RADIO ECOSHOCK

http://bit.ly/LaQVgW Josh Tickell, Director of "The Big Fix" reveals the continuing BP Gulf oil spill cover-up. S. Dutta on mega coal plant construction binge in India. "GM Food Song" by Superweed. Conclusion of tar sands speech by independent scientist Dr. David Schindler. ----------- LISTEN TO MP3 HERE From the high desert, from the dry falls of ages past, this is Alex Smith. We have a full menu of audio for you this week. You'll start out with a main course of awful truth about the continuing BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Director Josh Tickell joins us for a look at his dark reality pic "The Big Fix". Then we go to the coal disaster you never hear about. The government of India has teamed up with one of its biggest corporations to build some of the largest coal plants on the Planet. S. Dutta reports from Delhi about the Tata Mundra mega plant. Their lives and your climate in one big story. I'll play you a fine activist song about GM foods and wrap up with more from my recording of Dr. David Schindler's breakout speech against the Canadian Tar sands. Bon appetite. THE FIG FIX ON THE BP GULF OIL SPILL Sales of oil and gas leases are the second largest source of revenue to the United States government. About forty percent of that happens in the Gulf of Mexico. As we learn in this interview with Josh Tickell, only the Internal Revenue Service brings in more (from taxes, with a much bigger overhead). Is it any wonder the fossil fuel industry has so much control over the government? There is hardly any oversight. That is why BP was allowed to drill in deep waters on the edge of a ridge in the Gulf of Mexico, even after companies like Exxon had abandoned drilling efforts there. The area was known to host pools of explosive gas as well as the oil. Tickell goes over a long list of illness suffered by cleanup workers and many residents of the Gulf states. Skin rashes, asthma, and many other chronic conditions popped up after BP poured millions of gallons of the toxic oil dispersant Corexit into the Gulf. Exactly how many million gallons is still in dispute. The Corexit was carried toward the shorelines, where waves and winds whip it up into water droplets which hit Gulf residents, to this day. Tickell says despite the multi-million dollar advertising campaign saying the beaches are all clean, there are still workers cleaning beaches, and popular beaches have closures now and then. Tickell, who grew up in Louisiana, in a Cajun family, dug into "cleaned up" beaches and found lots of oil deeper in the sand. It isn't just a metaphorical "cover up", he tells us, but the oil is really just covered up for now. We go into the Obama deception, the multibillions of shareholder profits paid out by BP even during and after the spill, why the military was co-opted by BP and more. Josh Tickell first came to prominence after driving his grease-powered "veggie van" across America. That became the film "fuel". Now with wife Rachel, "The Big Fix" is winning acclaim at film festivals around the world. It got a standing ovation at Cannes. Our Radio Ecoshock correspondent in Washington D.C., Gerri Williams, saw it at a film festival there. She said the audience was wowed, and recommended this interview with Josh Tickell. Since many standard theaters are afraid of blowback from the powerful oil industry, it may not play near you. Fortunately, the DVD will be available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Netflix and ITunes in June. Or you can get it directly from the film web site, after the June release, at thebigfixmovie.com COAL IN INDIA You know Americans are blowing tops of Appalachian Mountains for dirty coal power. Warren Buffet's endless coal trains flow from the America West. In early May, activists from Vancouver, including two prominent academics, Dr. Bill Rees of the ecological footprint, and energy expert Mark Jaccard, were arrested stopping a coal train there. Everybody knows China built a coal plant a week. So why don't we hear about th

http://bit.ly/J1iHNJ Forests around the world are dying from insects, fungus, drought, heat. Drivers are climate change & ozone pollution. New Jersey activist Gail Zawacki on ozone damage to trees, crops & our lungs. University of Illinois scientist Lisa Ainsworth on FACE CO2 impacts study. A startling documentary from the public broadcaster ABC Australia explores dying forests. It is happening around the world, in Europe, Asia, Africa, South America and all down the West Coast of North America. Call it bugs, call it fungus, call it drought and record heat. Call it climate change and plain old pollution. Whether it's satellite photos, or walking through the dying woods, it's heart-breaking. Why are forests dying around the world? I'm Alex Smith. I've covered climate change in so many Radio Ecoshock programs. Later in this program we'll talk to a key scientist, Lisa Ainsworth, about misplaced expectations that rising carbon dioxide levels will green the planet and feed billions more people. But first we are going to ground with a citizen activist from New Jersey. Her trees, and all our trees, are weakened and dying from a much simpler cause: plain old pollution. The air looks cleaner, but all that industrial exhaust is still deadly to plants - and our lungs. The trees are talking to us, but we just aren't listening. Gail Zawacki is speaking out on the pollution that is killing trees, shrubs and crops - despite all the government back patting on supposedly cleaner air. First we have to remember there is good and bad ozone. The saying is "Good in the sky, bad nearby." The ozone in the upper stratosphere protects all living things from harmful ultraviolet light from the sun. That was the worry of the ozone hole. Lower down near the ground, we have what is called "tropospheric" ozone. That is part of the smog, but ozone itself is invisible. It's a type of oxygen, but it has three oxygen atoms instead of two. As Gail tells us, there are no factories spewing ozone - that is what makes it so difficult to control. Tropospheric ozone is created in an air-borne reaction with other chemicals called "precursors". The main precursor is nitrogen - and we are the nitrogen civilization. We release it from burning fossil fuels, but laying billions of tons of nitrogen on farm fields as fertilizers, and many other sources. Another precursor is a group of "volatile organic compounds" also known as VOC's. Our industrial society creates plenty of VOC's, especially from the chemical and refinery industries. Some consumer and household products, including paints, also release VOCs. It turns out trees can release VOC's as well. That is how Ronald Regan was infamously able to claim that trees cause pollution. However, natural forests existed for millions of years without producing harmful smog or dangerous ozone levels. We do that. Ozone is a "reactive" substance. It oxidizes everything from plant leaves to granite monuments, all of which begin to deteriorate. Please listen to the Gail Zawacki interview to learn how ozone impacts trees, shrubs and crops. (It also harms our lungs, especially anybody with breathing problems. That's another whole story.) The leaves begin to shut down. You can find black stippling, or sometimes they "bronze" - turning color well before the fall. Then the plant cannot perform the photosynthesis it needs. As a result, trees and shrubs are weakened, and less able to prevent diseases (like a fungus) or insect pests from doing damage. We may see the immediate cause of tree deaths as caused by a fungus or boring beetle, but the tree is weakened by ozone damage. Zawacki, and the Australian documentary, compare the dying tree situation to HIV. The AIDS damaged immune system may die due to pneumonia, but the real driver was HIV. Agricultural agencies, and forest departments, know all about ozone damage. They have pictures on their web sites. But other government agencies hardly ever talk about it. We have been told air pollution in

http://bit.ly/K0hULK Peak oil, the energy crisis and the "climate hurricane" with expert Robert Rapier. Then green law professor Michael M'Gonigle explains "Exit Environmentalism" - leaving the old campaigns, and maybe society, behind. Radio Ecoshock 120509 1 hour. Give up hope and exit out of environmentalism? In the UK, deep greener Paul Kingsnorth says he's leaving the climate movement, which is lost anyway. Who else is on the way out the door? This week we'll hear a challenging interview with one of the co-founders of Greenpeace International. Michael M'Gonigle has been battling since the late 1960's. He teaches environmental law at the University of Victoria in Canada. Two hosts from the podcast "The Extra Environmentalist" interview Michael for Radio Ecoshock - about his new strategy which he calls "Exit Environmentalism". Just in case, we'll top that off with a shot at techno-optimism. But first, I'll talk with chemical engineer and biofuels specialist Robert Rapier We go at the fundamentals of the energy crisis - peak oil, Asian demand, speculation and all that. Rapier compares greenhouse gas emissions from Asia to an unstoppable hurricane. I don't agree with everything all our guests say, but Robert takes me closer to "exit environmentalism" with his clear cold logic about the real world we live in. Brain stimulation from Radio Ecoshock. I'm Alex Smith. Download just the Robert Rapier interview (CD quality 22 min) Download just the Michael M'Gonigle interview (26 min CD Quality). ROBERT RAPIER: IS THE CLIMATE CHANGE DEBATE JUST "ACADEMIC"? WILL AMERICA BECOME AN ENERGY GIANT ONCE AGAIN? How realistic are biofuels as a replacement for oil? Are we headed for energy independence - or an energy crash? Robert Rapier would know. He's got 20 years’ experience as a chemical engineer, working with all kinds of fuels. Currently Robert is Chief Technology Officer at Merica International, a renewables and forestry company based in Hawaii. Rapier is also Managing Editor of "Consumer Energy Report", and a regular guest on mainstream media. His latest book is "Power Plays, Energy Options in the Age of Peak Oil". I called up Robert after reading his article "Why the Debate Over Global Warming Is Academic". It's a new perspective, and I grilled him on it. Here is part of Robert's reply in the Radio Ecoshock interview: "What is likely to happen is our emissions will probably continue to decline somewhat from here. But Asia-Pacific's emissions are going to continue to grow unabated. It's not only Asia-Pacific. Africa, the Middle East, South America - all these developing regions are rapidly increasing their fossil fuel consumption. I say it [climate change] becomes "academic" because while we debate and debate how we're going to get our emissions down, the emissions just continue to climb. The reason I liken it to a hurricane - you know we can talk about whether climate change is going to be really bad and disastrous and so forth, just like when we watched hurricane Katrina come in. The night before it came in, I told my wife, I said 'I'm afraid this is going to destroy New Orleans.' But one thing we didn't talk about is 'Well, how do you stop the hurricane?' And that's what I see in Asia-Pacific right now. The reason I say it's "academic", I don't see a viable way to stop them from increasing their fossil fuel consumption because they are already at such a low level per capita. So I've likened it to a rich person trying to tell a poor person to live within their means. The poor person is just trying to scratch out a living and increase their standard of living, while the rich person has already done that. We've already increased out emissions from a very low level, and we've gotten to a very high level. We just don't have nearly as many people as they do. The technology does not exist. No country has developed to a high level of development without fossil fuels. So to imagine that it can be done, we are imagining something that has ne

http://bit.ly/JT8ing From Oregon State University, Kathleen Dean Moore delivers an artful talk about our attack on Nature, and hope of reviving love instead. Recorded in Vancouver. With readings from her work & original songs by Libby Roderick and Tempting Eve. I record a lot of speeches, and listen to many more. This talk by Dr. Kathleen Dean Moore of Oregon State University is one of the best speeches of 2012. The title was "It's Wrong to Wreck the World: Climate Change and the Moral Obligation to the Future". The presentation was organized by Simon Fraser University, in their Continuing Studies in Science and Environment program. Kathleen spends every summer on a remote island off the coast of Alaska. She's in touch with Nature there, and at home in Oregon. In this artful, moving speech, we get some readings from her work - examples of why her books are so popular. Find out more about Kathleen Dean Moore at her blog at riverwalking.com Her latest book, a collection of 1500 short essays about our obligation to the future, is called "Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril." The writers are among the most famous people in the world, all speaking for the rights of the next generation(s). "Morality" sounds boring. This speech surprised and moved me. It will do the same for you. NEW MUSIC The program also premieres a new original song by Libby Roderick: "The Lifeboats Are Burning", and a song inspired by a Radio Ecoshock Show - "We Are" by the new band Tempting Eve in Sydney Australia.

http://bit.ly/IEik8w Economic collapse will come before peak oil or climate disruption, says investment guru Chris Martenson, author of "Crash Course". Matthew Stein, author of "When Technology Fails" explains how a solar flare could cripple society and set off 400 Chernobyls - and how we could fix it. Alex rants against 2012 mythology. Radio Ecoshock 120425 1 hour. Sorry, it's a long blog this week. Blame it on our guests - they had too many good things to say! If you want to quickly download the interview separately, here they are, in CD quality (larger file) and Lo-Fi (faster download, lower quality) CHRIS MARTENSON INTERVIEW (22 min)http://www.ecoshock.org/downloads/economy/ES_Martenson.mp3 http://www.ecoshock.org/downloads/economy/ES_Martenson_LoFi.mp3 MATTHEW STEIN INTERVIEW (27 min) http://www.ecoshock.org/downloads/nuclear/ES_Stein.mp3 http://www.ecoshock.org/downloads/nuclear/ES_Stein_LoFi.mp3 CHRIS MARTENSON - THE FINANCE GURU WHO KNOWS ABOUT CLIMATE, PEAK OIL, AND THE TOPPLING ECONOMY Most of us have a gut worry about the state of governments, big banks, and big finance. Like we'll wake up one morning with nothing. Our guest Chris Martenson trained as a scientist, but retrained in business. He made good money in the investment world with a big American corporation. Then the Martenson family life changed dramatically. We'll ask him why, and then pick his brain about things we all wish we knew. In a talk at Oxford University in 2010, the very wealthy investor Jim Rogers told students to forget about financial careers, and go study agriculture or mining. In a way, Martenson made a similar transition. He tells us about his journey from the business world to a rural life. Investments weren’t going his way, and when Chris investigated money and high finance, he didn’t like what he saw. He and his family moved out of the rich enclave of Bridgeport Connecticut to a more rural location. Now they are involved in self-sufficiency and community building. But Chris continues to be one of the more popular financial bloggers on the Net. He also podcasts with another top Net blogger, Mish Shedlock. His “Crash Course” advising people how to prepare for a much more difficult financial and social scene has sold very well. There is a lot of stress out there about banking, and broke governments. A growing group of blogs, radio hosts, and just plain folks wish it would all just end somehow. Some are cheering for a collapse. Chris says “Be careful what you wish for.” He isn’t hoping for a crash, but thinks the current system cannot go on indefinitely. Most of us, says Martenson, should prepare for a lower standard of living. WHEN? The never-ending question is: WHEN will the stuffing hit the fan. I've just read an analysis by Charles Hugh Smith, in his blog "Of Two Minds." The article title says it all: "When Does This Travesty of a Mockery of a Sham Finally End?" Charles says various historic cycles show a major collapse around 2021. The problem is, and this is always the case, we can see the financial system is totally unsustainable, but so far the central banks and governments have managed to keep the dance going much longer than any of us thought possible. Nobody can say whether the readjustment will come this month, this year, or even in this decade. It is even possible we may not see a really big collapse in our lifetime (depending upon your age now). I thought it might all go under in 1981, when New York City and Chrysler went bankrupt. Interest rates went to 22% and folks lost their homes. But it all limped on. ENERGY AND WEALTH Scientist Tim Garrett wrote a 2009 paper saying without a complete collapse of industrial civilization, out-of-control climate change was inevitable. He based that on a historic formula about the relationship between energy and wealth. More energy makes more wealth, less energy makes less. Find a transcript of my 2010 interview with Professor Garrett here. Or listen to this audio interview. Chris Martenson

http://bit.ly/JfocDr Wild fires from climate change cause still more warming. Three experts from American Academy for the Advancment of Science meeting February 19th recorded in Vancouver by Alex Smith. Michael Flannigan, U of Alberta on fire and climate. From UBC medical unit, Dr. Michael Brauer on health impacts and personal protection during smoke events. Tasmania's Fay Johnston' estimation of global annual deaths from landscape fire smoke. Radio Ecoshock 120418 1 hour. I've been working on the latest science about wildfires and climate change. The plan was to save the broadcast for summer, when the fires start. Nature isn't waiting. From the first week of April major television networks like CBS reported wildfires all the way from New England, Long Island, down through Virginia, into Georgia - the whole East Coast. This follows a winter with very little snow. New York got 20 inches less than normal. It's all gone, as places like Boston sizzled into the 90's at the very end of winter. Gardeners started to feel like planting a month early. Farmers feared a continuing drought, with no snow to water the land before seed time. Forget about normal. Wildfire season started ridiculously early this year in North America, in the first week of April. TV and news reported thousands of heat records set in the Eastern United States, without ever mentioning "global warming". It's time for the Radio Ecoshock special, my recordings of a special session on fire and climate. The fire experts gathered at the February conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Vancouver 2012. You'll hear how fires make a hotter climate which feeds more fires, the cycle of positive feedback. An internationally recognized wildfire expert, Dr. Michael Flannigan reports on the latest science and experience in the field. Flannigan also describes a new risk that could tip the climate of the world. You may have a personal stake in this. Anyone with lungs does. From the University of British Columbia School of Medicine, Dr. Mike Brauer explains new ways of tracking dangerous smoke, which can travel thousands of miles, across international boundaries. I like Brauer's talk, because he also tells us how citizens can protect themselves during a smoke event. Finally we'll hear from Dr. Fay Johnston from the University of Tasmania. She was part of a team asking the big question: how many people die from fire smoke every year? The answer, and the places most at risk, may surprise you. DR. MIKE FLANNIGAN Let's get the big picture, from one of my favorite wildfire experts. Dr. Mike Flannigan is a Professor of the Department of Renewable Resources at the University of Alberta, and Senior Research Scientist at the Canadian Forest Service. His PHD is from Cambridge. He also trained in meteorology. Flannigan is Editor-in-chief of International Journal of Wild land Fire, and part of the U.S. Assessment on Global Change. Mike is a leader in newly formed Western Partnership for Fire Science. In the program you hear excerpts from my recording of Mike Flannigan's presentation at "Forest fires in Canada: Impacts of Climate Change and Fire Smoke" delivered Sunday morning, February 19th, 2012, in a special workshop at the American Academy for the Advancement of Science general meeting in Vancouver. Nobody says more in fewer words than Flannigan. When huge fires erupt, in Canada or internationally, Mike often gets called in. He begins by exploring the fire in Northern Alberta, Canada, where a town called Slave Lake had one third of the place burned out, including the municipal buildings the libraries. Video of that fire appoaching the town here. Photos of the aftermath here. And this could happen to any town or city. Hundreds of homes were burned in Kelowna British Columbia in 20003. I don't have to tell anyone in California or Texas about the huge risks from out-of-control wild fires. Australians know how deadly fires can be. Slave Lake had to be evacuated.

http://bit.ly/HqmRdo Could the collapse of the fuel pool at Fukushima Reactor #4 endanger the Northern Hemisphere? Nuclear industry executive Arnie Gundersen explains. Then a top Canadian scientist exposes a scandalous government cover-up of poisons moving from the Tar Sands to dying aboriginal people. David Schindler speech excerpts. Plus a climate rant by comedian Lee Camp. ----------------------- The nuclear accident at Fukushima Japan is far from over. Three reactors continue to melt-down and now there is a storm of international worry about nuclear fuel pools tottering in blown up buildings. The whole Northern Hemisphere is at risk right now. I'm Alex Smith for Radio Ecoshock. We are joined again by nuclear industry expert Arnold Gundersen, of Fairewinds Associates. Arnie Gundersen, a year ago, warned us here on Radio Ecoshock, and to anybody who would listen, that a world-scale catastrophe was lurking in the nuclear fuel storage pools of both reactors Three and Four, at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant in Japan. Why is this story finally getting wider attention, a year later? The Japanese press, which has been following the government line, is starting to break out. On April 2nd, Takao Yamada, Expert Senior Writer for the Mainichi paper, said, quote: "The 7-story building itself has suffered great damage, with the storage pool barely intact on the building’s third and fourth floors. The roof has been blown away. If the storage pool breaks and runs dry, the nuclear fuel inside will overheat and explode, causing a massive amount of radioactive substances to spread over a wide area. Both the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and French nuclear energy company Areva have warned about this risk." And check out this translated video from Japanese TV! We also had the unusual case of Japan’s former ambassador to Switzerland, Mitsuhei Murata, speaking at a public hearing of the Budgetary Committee of the House of Councilors on March 22, 2012. He told the Swiss if the Reactor 4 fuel pool collapses, the cooling water for all six reactors would be shut down, as well as for the nearby spent fuel pool with another 6,000 fuel rods. Another Japanese diplomat, Akio Matsumura is also blogging about this. It is very surprising that Japanese officials are speaking out. Why now? Do they know something we don't? It seems to me, and many Radio Ecoshock listeners from all over the world have written me about this - that the whole world is sleep-walking through this potential global catastrophe. They want to know: Why isn't there an international emergency action plan, to save us from a nuclear disaster which would make Chernobyl look small in comparison? The average person thinks the Japanese could just dig an in-ground pool, move the fuel rods into a safer place, and then cover all that with a containment building. Why aren't they doing that? So we have debris over the fuel rods, a broken crane, broken fuel rod assemblies, and a building so shaky any attempts to fix things might cause the building to fall. Is it possible we have a situation which cannot be solved? Over at MSNBC, Rachel Maddow says Reactor 2 is an example of a technology which has no solution. Humans can't get near such high radioactivity. Even robot electronics fail in such circumstances. The Japanese require a technology that hasn't been invented yet. Should we even be using nuclear technology, if unsolvable accidents can happen? It is time to think the unthinkable. Arnie walks us through what could happen if we wake up one day, and the Fukushima Dai-ichi Reactor 4 fuel pool collapses. Arnie tells us the Brookhaven National Laboratory in the U.S. issued a study on the impacts of a nuclear fuel pool fire. Here is a good article summary of that 1987 Brookhaven study by Stuart Staniford. In this article from the New England Centre for Investigative Reporting, we find "A 1997 [actually it was 1987] study by the Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island concluded that a poo

http://bit.ly/HsX2ac A fresh update on Japan after the tsunami and nuclear accident with Warren Karlenzig. Is it a chance to build new green cities, or a vision of what we all face as the oil runs out? Then a quick interview with anti-nuclear campaigner Helen Caldicott, and Marsha Coleman-Adebayo at the Occupy the EPA protest in Washington. We conclude with an invitation by Susanne Moser to "get real" about our difficult future as we destabilize the climate. BACK FROM POST NUCLEAR JAPAN - WITH WARREN KARLENZIG Download this 24 minute interview... in CD Quality or faster download in Lo-Fi. Do you worry about an energy shortage, a nuclear accident, or a severe economic hit? Welcome to Japan, which is dealing with all three, following the deadly Tsunami and nuclear accident in March 2011. PCI Fellow Warren Karlenzig just returned from the damage zone, with this radio report. We have a new report from Warren Karlenzig, who just toured Japan with a United Nations group. As the founder of Common Current, Warren advises city and national governments on sustainability. He's a Fellow of the Post Carbon Institute. In 2009, Radio Ecoshock broadcast Warren's speech at a Vancouver panel on building green cities. We can't get to the impact of the nuclear accident, or Japan's exciting prospects for green energy, without first giving respect to the people who live with the tragic loss of more than 20,000 lives, of whole towns, and a large part of the country. Warren gives us some insight on how are people in Japan are handling unimaginable stress. Are there immediate lessons we can learn about surviving a large-scale disaster? How much help comes from government, and how much from self-organization by the citizens? One of the hot button issues in Japan is the national government's plan to redistribute tsunami wreckage, including material contaminated with radioactive waste, all over the country. With almost all nuclear reactors out of service, how are the Japanese dealing with the lack of energy? Fifty two out of fifty four reactors were out of service when Karlenzig toured Japan, and the 53rd was shutting down the day of our interview. The Japanese are scrambling to import more LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) - and burning more coal - but there is still a massive energy short-fall. It turns out their response could be very close to our future as oil becomes too expensive for most uses, if we can get oil at all. The Japanese generally were either not heating buildings, or just keeping the pipes from bursting, while wearing winter coats inside. For a special meeting, a kerosene heater was brought in. Only the most necessary energy was used. Karlenzig says the sudden failure of the Japanese energy supplies is comparable to a peak oil shock. There an opportunity in Japan to rebuild new green cities and towns. Two cities have proposed "smart growth" models. One is pursuing ideas for renewable energy, and zero emissions. Find the details, and photos from the tour of Japan, in Warren's blog article here. This reminds me of the astounding Japanese recovery after World War Two. Most cities were flattened, and energy was in short supply. Yet Japan rebounded with new factories, new technologies, and more efficient production. But there are still major roadblocks to recovery in the region hit by both a tsunami and a triple nuclear melt-down. For one thing, young people were already leaving the central East coast region, which was known mainly for tourism, fishing, and agriculture. Young people were going to larger cities, seeking more modern employment, in computing for example. This disaster has made the youth drain much more serious. With no work, hardly a place to live, and few prospects, many of the young people needed for rebuilding have left. Warren raises another challenge. Japanese society tends to organize with male administrators. Women, and the elderly, did not attend most planning meetings, and appear not to be consulted about the new vision fo

http://bit.ly/GRGbPD Summer in March? I ask the experts, Joe Romm of Climate Progress, and Jeff Masters of the Weather Underground. Then we visit with Professor Raymond De Young. When we get exciting weather, it's hard to beat the Dr. Jeff Masters blog at the Weather Underground. Jeff has taught meteorology, he's been a Hurricane Hunter for NOAA, and still watches storms and all forms of strange weather. A BUNCHA HOT MARCH LINKS FOR YOU Here is a link to Jeff's key blog post on "Summer in March". In the interview, I also reference this article from Andrew Freedman of Climate Central. His piece was titled "Global Warming May Have Fueled March Heat Wave Odds." And this is what Dr. James Hansen of NASA has been saying: we wouldn't see these extreme heat events so often, without the greenhouse gases we've added to the atmosphere. Also at wunderground.com, your weather historian Christopher C. Burt posted some neat graphics and a thorough listing of the new heat records set. Our listeners from the Mid-West, through New England and all of Eastern Canada can find the new and old records here. And it wasn't just in North America. The UK Telegraph headline Friday March 23rd: "UK to be as Hot as the Sahara This Weekend." Britain hit 20 degrees C, a balmy 68, the day before, a temperature normally seen in June. You can find Bill McKibben (350.org) talking with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! about the weird March weather here. I also like this blog entry at the Washington Post from "the Capital Weather Gang". For more on impacts on crops, here is another radio piece from IPR. CBS did a decent piece on the impact of early Spring/summer weather for allergy sufferers. DOWNLOAD THE JEFF MASTER INTERVIEW (15 min) Lo-Fi (4 Megabytes) CD quality (13 MB) JOE ROMM FROM CLIMATE PROGRESS WEIGHS IN Summer in March... is it a preview of global warming? Our guest has a Ph.D. in physics from MIT. He was a top advisor for energy efficiency and renewables in the Clinton Administration. Joe Romm is author of the book "Hell and High Water". But many of us know him as the world's best climate blogger over at ThinkProgress.org. Here is Joe's great piece on the March heat wave. He's so good at summing up for busy people, targeting what really matters. On the agricultural damage caused in Texas by the big heat and drought of 2011, see Joe's other post here. DOWNLOAD THE JOE ROMM INTERVIEW 17 min (separately) Lo-Fi CD Quality "I'M A CLIMATE SCIENTIST" - THE VIDEO! Young climate scientists have heard enough from old weathermen and fake experts. A group of real scientists rolled out this quick song on You tube. My thanks to VR in Colorado for this G-rated version. Here is a link to the clean version of "I'm a Climate Scientist" as a You tube video (OK for FCC broadcast regs). My thanks to VR in Colorado for creating the fun clean version for Radio Ecoshock. RETHINK AND RELOCALIZE - RAYMOND DE YOUNG Raymond De Young is an academic who isn't working for a military think-tank, or explaining why we should just keep climbing the consumer ladder. His "Localization Reader" will likely fall into hands that get dirty in gardens, and active in your community. De Young is Associate Professor of Environmental Psychology and Planning, in the School of Natural Resources and Environment, at the University of Michigan. DOWNLOAD RAYMOND DE YOUNG as a separate interview (24 minutes) In faster downloading Lo-Fi In CD quality I came upon Raymond's work through the psychologist Carolyn Baker. Carolyn has the "Speaking Truth to Power" web site, and a great alternative headline news service. She passed on an article about how to survive our knowledge of a society under extreme stress - with a technique as simple as a walk in the park. The article is titled "Restoring Mental Vitality in an Endangered World: Reflections on the Benefits of Walking". This really struck a chord with me. I walk through some trees, or along a stream, every day of the year. I've had a few almost hallucinogenic

http://bit.ly/GJPcvJ How can we be optimistic? Publisher of The Mother Earth News, Bryan Welch. From D.C. Environmental Film Festival, Harry Lynch, Director of "Switch", Alexandra Cousteau, and Robert Cole. This week on Radio Ecoshock, we go green media. You'll hear an interview with Bryan Welch, publisher of the Mother Earth News and the Utne Reader. Then off to the D.C. Environmental Film Festival, to talk with directors and producers of the energy film "Switch" and previews of the Blue Planet North America Expedition. Radio Ecoshock correspondent Gerri Williams is joined in our Washington Pacific studio by Alexandra Cousteau, and film-makers Robert Cole and Harry Lynch. BRYAN WELCH - ALTERNATIVE PUBLISHER AND HOMESTEADER Let's go to Bryan Welch - why is he so optimistic, in these difficult times? He's the publisher of some of the only magazines I still read: Mother Earth News, Utne Reader, and Grit. Starting as a journalist, Bryan is now a successful businessman - and still a homesteader in Kansas. I begin by admitting Radio Ecoshock may be the most depressing program on radio. We have scientists, oil experts, and economists explain our coming doom. Bryan has written a book saying there may be a better way. It's called "Beautiful and Abundant, Building the World We Want". Abundant? What about peak oil, climate catastrophe, reduced consumerism? I ask Bryan to explain. He begins by pointing our humans have gone through periods of extreme creativity. For example, in a 15 year period around the turn of the century we invented bicycles, cars, airplanes, radio, and many other things. In that same time, Einstein developed a theory of light, energy, and the universe itself. As the need becomes apparent, we may experience a new burst of creativity to help solve our problems, Welch says. But these technical accomplishments require a "grand vision" of how humans could be sustainable in the long term on this planet. For this Welch suggests 4 criteria for sustainability (and he uses these in the operation of his various business ventures as well.) FOUR CRITERIA OF SUSTAINABILITY Number one: does it create beauty? That might not be intuitive as first on your list. But Welch says humans are attracted to beauty, and it motivates them in powerful ways. A new technology, or even a political movement, needs an inherent beauty to be communicated, to be successful. Number two: does it create abundance? In the oil industry, we expect any worthwhile source to create much more energy than goes into producing it. Investors expect more than just a meager return. Perhaps this expectation of abundance, especially in planet-saving technology, is a requirement. Especially if it must help billions of people. Small thinking need not apply. Welch also thinks capitalism, properly and honestly applied, is still the best system. Again, abundance is required, because we need an excess, known as "capital" to develop still more innovation. Number three: is it fair? This is kind of a balance to the requirement of abundance. It's not enough to make a few people rich, and certainly that isn't sustainable if the technology ruins the commons all humans and other life forms need to survive. There are cases in capitalism where everyone seems better off, through the innovation and production, Welch thinks. There is a lot more to this one, which helps guide the way business should operate to be sustainable, and the way communities and whole societies need to think things through. Number four: is it contagious? What good is the best idea or tech if nobody really wants to spread it around? Especially if our time is limited (it is) - changes need to move fast to succeed, and that means motivating people. THE LIMITATIONS OF ENVIRONMENTALISM Given the above, Welch thinks greens have not been effective communicators. Enviros don't talk enough about beauty, abundance, fairness, and contagious thinking to reach the mass public. Bryan, who includes himself as a long-term environ

http://bit.ly/wS7C5M From "Fukushima Nuclear Disaster - One Year After" nuke expert Arnold Gundersen & 2 Japanese activists from Fukushima. Radio Ecoshock 120314 Music bed credit: drums by Vastmandana On the anniversary of the world's worst nuclear disaster in Fukushima Japan, I am taking you with me to a heart-breaking conference organized by physicians, to assess the on-going damage. You will hear the latest from nuclear engineer Arnold Gundersen, just back from Japan. He'll tell us about continuing dangers, spreading waste throughout the country, and radiation in North America, from trees to seafood. More important still, two Japanese activists tell us how citizens in Fukushima Prefecture are coping. How, in the face of organized denial by governments and universities, they are acting to protect their children. This story goes well beyond the melt-down of three reactors still out of control in Japan. Listen closely, and you hear how governments fail their citizens in emergencies. How they lied after the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island nuclear accidents. And why you must be prepared to organize your local community when any kind of disaster strikes. Whether it's a hurricane like Katrina, big floods or tornados, governments cannot, and will not, save us. This conference was in Vancouver, March 11th 2012. "The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster One Year Later" was organized by Physicians for Global Survival, Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility, Simon Fraser University, and other medical organizations in British Columbia. It was recorded by Alex Smith for Radio Ecoshock. Let's start with the clearest most honest voice, right from the start of the Fukushima disaster, Arnie Gundersen of fairewinds.com [Gundersen - main speech 31 min] Gundersen's talk is filled with important information about the situation in Japan - with implications for American reactors. We could talk about the weakness of the Mark I GE reactors. Their bad design makes them prone to melt-downs. Everyone knows it, including the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the NRC. Fukushima, with its three operating Mark I type reactors, proved. So why are there more than a dozen similar reactors still running in the United States? Gundersen explains why this design fails in such dangerous ways. Then we have the extreme health danger to the people of Japan, especially women and children. Gundersen departs from the official Japanese position that no one has died, and there is a very low health risk. In fact, our speaker predicts a million cancers from Fukushima radiation in Japan in the next 20 years. Is he an ill-informed fringe speaker? Hardly. Arnie Gundersen worked in the industry, helped write the official government handbook on decommissioning reactors. He's been an official witness in all sorts of inquiries and law cases. Gundersen explodes the myth that the American Three Mile Island reactor melt-down (and it was a melt-down, though seldom reported as such) - killed anyone. In fact, peer-reviewed studies and reports show a higher cancer death among those people exposed to TMI radiation. Arnie works from peer-reviewed papers on Chernobyl deaths, and Three Mile Island, comparing that to the radiation dose experienced by the population of Japan. The results look terrible. We'll find out in the coming years. While in Japan in the last few weeks, Gundersen took a soil sample from five random locations in Tokyo. He brought them back to the States for testing. All five would be classified as "nuclear waste" in America. The residents of Tokyo are walking around on nuclear waste. The Fukushima one year anniversary conference, organized by Physicians for Global Survival, was attended by doctors, experts, and concerned Japanese people. The questions were penetrating. I play you the complete Question and Answer exchange with Arnie Gundersen. He explains the forests of Japan were so contaminated with radiation, that when cedar buds open again this spring that will initia

http://bit.ly/Avg7gI Julian Assange of Wikileaks reveals private intel company Stratfor spying on NGO's, helping big corporations and banks with government secrets. Ecoshock 120307 Today on Radio Ecoshock you will hear about the brave new world of privatization of intelligence services, global corruption, and abuse of media services for propaganda, big corporations, and private gain. This whole program lets you hear what mainstream media fails to deliver. You will hear critical excerpts from a media press conference in London, February 27th, 2012. We begin with Julian Assange, the Editor in Chief at WikiLeaks, announcing the first batch from a treasure trove of 5 million emails, hacked from the private intelligence agency Stratfor (Strategic Forecasting, Inc.) Stratfor is based in Texas. It hires senior U.S. intelligence agents, and draws up plans for the American Air Force and Marines. Stratfor publishes a newsletter costing thousands of dollars, with 300,000 subscribers, many of them in governments around the world. SPYING FOR CORPORATIONS - AGAINST NGO's According to the emails, the company also holds private consultations, and undertakes spying operations, even subversion, of public interest and political groups, on behalf of major corporations. Stratfor was hired by the Coca Cola Company to investigate PETA, People for the Investigation of Animals, in Canada. The soft drinks company was a major sponsor for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, and feared actions against Canada's seal hunt. As a measure of the compromise of government secrets available to private intelligence companies, Stratfor emails suggest the company would use full access to FBI files on PETA, who have been labeled "terrorists" for the convenience of the massive American pharmaceutical industry. The company brags about its possession of top secret classified American documents, including information on drone strikes, and materials from Osama Bin Laden's safe house. We await the investigation and prosecution of Stratfor for these breaches of American law. THE CHASE TO "GET" JULIAN ASSANGE Instead, the emails show a close collusion between several government agencies and Stratfor, in a campaign to capture and jail Julian Assange of WikiLeaks. Stratfor’s Vice-President for Counterterrorism and Corporate Security, Fred Burton, is a former Deputy Chief of the Department of State’s counterterrorism division for the Diplomatic Security Service. WikiLeaks has found a secret email from early 2011 from Burton, saying a sealed indictment against Julian Assange has already been issued by a secret Grand Jury in the United States. In expletive laced emails, Burton plots with others to bankrupt Assange, to have his Australian citizenship revoked, to have Assange extradited to the U.S. for a lengthy prison term, if not for life. Julian Assange has been held in Britain for more than a year, waiting on a case for extradition to Sweden, on sex charges which even Stratfor employees, according to the released emails, do not believe. HOW THE HACKED DOCUMENTS ARE BEING PROCESSED The hackers group Anonymous hacked into the 5 million emails of Stratfor, where security was ridiculously lax. They delivered the whole batch to WikiLeaks, who organized a team of more than 25 world media outlets to analyze the mountains of information. The press conference featured journalists from the U.S., Britain, Italy, Spain, and Lebanon. Also presenting were the media activist group "The Yes Men" and UK charities representing victims of the 1984 Bhopal pesticide horror - all spied on by Stratfor on behalf of the Dow Chemical company, current owners of the still poisonous Bhopal site in India. You need to understand how corporations and big governments team up against their own citizens, to preserve the rights and profits of the 1 percent. Before we hear the other activists and journalists, let's get back to the opening remarks by Julian Assange of WikiLeaks speaking at the WikiLeaks press conference t

http://bit.ly/Ad7hzA Dr. John Mashey investigates right-wing billionaires & corporations who pay alleged "charities", bloggers, & old weathermen to deny climate science. Canadian journalist Margaret Munro on government muzzling scientists, plus update by UCS Francesca Grifo on science freedom in U.S. ---------- The fossil fuel industry have teamed up with very wealthy idealogues to make you doubt global warming is happening, or that we are forcing big changes in the climate. For years, we guessed and partly knew that a small group of Right-wing think tanks, weathermen, and bloggers, and even a couple of low-grade climate scientists, were being paid off. We just couldn't see through the corporate veil of deception. Now we know many of the same people hired by the tobacco industry to create doubt that smoking killed millions of people, found a new source of funding, and a new cause. They are attacking climate science, and the scientists. Hidden money fuels a campaign of lies, inuendo, fear mongering and fake science. In recent news, we finally got hard information on just who is paying for these attacks, and how the money flows out to so-called independent "experts" and bloggers. A well-known scientist, Peter Gleick, penetrated the secret funding sources for climate attack central - an alleged charity called "The Heartland Institute". We didn't really need the Heartland emails, leaked to desmogblog.com. Another source, Dr. John Mashey, patiently analysed public documents to track it all down. In an exclusive radio interview, John Mashey lays out the conspiracy, and names names. Here is a link to John Mashey's blog, and here is where to download his 200 page PDF documentation, showing the donors, the front groups, and the propaganda machine of climate denial. Here are some more good links, and a bit of a transcript, if you want to follow up on the Heartland funding of "scientists" like Dr. Fred Singer (who spoke for the tobacco industry, and now gets $$$ to speak against climate science) and other bloggers and fake experts. Read this George Monbiot article in the UK Guardian from February 20th. George captures what is happening: plutocrats are taking over our governments and trying to control our minds (not to mention what our kids are taught in school). "We need to know who funds these thinktank lobbyists" FROM THE RADIO ECOSHOCK SHOW interview with Dr. John Mashey. "Alex Smith: I see from your charts, and it was echoed in the leaked documents, the Heartland Institute received millions from a single anonymous donor. Do we have any clue who that is? John Mashey: Oh yeah. It's pretty well in the [years of Heartland Institute] blogs. And it is something I almost included [in his 200 page report] but I still had some work to do, to track things down. The leaked information helped remove certain possibilities. I would suggest that there is a huge amount of evidence that it's, and I don't know how to pronounce it, it's Barre Seid from Chicago area. There's a whole pattern of him giving to Heartland for years, and then through his foundation, at least back through 1999. But around 2005 he disappears. There's a funny thing in 2005-2006 where a whole lot more money comes in, but then the next year it goes out to a bunch of different other non-profits. Heartland had never done that before or afterwards. One of them was to a place called Shimer college, and it turns out there was a takeover attempt, sort of run by Seid, with a new Board, or attempting to have a new Board which was mostly people who worked for Seid, or people who were funded by Seid. And then later, what happens is the money comes to Shimer College through this Donors Trust/Donors Capital combination. That entity also supplied a lot of money to Heartland. It's a big boost, came through Donors. I can't prove beyond a shadow of a doubt, but I would bet, you know there's nobody else that fits, and in particular the other possibilities were all named as named donors in the [le

http://bit.ly/w1bCQY Listen to presentations by NASA climate scientist James Hansen, and best-selling author and science writer Cris Mooney at 2012 AAAS. Just back from the American Academy for the Advancement of Science annual conference 2012, this is Alex Smith. I've recorded two of the best speechs of the weekend gathering of thousands of scientists, held this year in Vancouver, Canada. Download/listen to James Hansen (29 min) CD Quality or Lo-Fi Download/listen to Chris Mooney (29 min) CD Quality or Lo-Fi Dr. James Hansen, head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, warns it isn't enough to reduce our emissions. We must actually take carbon dioxide back out of the air, to avoid entering a new and dangerous age of greenhouse living. We are currently at 392 parts per million CO2 in the atmosphere, and rising rapidly. The target Hansen says is 350 parts per million. That is the level where the Polar ice, which regulates the climate humans have known for the past 10,000 years, will remain on planet Earth. Chris Mooney, author of "The Republican War on Science," says scientists fail to communicate the danger of climate change, because they wrongly believe mere facts will convince the public. Instead, Mooney outlines studies showing humans use facts to bolster pre-existing beliefs about the world. There are large differences in the basic personalities of those who gravitate toward the Right and Left of politics. We get a sneak preview from Mooney's upcoming book. Recorded by Alex Smith Feb 19, 2012 in Vancouver, Canada at the event "Climate Solutions: The Challenges of Getting to 350".

http://bit.ly/A2aJno Maybe we need a big burst of methane to get real climate action. Recent Russian expeditions to the Eastern Siberian coast find plumes of methane into the atmosphere. Is it worse than our own oil and coal pollution? I ask three top climate scientists: oceanographer Carlos Duarte, ice expert Peter Wadhams, and carbon-meister David Archer. ------------ Are you feeling lucky, Pilgrim? There is a growing wave of unease, even panic. Our fossil fuel civilization may be accelerating straight off the cliff of mass extinction. Will the rapid rise in Arctic temperatures, and the disappearance of summer sea ice, trigger a runaway climate change, and a mass extinction event? You would think a possibility so huge would fill television news and newspapers. What are political candidates saying, or business leaders? Everyone must be talking about the chance we could be killed off within a generation or two. No, the silence is deafening. Right now, this debate is sealed off into a strong debate among scientists, and a small group of journalists and concerned citizens. You'll have to go to blogs like realclimate.org or climateprogress to find the discussion. Or listen to Radio Ecoshock. What is the problem? New science shows seven of thirteen major feed-back mechanisms - the forces that create climate tipping points, are found in the Arctic. We'll talk to the lead author of that paper, award-winning scientist Carlos Duarte. One of those frightening developments is the discovery by a joint Russian American research expedition that large plumes of methane are escaping into the atmosphere from the Arctic sea bed along Eastern Siberia. Scientists Natalia Shakhova and Igor Semiletov suggest a burst of 50 Gigatonnes of methane could result from an "abrupt release at any time". This would multiply current methane levels by about 12 times with "consequent catastrophic greenhouse warming". See this article from The Independent. As a result, a combination of scientists, journalists and other concerned people has formed the Arctic Methane Emergency Group. They call for an immediate war-scale geoengineering effort to save the last of the Arctic summer sea ice cover, so save our climate. In this program, I interview one of the world's top ice experts, Dr. Peter Wadhams of Cambridge. He warns the Arctic Sea could become virtually ice-free in September as early as 2015, just three years from now. We may already be seeing the destabilizing results of this loss of the Arctic climate regulator in the mild almost snowless winter in North America, while Arctic cold pushed deep into Europe and even North Africa in the late winter of 2012. If you are wondering what the heck is happening with that wild weather in Eastern Europe, keep reading, and listen to the broadcast. More below and in this news article, again from the UK's Independent. Dr. David Archer thinks the warnings of catastrophe from Arctic melting methane are either over-blown, or miss the real and known threat. You know, the threat you and I create every day, as we participate in ever-increasing emissions of carbon dioxide by burning fossil fuels. Don't miss our new interview with David Archer, a famous climate expert - and his dark dare about a methane burst. I'm Alex Smith. The risk is huge. The outcome could determine the lives of my children and grandchildren. I've lost sleep already, and I fail to cover important angles in this program. This story is so big, it will take many programs, over many months or years, to cover it. As long as I am able, I will keep trying. I hope you will too. We'll start out with an overview of the Arctic tipping points, with Dr. Carlos Duarte. SEVEN OUT OF 13 TIPPING POINTS ARE IN THE ARCTIC! In 2012, the winter weather in America was unusually mild. Winter festivals and outdoor skating were cancelled, while New Yorkers played tennis in the park. At the same time, after a warmer than usual winter, Eastern Europe suddenly plunged into cold that kille