Kueppers who also says the forests of the Rockies are now emitting more carbon than they can capture. Forests are no longer our friends, now that we have changed the climate.

A 60 Minutes program, called the Age of MegaFires, even found an Arizona scientists saying that the American West will lost half its forests in the coming century, due to climate change!
Half the forests going!

We also try to figure out how much carbon is ready to go up in smoke, as the huge dead pine forests of British Columbia catch fire in the coming years. The Mountain Pine Bark Beetle, previously controlled by cold winters, has killed off 32 million acres of trees, and more to come. They are red, grey, dead, and waiting to burn.

The wild thing is that governments don't even count wild fire carbon in their grand plans and promises. In reality, California should take half a million cars off the road just to offset the carbon that came out of the recent fires. Canada must reduce it's emissions even more, because of the carbon coming from northern fires. British Columbia, the same.

These governments are cheating - but Mother Nature (the geo-physical system if you prefer) counts it ALL. No fooling the real atmosphere, which doesn't care where the carbon comes from, or what your excuse is.

NEW CLIMATE MUSIC

The United Nations Framework on Climate Change press room is running a weekly platform for climate music. I heard the lyrics for this next song by a Swedish writer calling himself "Climate Man". You can hear all of his music at climatesongs.com. We got in touch by email, and I agreed to produce a new electronic music remix for his song "CO2 Society".

You can find my version, with my own new music and voice, on the Radio Ecoshock soundcloud page to download or share for free. This is it.

BATTLING CARBON GIANTS IN PACIFIC NORTHWEST

SUMMARY: Pacific Northwest fights becoming a carbon colony. Vancouver protests American coal expansion (Kevin Washbrook, VTACC). Daphne Wysham: Oregon kicks out Canadian propane peddler. The unreported stories. Radio Ecoshock 150617

Welcome to Radio Ecoshock. This week we investigate attempts by the fossil fuel industry to capture otherwise green-thinking ports in the Pacific Northwest, of the United States and Canada, to export carbon to Asia. It's a battle you hardly hear about. Citizens are lining up against huge corporations with huge money, to fight off giant coal ports, liquified natural gas ports, even propane ports. If we commit to that infrastructure, we commit to devastating climate change - not to mention the explosive, toxic and polluting impacts of these big projects on the Pacific coast.

We first hear from activist Kevin Washbrook reporting from Vancouver, Canada, and then from green radio host and activist Daphne Wysham from Portland, Oregon.

I wrap up with some new science presented at a Harvard University research talk. Dr. James Anderson talks about why climate change is coming much faster than anyone thought possible. And why it's irreversible.

It's eco-shocking radio. I'm Alex Smith. Let's roll. But I first want to thank George from Australia. George generously covered all the telecommunications and download costs, for all Ecoshock listeners, for the whole summer. That's a load off my mind for sure. Thank you George!

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

Or listen right now on Soundcloud!



"GREEN" VANCOUVER, CANADA TARGETED AS CARBON PORT

Multinational corporations would like to turn the gorgeous port of Vancouver, Canada into another fossil fuel colony. After coal port proposals were blocked by public outcry in the American Pacific Northwest, they want to ship out coal to Asia through Vancouver. There is an active proposal to steer dirty Tar Sands oil into hundreds of tankers through Vancouver's scenic inlets. Even liquid natural gas is trying to use Vancouver at an outlet.

We've reached activist Kevin Washbrook in Vancouver. He's part of the group Voters Taking Action on Climate Change, or VTACC.

NASA scientist James Hansen famously was arrested protesting mountain top removal for coal. But in Vancouver, Simon Fraser University Professor and world energy expert Mark Jaccard was also arrested, blocking a coal train. The scientists are increasingly fed up with the failure of governments and official "climate talks" while carbon to the atmosphere keeps rising.

Trying to stop fossil fuel exports is like playing the game whack-a-mole. You find one project, and then another pops up, like the recent proposal to ship out Liquid Natural Gas via the historic Fraser River. We get a rather scary update on that project, with information anyone living near a proposed LNG terminal needs to know!

THE FIREBALL RISK OF LNG SHIPMENTS

Here's the scoop. Canada hardly requires any environmental assessment for liquid natural gas ports. Remember, these are not just "ports" but large industrial operations where natural gas is frozen at hundreds of degrees below zero Centigrade, which compresses it for shipments (often to Asia). The company on the Fraser River just looks at their immediate site, to list what environmental impacts that might have, and IS NOT REQUIRED TO ASSESS POSSIBLE DAMAGE CAUSED BY RIVER SHIPMENTS.

So the VTACC group had to look to the United States, which does require a full assessment, right out to the ocean. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security recognizes that liquid natural gas is a terrorist risk. The Canadian government under Prime Minister Stephen Harper talks a lot about the reality of terrorist theats to Canada, but doesn't assess the possibility of an attack on an LNG tanker or barge.

The U.S. Coast Guard also looks at possible risks. According to Kevin Washbrook, his group found a U.S. report by Sandia National Lab that says an "unignited" cloud of natural gas could spread up to 3.5 miles (5.6 kilometers) on either side of the ship used for transportation. Presumably, that cloud of gas could ignite into an unGodly big fireball. That's just one of the things they don't tell you.

Who knows what could happen if terrorists bombed and exploded a giant LNG tanker near any port or city. It would look nuclear.

You can find one report on all this from the U.S. Sandia National Lab, published in 2008, here.

AMERICAN COAL SNEAKS OUT OF CANADIAN PORTS

Tsawwassen, a suburb of Vancouver, Canada hosts one of the busiest coal ports in North America. It's called "Westport", shipping 33 million tons of carbon-loaded coal a year. About 8 million tons of that is American coal brought up from the Powder River open pit coal mines in Wyoming. It comes on U.S. trains owned by Warren Buffett.

The obvious question: why don't they ship this coal out of American ports? As we'll hear next from Daphne Wysham, that's because coal port proposals in Oregon and Washington States have been shot down by public resistance. Nobody wants them, and no wonder. The coal trains themselves leave unhealthy coal dust all along the way. The companies say they don't but photographs taken by activists show they do. Plus the trains are way above the World Health Organization guidelines for night- time noise. Every train going by leads to more storms, droughts, and heat.

Four out of six coal ports proposed for the US Pacific Northwest were shot down. The largest still being pushed by industry is for Cherry Point in Washington State, near the Canadian border. That's been rejected by the local tribe.

So as Kevin puts it, British Columbia has become the back-door dirty doormat to ship American coal to China and Asia generally. The coal industry always wants to expand their ports, to double their shipments and their profits, and to double their emissions into the already damaged atmosphere. There is another proposal to build a coal port in another Vancouver suburb, the City of Surrey.

Naturally, in the environmentally-conscious Vancouver area, there is lots of push-back from concerned citzens. The regional government has objected to the Surrey coal port. But the port system is not run by the City of Vancouver, but rather by the fossil- friendly Federal Government.

There is no democratic input into where these shipping facilities are built, and whether they should be built at all. Building coal ports now seems like such a waste of capital. It's like building barns and herds of horses in the year 1905, just as the horseless carriage was starting to take over. Coal is so done.

Keep in touch with Kevin Washburn on his Facebook page.

Listen to or download this interview with Kevin Washbrook, in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

"GREEN" PORTLAND, OREGON FIGHTS OFF CARBON EXPORT SCHEMES

What's happening on the U.S. West Coast, where fossil fuel companies race to export carbon to Asia? Let's tune in with a long-time friend of the environment, Daphne Wysham. For 8 years, out of Washington D.C., Daphne hosted the syndicated radio show "Earthbeat",on the Pacifica network. Her articles have been published by both mainstream and alternative media. Now Daphne is in Portland Oregon, as Director of the Climate and Energy Program, at the Centre for Sustainable Economy. At the same time she's an associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies.

Daphne and I were just on Post Carbon radio, on KWMR in Northern California, with Bing Gong and Karen Nyhus. It was a wide-ranging talk and you can listen to it here.

Green radio host, researcher, and activist Daphne Wysham

In this show we drill into what is happening in Portland, the state of Oregon, and the Pacific Northwest - when it comes to transporting fossil fuels. Note that Portland was the first city in the United States to have and implement a climate action plan. Even so, the Mayor pushed a proposal to open a propane loading facility.

The corporation involved, Pembina Pipeline Corp., operates in the Canadian Tar Sands of Alberta. For them, propane is just a bi-product they can sell. Of course it's wildly explosive, and adds more carbon to the atmosphere. Natural gas is lighter than air, so it rises when it leaks. Propane is heavier than air, so it flows along the water or land, into low spots, where it can pool and then violently explode.

Pembina tried to tell the public the propane would go to help poor women in Asia have lighting and cooking facilities. Environmental groups found out the real destination was for making propylene in Chinese factories. The carbon emissions from this one propane port over a few decades would be larger than the emissions from the whole city of Portland. What good are bicycle routes and electric cars if the propane port overwhelms all the green good we can muster?

The Portland propane facility has been turned away for now, being wildly unpopular. But the situation always requires vigilance, and these projects are seldom killed forever.

Meanwhile, there's another fossil fuel port proposed for Vancouver, Washington, right across the river from Portland. If approved, that could be the largest oil terminal in the United States - larger even than the giants in the Gulf of Mexico.

Daphne Wysham tells us the whole Pacific Northwest is in the cross-hairs of the fossil fuel industry. They want to build ports and shipping facilities that would allow a carbon river much larger than the Keystone Pipeline. Projects arrive, and small environment groups can't possibly match corporate funding for research and legal battles. The infamous corporate lobby group Alec, which funds politicians who write fossil-friendly laws, makes Oregon it's number three biggest target for funding, Wysham tells us.

That is why Oregonians are now demanding a moratorium on new fossil fuel infrastructure. That's the real answer. The moratorium movement is spreading to Washington State, and only needs British Columbia to get on board, to stop this fossil madness.

We all seen what happens when mega-corporations start playing with local or state politics. The money and big promises of jobs lure in the politicians. Are these forces compatible with democracy and self-determination? Is there still enough freedom left on the Pacific Coast to avoid becoming the kind of carbon colonies that developed in Texas, Alberta, and Louisiana?

Listen to or download this Radio Ecoshock interview with Daphne Wysham in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

Follow Daphne Wysham on Twitter here. IRREVERSIBLE CLIMATE CHANGE: JAMES G. ANDERSON

In the short time we have left, I'd like to pass on some quotes and some notes from a deep and important talk from Climate Week at the Harvard University Center for the Environment. The speaker is Dr. James Anderson and the title is: "Coupled Feedbacks in the Climate Structure That Set the Time Sale for Irreversible Change: Arctic Isotopes to Stratospheric Radicals."

Watch the full talk by James G. Anderson on Vimeo here.

This talk on April 8th, 2015 was part of a series of presentations. I found this on Vimeo thanks to a tip from a Radio Ecoshock listeners, and I'm so glad I did.

The talk, as Anderson tells us, is fairly high level, a presentation of on-going research into some important developments in the climate. Anderson covers a wide range of science. I can only cover a few important points.

James G. Anderson, Harvard

For example, research into past ages showed the stratosphere, that upper layer of Earth's atmosphere above the weather, was far wetter than today, in past greenhouse ages. The wetting of the stratosphere should be happening now, but until very recently, nobody knew how that could happen.

Anderson also points out a key difference between past hot house worlds and today. This time around, humans also injected chlorinate substances, like ozone-destroying CFC's, that were never there in past ages. How does that affect climate change?

And as we'll hear from this opening quote, scientists are gaining new knowledge on changes we've made that cannot be reversed, at least not in any time scale that matters to humans. Here are some key quotes from Dr. Anderson, speaking at Harvard.

Quote 1

"This is really a research talk about two aspects of the climate structure both of which are coupled through irreversible connected cycles. So I'm going to talk about experiments done 5 meters above the surface, and then experiments done 20 kilometers above the surface. And you'll see why those are linked.

I want to emphasize some points. The first is this global climate structure is changing far more rapidly than we believed was possible even five years ago.....

The next issue is the feedback in the climate structure because it's these feedbacks that set the time scale for irreversibility, and I'm going to take a very brief tour through the climate system to show how that functions."

Next we'll hear about the fragile Arctic and how that determines so much of our weather. Note how Anderson also stresses a point made again and again by our guest scientist Paul Beckwith, when explaining the new disruption of weather in the Northern Hemisphere: the temperature difference between the tropics and the poles, and as polar regions warm up, that difference is declining. The result is a slower and wavier Jet Stream.

Quote 2

"The climate structure depends in large measure on the temperature gradient between the tropics and the polar regions."

"During the Eocene there was very little temperature difference between the tropics and the polar regions, and in that particular structure the stratosphere had to be wet ... I don't think there's any possibility of having that climate structure without a moist stratosphere. And as we'll see, moisture entering the stratosphere today has a very different connotation because it triggers catalytic cycles involving chlorine and bromine that were not present during the Eocene.

I'll also talk about deep convective injection North of the sub-tropical Jet which, as we saw from Brian's talk, is a potential way of transitioning from the current structure of the climate to one in which there is a far smaller difference in temperature between the equator and the polar regions. So this convective injection of water turns out to be unique over the U.S. And it's couple to also anti-cyclonic flow over the U.S. that's created by the North American monsoon. So we have this convective injection into this anti-cyclonic motion which is a demonic combination created by the dynamics, but is has a very strong coupling into the catalytic chemical structure of the stratosphere."

GEOENGINEERING

As a side-note, Anderson explains why both the Left and the Right may support further research into geo-engineering. First he refers to the National Research Council report on climate engineering, particularly solar radiation management. Quote 4

"It [Geoengineering research] is being pushed, actually in a bi-partisan way. The right would like to have solar radiation management so more fossil fuels can be burned. And the Left believes that intruding in natural systems like this is a very dangerous adventure. So research on the topic is gaining bi-lateral support, which is highly unusual these days. And we'll see that it engages exactly the same catalytic chemistry."

"GLOBAL WARMING" - BAD NAME FOR THE PROBLEM

Next we hear why James Anderson thinks "global warming" is so horribly wrong as a term to describe the current climate shift.

QUOTE 3

"This term 'global warming' applied to this problem makes me shudder, because 70 per cent of the globe is covered by ocean with an average depth of 3500 meters, and it has massive heat capacity. So in my mind the most degenerate variable you can discuss is mean global temperature. And it also carries this connotation of something that's happening slowly. You know, 1 degree Centigrade per century doesn't carry a huge amount of political imperative behind it. It also carries the connotation that you could watch things slowly change and then if you don't like it you can just slow down the release of carbon dioxide and return to the initial [state] - and nothing could be further from the truth. I always avoid the term ['global warming'], and I cringe every time I hear it."

METHANE AND CLATHRATES

We'll never have time to get to all the great science in this talk, but I want you to hear this:

"The next point involves these methane clathrates. These are these beautiful structures: ice cages within which Nature inserts methane produced anaerobically [without oxygen] by decomposition of organic material. It's entropy that's driving this entirely because Nature of course abhors a vacuum. You want to stuff molecules into every possible nook and cranny in order to engage the inclusion of the energy states. And it turns out methane fits beautifully into these water cages. This is ubiquitous. Methane clathrates contain about three times the chemical energy of all known fossil fuel reserves in coal, petroleum, and natural gas.

And they reside not only in the surface soils of Siberia and Northern Alaska but also they are ubiquitous across the ocean basins."

Anderson gives the example of a clathrate pulled up off the West Coast, from a depth of about 100 meters, that could be ignited with a match.

"But the numbers, as Steve Wassi (sp?) pointed out are quite concerning. If you plot the CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning in gigatons of carbon per year (so you have to convert back from CO2)....In 1990, about 6 gigatons of carbon was added to the atmosphere by fossil fuel burning - and that was basically a textbook number for many, many years. But in 2000 it started to take off, and when the 2007 IPCC report came out these were the release scenarios. This was the worst possible case this upper red line. And of course we've exceeded it every year subsequent to 2007.

The key point is that just a half a percent of the labile carbon in the suface soils of the North Slope of Alaska and Siberia - just half a percent release rate per year gives us around 8 to 9 gigatons per year which doubles the carbon added to the atmosphere by all fossil fuel burning world-wide."

So that constitutes the next exhibit for feedbacks.

EXHIBIT A - THE ARCTIC

Anderson starts with data produced at the Polar Science Center at the University of Washington. Their research focuses not so much on the area covered by Sea Ice, but on the volume of the ice (which also accounts for it's thickness). Shockingly, in 2007, there was less ice in the Arctic than the 2007 IPCC report predicted for the end of the century.

"The volume allows you to calculate the heat, the internal energy going into the system to melt that amount of ice, per year. And that turns out to be about 1 part in 40,000 of the circulating infrared radiation between the Earth's surface and the atmosphere/water/carbon dioxide cloud structure. And so just a very small shift in the Meridional inflow of heat into the Arctic has huge ramifications in terms of losing this permanent ice."

"So the second point here is it's these feedbacks within the climate structure that are driving both the first and second derivative of that ice volume. And of course as ice pulls back, one of the feedbacks is that the ocean exchange brings in warm water from lower latitudes bringing heat into the Arctic basin. The other thing that happens is that as ice and snow disappear, the atmospheric transport that used to come in and radiate as T to the Fourth into the cold ground below it - would be stripped of it's internal energy before it even got into the Arctic Basin. That's not true any more. In fact about three quarters of the heat transport is by the atmosphere."

"Then of course the most obvious is the rejection of incoming solar forcing. Ice reflects 90 per cent of it, ocean water absorbs about 90 per cent of it. On the face of it that's important to the energy balance of the climate. But the University of Washington also discovered that what in retrospect is quite obvious but very important - and this that the dominant amount of that energy goes into just the upper few meters of the Arctic Ocean. And the mean depth of the remaining ice is only a meter and a half. The entire edges are slushy and gets broken up. And so all of that solar forcing goes right into the heat bath within which that remaining ice resides. And this is why you see such a dramatic combination of feedbacks."

Due to the multiple feedbacks in place "...from my perspective it's from the Arctic that all these problems evolve. This brings up the problem of high latitude melting of clathrates and permafrost. Of course the immediate question is can we lose 70 percent of the ice volume in 30 years and return to a stable condition. I don't know anybody who has suggested how heat can be extracted from this system to re-form the ice structure. All of these feedbacks are operating in the same direction. And there's no known mechanism that can extract heat to re-form these ice structures... and so when you look at this question [of reversing Arctic ice loss], the answer quite clearly 'no'."

LOTS MORE IN THE TALK

Well, we didn't get to the strange way chlorinated substances play back on other climate feed-backs in the atmosphere. Plus, and this is a spoiler alert, scientists have discovered a way the stratosphere can become wetter, as it did in past greenhouse worlds. Many, many hours flying around the world found the stratosphere has the same low amount of water vapor.

But in a kink in the system, a collision of weather factors over the continental United States creates a kind of heat funnel that does inject more water into the stratosphere. There are several other sites like that, Anderson says. They have the mechanism that will wet down the stratosphere over time.

As I say, there is a huge range of cutting science in this talk by James Anderson. Some of it is difficult for the lay person to understand. But most of it is very clear, and we learn of feedbacks which make this developing climate shift into a major geological event that cannot be reversed. We have already gone over the climate cliff. How far we fall depends on whether we can reign in our fossil burning emissions before they trigger much, much larger carbon or methane inputs from the previously frozen lands and sea bed in the Arctic.

Then Anderson wraps up with a passionate talk on why Harvard University MUST divest it's multi-billion dollar investment fund from fossil fuels.

OUT OF TIME

Ahh, we've blown through the time barrier again. Get all our past programs as free mp3s from our web site at ecoshock.org. Listen any time on the Radio Ecoshock page on Soundcloud. Support the on-going work of Radio Ecoshock here.

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

THE CARBON BUBBLE BURSTS

SUMMARY: Author and finance guru Jeff Rubin "The Carbon Bubble: What Happens To Us When It Bursts". Science journalist Emma Marris on re-crafting the wild. Radio Ecoshock 150610

"Look we recognize that climate change is happening. The dilemma for society is addressing climate change, and balancing it with development. So we have to be realistic. Renewables and alternatives will all play a role, but even if those forms of energy grow by orders of magnitude over say the next fifty years, traditional hydrocarbons - oil and gas - will still make up the majority of the energy mix for at least the next century."

- Curtis Smith, Shell Oil.

That is Shell Oil spokesman Curtis Smith, speaking on the Platt's Podcast "Capitol Crude" June 1st, 20154. Curtis Smith was explaining why Shell Oil wants to spend $7 billion dollars looking for more oil in the Arctic.

In an internal Shell Oil paper, leaked by the Guardian newspaper, the company recognizes that their energy strategy will lead to 4 degrees Centigrade of warming - twice the safe limit, and then to 6 degrees of warming, a level scientists suggest could wreck civilization.

So they know. And they want to find more carbon to burn anyway.

Before you kiss our chances good-bye, there is some really good news from our feature guest this week. Author and financial expert Jeff Rubin says the carbon bubble is already bursting. Governments and mainstream media will hardly tell you. But the markets are already heading for the exits away from such stranded fossil assets. The stock values of companies in the mega-polluting Canadian Tar Sands have fallen by 70%. Coal company stocks are collapsing, down 90 percent.

Stay tuned for a ring-side view of a falling petro state, right here on Radio Ecoshock. Download or listen to this Radio Ecoshock show in CD Quality (56 MB) or Lo-Fi (14 MB).

Or listen on Soundcloud right now!



JEFF RUBIN: "THE CARBON BUBBLE"

With the Tar Sands and the crash in oil prices, Canada went from being a world petro-state to an economy in trouble. Our next guest says the carbon bubble is bursting in Canada, and that may not be a bad thing.

Jeff Rubin is no ordinary critic of fossil fuels. He was the Chief Economist for CIBC World Markets, the investment arm of a Canadian mega-bank. Since then he's written the books "The End of Growth" and "Your World is About to Get A Whole Lot Smaller". Now Rubin has a new work out: "The Carbon Bubble: What Happens to Us When it Bursts."

The obvious question, which everyone asks: what is a carbon bubble?

A bubble is an expansion which is based on a false premise. For example the 2007/8 housing bubble was based on an assumption that American mortgages were reliable, when they were not. In our present case, Rubin says, the false assumption is that we can burn as many fossil fuels as we need or want to. In reality, there is a limit to the amount of carbon dioxide the atmosphere can tolerate, before the climate becomes unsafe.

Canada, under the leadership of Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, has bet it's economy on the Tar Sands in Alberta. Most of international and domestic policy is geared to further expansion of Tar Sands production and sales.

As a result, the Canadian currency became a "petro-dollar" that went up with Tar Sands production, until it was worth more than the U.S. dollar. Other Canadian sectors, like manufacturing and exports of commodities like lumber, suffered due to the high Canadian dollar. Then when OPEC decided to ramp up production, even as oil prices fell, the Canadian dollar crashed by over 20 percent, going less than 80 cents to the American dollar.

Manufacturing in Canada should rebound, but so many companies shrank or went out of business, it may be a slow climb back.

TAR SANDS AND COAL: THE ECONOMIC HIT

What ever politicians may say or do about climate change, Jeff Rubin says the market has already spoken. The stock value of coal companies in the United States lost an astounding 90 percent of their value. Canadian Tar Sands companies lost 70 percent of their value.

Rubin tells us the heavy oil from the Tar Sands (or "oil sands" as the industry tries to say) costs more to refine, and gets less on the market - perhaps forty something a barrel, versus the 50 or 60 dollars a barrel we hear quoted as "the price of oil". Considering even the most efficient Canadian producers of tar sands bitumen need to get at least $60 a barrel, somebody somewhere is losing big money.

Natually, the expansion promised by Tar Sands companies (and Stephen Harper) has been cancelled. Layoffs in the province of Alberta have been massive. Expected energy revenues to governments have crashed, meaning more cut-backs and layoffs. The carbon bubble has burst in Canada.

Rubin says that may not be a bad thing. Canada's real resources, that the world needs, are not climate-killing heavy oil, but food and water. A warming climate will change agricultural possibilities in Canada. A longer growing season means new crops can be grown - say corn and soy, instead of just wheat.

Rubin says Canada should aim to be "the breadbasket of the world." Farmland has become the new darling of billionaire investors and giant pension funds. The Canadian Pension investment board bought massive acreage in Assiniboine farm land, but Saskatchewan is banning some farm ownership schemes. See this.

Middle East Sheiks have purchased a large share in wheat distributor "The Canadian Wheat Board". Germans and Asians are buying giant farms in Canada. And not just in Canada. Wall Street investors and Chinese companies are buying farm land all over the world.

George Soros is reported to be buying farmland. Investment guru and billionaire Jim Rogers advised buying farm land several years ago. He was ahead of the curve.

SAVE YOUR INVESTMENT OR PENSION FUND: GET OUT OF FOSSIL FUELS

The crash of tar sands and coal stocks is just the beginning. Fracking companies are also losing big. University endowment funds are getting out, as Stanford University did with coal. After all, why educate students and then toss them into a wrecked world?

Jeff Rubin was one of Canada's top investment analysts with the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. Now he advises investors to run, not walk, to the exits on the what have been the most profitable of all investments: oil and gas. People save their money, while saving the climate, Rubin tells us.

THE LNG BUBBLE

I ask Jeff Rubin about the multi-billion dollar proposals to build ports to export Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) from British Columbia. He says those projects are dead before they begin. Why? Because the major buyer was supposed to be China. But China just made a much cheaper deal for Russian gas brought in by pipeline. They have no need to go through the expensive process of freezing and compressing gas, and then decompressing it again before use. They don't need Canadian LNG.

THE WATER MARKET

Jeff Rubin says the other commodity Canada has, that the world wants, is water. However this discussion makes me, and many Canadians, very nervous. Most of the talk is about exporting water to the United States, where drought is already limiting farm production, and not just in California.

Most of Canada's big rivers actually run north to the Arctic Ocean. For decades, there's been talk about diverting them south. But remember, this plot to divert rivers was actually tried in the Soviet Union, under Stalin. The ecological devastation was spectacular. Today, we have no idea what happens to Arctic ecosystems, and the Arctic sea, if we siphon off fresh water flows. I'm guessing it would not end well.

But you can expect pressure from the United States to get more Canadian water, and who knows, in the future a solution forced by military threats is not impossible to imagine.

In the present, Rubin says we already export water - in our crops. Wheat uses a lot of water, and Canada exports a lot of wheat. Australia also exports water (that it can hardly afford) in it's wheat crops. At least agricultural exports are value-added water, and we don't have to divert rivers.

LEARN WITH RUBIN

I learned a lot just talking with Jeff Rubin. He's a very smart mind who sees further into the future than most of us. Listen to or download this interview with Jeff Rubin, in either CD Quality or Lo-Fi.

This new book "Carbon Bubble" is mainly about Canada. But it got me thinking about the fossil-dependent Middle East countries, Norway, and even the United States, which is trying to frack it's way back into an oil and gas superpower. This is really a global carbon bubble that is about to burst, with Canada as an early case study.

Here's another useful radio interview with Jeff Rubin, on the Canadian Broadcasting Network program "The Current" on May 19, 2015.

Find Jeff Rubin's web site here.

On You tube, Jeff Rubin talks about (the dismal) future of the Oil Sands here, on the Canadian CTV news channel, May 19, 2015.

HOW DO WE "HANDLE" THE WILD, NOW THAT CLIMATE CHANGE IS HERE?

We are not alone on this Earth experiencing a rapid shift of climate. Our next guest is a voice for the wild, and what we must do.

A new study in the journal Science finds climate change could push into extinction one of six plants and animals on this planet. That's a huge unimaginable loss. A climate shift won't respect the boundaries of parks and wilderness areas we've set aside. Can we just step back and watch?

Emma Marris says "no". She's been a reporter for the journal Nature, and has a Master’s in Science Writing from Johns Hopkins University. Her controversial book is titled "Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World". Just lately, Emma's stirred up another storm among naturalists with a provocative article in Orion Magazine, called "Handle with Care".

Emma Marris, photo courtesy of Nature Conservancy

From Klamath Falls, Oregon, we welcome Emma Marris to Radio Ecoshock. We have a wide-ranging discussion about what our role is in preserving wilderness lands, now that climate change, invasive species and other human influences has re-shaped what we mean by "wild".

My own worry, and it's a big one, is that Emma's proposal could lead less sensitive and ethical people to a justification for "developing" the parks, or "managing" aspects of nature we don't understand very well. Humans are known for their hubris and natural failures. Can we overcome that threat?

It's interesting to compare environmentalism in the United States with Canada or Europe. In Europe, there is practically no original wild space at all, so the discussion there is quite different. Here in Canada, there is so much wilderness there is no hope or idea that humans could or should manage it. We'll have to see how Emma's proposals for "gardening" in Nature resonate in other parts of the world.

Most recently, Emma has been writing about wolves in the crowd-funded journalism site "Beacon". How wild are re-introduced wolves that wear GPS broadcasting collars, names, and intense study and tracking operations? Find that discussion in Beacon here.

Find more about Emma Marris here at her web site.

Download or listen to this Radio Ecoshock interview with Emma Marris in CD Quality or Lo-Fi.

You can also listen to Orion magazine host Scott Gast talking with Emma Marris about her controversial article here in a 12 minute podcast.

My thanks to Erik Hoffner of Orion Magazine for suggesting this guest.

NEW ALEX SMITH SONG: "SHE DIDN'T SAY"

To accompany this interview on the wild, I added my new song about the disappearing species at the end of this program. The piece is called "She Didn't Say". It's written and performed entirely with computer synthesizers. You can also listen to or download (free) this song from Soundcloud.



EXTINCTION RADIO

As long-time listeners will know, I don't agree with Professor Emeritus Guy McPherson's argument that humans will go extinct before mid-century, due to multiplying feedback effects and methane driven by climate change. However, I value McPherson's work to identify and track positive feedback effects, which few others do.

Mike Ferrigan, host of Extinction Radio

You can listen to this ongoing argument with a new extended online radio show coming out of Scotland, with host and producer Mike Ferrigan. It features some guests we've had on Radio Ecoshock, and some new voices, with not all of them agreeing with extinction either. It's a radio dialog. Find the web page, and listen to episodes of "Extinction Radio" here.

MY THANKS TO SUPPORTERS

Thank you to all who "friended" this program on Facebook. We just crested over 26,000 listens on Soundcloud, gaining quickly. We now have more listeners in more countries. Hello to listeners in Scandinavia, Switzerland and Austria, Israel, Russia, India, and many more.

There is a momentum now. It's not yet time to completely give up hope.

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

WILD HUMANS (doing wild things)

National Geographic reporter Scott Wallace on trips to deep Amazon for his book "The Unconquered". How oil, gold, and illegal logging chase the last un-contacted tribes. Plus reports on Canadian Boreal failure, serial climate hacker Russ George, and shaping Nature in the city. Radio Ecoshock 130529 1 hour

Welcome to Radio Ecoshock. I'm Alex Smith with a packed show. Are you counting on off-grid humans to survive if we don't? We'll track the last wild humans in a report from South America. You'll hear an update on the reported collapse of the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement, the further adventures of serial climate hacker Russ George, and a debate on trying to re-make nature in your city.

Off we go.

SHOW SUMMARY

The first 32 minutes of the show is a wide-ranging discussion with Scott Wallace, journalist for National Geographic magazine.

We talk through his book about the last Amazon un-contacted tribes "The Unconquered". Why oil, gold, and tropical timber are corrupting the Amazon, a fundamental source of biodiversity for the planet. Wallace made a three month trip to find signs of "the Arrow People" - plus multiple trips to the Amazon in Ecuador and Peru. At times it was pretty hairy.

I provide an update on the "collapse" of the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement. Following my story 2 weeks ago on the green group Canopy withdrawing, this week the largest forest company, Resolute, quit. We hear from the remaining NGOs that the process may not be dead.

Serial climate hacker and plankton "farmer" Russ George was booted off the Board of the Haida Salmon Restoration Corp. The aboriginal Haida people say they have fired him, George says that's not possible, he owns nearly half the company. An update on the incredible disappearing $2.5 million.

We hear briefly from NOAA lawyer Richard Mannix on the need for an international agency to oversee geoengineering attempts like the Russ George/Haida case.

The show wraps with a sample from ""City Mouse, City Flower: A Discussion of Urban Nature." presented by Erik Hoffner of Orion Magazine.

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

Listen to/download my 32 minute interview with Scott Wallace in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

LISTEN TO THE RADIO ECOSHOCK SHOW RIGHT NOW (courtesy of archive.org)





SCOTT WALLACE: WILD IN THE AMAZON



Waorani Hunters, Yasuni Rainforest, photo by Scott Wallace.

What if a solar flare knocks out power to the world? Or the latest disease escapes becoming a great plague? At least we have the consolation there are still so-called "wild" humans out there on the fringes to survive. Or is that just another strangely comforting myth?

We are joined by a man who knows, long-time international journalist and reporter for National Geographic Magazine, Scott Wallace. His latest book is "The Unconquered: In Search of the Amazon’s Last Uncontacted Tribes".

We have a lot to talk about. There's Ecuador's promise to leave Amazon oil in the ground to save the rainforest and global warming. There is the whole issue of biodiversity and whether the great Amazon rainforest can survive - not to mention the last of it's unconquered peoples.

But first, why do we hear so little in mainstream media about South America? Here in the North, it's like the lost continent. Why is that?

Maybe most Western-style people are just interested in others like themselves. But I also wonder if the major newspapers and networks have owners who don't want to talk about very different political systems in South America.

THE LAST STAND FOR MAHOGANY

Anyway, Scott brings South America into the picture with his articles in National Geographic Magazine. Check out his April 2013 feature "Mahogany's Last Stand".

In the interview, Scott explains mahogany was running so short in Brazil, that country banned further export of the product. The mahogany loggers moved across the borer into Peru, where central government contol of the Amazon is weak to none. They try. In his blog, Scott tells us the Peruvian cops just seized some illegal timber. But that leaves the local tribes fearing for their lives, afraid of the violent loggers.

ECUADOR: LEAVING OIL IN THE GROUND, TO PROTECT MOTHER CLIMATE

We talk about the magnificent Yasuni National Park in eastern Ecuador. Scott writes:

"Downpours are a near daily occurrence throughout the year, and there are few discernible changes of season. Sunlight, warmth, and moisture are constants."

"Over the years, oil concessions have been drawn over the same territory as the park, as economic interests have trumped conservation in the struggle over Yasuní’s fate. At least five active concessions blanket the park’s northern section, and for a poor country like Ecuador the pressure to drill has been almost irresistible. Half of the nation’s export earnings already come from oil, nearly all of it from its eastern provinces in the Amazon."

"In a proposal first put forward in 2007, President Rafael Correa has offered to leave indefinitely untouched an estimated 850 million barrels of oil inside Yasuní’s northeastern corner in a tract known as the ITT Block (named for the three oil fields it contains: Ishpingo, Tambococha, and Tiputini). As payment for preserving the wilderness and preventing an estimated 410 million metric tons of fossil fuel-generated carbon emissions from entering the atmosphere, Correa has asked the world to ante up in the fight against global warming. He is seeking $3.6 billion in compensation, roughly half of what Ecuador would have realized in revenues from exploiting the resource at 2007 prices. The money would be used, he says, to finance alternative energy and community development projects.

Hailed by supporters as a milestone in the climate change debate when it was first proposed, the so-called Yasuní-ITT Initiative has been hugely popular in Ecuador. National polls consistently show a growing awareness of Yasuní as an ecological treasure that should be protected. But the international response to the initiative has been tepid. By mid-2012 only about $200 million had been pledged. In response Correa has issued a succession of angry ultimatums, leading detractors to liken his proposal to blackmail. With the initiative stalled and Correa warning that time is running out, activity on the oil frontier continues to advance through eastern Ecuador, even within Yasuní’s limits. Every day, another bit of the wilderness succumbs to the bulldozers and backhoes."

Read more in Scott's January 2013 article "Rainforest for Sale: The Story of Oil" in National Geographic Magazine.

President Correa of Ecuador is one of the few world leaders anywhere to offer to leave some oil in the ground, to reduce global warming. All countries will have to come to that position to stave off climatic disaster, that we know. The leadership apparently is in the global South.

There were two great droughts in the Amazon Rainforest, of all places, in the last couple of decades. Biodiversity is under threat or crashing. Some climate models show vast swaths of the Amazon rainforest converting to grassland, as a great drought develops there. First it would be logged or burn. If the rainforest goes, cloud formation will change, precipitation for Africa will fall (in another area slated for drought and desertification). Plus, a huge carbon sink becomes a carbon source.

Please check out our conversation with Scott Wallace on Radio Ecoshock.

Visit his web site at scottwallace.com. I recommend watching the little bio clip on that home page.

Find Scott's blog posts for National Geographic here.

Don't forget his book. Scott is a gifted story teller, with important issues to communicate. The book is "The Unconquered: In Search of the Amazon’s Last Uncontacted Tribes"

You can take that Scott Wallace interview as the first installment in a series on human extinction. Next week, we'll investigate the growing chorus saying the human species will go extinct before the middle of this Century. I'll tell you who's behind it, and what real science says. It's a tale with a twist, tune in next week for sure.

THE BOREAL FOREST AGREEMENT "COLLAPSES"?

Meanwhile I have to update you on stories you heard first on Radio Ecoshock. In our program on the first of May 2013, you heard Nicole Rycroft of the green group Canopy explain why they pulled out of the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement. It was a key effort to preserve at least half of the necklace of slow-growing trees across the top of Canada - now being clear-cut logged by dozens of forest companies.

Listen to/Dowload the Nicole Rycroft interview (Canopy) 22 minutes in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

Or watch the Nicole Rycroft interview on Youtube instead!

Rycroft told us after three years of direct negotiations with major logging companies, promises were not kept, deadlines were not met, and not a single hectare of the Boreal Forest was legally protected. Canopy is going back to the 700 companies promising to avoid old-growth timber from Canada's Boreal Forest.

Now the largest forest company, Resolute Forest Products, formerly known at AbitibiBowater, has pulled out of the talks.

Resolute says the environmentalists are asking too much. They would have to close mills, and the impoverished northern aboriginal communities would suffer, if they don't continue massive logging operations in the north of two Canadian provinces, Ontario and Quebec.

Some Canadian newspapers reported the agreement had collapsed, now that Greenpeace, Canopy, and Resolute pulp and paper were out. Other large timber companies have not announced they are leaving the talks, although they may, if they feel they will be at a competitive disadvantage. Three large environment and conservation groups said they will continue to push for protection of the Boreal Forest. One major funder, the Ivy Foundation, put at least five million dollars into this effort.

In the program, you hear a press conference statement by Tod Paglia, Executive Director of Forest Ethics, followed by Tim Gray, Program Director for the Ivey Foundation. I recorded this from a media conference call on May 21st.

Both groups still support the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement process, despite the loss of other major environment and company participants. I don't know if the process can continue, or if they can protect enough of the Boreal to protect the endangered Woodland Caribou.

The real issue, from my perspective, is not just the value of this intact ecosphere of the North - but the big impact rampant logging will have on climate change. The Boreal Forest could turn from being a carbon sink, moderating what is left of our climate, to a carbon source. This huge Northern forest could take hundreds of years to grow back, it it ever does.

Meanwhile, we witness another positive feed-back loop, heating the globe, and created by the human impulse to grab natural resources at any cost.

Environment groups like Greenpeace and Canopy will push Resolute Forest Products to meet the needs of nature. You can help by disinvesting in this rogue company, and making sure your pension plans and corporations are not supporting their products.

RUSS GEORGE IS BACK AGAIN IN THE NEWS



From Steve Krivit collection "Russ George Gives Vatican Certificate for Fictional Carbon Credits"

On to another story brought to light by Radio Ecoshock. Over the years I've investigated the claims and activities of Russ George. On September 7th and 14th 2007 I did a two part interview and critique of George's attempt to modify the climate by stimulating plankton blooms with iron. That effort failed. The multimillion dollar stock promotion of his company "Planktos" went bankrupt.

PLANKTOS: Offsets Real and Imagined Planting trees, seeding seas, grabbing CO2, for money. Full show interview with Russell George, CEO of Planktos, controversial carbon offset company. Part 1 of 2. Interview transcript here. Ecoshock Show 070907 1 hr 14 MB

Find a transcript of my full-length interview with Russ George in 2007 here.

PLANKTOS II: THE INTERVENTION Who are they, and will it work? Part 2: three critics respond plus Alex Smith's take. (Ecoshock show 070914 - 14 MB 1 hr) Greenpeace (9 min)Science Unit, ETC Group (9 min), and David Baines (16 min)(newspaper business columnist)

In the middle of October 2012, I did interviews and clips from a Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation press conference at the Vancouver Aquarium. Leaders from the Haida Village of Old Massett attempted to explain to the world press how and why they secretly performed a geonengineering experiment, possible the world's largest, in the Pacific Ocean near their home on the island of Haida Gwaii. The village spent 2.5 million on Russ George's dream to create carbon credits for sale, and allegedly replenish the failing salmon stock. No carbon credits were sold, and it appear the villagers lost their money to this scheme.

Here are the resources from October 2012

"Geoengineering Plankton at Haida Gwaii Serial climate hacker Russ George (Planktos) leads indigenous villagers to dump iron into the sea - a secret geoengineering project off Canada's West Coast. Press conference statements (recorded by Alex Smith) by the Haida Old Massett Village Chief, Ken Rea and Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation President John Disney (16 min) in CD Quality or Lo-Fi; statement by HSRC marine lawyer James L. Straith CD quality or Lo-Fi. See Radio Ecoshock 121024 blog here. Transcript of Chief Rea and Disney at Press Conference. Transcript of Question and Answer period Press Conf. (prepared by Alex Smith)."

Find all the links for that October special on this page.

On April 10th, I announced the offices of the Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation offices were raided by armed officers of the federal agency, Environment Canada. All computers and files were taken away.

Despite this, Russ George told the Times Colonist newspaper in British Columbia that he and the First Nations people would run a second experiment on the wild algae in the summer of 2013.

NOAA FINDS "A WILD WEST" LACK OF LAWS ON GEOENGINEERING

On April 30th, I attended an online briefing by the American National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration on marine geoengineering, and possible legal barriers against unilateral experimenters like Russ George. It was titled "Ocean Fertilization, Marine Geoengineering and the London Convention/London Protocol".

The audio quality is poor, but you can make out these two quick clips. First, Richard Mannix, a legal expert from NOAA's Office of General Counsel notes the Russ George/Haida Village experiment may have damaged clam beds on the island. The Haida had to dig them up. We don't have scientific proof that was due to the massive plankton bloom created off shore by the experiment.

Second, lawyer Richard Mannix points out there is no central legal authority to regulate or stop geoengineering experiments. Dumping iron into the sea should be controlled by the London Dumping Convention and the London Protocol. But there is nothing controlling who might spray sulfates into the atmosphere, or launch mirrors into space, to reduce sunlight arriving at our planet. Without such an agency, Mannix feels we are encouraging a "wild west" of geoengineering.

I managed to get in a question at the end, saying Russ George promises to repeat his ocean dumping scheme this year, and what could stop him? Mannix replied he was confident the Canadian authorities were investigating thoroughly, and it was possible Russ George could end up in "the slammer". His words.. "the slammer" is slang for jail. We'll see.

THE HAIDA "FIRE" RUSS GEORGE

The story continues. On May 23rd, the Haida villagers announced on Canadian News Wire they were severing all ties with Russ George. The HSRC said, quote "it has removed Mr. Russ George as a director of the company. In addition, the HSRC has terminated Mr. George's employment as an officer of the corporation."

"Old Massett Village Chief Councillor Ken Rea stated: 'The board and our community has decided to recalibrate this business so that it moves forward in a constructive fashion and effectively responds to legitimate concerns raised by various stakeholders around the world'."

Sounds like Russ is out of a job. But not so fast! Russ George told the Vancouver Sun he can't be fired! George said the Board of the Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation did not have the authority to remove him. We learn from Russ that he owns 48% of HSRC through his own company called "Ocean Pastures Corp." All along we were led to believe it was strictly a First Nations business (and that's why the company claimed it could issue it's own permits).

George promised to keep going on the project. That's moxy! His data and equipment were seized by the Canadian government, with likely legal action pending. The Haida villagers, a potent group to say the least, insist they have severed all ties with Russ George. Village Chief Ken Rea told the Times Colonist "We have parted ways". I would read that more or less as a ban from the island, especially since the senior governing body of the Haida already denounced the experiment. Ken Rea says no plankton seeding experiment will be done this year.

That should end the story, but Russ George never really goes away. He's back on his blog touting his other persona, the amateur physics experimenter with a world-saving technology in cold fusion. His former company D2Fusion went bankrupt years ago. On his blog, George says he's worked on cold fusion since its discovery in 1989. His "work" was making a documentary film about it.

Find a full record of the activities of the two Russ Georges on Steve Krivit's page "Investigations of Russ George's Low-Energy Nuclear Reaction Research (LENR) and Plankton Carbon-Credit Activities".

With the failure of his plankton scheme, again, Russ George could next reappear as a businessman advocate for Cold Fusion. It's never over for Russ George with his big dreams, and multimillion dollar losing schemes.

ORION MAGAZINE: CITY MOUSE - A DISCUSSION OF URBAN NATURE

Moving on, I have one more recording for you. On May 16th, Erik Hoffner of Orion Magazine hosted a web chat called "City Mouse, City Flower: A Discussion of Urban Nature." Guests were Beatrix Beisner, co-editor of the new urban ecology guidebook "Nature All Around Us", Liam Heneghan of DePaul University/Chicago Wilderness Science Team, and Kevin Anderson, proprietor of the blog Marginal Nature.

Find out more about Liam Henegan, both a bio and a video of his talk at New York University, here.

I was intrigued with the struggles and ideas in the discussion between Liam Heneghan, working from an academic planning perspective, and Kevin Anderson, who by day is a water and sewage worker for the City of Austin Texas. Anderson definitely gets his hands dirty, and laments the trend of cutting down "foreign species" to create the imagined past landscape of "native speciers" - during one of the worst droughts in living memory.

We tune in as Erik of Orion Magazine brings up adaptation to urban conditions. Kevin Anderson weighs in with the hot debate: should humans try to engineer nature again, this time right in the cities where we live?

Find the full 80 minute discussion "City Mouse, City Flower: A Discussion of Urban Nature" as an audio file at Orionmagazine.org.

Next week we'll ask the question: are we humans doomed to an early extinction? I hope the answer is "no". You'll hear the arguments as Radio Ecoshock continues to cover the biggest pictures.

I'm Alex Smith. You can support my work at the show web site, ecoshock.org.

Catch up on any programs you've missed as free mp3 downloads at the site. http://www.ecoshock.org/

Please tell your friends about Radio Ecoshock and thank you for listening.

Burying the Future: Tars Sands, Pipelines, & Melting Arctic

Canadian scientist Paul Beckwith explains how the Arctic warming emergency is changing your weather. But first, the story of an anti-pipeline media warrior, John Bolenbaugh in his own words. The leaks, scandals and deaths behind Tar Sands pipelines. Radio Ecoshock 130424 1 hour.

LISTEN TO/DOWNLOAD THIS RADIO ECOSHOCK SHOW in CD Quality (56 MB) or Lo-Fi (14 MB)

Listen to/download the John Bolenbaugh interview (27 minutes) in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

Listen to/download the Paul Beckwith interview (28 minutes) in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

Feel free to pass on or share those links. For Net use, most people prefer the faster loading/downloading Lo-Fi version.

JOHN BOLENBAUGH - ANTI-PIPELINE MEDIA WARRIOR VS. BIG OIL LIES



John Bolenbaugh, anti-pipeline warrior.

Are you sick of hearing about Tar Sands pipelines, from the Gateway project to the Keystone XL? Maybe you should hear from the people who are sick and dying from a leaking pipeline.

Watch this short video of sick residents.

I'm calling up John Bolenbaugh. He's a decorated Navy vet now qualified with Federal Emergency Management Agency, trained to clean up spills. John was hired after the Enbridge pipeline in Kalamazoo, Michigan had the biggest inland spill in the United States. That was on July 25, 2010 - but the cleanup and the story are far from over.

At his web site, John writes:

"...he exposed the truth with video proof, the fact that the Enbridge Company never cleaned up the oil; how they covered it up instead. One year after the oil spill, Enbridge and the EPA said that your kids could swim in the river, and that it was clean enough for you to eat the fish.

Two years later, in 2013, the EPA ordered Enbridge to re-dredge the Kalamazoo river, which cost Enbridge $175,000,000 dollars and proved that both Enbridge AND the EPA lied about the clean-up: The OIL IS STILL THERE. This makes it clear that tarsands oil is nearly impossible to clean up. John is also responsible for proving that over 12 tarsands oil spill sites were still contaminated, needing to be re-dredged, after the EPA and Enbridge had already signed off on them as 100% cleared, cleaned and restored in 2010."

John tells us how he got NPR and the Canadian CTV network to follow him as he demonstrated the oil was still there. Under media pressure, the EPA recently ordered the company to clean up the river.

LISTEN TO THIS RADIO ECOSHOCK SHOW RIGHT NOW!





"NORMAL" LEAKAGE OF PIPELINES

At 5 min 38 seconds of this video, a Nebraska land-owner claims there is a 1.5% leakage allowed in these pipelines with no need to report on it...

John tells us he heard about that, but didn't see proof until he visited Keystone XL protesters in Nebraska. He was shown web pages from the site of Transcanada Pipeline saying they can't even detect a spill until the pipeline pressure drops at least 1.5%. So there can be lots of bitumen oozing out of faulty welds, nobody knows, nobody reports it, until it starts showing up in the land, water, or a major aquifer.

Transcanada is now controlled by a conglomerate of Chinese corporations. Forget the "Canada" part. Bolenbaugh wonders if China is also interested in gaining rights to the aquifer water (30% of America's fresh water supply by some accounts) via this Keystone XL deal.

Remember, tar sands bitumen is so sticky is doesn't flow like oil. If normal motor oil has a viscosity of 5 or 6, bitumen is at least 11 on the same scale. They heat the pipeline, they pressurize it with pumps, and the companies mix in many, many other chemicals, including toxic benzene, to keep it flowing. All that comes out in small leaks, and big spills.

Bolenbaugh says this mixture from the tar sands is like sandpaper, always wearing away at any weakness in the line. That's what makes the recent crazy to repurpose old pipelines, and natural gas pipelines, to move tar sands bitumen - so crazy! The big spill in Arkansas is a case in point.

THE ARKANSAS SPILL - MUCH LARGER THAN THEY SAID

In late March, a pipeline built in the 1940's and owned by Exxon broke open in Arkansas near the community of Mayflower. While initial estimates said 5,000 barrels spilled, State Attorney General Dustin McDaniel now says the leak was much larger.

At first Exxon tried to say it wasn't tar sands bitumen from Alberta. Then the truth came out.

EXXON: - WE WON'T PAY FOR THE CLEANUP!

Exxon, really Exxon/Mobil, is possibly the world's most profitable corporation, making as much as tens of billions of dollars profit every quarter. But this oil behemoth says it doesn't have to pay for the cleanup because technically it wasn't oil, but bitumen. Under U.S. law, all oil companies pay a certain amount per gallon into a spill cleanup fund. But the legislation technically refers to "oil" and Exxon says bitumen from the Alberta tar sands isn't "oil" - so the world's most profitable company is ducking the bill for this nasty spill. We'll see who ends up paying millions for this "cleanup".

Exxon also claims the oil has not reached the nearby lake, just the "cove" of the lake. Arkansas authorities point out the "cove" is part of the lake. The horror is: this bitumen does not float on top of water, as normal oil or gasoline does, but sinks to the bottom. The entire bottom of any affected river, lake, or presumably in the case of ocean tankers, the sea bed, has to be dug up. Imagine the ecological consequences, cost, and impossibility of really restoring natural habitat.

John Bolenbaugh notes Exxon claimed they shut off their pumping stations within half an hour of the Arkansas spill report. What the company doesn't say is the line will continue to gush out bitumen for a long time, as up to 50 miles of pipeline empties by gravity. It's hard to say how much really came out.

It takes a lot of heat and pressure, plus a toxic mix of poisonous chemicals just to make tar sands bitumen flow. So why are oil companies putting that combination in old, old pipelines? Because they can't get approval to build new ones? John says it works out economically better for these companies to keep pumping, even knowing a spill will happen eventually, since insurance will pay for the cleanup and any lost profits. I haven't confirmed that. Still, it sounds like the nuclear industry: push the the old pipelines until they break, rather than replace them.

HELP JOHN IN THIS FIGHT

John had a whistle-blower lawsuit against the smaller contractor that hired him for the cleanup, after he outed the Kalamazoo Michigan spill. Bolenbaugh tells us the suit was settled. He got some money, without having to keep quiet. John says he spent all that money, and sold the truck he bought to visit other pipeline sites, to pay for protest t-shirts and signs (which he gave away free), and to travel to support people in places like Nebraska.

Now he's broke, and is appealing for donations, in part to help him get to Arkansas to help those people.

I know John is not perfect. But based on what I've seen of John's activism, he should be helped. Bolenbaugh is playing a vital role, helping others defend themselves against spills and abuse by large corporations. He's the real deal.

You can donate at his web site.

Here are some select John Bolenbaugh You tube videos:

1. Testimony of a Police Officer and oil spill victim

2. Environmental inspector calls Enbridge a liar

3. One of many John Bolenbaugh video proofs of buried oil and attempts to stop him from filming

BURYING THE FUTURE SONG AND PROTEST

On March 11th, 2013, over 100 young people invaded the offices of Transcanada Pipeline in Westborough Massachutsetts to protest the Keystone XL Pipeline. They carried a coffin to symbolize the Tar Sands burying our future.

Watch and hear the "Digging Us A Hole song" in this You tube video.

More info here.

Music and lyrics by: Melodeego. Hear the whole song, with improved audio, in this Radio Ecoshock program.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR DONATIONS TO RADIO ECOSHOCK!

Listener support gives me a lot of encouragement to keep going, and expand the number of people we can reach with alternative eco news. My next project is to visit the Mother Earth News Fair in Puyallup Washington June 1st and 2nd. Meet me there is you can (just look for my mobile solar-powered studio).

Your support makes this possible - I hope to get a show or two's worth of handy how-to interviews at the Fair.

Plus I had a minor equipment failure this past week, and your donations helped me pay those costs. Please choose a montly subscription or a donation of your choice from this page. It's listener-supported radio and you can help.

PAUL BECKWITH AND THE ARCTIC EMERGENCY



U of Ottawa scientist Paul Beckwith.

While we were fed news about a new Pope, the economic breakdown on the little island of Cyprus, and two crazy bombers in Boston - a major event occurred unreported in the Arctic. It's a very bad sign.

Let's go back to Paul Beckwith. He's the PHD student and part-time professor of climatology and meteorology at the University of Ottawa, in Canada. Paul is also a member of AMEG, the Arctic Methane Emergency Group.

Paul sent me a disturbing video, of the Arctic ice north of Canada and Alaska during the part of winter which should be frozen solid. Instead, we see a mega-vortex of breaking ice, with large cracks of open water. Yes, cracks in the winter ice have happened before, but never on such a scale! The only explanation is that after the 2012 record breakdown of Arctic sea ice, the much thinner regrowth has become unstable.

See the NOAA video based on satellite imagery here.

You can also listen to this excellent interview with AMEG scientist and Cambridge polar specialist Peter Wadhams. Hear how much thinner ice is now, than in the 1970's or even the year 2,000. It's from the Alpha2Omega podcast. Great interview.

Paul Beckwith wrote about this incident in the Beaufort Sea, and what the disappearance of Arctic sea ice (in summer) really means for all of us, in this blog entry.

SEA-ICE COULD DISAPPEAR THIS YEAR?

Beckwith says it is possible the Arctic sea ice cover could disappear this summer, in 2013! Even NOAA, the U.S. government agency, now predicts the Arctic Ocean will be "nearly ice-free" possibly within the next 10 years. They say "nearly" because small bits of ice may hang around the protected Canadian archipeligo (islands) - even while the rest of the polar sea is wide open, and sucking up the Sun's heat.

Paul notes that if you take the same amount of solar energy it takes to melt one gram of ice, and apply that to that water, the water goes up about 80 degrees C!

It's a huge heating affect, which will change the "air-conditioner of the world". With less temperature difference between the Pole and the Equator, the Jet Stream winds that separate our weather systems slow down and become more wavy. Beckwith explains how that brought the recent record cold spring to the UK and parts of Eastern Europe. Is it coincidence, Beckwith wonders, that there was an excess mortality in the UK this spring of more than 5,000 people? The final figures aren't in, but it's possible we are already seeing climate-caused deaths in Britain.

Weather in the Eastern part of the U.S. and Canada also went wonky this year, with late snows and record flooding.

You get an in-depth interview where science begins to make sense for all of us. Paul Beckwith is a cutting edge scientist at the University of Ottawa in Canada. He's willing to speak out. For example, Beckwith wonders whether the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the IPCC) will stick with models that show Arctic ice disappearing after 2050 - even if it breaks up this year or next? The models have fallen far short of reality, again.

WILL WE NEED GEOENGINEERING TO SAVE THE ARCTIC ICE CAP?

If the Arctic goes ice free, then a group of heavy duty scientists suggest we may have to spray sulfur aerosols into the Arctic, just to save the remaining ice cap - while humans figure out what to do! Yep, that's geoengineering, and I am against geoengineering. But I don't see any good choices here.

Check out this short video with top scientist Ken Caldiera. He too supports saving the Arctic ice with geoengineering.

Other scientists have severe doubts about this kind of geoengineering, saying it could have unforseen consequences. For example, Jim Haywood from the UK's Met Office Hadley Centre just wrote in the journal Nature Climate Change: such fine particles sprayed into the atmosphere could increase horrible droughts in the Sahel region of North Africa.

Even talking about spraying sulfur from airplanes will trigger another popular Internet meme: that governments have been secretly spraying materials into the atmosphere for years. It's the chemtrail conspiracy theory.

So a move to save the Arctic ice doesn't happen on a blank social canvass. A whole group of Net -connected people already suspect it is happening, and may whip up opposition, not understanding the science or consequences at all. Others think global warming is not caused by burning fossil fuels, but by a plot by world bankers through the US government HAARP radio transmitters in Alaska. So there is warming, they way, but we can just keep on driving our SUV's! Any form of denial will do.

My take on HAARP is the U.S. military (and the Russians have a similar project) would LIKE to be able to send storms against an adversay, but probably have not yet managed to do it. I totally doubt (my opinion) the HAARP project is seriously meddling with weather on a day-to-day basis, as claimed by some of the You tube posters. There is zero science to back that up.

By the way, governments ARE openly involved in some kinds of climate modification. Just look at the efforts by China to seed clouds during their drought in Northern China. Plus, the U.S. military HAS published documents about using weather as a weapon of war. Are we already modifying the weather?

Back in the real world, Beckwith points out the sulfur needed in the Arctic to shade that part of the planet a bit is far less than volcanoes emit, and even less than the many coal plants of the world emit every year. We are already geonengineering the planet by using fossil fuels. You decide - but listen to the interview!

I admit trouble comprehending what such a massive change on Earth really means. All through human history the northern Pole has been frozen solid year round. It's part of the story of early exploration, a taken-for-granted feature of Planet Earth. I'm just stunned that a new sea is opening up, even in summer. Are scientists as freaked out as I am? Apparently some are deeply worried.

Do you want to follow up on this? Here is a link to Paul Beckwith's blog on the Sierra Club of Canada site.

His bio says: "Paul Beckwith is a PhD student with the laboratory for paleoclimatology and climatology, department of geography, University of Ottawa. He teaches second year climatology/meteorology as a part-time professor. His thesis topic is “Abrupt climate change in the past and present.” He holds an M.Sc. in laser physics and a B.Eng. in engineering physics and reached the rank of chess master in a previous life."

SUPPORT NON-PROFIT RADIO

Please support this program, and all our non-profit radio stations. Your help makes it all happen.

Find a list of the 67 stations broadcasting Radio Ecoshock at our web site, ecoshock.org.

Sign up for our world-wide weekly podcast by clicking the podcast symbol on that same page.

Please tell your friends about Radio Ecoshock while there's still time to make the big change. Find Radio Ecoshock on Facebook. Our Twitter feed is @ecoshock

Thank you for listening, and we'll try it again next week, assuming there is a next week. We finish the program with a slice from Venice Beat's version of "2525".