Author Archives: Maria

Prof. Peter Wadhams: Arctic Amplification, Climate Change, and Global Warming (ONE of TWO)

New Challenges from the Top of the World (ONE of TWO) ARCHIVE
NOTE: This program begins with two brief news clips from NBC4 and Thom Hartmann as reminder that a most important but underreported news item for September is the status of the sea ice in the Arctic.
With increasing urgency Wadhams is calling attention to the disappearing sea ice of the Arctic. In his most recent book, A Farewell to Ice, he writes: “Our planet has changed color. Today, from space, the top of the world in the northern summer looks blue instead of white. We have created an ocean where there was once an ice sheet.”
In a lecture in Milan, Italy, in May 2015, Peter Wadhams explained how the melting [ . . . ]

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Crazy Weather and the Arctic Meltdown, How are they Connected? Prof. Jennifer Francis

Each year in the last three decades scientists have paid attention to the status of the ice at the end of the Arctic summer. In past years observations from satellites and submarines have shown decreasing ice thickness and area covered for the months from June to September. That has led to an ongoing debate whether and when the Arctic might be ice free in September.
But scientist are not the only interested parties. There is growing evidence of the connection between Arctic melting and weather events in the Northern Hemisphere, droughts, colds, heat-waves as well as flooding.
Dr. Jennifer Francis is Research Professor at Rutgers’ University Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences. Her interests are the Connections between rapid Arctic warming and [ . . . ]

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:01 — 19.9MB)

Rebecca Gordon on Nicaragua and Central America

an Interview by Community Radio host Jeffrey Blankfort
Dr. Rebecca Gordon begins with a short history of the Nicaraguan revolution since 1978/79. She describes what the Sandinistas had done for the people of Nicaragua in terms of health, education, and dignity, but is quick to point that neither Pres. Danny Ortega or today’s Sandinista movement bears any political resemblance to the Sandinistas of the 80s who captured the world’s imagination and ire of the United States, which has a long and ugly history of intervening in Nicaragua. In particular via the Honduras based and trained Contra.
She points out how Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo had come back into power after making political alliances with the extreme right; and [ . . . ]

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 19.9MB)

Coyote is The Government – The Fire Next Time?

Mr. Willard Rhodes, Itsatawi – Pit River As California burns in the summer of 2018 I remember the words of a Native American Elder. I met him 20 years ago at the gathering of the Pit River Tribes below Mount Shasta, California. Mr Willard Rhodes told me the story of Coyote who seduced the people into violating the laws of Nature and of right living and how Old Man, the Creator, responded.
It reminded me then – and even more so now – of the African American spiritual God gave Noah the rainbow sign, no more water, the fire next time! With one important difference.
In the story told by Willard Rhodes the Creator punishes transgressions by sending first the ice and [ . . . ]

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:01 — 19.9MB)

Kate Raworth: How modern economics has failed the poor –

and wrecked the earth while making a few people very rich
Renegade Economists – Rebroadcast
Kate Raworth says that economics dominate public policy and our decision-making for the future. It guides multi-billion-dollar investments, and shapes our responses to climate change, inequality, and other environmental and social challenges that define our times. However economic theories as taught today are centuries out of date. That’s why it is time, Raworth says, to revise our economic thinking for the 21st century.
From Kate Raworth’ 35 minute talk I chose her fascinating retelling of the history of economics from Adam Smith to Paul Samuelson and her indictment of neoliberalism, market fundamentalism and the universally imposed system of economic growth, expressed in the GPD, the Gross Domestic [ . . . ]

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 19.9MB)

Kate Raworth: Why it’s time for a new version of human prosperity