Summary: Will China lead the world into a new "ecological civilization", while America falls behind into the remnants of the old carbon age? Hidden by mainstream media, major changes are developing on the global stage. Our guest Laurence Brahm gives us a tour. Meanwhile, business as usual is setting us up for the awful shocks of climate disruption. Our second guest Gernot Wagner says our economies are heading into a series of hits, something he calls "climate shock". In fact, scientific studies say there is at least a ten percent chance we won't survive at all. We are gambling with an ecosphere, our descendants and a geological age. Let's hope the ecological civilization comes in time, and let's pay attention to those who try to lead us there. I'm Alex Smith, and this is Radio Ecoshock. Download or listen to this Radio Ecoshock show in CD Quality (56 MB) or Lo-Fi (14 MB) Or listen on Soundcloud right now! LAURENCE BRAHM - THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD A successful international trade lawyer helping multinational companies enter China, quits to find himself and the mythical Shangri-La. That journey becomes a book. Along the way our guest finds a passion for restoring ancient buildings of Asia. He founded an influential organization called "The Himalayan Consensus" - which was influential among other things in helping the new secular Constitution of Nepal. These are among the many sides to Laurence Brahm. He's been listed as a senior advisor to China's Ministry of Environmental Protection. I checked. It's true. When I talked with Laurence in the Spring of 2015 about his new book "Fusion Economics" he said China would come out with a bold new vision to move away from carbon-powered civilization, perhaps surpassing the United States. That plan has been released. Laurence Brahm We talk about the developing bi-polar world of international finance and what that could mean for all of us. We look at real roads to climate sanity, and Laurence's appointment as Foreign Policy Advisor to Jill Stein's 2016 Presidential campaign for the American Green Party. Laurence is a mix of visions to survive amid realism. He says for example that scientists tell him this civilization has only a fifty-fifty change of making it to the year 2100. As a realist, he see the need for governments and private business to cooperate on plans to decarbonize. REPLACING WALL STREET AND THE DOLLAR I won't go into great detail here about the newly emerging block of China, India and Russia. Following the Asian crash in the late 1990's, and again after the Lehman collapse of 2008, major countries outside America trust Wall Street and the old Bretton Woods banking system less and less. Developing countries in South America and Africa also see that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank do not really operate in their best interests. In the last few years we've seen the new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the "New Silk Road" initiative and the South-South Cooperative Fund emerge. As a former trade and business lawyer, Laurence is in a perfect position to explain what is going on - the news that never makes it into major American media. We also note the contentious Trans-Pacific Partnership does not include China, and is likely an effort to isolate China. As I wrote in my blog on Laurence last spring: "Laurence has his own You tube channel. He talks about "compassionate capital" and "conscientious consumption". Brahm recommends we set up our own alternative financial systems (like local currencies, or bitcoin). On BBC in December, Brahm said 80% of the wealth of America comes from betting on stocks, currencies and other financial games, and not from producing goods and services. That is not sustainable." You can download that Radio Ecoshock interview based on Brahm's book "Fusion Economics" here in CD Quality or Lo-Fi CHINA MOVING ON CLIMATE CHANGE Brahm says that one issue that can unite the world is climate change. It's a global problem demanding global solut
