Planet Shift - No Return

Twenty one scientists say Earth approaches a "state shift". The ecosphere may change rapidly, never to return. Interview with Dr. Arne Mooers. Planetary boundary talks at Rio+20 w. Oxfam's Kate Raworth, & Johan Rockstrom of Stockholm Resilience Institute. Interview w. Australian green home builder John Morgan. Radio Ecoshock 120627 1 hour. Listen to/download this 1 hour program in CD quality (56 MB) or Lo-Fi (14 MB)

Welcome, welcome to a full helping of warnings, despair, good humor, and one man's example to the world.

I'm Alex Smith, with so much audio we must orient and load up quickly. Direct from the alternative presentations at the Rio Plus 20 conference, you will hear two short hot speeches on the economy that's never counted, and the assault on a new science of planetary boundaries. Independent environmental journalist Stephen Leahy sent us the exclusive audio of Kate Raworth and Johan Rockstrom in Rio.

Then we'll journey to Australia. The self-sufficient John Morgan tells us about his 9 star home that needs no furnace or air-conditioner. Plus a look at Australia's new carbon tax, coming into effect July 1st.

But first, a group of 21 scientists, from very different fields of study, produced a special briefing for the Journal Nature, ahead of the meeting of world leaders in Rio de Janeiro for the second Earth Summit. They concluded Earth, our planet home, could be heading for a massive shift, a new state not seen for millions of years. It's spine-chilling, so I'll need to call on my radio side-kick for this program, none other than Charles Prince of Wales.

[Charles quote one] That is from Prince Charles, as he addressed the Rio leaders by video link, on June 19th, 2012. Watch it on You tube.

Charles demanded scientists and other experts come out of their silos to assess what is really happening in the world. That is exactly what happened when a group of scientists were organized by the Berkeley campus of the University of California. We go now to one of the participants, Arne Mooers of Simon Fraser University.

STUDY PREDICTS IMMINENT IRREVERSIBLE PLANETARY COLLAPSE - ARNE MOOERS INTERVIEW

Listen to/Download the Arne Mooers interview (18 min) here in CD quality or Lo-Fi.

The technical review of the paper published in Nature is here.

Here is a quick summary about this paper, from the Simon Fraser University Press release:

"Study predicts imminent irreversible planetary collapse

June 06, 2012

Using scientific theories, toy ecosystem modeling and paleontological evidence as a crystal ball, 21 scientists, including one from Simon Fraser University, predict we’re on a much worse collision course with Mother Nature than currently thought.

In approaching a state-shift in Earth’s biosphere, a paper just published in Nature, the authors, whose expertise spans a multitude of disciplines, suggest our planet’s ecosystems are careering towards an imminent, irreversible collapse.

Earth’s accelerating loss of biodiversity, its climate's increasingly extreme fluctuations, its ecosystems’ growing connectedness and its radically changing total energy budget are precursors to reaching a planetary state threshold or tipping point.

Once that happens, which the authors predict could be reached this century, the planet’s ecosystems, as we know them, could irreversibly collapse in the proverbial blink of an eye.

'The last tipping point in Earth’s history occurred about 12,000 years ago when the planet went from being in the age of glaciers, which previously lasted 100,000 years, to being in its current interglacial state. Once that tipping point was reached, the most extreme biological changes leading to our current state occurred within only 1,000 years. That’s like going from a baby to an adult state in less than a year,' explains Arne Mooers. 'Importantly, the planet is changing even faster now.'

The SFU professor of biodiversity is one of this paper’s authors. He stresses, 'The odds are very high that the next global state change will be extremely disruptive to our civilizations. Remember, we went from being hunter-gatherers to being moon-walkers during one of the most stable and benign periods in all of Earth’s history.'"

One of the take homes from this key interview is this: many of us (including myself at times) believe we can stop polluting and things will go back to "normal". The 350.org campaign seems to imply this as well: if we remove CO2, we can go back to Nature as it was.

This new study by the 21 scientists points out a grave risk: in fact Nature makes sudden shifts for which there is no return.

Arne Mooers gives the simple example of the cod fishery off Canada's East Coast. Everyone presumed if we stopped over fishing the cod, they would return. It didn't happen. Why? Once this upper predator fish was removed, a completely different ecological system moved in, with different species. Things don't go back to where they were.

It's a sobering thought. Mooers says their work cannot absolutely predict a planet-wide ecological shift will happen, or when. It has happened rapidly in the past. We may be seeing some signs, but scientists are not even sure there are a series of warning signs. We may not be able to predict it.

The main idea is a big game changer. Previously, even in reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) climate models assumed incremental change. For example, if you know sea levels are rising 3 centimeters a year, you can say what the sea level will be in the year 2100.

This paper suggests natural systems don't work along nice predictable curves like that. Things go along in one way, as they have more or less for the last 10,000 years - but then the climate can experience a big shift, along with the whole ecosphere. Some species disappear, as they are now. Others replace them. Nothing returns the same.

KATE RAWORTH

In the campaign to stop or at least limit climate change, what about the economy? Why is Europe skirting collapse? Why are billions of people starving while the rich dine sumptuously on the consumer buffet?

Here is 8 minutes with Kate Raworth of Oxfam, explaining her growing "doughnut" campaign at the Rio +20 side conference. She was recorded live by independent journalist Stephen Leahy, who sent the audio directly to Radio Ecoshock. Thank you Stephen.

Kate explains three giant loop-holes in the way economics is taught in schools. For example caring for families has no economic value (they say). The environment is not factored in. Listen to her short speech - it got enthusiastic applause from the inspired crowd.

Listen to/download these two Rio +20 speeches (17 minutes total) in CD quality here or Lo-Fi here.

Find Kate Raworth's blog on "Doughnut Economics" here.

THE ATTACK ON PLANETARY BOUNDARIES SCIENCE

But wait. There's more. No doubt you've heard scientists led by the Stockholm Resilience Institute have compiled a chart of 9 planetary boundaries we must not cross, if our civilization is to survive. The citation for the original article published in Nature in 2009 is here.

Get the real goodies direct from the Stockholm Resilience Institute here.

That includes an embedded video of Johan Rockstrom explaining the concepts in a TED presentation. It's all just common sense, backed up by the work of thousands of scientists. Yes, there are limits to what we can do to Nature and still survive as a civilization. Is anybody surprised by that?

Apparently "yes". The science of planetary boundaries is now under attack by pollster Ted Nordhaus and the hostile mis-named "Breakthrough Institute."

Here is the Breakthrough Institute attack.

Be sure and read the comments below, which trash this release.

We uncovered Ted and former green cross-over Michael Shellenberger in two Radio Ecoshock specials back in 2007, as this duo proclaimed "environmentalism is dead". Here are the links to programs exposing these two, their alleged "institute", and their funding.

Plotting the Green Death 1

Plotting the Green Death 2

Keep in mind that Ted Nordhaus is not a scientist. He is a pollster. But hey, that's good enough to unseat years of scientific work by some of our best! Just sow a little doubt, delay some more, and keep those corporate mega-profits rolling in.

As Stephen was recording Johan Rockstrom of the Stockholm Resiliency Institute, backroom dealers were stripping out any reference to "planetary boundaries". Lazy leaders were quick to jump on the anti-science being pedaled by the Breakthrough Boys. Anything to keep the killer society going. Listen in, as Johan Rockstrom speaks in Rio.

SELF-SUFFICIENT LIVING IN AUSTRALIA

Now, off to Australia!

I really like this interview with John Morgan. In a rural area outside Victoria, in South Eastern Australia, John built a comfortable and affordable home that requires no furnace, no air-conditioning, and no power lines.

Listen to/Download the John Morgan interview in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

In a recent Radio Ecoshock interview with Dr. Guy McPherson, we learned maintaining a comfortable shelter for human bodies is a principal driver for the continuing use of fossil fuels. We create a lot of climate damage just to keep our homes cool in the heat, and warm in winter.

Despite a reputation as a coal exporting country, Australia is stimulating better housing as a way to cut greenhouse gas emissions. With the farming industry and the fabulous barrier reef threatened, Australia has developed a Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme.

Our next guest is going to explain it, and how he gained 9 out of ten stars in his owner-built home.

John Morgan's eco-house is found in a rural area near Victoria, in South Eastern Australia. As we spoke at the end of June, John is dealing with the cold of the Australian winter.

Morgan house in Australia

This is Morgan's next generation experimental home. He's been working away at this since the late 1960's, and people are still talking about his previous homes, like his self-sufficient house located at Musk near Daylesford in Central Victoria.

As he explains in our interviews, John doesn't want to be dependent on the grid for electricity or water. He says things like:

"My electricity falls down on me from the sky, so I store it in batteries".

"My fresh water falls down on me from the sky, so I store it in tanks".

"I live with high levels of comfort and low levels of cost".

"I generate zero carbon emissions - so why doesn't everyone do this?"

"It is not rocket science".

John is a physicist, and has taught electronics and technical trades, so he does have expertise, even though he is not a rocket scientist.

A whole host of consideration goes into building this latest home. For one thing, John reverses the Australian trend of putting brick or stone on the outside of a house, and then timber framing inside. His wood and lots of insulation are on the outside. The inside walls have lots of masonry, to build up thermal mass to store the heat or cold.

There is a greenhouse tucked on one corner of the place. When needed, he can funnel heat generated there, even on a sunny winter day, into the main house. John is also growing seedlings to reforest part of his 20 acres (formerly a sheep paddock) - plus some of his own food.

John has over 3,000 Watts of solar power on the place, and enough battery power to keep him going for several cloudy days.

The bonus of this place: it isn't all the expensive. I ask John if we need to be millionaires to be self-sufficient. Not at all. Morgan estimates his place cost about $165,000 Australian dollars in 2008 - about the same now in American dollars. That would be considered low cost for a new home anywhere, and it includes his solar power kit and giant water storage tanks (fed by roof collectors).

To meet that price, which he hoped would encourage others, John did away with anything fancy in the way of architecture. His home isn't meant to look impressive. It just leaves him comfortable, with no bills to pay - not bad in these deteriorating economic times, with ever-rising energy prices.

You can find out more about John from his contributions to this blog from the rural Australian town of Ballarat.

Here are some more super-efficient Australian home projects to check out.

Building Our 9 star home (blog) in Preston, Melbourne Australia

See also the Permablitz, a permaculture blitz "Eating the suburbs - One backyard at a time" in Melbourne

Here is another one, built in Vale, Perth

Another one in Perth

Here is a quote to explain the Australian rating program:

"What is a 9-star energy rated house? According to the NatHERS scale – the federal government-administrated Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme that was introduced to assess the potential thermal comfort of Australian homes on a scale of zero to 10 stars – occupants of houses rated at or around the 10-star mark are unlikely to need much, if any artificial cooling or heating. At the other end of the scale, a zero-rated house means the building shell does practically nothing to reduce the discomfort of hot or cold weather.

As the NatHERS website points out, houses built in 1990 averaged about 1 star on the scale. And before the introduction of national energy efficiency regulations for houses in 2003, less than 1 per cent of Australian houses achieved 5 stars. These days, however, the average “well-designed home” is now being built at around 6 stars."

We are out of time. I'm Alex, saying thank you for accompanying me on this hard journey. May we meet in a better world.

For more free green audio, visit our web site.

CLIMATE DOWN IN DURBAN

Diplomats from all over the world are returning home after a hard-won agreement in Durban, South Africa.

They agreed to do nothing to save our climate from disaster.

Our governments will talk until 2015, and then maybe do something serious about greenhouse gas emissions in 2020. By then, as Radio Ecoshock listeners know, we will be committed to at least 3 and a half degrees Centigrade hotter world in 2100, than our ancestors knew in 1750. It will only get hotter after that.

In this Radio Ecoshock special, we hear four reports.

From India, journalist, author and political analyst Praful Bidwai tells Stephen Leahy of IPS a failure in Durban would be better than what we got. We go outside the spin of Western media.

Then to San Francisco, to hear NASA's Dr. James Hansen at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. He describes our unique and dangerous path.

Back to South Africa, where Janet Redman has survived the gruelling Durban conference sessions, to give us the wrap up. What did and didn't happen, along with the American role.

We finish up with an interview with Dr. Michael Raupach from Australia's National Science Agency. He's part of the Global Carbon Project which just published the bad news about our "monstrous" increase in emissions.

New science, predictions of doom, and a world in paralysis - it's another Radio Ecoshock show.

THE VIEW AT THE DURBAN CLIMATE CONFERENCE - FROM INDIA

At the Durban COP-17 Climate conference, India was blamed for not going along with the game. We're going to hear from Praful Bidwai, the author of "The Politics of Climate Change and The Global Crisis" and a well-known Indian commentator. Praful was interviewed by Stephen Leahy of the Independent Press Service on Friday December 9th. The meeting was not over, but everything in the interview stands.

Praful agrees the Indian economy is growing fast - but all the profits are going to the upper 10 or 15 percent of the population. While 500 million people still don't have electricity, India can hardly be counted as a "developed" country.

Bidwai also talks about the bullying, and outright bribery of countries at these climate conferences. Small Island states, who may disappear with rising seas, are told to agree to offers from large polluters, or risk getting nothing at all. Other countries are threatened by the risk of withholding loans or investments.

The European Union wanted a legally binding treaty. They offered to extend the Kyoto Protocol, and meet their commitments within that. Russia and the United States didn't want to extend the Protocol. Canada came to the conference threatening to withdraw first, because Canada has no intention of meeting those emission reductions. Production from the Tar Sands comes first, and Canada is already at least 25% over what it promised in Kyoto.

The United States never ratified Kyoto, despite it's promotion by Al Gore.

India objected to being legally bound to reduce emissions, even before it produced electricity for its citizens. Why should they do without, while the West continues to reap the benefits, and waste even more?

In the end, as we hear from Janet Redman, the Durban conference agreed on something called an extention of Kyoto, but without any legally binding reductions until at least 2020.

Every other commitment was likewise hollowed out, becoming many steps backwards, says Praful Bidwai. Payments into the $100 billion a year climate adaptation fund are uncertain, and not coming any time soon. The whole idea of the West taking responsibility for climate change (due to long-term emissions) - or reducing quickly to allow developing countries their share of the atmosphere - all that is out the window. Bidwai says this is worse than Copenhagen, it should have been voted down. Failure would have been preferable.

Don't miss this insightful interview by Stephen Leahy, of the Independent Press Service (IPS).

Stephen Leahy immediately sent this interview to Radio Ecoshock. Stephen is one of the few all-out environmental journalists left anywhere. He needs your support to keep covering the world. I'm asking you to make a donation of any amount, at stephenleahy.net

Our Radio Ecoshock coverage of the Durban climate conference continues with a long-distance call to Africa. We talk with Janet Redman. She knows the ropes of international negotiations, the activist scene, and politics back home in Washington.

BUT FIRST, JAMES HANSEN AT THE AGU

Dr. James Hansen, from the Goddard Space Center at NASA, is possibly America's top climate scientist. He was certainly the first to warn Congress, back in 1988, that global warming threatened the world.

Hansen's papers are widely cited as ground-breaking research. His latest book "Storms of My Grandchildren" is popular.

As the Durban climate conference was meeting, on the other side of the world, in San Francisco, the American Geophysical Union was holding its annual conference. Some of the most important climate science of the year is presented and reported.

We only have time to give you a brief excerpt from an hour long press briefing on December 6th, 2011. It was a panel discussion between three of the leading lights. I'm going to focus on a few clips from NASA's Dr. James Hansen, plus a bit from Eelco Rohling, Professor of Ocean and Climate Change, Southampton University, U.K.

Watch the full 1 hour press briefing, which also includes Ken Caldeira, here.

Note all the other AGU 2011 videos that show up on the You tube page. And visit the AGU site.

The presentation is called "Paleoclimate Record Points Toward Potential Rapid Climate Changes".

Find a related NASA press release here.

It begins:

"In recent research, Hansen and co-author Makiko Sato, also of Goddard Institute for Space Studies, compared the climate of today, the Holocene, with previous similar 'interglacial' epochs – periods when polar ice caps existed but the world was not dominated by glaciers. In studying cores drilled from both ice sheets and deep ocean sediments, Hansen found that global mean temperatures during the Eemian period, which began about 130,000 years ago and lasted about 15,000 years, were less than 1 degree Celsius warmer than today. If temperatures were to rise 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial times, global mean temperature would far exceed that of the Eemian, when sea level was four to six meters higher than today, Hansen said.

'The paleoclimate record reveals a more sensitive climate than thought, even as of a few years ago. Limiting human-caused warming to 2 degrees is not sufficient,' Hansen said. 'It would be a prescription for disaster.'"

Find Briefing Materials

Related feature article by Hansen and Sato

JANET REDMAN OF INSTITUTE FOR POLICY STUDIES REPORTS FROM DURBAN

Reporting from South Africa, our guest is Janet Redman. She is Co-director of the Sustainable Energy & Economy Network, at the Institute for Policy Studies, in Washington D.C. Janet attended the 17th Conference of the Parties, known as COP-17. That United Nations climate conference wrapped up a day and a half late, in the wee hours of December 11th, 2011.

I'm not able to summarize everything in this detailed interview.

Janet expresses her disappointment with a "hollowed out" agreement. Nothing is binding, all is voluntary and unmonitored. Essentially, from now until 2020, it is a free-for-all where every country can emit as much as it wants.

The result for the climate will be a disaster. On our current course, with emissions rising by 3 to 6% every year, there is no way to avoid at least 3.5 degrees C global mean temperature rise by 2100, and it could go to 5 or 6 degrees. That will ruin the Earth for humans and most species.

Janet explains the role of the United States, and how American actions in Durban are tailored to the electoral cycle. America is not taking on its responsibility for being the biggest single cause of climate change. A combination of bullying and evasion replace that.

We talk about Canada, and the unusual role of China. China is now the world's largest emitter, although still far down the list of per capita consumption.

China is also a leader in renewable energy, partly due to government policies supporting it. But American labor unions, and the U.S. government, are taking legal action against China - because it supports renewable energy!

China is also the de facto head of the G-77 countries, and is expected to speak for the developing world, against the major Western powers and Japan, if needed.

At one point, China offered to take on binding reduction agreements, if the U.S would do the same. But the U.S. refused. Redman says other countries are very aware that President Obama is not the climate or environmental leader voters expected. She doesn't think he will even mention climate in his campaign next year. Janet thinks Americans will have to take personal action, and organize on other levels, since the federal government is either bought out or politically paralyzed, or both.

There is a lot more in this interview. If you want to know what really happened in Durban, give it a listen.

Find out more about the Institute for Policy Studies here.

My thanks to Daphne Wysham of Earthbeat Radio for helping arrange this interview.

AN ESTEEMED AUSTRALIAN CLIMATE SCIENTIST ON CARBON EMISSIONS

Now on to Australia, to get the latest on climate science and our ever-rising greenhouse gas emissions.

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is Australia's national science agency. Our guest Dr. Michael Raupach is a Research Scientist with CSIRO's Marine and Atmospheric Research Division.

Dr Raupach's achievements include:
CSIRO Fellow, 2010
Fellow, American Geophysical Union, 2010
Fellow, Australian Academy of Science, 2009

Back in 2006, Dr Raupach warned the amount of carbon dioxide produced by humans was on the rise. We've just seen that confirmed with another huge increase in 2010. For all the conferences, studies and reports, when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions, we're just going backwards.

Michael also participated in research showing the "sinks" that help trap our carbon emissions are weakening. When we look at carbon respositories, like the soil, forests, and especially the ocean, science suggests these are taking up 20% less carbon than in 1970.

Find out more here. (with audio podcast 6 min)

That's a huge concern, since at least half of the greenhouse gases produced by humans have been hidden away in these sinks. If they take up less, we get more staying in the atmosphere, and if we want to survive, we have to burn much less than we thought.

We hear about the recently released report showing humans have managed to raise greenhouse gas emissions an astonishing 5.9 percent in 2010. All during the 2000's, greenhouse gas emissions were increasing around 3% every year, except 2009. In 2009, the economic downturn meant a lower increase.

But by 2010, and again this year we think, despite economic concerns, greenhouse gas emissions are roaring out of our tail-pipes, power plants, gas wells, and agriculture, to name a few.

All this is tracked by the ...

GLOBAL CARBON PROJECT


Quoting from Wikipedia: "The Global Carbon Project (GCP) was established in 2001. The organisation seeks to quantify global carbon emissions and their causes.

The main object of the group has been to fully understand the carbon cycle. The project has brought together emissions experts and economists to tackle the problem of rising concentrations of greenhouse gases.

The Global Carbon Project works collaboratively with the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, the World Climate Programme, the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change and Diversitas, under the Earth System Science Partnership.

In late 2006 researchers from the project claimed that carbon dioxide emissions had dramatically increased to a rate of 3.2% annually from 2000. At the time, the chair of the group Dr Mike Raupach stated that 'This is a very worrying sign. It indicates that recent efforts to reduce emissions have had virtually no impact on emissions growth and that effective caps are urgently needed,'...

Their projections have indicated that we can expect greenhouse gas emissions to occur according to the IPCC's worst-case scenario, as CO2 emissions reach 500ppm in the 21 st century."

Find the main Global Carbon Project web site here.

Actually, Dr. Raupach told me about the 2010 increase in our interview, but asked me to wait for the paper publication this past week, before broadcasting our chat.

It was a rare opportunity to talk with one of Australia's preeminent climate scientists, especially when it comes to the carbon cycle. In a future show, I'll ask Dr. Raupach about using changes in agriculture to lower carbon, by putting it into the soil.

This week we learned about that carbon cycle, and our emissions.

I asked Michael Raupach about the priorities for climate research in Australia. Then I learned more about North America and Europe as well.

It seems "the sub-tropical ridge" of high pressure is dropping southward toward the Poles. The same ridge in northern latitutes is moving northward toward the Pole. The result is a massive change in weather patterns.

For Australia, and for the southern United States, this change means less rainfall, drought, and fires. Australia has seen plenty of all three, just like Texas and Oklahoma in 2011. Parts of the country are drying out, and may not recover.

Raupach says it is easy to predict a long term warming trend due to increasing carbon in the atmosphere. There will be more brush fires in the countryside, and more heat deaths in the cities, he says.

Here is the difficult subject that needs much more search, Raupach tells me: the impact of greenhouse gases on precipitation. Just as James Hansen told us at the AGU in San Francisco, our models are not yet good at predicting changes in rainfall. We can't say for sure which extreme rainfall events are aided by climate change.

Knowing the impact on rainfall, and therefore on agriculture, is critical for Australia and the world.

ENJOY LIFE WHILE YOU CAN

There you go. A full serving of science, doom and the human circus.

We don't have time to cover the simultaneous economic collapse. In his latest radio show and podcast, Max Keiser explains why Britain opted out of the European Union economic recovery plan - to keep the City of London as a world base for bankster piracy.

Download "The Truth About Markets" #1228 December 10, 2011 here. (1 hour)

Your new word for the week is "re-hypothication". Look it up, and find the link to a key article in the blog Zero Hedge which explains how money is magically expanded until it bursts.

This article is a bit hard going at the start, I found, but keep slogging along and you begin to get the drift of the game going on in London, and incidentally how Canadian banks are playing there...

A MODEST PROPOSAL

The politicians at Durban showed they are not willing to act to save the climate. Maybe a fast deep economic crash is our only hope of maintaining a livable climate for ourselves and our grandchildren.

With that happy thought, I thank you for listening. Download Radio Ecoshock programs free from our web site, ecoshock.org. You can find my blog and videos there as well.

I'm Alex Smith, saying "Remember, these are the good old days."

Enjoy your holidays.

DURBAN Conference of the Polluters - The Show

This week is our first broadcast in the UK. Join us every Tuesday Noon on Resonance 104.4 FM, London. Radio Ecoshock is now carried by 48 stations on 3 continents.

This program is about the upcoming "Conference of the Polluters" in Durban, South Africa. After the disappointments of Copenhagen and Cancun, does anyone really care?

Do we the luxury of despair, as rising greenhouse gases threaten everything we know, and coming generations?

The real show at Durban, offically known as COP-17, the United Nations Conference of the Parties (to the Kyodo Protocol) - is the what happens outside the gathering of world leaders and their industrial supporters. In this show you hear those other voices.

Directly from South Africa, Professor Patrick Bond lays out the awful truth, where climate talks have gone into the dead zone. The climate justice movement strives to change all that.

I ask Dr. Bond: "Will it be safe to protest in Durban?" That's not a given, considering South African police have shot some protesters in recent years. But it may not be any worse than Copenhagen, where Danish police forced up to a thousand people into a "Kettle" and kept them penned up in bitter sub-zero cold. That's what you get for giving a damn.

Don't miss this interview with Patrick. It's so loaded with good points, I've written a special blog with notes here - and that doesn't touch the surface of all the up-to-date activist info this very plugged-in man brings up in our wide-ranging talk on climate. You can download/listen to the 23 minute Patrick Bond interview separately.

Through a UK-based organization called the World Development Movement, you hear two more voices from Durban. Bandile Mdlalose is general secretary of Abahlali baseMjondolo, a shack-dwellers' movement in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa.

And from the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance, campaigner Bongani Mthembu explains what everyone from Occupy London knows, what you already know, about corporate control of our governments. I've chosen the best short clips from a video of Bandile and a video of Bongani on the WDM site.

Bongani seems right in touch with the Occupy London protesters in St. Paul's and around the world. He knows what you know: big corporations have taken over our governments.

We need to understand: Durban is already "occupied". Like most African cities, and in fact most countries of the world, there is a large community of people living in shacks. Most have no services. No electricity, no sewage, no safe running water. The police only arrive to evict them.

World Development brought Bandile, from the Shack Dwellers movement, for an 8 city tour of the UK this Fall, to help raise awareness of the realities of Durban, as the COP-17 climate talks fast approach.

From London, I chat with Murray Worthy, a policy analyst for the World Develpment Movement. Murray explains the recent Durban activist tour, and expectations for the coming climate conference. Listen/to download the whole WDM segment (18 minutes) here.

Learning from the exclusion of activists in Copenhagen, environnment groups are working to empower youth from developing countries, using new media. In San Francisco, I find Madeline Kovacs of Project Survival Media. Along with Shadia Fayne Wood, Madeline is helping to empowert youth media teams coming to Durban, from India, Kenya and more.

Those teams will create fresh reports, from outside the walls of power and pollution.

Again, you can download or listen to the Madeline Kovacs interview (15 minutes) here.

We leave with a song for the Occupy Movement, "Change Change" by the Canadian singer known only as "Thistle". I hope to post it soon on our "Music" page, in the Audio on Demand menu at ecoshock.org. Change Change doesn't have an album or a web site, but it could easily be an anthem for the Occupy movement around the world.

I found this song at the end of this powerful video of Dr. David Suzuki speaking at the Occupy Vancouver Camp in late October 2011.

Suzuki is a world-famous biologist and television host ("The Nature of Things"). He really unwinds for the 99% in this speech. I'll post the audio on my site, and thanks to "Keepemstraight" for being the video conscience of Vancouver. Visit his You tube channel.

My thanks to Daphne Wysham, host of Earthbeat radio, for her guest suggestions, and to Phil England, former host of "Climate Radio" in England. We need both of these green radio hosts back on the air. Koch Brothers are you listening? Green radio producers need just a measly million dollars to keep the truth coming out!

This is your planet. Tune into the climate underground, soon to erupt into the mainstream, with Radio Ecoshock.

Durban Climate Talks - Professor Patrick Bond

When I spoke to Patrick Bond, it was very hot in Durban. But it was 36 degrees C in neighboring Zimbabwe. Bond predicts another wave of "heat refugees" will flee Zimbabwe into South Africa.

Durban is the site of the next Conference of the Parties, known as COP-17, starting November 28th, 2011. It is the grand gathering of the countries of the world, under the United Nations, trying to prevent serious climate damage on Planet Earth.

Thank heavens the Copenhagen climate conference failed! That's the view of our Radio Ecoshock guest, Patrick Bond. He is a professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, and director of the Centre for Civil Society there.

Dr. Bond has worked for the South African government, especially in the Reconstruction program. He advises several international journals, and has a history of civil rights activism. Patrick just returned to Durban from a European conference and lecture tour.

Before we get to the upcoming Durban climate meeting, known as COP-17 - let's handle some previous business. In late 2009, many climate activists in Europe and North America were crushed by the failure to find a meaningful agreement, at the Copenhagen climate conference.

Bond says there are really two streams of environmental thought and action regarding the ongoing United Nations climate talks, known as the "Conference of the Parties" (to the Kyoto Protocol).

The first, like Climate Action Network, really hoped the industrial countries and the developing world could use climate financing and market mechanisms (like carbon trading) to work towards a lower emissions world.

The second, now more widely known as the "Climate Justice Movement" - rejects actors like The World Bank, and capitalist intervention using tools like carbon trading. They also question the REDD agreement banking carbon credits in forests, especially tropical forests - because it takes rights away from the indigenous inhabitants.

Dr. Bond wrote a short paper where he summarizes the objections of the Bolivian negotiating team to the proposals at Cancun, Mexico after Copenhagen:

"The Bolivian delegation was the only sensible insider team, and they summed up the summit’s eight shortcomings:

• Effectively kills the only binding agreement, Kyoto Protocol, in favour of a completely inadequate bottom-up voluntary approach.

• Increases loopholes and flexibilities that allow developed countries to avoid action via an expansion of offsets and continued existence of ‘surplus allowances’ of carbon after 2012 by countries such as Ukraine and Russia, which effectively cancel out any other reductions.

• Finance commitments weakened: commitments to ‘provide new and additional financial resources’ to developing countries have been diluted to talking more vaguely about ‘mobilising [resources] jointly’, with expectation that this will mainly be provided by carbon markets.

• The World Bank is made trustee of the new Green Climate Fund, which has been strongly opposed by many civil society groups due to the undemocratic make-up of the Bank and its poor environmental record.

• No discussion of intellectual property rights, repeatedly raised by many countries, as current rules obstruct transfer of key climate-related technologies to developing countries.

• Constant assumption in favour of market mechanisms to resolve climate change even though this perspective is not shared by a number of countries, particularly in Latin America.

• Green light given for the controversial Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) programme, which often ends up perversely rewarding those responsible for deforestation, while dispossessing indigenous and forest dwellers of their land.

• Systematic exclusion of proposals that came from the historic World Peoples’ Conference on Climate Change, including proposals for a Climate Justice Tribunal, full recognition of indigenous rights and rights for nature."

That ends a quote from Dr. Patrick Bond.

This is Radio Ecoshock. I'm Alex Smith with Professor Patrick Bond from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa. Patrick Bond predicts failure at COP-17, and explains why in the interview.

In addition to the problems above, he adds intellectual property limitations on transferring renewable technology to developing countries.

Bond compares the climate emergency to the case of HIV/AIDS medicine for Africa. With the big pharmaceutical companies charging $15,000 a year for treatment, it was a death sentence for Africa. Bond says 55% of South Africans test positive for the HIV virus.

In response, with support from some large countries, the World Trade Organization, at it's DOHA round in 2001, made an exception for these drugs, allowing the production of generic versions, vastly cheaper.

Patrick Bond suggests the same sort of emergency action for solar, wind, and other technologies are now required to save our climate.

For example, China and the U.S. are now engaged in a "Solar War" over intellectual property rights.

The second major road-block is the developed country use of environmentally damaging technologies to cover their energy short-falls. Bond includes such things as the Tar Sands, Shale Frackin, and especially dangerous geo-engineering schemes. He notes the latest experiment with British scientists to test injecting pollution into clouds has been delayed.

WHAT ABOUT SOUTH AFRICA?

The host of the Durban Climate Talks coming up at the end of November has been very quiet about them. Unlike the World Cup soccer, which was promoted as an international event four years previous, few South Africans know a conference that could determine their fate is being held in Durban.

I ask Professor Bond whether NGOs and interested individuals will be able to protest freely and safely in Durban. That is an open question, as there have been recent instances where South African police have shot protesters. I'm not talking about rubber bullets. Shot them.

Bond and others have been pressing the South African authorities to recognize the long tradition of non-violence established there by Gandhi, when the Mahatma lived in S.A. up until 1914, and developed his methods. But we can't be sure.

South Africa is set to release it's own climate action plan at the Durban conference. But the COP-17 host has little to brag about. Through the largest ever World Bank loan, worth several billion dollars, South Africa has constructed the world's third and fourth largest coal plants. Emissions are climbing rapidly with no end in sight.

Further confusing the situation, the big mining and industrial companies, like BHP Billiton and Anglo American (which were begun in South Africa, but now reside in Australia and the UK respectively) - arranged a sweet-heart electricity price as part of the negotiations to end Apartheid.

While these big corporations get power for pennies, sometimes as cheap as 2 cents a Kilowatt hour, poor South Africans on a pension pays as much as 28 cents a KWH. If they can get power at all. A reported 40% of South African homes have no electricity.

There have been angry protests as poor South Africans have been disconnected from electrical services, and the big corporations get a virtually free ride.

Two of the country's biggest polluters, Sasol and Eskom, are on South Africa’s COP17 negotiation committee. The South African environmental group Earthlife is protesting their inclusion.

As we all know, the European Union is under tremendous financial stress. Europe is considered a leader in renewable energy, and funding safe energy in developing countries. Now that all seems in doubt. We discuss the impact of the economic crash on climate negotiations.

Bond considers the $100 billion offered by Hilary Clinton at Copenhagen for a climate fund - is likely dead.

Yet he notes there was plenty of money to bribe and blackmail country delegations in the Denmark talks, as revealed by the Wikileaks U.S. State Department cables. The cables say $50 million was paid to the Maldives to get their support, while millions were yanked from Ecuador and Bolivia when they refused to sign the weak "voluntary" Copenhagen Accord.

Speaking at a climate justice seminar in Johannesburg South Africa last week, Bernarditas Muller, the chief negotiator for the G77 developing countries said, quote "Durban will not be the burial ground of the Kyoto Protocol".

Professor Bond says Kyoto will likely pass away in 2012, except for the emissions trading schemes which capitalists can use for profit.

ALEX SMITH OPINION - DESPAIR A LUXURY WE CANNOT AFFORD

Despite doubts about any worthwhile agreement at COP-17, and I agree a real solution looks hopeless at this time, I still see two positive reasons to give a damn about the Durban climate conference.

The first goes back to those NGO's and youth organizations who will attend. I think a lot of networking and drive will come out of the Durban meet-up, even as the politicians dodge their responsibilities. The real show is the side show.

My second reason for refusing to let hope die, is this: we have no other choice. Eventually, driven by horrible climate events, humans will have to meet, agree, and act - or go extinct.

Remember the decades required by many movements. The fight against slavery and apartheid took generations. Nobody had the luxury of giving up.

FINAL NOTE/CORRECTION

During the interview, Patrick talks about a new book from the ETC Group on Geoengineering. He calls it "Land Grab" but the actual title is "Earth Grab - Geopiracy, the New Biomassters and Capturing Climate Genes"

Listen to this wide-ranging 23 minute interview with Professor Patrick Bond.