ON THE ROAD TO MASS EXTINCTION

Are we on the road to mass extinction? More scientists, from different fields of study, say that is possible, as we pollute the atmosphere and oceans.

We'll explore that - the worst case scenario - in this edition of Radio Ecoshock.

I'm going to dedicate this program to one such scientist, Dr. Andrew Glikson, an Earth and Paleoclimate specialist, from Australian National University.

We featured Andrew Glikson in our Radio Ecoshock show, May 1st, 2009. You can download that free from our web site, ecoshock.org.

We'll also interview a top scientist from Yale, Dr. Mark Pagani. His recently released study shows a hot greenhouse world, just 5 million years ago, with CO2 levels similar to those we have already put into the atmosphere. We'll talk about what the IPCC may have missed.

And we'll keep coming back to the mother of all climate nightmares: the dying oceans, which could wipe out most land species as well. Including us. You'll hear clips from an important speech, "Brave New Oceans" by Jeremy Jackson, Scripps Professor of Oceanography. He too warns we are heading toward a mass extinction event. And Jackson is far from alone.

But first, we'll start with a drop of good news: Bill Gates, the world's richest man, has finally discovered dangerous climate change. Here is how Gates began his speech to TED, the Technology, Entertainment and Design series, on February 12th, 2010.

READ MORE (with links to more audio, video and references)

NATURE AS KILLER: The Medea Hypothesis

From the edge of the Earth, broadcast, podcast, by cable and satellite, this is Radio Ecoshock with Alex Smith.

Gaia - the great interconnected force of living things on a minor planet called Earth. British scientist James Lovelock wondered how life created it's own space, with the oxygen and nutrients we all need. It's a soothing idea. Some Greens took it further, suggesting Gaia is a super-consciousness that watches over balance and survival. A few worship Gaia.


Dr. Peter Ward, a deep time digger and climate investigator says Gaia, if there is one, can also be a mass murderer. The rock record shows at least 5 great mass extinctions before us. Ward offers us a different Greek myth: Medea - the wife of Jason the Argonaut, who swiped the Golden Fleece. In a fit of rage against her husband, Medea killed her own children. In a new book, the Medea Hypothesis, Peter Ward says Gaia is out. Bountiful Nature can become ecocidal, and only intelligent life can stop the death cycle we are now approaching.


Peter always stuffs us full of the latest science. He's not well-known to the public, but other climate scientists are listening closely, as this brilliant mind sparks off a new paradigm for life and death, Earth-style. But can we trust a creature with obvious pathological flaws to save the species? Should humans try to replace Nature?

Following our interview with Peter Ward, I answer a few questions about Radio Ecoshock, as a local college stations turns the tables, to interview the elusive Alex Smith. We talk the future of food, the economy, and radio itself. You'll also hear the new climate anthem, a re-worked "Beds Are Burning" from a host of celebrities. Plus "Fear Itself" from Loudon Wainwright III.


READ MORE

BURNED OUT: Crops and Climate Change

Food and climate change with two speakers: Dr. Geoffrey Heal, an eco-economist from the Columbia School of Business, NY, speaking at the London School of Economics; and author/food activist Wayne Roberts at McMaster University, Canada. Wayne Roberts courtesty of Maggie Hughes "News from the Other Side" at CFMU FM McMaster U Radio.

No copyright music.

IMPORTANT NOTES FOR RADIO STATIONS AND PODCAST SUBSCRIBERS:

This is the last show of our 2009 Spring season. Rebroadcasting stations, podcast listeners and regular downloaders: please note - I've laid out 8 key re-runs of Radio Ecoshock for the Summer. The download list will show up on Wednesday July 8th, as well as on our archive page. Radio stations can find a list of any music used, or other production notes, in the expanded listing at http://www.ecoshock.net That's starting July 8th.

These are the most important, and most downloaded programs we've ever done - as chosen by the listeners downloading from our site. The e-votes are in.

I'll be out of email contact from July 11th to August 11th. I'll check out all email then, please don't expect a reply. There is no electricity or phones where I'm going.

I'll be back with a whole new season, 48 news Radio Ecoshock Shows, starting in Late August. Don't change anything on your podcast - the new shows will show up as soon as they are ready in August.

Here are the links to full speeches by our feature speakers:

Geoffrey Heal to London School of Economics (about 57 min)
CD quality 52 MB
speech Lo-Fi 12 MB
Geoffrey Heal Q and A (about 30 min) Lo-Fi only 7 MB

Wayne Roberts "Food and Climate Change" about 1 hour. Maggie Hughes "The Other Side of the News"


Here is the basic script for this week's show:

Welcome to Radio Ecoshock - home of the awful truth.

We could talk about a half million more people kicked out of their jobs. The record number of regular mortgages 2 or 3 months behind. Collapsing states, budget slashing towns, bankrupt banks.

But hey, why bother with all that bad news, when the biggest story ever told is unfolding before our eyes. I know disappearing coral, birds and plants nobody has heard of doesn't sell. How about this: the food we all eat is under pressure even in these early days of the climate shift.

[Geoffrey Heal Quick Clip: No One is Working on Hotter Crops]

That is economist Dr. Geoffrey Heal speaking to the London School of Economics. He's going to tell us about agricultural loss already underway, and projected in the coming decades. Why fertile California will take a hit. Dr. Heal wonders why America is so slow to react. Could it be the fossil fuel lobby? Did the oil and coal boys twist the Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill?

Then food activist and author Wayne Roberts works through the challenge of feeding a world where nature is disrupted. Food and global warming, in a speech recorded by Maggie Hughes.

Personally, I'm heading out tomorrow to buy a couple more sacks of hard red wheat for our emergency supply cupboard. Each bag is 44 kilograms, or about 50 pounds, of the best organic. I'll pour the wheat into Mylar bags, toss in two or three oxygen depleters, and seal it all in a 5 gallon bucket. That should keep at least 10 years, maybe 20.

The wheat news is good and bad. In the Summer of 2009, wheat prices are going down, because so many new acres have been planted. That doesn't mean it will all survive until harvest. Canada is a big wheat producer, and the Canadian Wheat Board predicts a 20 percent cross loss due to a drought in Western Canada. So dry, the seeds never sprouted, or tiny blades of wheat died. It's the Northern tip of a new Dust Bowl expected to fill the North American West as carbon levels rise in the atmosphere.

Two other big wheat producers, China and Australia, are also in big trouble as the rains stop reaching the fields. Increasing heat waves are also a threat to wheat.

Did I mention the new unstoppable wheat disease called ug99. It was first found in Uganda, but has now spread to the Middle East, including Iran. The only response is to burn the crop. So far, we have no resistant varieties, and experts in both Europe and North America say they expect ug99 to arrive sooner of later. That could devastate wheat production.

I like bread. I like some every day. Maybe this year, maybe three years from now, wheat and bread products could rocket up in price, or disappear for a while. That's when I'll crack open my buckets and make my own.

On to the show. First of all - American climate politics. The U.S. Supreme court recently gave the Environmental Protection Agency control over carbon dioxide as a pollutant. Why didn't the Obama Administration use their green appointees to get busy on greenhouse gases, through the EPA? Suddenly, a new piece of legislation appears in the House, where political contributions reign. Suddenly, a bunch of Republicans vote for the Waxman-Markey Bill, which is really a license for the coal and oil companies to carry on.

Let's get a different perspective from Dr. Geoffrey Heal, an economist from the Columbia Business School in New York. His speech on May 6th 2009 second guessed the Obama energy deal - and went on to explain why America has been hustled backward on climate change. Then Heal, who has been working the connections between economy and the environment since 1979, paints a dire picture of agricultural losses - as high as 40 percent world wide, as the climate shifts to it's new hot state.

Heal3 Waxman Markey end of speech.wav 5:31

Why is the American government the last to know we need action to save the climate? Geoffrey Heal gives us three bad reasons, in this speech as first visiting professor at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, the LSE.

Heal1 Anti Science Companies.wav 2:05
Heal4 Corporate AntiScience.wav 2:04
Heal5 US is a Petro State.wav 5:27

Is it true that the United States is the third largest oil producer, and second biggest natural gas producer, in the world? No wonder American climate policy seems to Saudi Arabian.

There you have it: fossil fuel corporations fought to cloud our minds, aided by a history of Conservatism and anti-scientific religious interests. I think he should have added all of us. We love our big cars and leaving all the lights on. We love to fly around on holidays while eating far too much. We're all in this climate tragedy together. Never forget the power of the people to empower a wrong-headed civilization - on our charge cards, no less.

This is Radio Ecoshock. I'm Alex Smith. I'm hungry to get on to our main topic this program: how climate change will affect our dinner plates. Here is more from Dr. Geoffrey Heal, from his speech "Controversies in the Economics of Climate Change"

Heal6 Farm Loss.wav 3:37
Heal 7 World Hydrology Calif Farms.wav 4:15

Finally, Dr. Heal wrestles with the economic cost of mass extinction. Sad but true, we need to enter this fact into the company books: up to 40 percent of all species on Earth could go extinct by 2100. How will that affect sales, you ask?

Geoffrey Heal is not your standard corporate accountant. He knows extinctions impact the environment in many strange ways. Take the Pacific Sea Otter for example. It was almost wiped out in California - and what happened? The fisheries also died out off that coast. It turns out the Sea Otter is a "corner-stone species". The otters were eating other creatures that kept things in balance for fish. When Sea Otters from Oregon were brought back to California, the local fishing improved.

Other connections between the species are harder to see. Let's hear Dr. Heal explain how the extinction of the Passenger Pigeons may have boosted Lyme disease in the United States.

Heal 8 Cost of Extinction.wav 11:14

That was Dr. Geoffrey Heal, from the Columbia School of Business, speaking on "Controversies in the Economics of Climate Change". This presentation was at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at London School of Economics in Britain, May 6th, 2009. Audio enhancement by Carl Hartung and Alex Smith of Radio Ecoshock. Find the full 55 minute speech plus Q and A on our climate pages, at www.ecoshock.org. And in the links at the top of this blog entry.

[Radio Ecoshock Station ID]

I'm Alex - and we're talking climate disruption of the food supply.

OsofNews_Roberts 1 You can change 7 sec.wav 7 sec

That's author and food activist Wayne Roberts, currently employed as a sustainable food advisor for the city of Toronto, Canada. He spoke at McMaster University in Hamilton on May 5th, 2009 - on “Food and Climate Change”.

Here is the first part of that speech by Wayne Roberts.

OSofNews_090519_WayneRoberts_For Radio 18 min.wav 18 min

You have been listening to Wayne Roberts, a long time food activist, making the connections with the polluted environment and climate change. This talk at McMaster University in Canada was part of a college radio program called "The Other Side of the News" on CFMU FM. Producer Maggie Hughes just announced she had to give up her weekly radio program for health reasons. But she'll continue to get the facts others miss, in specials posted on the audio exchange web site radio4all.net That's radio the number 4 all dot net for Indy producer Maggie Hughes past work, and coming shows. Thanks Maggie.

Or check out her web site at www.oside.ca

That's it for Radio Ecoshock this week. Find the full speeches by Dr. Geoffrey Heal and Wayne Roberts as free mp3 downloads on our web site. Choose "climate" from our Audio on Demand menu, lower down on the main page, ecoshock.org. Or get Wayne Roberts full speech as broadcast on "The Other Side of the News" here.


Load up your IPOD, mp3 player or computer with hot programs and speeches from Ecoshock. It takes a lot to really grasp this developing storm, in your heart.

I'm Alex Smith. Thanks for being on the journey with me.

Have a great Summer. Enjoy yourself - and put away the harvest as it comes.

EXTREME RAIN. MONBIOT.

Crappy summer weather?

August was more like November for many across Canada, while the U.S. South was battered by heavy storms, with more to come.

But it isn't just "bad weather". Two scientists from the UK and the U.S. have published a paper in the journal "Science" showing extreme rainfall events are increasing - and they are caused by global warming.

Whenever you hear the phrase "record rain" on TV, or in the newspapers - pay attention. In this program I've collected reports on crazy rainfall events in many parts of the world - just this summer. Many towns and cities in North America, for example, broke records for rainfall in 24 hours, set in the 1800's. Local drainage and sewer systems can't handle it - our infrastructure was not built for the new extreme rain.

The physics is so simple. Warmer air holds more moisture. As the world warms, even slightly, and as the oceans warm - more moisture goes up into the atmosphere.

Naturally, rain continues to fall where rain usually falls, while dry areas can get even drier. So the excess rain comes down by the barrel load. Cape Canaveral got a record 22 inch drowning in 24 hours. Some places got several inches of rain in an hour.

This is happening all over the world, and I think it's one of the under-reported climate stories of the year. Yes we saw pictures of Myanmar (Burma) after a tropical storm wiped out millions of people. That was part wind, part storm surge off the ocean, but also a lot of rain.

And remember, just after the horrible Earth Quake in southern China, and several times since, that area was drenched in unbelievable rain events. Just next door, in Vietnam, same thing. In fact all the countries of the Mekong have been flooding from heavy rains.

Heavy rains, which the UN authorities blame on global warming, also caused a river in Nepal to burst, leading to massive flooding in the Northern India state of Bihar.

We've heard a lot about the threat of rising seas. Now it's time to look at the new climate guest at our doors: extreme rainfall events.

Ooops - I forgot our main event for this Radio Ecoshock Show: George Monbiot. He's a constant columnist in the UK newspaper the Guardian, and a long-time activist against expanded roads, airports, and coal burning. George is also the author of the best-selling book "Heat, How to Stop the Planet Burning" - and now a new book called "Bring on the Apocalypse."

George tells us about the new book. The interview ranges from carbon rationing through global justice all the way to his ideas on eco-incarnation. Monbiot also rates the U.S. Presidential candidates. Don't miss this interview. George doesn't fool around. He loads every answer with strong points, things we need to know and do.

I wrap up with a kind of "where we stand" piece. The situation. How we face it.

We also showcase an old song that most of you don't know: "A Good Planet Is Hard to Find" by Steve Forbert. It's catchy, almost soothing our worries.

Next week: Dr. Peter Ward, author of "Under the Green Sky" talks about past mass extinctions, and whether we are headed for a new one. We'll also chat with Peak Oil specialist Julian Darley. Julian was way ahead of us on oil and gas decline - he founded the Post Carbon Institute to look at life after oil.

We're back for another hard-hitting season - and thanks for the encouragement I've been receiving by email from a lot of loyal listeners.

Hopefully, we'll also come up with more possible solutions this Fall - along with the horror of our times.

Alex Smith
host
Radio Ecoshock

A WARNING FROM THE PAST

This week's Radio Ecoshock broadcast is about past greenhouse worlds, quick climate shifts, and mass extinctions caused by changes to the atmosphere.

Dr. Andrew Glikson studies comet/asteroid impacts, volcanoes, and past climates. He's been doing it for 40 years.

While studying the oldest record of life on Earth, in the Australian outback, Glikson found a relationship between comet or asteroid impacts and the generation of living things. We do not yet know whether life forms (such as bacteria) actually arrived from outer space - or whether the impact generated energy and unique chemical conditions that caused certain natural reactions to duplicate themselves.

All that is a side issue to this speech, which is an education on the dominating role of the atmosphere in determining the state of life on Earth. Whether caused by impacts or volcanoes, or even gradual tilts in the Earth axis, a changing atmosphere can make life luxurious - or kill off up to 90% of all species.

The science explained by Andrew Glikson in this speech find a parallel in the book "Under A Green Sky" by Peter Ward, a scientist in Washington State. We are talking, for example, about the Permian mass extinction, about 200 million years ago. The ocean lost it's oxygen, and life surived in only a few pockets of the ocean. Most land species were exterminated.

Of the five past great extinctions (we are apparently living in the 6th extinction now) - FOUR WERE CAUSED BY CLIMATE CHANGE. Not hits from outer space. For the survival of our species, we need to know what happened - and few people alive know more than Andrew Glikson, as he summarizes not only his own research, but the general science now developing in the field.

This speech from Australia National University explains our current shift toward a hot-state planet - much faster than ever before. It has been slightly modified for radio, (to fit in an hour) with the permission of Dr. Glikson.

Learn about your planet (or die?)

The Radio Ecoshock Show 080704 1 hour CD Quality 56 MB or Lo-Fi 14 MB

Alex
Radio Ecoshock