Author Archives: Maria

What Makes Our Lights Go On?

The environmental impacts of large dams and reservoirs
Jacques Leslie is a foreign correspondent turned non-fiction writer who once covered the war on Vietnam for the Los Angeles Times. When he did a cover story for Harper’s Magazine, entitled “Running Dry: What Happens When the World No Longer Has Enough Freshwater?” he began a lasting involvement with the environmental and political issues of water. What Jacques Leslie discovered when he wrote for Harper’s was that “At the core of every argument about water are dams, the modern pyramids, generators of extravagantly apportioned electricity, water storage, and environmental and social disasters …“
Some dams are so huge that they can be seen from space. Dams have shifted so much weight towards the equator [ . . . ]

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Mountaintop Removal In Kentucky

What makes our lights go on?
In September 2006 the poet Wendell Berry, in the company of two members of Kentuckians For The Commonwealth, came to Marin County in Northern California. Coal companies have destroyed one million acres of mountain land and forests and buried 700 miles of streams in order to strip mine coal. Much of that coal is used to produce electricity.
Part ONE: Wendell Berry and Michael Pollan
Part TWO: Teri Blanton and Burt Lauderdale of Kentuckians For The Commonwealth
Wendell Berry grew up on a farm in Kentucky, taught creative writing in college and returned to farming in 1965. He is a prolific author of novels, short stories, poems, and essays. Michael Pollan has written books and articles [ . . . ]

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Dangers of Climate Change

Order the three hour set of this six part series
$6 off for THREE CDs click HERE:  $24.00
$4 off for THREE TAPES click HERE $21.00
This SIX-part series is based on audio recordings of the Hadley Centre/MET Office/Exeter/England
In early February of 2005 a headline appeared in the London Independent. It said: “How Mankind Is Sleepwalking to The End Of The Earth; floods, storms and droughts, melting Arctic ice, shrinking glaciers, oceans turning to acid. The world’s top scientists warned last week that dangerous climate change is taking place today, not the day after tomorrow.” The award winning environmental writer Geoffrey Lean wrote these words.
The conference was called: Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change and it was held by request [ . . . ]

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The Bush Wars on Climate Science

Speakers: Myron Ebell, Senator Inhofe, Prof. Chris Rapley
How the Bush Administration undermined climate science and even prevented an agreement on limits of CO2 emissions at the G8 meeting in Scotland. (Myron Ebell and Sen. Inhofe) Also: How science tells us more about the accelerated collapse of earth systems than ever before (Chris Rapley)
For a broadcast quality mp3 version of Part FIVE with Leemans/Turley click HERE
For a broadcast quality mp3 version of Part SIX with Bush Climate Skeptics and Prof. Rapley click HERE
code: A270 To order a cassette copy click here: $8.00
code A270CD: To order a CD click here: $10.00

Is Nuclear Power Coming Back?

A four-part mini-series based on a briefing, on November 7 and 8, 2005,
by Dr. Helen Caldicott’s organization, the Nuclear Policy Research Institute
http://www.nuclearpolicy.org/
You can order single CDs below or get the set of this series at a reduced rate:
TWO CDs with 2 hours of programming click here: $18.00
TWO cassettes with 2 hours of programming click here: $18.00
For a 32 page TRANSCRIPT of the full series PLUS the amazing talk by Noam Chomsky on the
ARMAGEDDON OF OUR OWN MAKING click here: $10.00
Anti nuclear campaigner Dr. Helen Caldicott invited scientists, members of the Bush administration, and journalists for a two-day conference to address the following issues:  What is the connection between nuclear power and war, [ . . . ]

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Derrick Jensen: Bringing Down Civilization

Derrick Jensen wrote in his early book: “Listening to the Land”: “We are members of the most destructive culture ever to exist. Our assault on the natural world, on indigenous and other cultures, on women, on children, on all of us through the possibility of nuclear suicide –all these are unprecedented in their magnitude and ferocity.” And he follows that with a question: “Why do we act as we do? What are sane and effective responses to outrageously destructive behavior? What will it take for us to stop the horrors that characterize our way of  being? My work and life revolve around these questions. “
When I recorded him in the Oakland, California warehouse of AK Press, Derrick Jensen asked that [ . . . ]

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Fast Food World

Vandana Shiva, Wendell Berry, Eric Schlosser, Carlo Petrini & Michael Pollan (3 parts)
Three out of every five Americans are now overweight. Children who eat fast food every day gain an extra 6 pounds every year. It now appears likely that – for the first time in American history – our children will actually have a shorter life span than their parents.
This program about fast food is not just about the fact that grease, sugar, and extra calories make us fat and sick. It is about the giant industries behind fast food that change not only our bodies but the body of the earth and the lives of farmers who traditionally grew our foods.
With a cast of real stars: The physicist [ . . . ]

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Howard Lyman And Mad Cows

His lone fight against some giants of industrial agriculture
(chemical manufacturers and cattle growers)
The Montana rancher Howard Lyman first came to world attention in 1998. He and Ophra Winfrey had been sued by Texas cattlemen and feedlot operators because Lyman had said, on the Ophra show, that mad cow disease might already be in the US. Since Lyman’s warning the first case of mad cow disease has been confirmed in the US. In Part TWO Lyman says we are till feeding cows to cows and test less than 1% of slaughtered cows while Japan is testing every cow.
In Part ONE Lyman explains what chemical agriculture did to his farm, his family and himself, and what gave him the strength to keep [ . . . ]

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Laurie Garrett: Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance

code: H201 To order a copy click here: $8.00
The Coming Plague is an extraordinary first-hand account of the spread and mutation of carriers of infectious diseases and the emergence of new, often deadly, viruses . She comments on the impact of global warming, urbanization, and the contamination of our food supply.

Howard Lyman with Dr. Virgil Hulse

code: H202 To order a copy click here: $8.00
Howard Lyman and Dr. Virgil Hulse discuss whether we can afford to continue our current eating habits. Dr. Hulse was one of the advisors to the Oprah Winfrey lawsuit. He is a family doctor and former dairy inspector who warns of widespread infestation of US cow herds by bovine leukemia and the bovine AIDS virus.
 

Mary O’Brien on Endocrine Disruptors

code: H203 To order a copy click here: $8.00
Do chemicals that affect our hormones cause cancer? Dr. Mary O’Brien is a public-interest scientist who works on alternatives to chlorinated and endocrine-disrupting chemicals. She spoke at a gathering of Marin Breast Cancer Watch, a group dedicated to exploring the environmental causes of cancer.
 

Sandra Steingraber on Living Downstream

code: H204 To order a copy click here: $8.00
Sandra Steingraber is called the new Rachel Carson. She is a biologist, poet, and survivor of cancer. Her scrupulously researched book, Living Downstream, describes the growing body of evidence linking cancer to environmental contamination.
 

Terri Swearingen

code: H205 To order a copy click here: $8.00
Terri Swearingen is a woman of passion, wit, and integrity. She refers to herself as an ordinary housewife and mother. She rose to lead the fight for closure of the nation’s largest toxic-waste incinerator, located in East Liverpool, Ohio — just 1,100 feet from an elementary school.
 

Dangers of Cell Phones and Towers

code: H207 To order a copy click here: $8.00
The rapid build-out of the wireless communications system and digital TV exposes people to thousands of new antenna sites. Growing evidence links radio frequency exposure to cancer. How can community groups protect themselves? What does the current research show? 50 minutes.