Author Archives: Maria

War, Peace & Climate Change – Questions and Answers

By MariaNovember 11, 20152015

with Professor Michael Klare (TWO of TWO)
After his talk at the Chicago Area Peace Action in October 2015 Professor Klare answered questions for almost an hour in an animated give and take.
Here are the best exchanges on climate and war; and why the Defense Department takes climate change very seriously; that the Navy prepares to lose their bases around the world to sea level rise, and why the conservative government of England is upset at their powerful Governor of the Bank of England. He said publicly that fossil fuels pose a rising risk to banking and insurance. Also included is an fascinating exchange over Jared Diamond’s book Collapse, and how it might apply to us today.
Professor Klare spoke at the [ . . . ]

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

War, Peace & Climate Change – Professor Michael Klare (ONE of TWO)

By MariaNovember 4, 20152015

This is the record of a meeting of the minds between an organization, Peace Action, that has worked for over 50 years on the abolition of nuclear weapons and war, and an activist professor. Michael Klare has written and taught on U.S. military policy, international peace and security affairs, the global arms trade, and global resource politics.
The question on everybody’s mind that night was – how are war and climate change related – And how can we find ways of addressing that dual danger by working on strategies of resolving both.
Michael Klare is Five College professor of peace and world security studies and a prolific author. The titles of just the last three of his books clearly delineate his expertise [ . . . ]

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

Ricarda Winkelmann: The Melting of Antarctica

By MariaOctober 28, 20152015Antarctic, Climate Change

A fairly unknown scientist – at least by US standards – took the lime light in major media in the US in September 2015. The New York Times – and also Democracy Now – quoted her this way:
“To be blunt: If we burn it all, we melt it all,” said Ricarda Winkelmann, the lead author of a paper entitled: “Combustion of available fossil fuel resources sufficient to eliminate the Antarctic Ice Sheet.” It was published on September 11, 2015, in the journal Science Advances.
Winkelmann is Juniorprofessor of Climate System Analysis at the prestigious Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. Her research areas are Anthropogenic climate change; Tipping elements; Antarctic ice dynamics and Sea-level rise.
The New York Times summed [ . . . ]

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

Obama’s Geopolitical Strategy for Containing China

By MariaOctober 20, 20152015

An interview with Professor Alfred McCoy
The historian Professor McCoy is an expert on U.S. foreign policy, the Philippines, Southeast Asia; global drug trafficking; and CIA covert operations.
He teaches at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and his September 2015 piece in Tom Dispatch “Grandmaster of the Great Game: Obama’s Geopolitical Strategy for Containing China,” stands in total contrast to the current views of media pundits as well as the Republican party.
They see Obama as weak, clueless, and indecisive in matters of foreign policy. McCoy provocatively places Obama among the limited number of presidents and public figures whose geopolitical skills – if he is allowed to succeed – will have transformed America’s global role.
In this interview McCoy takes listeners from [ . . . ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:57 — 19.9MB)

Melting Arctic Sea Ice

By MariaOctober 14, 20152015Arctic, Climate Change

with Cambridge Glaciology Professor Peter Wadhams (Part TWO of TWO)

Only days before professor Wadhams set off on his 2015 research voyage to the Arctic the UK blogger Nick Breeze did an interview with him, asking him about the latest data on the disappearing Arctic sea ice.
At the end of September 2015 we had just heard on the news that the sea ice minimum at the end of the Arctic summer was the fourth lowest on record. It stands at about half of the ice that used to cover the same area.
Peter Wadhams is Professor of Ocean Physics at the University of Cambridge, UK. With over 40 years of research on Arctic sea ice, icebergs and polar oceanography, he is considered [ . . . ]

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

Our Time is Running Out – The Arctic Sea Ice is Going!

By MariaOctober 7, 20152015Arctic, Climate Change

with Cambridge Glaciology Professor Peter Wadhams (Part ONE of TWO)
Peter Wadhams is Professor of Ocean Physics at the University of Cambridge, UK. With over 40 years of research on Arctic sea ice, icebergs and polar oceanography, he is considered one of the leading experts in his field.
Recently Wadhams has gone public on an additional danger related to the loss of sea ice. The Arctic summer ends in September and observations show a tendency of shrinking ice followed by a dramatic lack of re-growth of ice during the subsequent Arctic winter. Wadhams has made studies from submarines that show that the new ice is thin and slushy and easily broken up by winds. An ice free Arctic in September would accelerate [ . . . ]

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

Vandana Shiva’s Celebration of Gandhi’s Home Rule; Part TWO of TWO

By MariaSeptember 30, 20152015GMOs, Organic Farming

This is the conclusion of the one hour talk by the Indian physicist, ecologist, author and seed saver Vandana Shiva.
This part of her speech is an indictment of industrial agriculture – much of it based on her research into the Green Revolution and her work with the Indian government and the UN.
Monsanto claims that Glyphosate can’t harm humans because we do not have the shikimate pathway that plants and bacteria have. Shiva says what they ignore – or deliberately not tell us – is that the human body is made up of 600 trillion cells – most of which are bacteria. Many of the trillions of bacteria in our bodies and especially inside our gut are affected by the Roundup [ . . . ]

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

Vandana Shiva’s Celebration of Gandhi’s Home Rule; Part ONE of TWO

By MariaSeptember 23, 20152015

Dr. Vandana Shiva is a philosopher, environmental activist and eco feminist. She is the co- founder and director of the Navdanya Research Foundation and the author of numerous books including, Soil Not Oil, Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis, and Stolen Harvest, The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply.
It was an extraordinary experience to hear her speak in the standing room only Little Lake Valley Grange in a very small former logging town in Northern California. Willits maintains one of the earliest successful economic Localization Projects.
Vandana Shiva had been invited by the Charter Project of Mendocino. If the voters approve, Mendocino would be joining Counties such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Santa Clara and San Mateo and [ . . . ]

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

RISING SEA LEVELS – Causes, Data and a Look into the Future

By MariaSeptember 15, 20152015

NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, has over 20 years of data on sea level rise in the oceans of the world. They give regular public updates and you will hear from four of their scientists who reported in a teleconference on August 26, 2015.
Sea level rise, NASA scientists say, is already occurring. The open question is just how quickly the seas will rise in the future. The consequences of global sea level rise could be more serious than the worst-case scenarios predicted by the dominant climate models and the IPCC, which don’t fully account for the accelerating breakup of ice sheets and glaciers.
With:
— Michael Freilich, director of NASA’s Earth Science Division
— Steve Nerem, lead for NASA’s Sea Level [ . . . ]

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

The loss of West Antarctic Glaciers – Interview with Prof. Eric Rignot

By MariaSeptember 8, 20152015Antarctic, Climate Change

Repeat of June 2014 Broadcast
The world was shocked in May 2014 when NASA announced that parts of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet appear to be in an irreversible decline. That area holds 4 feet of sea level rise. This rebroadcast prepares for an update of the melting – one year later. Eric Rignot is one of the lead scientists in this project. I called him on May 23, 2014 to find out how the teams arrived at these data:
Interview on Remote Sensing Technology with Professor Eric Rignot. He teaches Earth System Science at UC Irvine and is a glaciologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena
A new study by Professor Eric Rignot and researchers at NASA and the University of [ . . . ]

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

Witness to the Melting of the Greenland Ice – An Inuit Elder Speaks (updated)

By MariaSeptember 1, 20152015

During construction of the ceremonial fire pit for the 2008 second circumpolar meeting, an Inuit elder allowed his one on one conversation to be recorded. This is a moving and wise comment on our common future. In his carefully chosen expression in English lies the urgency in which he attempts to reach out to the Western “Civilizations” – urging us to understand the Inuit plight while at the same time grasping that our own survival is at stake as well. Movingly he also expresses his fears and at times despair to reach us in the West before it is too late for us all.
When I first heard his voice in 2007 I wished I could move radio stations to play [ . . . ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:59 — 19.9MB)

The Climate Deception Dossiers – Our Common Future Under Climate Change FOUR

By MariaAugust 26, 20152015

Internal Fossil Fuel Industry Memos Reveal Decades of Corporate Disinformation
In July 2015 the Union of Concerned Scientists published the Climate Deception Dossiers. After years of research, whistle-blowing and Freedom of Information Requests a truly sordid picture emerges of fossil fuel corporations internally admitting that climate change is real while at the same time spending millions of dollars to buy scientists who say climate change is a hoax. These bought-off scientists and politicians make statements such as: the sun makes things warmer, not humans or CO2 – and anyway CO2 is good for you and agriculture.
The Deception Dossiers report the theft of letterheads of reputable organizations such as the NAACP and the American Association of University Women. Forged letters that [ . . . ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:59 — 19.9MB)

Hurricane Katrina and the War on the Poor (from Archive)

By MariaAugust 18, 20152015

SF Paramedics Prevented, at Gun Point, from Rescuing Themselves and Others
After being turned away from shelters they and a large group of African Americans try and walk to safety. Gretna Sheriffs block the Greater New Orleans Bridge across the Mississippi and shoot over their heads when they try to leave the flooded city. Later their temporary shelter is destroyed by a helicopter, a police officer, gun drawn, threatens them in a furious rage and takes away their food and water. Just before night he forces the group to flee into the night of a ‘shoot to kill’ curfew in New Orleans.
When they finally get picked up they, and thousands of others, sit in a dirty cage at the New [ . . . ]

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

Our Common Future Under Climate Change – Part THREE – Kevin Anderson

By MariaAugust 12, 20152015

From the July 7-10 conference held in Paris
Professor Anderson, Professor of Energy and Climate Change at the University of Manchester, UK, says that we need to immediately begin a drastic scale down of carbon emissions to prevent a collapse of the climate system. The Copenhagen Accord of 2010 stated that the increase in global temperature needs to be held below 2 degrees Celsius in order to avoid dangerous climate change. Anderson says that by postponing carbon reduction we are already on our way to a 4 degree Celsius warming.
In advanced economies, a reduction of emissions of between 80-95% from the 1990 baseline is needed, according to a Tyndall Centre working paper. And as much as half of the world’s [ . . . ]

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

Our Common Future Under Climate Change – Part TWO – John Schellnhuber

By MariaAugust 5, 20152015

From the July 7-10 conference held in Paris
Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber expressed the urgency and the scale of the problem we have to solve: In order to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius we need to bring about the end of the carbon economy over the next 20 or 30 years. Otherwise we have not the slightest chance of avoiding dangerous climate change.
Schellnhuber says that we live in a deadly economy that destroys the world and are currently making the choice whether to live instead in an economy that is protecting creation. And even if we cannot change the supply side immediately due to the power of corporations we can begin by changing demand through a global social [ . . . ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:59 — 19.9MB)