Author Archives: Maria

Julia Whitty – For Love and Protection of the Deep Ocean (TWO of TWO)

By MariaOctober 18, 20162016

This is the second part of a one hour reading and commentary by Julia Whitty on her book: Deep Blue Home. She is a diver, former nature documentary filmmaker, author and investigative journalist. As environmental correspondent for Mother Jones she had just returned from the Gulf Coast when I met her in Sebastopol, CA, in early August 2010. Not only had she visited the marshlands but she spent time with researchers who do deep ocean work on the so-called scattering layer.
In part ONE of this program Whitty gave a scholarly, lyrical and moving account of the unknown and unprotected life in the deep ocean. This largest and richest ecosystem left on Earth presents the foundation of life for the creatures [ . . . ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:58 — 19.9MB)

Julia Whitty – For Love and Protection of the Deep Ocean

By MariaOctober 12, 2016The ocean

I met Julia Whitty in August 2010 after her investigation of the Deepwater Horizon Disaster. This is an updated program of a memorable evening triggered by the August 2016 release of the movie: Deepwater Horizon that makes no mention of the ecological consequences.
In a small Northern California town where she lives she was giving a reading from her book: Deep Blue Home, An Intimate Ecology of Our Wild Ocean. That book had been described as: “breathtakingly learned and lyrical, written with humor, reverence and curiosity.”
Julia Whitty is a diver, former nature documentary filmmaker, author and environmental correspondent for Mother Jones. She explained why the deep ocean is the foundation of life for the upper layer of the sunlit sea. Many [ . . . ]

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

Podcast (file2): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:58 — 19.9MB)

Julia Whitty – For Love and Protection of the Deep Ocean (ONE of TWO)

By MariaOctober 12, 20162016

I met Julia Whitty in August 2010 after her investigation of the Deepwater Horizon Disaster. This is an updated program of a memorable evening triggered by the August 2016 release of the movie: Deepwater Horizon that makes no mention of the ecological consequences.
In a small Northern California town where she lives she was giving a reading from her book: Deep Blue Home, An Intimate Ecology of Our Wild Ocean. That book had been described as: “breathtakingly learned and lyrical, written with humor, reverence and curiosity.”
Julia Whitty is a diver, former nature documentary filmmaker, author and environmental correspondent for Mother Jones.
She explained why the deep ocean is the foundation of life for the upper layer of the sunlit sea. Many whales, [ . . . ]

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

Sea Shepherd Ocean Protectors – Captain Paul Watson

By MariaOctober 4, 2016Environment and Climate Change

This is ONE self contained program
Paul Watson was cofounder of Greenpeace and led the campaigns against the slaughter of baby seals in the late seventies. When Patrick Moore became president of Greenpeace Canada he halted direct action and forced Watson out. Today Patrick Moore is a spokesperson for Monsanto and the nuclear industry.
Paul Watson never stopped his involvement in direct action. After his ouster from Greenpeace he founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. (SSCS) It’s an international non-profit, marine wildlife conservation organization. Their mission is to end the destruction of habitat and the slaughter of wildlife in the world’s oceans.
Paul Watson is both praised and criticized for Sea Shepherd’s practice of aggressive non-violence. He says that some laws and conventions [ . . . ]

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

Sea Shepherd Ocean Protectors – Captain Paul Watson

By MariaOctober 4, 20162016

Paul Watson was co founder of Greenpeace and led the campaigns against the slaughter of baby seals in the late seventies. When Patrick Moore became president of Greenpeace Canada he halted direct action and forced Watson out. Today Patrick Moore is a spokesperson for Monsanto and the nuclear industry.
Paul Watson never stopped his involvement in direct action. After his ouster from Greenpeace he founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. (SSCS) It’s an international non-profit, marine wildlife conservation organization. Their mission is to end the destruction of habitat and the slaughter of wildlife in the world’s oceans.
Paul Watson is both praised and criticized for Sea Shepherd’s practice of aggressive non-violence. He says that some laws and conventions exist to protect the [ . . . ]

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

Arctic Amplification, Climate Change, and Global Warming – New Challenges from the Top of the World

By MariaSeptember 21, 2016Melting IceArctic, Climate Change

Professor Peter Wadhams
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 of the Arctic affects the rest of the world. He listed seven major areas, among them sea level rise, emission of methane, and extreme weather events that we already experience.
Peter Wadhams is the UK’s most experienced sea ice scientist. He has made more than [ . . . ]

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

Podcast (file2): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 19.9MB)

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: Sustainable Development and Deep Decarbonization

By MariaSeptember 7, 2016Environment and Climate Change

How the world lost a quarter century in the quest to get to zero carbon emissions, protect biodiversity, alleviate poverty and bring about sustainability for all.
Jeffrey D. Sachs is a world renowned professor of economics, leader in sustainable development, senior UN advisor, bestselling author and syndicated columnist. His monthly newspaper columns appear in more than 100 countries.
He is the co-recipient of the 2015 Blue Planet Prize. That’s the global prize for environmental leadership. The New York Times called him “probably the most important economist in the world.”
Sachs was appointed University Professor at Columbia University in 2016, and also serves as Professor of Sustainable Development, and of Health Policy and Management at Columbia. Prior to joining Columbia, Sachs spent over twenty [ . . . ]

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

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: Sustainable Development and Deep Decarbonization

By MariaSeptember 7, 20162016

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

The Dublin Interview with Professor Kevin Anderson (TWO of TWO)

By MariaAugust 31, 20162016

This conclusion of the one hour interview covers Anderson’s intriguing proposal for carbon rationing; the fifth great extinction; the miserably small amount of money offered to the non-industrialized countries in the global climate fund; and it poses a provocative challenge to all of us: Are we choosing climate disaster or are we choosing a way out that requires courage and dramatic changes to the way we live? Because given the reality of our time and the clear state of science, says Kevin Anderson, this is the decision we are making now – not in 5 or 10 or 20 years. If we continue CO2 emissions as we do now it will be too late – possibly as early as in [ . . . ]

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

The Dublin Interview with Professor Kevin Anderson (ONE of TWO)

By MariaAugust 24, 20162016

At the Paris Climate Talks in 2015 195 countries made pledges how to keep global warming under 2 degrees Celsius – or even better 1.5 degrees. However there is very little information as to how or if at all – these pledges are being honored.
Kevin Anderson is Professor of Energy and Climate Change at the University of Manchester, and Deputy Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.
In March 2016 he came for a whirl wind speaking tour of Ireland and sat down for an interview in Dublin with John Gibbons from the National Trust for Ireland. Gibbons calls Anderson one of the world’s best known and most influential – and outspoken – climate specialists.
Here is the first part [ . . . ]

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

The Project for the New American Century (TWO of TWO)

By MariaAugust 16, 20162016

Updated Archival Program
On the enduring power of the neo-conservative movement in the US
This is the conclusion of the reading of a once well guarded document “Rebuilding America’s Defenses, Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New American Century”. It was commissioned by Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and others in the year 2000, before any of them were in government. Named in the text are the countries to be invaded: On the A-list: Iraq, Syria, Libya and later Iran and North Korea. This is evidence that the invasion of Iraq on false “intelligence” was promoted – successfully one might say – by a neo-conservative interventionist movement of which Cheney and Rumsfeld were two important players among many who are still active. [ . . . ]

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

The Project for the New American Century

By MariaAugust 10, 2016Imperial US

A reading from the document by Mime Troupe founder R.G. Davis
Introduced by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti
The paper was commissioned by Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and others in the year 2000, before any of them were in government. The think tank, the Project for the New American Century, produced a blueprint for a system of world-wide US military dominance and intervention. The document remained secret until 2002 when it was discovered by the Scottish Sunday Herald.
The program opens with the peace poem: “Speak Out” by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, features General John Allen’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton for president with Bernie Sanders supporters shouting “no more war”; and ends with a reading by SF Mime Troupe founder R.G. Davis from the bone [ . . . ]

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

Podcast (file2): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:01 — 19.9MB)

The Project for the New American Century (ONE of TWO)

By MariaAugust 10, 20162016

Updated Archival Program
The enduring power of the Neo-conservative movement in the US
The program opens with the peace poem: “Speak Out” by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, features General John Allen’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton for president with Bernie Sanders supporters shouting “no more war”; and ends with a reading by SF Mime Troupe founder R.G. Davis from the bone chilling neo-con plan for US global military dominance.
The original 2003 program by TUC Radio was an appeal for peace and a disclosure of a well guarded document “Rebuilding America’s Defenses, Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New American Century”. The document was commissioned by Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and others in the year 2000, before any of them were in government. Named in [ . . . ]

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

From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima, Arjun Makhijani (Part TWO of TWO)

By MariaAugust 2, 20162016

Hiroshima Day Archival Special
Makhijani asks how it had been possible to exclude almost all military and civilian leaders of the WWII war effort from the Pentagon to the US government, including even the Vice President, and all but a handful of members of Congress, from knowing about and influencing the Manhattan Project.
Among the few in charge was the engineer and inventor Vannevar Bush. He was the first presidential science advisor and coordinated around 6,000 scientists working on war technologies. Bush was director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) in the Roosevelt White House, the very organization that initiated the Manhattan Project.
Notes: Makhijani has written books and articles on the nuclear fuel cycle, weapons production, testing, workers’ exposure [ . . . ]

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

From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima, Arjun Makhijani (Part ONE of TWO)

By MariaJuly 26, 20162016

Hiroshima Day Archival Special
Arjun Makhijani is an extraordinary and rare mix of nuclear scientist, historian and socially engaged philosopher. I’m presenting him every two years because his analysis is embedded in rarely scrutinized facts and remains shockingly timely:
Disarmament is more urgently needed now that nuclear weapons have spread far beyond the original weapons states and there are even voices in Japan today that call for nuclear weapons. And Makhijani shows that we can only find the path back from the abyss if we are clear and honest about how nuclear weapons were invented and first used. And there is much information in this talk that has been shunned or kept secret.
Questions raised in this part are: Why was the US [ . . . ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:58 — 19.9MB)