Food Shock

Summary: British & American scientists, including Joshua Elliot from Chicago, warn climate could bring "food shock" by hitting key crop areas. Will famine return? Maria Gillardin hosts reports from nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen from Fukushima Japan, site of world's worst nuclear accident.

Don't say you haven't been warned.

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

Or listen on Soundcloud right now.



If you can support this radio show, I can use your help now. Radio Ecoshock is developing new graphics, a new web site, and blog plus podcast feed - which should make these important themes more widely available. Check out ways to support the show here.

JOSHUA ELLIOT AND FOOD SHOCK

What if extreme weather events, made stronger by climate change, hit a couple of major world food-growing regions? We go into "food shock". Let's explore what that can mean.

On February 12th, 2016 in Washington DC, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancment of Science, a group of British and American scientists provided their latest report on the fragility, and resilience of the global food system. We are joined by one of the presenters, Dr. Joshua Elliot, from the Computation Institute at the University of Chicago.

Dr. Joshua Elliot

You can find these reports at the Global Food Security blog, at foodsecurity.ac.uk. For example, here is the main report I used: "Extreme weather and resilience of the global food system" which comes as a handy .pdf file in your browser.

Try this blog entry on the program from Tim Benton.

And check out Tim Benton's blog post on UK food security here. I say that because (a) the UK government is a major sponsor of this study/report and (b) as Dr. Elliot tells us, the UK has only TEN DAYS worth of food supplies!

The long-time grain watcher Lester Brown warned for years that rice was within a half degree of it's upper growing limits already. What happens if the world rice zones become too hot for that crop? Joshua Elliot thinks the rice crop will be able to continue past heat limits, because it is generally underwater, which cools it.

This teleconference I recorded with Lester Brown, at the time head of the Earth Policy Institute is a good intro to his work, and continues to be heavily downloaded now 5 years later. Download full conference in CD quality (22 minutes) here.

Brown also warned that world grain stocks could only supply a few months of food at best. It appears we can't cover a whole year of bad crop losses. Should we be creating a long-term food reserve, as the ancient Egyptians did?

That turns out to be a very thorny idea. If there was a centralized food stock, maybe somone would use it to dictate political changes to a starving country? Anyway, most countries do not want to give up control of their own food sources. Remember when Russia experienced a huge crop loss in the heat wave of 2010, the Russians cut off food exports to make sure they could feed their own people. That was one driving factor in the "Arab Spring" revolts in Tunisia and Egypt, both of which import large amounts of grain, which is subsidized for the poor. When prices went up, the patience of the people went down.

So an international food bank seems unlikely at this time.

I AM NOT OPTIMISTIC ABOUT WORLD FOOD SUPPLIES

Unlike my guest, I am not a techno-optimist about our coming food supply. Just in: a new report says 75% of world crops depend on pollination. Yet 40% of pollinators like bees and butterlies are threatened by "total extinction". Bat and bird pollinators are also disappearing.

That is just one driver, not counting heat beyond crop limits, extreme weather events including floods and droughts, human encroachement on nature everywhere, expanding human population, the list goes on and on. Personally, I expect to witness mass famine again in my lifetime, as seen in the 1960's in China in 1959, and Ethiopia in 1984, but hitting more countries. Even in developed countries, it seems likely food will become a much larger part of our budget, and at times difficult to afford for millions.

I have food insurance in buckets in the basement which will last at least 30 years. We grow more of our own food every year. We are plugged into a network of local food producers and community gardens.

In the interview, Joshua Elliot mentioned the United Kingdom has a scant 10 days of food provisions. If the ships and planes stop for any reason, the country is in danger. Food backups in all countries have dropped dangerously low, just at a time of growing threats to agriculture as usual. I say: don't take food for granted.

FUKUSHIMA NUCLEAR DISASTER - STILL DEVELOPING - ARNIE GUNDERSEN

We're coming to the fifth year after the start of the world's biggest nuclear disaster. In March 2011, three reactors at the sea-side complex at Fukushima blew up. I covered it extensively on Radio Ecoshock, and one of my best sources has been nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Energy Education. Find my 2014 blog summary of continuing Fukushima threats here, and you can listen to or download that feature interview with Arnie here.

Nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen

Now Arnie is back in Japan, checking out the radiation, the impacts, the human costs, and efforts by the operator TEPCO to stem continuing radiation running into the Pacific Ocean. His first telephone reports have been compiled by a hard-working California radio producer, Maria Gillardin. She hosts TUC Radio. Previously Maria was a leading producer at KPFA Radio in Berkeley, and was founding producer of the public affairs program "Making Contact".

Radio Producer Maria Gilardin

TUC Radio stands for "Time of Useful Consciousness". Be sure to support Maria as an independent radio maker, at tucradio.org. You can find still more telephone reports from Fukushima by Arnie Gundersen at fairewinds.org.

Remember, the nuclear accident at Fukushima was not an event in history. Even now, five years later, this horrible outpouring of radiation continues.

It took four years for the government of Japan to admit that ALL the plutonium-laced nuclear materials in Reactor Three were blown into the air in the first days. That went to Japan, to the Pacific Ocean, and around the world in the stratosphere.

As Arnie tells us in detail, the human health impacts of the Fukushima disaster are still not widely known, and still covered up by the Japanese government. It's proving impossible to handle all the radioactive materials. Look for the government to start incinerating even more, which just means dumping dangerous radioactive particles over a wider area.

Every day a throng of workers try to find more space to store still more highly radioactive water. Every day they fail, and some drains into the Pacific Ocean. We have no idea how this will end, or if it will ever end in this century, or the next. A nuclear melt-down is forever in human terms, and this was three melt-downs.

As Helen Caldicott wrote in her book, nuclear power is not the answer to global warming or anything else.

I'm Alex Smith. Thank you for listening, and caring what happens to this planet.

MICRO-SECRETS AND MACRO-SECRETS

Microbiologist Dr. Yuri Gorbi warns fracking brings up buried life forms. Film-maker Kip Anderson's "Cowspiracy" asks why big green groups are afraid to tackle the biggest single cause of global warming: the meat industry. Radio Ecoshock 150528

WELCOME TO THE SUDDENLY POPULAR RADIO ECOSHOCK BLOG!

I used to get 2,000 views a week reading this blog. While I wasn't paying attention, that shot up over the past month to about 10,000 views a week! Almost 40,000 views this past month. This is getting to be like a small newspaper audience. My thanks to all those who Tweet and Facebook about this blog, passing the word out. It's working.

Probably the other reason my blog readership of growing is more people realize climate change is really happening. It's possible I've broadcast more climate science than any other show on the planet. Certainly, Radio Ecoshock is right up there as one of the largest green radio shows anywhere.

THIS WEEK, MORE SHOCKING NEWS

Welcome to another shocking show about the state of nature and the world. For those paying attention, my two guests on this program should blow your mind.

We discover another whole side to the fracking debate, with Dr. Yuri Gorby. He's a microbiologist with a specialty in life deep underground. Gorby tells us fracking is dredging up organisms encased in the earth for the past hundreds of millions of years. Some of them have the potential to change chemistry and life on the surface in ways as yet unknown. It's sounds like sci fi, but it's truth-fi - and that's just the start, as we explore the tiny world, including toxic rain.

Then we introduce a film that dares to question the whole green movement, and your preconceptions about climate change. Maybe we should protest less about the Keystone Pipeline and Arctic drilling, and more about what's on our dinner plate? Does our vast herd of meat slaves cause more greenhouse gases than our cars, boats, trains, and planes combined? A few small voices, often silenced by laws suits and government harassment, say we have to save the world by changing what we eat. Are you brave enough to hear the awful truth?

Download/listen to this Radio Ecoshock show (1 hour) in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

Or listen on SoundCloud right now.



YURI GORBY - FRACKING THE UNDERWORLD

Fracking is the wonder-child of the energy industry these days. It's the miracle recovery tool promised by many national governments. One of the early people to question fracking was Dr. Robert Howarth of Cornell University. He came under intense pressure, including criticism from other faculty there. Then EPA studies showed he was absolutely correct about methane leaking out of the natural gas system.

Why is fracking a long-term threat? Why is underground water so polluted? Is rainwater safe to drink anymore? All of this and more - as we meet a remarkable mind in Dr. Yuri Gorby.

He's an expert in geo-microbiology - the organisms that live underground, often deep underground. He's the Howard N. Blitman Professor of Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. Gorby worked for 15 years at the Hanford Nuclear site, studying micro-organisms that can "breath" radioactive materials just as we breath oxygen. He then spent 5 years at the iconic J. Craig Venter Institute.

Dr. Gorby has studied ways of using bacteria to remediate contaminated water, as a possible source of alternative energy, and the ways microbes can cause corrosion. All of that comes to bear in the important issues Yuri Gorby raises. He surprised me. He may challenge your confidence in the environment around us.

Yuri Gorby studied microbial life in geologic deposits. I wonder if that underground network nobody sees, and few know about, be affected by this new wave of toxic chemicals arriving from the surface? What could happen to those life forms, and would it matter to us?

Yuri Gorby, from this Radio Ecoshock interview:

"My interest in ... hyrdaulic fracturing really came from these organisms that we were working with in the deep subsurface - organisms that might impact the migration of things like uranium and technisium in contaminated groundwater. I saw that there was something happening back in my home state of West Virginia that I just thought that I could help contribute to.

....There was something traumatic happening in the sub-surface. The insults that we see to those deep formations and the amount of fluids that are used and the types of chemicals that we suspected are being used, and now are coming back up out of those formations. For me it was just unbelievable that it was happening in these very sensitive ecosystems where I grew up.

I mean I worked out in the semi-arid area of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation for those 15 years, and there was problems out there with nuclear materials and uranium moving in the groundwater. But nothing of the magnitude of what I saw happening in West Virginia. And I have to say over the last few years the magnitude of that problem has increased and the serious ecological and health impacts are manifesting in front of our eyes."

THE HYDROGEN SULPHIDE THREAT FROM FRACKING - DRAGGING UP THE METHANE MAKERS

Another quote from this Gorby interview:

"Now the shale formations that we are currently drilling into in West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio are 350 million year-old formations. We may think that they are devoid of life but in fact they are teeming with life. There are some efforts now to characterize that life. But some of that life can actually do some pretty damaging things to overlying strata if they are brought up from those depths in large volumes.

One of them being the sulphate-reducing bacteria generating hydrogen sulphide, and tremendous amounts of hydrogen sulphide forever - from these deep formations that are now communicating with the overlying strata. Those are like putting little sulphur burners in our water supplies and generating, if and when those sulphides reach our water resources, will generate hydrogen sulphide, and the sulphuric acid as it starts to de-oxidize and be transformed by bacteria.

These are things we have to take seriously because I don't think those that are driven by removing or extracting wealth from those materials - are motivated more by their ability to do so and the profits and the economic growth that it will yield. But they are not considering the long-term implications, or the long and short-term implications, of stimulating those microbial populations, and then allowing those microbial populations to be stimulated forever."

Nothing to worry about? I remind Radio Ecoshock listeners of the research by Dr. Peter Ward at Washington State University. In his book "Under A Green Sky" (still an excellent read) - Ward expounded his theory that a switch to hydrogen sulphide producing organisms in the ocean were responsible for wiping out about 90% of all life on both land and oceans millions of years ago. It's still one of the best explanations for a mass extinction event that lasted for at least 10 million years.

Try this Radio Ecoshock You tube version of my previous 8 minute interview with Peter Ward about rising seas.

Here is my classic radio interview with Dr. Peter Ward, where he explains the role of sulfide-producing bacteria killing off life.

Lo-Fi 6 MB 26 min

And now we are bringing up swarms of those very same micro-organisms from ancient sea beds being drilled under the Marcellus Shale and other shale-beds in America. Nobody has thought this through, and nobody by Dr. Gorby has raised this problem with fracking.

ATMOSPHERIC POLLUTION AND TOXIC RAIN

Gorby and I have a wide-ranging interview. For example, he explains how micro-organisms can set up electronic nano-chains which cause the well casing of fracking operations to deteriorate relatively rapidly. These are the pipes which are supposed to protect groundwater from fracking pollution.

There is also a lot of air pollution from fracking, and that moves over heavily populated areas, causing health problems. It also falls as "toxic rain" into drinking water rivers, lakes, reservoirs and ecosystems. For example, when some West Virginians lost their drinking water supply due to a massive industrial accident, they turned to collecting rainwater. That's not a good idea says Yuri Gorby, as that rainwater is also laden with toxic chemicals.

In fact, Gory says we now have "chemical rain" in many parts of the world. Nobody is testing that rainwater. Yuri is proposing a citizen scientist project where people collect rainwater in a scientifically sound way, and send in samples to a central testing site. Let's find out what is really falling from the sky!

Yuri suggests we check out Dr. David Brown from Southwestern Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project. Search for "How's the Weather" on their site to find out the big role of weather on air quality. He also agrees people in cities should probably shelter in place by running HEPA quality air cleaners inside their homes. Folks who live in shale-drilling areas may really need to wear masks outdoors to prevent entry to their lungs by damaging silica particles used in fracking.

There's plenty more about air pollution and your lungs in past Radio Ecoshock shows, including my 2008 special Highway to Hell, How Smog Kills.

MORE LEAKS FROM FRACKING AND PIPELINES INEVITABLE

Gorby also reveals the flaws in the crazy mess of pipes heading away from fracking sites. Unlike the larger collection pipes, these temporary networks are not really regulated or inspected. Leaks of very toxic materials is a given, putting people living nearby in needless danger. Even the large pipes are carrying enough abrasive materials, including silica used in drilling, that more spectacular and damaging leaks is just a given. They will continue to happen.

Oh, and this nuclear materials expert points out the same ancient sea beds that are being drilled as shale accumulated uranium big-time. That comes up and re-enters our ecosystems and drinking water at the surface. Some fracking waste is really radioactive waste. It often gets dumped in land-fills. Nobody talks about this.

Yuri Gorby adds that his concerns are his own as a person and a scientist, and not an official statement by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

There's a lot more in the interview, and it all leads to the health of your body, and the survival of our ecosystems.

Download/listen to this 32 minute feature interview with Yuri Gorby here in CD Quality or Lo-Fi.

Or listen right now on SoundCloud



COWSPIRACY - KIP ANDERSON

What is the single biggest cause of global warming, water depletion, deforestation, species extinction and ocean dead zones? If you answered over-population of the planet by humans, you are only slightly right. It's over-population, yes, but the problem species is cows.

That's according to a new and daring documentary film by the team of Kip Anderson and Keegan Kuhn. They call it "Cowspiracy" and we're going to find out why.

We already know it's common for industry hacks to write the laws that are passed, without even being read, by our elected repesentatives. There's plenty of proof that's true, it's common knowldege inside the Beltway. Do you think that's how people who object to our abuse of animals ended up being lumped in with Al Queda as terrorists?

I suppose the best-known story about being sued for talking about the nastiness behind hamburgers and red meat has to be the Texas cattlemen suing Oprah Winfrey. She won that case, but she has a billion dollars for lawyers if need be. I'll be you don't. How do you protect against legal SLAP suits?

This "Cowspiracy" film was funded partly by an Indiegogo campaign. It had another major non-profit sponsor, but they pulled out during the project, saying it was too controversial. The first filming was done in secret, before announcing the film, to get the hard-to-get footage they wanted.

The film is also about the failure of mainstream environmental groups to face up to the huge role of livestock in climate change. You can read this acidic commentary on the failure of big green groups here in this article by co-producer Keegan Kuhn.

As a person who worked for a large environmental organization, it's true they have to work on issues their members support. Otherwise they collapse. So maybe the real problem isn't the green groups, but a public that doesn't want to hear about the damage their diets cause. Maybe it's us.

But I totally agree with Kuhn and Anderson that we can't hope to limit climate damage without addressing the livestock industry and the whole issue of eating meat. Should we risk extinction of other species, and maybe ourselves, because we don't want to take on a controversial subject? Will we die of timidity and being polite?

Keegan Kuhn's web site is at First Spark Media.

Kip Anderson's web place is here at Animals United Movement.

You can educate yourself, and the public, at cowspiracy.com.

Download/listen to this 20 minute Radio Ecoshock interview in CD Quality or Lo-Fi, or listen to it here on SoundCloud.

MORE ON "LIVESTOCK'S LONG SHADOW"

I want to add just a couple of notes about that interview with Kip Anderson.

During the interview, Kip mis-spoke about the amount of the Amazon destroyed, saying 91% of that great rainforest was destroyed for animal pasture. What he meant was 91% of the land deforested since 1970 was for livestock. Only 20% of the Amazon rainforest has been destroyed. "Only"!!

The 2006 FAO report "Livestock's Long Shadow" found the livestock sector was responsible for 18 percent of human-made climate emissions, far more than all cars, boats, planes and trains combined. Livestock produces even more of the most powerful greenhouse gases, like 37 percent of methane and 65 percent of nitrous oxide, which is 296 times more damaging than simple CO2.

The World Watch Study "Livestock and Climate Change" added up all the emissions of the meat industry, cradle to grave, and concluded a stunning 51% of our greenhouse gases are attributable to that industry. Wow! They say, quote:

"If this argument is right, it implies that replacing livestock products with better alternatives would be the best strategy for reversing climate change. In fact, this approach would have far more rapid effects on GHG emissions and their atmospheric concentrations - and thus on the rate the climate is warming - than actions to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy."

Chew on that. We'd rather die, or sentence future generations to die, than stop eating meat. It's even worse than our addiction to fossil electricity or driving around. It drives co-producer Keegan Kuhn nuts that big environmental groups don't even want to talk about it.

Meanwhile, Cowspiracy is trending into from a movie to a movement. Check it out.

WRAP IT UP

I hope you caught last week's show about Antarctic glaciers melting. It's huge. We now know that over the next century or two, most of the world's coastal cities will flood, starting now. NASA says that process is now unstoppable.

Studies on Antarctica melting and sea level rise are just pouring out of science right now. In just one example, an international team partly funded by the National Science Foundation discovered that during the most recent big melt of Antarctica (within human times) "the sea level on a global basis rose about 50 feet in just 350 years – or about 20 times faster than sea level rise over the last century." That's very fast, and it could happen to us.

That study was published this week in the journal Nature. It was conducted by researchers at University of Cologne, Oregon State University, the Alfred-Wegener-Institute, University of Hawaii at Manoa, University of Lapland, University of New South Wales, and University of Bonn.

Get my program on Antarctica melting from this blog , from our web site at ecoshock.org and from our new Soundcloud page. Just search for Radio Ecoshock on Sound cloud. In just the first three weeks, thousands have tuned in there for recent shows.

Meanwhile, make sure you help your local non-profit community or college radio station keep going. It's one of the last free places on the air waves, or in any media. Call them or Google the station web page to find out how to support commercial free, and corporate free radio.

We'll go out with a quick sample of how the free Radio Ecoshock climate quotes can be woven into a new and necessary genre of sound: climate music. Write me, or contact me through the web site, to get details on how you can download the package of quotes, and make your own climate music, podcast, or climate microphone on social media.

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

Ugly Times for Ugly Mines

Welcome to Radio Ecoshock. I'm your reporter, Alex Smith. Later in this program we will tackle a serious world-wide problem seldom discussed: the toxic and harsh environmental impacts of mining. We have a case study from the United States, the Polymet mine proposed for Northern Minnesota.

Our environmental correspondent Gerri Williams has been on the job, with original interviews from activists - local people really - trying to protect nature from yet another hack-job.

This isn't a story about Minnesota or even America. Giant mines are operating or being developed all over the world, to feed our consumer desires. They spew pollution, carve into wilderness, and leave behind heavy metal leaching into rivers and lakes for hundreds of years. It's Canada, Australia, Africa, Asia, and all the European companies carving giant holes into the crust of the Earth.

Before we get there, I need to alert you to yet another disgusting development coming from the world nuclear Mafia. It's a general go-ahead to dump hundreds of thousands of tons of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean. Incredibly, everyone from the American head of the NRC, to the International Energy Agency, and Japanese authorities are giving a green light to empty those thousands of radioactive tanks at Fukushima right into the Pacific ocean.

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

DUMPING FUKUSHIMA RAD WATER INTO THE PACIFIC

Who gives anyone permission to make the seas more radioactive? Why can't the country that used dangerous nuclear power keep the inevitable mess to themselves? Let's dig in deeper to recent developments at the triple-melt down that is the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe.

It's hardly worth mentioning this site has set a new all-time record for radioactive pollution.

From Arirang Korea TV News, December 2nd, 2013:

"Now media in Japan on this Tuesday are reporting that the level of radiation detected in an observation at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has soared to an all-time high. Prime operator TEPCO said that 1.1 million becquerels of Beta ray emitting radioactive had been detected per litre in water samples taken on November 28th.

The figure is 36,000 times higher than the normal level of 30 becquerels per litre, and is more than the previous record high 910,000 becquerels per litre detected on November 26th."

And people try to tell you this accident is over.

According to the nuclear industry, 1 million becquerels of radiation is equal to 1 kilogram of what they call low-level radioactive waste - here found in every single litre of water.

RADIOACTIVE WATER TANKS AT FUKUSHIMA CANNOT LAST

Water is now a huge issue at Fukushima Daiichi. Estimates of the amount of highly radioactive water being pumped each day are hard to get, or vary widely. The consensus seems to be about 600 tons a day needs to be stored, perhaps 300 tons being pumped into the ground buildings trying to cool the escaped hot reactor cores, and another 300 tons of ground water flowing down that hill into the site, and mixing with those cores. See these estimates in the Guardian newspaper for example.

Those numbers are too round and neat to be real, but they give you an idea.

All that is being pumped through a maze of make-shift hoses into over 1,000 tanks on the site. These tanks, we know from mainstream news reports, were shoddily made, bolted together without welding, by inexperienced workers dragged in from all over Japan.

On December 5th, Reuters reported the workers were brought in illegally, at time recruited by the Japanese gangs. Workers admit they assembled tanks in weather that did not permit proper sealing. There have been regular leaks of highly radioactive water from these tanks. The Japanese admit up to 300 tons a day of water is escaping already into the Pacific, a continual source of serious radioactivity.

The tanks were a make-do solution. They are only designed to last until 2016. A new report from the Japanese Ministry of Industry says the Fukushima site will run out of room to store radioactive water within two years.

What to do? Just dump it in the ocean! Here is the alarming news: a chorus of nuclear authorities inside and outside Japan are preparing you to accept this horrible plan. Here is a short list of "dump it all" boosters, as reported in Washington's blog:

"Juan Carlos Lentijo, head of IAEA’s mission to Fukushima Daiichi, Dec. 4, 2013:

'Controlled discharge is a regular practice in all the nuclear facilities in the world. And what we are trying to say here is to consider this as one of the options to contribute to a good balance of risks and to stabilize the facility for the long term.'

Shunichi Tanaka, chairman of Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority, Dec. 4, 2013:

'You cannot keep storing the water forever. We have to make choice comparing all risks involved.'"

The chair of the American Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Allison MacFarlane was in Japan on December 6th, when she said, at a press conference at the American Embassy, that the International Agency for Atomic Energy's recommendation to dump radioactive water into the Pacific was "appropriate".

Still not convinced they are all in on this? Listen to this brief clip from ABC Australia back on November 20th, under the headline "TEPCO clean-up boss says Fukushima's radioactive water will be dumped into Pacific Ocean" as reported by ABC's North Asia correspondent Mark Willacy.

Willacy: "He's the former chief watchdog in the United States. Now Dale Klein is overseeing TEPCO's efforts to stabilize and clean up the shattering Fukushima nuclear plant.

Klein: 'I think the best word to use with Fukushima is challenging.'

Willacy: Challenging on many fronts, but particularly when it comes to dealing with the growing volume of contaminated water stored at the plant. Dale Klein believes that after the water is treated and stripped of most radioactive elements, it's be safe to dump into the Pacific.

Klein: 'If at the end of the day, when the water is discharged, it will be released in a way when it is diluted so there is no risk to the public health and safety. But it is an emotional issue.'

Willacy: But it's not just contaminated water causing problems at Fukushima. Hastily and shoddily built systems at the nuclear plant have also triggered some anxious moments."

So, TEPCO and/or the Japanese government will decide when it is "safe" to dump their giant cache of nuclear tainted water into the Pacific. The rest of us will have to take their word for that safety - from a government and utility now famous for either lying or withholding the truth for long periods of time.

It's easy to picture the site running out of storage, and a "necessary" decision being made unilaterally by Japan to start dumping the still-radioactive water into the Pacific. Will they even tell us when it starts? Has it started already? With the new Japanese law against revealing any "secrets" denominated by the state, we may never know.

In the interest of truth, all these authorities say the water must first be cleaned up of major radioactive particles like plutonium and uranium. They realize Cesium will still be dumped into the Pacific, plus large amounts of Tritium. They always say Tritium is perfectly natural, go ahead and brush your teeth with it, but that's not at all true.

Then they blatantly say that all operating nuclear plants leak Tritium daily, which you seldom hear. Now they tell you, - to bless dumping Fukushima's problem into our common ocean.

The authorities act as though the technology to "clean up" this water is working. The filter machine on site, known as ALPS breaks down often, including this past December 1st. It has seldom if ever run at its stated capacity. Even if it could, ALPS does not remove Tritium, and has a backlog in those tanks of several years worth. Remember, the tanks will be full by 2016, and weren't designed to last beyond that.

There is some resistance. On November 7th, a consortium of anti-nuclear groups presented a petition of more than 150,000 signatures to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, demanding a global takeover of the Fukushima disaster, for the protection of all. A Japanese group has another petition calling for a strict government policy against contaminating the Pacific with Fukushima radiation. Contact nukefree.org for more information on what you can do.

Bottom line: do you accept that hundreds of thousands of tons, perhaps soon to be millions of tons, of highly radioactive Fukushima water will be dumped into the Pacific Ocean? If that's not OK with you, time is limited.

Contact your government, reach out to your local public, let's stop this next nuclear disaster from happening. The Pacific Ocean is not anyone's nuclear dumping ground. Heaven help the species who live there, and all of the people of the world is we sleep-walk through this awful plan.

I'm Alex Smith. This is Radio Ecoshock.

POLLUTING AMERICA FOR CHINA'S COPPER

Environmental Lawyer Paula Maccabee

Next we turn to our guest host for this week's show. Gerri Williams. Our fearless D.C. Correspondent moved up near Lake Superior. Sure enough, she's right in the thick of it there, in the battle to help save that Northern wilderness from a really ugly mine by the Polymet Corporation.

In our first interview, Gerri interviews Paula Maccabee, representing waterlegacy.org. They are battling a copper-sulfide mine by the Polymet Corporation, proposed for an ecologically sensitive area in Northern Minnesota, USA.

We learn that this foreign-owned corporation will export all the Minnesota copper mine benefits to China, leaving the pollution for Americans. Tracing ownership of Polymet's parent Glencore/Xtrata, or it's many overseas subsidiaries is difficult. Parts of the merger of Xtrata and Glencore were negotiated with, and required the approval, of the government of China.

Officially, Glencore is listed as an Anglo-Swiss company trading on the London Metals Exchange. The largest single shareholder is reputedly Glencore Chief Executive Officer Ivan Glasenberg. But I don't really know whwho controls the company.

After the $30 billion dollar merger with Xtrata, the new company is the fourth largest mining corporation in the world. This combined company has sales larger than the budget of the whole state of Minnesota.

CLIMATE WRECKERS AT WORK

Glencore Xtrata are also climate-wreckers. Before the merger, Xtrata bought the Australian and South African coal mines previously owned by Glencore. In fact, Glencore/Xtrada is the single largest exporter of coal for power generation in the world. Number one climate wrecker! Ten percent of all coal shipped on the high seas comes from Glencore/Xtrata mines.

Glencorextrata also owns the giant copper-lead, zinc mine called Falconbridge in Sudbury Ontario, plus mines in Peru, the Dominican Republic. It has tentacles all over the world. During the first 8 years of mine operation in Minnesota, we are told all the copper will go to China.

Maccabee, an experienced public interest lawyer, tells us of a study that found despite environmental assurances, 9 out of 10 mining companies leave pollution behind them. In this case, unlike the desert environments where many copper mines operate, the tender wetlands of Minnesota will be polluted for centuries.

Coppper-sulfide mines have a history of leaving behind mercury contamination as well. Paula also tells us the Native American people, including their famous wild rice harvest, are at risk.

In reality, recycling copper uses 10% of the energy of new mining. We have lots of the stuff already above ground, but don't recapture enough of it.

BUSTING THE AMERICAN MINING INDUSTRY

Then it's Bill Carter, author of "Boom, Bust, Boom", the story of world copper mining. Bill is originally from California, and is an award-winning documentary film maker.

We start from the humble former copper town of Bisbee Arizona (where Radio Ecoshock is broadcast on KBRP!) through Alaska, and around the world. It all began when Bill tried to plant a garden in Bisbee, and found the soil had been wrecked for generations by a copper mine. There was no technology to fix soil poisoned by heavy metals.

Copper itself is poisonous to fish. And these mines, as Carter explains, leave behind other heavy metals that are toxic for thousands of years.

Bill and Gerri talk about the Pebble Mine in Alaska, about 300 miles West of Anchorage, in rugged country. It's right near Lake Iliamna, Alaska's largest lake, and the birthing grounds of half of the world's stock of sockeye salmon. Only 14 miles of soggy Tundra separate Pebble Mine from this lake.

Eventually the open pit holes can fill back up with water, like the Berkeley Pit mine near Butte Montana, which is now highly toxic.

Find out more about Bill Carter at his web site.

As I said at the start, there are mine battles all over. Here's shout out to my friends in British Columbia who have so far held off the Fish Lake Mine. And those in Australia trying to kill off the gigantic climate-wrecking Alpha coal mine.

OUT OF TIME

Out of time again, for another week. Keep listening to Radio Ecoshock at www.ecoshock.org. I'm Alex Smith.

Please support this program if you can. Thank you for listening, and let's check in again next week, when I talk over the violent and unusual weather, plus Arctic methane, with climate scientist Paul Beckwith. Dr. Richard Feely from NOAA will also be our guest, as we look into the alarming rise of ocean acidification.

We're heading out with more music from northern Minnesota, from a group of artists called the Arrowhead Story.

Is This Peak History?

A joint study between the University of Maryland and a Barcelona University digs deep into our energy future. From Berlin, guest Christian Kerschner. Janaia Donaldson of Peak Moment TV interviews Alex Smith. Radio Ecoshock 131106 1 hour.

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

Peak oil. It isn't what you think, and it hasn't gone away. From Berlin, I interview Christian Kerschner about a new European-American energy depletion study.

But what is Radio Ecoshock all about? Find out as Janaia Donaldson of Peak Moment TV interviews me - and of course I'll take my turn, asking Janaia why we are all living in the "peak moment" of human history.

In this interview I summarize the historic threats posed by climate change and Fukushima - all based on the scientists and experts I've interviewed.

I'm Alex Smith. Welcome to Radio Ecoshock.

JOINT AMERICICAN-EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY STUDY OF PEAK OIL

Dr. Christian Kerschner, University of Barcelona

Has Peak Oil been blown away by shale, tar sands and fracking? What industries are already in trouble with today's high oil prices? A joint study between the University of Maryland and a Barcelona University digs deep into our energy future.

Our guest is Christian Kerschner. He's with the Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals, from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. We reached him in Berlin.

Download or listen to this 18 minute interview with Christian Kerschner in CD Quality only.

ECONOMIC VULNERABILITY TO PEAK OIL

The project called is "Economic Vulnerability to Peak Oil."

A key graphic accompanies this paper in the journal Global Environmental Change. It is the "vulnerability map" - demonstrating which sectors are most vulnerable to high energy prices or shortage, and even more important, their role in the overall economy.

For example, the actual plastics plants do not rank high in their contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of any country. But think about it. Almost everything uses plastic somewhere in its construction. If plastic becomes more and more expensive, the cost of everything you buy goes up. If shortages of plastic develop, even for short periods, there could be giant impacts on the economy and our lives.

I expect some investment firms will look closely at these findings. For example, a pension fund may not want to buy thirty-year bonds in airlines or chemical plants. But guest Christian Kerschner disagrees. He thinks a much-needed function, like chemical production, may simply draw more resources from the overall budget, causing the collapse of other industries, not the chemical plants.

Think of giving up luxury products to buy the necessities. Makers of luxury products fail, not the chemical industry itself. This is just one example from many examined in the study.

Christian Kerschner has a lot to offer. Unlike many peak oil pundits, he's studied and graduated looking at alternative economics. In addition to Peak Oil and resource scarcity, Kerschner also studied and published about steady-state economics.

I think an economy which survives its own carbon use will have to be much smaller. In our interview Christian agrees.

In this paper, I was intrigued by the concept that energy flows may be limited simply by available technology. That imply that no matter how much money we throw at developing fossil fuels, we still hit a ceiling, a point where the return on investment is too low to continue. That's different than saying there is no further oil or gas out there.

Christian Kerschner is an ecological economist from the Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals, at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Co-authors of this paper include Christina Prellb, Kuishuang Fengc, and Klaus Hubacekc, from the University of Maryland.

I think this joint-university work, bridging the Atlantic, is a milestone for the study of Peak Oil, and resources generally. Here is a link to the informative press release, plus the paper abstract complete with the all-important graphics in an easier to see format are further down on that abstract page.

ALEX SMITH MEETS JANAIA DONALDSON, ON PEAK MOMENT TV

Janaia Donaldson, host of Peak Moment TV

Peak Moment TV has been going since 2006. Host Janaia Donaldson and producer Robin Mallgren travel around the West Coast of North America, looking for issues and solutions. Find out more here.

The program was inspired by the problems of Peak Oil - but expanded into a range of issues, including energy, resource shortages, and the environment. This program looks intently for people who offer solutions.

Judging by their backlog of worthwhile programs on the Net, this dynamic duo found the people you want to hear from most. Shows cover things like local currency, small-scale food production, alternative energy for the rest of us, and much more.

It was an honor to be invited. Janaia offered me the challenge to outline the dual mega-problems of climate change and the nuclear meltdowns at Fukushima, Japan.

That's a big menu. I did my best to summarize what my guests have taught me - and our Radio Ecoshock listeners. We looked at the sudden arrival of climate symptoms, like the melting Arctic and super-storms - decades before they were expected by mainstream scientists. I explained the vanguard of climate scientists as I've found them.

We also discuss the impact of climate change on the economy, especially our total dependence on the flow of money from fossil fuel exploration and production. If we are to survive, we need to escape that addiction.

Then it's on to Fukushima, where nuclear experts like Arnie Gunderson, and activists like Helen Caldicott, have schooled me well. I've also studied English-language blogs from Japan, Japanese media, and American activists.

Adding it up: Fukushima is out of control. If you think my fears for threats there are too extreme, watch this short video clip of esteemed Canadian geneticist and broadcaster Dr. David Suzuki, recorded from a panel discussion at the University of Alberta on October 30th.

Going even further with my concerns of a building Four collapse at Fukushima, Suzuki says such an event means Japan is "toast". And - the West Coast of North America might have to be evacuated, due to an unprecedented release of radiation.

In this Peak Moment interview, I explain why.

For what it's worth, last month I moved out of Vancouver, two mountain ranges to the East and inland. Fear of Fukushima was not our primary motivation to leave, but it was on my mind. Frankly, we just don't know how this nuclear mega-threat will turn out, do we?

For more, listen to the interview, and our past Radio Ecoshock shows on Fukushima. I've never stopped covering it. The accident will not be "over" in our lifetimes.

WHAT IS PEAK MOMENT?

Following our lengthy TV interview, I ask Janaia Donaldson about her program. She suggests we are at an essential moment in human history, and the history of the planet. I would interpret this to mean our direction now could determine success or human extinction. This is a critical time.

It turns out that Peak Moment TV is still broadcast on community access television in the United States and other countries - but the larger and developing audience is on the Internet. Programs from 7 years ago, like "Suburban Renewal - One Backyard at a Time" have over 35,000 views. And there are over 250 shows available - all free!

I totally recommend this program. Like me, in these show I think you'll find ideas for your future, for a sustainable and enjoyable future. You will meet and explore with inspiring folks who looked for answers, and found solutions.

Here is the Peak Moment TV channel on You tube. This is the Peak Moment TV web site.

You can download or listen to my appearance on Peak Moment TV, as an audio file, here in CD Quality or Lo-Fi. The audio is courtesy of Robin Mallgren. I'm hoping you can use this interview to educate others coming into these issues. Please spread these links far and wide.

Find Janaia Donaldson as a Radio Ecoshock guest (8 minutes) here in CD Quality or Lo-Fi.

The Alex Smith interview will be released as a video later this month.

Thank you Janaia and Robin for everything you do!

COMING UP:

Next week we'll visit the best of the Chicago Great Lakes Bioneers conference. You think only the Russian persecute green activists who speak out? Stay tuned, as America goes after it's own conscience - just as we head into the insanity of another "holiday" season of senseless mass consumption and planetary destruction.

Support Radio Ecoshock if you can, at the web site, ecoshock.org. And grab free mp3s of all our past programs. If you search "Radio Ecoshock" on You tube, you will find a few of my own videos.

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