GREEN SEX OR HOT WORLD

With what we know about climate change, should anyone add another child into that future? We'll get two points of view from women who write about it: Madeline Ostrander and Alisha Graves. Then we hear recent science from Dr. Marcus Donat proving extreme rainfall events, and extreme drought will continue and get worse as the planet warms.

I'm Alex Smith. Buckle up, and off we go, in this week's Radio Ecoshock.

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MADELINE OSTRANDER - SHOULD WE HAVE MORE CHILDREN?

When we talk about "The Conversation" it is usually the far-too-late talk about sex by parents with their kids, who already know all that. Today, we are going to re-label "the conversation". It's an inner talk you have with yourself, and and a careful dialog you might share with close friends. The question is touchy and heavy: knowing the climate is going to be wrecked, with huge consequences for humans and nature - should I bring a child into that world?

As Madeline Ostrander put's it: "How do you decide to have a baby when climate change is remaking life on earth?" That's the title of her latest article in The Nation magazine. Ostrander is also a contributing editor at Yes! Magazine.

Journalist Madeline Ostrander

Beyond the personal decision to have a child, there is often an indirect pressure, in one direction or another, by the previous generation, by the grand-parents. I am an example. We had two children, and they revolutionized my life in many good ways. But now I worry a little too much about our grandchild and his future. Part of me is quietly glad our other child has not had kids. But then I am sad for what that grown-up will miss that I had.

Most North Americans and Europeans can never again experience what I had, in community, but more especially with nature. There were empty lots and it was safe to play in them without adults watching. There were woods within easy walking distance. We spent two months of every summer on an island in a Canadian lake. Nature and I are siblings. For millions of people, who think they are well off, their children can probably never experience this. Perhaps we can say, even without climate change, there are reasons not to have children in this civilization, in the state it's in.

There are a few pockets left of natural sanity in all countries. So the question becomes not only "should I/we have this baby" but also: WHERE should this baby grow up? Am I willing to move to a place with space, clean air, clean water, with much more safety and outdoors? I'm sure women from Beijing to Berlin are troubled by this question: "Is this is a place to have a baby?"

I think that politics, and mainstream media that makes politics entertainment, is hopelessly distant from this conversation we are having, about to baby or not to baby. This whole conversation, and the fears behind it, are driven underground. It's pretty well impolite to mention at dinner, at parties, at work, at school - anywhere.

Madeline tells us about a group in New England called Conceivable Future. They host meetings for young people to discuss this dilemma. The banner on their web site says "The climate crisis is a reproductive crisis".

Part of the problem in tackling this of course, was the early prediction (1970's) by Paul and Anne Ehrlich about "the population bomb". It was supposed to have exploded by now in mass death and famine, that never happened - partly due to advances in agriculture. The group they founded, Zerio Population Growth, has now been renamed as Population Connection.

Judging by emails I've received from listeners, this issue is far, far from solved. Some folks think I haven't given the population issue enough coverage, or even suggest I'm afraid to cover it. This show answers that, I hope.

Download or listen to this 21 minute interview with Madeline Ostrander in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

Or if you would like to share the phone-friendly Lo-Fi version (please do) - you can use this shorter URL: http://tinyurl.com/j6nxfq4

My thanks to Caitlin Graf at The Nation magazine for her help arranging this interview.

And how about this: ABC Australia is writing about how hot weather can reduce women's desire for sex...the article is "Climate change and your sex life".

Even if we say a minority of men and women are concerned enough about climate change to seriously question having a child, two things: first, knowledge about the uber-threat from climate disruption is growing rapidly in the general population, despite the Koch Brothers. That means what is now the minority may be the cutting edge who define a whole new movement or current among humans.

Second: whether it's just you, or a hundred million people, this question is one of the most important decisions made in a person's lifetime.

ALISHA GRAVES - GREEN SEX

The old saying about the circus: "There's a sucker born every minute". But hundreds of new humans are born every minute, as the human population continues to multiply. Many will be Western-style super consumers, the ones who drain resources and fill the skies with greenhouse gases. If we can't control that urge, a major climate disruption may do it for us.

"Green sex" - Do it for the climate. We'll find out what that means with Alisha Graves. She has a Masters in Public Health from the University of California. She's co-founded and leads a group called the Oasis Initiative, which stands for Organizing to Advance Solutions in the Sahel.

Alisha Graves is also a research fellow for Project Drawdown, a group of scientists and other experts working to create a livable climate future, led by Paul Hawken.

Public health expert Alisha Graves

To hear some environmental groups tell it, all we have to do is install solar energy and drive electric cars - problem solved. But can we really tackle the climate issue without talking about population?

Our instant mental defense is to tell ourselves it's those billions of peasants "over there" somewhere who are responsible for the population impact. What's wrong with that idea? Think of it this way: if you decide not to have a child, you have done far more to reduce greenhouse gases than buying an electric car or installing solar panels. That is because every new consumer born is a heat engine.

We talk about the IPAT formula: I = P × A × T

As Wikipedia explains it, "Human Impact on the environment equals the product of Population, Affluence, and Technology. This shows how the population, affluence and technology produce an impact. The equation was developed in the 1970s during the course of a debate between Barry Commoner, Paul R. Ehrlich and John Holdren."

Sex is such a powerful urge. It can drive our lives even when our brains are barely involved, maybe especially when our brains are weak. Do you believe that rational debate can change sexual behavior? It's interesting to discover that half the babies born in the United States were unintended. So fifty percent of the time, there was no conversation like "should we do this?" Meanwhile, states like Texas are making it harder and harder for a woman to access a safe and legal abortion. At times I'm sure we are going backward in population control, not forward.

Then Alisha gives us a quick snapshot of conditions in the Sahel. That's the region in Africa just south of the Sahara Desert. The Sahel country of Niger has the highest fertility rate in the world: huge families born into utter poverty and lack of health care. Studies show that half the children of Niger are stunted, both physically and mentally. The Oasis Initiative is seeking solutions.

Alisha links to the paper titled "Reproduction and the carbon legacies of individuals" by Paul Murtaugh and Michael Schlax as being useful in this whole debate on climate and population. You can read the full text as an online .pdf here.

Of course, you should also check out the Project Drawdown web site.

You or anyone can listen to or download just this 23 minute interview with Alisha Graves using these permanent links (in either CD Quality, or the faster loading but lower quality Lo-Fi)

If you would like to Tweet or Facebook this interview (please) here is a shorter URL for the Lo-Fi version: http://tinyurl.com/gnovaun

MARKUS DONAT - SCIENCE OF EXTREME PRECIPITATION

News about record rains, or sometimes snow, has become so frequent, I could report on it every week. Just recently, a half dozen people died in recent floods of Louisiana. Parts of Brazil were hit with half their average monthly rainfall in one day. In the desert, the United Arab Emirates recently recorded their highest single day rainfall ever, 50 times normal for March.

New research says this is only going to get worse as the world warms, but with an unexpected twist. A letter published in the journal Nature Climate Change is titled: "More extreme precipitation in the world’s dry and wet regions." In Sydney Australia, we've reached the lead author, Markus G. Donat, a research fellow at the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales.

Dr. Markus Donat

This is important research. Along with journalists around the world, Joe Romm quotes Markus Donat in this article on Climate Progress. But if you listen to my Radio Ecoshock interview, you'll be surprised to find that Joe got Donat's research a little bit wrong. It's all about the long-held slogan "the wet areas get wetter, and the dry areas get drier". Markus says that was true of a global model where the oceans are included, but not necessarily true on land (where it matters most to us). Yes will get more extreme droughts and super rainfall events, but like everything else about climate change, it's not quite as simple as that.

You or anyone can listen to or download this 16 minute interview using these permanent links (in either CD Quality, or the faster loading but lower quality Lo-Fi)

If you would like to Tweet or Facebook this interview (please) here is a shorter URL for the Lo-Fi version: http://tinyurl.com/h7dqgom

RADIO ECOSHOCK NET PRESENCE STILL IN DEVELOPMENT

We are out of time - in this radio show at least.

Of course you can still download all our past programs (ten years' worth!) for free from our web site, thanks to the on-going support of listener donations. This blog has been going steady every week since 2006.

My team is working on the new web site/blog connection tool. I've seen the working model and it looks great. Radio Ecoshock will enter the modern world. This blog will also be revamped. And it will all work on phones too!

As you can see, I'm slowly learning new software purchased to produce videos, starting with the short "This week on Radio Ecoshock" series. If I have time, this may morph into a kind of video blog.

I can still use your financial support to keep this development going. If you can afford $10 a month, or wish to make a one time donation of any size, please do it here.

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

By the way, I wrote the bits of music you hear in this program. You can hear the whole piece here on Soundcloud.

CLIMATE: IS REVOLUTION JUSTIFIED?

From the Netherlands, green lawyer Roger Cox: "Is Revolution Justified?" From UK, Glacier specialist Thomas Bauska on the last big temperature jump in a warm world like ours. Plus, scientist Paul Beckwith warns we are in a climate emergency. Radio Ecoshock 160406

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ROGER COX - IS REVOLUTION JUSTIFIED?

Despite the spring misery in Eastern North America - world heat records continue to tumble. Ice is melting faster at both poles. We're in trouble, but world leaders are preoccupied with getting elected - or hiding money in Panamanian corporations.

If governments fail our children's future, is revolution justified? That's the question raised by Roger Cox, a prominent green lawyer in the Netherlands. He's not calling for crowds in the street, but real justice. Cox sued the Dutch government for failing to protect the future, and won. That's spreading all over Europe, Canada, New Zealand, and into the United States. Hear Roger Cox explain how it's done.

Who is this revolutionary? In the Netherlands, Roger Cox is partner at the law firm Paulussen Advocaten. He is the power-house lawyer who sued the Dutch government, demanding a 25% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. He won, setting a precedent for people around the world, and we'll talk about that. He founded the "Planet Prosperity Foundation" promoting a circular economy. And Roger is known in Europe as a leader in sustainable real estate development, something almost unknown in North America.

Award-winning lawyer Roger Cox

Roger Cox is also a CIGI senior fellow with the International Law Research Program. The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) is an independent, non-partisan think tank on international governance. My thanks to CIGI for helping to arrange this interview.

Roger's book is called "Revolution Justified."

Download or listen to this 24 minute interview with Roger Cox in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

If you wish to Tweet out the Lo-Fi version of this Roger Cox interview, here is shorter URL for that: http://tinyurl.com/hujnyzh

THE PRECEDENT-SETTING DUTCH COURT VICTORY FOR THE CLIMATE

Roger was central to a lawsuit against the government of the Netherlands. The Plaintiffs were the environmental advocacy group Urgenda Foundation, and 900 individuals. Essentially they argued that the poor legislation for emissions reductions by the Dutch government endangered future generations. They won the lawsuit and the government had to enact requirements for bigger emissions cuts, much sooner. The Dutch government agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 25 percent by 2020 (compared with 1990 levels).

This set an international precedent which is growing into a movement.

A similar lawsuit has been launched in Belgium, and another is pending in New Zealand. Other lawsuits are being considered in Canada, Italy, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and France. The French action follows one legal victory there in June 2015.

CLIMATE JUSTICE IN AMERICA?

The idea begun by Roger, that citizens can sue their governments on behalf of the children, is now being tested in a U.S. Court. See this article on Alternet, and this piece from Australia.

The Oregon-based "Our Childrens' Trust Foundation" has launched a climate lawsuit in the United States. That suit is led by none other than Dr. James Hansen, along with 21 young people, many of them teens.

In another case, launched by the State of Massachusetts versus the EPA, the Supreme Court has already "in effect" ruled that climate change is real and dangerous, Cox tells us.

IS A "REVOLUTION" IN THE COURTS ENOUGH?

Of course, waiting for a break in the U.S. Supreme Court (depending on who gets nominated) might take too long to avert disaster. I have to ask Roger, and you as listeners, would a violent overthrow ever be justified? Let's say the Arctic sea ice disappears, and the northern Hemisphere is hit by years of unrelenting storms and heat waves. Crops fail. If governments fail to respond, should we go down quietly? I doubt people will just go along with business as usual, once they see the impacts of an abrupt climate shift.

We're not quite there yet, maybe (see the next interview with Paul Beckwith). It can't hurt to have all lawyers, judges - the whole legal community - become aware of the threats posed by climate change. Roger tells us that local judges, and some state courts, are already moving in the direction of taking climate safety as a real legal issue.

INTERNATIONAL LAW

Roger tells us all industrialized countries signed into an international law to protect the climate at the 2010 Climate summit in Cancun Mexico. A few countries, including Germany and Denmark, have followed up, enshrining this protection into law.

Knowlingly breaching the 2 degree C "safe limit" would also be an infringement of human rights, as laid out in various United Nations binding agreements. More legal safeguards were added at the COP-21 climate summit in December, 2015, Paris. There are a lot of international laws, which your government likely agreed to, that lawyers can use to push the government to act on greenhouse gas emissions.

PAUL BECKWITH - CLIMATE EMERGENCY

One of our regular guests, scientitst Paul Beckwith from the University of Ottawa, is warning anyone who will listen that we are in a global climate emergency. Forget 2050 or even 2030. Abrupt climate change has arrived, Beckwith says.

Paul has two Masters Degrees. He teaches climate science at the University of Ottawa, while working on his own Doctorate - on the subject of abrupt climate change. Paul is a scientists-activist, with a busy You tube channel, Facebook community, and more - all found on his new web site, paulbeckwith.net.

When I checked last, his new video and article is titled "My Condolences to Australia's Great Barrier Reef" (April 3rd).

In this program, I run a slighly edited audio version from Paul's important You tube video "Chat on our ABRUPT climate change EMERGENCY". This just has to get out there, and I'm happy to offer Radio Ecoshock as another way to express how serious our situation really is.

As Paul explains, the shift in climate is coming much faster than most scientists expected. If you want proof, just try this Google experiment:

"Google "climate change” and “faster than expected”, “unprecedented”, etc. and you get gazillions of science articles. Google “climate change” and “slower than expected”, etc. and you get squat."

- from Paul Beckwith's web site.

Download or listen to this 11 minute compact version of Paul Beckwith's warning in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

Here is a tiny url for the Lo-Fi version (which works best for people listening on phones, or slow bandwidth) for Tweeting purposes: http://tinyurl.com/ju7o94x

THOMAS BAUSKA - CLIMATE LESSONS FROM THE DEEP PAST

We wrap up with an intriguing visit with a specialist in the story of glaciers and ancient climates. Before the 10,000 years of stable climate our civilization grew up in, the great glaciers came and went. The climate shifted with them, sometimes warming as much as 5 degrees Centigrade within 50 years. It's a tough field to understand, and harder still to figure out what applies to climate change today, and what does not. Some climate deniers have played on that confusion.

But the science of past deglaciation is getting better and better. A new paper out from a team of scientists from the United States, Britain, and New Zealand almost crushed my skull with problems. I wrote the lead author, Thomas K. Bauska with my beginner's questions, and he patiently schooled me in patterns of climate change I did not know.

That's why we called on Thomas for Radio Ecoshock. Educated in Chicago, with a Ph.D in Geology from Oregon State, Dr. Bauska is currently a researcher with the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Cambridge in Britain. The paper that stimulated this discussion is titled "Carbon isotopes characterize rapid changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide during the last deglaciation." It was just published in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, or PNAS.

As a non-scientist, my first surprise reading this paper was that deglaciation can cause a rise in CO2, and not the other way around.

About ten years ago, people denied carbon dioxide was warming the planet. They jumped on the science of glaciology, to produce the argument summarized as "CO2 doesn't lead, it lags." Can carbon levels rise AFTER a warming, and if so, what caused the initial warming?

Talking about this, Thomas referred me to a 2012 paper published in the journal Nature by Shakun et al. The title is "Global warming preceded by increasing carbon dioxide concentrations during the last deglaciation." You can read that full article (as an online .pdf) here.

As I understand it, the point is this: past climate shifts began with geophysical forces: things like the 100,000 year cycle where the Earth's orbit tilts toward or away from the Sun (a bit). That can start a warming, which then releases carbon dioxide (and methane!) - which becomes a positive feedback effect, increasing the warming much more.

Contrarians argue other forces, like a tilt of the Earth's axis, can cause warming, so carbon dioxide isn't causing warming today. That is so simplistic it's silly.

Regarding abrupt climate change, Bauska et all write in their paper:

"At least twice during the deglaciation a rapid release of 13C-depleted carbon to the atmosphere may have occurred over a few centuries, suggesting that abrupt and significant releases of CO2 to the atmosphere may be common nonlinear features of Earth’s carbon cycle."

A second discussion in this paper seemed familiar to me. That was about changes in ocean currents, as deglaciation developed. We have just seen a giant cold spot appear in the seas south of Greenland, big enough it is thought to be altering the winter weather in Britain.

I wouldn't want to leave listeners with the impression that abrupt climate changes only happened as ice ages ended, and cannot happen now. I have spoken with scientists like paleontologist Peter Ward and Ottawa's Paul Beckwith who assure me there are records of abrupt warming, even from relatively warm starting points.

ARE WE EXPERIENCING "DEGLACIATION" NOW?

Considering glaciers at both poles are melting rapidly, as well as all other land-based glaciers melting, can we say we are NOW in a period of deglaciation? In the interview, Thomas said "no" - based on the large-scale deglaciation he studied. Today's melting is comparatively small. However, after the interview, Thomas sent me one further email explanation:

"One interesting question that I wasn't able to answer fully is whether we are currently in a "deglaciation" or not. My gut reaction was to say "not really" because the projected sea level rise over the next century is an order of magnitude less than the last transition from the ice age.

However, this paper really changed my view of future sea level rise. The authors (colleagues from Oregon State) take a long view and project sea level and temperature changes over the next 10,000 years (rather than the next few hundred). For context the compare the past 20,000 years, essentially the last deglaciation and Holocene. This is perhaps the long-term, geologic perspective that the deglaciation that your audience might gain insight from.

As stated in the abstract: 'This long-term perspective illustrates that policy decisions made in the next few years to decades will have profound impacts on global climate, ecosystems, and human societies — not just for this century, but for the next ten millennia and beyond.'"

Listen to or download this 24 minute interview with Dr. Thomas Bauska in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

If you wish to Tweet out the Lo-Fi version, here is shorter URL for that: http://tinyurl.com/j6xd9pl

GETTING RADIO ECOSHOCK OUT FURTHER

I'm still working with my team on a classy new web site and blog (combined) for Radio Ecoshock. It will have a much better search function, so you can find the scientist or author you want to hear from. Plus, the new design will really work for all the folks who reach out to Radio Ecoshock by phone or tablet. The new blog will also be compatible with Itunes, so we can raise the number of podcast listeners.

I'll let you know as soon as it arrives.

Also, to help get the message out through video, I'm experimenting with a short (3 minutes or less) series of videos with the working title "This week on Radio Ecoshock". I'm hoping people will share these with social media, to raise climate awareness. Please do.

If you feel you can afford to support my work on this program, please either make a one-time donation, or sign up for the $10 a month subscriber status, from this page.

Thank you for listening again this week, and caring about our world.

Paris Climate Vs. A Real Future

Welcome to Radio Ecoshock. I have lots for you in this program. Two reports direct from Paris, plus an interview on the best, maybe the only, way to really save the future.

But first I want you to hear 10 minutes from the former NASA scientist who warned us all about climate change, back in 1988. Here is Dr. James Hansen speaking December 2nd, at a press conference at COP21, the big climate summit in Paris, as posted on You tube by envirobeat.com

Dr. James Hansen

Statement by Dr. James Hansen, at a COP21 Paris press conference, December 2, 2015. Video on You tube. Transcript by Alex Smith, with bold face and sub-titles added by Smith.

"The problem is that fossil fuels appear to the consumer to be the cheapest energy. They're not really cheapest because they don't include their full cost to society. They're partly subsidized, but mainly they don't include the effects of air pollution and water pollution on human health. If you child gets asthma, you have to pay the bill. The fossil fuel company doesn't. And the climate effects, which are beginning to be significant and will be much larger in the future are also not included in the price of the fossil fuels.

So the solution would be fairly straight-forward. Let's add in to the price of fossil fuels the total cost - which you can't do suddenly but you can do it gradually over time, so that you can... people have time to adjust.

So I argue this should be done - and it has to be across the board, across all fossil fuels - coal, oil, and gas, at the source, at the domestic mine or the port of entry. And I also argue that that money should be given to the public, given equal amount to all legal residents of the country. That way the person who does better than average in limiting their carbon footprint will actually make money. In fact two thirds of the people would come out ahead. And it would also address the growing income inequality in the world, which is occurring in almost all countries, because low income people would tend to have a lower carbon footprint. People who fly around the world and have big houses would pay more, but they can afford to do that.

That's a transparent, market-based solution, a conservative solution which stimulates the economy. The economic studies in the United States show that after ten years, if you had a ten dollars a ton of CO2 carbon fee, distributed the money to the public - after ten years if would reduce emissions thirty percent. And after twenty years, more than fifty percent. And it would spur the economy, creating more than three million new jobs.

[SOLVING THE INTERNATIONAL PROBLEM]

Furthermore, this is the only viable international approach. You cannot ask each of 190 countries to individually limit their emissions. What we have to do is have the price of fossil fuels honest. That requires only a few of the major players to agree 'Let's have a rising common carbon fee'. And those countries that don't want to have that fee, we'll put a border duty on those countries and furthermore we will rebate to our manufacturers that carbon fee when they export to a non-participating nation. This, economists agree, is a fair way to do it, and it could rapidly move us off of fossil fuels.

But what we are hearing, is that although Christiana Figueres says many have said we need a carbon price, and investment would be so much easier with a carbon price, but life is much more complex than that. So what we are talking about instead is the same old thing. The same old thing that was tried in Kyoto asking each country to promise 'oh I'll reduce my emissions, I will cap my emissions, I'll reduce them twenty percent' or whatever they decide they can do.

You know, in science when you do a well-controlled experiment, and get a well-documented result, you expect that if you do the experiment again, you are going to get the same result. So why are we talking about doing the same thing again? I don't like to use crude language, but I learned this from my mother, so I'll use it anyway. This is 'half-assed' and it's 'half-baked'.

"HALF-ASSED AND HALF-BAKED"

It's half-assed because there's no way to make it global. You have to beg each nation. So I went to Germany to speak with... I was hoping to speak to Merkl but I got cut off at Sigmar Garbriel, the Minister. He said 'Oh, we're gonna do cap and trade, cap and trade with offsets.' And I said 'But that won't work, we've tried that.' So I said 'What's the cap on India?' And he said 'We'll tighten our carbon cap.' Well Germany is now two percent of the world emissions. So him tightening the German carbon cap is not going to solve the problem. You've got to have something that will work globally.

And it's half-baked, because there's no enforcement mechanism.... You know what I hear is all the Ministers are coming here, the heads of state, and they are planning to clap each other on the back, and say 'Oh we're really doing great. This is a very successful conference, and we're going to address the climate problem.' Well if that's what happens then we're screwing the next generation, and the following ones. Because we're being stupid and doing the same thing again that we did eighteen years ago.

"WE CAN'T PRETEND WE DON'T KNOW WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN"

So what's the effect? You know you try very hard and you reduce our nation's emissions. Or an individual reduces their emissions. One effect of that is to reduce the demand for the product, and keep the price low. As long as fossil fuels are dirt cheap, they will keep being used. Burning coal is like burning dirt. You just take a bulldozer and you can bulldoze it out of the ground. It's very cheap but it does not include it's cost to society. It's a very dirty fuel with some negative effects which we now understand very well. We can't pretend that we don't know what's going to happen, if we stay on this path.

This is the path we're on, you know. To pretend that what we're doing is having any effect... It might slow down the rate of growth, but that's not what's needed. Science tells us we have to reduce emissions rapidly. And furthermore, the economic studies show that if you put an honest price on carbon emissions, you would reduce emissions rapidly. But if you don't have that price on there, you are not going to reduce emissions. You will reduce emissions some place, but then it keeps the price low, so somebody else will burn it.

[Another panelist asks: And that economic study you are refering to also found that if you put ten dollars per ton, and increased it ten dollars per ton over ten years, what was the effect in jobs?]

James Hansen: Well in the case of the United States economy, that's where the study was done in detail, it was three million new jobs in ten years and a significant increased in GNP [Gross National Product]. We need energy. But people thinking 'Oh, we have to do less...' - yeah we should have energy efficiency, but that would be encouraged by a rising price.

[ENERGY SHIFT]

We do need energy. We need energy to raise the poor people out of poverty. That's the best way to keep population under control. Those countries that have become wealthy now have fertility rates that are below the replenishment level. And the reason these countries became wealthy is because they had energy, and that energy was fossil fuels. Unfortunately we can't continue to use that as the mechanism to get out of poverty.

We need clean energies. And the way to make that happen... You know, I've met with 'Captains of Industry' I call them - leaders of not only utilities but even oil companies. These people have children and grandchildren. They would like to be part of the solution. If the government would give them the right incentive, by putting this across-the-board rising carbon fee, they say they would change their investments and they could do it rapidly.

It's not that the problem can't be solved. But it's not being solved. And nothing that I've heard so far indicates that we're intending to ... it's not too complex. It's the simplest approach you could have: an honest, simple rising carbon fee."

End of transcript of James Hansen in a Paris press conference, Dec 2nd, 2015.

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LINDSEY ALLEN, RAINFOREST ACTION NETWORK, REPORTS FROM PARIS

Lindsey Allen, Executive Director of RAN













Next up, Lindsey Allen, the Executive Director of the Rainforest Action Network, or RAN, dials in from Paris.

I was glad to talk to Lindsey, partly because world media has failed to report non-governmental actions and voices in Paris (giving us the impression the NGO's and aboriginal people are not even there - they are). And partly because the Rainforest Action Network has done some great climate work.

For example, RAN has led the pack in exposing which big banks are loaning out billions to fund the construction of new coal plants around the world. They are profiting from the destruction of the climate. Check out that campaign here.

During our phone interview, Lindsey reveals that the very bank that is funding so much of the United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP21) meeting in Paris - the French giant BNP Paribas - is one of the top funders for coal expansion around the world! Lindsey Allen says BNP Paribas has invested about 17 billion dollars in coal. That tells you a lot about the world we live in, and the UN Climate talks.

But yes, climate activists are in Paris, and they are speaking out, despite clamp-downs by French police in the name of anti-terrorism. I notice crowds are allowed to gather for memorials, and for sports events, but not to call for real climate action...Naomi Klein agrees, and calls for a big march in Paris anyway.

Listen to this interim report from Paris with Lindey Allen here.

A PARIS REPORT FROM SCIENTIST PAUL BECKWITH

Paul Beckwith has been a regular on Radio Ecoshock. He's the scientist with two Masters degrees, working on his PHD in climate science at the University of Ottawa, in Canada. Paul takes the late Stephen Schneider's call for activism by scientists very seriously. Paul has his own You tube channel with lots of great videos, a new web page, and an active Facebook following.

Don't miss some fine videos Paul took in Paris. These include a financial panel with UK Bank of England Governor Mark Carney and American billionaire Michael Bloomberg. Paul was encouraged to hear some billionaires and financial heavyweights are prepared for serious action on climate change. We talk about that.

Beckwith also recorded a Paris keynote presentation by Al Gore, found here.

One thing we briefly discuss is the effort by climate deniers to look like legitimate participants in the climate "debate". The Heartland Institute, which is partly funded by the infamous Koch Brothers, has organized a press event in Paris, with the usual suspects - scientists and others, some of whom are known to accept funding from fossil fuel companies in order to say carbon dioxide is great for us! See this hot Greenpeace expose of climate deniers admitting they get paid by Peabody coal and other fossil fuel interests.

Paul, and other at the hostel where he is staying, debated whether to go and expose the false science being presented - or would that just add the conflict that media is always looking for, and thus spread these falsehoods? My opinion is go ignore the extremists. Most of the world knows them for what they are - while climate damage is becoming much too obvious to ignore any longer.

Download or listen to this report from Paris by Paul Beckwith in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

Use this tiny url to share Paul's talk in Twitter or other social media: http://tinyurl.com/hs94gfc

BENOIT LAMBERT - THE BIOCHAR SOLUTION

Now it's time to talk about real solutions in the real world. This is part of my continuing coverage of ways to stuff carbon back into the soil, with nature-based agriculture and biochar.

After interviewing many guests and scientists, I've come to the conclusion that our best way out of the climate mess is to use different agricultural methods to sequester carbon back into the soil.

It's just common sense. We have too much carbon in the atmosphere already (at least 430 parts per million carbon equivalent, when we need to be below 350 parts per million to keep our current climate.) Where will be put the extra carbon from the atmosphere? We don't have the technology to put it into the oceans. We do know how to put it back into the soil, and into the deeper ground as biochar.

Benoit Lambert lived in Europe for a couple of decades, returning to Quebec Canada to found a company which advises on biochar, and related carbon capture technology. It's called Biochar Generation.

Benoit Lambert

As world politicians and their experts meet in Paris for the COP21 climate summit, most will seek industrial answers for what they see as an industrial problem. Perhaps, they'll hear about machines to capture carbon and feed it back through a maze of new pipelines to old wells. Dangerous geonengineering will be on the menu.

But they almost didn't hear about the least known source of greenhouse gases, and the single best solution to reducing carbon in the atmosphere. I'm talking about clearing land for food, industrial agriculture, and ways to put carbon back in the soil. All that wasn't even on the menu, until a recent move by France to put it there.

I didn't know the role of the French Agriculture Minister, Stefane Le Foll, or the special ambassador for France at COP21, Laurence Tubiana - until I heard it from Benoit.

Just to be clear, our current industrial farming uses loads of fossil fuel products, including fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. It is a major SOURCE of greenhouse gas emissions, not a help. How big a factor is food production to the overall burden of greenhouse gases?

According to Wikipedia: "Food systems contribute 19%–29% of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, releasing 9,800–16,900 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) in 2008. Agricultural production, including indirect emissions associated with land-cover change, contributes 80%–86% of total food system emissions, with significant regional variation."

So we need a huge turnaround in our food systems. First of all, we need to get to zero emissions farming. But that's just the start! Then we need to turn the food system into a carbon capture mechanism.

We discuss how long carbon stays in the soil, the carbon cycle, and the truly amazing role played by biochar. Benoit thinks Canada is the perfect country to start the biochar industry on a huge scale, with all the forest waste in the country.

Lambert also explains the French "4 out of 1000" campaign. Get more on that here. It could really save the world climate.

Others have already called this one of the most important Radio Ecoshock interviews.

Download or listen to this interview with Benoit Lambert in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

Use this tiny url to share the Benoit Lambert interview on social media, including Twitter: http://tinyurl.com/omrtuzf

My thanks to everyone who Tweeted about last week's show with Dr. Kevin Anderson. It literally went around the world. I also appreciate the listeners who continue to donate money to keep this show going. If you think you can help, find out how on this page.

I'm Alex Smith. Thank you for listening, and let's get together again next week.

KEVIN ANDERSON: Untold Climate Truth

"The future will be radically different from the present. It will either be radically different because we have significantly - we've grasped the nettle and we'd be prepared to make the sorts of changes that would initially be quite challenging socially and politically, to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions.

Or...

A little bit further down the line, we will be faced with huge social and political repercussions because of a very significantly changing climate."

-Dr. Kevin Anderson

That is Dr. Kevin Anderson. As one of the world's top climate scientists, he says the hard facts about climate change are not getting out, and never made it to the Paris climate talks. It's a shocking, revealing interview. Then we travel to Australia, where host Vivien Langford of the Beyond Zero Emissions show talks in studio with David Spratt, author of Code Red, plus a union icon and psychologist - on the eve of the Paris talks. More frank talk.

I'm Alex Smith. Buckle up, this is Radio Ecoshock.

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

Or listen on Soundcloud right now!



KEVIN ANDERSON: CLIMATE SCIENCE M.I.A.

During the Paris climate talks, one leading scientist says the fundamentals of the whole process is "wildly optimistic". It starts with climate models that assume too much, spills into unreal scientific advice, and ends with rosy media reports saying we can keep on growing without wrecking the climate. Our Western lifestyles won't be greatly inconvenienced, they say.

The odd-man out at the party is Kevin Anderson. He's a well-known Professor of Energy and Climate Change at the University of Manchester. Anderson is also the Deputy director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, a leading scientific institute not only in Britain, but in the world.

Download or listen to this Radio Ecoshock interview with Kevin Anderson in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

My previous show on Kevin Anderson, July 22nd 2015, "What they won't tell you about the climate catastrophe" is blogged with links here.

But I call Kevin this time about a new article he published in the journal Nature Geoscience. The title is "Duality in Climate Science". The paper is available here, in free full-text. A useful article form phys.org is here.

Here’s the link to a great piece in Skeptical Science on Kevin's new paper.

THE FAMOUS PICKETTY WEIGHS IN ON WHO THE BIG EMITTERS ARE

During our interview, Kevin mentioned a new paper by Chancel and Picketty, on how a few million top consumers are responsible for the majority of climate change emissions. Find that here.

The full title and citation on the Chancel/Picketty climate paper is:

Carbon and inequality: from Kyoto to Paris

Trends in the global inequality of carbon emissions (1998-2013) & prospects for an equitable adaptation fund

Lucas Chancel, Iddri & Paris School of Economics

Thomas Piketty, Paris School of Economics

3rd, November 2015.

PARDON MY RANT

After reports from The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, the assembled government leaders gather in Paris. Their stated goal is to keep global mean temperature rise below 2 degrees Centigrade, from pre-industrial levels. Dr. James Hansen says it's "crazy" to say 2 degrees C would be safe.

Kevin Anderson agrees with Hanson. As I wrote in my blog about Anderson's 2012 speech:

"In fact, says Anderson, we are almost guaranteed to reach 4 degrees of warming, as early as 2050, and may soar far beyond that - beyond the point which agriculture, the ecosystem, and industrial civilization can survive."

Here is another thing that drives me crazy, and Anderson describes it in this new paper. The question set to be answered is: "what do we need to do to have a 66% chance or better of staying below 2 degrees C". Imagine we are playing Russian Roulette. We have a pistol with three chambers, one of which contains a bullet. The stakes are not just our own lives, but those of all our descendants, and possibly most life on Earth. Who in their right mind would pull the trigger with only a 66% chance of surviving?

Is it unreasonable for us to expect a GUARANTEE the climate will not be wrecked, rather than the kind of casino odds being offered by international negotiations?

It's no surprise that major media provides a version of reality that allows advertisers, stockholders, and the public, to continue playing the fossil fuel game as long as possible. The surprise is that scientists who know better, do not work harder to correct obvious "mistakes" and outright fairy-tales about our predicament. I ask Anderson: Why aren't more scientists speaking up?

I say the Paris talks are already set up for failure, depending on they do on voluntary goals, set a long time into the future, and without even the courage to talk about the remaining carbon budget. By the way, another blog, at theclimatecolation.org, uses Kevin's paper to calculate the carbon budget would be all used up by 2034. Would you agree?

So I ask Kevin if the whole Conference of the Parties (COP) approach should be abandoned, having failed for decades to even reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

His answer surprised me. The COP meetings should go on, he says, but they should not be the only game in town, with such huge stakes looming over us. Anderson has said for some time that the rest of the world, all the willing, should forget about trying to get the United States onboard. The retro anti-science crowd in Congress is never going to approve the moves that are needed.

The European Union should go it alone, with whatever trading partners it can bring along. If we say the Europe is involved in about one third of all world trade, if the EU insisted on climate-safe products and production, perhaps with side deals with countries like China, the United States would have to come on board, to protect trade. We can't wait for the last countries to join the movement to save the world climate.

There has never been a greater tragedy than today. We know, based on hard science, what is coming. We can see it coming. Everyone keeps on dancing, with the drugs of consumption, the many energy slaves at our command, as though this party can keep going forever. For the dinosaurs, there was a time of tragedy, and even that time lasted some millions of years. Only the birds survived. Our time of tragedy looks to be very short, a few hundred years at best, just a few generations.

The greatest tragedy is that some of us can see what must be done. We cannot communicate that into action, so deluded are the other players. Even when they know, they will not act to end the addiction. We need greatness from our artists - poets, musicians, authors, film-makers, to express this tragic dream, before it hardens into unstoppable reality (if it has not already).

Kevin says a lot, a lot better than I do. Be sure and listen to this key interview.

HOT CLIMATE RADIO FROM AUSTRALIA

I know cutting edge radio when I hear it. I play you part of the Beyond Zero Emissions radio show, on 3CR Community radio in Melbourne Australia. 3CR also broadcasts Radio Ecoshock, as one of our international partners.

Following discussion of the climate action march in Melbourne November 27th, host Vivien Langford starts in-depth with David Spratt, co-author of the book Climate Code Red, and host of the influential climate code red blog. Then you'll hear from Dr Colin Long, leader in the National Tertiary Education Union, who champions workers in the transition away from carbon. Vivien's third guest is psychologist Lyn Bender, from the group Psychology for a Safe Climate.

The groups starts off talking about the climate movement in Melbourne, which I find exciting.. By the way, that was Australia's biggest climate action ever, with 60,000 people showing up in the streets of Melbourne! But trust me, it's not long before these three guests dive into issues that affect us all.

You can listen to this show, and all the programs from Beyond Zero Emissions, here.

Radio host Vivien Langford.











Or to get a taste, you can download this 26 minute segment, as broadcast on Radio Ecoshock, in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

I'm Alex Smith. Please help support this radio show. And as always, thank you for listening, and caring about your world.

CLIMATE MUSIC: I finish off the show with a quick bit of music from the group Eclectic Sparks, in Yorkshire UK, as played at the Yorkshire Climate Festival 2015. "Whatya gonna do with your CO2".. Find that on You tube here. Thanks for the tip Dana!

CLIMATE CATASTROPHE INDONESIA!

Over the past few weeks, Planet Earth has experienced a severe climate crisis, and it hasn't made the front page, or the top story on TV news. This catastrophe will hasten warming of oceans and land, add to rising seas, threaten more species with extinction - and change our whole view of environmental action, and what we need to do to save the climate.

Massive fires have been burning in Indonesia. In satellite images, large parts of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore were buried under smoke. Red dots of fires and hot spots want to cover the whole map of the islands.

In a few minutes, I'm going to bring you interviews from two very informed people. We get a report directly from the scene, with Dr. Daniel Murdiyarso, at the Center for International Forestry Research in Bogor Indonesia. Then I'll thrash this crisis through with one of the long-standing reporters on tropical forests, Mongabay founder Rhett Butler.

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

Or listen on Soundcloud right now!



INDONESIA FIRES LINK-FEST AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS BLOG

Scroll down to the end of this blog for a selection of links to satellite images, news coverage and must-read reports on the Indonesian fire catastrophe of 2015.

PEAT FIRES ARE NOT ORDINARY FOREST FIRES

These are not common forest fires as experienced in Western North America, as bad as those were. For one thing, unless climate change prevents it, Western forests are expected to grow back, recapturing some of the carbon. Indonesia tropical forests are not expected to return. They are being replaced with either palm oil plantations or just waste land.

At least half of the hundreds of major fires in Indonesia are burning peat. You know, like the peat bales purchased by gardeners. Or the peat formerly used as fuel in the Middle Ages. It's a thick layer of very compressed vegetation, built up over the ages.

About 12% of the land in Southeast Asia is peat swamp forest. Eighty three percent of that is in Indonesia. Peat there can be one meter, or 3 feet deep, or up to 12 meters, or 40 feet deep. When peat dries out, it begins to emit both carbon dioxide and the more powerful greenhouse gas methane. When peat burns, it releases a mix of toxic dust and gases with grave effects on human health, and animal health, and the climate of the world.

You can't put out a peat fire with a water-bomber or ground crews. The fire goes underground. It smolders and smokes until seasonal rains or snow comes. Some peat fires last for years, resurfacing every year.

INDONESIA CATAPULTS PAST U.S. GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS

Tropical peat fires release phenomenal amounts of greenhouse gases. Calculations by the World Resources Institute find that Indonesian fires over the past three months have released more greenhouse gases than the entire annual emissions of highly-industrialized Germany. For the past month or so, Indonesia has been emitting more greenhouse gases daily than the entire United States economy.

This is a burst of carbon not seen since the last great Indonesian fires in 1997. The Indonesian greenhouse burst throws off all previous calculations of how much carbon we could still burn before crossing the 2 degree C unsafe level. It will force a re-draw of our models, and will create, sooner or later, more swift and unpleasant surprises in our climate system. The unknowns loom larger.

You would think that a sudden jump in emissions would be raised at the Paris climate talks coming up in December. But Indonesia didn't mention control of tropical fires in their emissions reduction plan.

Oh, and by the way, there are massive forest fires in the Amazon of Brazil at this same time!

Some of us know that our actions now are determining the fate of the planet for the next few thousand years at least. But now our plans, actions, and environmentalism have to change.

A THIRD STAGE OF CLIMATE CHANGE

Previously, in my own ignorance, I suggested there are two major stages of climate change. In the first, human greenhouse gas emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels, create climate disruption, and then a hotter world. This is a process we hope can be changed, as coal goes bankrupt, and renewable energy becomes the main source of power. Or it might change because economically recoverable oil runs out. We are talking about the scale of human agency.

After that, very large natural systems, operating as positive feed-backs, kick in. For example, scientists know that once giant glaciers begin to retreat, in some parts of the world simple geography dictates nothing can stop them from melting into the sea. NASA says we are already at that point with the Totten Glacier in East Antarctica. Another example would be melting frozen methane from the sea bed, known as clathrates. When these big "natural" system kick-in, there may be little humans can do but run toward the mountains and the poles, trying to adapt, while killing off the fossil civilization that makes it worse and worse.

But now we see there is a third force. The small number of campaigners who work trying to save tropical forests have been trying to tell us for years. But they've always been a smaller party among the environmentalists and scientists who struggle to stop orgy of fossil fuel burning.

Now we have to open our minds to a horrible new truth. If humans continue to convert the gigantic biomass of tropical forests and peat bogs into carbon in the sky, it may not matter if you install solar panels on your home, or stop flying. The current crisis in Indonesia shows us that a less-developed country can create more greenhouse gases than the largest industrialized countries. Think about what that means.

One result is that environmental campaigners, and the public, have to quickly become global citizens, rather than nationalists. Let's admit it. Hardly anyone in the America's, and few in Europe, know anything about Indonesia. We don't need to know. Our societies are self-contained. We go to work, we hope to buy things, we have our family. Who cares?

HALF A MILLION HOSPITALIZED DUE TO SMOKE

I know some of you will be surprised to learn Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world. There are at least 250 million people spread out over thousands of volcanic islands, north of Australia, and south of the Philippines. Actually, the population is not spread out very much. In 2012, 141 million Indonesians lived on the single island of Java. That's the real center of the country, and of the culture. Periodically, the central government in Jakarta, on the island of Java, tries to pursuade more people to move out to the less populated islands, like Sumatra, or their part of Borneo, known as Kalimantan.

We'll hear about Kalimantan in our guest interviews. That's where dense and toxic smoke has covered everything for over 100 days. The Indonesian government considered an evacuation, but hasn't been able to mount it. Kids play in the smoke, while hospitals fill up with babies and the elderly.

That's another side of this disaster. At least a half million Indonesians have been hospitalized due to breathing difficulties and other health problems caused by the smoke. If the Indonesian economy managed to grow at all this year, all was lost due to the damages from these fires. Indonesians pay now and directly for this crisis. We will all pay, possibly for centuries, for the greenhouse gases released.

This isn't the only terrible climate news recently. Perhaps we'll have time to summarize more of it toward the end of the show. But as UK Guardian newspaper columnist George Monbiot wrote this week: the fires in Indonesia are "the greatest environmental disaster of the 21st Century (so far)".

Let's go to our guests. We'll start with the view from inside Indonesia, and then get an activist perspective.

FROM INDONESIA: TOP FORESTRY EXPERT DR. DANIEL MURDIYARSO

In Bogor Indonesia, I reached one of the top forestry scientists in the country. Dr. Daniel Murdiyarso is senior scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research, or CIFOR. He's led Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports. He has served as Deputy Minister of the Environment for the government of Indonesia.

Dr. Daniel Murdiyarso

Download or listen to my Radio Ecoshock interview (18 minutes) with Dr. Daniel Murdiyarso in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

THE FOUNDER OF MONGABAY: RHETT BULTER

When you want to know what's happening in the wild places of the tropics, you need to go to mongabay.com. Rhett Butler founded and ran that web site and news service starting in 1999. It's expanded a lot of places since then. That includes a mongabay project in the main Indonesian language - which may explain why Rhett gets those hard-to-find photos like illegal fires burning in an Indonesian National Park.

Rhett Butler

Western environmentalists focus on cutting tail pipe emissions and closing old coal plants. That's important, but we've just seen Indonesia skyrocket to almost the number one global source of greenhouse gases, surpassing the USA. The cause is not fossil fuels or industry. What does this tell us about the NEW need to protect tropical forests, not just to save exotic animals, but to save ourselves?

Download or listen to my 25 minute Radio Ecoshock interview with Rhett Butler in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

NEXT UP: THE ARCTIC PEAT

Here is yet another aspect of the Indonesian peat fire crisis. Despite the sky-high emissions coming out of the tropics right now, that could be just a preview for an ever bigger show. I'm talking about peat in the Arctic and sub-arctic.

The peat areas in the far north are even more vast than in Indonesia. Currently a huge portion of that is frozen all year round, in the permafrost. Just a few years ago, I listened to expert permafrost scientists at the convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Vancouver. They were a fringe study slowly being recognized as key to our future. You can listen to that whole Radio Ecoshock program, with talks by 3 prominent permafrost scientists, here. Or read my blog about it here.

Those scientists were not overly worried, thinking melting of the permafrost would take centuries, if not thousands of years. Now, we're not so sure about that. For example, scientists working in a tunnel in Alaska found that melting Arctic soil can lose half it's organic carbon in only seven days. About half of that carbon was grabbed by micro-organisms. The other half went into the atmosphere. In just one week upon thawing.

The study is titled "Ancient low–molecular-weight organic acids in permafrost fuel rapid carbon dioxide production upon thaw" with lead author Travis W. Drake, and published in September 2015 by PNAS, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Here is an easier to read summary of that science on Phys.org blog.

We know permafrost is melting all across Alaska, Canada, Scandinavia and Siberia. The study looked at a type of Arctic soil called "“yedoma” - formed about 35,000 years ago and kept in the deep freeze ever since. Scientists assumed yedoma was already degraded, but instead found it contains a lot of carbon. In fact, as Robert Scribbler reports, a significant methane pulse has already been detected from yedoma soils in Siberia.

Arctic peat bogs contain even more carbon. They are loaded with it. The largest permafrost peat bog is in Western Siberia. It's bigger than France and Germany combined, and it's been thawing for well over a decade. If these bogs stay wet, most of the emissions will be in the form of methane, the greenhouse gas at least 70 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.

If a climatic drought dries the Arctic peat, it will release carbon dioxide, pretty quickly, even without catching fire. The ancient plant material, frozen for over 10,000 years, will finally decompose into the atmosphere. Of course dryer peat is likely to catch fire, as fires in the rapidly warming Arctic have been rampant so far this century. When peat bogs bigger than most countries catch fire, thee is no one there to put them out, and now way to extinguish them if we tried. If and when this happens, it will be Indonesia on steroids.

HOW LONG BEFORE THIS NEW BURST OF CARBON HITS US?

Scientists have generally said there is about a 40 year time lag between a large injection of greenhouse gases and the start of real climate impacts. Dr. James Hansen and others published a paper which estimated about 60% of the effects of added greenhouse gases would kick in between 25 and 50 years. That is mainly because the ocean absorbed so much carbon, and then mixed it down to deeper levels.

Theoretically, about half the impacts of the Indonesian carbon burst of 2015 would appear around the year 2055. Thawing of Arctic peat would change the climate toward the end of this century. I have serious reservations about this estimate, and I think it's likely the timetables will have to be revisited.

First of all, there have been a series of papers in the past two years showing the climate is far more sensitive to even small temperature changes than previously thought. See here, here, here and a million other places.

Secondly, the oceans are already hotter than before. Some scientists wonder how much more carbon and heat they can absorb. The ocean sink may be ramping down, meaning climate impacts would come sooner. Everything is coming sooner.

I'm not a scientist, but my guess is we'll see the impacts from 2015 emissions as early as 2030. Even if I'm wrong, global emissions started to skyrocket around 1990. That means we'll find out what we've done around 2030. Right now, according to Hansen's estimates, were only feeling the impacts of oil, gas, and coal burning from the 1970's.

Just so you know, greenhouse gas emissions were 75% lower in the 1970's, compared to 2004. And look at the record storms, rainfall, droughts, and fires we've already got. When it comes to climate disruption, the worst is yet to come.

DISAPPEARING POLAR ICE: IF WE BURN IT ALL, WE LOSE IT ALL

Add into the lose/lose column: a scientist from the Potsdam Institute in Germany has calculated that if we burn all the fossil fuels, all the ice on Earth will disappear. An article in the New York Times September 11th 2015 quotes Ricarda Winkelmann saying "If we burn it all, we melt it all".

This piece in the ClimateCrocks blog has a whole bunch of videos with scientists on this question of how much it would take to melt all of Greenland and Antarctica.

There is an excellent radio special with short recent talks by Ricarda Winkelmann, produced by Maria Gilardin of TUC Radio in San Francisco. TUC stands for "Time of Useful Consciousness" and this program certainly is.

As an example, I play a clip explanation from Winkelmann on why the melting of Greenland is self-sustaining and unstoppable. In the end, she says on our current course, we are headed toward a world 5.8 degrees C hotter by the year 2100. That would threaten our survival on this planet, and certainly doom many ecosystems and species to extinction.

Ricarda also says the giant West Antarctic ice sheet is committed to melting, and the sub-sea based glaciers of East Antarctica are also going to go. We already know that Miami will go underwater, along with many other port cities around the world. Hear selections from Ricarda Winklemann at the conference "Our Common Future" on TUC Radio at tucradio.org.

I found this TUC program here at radio4all.net

Great work Maria.

MIDDLE EAST TO BECOME TOO HOT TO SURVIVE OUTSIDE

In fact, we learned last week that scientists predict by the end of this century parts of the Middle East will be too hot and humid for humans to be outside. Six hours outside, without air-conditioning, and you die. That's in a paper from Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Elfatih Eltahir and environmental scientist Jeremy Pal from Loyola Marymount University. The title is "Future temperature in southwest Asia projected to exceed a threshold for human adaptability", as published October 26, 2015 in the journal Nature Climate Change. Or read this story in Science Daily.

Other scientists on Radio Ecoshock told us a whole belt around the tropics, even into parts of the subtropics, will be too hot for humans to work outside. Whether it's fatal to simply be outside depends on a high humidity - because humans can only keep their organs cool enough when sweat can evaporate. Once the wet-bulb temperature, that combined measurement of heat and humidity reaches 35 degrees C, we humans, and most mammals, cannot live there.

Add in the known historical trend of bands of deserts circling the Earth during hothouse ages, and we know that humans will have to leave large parts of the Earth as uninhabitable. That's the game we're playing now, as we change the atmosphere.

WHEN INDONESIA BURNS, OUR FUTURE CATCHES FIRE

So when Indonesia catches fire, we all catch fire in the long run. The world is not an island of isolated events. When the big alarm clock goes off, anywhere in the world, we need to wake up, get up, and get to work making a future worth living in.

Please Tweet, Facebook, or share this program with as many people as you can. You can use tools found in my blog, or our soundcloud page, at soundcloud.com/radioecoshock.

I'm about to launch a funding appeal for Radio Ecoshock. The show piggy bank is getting low. And while listeners are covering the costs of the show for now, to be frank, I'm not sure how much longer I can keep working 40 hours a week to produce this thing, for nothing. That's right, I'm a volunteer who doesn't get paid. That was OK when I had a bigger income, but now I'm on a tiny pension. Things are getting tight. I sure could use your financial support, if you can afford it. Can you help? Please visit this page to see how.

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

A SELECTION OF LINKS TO THIS KEY STORY OF 2015

Washington Post on links between El Nino and Indonesia peat fires.

World Resources calculations of Indonesian carbon surpassing U.S. emissions.

Plans to evacuate children from worst smoke areas.

The economics of fire and "haze".

Greenpeace calls on Indonesia to adopt a fire action plan.

The connections between palm oil and these deadly fires.

Satellite photos of the smoke.

Mongabay calls on Indonesian President to act.

INDONESIA FIRE RESOURCES FROM CIFOR (Center for International Forestry Research)

What is in the smoke? Science looks at the toxic contents.

Fact file from CIFOR: ‘Clearing the Smoke: The Causes and Consequences of Indonesia’s Fires’

B-roll footage of fires and haze in and around Palangka Raya.

Video: ‘Where there’s smoke, there’s toxic gas’

DG’s Column: ‘Preventing fire and haze: sustainable solutions for Indonesian peatlands’.

Photo story: ‘Life amid the fires and haze of Central Kalimantan’

Permaculture, Climate & Survival

SUMMARY: From 15th Annual International Permaculture Convergence in London, September 9th, 2015: "Cool Talk" by Albert Bates from The Farm in Tennessee. Albert interviews Transition Towns founder Rob Hopkins. Australian permaculturalist Rosemary Morrow tells us Western permies are the minority, compared to East Asia, India, Africa, and the Pacific Islands.

WELCOME

If you don't know what permaculture is when we start, you will by the end of this intensive radio feature.

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

Or listen right now on Soundcloud!



ALBERT BATES

Albert Bates is the author of books like "The Biochar Solution: Carbon Farming and Climate Change" and "The Post-Petroleum Survival Guide and Cookbook: Recipes for Changing Times". He is the host of "The Great Change" blog at peaksurfer.blogspot.ca.

But that just touches the surface. Formerly an environmental lawyer, Bates is one of the long-time residents of the Tennessee intentional community "The Farm". That's where so many great alternative ideas and low-tech solutions are created. We last had Albert on Radio Ecoshock for an interview on January 29th, 2014. Find the blog for that show here. Or you can download or listen to that previous interview here.

Albert Bates

This time around, Albert contacted me with some great suggestions for a couple of programs on his passion, permaculture. There is a huge long video of a day-long series of talks on You tube (links at the bottom of this post), from the 15th Annual International Permaculture Convergence held in London on September 19th. Actually there were official presentations, by most of the leading names in permaculture, but also workshops, and meet-ups of all kinds. I'll be playing you a couple of the best talks.

Even better, Albert arranged to interview some hard-to-find permaculture folks, specifically for Radio Ecoshock. You'll hear him talk with Transition Town co-founder Rob Hopkins this week, and with more internationally known permaculture leaders next week.

Here is Albert Bates' own presentation in London (19 minutes). He calls it "cool talk" and he explains why "cool" works better than something like "carbon sequestration". It's all in our tribal memes. Anyway, you'll hear about "cool food" and other cool products - including biochar paint that can actually clean the air in your room, and cows that don't need antibiotics.

Here's the big, big news in my opinion. You know that almost everything we do creates carbon emissions, as we burn fossil fuels. Bates says there is a different way to burn... almost anything - and not create greenhouse gases. In fact, the "pyrolysis" method of burning (can be done in a cheap camp stove even) - grabs and stores carbon instead of releasing it. The "bio char" remainders can be used in many products, fed to cows, or just dumped in the ground - where it will hold on to the carbon for up to 1,000 years.

That means we could create a society where almost everything we do LOWERS the carbon in the atmosphere. The test workshops for that society are the "eco-villages" which Albert and other permaculturalists are building in many countries. Bates has a big carbon negative settlement in the works, in an undisclosed location, working with a national government.

It's possible we could lower carbon in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million, or even lower. There is a way. That's big. Huge.

So listen to this 19 minute talk from Albert, in CD Quality or Lo-Fi.

ALBERT INTERVIEWS TRANSITION TOWNS CO-FOUNDER ROB HOPKINS

Next Albert interviews Transition Towns founder Rob Hopkins for Radio Ecoshock. Rob Hopkins is the co-founder of the original Transition Town in Totnes, England, and central to the spread of these low-carbon, more self-reliant communities world-wide. I think there are transition towns in up to 100 countries now.

Albert is also a realist. Things look dark right now. There is a possibility of petro-collapse, as oil and gas dwindle and become uneconomical to get out of the ground. A "ponzi-collapse" is also lurking around the corner. The international trade and monetary system is being kept alive by swindles and money printing. It could collapse at any time. Of course, climate disruption is already upon us, and getting worse.

So Bates asks Rob Hopkins, and again his other guests next week, do they still have hope, and if so, why? I think Hopkins gives a good answer, to help all of us.

Rob Hopkins

Listen to or download this 13 minute interview of Rob Hopkins in CD Quality or Lo-Fi. And don't forget these interview links in the Radio Ecoshock blog are permanent. Go ahead and share them on Facebook, Tweet about them, or share them however you can. Even years later, these links will work, and these interviews will be important for many people.

A PERMACULTURE CONVERGENCE TALK FROM ROSEMARY MORROW

We wrap with another speech from the latest International Permaculture Convergence in London England last September. Rosemary Morrow started learning about permaculture in Australia in the early 1980's. She's founded branches in Cambodia, Vietnam, and many other places. This speech was recorded at the 15th Annual International Permaculture Convergence in London, September 9th, 2015.

Rosemary Morrow

If you are looking for inspiration, when things look bleak and impossible, this is the talk for you. People who have nothing, living in a war zone, or worse, have improved their lives and survival using permaculture. If they can do it, you can do it, says Rosemary.

Plus, nobody needs to wait for a university education in permaculture. Learn what you can, get a little training if you can, watch some You tube videos, and start trying. You can only improve the planet. I've lightly edited this talk for radio. Listen to or download this speech by Rosemary Morrow in CD Quality or Lo-Fi.

Follow Rosemary Morrow on Facebook here. Her two best-known books are "Earth User's Guide to Permaculture" (2nd Edition, 2010) and "Earth User's Guide to Teaching Permaculture" (2014).

You can watch the whole 9 hours of Day Two of the Convergence on You tube here. Or find a listing of various videos from this Convergence here.

My thanks to Albert Bates for his talk, interview, and guidance in assembling this program. We'll have more to come next week. I'm Alex. Help support Radio Ecoshock is you can. Thank you for tuning in.