CLIMATE CODE RED: SCIENCE AND PROSPECTS

The new science is rolling in from England, Australia, and the American Geophysical Union conference. The news isn't chilling - it's heating and it's very scary.

To cover it, we interview two top people in the field. We open with David Spratt, co-author of "Climate Code Red - The Case for Emergency Action" - which is just now being released in North America.

I received an update from David, passed on by top Australian scientist Andrew Glikson. I trust Glikson, and he says Spratt has the science right.

It seems so hard to believe. Even a close friend, a life-time environmentalist, came out doubting science just a week ago. We have the denial mechanism designed into us, since our earliest days. Nothing in human experience, as taught and recorded by any civilization, revealed that the climate system was very delicate. In fact, our world was barely balanced between the "Ice House" (vast glaciation) and the "Hot House" (climates too hot for humans and life as we know it). Unknowingly, we are tipping the switch.

We MUST pay attention - no matter what the temporary weather is outside, or the political climate. It is time to learn or die.

Following, David Spratt, we go to one of the best - Hell - he is the best - climate blogger on the Net. That is Joseph Romm, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. During the Clinton Administration, Mr. Romm was acting assistant secretary of energy, responsible for energy efficiency and renewable energy.

Joe Romm's blog "Climateprogress.org" is reprinted all over the place, including many features in the Grist Mill blog. We are lucky to get him on radio, explaining not just the hot new climate science, but the possibilities for surviving this natural trap.

Romm is also plugged into the Democratic science establishment, and describes some of the appointments made by Barrack Obama - that could help the climate.

Then I do my "Tools for Tough Times" - simple gear for an emergency, Depression or system breakdown. You may need these tools, due to a storm, civil disruption, banking failure, flu outbreak, or just a lost job and looming poverty on government hand outs. Get your gear.
Here is a short list, but you should listen to the broadcast.

The full Radio Ecoshock show is available in CD Quality 56 MB or Lo-Fi 14 MB

Production Note: 10 sec music bed for station ID at 29:53.

ECOSHOCK GREEN GOLD the best enviro tunes

All the tunes we've used on Radio Ecoshock - full versions and how to contact the artists. 1 hour CD Quality 56 MB (recommended) or Lo-Fi 14 MB

After all the words, of scientists and activists, it's time to reach another part of your brain. We've never done this before - but see if these songs don't get you going. And play it any time.

Production Notes: 30 second song bed at 29:30, pull down for your station ID. Ready to play.

Playlist: "Endless Summer" Ghostly Penguin Display;
"Runaway Train" Eliza Gilkyson;

"Alternative Energy" Combat Wombat (Australia);
"Mother Earth" Shane Philip (Canadian);

"What If You Knew" David Rovics;
"Is That What It Will Take?" Bryan Wood;

"Swimmin In D'Nile" Dana Lyons;
"High Water Rising" Joel Zifkin;

"Our Ocean" Te Vaka (Polynesia);
"Slow Down Fast" Bruce Cockburn (Cdn);

"Power From Above" Dan Berggsen (#1 from our site);
"Good Planets Are Hard to Find" Steve Forbert;

"Dirty Town" Mother Mother (Cdn);
"It's Not Easy Being Green" Kermit the Frog;

"House of Trouble" Clatter;
"Gamma Ray" Beck.

Enjoy!

Alex
Radio Ecoshock

EARLY DEPRESSION DAZE

Forget Madoff. Wall St. is the giant Ponzi scheme.

The former NASDAQ Chairman and investing icon Bernard Madoff admits he ran a giant investment scam that lost $50 billion. Everyone, the wealthiest and wise, were taken in. Even the Rothschilds were hit, not to mention Swiss banks, British Banks (Royal Bank of Scotland and HSBC), hedge funds (for a cool ten billion), Jewish charities, university endowments, pensions funds, municipalities. Lots of pain - but it's also illustrative of the much bigger landscape. Wall Street and all the big banks were just Ponzi operations, paying out old investors from new suckers. Can you say "sub-prime"?

Hear, in his own words, audio of Bernie explaining why fraud just isn't possible these days, due to stiff regulation. Yeah right.

It gets worse. The CDS/CDO asteroid is set to strike Earth in 2009. Bets totalling at least $50 trillion dollars come home for settlement. But that is more than the net worth of Earth. As Max Keiser points out - even if every American home and business were sold off to the Chinese and Saudis - the debt still wouldn't be paid.

That is the black hole the American Treasury and the FED (read: the same bank nuts who got us into this mess) are trying to fill up with your children's tax money. There isn't enough money in the world to settle these gambling debts. The idea any of it is going to be paid back is ridiculous. It just goes into the hole, and is never seen again. That is called "deflation".

Why doesn't the government give the money to the people instead? Or at least start up some productive industry, like building alternative energy plants, and more trains. Sadly, the gansters/bankers are in charge of our government now, scaring the politicians worse than Osame bin Laden. And paying them off too.

Alex explains.

Then we interview Michael Byron on surviving the Crunch. He's the author of the Infinity's Rainbow series, and a professor in the San Diego area. His last book is:
""The Path Through Infinity’s Rainbow: Your Guide for Personal Survival and Spiritual Transformation in a World Gone Mad."

Finally, at the request by a couple of listeners, Alex comes clean about his food storage project. How much things cost, how long will wheat last in buckets, why is bulk food so hard to find all of a sudden? Getting in ahead of the curve, as the world food situation - even in plentious America - gets scary.

You will also hear a song I love, capturing the times "Clearcut" by Ethan Miller and Kate Boverman. And, of course, "Food Storage Blues" by Mormon Brother Thompson and the bean sisters.


Alex's food storage audio blog. Bit of music and fun. Radio Ecoshock 081219 1 hour CD Quality 56 MB or Lo-Fi 14 MB

Production Notes: Song "Clearcut" by Ethan Miller & Kate Boverman runs from 27:50 to 30:41. Interrupt for station ID if needed. Other music: "Food Storage Blues" by Brother Thompson. Short clips from maxkeiser.com, Bernard Madoff, Sky News.

FOUR HORSEMEN Cars, Coal, Climate & War

1. Testimony to Select Committee on Energy Independence & Global Warming Dec 9.

On auto bail-out & real future of green transpo. Clips from Chairman Ed Markey, Member Jay Inslee, plus testimony from Joan Claybrook of the watchdog group Public Citizen (founded by Ralph Nader). Next up is a bit from Reuben Munger, Chairman of a start-up independent auto maker - of electric plug-in vehicles, called Bright Automotive.

Also, Dr. Peter Morici, Professor of International Business at the University of Maryland, thinks the bailout is a waste of money and won't work.

Finally, from the design side of the car business, there is Mr. Geoff Wardle, Director of Advanced Mobility Research, Art Center College of Design in Pasadena California. He describes the need to design a real public transport system that is green and sustainable.


2. Frosty the Coal Man? Twisted carols and coal plant radiation. What, you didn't know coal plants emit bomb-quality radiation along with the CO2?

3. second half hour - Gwynne Dyer columnist, author, military historian on extreme climate change and resulting wars. Exclusive preview of new radio series.
Recorded at the Park Theatre December 6, 2008.

Radio Ecoshock Show 081212 1 hour CD Quality 56 MB or Lo-Fi 14 MB

Production Notes: 30 second music bed for station ID at 29:30. Can be run as two half hour shows. No copyright music. Cut end music as needed if more time required.

CLIMATE TERRORISM: The Tar Sands

As #1 supplier of oil to USA, Canada's tar sands kill the environment, locals, and pollute the world's atmosphere. Canada can never control its emissions with this giant carbon smokestack to the sky. Now they want to make the damage five times greater. To scoop off the soil in an area the size of Florida. Strip mining vast areas for the world's dirtiest source of oil.

The U.S. group Environmental Defense launched a report February 2008 titled "Canada's Toxic Tar Sands, The Most Destructive Project on Earth" A whole range of activists, from Greenpeace to the Council of Canadians, is fighting to stop massive expansion of the Tar Sands. The major oil companies want to strip away the surface of the Earth in a patch the size of Florida. They dump their toxic waste into giant man-made lakes dangerously close to the mighty Athabasca River, and by that river, to the sensitive Arctic.

All told, the Tar Sands projects, led by the world's largest oil companies, create an octopus of toxic waste and global climate change. No one is exempt.

Three new speeches:

Jessie Kalman on environmental and social impacts. From the Polaris Institute. Update on latest situation, including the economic downturn;

Mike Mercredi - the industrial genocide of aboriginals. A member of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation describes how his family and community are dying of cancer in unbelievable numbers, now that the Tar Sands mega-project is upstream. A really moving speech puts the poisons in perspective.

Will Horter, from the Dogwood Initiative, on new pipelines, ports and spills in British Columbia's treasured forests and coast. Even the Great Bear Rain Forest is at risk, as tanker traffic is set to double in the wild and stormy West Coast of Canada, British Columbia. The pipelines will scar the rockies. The spills are inevitable, from this spiderweb of chemicals running from Canada's North to all points south, and the American refineries.

The Radio Ecoshock Show 081205 1 hour CD Quality 56 MB or Lo-Fi 14 MB

Production Notes: 30 second music bed for station ID at 29:30.
Music: "Dirty Little Secret" by All American Rejects.

P.S. be sure and visit notankers.ca to sign their petition.

Alex.
Radio Ecoshock

FASTEN YOUR SEATBELTS It's going to be a bumpy ride...

It's the double whammy: the economy and the climate crash at the same time.

Outgoing President Bush is exercising his scorched Earth policy on BOTH, as he slides out the door.

This is Radio Ecoshock with Alex Smith. The news is pouring in with changes too big for the imagination. In this program, you'll hear a quick clip from Barack Obama, his climate promises.

A Toronto Professor explains the links between economic and natural crashes. Peter Victor's book launch for "Managing Without Growth, Slower by Design Not Disaster" this past November 18th. The book describes an economy that does not depend on growth. Unreasonable demands for endless growth is killing off both the capitalist economy and the planet. The launch was attended by famed environmentalist and broadcaster Dr. David Suzuki and Toronto Mayor David Miller. Mayor Miller described that city's plan to "reclad" tower buildings - to finally add an outside layer to these energy inefficient giants built when energy was cheap. There's a make-work project for every city in the world - as oil and natural gas decline.

My thanks to listener John-Paul Warren of Toronto for recording the book launch and sending it in to Radio Ecoshock.


Then our feature presentation: the latest climate science from NASA's James Hansen, and Tom Helweg-Larson of the Public Interest Research Centre. I recorded the live webcast for you, from parliamentlive.tv You can download the 68 minute testimony from our Climate Page at ecoshock.org

I'll recap Hansen and Helweg-Larson with lots of clips, in less than 24 minutes - and point you to a free download of the full audio.

They testified to the Environmental Audit Committee in the United Kingdom on Wednesday November 26th. The climate news is horrific.

As George Monbiot wrote in the Guardian newspaper, we may already be too late. He claims the Iraq War is just number two on the list of crimes against humanity carried out by George W. Bush. Number One for all time is the Bush administration's stalling of real action on climate change (while helping make it worse). This article by Monbiot is one of his most powerful, check it out.

We get a bit of that, plus an argument from blogger Sharon Astyk, in a controversial article titled "A New Deal or a War Footing? Thinking Through Our Response to Climate Change."

Sharon takes apart the new energy program proposed by Al Gore in the New York Times on November 9th. She counts up the carbon costs of building the new solar heat plants, wind farms, the new power grid for America, converting our rolling stock to electric, and retrofitting all our buildings.

The only thing Gore doesn't mention is changing our wasteful lifestyles. Just like the free money Paulson pulls out of a hat, we developed people don't have to give up a thing. We'll just build our way out of it, using fossil powered machinery, and more gigatons of carboniferous cement, and steel. Just the urge to save ourselves will generate more new greenhouse gases than the atmosphere can withstand.

Sharon Astyk, says the better alternative is to cut our own energy consumption now by at least 50% - whatever that takes. Whatever it takes.

Also in this show: Robert Pollin describes a real green recovery plan, based on his new book. Our four minute clip comes courtesy of Ken Nash and Mimi Rosenberg of WBAI's Building Bridges radio show - great progressive radio from pro journalists. They are at buildingbridgesonline.org.

And we hear how carbon can stay in the atmosphere - forever! Dr. David Archer's new book "The Long Thaw" describes the ugly truth about CO2.

The show is loaded with references and quick clips, from places like peakmoment.tv and therealnews.com It's a radio journey. Even a bit of Monty Python to lighten the load.

Our music theme this week is "Fasten Your Seatbelts" from Pendulum, with a close-out tune "This Is Your Captain Speaking" by Laurie Anderson (who just married Lou Reed last April!)

Who knows what wonders will appear next week - and how many more trillions will disappear, as Bush-Paulson and company make the largest U.S. Treasury raid in history.

Alex Smith
host
Radio Ecoshock
www.ecoshock.org

FOOD THREATS & SURVIVAL - PLUS HYBRID HUMAN POWER

We open up this program with a classic 1946 quote from U.S. President Harry Truman. Old Harry begs Americans to save scraps of bread to help feed the starving overseas. We haven't heard much of that recently, although an estimated 860 million something people are hungry to dying.

You get a 24 minute interview with Kathy Jo Wetter of ETC Group. They've just released a report ""Who Owns Nature? Corporate Power and the Final Frontier in the Commodification of Life." That's the title of the 100th newsletter coming from the ETC Group, published in November 2008.

It's an ambitious report naming exactly which corporations are trying to take over the world's food and drug industry, from seeds to processing and chemicals, all the way to your grocery store, and your body. Plus a lot of top ten charts that name names: the companies who control most of your food chain. They'd like to own it all.

Then I look at threats to our wheat supply, which is rapidly dwindling. We've used up more than we grew in 6 of the last 7 years. At their low point, just before the harvest, humans only have 55 days worth of wheat in reserve (as Lester Brown tells us in a quick clip).

Then there is the UG99 black stem wheat rust - a scary fungi that can destroy wheat crops. It was discovered in Uganda back in 1999, and spread up the East Coast of Africa. Then the only force five hurrican ever recorded in the Indian Ocean spread UG99 to the Middle East. It is now in Iran, and threatens to cross over into the Punjab bread basket of India. Maybe the Ukraine too.

Eventually this crop threat will reach North America. We have some fungicides, but not nearly enough, as outlined in this show. The resistant variety might take 5 years to get into the marketplace. A rust in 1954 killed forty percent - that's 40%!! - of the North American wheat harvest, so this is serious stuff.

Also, we don't have the big food warehouses anymore, in your city. The corporations are using a just in time system to deliver food directly from the source to your local food market. They use the trucks themselves as a rolling warehouse. So... if there is an emergency, whether climate, earthquakes, the bird flu, or just crop shortages and stopped trucks - you cannot depend on any outside source of food. Maybe it's time to consider your own food storage at home.

I interview Kari from Survival Foods Canada Business is really picking up there, as Canadians worry about their food supply, in the coming Depression. The same thing is happening in the United States, for companies like readyreservefood.com

FINALLY - WE CHANGE IT UP AND GO FOR HUMAN POWER STATIONS...

How about hybrid humans that produce their own electric power - just by walking around. Not only does this device exist - it makes walking easier, not harder. The invention is in it's earlier stages, led by Max Donelan of the Simon Fraser University Locomotion Lab.

The prototypes are being taken commercial, to provide power for those needing heart stimulation, or other internal body pumps that require a sure and rechargeable source of electricity. But the future possibilities are astounding. You would power your ipod/phone/computer just by walking down to the corner store. Perhaps in the future, all of us will become independent power stations, removing the need for bit climate killing fossil fuel plants.

I caught up with Max Donelan at a Cafe for Scientists in the Vancouver Public Library, on November 19th, 2008. In this 16 minute clip, introduced by CBC radio personality Hal Wake, Max explains his invention, plus the basics of human power use.

All in all, it's a full hour of information tinged with paranoia (or is that reality?)

Alex Smith
host
Radio Ecoshock

Production Notes: 30 second music bed for station ID starting at 29:34
No copyrighted music.