CLIMATE CODE RED: SCIENCE AND PROSPECTS

The new science is rolling in from England, Australia, and the American Geophysical Union conference. The news isn't chilling - it's heating and it's very scary.

To cover it, we interview two top people in the field. We open with David Spratt, co-author of "Climate Code Red - The Case for Emergency Action" - which is just now being released in North America.

I received an update from David, passed on by top Australian scientist Andrew Glikson. I trust Glikson, and he says Spratt has the science right.

It seems so hard to believe. Even a close friend, a life-time environmentalist, came out doubting science just a week ago. We have the denial mechanism designed into us, since our earliest days. Nothing in human experience, as taught and recorded by any civilization, revealed that the climate system was very delicate. In fact, our world was barely balanced between the "Ice House" (vast glaciation) and the "Hot House" (climates too hot for humans and life as we know it). Unknowingly, we are tipping the switch.

We MUST pay attention - no matter what the temporary weather is outside, or the political climate. It is time to learn or die.

Following, David Spratt, we go to one of the best - Hell - he is the best - climate blogger on the Net. That is Joseph Romm, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. During the Clinton Administration, Mr. Romm was acting assistant secretary of energy, responsible for energy efficiency and renewable energy.

Joe Romm's blog "Climateprogress.org" is reprinted all over the place, including many features in the Grist Mill blog. We are lucky to get him on radio, explaining not just the hot new climate science, but the possibilities for surviving this natural trap.

Romm is also plugged into the Democratic science establishment, and describes some of the appointments made by Barrack Obama - that could help the climate.

Then I do my "Tools for Tough Times" - simple gear for an emergency, Depression or system breakdown. You may need these tools, due to a storm, civil disruption, banking failure, flu outbreak, or just a lost job and looming poverty on government hand outs. Get your gear.
Here is a short list, but you should listen to the broadcast.

The full Radio Ecoshock show is available in CD Quality 56 MB or Lo-Fi 14 MB

EARLY DEPRESSION DAZE

Forget Madoff. Wall St. is the giant Ponzi scheme.

The former NASDAQ Chairman and investing icon Bernard Madoff admits he ran a giant investment scam that lost $50 billion. Everyone, the wealthiest and wise, were taken in. Even the Rothschilds were hit, not to mention Swiss banks, British Banks (Royal Bank of Scotland and HSBC), hedge funds (for a cool ten billion), Jewish charities, university endowments, pensions funds, municipalities. Lots of pain - but it's also illustrative of the much bigger landscape. Wall Street and all the big banks were just Ponzi operations, paying out old investors from new suckers. Can you say "sub-prime"?

Hear, in his own words, audio of Bernie explaining why fraud just isn't possible these days, due to stiff regulation. Yeah right.

It gets worse. The CDS/CDO asteroid is set to strike Earth in 2009. Bets totaling at least $50 trillion dollars come home for settlement. But that is more than the net worth of Earth. As Max Keiser points out - even if every American home and business were sold off to the Chinese and Saudis - the debt still wouldn't be paid.

That is the black hole the American Treasury and the FED (read: the same bank nuts who got us into this mess) are trying to fill up with your childrens' tax money. There isn't enough money in the world to settle these gambling debts. The idea any of it is going to be paid back is ridiculous. It just goes into the hole, and is never seen again. That is called "deflation".

Why doesn't the government give the money to the people instead? Or at least start up some productive industry, like building alternative energy plants, and more trains. Sadly, the gangsters/bankers are in charge of our government now, scaring the politicians worse than Osama bin Laden. And paying them off too.

Alex explains.

Then we interview Michael Byron on surviving the Crunch. He's the author of the Infinity's Rainbow series, and a professor in the San Diego area. His last book is:
""The Path Through Infinity’s Rainbow: Your Guide for Personal Survival and Spiritual Transformation in a World Gone Mad."

Finally, at the request by a couple of listeners, Alex comes clean about his food storage project. How much things cost, how long will wheat last in buckets, why is bulk food so hard to find all of a sudden? Getting in ahead of the curve, as the world food situation - even in plentious America - gets scary.

You will also hear a song I love, capturing the times "Clearcut" by Ethan Miller and Kate Boverman. And, of course, "Food Storage Blues" by Mormon Brother Thompson and the bean sisters.


Alex's food storage audio blog. Bit of music and fun. Radio Ecoshock 081219 1 hour CD Quality 56 MB or Lo-Fi 14 MB

FOOD THREATS & SURVIVAL - PLUS HYBRID HUMAN POWER

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Alex Smith
host
Radio Ecoshock