CRISIS OF CONFIDENCE

Is it just me... or is the world falling apart?

The Radio Ecoshock Show 080516

Worried? Need a hole to hide in?

All through Western history, the human herd has reached panic points. Civilization was expected to end. And sometimes it did.

In this program, we'll take the bullet train through global defrosting, climate adaptation, rogue capitalism, economic crash, selling out, capital flight, and the food crisis.

You will hear samples from a conference call with world food expert Lester Brown, and clips from a tell-all speech by the radical Canadian nationalist Mel Hurtig. Top Harvard environmental teacher James Gustav Speth says environmentalism has utterly failed. An expert in the hidden economy, Loretta Napoleoni explains Rogue Capitalism. Bill McKibben says we have one last chance.

LINKS FOR THIS SHOW:

Here are some links to the full interviews and speeches referenced in this show:

Lester Brown press call conference on the causes of the world food crisis (34 minutes in a tiny fast-downloading file). Brown, of Earth-Policy.org says this isn't a passing crisis, but a new trend which will cause mass starvation from here on out.

Mel Hurtig "The Truth About Canada" book launch speech (1 hour) on sell-out, corporate concentration, merger with U.S. and capital flight.

WNYC Leonard Lopate interview with Yale's James G. Speth

Loretta Napoleoni book launch speech "Rogue Economics" (1 hour)

Here is the best spot to find Bill McKibben's "Last Chance for Civilization" article - with some really intelligent blog reader comments - at commondreams.org.

TRANSCRIPT FOR THIS SHOW:

You can find the whole thing tied together in this rough and ready transcript for the show.
Learn how the billionaires are skipping out on taxes - and on paying for the energy and transportation transformation we will need to confront climate change.

This includes a brief profile of one rogue corporation: the Swiss banking giant UBS. Just after we went to air, a former UBS executive was arrested, charged with helping a California billionaire avoid U.S. taxes. Just one of many.

American listeners will also be interested in Mel Hurtig's description of secret meetings - a real-life conspiracy among the business elite (and your elected representatives) to sell out America, Canada, and Mexico to create the North American Union (that nobody voted for, and nobody wants...)

You have to get that from the audio of the program. Blogger readers, click the title above, or get the one hour program (14 MB) at:
http://www.ecoshock.net/eshock08/ES_080516_Show_LoFi.mp3

There is a hilarious bit on biofuels from John Oliver (the "Senior Correspondent" on Jon Stewart's "Today Show") and Andy Saltzman in this program. Find their running series "The Bugle" at the Times Online site here.

The whole food crisis is so sick we need to poke black fun at our wasteful fat selves, to see through our thick lenses. Then Lester Brown tucks into the real issues, including a call for an end to the heartless process of using up food for SUV fuel.

IMPORTANT Note to Podcast listeners:

By popular demand, I have switched this podcast to the smaller Lo-Fi format (32 Kbps, mono).
This downloads faster, stores better on your hard drive, and sounds pretty good.

The only downside is slightly less quality, if you are into good stereo sound for your Ipod or sound system. And you can't burn this LoFi version direct to older style CD's. It will burn to CD as an mp3 file, which can be played by newer CD players, computers, DVD players, etc.

If you are a radio station getting the podcast from this source, you should switch over to the podcast found at our radio support site: www.ecoshock.net

That site will continue to podcast the full 56 MB 44 Hhz version. There is an easy sign-up podcast subscription button there. Then you can burn direct to CD from the podcast, and toss it into any station CD player. This is handy for late night, or unattended play.

Other listeners who want to continue receiving the higher quality 56 MB version are quite welcome to sign up for the podcast coming from www.ecoshock.net as well. You don't need to be a radio station to use that podcast.

One final note: we need more stations! As the number of stations go up, it gets easier for me to bring on the big name authors and scientists. Although, I have to say, we have had no problems so far!

Still, if you can contact your local non-profit college or community radio station, please ask them to add Radio Ecoshock to their programing. I realize there is a lot of competition for local air space, but we need one big environment program with the world view. Things like climate change are too important. We can't just say "Oh sorry, we don't have time to tell listeners about that..."

Please write or email requests to your local station. If you get some contact with a program director or station manager, can you forward it to me? My address is
radio [at] ecoshock.org.

I'm also trying to find more Low Power FM stations to broadcast the show. Your suggestions (and their contact info) are also very welcome.

We need a revolution to save what's left - and I'm hoping podcast listeners, and blog readers, will help out. From the emails I have received from you - we have a really intelligent bunch here! A lot of activists, scientists, professionals, and even government people are listening to Radio Ecoshock.

I appreciate the tips and help people send in. Some programs, including next week's "Too Hot to Handle" - come from listener tips. This has become a group effort - thanks so much!

Alex Smith
host
Radio Ecoshock

NOT SO COOL FARMING

The report is called "Cool Farming: Climate impacts of agriculture and mitigation potential" It's from Greenpeace International.

We have with us one of the authors, Dr. Pete Smith from the School of Biological Sciences, University of Aberdeen. Dr. Smith was also a lead author, reporting for last year's climate series, from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The total amounts of greenhouse gases coming from human agriculture are surprising to me. Your report finds that farming contributes at least 20 percent, and perhaps even up to a third, of all human-made greenhouse gases.

Dr Smith and I looked at a lesser-known greenhouse gas - nitrogen dioxide, usually shown on charts as N2O. It has a global warming potential 296 times higher than that of carbon dioxide. So it only takes a tiny amount of nitrogen dioxide to kick up a great deal of global warming.

According to Greenpeace:

"The overuse of fertilizers and the resulting nitrous oxide emissions have the highest share of agriculture’s contribution to climate change:
the equivalent of 2.1 billion tonnes of CO2 every year. And, the energy-intensive production of fertilizer adds another 410 million tonnes of CO2-equivalents. Of all chemical products,
fertilizers are among the greatest contributors to global greenhouse gas emissions."

We know fertilizers were poisoning various river systems, and adding dead zones to coastal ocean areas - but I did not know they were such a potent force to change the climate.

That's why we spent some time, in this Ecoshock interview, going over how fertilizer really works. It is made from natural gas - another fossil fuel in short supply. As James Howard Kunstler told us in previous Ecoshock programs, the big fertilizer plants formerly located in Alabama and Louisiana - close to the Gulf of Mexico gas fields - have now moved to the Middle East. The American gas fields are in decline, so fertilizer manufacturing goes where the gas is.

That means our fertilizer is shipped thousands of miles by (oil-burning) ships. It also means that a Middle East conflict could not only cut off oil to the United States - but the very fertilizer required to feed America, used by the industrialized farm systems. Another vulnerability.

It might not even take a war to start this shift. Competition, and higher prices from China and India, could divert fertilizer away from both America and Europe.

You would think the big global warming gases would be in production of the fertilizer. Nope. Although those plants do spew out plenty of greenhouse gases, remember, the fertilizer itself contains fossil fuel derived greenhouse gases, especially nitrogen dioxide. Most of that goes into the water supply (our rivers and lakes, causing eutrophication) - but a significant amount just evaporates directly from the field, or from cow manure.

One solution would be to use other farming methods to build up the natural soil, so we don't need these fossil fuel fertilizers. At the very least, farmers need to find ways to use the minimum amounts of chemical fertilizers. They need to contain the greenhouse gas emissions from their fields and feed-lots.

BIO-FUELS

Then we looked at all the former forest land that is being bull-dozed to make "green" biofuels. I want to refer our listeners to a study done by Paul Crutzen at the Max Planck Institute, along with a whole group of international scientists, titled "Nitrogen dioxide release, from agro-biofuel production, negates global warming reduction by replacing fossil fuels." That was published August 1st, 2007.

That study finds that the process of growing biofuels creates so much nitrogen dioxide, as a powerful greenhouse gas, that we actually ADD to global heating, when we try and use biofuels.

MITIGATION

Dr. Smith, and the Greenpeace report, has some very positive suggestions for mitigation. Many of these are simple steps that could at least slow down the heating of the planet. I know farm talk isn't very sexy these days - but since we all eat - we all have to take responsibility for our impact on the planet's ecosystem derived from farming.

Following my chat with Dr. Pete Smith, I went for a Greenpeace agriculture campaigner based in Vancouver, Canada - Josh Brandon. Josh has real credentials in the field. He's been working on GM (Genetically Modified) food, trying to get labeling, at the very least, in Canada. Really, Greenpeace wants the experimentation on our food chain stopped until we know more about the impacts and risks.

Now Greenpeace has realized that farming itself is at least 20% of our climate change problem, maybe more. So, Josh Brandon has to morph into a climate change campaigner as well.

We focused on the situation in North America, and the changes Greenpeace want, to help preserve out climate.

Surely, it isn't necessary to burn out the planet, with droughts, storms, and floods, just to eat? Brandon doesn't think so, and again, there are some obvious improvements we can make to our farming process.

Here is where to find the 20 page summary of the report (558 KB) as a .pdf file.

www.greenpeace.org/international/press/reports/cool-farming

The full version (995 KB pdf file) is here:

www.greenpeace.org/international/press/reports/cool-farming-full-report

Or just Google "Greenpeace International Cool Farming"

Check out the interview. Food activism is becoming strong - not just for our own health, but for the continuing health of the whole ecosystem.

Alex Smith
host
Radio Ecoshock
www.ecoshock.org