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.

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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.

ENJOY YOURSELF (It's Later Than You Think)

It is already too late to stop rampant climate change? An emailed blog posting asks: "Do we just enjoy the time we have left?"

Scientist James Lovelock thinks so. He wanted the sub-title of his new book "Vanishing Gaia" changed from "Final Warning" to "Enjoy it while you can."

Is it really that serious? We'll hear top American and British administrators say it is.

But I want to contrast the response by two scientists: James Lovelock, who at age 90 plans to blast out into space, and NASA's James Hansen, the first world-class climate scientist to put himself up for arrest, to stop mountain top mining in West Virginia, this week. (Hansen was arrested, along with 31 others, including actress Daryl Hannah, on a West Virginia road, outside a humoungous toxic coal ash dump.)

Doubting coal barons, the black secret of George Soros, U.S. climate dodgers in Canada - from outer space to the deepest pit - enjoy yourself. This is Radio Ecoshock.

The program is also loaded with music clips – from Guy Lombardo’s opening 1950 hit “Enjoy Yourself (It’s Later Than You Think)”, another version by The Specials UK concert, samples from country music star (and anti-mountain top removal activist) Kathy Mattea, talk and music from Tom Petty, an oldie by Lee Dorsey – and a lot of fun clips, including stuff from the trailer for “Skipjack” and even Winston Churchill.

But the question is deadly serious. Should we give up?

Find all the video and audio links used in this Radio Ecoshock program here. Click on through to the source material – on our climate crisis.

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AMERICAN CLIMATE CHANGE

The star of today's Radio Ecoshock Show is the American climate.

We'll start with the most important Press Conference of 2009: the release of the multi-agency report "Global Climate Change Impacts In the United States". It's the list of violent storm warming, heat wave predictions, cities and parts of whole states either going under-water, or roasting without water. Everyone will know the climate is badly out of balance.

Welcome to our special coverage of new report "Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States" from the White House briefing. After years of denial, terrible changes already happening in U.S.

This one hour version of Radio Ecoshock contains:

a) clip from Dr. Jane Lubchenco (see bio notes below)

(b) full presentation of Dr. Thomas Karl (outlining terrible impacts for the U.S.)

(c) analysis interview with Joe Romm, from climateprogress.org

(d) full presentation by Dr. Jerry Melillo (more terrible impacts)

Plus a special interview with Dr. Anthony Barnosky on his new book "Heatstroke, Nature in an Age of Global Warming"

This is the most important report on climate change ever released by the American government. The picture is bleak. Many Southern U.S. cities will become hot like Baghdad during the summer. Crops will burn out.

On the coasts, new flooding estimates show more than 3 feet of sea level rise before 2100 - enough to flood New York subways, rail-lines, and much more. That doesn't count surges from storms expected to be much worse.

Please listen to this compelling audio.

The book "Heatstroke" is also quite important. Antony Barnosky is a field researcher and curator at University California Berkeley. He realized climate change was coming in the early 1980's - and set out to document how Nature (especially small mammals) responded to previous climate shifts. He fears mass extinctions for many reasons, especially since there may never have been a warming starting in an already warm period, and likely never one so fast (one century) as we are inflicting on the Earth. Solid science from 30 years of research shows big problems for all the creatures of the Earth, as we continue to pollute the atmosphere.

Radio Ecoshock 090619 1 hour CD Quality 56 MB or Lo-Fi 14 MB

Production Notes:
Presentation recorded from official release of the report at the White House, April 16th, 2009.

Here are quick bio notes of speakers:

Dr. Jane Lubchenco, Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans & Atmosphere and NOAA Administrator
Dr. Thomas Karl, Director of the National Climatic Data Center, lead for NOAA’s climate services, and a
lead author of the report
Dr. Jerry Melillo, Director of the Ecosystems Center at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole,
Mass., and a lead author of the report

There is no copyright music. It is OK to take clips out for your own use in non-profit radio, to blog or pass on to friends.

Those with a shorter public affair program can use this 24 minute version, if you remove the Green 960 Station ID at 14:03

U.S. government Press Conference Video and slides here.

Get report copy here.

Get the word out there!

Alex Smith
host
Radio Ecoshock

Climate Catastrophe - Can the Economic Crash Save Us?

News can be a poison sometimes. Newspaper owners learned years ago that people buy frightening headlines. The motto of TV news: if it bleeds, it leads. The most horrific stories get top billing.

We all need to turn away from time to time, to those we love, to amazing Nature, and the trivia that convinces us for another day.

Lately, the climate news is too shocking even for Radio Ecoshock. In the last two weeks, I've been rebuilding myself, and listeners, with back-stop nourishment. We had programs on your food security, and how to be the change you desire.

Meanwhile, I've looked for a way to communicate the probability of catastrophe, without knocking out our will to live, and our activism.

HERE ARE THE LINKS YOU'LL WANT FOR THIS RADIO ECOSHOCK SHOW:

Thomas Homer-Dixon
Presentation to the UK Parliament's Peak Oil & Gas Subgroup May 6 2009
http://www.4shared.com/file/103698157/e5a0c9c/thomas_homerdixon.html

Q and A session at UK Parliament presentation
http://www.4shared.com/file/103698159/e9e2219b/thomas_homerdixon_q_and_a.html

PowerPoint Presentation
http://www.4shared.com/file/103698158/9ee5110d/thomas_homerdixon_ppt.html

All from this site: http://appgopo.org.uk
(and thanks to Ecoshock listener Chris from Riseup.net for tipping me off to this speech!)

Phil England and Climate Radio
www.climateradio.org

Hope shows up in the most improbably places. In the last half of this program, after an overview of our predicament, we'll explore how the economic crash may delay the worst of climate disruption. Isn't that twist? We may get time to save the ecosphere, due to our incompetence and criminality.

Hang in, as Phil England of Climate Radio arrives with experts calling for a planned economic contraction to save the remains of the natural world. He'll interview Tim Helweg-Larsen, Director of the Public Interest Research Centre at www.pirc.info.

Phil has a regular program on Radiance FM in London, UK. That's in our second half hour, along with a little black depression humor, called the "Global Meltdown Darby".

Before that, you'll hear an overview of climate and Peak Oil, from Professor Thomas Homer-Dixon. I've prepared a digest of his new presentation to a Committee in the British Parliament. It's crammed with science and analysis from his new book "Carbon Shift", including a re-think of how we can respond, given the near bankruptcy of governments and financial institutions.

But first....

The Horrible Climate News

READ MORE....



PHIL ENGLAND CREDITS:

"To listen to this programme and for a list of references visit the Climate Radio archive at www.climateradio.org. The 300-350 Show is made for ResonanceFM in London and syndicated free to not-for-profit community radio stations and independent media outlets around the globe. The programme is named after what is now believed to the safe level in parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This finding is based on the work of James Hansen and his team in a paper titled "Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim." [http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.1126]

The Global Meltdown Darby performed by the Irish poet known as "Grassy Knoll".

The Thomas-Homer Dixon piece contained a clip from the new movie trailer "Steam Bath" with action man Val Kilmer. Find the trailer here:
http://www.ecorazzi.com/2009/03/13/val-kilmers-global-warming-steam-bath-flick-gets-a-trailer/

We also played a clip from "The End of the Age of Oil" by David Rovics http://www.davidrovics.com.

Find all our past Radio Ecoshock programs at our web site.

Alex Smith
your host.
Radio Ecoshock

BE THE CHANGE Climate Conversion

This program explores how green leaders are converting to climate activism. And how you can move from spectator to citizen action.

You'll hear Forest Ethics co-Founder Tzeporah Berman in a moving speech, going to a new climate group Power Up Canada. United Church Pastor Bruce Sanguin gives us a new vision of Gaia-friendly Christianity. And Maureen Jack-LeCroix explains her calling to "Be the Change" - as host of the recent Be The Change Circles event in Vancouver. There's more... Arran Stephens of Nature's Path, and two conference guests - but first, here are some links to help you dig further.

BE THE CHANGE EARTH ALLIANCE
http://www.bethechangeearthalliance.org

You Tube video of founder Maureen Jack-LeCroix - why she devoted 10 years to Gaia and founded Be The Change Circles.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smLyRHo7aS0

ECOSHOCK PROGRAMS ON CLIMATE, DRYING FORESTS AND FIRES

BURNING DOWN THE WEST Wildfires stoke the carbon load. Ecoshock Show 071116 (1 hr) Interview: Dr. Tom Gower, saying fires in N. Canada make positive feedback; speech by Temperate Rainforest activist Pas Rasmussen - why she is now a climate activist as well. Echoes by Andrea Reimer of the Wilderness Committee. New research on the Rockies burning by Lara Kueppers; were California fires climate change?
http://www.ecoshock.net/eshock/ES_071116_Show.mp3

CURRENT PLAGUES - FUTURE FORESTS Can forests keep up with global warming? Ecoshock Show 070706 1 hour
Dr. Clive Welham on ravages on pine bark beetle in Rockies; Dr. Del Meidinger speech "Future Forests" to 6th N.A. Forest Ecology Conference.
http://www.ecoshock.org/cfro/2007/ES_070706_Show.mp3

RISING SEAS, DRYING WEST Ecoshock Show 080815 Top IPCC organizer & U of Arizona Professor Jonathan Overpeck speech at Washington U. After updating the world climate report, Overpeck predicts climate impacts on North America. 1 hour CD Quality Lo-Fi 14 MB http://www.ecoshock.net/eshock08/ES_080815_Show_LoFi.mp3

Drying of the West with National Geographic author Robert Kunzig; the first Carbon Tax in North America in B.C. (and what it means for the U.S.); censored Canadian scientists - speech clip from Dr. John Fyfe, IPCC author. Oh yeah, and some hope. 1 hour. Ecoshock show 080222 Lo-Fi 14 MB
http://www.ecoshock.net/eshock08/ES_080222_Show_LoFi.mp3

TZEPORAH BERMAN SPEECHES

Climate Conversion - Tzeporah Berman speech Be The Change Un-Conference, Vancouver May 23, 2009. 16 minutes Lo-Fi
http://www.ecoshock.org/downloads/ecoshock/ES_Tzeporah_Berman_090523_LoFi.mp3

A CLIMATE OF CRASH AND CHOICE Finance & elections. Mike Whitney on Wall Street mess -Bush's plan to grab the money & run. Voting for climate action. Brianna Cayo Cotter U.S. PowerVote.org; Tzeporah Berman speech introducing PowerUpCanada.ca. Also Rep Ed Markey web cast on new Green Jobs initiative. Plus some fun (e.g. George Carlin) and music. Ecoshock Show 080926 1 hour
Lo-Fi 14 MB
http://www.ecoshock.net/eshock08/ES_080926_Show_LoFi.mp3

Tzeporah Berman at Bioneers Conference October 2006. About 20 minutes.
http://www.ecoshock.org/cfro/ES_Berman_Bioneers_061021.mp3

POWER UP CANADA
http://www.powerupcanada.ca/


THIS WEEK'S ECOSHOCK PROGRAM BEGINS....

Dear extra-terrestrial visitor,

Things are past serious here on Planet Earth. Our top scientists, the people who study and measure, warn the web of life is headed toward utter catastrophe, possibly in just ninety years. The ocean, source of our oxygen and mother of most life, is turning acid due to our carbon pollution. Our once stable climate, the basis of our agriculture and civilization, is undergoing violent change.

As I record this, smoke from forest fires - hundreds of miles away in the mountains, is filling our great city. I can smell the distress, and it's only June, not even fire season yet. Last night, as we watched TV news, a reporter showed the tinder dry conditions on Vancouver Island. "My God" said my companion, "that is the rain forest. The rain forest, untouched by fire for a thousand years or more, could burn."

It's only a matter of short time. The great pine forests of the Rocky Mountains have been killed by global warming. They stand dead, valley after valley, each long trough visible from space, waiting to burn. Each great tree is a tower of carbon taken from the atmosphere. Now it will go back, in great bursts of fire that nothing can stop. A burp of carbon worse than the Indonesian rain forest fires of '97-'98. Greenpeace predicted this in 1994, in a report called "The Carbon Bomb". Now, it's happening. Here in the Rockies, all from California right up to the Yukon. Even the boreal forest, clothing the North, is burning out more carbon than new trees can gather. Vast forests will convert into grasslands or scrub deserts.

We don't know how far all this new carbon, coming in the next decade, will push the climate.

The carbon whirlwind is still of our own making. Will you be a witness? Or will you be the change we need?

This is Radio Ecoshock. I am your host, Alex Smith.

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YOUR FOOD SECURITY

This Radio Ecoshock - with something you can't live without: food. No, we haven't invented edible radio - but we'll introduce you to a homesteading woman who's brought out her second book on surviving the worst of times.

Are you worried about the way the world is going? Our top financial institutions turned out to be hollow Ponzi schemes. Nobody is too sure of their job. The Earth's climate is unstable. Even the bees are dying. Meanwhile, grasping men at multinational food corporations want to own every seed and everything you eat. Did I mention the end of cheap oil?

That is when I want to know how to ensure enough food for my family. How will I get enough to eat, despite violent storms, an earthquake, social disruption or an epidemic? How can you eat cheaply, even if food prices soar as predicted?

[Robin Wheeler interview]

We've done a series of radio how-to's here at Radio Ecoshock. Ways to stockpile grains and beans for ten years or more. How to get going in canning. Find that on the "Ecoshock Features" page, right in our Audio on Demand menu, at ecoshock.org. There's nothing to sell or buy there, just helpful free mp3 downloads.

As you know our guest is Robin Wheeler. She runs a homestead, now turned into a home business, in Roberts Creek, along the Pacific Coast of British Columbia. Find her on the Net at ediblelandscapes.ca. Her new book is "Food Security for the Faint of Heart, Keeping Your Larder Full in Lean Times."

Robin was speaking at a small library her in Vancouver, listed in a community newspaper. Improbably, outside there was a New Orleans style jazz band, and rows of tables loaded with organic foods, community support kiosks, and alternative knowledge. On a rare happy say of sunshine, would anyone turn up for a talk on Food Security?

Waiting at the back, a 50 something woman began a conversation about climate change. "You know what I think," she said, "the climate has already shifted." I felt a slight chill, knowing that the public really does know. We are in for a wild ride.

Despite the sun and fun outside, all the seats filled up. I recorded Robin's Wheeler's Food Security talk for you.

This speech is like a series of topics you need to know. You could almost make a box of index cards for each resource in the speech - as a jumping off point for your own research on the Net, and locally.

We've all heard about scrap booking as a hobby for stay-at-home Moms. Now I'm thinking a survival scrap book or binder is a really good idea. It would have print outs of the key useful information you discover. Maybe you can print out Google maps of your area, and your fall-back retreat spot, with your notes added on where the wild mushrooms are, the will-trade-for-food local farms, that stream with cleaner water.

Imagine the power has gone out, and the food system is breaking down. What do you need to know, without access to the Net? Or what if inflation and job loss combine to threaten your supermarket dependence? What can you do for food security, from a condo, house or camper van - homesteading where you are?

Here is a short shopping list of topics I heard in Robin Wheeler's speech. Most of it comes straight from her book "Food Security for the Faint of Heart". Robin touches on:

Earthquakes
Supermarkets closing down
Power out - what freezer food to eat first, and
How to prolong meat with cooking oil, or salt brining.
Emergency cooking
Stockpiling
The importance of community
Organic or not?
Start a food Co-op
Cook for yourself
Work at a grocery store or food warehouse
Community supported agriculture
Gleaning - like nut trees or fallen fruit
Gardening as though your life depended on it
Eating weeds
Using food waste
Storing the abundance
Leave root crops in the ground
Curing foods for longer storage
Dehydrating food
Canning
Packing in sugar
Teas for pleasure and medicine
Flowers you can eat.
Gardens for renters
Super-fast growing vegetables
Container gardens
Wild foraging
Food from the beach and sea.
Emergency herbs
Emergency water
Power out lights and heat
Working co-operatively
Food activism: fighting off multinationals like Monsanto & Codex Alimentarius
Local food subversion.

Here is Robin Wheeler, recorded in the Britannia Library May 13th, 2009.

[speech]

This is Radio Ecoshock with Alex Smith. You are listening to a speech by Robin Wheeler, developed from her new book "Food Security for the Faint of Heart." It's from New Society publishers, and a real value for just $17 bucks in paperback. She has an easy reading style peppered with humor.

You may want to start up a scrap book or index cards to research the food security ideas that will work best for you. As the economic crisis meets peak oil and climate disruption, we all need to get a lot more active in local food sources. Learn how to work with Nature's timetable, and store away for leaner times.

As Robin shows, the coming times don't need to be all that scary. In fact, they can be empowering and more righteous. Why are we treading toward obesity on factory foods laden with chemicals? Can we really keep colonizing land from the world's poorest people to grow our soy and hamburgers? How many carbon miles are in your cupboards?

When we stabilize our society to our own place, sustainably for generations, a whole load of stress and lies will fall away. Food is one good place to start, the roots of a civilization we could be proud of. For a change.

Speaking of change, next week we'll visit a unique un-conference. It was called "The Great Turning" - hosted by Be the Change Earth Alliance. Hundreds of people turned out for an all-day gathering around circular tables. They talked and plotted the big changes needed to save the Earth and ourselves. That and more, next week on Radio Ecoshock.

DEAD MALLS, GLOBESITY & SIMPLICITY

[Opening clip: I just want to get a megaphone, and yell to people entering the Mall "It isn't in there."]

That is Cecile Andrews - and she's right. Happiness is not in the shopping mall, never was.

I'm Alex Smith, this is Radio Ecoshock.

This program is loaded. You'll hear retail expert Howard Davidowitz. He's the shopping expert who says 200,000 American stores will close - and the great days of consumerism are dead. May they rest in peace.

Following that interview from New York, we go to France. Michelle Holdsworth is co-author of the new book "Globesity, A Planet Out of Control?" We explore the relationship between obesity and climate change. Can fat warm the world?

In the second half hour, 15 minutes from a new speech by Cecile Andrews. She brought us "Slow Is Beautiful". Her new book, perfect for tough times, is "Less Is More". It's all about the simplicity movement, and how simple human community saves lives.

I'll wrap up the program with a survival project: one day canning, how to eat better for half the cost.

READ MORE....

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

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