Summary: SHOW SUMMARY Washington University's Peter Ward specializes in the 4 past extinctions from global warming. He's appeared on TV, author of 14 books, and warns rising seas will change America forever. Dr. Morgan Schaller of Rutgers tells us about a sudden heating event 55 million years ago when Earth warmed 9 degrees in 13 years. Could it happen again? Plus Stephanie Goodwin of Greenpeace on the "Arctic 30" protesters being held for months in a Russian prison, after climbing on an Arctic drilling platform. Why are they charged with "piracy"? Radio Ecoshock 131023 1 hour. Download/listen to this Radio Ecoshock show in CD Quality (56 MB) or Lo-Fi (14 MB) WELCOME TO THIS SHOW It's been another week of trouble on Planet Earth. Multiple cyclones hit Asia, plus tropical storm Wipha dumped so much water on the blown reactors at Fukushima, struggling utility owner TEPCO announced the highest radiation reading on record, 400,000 becquerels per liter near one of their storage tanks. We were told that was all over, everything under control. Down under in Australia another fire season has hit earlier than ever, following that country's hottest year ever, and hottest September ever recorded. Naturally the new Abbott government is doing all it can - to dismantle every carbon control and climate change law in Australia. Nice work fellas - enjoy your hot new times. PETER WARD: FOUR PAST MASS EXTINCTIONS FROM GLOBAL WARMING Dr. Peter Ward Of the five great extinctions, many people know a meteor crashed into Earth killing off the dinosaurs. The other four were caused by global warming - a fact that hasn't penetrated the minds of the public or our legislators. Dr. Peter Ward is an expert on past climate and mass extinctions. He's an author, reseacher, paleontologist, and professor of Biology and of Earth and Space Sciences at the University of Washington. Among his 14 books, we find recently "Under A Green Sky: Global Warming, the Mass Extinctions of the Past and What They Can Tell Us About Our Future"; "The Medea Hypothesis: Is Life on Earth Ultimately Self-Destructive?"; and "The Flooded Earth: Our Future In a World Without Ice Caps". You can download or listen to this 25 minute interview with Peter Ward here in CD Quality or Lo-Fi I strongly recommend you watch this great Peter Ward video. It from the Brown Bag Lecture Series at Edmunds College in Seattle Washington on Apr. 11, 2013. For the awful truth about rising seas, watch Peter in this National Geographic special 'Earth Under Water - Worldwide Flooding". Peter assures us that rising seas, not heat, will be the most devastating impact we will feel under the new changing climate. Or try this Radio Ecoshock You tube version of my previous 8 minute interview with Peter Ward about rising seas. MORGAN SCHALLER: CLIMATE SHOCKER FROM THE PAST What would happen if world temperatures jumped 5 degrees Centigrade, 9 degrees Fahrenheit, in just 13 years? Impossible says mainstream science. But a new paper published this September, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows a rapid wild heating event struck before on this planet, 55 million years ago. Could it happen again? Our guest Dr. Morgan F. Schaller is from the Wright Labs, at the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, at Rutgers University in New Jersey. Along with James Wright, Morgan is co-author of the paper “Evidence for a rapid release of carbon at the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum." This is a hugely important paper. Joe Romm did an excellent article about it at Think Progress. Please take a look at it. Listen to or download my interview with Rutgers scientist Morgan Schaller in CD Quality or Lo-Fi GETTING THE CARBON NUMBERS RIGHT I need to add this note about numbers. In this interview Dr. Schaller uses figures of elemental carbon emissions of all types emitted by humans, and in the atmosphere, rather than carbon dioxide only. For example, while I was correct estimating the current mass of carbon dioxide in the
