5 Years to Climate Hell

NOTES FOR RADIO STATIONS:
SONG CLIP "Five Years" by David Bowie, album Ziggie Stardust & the Spiders from Mars (1972)
SONG CLIP: "We Are The Many" by Makana (no album yet)
TELECONFERENCE with Lester Brown by Earth Policy Institute (recorded by Alex Smith)
Download full conference in CD quality (22 minutes) here.

Welcome. This week we have a show packed with good news, horrible news, and crazy news - all about the coming climate shift.

Here is a quick show overview, with more notes below.

Yes, those greenie extremists say we have only five fossil polluting years left before Planet Earth is thown on an unstoppable path toward extreme climate change. Oh wait, this warning comes from the conservative voice of 28 major countries, the International Energy Agency. It's the most depressing news yet.

Lester Brown of the Earth-Policy Institute has at least a dribble of good news. U.S. greenhouse gas emisisons are starting to drop. And it's not just because Americans are broke with no manufacturing left. I hate to talk good news against a tsunami of evil tidings, but you will hear some of what Lester told the world press in a news teleconference.

Diana Bronson is the Program Manager for an international organization called the ETCGroup, with offices in Canada, the U.S., Mexico, and the Philippines. Their latest book is "Earth Grab, Geopiracy, the new Biomassters, and Capturing Climate Genes."

Haven't heard about that? We'll also talk about synthetic biology, geoengineering and other risky projects your mother never told you about.

We speak to Emily James, executive producer of "The Age of Stupid". Her new film, "Just Do It" follows the climate camps which foreshadowed the whole Occupy movement, and the young activists who won't take climate wrecking lying down. "Just Do It" is a tool for activist training. It's already being shown in Occupy camps around the world.

We wrap up with a short clip from the Occupy song "We Are the Many" which Hawaiian singer Makana snuck into the APEC summit dinner. Despite record security, Makana sang to the assembled powers about the rage of the many left out. It's hard to keep out all of the people all of the time.

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The big International Energy Agency, the IEA, which hasn't given a hoot about climate change for decades, suddenly issued a stark warning.

As the Guardian newspaper headline says: "If fossil fuel infrastructure is not rapidly changed, the world will 'lose for ever' the chance to avoid dangerous climate change."

"The door is closing" says IEA Chief Economist Fatih Birol, and if we can't change our energy infrastructure in the next five years, quote, "The door will be closed forever."

If we add up all the fossil fuels we could still burn, and stay below the 450 parts per million thought to keep us below 2 degrees of global warming - and keep the Greenland Ice sheet - we only have a little left. In fact, the IEA study calculates we will have burned at least 90% of that last reserve by 2015. By 2017, if we want a habitable climate for our descendents, we have to stop burning all fossil fuels, and prevent other human-made greenhouse gases from entering the atmosphere.

In 2010, we tossed a record 30.6 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, about 6% more than the year before.

Quoting from the report, the International Energy Agency says:

"On planned policies, rising fossil energy use will lead to irreversible and potentially catastrophic climate change.”

“… we are on an even more dangerous track to an increase of 6°C [11°F]…. Delaying action is a false economy: for every $1 of investment in cleaner technology that is avoided in the power sector before 2020, an additional $4.30 would need to be spent after 2020 to compensate for the increased emissions.”

A global average warming of 6 degrees Centigrade, or 11 degrees Fahrenheit is the disaster that British scientist Sir James Lovelock warned us about years ago. Scientists calculate that around 11 or 12 degrees Fahrenheit, mammals can no longer cool themselves with sweat.

And these are global average increases. Some places, like the Arctic may go up 25 degrees or more, to become tropical rainforests. Most of Africa, the United States, and large parts of Asia would be uninhabitable. And we haven't even talked about the total disruption of rainfall patterns - like drought, floods, fires - on land. Or the stratification of the ocean which can lead to a shift in species, leading to dead zones, or even dead seas.

Here is what Joe Romm, expert blogger at thinkprogress.org, writes, quote:

"The IEA report deserves the label 'bombshell,' though, because for most of the past two decades, the IEA was the source of bland, conservative, business-as-usual analysis. When I was Acting Assistant Secretary of Energy for energy efficiency and renewable energy in 1997, no one at DOE paid much attention to IEA reports. And that perspective continued through most of the 2000s.

But in just the last few years they have woken up to the risks posed to peak oil — see IEA top economist warns [in August of 2009]: 'We have to leave oil before oil leaves us' — and especially climate change. In releasing its 2009 WEO, the IEA warned, 'The world will have to spend an extra $500 billion to cut carbon emissions for each year it delays implementing a major assault on global warming.'

Now the IEA has done the calculation a different way, concluding, 'Delaying action is a false economy: for every $1 of investment in cleaner technology that is avoided in the power sector before 2020, an additional $4.30 would need to be spent after 2020 to compensate for the increased emissions.' Those who counsel waiting for breakthrough technologies are urging us on a path that is unsustainable, irreversible, potentially catastrophic, and economically indefensible, according to the IEA....

The new analysis shows that because of soaring emissions, we are running out of time for the '450 Scenario.' We are at risk of irreversibly 'locking in' dangerous warming."

Thank you Joe Romm, for leading us through the latest climate news.

As I told Ecoshock listeners previously, climate scientists are still figuring out why we haven't already heated more according to the emissions we release. Sure, we've seen record floods, fires, storms, and the Russian heat wave of 2010. But it could be hotter already.

The always worth-while podcast "The Climate Show" (#20)from New Zealand offers a good summary of current thought. There are three known cooling factors operating.

One: aerosols from a wave of new Asian coal plants pumps sulphates into the atmosphere which reflect sunlight back into space. That's a limited time offer.

Second: the sun has been in a quiet perioid, with few Sun Spots, and solar flares. That may be ending, as NASA reported a "monster" solar flare on November 4th. That particular flare was not facing the Earth, so we didn't get hit. But it may indicate the period of solar quiet is over, which could add slightly to our warming.


Third, and the largest factor, is ocean mixing. The ocean absorbs somewhere between 80 and 90 percent off all the excess energy in a greenhouse atmosphere. The seas mix this down. Recent research shows even the very deepest parts of the ocean are warming slightly. All this heat will come back out eventually, guaranteeing warming for centuries, if not millennia.

In the last two years, the cooler waters are coming up, in the phenomenon known as La Nina. Another recent study has shown the ocean cycle called "ENSO" has not been affected by climate change. So the warmer water phenomenon, the "El Nino" which gave us the record hot year of 1998, should return in the next year or two. When it does, expect record heat waves.

Even with all those cooling factors, NASA still named 2010 as the hottest year on record. It is frightening to imagine the coming climate disasters, as we ramp up. And according to the IEA, and a series of national Academies around the world, we have just 5 years to drastically cut all our greenhouse gas emissions.

Meanwhile, all countries, all the players like the U.S., Canada, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Japan - intend to do nothing at the next climate conference in Durban at the end of November 2011. The American Congress continues to deny global warming is even happening. Presidential Candidates promise they will get rid of any environmental laws, and the Environmental Proteciton agency.

Our future is not looking good. At times, I fear the remainder of humanity will end up in Northern Canada, Scandinavia, Siberia, Patagonia, New Zealand, and Tasmania. The rest of the world will be wrecked and uninhabitable.

To fend off this ultimate pessimism, I can only offer two bits of good news. First, we'll look at a few patterns in the original big polluter, the United States, where greenhouse emissions are going down, no matter what the politicians do or say. Lester Brown explains that.

And don't forget, we're going to wrap up with a tasty interview and new film on how to get out there and make some noise before we all go down in flames.

But first, an interview on the cutting edge. Synthetic biology. Capturing climate genes, and fending off crazy last-ditch ideas to shade out the sun. Check this out.

Diana Bronson is the Program Manager for an international organization called the ETCGroup, with offices in Canada, the U.S., Mexico, and the Philippines. Their latest book is "Earth Grab, Geopiracy, the new Biomassters, and Capturing Climate Genes."

20 minute Diana Bronson interview listen/download in CD quality here.
20 minute Diana Bronson interview listen/download in Lo-Fi (faster download) here.

You can do somthing about this! Go to handsoffmotherearth.org and participate by sending your photo to world leaders. Tell them, when they gather at Rio + 20 to ban geoengineering. Don't let a few scientists or corporations alter the Sun (or turn the sky milky white instead of blue...)


I promised you a bit of good news. Yes, I know, it goes against Radio Ecoshock Show policy, but I trust this source. Lester Brown founded the World Watch Institute, and then his own Earth Policy Institute. He's a man for numbers and facts, and trusted by greens, industry, and governments - rare these days.

In the radio program I run selections from the Lester Brown press teleconference November 2nd. You'll also hear Lester's response to a couple of doubts I raised on your behalf. Is it just because all the manufacturing has moved to China? Or the Tar Sands emissions for American oil are burned off in Canadian production?

Lester agrees there are problems with the numbers. He says we need a way to calculate the emissions in products, in the countries where they are consumed. If that were done, America's emissions would be higher, and China's far lower...

Download/listen to the Lester Brown teleconference here.

Yes, it's good news that U.S. greenhouse gas emissions have gone down. Although I am just now investigating new science showing the total American greenhouse gas emission might have gone UP, when we count in all the methane leaking out of gas fracking operations and gas pipelines. Expect to hear more about that.

There are some mitigating factors which Brown raises. Like the bulge of population, the Baby Boomers, are starting to retire. When they don't have to commute to work, miles traveled drops. More city youth are turning to bikes and mass transit, as the car is no longer such a status symbol. The U.S. auto fleet is more fuel efficient.

And campaigns to stop coal plant construction, and close old ones, are becoming more successful. It's hard to believe, but in July 2011 New York Mayor and billionaire Michael Bloomberg donated $50 million to the Sierra Club anti-coal campaign!

But even if official statistics say American emissions are going down, it's kind of like saying 6% fewer women were raped this year. Not really all that much to cheer about, as more gigatonnes of emissions continue to pour out of American smokestacks and tailpipes.

We also have to remember that North Americans are responsible for about half of all the greenhouse gases already in the sky. We never want to admit that. It's like that famous scene where from the TV program Sienfeld. Elaine complains she doesn't want to be responsible for the loss of Joe Mayo's coat, even though she was the one who tossed it out the window.

We don't see why we should be held responsible, even though we are. That's what the rest of the developing countries are complaining about. That is why they want the climate compensation fund promised to them by Hilary Clinton, and expect to get it at the upcoming Durban Climate Conference. It won't happen, even though it should.

Maybe we can make something happen. Maybe we can still force our fossil leaders to try to save the climate for the coming generations.

Download the CD Quality 19 minute interview with Emily James, film maker of Just "Do It" or get the faster downloading Lo-Fi version here.

Speaking of actions, a Hawaiian singer named Makana was brave enough to sing his new Occupy movement song to all the assembled world leaders at the APEC summit in mid-November in Honululu. While other Occupiers protested outside, Makana serenaded the Saturday night diners inside with his song about the people's rage.

Find a the whole song, with lyrics, on You tube.

Alex Smith
Radio Ecoshock
Now on 50 stations, on 3 continents.

Plane Justice - Banned In America

BONUS AUDIO THIS WEEK: The complete interview with Dan Glass, the famous "Plane Stupid" campaigner from the UK. The crazy actions that highlighted the serious impacts of expanding airports and air travel. 32 minutes Lo-Fi 7 MB.

Rockin' out with the Steve Miller Band, this is Radio Ecoshock. Big old jet airliner, the magic of flying, we can fly! Humans love those roaring jets so much, we hardly notice the 5 percent boost to greenhouse gases from all the jet fuel burned.

You may not love them so much if you live within 12 miles of any airport, where the cancer, heart deaths, sleepless nights and wrecked lives grow. It's not just the noise. Cancer-causing chemicals fly from the exhaust and drop into communities all over the world.

As the world economy peaks in growth, and starts to shrink in resources, the airline industry and their government boosters still plan on a mad burst of expansion. Over 3,000 American airports plan new runways, like runway number eight at O'Hare in Chicago, or JFK in New York.

Victims under the flight paths are blamed by the industry, and abandoned by major environmental groups in the U.S. and Canada.

Not so in the UK. British and Scottish green groups boosted public awareness. 3,000 camped out to stop the expansion of Heathrow airport in London. They killed the third runway. We'll talk to leader John Stewart in Britain. Although John has no criminal record, he's been banned from America in a horrible loss for free speech, and airport protest groups.

In this program, you will hear what Stewart planned to say on the recent Aviation Justice Tour in the U.S. and Canada.

Then we'll hear from one of the most experienced airport expansion campaigners in the U.S. Debi Wagner has been fighting off pollution from SeaTac airport in Seattle for decades. She knows where the cancer grows.

I'll squeeze in a bit from British "Plane Stupid" campaigner Dan Glass, the man who super-glued his hand to the Prime Minister's sleeve. He too got a visit from one of Obama's top FBI agents.

I'm Alex Smith. The dream of mass flight for humans is killing the planet, and wrecking the lands below. Get ready for a hard landing.

Live From the Occupy Oakland General Strike!

Remember this?

The chaotic scene in Oakland, California on the night of October 25th. Former Marine Scott Olsen received serious head injuries after being shot at very close range by police clearing the Occupy Oakland site and streets.

An investigation has been called into police actions. The Mayor apologized. The injury to Olsen invigorated Occupy Wall St protesters and others around the country.

The ugly violence, played out on TV's around the world, also caused other Mayors to reconsider, and let their Occupy protesters stay.

By November 2nd, activists called for a General Strike in Oakland. The results were mixed with some unions cooperating. But the transit system, most institutions, and the big shipping port of Oakland remained open.

Until the evening, when the crowd of a few thousand grew upwards to 5,000 or much more. They marched to the Port gates and forced operations to shut down, at one of America's biggest shipping zones.

Late that evening I received emails (and audio) from several Oakland protesters and media activists who were satisifed with the peaceful occupation of the city.

Occupy Oakland went from police brutality to widespread public engagement,with hardly any police around.

But later that night, in the early hours, with a dwindling crowd, there were a few break-ins, window smashing, and more confrontations with police.

The next morning, November 4th, the tent city called a meeting to discuss the "destructive anarchists" as one blog called them. Occupy Oakland campers considered an apology, and a work-crew to clean up broken glass downtown. The assembled group re-affirmed their non-violence.

This is just one of the divisions and challenges in the midst of the Occupy movement. The majority favor non-violence. A minority want to go much further, into violent revolution if need be.

Meanwhile, a Radio Ecoshock correspondent from the Bay Area, long time media activist Karen Nyhus, sent us a series of short on-the-scene recordings of another big topic in the Occupy movement: the role of the 99% opposing governments dominated by fossil fuel billionaires, intent on profiting from damage to our climate. They want justice.

Here we go - actuality from the Occupy Oakland protesters, November 2nd, the day of the general strike. You hear a fascinating set of interviews, from activists to the down-but-not-out.

You'll hear cat-calls from corporate media. Would you believe Rupert Murdoch's Wall St. Journal keeps writing headlines that it's all over, or the protesters are just drug-addicted bums? What a surprise!

Big TV interviews all the Mayors and Chiefs of Police.

We interview the people who were there.

All recordings are by media activist Karen Nyhus, thank you Karen - keep it up!

If you have audio for Ecoshock, use yousendit.com to send your mp3 file to this address: radio at ecoshock.org

Please send an email first, asking if your audio idea will work for our program.

I'm Alex Smith, thank you for listening.

DURBAN Conference of the Polluters - The Show

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Durban Climate Talks - Professor Patrick Bond

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That ends a quote from Dr. Patrick Bond.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WHAT ABOUT SOUTH AFRICA?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ALEX SMITH OPINION - DESPAIR A LUXURY WE CANNOT AFFORD

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

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

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

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

FINAL NOTE/CORRECTION

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

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

HOMELESS - A Tour of Four Cities

Some of the people camped out in Occupy Wall Street have no where else to go.

As reported by Associated Press, Occupy encampments from Portland, Oregon through L.A. to Atlanta are finding homeless people moving into tent cities set up by protesters.

Some Occupy sites are finding bylaws written to send away the homeless are being used to prevent Consitutional rights to Freedom of Assembly and expression.

Polls show millions of Americans are just one paycheck away from losing their homes. Many more are already in foreclosure, being evicted, or already out on the street. Lots of us worry, could I be next? Could you handle it, the way things are now?

Maybe the rights of the homeless will matter to you, down the line.

Radio Ecoshock is going to take you on a quick tour of homelessness in North America. We'll visit New York City, where 36,000 school children have no home. San Francisco, where it is illegal to sit or lie on the sidewalk. Even in the capital, in Washington D.C. we'll find the homeless next to the limousines and lobbyists. In Canada, there is a little progress in Vancouver, with street-sleepers reduced by 80%.

There are somewhere between 600,000 and a million homeless people in America. The wild thing is: America is flooded with empty houses. One in ten homes in the United States is vacant. That's about 18 million homes.


If we guestimate there are as many as 500,000 families needing a home, there are 36 empty homes for every homeless family in America!

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989, all housing was owned by the government. As Dmitry Orlov has told us on Radio Ecoshock, people just stayed where they were. So there was no wave of homelessness in Russia or it's member states.


But America is stuck. Houses sit empty. Sometimes the banks even tear them down. But people - many of them families with young children - keep getting foreclosed, evicted, kicked out into the street. Apparently Capitalism just can't handle de-growth.

As winter approaches, and the economy heads into the dumpster, homelessness is growing in New York City. The nasty surprise is that both the State and City appear to be slashing help for the homeless in their hour of greatest need.

Radio Ecoshock visits the Big Apple with Gisell Routhier, Policy Analyst for the NYC Coalition for the Homeless.

New York is setting new records for homeless people, and for homeless families. See this and this.


We talk with Jennifer Friedenbach, Executive Director of the San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness. Why has this formerly welcoming city gone into a media orgy of bashing the poor?

We'll go on to Washington, D.C. to speak with Michael Ferrell, Executive Director of the District’s Coalition for the Homeless, to see what is going on there.

Our last stop is Vancouver, Canada - with famous anti-poverty activist Jean Swanson of the Carnegie Community Action Project (CCAP), and author of the book "Poor Bashing: The Politics of Exclusion".

This ain't no social cause. Homelessness in a land of wealth is a national disgrace.

In San Francisco we learn the city has stopped counting the number of homeless people found dead on the streets every year. The average is at least one hundred dead. In just one city.

An estimated 37,000 homeless Americans die every year.


About 155 of them murdered, some as hate crimes, for fun or out of a desire to kill someone vulnerable.

More data here.

You won't see this on TV, but there is a National Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day on December 21, 2011, to remember those victims of a system that just didn't care.

World Homeless Day this year was on October 10th. Remember that? All the news specials and coverage that got? Didn't think so.

Let's look at just a few things our guests had to say.

A FOUR CITY POLL ON THE RIGHTS OF THE HOMELESS

First of all, I ran a quick poll trying to compare the rights of the homeless in each city.

Here are the results:

Is it legal for a homeless person to sit on the sidewalk?

New York Yes, as long as not blocking traffic
San Francisco No, not between 7 a.m and 11 pm
Washington, D.C. Yes
Vancouver Yes

Is it legal for a homeless family to sleep in a public place?

New York Not in parks. Are found under bridges, in laundromats. etc
San Francisco No
Washington No
Vancouver Children would be apprehended (by social services)


Is there anywhere homeless people can legally pitch a tent to live in?

New York Not sure, but not likely. All parks have curfews.
San Francisco No
Washington No
Vancouver No

Is it legal to sleep in a car or camper in your city?

New York Yes. But finding legal parking a nightmare.
San Francisco No
Washington Camper Yes, Car No
Vancouver Probably, not sure.

Does your city have public washrooms accessible to the homeless?

New York Not asked.
San Francisco Some, very limited
Washington Yes, a few
Vancouver Very, very few

Do we know how many homeless citizens are found dead on the streets each winter?

New York Information not available
San Francisco Usually 100 or more
Washington 2 to 4 people
Vancouver At least 2 last year

Can a homeless person vote in elections?

New York Yes
San Francisco Yes
Washington Yes, but not convicted felons
Vancouver Yes, but registering difficult

On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the city police, if 10 is where officers protect the homeless, and 1 is the homeless are generally harassed and beaten by police. Your rating of the police?

New York 5
San Francisco 3 or 4
Washington 5
Vancouver 2 or 3

A FEW POINTS, CITY BY CITY

NEW YORK

The New York City Department of Homeless Services reports 8,000 school aged children have no home. The Federal government says it is more like 40,000 homeless kids.

The difference, Routhier says, comes from the way the homeless are counted. New York City only considers children actually in their shelters. The Feds look wider, at families doubled up, people who are moving around from one place to another, the couch-surfers, and so on.

Rocker Cindy Lauper has recently thrown the spotlight on the number of Lesbian, Gay, and Transgender youth on the streets of New York. Some of them were heartlessly kicked out by their parents, and now live in a risky environment. A special shelter for LGBT kids has been set up in NYC, but Routhier says they are a hard community to serve. Many kids stay out on the rough streets anyway.

Read more about the LGBT homeless problem here.

See also this article on State budget cuts and at-risk youth in New York.

And this video on homeless youth in New York City.

We'll find the same problem in San Francisco.

The New York Times reports one in five New Yorkers are living below the poverty line. Other news reports show the general welfare rate in New York City has fallen by 4 %, - but welfare numbers are skyrocketing in surrounding areas, like Long Island.

Read about the welfare surge around New York.


I wondered if NYC is exporting it's homeless to the suburbs, but Gisell Routhier doubts that is a major movement.

Read about the growing poverty in New York here.


The real place to look in New York City in my opinion is the wild growth of homeless school children there.

Gisell tells us that the homeless of New York have a special problem: their Mayor! Republican Mayor and billionaire Michael Bloomberg started turning down federal funding for supportive housing around 2005. That was free money that could have helped build more permanent homes for the city's poorest people.

Instead, Bloomberg has launched a number of City initiatives, which generally provide temporary housing, lasting up to two years. NYC is seeing a number of families homeless AGAIN after their two year limit is up. Bloomberg seems to be standing in the way of a longer term solution for these people, even though it would cost the city nothing.

Listen to the interview with Gisell Routhier. Her organization, the New York Coalition for the Homeless is one of the oldest such institutions in the country.
Again, here is their web site.

SAN FRANCISCO

I start off asking Jennifer Friedenbach, Executive Director of the San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness - about the connections between Occupy San Francisco, and homelessness. It turns out more than a few of the protesters are homeless.

That is happening to Occupy movement sites around the country. Sometimes there is a conflict between lifestyles, whethere is is alcohol or drug use.

The bottom line: the rights of the lowest 1 percent of the population are becoming the rights of all.

So... laws written against the homeless in San Francisco are being used against OccupySF as well.

Not to mention the police-state style eviction of the Occupy Oakland camp! My God, the police assembled hundreds of officers from more than a dozen jurisdictions. They stormed in with full riot gear, into the peaceful campers. Many were arrested, with some injuries.


When the crowd used social media to re-assemble later that day, the police opened fire with not just stun grenades, not just multiple blasts of tear gas - but rubber bullets! One veteran was seriously injured, with a rubber bullet to the head. Find the video, and be amazed.

It turns out the homeless have become a political football in San Francisco elections. Conservatives drive up voters with the boogeyman of pan-handling (which hasn't really increased).

San Francisco voters just passed a law to make it illegal to sit or sleep on a sidewalk in daylight hours. Imagine, some old fellow with a heart problem dares to sit down - and beep, he gets a pricey ticket. Good revenue for the city. On second offence, he or she goes to jail!

We go over the civil rights abuses, and how the very banks and real estate interests that foreclosed on so many people (making some homeless) - backed and funded more laws against the homeless.

It's a revealing interview.

WASHINGTON

Washington, the District of Columbia, is really two cities. One part is pretty wealthy, with a lot of power. The other half is broke, really poor, often homeless.

It surprises no one to find that up to 95% of the homeless in D.C. are African Americans. Nothing racist mind you. Just the millionaires are mostly white, and the homeless mostly black.

Our guide Michael Ferrell, Executive Director of the District’s Coalition for the Homeless, says the number of homeless people in the Capital hasn't really gone up much. In fact, the number of homeless single people went down, due to Federal Stimulus money creating some housing.

In their place, the number of homeless families in D.C. has gone up.

We talk about emergency medical care for homeless people, and the hypothermia vans that try to keep the street people alive for another winter night.

VANCOUVER, CANADA

I had a short talk with with famous anti-poverty activist Jean Swanson of the Carnegie Community Action Project (CCAP), and author of the book "Poor Bashing: The Politics of Exclusion".

There is good news and bad news.

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson announced this week that the number of homeless people on the streets of Vancouver (not the suburbs, just the city of Vancouver) has gone way down: from 800 last year, to just 145 this year.

That is good news, and it shows around the city, with fewer bodies under tarps behind the trash bins.

However, Jean Swanson points out part of the "success" is providing more shelter beds, under Robertson's administration. The number of homeless people in Vancouver has actually gone up, Swanson says, but more people are in shelters.

This year Vancouver also opened three new buildings, out of a planned 14, to provide affordable housing for it's poorest citizens. There has been a bit of a fight about who should get a home first. Should it be people coming out of drug treatment programs or jail? Or people directly on the street right now. But everybody agrees more housing is good.

Jean Swanson says that program is late, with many more to build, while people wait. Plus, the City of Vancouver is supposed to buy one new property a year in the Downtown East Side, and hasn't for three years.

Swanson's group is demanding the city buy 5 properties a year for the next five years at least.

Meanwhile, the number of former hotels available for the poor (called "SRO's for Single Room Occupancy) is going down rapidly, faster than the government can build new housing. It turns out the city is also encouraging developers to upgrade properties, which are then too expensive for local residents. Gentrification threates to kill off the culture of the Downtown East Side.

One more plus for Vancouver: unlike the United States, in Canada a person does not need to have children to get welfare, including a housing allowance. The helps reduce homelessness. Others get disability pensions.

We didn't talk about harm reduction in Vancouver, such as Insite - the legal place to shoot up heroin or other injection drugs, with a medically trained person available. This helps prevent deaths from overdose, or street-drug poisoning.


It all adds up to a slight improvement in street homelessness. But the sky-rocketting prices of real estate in Vancouver, added to it's relatively warm climate (for Canada) - means the number of people without a home will continue to grow.

The Provincial government, just announced they will not fund 160 beds that were available last year. Yes, it's always good to slash social support for the poorest people, when they need it most...

HATING THE MOBILE HOMELESS

I didn't have time to cover the hate affair local government have for people forced to sleep in their car, van, or old RV.

Mind you, I did ask whether sleeping in a car was legal in each of the four cities. See the results above.

But it's wild to see the last of the Middle Class demanding some of their former neighbors, foreclosed and now living in their vehicles - get out of town.

The California city of Santa Monica at least had the decency and sanity to arrange un-used parking lots for the mobile homeless overnight. You can park your whatever there, with a security guard around, but need the gas money to get out at 7 am.

Next door, Venice California is posting big signs prohibiting anyone from sleeping in a car or RV. Even across from empty lots where the economic crash prevented some new subdivision from going up.

Check out my tips for living in a car, in this Radio Ecoshock feature.

Here are some more great links to follow up on the story of homelessness in America.

HOMELESS IN AMERICA - Barbara Ehrenreich

Tent City - The Nation

CRIMINALIZATION OF THE HOMELESS IN VARIOUS US CITIES


more info at nationalhomeless.org

To find out what homeless living is like, check out this video. Every day, approximately 10,000 people in Minnesota will sleep outside or in temporary shelter. This video allows us a chance to see the world from their eyes. For more information, please visit www.voicesofthestreets.org

If the economic situation in Europe, and America, and China is as bad as I think it is, many of us will experience at least a period of homelessness in the next few years.

It can happen quickly - maybe from a flood, storm, electrical blackout, or social unrest.

People write about being evicted with no chance to get their belongings after a marital complaint. Check out this dude's complaint, and his tips for "How to Be Homeless"

Maybe in America, it's better to say you are addicted to hard drugs, even if you are not. That might help you get shelter, the writer says.

I know an old Greek man whose little food stall in a local mall failed. He was tired, alone, 66 years old, and just went home. Two months later the mall lawyers seized his paid-off home, and all his possessions. Bingo, homeless.

In the U.S., a medical emergency can do the same thing.

We all need to pay attention to the rights and care of the homeless. That may be the bottom line of the civil rights we can expect.

"A society is ultimately judged by how it treats its weakest and most vulnerable members."
Anonymous

Alex Smith
Radio Ecoshock
http://www.ecoshock.org
Now broadcast by 48 radio stations.

From Occupied Territory

Happy Birthday humans! At the end of October 2011, the 7th billion person will be born on Earth. With over a billion humans already going to bed hungry every night, this may not be a blessed event.

Just twelve years after we hit the 6 billion mark in 1999, it's going to a be a lot harder to look after the new arrivals.

The extra billion people will find an unstable climate, declining energy and resources, and a host of other challenges.

To help us sort out what it means, and what can be done, we are joined by Robert Walker, Executive Vice President of the Population Institute in Washington. He's the author of a new report "From 6 Billion to 7 Billion: How Population Growth is Changing and Challenging Our World."

Read more (and find a link to download/listen to this interview as a separate 21 minute piece).

THE RENEWABLE ENERGY HANDBOOK - RADIO WORKSHOP

The dream and the need for renewable energy just keeps getting stronger.

You want to help avoid drastic climate change. You want to be independent, even if the system goes down.

Perhaps you want to live outside the gird, in a home or camper. Maybe you just want to save money, as electricity and fuel prices keep rising.

Everybody talks about it. But how can we really do it?

In this program, We get a fast work-shop of ideas and techniques. My guest has the best how-to guide on the market. It's called "The Renewable Energy Handbook", written by William H. Kemp, and published by Aztext Press.

Here are three other resources you might find handy related to this subject:

Lo-Tech magazine (useful online blog)

No-Tech magazine (check it out)

And this edition of a bright new podcast called "The Extra Environmentalist". Here is their web site, but right now I'm recommending Podcast Episode 21 "When Technology Fails". It's a useful interview with engineer and author Mat Stein about his first book "When Technology Fails" - a huge Bible of alternative ways of doing things without high tech. Anybody expecting collapse may want to get that book.

I found it poignant that Stein is under financial stress himself, after getting ripped off by the publisher, and then finding himself in foreclosure (along with a million or more other Americans).

Stein is bringing out a new one "When Disaster Strikes". Really. Listen to this podcast.

In Spring 2011 we talked with Aztext publisher Cam Mather, about his adventures living off-grid in Ontario, Canada. We shared a lot, since I also lived on a homestead without electricity for 10 years. And I've lived for months on solar power.

(Download or listen to that June program "Your Renewable Energy Path Now" here.)

In the new radio interview, we learn about the home built by Bill Kemp and his wife with the aim of energy self-sufficiency. As a person with technical training and experience, Kemp has spent the past 20 years experimenting with living with renewables.

First, the Kemps are not living without electricity! They have most of the usual kitchen and home appliances. But they chose those appliances carefully, checking labels to find ones using the least electric load. Bill Kemp stresses this point: if you hope to use renewable energy, step one is to greatly reduce your energy demands. The extra power wasted costs a lot of money.

Kemp has both a wind generator, and 2700 watts of installed solar power. The solar panels are mounted on "trackers" that aim the solar most directly at the available sun, moving throughout the day and seasons.

The hundred foot wind tower also doubles as an antenna location for local cell service (which provides a small extra income).

TELEPHONE CONNECTIONS WITH NO LINES

I was surprised to find out our whole telephone interview was happening with no wires. Kemp describes a system where he has wireless amplifiers that make remote telephone service work with no connection to any telephone lines.

The other big challenge for people going off-grid, especially in rural locations, is to avoid propane. After all, propane is another fossil fuel, and it keeps costing more money all the time.

SAVING ON YOUR HOT WATER HEATER

Both Cam Mather and Bill Kemp say a solar hot water heater may be the place to start, rather than solar panels, as a first step. Water heaters can account for up to 30% of your energy bill. Most new homes in Mexico have solar hot water tanks visible on their roof tops.

There are various types of solar hot water heat, one which even works in the winter (without freezing). But in places like Canada, there will not be enough Sun from November to February to provide all the heat needed.

One answer is to get hot water heat from a copper pipe wrapped around a wood-stove chimney pipe. Or those people with wind power (which is often strong in the winter) can use an electric hot water heater.

Kemp advises saving energy by installing a timer switch on your hot water heater (wherever you live). Run it during the night time, especially in places which offer a lower off-peak rate, get the hot water showers in the morning, and then turn off the heat. A well-insulated hot water tank will hold it's heat through the day. You can add common insulation wrapped around any hot water tank, to save money on your bill.

UNPLUG THE PHANTOM LOAD

Kemp devotes a whole segment of his Renewable Energy Handbook to getting rid of the "phantom load". This is the constant use of electricity by all sorts of appliances and accessories, even when you aren't using them at all.

The television/DVD player complex is a famous case. They are never really off, and draw significant power even in "sleep mode". That is easy to solve: put all such devices on a power bar, and turn off the power bar. Electric use stops. Europe has already legislated that all TV's etc sold there must have a true OFF function, without drawing phantom power. North America has hardly heard about this energy waste.

Even the common door-bell is a prime example of wasted energy. It uses power 24 hours a day, seven days a week, just waiting for the few seconds someone might push it. Use a door-knocker.

Then we have all the "wall warts" as Kemp calls them. The black charger boxes for the IPOD, Cell phone, maybe even a small handi-Vac. These are still using electricity if plugged into the wall. Unplug them, or use a power bar to turn them off.

Kemp estimates that phantom power accounts for the production of about 3 or 4 extra coal-burning power plants in North America alone.

BATTERIES, KETTLES, YOU NAME IT

We talk about batteries, and using solar power at your cottage or in a Recreational vehicle. I slightly disagree with Bill's claim that cheap ($150) deep cycle batteries (sometimes called "marine batteries") will only last 5 years. Mine last ten years. That may result from the fact my solar panel is always keeping their charge up. Other people let their RV batteries go flat over the winter, and the helps kill them.

Kemp says the new commercial-grade batteries for off-grid homes (which cost hundreds of dollars) will last 20 to 25 years. This is great news. Good-quality solar panels are also guaranteed for 25 years (and really do last that long). That means you can guarantee your own source of power, no matter what happens with peak oil, or
skyrocketting utility bills, for 25 years. That's peace of mind.

For RV use, I recommend batteries that DO NOT have lids that open to access the cells. I like closed top batteries, because they don't slop during travel. Look closely, and you will find metal parts near batteries are the first part to rust out in older campers. Remember, batteries need to be vented. You cannot ever keep a battery inside your home or vehicle (unless the battery is enclosed in an air-tight container, and vented to the outside).

One other quibble with Bill: he tells us to use a counter-top kettle to boil water. They use half the energy of a standard electric stove. Agreed, BUT don't use a plastic kettle! I've talked to two toxicologists who both say the plastic kettle is a major source of plasticizers (like gender-benders and carcinogenic materials) into the tea or coffee you drink. Find a (more expensive) kettle with a stainless steel interior, to protect your health.

That is why in the interview I recommended my method to cut electric power in half for making tea or coffee: use a thermos. You can make two or more cups of your favorite brew, with just one kettle boiling session. A decent thermos keeps the drink hot up to 8 hours. The thermos also makes a better cup of tea, since it works better than a tea cozy to keep the water hot enough when "steeping".

HIGH-FIVE FOR THIS BOOK - I'M KEEPING MY COPY TO USE IT

The Renewable Energy Handbook is simply the best book on the subject I have ever seen. It's almost like the "Whole Earth Catalog" style, in the sense that it's loaded with useful charts, comparisons, bullet-point info, real hands-on tech, illustrations. So many books these days don't take the time to be a real manual. This one does, on a whole lot of subjects. There is even a bit on generators, and a whole chapter on home-made biofuels.

There is lots more in this extended Radio Ecoshock interview. I hope it will inspire you to get going in renewable energy - not waiting for a big utility - but doing it yourself.

Alex Smith
Radio Ecoshock
http://www.ecoshock.org