Welcome to Radio Ecoshock. This week's program is about schizophrenia: the state of hoping the system will crash before it kills the planet, while counting on all the usual creature comforts of home, jobs, and a well-stocked supermarket.Yes, I know the Western world is hanging in suspension. We're waiting for the shopping to resume, for the economy to rebound, for the good life to return. Most politicians and the mainstream press promise that it will all go back to the normal process of chewing up and spitting out the last of the planet's goodness.Meanwhile we go to movies like 2012, slurping up scenes of the destruction of everything. Part of our secret selves hopes it all goes down in flames, or floods. Even while we worry about our children having a decent life. You see how it goes?I know you are worried about the economy. Maybe even your own job or home is at risk. Despite the propaganda, we'd be crazy not to worry about it. I've been told the general formula for every speech and radio program goes as follows: we paint the grim picture, but always, always end on a positive note. Give humans solutions, or they'll just go numb and do nothing.Sorry. This week we violate the rules. Lately Radio Ecoshock has run a series about greening our cities. A couple of listeners have written back, saying cities can never be sustainable, as Derrick Jensen says. Have I fallen into the camp of false good cheer?We'll start out with one of the most promising solutions I've heard about lately - a dream of new economics coming from a British government advisor, Professor Tim Jackson. He's got a new book out "Prosperity Without Growth".Then we'll head into more pessimistic territory with Dave Cohen, an analyst for ASPO, the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas. Having written the American Empire is now obviously in decline, Cohen asks "Now What?" We talk more about the economic crisis, Wall Street bull (and bears) - and the energy crisis.Along with James Howard Kuntsler, and our recent guest Richard Heinberg, Cohen says normal consumption is never coming back. We might as well prepare ourselves for very hard times.We'll trash smug Canadians a bit, since real estate north of the border is just as stupidly over-leveraged as the American market. Then we'll notice Australia melting in the heat, while they push even more coal. A big Canadian company has just bought into the dirty Aussie coal market. Aren't we proud? In the end, I wonder, is hope just getting in the way of dealing with the limits of reality?This show is peppered with audio clips, including shorties from Max Keiser, Jeff Buckley's song "The Sky Is A Landfill", Bob Holman's "We Are the Dinosaur", and of course ending with the show title "Dinosaurs Will Die" from NOFX. We open with "Times Is Hard" by Loudon Wainwright III.READ MORE

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I tossed this recording of "Greening Portland" into a small line at the bottom of last week's Radio Ecoshock blog, thinking maybe a few people would be interested. To my shock, over 400 people downloaded it within two days! I didn't know that many people read my humble show notes... Thanks for being here.I'll go into a description of this week's program and speakers, followed by a bigger question about the role of cities in solving climate change, now that we see big governments too paralyzed, or too corrupt, to act. We'll role through the latest Scientific American article, James Howard Kunstler's theory, Derrick Jensen's despair, and a glance at the ideas of Dr. Bill Rees. Maybe cities are the leaders, the only meaningful level of government?What makes the city of Portland so desirable as a place to live? It's walkable, a national leader in bicycle commuting, and a green model in many respects. Yet this West Coast allure also drives unique problems for Portland. Sure the economic crash brought high unemployment, as everywhere else. But Portland has become a refuge city, a place where people come seeking jobs and a comfortable social culture. That's raised unemployment and problems like homelessness. As other West Coast cities like Vancouver and San Francisco know too well, perceived success breeds it's own challenges.To give you ideas for your own city, we're going to hear a brief from Portland's Green Mayor Sam Adams. But in a sign of the times, Adams cedes the stage to the two women who are leading the city's sustainability drive, Susan Anderson and Erin Flynn. Susan Anderson is the Director of the City of Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. Erin Flynn is Urban Development Director for Portland. She's also the driving force behind Portland's new Five-year Economic Development Strategy.Mayor Sam Adams was elected in May 2008 with a good majority, after four years on Portland City Council. In addition to his outstanding green credentials, Adams "is the first openly gay mayor of a top U.S. city" (according to Wikipedia).All this recorded by Alex Smith of Radio Ecoshock, at the Gaining Ground Resilient Cities conference in Vancouver, Canada, on October 20th, 2009. Download this presentation from the Cities page at ecoshock.org.At the end, we'll also hear a clip from Sarah Severn of the Nike corporation, which has headquarters in Portland. Did you know the "air" in Nike running shoes was actually a terrible global warming gas? (Sulfur hexafloride). We'll hear how Nike fixed that, and their other efforts toward sustainable energy.That same morning, Sarah Severn of Nike, the shoe maker, outlined their efforts to green the corporation. She covered such things as water usage, toxics in their materials and manufacturing, and this brief on Nike and climate change. You can download Sarah Severn's full 26 minute presentation from the Cities page at ecoshock.org. (26 min, 6 MB here) Sarah has been the Global Director of Nike's Environmental Action Team (NEAT), a department of Nike's Corporate Responsibility division. She's also on the Board of Directors of the non-profit group "Focus the Nation" ("Community and the Road to Copenhagen")The introduction is by Rob Abbott, the corporate greening consultant, and author of the upcoming book "Conscious Endeavors: Business, Society and the Journey to Sustainability" Find out more about the conference at gaininggroundsummit.com. CAN CITIES SAVE THE CLIMATE?READ MOREOh, and by the way, we just added our 18th station to broadcast Radio Ecoshock. It's WRFA_LP 107.9 FM in Jamestown, in Western New York State. Another is coming, in Whitehorse, in Canada's Yukon. Please write, email or call your local radio station requesting Radio Ecoshock. It's free, and ad-free, all for the cause of a better climate.Alex.Thanks.

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Hi there. We have so much great audio for you this week - I don't have time to tell you about it. Buckle up for a new Radio Ecoshock interview with Richard Heinberg, famous Peak Oiler, author of "The Party's Over", "Powerdown" and now his latest "Blackout: Coal, Climate, and the Last Energy Crisis." Then it's off to the Resilient Cities conference for the keynote speech by Paul Hawken, author of the Ecology of Commerce, and lately, "Blessed Unrest" - the strength of movements to make social change.A double-decker audio blast. Let's go.We were lucky to get Richard Heinberg. It's not just that he's now famous as a mover and shaker in the "post-carbon" movement. Or that he does big speeches and big media interviews all the time. But Richard jealously guards his time for research. Heinberg doesn't just offer opinions. He digs into the background, the facts, the stats - as he did for the coal industry for his new book "Blackout". I followed some of Heinberg's research in the regular issues of his newsletter, called the "Museletter". I get it by email. Or you can find it here.We talk about coal. Will available coal run out in just a decade or two? Why build new coal plants at all? Will a coal shortage, or "peak coal" save us from climate change? (No). But I also ask Heinberg about his new concern. We could experience a different kind of "blackout". What if the electricity goes out, or becomes spotty, and all our knowledge for this civilization is in computers? Without backups in paper libraries, we are risking it all, just as energy to run those electric plants becomes questionable. I'll bet this becomes Heinberg's newest book. Find out more about "Our Evanescent Culture" here. Paul Hawken is a man beloved by many people, in many social movements. His 1998 book "The Ecology of Commerce" became a hit in business schools. He also co-wrote "Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution" with Amory and Hunter Lovins, and lately "Blessed Unrest, How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming".That book blossomed into a database of organizations working for a better ecology and social justice - millions of them, around the world, found at wiserearth.org. Very helpful to find groups in your area - so get active!I was surpised to find that Paul was one of the first into the whole foods business in the United States in the early 70's - Erewhon Natural Foods. And Hawken is still active in business - but now in the new digital age. He's got a couple of companies which specialize in data distribution and other exotica. Check out his bio at http://www.paulhawken.com/We broadcast Paul Hawken's keynote address to the Gaining Ground Resilient Cities conference in Vancouver, Canada on October 20th, 2009, recorded by Alex Smith for Radio Ecoshock. The topic: "The City and the Resilient Future" Enjoy.Find it online at ecoshock.org, in our program archive, and on our "Cities" page. I've uploaded a ton of speeches from that Resilient Cities summit - they had some of the best speakers in the world! People at the top of their game, the best. I've got some more to post, once I've prepared the audio, including Richard Register, the dean of eco-cities.So far you'll find Bill Rees of course, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson's new green plan (announced at the Summit), and an intriguing speech by Sarah Severn of Nike. Normally I don't post much corporate stuff (they can afford to advertise themselves) - but this shows what a corporation can do - even without prodding by the government. I didn't know "Nike Air" actually contained a terrible global warming gas down there in the shoes. Sarah explains how Nike replaced it with common Nitrogen, harmless. Nike is based in Portland, and I've included 6 minutes of her climate initiative in a special on Portland, which I call "Greening Portland". That features Mayor Sam Adams, plus his green city leaders Susan Anderson and Erin Flynn. I like how Adams gave up the stage for the women who are actually doing a lot of the work. You don't often see that, and we should.Find all that here: http://www.ecoshock.org/DNcities.html - and check back in a week or two for more from the Resilient Cities Summit. You'll likely hear more on Radio Ecoshock as well, including Richard Register.Our bits of music this week came from Million Dollar Nile, the Seattle green band. Good music, with a green message (and not phony or stilted like so much we hear).Alex SmithRadio Ecoshock

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Bill Rees, originator of the ecological footprint, says we are already into overshoot. We can plan to reduce our use of Earth's resources, or plunge through a series of disasters. Full keynote speech from "Resilient Cities" 091021 plus Q and A with Warren Karlenzig on Post Carbon Cities, including China's "eco-cities". That presentation, with host Daniel Lerch from the Post Carbon Institute, was October 20th, all at the Vancouver Convention Centre, Canada.Breakthrough information. Ecoshock 091030 1 hour CD Quality 56 MB or Lo-Fi 14 MBProduction note: end music clip: "99 and a half won't do" by Mavis Staples.

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THIS WEEK: The latest speeches from the "Gaining Ground/Resilient Cities" conference in Vancouver, Canada October 20-23.You'll hear Post Carbon Institute fellow, and green city guide author Warren Karlenzig - plus former Shell Oil executive (now turned anti-corporate activist) Anita Burke. Much more in the coming weeks, as we hear from Paul Hawken, Richard Register, Bill Rees and more. This is the latest on the latest, from people struggling to plan for the "long emergency" facing our cities and our society.Here is how I started off the show, before out two main speeches:Don't you sense the artificial calm?Every financial loss and boon-doggle is translated into the language of recovery. A monster company losses 27 percent of it's business, but that's "up" from 30 percent lass month.Wells Fargo bank, sitting on a pile of mortgages you could smell from the Moon, reports a billion dollar profit from, quote, "hedging mortgage servicing costs". Which sound to me like betting on your own bad assets.While we enjoyed our Summer holidays, during the slow news cycle, over 900,000 more homes were foreclosed in America. That's a lot of kids and old folks with broken lives and broken bank accounts, with lots more to come.It's always the slow news cycle now, in the mainstream media. The real reporters have been sent home, as advertising revenue crashes. Magazines and magazine stands are closing. Even major TV networks are slashing and teetering on the edge.The fog machines are rolling. Everything, even the worst, is just part of "the recovery". Everyone admits government advertising, stories planted by the CIA, and Wall Street bull is messaging us, pleading with the masses, to keep on shopping. It's propaganda.I'm not buying it. I'll bet you aren't either.One spooky side effect: as government tax revenues fall off a cliff, and corporations slash their good will community lending - countless non-profit organizations are also struggling, or quietly closing up. A ballet company folds, after-school volunteer programs can't get bus money, personal assistants for the severely disabled can't get paid. I don't know about you - but I've received dozens of desperate appeals from well-known bulwarks of social change - threatening to disappear without my immediate financial donation. The fabric and richness of our society is coming apart. What's left is an eerie silence. We know something is going on, but we don't know what it is.Just one example: part of my mission is to record the brightest minds for Radio Ecoshock listeners. A couple of years ago, we had a regular parade of authors and lecturers rolling through town, many funded by book publishers. This Fall, there was a drought of speeches. The last of the struggling book publishers slashed speaker tours in favor of Web promotion. That's good for the atmosphere - less flying around - but bad for all that personal interaction, when people educate themselves with events that enrich their brains and hearts.This past week, a whole crowd of climate, sustainability and green city folks descended upon Vancouver. Three conferences, plus added shoulder events, gathered around the 6th annual "Gaining Ground: Resilient Cities" conference, offering "Urban Strategies for Transition Times".Finally, a forum for answers. How are we going to live in cities, with dwindling energy supplies, an economy in need of serious remodeling, and a food system in dangerous disrepair? Can we plan for rising seas, storms and heat events - now that 4 degree global warming seems almost inevitable?Some of the great names, people who have labored at these questions all their lives, showed up, pouring out their hearts and brains. People like Paul Hawken, Richard Register, and Bill Rees. Plus the new crowd, break-through women, two green mayors, and authors galore. They spoke, I recorded, and you get the green gold for the next few weeks of Radio Ecoshock.In one week, this meeting of the minds tried to plot out a survivable direction for world cities, the place where more than half of all humans now live. "Sustainable" is out. They called it "Resilient Cities" now - because everyone knows we are coming in for some hard knocks. Nobody knows how to stop the financial hurricane or the rising seas. We just hope to organize for the long emergency, to develop our ability to bounce back. To be resilient.In the same October week in Vancouver, The Canadian Society for Ecological Economics held their 8th Biennial Conference. Plus another meeting, dubbed "Resilient People Plus Climate Change". Did I mention the panel held by the Vancouver Peak Oil group, or the evening presentation by the Post Carbon Institute?It was a flood of enviro's, would-be green politico's, iconic authors, scientists and energy specialists, in three crazy days and nights.Maybe this is the new paradigm, as green conscious activists organize to hold several conferences at once, exchanging speakers, saving carbon spewing air flights. One thing for sure: it felt like a movement, a gathering of the wise heads, a mixture of panic and determination, to steer a different course.Welcome to Radio Ecoshock. I'm Alex Smith.My hard drive is sagging with super audio for you. Later in the show we'll hear a former Shell executive demand an end to the fossil fuel regime. But our first guest speaker will set the stage.That's Warren Karlenzig.The buzz these days is greening big cities. New York rediscovers EcoDensity, while West Coast mayors vie for title of most green.But most North Americans don't live in big cities. The vast majority live in suburbs, or just beyond in the exurbs, the land of mini-estates and 3 bay garages.I learned that, and much more about the real struggle of car-dependency in America - from Warren Karlenzig. He's the author of "How Green is Your City? The SustainLane US City Rankings" - the book used by citizens and planners alike to measure real livability.Karlenzig is a recognized figure in the California sustainability movement, an advisor to governments and big corporations, a media spokesman. I'd characterize him as ubiquitous, a specialist in facts, often reporting on green success in many parts of the world. He's the President of Common Current, and a Fellow at the Post Carbon Institute - which hosted the speech we're about to hear.In October 2009, Vancouver Canada hosted the conference "Gaining Ground, Resilient Cities". The Post Carbon Institute organized an evening with Warren Karlenzig, along with authors Daniel Lerch and Bill Rees. From "Urban Resilience in a Post Carbon World," here is Warren Karlenzig, recorded October 20th by Radio Ecoshock.We also heard an impassioned speech from Anita Burke, a former Shell Oil exec, now an activist for change. Anita rocked the room by calling for an end to our current economic system, and most of our social models - all leading to catastrophe. Not everyone agreed with her solutions - maybe not the mayors for rebuilding green cities. The nice Nike woman talking climate-safe running shoes didn't say that either. Bill Rees would have cheered on Anita Burke. Bill is the professor who invented the "eco-footprint" concept - and he's on a rampage. Apparently, the business-as-usual world is headed for breakdown - as we'll hear from our Bill Rees special, next week on Radio Ecoshock.Don't forget our web site: ecoshock.org. The Resilient City speeches will be appearing on our "Cities" page over the next few weeks.

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From the edge of the Earth, broadcast, podcast, by cable and satellite, this is Radio Ecoshock with Alex Smith.Gaia - the great interconnected force of living things on a minor planet called Earth. British scientist James Lovelock wondered how life created it's own space, with the oxygen and nutrients we all need. It's a soothing idea. Some Greens took it further, suggesting Gaia is a super-consciousness that watches over balance and survival. A few worship Gaia.Dr. Peter Ward, a deep time digger and climate investigator says Gaia, if there is one, can also be a mass murderer. The rock record shows at least 5 great mass extinctions before us. Ward offers us a different Greek myth: Medea - the wife of Jason the Argonaut, who swiped the Golden Fleece. In a fit of rage against her husband, Medea killed her own children. In a new book, the Medea Hypothesis, Peter Ward says Gaia is out. Bountiful Nature can become ecocidal, and only intelligent life can stop the death cycle we are now approaching.Peter always stuffs us full of the latest science. He's not well-known to the public, but other climate scientists are listening closely, as this brilliant mind sparks off a new paradigm for life and death, Earth-style. But can we trust a creature with obvious pathological flaws to save the species? Should humans try to replace Nature?Following our interview with Peter Ward, I answer a few questions about Radio Ecoshock, as a local college stations turns the tables, to interview the elusive Alex Smith. We talk the future of food, the economy, and radio itself. You'll also hear the new climate anthem, a re-worked "Beds Are Burning" from a host of celebrities. Plus "Fear Itself" from Loudon Wainwright III.READ MORE

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What will our grandchildren experience in the year 2080? Or will some of you feel the heat, the climate and social disruption as soon as 2060? Scientific studies are pouring out their warnings - we have already passed the danger levels. And there is no sign of action to stop horrible climate change.What if the politicians fail to reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough to keep the Earth's climate from warming? What if the people of the world keep on pumping out carbon dioxide, as they now do? Can we survive? Will the Earth hit runaway climate change, morphing to another Venus?The widely accepted danger line is 2 degrees Celsius, that's 3.4 degrees Fahrenheit, global mean temperature rise over pre-industrial levels. We have already warmed at least .7 degrees C. Counting the masking effect of other pollution, the warming in the pipeline may already be around the 2 degree level - and the major polluters show no sign of agreeing on steep cuts at the Copenhagen climate treaty talks in December 2009.So what will happen? In this program, we're going to cover major new scientific reports about our climate situation. Then, almost as a relief, we'll go to an interview with one of the long-time activists with solutions, from the UK, Dr. Jeremy Leggett. He's an oil expert who crossed over to Greenpeace, before becoming a solar energy entrepreneur.I also have some new climate music for you.Right now, we'll get hot and heavy with an international climate conference held at Oxford in Britain from September 28th to the 30th. The title is: 4 DEGREES & BEYOND. We'll hear the results of some of the first scientific studies of a failed climate world. I have a digest of a speech from Professor John Schellnhuber.MUSIC IN THIS PROGRAM"Radio, Radio" by Elvis Costello"Don't Kilowatt" by Seattle group Million Dollar NileLINK FOR AUDIO AND SLIDES FROM "4 Degrees & Beyond" Conference:MAJOR SPEAKERS1. Prof John Schellnhuber, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research "Terra quasi-incognita: beyond the 2 degree line. (past director of Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research)2. Dr. Richard Betts, Met Office Hadley Centre "Regional climate changes at 4+ degrees"3. Prof Nigel Arnell, University of Reading 4+ degrees C: impacts across the global scale4. Dr. Pier Vellinga, Wageningen University, "Sea level rise and impacts in a 4+C World5. Prof Stefan Rahmstorf, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, "Sea-level rise in a 4 degree world6. Prof David Karoly, University of Melbourne "Wildfire in a 4+ C degree World7. Dr. François Bemenne, Sciens Po Paris "Cimate-induced Population Displacements in a 4+ degree WorldThe conference opened with one of the top climate advisors in the world. Professor John Schellnhuber is from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. He is a past director of Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. The German version of his name is Hans Joachim Schellnhuber. He has directly advised many heads of government, including Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, and even Barack Obama. The title of his talk: "Terra quasi-incognita: beyond the 2 degree line."This was a presentation to fellow scientists, so part of it is heavy going for the rest of us. It was accompanied by slides, and I'll give you the web address for those.In order to hit some key points from this speech, and several others from the 4 Degree conference, covering several hours of audio, I'm going to attempt a digest of this latest science.READ MORE

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Everything in the techno-capitalist society forms us into separate atoms. We demand our own space, travel in personal metal boxes, and struggle as individuals. When disaster strikes, hardly anyone remembers how to respond. How will your community react to a major threat? Will it fall apart, or grow stronger? Is there anything you can do to prepare?This is Radio Ecoshock. I'm your host Alex Smith. It's a real shock when those lonely atoms, conversing through electronic screens, realize their real community is endangered, or falling apart. The cause may be economic. A major employer, or a whole industry like the auto sector, shuts down. Or maybe gas prices collapse real estate prices in a former commuter haven.Communities can also be hammered by a climatic event: long-term drought, burned over by fire, drowned by super-floods and storm surges, or hit by a devastating storm. The disaster can even be environmental. A nuclear plant or a pesticide plant blows up, or a super-tanker spills it's oily guts.Not to mention the possibility of a terrorist attack, like a dirty bomb or a biological release. Did I mention earthquakes?In this program, I'll interview Riki Ott, THE Exxon Valdez spill expert. Her town of Cordova Alaska became an early case study in how a community reacts to disaster. Still fighting the big corporation who ruined their fishing industry, and split the townsfolk, Dr. Ott has developed a program to help damaged communities anywhere in the world. She gives us practical tips you should know BEFORE your community gets hit with the unexpected.We'll follow up with a speech by Dr. John Helliwell. He's an economist called in to an audience that included mayors of towns experiencing near total loss of employment, after major forest mills shut down. I expected a pep talk about business plans and government rescues. Helliwell surprised us all, with a new way of looking at success - one not based on wealth and more production. Instead, John Helliwell is part of a growing consensus that our economic emphasis is all wrong. We should be aiming for Gross National Happiness. An economist who sees the community links becoming more valuable than business, a voice long overdue.First, let's talk with Riki Ott.[Ott interview]I want to add to Riki's Ott's response about the role of women when communities hit a calamity, whether it's natural or human-made. Riki explained that women took up a leadership role in organizing not just meetings, but the networking and re-organization that helped partly heal the community. Women tend to be experienced in both communication and working co-operatively.The darker side is this: when things go badly, women can also be further victimized by the despair and rage felt by men. I've lived in a town where the mine closed. I reported on the increased domestic disputes, growing alcohol and drug abuse, and outright beating of women by their spouses. If a factory or a mill closes, or natural events wipe out jobs - the community will have to increase services for women, at the very time when there are fewer municipal resources to go around. A women's shelter, or at least a network of safe-houses, may be needed quickly. Keep that in mind.In an ideal world, both men and women would find some kind of counseling for the loss of value which accompanies unemployment. Without a job, many lose their sense of self definition and worth. We can't count on higher levels of government to provide this. People need to self-organize to talk to one another.It's my observation that larger governments are beginning to fail. They spend themselves into bankruptcy, and over-build into huge bureaucracies that are unable to respond in any meaningful way. This is true in the most advanced countries, as the bungled response to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and Mississippi showed. If your community is struck, don't wait around for the government to save you. Organize and act locally.There are also a few cases where the community fails, and nothing can really save it. There are plenty of ghost towns where a big mine closed, and the economy shut down with it. People just moved on.I can foresee similar situations coming from the developing economic meltdown, coupled with climate disruption. Take the Ohio rust-belt, where heavy industries fled overseas. Former CIBC investment guru Jeff Rubin predicts they will rebuild, because soaring oil prices will make shipping from China too expensive. Others calculate that ocean shipping will remain far cheaper than trucking, so imports of Chinese products will continue. I say the Ohio and Indiana area will not re-industrialize because they are 95 percent powered by coal. As climate change becomes too obnoxious to deny, and carbon pricing clicks in, new industry will only locate where renewable power is available. The Mid-Western states will either have to enter a crash program to find carbon-free power, or face a permanent loss of population.Sometimes communities do survive to find new and safer economies. It's happened many times, in many places. In some cases, though, it's better to get out, no matter what your loss in real estate, hopes, or good memories.Let's get into a different kind of optimism, built from a different kind of economic world view. This speech by Dr. John Helliwell was recorded by film maker Clancy Dennehy on September 17th, 2009 at the Forestry building, University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. While it contains some references to B.C. towns devastated by mill closures - this speech is really about a global movement to redefine what an economy is. Does it produce happiness?The introduction is by Jack Saddler, Dean of the UBC Faculty of Forestry.[Helliwell]You have just heard the 2009 Forestry Lecture in Sustainability, presented by economist Dr. John Helliwell. The speech was organized by the University of British Columbia Faculty of Forestry on September 17th, 2009.The lecture was followed by an eminent panel including two top government officials, Doug Konkin, Deputy Minister of Environment, and Dana Hayden, Deputy Minister of Forests and Range. Plus Don Roberts, Managing Director, CIBC World Markets, offering a business critique.You can download a full one hour presentation, which includes the panel comments, from the Brownbagger radio show archive, located at ecoshock.org. That's a free mp3.My thanks to Clancy Dennehy for his recording. Look for Clancy's upcoming art film simply titled "Vancouver".So what have we learned? If a major disaster strikes your community, at some point you have to decide whether it's time to pitch in and rebuild - or to leave. There's an old saying, which is only true half the time: "The strong give up and move on. The weak give up and stay." I'm just saying.If you decide to fight on - don't wait for an outside savior. Big government can't create community. Lawsuits can take 20 years before they let you down.Big corporations can leave or fail. Build a local economy.Redefine who you are, and include everybody. Listen to each other. Organize. And if you can, ...do it before disaster strikes.I'm Alex Smith for Radio Ecoshock. Write me any time. The address is simply radio at ecoshock.org.Thank you for listening this week.

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Excuse me. Do you mind if I turn your blue skies white? Why spend all that money on wind farms and insulation? Keep on driving, brothers and sisters, because Big Science is going to fix global warming.While they talk up a new Manhattan project to block out the Sun, it's another year of multi-billion dollar profits for the coal and oil companies. Stall, stall, stall, while the money rolls in!Welcome to Radio Ecoshock. I'm Alex Smith. In this program, we'll dig into geoengineering - the industrialization of the climate. You'll hear top climate scientist Alan Robock. He's got a laundry list of reasons why trying to control the climate may not be such a good idea. Diana Bronson of the ETCgroup joins us, to counter the Academies and think tanks pushing geoengineering.GEOENGINEERING LINK FEST (for this program)Alan Robock's reply to Bjorn Lomborg, Eric Brickell and Lee Lane's "science" of geoengineering (at realclimate.org).Royal Society press release and report "Stop emitting CO2 or geoengineering could be our only hope." 28 Aug 2009 Bjorn Lomborg's geoengineering article in the UK TelegraphBjorn Lomborg's errors site: A comprehensive list of errors and flaws in Bjorn Lomborg´s book: The Skeptical Environmentalist, compiled by biologist Kaare FogBjorn Lomborg's own siteFrom Joe Romm's Climate Progress blog: British coal flack doubts global warming, but says let's use geoengineering so we don't have to stop burning carbon...Scientist Ken Caldeira's response to the Lomborg Report (via climateprogress.org)ETCgroup's main siteETCgroup press release "The Royal Society?s Report on Geoengineering the Climate: Geoengineering or Geopiracy?"Risks of geoengineering to precipitation changes - Susan Solomon via climateprogress.orgMusic: "Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth" by Neko Case and "See You in The Sun" by Shane Philip (Canadian content).In this week's program won't hear Bjorn Lomborg - the self-styled "skeptical environmentalist" now pushing projects to reduce the Sun's rays reaching Earth. I invited Mr. Lomborg to do an interview, but he was too busy. I believe he is busy. Lomborg has op-eds and interviews going in all the major media. Newsweek and Time magazine love him. Newspapers print his words uncritically.In early September, Lomborg was at the White House to meet Joe Aldy, special assistant to the president for energy and the environment. Bjorn Lomborg knows the major governments of the world, the IPCC, and all those other carbon cutters - are on the wrong track. Lomborg doesn't dispute that rapid global warming is upon us. But cutting greenhouse gas emissions is much too expensive he says. Citing a report written for his organization, called the "Copenhagen Consensus" - Bjorn Lomborg has a half dozen good reasons why we should just keep on burning gas, oil, and coal. Say what?READ MORE

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They're on practically every corner. Some people feel nervous at the gas pump. Others are outraged. Everybody knows prices are going nowhere but up.Did you know a gallon of gas weighs about 6 pounds - or 2.7 kilos? Almost all of it - 5 pounds, 2.2 kilos - goes straight into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, out the exhaust pipe. And that substantial weight, for every additional gallon or liter we burn, remains as CO2 for 100,000 years.Don't believe it? Stay tuned. We'll talk with David Archer, a top climate scientist. He's the author of "The Long Thaw". That's what we're living in, the time all humans will live in, for ten times the length of all history. In our second half hour.First, I want to know: when does the oil society seize up? What happens to the American way of life, if gasoline goes to $7 a gallon? That's what financial expert Jeff Rubin predicts. Think that's tough? What about $20 a gallon?We're going to dive right into an interview with Chris Steiner. Christopher Steiner is senior staff reporter at Forbes magazine. His new book is Twenty Dollars per Gallon: How the inevitable rise in the price of gasoline will change our lives - for the better. READ MOREwith more links.

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Obviously it's pointless. We are doomed.Or it that just a frightened voice inside, knowing what we know?Social failure rears it's ugly head, as half million more Americans, and countless millions more around the world, head home, if they have one. You are no longer valued. Kiss consumerism, and your future plans, good-bye.That's all good for nature, who needs a break, but still heartless to see it in motion, with real people - people who will work hard, who want a role.All this breakup of the fraudulent financial system takes place against a backdrop of climate pessimism. The bad news keeps piling up, and you'll hear in a series of interviews coming up on Radio Ecoshock this Fall.What to do?After I have my mandatory weekly nervous breakdown - we get a report from Europe, as I chat with UK radio host Phil England. We hear about climate camps in Britain, and around the world. In the U.S., they may be called "convergence camps", and Greenpeace Canada has their own series of actvist training going. These instant meetings, with hundreds of workshops, are popping up all over.Then, despite my admitted apathy, we wonder whether political negotiators at the Copenhagen climate conference this December - will they really have the guts to do the right thing? Will they set a carbon limit that could preserve the Arctic, for example - or will they hand all the hard work off to the next generation (when it's too late)??There is one way you and I can push these old-school energy hustlers, so they know we are awake and watching. Bill McKibben is the center of a world-wide day of action, coming up October 24th. You can find out what is going on in your area by going to 350.org. Use that as a tool to wake up all your friends. You can join an existing parade, or dream up some creative attention-getting action of your own. I've peppered this week's show with quotes from a speech McKibben gave April 30th, 2009 in Dunedin, New Zealand. The version I used came from this great program (12 MB 53 min Lo-Fi) edited by the legendary Pacifica host C.S. Soong. I admire his "Against the Grain" program, and his contributions to other shows, like Terra Verde.If you live through all that - the reward is one of my favorite interviews ever. I chew over our dim prospects with one of America's really witty authors and social commentators: Joe Bageant.Joe's best seller was "Deer Hunting With Jesus" - a kind of personalized, slightly gonzo investigation into the poor underclass of America. I read every essay Joe posts on his blog. We delve into ecocide, and the ticklish problem of whether a heavily brainwashed American public has the tools to understand the damage around us.Joe Bageant makes people laugh, makes them angry, makes them think. That kind of writer/thinker is very valuable. Enjoy the interview. I did.Music this week: in honor of Phil England - "London Calling" by the Clash. "London calling" used to be the call signal for the BBC World Service, back in the day. But I couldn't find a clip of those words, in the old empire voice for the show! Not on youtube, not on the BBC archive site, not on archive.org. Surely those classic words have not disappeared! If you know where to get an audio clip of the "London calling" opening to the old BBC, like 1950's or before, please drop me a line at:radio [at] ecoshock.org.Also: a small clip from "Get Off Your Ass" by Gene Burnett, found on youtube. A theme of this show, I suppose. It's time to get going, or die off.I'll be asking you - what are you going to do October 24th? We need to make "350" an international sensation, right quick. While there's still time to draft a climate treaty - a treaty with nature, peace with the atmosphere.Alex SmithRadio Ecoshock

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This is Alex Smith. In this new start to the Fall 2009 season, we thrash out the triple crisis with Jan Lundberg, a former oil and gas industry expert. I say former, because he left "the Lundberg Oil and Gas Letter" in the late '80's, to become a voice for change. Jan's been an early warner on Peak Oil and our energy dependency. He also knows that climate change is going to change the human game, more or less forever.Despite the California fires, the new tent cities, and car company bankruptcies, Lundberg is an incurable optimist. He's long left his car behind to work on better alternatives. Today we'll talk about the unstoppable changes coming our way. The transition towns, super-low energy consumers, people with vision.A lot of them gather around Jan Lundberg's blog, simply called culturechange.org.After our full-length interview, I toss in my challenge to listeners: in what year will the human race become extinct? In a speech at New York's Green Fest 2009, John Doscher predicted 2033. That seems so soon! I'll barely have my student loan repaid by then!Doscher's ideas about over-fishing leading to ocean dead zones, followed by blasts of methane and hydrogen sulfide from de-composing algae - seem so crazy. Not that I can't find genuine scientists who say the same. On Canada's East Coast, Dr. Boris Worms predicted sea food, the stuff we eat, will become extinct by 2048. In an earlier Radio Ecoshock interview, Dr. Peter Ward said hydrogen sulfide, from a de-oxygenated ocean, may have killed off 90% of life on the planet, in one of the past great die-offs.In August, the Chief Science adviser to the UK government, Sir John Beddington, says 2030 will be a crisis point for humans. That's because we'll have 8 billion people, needing twice the food we now supply. With half the water we now have.Beddington warns of hideous starvation, forced mass migrations, and climate ravaged lands. But...being a government man, he still thinks humanity will come out of it alive.That's all in my radio review of Doscher's speech - which was broadcast on another 20 stations in Lynn Gary's fabulous underground program "Unwelcome Guests".I'm gathering predictions. If you've found someone setting the Big Date for the end of human life as we know it, please send a link to your source to radio [at] ecoshock.org. It could be a future program. Meanwhile, in the radio program, I have a little fun with the end of the world.BUT THE MAIN ATTRACTION IS:In part one of our wide-ranging discussion, Jan Lundberg explains how a burp in our oil supply line could multiply into a widespread economic and social breakdown, in weeks or even days - no matter how much oil is still in the ground somewhere. Then we go for more answers. Are we building lifeboats for a fortunate few, or are these seeds of a whole new society?Our theme music today is "The Great Correction" by Eliza Gilkyson. I've put in a request to interview Gilkyson, who more than paid her dues getting the real raw into her music. Check out her myspace page for classics like "Runaway Train" and "The Party's Over". UPCOMING SHOWSSpeaking of fossil fuel funerals, we've got some great guests coming up for you. Richard Heinberg, the original "The Party's Over" guy, will tell us about his new book "Blackout". Everybody figures when the oil runs out, we'll keep the lights on with dirty old coal. Think again. Heinberg says those coal reserves aren't there, and we couldn't burn them if they were.Or what if gas goes to $10 a gallon? $20? Author Christopher Steiner will tell us about his new book. From the UK, Jeremy Leggett talks dead oil and living the solar life. Scientist Alan Robock is set to join us. We'll talk about the end of blue skies. Ready for another white-out day?We'll also talk poor white trash and ecocide with gonzo writer Joe Bageant, author of "Deer Hunting With Jesus" - coming up next week. Join us next week for Joe Bageant, one the most unusual, and fun interviews I've ever done.And grab a whole bunch of past Radio Ecoshock shows, as free mp3 downloads, from our web site, ecoshock.org.Thanks for listening.Alex

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Food and climate change with two speakers: Dr. Geoffrey Heal, an eco-economist from the Columbia School of Business, NY, speaking at the London School of Economics; and author/food activist Wayne Roberts at McMaster University, Canada. Wayne Roberts courtesty of Maggie Hughes "News from the Other Side" at CFMU FM McMaster U Radio.No copyright music.IMPORTANT NOTES FOR RADIO STATIONS AND PODCAST SUBSCRIBERS:This is the last show of our 2009 Spring season. Rebroadcasting stations, podcast listeners and regular downloaders: please note - I've laid out 8 key re-runs of Radio Ecoshock for the Summer. The download list will show up on Wednesday July 8th, as well as on our archive page. Radio stations can find a list of any music used, or other production notes, in the expanded listing at http://www.ecoshock.net That's starting July 8th. These are the most important, and most downloaded programs we've ever done - as chosen by the listeners downloading from our site. The e-votes are in.I'll be out of email contact from July 11th to August 11th. I'll check out all email then, please don't expect a reply. There is no electricity or phones where I'm going.I'll be back with a whole new season, 48 news Radio Ecoshock Shows, starting in Late August. Don't change anything on your podcast - the new shows will show up as soon as they are ready in August.Here are the links to full speeches by our feature speakers:Geoffrey Heal to London School of Economics (about 57 min)CD quality 52 MBspeech Lo-Fi 12 MBGeoffrey Heal Q and A (about 30 min) Lo-Fi only 7 MBWayne Roberts "Food and Climate Change" about 1 hour. Maggie Hughes "The Other Side of the News"Here is the basic script for this week's show:Welcome to Radio Ecoshock - home of the awful truth.We could talk about a half million more people kicked out of their jobs. The record number of regular mortgages 2 or 3 months behind. Collapsing states, budget slashing towns, bankrupt banks.But hey, why bother with all that bad news, when the biggest story ever told is unfolding before our eyes. I know disappearing coral, birds and plants nobody has heard of doesn't sell. How about this: the food we all eat is under pressure even in these early days of the climate shift.[Geoffrey Heal Quick Clip: No One is Working on Hotter Crops]That is economist Dr. Geoffrey Heal speaking to the London School of Economics. He's going to tell us about agricultural loss already underway, and projected in the coming decades. Why fertile California will take a hit. Dr. Heal wonders why America is so slow to react. Could it be the fossil fuel lobby? Did the oil and coal boys twist the Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill?Then food activist and author Wayne Roberts works through the challenge of feeding a world where nature is disrupted. Food and global warming, in a speech recorded by Maggie Hughes.Personally, I'm heading out tomorrow to buy a couple more sacks of hard red wheat for our emergency supply cupboard. Each bag is 44 kilograms, or about 50 pounds, of the best organic. I'll pour the wheat into Mylar bags, toss in two or three oxygen depleters, and seal it all in a 5 gallon bucket. That should keep at least 10 years, maybe 20.The wheat news is good and bad. In the Summer of 2009, wheat prices are going down, because so many new acres have been planted. That doesn't mean it will all survive until harvest. Canada is a big wheat producer, and the Canadian Wheat Board predicts a 20 percent cross loss due to a drought in Western Canada. So dry, the seeds never sprouted, or tiny blades of wheat died. It's the Northern tip of a new Dust Bowl expected to fill the North American West as carbon levels rise in the atmosphere.Two other big wheat producers, China and Australia, are also in big trouble as the rains stop reaching the fields. Increasing heat waves are also a threat to wheat.Did I mention the new unstoppable wheat disease called ug99. It was first found in Uganda, but has now spread to the Middle East, including Iran. The only response is to burn the crop. So far, we have no resistant varieties, and experts in both Europe and North America say they expect ug99 to arrive sooner of later. That could devastate wheat production.I like bread. I like some every day. Maybe this year, maybe three years from now, wheat and bread products could rocket up in price, or disappear for a while. That's when I'll crack open my buckets and make my own.On to the show. First of all - American climate politics. The U.S. Supreme court recently gave the Environmental Protection Agency control over carbon dioxide as a pollutant. Why didn't the Obama Administration use their green appointees to get busy on greenhouse gases, through the EPA? Suddenly, a new piece of legislation appears in the House, where political contributions reign. Suddenly, a bunch of Republicans vote for the Waxman-Markey Bill, which is really a license for the coal and oil companies to carry on.Let's get a different perspective from Dr. Geoffrey Heal, an economist from the Columbia Business School in New York. His speech on May 6th 2009 second guessed the Obama energy deal - and went on to explain why America has been hustled backward on climate change. Then Heal, who has been working the connections between economy and the environment since 1979, paints a dire picture of agricultural losses - as high as 40 percent world wide, as the climate shifts to it's new hot state.Heal3 Waxman Markey end of speech.wav 5:31Why is the American government the last to know we need action to save the climate? Geoffrey Heal gives us three bad reasons, in this speech as first visiting professor at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, the LSE. Heal1 Anti Science Companies.wav 2:05Heal4 Corporate AntiScience.wav 2:04Heal5 US is a Petro State.wav 5:27Is it true that the United States is the third largest oil producer, and second biggest natural gas producer, in the world? No wonder American climate policy seems to Saudi Arabian.There you have it: fossil fuel corporations fought to cloud our minds, aided by a history of Conservatism and anti-scientific religious interests. I think he should have added all of us. We love our big cars and leaving all the lights on. We love to fly around on holidays while eating far too much. We're all in this climate tragedy together. Never forget the power of the people to empower a wrong-headed civilization - on our charge cards, no less.This is Radio Ecoshock. I'm Alex Smith. I'm hungry to get on to our main topic this program: how climate change will affect our dinner plates. Here is more from Dr. Geoffrey Heal, from his speech "Controversies in the Economics of Climate Change"Heal6 Farm Loss.wav 3:37Heal 7 World Hydrology Calif Farms.wav 4:15Finally, Dr. Heal wrestles with the economic cost of mass extinction. Sad but true, we need to enter this fact into the company books: up to 40 percent of all species on Earth could go extinct by 2100. How will that affect sales, you ask? Geoffrey Heal is not your standard corporate accountant. He knows extinctions impact the environment in many strange ways. Take the Pacific Sea Otter for example. It was almost wiped out in California - and what happened? The fisheries also died out off that coast. It turns out the Sea Otter is a "corner-stone species". The otters were eating other creatures that kept things in balance for fish. When Sea Otters from Oregon were brought back to California, the local fishing improved.Other connections between the species are harder to see. Let's hear Dr. Heal explain how the extinction of the Passenger Pigeons may have boosted Lyme disease in the United States.Heal 8 Cost of Extinction.wav 11:14That was Dr. Geoffrey Heal, from the Columbia School of Business, speaking on "Controversies in the Economics of Climate Change". This presentation was at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at London School of Economics in Britain, May 6th, 2009. Audio enhancement by Carl Hartung and Alex Smith of Radio Ecoshock. Find the full 55 minute speech plus Q and A on our climate pages, at www.ecoshock.org. And in the links at the top of this blog entry.[Radio Ecoshock Station ID]I'm Alex - and we're talking climate disruption of the food supply.OsofNews_Roberts 1 You can change 7 sec.wav 7 secThat's author and food activist Wayne Roberts, currently employed as a sustainable food advisor for the city of Toronto, Canada. He spoke at McMaster University in Hamilton on May 5th, 2009 - on ?Food and Climate Change?.Here is the first part of that speech by Wayne Roberts.OSofNews_090519_WayneRoberts_For Radio 18 min.wav 18 minYou have been listening to Wayne Roberts, a long time food activist, making the connections with the polluted environment and climate change. This talk at McMaster University in Canada was part of a college radio program called "The Other Side of the News" on CFMU FM. Producer Maggie Hughes just announced she had to give up her weekly radio program for health reasons. But she'll continue to get the facts others miss, in specials posted on the audio exchange web site radio4all.net That's radio the number 4 all dot net for Indy producer Maggie Hughes past work, and coming shows. Thanks Maggie.Or check out her web site at www.oside.caThat's it for Radio Ecoshock this week. Find the full speeches by Dr. Geoffrey Heal and Wayne Roberts as free mp3 downloads on our web site. Choose "climate" from our Audio on Demand menu, lower down on the main page, ecoshock.org. Or get Wayne Roberts full speech as broadcast on "The Other Side of the News" here. Load up your IPOD, mp3 player or computer with hot programs and speeches from Ecoshock. It takes a lot to really grasp this developing storm, in your heart.I'm Alex Smith. Thanks for being on the journey with me. Have a great Summer. Enjoy yourself - and put away the harvest as it comes.

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It is already too late to stop rampant climate change? An emailed blog posting asks: "Do we just enjoy the time we have left?"Scientist James Lovelock thinks so. He wanted the sub-title of his new book "Vanishing Gaia" changed from "Final Warning" to "Enjoy it while you can." Is it really that serious? We'll hear top American and British administrators say it is. But I want to contrast the response by two scientists: James Lovelock, who at age 90 plans to blast out into space, and NASA's James Hansen, the first world-class climate scientist to put himself up for arrest, to stop mountain top mining in West Virginia, this week. (Hansen was arrested, along with 31 others, including actress Daryl Hannah, on a West Virginia road, outside a humoungous toxic coal ash dump.)Doubting coal barons, the black secret of George Soros, U.S. climate dodgers in Canada - from outer space to the deepest pit - enjoy yourself. This is Radio Ecoshock.The program is also loaded with music clips ? from Guy Lombardo?s opening 1950 hit ?Enjoy Yourself (It?s Later Than You Think)?, another version by The Specials UK concert, samples from country music star (and anti-mountain top removal activist) Kathy Mattea, talk and music from Tom Petty, an oldie by Lee Dorsey ? and a lot of fun clips, including stuff from the trailer for ?Skipjack? and even Winston Churchill.But the question is deadly serious. Should we give up?Find all the video and audio links used in this Radio Ecoshock program here. Click on through to the source material ? on our climate crisis.READ MORE

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The star of today's Radio Ecoshock Show is the American climate.We'll start with the most important Press Conference of 2009: the release of the multi-agency report "Global Climate Change Impacts In the United States". It's the list of violent storm warming, heat wave predictions, cities and parts of whole states either going under-water, or roasting without water. Everyone will know the climate is badly out of balance.Welcome to our special coverage of new report "Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States" from the White House briefing. After years of denial, terrible changes already happening in U.S. This one hour version of Radio Ecoshock contains: a) clip from Dr. Jane Lubchenco (see bio notes below)(b) full presentation of Dr. Thomas Karl (outlining terrible impacts for the U.S.) (c) analysis interview with Joe Romm, from climateprogress.org (d) full presentation by Dr. Jerry Melillo (more terrible impacts) Plus a special interview with Dr. Anthony Barnosky on his new book "Heatstroke, Nature in an Age of Global Warming" This is the most important report on climate change ever released by the American government. The picture is bleak. Many Southern U.S. cities will become hot like Baghdad during the summer. Crops will burn out.On the coasts, new flooding estimates show more than 3 feet of sea level rise before 2100 - enough to flood New York subways, rail-lines, and much more. That doesn't count surges from storms expected to be much worse.Please listen to this compelling audio.The book "Heatstroke" is also quite important. Antony Barnosky is a field researcher and curator at University California Berkeley. He realized climate change was coming in the early 1980's - and set out to document how Nature (especially small mammals) responded to previous climate shifts. He fears mass extinctions for many reasons, especially since there may never have been a warming starting in an already warm period, and likely never one so fast (one century) as we are inflicting on the Earth. Solid science from 30 years of research shows big problems for all the creatures of the Earth, as we continue to pollute the atmosphere.Radio Ecoshock 090619 1 hour CD Quality 56 MB or Lo-Fi 14 MBProduction Notes: Presentation recorded from official release of the report at the White House, April 16th, 2009. Here are quick bio notes of speakers:Dr. Jane Lubchenco, Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans & Atmosphere and NOAA AdministratorDr. Thomas Karl, Director of the National Climatic Data Center, lead for NOAA?s climate services, and alead author of the reportDr. Jerry Melillo, Director of the Ecosystems Center at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole,Mass., and a lead author of the reportThere is no copyright music. It is OK to take clips out for your own use in non-profit radio, to blog or pass on to friends. Those with a shorter public affair program can use this 24 minute version, if you remove the Green 960 Station ID at 14:03U.S. government Press Conference Video and slides here.Get report copy here.Get the word out there!Alex SmithhostRadio Ecoshock

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News can be a poison sometimes. Newspaper owners learned years ago that people buy frightening headlines. The motto of TV news: if it bleeds, it leads. The most horrific stories get top billing. We all need to turn away from time to time, to those we love, to amazing Nature, and the trivia that convinces us for another day.Lately, the climate news is too shocking even for Radio Ecoshock. In the last two weeks, I've been rebuilding myself, and listeners, with back-stop nourishment. We had programs on your food security, and how to be the change you desire.Meanwhile, I've looked for a way to communicate the probability of catastrophe, without knocking out our will to live, and our activism. HERE ARE THE LINKS YOU'LL WANT FOR THIS RADIO ECOSHOCK SHOW:Thomas Homer-DixonPresentation to the UK Parliament's Peak Oil & Gas Subgroup May 6 2009http://www.4shared.com/file/103698157/e5a0c9c/thomas_homerdixon.htmlQ and A session at UK Parliament presentationhttp://www.4shared.com/file/103698159/e9e2219b/thomas_homerdixon_q_and_a.htmlPowerPoint Presentationhttp://www.4shared.com/file/103698158/9ee5110d/thomas_homerdixon_ppt.htmlAll from this site: http://appgopo.org.uk(and thanks to Ecoshock listener Chris from Riseup.net for tipping me off to this speech!)Phil England and Climate Radio www.climateradio.orgHope shows up in the most improbably places. In the last half of this program, after an overview of our predicament, we'll explore how the economic crash may delay the worst of climate disruption. Isn't that twist? We may get time to save the ecosphere, due to our incompetence and criminality.Hang in, as Phil England of Climate Radio arrives with experts calling for a planned economic contraction to save the remains of the natural world. He'll interview Tim Helweg-Larsen, Director of the Public Interest Research Centre at www.pirc.info.Phil has a regular program on Radiance FM in London, UK. That's in our second half hour, along with a little black depression humor, called the "Global Meltdown Darby". Before that, you'll hear an overview of climate and Peak Oil, from Professor Thomas Homer-Dixon. I've prepared a digest of his new presentation to a Committee in the British Parliament. It's crammed with science and analysis from his new book "Carbon Shift", including a re-think of how we can respond, given the near bankruptcy of governments and financial institutions.But first....The Horrible Climate NewsREAD MORE....PHIL ENGLAND CREDITS:"To listen to this programme and for a list of references visit the Climate Radio archive at www.climateradio.org. The 300-350 Show is made for ResonanceFM in London and syndicated free to not-for-profit community radio stations and independent media outlets around the globe. The programme is named after what is now believed to the safe level in parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This finding is based on the work of James Hansen and his team in a paper titled "Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim." [http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.1126]The Global Meltdown Darby performed by the Irish poet known as "Grassy Knoll".The Thomas-Homer Dixon piece contained a clip from the new movie trailer "Steam Bath" with action man Val Kilmer. Find the trailer here:http://www.ecorazzi.com/2009/03/13/val-kilmers-global-warming-steam-bath-flick-gets-a-trailer/We also played a clip from "The End of the Age of Oil" by David Rovics http://www.davidrovics.com.Find all our past Radio Ecoshock programs at our web site.Alex Smithyour host.Radio Ecoshock

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This program explores how green leaders are converting to climate activism. And how you can move from spectator to citizen action. You'll hear Forest Ethics co-Founder Tzeporah Berman in a moving speech, going to a new climate group Power Up Canada. United Church Pastor Bruce Sanguin gives us a new vision of Gaia-friendly Christianity. And Maureen Jack-LeCroix explains her calling to "Be the Change" - as host of the recent Be The Change Circles event in Vancouver. There's more... Arran Stephens of Nature's Path, and two conference guests - but first, here are some links to help you dig further.BE THE CHANGE EARTH ALLIANCEhttp://www.bethechangeearthalliance.orgYou Tube video of founder Maureen Jack-LeCroix - why she devoted 10 years to Gaia and founded Be The Change Circles.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smLyRHo7aS0ECOSHOCK PROGRAMS ON CLIMATE, DRYING FORESTS AND FIRESBURNING DOWN THE WEST Wildfires stoke the carbon load. Ecoshock Show 071116 (1 hr) Interview: Dr. Tom Gower, saying fires in N. Canada make positive feedback; speech by Temperate Rainforest activist Pas Rasmussen - why she is now a climate activist as well. Echoes by Andrea Reimer of the Wilderness Committee. New research on the Rockies burning by Lara Kueppers; were California fires climate change? http://www.ecoshock.net/eshock/ES_071116_Show.mp3CURRENT PLAGUES - FUTURE FORESTS Can forests keep up with global warming? Ecoshock Show 070706 1 hourDr. Clive Welham on ravages on pine bark beetle in Rockies; Dr. Del Meidinger speech "Future Forests" to 6th N.A. Forest Ecology Conference.http://www.ecoshock.org/cfro/2007/ES_070706_Show.mp3RISING SEAS, DRYING WEST Ecoshock Show 080815 Top IPCC organizer & U of Arizona Professor Jonathan Overpeck speech at Washington U. After updating the world climate report, Overpeck predicts climate impacts on North America. 1 hour CD Quality Lo-Fi 14 MB http://www.ecoshock.net/eshock08/ES_080815_Show_LoFi.mp3Drying of the West with National Geographic author Robert Kunzig; the first Carbon Tax in North America in B.C. (and what it means for the U.S.); censored Canadian scientists - speech clip from Dr. John Fyfe, IPCC author. Oh yeah, and some hope. 1 hour. Ecoshock show 080222 Lo-Fi 14 MBhttp://www.ecoshock.net/eshock08/ES_080222_Show_LoFi.mp3TZEPORAH BERMAN SPEECHESClimate Conversion - Tzeporah Berman speech Be The Change Un-Conference, Vancouver May 23, 2009. 16 minutes Lo-Fihttp://www.ecoshock.org/downloads/ecoshock/ES_Tzeporah_Berman_090523_LoFi.mp3A CLIMATE OF CRASH AND CHOICE Finance & elections. Mike Whitney on Wall Street mess -Bush's plan to grab the money & run. Voting for climate action. Brianna Cayo Cotter U.S. PowerVote.org; Tzeporah Berman speech introducing PowerUpCanada.ca. Also Rep Ed Markey web cast on new Green Jobs initiative. Plus some fun (e.g. George Carlin) and music. Ecoshock Show 080926 1 hourLo-Fi 14 MB http://www.ecoshock.net/eshock08/ES_080926_Show_LoFi.mp3Tzeporah Berman at Bioneers Conference October 2006. About 20 minutes.http://www.ecoshock.org/cfro/ES_Berman_Bioneers_061021.mp3POWER UP CANADAhttp://www.powerupcanada.ca/THIS WEEK'S ECOSHOCK PROGRAM BEGINS....Dear extra-terrestrial visitor,Things are past serious here on Planet Earth. Our top scientists, the people who study and measure, warn the web of life is headed toward utter catastrophe, possibly in just ninety years. The ocean, source of our oxygen and mother of most life, is turning acid due to our carbon pollution. Our once stable climate, the basis of our agriculture and civilization, is undergoing violent change.As I record this, smoke from forest fires - hundreds of miles away in the mountains, is filling our great city. I can smell the distress, and it's only June, not even fire season yet. Last night, as we watched TV news, a reporter showed the tinder dry conditions on Vancouver Island. "My God" said my companion, "that is the rain forest. The rain forest, untouched by fire for a thousand years or more, could burn."It's only a matter of short time. The great pine forests of the Rocky Mountains have been killed by global warming. They stand dead, valley after valley, each long trough visible from space, waiting to burn. Each great tree is a tower of carbon taken from the atmosphere. Now it will go back, in great bursts of fire that nothing can stop. A burp of carbon worse than the Indonesian rain forest fires of '97-'98. Greenpeace predicted this in 1994, in a report called "The Carbon Bomb". Now, it's happening. Here in the Rockies, all from California right up to the Yukon. Even the boreal forest, clothing the North, is burning out more carbon than new trees can gather. Vast forests will convert into grasslands or scrub deserts.We don't know how far all this new carbon, coming in the next decade, will push the climate.The carbon whirlwind is still of our own making. Will you be a witness? Or will you be the change we need?This is Radio Ecoshock. I am your host, Alex Smith.READ MORE

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This Radio Ecoshock - with something you can't live without: food. No, we haven't invented edible radio - but we'll introduce you to a homesteading woman who's brought out her second book on surviving the worst of times.Are you worried about the way the world is going? Our top financial institutions turned out to be hollow Ponzi schemes. Nobody is too sure of their job. The Earth's climate is unstable. Even the bees are dying. Meanwhile, grasping men at multinational food corporations want to own every seed and everything you eat. Did I mention the end of cheap oil?That is when I want to know how to ensure enough food for my family. How will I get enough to eat, despite violent storms, an earthquake, social disruption or an epidemic? How can you eat cheaply, even if food prices soar as predicted?[Robin Wheeler interview]We've done a series of radio how-to's here at Radio Ecoshock. Ways to stockpile grains and beans for ten years or more. How to get going in canning. Find that on the "Ecoshock Features" page, right in our Audio on Demand menu, at ecoshock.org. There's nothing to sell or buy there, just helpful free mp3 downloads.As you know our guest is Robin Wheeler. She runs a homestead, now turned into a home business, in Roberts Creek, along the Pacific Coast of British Columbia. Find her on the Net at ediblelandscapes.ca. Her new book is "Food Security for the Faint of Heart, Keeping Your Larder Full in Lean Times."Robin was speaking at a small library her in Vancouver, listed in a community newspaper. Improbably, outside there was a New Orleans style jazz band, and rows of tables loaded with organic foods, community support kiosks, and alternative knowledge. On a rare happy say of sunshine, would anyone turn up for a talk on Food Security?Waiting at the back, a 50 something woman began a conversation about climate change. "You know what I think," she said, "the climate has already shifted." I felt a slight chill, knowing that the public really does know. We are in for a wild ride.Despite the sun and fun outside, all the seats filled up. I recorded Robin's Wheeler's Food Security talk for you. This speech is like a series of topics you need to know. You could almost make a box of index cards for each resource in the speech - as a jumping off point for your own research on the Net, and locally.We've all heard about scrap booking as a hobby for stay-at-home Moms. Now I'm thinking a survival scrap book or binder is a really good idea. It would have print outs of the key useful information you discover. Maybe you can print out Google maps of your area, and your fall-back retreat spot, with your notes added on where the wild mushrooms are, the will-trade-for-food local farms, that stream with cleaner water.Imagine the power has gone out, and the food system is breaking down. What do you need to know, without access to the Net? Or what if inflation and job loss combine to threaten your supermarket dependence? What can you do for food security, from a condo, house or camper van - homesteading where you are?Here is a short shopping list of topics I heard in Robin Wheeler's speech. Most of it comes straight from her book "Food Security for the Faint of Heart". Robin touches on:EarthquakesSupermarkets closing downPower out - what freezer food to eat first, andHow to prolong meat with cooking oil, or salt brining.Emergency cookingStockpilingThe importance of communityOrganic or not? Start a food Co-opCook for yourselfWork at a grocery store or food warehouseCommunity supported agricultureGleaning - like nut trees or fallen fruitGardening as though your life depended on itEating weedsUsing food wasteStoring the abundanceLeave root crops in the groundCuring foods for longer storageDehydrating foodCanningPacking in sugarTeas for pleasure and medicineFlowers you can eat.Gardens for rentersSuper-fast growing vegetablesContainer gardensWild foragingFood from the beach and sea.Emergency herbsEmergency waterPower out lights and heatWorking co-operativelyFood activism: fighting off multinationals like Monsanto & Codex AlimentariusLocal food subversion.Here is Robin Wheeler, recorded in the Britannia Library May 13th, 2009.[speech]This is Radio Ecoshock with Alex Smith. You are listening to a speech by Robin Wheeler, developed from her new book "Food Security for the Faint of Heart." It's from New Society publishers, and a real value for just $17 bucks in paperback. She has an easy reading style peppered with humor. You may want to start up a scrap book or index cards to research the food security ideas that will work best for you. As the economic crisis meets peak oil and climate disruption, we all need to get a lot more active in local food sources. Learn how to work with Nature's timetable, and store away for leaner times.As Robin shows, the coming times don't need to be all that scary. In fact, they can be empowering and more righteous. Why are we treading toward obesity on factory foods laden with chemicals? Can we really keep colonizing land from the world's poorest people to grow our soy and hamburgers? How many carbon miles are in your cupboards?When we stabilize our society to our own place, sustainably for generations, a whole load of stress and lies will fall away. Food is one good place to start, the roots of a civilization we could be proud of. For a change.Speaking of change, next week we'll visit a unique un-conference. It was called "The Great Turning" - hosted by Be the Change Earth Alliance. Hundreds of people turned out for an all-day gathering around circular tables. They talked and plotted the big changes needed to save the Earth and ourselves. That and more, next week on Radio Ecoshock.

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[Opening clip: I just want to get a megaphone, and yell to people entering the Mall "It isn't in there."]That is Cecile Andrews - and she's right. Happiness is not in the shopping mall, never was. I'm Alex Smith, this is Radio Ecoshock. This program is loaded. You'll hear retail expert Howard Davidowitz. He's the shopping expert who says 200,000 American stores will close - and the great days of consumerism are dead. May they rest in peace. Following that interview from New York, we go to France. Michelle Holdsworth is co-author of the new book "Globesity, A Planet Out of Control?" We explore the relationship between obesity and climate change. Can fat warm the world? In the second half hour, 15 minutes from a new speech by Cecile Andrews. She brought us "Slow Is Beautiful". Her new book, perfect for tough times, is "Less Is More". It's all about the simplicity movement, and how simple human community saves lives. I'll wrap up the program with a survival project: one day canning, how to eat better for half the cost.READ MORE....

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Every day tankers and pipelines carry black gold to power industrial society. The coal trains and ships deliver more carbon for the great bonfire of humanity. We know for a certainty, if we keep on burning it all, our planet will become hot, stormy, ice-free with dying oceans and extinction for most big species. Including ourselves.Now the question: how much can we use, before we tip the climate too far?This is Radio Ecoshock with Alex Smith. HERE ARE THE LINKS YOU'LL NEED FOR TODAY'S PROGRAMInterview with scientist Bill Hare:How much time left to burn fossil fuels? PRIMAP.ORGPotsdam Institute for Climate Impact ResearchGeorge Monbiot column in UK's Guardian newspaper"How Much Should We Leave in the Ground?"Green Cities:Grist article on 15 Green MayorsRadio Ecoshock series on Green CitiesResilient Cities (Australia's Dr. Peter Newman)Transport Revolutions: Moving People and Freight Without OilRichard Register and Anthony PerlBuilding Madness (various speakers)Urban Meltdown (Clive Doucet)Speech (53 min) Clive Doucet interviewREAD MORE

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Welcome to Radio Ecoshock. Today you'll hear two green broadcasters meet on air. Matt and Alex ask how cities can work in the climate energy crunch. Should you get out - and what can we learn from the back-to-the-land movement of the late '70's. I'll toss in the mental survival tips I use to survive the awful knowledge of climate change.Matt and I also talk about Derrick Jensen and so-called "Eco-Terrorism". Non-violence hasn't worked (our life support system is going into the crapper) - do we need to go further?We'll top that off with 15 minutes from the master. Al Gore's latest testimony to the House Energy Subcommittee April 24th. The last minute American hope to save the climate.I'm Alex Smith, wading through the deep green with green broadcaster Matt. His long-running show "Healing the Earth" runs out of the University of Guelph in Canada - but his guests - some of them controversial - come from all over the world. I hope you enjoyed that exchange with Matt. It's not easy doing radio about a gorgeous ecosphere under attack, in decline. My hope is lame, but it's still there. Maybe hope is built into us, the ultimate survival trait.Here's someone who never gave up: Al Gore. We go now to his testimony to the House Energy Subcommittee, chaired by the remarkable Ed Markey of Massachusetts. As the Obama Administration rounds up the evidence for the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, Chairman Markey gets the best, keeps it moving. You can find the whole 2 hour video on C-Span. Here's Al. (The key 15 minutes of testimony, 4 MB)Next week we'll interview climate scientist and activist Bill Hare. His new report says the world may have to stop using fossil fuels completely in just 20 years - or face a drastic climate shift. The latest science, the most alarming.I'm Alex Smith. Thank you for caring about your world.

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This is Radio Ecoshock with Alex Smith.The bad news just keeps on coming. Just as America began to recognize torture, swine flu wipes away the slate. Everybody just wants to talk about pandemic. We know pandemics will come. More than half the world's population live in crowded slums without sanitation or clean water. The true population of Mexico City, for example, is unknown. Best guesses run between twenty five and thirty million people. Most of them have no medical care or knowledge about disease. All of them are just a few connections and an airline trip away from you and your neighbors.The only mystery is how the richest countries thought they could ignore the masses of the miserable, and get away with it. The United Nations and population experts announce that Earth's human population will stabilize around nine billion people, from the current six and a half. That's not going to happen.We are already way past Earth's carrying capacity. Only our treasure chest of oil has allowed the arrival of billions more humans. In Mexico, for example, oil wealth has fueled the economy - and now that's running out. The Mexican population has doubled since 1950, in a country that is mostly dry and unproductive. Oil-based fertilizers and oil drive pumps have turned some dry lands into large-scale hydroponic production. The land just holds the roots, while we poor oil fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides into the soy, rice, and vegetables. Most of that goes North to North American tables in the winter time.Now Mexico's largest oil field has peaked. Production already dropped by 10 percent, and will decline rapidly. Meanwhile, the climate heads toward even higher heat and drought. In the coming decade, tens of millions of Mexicans must either starve or migrate North as climate refugees. They will do both.Swine flu, economic crash, homelessness, peak oil, it all sweeps over us. I think we are, as a species, becoming even more crazy. We'll see it in headlines, You tube, and all around us.In my opinion, the underlying driver, the really big fear unbalancing it all - is this horrible truth: our atmosphere is polluted and our climate has tipped. Slowly, deeply, humans know this. They see strange weather, birds and flowers coming at the wrong times, power storms, fires, and floods welling up. We begin to know, and we can hardly stand to know.We are going straight to one of the top scientists in Australia, where climate change is not just a topic of conversation. It's already happening - an outbreak of climate fever that burns and floods its way across a whole continent. As it will every continent. You are about to hear one of the few scientists determined to tell us the awful truth.[Interview with Andrew Glikson]Here are the links for more:FROM ANDREW GLIKSON:40 scientists write: Climate disaster, an urgent challengeThe war against science while Rome is burning16 April 2009Guest post by Andrew Glikson (Andrew is an Earth and paleo-climate scientist, Australian National University who has contributed regularly to Brave New Climate).AUDIO: A WARNING FROM THE PAST Past greenhouse worlds, quick climate shifts, and mass extinctions caused by changes to the atmosphere. Dr. Andrew Glikson studies space impacts, volcanoes, and past climates. This speech from Australia National University explains current shift toward a hot-state planet - much faster than ever before. Ecoshock Show 080704 1 hourSlides for that speech here. Our guest host in the second half hour - on invisible homeless women - is Allart. She produces another weekly program on CFRO FM in Vancouver called "Dynamic Health."Find it here. THE BOGUS ECONOMY In the back pages, the biggest banks, which just recently declared phony profits, are told they need hundreds of billions more, to back up their shaky loans, to have any hope of paying back ordinary depositors. These same banks are being sued in many states and countries for malfeasance. The giant State of California pension fund says it was misled by the big names of Wall Street. In Italy, prosecutors have seized around $300 million dollars in assets from JPMorgan Chase, the Swiss-American giant UBS, Deutsche Bank and others. Those companies have been charged with fraud, after the city of Milan was persuaded risky swaps on 2.2 billion in municipal bonds were safe. Then, like municipalities all over the United States, and in many parts of the world, they lost big time in the crash.Don't miss this story. Libraries and hospitals will close because of Wall Street crime. Municipalities have been hit badly, and saddled with a new generation of debt, as the banksters made off with their multi-billion dollar fees and bonuses on bogus financial paper. As journalist and blogger Danny Schechter said on our program, it's time for Jail Outs, not Bail Outs.There is no doubt that capitalism is crashing. Unbelievably, the car workers, through their pension funds, may take over General Motors and Chrysler. The retired will now get almost worthless stock instead of the billions those companies owed their pension funds. I don't think either company will survive as anything other than niche memory makers. Financial insiders are already doubting whether any of the big pensions funds - not just auto workers, but municipal, teachers, private company pension fund - all of it may go bust in the coming years. The government is supposed to step in and guarantee all those pensions - but governments too are already bankrupt.Later in this program we are going to investigate the unreported plight of homeless women. Being without a home is tough, but it's double jeopardy for women, especially older women. You will hear that most women, even those in the Middle and Upper Class, even Oprah, fear deep down they may become homeless.How do women handle it? Where are they, when TV cameras show us lines of unemployed men at the shelters? Investigative reporter Allart uncovers homeless women with front-line worker Judy Graves, in our second half hour.Allart interviews Judy Graves. It turns out most women fear becoming homeless one day. They may lose a spouse to death or divorce, or need to leave in a hurry due to abuse or alcoholism. Millions of women are losing their jobs in the economic crisis, and those 45 and older are wondering whether they will get employment again. Many face a life of poverty, despite their University degree and Middle Class background.How will they cope? It's tough for a man on the streets, but much harder for women. Most avoid it by living in their cars, moving back with family, or couch surfing (sometimes with a sexual price to pay). Listen to Judy Graves, Tenant Assistance worker for the City of Vancouver, who has worked with homeless and suddenly homeless women since the mid-1970's.Even Oprah has admitted she fears becoming homeless. I've asked women around me, and they secretly harbor the same fear of becoming "a bag lady." Both men and women need to hear this moving interview, which followed the film "It Was A Wonderful Life" - dead on the topic of how homeless women struggle to stay invisible in the big city and small towns.This week's music theme is "Where We Gonna Go" from Ellis Music Productions. Our web site ecoshock.org. I'm Alex Smith. Adios muchachos.

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American cities in decay. Refugees not from New Orleans after Katrina. This is a different kind of Hurricane. A trifecta of climate change, high oil prices and the real estate bubble leaves abandoned holes from Detroit, Philadelphia, Phoenix and beyond.I'm Alex Smith, this is Radio Ecoshock. We'll track the causes and the victims.In our opening cuts, you heard video Blogger George4title in his You tube special called "Detroit Ground Zero for Economic Collapse". An amazing drive-by of abandoned and burned out homes looking like Baghdad in America. It's a 5 part series you won't want to miss. Our other voice was Clive Doucet, author and Councilman for Canada's capital city, Ottawa. When I recorded his "Urban Meltdown" speech a year ago - I didn't believe it. Now the evidence is in. Cities all over North America are under stress, as they go into record deficits and collapsing tax collections. Municipal bonds may be the next big default line in the economy.We'll interview Clive Doucet to get the update.We are talking millions of foreclosures already, and millions more to go in the next two years. In fact, all the mortgage holding agencies, both government owned and private banks, have started a new wave of record foreclosures, after a brief Obama rest. Where are all these people ending up? Sure people some rent, but the latest stats show rentals are actually down. Some new Americans go back to their home country. Folks move back with their families, or share tiny spaces.Too many become homeless - and our social system is in no way prepared for the homeless emergency now developing in almost every city. A friend just told me their neighbors in a relatively upscale neighborhood in Phoenix both lost their jobs. Professional people. Suddenly the bailiffs show up and grab both cars plus the house. A family with 5 kids now living in two tents on the desert outside of town, with no water or toilets. Just like that.Could it happen to you? Are the homeless annoying you? In this program we'll get a clue. Our guest host Allart interviews Harold G. Joe. Harold experienced a fatal homeless tragedy in his community. He decided to try just three days and nights on the street. As a documentary film maker, Harold took his camera along. The result is the movie "Broken Down", and an interview that could move hearts of stone.Let's get back to Clive Doucet, the person who opened my eyes, while I was day-dreaming in a still-functioning place, a city of refuge, so far, in the developing storm.[Clive Doucet interview] I also cover some important world news.READ MORE....and find all the links to news stories, interviews and sources for this show.Alex

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The banks are doing great. The stock market is up 25 percent. Happy Days Are Here Again!Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the White Star Titanic. We are not sinking, there are plenty of lifeboats, please go back to an evening of fine dancing.If you're happy with that, maybe you shouldn't listen to this edition of Radio Ecoshock. We're going to hear other voices, outside the mainstream box.Famed ABC producer, author and blogger Danny Schechter will lead off the charge. He claims the financial system is riddled with fraud. We'll hear snippets from insider business Bears Ian Gordon and Meredeth Whitney, the one-woman force who broke out the truth about Bear Stearns. Whitney ends up advocating relocalization, and warning you - that credit card you've counted on may go bye-bye.Our mystery guest is Ilargi, from the popular financial blog The Automatic Earth. And we have an earthquake from within the Obama Administration itself. Elizabeth Warren heads a Congressional Panel overseeing the TARP funds. She questions the whole program, wondering if Tim Geithner's Treasury has any real strategy. Based on the experience of other countries, the U.S. is going the wrong way down a one way street. Warren sounds like a mother to America, as she explains this whole crisis. You'll hear the best of that.Here are all the links you'll need for this week's Radio Ecoshock Show:Danny Schechter's blog: http://www.newsdissector.com/blog/"Bear Attack" on BBN - 4 financial bears: Nouriel Roubini, Eric Sprott, Merideth Whitney and Iran Gordon. http://www.bnn.ca/8430.htmlTARP: Elizabeth Warren Congressional Oversight Panel Chair - April Report shows very different approaches from that taken by Treasury Sec. Tim Geithner. Revolutionary talk from inside Washington in this 8 minute You tube video (easy to understand!)http://cop.senate.gov/video/index.cfm#tab10Elizabeth Warren's explanation of the foreclosure crisis - also easy to understand, if very sad.http://cop.senate.gov/video/index.cfm#tab10 (8 minutes on You tube, and from this government site.The Automatic Earth blog - headed up by "Ilargi" our final guest on Radio Ecoshock this week.http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/.READ MORE...Music: "Happy Days Are Here Again" Ben Selvin and the Crooners 1930 (no copyright)

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You have just heard rioting hit the central banks of London during the G20 conference, set to Dirty Town from Mother Mother. This is Radio Ecoshock. I'm Alex Smith.The world is quietly burning with discontent as corporate schemes go bad. Industry and trade are collapsing and no one seems immune. The world trade center has fallen again, and maybe the Pentagon will be next. I've had some long hours into the night worrying - how about you?We have two guest speakers this week to help you engage. Even though I realize everyone is gob-smacked by crumbling banks and revelations of piracy at the top - we just can't take our eyes off our natural life support system. Ice is cracking loose at the poles. In desperation, President Obama's new science advisor, Dr. John Holdren, joins a chorus of experts toying with the idea of cooling off the atmosphere by artificial means. We'll hear a top National Oceans and Atmospheric Administration scientist explain a huge risk to human geo-engineering. In fact, Dr. Richard Feely has a horror story of his own to tell: our carbon waste is turning the oceans acidic. So what? The whole marine food chain is threatened. I'll bet the G20 didn't discuss our dying oceans for even 20 seconds. Banks come first!Could a supposedly intelligent species make the world's oceans more acidic? It sounds like science fiction, but now it is science. Our guest is Dr. Richard A. Feely, an Oceanographer at the NOAA Pacific Marine Laboratory in Seattle, and a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union. He specializes in the way carbon cycles in the sea - and ocean acidification.UK scientists from Bristol University recently told the three day summit in Copenhagen, that we are creating ocean conditions not seen since the time of the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago. We've done it in less than 250 years of fossil fuel burning - and carbon emissions are still going up. Then we'll go to a recent speech by Greenpeace founder, author and Peak Oil expert Rex Weyler. We've gathered up a powerful half hour segment connecting the dots between the economic collapse and dying natural systems. Rex even throws in a few suggestions on how we can cope. That's coming up in the second half hour of Radio Ecoshock.Getting back to the riots in Europe, and likely soon enough in North America - is it worth trying to protest the rape of our jobs, savings, and pensions? It's time to turn to The Stimulator.Get the full video of that and dozens of other pro-level reports from The Stimulator at submedia.tv. Warning to college students: the site contains adult language. You know, the way you actually talk to one another.All this talk of social upheaval and transformation is exciting I know. Next week we'll devote a full hour to zombie banks feeding on the flesh of taxpayers and the newly homeless - all with a special guest.[Feely interview 19 min 5 MB Lo-Fi]Our next speaker, Rex Weyler, is one of the original Greenpeace gang, author of "Greenpeace the Inside Story" plus two more books, and a recurring journalist in all media. He's also a Peak Oil spokesman, recorded in the Radio Ecoshock Show "Peak Oil and the Media," broadcast August 29, 2008 and available free from our archive.[Rex Weyler speech excerpt 31 minutes from the original 107 minutes found here]Rex sees the links between degrading the Earth and our economic collapse. His insight is well worth our time. Here is 30 key minutes from Rex Weyler's speech to the Bio-Society Conference at McMaster University in Canada on March 20th, 2009.That Rex Weyler speech comes from Maggie Hughes, Producer of "The Other Side" of the News on 93.3 fm, CFMU McMaster University Radio. Find her web site at www.oside.ca. Get all these links from my blog entry for April 9th, 2009.Our music this week was "Dirty Town" by the Vancouver group Mother Mother, plus a clip from Live Earth with the Black Eyed Peas closing up the show.You have been listening to Radio Ecoshock with Alex Smith. Find our web site at ecoshock.org - and thanks again for caring about our world.

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