Climate Files Radio

Climate Files / Hansen Talks Climate in Sydney

NASA climate scientist James Hansen has been very busy lately, discussing climate change all over the world.  In this podcast you will hear a talk of about an hour followed by 1/2 hour of great Q&A.  The topic, of course, is our planetary climate crisis, what’s happening now with the science, and what he thinks we should do to deal with it. He has formulated some great ideas in the last year towards some realistic things world governments could and should do to phase out coal, put a price on carbon and keep it all fair and equitable.

He speaks about energy policy too, and clearly feels frustrated with the bias against nuclear power. It’s not that he’s a big advocate of nuclear power, but Hansen realizes that we need carbon-free power and that it cannot all come from what he calls “soft renewables”.  Here are a few other points he makes that are not widely known:

• The whole problem with our energy is that fossil fuels are cheap.  So to get people to change their behavior, we need a gradually rising price on carbon.   To get the public to accept the additional cost, we need to return this money to the public.
• The climate system is incredibly sensitive.  We know from paleoclimate history that the climate has changed a lot in the past.  To make predictions of coming climate, climate scientists are not depending on “climate modeling” so much as real data they are getting from the past and the present.
• Six other countries are developing 4th Generation nuclear plants, and China is building at least 24 new nuclear plants.
• We will not get rid of nuclear plants, so we should be making them safer.
• Renewable energy is what everyone wants to hear, but the fact is, they are still invisible on the graph. There is a renewable portion on the graph, but that is burning of biomass.  The dream that soft renewable technologies will be enough is not supported by empirical evidence.  India and china are planning on going with mainly nuclear for their future power.
• Hansen also expresses his disappointment and frustration with the Obama administration and politicians like Senator John Kerry, who want him to support the Obama administration’s plans for coal and CCS and oil drilling.  Hansen won’t, for obvious reasons.

Hansen also wrote an article while he was in Australia in March. — “Only a carbon tax and nuclear power can save us”, claims The Australian. in its title of his article.  He didn’t really say that, but that could be inferred from what he did say.

The video version of this podcast is in three parts from Blip TV here. This podcast contains all three parts in one episode.

Sorry there was a problem with downloading the file. … Click here to download it.

Climate Scientist James Hansen is known as the ‘grandfather of climate change’ and is perhaps the world’s leading authority on the science of climate change. He is director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York and Adjunct Professor at Columbia University’s Earth Institute and has for the last 30 years focused on climate research, publishing more than 100 scholarly articles on the topic.   This talk was presented by Sydney Ideas and the United States Studies Centre, March 11, 2010.

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Climate Files 62 / EPA Priorities

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson Discusses 2010 EPA Priorities

On March 8, 2010, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson spoke to the National Press Club on progress made by the agency in 2009 and priorities for 2010. She discussed actions on climate change, America’s waters and EPA’s efforts to expand the conversation on environmentalism.

She was asked why the EPA doesn’t stop surface mining (mountaintop removal) and she basically said because the EPA regulates pollution and water quality; the EPA does not and cannot regulate mining.  That is a political excuse. They are the Environmental Protection Agency — it’s their job to protect the environment.  Mountaintop removal is one of the most environmentally destructive practices in the U.S. and they must have the authority to stop it. Apparently, this is the EPA’s way of stalling a decision on mountaintop removal.  Surface coal mining is especially destructive, not just to our water but to the trees, the ecology of the area, and to the land itself.  There is no way to put the top back on a hill or mountain once it has been removed, and no way to completely reinstate the wildlife and balance of the ecology of the area once it has been ruined.

Unfortunately today, in conjunction with this talk, the EPA approved a surface mining operation in Ohio.  They imposed supposed stringent rules on the mining operation so that it doesn’t pollute the water, but nowhere are there requirements of a carbon fee or any way for this mining to take responsibility for how it adds to global warming. This is where the EPA has to change.  The EPA’s responsibilities should include protecting the human race’s ability to live in its environment–which would necessarily render coal mining obsolete.   Read about the EPA’s new permit below. To see the video of this talk, visit CSPAN.org.

Below  is the press release released by the EPA today in its approval of the Ohio surface mining permit.  This is a blow to the environment, and it’s hard to see how this is the EPA “protecting” the country’s land and water.

Listen or download here.

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Climate Files 61 / Question the EPA

I attended the EPA Townhall Meeting and asked a good question.   Everyone should question the EPA.   Mine was about that nasty Canadian tar sands oil and the pipeline that is spilling oil into the beautiful northern part of one of the Great Lakes states. The EPA must not care very much about that, because they wouldn’t answer a simple question: how does a dirty oil pipeline fit in with the new green economy being promoted in the Great Lakes states?  I like this EPA so much better than the last one, but it’s hard to believe it’s so easy to stump the EPA.

Also in this episode, what U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders said about climate change deniers, and what President Obama said about energy and climate in his speech to the business roundtable in Washington DC.  Some headlines were covered too, including the exciting news about Bloom Energy, a new company making a revolutionary new type of stand-alone power station. It sounds almost too good to be true — fuel cells that run on oxygen and biomass? Yes, and it’s already being used by companies in Silicon Valley. Here is what I wrote about it on Futurism Now.

The Delta Institute website is here.


The EPA video page where you can watch the entire Townhall meeting from February 23rd is here.

News covered:

• Poor Nations Could Be Paid to Preserve Marine CO2: UN (Reuters)
• Curbing Smokestack Emissions Tops EPA’s 2011-2013 Enforcement Goals (Greenwire)
• Groups ID Toxic Coal Ash Sites in 14 States, Demand Regulations (ENN)
• Tackling Climate Change ‘Urgent,’ President Hu Jintao Says (China Daily)
• Italy Delays New Solar Plan Again, Industry Worried
• World’s Temperature Record To Be Re-analyzed (The Independent)
• Check out the Enbridge Pipeline in my Backyard blog.
• Waste could fuel part of Spain – read here.
• Did you hear about the 126,000 gallon oil spill in northern MN, the 2nd in months?

You can download this episode here, or subscribe on Climate Files Radio.

Final song is by Galactic, “Heart of Steel feat. Irma Thomas” from the MPR song of the day podcast.

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Climate Files 60 Special / The Gates Equation

This is a special edition of Climate Files of a highly anticipated talk by Bill Gates, who has come up with an equation you see in this graphic. He presented this at the latest TED conference during a short talk on February 12th. This was followed by a short Q&A at TED and on livestream.com.  Gates says he’s happy to get Twitter questions, so visit his website and fire off some questions to him.

Gates discussed energy, his “equation”, and his goal in life at the TED conference — getting us to zero carbon by 2050.  He feels this is doable in a variety of ways. (These are his ideas and are not necessarily endorsed by myself or by Climate Files, but they are interesting.)  He is getting a large amount of criticism from some environmentalists for saying that we need an “energy miracle” and lots of tech development to solve the climate problem.   As he defines “miracle”, I mostly agree with his ideas on climate change.  (Read an article discussing this here.) He is promoting nuclear power and not just any nuclear power but specifically, a “traveling wave” type of nuclear power, which is being developed by a company called TerraPower.

Is Gates just another T. Boone Pickens trying to cash in?  Nope, Gates actually does understand and believe in the importance of climate change and is really seeking zero carbon solutions, unlike Pickens.

If you are wondering what Gates is up to besides caring what happens to the atmosphere,  you should know that he is personally investing his own money into these ideas. He is spending quite a bit of thought and some of his great wealth on thinking about not just seeds and malaria, but also zero-carbon energy. Check out another article from last Monday for more on what Gates is doing to promote zero carbon energy.  “When we talk about zero climate emissions, we sound crazy. When Bill Gates does it, bankers pick up the phone,” from Alternet.

(This episode of Climate Files is sans commentary from yours truly because I’m on a working break, and the plan is that this podcast will still return to weekly or bi-monthly episodes at some point.)

Download this episode here — it’s a short one — or listen here or subscribe on the right.  For an interesting graphic I found of Bill Gates after he left Microsoft, click on more. I wanted to include it for the cover art for the podcast but it needed the equation on it to make sense!

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Climate Files 57 / Hacking the Climate

If climate change gets out of control and we need to resort to geoengineering the climate, who gets to decide what and how much?  This and related questions were discussed at length at side events during COP15 in December. An interesting portion of one of these is played in this episode.

In his State of the Union Speech Obama last week, President Obama focused on Nukes, Offshore Drilling and Biofuels.  A lot of people were bothered that he didn’t focus more on renewables. It seems that we can’t depend on the U.S. government to come to the rescue of the climate because they aren’t communicating the danger of climate change and they aren’t talking about how to stop it. In fact, they are mostly talking about jobs and the economy. So that leaves us with the same climate crisis we started with before the last election.

Ross Gelbspan is an author (his website here) and journalist who feels that it’s already too late to stop climate change.  Based on his 15 years of research, he has released a recent video that tells us we need to act now and plan to adapt and survive.  According to Gelbspan,

As the pace of global warming kicks into overdrive, the hollow optimism of climate activists, along with the desperate responses of some of the world’s most prominent climate scientists, are preventing us from focusing on the survival requirements of the human enterprise.

This brings up the idea of using geoengineering to help in a climate emergency.  People involved in geoengineering research stress that it’s not a substitute for mitigating carbon emissions but that it’s tool of last resort.  The question is, what kind of tool will it be, how can it be safely tested, and who should be making these decisions.  They emphasize this is not a substitute for mitigation.  Whether you think it’s good or bad, the research is expanding and growing right now.

CDR (carbon dioxide removal) and SRM (solar radiation management) are discussed in this episode according to recent articles in the journal Science.   (Articles here and here).  What are the risks of solar radiation management actions, which scientists feel would be potentially dangerous?

Bill Gates has been writing about climate change lately, and he’s putting his money where his keyboard is.  He’s investing in stopping hurricanes with his new patent and is talking about what our climate change targets should be. (more info after the break)

Download this episode here, subscribe on the right or listen below.

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Climate Files 52 / Eco Rock Stars

Some news from Copenhagen, some of it kind of surprising and disturbing.

Bill McKibben of 350.org and President Nasheed of the Maldives, both Eco Rock Stars,  are featured in this episode.  Their main message:  350 ppm is a necessary target, and it needs to be reinserted into the text of the international agreement that is being written in Copenhagen.

So there will be a lot of work to do after Copenhagen is over because the negotiators won’t arrive at the decision that is necessary, which is topping out at 1.5C in temperature rise and 350 ppm.

The way it stands now, some of the developed country representatives  believe we can survive 450 ppm but there is no historical precedent for humans surviving on a planet with that type of atmosphere. A leaked UN document also showed that the final agreement would lead to temps of 3 degrees C, not 2C.

Those in the  environmental movement and everyone who cares about this issue has a lot of work to do as soon as Copenhagen’s climate summit ends.

Download this episode here or subscribe on the right.

This is the last episode until after Copenhagen’s conference and after the holidays because the eco-elves just can’t keep up with everything.  There may be a release of a summary of some of the final COP15 statements which were recorded.

This podcast was formerly Futurism Now; all future podcasts will be here only at Climate Files Radio and will be named Climate Files. All previous FN podcasts are here also. If any of the links are broken, please contact me at admin @ climatefiles.com.  You will have to re-subscribe to this RSS feed if you are a subscriber and if you are subscribed on iTunes, you’ll have to wait a bit . . . . . it will be announced here when and if the new podcast name will be appearing on iTunes.

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Climate Files 51 / The Geek Files

This episode contains talks by the delegates from Stanford University and a talk by Steven Chu, a pretty geeky guy, from last weekend.  Monday was Oceans Day at Copenhagens COP15, and the guys from Stanford discussed the health of the oceans and why that 350 number is so much better than that 450 number that Todd Stern seems to think is OK.

It’s impossible to keep up with everything that is going on in Copenhagen. There are groups doing interviews everywhere, press conferences, side events, Youtube debates and lots more. My hope is that everyone is keeping informed by going to the COP15 website, or the ENB report.

Presented Monday: New estimates of sea level change including the dynamics of the big ice sheets are way higher than the IPCC 2007 estimate.

Also discussed: UN Carbon-Capture Decision Faces Delay to Next Year.

Coal gassification explained.

Remember:  350 ppm is OK, 450 ppm is not OK.  Bill McKibben and Al Gore also spoke, and now the heads of state are beginning to arrive.  Even Prince Charles already spoke too.  You could listen to speeches all day and still not hear them all.

Music at the end is a fun song by that guy from Minnesota, Bob Dylan.

Download this episode here or subscribe on the right.

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Climate Files 30 / The Age of Climate Cooperation

The UN Summit on Climate Change brought together 100 world leaders at the UN on September 22 and the Age of Stupid movie event happened on September 21, all in New York City. What did they all accomplish?  It’s unclear.  The UN Summit was a good start, according to Ban Ki Moon, UN Secretary General. President Obama spoke at the summit on the need for action, though he didn’t give out any targets or make any big announcements, like some of the world leaders did. Japan made a big announcement, as did the President of the Maldives. You will hear several highlights of the summit in this episode.

The UN website where you can see all the video archives of the summit is here.

The Age of Stupid was a great movie for putting a human face on climate change. Telling the personal stories of how climate change impacts people is exactly what the world needs right now. I hope everyone gets a chance to see it.   Kofi Annan and scientists and celebrities and politicians spoke after this world premiere, and this episode includes some highlights of that event.  It was a live event and a lot of fun, in addition to being educational.

There was quite a bit of news out there this week, and here’s a list of most of the stories that were mentioned in Climate Files #30.

• Obama addressed the UN with a determined-sounding speech,  low on specifics.
• Steven Chu said Clean energy tech more important than Climate Treaty.
• Lieberman pushing for more coal in climate bill!
• Sen. Boxer prepares for climate bill intro. in October.
• Thai rice is threatened by climate change.
• Japan’s PM offers climate aid to poor nations and makes a big announcement.

All this and more in this episode. Download the podcast here or subscribe on the right.

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FN01 / Support Action on Climate Change

This is the introductory episode. Futurism Now is about climate change, energy, politics and legislation to get us moving on climate change, and more.

Is there a consensus on climate change among climate scientists? Yes, there is. We are past debate. It’s time for action!

Support Action on Climate Change — Call your Congressmen and Senators and tell them you support their action on climate change and that they need to increase their support for clean energy — wind and solar, not the non-existent “clean coal” or natural gas, which is another fossil fuel.

Audio from new Energy Secretary Steven Chu from last summer, speaking at UC Berkeley, and from NASA climate scientist James Hansen on climate change and what has to be done.

James Hansen audio courtesy of RadioEcoshock podcast, at Ecoshock.org

Download here or subscribe on the right.

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News and Commentary #03

Before this was a climate podcast . . . it was a news broadcast. This episode covers climate change, news about Karl Rove, news about diplomatic efforts, and the 819 billion dollar stimulus package that Obama wants passed. No Republicans voted to pass it in the House on Wednesday night and it passed anyway. That’s because President Obama has a mandate and intelligence on his side. Anyway, I defend the spending bill and one reason is the money for transportation and energy and the new electric grid, all of which we need badly. However, it’s true this spending bill won’t be nearly enough because it doesn’t yet tackle climate change seriously.

See this train? Other countries have super-fast commuter trains and we don’t. Why is that? Could it be due to Exxon or BP? We need super-fast, super-efficient transit in the U.S. and it’s ridiculous that we don’t have any. Something or someone must be obstructing their development. There are even solar-powered bullet trains in development, but I bet the U.S. will be one of the last countries to get one, thanks to the obstructionist Republicans.

I play a short clip of Al Gore’s very long testimony in front of Congress on Wednesday. I will have the entire recording (3 hours) shortly, and it will be available on Podcast Liberally (here) only.

Music: Runaway Train by Eliza Gilkyson
You can download this episode here.

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President Obama Inauguration Address

This is the full inauguration address of President Barack Obama, January 20, 2009.

Imagine this: We not only have “hope” back but we have a president who respects science and the law again. What a relief!

(and yes, I wrote that without cynicism or sarcasm).
See CivilianismNews.com for more.

Transcript of the inaugural speech here.

Download here or listen below.
Coming next: The new PLNC episode 01.

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