Climate Files 47 / Are We Lemmings?
Are we climate lemmings?
It was announced this morning that President Obama will attend the climate summit in Copenhagen, and he also announced his emissions targets: in the range of 17% by 2020. This is great news! It’s also bad news. Is this the best America can do? This response to climate change is not adequate for the U.S. when other countries are doing more. There is a phenomenon at work here. Two recordings in this episode address expectations at Copenhagen and why people believe what they believe about global warming, and how to possibly change how the public thinks about it. Maybe we can even influence our politicians.
Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP), speaks with correspondent Miles Benson in an interview from Earth Focus, discussing UNEP’s sobering recent report that says we will feel the consequences of climate change soon. Are we lemmings, or why don’t we act more decisively on this issue?
The public opinion talk is from the American Meteorological Society, from an Environmental sciences Seminar Series, and it’s on Public Attitudes, Perceptions, and Concerns about Global Warming, evidence from a survey. This survey is not new, it’s actually from late last year. It was presented in Washington DC by Jon Krosnick, PH.D., Stanford University.
The Krosnick talk has been split into two parts and this episode contains the first part. If you want to hear part two and an additional talk by Jon Krosnick you can find that here.
Are we lemmings refers to a question Achim Steiner was asked during his interview. It doesn’t mean we don’t believe in global warming, (75% of Americans do, down from 85% of 3 years ago) it refers to the fact that Americans don’t want to change the status quo or make lifestyle changes unless everyone else in the world does it first.
Other news discussed: Chris Hedges wrote: Refuse Allegiance to Coal. Read it here.
More news: Latest Science Shows Climate Change Outpacing Previous Projections
United Nations program on Climate change is here. The Climate Change Science Compendium is on this page.
Download this episode here Listen here or subscribe on the right.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Climate Files 46 / Cap and Raid
Earth's damaged climate is a bit BIG to be fixed using capitalism products and trading schemes.
The cap and trade legislation has been “put off” until well after the Copenhagen summit in December. It’s pushed into spring, 2010, if then. If you want to read some better bills than cap and trade, which should be called Cap and RAID, you can check out all the other bills that intend to mitigate climate change. There are a lot of them!
This episode contains recent news and the “Huge Mistake” by the EPA attorneys gone rogue who have lots of information about cap and trade. The same rogue EPA attorneys interview on DemocracyNow here. Many environmentalists are very disappointed with the whole concept of capping and trading permits to pollute. The Carbon Tax Center site has a great list of the other, better bills here.
A Carbon Tax, Not a Cap and Trade
EU emissions trading scheme an ‘embarrassing failure’
Peru is losing its sacred glaciers to climate change. Slideshow of amazing photos is here.
Floods and Droughts: How Climate Change is Impacting Africa.
Also discussed in this episode: The Brammo Enertia electric motorcycle is now on sale at Best Buy.
Click below for the feature:
Initial Report: 2009 Brammo Enertia
One of the new, sneaky greenwash sites: GERrrrr (don’t take it seriously, folks).
Payal Parekh’s blog is here. Her interview on the Real News network, if you want to see it (the entire interview audio is in this episode) is at the Real News network ‘Cap-and-trade won’t cut it’ Pt. 2.
Download this episode here Listen here or subscribe on the right.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Climate Files 45 / Peak Oil and IEA Report
The new 2009 World Energy Report shows a decline in oil, but did the U.S. interfere in the final report to avoid a panic in the markets? The IEA denies the pressure.
Many experts think Saudi Arabia and other countries are inflating the numbers reflecting what oil they have left.
This was NaPodPoMo episode 11 of the November podcast marathon. (FN is now ending its involvement in NaPodPoMo.)
Many energy experts also think we have started peak oil already, and everything from here on is a decline. Worse, the US doesn’t want anyone else to know this, and has pressured the IEA to soften its language on peak oil and oil decline to prevent panic.
The November 10 IEA press release is here. Story about U.S. pressure on the IEA from The Guardian is here. The IEA has denied the claims that appeared in the Guardian from the anonymous whistleblowers. You can read what they said here.
The IEA book site is here, and here are the available downloads of the World Energy Report 2009.
Download this episode here Listen here or subscribe on the right.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Climate Files 44 / Green News & Gore Fest
Dust Storm in Baghdad
LinkTV has a new weekly climate change video here and will appear on FN’s news website every week also.
I went to a talk tonight given by Sami Rasouli . . . He’s an Iraqi-American who has been a peace activist for Iraq and he recently returned from a trip to Iraq. One thing he talked about was the environmental disasters now in Iraq, how they have come about because of the war. The water in their rivers is so polluted, they can’t drink it, and they can’t eat the fish either, because the fish have been eating the dead bodies thrown in the river. Because the dirt has been ground to such a fine powder, they are having dust storms twice a week now. Other topics covered include the activist movement, Al Gore’s opinion on climate change Obama, that Obama might go to Copenhagen in December (and he should), and the UK wind sector has gotten a big infusion of money.
Massachusetts rethinks using its forests for “renewable energy.”
This and more news in this episode of the 10th installment of the podcasting marathon known as NaPodPoMo. Read about the EPA Fish Study revealing widespread contamination here.
Download this episode here or subscribe on the right.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Climate Files 43 / Rethink Meat
Flame-broiled Doom
Meat consumption might be destroying the planet and killing us. It’s certainly not green, so maybe we should think about it more before using it so much. And Americans consume more meat than anyone on the planet. It’s contributing to climate change, to terrible environmental practices, pollution and our inability to feed everyone on earth adequately. When people are starving they don’t want meat, they want food.
A few tangents were taken in this episode, namely, Mike the Headless Chicken, whose story you can read here.
Jonathan Safran Foer recently wrote Eating Animals and was recently on NPR talking about his book. He explains his point of view in a short interview you can hear in this episode.
Facts about climate change and meat consumption, including the possibility that it causes health problems, here and here. The doctor’s site that claims red meat can cause breast cancer is here.
My Futurism prediction: In 50 years or less it will be abnormal and rare to find anyone, anywhere, eating meat.
Download this show here or subscribe on the right.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Climate Files 42 / Green Justice
Climate change will be very much about justice in the years and decades to come. Green money–Green jobs–Green greed–the non- Jolly Green Giant Known as Copenhagen — Is climate change stalling and finger-pointing green insanity? Not everything can be called green. Economic INjustice means those with the most money will survive climate change the easiest, and that’s not green at all.
As mentioned, here are just a few of the environmental justice groups in the U.S.: Environmental justice climate change initiative, or EJCC.org. Also, NLCCC.org and WEACT.org . . . . and many other groups around the U.S. working on climate change justice.
The weekly talk included in this episode is from Manuel Pastor, who is Professor of Geography and American Studies & Ethnicity at the University of Southern California where he also serves as Director of the Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE). His research focuses on environmental justice and the economic, environmental and social conditions facing low-income urban communities in the U.S. His talk is titled, Making Climate Change Policy Work in Difficult Economic Times. Thanks to UCTV.
Why India Is Playing Hard to Get on Climate Change. From Time magazine, November 6, 2009.
Global Warming at change.org
http://www.whitehouse.gov/CONTACT/
You can also call or write to President Obama at:
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
Comments: 202-456-6213
Download this podcast here Listen here or subscribe on the right.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Climate Files 41 / The Brutal Truth
Let's hope there are a lot of planets out there that will support human life and that we can get to them in about 10 years. Could someone please invent long-distance teleportation by then?
The Brutal Truth about climate change is this: it’s much worse, and much more threatening to our future, than the public thinks it is. In fact, it has scientists scared. Yet the political response is to “work with business” and “work with Republicans” and conservative Democrats like Joe Lieberman to get a passable bill that is so watered down it won’t solve any of the problems of climate change nearly in time. It seems pointless.
What can we make of this? I don’t know. ‘Cap and trade’ mostly solved a sulfer dioxide problem years ago, but it isn’t going to solve this enormous problem. It’s a totally inadequate solution to a monumental problem.
The brutal truth about climate change is that it could be the end of all future generations unless extremely aggressive actions are taken now. If you’re not worried, you should be. Mainly because we aren’t taking action to stop it that is adequate! This episode includes testimony before the EPW by Senator John Kerry and an article about this existential threat known as global warming. This is NaPodPoMo #7.
Here is John Kerry planning to further weaken the bill. What is he thinking?
The article by Jeff Goodell that I read, Warming Gets Worse, is not found online. It appeared in the November 12th issue of Rolling Stone magazine.
“The science is more definitive than ever. The science is screaming at us.” says John Kerry. “A voluntary approach just doesn’t work.”
He’s right about that. So how could he in good conscience expect us to support what he’s doing?
Download this episode here Listen here or subscribe on the right.
Got feedback? Send it in. Unless you’re a “denier” and then you can stick it up your ah, fingernail. Email: news@climatefiles.com or call the Skype comment line: 320-300-4273 and leave a message.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Climate Files 40 / History of Global Warming Science
The history of the discovery of global warming/climate change goes back much farther in time than people think.
And no, global warming was not invented by Al Gore. NASA scientist James Hansen didn’t discover it either, despite his 1988 testimony before Congress. Global warming theory has been around for a long time, since before industrialization. In fact, it started with observations in 300 B.C.!
How did the idea for global warming and climate change start?
Find out in this episode, with a global warming history timeline assisted by Mother Jones and other news sources. It brings you right up to the present.
This was NaPodPoMo (National Podcast Post Month) episode #6, the 6th installment of my podcast marathon for the month of November.
Download this episode here Listen here or subscribe to Climate Files in the right-hand column.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Climate Files 39 / Science & Tech News
Robot Fish?
This was NaPodPoMo5, the fifth installment of this podcast’s marathon.
Covered in this episode: Deep-sea Ecosystems Affected By Climate Change.
Trees in the desert, maybe the Sahara, might solve climate change? Well, it’s a plan.
Liquid Granite and the hunt for a carbon-neutral cement, Foldable 3D Solar Cells, robot fish and more, in some science and tech news for this episode.
Some Futurism in this interview at CleanTech, too.
Download this episode here Listen here or subscribe on the right.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Climate Files 38 / Climate News Update
News from Futurism Now, and episode #4 of the NaPodPoMo podcast marathon.
What are Senators up to on the climate bill? Senate Republicans Stall Climate Legislation! Story here.
Panic at 2:00 am! Where is the ice?
Utilities Drop Plans for Big Stone II Coal Plant, clearing the way for wind power. Great news!
Al Gore chats about his new book on the MSNBC show Morning Joe. Mika says his new book is a “must read.” Hear this and much more in this episode.
Download it here, or subscribe on the right.
Listen to the rest of the NaPodPoMo podcasts too. For the RSS feed for the whole shebang, subscribe to this.
Support podcasters — we work hard so you can work even harder.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Climate Files 37 / The Mystery of Climate Skeptics
This is episode 3 of Climate Files Radio’s National Podcast Post Month contribution. See the rest of the participating podcasts on the NPPM website.
The mystery of global warming skeptics continues to perplex me. I don’t understand people who deny facts and science — do you? Someday, we’ll figure it out. Meanwhile, climate change continues to happen, despite whether people believe in it or not.
Al Gore’s spiritualism theory article is here, George Monbiot’s article is here, and the news about Kilamanjaro’s ice that will be gone soon is here.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Climate Files 36 / Climate Info U Need 2 Know
Images.com/Corbis, by Christopher Baldwin
Here are some things you need to know before Copenhagen, just the basics. There will be more basics coming later this week.
Start with the UNFCCC website and their facts about climate change.
Today’s installment of NaPodPoMo #2, my podcasting marathon, is about some necessary background in order to understand some of the future podcasts about climate legislation and the Copenhagen summit.
First of all, COP15: World leaders have called for a comprehensive, ambitious and fair international climate change deal to be clinched at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 15) in Copenhagen, December 7-18, 2009.
Right now, the countries are meeting in Barcelona for the last round of climate talks before Copenhagen. See more here.
This is just a very brief overview that you can show to your skeptic friends or anyone who’s curious.
For all the good that 350.org does getting people motivated, it probably is aiming for a target that is too low. We should be aiming for 280 ppm CO2 in the atmosphere, says the writer I talk about in this episode.
Download this episode here or subscribe on the right.
Music by Dr. Motte of Berlin who gave his OK for public consumption of his music, which you can find on 350.org’s website under the Berlin event for October 24th.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
