HARD NEWS, TROUBLED PLANET

Summary: Australia fires climate scientists while expanding coal. Ellen Roberts of GetUp! reports. From Netherlands, scientist Arjen Hoekstra finds 4 billion people in water scarcity. From Hong Kong, Stuart Heaver on nuclear fear next door. Radio Ecoshock 160217

A new paper by Australian scientists find that that the number of bushfires in Australia is up 40 percent just since 2007. Find that study here.

Another hot summer is just ending in Australia, with another round of fires. Meanwhile, Tasmania is burning, with fires so hot they create their own lightning - self-sustaining fires.

What does the government do? It hires a thug to fire 110 climate scientists who report on the growing impacts of climate disruption. The premier climate study agency CISRO, is being converted into a for-profit tech research agency with industry in mind. Why? The new boss says climate change has already been proven, so why keep all those climate scientists?

Over 3,000 scientists around the world have petitioned to stop the carnage at CISRO. No matter. The government has other fish to fry, literally, as the waters around Australia heat up beyond the survival limits of the famous Great Barrier Reef (just look at this recent example from Fiji). That doesn't matter anyway, as the Australian government just approved a massive new coal mine complex, and a coal shipping port just a few kilometers from that reef.

That's the real reason climate science has to go. It's the coal business, mate.

We'll get to the scientist who led a study showing billions of people experience "severe water scarcity", and listen to more nuclear fears about reactor mania in China. Welcome to your dose of world news and science, this week on Radio Ecoshock.

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ELLEN ROBERTS, GETUP! AND AUSSIE COAL CRAZIES

There are crazy projects, and then there are plans so dangerous we can't believe any government or corporation would do it. Here is one of those. In Australia, just before Christmas, the government announced approval of a mega-coal shipping terminal just a few kilometers from the World Heritage Great Barrier reef. Australia is busy expanding production with absolutely giant mines, to ship more climate-wrecking coal to India. What could go wrong?

Here to tell us about it is Ellen Roberts of the Australian activist organization GetUp! The GetUp! group in Queensland covers a wide range of issues, from climate change to mistreatment of refugees. They help organize the public to get action, despite the current reactionary government in Australia.

Ellen Roberts. Photo credit: Australian Financial Review at afr.com

Here is part of a GetUp email to their members:

"Earlier this year, we helped the Mackay Conservation Group defeat the Carmichael mine in Federal Court. And in 2013 GetUp members funded two court cases that stopped the Abbot Point expansion in its tracks. They were historic cases that forced new laws banning dredge spoil from being dumped out at sea.

But, under huge pressure from the coal lobby and conservatives within his party, Greg Hunt has just re-approved Adani's destructive, unprofitable coal disaster.

This port will involve more than a million cubic metres of dredging in Great Barrier Reef World Heritage waters. It will make way for a company with a documented history of bribery, corruption and environmental destruction to build one of the biggest coal mines in the world.

The mine would create more carbon emissions than most countries. It will heat the oceans, bleach our coral and undermine international efforts to stop global warming. On every level, this is a disaster.

We've done it before. Now, we have no choice. To stop this project, we have to do it again."

If it makes you feel any better, the Adani Group in India have announced they will delay opening their super coal mines in Australia, and the new coal port. Perhaps they've noticed that stock in coal companies around the world have crashed so badly that many are going bankrupt. The Australian government is still optimistic though, hoping they can help crash the world climate with more coal. This adds to my conviction that only a major economic crash can possibly stop civilization from environmental suicide.

All along, the Aussie coal industry has foot tooth and nail against any subsidy for solar or wind power. Now that Asian coal demand has fallen, and Australia's mines running at a loss, here comes the coal industry looking for billions more in taxpayers dollars - aside from the multiple subisides they already get in public infrastructure.

More on falls in Asian coal demand lower down in this article.

By providing coal, Australia is helping India avoid the transition to clean fuel. India and that whole region is hard hit by climate change. Plus literally millions of Indians are killed every year by air pollution caused by burning coal. I think Australians need to take some responsibility for the impacts in India, but here we also have an Indian corporation using Australian coal to pollute their own people.

Here is the kicker. Coal companies in the United States and Europe are going bankrupt. Their stock is almost worthless. Nobody wants to invest in them. Why is Australia the last place to hear that the coal age is over?

Download or listen to this 17 minute interview with Ellen Roberts in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

WATER SCARCITY EXPERIENCED BY 4 BILLION PEOPLE - ARJEN HOEKSTRA

Word about this scary study is spreading around alternative media, even as it fades from it's 15 seconds of fame on mainstream outlets like the Guardian. Hardly anyone has a full interview with him. Radio Ecoshock does.

If you need water, just turn on a tap. Take as much as you want. Unless of course you are one of the four billion people on this planet who often can't.

You heard that right. A new study from the Netherlands is titled "Four billion people facing severe water scarcity." It's another jaw-dropping signal from the real world in trouble.

Dr. Arjen Hoekstra co-authored the paper with Mesfin Mekonnen. I think it's safe to say that Dr. Hoeskstra is a world authority on water use. His latest book "The Water Footprint of Modern Consumer Society" was translated into Chinese, with his other titles appearing in many languages.

He advises governments and international institutions like UNESCO and the World Bank. He founded the Water Footprint Network. And he's Professor in Water Management at the University of Twente, in the Netherlands.

Dr. Arjen Hoekstra

Essentially this study finds that 4 billion people experience at least 1 month of severe water scarcity a year. About half that number have to survive through many months of where water is hard to find, and some countries, like Libya, have severe water stress all year round.

To be accurate, here are the hard numbers from the Hoekstra paper:

""We find that about 71% of the global population (4.3 billion people) lives under conditions of moderate to severe water scarcity (WS > 1) at least 1 month of the year.

About 66% (4.0 billion people) lives under severe water scarcity (WS > 2.0) at least 1 month of the year.

Of these 4.0 billion people, 1.0 billion live in India and another 0.9 billion live in China. Significant populations facing severe water scarcity during at least part of the year further live in Bangladesh (130 million), the United States (130 million, mostly in western states such as California and southern states such as Texas and Florida), Pakistan (120 million, of which 85% are in the Indus basin), Nigeria (110 million), and Mexico (90 million)."

"The number of people facing severe water scarcity for at least 4 to 6 months per year is 1.8 to 2.9 billion.

Half a billion people face severe water scarcity all year round. Of those half-billion people, 180 million live in India, 73 million in Pakistan, 27 million in Egypt, 20 million in Mexico, 20 million in Saudi Arabia, and 18 million in Yemen. In the latter two countries, it concerns all people in the country, which puts those countries in an extremely vulnerable position.

Other countries in which a very large fraction of the population experiences severe water scarcity year-round are Libya and Somalia (80 to 90% of the population) and Pakistan, Morocco, Niger, and Jordan (50 to 55% of the population)."

Picture women walking a few miles, every day, with a jug of dirty river water on their heads, and you get the idea. Crops can't be watered. It's hard to wash dishes or keep kids clean. This is not a statistic, but a snapshot of very difficult lives that most of my listeners have never encountered.

I'm wondering about the possibility of more abrupt water shortages. For example, farmers in parts of India and China are drilling deeper and deeper to suck out groundwater. California is doing the same, and last year some of those wells ran dry. Is there a point where groundwater can no longer make up for rainfall losses - and could we reach that point soon?

Another comparatively abrupt cause of water shortage would be pollution of rivers and lakes. For example, many rivers in China that are now too toxic to drink or unfit for irrigation. Add in ever-growing populations, and the increased need for water to satisfy new demand for meat, and we have a mess.

This whole picture, as bad as it is, will change significantly with climate change.

In a previous paper, Hoekstra published with Wiedmann, in the journal Science June 2014, they found that humanity's total environmental imprint, not just water use, was "unsustainable". We all know this is true.

There are pressure points where countries are moving toward such extreme water stress that their economies, political systems or even survival are at stake. It's already happened in Libya and Syria, with many more to come.

Arjen's latest book is "The Water Footprint of Modern Consumer Society". We discuss his new paper, with co-author Mesfin Mekonnen, titled "Four billion people facing severe water scarcity." That was published in January 29 in the journal "Science Advances".

Download or listen to this 20 minute interview with Arjen Hoesktra in CD Quality or Lo-Fi Follow the work of Arjen Hoekstra though his web site here.

Here is a recent (January 2016) presentation by Arjen on You tube called "Breaking the Wall to Water Security."

Or try this You tube video: Prof. Arjen Hoekstra on Virtual Water: The Water Footprint of Modern Society.

DANGEROUS NUCLEAR NEIGHBORS IN CHINA - STUART HEAVER

Why am I back talking about the wave of nuclear plant construction in China? First of all, we all do care about other people, even on the other side of the world. A nuclear plant accident among tens of millions of people could be the greatest tragedy ever seen. It's bound to happen eventually.

When it does, there will be no place to go. Those millions will continue to live in radioactive hot zones. If you still don't care, remember that the plume of very radioactive dust spread from Fukushima in Japan all the way around the world. Uranium from Fukushima was found in New England, and radiation arrived in Europe and Scandinavia. A nuclear accident anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere pollutes the whole Northern Hemisphere, for thousands of years. Now maybe you care what happens in China, where dozens of reactors with new designs never successfully run anywhere else are being built right now.

Lately there have been riots on the streets of Hong Kong. It's about freedom of speech, about continuing a free market, about a way of life. Behind it all, there is a growing dark shadow of worry about the new reactors being build right next door on the mainland. Radio Ecoshock investigates.

Stuart Heaver is a journalist with the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. His article in the Post Magazine, January 10, 2016, alerted me to this under-reported nuclear danger. The headline is: "Radiation fear in Hong Kong from China's unproven and possibly faulty nuclear reactors nearby."

Journalist Stuart Heaver from Hong Kong.

China is building and planning a wave of new nuclear reactors. There are eight under construction right now in Guangdong Province, all within 150 kilometers (93 miles) of the crowded super-city of Hong Kong. There are 120 million people in that small area. Trust me, there is absolutely no way to evacuate Hong Kong in any timely manner, should a nuclear accident like Fukushima occur.

There is a contingency evacuation plan for Hong Kong, Heaver tells us, but no one takes it seriously. The biggest and nearest fear is the multiple reactor complex at Daya Bay. There are at least two operators there. Suspicion abounds.

China is not famous for transparency. At least Western privately owned reactor companies have to file some information for their shareholders. The reactors being built by the Chinese government don't. Who knows if the public will even be told if there is a leak of radiation to the air or water? The Soviets didn't tell people in Kiev about the Ukranian nuclear blow-up at Chernobyl, until the Swedes outed them four days later!

One or the reactor complexes uses untested technology from AREVA, the French government controlled nuclear company. French regulators just revealed there is a serious flaw in the reactor core design. Chinese regulators did not inform the public. As we heard a few weeks ago in my interview with Mycle Schneider, this flaw is so serious, the current construction may have to be ripped down and start again.

China will also be the testing ground for the new Westinghouse AP-1000, so-called Third Generation reactors. It's almost like the government decided to try one or two of everything, to see what works and what doesn't. But it's a terrible thing when nuclear technology doesn't work!

Meanwhile, as Stuart Heaver tells us, Chinese industrial culture has a very bad record for safety. You may recall recent news footage of a major port in China blowing up. That's just the tip of the iceberg. Hong Kong media reports every week on deaths, explosions, leaks, and general accidents in industry on the Chinese mainland. The safety culture is not there, and that's terrible news when nuclear reactors are involved.

Even a government survey showed only 34% of Chinese people are confident nuclear power will be handled safely. Another reactor inland is built in an earthquake zone. The last big one was in 2012.

I don't want to pick on China. So far the nuclear record of other countries is worse. China is already a leader in alternative energy, and becoming pro-active on climate change. It's just that we now know nuclear power is literally a dead-end path. It's time to stop the construction and go for alternative energy all the way.

Download or listen to this Radio Ecoshock interview with Stuart Heaver in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

Follow Stuart Heaver through his blog here. His Twitter handle is @StuartHeaver.

I'm Alex Smith. Please support making and distributing this program if you can. Find out how here.

Thank you for listening, and caring about our world.

THE DEATH OF NUCLEAR POWER

SUMMARY: Lead author of "World Nuclear Industry Status Reports" Mycle Schneider on new Nuclear Leap Forward in China. Famous activist Helen Caldicott on plan to make S. Australia a world nuclear dump; and dangerous nuke waste in St. Louis, Missouri. Radio Ecoshock 160127

A tiny but powerful number of scientists, applauded by a few famous greens, urge us to accept nuclear power. They see it as the salvation of our civilization, our climate, our future.

It isn't happening. As you'll hear, nuclear power is shrinking, not expanding. World-wide, major nuclear companies are going bankrupt, or soaking up billions more of your taxes, or both.

Expert Mycle Schneider looks into secrets of the Great Nuclear Leap Forward in China. Remember, after Chernobyl and Fukushima, an accident anywhere in the world can irradiate the Northern Hemisphere. China's new untested reactors are your reactors. Their radiation can land in your backyard.

All our lives, we've been told the problem of storing nuclear waste for a million years will be solved by science and technology. Instead, you will hear how hot waste from 70 years ago continues to threaten and poison a suburb of St. Louis Missouri. Dr. Helen Caldicott also reports on the mad rush to turn beautiful South Australia into a nuclear waste dump for the world.

Boiling water with reactors has become a time-bomb, a failed technology, a path better not taken, a threat and a burden to all succeeding generations.

This is Radio Ecoshock. I'm Alex Smith.

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

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MYCLE SCHNEIDER: THE NEW NUCLEAR LEAP FORWARD IN CHINA

“Nuclear energy costs are cheap because we lower our standards.”

- He Zuoxiu, in the Guardian newspaper, May 25, 2015.

While our heads are filled with day-dreams of Hollywood stars and nightmares of financial collapse, China is taking another "Great Leap Forward". China is building to become the world's largest nuclear-powered economy. A Chinese nuclear expert says the burst of reactor construction brings, quote, "the 'most probable' period for a nuclear accident in China forward to between 2020 and 2030." [Hu Zuoxiu 19.03.2013]

In fact, He Zuoxiu, who has been a government supporter and well known scientist in the nuclear field, has called the current rush to nuclear expansion in China "insane". He's 88. He can get away with it.

The risks to very heavily populated parts of China are huge to unimaginable. As we learned from Fukushima, an accident anywhere can launch radiation around the Earth.

What is going on with nuclear power in China? From Paris, our guest Mycle Schneider makes it his business to know. He's the lead author of "The World Nuclear Industry Status Reports." Schneider has advised European governments and members of the European Parliament on energy issues.

China has become an experimental lab for untested nuclear reactor technology. All the dreams of nuclear scientists are either planned or already under construction in China. There are plans and hopes for "pebble reactors" and "thorium" plants. The experiment becomes even larger when we consider so many countries, all with their different technologies, are part of the new nuclear boom in China.

The Taishan reactor complex is just one example. There the French company Areva is providing 3 European Pressurized Reactors (EPR's). These are allegedly "3rd generation" designs (although Mycle says there are very few advances over current second generation models).

Mycle Schneider



Experience? They have never run one of these reactors for a single day, and their track record is atrocious. The EPR at Flamanville in the far north of France (just across the channel from Britain) was begun in 2007. It's completion date kept getting delayed and delayed, by years and years. Now they say it will be finished in 2017 - oops, now it's 2018.. But that's unlikely. Areva has recently admitted finding a serious design flaw in the inner reactor. It's so serious, Mycle suggests they might have to tear down and rebuild. The French regulator published information on this flaw, but it has not been communicated to the Chinese people.

The original cost of this single EPR reactor was supposed to be 3.3 billion euros. Now it's over 10 billion euros and who knows what the final cost will be, if it opens.

The situation of Areva's reactor at Olkiluoto in Finland is even worse. This is what Wiki says about it:

"According to Financial Times in December 2014 construction of unit 3 has descended into farce as it is currently expected to open nine years late and several billions of euros over budget."

China has also contracted to buy a couple of experimental, never-before-built "third generation" reactors from Westinghouse Nuclear, now majority owned by Toshiba corporation of Japan. It's the AP-1000. Who knows what it will cost, when it will be completed, and most importantly, if this design is safe?

Mycle Schneider also worries whether China can find the technical culture needed to run reactors flawlessly. Sure China turns out zillions of engineers every year, but none of them have been nuclear operators.

China joins other countries like France in having the builders, operators, and regulators all part of a government-owned structure. Very little is known about this industry in China. There is no transparency, and little room for citizen oversight or complaint. I'll have more to say about that in another program.

Schneider points out that the world has fewer operating reactors (supply power to the grid) now than existed in 2002, even with the construction boom in China. That's because old nuclear plants are being closed in many countries, and not replaced. It's a dying technology.

The few nuclear reactor makers are being killed off in the stock market. Nuclear shares are now at pennies on the original dollar. That's another serious worry. For example, the La Hague nuclear fuel reprocessing site, again in northern France, has the largest supply of high-level nuclear materials in the world. It's run by Areva. Areva stocks have been hammered so low, and their sales so poor, that the company has announced big job cuts. When hundreds of staff are sent home from La Hague, Mycle asks "what were they doing that will not be done now?" Is safety being cut as well? What happens to all the reactors being built or operated by financially failed companies?

That alone is one reason why nuclear power is not a solution for global warming. The economic costs are far too high, and not enough could be completed before lasting damage has been done by the carbon economy it means to partially replace. It's too late.

The big reactor makers were almost toast in the west, despite billions in government subsidies. But they counted on a "nuclear renaissance" in China to survive. Schneider points out the Chinese have been blunt about their game. They are "technology shopping". They buy a couple of reactors from everybody (including from Canada) - and then break down the engineering so they can do it all themselves. There is no big market for reactors in China for any western company.

The end-game of all this nuclear "business" is sadly predictable. Taxpayers, somewhere, will pay and pay to prop up existing reactors, and then pay more or less forever for whatever dismantling and storage can be done. The current players will long-since be bankrupt. The nuclear sales executives will have run away.

All of this comes as the nuclear industry tried desperately, including at the Paris climate talks, to promote their industry as the answer to global warming. They didn't even make the agenda. The public doesn't want it. It's not happening. It's a dead-end.

Be sure and check out Mycle's interview. It's an eye-opener into a nuclear business built on secrecy and incredible risks. He's been an advisor on nuclear and energy to the French, German, and Belgian governments. His reports and expertise are in demand. He knows.

Download, listen to, or share this 27 minute Radio Ecoshock interview with Mycle Schneider in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

Use this small URL to pass on the Lo-Fi version of this interview. Tweet on! http://tinyurl.com/z5288cx Here are a few links to follow up:

List of Mycle's publications here.

Check out the World Nuclear Industry Status Report web site.

You can find out more about nuclear energy in China with this January 2016 update "Mind the China Effect".

HELEN CALDICOTT ON EVERLASTING NUCLEAR WASTE

In a populated suburb of St. Louis Missouri, nuclear waste from American bomb-making is washing into surface water. Now all that radioactive mess is threatened by an underground fire just 1200 feet away.

If that's the best the United States can do, what chance does Australia have, with their grand plans to make South Australia a dumping ground for the world's nuclear waste? It's time for another round of nuclear madness, and the doctor is in. That's Doctor Helen Caldicott, the most famous anti-nuclear campaigner in the world.

Download, listen to, or share this 27 minute Radio Ecoshock interview with Helen Caldicott in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

Pass on this interview with Helen in Lo-Fi, using this tiny url: http://tinyurl.com/z2u9n8r

Dr. Helen Caldicott

Along the way, Helen tells us about her role in founding the anti-nuclear movement in Australia in the 1970's. Then she spent 20 years in Boston. There she revived a dead non-profit called "Physicians for Nuclear Responsibility" and built it into an anti-nuclear powerhouse.

Helen met for over an hour with President Ronald Reagan. Sensing he knew little about nuclear weapons, she explained not only was any nuclear exchange unwinnable, it would cause a catastrophe where medical treatment was not an option. Reagan after that began talks with the Soviets to reduce nuclear weapons, and reduce political stress points. We owe a part of our survival of that mad nuclear age to Helen Caldicott.

Not that we are safer now. Nuclear weapons continue to be built all over the world, some in very unstable countries and/or dictatorships. The tension between nuclear neighbors has spread from just Russia and the West to places like Pakistan and India. Just yesterday, January 26th, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists announced the "Doomsday Clock" would remain at 3 minutes to midnight.

Helen continues to warn the world about the danger of nuclear weapons, but that is not why we talked this week on Radio Ecoshock.

First the Australian state of South Australia has a mad idea to replace the car plant jobs they lost. The government is pushing to become the nuclear waste dump of the world. There is a complicated back story, but that's the bald fact.

How they would do this has not been announced. So far it looks like a shed in the desert is the likely plan! South Australia called their own Royal Commission to get submissions on the project. Most of the submissions came from pro-nuclear people. The aboriginal people - who still own the land! - could not make direct entries to the Commission, because they lacked the Justice of the Peace system that was required. Their voices were ruled out.

The Royal Commission is due to release it's predestined "report" on February 15th. On February 16th Helen Caldicott will make an answering speech in Adelaide. It's all very sad.

BACK TO OLD ST. LOUIS

We've been told and told that there will be a new technical solution for nuclear waste. Here is a situation in America which shows what a great lie that is. The original nuclear waste from constructing the atomic bombs dropped on Japan - that waste is still very potent and dangerous. A great deal of it was just dumping in the ground near the airport in St. Louis Missouri.

It was badly looked after. A few tarps cover the ground. Rainstorms wash radioactive waste into local streams, and from there into rivers. The wind blows radioactive materials around. A recent study by scientists, including nuclear scientist Bob Alvarez, checked out an area about 200 kilometers around the St. Louis site near Bridgeton, a suburb. They found lots of radiation. The title is: "Tracking legacy radionuclides in St. Louis, Missouri, via unsupported 210Pb "[Lead] You can read more about that study here.

Guess what. There is a higher incidence of many kinds of cancer around this West Lake landfill site. Our old un-friend Exelon is the allegedly responsible party for this nuclear mess.

Now the kicker. An underground fire has been burning for years in the regular landfill site right next to the nuclear dump. This fire is now burning less than 1200 feet from the nuclear waste! If the atomic materials burn, you can count on radiation spreading far and wide. The US Environmental Protection Agency is proposing a wall be built underground to deflect the fire, but really nothing has been done.

You can hear a local resident and columnist Byron DeLear describe the St. Louis situation here in the Nuclear Hotseat #237 with Libbe HaLevy, from January 6, 2016, here on You tube. (You have to scroll well into the program, but don't! The whole show is very revealing about the U.S. nuclear industry.)

So like the good doctor going to where the sick patient is found, Helen Caldicott is going to St. Louis. She'll help bring the spotlight back where it belongs, on this utter failure to protect even the first nuclear waste created by humans.

Tune in to all things Helen at helencaldicott.com. Be sure to check out the latest book edited by Helen Caldicott: "Crisis Without End, The Medical and Ecological Consequences of the Fukushima Nuclear Catastrophe."

MY CONCLUSION

Any more money spent on nuclear power is a waste of the dwindling fuel, resources, and carbon space in the atmosphere. Humans will have to be very fortunate to care for the existing plants over dozens of generations. Given our history, our failed economics, and the magnitude of climate disruption developing, some reactors, somewhere, will blow out, one by one, or in concert.

I hope I am not one of the unlucky evacuees if the radioctive tanks blow up at Hanford in Washington State. I hope none of you are predestined to abandon a whole region of your country, with all the beloved places, experiences, and resources lost to humans. Accepting that risk is a betrayal of Nature. It is a betrayal of whatever or whoever initiated the possibility of ever-lasting evolution of life somewhere in space.

That's what I think. That's how I feel.

I'm Alex Smith. Thank you for listening to Radio Ecoshock again this week.

At the end of the program, I play a bit from "Talkin' End Game It's The Radioactive Song" by Michel Montecrossa.

HOW WE MIGHT SURVIVE

Will China lead the world into a new "ecological civilization", while America falls behind into the remnants of the old carbon age? Hidden by mainstream media, major changes are developing on the global stage. Our guest Laurence Brahm gives us a tour. Meanwhile, business as usual is setting us up for the awful shocks of climate disruption. Our second guest Gernot Wagner says our economies are heading into a series of hits, something he calls "climate shock".

In fact, scientific studies say there is at least a ten percent chance we won't survive at all. We are gambling with an ecosphere, our descendants and a geological age. Let's hope the ecological civilization comes in time, and let's pay attention to those who try to lead us there.

I'm Alex Smith, and this is Radio Ecoshock.

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

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LAURENCE BRAHM - THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD

A successful international trade lawyer helping multinational companies enter China, quits to find himself and the mythical Shangri-La. That journey becomes a book. Along the way our guest finds a passion for restoring ancient buildings of Asia. He founded an influential organization called "The Himalayan Consensus" - which was influential among other things in helping the new secular Constitution of Nepal.

These are among the many sides to Laurence Brahm. He's been listed as a senior advisor to China's Ministry of Environmental Protection. I checked. It's true. When I talked with Laurence in the Spring of 2015 about his new book "Fusion Economics" he said China would come out with a bold new vision to move away from carbon-powered civilization, perhaps surpassing the United States. That plan has been released.

Laurence Brahm

We talk about the developing bi-polar world of international finance and what that could mean for all of us. We look at real roads to climate sanity, and Laurence's appointment as Foreign Policy Advisor to Jill Stein's 2016 Presidential campaign for the American Green Party.

Laurence is a mix of visions to survive amid realism. He says for example that scientists tell him this civilization has only a fifty-fifty change of making it to the year 2100. As a realist, he see the need for governments and private business to cooperate on plans to decarbonize.

REPLACING WALL STREET AND THE DOLLAR

I won't go into great detail here about the newly emerging block of China, India and Russia. Following the Asian crash in the late 1990's, and again after the Lehman collapse of 2008, major countries outside America trust Wall Street and the old Bretton Woods banking system less and less. Developing countries in South America and Africa also see that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank do not really operate in their best interests.

In the last few years we've seen the new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the "New Silk Road" initiative and the South-South Cooperative Fund emerge. As a former trade and business lawyer, Laurence is in a perfect position to explain what is going on - the news that never makes it into major American media. We also note the contentious Trans-Pacific Partnership does not include China, and is likely an effort to isolate China.

As I wrote in my blog on Laurence last spring:

"Laurence has his own You tube channel. He talks about "compassionate capital" and "conscientious consumption". Brahm recommends we set up our own alternative financial systems (like local currencies, or bitcoin).

On BBC in December, Brahm said 80% of the wealth of America comes from betting on stocks, currencies and other financial games, and not from producing goods and services. That is not sustainable."

You can download that Radio Ecoshock interview based on Brahm's book "Fusion Economics" here in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

CHINA MOVING ON CLIMATE CHANGE

Brahm says that one issue that can unite the world is climate change. It's a global problem demanding global solutions. While America has been investing its technical skills into games and social media companies that can be flogged by Wall Street, China is pouring investment into green energy. Most of the world's solar panels, for example, are now made in China.

That is also part of a major new policy announcement made last April (2015). China is planning to decarbonize rapidly, to build an "ecological civilization". In a centrally planned economy, this is no idle chatter, Brahm tells us. There are a whole range of interlocking finance mechanism, regulations and smart planning aiming to take China away from its current 70% dependence on coal, and into a low carbon, highly energy efficient future. Laurence explains the five major pillars behind this new policy - with lessons that other countries could learn.

Unfortunately, from my perspective, China will partly do this with a gigantic expansion of nuclear power, with dozens of reactors already under construction. They paused after the triple melt-downs at Fukushima, but decided to go ahead, thinking they can avoid the mistakes made in Japan and other parts of the world.

When it comes to alternative energy and "smart cities" China has found a more willing investment and research partner in European nations. He gives the example of tiny Finland, which has created buildings that create energy instead of requiring energy. But Finland needs China's big market to make this worthwhile.

THE AMERICAN GREENS

As for the American Greens, Brahm thinks there needs to be a hydrid approach using the free enterprise model, but guided and inspired by a greener government. The Greens are not "anti-capitalist". Brahm points out it is not "unpatriotic" to recognize the United States has serious problems. End the flag waving, and let's get busy solving them, for a better country.

Find out more about Laurence Brahm at laurencebrahm.info or you can go to himalayanconsenus.org or follow on Facebook here.

I also found this English language interview on Chinese TV (September 23, 2015) very helpful to understand the macro picture.

Download or listen to this new Radio Ecoshock interview with Laurence Brahm in CD Quality or Lo-Fi.

GERNOT WAGNER: CLIMATE SHOCK

Are you ready for "Climate Shock"?

Your home probably won't burn down. So why bother buying fire insurance? Because it might. That's part of a powerful new argument for climate action, coming not from scientists, but from economists.

Gernot Wagner is lead senior economist at the Environmental Defense Fund. He advocates for market-based solutions for environmental problems. Teamed up with Martin Weitzman, a Harvard Professor of Economics, Garnot Wagner joins us to talk about their new book "Climate Shock: The Economic Consequences of a Hotter Planet".

Gernot Wagner

Most projections you read about in the media, and many scientific papers, are based on "the most likely" outcome. But like any Bell curve, there is a lower and upper end to risk. In the case of climate change, that upper end is really called "a fat tail" because there is at least a ten percent chance, Gernot tells us, that this civilization may not survive to the year 2100 at all. Read more about "fat tail risk" and the climate here.

The two authors published an article about this in the April 15, 2015 edition of "Foreign Affairs".

A ten percent chance (of oblivion) may sound comforting, but if you had a gun with ten chambers, and put a bullet in one of them, would you be prepared to play "Russian roulette" with the whole future of our civilization, and possibly the ecosphere that supports us as a species? Why would we gamble everything? To keep the casino economy "growing" while we wipe out other species and places?

Looking at risk, for example, official estimates for the amount of warming we will see this century go from a couple of degrees all the way beyond 6 degrees C, or 11 degrees Fahrenheit! And that is based on what we think we know. But what if there are huge possible tipping points that we don't know? For example, nobody expected the massive melting of Arctic Sea Ice in the first decade of this century. What else is out there?

In the economy, these are known as "Black Swan" events. By the way, the author of a book with that title, Nassim Nicholas Taleb has endorsed this book. I've been waiting for this kind of book for a few years now. It's so obvious that climate change is going to hit the economy hard. Wagner gives us a hard-headed look at what could happen to "business-as-usual".

He says: "What we don't know may well dwarf what we know. What we know is bad, what we don't know is potentially much, much worse."

Gernot tell us every ton of CO2 emitted into atmosphere costs us about $40 in damages now. That's the damages we know about. Since there are about half a trillion dollars in global subsidies to fossil fuels annually, that means instead of charging per ton, our societies pay about $15 per ton of CO to not pay for damages. We get paid to pollute.

"The less we know, the more risk there is, and so the more we ought to be doing about the problem in the first place."

IS INDIVIDUAL ACTION POINTLESS?

Then there's the simple problem of the near-pointlessness of individual action. I may cut my carbon emissions and it makes no difference if the world keeps on polluting. So why bother? The authors talk about this, including voting and recycling, in their Salon article, March 29, 2015.

They discuss two theories of individual action: "Economists are instinctively more comfortable with this crowding-out bias view of the world than the one supporting the self-perception theory, a.k.a. the Copenhagen Theory of Change. "

Some people who consider themselves green blow up all their small action, like cloth bags and a more efficient car - by flying.

Their first advice: scream!

"So: Scream, protest, debate, negotiate, cajole, tweet, use all the means at your disposal to call for the scale of policy change needed to match the magnitude of the climate challenge. To use the economists’ logic of comparative advantage, do what you do best: Teachers, teach; students, study; community leaders, lead. Meanwhile, avoid crowding-out bias at every step and make sure to keep the next step in mind: the Copenhagen Theory of Change in action."

Second: learn to cope with climate change.

And we should do that as a society. One example is not paying people to rebuild on flood-prone lands, especially near the coast.

Step 3: Profit

They talk about investing in the 700 ppm fund, and the 350 ppm fund. They write:

"Stranded assets dominate the picture. Bill McKibben popularized the concept in Rolling Stone. The Capital Institute did the math for him: Just to stabilize atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations at 450 ppm, about $20 trillion dollars’ worth of carbon still underground will likely have to remain there or be pumped out only while pumping the resulting carbon dioxide back in, devaluing fossil fuel companies in the process.

In this world, your $1 billion may be best served betting against coal, oil, and gas. They are bound to perform worse than the broader market. Wind, solar, and all sorts of low carbon technologies win. Carbon air capture technologies may be another big winner, assuming that the carbon dioxide price we all pay will be appropriately large. Once again, timing is everything. In order to make a buck, it will be key to get in at just the right time."

Gernot also has solutions in the book. These involve a price on carbon to start with, but many other economic levers that could actually take us on a path to start removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, rather than adding to that burden and that warming.

Personally, I doubt humans will act until irreversible climate change has already taken hold. Some say we are already there. Gernot Wagner knows this situation, but still struggles to warn the business community, and all of us, about the relationship between massive changes to the ecosphere, and our assumptions about the economy.

Find out more at climateshock.org, and get links to You tube videos with Gernot. For example, here is an excellent full-length presentation by Wagner. "Climate Shock : Seeking Insurance Against a Warming Planet." 1 hour 3 minutes. March 18, 2015, presented by the World Affairs Council of Northern California, hosted by Maureen Blanc.

Or try this Gernot Wagner "Authors on Google" interview.

Download or listen to this new Gernot Wagner interview in CD Quality or Lo-Fi.

PERMACULTURE COMING - THE CIVILIZATION BUILT TO LAST

I think we've covered the 50 shades of doom pretty well lately on Radio Ecoshock. Next week we'll start a short series for change, looking for solutions. I've got the best from the recent Permaculture Convergence in the UK in September, plus custom interviews of major players by Albert Bates. Stay tuned for those who are planting the future.

RADIO ECOSHOCK IS HEARD AROUND THE WORLD!

Going out, I'd like to shout out to the countries where listeners tuned into Radio Ecoshock last week.

Of course there's the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia where this program is broadcast weekly on 87 non-profit radio stations. I'm so thankful for that support. For now, listeners in other countries download or listen from our web site, from my weekly blog, and on the Radio Ecoshock page on Soundcloud(over 40,000 listens so far!). Listeners tuned in from:

New Zealand, Japan, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Russian Federation, Germany, United Arab Emirates, Sweden, France, Mexico, India, Denmark, Republic of Korea, Indonesia, Norway,Peru, Austria, China, Spain, Ireland, Brazil, Thailand, Pakistan, Belgium, Portugal, Argentina, Iceland, Singapore, Finland, South Africa, Belarus, Philippines, Italy, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and 28 other countries.

If you can offer your support, please visit this page.

As always, thank you for listening, and for caring about our world.

Alex Smith

SPINNING WORLD, ANGRY PLANET

SUMMARY: Welcome to a power-packed Radio Ecoshock Show. I'm Alex Smith. My guests are George Kourounis, host of the TV show "Angry Planet", and the solar-powered international musician known as Turtuga Blanku. But first, we'll talk with a high-powered international lawyer who switched from taking multinational companies into China, to creating new alternatives for local economies.

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

Or listen on Soundcloud right now!



LAURENCE BRAHM - TOWARD A NEW ECONOMY FOR A DAMAGED WORLD

Radio Ecoshock has remarkable guests. Our next is no exception. He was a lawyer advising China, to bring big name multinational companies into that Asian economy. Now he's writing about anti-globalization, localizing economies, and the coming eclipse of the Western banking model. His latest book is "Fusion Economics - How Pragmatism Is Changing the World".

Who is Laurence J. Brahm? Let's find out.

In the 1990's, as an international trade lawyer, Laurence Brahm was instrumental in bringing big-name multinational into China. In 1996, he wrote a book called "China's Number One" predicting China would become the world's largest economy. That drew heat and criticism, but now, according to the World Bank, China is the world's largest economy.

More and more, Brahm turned to advising the government of China, which he still does. He wrote a biography of Zhu Rongji, the former Premier of China, and often seen as an architect of the modern Chinese economy.

Laurence Brahm

In 2002 Laurence retired from his practice as an investment lawyer, to seek "Shangri-La". In 2005, he moved to Tibet, and started a business restoring buildings. He helped found the Himalayan Consensus (more about that in the interview). One of his role models is the Bengladeshi Muhammed Yunis, founder of micro-credit banking.

Also in 2011, he helped form the African Consensus. One innovations of this Consensus was to say the true cause of violence and terrorism is economic poverty and identity stripping.

In 2011 Laurence attended the Climate Conference in Durban South Africa. He found it useless, and joined the protesters outside. He says China is more aware of the dangers of climate change, especially since the disappearing Himalayan Glaciers will dry out the Yellow River. Brahm is quite aware of the challenges climate change is posing for many countries and peoples.

In 2014 he attended the Nepal Economic Forum (see You tube presentations here), and in 2013 the G20 Counter Summit in St. Petersburg (You tube here).

On the economy, Laurence sees the end of world domination by the Bretton Woods World Bank IMF model. In the near-term he sees two parallel universes: the Western reserve currency system, and the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) system, based mainly on the Chinese currency Yuan (pronounced Yen) and in Beijing.

He sees the latest sanctions on Russia driving that country closer to China. The two can be natural trading partners, because China needs to import clean food (much of China is not able to produce food, and Chinese food may be contaminated); and water (Beijing itself is facing desertification, China needs a lot of water). To make this trade happen, there needs to be more infrastructure, such as pipelines and roads, connecting the two countries.

His latest book is "Fusion Economics - How Pragmatism Is Changing the World". Brahm is a curious mix of a lawyer at home with CEO's and bankers, who also protests as an activist.

Laurence has his own You tube channel. He talks about "compassionate capital" and "conscientious consumption". Brahm recommends we set up our own alternative financial systems (like local currencies, or bitcoin).

On BBC in December, Brahm said 80% of the wealth of America comes from betting on stocks, currencies and other financial games, and not from producing goods and services. That is not sustainable.

China's super growth came at tremendous cost. Brahm told the BBC that, "about 70% of the underground water in China is undrinkable" (BBC interview 8:49) and "about 60% of all surface water is too toxic for human contact".

Brahm is not a total advocate for all things Chinese. He is critical of their use of fossil fuels, the pollution in major cities, and doesn't think top-down government is good for other countries. He says the emphasis on growth in China was a machine for burning fossil fuels, which has ruined the environment. We can learn from China, but should not try to emulate them.

He says the oil-fossil fuel sector forms an oligarchy that currently runs America. That is why there is no Amercian leadership on climate change. Oil-fossil fuels run in a partnership with the Financial Sector, labelled "Wall Street". Quantitative easing, and over a trillion of tax payer money, went to reboot that financial sector, not to the people. He advises the Chinese that government funding should go to a new green economy, instead of the banks.

Laurence is listed as "Chief Economist" for the New Earth Nation (with Sasha Stone).

Download or listen to this Radio Ecoshock interview with Laurence Brahm in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

GEORGE KOUROUNIS - HOST OF ANGRY PLANET TV

There's so much interest in extreme weather. Almost every news cast features a storm. And with climate disruption, there will be plenty more to see.

That's good news for our next guest, George Kourounis. He travels the world looking for adventure and downright dangerous weather, for his television series "Angry Planet". There's a new batch of shows running right now, so it's a pleasure to welcome George to Radio Ecoshock.

There have been 4 Angry Planet series, running on everything from the Weather Network, the Outdoor Life Netowork in Canada to cable TV channels all over the world (including Finland MTV3, TV8 Sweden, and TVB Hong Kong).

This new season 4 has a special emphasis on stories about the impact of global warming, all over the world, but with a focus on the South Pacific. Some countries there are already flooding regularly, and some will disappear as nations during this century, due to rising seas.

You can watch the free Episode One on the Pivot TV web site here.

George got the storm-chasing bug in the 1990's. He's flow into the heart of hurricanes, and run down the back roads in Oklahoma and the Mid-West looking for the big one. He's also a fan of volcanoes. In fact, he and his wife Michelle hiked into a volcano in their wedding clothes to tie the knot in 2006. It's wasn't a dead mountain either. That one has erupted every 5 minutes for the past 800 years, he tells us.

George has been in Amazon forest fires. One time he landed in the South Pacific island of Tuvalu just as they had 354 mm of rain (13.9 inches, over a foot!) in 24 hours. That's an extreme precipitation event for sure.

It's great that Kourounis is so aware of climate change. He worries we are going to leave a legacy to coming generations they may not be able to deal with. He's getting the word out through this new Angry Planet series: the relationship between extreme weather events and climate change. It's refreshing to find an adventure TV host this climate aware. Catch his new Angry Planet series on Pivot TV if you can.

Download or listen to this Radio Ecoshock interview with Geourge Kourounis in CD Quality of Lo-Fi

TURTUGA BLANKU AND HIS SOLAR STUDIO

Regular listeners know one of my hobbies is writing music using computer synthesizers. Martin, who is known at Turtuga Blanku, got in touch, to tell me about his solar studio in the Caribbean. You can visit the studio in this You tube video.

Here is a You tube listing of his eco music.

Why the name Turtuga Blanku? It literally means "white turtle" but is also a name given in the Caribbean to the green turtle. You see, Martin is also a diver and ocean lover. He was in the Caribbean at one of the finest dive locations in the world. That's where he got his knick-name.

During the interview, I learned something new (as I often do from guests). Martin tells us that solar panels are less efficient in high heat. While he got lots of power from his panels in the Caribbean (enough to run his house and studio) - he's get as much or more from the same panels in France. The sub-tropics are good for solar.

Martin has just moved back to "the middle of France". He'll set up a solar studio again. Plenty of his neighbors have solar installations, some large ones, thanks to the French policy of guaranteeing a good rate for renewable power, and in some cases, helping finance the original purchase.

We talk a bit about music. Martin has more talents than I - he can play a range of instruments, which he records and then tweaks on a studio computer. It's good stuff - hard to describe - you just have to click around to find the songs you like best. I enjoyed his music, and his conversation.

Find all of Martin's songs, or at least a lot of them, on You tube here.

Then head over and buy your favorite tunes (quite inexpensive) at his Bandcamp page here. Martin has also done some podcast interviews, including with Alan Weisman, the author of the World Without Us, who also spoke on Radio Ecoshock. Find Martin's interview with Alan here.

And here's a bunch more contact info:

Web: http://www.TurtugaBlanku.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TurtugaBlanku Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/turtuga_blanku Download or listen to this Radio Ecoshock interview with Turtuga Blanku in CD Quality (recommended for the best music) or Lo-Fi (not recommended unless you have a very slow internet connection).

In this program I play a clip from a Turtuga Blanku tune called "No More" from his album Golden Bubble.

BLOG READERS AND PODCAST SUBSCRIBERS SUPPORT THIS PROGRAM, GETTING IT OUT TO NON-PROFIT RADIO STATIONS IN 4 COUNTRIES.

My special thanks to those who sent donations this week, and particularly the person who arranged a $10 a month contribution. All that helps me get through the summer, when donations crash. In a way, it's almost unfair that blog readers, and podcast subscribers pay the whole cost of Radio Ecoshock. The non-profit stations prohibit anyone asking for money, other than themselves. So a few people are really paying to get Radio Ecoshock to all those radio listeners on 87 non-profit stations! You are doing a good thing.

If you can help, click here for details.

Thanks for joining us this week. Stay tuned for more shocking news from Planet Earth. I'm Alex Smith. Keep caring about your planet.

Looking For An End

Waiting for a resolution to the triple crisis of climate, energy and the economy? Alex interviews Gareth Renowden, co-host of New Zealand's "The Climate Show" on the big stories. From Beijing, Li Yan, Greenpeace East Asia climate coordinator on China's emissions and coal dependence. Plus "Tip of the Iceberg News" points you to important blog posts and audio you may have missed. Music from Deva Prewal. Radio Ecoshock 120905 1 hour CD Quality 56 MB or Lo-Fi 14 MB.

Radio Stations: Ecoshock 120905 Part 1 29 minutes

Ecoshock 120905 Part 2 29 minutes

Welcome back to another season of Radio Ecoshock! I am your tour guide, Alex Smith.

In this week's program we travel the world. From New Zealand, we'll hash out our disturbed weather, with the co-host of The Climate Show, Gareth Renowden.

Then it's off to Beijing, for a report straight from China. Greenpeace Asia Campaigner Li Yan is our guest.

We'll cap that off with "Tip of the Iceberg News" - my welcome back round up of world-shaking developments, pointers to great audio, blogs and articles, and four big trends in the alternative/activist scene.

Our music artist this week is Deva Premal. Find her at White Swan Records, or at her web site here.

HELP! IT’S A MAD WORLD… GARETH RENOWDEN

Coming back from my annual vacation, I find the world as mad as ever. So much happened, I need help just trying to grasp it all. Who better than Gareth Renowden, co-host of "The Climate Show" out of New Zealand? Gareth is a climate blogger, truffle specialist, farmer, radio personality, and now author of a new sci-fi book titled "The Aviator, the Burning World".

Gareth and I agree the top story is the record ice melt-back in the Arctic. We'll be doing a special on that next week, with super specialists like Jennifer Francis from Rutgers, and Mark Serreze from the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Tune in next week for that on Radio Ecoshock.

We also talk about another under-reported story: the serial drowning of major cities in Asia by extreme precipitation events. In the Philippines, Manila suffered a major flood, and then Beijing China got six months of rain in 24 hours. Even the capital of the African country of Niger ended its horrible drought with half a year's worth of rain in a day.

I raise this question with Gareth? I've just been going through a study which shows humans tend to be pessimistic about other people, but optimistic about themselves. We worry about an unstable climate, but think it won't really affect me that much. That may be one reason why even developed countries refuse to plan for things like heavy rainstorms or rising seas. Do you see signs we are getting ready for what is coming?

Gareth replies, no, not for what he thinks is coming. But some countries are adding risings seas into their planning process - unlike legislators in one southern U.S. state which specifically prohibited including any global warming planning. New Zealand for example, is looking at how they might protect their coastlines from rising seas.

"The Climate Show" has been out of production since last spring. Co-host Glenn Williams, formerly a radio reporter for Radio New Zealand, has moved with his family to London England. His broadcasting gear has just arrived in the UK. Gareth expects they will work through the technology needed to hook up again (each in a different day, spanning the globe) to produce more Climate Shows. It will be tricky, considering the pair do both an audio and video recording at the same time, but all things are possible in the Skype world. Regular guest John Cook of skepticalscience.com will join them as well.

We move on to look at Gareth's new science fiction book. It's now on Amazon.com and amazon.uk, as well as Smashwords, with more outlets to come. From the book's web site:

"Here’s how cover designer Dylan Horrocks described The Aviator on Facebook.

"Gareth Renowden’s novel The Aviator is a light-hearted journey (by state-of-the-art airship) around a world transformed by climate change and subsequent political collapse. Rock God Evangelists, super-rich survivalists, back-to-nature primitivists, heavily armed luddites, goats with the secret of eternal youth, and a horny artificial intelligence with a taste for bluegrass and classic Hollywood films; The Aviator is a Gulliver-esque romp through a future we hope won’t come to pass. It’s out soon, with a cover by yours truly."

Find out more here.

I think science fiction is a great medium for trying to pull together a future no one has ever experienced. We are heading into decades of fundamental changes in our climate, our energy and resources. It's going to be hard to understand, and very disruptive to our economy, agriculture, everything we do.

SURVIVING IN NEW ZEALAND?

Toward the end of the interview, I ask whether New Zealand might be one of the best places to escape to, when climate change hits in full force. Renowden says their location, and the surrounding cooling sea currents, should keep their two big islands habitable. But no country is an island, as they say. If the rest of the world becomes destabilized, life in New Zealand will be hard as well. At least they still have a large farming industry. Maybe New Zealand could still feed itself.

Gareth says he thinks Al Gore may have started the idea that South Sea Islanders forced out by rising seas would relocate in New Zealand. There have been some discussions, but it's not as settled as that. However, just because of the economics, there are more New Zealand citizens on some Pacific Islands than original Polynesians. In any event, as the largest and wealthiest country in the region, it does seem likely people from atolls that flood as the seas rise will become climate refugees to New Zealand.

You can listen to/download my interview with Gareth Renowden (25 minutes) here.

GREENPEACE IN CHINA

It's hard to believe a hard action organization like Greenpeace could even exist in state-controlled China. But Greenpeace China has been there since 1997.

Let's face it. Emissions have dropped slightly in the former biggest polluter, the USA. The largest global warmer is now China. Maybe that's not surprising as the world's most populous country industrializes. Not only are they bringing their own people up into middle class lifestyles we all wanted here - there continue to be "the world's workshop" producing consumer goods as well.

What can we do? I had an illuminating talk with Li Yan. She's the East Asia coordinator for the Atmosphere and Energy Campaign, based out of Beijing.

I'm sorry I don't have time to transcribe this important interview. But you can download or listen to it separately here (20 minutes long).

Coal continues to be the big reason China's emissions are so high. Western media, and too many bloggers, keep plugging the meme that "China is opening one new coal plant a week". Li Yan says about 52 coal plants did open during the peak of electrification back in 2008 or 2009, making an average of one a week - but coal plant construction has dropped since then. It's no longer true.

The government is also taking steps to close the smaller and older inefficient coal plants. Those produced way too many emissions compared to the energy produced.

China has also become the world leader in production of alternative energy. They have installed more wind power than any other country on the planet. However, Li Yan says even though China is also the world's largest maker of solar panels, only about five percent of that production is installed in China. The rest is exported to Europe, North America and the rest of the world. Greenpeace is calling on China to install more solar power at home.

We had a fascinating discussion about the way state-run media reports on climate change. In North America, we hear lots about the strange weather, and weather disasters, while reporters and weather people studiously avoid saying the words "climate change" or "global warming". We even take bets when watching TV, to see if they can get through a whole story about the drought, or record heat waves and fires, without ever mentioning the underlying cause. Some of the talking heads we do get, especially on Fox, are only there to deny there is any climate change.

Li Yan says state TV, radio and press accepts climate science, without a doubt. China has suffered terribly from drought, heat, and floods. In July, the capital city of Beijing got about 6 months’ worth of rain in just 24 hours a day. It was the heaviest rainfall in Beijing in 60 years, with 10 killed. The streets and homes were flooded. If this can happen in the most developed city in China, the capital, people there are wondering how bad it will get.

Climate change is often given as the reason for these weather disasters on state TV, but Li Yan say, they do not go all the way and connect the cause to coal burning. That could be improved.

Coal is one of the number one targets of Greenpeace's atmosphere campaign in China, and throughout Asia. The Chinese people are suffering from terrible air pollution, and coal is the main culprit. It also helps poison both the soil and the water. This localized pollution, as opposed to global warming, is one of the primary concerns of the Chinese people.

We hear a lot of third party opinions about China, and some outright hostile propaganda - so don't miss this chance to hear straight from Beijing, with Li Yan of Greenpeace.

TIP OF THE ICEBERG NEWS

Pointers to hot material you may have missed...

There's no way to do anything but skim over some world-shattering news, along with developments in the alternative movement. And so...it's time for..."Tip of the Iceberg News!...!!"

THE ECONOMY IS SINKING

The macro-economy is sinking. The United States is set for a leveraged buyout, Bain Capital style. That's where you raid a company, or country with a few million in campaign donations, load up the victim with unrepayable debt, while paying out big-time fees heading for a tax-free trip to the Cayman Islands.

Get the details from one of the best pieces of American journalism in a generation, Matt Taibbi's article "Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital" in the online version of Rolling Stone Magazine.

In Europe, Spain is going down. So far about 17% of all the money in Spanish banks has left the country. One bank has already been nationalized. The others bought billions in Spanish government debt with bail-out money poured in by the European Union.

Spain makes Greece look tiny in comparison. Spain's collapsed economy and real estate is a sink-hole threatening to drag down the even larger magnificent Ponzi debt scheme of Italy - and then it's a sleigh ride all the way down for the European Union.

China is holding a garage sale, and still can't get rid of overstocked warehouses. It seems their overseas customers are broke. The government has announced more money printing to save their economy once again. Production is down, people are losing their jobs. It's very serious - for China, and for the whole world economy.

In the U.S., helicopter Ben Bernanke has already offered bailout number 3 - billions more dollars hot off the government printing presses and into the hidden accounts of bankers and hedge funds. You know it's bad when the bailouts come. Don't sit up late waiting for your check.

Despite all that, I don't expect a big crash any time soon. Remember, even after the 50 billion dollar Ponzi fraud by Bernie Madoff was exposed and documented, it took another 8 years for the man to fall. See the documentary film "Chasing Bernie Madoff" with whistleblower Harry Markopolos. You'll see how the system never works to protect you.

Here's a link to the trailer.

THE CLIMATE

While the big news is about the melting Arctic, runner-up is the giant drought this year in America.

When the Mississippi dries up, so that barges can't make it up the river, you know we are in trouble. Cattlemen sold off their beef, as feed prices soared. Expect cheap meat now; stick it in the freezer, because next year is going to make you want to become a vegetarian. Do it! It's good for you, and good for the planet.

America is the world's grocery store for the over-populated poor. Even though food prices are already rising, the Obama administration has not changed the policy of diverting huge amounts of corn into ethanol production. We'll burn up some family's dinner, just getting to the corner store for a soda.

Get ready to grow your own, or at least make friends with farmers.

FUKUSHIMA NEWS

Hey, Fukushima is so yesterday. Except this Japanese triple nuclear melt-down just keeps ticking along, like a slow motion atomic bomb.

Check out this collection of You tube clips from the Japanese news service NHK. It's hard to believe how poorly the Japanese are responding to the world's worst nuclear accident.

This same source, listed as NibiruMagick2012 also does an interesting news update, which includes things like volcanoes, storms, and climate change news. Don't let his nickname throw you off. I've got some good tips from his You tube channel, with pretty well daily news blasts that ordinary news doesn't carry. His channel is here.

The Japanese government announced they will study the health impacts - great idea, starting only 18 months too late. The government is also going to allow foreign experts to offer ideas. They are negotiating with the International Atomic Energy Agency. The IAEA is the body responsible for pushing nuclear power around the world, so they should unreliable. But it's better than just relying on Tepco and the government in Tokyo.

In a surreal move, various government agencies are already planning an alleged "clean-up" of the Fukushima region, even though radioactive cesium has a half-life of 30 years. The other elements released in the accident, up to an including both uranium and plutonium, last hundreds of thousands of years. We are already seeing artist's conceptions of green spaces and new industries in the radioactive hot zones. It's pathetic, a terrible lie for Japan.

According to nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds.com, the reactor cores are likely no longer molten, just brilliant hot metal blobs that ran way no one knows where. The 3 reactors buildings are still unapproachable without risking lives. They are still building up explosive hydrogen daily, and require nitrogen to be pumped in to avoid more explosions. An earthquake or any technical problem with the pumps, the gerry-rigged pipes, or the electricity supply, could still lead to more radioactive explosions.

Tepco, the operator, has attempted to strengthen the Reactor Four fuel pool building, also wrecked in the explosions. All that fuel, from 40 years of operation, plus the hot fuel bundle just removed before the accident, is still balanced dangerously several stories above the ground. Another major earth quake could drop all that fuel, likely poisoning central Japan, including Tokyo, and likely the whole northern hemisphere. They've had plenty of earthquakes since. The government is moving far too slowly to get the fuel out.

Radioactive water is still leaking all over the site, including into the turbine halls. We don't know how much has reached the water table, or the Pacific Ocean. The Japanese government either doesn't know, doesn't want to know, or doesn't want to tell you.

Other than that, Fukushima is doing fine. You must listen to a great radio podcast with anti-nuclear campaigners Helen Caldicott interviewing Arnie Gundersen, in the free August 20th podcast. Download it from ITunes, or from this page at radio4all.net Just right click the red arrow at the bottom of the page to download this essential podcast of "If You Love This Planet".

I play a short excerpt in this Radio Ecoshock show where Helen calculates up to 3 million people could die from the Fukushima accident radiation. Gundersen counters it might "only" be 1 million, since about two thirds of the radiation was blown out into the Pacific, instead of back on to the Japanese mainland. Lucky weather saved many Japanese people, but huge numbers will still die prematurely due to radiation. The damage will pass down through several generations.

And don't miss this article in Counterpunch. It details how the Japanese Yakuza - the gangsters - are providing disposable workers for TEPCO to help "clean up" Fukushima. According to the article, Japanese criminal organizations have been involved in the nuclear industry for a long time.

FOUR TRENDS I'M SEEING IN ACTIVIST SCENE

I'm seeing four big trends in the alternative/activist/Occupy scene.

A rising tide of people realizes climate change, energy depletion, and economic collapse are inevitable.

Trend One: there is a chorus of famous writers, bloggers, and scientists who are publicly mourning the passing of the Holocene age, and our descent into the Anthropocene - the age brought about by humankind. Many of our favorite plants and animals will not survive the change. Everything will shift underneath us, like a climate quake.

Author Chris Hedges, returning as I am from a summer get-away in Nature, has a touching piece titled "Life Is Sacred". Find it at the truthdig blog at the Rolling Stone Magazine web site. Or find the link in my blog at ecoshock.info. Hedges knows we are already on the path toward ecological destruction, at least in human terms. Like me, he fears for the times of his children.

Trend Two: As I've covered in past Radio Ecoshock shows, with guests like Paul Kingsnorth - there is an even louder chorus calling for a quick downfall of the industrial system. As one of my listeners wrote in email, many believe human extinction is on its way. We need to consider a hospice society, making the way out less painful, perhaps even more joyful.

Carolyn Baker of "Speaking Truth to Power" has written a great article on Collapse Fatigue. Lots of commentators on blogs like Zero Hedge are becoming jaded about any predictions of a financial collapse. The whole mad Ponzi system, which Max Keiser calls the "Casino Gulag”, just keeps on dancing in midair. Until, like Bernie Madoff, some outside force or even intervenes, and the music stops?

Trend Three: Some fairly famous figures and movement leaders are bailing out. It's not just that people are burned out, hitting their heads against the immovable wall of human insanity. They are going quiet, moving to rural areas in some cases, or just hanging out in cities. It's like an "Atlas Shrugged" - abandoned but not by industrialists, an extinct breed supplanted by corporate raiders - but by those seeking an alternative.

Michael C. Ruppert was the subject of the movie "Collapse".

Last April Ruppert left the online community he helped found, at collapsenet.com. Collapse Network is still going, check it out. I subscribe to their pay news service, and find it really handy.

Now Ruppert has gone to Colorado with his dog. Mike hasn't exactly gone silent. He still has his popular radio program at PRN on Sunday evenings. But he's out of here.

I know others. It's a really bad sign when activists and leaders decide it's futile.

Trend Four: Related to all the above, many people are now seeking out spiritual practices as way to cope with the unbearable weight of knowing. Ruppert is trying a mix of American Indian shamanism and Alcoholic Anonymous.

Two leaders from Transition US, Michael Brownlee and Lynette Marie Hanthorn are proposing "Deep Transition". They are seeking ways to digest our lurch into mass suicide. It is really a new beginning, a hard evolution into a type of humanity that can live in nature?

Download that Lifeboat Hour show on Deep Transition, September 2nd edition guest hosted by Carolyn Baker here.

I'm worried, in our distress, some people will turn away from science and activism, toward ancient superstitions that took us centuries to overcome. There's a lot to talk about here, and we will, in the coming season of Radio Ecoshock.

WHAT IS COMING UP ON RADIO ECOSHOCK THIS SEASON?

In our next Radio Ecoshock show we hear three top scientists on the record melt-down of Arctic sea ice. One guest will be Jennifer Francis, the Rutgers University atmospheric scientist who leads observations on the way the sea ice melt is changing our climate, throughout the Northern Hemisphere. It's some of the most urgent science on the block, with your life in the balance.

We'll also hear from Dr. Cecelia Bitz, helping us understand how the Arctic climate works, and why it matters so much. Plus Mark Serreze, the Director of the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center - explaining the new record low levels of ice. It's the biggest story in many thousand years.

After that, you'll get a surprise special on the unbelievable tipping point developing as we air-condition the planet. Followed by a whole program on developments in what I see as our only response for now: the transition town movement.

Personally, I spent a month at our rural village retreat. We added more insulation, 120 Watts of solar power, a handy garden shed, and a large garden fence - six feet high to keep out the deer and other pests.

My most important time was spent getting to know more of my neighbors there. Small communities are still functioning, with people helping people. I like it, and hope to move there.

It's not much, but that's about all I can do at this point. I'm back in the city, diving through news, reports, and truly helpful tips from listeners like you. Write me any time. The address is radio [at] ecoshock dot org.

Gear up for another nail-biting season, with Radio Ecoshock.

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