CLIMATE TERRORISM: The Tar Sands

As #1 supplier of oil to USA, Canada's tar sands kill the environment, locals, and pollute the world's atmosphere. Canada can never control its emissions with this giant carbon smokestack to the sky.

Now they want to make the damage five times greater. To scoop off the soil in an area the size of Florida. Strip mining vast areas for the world's dirtiest source of oil.

The U.S. group Environmental Defense launched a report February 2008 titled "Canada's Toxic Tar Sands, The Most Destructive Project on Earth" A whole range of activists, from Greenpeace to the Council of Canadians, is fighting to stop massive expansion of the Tar Sands. The major oil companies want to strip away the surface of the Earth in a patch the size of Florida. They dump their toxic waste into giant man-made lakes dangerously close to the mighty Athabasca River, and by that river, to the sensitive Arctic.

All told, the Tar Sands projects, led by the world's largest oil companies, create an octopus of toxic waste and global climate change. No one is exempt.

Three new speeches:

Jessie Kalman on environmental and social impacts. From the Polaris Institute. Update on latest situation, including the economic downturn;

Mike Mercredi - the industrial genocide of aboriginals. A member of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation describes how his family and community are dying of cancer in unbelievable numbers, now that the Tar Sands mega-project is upstream. A really moving speech puts the poisons in perspective.

Will Horter, from the Dogwood Initiative, on new pipelines, ports and spills in British Columbia's treasured forests and coast. Even the Great Bear Rain Forest is at risk, as tanker traffic is set to double in the wild and stormy West Coast of Canada, British Columbia. The pipelines will scar the rockies. The spills are inevitable, from this spiderweb of chemicals running from Canada's North to all points south, and the American refineries.

The Radio Ecoshock Show 081205 1 hour CD Quality 56 MB or Lo-Fi 14 MB

Production Notes: 30 second music bed for station ID at 29:30.
Music: "Dirty Little Secret" by All American Rejects.

P.S. be sure and visit notankers.ca to sign their petition.

Alex.
Radio Ecoshock

LAMENT FOR A NATION'S OCEANS

With the excitement of elections and a crumbling economy, who cares if ocean life is being killed off?

Jeff Hutchings does - even if the government is ignoring his warnings. Jeff is the Chair of the committee advising Canada on endangered species. And though warnings of extinctions come thick and fast - the government continues to issue fishing and hunting permits to kill off the last of a kind.

I debated running this speech, now, on Radio Ecoshock. Surely Americans will be too absorbed with their own affairs, to notice the end of fisheries of the world's longest coast line? Shouldn't I talk economy, with breezy interviews, and hot music instead?

My listeners do care. They know the human economy is built upon the natural economy. If our ocean stocks are going bankrupt, along with the food chain, we all need to know about it.

Normally, scientists at the top government levels work behind the scenes, keeping a cautious reserve and even secrecy. Not now. The situation off the coasts of North America, and the Arctic, are just too severe. Why even bother with endangered species, if the government will ignore all warnings - even if it saves just two - that's right TWO - jobs. Listen and weep.

Professor Jeffrey Hutchings comes from Dalhousie University, on Canada's East Coast. He's Canada Research Chair in Marine Conservation and Biodiversity. This is the Canada Oceans 2008 annual lecture, recorded by Alex Smith at the Wosk Centre of Simon Fraser University, in downtown Vancouver Canada, on October 22nd 2008.

It's a powerful speech. CBC Radio, the national broadcaster, was recording it for the well-known program "Ideas."

Two points for listeners: (1) the word "extirpated" means that species will disappear from the region, but may still exist somewhere else in the world. It only appears "extinct" to those who have known it for generations in a locale.

(2) "on the Minister's desk" is a quaint Canadian phase which means the scientists have put their endangered warnings in a report to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, for the Federal Government of Stephen Harper - but nothing has been done about it. It is being stalled, ignored, and in some cases abused - by approving a catch on endangered or severly at risk stocks.

You will also find out that Canada's most threatened mammal in the Arctic, due to climate disruption, is not the polar bear. Learn what it is, and why.

The event was held "in the round" at the beautiful Wosk Centre. The plush chairs, each with their own desk space and microphone, were filled with top fisheries people - the British Columbia government types, well-known university scientists, ocean environmentalists you see on TV all the time, and people who love the sea. In the quiet tones of a Canadian from the inner circle, Jeff Hutchings nailed them to their chairs.

Let's tune in to a lament for a nation's oceans, this week on Radio Ecoshock.

Alex Smith
Radio Ecoshock

A CLIMATE OF CRASH AND CHOICE

Radio Ecoshock takes on the financial crash, funding for green jobs instead of banksters, and youth organizing to get green back in the elections.

We start with a brand new interview with independent journalist Mike Whitney. He's been writing searing articles (for the rest of us) at counterpunch.org - and many other online journals and blogs.

We talk about the latest grab and run with the money, as the same Wall Street experts who bankrupted the nation - call for even more money (for themselves). How big is the bubble - and how far can it fall? What the Hell does it all mean?? Mike and I thrash through the latest news, and the cross-currents threatening to break the bank. Maybe even your bank, despite the claims you are covered.

Think about it. When George Bush comes on TV promoting something, you know this ain't good.

Then we look at a different option. Two presenters at the U.S. Government's Select Committtee on Energy Independence and Global Warming show how America could build it's way into a safe energy future - and make lots of green jobs. That's from Bracken Hendricks and Robert Pollin, and you can download the Green Jobs testimony from the September 18th webcast, captured here.

In this show, I run just the first 4 minute introduction by Committee Chair Rep. Ed Markey of Massachusetts. Markey seems for real. He acknowledges the financial crisis, but says an investment of 100 billion dollars would bring not just a wealth of jobs and new industry (in America!) - but also cut the huge balance of payments deficit, as all your gas pump money runs out to semi-hostile states. Solar. Wind. Geothermal. Made and used in America, carbon free.
Good stuff.

OK, then we take a breather with the late great comedian George Carlin on elections. I agree the whole show is corrupt - but it DOES make a difference who gets in, and what promises we can wring out of them before we give our votes.

Especially for young people. Scientists warn that if we don't stop our greenhouse gases soon, the climate will be wrecked for the next generations. The good news is young people are organizing to green the vote in both the United States and Canada.

We start with our interview of Brianna Cayo Cotter, spokesperson for PowerVote.org It's an exciting initiative to get the environment back on the ticket, for both parties. Check out their website, sign up, get active.

From Canada, which is already dead into an election battle, we have a speech recorded at the press launch of powerupcanada.ca. A surprising number of big groups, from steelworkers to greens to older people, have signed on to an initiative to push all parties on climate action. Again, young people are joining this movement. Just a couple of weeks to go in Canada, let's not leave the climate another four years, with greenhouse gases belching (while white guys get rich....)

You'll hear famous forest activist Tzeporah Berman's short speech kicking off PowerUp Canada!

This program is also loaded with little clips, to relieve the pressure. We have to laugh or cry, so let's not forget to laugh a little. The weeping will come later (or sooner). Some of the fun election clips in this edition were sent along by our Colorado listener/producer who posted his own sardonic radio piece called "Systemic Failures: American Voting Primer 08" Grab that half hour piece here.

We also get into a scary email from a Russian research vessel off Siberia. A Swedish scientist has discovered fast moving pools of methane breaking out from the sea bed. Our worst nightmare. Other climate scientists advise caution, as the work hasn't been written up in a paper, or peer-reviewed yet - but it is a worry. Maybe instead of paying for the next "manned" space ship to Mars, we should explore our own planet. We need a fleet of research ships in the Arctic, to monitor greenhouse gas release there. Otherwise, a big belch of methane could create a major climate disruption in just a few years time. We need to know.

I got that story from Ross Gelbspan's useful site heatisonline.org Ross just posts the need-to-know stories.

It's a packed show.

Alex.