UNCIVILIZED

Coming up on Radio Ecoshock - hot from Copenhagen, American energy - and the destruction of Africa. Two continents adrift in hard choices. We know climate change is upon us. It's just a matter of how fast, and how bad. The struggle stretches from Washington to Denmark to Kenya, where the President's family live, among the growing millions of climate refugees.

Stick around, in our second half hour, we're off to Copenhagen, with voices you've never heard from the mainstream media. What Obama can do - no matter what watered down roadblocks Congress puts in the way. And why the fragile culture of Africa will boil away, with just 2 degrees of global temperature rise. Guess what! People there are not willing to die for our energy economy. From out of the darkness, Radio Ecoshock, with a digest of the best of independent radio coming from the Copenhagen convention center - courtesy of Phil England of climateradio.org.

Radio Ecoshock Show "Uncivilized" 1 hour CD quality (55 MB) or Lo-Fi (14 MB)



But we open with the question: when does doubt become realism?

"...civilization as we have known it, is coming to an end; brought down by a rapidly changing climate, a cancerous economic system, and the ongoing mass destruction of the non-human world."

That's the starting point for our next guest, Paul Kingsnorth, a founder of The Dark Mountain Project. Paul is a well-educated, well-published environmentalist in England. He's been arrested at a protest, helped edit the Ecologist magazine, and Greenpeace publications. He appears regularly in British newspapers, radio, and television.

ALEX SMITH: Let's start with current events: was there ever any hope that climate change could be stopped, by our current political leaders, at Copenhagen?

PAUL KINGSNORTH: I don't think so, no, not at all. The conclusion was pretty foregone from the beginning. I think that the ways we look at climate change are probably the wrong ways.

If we look at climate change as a "problem" that we can solve within a certain amount of time, if we can just get the technology right, and if we can get the political will, and if we can build a big mass movement of people.

I don't think that's really what it is. I think climate change is almost an existential problem for us. It's a predicament we have to live with, rather than a problem we have to solve.

And I think the root of that is the fact that we treat climate change as if it's something that's external. It's a sort of problem we've created that we can solve with human genius. But climate change is our society, climate change is who we are.

Climate change is our computers, our televisions. It's our flights. And we're all complicit in it, those of us living in the rich world.

And the system that the political leaders who gathered in Copenhagen have to promote, because it's what their voters want them to promote, and it's what global corporations and the global economy wants them to promote, is the system that creates climate change.

So it's almost impossible to believe, I think, that they can turn around and suddenly flick a switch and turn it off again.

And I think we're having real trouble understanding that. I think that applies to environmentalists as well as the public as a whole. We still see climate change as a kind of challenge that we can tackle with the old fashioned methods of protesting, and marching, and letter writing, and campaigning. And I don't think it's responding to that at all.

ALEX: One thing brought home to me, by the alleged "leak" of the Danish text, - we in the West are committed to the expediency of atmospheric imperialism. We'll keep polluting, even if we lose whole countries and continents in the less developed world. Am I being pessimistic, or realistic?

PAUL KINGSNORTH: This is one of the things the Dark Mountain Project was set up: to try to distinguish between pessimism and realism.

I think that the whole of the environmental movement, in which I've been involved for a long time, is built on this edifice of hope. And hope can be a very good thing. But if it's false hope, it's a very dangerous thing.

And we've almost come to believe that anything's possible if we just hope for it enough. And I think we need to take a cold, and a hard, and a realistic look at the way the world is, and the way that human society is. And the way that human society is rubbing up against the ecological reality.

It's all very well, taking to the streets to kind of urge our leaders to act at Copenhagen. But our leaders are running this enormous machine, and this machine IS about cannibalizing resources from the rest of the world. It's about keeping the consumer economy going. You can't just turn that around, however much mass action you have.

And the problem is with climate change, is that actually you're never going to get millions of people on the streets to campaign against climate change. Because they'll be campaigning against their own way of life. They'll be campaigning against their own comfort, in the West at least.

And so we're all complicit in that system. The voters are complicit, the corporations are complicit, the politicians are complicit. We might want to stop climate change, but actually I don't think that we can, at least within the time scale that's apparently available to us.

I think we need to be honest about that. Because only when we're honest about that, can we start to think about what we do next....

Hear this interview with Paul Kingsnorth. (27 min, 6 MB)

Find out more about The Dark Mountain Project

or Paul Kingsnorth

COPENHAGEN: AMERICA VS. AFRICA

There is no single story coming out of the Copenhagen climate talks in December 09. There are hundreds. Today we'll cover the struggle of two continents: North America, the great wealthy polluter, and Africa, the poorest victim of global climate change.



We'll do it as only radio can. On a shoestring, a band of radio activists found the voices we never hear in mainstream media. They broadcast it daily to London, to Resonance FM, and to the States through Democracy Now! You'll hear Amy Goodman, Phil England, and Frederika Whitehead, plus audio from 350.org. More importantly, you'll get first hand the voices of the dispossessed, the representatives of Africa.

In spite of my years of studying climate change, my many interviews with top climate scientists, I never understood until now the real impact of climate disruption on Africa. Where hundreds of millions depend upon simple rain-fed agriculture, the rains are not coming, or flood everything out when they do. Wealth measured in cattle is now mile upon mile of skulls strewn across the widest part of the continent. Lake Chad, Africa's largest lake, has almost disappeared, drying out into a few marshes. Even farming rich South Africa is drying out, with worse to come in the next decades. We all need to wake up and listen to the distress calls from Africa.

Here is a map of some climate change impacts on Africa.

Meanwhile, the oil empire of America is trying to decide what to do. We'll begin there, with a quick news bite from Amy Goodman, an interview with Cassie Siegel on the legal moves, and then Naomi Klein on Obama's damage.

Does America have to gut the Clean Air Act to make new climate legislation? Hear Phil England of climateradio.org with Cassie Siegel, of the Center for Biological Diversity....

Incredibly, in oil-dependent Nigeria, there has been a major conference calling for a halt to further oil exploration. Leave it in the soil, to develop a real economy, and to save the climate of Africa. Listen to Phil England of climateradio with Nnimmo Bassey, head of Friends of the Earth, Nigeria.

But African representatives at Copenhagen were aggrieved and angry to discover their Danish hosts colluded with the biggest countries to write a polluters treaty, called the Danish Accord. We play a clip from the spontaneous protest that broke out in the main conference hall. It's heart-breaking - a deal that condemns millions of Africans to drought, more diseases, and heat deaths.

And it all links back to the United States, historically the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. We wrap up with a passionate letter to Obama, written by the African delegates. Really, it's a letter to Americans as they decide about their energy future - and the right to go on polluting the atmosphere.

Listen to this digest of alternative radio. (29 min 30 sec, 7 MB)
http://www.ecoshock.org/downloads/climate09/ES_Copenhagen_Digest_1_LoFi.mp3

It's official, this past decade was the warmest ever recorded. Doubt and despair, as the world hurtles into more decades of climate change.

Alex Smith

The Future: Dark or Resilient?

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 Smith
Radio Ecoshock

Beyond 4 Degrees

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 Nile

LINK FOR AUDIO AND SLIDES FROM "4 Degrees & Beyond" Conference:


MAJOR SPEAKERS

1. 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 scale

4. Dr. Pier Vellinga, Wageningen University, "Sea level rise and impacts in a 4+C World

5. Prof Stefan Rahmstorf, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, "Sea-level rise in a 4 degree world

6. Prof David Karoly, University of Melbourne "Wildfire in a 4+ C degree World

7. Dr. François Bemenne, Sciens Po Paris "Cimate-induced Population Displacements in a 4+ degree World

The 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

WHEN THE GREAT CORRECTION COMES

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 SHOWS

Speaking 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

OFF THE CLIMATE CLIFF? OR GREENER CITIES?

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 PROGRAM

Interview with scientist Bill Hare:

How much time left to burn fossil fuels? PRIMAP.ORG

Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research

George Monbiot column in UK's Guardian newspaper
"How Much Should We Leave in the Ground?"

Green Cities:

Grist article on 15 Green Mayors

Radio Ecoshock series on Green Cities

Resilient Cities (Australia's Dr. Peter Newman)

Transport Revolutions: Moving People and Freight Without Oil
Richard Register and Anthony Perl

Building Madness (various speakers)

Urban Meltdown (Clive Doucet)
Speech (53 min)

Clive Doucet interview

READ MORE

TIDAL POWER - Is It Real?

Whenever politicians and greens talk about alternative energy, the list usually goes wind, solar, and tidal power. But how real is tidal power? Where will it happen and when?

This week on Radio Ecoshock you'll hear Martin Burger, CEO of a tidal power company called Blue Energy. He spoke to the New Energy Movement in Vancouver on January 26th, 2009. This is an original recording by Radio Ecoshock.

In fact, Martin went further. He explained four other neglected new energy sources, the best and most intriguing from a survey of 500 he's examined over the past two decades. I'll add those as time allows.

And, as promised in last week's show, we'll consider how new ways of living appear in a society. Burger says money cannot bring the next wave. It is a problem of consciousness, how we function as big groups, like the flocks and schools of other animals.

Along the way, I'll toss in a few facts about installations around the world, the current state of tidal power.

How about this one. Did you know that days used to be much shorter here on Earth? Like 21.9 hours, just 620 million years ago, instead of 24? Just pumping all that sea water into the bays and narrows of the world uses up mechanical energy that causes the world to spin. The tides are slowing down the planet. The 26 hour day is coming. But don't toss out your clocks just yet - that will be another 600 million years from now.

As we'll hear from Martin Burger, this immense power can be harnessed to create giant streams of electricity. The initial building cost is high, but the long-term maintenance costs are quite low. The impact on the local ecology varies with the design. Martin will be describing a "tidal fence" of spinning rotors, built into a bridge perhaps. It's a big dream, but there are signs tidal power is beginning to lift off in various parts of the world.

I'm going to pick out the tidal info from Martin's speech at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver.

More at http://www.ecoshock.net/transcripts/ES_090206 Script Tidal Power.htm

That transcript from the show includes a quick review of tidal power around the world, along with some of their ecological consequences.

Alex

FOOD THREATS & SURVIVAL - PLUS HYBRID HUMAN POWER

We open up this program with a classic 1946 quote from U.S. President Harry Truman. Old Harry begs Americans to save scraps of bread to help feed the starving overseas. We haven't heard much of that recently, although an estimated 860 million something people are hungry to dying.

You get a 24 minute interview with Kathy Jo Wetter of ETC Group. They've just released a report ""Who Owns Nature? Corporate Power and the Final Frontier in the Commodification of Life." That's the title of the 100th newsletter coming from the ETC Group, published in November 2008.

It's an ambitious report naming exactly which corporations are trying to take over the world's food and drug industry, from seeds to processing and chemicals, all the way to your grocery store, and your body. Plus a lot of top ten charts that name names: the companies who control most of your food chain. They'd like to own it all.

Then I look at threats to our wheat supply, which is rapidly dwindling. We've used up more than we grew in 6 of the last 7 years. At their low point, just before the harvest, humans only have 55 days worth of wheat in reserve (as Lester Brown tells us in a quick clip).

Then there is the UG99 black stem wheat rust - a scary fungi that can destroy wheat crops. It was discovered in Uganda back in 1999, and spread up the East Coast of Africa. Then the only force five hurrican ever recorded in the Indian Ocean spread UG99 to the Middle East. It is now in Iran, and threatens to cross over into the Punjab bread basket of India. Maybe the Ukraine too.

Eventually this crop threat will reach North America. We have some fungicides, but not nearly enough, as outlined in this show. The resistant variety might take 5 years to get into the marketplace. A rust in 1954 killed forty percent - that's 40%!! - of the North American wheat harvest, so this is serious stuff.

Also, we don't have the big food warehouses anymore, in your city. The corporations are using a just in time system to deliver food directly from the source to your local food market. They use the trucks themselves as a rolling warehouse. So... if there is an emergency, whether climate, earthquakes, the bird flu, or just crop shortages and stopped trucks - you cannot depend on any outside source of food. Maybe it's time to consider your own food storage at home.

I interview Kari from Survival Foods Canada Business is really picking up there, as Canadians worry about their food supply, in the coming Depression. The same thing is happening in the United States, for companies like readyreservefood.com

FINALLY - WE CHANGE IT UP AND GO FOR HUMAN POWER STATIONS...

How about hybrid humans that produce their own electric power - just by walking around. Not only does this device exist - it makes walking easier, not harder. The invention is in it's earlier stages, led by Max Donelan of the Simon Fraser University Locomotion Lab.

The prototypes are being taken commercial, to provide power for those needing heart stimulation, or other internal body pumps that require a sure and rechargeable source of electricity. But the future possibilities are astounding. You would power your ipod/phone/computer just by walking down to the corner store. Perhaps in the future, all of us will become independent power stations, removing the need for bit climate killing fossil fuel plants.

I caught up with Max Donelan at a Cafe for Scientists in the Vancouver Public Library, on November 19th, 2008. In this 16 minute clip, introduced by CBC radio personality Hal Wake, Max explains his invention, plus the basics of human power use.

All in all, it's a full hour of information tinged with paranoia (or is that reality?)

Alex Smith
host
Radio Ecoshock

BUILDING MADNESS Constructing Climate Change

QUICK GUIDE AND LINKS - RADIO ECOSHOCK PROGRAM June 6, 2008

Voices on this program:

ANTHONY PERLE Simon Fraser University Urban Studies Program, Co-author of "Transport Revolution" Download that book launch speech Here.

Download 20 minute presentation at "Our Transportation Future" 080522 Here.

RICHARD REGISTER Clip from "A Sustainable World" on KCSB radio, in Santa Barbara. Download full interview Here.

LARRY FRANK J. Armand Bombardier Chairholder in Sustainable Transportation at the University of British Columbia in the School of Community and Regional Planning and Institute. "Our Transportation Future" Presentation at SFU Downtown Vancouver, 080522 21 minutes 5 MB Here.

SIR NORMAN FOSTER Grand old man of green architecture, based in Britain, major buildings all over the world. Audio from DLD Conference Munich Jan 2007. See full video at:

www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/174

DERRICK JENSEN Deep green author of "Endgame: Volume 1: The Problem of Civilization and Volume 2 Resistance". Activism Beyond Hope interview on Wild Earth Radio 29 min 27 MB or "Kick It Over" Ecoshock intro to Derrick Jensen 26 min

GUIDO WIMMERS Austrian architect now in Vancouver, Canada. Expert on "Passivhaus" super low-energy building design and retrofits. His workshop next week on Radio Ecoshock.

AL GORE Clip from 2006 speech on Zero Emission Buildings.

RADIO SHOW TRANSCRIPT:

Another evening downtown, another forum. This one is called "Our Transportation Future". The usual suspects are on stage: three professors and a city engineer. Smugness about our city invades the room. We have reached our goals for cars downtown, years early. The new buzz-word "eco-density" makes all the glass-walled condos sound so green. The local joke: the city has a new symbolic bird: the crane.

The mayor is pro-development. The Premier or Governor is a friend of developers. Everybody seems to feed on campaign donations from building bigger and bigger cities.

Pedestrians are still run down regularly in this model city. A two bedroom condo downtown sells for a quarter million dollars. Glossy full page advertisements show the new suave bourgeois couple luxuriating in their tiny mansions, with granite counter-tops, piled sixty stories high.

It's all set up like a magnet for the rich. Working class people can't afford anything in this planner's dream. Down below, not shown on the slides, a growing swarm of homeless people dig through the dumpsters for pop cans. I'll bet half the population is on drugs, legal or illegal, just to kill the pain. The gnawing sense of disconnection.

Everyone is part of the growth agenda. They either work for the developers, or struggle clean up their mess. The city tries to add enough bushes, and strips of grass, like billboards to remind the prisoners of by-gone nature.

Lost in a memory of real hills, with real seasons, something in me snaps. I interrupt the dream with a rude question....

READ MORE...

SAFE CLIMATE OR ENDLESS WAR?

Those are the choices.

CONNECTIONS FOR THIS WEEK'S RADIO ECOSHOCK SHOW
Week of May 30th, 2008

Guest: Michael T. Klare (new book "Rising Powers, Shrinking World")
Listen to the Ecoshock Klare interview here.
(http://www.ecoshock.org/downloads/nuclear/ES_Klare_RisingPowers_LoFi.mp3)
Read his blog at http://www.tomdispatch.com

Space For Peace activist Bruce Gagnon
Listen to the Gagnon interview separately here.
www.ecoshock.org/downloads/nuclear/ES_Gagnon_080521_LoFi.mp3
His web site is http://space4peace.org

Dimitri Orlov on "Re-inventing Collapse. The Soviet Example and American Prospects";
I read the 5 steps of collapse from Orlov's blog at
http://cluborlov.blogspot.com (look for "older posts" at bottom). Then a clip from Orlov talking with KMO on the C-Realm podcast (http://c-realm.org).

Listen to that whole Orlov segment from the Ecoshock show here www.ecoshock.org/downloads/peakoil/ES_Orlov_Collapse_LoFi.mp3

Robert Kennedy Jr. on 5 men who run almost all U.S. media.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQIkMZadApY&feature=related

Is the American empire collapsing? Where are the $$ for new transpo & energy systems, or climate adaptation?

Download this Radio Ecoshock Show 1 hour here: CD Quality (56 MB) or Lo-Fi (14 MB)

I was in Berlin just after the Wall had fallen. A visit to East Berlin was quite instructive - they were living the low energy life - no bright street lights, no neon signs or advertising at all.

My West German hosts were still shaking their heads in disbelief. Their government discovered the only thing keeping Russian troops in East Germany was this: the Soviet government was so bankrupt, it could not afford to bring the soldiers home. There was no housing for the troops back home, so German workers went into the Soviet Union to build apartment buildings. Then the Russian bases were closed.

Is America headed toward the same state of bankruptcy? The United States has bases in over 100 countries. The government puts it all on Master Card, they borrow the whole cost from the countries, the ones who manufacture consumer goods, and provide the oil.

In an article titled "Portrait of an Oil-Addicted Former Superpower," Michael Klare writes: "Whether we know it or not, the energy Berlin Wall has already fallen - and the United States is an ex-superpower-in-the-making."

Michael T. Klare is a professor of Peace and World Security Studies for the Five Colleges, based in Massachusetts. He is a defense columnist for The Nation Magazine. His books "Resource Wars", and then "Blood and Oil" explained our times, just ahead of time. And his newest book is "Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy." It has just come out, published by Metropolitan Books.

We discuss how militarism, and endless war, threaten our ability to adapt and survive rapid climate change. Read more from Michael Klare at his blog:
http://tomdispatch.com

Dimitri Orlov lived through the fall of the Soviet empire. He has a new book "Re-inventing Collapse. The Soviet Example and American Prospects." After some delay, that book is finally available. The publisher is New Society.

This book on collapse emerged from a series of articles titled "Post-Soviet Lessons For A Post-American Century" appearing on the web site "From the Wilderness" hosted by Michael C. Rupert. Rupert was a former cop who dedicated himself to investigating political cover-ups. In August of 2006, Rupert mysteriously disappeared, saying he no longer felt safe in the United States, after various threats and break-ins. His archive is still on the Net at fromthewilderness.com.

Anyway, Orlov outlines 5 stages or signs of collapse which I will read from his blog. Then we'll hear a short clip of Orlov, taken from the C-Realm podcast hosted by KMO.

In his blog, Orlov writes:

"Elizabeth Kübler-Ross defined the five stages of coming to terms with grief and tragedy as denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, and applied it quite successfully to various forms of catastrophic personal loss, such as death of a loved one, sudden end to one's career, and so forth. Several thinkers, notably James Howard Kunstler and, more recently John Michael Greer, have pointed out that the Kübler-Ross model is also quite terrifyingly accurate in reflecting the process by which society as a whole (or at least the informed and thinking parts of it) is reconciling itself to the inevitability of a discontinuous future, with our institutions and life support systems undermined by a combination of resource depletion, catastrophic climate change, and political impotence....

Stage 1: Financial collapse. Faith in "business as usual" is lost. The future is no longer assumed resemble the past in any way that allows risk to be assessed and financial assets to be guaranteed. Financial institutions become insolvent; savings are wiped out, and access to capital is lost.

Stage 2: Commercial collapse. Faith that "the market shall provide" is lost. Money is devalued and/or becomes scarce, commodities are hoarded, import and retail chains break down, and widespread shortages of survival necessities become the norm.

Stage 3: Political collapse. Faith that "the government will take care of you" is lost. As official attempts to mitigate widespread loss of access to commercial sources of survival necessities fail to make a difference, the political establishment loses legitimacy and relevance.

Stage 4: Social collapse. Faith that "your people will take care of you" is lost, as local social institutions, be they charities or other groups that rush in to fill the power vacuum run out of resources or fail through internal conflict.

Stage 5: Cultural collapse. Faith in the goodness of humanity is lost. People lose their capacity for "kindness, generosity, consideration, affection, honesty, hospitality, compassion, charity" (Turnbull, The Mountain People). Families disband and compete as individuals for scarce resources. The new motto becomes "May you die today so that I die tomorrow" (Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago). There may even be some cannibalism."

Orlov doesn't predict cannibalism as a future for America - he just says some societies have reached terrible stages, and give examples in his book from the dislocated African tribe described in the book "The Mountain People" by Colin M. Turnbull.

Hopefully, by learning from previous cases of collapse, we can learn how to do better, as individual, and as a society. We shouldn't wait until things drop down to the bottom of the pit of collapse.

Find out more about Dimitri Orlov from his blog at cluborlov.blogspot.com - Orlov is spelled orlov.

Let's hear just a couple of minutes from KMO's C-Realm podcast, number 96 for May 14th, 2008. KMO and Orlov are discussing whether the people of the Soviet Union were actually better situated for collapse of their system.

Is anybody sorry the old Soviet Union is gone? They kept massive millions of their own people in prisons. Interrogators used torture. The press was censored and distorted to propaganda. You wouldn't want to live in a society like that.

I run a clip of Bobby Kennedy explaining how 5 corporations control almost all of the TV, radio and print that persuade Americans. Most of the investigative journalists have been fired. The right wing dominates it all. And Kennedy explains how Bush, in exchange for millions in donations, created a new wave of illness and pollution in the United States. The link for this powerful Youtube expose it posted above. Watch it and weep.


And that is why you need alternative media, underground radio, and people like our next guest, Bruce Gagnon.

People all over the world want the United States to take a leadership role in cleaning up fossil fuel emissions, before we lose a livable climate.

Our next guest, Bruce Gagnon says America has far different plans. Instead of converting the economy, the military industrial complex will war it's way to control of the world's energy, through domination of space.

Bruce Gagnon is a Senior Fellow at the Nuclear Policy Research Institute and Co-ordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space. Find that at space4peace.org.

You must watch the video "Arsenal of Hypocracy" available from that site, and on Google Video. One hour of your time, one big enlightenment about the shiny new announcements from NASA, and the real reason America wants to dominate space.

We also discuss near-space as a threatened environment in its own right. Greens worry about protecting Antarctica, and the Amazon, without realizing that the space around the planet is so infested with space junk, we may not be able to get away from Earth - ever.

Maybe that would be a good thing for the rest of the universe, consider what we are doing down here.

Alex Smith
host
Radio Ecoshock

ADDICTED TO OIL

Even President George Bush admits we are addicted to oil. But what does that really mean?

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ADDICTION

Dr. Bruce Alexander, a professor emeritus at Simon Fraser University in Canada, is a pioneer researching addiction. His ideas are so unconventional, he won the Stirling Prize for controversy. Bruce Alexander is currently writing a book titled "The Globalization of Addiction: A Study in the Poverty of the Spirit." - coming out this summer.

"Addiction is a democratic disease, affecting both the rich and the poor. Sadly, scientific medicine has made no progress on addiction." In addition to addictions to tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs, Alexander reminded attendees that other addictions that will increase with globalization include gambling, pornography, and shopping."

Dr. Alexander's recent study for the Centre for Policy Alternatives, "The Roots of Addiction in Free market Society", is available online, as a .pdf file.

In our Radio Ecoshock interview, we pick Dr. Alexander's brain, on the addiction that could change our climate, virtually forever - fossil fuels.

PEAK OIL AND ADDICTION

I've been listening to a talk given by Nate Hagens, at the 6th ASPO Peak Oil Conference, in Ireland. Nate is completing his PHD at the University of Vermont. There is a video of his speech online - and Hagens goes into great detail about our brain formation, and the importance of neurochemicals that determine, he says, our actions.

Rather than using our relatively recently developed neo-cortex, to making rational long-range decisions, Hagens says science repeatedly shows, we use older portions of the brain, to ensure a continuing dose of chemicals like dopamine. He suggests this inability of the brain, to let thinking dominate decision making, is one of the reasons humans are unable to make better choices for the future, like alternative energy. Instead we just keep sucking up oil, which rewards us right away, today.

Nate Hagens is perhaps unique in his experience. In his twenties, he was selling big investments, covering hundred of millions of dollars. In that world, there is a big discount for future risk, instead of taking profits now.

Hagens claims psychological tests, in monkeys for example, seem to show that novelty and reward are absolutely necessary for our brain functioning. This could lead to an explanation, of why his rich clients needed to keep making even more millions, or why the suburban housewife must buy yet another pair of expensive shoes. The more expensive, the more the charge card is loaded up, the better the chemical hit in the brain. It makes me wonder...Is our whole society really in a state near overdose?

By now almost all of us know the oil society is killing us, in many ways. We know exhaust is poisoning our lungs, deadly car crashes, the foreign wars, and now horrible prospects of climate change. And yet we still go like addicts to the gas pumps, and fill up. Why, why, why? And what can we do?

Everyone likes to laugh about the hippies going back to the land... but are those people seeking a more natural environment, where their addictions to things like television, shopping, and lottery tickets can subside? Could that be part of the answer, making our living arrangement more suitable, for the mammals we really are?

How can we apply what you've discovered, about the myths and realities of addiction, to really kick the fossil fuel habit, before it kills us?

RADIO PLAY "ECOVENTION"

While addiction is very serious, we just had to poke fun at ourselves as oil addicts. In this Radio Ecoshock show, you hear our new radio play "Ecovention." It is a parody of the A & E program "Intervention" which deals with addictions to drugs, alcohol, eating disorders, gambling and so on.

Four people helped out with this radio drama:
Matt Codrington is an up and coming Canadian actor, playing the role of "Gordon" the SUV-driving oil addict. His wife "Annette" is played by Colleen Kimmett - who in real life is a tech and science journalist. Colleen may be producing some pieces for Radio Ecoshock in the future. Sister "Ginny" was played by an anonymous radio industry personality, and Gordon's buddy "Norman" was none other than "The Simulator" - who hosts the wildly popular video podcast "It's The End of the World As We Know It" found at submedia.tv.

The play is fun, and can be downloaded to pass around, from our web site at ecoshock.org.

ADDICTED TO OIL SONG

We also got permission from Loose Bruce Kerr to play his parody of the hit "Addicted to Love" by Robert Palmer. Now it's "Addicted to Oil" - and the lyrics are great. Bruce Kerr, who is a lawyer for Sun Microsystems (good thing I got permission first!) says he is now working on a video for the song.

A BUFFET OF AUDIO CLIPS

Then we play a collection of short clips on oil addiction, and our hopes of overcoming it. You hear a snatch from a speech given by Terry Tamminen, formerly green advisor to Gov. Schwarzenegger of California. Terry wrote "Lives Per Gallon" - one of the definitive books on oil addiction. I recorded his book tour speech in Vancouver over a year ago.

You also hear a short clip from the new speech given by Tim Flannery in Toronto, also available in full from our web site. This was recorded and passed along by John-Paul Warren. Flannery describes new developments in Denmark to replace oil burning cars by all-electric ones. A company will make the new cars, and another group will make one in every six parking spaces in Copenhagen equiped with re-charging posts. You drive up, park, and plug in. The system recognizes your registration, and charges you for the power you use.

Not enough juice? The new system will also have hundreds of "refilling stations" where you can quickly exchange for a new battery. This is supposed to be faster than filling up at an old style gas station, because the cars are designed for it. Neat, eh?

We end up with a few sample quotes from Al Gore's recent (April 2008) presentation at TED, the Technology, Entertainment and Design folks. TED has some great talks, and you can still find Al Gore's new video there. Highly recommended.

In the end, I hope we all think deeply about this oil habit. It's in our lives, in our brains. But just like tobacco, or heroin, we can kick the habit. We must - of face a ruined climate, and continuous wars - not to mention empty wallets!

Good luck - and let's get clean together.

Alex Smith
Radio Ecoshock

PEAK OIL = TRANSPORTATION REVOLUTION

This week's program begins with a quick review of planet-shaking news.

Then, we go to the book launch of "Transportation Revolutions: Moving People and Freight Without Oil"

The authors are Richard Gilbert & Anthony Perl. I recorded that on March 18th, in Vancouver, Canada.

You get the speech by Richard Gilbert, plus some of the Q and A.

Both the talk, and the book, are loaded with real facts and figures on future transpo, and how to get there, sustainably. Finally, some answers.

Are you ready to see U.S. airports shrink from 300 to 30, as the oil runs out? We learn why electric cars will dominate the road. Electric railroads.

Richard Gilbert, an energy expert from Toronto Canada, opens with a speech explaining (a) the inevitability of Peak Oil and (b) what we can do about it - if we start now.

Anthony Perl, a professor at Simon Fraser University, in Vancouver, Canada - says we don't need any more road construction. Now that we know about Peak Oil, and ever-increasing oil prices, governments should "hit the pause button" on new highway construction, and airport expansions. We won't need them!

A great book for students, activists, bloggers, and citizens trying to contain the old-school enthusiasm for building new oil-based infrastructure.

As the economy deteriorates, you can bet governments will turn to new roadbuilding, bridges, and all the stuff that worked in the LAST depression. That's my opinion. This book shows why that is nuts, and gives us the graphs, facts, and figures to call for a future transportation system that actually works.

I like the emphasis on conservation and renewables, instead of promoting nuclear as an answer. Good. But I wish the authors had a little more push on climate change, as a reason to use these same solutions. I ask that question, during the Q and A that followed.

This book is expensive. It is loaded with references, and all the gear that lets people answer to government experts, and industry lobby people. If you want to get active in any serious way, this is a reference book that is well worth it. It is published by Earthscan.

I predict people will use "Transportation Revolutions" for years. And yet the text isn't heavy going - it's clear and well written - an unexpected bonus these days, when it comes to authoritative books on any technical subject.

Anybody can read it, and should.

Ecoshock show 080328 1 hour CD Quality 56 MB or Lo-Fi 14 MB.

The web site for the book is here.

If you want to run just the feature on Transpo Revolutions, it is available as a separate file, complete and ready to run on radio, computer, or your IPOD, at 48 minutes long.

The CD Quality Transpo feature is 45 Megabytes. The Lo-Fi mono version is 11 MB. Or just look at the Climate Solutions page on our main website.

Alex
Radio Ecoshock