EXTREME ARCTIC FEAR

SUMMARY: Abrupt warming in Arctic could lead to catastrophic consequences says top scientist Dr. Peter Gleick, ICCI Director Pam Pearson, and the founder of Paleoceanography, Dr. James Kennett. Three must-listen interviews.

"What is happening in the Arctic now is unprecedented & possibly catastrophic."

That's the Tweet heard around the world at the end of February. It was picked up by the Independent newspaper in the UK, and many other places in the alternative and climate-savy media. Robert Hunziker did a strong piece about it in CounterPunch called "The Arctic Turns Ugly".

The Tweeter is a world-known scientist. Dr. Peter Gleick is a member of the US National Academy of Science, he's a MacArthur Fellow, and President of the Pacific Institute. He was a guest on Radio Ecoshock in March 2014 (find the blog and links for that audio here).

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

Or listen on Soundcloud right now.



DR. PETER GLEICK WARNS OF POSSIBLE ARCTIC CATASTROPHE

Why is it warming so much - is it just "El Nino" or is it really climate change? Generally, scientists say El Nino affects the Pacific, but not the Arctic. Most of the strange warming in the Arctic this past winter (with record low sea ice) is due to our heating the atmosphere, and not El Nino.

I ask Peter Gleick, why he is alarmed about this, and is that concern shared by other scientists?

Dr. Peter Gleick

The United Kingdom has practically been buried by storm after record-breaking storm this winter. Peter Gleick thinks abnormal weather is directly connected to big changes in the Arctic. That's the new understanding, led by scientists like Dr. Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University. The Jet Stream has been altered by the fact that there is less temperature difference between the poles and the equatorial zones. The oceans are hotter. The land is hotter, and in some places drier. All these things change the weather.

I worry an abrupt shift in climate could happen, and the corporate media would still bury us in Donald Trump and the Kardashians. Do you think climate silence is a conspiracy by a few major media corporations - or is it possible that all of us are so addicted to fossil fuels, we really don't want to know?

To be honest, I can barely bring myself to read the latest news. Maybe the problems in the Arctic are just too big to comprehend, or just too scary to face? Is it worthwhile to keep fighting, if all we can do is slow down the loss - and the damage, for the next generation?

There is, says Gleick, a big difference between a civilization facing severe challenges as the Earth warms, and a planet where climate changes so far and so fast that civilization cannot cope or adapt. We'll have to make major efforts to adapt to what we have already done. We can't continue to make it worse. So "yes" it is worth keeping up the fight.

Let's say Greenland ice loss doubles or triples, and the Arctic sea ice disappears for most of the year. Gleick agrees nobody knows what would happen. When we change the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, we are running a giant experiment on the Earth. It's already out of control.

Gleick is a senior scientist, recognized around the world. When he suggests a "catastrophe" might be developing, is that language too extreme? He tells us that again, no one can say for sure, but our current path is taking us to climate changes so extreme it could easily become a catatastrophe.

Find out more about Dr. Peter Gleick, at the Pacific Institute. The web site is pacinst.org. Peter is author of many scientific papers and nine books, many of them reporting on world freshwater resources.

Download or listen to this 13 minute Radio Ecoshock interview with Peter Gleick in CD Quality or Lo-Fi.

You can Tweet out this interview with Peter Gleik using this tiny url: http://tinyurl.com/h53exrb

PAM PEARSON - CROSSING THRESHOLDS OF THE CRYOSPHERE

A surprising amount of Planet Earth is frozen. It's been that way for millions of years, all during our life and evolution. Last December, the world's leading experts on this frozen land and sea - warned Earth is heading into irreversible loss in the cryosphere. Nothing short of an ice age can avoid incredible changes that will re-arrange sea levels, cities, and life as we know it. Practically nobody heard them.

Scientists and civil servants who know this danger gathered into a largely volunteer group called the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative, known as ICCI. They've issued a report called "Thresholds and Closing Windows, Risks of Irreversible Cryosphere Climate Change". We are joined by one of the co-ordinators of that report, Pam Pearson, the Director of ICCI. In fact, she founded this network of ice science specialists just as the 2009 Copenhagen climate talks failed.

Pam Pearson

Get an overview and link to download report "Thresholds and Closing Windows" here.

Here is what the ICCI says in a summary about this report:

"Policy makers and the general public alike now largely accept that the Arctic, Antarctica and many mountain regions already have warmed two-three times faster than the rest of the planet. What is less understood, outside the scientific community, is that the very nature of the cryosphere – regions of snow and ice – carries dynamics that once triggered, in some cases cannot be reversed, even with a return to lower temperatures or CO2 levels."

The Cryosphere breaks down into 4 important components, all acting differently on different time scales:

1. Ice sheets (polar land-based ice)

2. Mountain glaciers (retreating everywhere around the world)

3. Permafrost (up to 20% of the Earth's land mass is "permanently" frozen, except it's not. It's thawing.)

4. Arctic and Antarctic sea ice (floating on ice surface, does not add to rising seas, but does increase warming when melting back and exposing darker ocean water to sunlight.)

The report also covers Polar Ocean acidification.

I think the first thing to grasp is that politics and propaganda can't change a simple fact of physics: once the temperature goes over 0 degrees C, or 32 Fahrenheit, water changes state from ice or snow to a liquid. We can't talk our way out of that. The report says:

"Cryosphere climate change is not like air or water pollution, where the impacts remain local and when addressed, allow ecosystems largely to recover. Cryosphere climate change, driven by the physical laws of water’s response to the freezing point, is different. Slow to manifest itself, once triggered it inevitably forces the Earth’s climate system into a new state, one that most scientists believe has not existed for 35–50 million years."

The Arctic has been unbelievably hot this past winter. It rained in the dark of December, and I just read the Arctic February was more like the temperature expected in June.

But the ice-world is not just thawing at the Poles. I remember years ago the famous nature TV star Steve Irwin lamenting that tropical glaciers were disappearing. Now this report says that even if the Paris climate deal is carried out, we can still expect: "Complete loss of most mountain glaciers."

IRREVERSIBLE LOSS OF ICE

The Fifth Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, DID say that many aspects of climate change are "largely irreversible on human time scales." But they buried that on page one thousand and thirty three of a fat report that hardly anyone reads!

About two dozen scientists published an open letter in the Guardian newspaper last December, urging more action to protect the cryosphere, at the Paris climate talks.

I found it fascinating that this ICCI report devoted a chapter to acidification of the polar seas. We know oceans become more acidic due to a chemical reaction with the carbon dioxide we keep adding to the atmosphere. But I haven't seen much about this at the Poles. It's happening even worse there, as colder water can absorb more carbon, which becomes carbolic acid. Northern fisheries and all marine life are threatened by this change.

THAWING PERMAFROST

I've done several shows on thawing permafrost. Scientists in Canada, Scandinavia, Russia and Alaska are most interested, but so are the people who live in those lands full-time. Is there a tipping point where once permafrost starts to go, it can fuel it's own further thawing? Apparently so.

The ICCI report says of permafrost thaw: "any carbon release [is] not reversible even with [a] new Ice Age, except on geologic time scales." I found that in a couple of places in the report. Even a new Ice Age may not be able to return Earth to the state known for millions of years! Most scientists say that the next possible date for an ice age, based on the tilt of the Earth's axis, - that ice age will not happen due to the warming gases we have already added to the atmosphere. So count that out.

You can find out more about melting permafrost as a driver to global climate change here.

WHAT ABOUT THE FROZEN METHANE - THE CLATHRATES?

One thing I found missing in this report is the threat of melting of frozen methane on the sea-bed, known as clathrates. Other scientists see clathrates as a likely driver in past extinction events. Why isn't it in this ICCI report? Pam tells us the science about clathrate melting is not yet sure. Some scientists say that for now, the methane released in Arctic waters is likely to be absorbed in the water column, before it reaches the surface and the atmosphere. Others, like Dr. Shahkova, say their research shows methane is already being released in the Arctic, more and more.

The authors of the ICCI report already had four irreversible certainties to report. They didn't want to add the clathrate problem until more finished science is in. Some of their scientists disagreed. It's not settled. See what our next guest, Dr. James Kennett has to say!

ABANDONING OUR COASTAL CITIES - IS THAT "ADAPTING"?

Here is one more paragraph from the stunning introduction to this report "Thresholds and Closing Windows":

"Adaptation to the levels of projected climate-related disruption, particularly sea-level rise that cannot be halted and accelerates over the centuries, simply will not be possible without massive migration and other changes to human centers of population and infrastructure, that will carry enormous economic and not least, historic and cultural costs."

Basically: humans will have to leave their coastal cities behind, and the some of the most fertile near-ocean river estuaries that now support many millions of people.

According to this ICCI report: "The only way fully to avoid these risks is never to let temperatures rise into these risk zones at all." After the climate is broken, and the cryosphere starts it's unstoppable melt, there is no way to "fix" it.

Find out more about the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative at iccinet.org.

Download or listen to this 27 minute Radio Ecoshock interview with Pam Pearson in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

You can Tweet out this interview using this tiny url: http://tinyurl.com/hauvzt6

DR. JAMES KENNETT - ABRUPT CLIMATE CHANGE FOUND IN THE PAST

Just 10 years ago, scientists told me melting the world's ice system would take thousands of years. Since then, with the shocking ice loss at both poles, we're not so sure. Abrupt climate change is possible. We're about to explore what can happen within one lifetime - that has already happened in the ancient past.

To find the clues, we dig into the sea bed with a founding expert in the field. Our guest is recognized as the father of that science, called Paleoceanography. He started publishing in the 1960's. He wrote the standard college textbook "Marine Geology", and founded a journal on this subject.

Dr. James Kennett

Dr. James Kennett is Emeritus Professor of Marine Geology and Paleocoeanography, in the Earth Science Department of the University of California, Santa Barbara.

For me, the startling results of this study, published October 2015 in the Journal Paleoceanography, is what could happen in just 50 years, easily within a single lifetime.

The paper name sounds very technical, but don't let that scare you off this interview. Kennett explains things very clearly, and it's one of the most important interviews I've done recently. The title is: "Abrupt termination of Marine Isotope Stage 16 (Termination VII) at 631.5?ka in Santa Barbara Basin, California".

You can read about this Santa Barbara Basin research in this helpful AGU article by Julie Cohen.

We learn in this paper that about 630,000 years ago, there was a relatively rapid shift out of a cold glacier period, to an interglacial period that was a lot warmer. The whole process took about 700 years - BUT it started with an abrupt temperature rise in only 50 years! Kennett tells Julie Cohen:

“Of the 13 degree Fahrenheit total change, a shift of 7 to 9 degrees occurred almost immediately right at the beginning.”

WHEN YELLOWSTONE BLEW UP

What do catastrophic events in Yellowstone Park have to do with all this? Well first of all, Kennett has studied and written papers on the Yellowstone Caldera, the giant hole in the ground blown out in an ancient explosion. He told science journalist Julie Cohen:

“Our tests showed that this particular ash was ejected from the Yellowstone volcanic caldera in Wyoming, which has exactly the same fingerprint. This huge caldera formed about 630,000 years ago, with most of the enormous volume of ash blown to the east. However, this eruption was so explosive that the ash reached the Santa Barbara Basin, forming a layer one to two inches thick. The discovery of this ash helped with dating the core.”

Kennett tells Radio Ecoshock listeners there were in fact two gigantic blasts at Yellowstone, about 200 years apart. The first was followed by a cloud that rolled around the Northern Hemisphere, blocking out the summer sun, and creating an instant cooling, similar to a "nuclear winter". The second created an even longer constant winter.

ANOTHER SCIENTIST WORRIED ABOUT CLATHRATES AND ABRUPT CLIMATE CHANGE

Some of our listeners are deeply worried about much more global warming methane being released in our current climate shift. This paper talks about: "repeated discharges of methane from methane hydrates associated with both ocean warming and low sea level." Did that methane erupt from the West Coast of North America, or from the Arctic? Kennett says more methane has been measured all down the Canadian and American West Coast in recent years, bubbling up from the sea floor. Hotter oceans are already starting the first signs of clathrate melting. It's happening off the U.S. East Coast too.

This seasoned scientist is deeply concerned about the potential super warming effect of methane releases, as the oceans warm. He's not shy to tell us that, and you should listen. Dr. Kennett suggests that melting clathrates likely triggered the rapid 50 year warming found about 630,000 years ago. But we do not know for certain yet.

This paper did not speculate on a comparison of this 50-year shift a few hundred thousand years ago, and human-induced warming today. But personally, I wonder if we will see a similar deglaciation within a single human lifetime. Have we already entered this process?

I wonder what climate modellers like David Archer will think, after his book "The Long Thaw". Is there disagreement about how fast deglaciation can take place? Yes and no, says Kennett. Everyone who studies ice knows it can take hundreds to thousands of years for a giant glacier like the one covering Greenland to melt. On the other hand, he tells us, there is a big scientific consensus that quite rapid temperature changes have taken place many times in the past. It's both.

After the call, Jim told me that their research team wants to return to the Santa Barbara Basin to drill even deeper cores. These would tell us a lot about the history of Earth's climate and life, including methane releases, going back 1.2 million years. However, there is a lot of oil and gas drilling in that same basin, plus a very environmentally concerned community in California. So far, the scientists have not received permission to go back and open up this critical chapter in Earth's records.

Dr. James Kennett has published hundreds of papers, starting in 1962 right up to the present.

Download or listen to this 21 minute interview with Dr. James Kennett in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

You can Tweet out this Kennett interview using this tiny url: http://tinyurl.com/zd9mwrk

Here is a You tube video on abrupt climate change: "Expecting the Unexpected" with senior scientists like Richard Alley warning us all.

EARTH NOW WARMING FIFTY TIME FASTER

Here's an important article in the UK Guardian newspaper "Earth now warming 50X faster than coming out of last ice age".

That article says:

"What humans are in the process of doing to the climate makes the transition out of the last ice age look like a casual stroll through the park. We’re already warming the Earth about 20 times faster than during the ice age transition, and over the next century that rate could increase to 50 times faster or more. We’re in the process of destabilizing the global climate far more quickly than happens even in some of the most severe natural climate change events."

This paper, led by R.E. Kopp, is covered here in the Real Climate blog here.

The full citiation for the new science is:

R.E. Kopp, A.C. Kemp, K. Bittermann, B.P. Horton, J.P. Donnelly, W.R. Gehrels, C.C. Hay, J.X. Mitrovica, E.D. Morrow, and S. Rahmstorf, "Temperature-driven global sea-level variability in the Common Era", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, pp. 201517056, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1517056113

The actual paper abstract is here.

That was one fully loaded Ecoshock show. I hope you found it useful. You can download all our past programs as free .mp3 files from our web site at http://www.ecoshock.org/ You can also listen to our more recent programs, for free, using the player at our soundcloud page.

Alex Smith, your host and producer at Radio Ecoshock.

Facing the Harsh Realities of Now

SUMMARY: David Wasdell, head of the Apollo-Gaia Project, returns to Radio Ecoshock with devastating revelations about how climate science has been manipulated or ignored by the IPCC, and by the leaders meeting in Paris. We are committed to far more than 2 degrees of warming. A vastly changed world awaits. Radio Ecoshock 151118.

Are you ready for the harsh reality of our future in a hotter world? Can any of us really handle the truth? If you feel strong enough, this may be the most devastating look into where we really stand. Perhaps you remember UK writer Mark Lynas stunning us with the awful changes on Earth if we warm by 5 degrees Centigrade. We may not survive six.

Many hope the climate talks in Paris can reach an agreement that will save a livable climate, keeping global warming below 2 degrees C. But what if the national leaders are just players on a stage of illusion? What if someone told you our current levels of greenhouse gases already commit us to more than 6 degrees of global warming, and over 12 meters, over 36 feet higher sea levels? And that may not be the worst of it.

I'm Alex Smith with a remarkable interview from London. This is Radio Ecoshock, radio you need to hear. Download or listen to this Radio Ecoshock show in CD Quality (56 MB) or Lo-Fi (14 MB)

Or listen right now on Soundcloud!



THIS IS WEEK TWO OF THE RADIO ECOSHOCK FALL FUNDRAISING DRIVE

Last week, a couple of dozen people stepped up to help Radio Ecoshock keep going. There is no secret foundation paying for this program. Nobody pays me for the 40 hours I put in each week to get this critical information out to you, and to the world.

I know some previous green programs, excellent programs with seasoned hosts, had to go off the air due to lack of funding. Usually there was at least one program director on staff, who helped line up guests, and perhaps another doing all the research needed. When people couldn't get paid, those shows closed up.

Knowing there would never be a commercial market for deep eco-truth, I set up Radio Ecoshock ten years ago on the barest budget possible. There is no staff. I do it all. We don't have the overhead of a non-profit society (with high administration costs). There is no fund-raising department. This is it, and you are the co-owners of the program, when you sign up for the $10 a month membership, or make a donation of any amount.

Frankly, a few weeks ago, I felt like giving up. Not because of money, which is always low, but because for the past 10 years our expert guest explained why urgent action is needed. Instead, emissions just went up and up, and our natural environment continues to degrade.

But we can't give up, can we? This is the only world for us, for our descendants, for all the marvellous creatures living on Earth.

I'm re-committing to another year of Radio Ecoshock. I hope you'll join me, to help pay for this project. Check out your options on this page. Thank you.

IS THIS THE MOST IMPORTANT RADIO ECOSHOCK SHOW OF 2015?

This is a very intense program, with lots of science, clearly expressed for all of us.

David Wasdell

In order to help everyone, here is a ".pdf" rough transcript of this program, including all the science David lays out. Please feel free to dive in for yourself, add you comments to this blog, and forward both the program and the .pdf transcript as widely as possible. Just copy and paste this address in your browser.

http://www.ecoshock.net/downloads/Wasdell_Ecoshock_Transcript.pdf

Or download it to your computer.

David's full presentation online is called: "Climate Dynamics: Facing the Harsh Realities of Now

Climate Sensitivity, Target Temperature & the Carbon Budget: Guidelines for Strategic Action"

It's simple. Go to this page at apollo-gaia.org.

If you click on the headshot of David Wasdell, you will get a video, 1 hour 16 minutes long, as David explains where we are right now in the climate, and where we are going. It has graphs that make it seem simple, even though he deals with cutting-edge science. If this recorded video conference seems to stop and start, it's likely you are trying in a period of heavy internet use. Try again at a time when fewer people are on the net.

Of course, one of the benefits of my full-length radio interview of David, is that anyone in the world can download or listen to it. People in countries with low-bandwidth, or poor access, should choose the "Lo-Fi" version, which is ten percent the size of the CD Quality broadcast. That's also a good choice if you want to listen online. Or use the soundcloud version here. Soundcloud usually plays well with no interruptions.

If you prefer the print approach, click on the title slide to the right of David's picture. That leads you to the .pdf text to accompany the video, with a full explanation.

Wasdell has gone to great length to make this deep science available to all of us. It's a critical mission. We cannot allow ourselves, or our leaders, to continue using "convenient" science, instead of facing the harsh realities.

All I can tell you is that I've heard from over 100 previous scientists interviewed on Radio Ecoshock - the evidence that David Wasdell adds up for us in this talk. It's sobering, depressing, and maybe yes, liberating. We can only go forward when we know where we are right now.

Please help this message get out widely. Share David's video link, this program, your own thoughts and activism. Giving up is not an option.

I'm your dedicated friend, Alex Smith. My thanks to all those who reached out to support Radio Ecoshock this week, who Tweet and Facebook further than I can. Please don't leave support for this program to "others".

Thank you for being brave enough to listen, and let's meet again next week.

SCIENCE OF THE COMING CATASTROPHE

Summary: Oil company BP says recoverable oil runs out in 50 years. American scientist James H. Brown publishes study saying this means a crash of economy and population is "very, very likely". Then Canadian climate scientist Andrew Weaver on our prospects, and why he ran for the Green Party. Radio Ecoshock 150923.

Warning: If you are already feeling depressed, this may not be the program for you. Maybe you should take a walk outside instead. Really. That would be OK.

For those still listening/reading, according to one of the world's biggest oil companies, their primary product may not be around for much longer than 50 years. In this program, a senior scientist follows that logic to find a catastrophic crash of our economy - and world population is "very, very likely".

We'll follow up with a chat with one of Canada's top climate scientists. He says we don't need more science, we need action to save ourselves. So he ran for the Green Party and got elected.

Speaking of politics, Catholic legislators in the U.S. Congress saying they will boycott the Pope's speech there because of his views on global warming, let's go to our favorite source, the father of all that's right, former President Ronald Reagan:

"Preservation of our environment is not a liberal or conservative challenge, it's common sense. Let's be sure that those who come after, will say of us in our time, we did everything that could be done."

Australia's great climate denier and coal-lover Prime Minister Tony Abbott just got the boot from his old party. His replacement is at least on record acknowledging that climate change is real and dangerous. One more to go: Canada's Tar Sands Prime Minister Stephen Harper is up for election in October, with polls showing him running dead last in public opinion.

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

Or listen on Soundcloud right now!



Of course, the political theater may all be far too late. Pop a few anti-depressants for our next guest, as Radio Ecoshock rolls on into the dystopic future.

SCIENCE OF CATASTROPHE: DR. JAMES H. BROWN

In about 50 years, oil and gas will run out . But our bubble of economic growth and increasing population will crash before that. It has to. That's according to our next guest James H. Brown, a Distinguished Professor of Biology at the University of New Mexico, in Albuquerque. He's also the head of the Brown Lab.

This interview is not our usual fare. First of all, the crash will come less from climate change, although that is not minimized, but from the simple fast that economically retrievable oil and gas will run out. Eventually, Brown says, that means this planet will no longer be able to support billions of people. A great dying is likely, if not inevitable.

This all comes not from an out-there blogger, but from a highly reputable scientist. His paper on the subject was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) - one of the top American scientific journals. It's peer-reviewed and inspected, and was published August 4th, 2015. The title is: "Human domination of the biosphere: Rapid discharge of the earth-space battery foretells the future of humankind".

I begin by asking Brown to describe what is meant by "the Earth-Space battery". Essentially, as I understand it, this is a system where solar energy is stored in two main forms on Earth: (1) the total mass of living matter, on land and sea (plants, animals, insects, the lot) and (2) the energy stored in longer-term forms like fossil fuels, and peat.

Brown makes the case that both forms of energy on Earth are being rapidly depleted. As they are exhausted (by us, and by systems stimulated by humans) - Earth moves toward the general state of (outer) space, becoming less hospitable for living things.

In the abstract for that paper we find this scary little sentence: "With the rapid depletion of this chemical energy, the earth is shifting back toward the inhospitable equilibrium of outer space with fundamental ramifications for the biosphere and humanity."

Since the authors (the other being John R. Schramski from the University of Georgia) find that fossil energy drives most of our civilization, and that supply of fossil fuels is limited - therefore there can be no such thing as "sustainable development". That is just a myth.

Long-time listeners will find echoes here of the peak oil theory, described by guests like James Howard Kunstler and especially Richard Heinberg of the Post Carbon Institute. But there are also parallels to the work of Dr. Tim Garrett of the University of Utah. Garrett likewise found a formula where the economy, indeed "wealth" are mathematically bound to carbon burned, and therefore to emissions. There will be no meaningful cut to emissions, Garrett told us, unless and until the economy drops so precipitously it will be a crash larger than the Great Depression of the previous century. Here is a link to a transcript of my 2010 interview with Tim Garrett.

Brown also shows, scientifically, how closely world population mirrors energy availability and use. Given that BP, a source of industry data trusted by others in the industry, says we only have 50 years of economically useful fossil fuels left - what else can we see coming but a concomitant crash in population sometime in the next 50 years. That's a disaster beyond anything seen in human history, headed into the lives of anyone under the age of 30 now.

You can see this research developing in an earlier paper with Brown as lead author: "Energetic Limits to Economic Growth" as published by the American Institute for Biological Sciences on March 25, 2012. Find details on that here. Here is another Brown-led article in press for the journal Ecological Engineering: :Macroecology meets macroeconomics: Resource scarcity and global sustainability"

I have trouble with Brown's argument that economic growth has stalled due to scarcity, whether it's energy or other resources like copper or iron. It seems like we are swimming in excess oil right now, with prices dropping. Other commodity prices are also crashing, partly because Chinese demand has fallen. How can Brown you cite scarcity as a driver of a global recession, during a period of apparent abundance?

His answer is intriguing. Consider a sick person on a fixed income. If they are too sick to eat, their grocery bill might go down, and so they actually appear to have more available wealth. But really that "abundance" is a (temporary) sign of how sick the economy really is.

We also discuss the relationships between climate change and dwindling fossil fuel resources. It's always hard to tell which will hit us harder or faster. Either way, in a presentation in Baltimore last August, one of Brown's slides says : "A catastrophic crash appears inevitable."

James Brown's thinking also evolved around another big concept, the co-relation between metabolism and ecology. We won't have time to develop the whole theory this time around, but you can learn about it in this You tube video (1 hour 4 minute intriguing lecture).

Here is another useful review of this important paper by the real journalist Andrew Nikiforuk in the Canadian publication the Tyee.

I don't agree with everything Dr. Brown said in our interview. For example he says renewables cannot replace fossil fuels for cars and factories. But they can, although our lifestyles and expectations would have to change drastically. But certainly, if oil that is economical to get runs out in 50 years, we're in for a crash, if not an age of crashes. We've had a lot of guests say that. Maybe it's true.

You can download or listen to this 23 minute interview with Dr. James H. Brown in CD Quality or Lo-Fi.

AGE OF HUMANS MUSIC

Just to finish off that mood, we play a short song from Dana Pearson: "Age of Humans". Find all of Dana's work as Vastman on Soundclick.com.

FROM SCIENTIFIC STUDY TO POLITICAL ACTION: DR. ANDREW WEAVER

Let's keep going, with a climate scientist who quit science, at least for now, to become a political activist.

Is climate change unstoppable, even if we drastically cut back emissions? Are these mega-changes on our planet "irreversible"? Our guest Dr. Andrew Weaver is one of Canada's top climate scientists, most recently with the University of Victoria in Canada. He's been a lead author in many reports for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, including the 2007 report that won the Nobel Prize.

Dr. Andrew Weaver has been featured in the film "Running on Climate". As a Canadian climate expert, Andrew has been a cornerstone of a series of reports from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and published over 200 scientific papers of his own. Now he's the first Green Member of the Legislative Assembly in the Western Canadian province of British Columbia.

Dr. Weaver was a Lead Author for the Working Group I contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC. Published in 2013, the title is: “Long-term Climate Change: Projections, Commitments and Irreversibility.”

In the past couple of years, I am seeing more statements by official scientific bodies that some aspect of global warming is now "unstoppable" or "irreversible". NASA says melting of the Totten glacier complex in Antarctica is now "unstoppable". The most recent 2014 climate report of the American Meteorological Association says warming of the oceans is "unstoppable." So it's with great interest I ask Dr. Weaver about the "irreversible" changes to the climate system, and our ecological systems.

I ask him if he thinks that melting of the permafrost, during this century and the following centuries, has reached the state of "unstoppable"? And could emissions from melting permafrost and melting of Arctic methane ice cages, the clathrates, create more greenhouse gases than humans currently do?

Scientists have painted a frightening picture of massive changes to our climate, sea level, agriculture, weather extremes and extinctions if we proceed along the higher emissions pathway. I ask Dr. Weaver for his thoughts about possible results from the upcoming "Conference of the Parties" climate negotiations in Paris at the end of November 2015.

Despite his work with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (which advises governments on pathways and climate decision-making) - Weaver says the whole series of COP talks have been a colossal waste of time. He likewise expects nothing of importance to come out of the Paris talks. In particular, Weaver finds talk of ending emissions by the end of this century (as the G8 countries agreed) is just posturing that actually delays the quick and big action we need right now.

DO WE NEED MORE CLIMATE SCIENCE?

Even more surprising from a long-time and well known climate scientist, Weaver questions whether we need more climate science. We already have plenty of data and proof of the nature and causes of the developing climate change. What we need is real action from our leaders. No more science needed? Shocking stuff.

Weaver told that to so many young people, he decided he should lead by example. Andrew ran for the Green Party in the Provincial elections in British Columbia Canada. He was elected on Vancouver Island, the first and so-far only Green in the Provincial government.

Like Michael Mann in the United States, Andrew Weaver was also attacked personally by a series of opinionated writers in some of Canada's major publications. When they said he wasn't even a bonifide climate scientist (among other weird accusations) Weaver sued for libel. He won the case, with damages. At least one publication often a home for climate denial issued an abject apology and fired the writer, removing all his past articles. Other publications have appealed the decision, so that battle is not over. But it certainly set an example of climate scientists fighting back against calumny.

Although we didn't talk about it this interview, Weaver is also the author of two books. As his Wiki entry says:

"His book, Keeping our Cool: Canada in a Warming World was published by Viking Canada in September 2008 (ISBN 978-0-670-06800-5). His second book, Generation Us: The Challenge of Global Warming was published by Raven Books in 2011 (ISBN 978-1-55469-804-2)."

In the interview, we return to the science, discussing many topics that listeners have raised with me in email and in Facebook comments. You can listen to or download this 29 minute interview with Dr. Andrew Weaver here, in either CD Quality or Lo-Fi.

LOVE SONG TO THE EARTH - MEGA MUSIC

We'll close out this week's program with one of those mega-productions that seem hopeful. The so-called Official "Love Song to the Earth" was directed by Jerry Cope and Casey Culver. If you listen closely, you'll hear guest appearances by a long list of stars, including Paul McCartney, Jon Bon Jovi, Sheryl Crow, Fergie, Colbie Caillat, Natasha Bedingfield, Sean Paul, Leona Lewis, Christina Grimmmie, and Victoria Justice.

According to the song notes at lovesongtotheearth.org, "Every time the song is purchased, streamed, or shared, the royalties go directly towards the efforts of Friends of the Earth to keep fossil fuels in the ground and lower carbon emissions, and to the work of the U.N. Foundation to inspire international action on climate change."

Watch and listen to "Love Song to the Earth" on You tube here.

That's a good reason to go get this song and share it with others. So maybe, just maybe, if we find the last wave of human will, we can avoid the coming catastrophe.

Despite the tsunami of warning signs coming our way, I remain, as South Africa's Desmond Tutu says, "a prisoner of hope."

I'm Alex Smith. Thank you for listening to Radio Ecoshock this week, and for caring about our world. Please don't forget to help support this work. Find out how here.

Beyond the Tipping Point

A physicist, a leading expert on clean energy and climate, he was an advisor in the Clinton Administration. His book "Hell and High Water" becomes too true daily. Time Magazine called him “The Web’s most influential climate-change blogger” . Dr. Joseph Romm's "Climate Progress" is the only blog right on my browser tool-bar. It IS indespensible.

We welcome Joe Romm back to Radio Ecoshock.

Among other things, we'll discuss the new theme issue from the British Royal Society "Four degrees and beyond: the potential for a global temperature increase of four degrees and its implications." This series of papers looks at how the climate will shift drastically - if we continue to power our economy with fossil fuels.

Joe has more on the Cancun climate conference, his award winning blog (named one of the best blogs on the Net by Time Magazine) climateprogress.org - and the bleak outlook for action by the U.S. or Canada.

That is followed by a knock-out interview with David Wadell. His presentation on "Beyond the Tipping Point" at Tallberg Sweden in 2008 warned that the IPCC, and most governments, were operating on unsafe assumptions about climate sensitivity. David tells us about the "positive feedback loops" that are STILL left out of climate models.

And even without those extra warming powers, the Hadley Centre in Britain, and MIT in the U.S. have proved Wasell's point. Both now say we could experience 4 to 6 degrees of warming in this century. Possibly 4 degrees C. warming (7 degrees F. extra heat as a mean global average) as early as 2070, or even 2060. Younger people will live to see this horror, unless we can turn the carbon clock back, in some as yet unknown social and economic revolution.... as we must.

I'm going to let you listen to the interviews, without further comment here.

Here are a bunch of links, so you can test out what Joe Romm and David Wasdell are saying. Going back to the original science. A link bonanza for you. Go deep, this is the Big One.

The audio from David Wadell's "Beyond the Tipping Point" film, to an international climate conference at Tallberg Sweden, June 28, 2008. One hour, in Hi-Fi (55 MB) or Lo-Fi 14 MB

Joe Romm of climateprogress on Hadley Centre upper projections.

Joe Romm of climateprogress on MIT study doubling projections of heating.

Downloads and video, for talks at the "4 Degrees & Beyond" International Climate Conference 28-30 September 2009, Oxford UK

Pay special attention to this talk by Richard Betts, which includes (at 16 minute mark) the very points David Wasdell raises - that serious positive feedback loops are still left out of climate models (which leads to underestimates of the real possibilities).

THE ROYAL SOCIETY "FOUR DEGREES & BEYOND" THEME ISSUE

Joe Romm's introduction to these papers (and why they matter).

The Royal Society web page for the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society "4 Degrees and Beyond" theme issue:

Some of the papers are now subscription only, having been offered to the public for a few days. Given the seriousness of crashing the Earth's climate system, and in the spirit of Wikileaks, I've posted all the papers here, as pdf files.

Editorial by David Garner

Preface

Introduction


ARTICLES

Kevin Anderson and Alice Bows
Beyond ‘dangerous’ climate change: emission scenarios for a new world

Niel H. A. Bowerman, David J. Frame, Chris Huntingford, Jason A. Lowe, and Myles R. Allen
Cumulative carbon emissions, emissions floors and short-term rates of warming: implications for policy

Richard A. Betts, Matthew Collins, Deborah L. Hemming, Chris D. Jones, Jason A. Lowe, and Michael G. Sanderson
When could global warming reach 4°C?

M. G. Sanderson, D. L. Hemming, and R. A. Betts
Regional temperature and precipitation changes under high-end (≥4°C) global warming

Fai Fung, Ana Lopez, and Mark New
Water availability in +2°C and +4°C worlds

Philip K. Thornton, Peter G. Jones, Polly J. Ericksen, and Andrew J. Challinor
Agriculture and food systems in sub-Saharan Africa in a 4°C+ world

Przemyslaw Zelazowski, Yadvinder Malhi, Chris Huntingford, Stephen Sitch, and Joshua B. Fisher
Changes in the potential distribution of humid tropical forests on a warmer planet

Robert J. Nicholls, Natasha Marinova, Jason A. Lowe, Sally Brown, Pier Vellinga, Diogo de Gusmão, Jochen Hinkel, and Richard S. J. Tol
Sea-level rise and its possible impacts given a ‘beyond 4°C world’ in the twenty-first century

Mark Stafford Smith, Lisa Horrocks, Alex Harvey, and Clive Hamilton
Rethinking adaptation for a 4°C world

Francoix Gemenne
Climate-induced population displacements in a 4 degree C + world

Rachel Warren
The role of interactions in a world implementing adaptation and mitigation solutions to climate change.


AND HERE IS WHERE TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT DAVID WASDELL

David Wasdell Bio

David Wasdell video presentation, Tallberg Sweden 2008

David Wasdell videos

The Apollo-Gaia web site

Another important Wasdell paper, with the graphs and charts helpful for both his video at Talberg, and his Radio Ecoshock interview. "Runaway Climate Change, Boundary Conditions & Implications for Policy".

BITS OF MUSIC IN THIS BROADCAST FROM:

"Seeds of Your Past" by Dirtfella (Victoria, B.C.)