Feed Yourself

QUICK SUMMARY: Oil guru Richard Heinberg on life after fossil fuels. Marjory Wildcraft: why you may want to grow your own groceries. Radio Ecoshock 150408

Five percent of the world's oil tanker capacity is waiting to load up near Basra Iraq, where production is way up. The United States has only one month of oil storage capacity left. After that, what comes in must go straight to market, likely for as little as $20 a barrel.

Is peak oil dead? And why isn't the economy responding to cheaper oil? We'll ask the guru, Richard Heinberg. He's one of the people who popularized the oil squeeze, with his book "The Party's Over". Heinberg has a new book out: "Afterburn, Society Beyond Fossil Fuels".

After that, during this Spring in the Northern Hemisphere, a couple of us hope to persuade you to grow some of your own food. Marjory Wildcraft, from growyourowngroceries joins us. There's a lot of reasons we need to pay attention to the food supply.

Locked and loaded, this is Radio Ecoshock.

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

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RICHARD HEINBERG: AFTERBURN

"We live in the time of what might be called the Burning" - Richard Heinberg.

In 2003, his book "The Party’s Over: Oil, War & the Fate of Industrial Societies" turned Peak Oil from an insider worry to a popular movement. Twelve years and eight books later, Richard Heinberg is still the go-to guy for what's happening with world energy - and there's a lot happening right now. Richard's post in California is at the Post Carbon Institute.

Of course everyone wants to know what happened to Peak Oil and the way out of this fossil fuel mess. Richard gives us that update, and whole lot more, in his latest book just out, called "Afterburn, Society Beyond Fossil Fuels".

"As energy issues become more critically important to society’s economic and ecological survival, they become more politically contested; and as a result, they tend to become obscured by a fog of exaggeration, half-truth, omission, and outright prevarication."

- Richard Heinberg, "Afterburn"

We all thought high oil prices would grind the economy into a crash. Now oil has fallen to less than half price, and it looks like THAT could trigger some very bad things. What's happening out there on the oil fields?

I've been reading that some big energy companies hedged their production at over $90 a barrel. There's no way some Wall Street betters can pay half the world's energy bill. Something has to give, yes?

Richard wrote about the fragility of the oil industry and it's massive debt, especially in the fracking industry, in his recent book "Snake Oil". Our second guest Marjory Wildcraft, who lives in West Texas, says she's toured around in Texas, seeing exactly the oil blight, abandoned rigs, and depressed towns that Richard Heinberg wrote about.

I can remember, just five years ago, a big debate about climate change and peak oil. Some Peak Oilers said we'll never get to full-blown climate catastrophe, because the oil will run out soon, very soon. Now we know humans can find and burn enough oil to wreck the climate.

Heinberg compare our rivers to the "rivers" of gasoline that flow along our highways, and throughout our society. I was struck by his observation on how open and visible water is, and how hidden the gasoline flow is at every stage. It's underground, in pipelines, in our tanks, and never seen.

In his new book "Afterburn", Richard Heinberg writes: "Quite simply, we must learn to be successfully and happily poorer." Somehow, I don't think we'll hear that in the upcoming American election campaign...

Stanford professor (and Radio Ecoshock guest) Mark Jacobson and Amory Lovins of Rocky Mountain Institute say we can continue growing the economy powered by renewable energy. Why is Heinberg so gloomy? Can he really be sure we won't find ways to continue the current wealth of civilization?

WHY UTILITIES AND GOVERNMENTS FIGHT OFF ALTERNATIVE ENERGY

In the new book "Afterburn" he says:

"When the government tries to provide people the basics, power is centralized — but as the capacity of the government wanes, it can feel threatened by people trying to provide the basics for themselves, and act to discourage or even criminalize them."

Are we seeing signs of government resistance to self-sufficiency and going off-grid? Heinberg says yes, and gives a piercing analysis of the curious balance of big grids. At the beginning (now) only people with enough capital or credit can afford the up-front costs to install solar power systems. Then they get a free dividend, and can feed extra power back into the grid.

At some point, there is so much home-grown power, that a relatively small portion of the population (generally the poorest) are supporting a large and increasingly expensive big-grid infrastructure. Then the power companies use their leverage (read bribes to politicians) to get laws limiting local power, or making it very expensive in the permit process.

Heinberg says in the long run, the big grids will have to cave in, and become completely re-organized. For one thing, it leads to something much closer to an energy democracy, versus the current top-down monopoly structure.

Here is an RT news piece titled: "Local governments crackdown on residents going 'off-the-grid'". [starts at 3:30 ]

We talk all this through in a major interview with one of the great alternative thinkers of our times. I thought I was familiar with many of Richard's ideas, but I enjoyed reading the new book "Afterburn, Society Beyond Fossil Fuels". For me, it tied a lot of things together to create new insights and inspiration. For what it's worth, our previous Radio Ecoshock interview with Richard Heinberg is the most listened to file we have on Soundcloud.

Download or listen to this Radio Ecoshock interview with Richard Heinberg in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

If you would like to Tweet out or Facebook this interview, to pass it on, you can use this "tiny url" for the Lo-Fi version. http://tinyurl.com/pykow9v

PLANTING MUSIC

To get in the mood for our next guest, let's listen to a little plant music. This an ad from Peaceful Belly Farm. Watch the cool video (with that great music) here.

Yeah. Nature can sing. That's Jamie Drysdale, Blackstreet, and the crew from Peaceful Belly Farm in Boise Idaho. There spring plant sale is over, but the music lives on.

Solutions? You want solutions? Here's a prime Radio Ecoshock interview with answers. It's what I listen to, and what I'm doing to prepare for the new future.

Alex Smith, by his winter garden (tucked in with leaves as ground cover). Note 7 foot deer fence and home made garden shed.



MARJORY WILDCRAFT - GROW YOUR OWN GROCERIES

Every time there's a hurricane or a snow storm, we see news footage of grocery store shelves going bare in a few hours of panicked buying. Our whole food system, from giant corporate farms to just-in-time truck deliveries is shaky, very shaky. So is the economy. Toss in GMO food, sugared-up with corn syrup and pesticides, and its a public health mess. Then comes the drought, flood, heat waves and freaky weather from climate change.

All this yells at us: we should grow at least some of our groceries! And Marjory Wildcraft is the person to show us how. Her course DVD course "Grow Your Own Groceries" sold over 300,000 copies. Her You tube videos how-to get tons of hits. Now she's organized a free online summit on Home Grown Food.

THE FREE ONLINE FOOD SUMMIT

First the big news: all this week (April 9th to 12th) Majory has organized a free online "Food Summit" stacked with video interviews with some of the world's big names in permaculture, alternative gardening, and prepper gardening.

Here is Majory's video about that.

If you are reading this blog before April 12th, go ahead and sign up. It's totally free with no gimmicks. I've been watching a bunch of presentations. So far my favorite is with the host of permies.com, Paul Wheaton. He gave an overview of at least 10 different gardening styles.

That's what Majory says is the starting point for beginners. Find out what type of gardening appeals to you most. Is it growing in straw bales? Aquaponics? Permaculture? There's lots to choose from.

In the beginning, Marjory's husband and son were not interested. Now her backyard is a whole experiment, including aquaponics. Then husband and son got involved, liking the pumps and mechanics of aquaponics, to produce tomatoes, lettuce and fish. You need to find the technique you resonate the best.

Then she says: start small! If people take on too much right at the beginning, they may give up. A 50 square foot garden (4.6 square meters) may be all you need to start.

Majory says our current food production is a big mistake. It leads to heart disease, diabetes, obesity and more. The food industry is over $1 trillion business in the U.S. alone. Really, Majory tells us, most of those products in the supermarket, from baked goods to meat, are mostly twelve crops, reworked with sugar, fat, and chemicals.

It looks like there is an abundance of food in grocery stores. Over 90% is imported from hundreds or thousands of miles away, depending on a just-in-time trucking and air system. People who can grow their own food have more resilience, making themselves and their community stronger.

There are at least 30 presentations from a variety of groups and authors in the online Food Summit. They include:

* John Jeavons, 43 years grow-biointensive gardening method, used in many countries around the world.

* Sylvia Bernstein, aquaponics.

* Joel Salatin.

* Toby Hemenway on permaculture.

* The Livestock Conservancy.

* John Kohler's "Growing Your Greens" from his strong You tube channel.

- and a whole ton more. Many have been guests on Radio Ecoshock.

The Summit has strong sponsors: National Gardening Association, kidsgardening.org, Mother Earth News, and the American Preppers Network.

The Summit starts Monday April 9, starting at 9 am Eastern, several up for 24 hours, so people in different time zones (all around the world) can tune in. Five new ones are posted every day. Find out more here.

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If you would like to know more about Marjory, and learn from her, try some of her many excellent You tube videos. Like this one: "How to Grow Half Your Food in your Backyard in Less than an Hour Per day." Marjory works through the numbers of what it would take to grow half of your food needs in a common backyard, spending less than an hour per day!

What about the time it takes to operate all this? About an hour per day. Occasionally more for special projects. Some systems can be automated for 2 to 3 days absence.

She is developing 5 different systems, including aquaponics, with fish, veggies and quail. She has another vegetarian system, based on root crops. She's also experimenting with a backyard food forest, and polyculture.

In less than 2 generations we've lost the ability to feed ourselves, turning it over to big corporations. Now we can rediscover ways to grow food and medicine. Get lots of help online from web sites and You tube videos. Learn what works and what doesn't.

Majory also offers a full DVD video course called "Grow your own groceries" in 2 DVD's. It includes rainwater collection, gardening, rabbits (how to breed and butcher too), food forests, and more. There is a bonus CD with pdf documents, on rabbits, companion gardens, permaculture, and more. That's at a pretty decent price of $37 plus shipping.

Here are some of my other favorite Marjory Wildcraft videos:

"Highly Nutritous Food In Only 4 Sq. Ft. For Hungry Urbanites"

"How to Grow Your Own Groceries in a Dark Apartment"

"Economic Collapse Survivor - Marjory Wildcraft Interviews Rita Ojeda" (in Cuba)

And of course my favorite, the video that led me to discover Majory: "Survival Gardening In The Heat with Marjory Wildcraft". That's had 77,000 views so far. The thing is: as global warming ramps up, we need to adapt what we can grow, being ready for heat waves. There are some good tips here.

Download or listen to this Radio Ecoshock interview with Marjory Wildcraft (30 min) in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

If you want to Tweet or Facebook this interview, use this tiny url, which leads to the Lo-Fi version. http://tinyurl.com/qf87wwm

THE CALIFORNIA DROUGHT

Now that California has finally issued an emergency directive to save water, the world has discovered NASA scientist Jay Famiglietti. The Los Angeles Times quotes Jay and NASA satellite studies saying there is only one year of groundwater left in America's most populous state.

I knew Famiglietti's groundwater studies were dynamite when they first came out. Over a year ago, on March 5th 2014, Famiglietti was my guest in a special on the California drought. Here's the scoop: NASA has twin satellites called Grace. One follows the other, and by comparing measurements, they can determine changes in ground mass. That works to show Greenland is losing mass as it's ice melts, and so is Antarctica. But it also shows changes in the water underground, including in California. When that water evaporates, or gets pumped up, the world weights a little less in that spot.

When the snowpack is low, or missing, as it is this year in the Sierra Nevada mountains - California growers and cities make it all up by pumping from the ground reservoirs, from the Earth's savings account. That works for a year or two, but with the drought now in it's fourth year, that water bank is running dry. Already some farm wells have gone dry, and then whole orchards die, or fields lay dry and fallow.

Considering California produces about one quarter of America's vegetables, fruits, and nuts, you may need to grow some food where you are. This could affect the global food market, and may force an exodus of millions of people from California.

Of course, I interviewed Jay Famiglietti and wrote about the California drought LAST year in this March 5th, 2014 Radio Ecoshock show blog.

Oh, Oh. We are out of time again. Be sure and join us next week for more science, tips, and disturbing news on Radio Ecoshock.

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

WHAT KIND OF DOOMER ARE YOU?

SUMMARY: From The Farm in Tennessee, alternative guru Albert Bates rates responses to predictions of doom. Film-maker Anne Macksoud on new movie "The Wisdom to Survive" Plus musical activist Rachelle Van Zanten.

List your alternative speakers and writers - Albert Bates probably knows them all. As a travelling speaker and permaculture teacher at The Farm in Tennessee, Bates brought out a new chart showing responses from "we will find a way with local community" to "why prolong the agony, we are all doomed". We talk about the players in the end game.

Anne Macksoud and film-maker partner John Ankele interviewed many of the same people - plus a lot of young women activists, aboriginal and third world people about the developing climate crisis.

The result is their new film "The Wisdom to Survive, Climate Change, Capitalism & Community". We talk through our options.

From Canada's West Coast, Rachelle Van Zanten went from a world tour (with "Painted Daisies") to her 400 square foot off-grid cabin. Her songs have become anthems for those opposing pipelines, tankers, fracking, and tar sands. It's also damn fine music. We chat, and then spin two tunes.

Listen to/Download this Radio Ecoshock Show in CD Quality (56 MB) or Lo-Fi (14 MB) (CD Quality recommended for the music!)

ALBERT BATES

The economy seems to teeter on the edge of break-down, week to week. Fukushima rolls on. Climate scientists are pretty sure we're on our way to catastrophe. That, and a whole lot more, is always lurking in the back our our minds. So...in the great scheme of things, what kind of doomer are you?

Albert Bates has a chart to sort out some of the leading alternative thinkers. Albert is the former lawyer, long-time resident of The Farm in Tennessee, and a well-known speaker and writer about everything from alternative energy to permaculture.

We begin with a ground-breaking article by Permaculture founder David Holmgren in Australia. It's called "Crash on Demand". (I'll be talking with David next week). Homlgren describes four possible futures, or perhaps responses to the future. One is "Brown Tech" - the path we are on now, substituting high energy sources like Tar Sands and fracking to keep our growth-oriented economy going.

If the Brown Tech succeeds in supplanting the another possibility, namely "'Green Tech" - then our world is doomed to climate disaster. We can't let that happen says Holmgren. Perhaps if enough people withdraw from the system, taking out their money and their efforts, we could stimulate an economic crash that was bound to happen. The only example we have of any society drastically cutting greenhouse gas emissions was the Soviet Union in the 1990's. Their crash of industry reduced their emissions greatly. That's the kind of cut we need to survive, Holmgren reasons.

If none of that works, then we have the "Lifeboat" society, where each of us tries to survive even in an unstable system, perhaps with permaculture, localized food and local currencies. Or in a worst case, the survivor-prepper idea of isolated fortresses ("beans and bullets").

Albert Bates evaluates these scenarios, and the best known alternative thinkers, into four camps on a chart. Here is the article you need to look at.

Albert doesn't claim he is photographing reality. It's a map pointing to something happening in our culture, with some of our spokespeople.

Dmitri Orlov tried to calculate how many people like him, bloggers with hi influence, would it take to bring about the required change to crash the system. He found it would be about 100,000 activists with the same reach, even if a sky-high figure of half his readers actually took action.

Rob Hopkins doesn't want the Crash on Demand. he wants to work with existing structures, including local governments.

In Albert's blog, at peaksurfer.blogspot.ca, he reproduces a super chart by David Pollard. I love some of the slogans that typify each position. We have everything from "preparation in community might save us" to "smash or undermine civilization now to diminish it's damage". Pollard divides his groups into "Collapseniks" and "Salvationists". Find that chart in David Pollard's blog "howtosavetheworld.ca"

I have the feeling "Collapsniks" get the most hits on the Internet, but the idea of saving ourselves is more popular in the hearts of most people.

Listen to/download this interview with Albert Bates in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

Here are more links from this interview with Albert Bates:

The original article "Crash on Demand" by David Holmgren.

Transition towns founder Rob Hopkins reply.

Nicole Foss from the Automatic Earth reply. We'll talk about that with Nicole on next week's show.

Albert also has a fellow names Robert Costanza on the chart. Who is he? Delve in here.

Albert recommends this article by Rafter Sass Ferguson.

And finally, Albert Bates is off to teach a permaculture course in Belize, along with Nicole Foss, Marisha Auerbach, and Christopher Nesbitt. It's at the Maya Mountain Research Farm from February 10th to 22nd, 2014. For Details, or to register, please see this site, or contact Christopher at info@mmrfbz.org.

The blub for this permaculture course in Belize says:

"Travel far south; to the back of beyond; to a remote valley accessible only by dugout canoe. Study permaculture surrounded by a lush, productive forest of edibles, medicinals and tropical hardwoods. Eat organic food, sleep in dorms powered by renewable energy, bathe in a sparkling pure river...."

Albert tells us he is changing things up this year, writing:

"This year I have decided to travel less and teach more at home. I suspect we all feel that collapse has been picking up speed, although it comes in fits and spurts, as John Michael Greer points out, not smooth Hubbert curves, and as Richard Heinberg says, it is not evenly distributed. So, since the future in any event is local, I am focusing more on that this year and staying home. From April through October I am offering immersion apprenticeships in ecovillage living and transition towns here in Tennessee, with personal mentorship by me. For those staying a minimum of two months there will be a chance to earn a permaculture design certificate, and for those who may already have that we will be mentoring in diploma and degree tracks. The information on our apprentice program can be found here.

THE WISDOM TO SURVIVE - A NEW FILM BY ANNE MACKSOUD AND JOHN ANKELE

When everything is at stake, what is more valuable: answers or questions? We find both in a new film from two self- proclaimed "old dogs" - New England film makers John Ankele and Anne Macksoud. Their new film is "The Wisdom to Survive, Climate Change, Capitalism & Community".

Anne joins us on Radio Ecoshock.

This movie starts with "us" - and tries to lead us outside, into the eyes of people in the developing world. I don't like that term "developing world" - maybe we should say the remnants of the real world.

The film has feature interviews with more than a dozen folks, including ones you know like Richard Heinbert, James Gustav Speth, Johanna Macy, and Bill McKibben. Just as moving are the interviews with those you don't know yet: the Navajo aboriginal views, and interviews with women struggling in the developing world.

There is a discussion guide that we made for the film which might possibly be of help to you. Here's the link.

Listen to/download this Radio Ecoshock interview with Anne Macksoud in CD Quality or Lo-Fi.

The web site for this film is here. And you'll find a Vimeo trailer for the movie on that page as well. Individuals can buy DVD copies of the film (great for your climate group, church group, or just watching at home) for $29.95. There is a separate link for institutions who want to buy for a public showing (via the distributor Bullfrog Films). The movie is 56 minutes long.

RACHEL VAN ZANTEN

Rachelle Van Zanten is an up and coming song-writer and performer from Canada's West Coast. A while back we played her anthem "My Country" (You tube video here) which talks down the office-bound folks far away that make terrible decisions about her land. She's fed up with people ramming through pipelines and tar sands into pristine First Nations country.

This week we play the entire song "I Fight for Life". It's another of the fine pieces adapted as anthems for people opposed to pipelines, mines, and tankers in Northern waters and aboriginal lands. The recording is super, done at Baker studios in Victoria B.C. Rachelle's latest album is "Oh Mother" released in May 2013.

We also squeeze in part of her newer piece, "Canoe Song".

Check out Rachelle's web site.

RADIO ECOSHOCK

This program is now in it's 7th year of broadcast. In the Spring of 2014 we have 76 syndicated stations playing the show weekly. Radio Ecoshock is entirely supported by it's listeners (get details here).

All incidental music in this program was written and produced by Alex Smith, including "What Kind of Doomer Are You?"

The web site is ecoshock.org - where you can download all our past programs as free .mp3 files.

I'm Alex Smith, and right now I'm grateful. Thanks to you, and your support for this program, I talk with scientists, authors, activists and artists around the world. It's the opportunity of a lifetime, while humanity and our kindred species face the greatest challenges imaginable. Please join me again on our journey next week.

Extreme Rain and Climate Collapse

The biggest climate-driven extreme weather event since Katrina - Boulder's Carolyn Baker reports on fracking leaks, climate, economic hit. Plus Calif. songwriter Dan Imhoff on new album "Agraria".

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Make it rain for those in drought, but make it stop for those in floods, from Colorado to Taiwan and China. I'm Alex Smith.

We open with one of the big stories of 2013, the unbelievable tropical-style rains that flooded Boulder Colorado and points north. More than a foot of rain in 24 hours in some places, in an area that doesn't get that much in the average year.

The Boulder story has everything - climate change, the way higher energy costs to rebuild could break budgets, and lessons in how unprepared we all are. Could the triple punch of climate, economic woes and escalating energy be the pathway toward the collapse of industrial civilization? In just a moment we'll talk with Boulder resident, Carolyn Baker. She's a published expert on collapse and getting ready, inside and out.

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

STORMS OVER FUKUSHIMA

Two weeks ago we got an update on the continuing nuclear accident at Fukushima Japan, from Arnie Gundersen. This past week Tropical Storm Man-Yi was headed straight for the crippled nuclear reactors, just as many feared.

No worries. The utility operator, TEPCO had it all under wraps. They tied down the octopus of make-do piping with ropes. Good, good. And they put some weights on the cranes, hoping they wouldn't topple into any of the blown-out reactor buildings, still carrying tons and tons of highly radioactive fuel bundles in their upper stories. That should do it.

It would all be funny if the Fukushima site wasn't so dangerous to the whole Northern Hemisphere. I doubt even their thousand bolt-together tanks holding highly radioactive water could have withstood the 230 kilometers-an-hour, almost 150 miles-per-hour, super winds of Typhoon Usagi that hit Asia later last week.

Both of these typhoons missed hitting the Fukushima plant directly. When will it happen? I think the make-shift badly engineered cover-over by TEPCO will be blown away. At the very least, we can expect one of the buildings to collapse into the already soaked sub-soil. Tons and tons of the most radioactive materials are bound to flow right into the Pacific Ocean, while more will blow over Japan, and possibly the West Coast of North America.

What is your government doing about this world-class disaster risk? Absolutely nothing. Say it again. Absolutely nothing.

Let's run away to beautiful Colorado, a great retreat zone, where mother nature is always kind.

CAROLYN BAKER REPORTING FROM BOULDER AND THE FLOOD ZONE

The recent flash floods around Boulder Colorado have been compared to a Hurricane Katrina moment for America. No matter where you live, this mega-event tells us so much about climate, energy, and preparedness - or lack of it. There's nobody better to cover all this than Boulder resident Carolyn Baker, author of "Navigating the Coming Chaos", and a new book coming out in November titled "Collapsing Consciously, Transformative Truths for Turbulent Times".

Listen to/download this 38 minute interview with Carolyn Baker in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

Regarding the impacts on our society and economy, I think Boulder will turn out to be more significant than just another disaster. I'm hearing comparisons to Katrina already. The Governor says "we will rebuild" as they always do. But like New Orleans, some things will not be, and cannot be "rebuilt". Like the treed stream banks, now turned into unstable, undercut sides. Like places that are obviously set to flood again.

Let's talk about the energy involved. all that infrastructure, including mundane buildings, roads and bridges, were built with oil that cost between $15 and $35 a barrel. Now oil is over $100 a barrel, meaning everything costs 3 to 6 times more, just for the energy. Ditto steel and other components. Events like this will eventually break many cities, states, and even countries.

Keeping with energy, the group East Boulder County United published photos of fracking tanks full of God-Knows-What sitting in flooded fields, tipped over, and even floating down swollen rivers. This fracking equipment was never designed for floods.

I've seen photos in Colorado of fracking towers right beside suburbs, school yards, and even kids playgrounds. We all know fracking operations vent tons of noxious gases. How is that possible?

The Colorado floods also showed the world the unpreparedness of the average citizen. I saw news footage of people desperately being air-lifted away from completely undamaged homes after just four days. It was early September in Colorado. They were in no danger of freezing to death. Didn't they have some food and water stored for emergencies?

Boulder is among the more advanced communities in Transition, or at least a progressive place. We talk about some of the positive things that are going on there.

For one thing, the main folks in the Transition Colorado movement decided their main emphasis had to be on developing local food production and consumption. So they began a new organization now found at localfoodshift.com.

This case of sudden floods in Colorado also reminds us there can be knock-on effects from climate-driven mega weather, a year or years later. In New Jersey, officials are now saying the huge fire that burned down the rebuilt boardwalk was likely caused by electrical systems damaged by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. You have a similar delayed impact in Colorado.

Carolyn explains how last year's giant fires in Colorado added to the flood damage this year. There was no vegetation to soak up the rains, or to hold on to the river banks. Parts of the landscape have been changed never to return.

The widespread damage, and the nearly impossible cost of rebuilding, also point us to a pathway of economic collapse. In this scenario, we just keep getting hit with climate-driven disasters, until we are far too broke and broken to rebuild. Roads don't get rebuilt, bridges stay out, some communities are abandoned.

Everybody should read Carolyn's article "All Dress Rehersals Are Over" published from Boulder on September 16th, 2013. It's powerful and inspired many of the things we talked about today.

Get Carolyn's newest stories and her news service at carolynbaker.net

I also recommend this article: "Paradigm Shifts And Tipping Points, Part 2", By Gary Stamper And Michael Wolff, published in Carolyn's blog on September 18th, and in Gary Stamper's blog, collapsingintoconsciousness.com

AGRARIA - A NEW ALBUM FROM DAN IMHOFF

Listen to/download this interview with Dan Imhoff, complete with song samples, in CD Quality or Lo-Fi (but CD quality is recommended, since you'll get the best sound for Dan's music.)

We interviewed Dan Imhoff about the book he edited on CAFO, the Tragedy of Industrial Animal Factories. Listen to/download that 2010 interview with Dan here. Sadly it's all still happening, and we talk about that again in this show.

But there is a whole other side and talent to Dan Imhoff. He's been a musician for years. Now Dan got together with a hugely talented crew all from Sonoma County California. It sounds so good there I want to move to Sonoma Country, the way Dan tells it.

The Agraria Facebook page is here. You can sample the tunes and buy them here.

Or try out this You tube video of Dan's modern re-write (complete with GMO's) of "Cluck Old Hen".

COMING UP ON RADIO ECOSHOCK!

We've got some great guests coming up, including Nicole Foss (a.k.a. "Stoneleigh"), Richard Heinberg, J.B. MacKinnon (co-author of the 100-Mile Diet). Plus some exciting interviews with young people just starting out on the road to battle climate change, and heading to the Powershift 2013 conference this October in Pittsburg.

Thanks for listening folks! And thanks to everyone who supports Radio Ecoshock with a donation or monthly membership.

Alex

Coping: Climate Anxiety, Preparing: Dehydrating Food

How to cope with climate despair. UK psychotherapist & co-founder of Carbon Conversations, Rosemary Randall. Then a practical alternative to industrial food: learn to dehydrate in season with traditional cooking expert Wardeh Harmon. Radio Ecoshock 130417 1 hour.

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

Listen to/download my interview with Wardeh Harmon on food dehydration (23 min) in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

Listen to/download the Rosemary Randall interview on coping with climate change (29 min)

NEW MUSIC THIS WEEK

Our music this week is another tune from the Australian band Formidable Vegetable Sound System. From the album "Permaculture: A Rhymer's Manual" this is "Limits".

LISTEN TO THIS RADIO ECOSHOCK SHOW RIGHT NOW!





ROSEMARY RANDALL: COPING WITH AWFUL CLIMATE KNOWLEDGE



What if you woke up one morning and realized humans really have changed the world's climate? We show no signs of stopping this unfolding catastrophe. Maybe you already see it, and cannot bear knowing.

We need help. And a pioneering psychotherapist from Britain says we can help each other. Starting in 2005, Rosemary Randall was was part of a team founding a movement called "Carbon Conversations".

We have a conversation with her now on Radio Ecoshock. You can find "Ro" Randall's blog here.

The Carbon Conversations organization has become widespread. It links up people who want to talk about climate change, and puts them into six meet-ups which use the ideas from psychotherapy to talk through their fears and emotions. But it doesn't stop there. Each person develops their own plan to reduce their carbon emissions. It's a movement that needs to happen big-time in North America, and all over the world.

Rosemary Randall tells us about her pivotal paper "Loss and climate change: the cost of parallel narratives" found here.

The "parallel narratives" is best explained by Rosemary in our interview, but in a nutshell: media and scientists paint an awful picture of what will happen in the future due to climate change; meanwhile we try to live "normal" lives, ignoring the fact that climate change is not a future event, but is already happening now. This disconnection between our every day lives and the awful future actually reduces our motivation to make the large changes necessary (or at least fits in with our comfortable carbon lives?).

So when we focus on the Arctic melting by 2020, or the end of coral by 2050, that may also be a form of denial that cripples real action. Climate damage is happening right now!

Please listen to the interview to get a better explanation from Rosemary. It's important stuff and all too true.

I can't tell you how many times friends and listeners have fallen back on the model of coping with the ultimate loss of death, developed by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. Does that work well for the end of a loved and stable climate? Randall says "no". the Kubler-Ross formula was developed for people who were dying. We need a way to handle the burden of knowing, while we keep on living. So Randall finds more help from a formula developed by William Worden, among others.

J. William Worden wrote the book "Grief Counselling and Grief Therapy" where he outlined "the four tasks of mourning".

Randall has adapted them for dealing with climate change, where we mourn disappearing species, changed places, lost stability of weather, sea level, and so on.

I'd like to pass on two things from that paper. First, we have this helpful table of four steps, each of which can go positive or negative, depending on our choices.

Table 1. The tasks of grief. Adapted from Worden (1983)

1. The task : Accepting the reality of the loss, first intellectually and then emotionally.

Possible negative responses

Denial of the:

- facts of the loss;

- meaning of the loss;

- irreversibility of the loss.

2 The task: Working through the painful emotions of grief (despair, fear, guilt, anger, shame, sadness, yearning, disorganisation).

Possible negative responses

Shutting off all emotion, idealising what is lost, bargaining, numbing the pain through alcohol, drugs or manic activity.

3 The task: Adjusting to the new environment/acquiring new skills /developing a new sense of self.

Possible negative responses

Not adapting, becoming helpless, bitter, angry, depressed, withdrawing.

4 The task: Reinvesting emotional energy.

Possible negative responses

Refusing to love, turning away from life.

A GLOBAL MEMORIAL FOR ALL THE LOST SPECIES



Then here is an example from the conclusion of that paper "Loss and climate change." Randall writes:

"My second example is from a public art project. The educational charity Memo is building a memorial on the Dorset coast, made from local Portland stone, to commemorate plants and animals known to have gone extinct in modern times. They describe it on their website:

'The memorial will be a stone monument bearing the images of all the species of plants and animals known to have gone extinct in modern times. It will incorporate a bell to be tolled for all extinct species, including the great many ‘unknown’ species which it is believed perish each year unseen by scientists. The bell will be tolled on the International Day of Biodiversity on 22nd May each year.'"

This memorial to the species project has not yet gone ahead, due to lack of funding. Find out more here, with glorious pictures.

The Independent newspaper in the UK published this powerful article about the Memo project (June 17, 2012)

In the end, Rosemary helps us to understand we are not alone in our anxiety about major changes to the climate, and thus the economy, food system, and the species we love. She offers a method and tips for coping with knowing how serious our situation is. This is already one of my favorite interviews of the year.

WARDEH ("Wardee") HARMON: FOOD DEHYDRATION AND "TRADITIONAL COOKING"



It's shocking so many city folk say they are not interested in cooking or preserving food. Don't they eat? Don't they read the headlines about toxic factory agriculture and fast-food restaurants? The awful wave of food-related diseases like diabetes, heart attacks, strokes, obesity, and colon cancer are the result.

Plus, we can save a lot of money, and tons of greenhouse gas emissions, when we grab food cheap when it's fresh, putting it away for times to come.

One of the easiest and best ways to store food is dehydrating. Humans have been doing it for thousands of years. You can too.

Our guest Wardee Harmon lives in rural Oregon. She serves up a wide variety of cooking and preserving courses online from the mysteriously named Gnowfglins.com. We're going to get some good tips from Wardee about drying food.

I can think of so many reasons to have good dried foods around. Someone may get sick, and need fast ready foods. We hope there won't be a big emergency like a power-outage from storms, but that is happening more these days. There really are too many advantages to list them all.

The importance of choosing organic whole foods is obvious. But the "grown locally in season" is so important too. A population who depends on fruit flown in from South America or New Zealand is in for some rude surprises, don't you think?

TRADITIONAL COOKING SCHOOL WITH WARDEE HARMON

I asked Wardee about the online traditional cooking courses she offers at traditionalcookingschool.com. That's the same as Gnowfglins.com site, but much easier to remember.

In Wardee's courses, you watch online videos, but also end up with print-it-yourself binders and logs. Knowing how fallible my own memory can be, especially after a year has gone by, keeping track really does seem important.

By the way, GNOWFGLINS stands for "God's natural, organic, whole foods, grown locally, in season".

Wardee let me try out her Gnowfglins course on dehydration, which is still in development. There are about 7 classes so far. Each one has at least one video, showing us how to do things (very helpful). That is accompanied by written documentation and worksheets which we can download and print, to create our own course binders. Other courses also have some audio as well.

Basically, you buy a monthly or annual membership to the Gnowfglins site, which lets you take all the courses plus get help from others in the members-only forums. There was some really good advice in those forums. Most of the participants are women.

I'm hoping more men will get involved in cooking and preserving food. The health statistics clearly show on average mens' diet leads to more health complications later in life, - and we die younger. Can we get more men back into the food dialog, and into the kitchen? If you want to be self-sufficient, it doesn't get any better than being able to prepare, cook, and store your own food.

MORE PREPPER RADIO RESOURCES

I want to thank my own source for this interview. I first heard Wardee Harmon on the "Get Real Get Prepared" radio show with Vikilynn Haycraft from realfoodliving.com. That was a great show Vikilynn. Listen to/download Vikilynn and Wardee Harmon talking dehydration here (Saturday March 13, 2013). The show description is here.

Wardee has own show on the Preparedness Broadcasting Network.

Here is an episode of "Know Your Food with Wardee" from April 12th, 2013. It features her meet-up with Gnowfglins folk in Arizona.

There is a prepper network in Canada too. It has handy how-to sensible advice, just as you would expect from Canadians.

The American version seems more prone to God, Guns, and a hidden food supply.

WHAT FOOD DEHYDRATOR SHOULD YOU USE?

Since we talk about the best food dehydrators in our Radio Ecoshock interview, I'm tossing in this You tube video of a comparison of food dehydrators from recent Radio Ecoshock guest John Kohler. Check that out before you get started.

Watch this You tube comparison of Excalibur and Sedona food dehydrators by John Kohler.

Many people start with the far cheaper plastic round dehydrators from places like Walmart. These do work, and may be a good place to try things out - BUT food tends to drip downward into the heater and fan (which you have to clean up), and they can't dry much at a time. Once you get hooked on food dehydration, you'll want a better machine. Many people say The Exalibur 3900 is the best. It's been around for over ten years, with good reviews. I've concluded city folk starting out should go with counter-top electric dehydrators, unless you are going to get bushels of fruit or veggies at a time. Many of us don't have room for an extra out-building to dry. But a solar food drier should be our ultimate goal if we have the right climate for it. It's natural and adds no greenhouse gases.

The food dehydrating and canning season starts right now. The aparagus and rhubarb are starting to come into the markets at seasonal low prices. In my area, rhubarb costs less than $2.50 cents a pound in the spring, compared to over $5 a pound in late fall and winter. It's a half price sale for anyone ready to preserve natural foods at their best.

LINKS AND RESOURCES FOR SALLY FALLON AND THE WESTON A. PRICE FOUNDATION



The new edition from Sally Fallon and Mary Enig is: "Nourishing Traditions" Revised Second Edition, October 2000.

Here is Part 1 or three from a DVD Video with Sally Fallon on You tube. She is a powerful speaker.

Dr. Joel Fuhrman, M.D. is very critical of the Fallon/Price diet recommendations for meat and fats, especially the Price Foundation suggestion that high cholesterol is good for us.

Here is a big long video (2 hours) of Sally Fallon on "The Oiling of America" re cholesterol and cholesterol lowering drugs.

For a shorter meal, try Sally Fallon on breakfast cereal (extreme cruelty to our grains andthe effects of eating extruded grains) 6 minutes

ALEX'S TAKE ON TRADITIONAL COOKING

I asked Wardee Harmon what she meant by "Traditional Cooking". There is more to it. Wardee credits Sally Fallon, co-author of the influential 1989 book "Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats".

Sally and co-author Mary G. Enig co-founded the Weston A. Price Foundation.

According to Wikipedia, Weston Price was, "a dentist from Cleveland, Ohio, whose 1939 book, 'Nutritional and Physical Degeneration', describes the fieldwork he did in the 1920s and 1930s among various world cultures, with the original goal of recording and studying the dental health and development of pre-industrial populations including tribal Africans and Pacific islanders, Inuit, North and South American natives, and Australian aborigines."

You can watch a You tube video of Sally Fallon explaining how Weston Price judged a person's general health by the condition of their teeth. He visited various pre-industrial people and concluded their diets were the main reason their teeth were generally better formed, with fewer cavities than people living in Western economies.

The science behind the writing comes from the other major player in the Weston A Price Foundation, nutritionist Mary G. Enig. She's the real deal, with a PHD in Nutritional Sciences, experience in research labs, and published scientific papers.

However Enig's theory of the benefits of fatty foods, including butter and coconut oil, and her contrarian views that cholesterol does not lead to heart disease, has earned her criticism from other scientists.

Dr. Joel Fuhrman, M.D. is very critical of the Fallon/Price diet recommendations for meat and fats, especially the Price Foundation suggestion that high cholesterol is good for us.

WARDEE HARMON'S NEW BOOK ON FERMENTING FOOD

Fallon and Enig also take up Weston Price's promotion of fermented foods used by many ancient cultures, as an aid to full digestion of both plant and animal products. You may think of sauerkraut, but there is a whole universe of fermented foods out there. Our guest Wardee Harmon has a new book out on it "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Fermenting Foods". I know little about this, and Wardee has promised to send me a copy. I'll let you know if I try out some of her recipes.

BACK TO SALLY FALLON AND "TRADITIONAL" FOOD - MILK OR NOT?

Sally Fallon has a devastating critique of soy products, especially soy milk. The Weston A. Price Foundation lobbies against the use of soy formula for infants. My opinion is: she is correct in this.

Both Fallon and Enig are major forces behind the push to legalize raw milk. They claim pasteurization kills off beneficial nutrients and reduces our immunity. Personally, I just don't know enough to judge those claims. It's my opinion, and nothing more than an opinion, that most mammals stop drinking milk as they mature, and probably we should too. Wardee says the Bible talks about milk drinking, which is an authority for her, and certainly proof that humans have been drinking milk for thousands of years.

From an environmental standpoint, the whole industrial milk system is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions and should be avoided on a mass scale, except for those few people who have pasture land to manage their own cows or goats organically and properly. As we know from Allan Savory, whose work was just featured on Real Time with Bill Maher, proper management of cattle or sheep is one of the few proven tools to take carbon out of the atmosphere, and return it to the soil.

Industrial milk animals are also abused in many ways, and injected with chemicals and antibiotics. I use very few milk-like products, and pour almond milk on my cereal. I don't trust big agribiz meat either, and don't eat it.

Now you have a general idea of what Wardee Harmon means by "Traditional Cooking". Do I endorse all her views? No. Can I learn a ton of things about canning, dehydrating, and organic food prep from her. You bet.

I learned how to graft fruit trees from a Catholic Nun. Simple You tube videos produced by Mormon women helped me prepare my food insurance and live cheaper. So far, I haven't become a Nun or a Mormon. Learn from everybody, that's my motto.

THANKS AND SUPPORT NON-PROFIT RADIO!

Thank you for listening to Radio Ecoshock. A special thanks to those who supported the broadcast this week. That will help me attend the Mother Earth News Fair in Puyallup Washington at the start of June, to get a lot of how-to interviews for you. Find out how you can contribute here.

I'm Alex Smith. Let's meet again next week.

Still Walking Away From Empire

It's beyond the point where a few doomer voices says our way of life is rotten, that industrial civilization is driving straight toward catastrophe. Most of us can see the signs ourselves.

But we are addicted to fossil power, sliding back daily into the easy life. Why can't we change, or at least walk away?

Dr. Guy McPherson did just that. He left his position as a Professor of Natural Resources and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona. Guy is now a focal point for people searching for survival, transition, and a reality-based way of life.

SOME LINKS FOR THIS PROGRAM

Before we get into this program, here are some helpful links:

Guy McPherson’s blog “Nature Bats Last”.

For the movie "Somewhere in New Mexico, Before the End of Time" on You tube, or Indiegogo.

Mike and Karen Sliwa were inspired by Guy McPherson, but decided to take a different route, touring the world working on organic farms. These labor exchange stays are called "WWOOFing" (World-wide Opportunities on Organic Farms). Mike and Karen talk about their encounter with Guy in this You tube video. Follow "Chasing A Different Carrot' for the WWOOFing adventures of Mike and Karen Sliwa. Mike Sliwa says he doesn't agree with McPherson about how soon the industrial system will fall, but knows an alternative society must begin to grow right away.

Guy tours around the U.S. giving lectures, mainly for college audiences. He is after all a well-known and respected Professor. For example, watch Guy McPherson lecture on the "Myth of Sustainability" at Muskegon Community College, Feb 15, 2012 here. (1 hour 23 min)

There are lots more Guy McPherson videos and audio interviews on the Net.

For years I've been a fan of McPherson's blog "Nature Bats Last". I almost made it to his experimental acres in the New Mexico hills. I hoped to interview him at home, as one of his tourists, but we ran out of time and gas money on the northern edge of Arizona. It was over 100 degrees there, 38 degrees Celsius in the shade, in early June. There was a huge coal plant nearby. My first question for Guy: can Arizona survive without air conditioning?

BODY TEMPERATURE AND FOSSIL FUELS

McPherson says Arizona will do just fine, but he has doubts that most Arizonans could make it without artificial cooling. Of course people could design homes to protect them from extreme heat, which includes things like lots of insulation, proper window placement and covering, fans and "swamp coolers" running on solar power, and the old standard: cool basements.

Forget about Arizona. With places like Chicago and Toronto hitting 35 degrees C. (95 F.) on the first day of summer, with super-high humidity and awful pollution - pretty well all Earthlings will have to learn the basics of staying cool in a heated world. Even the Arctic can get too hot for comfort during the summer.

Maintaining an operable body temperature is one of "the four basics" that Guy McPherson says we need. The others are clean water, safe and nutritious food, and a supportive human community.

I think the question of "body temperature" is one of the biggies in our fossil fuel dependency. In the South people need to keep cool enough. In the North it's a matter of getting through the winter. As far as I know it's not really possible to heat millions of homes in Chicago or Toronto with solar or wind power.

I have to wonder, can we really keep hundreds of millions of North Americans, Russians, or Northern Europeans alive without fossil fuels? I doubt it, and so does McPherson. Our cities are unsustainable when we factor in dwindling fossil fuels (appearing as higher and higher prices, with more and more environmental risk in production.

TOSS IN PEAK OIL

There are signs we are already past peak oil. For example we are forced into greater and greater environmental risks... like the Tar Sands, Gulf of Mexico spill from deep water rigs, Arctic drilling, gas fracking, and mountain top removal coal mining. If we had plenty of easy oil left in the big reserves, or were discovering major new fields, none of those risky and expensive energy plays would be happening.

Guy McPherson learned about Peak Oil in the early 2000's, when he was still a Professor teaching at the University of Arizona. But when he began to tell is students about the huge social risks of Peak Oil and climate change - he was asked to stop teaching.

HOW TRUTH-TELLING IS SILENCED IN AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES

Listen to the interview to hear a classic story of how truth-telling is silenced in American Universities. Professors have freedom of speech - as long as they don't use it to tell an anti-corporate narrative, or warn students about the big challenges coming.

The University started paying McPherson to stay home, without teaching - that is, to shut up. His own department banned him from teaching.

When McPherson became "Emeritus" (a former Professor), and moved to small acreage in New Mexico to experiment with "agrarian anarchism" - a strange rumor surfaced at other universities that Guy McPherson suffered from a mysterious brain disease. That disease was never named, nor was the rumor backed up by anything.

Guy says anyone leaving "normal" life is labeled crazy. But what happens when "normal" is crazy? When our daily actions contribute to a system that is driving a couple of hundred species into extinction every single day? That is melting the Arctic ice, wierding out weather beyond crop limits, killing off the bees, introducing more plastic than plankton into the oceans, and endangering entire nations with blown up nuclear reactors?

If we leave that dangerous "normal" behind - that makes us officially "crazy"? It all sounds like old Stalinist times to me. We know who the real crazy people are - the billions who pollute the Earth, driving mass extinction.

More than a decade ago, Guy McPherson began to suspect the trends and risks of extinction are so great that humans likely will not survive for many more generations.

COLLAPSE IS THE ONLY WAY LEFT TO SURVIVE THE INDUSTRIAL KILLING MACHINE

The only practical solution, McPherson says, is a wide-spread collapse of the global industrial system. Only a giant economic Depression, where trade stops and banks close, could possible cut emissions fast enough to save us. Only an end to the consumer society could save enough of the natural world to continue supporting large mammals like ourselves.

Keep in mind that McPherson is a published scientist with specialties in biology, the environment, and evolution. Find his blog "Nature Bats Last" at guymcpherson.com.

With his knowledge, to be able to "look at myself in the mirror", Guy left one of the most protected and financially rewarding jobs: being a tenured university Professor. For the last four years, he had to learn a whole new skill set.

LEARNING NEW SKILLS TO ADAPT OR SURVIVE

You may not be surprised to learn that a lifetime in academia teaches a person nothing about erecting small buildings, growing food, or caring for animals. Life many back-to-the-landers, Guy had to learn all that from scratch, with some help from neighbors who knew.

That is one reason I encourage listeners and readers to start learning those skills now. It takes time, and some mistakes, to learn how to provide off-grid shelter, to feed yourself and family, and to build community. Start now, as much as you can, where ever you are, even in the city. Grow in pots on your balcony. Become part of a community garden. Take those building supply company free courses, and volunteer where you can, building your repertoire of real survival skills. Given the instability of the financial world, starting in Europe, but maybe going global, now is the time to start.

You can learn a lot by just reading through Guy McPherson's blog. Go back through the years, looking the photos and videos, reading how he prepared gardens against pests, the outbuildings, the water sprinklers, the solar powered wells. Lots to learn there.

WALKING AWAY FROM EMPIRE

McPherson captured some his life journey in his latest (2011) book, "Walking Away from Empire: A Personal Journey".

The word "empire" is not accidental. In the interview Guy says his former city of Tucson is "at the apex of empire". Why? All the city's water comes in by canals through the desert hundreds of miles long. All the food is trucked in. The energy comes down long power lines. Without the whole industrial complex, Tucson cannot survive.

The energy supplies, and all the consumer products, depend ultimately on the vast network of military bases built up by America, now dedicated to protecting its corporations and their harvesting of both resources and cheap labor from around the world. That empire, now copied by many other nations, including Europe, Brazil, Russia, and China among many others - it a pattern of living that presupposes killing off the natural world as a consequence.

Personally, I don't see this as just an American empire. Canada has its own imperial activities. For example we direct major mining companies all over the world. Of course most of the European countries still have not just the history, but the corporate activities of empire as well. It's kind of an industrial mega structure, where half the world's people live in endless poverty, while we take their resources or even their working lives. What is the future of the industrial empire?

McPherson says there are other ways to live, and our needs are far less than what the average Western person demands. His experiment in living, along with his neighbors, is an attempt to live in a sustainable way.

The use of "clean" energy like solar power is just a bridge to true sustainability, says McPherson. When we add in the energy needed to make solar panels, and the toxic batteries, they are not a viable long-term solutions.

MCPHERSON'S TRANSITION SPREADS WIDELY

McPherson has become an inspiration to hundreds if not thousands of people. One visitor in 2011, Mike Sosebee, was inspired to make a film about Guy and his neighbors. The film "Somewhere in New Mexico, Before The End of Time" is due out this fall. I've played several clips from the movie in this Radio Ecoshock show.

One important clip is with Mary Burton Reisly. Several decades ago she purchased 18 acres of New Mexico highlands - with an all-important right to 2 acres of water - for about $68,000. You couldn't hope to buy it for that price now! Mary Burton allowed and participated in the development of a series of communal buildings and self-built homes on the property. It was developed as a land-trust as an ideal, until recently Mary Burton formed the land trust for real.

This communal experiment has really flourished. There was some debate about putting in electric power, but that was rejected, making everyone too dependent on a dangerous industrial system. You'll find out more about this in Mike Sosebee's film, but I do run one clip in the Radio Ecoshock show with Guy McPherson.

WHEN ONLY A COMPLETE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE WILL DO

Guy turns us toward the work of one of our previous Radio Ecoshock guests, Dr. Timothy Garrett from the University of Utah. Garrett has done studies and calculations showing only a complete collapse of our industrial economy can save us from a climate catastrophe.

We did two interviews with Tim. The first interview in 2010 is here. Or watch a You tube video version of one Garrett interview here (prepared by Khalid Hassan of Outfield Productions in Pakistan). In the second, he told us about doing more study, and writing a second paper, because he couldn't really answer a question I had asked him before. Even a humble radio interview can stimulate new science. Find that second Garrett paper here. That second Garrett interview is embedded in this Radio Ecoshock show titled "An Atmosphere of Crisis".

Here is an easy to understand lay summary of Garrett's theory in an article "Is Global Warming Unstoppable?" McPherson admits it is hard to call for the pain and suffering of what amounts to a Great Depression, and almost unimaginable social dislocation - as a good thing! But our current suffering, and the suffering of all the other species, is worse - and getting worser, if you'll pardon that abuse of English.

DO THOSE WHO LEAVE THE SYSTEM PRESUME THEY CAN RETURN FOR MEDICAL TREATMENT?

Now I'm going to ask a hard question. It is based on my own experience as a back-to-the-lander and self-sufficiency guy. In the late 1970's, I thought the whole thing would collapse or blow itself up with nuclear war. I had ten great years growing our own food and heat, without electricity. But the system carried on, killing off even more of the planet. What happens if industrial civilization surprises you too, if it keeps going another hundred years, while you are waiting out in the hills?

There is a lot of flexibility and wealth built into the Western-style industrial culture. Industrial society might last much too long, right until the horrible eco-crash. The other reason people leave rural self-sustainability is because they become old and need medical care. How will people in these off-grid communities handle that? Do survivalists, catastrophists, or self-styled "doomers" really count on the hospital system to somehow be there? These questions are hot button issues in many off-grid and experimental communities.

We don't have answers yet, other than to hope that better food, a lower stress life with regular exercise will mean less need for the old medical system. Many believe in alternative holistic medicine anyway. And we know hospitals themselves are dangerous places to be these days, with people catching diseases they didn't come in with.

TRANSITION VOICES

Guy McPherson also talks about Sherry Ackerman being in the film, along with others leaving "normal" lives. Sherry and Guy write for Transition Voice at transitionvoice.com.

Find Guy's regular columns at Transition Voice here.

His post for June 11, 2012 "The Age of Consequences" might serve as a good summary for the basis of this Radio Ecoshock interview. It begins:

"As we continue into the centuries-old, but only recently acknowledged era of destruction and extinction, it’s apparent the current model is not working. Largely too fearful of individual retribution to disrupt the industrial culture that's making us sick, making us crazy, and killing us, we hang tightly to the only system we’ve ever known. Pathetically reluctant to consider what lies beyond the omnicidal industrial machine, we cling to a system that has failed to nurture the living …"

AGRARIAN ANARCHY

Total communes are very rare in America. Most of the rural communities I've visited seem to be composed of self-contained homesteaders who meet up to exchange skills and produce. In our interview, Guy advocates and explains "agrarian anarchy". The agrarian part is pretty easy, but most Americans have been terribly propagandized against "anarchy".

Anarchy doesn't have to mean masked people breaking windows in some urban protest. Agrarian anarchy has a long history in practice, and in literature, in Europe, South America, and North America. Some agrarian anarchist names you may know are Henry David Thoreau, Edward Abbey, and the alternative historian Howard Zinn. Read Guy McPherson's defense of this way of life here.

WHY NOT JUST PARTY UNTIL THE END?

Part of my unpleasant job, as an alleged truth seeker on Radio Ecoshock, is to ask questions at the back of people's minds. Here is one. If the biosphere is crashing, along with the climate, as you say: why not just live the good life as long as we can? If it's so hopeless, why not party, or at least live comfortably, until we can't?

Guy says lots of people ask that question, and it's not easy to answer. We have to dig deep inside to decide what kind of people we are. Can we really live without a conscience toward the rest of the creatures, the Earth, and all future generations?

Anyway, McPherson points out, Americans are already leading pretty selfish "Hedonistic" lives. Most of us do whatever we want, no matter what the long term consequences may be. It's already the big party, the bonfire of the vanities, so maybe we need to try another option, like living sanely, alongside others trying to do the same?

It seems to me, part of the function of what Guy is doing, and his local community is doing, is to seed a lot of necessary ideas into the rest of the hive. People come, and they go, but they go with experience of living off the grid, with ways to grow our own healthy food, to make do if the corporations don't provide a pre-packaged life. Is your community a kind of transition nursery?

NO BUNKERS, GUNS AND BEANS FOR GUY MCPHERSON

One of the things I really like about Guy: he doesn’t stop communicating. There is a whole school of survivalists who sneak off to some secret bunker, while writing off all the blind ants living Wal-Mart lives. Guy has not given up on reaching the people still stuck in the dying paradigm. And he says he's not interested in the "Mad Max" fantasy of the future.

People suspect they are part of the killer system, maybe even keeping it going with their jobs. If they want to walk away, how do they start? We talk a bit about that.

In this feature length interview, we share time with a person I consider a kind of soul-mate, even though we have never met in person. Dr. Guy McPherson is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Arizona, now living in rural New Mexico, experimenting to find a truly sustainable life.

Despite our shared pessimism about the industrial system, this turned out to be a positive encounter. There are alternatives, and Guy McPherson wants to do more than find them - he wants to live them, passing on what he discovers.

I'm Alex Smith, for Radio Ecoshock.

The Beginning of The End

http://bit.ly/IEik8w Economic collapse will come before peak oil or climate disruption, says investment guru Chris Martenson, author of "Crash Course". Matthew Stein, author of "When Technology Fails" explains how a solar flare could cripple society and set off 400 Chernobyls - and how we could fix it. Alex rants against 2012 mythology. Radio Ecoshock 120425 1 hour.

Sorry, it's a long blog this week. Blame it on our guests - they had too many good things to say!

If you want to quickly download the interview separately, here they are, in CD quality (larger file) and Lo-Fi (faster download, lower quality)

CHRIS MARTENSON INTERVIEW (22 min)

http://www.ecoshock.org/downloads/economy/ES_Martenson.mp3

http://www.ecoshock.org/downloads/economy/ES_Martenson_LoFi.mp3

MATTHEW STEIN INTERVIEW (27 min)

http://www.ecoshock.org/downloads/nuclear/ES_Stein.mp3

http://www.ecoshock.org/downloads/nuclear/ES_Stein_LoFi.mp3

CHRIS MARTENSON - THE FINANCE GURU WHO KNOWS ABOUT CLIMATE, PEAK OIL, AND THE TOPPLING ECONOMY

Most of us have a gut worry about the state of governments, big banks, and big finance. Like we'll wake up one morning with nothing.

Our guest Chris Martenson trained as a scientist, but retrained in business. He made good money in the investment world with a big American corporation. Then the Martenson family life changed dramatically. We'll ask him why, and then pick his brain about things we all wish we knew.

In a talk at Oxford University in 2010, the very wealthy investor Jim Rogers told students to forget about financial careers, and go study agriculture or mining. In a way, Martenson made a similar transition. He tells us about his journey from the business world to a rural life.

Investments weren’t going his way, and when Chris investigated money and high finance, he didn’t like what he saw. He and his family moved out of the rich enclave of Bridgeport Connecticut to a more rural location. Now they are involved in self-sufficiency and community building.

But Chris continues to be one of the more popular financial bloggers on the Net. He also podcasts with another top Net blogger, Mish Shedlock. His “Crash Course” advising people how to prepare for a much more difficult financial and social scene has sold very well.

There is a lot of stress out there about banking, and broke governments. A growing group of blogs, radio hosts, and just plain folks wish it would all just end somehow. Some are cheering for a collapse. Chris says “Be careful what you wish for.” He isn’t hoping for a crash, but thinks the current system cannot go on indefinitely. Most of us, says Martenson, should prepare for a lower standard of living.

WHEN?

The never-ending question is: WHEN will the stuffing hit the fan. I've just read an analysis by Charles Hugh Smith, in his blog "Of Two Minds." The article title says it all: "When Does This Travesty of a Mockery of a Sham Finally End?" Charles says various historic cycles show a major collapse around 2021. The problem is, and this is always the case, we can see the financial system is totally unsustainable, but so far the central banks and governments have managed to keep the dance going much longer than any of us thought possible. Nobody can say whether the readjustment will come this month, this year, or even in this decade.

It is even possible we may not see a really big collapse in our lifetime (depending upon your age now). I thought it might all go under in 1981, when New York City and Chrysler went bankrupt. Interest rates went to 22% and folks lost their homes. But it all limped on.

ENERGY AND WEALTH

Scientist Tim Garrett wrote a 2009 paper saying without a complete collapse of industrial civilization, out-of-control climate change was inevitable. He based that on a historic formula about the relationship between energy and wealth. More energy makes more wealth, less energy makes less.

Find a transcript of my 2010 interview with Professor Garrett here. Or listen to this audio interview.

Chris Martenson talks about the relationships between energy availability and wealth. Basically, without energy, we can’t build much of anything else in the way of an industrial society, or even feed the current world population.

I ask Chris for his position on human-induced climate change. Too many finance gurus have either denied climate change, or said it doesn’t matter. Martenson is much more clued into the environment. He sees climate change as a long-term problem, with peak oil biting sooner, and the financial system the most pressing short-term problem.

On his blog at chrismartenson.com, you ran a two part series by Gregor MacDonald called "The Race for BTU's". The second part requires a paid subscription, but check out the first part, there is lots there for you.

Martenson dismisses claims that North America will become an oil giant once again. He’s very knowledgeable about such things as the oil shale in Utah, and the Bakken oil field. The trillions of barrels of oil claimed is much different from the amount we can actually get out without expending more energy than it is worth. Martenson says America will always be an oil importer, as long as it has the money to buy.

One of the stories I've been following is the bottleneck of refineries. Three refineries on the U.S. East Coast have closed, because the oil they were built for is too expensive or going elsewhere else now. We're down to the heavy oil, and we don't have refinery capacity connected up. It’s a sign of the shift that happens during peak oil, and it’s happening now.

MAYBE FOOD NOT OIL WILL CAUSE THE CRASH?

Many people expect a destabilizing blow to come from high gas prices at the pump. I think it may come in the grocery store. There is potential damage to this year's crops from lack of snow cover in the Prairies. A big part of the South and East are experiencing drought conditions, among a host of other problems. I ask Chris if he expects a food crisis in coming times. Martenson recommends having “deep pantries” with enough food to outlast a temporary food shock.

How much pressure is the average North American feeling because of increased consumer demand in Asia? In a resource-defined world, do we have to give up everything they gain? Martenson says “yes” – our standard of living will drop, even as poorer people in Asia gain just a little each.

When trying to model the future, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change develops several possible scenarios. I ask Chris for his plausible scenario where the current macro-financial system melts down fairly quickly. What would be the warning signs, if any, and what would we as ordinary people, the kind who need work for our next paycheck, - what would we experience?

Most of our listeners believe the science of climate change. A lot of us think M. King Hubbert was right about peak oil. But hardly any of us understand the giant dinosaurs bumping around in the secret night of high finance. Derivatives give us the shivers. With the help of people like Chris Martenson, all of us need to get smart about the economy. That is partly what the Occupy movement is about.

We got some good advice, from Chris Martenson, the investment expert who is not afraid to look a bear in the face. You can find a lot more on his web site, chrismartenson.com.

MATTHEW STEIN - THINKING THROUGH DISASTER

We have a fascination for disaster, don't we? It sells in the movies and the news. Fearing the future is part of our evolutionary brain that got us this far.

Mathew Stein doesn't just think about it. He plans, writes, and advises how to survive emergencies and crisis of all kinds. With his MIT training in engineering, Mat's built off-grid homes that would probably survive hurricanes. His books include "When Disaster Strikes: A Comprehensive Guide for Emergency Planning and Crisis Survival", and his giant reference work "When Technology Fails: A Manual for Self-Reliance, Sustainability, and Surviving the Long Emergency".

First we talk about a possible quick planet-wrecking event, and then get a few tips for surviving a long period of troubled times.

Mat Stein, welcome to Radio Ecoshock.

I've listened to several of your interviews, and listeners have written in asking to hear you. We finally get a chance to talk.

A SOLAR FLARE = 400 CHERNOBYLS?

Surfing through Google news just a week ago, I saw brilliant NASA images of a giant solar flare. It was beautiful. But in the Huffington Post you warned there could be a problem if one of those big solar storms hits the Earth. Mat explains this danger better than anyone else, I think.

You can find a Radio Ecoshock feature on the risk of solar storms here. But that was prepared before the Fukushima triple nuclear meltdown in Japan. Now Mat Stein fills in the details about a risk of 400 nuclear melt-downs around the world. It could happen!

If you are new to solar storms – they are the big flares that come from the sun from time to time. Whether we experience damage depends on whether that part of the sun if facing Earth at the time.

Listen to/download the 2010 Radio Ecoshock feature on solar storms here. Or read this transcript.

The worst solar storm we know of happened in 1859. It’s called “the Carrington Event” named after Lord Carrington who happened to see it occur on the sun. Three days later the world’s telegraph lines were hit with an electro-magnetic pulse which set off some fires in stations, and knocked out many lines. Other than that, there weren’t a lot of wires.

In 1921 there was a solar storm so large it lit up the night-time sky from the North Pole all the way south to the Caribbean for 3 nights, and from the South Pole up to Samoa – that’s most of the world, except the Tropics!

As Mat Stein points out, most of the big cities in North America had their own electrical grids – there was no national power grid in 1921. There were some problems – and Mat says that why Penn Station burned.

Fast-forward to today. Since the 1970’s, the United States alone has built over 100,000 miles of high voltage lines. These would act like a big antenna drawing the electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) toward the hundreds of big transformers which regulate the national grid.

Many of those transformers would be blow out. “Just get some more” – you might think. But each weights hundreds of tons, and was custom made. Only two factories in the world make them. Freeways have to be closed to move one in. A Congressional panel found it could take two to ten years just to replace the transformers in America. But the Americans would have to compete with Europe, China, and everyone else for the limited production. We don’t even have enough copper in stock to make them. And the rate of production assumed a normal world – not one that closes down with no electricity.

Without that electricity, refineries and filling stations stop running. Trucks laden with food for cities stop running. And cities no longer have food warehouses. The food you eat Monday was in a truck the previous Thursday. Starvation and riots would occur.

But the most serious problem of all is this: as we found out at Fukushima, nuclear reactors require outside power to cool the core, and spent fuel, even after an automatic shutdown. After a big solar storm, 400 nuclear reactors around the world might not have cooling power, after their diesel fuel runs out.

Most American plants have up to 30 days of diesel fuel. So after a month, there could be 400 Chernobyl size nuclear accidents around the world. It’s hard to know how many living things could survive that. The radioactive damage would last for millennia.

The wild thing is a congressionally mandated EMP Commission studied this problem. In their report, they found just $1 billion could help protect the America grid. There is a type of giant vacuum tube technology that can quickly isolate transformers from the electric pulse. Apparently, solid state electronics cannot react fast enough, but the old vacuum tube tech can. That’s the kind of great info we get from Matthew Stein, who is an MIT-trained engineer.

It’s a mark of our cavalier attitude, or tendency toward mass suicide, that this small amount of money has not been invested to protect the electric grids of the world! It’s just half the price of one Stealth bomber – but the Commission’s recommendations have not been implemented. We are totally exposed to the next solar storm.

We are talking with disaster expert Mathew Stein about events that happened in the past, and will happen again. We just can't say when.

We started with a low probability, super-high risk event we call a solar storm, which could cause nuclear reactors around the world to melt-down. Again, here is the link to Matt's article "400 Chernobyls: Solar Flares, EMP, and Nuclear Armageddon".

WHAT ABOUT A FOOD EMERGENCY?

Then we move on to another projected event with no fixed date. I've spoken to several guests who expect just-in-time shipping methods that feed us all, could stop on short notice for a number of reasons. It could be a war, super-storms, a new virus, or a sudden economic break down, like the one that almost happened in 2008.

Let's assume we don't fall into violent anarchy if the industrial system stops for a while. Our better intentions come out, and we want to survive as communities. Before we get to some solutions, I ask Mat: “What are the early challenges we face, when technology fails?”

If anybody is an expert on that question, it is Matthew Stein. His huge book “When Technology Fails” has just been updated. It’s like an encyclopedia of work-arounds you’ll need if the lights go out.

WHY SOME BECOME LEADERS WHILE MANY GO PASSIVE OR INTO SHOCK

In an emergency, some people go into non-responsive shock. We saw it in New Orleans after Katrina, in Asia after big tsunamis, and in towns blown away by hurricanes or tornados. But other folks come alive in an emergency. They go into over-drive to organize for survival. Is it from thinking about these things in advance, or do you think it's social or genetic differences that freeze some folks, while empowering others?

Mat thinks it’s a mix of factors, and impossible to predict who will become a leader if a disaster strikes. He has examples of those survival leaders in his books.

Let's imagine a major Western city is heavily damaged and cut off from outside help for some time. It could be an earthquake that brings down all the freeways and ports. It could be after a nuclear attack, or even a deadly virus.

What will the real survivors do? Do they organize people, or hide in holes with provisions? I suppose that depends on the nature of the threat. Personally, during a plague or super-virus, I wouldn’t head out to self-organize with my community. I’d stay home with my food stash.

But after a quake, we’d all be out there helping the wounded, and trying to build new shelter and water supplies.

THE LONG SLIDE DOWN

As you know James Howard Kunstler has written at least two novels about times after the oil supplies have run out. One was "World Made By Hand". Kunstler isn't talking about a sudden disaster, but a long slide when energy becomes more expensive, harder to find, and then gone, for most of us. He calls it "the Long Emergency". In the interview, I ask Mat how his ideas work into that scenario of a long, slow descent.

We wrap up with a simple question I ask myself, and like you ask yourself. Why do we focus on such negative futures?

Mat replies he’s a kind of realistic optimist. We need to look honestly at the problems to figure out solutions. He thinks we will muddle our way through most challenges, although nothing is guaranteed.

Some serious people, including major scientists, have suggested humanity may not survive, joining the procession of other species into extinction. I can’t believe that, but perhaps we are programmed to always believe in human survival. Anyway, I express my hope at the end of this blog.

Much of our future fate may depend on this question: If our current high-energy globalized life-styles are fragile and unsustainable, can we picture a different way of living?

Our guest Mathew Stein has worked for renewable energy, sustainable growth and alternative healing techniques. Find his web sites at matstein.com, stein-design.com and www.whentechfails.com.

If you really want to know what to do if the lights go out, make sure you have a copy of Mat's latest encyclopedic work called "When Technology Fails: A Manual for Self-Reliance, Sustainability, and Surviving the Long Emergency".

We'll have to have Mat Stein back, to get more tips. He’s a really useful guest for all of us.

MY RANT AGAINST 2012 CRAZINESS

I'm Alex Smith with an important message.

Pull up a chair; you may want to be sitting down.

Despite what you may have heard, the end is not coming in 2012.

A big solar storm is possible. As Mat Stein said, that could possibly end civilization as we know it. But that's a high risk, low probability event. Don't quit your day job waiting for it, unless you want to quit your day job anyway, and have another plan to make a living.

An economic crash is possible, but far from guaranteed. I expect the banks to be open next week, next month, and probably next year. This civilization has a lot of momentum. We humans have the flexibility to keep going.

Even when three reactors melted down on a small island, millions of people went back to their regular jobs and lives.

THE REAL PROBLEM: THIS PLANET-WRECKING SYSTEM MAY NOT CRASH

That is the real problem. A growing number of scientists say without an economic crash, we will continue to wreck the world, in some ways that cannot be repaired, and may not be survivable for mammals. Our biggest problem may not be that the world will end this year, but that it won't.

GOING BACK TO MEDIEVAL SUPERSTITION

Millions of humans are responding to this existential threat with a strange desire to see the collapse of absolutely everything. Money will be worthless, anarchy will be the norm.

There are really odd ideas are popping up all over the Internet. Our new means of mass communication by and for the masses has also exposed an echo chamber for the weirdest fringes.

Look, I could build up a really solid following by telling you this is the last week of Radio Ecoshock. The collapse is coming this week, so stock up on some food and water, because the whole system is going down.

I could probably do that every week for a few years, and still have a loyal following. It's like the bands where the lead singer collapses, the audience is worried, but somehow the star revives, and struggles back by sheer will power to play three more songs. That is old "stage magic".

Even worse, the magic of the Internet is connecting up a style of medieval thinking and emotion I hoped we'd left behind us. No, a strange dark planet is not about to appear and envelope us in evil. The distant Pleiades stars are not driving human affairs. Here is a good video which debunks most of the 2012 claims - but bail halfway when the scientific answers against star alignments, unknown planets etc ends - and gives way to a Christian explanation that old-fashioned Medieval-style "devils" are to blame! (Sigh).

David Icke can pack theatres with his stories of evil reptiles in human form. David Wilcox claims he's channeled alien voices which will be revealed in a television special with President Obama - a 2 hour special no less! - this year.

We don't know why the Mayans ended their calendar in 2012. They didn't say. We do know that Sony Pictures is milking popular superstition to sell lots of box office tickets on that fear. Sony has a long-running Net and You tube campaign to make you afraid this year. Fear sells, and while millions are packing into the 2012 fantasy, the multi-billionaires continue to rake in more of the world's wealth unseen.

As always, plenty of Christians also believe they will be physically lifted off the Earth, as the Anti-Christ goes into a last battle this year. They've believed that for two thousand years.

I'm calling B.S. on all that. The truth is horrifying enough. We have serious changes to make, and these 2012 rumors are just distractions.

It is true our industrial system has taken fragility to the max, to wring out billions more in profits for the few. You should have some fallback food and water around the house, or at least deep pantries as Mat Stein suggested. I also recommend having a little money at home, in case the ATM's stop working, as Chris Marten son said. But neither of these guests promises this is the year of collapse. The end may not be nigh. Sorry, but 2012 is just another year. I expect to be making useful radio programs in 2013.

Let's list out a few real problems:

One: We continue to grow the human population even though we can't feed those already here.

Two: we are wasting the limited resource of fossil fuels, leaving little for coming generations.

Three: we can't burn what we have, because we are wrecking the atmosphere with pollution that threatens all life on Earth

Four: even if we could burn them all, we are hacking down and poisoning the natural life-support system in other ways, from pesticides to plastics filling the oceans. The richness of life on Earth is going extinct.

Five: our economic system is unfair, to the majority of people on the planet now, and to the next generations. When we create trillions or quadrillions in debt we are lying to ourselves, and borrowing from the future. That is unsustainable and will collapse, whether suddenly or slowly. Nobody knows when.

Six: we continue to use nuclear technology, for power and weapons, even after their irreparable danger and terrible consequences are fully known.

Seven: Although we have limited our past history of all-out war, militarism continues. Social and family violence continue.

Which leads to our central problem: in all of the above, we are showing an inability to respond to reality - to do something about these situations, even when solutions exist. Instead, we continue to adopt and spread fantasies which do not address reality. These delusions make it less likely we will survive our self-made challenges, and more likely our children and grandchildren will suffer more.

ROASTING IN BOISE - HANSEN SAYS IT'S NO ACCIDENT

I don't know if you've ever heard of Boise Idaho. It's in the middle of the United States, sort of. I've just looked through their high temperature records from 1973 to 2011. The highest April temperatures are generally around 80 degrees, or about 27 Celsius. The top was in 1987, when Boise hit 88, or 31 C.

Last week it was 32 degrees, or 89.6 degrees in Boise. In April. Then it went higher, into the 90's. That is just one of the tens of thousands of heat records which continue to break across much of North America this year. There was hardly any snow in Eastern North America. See my recent program "Summer in March" with guests Jeff Masters from the Weather Underground and Joe Romm of Climate Progress (now at thingprogress.org).

The TV weathermen just call it strange, or weird weather. They seldom call it global warming. Even scientists have said for years you can't call any one season "climate change".

Now the leading American climate scientist, the man who warned Congress of this coming change in 1988, says the heat events in recent years are due to human activity. NASA's Dr. James Hansen, along with Makiko Sato and Reto Ruedy, has published a new paper called "Public Perception of Climate Change and the New Climate Dice".

It's a game changer. Without going into detail, this paper explains how we can now know, scientifically, these extreme weather events would not have happened without human modification of the climate, by burning fossil fuels. The dice are loaded, and they will continue to come up "hot" many more times than "cold".

That means our climate, and life for all living things timed to the seasons, will get stranger and stranger. We are committed to at least a century of climate disruption, and warming for hundreds, if not thousands of years.

In future shows, I'll be looking at ways we can adapt, while still fighting to contain the damage.

I CAN'T GIVE UP HOPE

I should have given up hope. This is not an option for me, as long as I love my children, and hold my grandchild. You shouldn't give up hope either. We can make a significant difference. We can make a better society. We can live better with nature.

But we can't do it by indulging in a mass psychosis where aliens are causing all our problems. Or by hoping to see the end times. Please, let's keep our minds clear, even as others fall into delusions or despair.

The sun will rise tomorrow, in 2013, and 2100. Despite difficult times, many many people will experience love, happiness, and fulfillment, even as they struggle to make a better world. Join that party, join them, join us.

I'm Alex Smith, for Radio Ecoshock.

Find out more, at our web site, ecoshock.org