Toward the Collapse

Is global warming unstoppable now? Could we be saved by total economic collapse? If so, should we help civilization fall?

It's another cheery edition of Radio Ecoshock, with your darkness at the end of the tunnel, Alex Smith. There are lots of links to our program content below.

Last night I recorded another glimpse of the climate apocalypse, with the author of "Climate Wars" Gwynne Dyer. He outlined the short distance from here to the cliff where long-known natural feed-backs leading to runaway global warming begin, and continue on for millennia. That limit is known as two degrees. Beyond that, great forests melt into fire, liberating their carbon. Beyond that, the Arctic permafrost melts, likely doubling atmospheric greenhouse gases. Five to seven degrees Centigrade of average global temperature rise. Utter disaster.

Dyer says world governments quickly agreed to the 2 degree limit at Copenhagen, without telling the public why. No need to panic the herd.

Dyer says we won't make it in time, before the big climate switch is pulled. You'll hear clips from that speech in an upcoming Ecoshock Show. I can't run the whole speech, because as usual, Gwynne is developing his new work toward another radio or TV program. I appreciate Gwynne sharing his "working notes" with our Radio Ecoshock audience. Kind of a sneak preview.

Find out more at www.gwynnedyer.com
Here is info on the "Climate Wars" radio series.

... and the book.

Up early this morning, I tune into a climate science web cast from the Center for American Progress. Two top American IPCC scientists, trying not to say too much. Late in this program, I'll have a few clips and comments from that update, hosted by Joe Romm, of the blog climateprogess.org.

But we'll start out with a different sort of scientist. Cloud specialist Tim Garrett stepped in a few people's faces, when he proposed a formula about carbon and the world's wealth. Simply put, unless our economy collapses, to levels you and I would hate, climate change is unstoppable. Garrett bases his jarring statements on a basic law of physics, of thermodynamics.

Read the "Is Global Warming Unstoppable?" article here.

You won't need a science degree to understand our Radio Ecoshock interview.

Following Garrett, we dive deeper into the culture of despair. Keith Farnish is the author of "Time's Up, an uncivilized solution to a global crisis." I've put lots of Keith Farnish links below, including one to his online book.

Are you ready to become uncivilized?

If collapse is the best solution, would you help kick the system over? Or would you just watch it fall? Farnish has been called a terrorist, and a green realist. Your brain exercise for troubling times.

Let's start with the science of collapse.

[Garrett interview]

This is Radio Ecoshock, with Alex Smith. We've just heard Tim Garrett from the University of Utah - and let's take a quick review.

His paper is titled "Are there basic physical constraints on future
anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide?"

The basic thesis, tested against past industrial development, is that neither population nor standard of living have to be included in modeling prediction of climate change. Garrett concludes that civilization, as measured by gross domestic product, is directly related to the amount of carbon burned. More emissions, more wealth. Less emissions, less economic production.

Here is the exact description of the theory, from an abstract of Garrett's paper:

"Here, it is shown both theoretically and observationally how the evolution of the human system can be considered from a surprisingly simple thermodynamic perspective in which it is unnecessary to explicitly model two of the emissions drivers: population and standard of living. Specifically,
the human system grows through a self-perpetuating feedback loop in which the consumption rate of primary energy resources stays tied to the historical accumulation of global economic production—or p × g—through a time-independent factor of 9.7 ± 0.3 mW per inflation-adjusted 1990 US dollar."

By applying his formula, Garrett says it would take a new nuclear plant built every single day to keep up our current standard of living. As that isn't happening, and may be impossible, the only other solution is economic collapse. In our interview, Garrett suggests a horrible economic crash, which I imagine as diving perhaps to Medieval standards of life, is required just to reach 450 parts per million of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

In the conclusion of that paper we find, quote:

Viewed from this perspective, civilization evolves in a spontaneous feedback loop maintained only by energy consumption and incorporation of environmental matter.

Because the current state of the system, by nature, is tied to its unchangeable past, it looks unlikely that there will be any substantial near-term departure from recently observed acceleration in CO2 emission rates. For predictions over the longer term, however, what is required is thermodynamically based models for how rates of carbonization and energy efficiency evolve. To this end, these rates are almost certainly constrained by the size and availability of environmental resource
reservoirs."

end quote.

Several science journalists picked up on the paper's underlying prediction: global warming is unstoppable, unless the economic system crashes. And that leads to our next guest. He agrees, and suggests it is our duty, all of us, to help the inevitable hard landing come sooner, rather than later. Why wait until Nature is totally used up, on a nearly dead planet?

[Keith Farnish]

Here are a bunch of links for Keith Farnish:

His blog. earth-blog.bravejournal.com
Another blog ("unsuitablog")
Keith's book "Time's Up" (online version) www.timesupbook.com
========

Web casts are proliferating, as various publishers and institutes slash travel costs. That's good for emissions, and a way to let more people into the virtual room. I attended two this week.

One was a re-assessment of Copenhagen, and the way forward, from the British publisher Earthscan.

There I met David Satterthwaite, our radio guest next week. His recent work on the realities of human settlement, slums, and western consumerism - fits in perfectly with the new Worldwatch 2010 State of the World Report. I interview that report's project director, Erik Assadourian, as we ask "Is it them, or is it us?" Next week, on Radio Ecoshock.

My second web cast was provided by the Center for American Progress, and hosted by uber-blogger Joe Romm. His spot climateprogress.org really is the indispensable climate blog, as author and New York Times columnist Tom Friedman called it.

On the web cast, we got to hear from two top American scientists, who have helped organize IPCC reports: Dr. Michael MacCracken and Dr. Christopher Field. Dr. MacCracken has been a Radio Ecoshock guest.

I'm not going to lie to you. At time the web cast was timid to boring, as the two scientists were so careful about the limits of the IPCC process. You had to re-interpret wonk speak, to realize this Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is not really up to the task of warning the world about the real threat.

Why not? Let me count just a few reasons.

One: the whole pile of summaries, the things you, and I, and politicians actually read, must be agreed to, line-by-line, by each and every government in the world. That means, for example, Saudi Arabia, the giant oil producer who denies climate change, has to sign on. It's almost like having Dick Cheney approve everything the Obama administration does. Oh wait, it seems like that's happening in the Senate anyway.

Two: when incompetence, and possibly corruption in the case of grand-leader Pachauri show up, the IPCC has no agency to investigate, to correct the problem, or even to handle the press. Pachauri was involved with the unscientific and botched prediction about the Himalayan glaciers melting by 2030 - now shown to be contrary to the common knowledge of most glacier experts. A member of the team acknowledged they knew the information to be false.

Yet Pachauri helped get that wrong prediction into the report, and then personally profited from the panic by the Indian government. His company got fairly big money to find out more, about a problem with did not exist at the levels claimed.

It stinks of corruption, not a new idea at the United Nations. I've posted a list of Pachauri 's various businesses, and it's a long list, in my blog for this week. He should resign.

Here is an article which claims a direct conflict of interest for Dr. Pachauri , when it comes to carbon trading.

The same blog goes into detail about Pachauri 's business holdings and roles. It doesn't look good.

And let's not forget that Pachauri is essentially President George W. Bush's man. Bush objected to Robert Watson heading the IPCC, and pushed for Pachauri instead. Another very bad sign.

None of this was mentioned by the upright scientists at the American Progress web cast. They admit a major mistake was made, but don't criticize either the man, or the system that let him get away with it. Pitiful.

Three: there are a lot of things that science simply can't address, that matter a lot. For example, when the assembled scientists realized they didn't know how to predict Arctic ice melt, they just left that out of the calculations of sea level rise. So their prediction of a few millimeters rise by 2100 was laughable.

There's a lot more unknown unknowns, including public panic, climate wars, and climate trauma, and mass migration, just to name a few. Those demons are outside the realm of science, but definitely part of what we need to understand, or at least plan out with the best guesses.

Four: the IPCC is always 5 years behind current science. And why do we only report every five years, on a problem that suggests we only have ten years left to act, if that, before Nature takes over control of the greenhouse? We need a permanent climate war room, or rather a peace room.

Five: experience with past reports shows, the IPCC always underestimates both the urgency, and the severity of the impacts of climate disruption.

I run a couple of the best clips from the web cast, which you can see in full here.

In our first radio clip, Dr. Christopher Field echoes, almost exactly, the theory we heard in our first interview, with Tim Garrett. Carbon equals wealth.

Then Field adds to a list of climate change impacts, already begun by Michael MacCracken.

And finally, Dr. Michael MacCracken expands on everyone's nightmare, melting permafrost.

Still, it was a worthwhile web cast by the Center for American Progress, February 2nd, 2020. My thanks to Joe Romm, super-climate blogger at climateprogress.org, for at least trying to keep it lively.

Most of the talk about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, was diplomatic - and disappointing.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and in fact the whole U.N. system for negotiations, isn't working. If anything, it's working against us.

Frankly, we need a new public body to measure and predict the climate threat in real time. Let scientists say what they can prove, without censorship from Saudi Arabia, George Bush, or whoever. Maybe it can all be built as a knowledge machine on the Internet. Heaven knows who will fund and control it. Maybe some billionaire will care enough about the future to fund it, and let it go, without strings. Maybe we can find a few honest women and men?

Something has to change, or we are toast.

Can the public stomach the awful truth? Or, will we go down in a sea of denial and business-as-usual?

It's almost to the point, where the danger to the world as we know it, might matter as much as the Toyota recall, or who won the Oscars. I know that's a big claim, but that's the way I see it.

I'm Alex Smith. Thanks for listening.

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

Gas Pump Blues - for 100,000 Years

They're on practically every corner. Some people feel nervous at the gas pump. Others are outraged. Everybody knows prices are going nowhere but up.

Did you know a gallon of gas weighs about 6 pounds - or 2.7 kilos? Almost all of it - 5 pounds, 2.2 kilos - goes straight into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, out the exhaust pipe. And that substantial weight, for every additional gallon or liter we burn, remains as CO2 for 100,000 years.

Don't believe it? Stay tuned. We'll talk with David Archer, a top climate scientist. He's the author of "The Long Thaw". That's what we're living in, the time all humans will live in, for ten times the length of all history. In our second half hour.

First, I want to know: when does the oil society seize up? What happens to the American way of life, if gasoline goes to $7 a gallon? That's what financial expert Jeff Rubin predicts. Think that's tough? What about $20 a gallon?

We're going to dive right into an interview with Chris Steiner. Christopher Steiner is senior staff reporter at Forbes magazine. His new book is Twenty Dollars per Gallon: How the inevitable rise in the price of gasoline will change our lives - for the better.

READ MORE
with more links.

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

THIS IS IT! The ship is going down.

This is Radio Ecoshock. I'm Alex Smith with eye-popping headlines on the triple crisis: Peak Oil, climate change, and economic collapse.

While America basks in Obama, Europe quietly fell further apart over the week-end. On Martin Luther King Day, the British government announced more hundreds of billions to prop up banks and bad bets. Stocks in Barclay Bank fell to 25 percent in less than an hour. The largest, Royal Bank of Scotland, is already 80 percent owned by the government.

The same in Ireland. Both countries look close to nationalization of their banking system. Even some government officials wonder whether Britian itself faces either bankruptcy or a complete collapse of the British pound. Unthinkable stuff.

Jim Rogers, the famous expatriate American billionaire, says the big American banks are bankrupt themselves. Hardly anyone argues that point any more. The U.S. government tossed another 20 billion dollars to the Bank of America, and guaranteed more than a hundred billion dollars in worthless paper generated by the former Merrill Lynch. The world's largest bank, Citi Group, has lost more billions, and is splitting up into two.

At least a dozen countries, national governments, are close to bankruptcy. Not just former success stories like Iceland and Ireland. The credit rating of Spain has been downgraded. Italy may be technically bankrupt. The Balkans are a mess, as is most of Eastern Europe, right up to Latvia and Lithuania.

We haven't even discussed economic chaos in the Middle East and Asia.

This is it friend. The great ship of modern production has hit the iceberg. The band may still be playing sweetly in the First Class Ballroom, but the cold sea water is filling the holds below.

It will settle by degrees, no doubt. A wave of closures this March. Quiet desperation over the Summer. A lot of dancing, new announcements, the most reckless spending moves. All stalling the inevitable revaluation. We have yet to live the leaden doldrums, the years of suffering, before the real reformation comes.

In today's program, the Head of the International Energy Agency admits oil production has peaked out, and time is running out for the planet's climate. While we were all enthralled with non-stop coverage of the U.S. elections, this speech by Fatih Birol got buried. Are you ready to cut your energy use by 9 percent every year? Get ready, because the oil is running out.

Here is the Youtube video (about an hour) of Fatih Birol speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations on December 1st, 2008. Our program runs his 15 minute speech, with notes and exclamation points added.

In our second half hour, I'll interview Christine MacDonald, author of the book Green Inc. She claims the biggest environmental groups have been covering for multinational corporations, in cosy relationships, for giant salaries. What will we see in the green mirror?

Then we'll wrap up with Van Jones. He has a vision for those left behind in America's poverty ghettos. It's a green vision, where those with the most need, produce what America needs most: carbon-free energy. Van Jones testifies to Congress.

Here's just a few of the headlines that got my attention recently.

The managing director of the world's biggest bond fund, Bill Gross of Pimco, admits the whole economy was really a Ponzi scheme. Gross said the U.S. had been running, quote "our Ponzi-style economy".

Another bright light, Meredith Whitney - the stock analyst who bravely said the Emperor of Wall Street had no clothes - now says all of the 300 billion dollars of U.S. government TARP money has simply disappeared, covering banking losses. No wonder there is no money to loan. Pretty predictable really. Coming generations will be harnessed to debt for absolutely nothing. At least until they refuse.

Meanwhile, on the climate front, Indonesia has announced over a billion dollars for new railroads. Does that sound like good news? It's not. The rails will move coal reserves from South Sumatra to the coal ships. Onward to Asia's multiplying coal stations, and runaway climate change.

Climate blogger Joseph Romm, recently a guest on Radio Ecoshock, points out a new study published in Geophysical Research Letters. Scientists from South Korea's Pohany University found, quote, "Sudden, considerable reduction in recent uptake of anthropogenic CO2 by the East/Japan Sea." If true, the ocean burial ground for our carbon binge may be full. Next week on Radio Ecoshock, we'll talk with a top American scientist who questions this research. He should know. Pieter Tans is Chief Scientist for NOAA's global carbon monitoring program.

At climateprogress.org, Joe Romm also says: "China announces plan to single-handedly destroy the climate. China to increase coal production 30 percent by 2015"
That big increase in coal power was just announced by the government of China. The increase, Romm writes, will be "an amount equal to two-thirds of the entire coal consumption of the United States -- an amount that surpasses all of the coal consumed today in Europe, Eurasia, the Middle East, Africa, and Central and South America."

Mommy, how do you spell "toasted planet?"

As the Titanic settles, there are more fancy balls to attend. Kate Sheppard wrote about two supposedly Green inauguration parties in Gristmill, the environmental blog, for January 19th. I quote her now:

"Tonight's dueling balls showcase an interesting dichotomy within the green movement. Gore's ball, which has more of an activist bent, is co-hosted by the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Earthjustice, the Vote Solar Initiative, and Youth for Environmental Sanity, among many other groups and businesses. Wal-Mart, KPMG, and the American Gas Association are also on board, but these and other corporate sponsors have incorporated green practices into their businesses, say the Gore folk. The organizers are decorating with tree seedlings, using recycled-fiber carpet, recycling and composting waste, and offsetting their carbon emissions. The food is going to be organic, and cooked across the street, to lower the carbon footprint, natch. Will.i.am and Maroon 5 will serenade the crowd.

The International Conservation Caucus Foundation's ball is hosted by The Nature Conservancy, Conservation International, and WWF, among others, and will be just a few blocks down the street. "Roses will be flown in from Ecuador. Marinated beef is being flown in from Texas to Virginia, where it will be grilled and then trucked to the auditorium," reports the Times. "We are not into symbolism," said caucus president David H. Barron. "We are focused on a much bigger impact." As the Times puts it, "the caucus gala sticks to its philosophy that the environment and wildlife are most effectively protected by governments and businesses." To that end, sponsors include ExxonMobil, Chevron, International Paper, and Wal-Mart (which appears to be hedging its bets). Famous anticipated guests include Robert Duvall, Bo Derek, and Ed Norton."

That's a report from Kate Sheppard at gristmill.grist.org.

And that leads us to our next report, with Christine MacDonald. She worked for Conservation International, and didn't like the company it keeps.

[Interview with Christine MacDonald, author of "Green Inc"]


I'd like to take you now to the Committee Rooms of Congress, to hear another great African American voice, Van Jones. This is the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, chaired by Ed Markey. They get the best.

In this brief testimony on January 15th, 2009, Van Jones explains how to beat America's energy poverty, while giving work to those who need it most.

[Van Jones]

Van Jones is both a civil rights activist and environmental advocate in Oakland, California. His Green Jobs program came out of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. He's got a web site at vanjones.net.

I'm Alex Smith. You can find my kingdom of free green audio at ecoshock.org

Save yourself, your neighborhood, or just a lonely planet. Load up your Ipod or computer with free mp3 files on the triple threat: the environment, peak oil, and the new hard times.

Mother Earth will thank you.

Until next week.

Alex Smith

Radio Ecoshock

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

PEAK OIL AND THE MEDIA

Experts predict Mexico, America's number 3 oil producer, will run out of oil in just 7 years. OPEC producers have been lying about their reserves for years. The world is starting new subterranean military tensions - or outright wars - just to keep our Hummers humming.

Our whole life depends upon oil based fertilizers, oil based plastics, oil based medicines. The whole world wants to cache in on fossil energy supplies, just as supplies are getting harder to find, more expensive to produce.

Now gas prices go through the roof.

Why is the public so unprepared? Why isn't mainstream media explaining oil decline, and it's impact on society?

What we can do. Vancouverpeakoil.org presents a panel of 5 journalists: Rex Weyler, Barbara Jaffe, Charlie Smith, Sara Robinson and Alex Smith. How to organize, use media, bypass the mainstream. Ecoshock Show 080829 1 hour
CD Quality 56 MB or Lo-Fi 14 MB

Rex Weyler is a founder of Greenpeace, author of "Greenpeace the Inside Story" among other books, a Vancouver publisher, editor, and online columnist with The Tyee. In addition to his concerns about climate change, Rex is on the executive of the Vancouver peak oil group.

Barbara Jaffe is a famous Canadian newspaper columnist and editor, with many awards over a long career. Recently she has been warning about Peak Oil, one of the few journalists to take on the issue.

Sara Robinson is a blogger and think-tanker, originally from the United States, and lately moved to Canada. She has almost completed her degree in studies of the future. Her articles appear all over left leaning blogs.

Charlie Smith is the publisher and editor of Vancouver's most prestigious alternative newspaper, the famous Georgia Strait. You'll find he is also an outspoken critic of the mainstream media.

Alex Smith, of course, is the host of Radio Ecoshock, and appears as a voice from the radio media.

In addition to digging into the willful blindness of mainstream media, when it comes to the threat of peak oil - the panel discusses ways for citizens to organize, and get the message out. How to prepare your own community. You get the full panel presentation.

Recorded by Alex Smith, of Radio Ecoshock. No copyright, get the word out.

Production Notes: 30 sec music break at 29:30 for your station ID; or cut into end music for more time. Song: "End of the Age of Oil" by David Rovics (U.S.)

HANSEN: CLIMATE CRIMINALS

NASA scientist James Hansen shakes up Capitol Hill (and the media) with explosive testimony to the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Climate Change. For one thing, he thinks oil industry executives who purposely (and secretly) fund groups to confuse the public about climate science – should be charged with crimes against humanity.

Here are the links to supplement this week’s Radio Ecoshock show:

James Hansen Testimony to Select Committee (June 23, 2008) as a .pdf file.
Title: Global Warming 20 Years Later: Tipping Points Near

James Hansen interview on NPR’s Diane Rehms show (080623) audio file mp3

Other Hansen speeches.

Beyond Zero Emissions Melbourne Australia interview with James Hansen Top US scientist says carbon emissions must stop.
Lo-Fi 30 min 5 MB

JAMES HANSEN SPEECH Mind-blowing, must-listen speech in Texas, on the new hot-state planet. Part 1 27 MB 30 min Part 2 27 MB 30 min Courtesy TUC Radio, San Francisco. Part 3 Questions & Answers 30 min

“The White House Climate Report” (actually from NOAA)
“Weather and Climate Extremes in a Changing Climate”

NOAA Press Release explaining this report. June 19, 2008.

Democracy Now “IRS Audited Greenpeace at Request of Exxon Mobil-Funded Group”
March 24, 2006. Text and download available.

Greenpeace database of anti-environmental groups secretly funded by Exxon Mobil
(exxonsecrets.org)

This week’s Radio Ecoshock show is a fast-moving collection of Dr. Hansen’s quotes this week, plus a few other recent ones – woven in with media reaction to his comments on oil exec’s heading for trial.

There is a lot more to Hansen’s message though. Pick up some solid science – and why at 385 parts per million of CO2 we have already PASSED the danger point. Emissions must go down, not up.

Dr. Hansen makes two key suggestions:

1. Stop building any new coal plants, and stop using coal altogether by 2030

2. Build a new power grid. Our current electricity distribution system wastes as much energy as consumer use. Think about that. Hansen says with a new low-loss system as a national priority, then alternative energy really could power the nation.

For fun, I’ve tossed in a fight between Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and conservative CNN talk show host Glenn Beck, CNN’s climate Quisling.

Then Democracy Now does real investigative reporting, to show how Exxon has funded climate deniers, just like the tobacco industry denied cancer. One Exxon front group even sent the IRS against Greenpeace (likely with the help of the Bush Administration, my guess…)

And so it goes. A fine mix, with a touch or Reggae. Clip bonanza to bring you up to speed on the debate - and shocking truth about our climate emergency.

Alex Smith
Host

Radio Ecoshock

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

HIGHWAY TO HELL: How Smog Kills

Polluted cities kills hundreds of thousands. Under-reported plague from vehicle emissions. 2 interviews.

We are honored to have as a guest on this weeks' show: Dr. Joel Schwartz, Harvard's top expert on air pollution. I discuss Dr. Schwartz' testimony to Congress in late 2007. His presentation is still available on the Net, as a .pdf file. It is on Carbon Soot and Global Warming.

Schwartz presents one of the two most scary maps I have ever seen. (Number one was the map showing the new world regime under climate change, attached to a presentation to the Royal Society late in 2007, by Sir James Lovelock....)

The Schwartz map is simple: is just shows where particulate soot, dangerous to human health, is congregating. Gray means very unhealthy amounts of particulates, black means lethal levels.

In the United States, the whole of New England is gray, with black blotches. There is more heavy pollution over the Louisiana/Texas refinery area, and of course gray and black over Southern California.

But all of Europe is one gray area, with huge blobs of black. In our interview, I ask Dr. Schwartz whether the new diesel cars being sold in Europe have filters to preserve the air. Not nearly enough, was the reply. Apparently, about 70% of all new private cars sold in Europe are diesel, not gas. That means a lot of particulates. There are new stricter rules for emissions from these new cars, but it won't stop the rash of heart attacks, pneumonia, and prenatal damage from diesel particulates.

Worse, the Europeans have been buying diesels for a long time - and the engines can last up to 30 years. That means decades more diesel smoke from all the old engines still in use. Dr. Schwartz says anyone could tell, even blindfolded, whether they were breathing European or American air.

We cover a new study from England, by Professor George Knox, finding that pneumonia deaths, thousands of them, caused directly by transport emissions, have been missed by medical authorities. The situation now is killing more people than the famous killer smog of 1952, but the reporting system just doesn't pick it up.

The Joel Schwartz interview is a must - if you live in a city. We talk about smog canyons, how people die, and what could be done about it.

The program starts, though, almost at the other end of the world, in Alaska, with Dr. Riki Ott. Why would we call a marine expert on oil spills, to find out about city smog? Because after the Exxon Valdez spill, the American government spent hundreds of millions of dollars in research into the toxicity of oil. It was the first time such research was ever done. They found that even small amounts of oil was toxic not just to fish, but to mammals - including mammals like ourselves.

After the research, in 1999, the EPA quietly added one oil component, the PAH's, to the most deadly list of bio-accumulative toxic materials - along with things like DDT. The Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons are in your blood stream and mine. They persist, build up, and lead to cancer, birth abnormalities, and other ugly things.

Dr. Riki Ott has the expertise to explain how toxic oil is infiltrating our cities and our lives - and the bravery to speak out against a well-oiled system.

As you know, all the major TV newscasts now depend upon car advertising. So do the newspapers, which run full page ads, classified ads, and whole sections about cars they want you to want. This mainstream media is never going to tell you what this single Ecoshock program reveals.

Nanoparticles in your bloodstream - and carbon soot makes more global warming.

There are two basic kinds of air particles that impact climate. The sulphates, which come mainly from coal burning, can actually cool the planet a bit, by reflecting sunlight back into space. But these particles don't stay air-borne for more than a few weeks. It is a temporary effect.

Black soot, from coal plants and from vehicle emissions, absorbs the sun's energy, heating up the planet. It is the second largest cause of global warming. These particles also land on the snow regions, especially in the Arctic. White snow reflects a lot of solar heat back into space - but when it becomes darker, grayish, the energy is absorbed. The snow may melt earlier, or ice may not form as thickly.

I found it interesting that Dr. Schwartz, in his testimony to Congress, said that cleaning up coal emissions in North America, and car emissions, is a double win. We can save as many as 200,000 lives a year - and cut out the second largest emitter in the world. Why kid ourselves, and send money to China, or some forest project in Indonesia, when we can save lives, and reduce climate change, with action right at home. I agree.

Finally, we talk to both our guests about what we need - to breath better, live longer.

Radio Ecoshock Show 080425 1 hour CD quality 56 MB or Lo-Fi 14 MB

Production Notes: end song "Highway to Hell" by Midnight Oil; opens with Gino Vannelli clip "Wild Horses". No copyright on interviews. Major media, loaded with car ads, will never report this story. Please help get it out there.

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

End of Age of Oil - Kunstler Part 2

How will we live as oil declines - and the price keeps going up?

In our previous program, we ran the first hour of a speech by James Howard Kunstler, given as the first visiting scholar to the Urban Studies Program at Simon Fraser University, in Canada.

Today, we present the conclusion of the speech followed by a moving question and answer period, uncut. The audience reacts with admiration, animosity, and tough questions for author Kunstler.

Hear what your neighbors think, their worries, suggestions - and the brilliant wit of Kunstler as he fields all questions.

Recorded 080124 by Ecoshock.

This is the Ecoshock Show for 080208 1 hour CD Quality 56 MB was podcast, (or listen by clicking the title above) but you can also get the Lo-Fi 14 MB mono version if downloading by telephone.

Production Notes: 30 second music bed for station ID at 31:25 Also: Clip from David Rovecs song "End of the Age of Oil"

Alex Smith
host
Radio Ecoshock
www.ecoshock.org

End of the Age of Oil - 1

James Howard Kunstler lecture as 1st visiting scholar to Simon Fraser Urban Studies 080124

From the Long Emergency to new measures after Peak Oil. The best speech of the year so far.

Why the housing boom will not return, and what that means to the American economy. The disaster of investing in suburbia, as oil becomes more and more expensive, and dangerous to get.

How Nationalization of most of the oil of the world (the major companies like Shell and Exxon only deliver about 5% now, Kunstler says) - means not only will oil run out - but the countries who control it (like the Emirates, Iran, Venezuela, and Russia) will (a) keep more for their own economies and (b) send it to their friends (which may not be America....)

A whole range of social issues, tackled head on, with verve, from one of America's most articulate writers and speakers. Kunstler is the author of "The Geography of Nowhere" and "The Long Emergency" plus many other fiction and non-fiction books. His newest, a fiction novel set in the near future, after oil has run out, is titled "World Made by Hand." That comes out in March of 2008.

Meanwhile, he has been appointed the first visiting scholar to the progressive school of urban design at Simon Fraser University, in British Columbia, Canada. This speech was one of two given for that program - and the conclusion plus the lively question and answer period will follow in the Radio Ecoshock program next week. Kunstler unsettled the audience, who responded with both admiration and antagonism. A sign of a good speaker.

Part 1 of 2.

Ecoshock show 080201 1 hour CD Quality 56 MB or Lo-Fi 14 MB