Oil to Occupy: The Restless West Coast

http://bit.ly/waNOYN "Oil Free Coast" 3 speakers against Tar Sands pipelines and tankers in Canada, including First Nations. Then on-scene audio from Occupy Wall St West in San Francisco Jan 20th. Awaiting arrest, and crowd microphones against corporate takeover.

Two weeks ago on Radio Ecoshock we heard from Australia and the distant past. Last week a top British scientist warned us of super-dangerous climate change.

Now we head for the restless West Coast of North America.

In Canada, trillion-dollar corporations and countries are desperately searching for a way to ship dirty Tar Sands crude, after the Obama administration said "No" to the Keystone XL pipeline. They want to build a new pipeline across the Rocky Mountains, across countless rivers and wilderness, across native lands.

And two Texas billionaires are plotting to turn the once green city of Vancouver into a major oil shipping port.

They want to make more billions polluting the atmosphere and changing the climate forever.

You will hear three speakers in a packed public meeting promise neither plot will succeed.

Then we'll take to the streets of San Francisco, with as-it-happens audio during the Occupy Wall Street West protests. Our Bay Area correspondent Karen Nyhus interviews environmentalist Ananda Tan as he waits with locked arms to be arrested. Then the risky radio the mainstream won't dare: you are there as the crowd microphone chants the words of Ted Nace, on the Court House steps, demanding justice. That's in our second half hour.

From tanker mania to Wall Street greed, I'm Alex Smith, and this is Radio Ecoshock.

OIL FREE COAST

On Sunday January 22nd I recorded "Oil Free Coast, Tankers and Pipelines" at the Roundhouse Community Centre in downtown Vancouver, Canada. The event began with the voice of an amazing ten-year-old singer and song-writer, little Ta' Kaiya Blaney, the First Nations wonder. I'll play you a minute of her anti-tanker song "Shallow Water" - then we'll go to our speakers Art Sterritt, Rex Weyler and Nathan Cullen.

Listen to the whole song. Here are links to the You tube video of "Shallow Waters" and the Ta' Kaiya Blaney web site.

More details on the song and recording from You tube:

"10 year old Ta'Kaiya Blaney is Sliammon First Nation from B.C., Canada. Along with singing, songwriting, and acting, she is concerned about the environment, especially the preservation of marine and coastal wildlife. Shallow Waters was a semi-finalist in the 2010 David Suzuki Songwriting Contest, Playlist for the Planet. The song was recorded in studio by Audio Producer Joe Cruz. Footage from Vancouver, BC was filmed by Colter Ripley. Footage of the traditional ocean-going canoe from the Squamish Nation (Burrard Inlet, North Vancouver, BC) ; Ta'Kaiya in traditional cedar bark regalia (Tofino, BC); the Oil Refinery in Burrard Inlet; and the Vancouver Aquarium was filmed by Tina House. Additional footage contributed from Canada Greenpeace and Living Oceans Society. Lyrics on Drychum channel."

Ta' Kaiya belted it out live at the Roundhouse, surprising us with such a strong adult voice from a small young singer. She will wow delegates at the Rio 2012 Conference. Also look for her song "Earth Revolution".


THE NORTH TAR SANDS PIPELINE

Let's start with the northern pipeline, proposed by the Enbridge Corporation, crossing thousands of miles of mountains and wilderness, reaching from the climate-killing Tar Sands to the delicate fjords of Canada's West Coast. Our host is Linda Kemp, a sustainable living expert from Langara College.

[Art Sterritt presentation]

That was Coastal First Nations leader Art Sterritt, recorded January 22nd, in Vancouver, Canada by Alex Smith. The event "Oil Free Coast, Tankers and Pipelines" was at the Roundhouse Community Centre in downtown Vancouver. It was presented by Coastal First Nations, and by Member of Parliament Nathan Cullen.

Sterritt gave a very moving speech, saying British Columbia was an organism where all its "arteries" are rivers that flow West from the Rockies to the sea. Everything about the First Nations life and rights is at stake, should one of these pipelines leak into the headwaters of the two most productive salmon runs in the world: the Fraser River run, and the Skeena River run.

The whole richness of coastal life, plus the food supply for First Nations people, would be wrecked by a single big tanker accident. Sterritt says the 10 major coastal First Nations have united, along with environmentalists, municipal governments and unions to oppose the construction of the Enbridge pipeline to Kitimat, on the North-Central coast of British Columbia.

That represents a huge sacrifice by some of the poorest people in Canada. Many First Nations people still live below the poverty line, with unclean water, and improper housing. The billions of dollars in bribes likely on offer by Enbridge, and the pro-oil Canadian government, still haven’t brought the aboriginal people to accept the dangers of oil.

Sterritt says he and his people went to Louisiana to talk to fisher people there, after the BP oil spill. They learned from what happened when another Enbridge pipeline broke in Kalamazoo, Michigan. They investigated ship wrecks in Australia.

But really, Sterritt and the Git-Gat people didn't have to leave home to know what oil damage is about. A British Columbia ferry called "The Queen of the North" hit an island just across from their home, Hartley Bay. Oil leaked out for more than a month, wrecking local clam beaches and more. That was despite having the most modern navigation equipment. The wreck was more or less on the same route super-tankers are expected to travel, in some of the stormiest waters on Earth.

This is Radio Ecoshock, the "restless West Coast" edition. You are listening to three speakers at a packed public rally to stop pipelines and tankers from wrecking the pristine wilderness of British Columbia, and the beautiful city of Vancouver.

STOPPING VANCOUVER FROM BECOMING A TAR SANDS SUPER PORT

[Rex Weyler]

Rex Weyler is a co-founder and historian of Greenpeace. He is now working with the group Tanker Free BC to stop the threat of mega tankers to the west coast, the fragile Georgia Strait, and the port of Vancouver. Find out more at tankerfreebc.org.

Rex and other friends started noticing more and more tankers were coming into the part of Vancouver harbor known as Burrard Inlet. They were heading to B.C.'s only oil refinery, deep down this narrow passageway.

Then the more right-wing B.C. government decided to sell off publicly owned assets to private investors. They sold the gas distribution company, "B.C. Gas". Two Texas
billionaires, named Kinder and Morgan, bought the pipeline rights. Kinder was a lawyer and lead council for Enron, the company that went bankrupt, among a wave of criminal charges for fraud.

These two foreign billionaires decided, without any public consultation, and in many cases without even notifying local governments, to start shipping Tar Sands crude from Alberta to Vancouver through their pipelines. They have been increasing capacity, and hope to reach from 500,000 to 700,000 barrels a day. That would mean one super-tanker a day going out of Vancouver harbor.

It would only take one accident to wreck "the green city" with its famous Stanley Park, its beaches, and multi-million dollar ocean-front real estate.

The Sierra Club has set up an app for cell phones which will notify anyone every time a tanker leaves the Burrard refinery docks. Tankerfreebc is gearing up to stop Vancouver from becoming the Tar Sands outlet to China. Nobody living here wants Vancouver to become a major oil port, especially now that we are being hit with climate change.

CANADIAN PM STEPHEN HARPER CALLS ENVIRONMENTALISTS PUPPETS OF THE AMERICANS

Now the politics of promoting Tar Sands oil - and the voices for sanity. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper just claimed all Canadians who oppose the Tar Sands are just puppets for big American foundations. He questions the national loyalty of any critics, and threatens the environmental review required by law.

Harper calls all concerned citizens of British Columbia as "radical environmentalists" (and maybe "an enemy of the state").

Check out this video of the "Ethical Oil" tar sands lobby calling environmentalists mere agents for American foundations. They don't mention the two Texan billionaires pushing oil tankers through Vancouver, and the $20 billion dollars investment by China into the Tar sands. Who are the foreign influencers the Prime Minister hears?

Here is another story, where the Environment Minister, who is supposed to represent all Canadians, not just oil companies, says "radical groups" are trying to sabotage the Canadian economy. His remarks are extraordinary and never before heard from any government Minister. How much can we trust the Enbridge Pipeline environmental review process now - now that the Minister has called it a waste of time!

According to CBC News... these "radical environmentalists" ..."threaten to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda," stack the hearings with people to delay or kill "good projects," attract "jet-setting" celebrities and use funding from "foreign special interest groups."

Our next speaker is from the leading opposition New Democratic Party, or the NDP. Nathan Cullen is a Member of the National Parliament, and a candidate for the leadership of the NDP, currently Canada's largest opposition party. He lives in Smithers British Columbia, in the North, right where the pipeline will impact all of his constituents. And his constituents are very vocal - they don't want this pipeline!

[Cullen speech]

Cullen's description of the route these giant tankers must take to get out of Kitimat, which is at the head of a very long fjord. It includes "two 90 degree hair-pin turns". And during the lifetime of the pipeline and port, about 50,000 tanker trips would have to be made flawlessly, with no drunken captains, no show-of captains, no mechanical failure, no great storm (that
"nobody could have foreseen that").

When they make it out of the storied "inside passage" (where a multi-billion dollar cruise ship industry is threatened by a spill) - then these tankers head into Dixon Straight. That is where some of the strongest winds and highest waves in the world have been recorded.

What could go wrong?

Stay tuned for our on-the-streets radical radio from the San Francisco Wall Street West protest, January 20th.

Welcome back to the Radio Ecoshock restless West Coast edition. Now we're going to break the rules of radio. When people take to the streets in protest, your mainstream media gives you a glimpse, with maybe a chant in the background, while a reporter in a suit or dress tells you what it means.

Not here. We're going to start with an interview of environmentalist Ananda Tan as he sits, with his arms locked with other protesters, waiting for arrest outside the Bank of America in San Francisco. Risking her own person and equipment, is Radio Ecoshock Bay Area correspondent Karen Nyhus.

Amid the chaos of waiting for arrest, with folks dropping in, Karen keeps Ananda talking, about the risk these "too big to fail" corporations pose to us all. He is a member of the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, of Rising Tide (which is going to open an office in Vancouver), and of the group "Mobilization for Climate Justice".

Here is a print report on the protests, from "The Progressive".

Now I'm going to make it hard and fun for you.

We'll take to the streets of San Francisco with Karen Nyhus to hear green American author Ted Nace. Except in the soggy crowd of a rainy day, you can't hear him. There is no microphone on the Court House steps. Just a crowd microphone. I think it works, involving the people, not as passive listeners, but as participants in the speech. Let me know what you think.

Just before we hear Ted, the first speaker is Abraham Entin from Move To Amend.

Hear it as it happened.

That was a distant Ted Nace, author and environmentalist, passed on by the crowds at the San Francisco Occupy Wall Street West protest January 20th. It was a skunky rainy day. So Ted Nace began this parable, about the people with wet feet, and the corporations who can never know that experience.

My thanks to Radio Ecoshock Bay area correspondent Karen Nyhus for braving the elements and the police to get those on-the-street recordings from the Occupy Wall Street Protests.

If you violate copyright, you go to jail. If you violate people's home ownership, their pension plans, and their economy - no problem. Take a hundred million on your way out the door, and head out for the next scam. Until the people demand so loudly, so often, with such determination, that justice will be done.

I'm Alex Smith for Radio Ecoshock. Thank you for joining us.

Kevin Anderson: The Brutal Logic of Climate Change

http://bit.ly/wulkTw "The future is impossible" says Dr. Kevin Anderson, former Director of UK's top climate research institute, the Tyndall Centre. Speech in London lays out our awful tilt toward an unlivable climate. Followed by discussion with Washington's Dr. William Calvin.

Welcome. I'm Alex. Are you ready for the bad news about climate change? Really?

I'm going to play you a speech too awful to run during the holidays. People with clinical depression and very young children may want to avoid this program.

It's also going to be a challenge for our many North American listeners, because our speaker is Kevin Anderson. From his recent post as Director of the Tyndall Centre, the UK's top academic institute researching climate change, Anderson speaks quickly, says a lot, and holds nothing back.

This lecture is part of the London School of Economics Department of International Development Friday Lecture Series. The title is "Beyond 'dangerous' climate change: emission scenarios for a new world" Anderson calls it "the brutal logic of climate change."

This talk set up a blaze of urgency, and a stiff warning to people and governments: we are failing to address the greatest challenge ever faced by humanity. Something unimaginable is happening.

Following this edited-for-radio speech, I'll chat again with Professor William Calvin from the University of Washington. He sees the bleakness, but offers a grain of hope.

I'm going to throw you into the deep end with this one. I suggest you download the program from our web site at ecoshock.org, or find links in the blog at ecoshock.info. Things are not what they seem.

This speech courtesy of the London School of Economics Lecture Series was recorded October 21st, 2011.

The subtitle for this talk is "Brutal Numbers and Tenuous Hope".

Dave Roberts of Grist wrote two articles about the implications of this talk, which he called "The Brutal Logic of Climate Change". Try this one, and this one.

Find a .pdf of Kevin Anderson's pivotal paper on our near hopeless situation of unfolding climate change here.

A recording of the original speech, running 1 hour 28 minutes with a Q and A is here.

And you can find the slides for that here.

To get a written summary, I can't do better than the Dave Roberts Grist articles linked above. Dave even throws in some helpful graphs.

My own conclusions from this speech could be:

1. The 2 degree target (keeping below 2 degrees of global mean temperature rise to prevent dangerous climate change) is quite arbitrary, and likely too high. As Dr. James Hansen of NASA points out, we should be at 350 parts per million CO2 to keep the Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets which moderate our climate. In previous history, levels higher than that triggered melting of the ice sheets, and eventually a much hotter greenhouse world. We are currently at 390 ppm and rising fast.

2. That 2 degree target is no guarantee of a "safe" climate, but just a 50% chance of staying within merely "dangerous" climate change, and "extremely dangerous climate change".

3. As we are almost 1 degree above pre-industrial times already, with at least 1 degree hidden by aerosol pollution (including sulfates from world coal plants) - it may already be too late to stay at 2 degrees.

4. The RATE of increase of our emissions is steadily going up, meaning the dangerous impacts of climate change keep getting closer and closer to us in time. Not 2050, but sooner. Yet government reports keep assuming 1 or 2% increase in emissions, when we are generally increasing at 3% over the past few years, and hit almost 6% in 2010. That is a 6 % increase over the increasingly high emissions during all the past years.

5. Kevin Anderson is particularly critical of all the government assessments which low-ball the emissions and the impacts. He says some climate scientists try to tell politicians, but those warnings are polished up as they rise through the ranks. Top ministers don't want to hear we may have to accept grave austerity, and a halt to growth, since they are promising growth as a way out of economic recession. But more growth means higher emissions. Period.

6. There are also a crew of scientists who make the situation sound more rosy or hopeful, when they will admit later, over a pint of beer, that they don't believe it themselves. They know we are headed into deep trouble.

MY CONCLUSION: WE ARE IN MORE TROUBLE THAN THE PUBLIC HAS BEEN TOLD

All this is dissected as Professor Anderson, now at Manchester University, goes through the brutal logic, the physics of how climate change and atmospheric pollution really work. No mater what your politics are, or what politicians promise, if we keep emitting more carbon, our civilization if not our species is at risk.

I've said this repeatedly on Radio Ecoshock. My scientist guests have said it. In this chilling program you hear one of the top climate experts in Britain telling it like it is.

I know our cities are entirely dependent on fossil fuel burning. Most of Canada would have to be abandoned, or the population decimated just to heat the people, using the forests as wood heat. I know we are using cars to get around, and again, in a Northern winter, there aren't a lot of options yet, if you live outside the narrow web of mass transit (like New York subways).

It seems we are committed, just by being alive, to polluting the sky. Yet I play with my grandson, and inwardly fear for his future. In fact, if Kevin Anderson is correct, I and my children will also suffer. We won't have to wait a generation or two.

How can we face this contradiction?

Yet we know, when World War Two came to the United States, a simple act of government, at the federal level, ended all car production, and switched over to tanks and ship-building overnight. Make that wind machines and solar panels and you get the possibility. All it would take is (a) the recognition we are going over a cliff (with no return) and (b) the will among us all to make the change.

A LITTLE HOPE FROM PROFESSOR WILLIAM CALVIN

I also talk that over with Professor William (Bill) Calvin from the University of Washington. He's specialized in the development of the human brain, and lately, how our journey through the ice ages and climate change helped us develop.

We know the human brain was big enough for things like agriculture and advanced tools at least 100,000 years ago. Yet, for some reason, human intellect didn't seem to take off until 50,000 years ago. Bill Calvin compares it to a software upgrade to available hardware.

I express my fear we will see million dying on High Definition television, before the climate and food impacts hit us in the developed countries (although diseases can spread in a day in these times of air travel). Calvin agrees, but then we realize: our own time is another burst of human creativity. We have experienced a kind of
software upgrade in our own times.

What if that mental evolution is not finished? What if we can make the moral leap it would take to protect the future, and all future generations?

There is some hope. And Calvin also feels more optimistic because we could use ocean algae to capture more carbon out of the atmosphere. We might be able to reverse this process.

James Lovelock also talked about the scheme to put in whole fields of pipes into the ocean. The surface algae are missing essential elements like phosphates, which are found in deeper water below them. If we pump that up, cause an algae bloom (which sucks carbon dioxide out of the air) - and then pump the dying alge back down to the deep, we might sequester some carbon.

It would take a giant project, covering about 1% of the Earth's oceans, to remove enough carbon, but perhaps a war-like project could do it. We haven't even bothered to build one such experimental station so far.

Is it possible? Is the future possible? Radio Ecoshock asks you that question.

Our web site is ecoshock.org. Thank you for listening.

Alex Smith

CLIMATE MAY FORCE HUMAN EVOLUTION

http://bit.ly/wTeVfl What caused 5 previous mass extinctions of species? Scientists say we are in the 6th one now. Australian scientist Andrew Glikson reads the past, suggests the troubled future.

Dr. Andrew Glikson of Australian National University studied the rocks and the timelines. He's also an expert on asteroid hits.

Glikson was the Principal Research Scientist, for the Australian geological Survey Organization. Now he works with the Australian National University, and the Planetary Science Institute.

You get a deep 44 minute interview with a world-class climate scientist and geologist - on what the past says about our future under climate change.

Dr. William Calvin of the University of Washington is author of over a dozen books, including "Global Fever, How to Treat Climate Change" and "A Brain for All Seasons, Human Evolution and Abrupt Climate Change". We have a short chat, about how the ice ages shaped our brains, and recent signs of climate shift.

Followed by Calvin's introduction in a speech at the University of Victoria, by Dr. Colin Campbell of the Sierra Club. Insightful on the way climate shapes our species, and all species.

Oil Shock - The No Growth World

http://bit.ly/zVEXwh Radio Ecoshock 120104 Oil Shock the Post-Growth World with Jeff Rubin, Charles Maxwell from ASPO 2011 and interview with Italy's Ugo Bardi on climate change vs. peak oil.


The price of oil hits you at the pump, in your food bill, and everything you buy. What if you can't afford it?

For years, I've covered Peak Oil as the story of a limited resource. Meanwhile, the oil industry, glutted with billions in profits, keeps drilling deeper offshore, finds more dirty oil in the Tar Sands. They have a mountain of goo in the "heavy oil" of Venezuela - the industry just needs to build more refineries capable of handling it. And we can always make more oil by liquefying coal!

All these options drop from using about one barrel of oil to get 100 barrels, like the pressurized oil wells we grew up, to using one barrel of equivalent energy to get three (like the Tar Sands.) That means many, many times more emissions for every mile or kilometer we drive, house we heat, or factory we run. Oil costs soar and it's a recipe for climate disaster.

Meanwhile, big oil companies, aided and abetted by polluting countries like Canada and Russia, are already plotting to drill in the extreme conditions under the Arctic ice. One leak there, stays for centuries. Nobody can clean it up, and the oil-eating bacteria are few in the cold environment. We can't let that happen. Oil companies must not take advantage of the ice they helped melt.

What about Peak Oil?

Economist Jeff Rubin says we've hit a new kind of peak oil: the peak price our civilization can pay and still grow. We've passed that point now, Rubin says. If China and India grow,

Western countries must shrink. And "shrinking" isn't pretty. Expect unemployment, disappointed dreams, and governments drowning in debt they cannot repay.

Who is Rubin? He was the Chief Economist at CIBC World Markets, a global-scale bank trading operation. As a forward thinker on energy issues Jeff Rubin gets a lot of press and TV appearances. His 2009 book "Why Your World Is About To Get a Whole Lot Smaller" (8 minute You tube here) shook up the financial world. He predicts an end to globalization, and a return to regional production, due to ever-rising oil prices.

In this week's Radio Ecoshock show you hear Jeff Rubin's presentation at ASPO 2011. That was the annual conference of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas USA, in Washington D.C. at the beginning of November 2011.

Then you'll get the main clips from a talk by Charles T. Maxwell. He is the senior Energy Analyst for Weeden Co. Charley's been a top ranked energy authority for years. Charlie outlines who has more oil (very few countries, like Norway and Columbia) and who is running out fast (like Mexico and maybe Saudi Arabia).

Rubin and Maxwell were recorded by Radio Ecoshock Washington correspondent Gerri Williams, and presented courtesy of ASP USA. As far as I know, Radio Ecoshock is the only place to find these recordings online.

But neither of these gurus include the challenge and damage of climate change in their forecasts. They don't mention it. Why not? To wrap up that angle, we'll finish off the show with a Radio Ecoshock interview with Ugo Bardi. He's a cross-breed, as founder of ASPO Italy, and an editor at the Oildrum.com blog - but also part of the Italian climatologist scene. I'll ask

Ugo why these two camps, don't talk much to each other.

JEFF RUBIN

Wiki on Jeff Rubin here.

Jeff Rubin is a Canadian with a Masters in Economics from McGill University. But he sounds like a Texan, with almost a drawl. Maybe he spent so much time with Texan oil men?

Jeff was chief economist from 1992 to 2009 for CIBC World Markets, a huge Canadian global trading and investment company, part of the equally huge Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC). By correctly predicting many trends, Rubin made a lot of people a lot of money. In 2009, Rubin decided to resign from CIBC to pursue his career of writing and public speaking.

In particular, Rubin warned of the increasing price of oil, and it's impact on business and society at large. For this, he was adopted as a popular speaker at Peak Oil events like the annual ASPO USA gathering. His 2009 book "Why Your World Is About to Get A Whole Lot Smaller" sold a lot of copies, and brought him international TV coverage. Rubin was already a weekly financial columnist for Canada's national newspaper.

In this stimulating talk recorded November 4th, Jeff Rubin offers his own definition of peak oil. Instead of basing it on the geological limits of oil on Earth, Rubin says the peak is the price a global economy can afford to pay, before it slows down, or crashes. Rubin doesn't say the price of oil will always increase. He says it will go up until it becomes unaffordable.

The economy goes into a recession (or worse), oil falls, then things pick up a little. We keep hitting the ceiling of "too high", doing damage to our economic system all along the way (like creating unsolvable debt levels).

Every major recession, Rubin says, has the "fingerprints of oil all over it."

As national debts pile up, every politician says they will "grow" their way out of it. Creating growth is the only way to pay off all that debt, which only grows with interest. But with oil limitations, whether geological limits, limits caused by lack of needed refineries, or limits imposed by price - the days of growth for everybody are over, Rubin says.

We have hit a plateau of "no growth".

That means if one country grows, another must shrink. For example, the China's economy is growing rapidly. But the economies of Greece, Italy and others are shrinking. Perhaps with real accounting, and taking out the currency factor, America's economy is shrinking also. If more consumers use more oil on one side of the world, people have to consume less and use less oil somewhere else. Nothing in our political system, nor our classic capitalist economics, is ready for a no-growth world. That means a rocky road ahead.

National debt might as well be denominated in barrels of oil, Rubin says. We depend upon it so much. The higher the price of oil, the higher the amount of our true debt.

And this is no "oil shock" like the oil embaro of the 1970's. Right now, there is no limit to producton other than people's ability to pay, and the industry's ability to go get it. But it's too expensive to support more growth, and only going to get more expensive. The end of growth is not a temporary thing. It's the new reality that nobody is ready for.

Unlike our next guest speaker, Charles Maxwell, Rubin says a no-growth economy is going to make a lot of people unhappy. There will be high unemployment. Many dreams will be shattered. There could be civil unrest, possibly for decades.

And as he describes in his book, triple digit oil prices will kill off globalization. It becomes just too expensive to ship things all over the world. Some industries will return to the United States and Canada, for example, despite the low cost of labor overseas, Rubin says. Some environmentalists will cheer the end of globalization, and the oil age, but Rubin says the process isn't going to be pretty.

It's an interesting take, and I think he's right. Check out Jeff Rubin's complete talk in this week's Radio Ecoshock show. (Click the title above to download)

Find Jeff Rubin's blog here.

CHARLES MAXWELL

We move on to one of the heavy-weights of the energy investment business, Charles Maxwell, the senior Energy Analyst for Weeden Co. Charlie is a legend in peak oil circles. Due to time limitations, I've selected two key parts of his presentation. Following talk of when Peak Oil might strike, Maxwell explains where our future oil might come from. Then I'll deliver his conclusion of "austerity and joy".

Unlike Jeff Rubin, Charlie Maxwell thinks we might adjust to a reasonable life consuming much less oil. He suggests we envision life in the 1950's, with that level of consumption.

Plus, people might enjoy things like gardening, even though they are forced into it just to have enough affordable food.

Happiness is not necessarily linked to consumption Maxwell says. In fact, he cites a study from Denmark, where people were healthiest during the last years of World War Two. They had little access to alcohol, tobacco, sugary foods, and over-eating. That "deprivation" led to better health, which is a fundamental for happiness.

First Maxwell treats us to an overview of who is producing more oil, and who will produce less. His goal, as an energy investment analyst, is to figure out what the maximum level of oil production is. Maxwell thinks we can go from our current ceiling of about 88 million barrels per day to about 95 mbpd. But that's it. No more.

His analysis of barriers to Russian expansion are interesting. The limits there are less geologic than social, and their approach to business, Maxwell says. On the other hand, if Columbia has really ended their civil war, that South American country may be able to increase production, like its neighbor Venezuela.

Mexico on the other hand, is in deep trouble, as oil production crashes at the main field at Cantarell. Maxwell treats us to an insight into the role of the asteroid which hit the Earth about 65 million years ago (causing a mass extinction) - and how that made a great oil field for Mexico (for a while).

It's rare we get a kind of private sitting with an oil insider like Charles Maxwell.

DOWNLOAD THE WHOLE 1 HOUR PRESENTATION WITH RUBIN AND MAXWELL

Here is the one hour talk by both men, including the Q and A, recorded by Gerri Williams, and presented by ASPO USA on November 4th, 2011 in Washington. You can choose from the CD Quality version (56 MB) or Lo-Fi (14 MB).

UGO BARDI

You'll notice neither Rubin or Maxwell mentioned climate change at all. They speak as though extreme weather damages and rising seas are not also major impacts on our economic prospects. As though the world will never limit fossil fuel production because we are wrecking the climate for all foresable time. Jeff Rubin, I know, does acknowledge climate change.

But it is absent here.

I've been following Peak Oil for years, interviewing people like Richard Heinberg and James Howard Kunstler. Both of them have added climate change as a serious threat in recent years.

Of course I speak with climate scientists. But it's very seldom I find anyone to talk about both. Why is this?

Plus, we often wonder, which comes first, and which is worst: climate change or Peak Oil?

To help sort this out, we go to Italy, to talk with Ugo Bardi. He is a professor of Chemistry at the University of Firenze, - that is Florence.

Ugo is a rare bridge in two worlds. He is the Founder of ASPO Italy, the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas. Ugo is a contributor and member of the editorial board of the Oil Drum blog, and has published two books in Italian on oil depletion.

But Bardi is also a member of an association of Italian climatologists.

His latest book in English is "The Limits to Growth Revisited" published in 2011 by Springer.

In March 2009, Bardi wrote an important article in the Oil Drum blog called "Fire or Ice? The role of peak fossil fuels in climate change scenarios".

I highly recommend this article. Bardi goes through the very few scientific papers and articles which consider both Peak Oil and climate change together, up to 2009.

I'm going to quote just the first three paragraphs from that key article from the oildrum.com

"Until recently, most simulations of future climate have been run without taking into account "peaking" of the major fossil fuels. Concepts such as 'peak oil' are not discussed, and not even mentioned, in the reports of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). But, with peak oil coming, or already arrived, the subject is starting to appear in scientific journals, blogs, and conferences. In a previous post , I reported about the 'Mission Earth' seminar held in Zurich in 2009 where climatologists and depletion experts gathered to exchange views. Here, I present a short review of the status of the field. There is a very small number of papers published in scientific journals on this subject and I think this summary includes them all. I also tried to include a number of less formal studies published on the web or presented at conferences.

Some early papers raised the question of the discrepancy of the standard IPCC scenarions and the peak oil projections. The first one was probably Jean Laherrere with a paper published in 2001. Later on Anders Sivertsson , Kjell Aleklett and Colin Campbell wrote in 2003 in 'The New Scientist' a paper titled 'Not enough oil for climate change'. They criticized the IPCC scenarios for being overoptimistic in terms of oil and gas reserves. These early papers didn't attempt to calculate the future concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Perhaps the earliest attempt to quantify the effects of CO2 on climate while taking depletion into account was the work by Pushker Kharecha and Jim Hansen who produced a paper titled 'Implications of "peak oil" for atmospheric CO2 and climate'. This study was published in 2008 but became available on line as a working paper in April 2007. In the first version of the paper, Kharecha and Hansen start from the premise that the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere should not be allowed to exceed 450 ppm; later on they arrived to the conclusion that the dangerous limit is more likely to be around 350 ppm. So, they examine several scenarios that involve policy measures to force the reduction of emissions. They find that, if no such measures are taken, CO2 concentrations might rise to near 600 ppm by the end of the century, mainly as the result of coal combustion. Oil and gas would peak before 2030 in most of the scenarios considered and would give only a minor contribution to the total of the emissions."

Ugo Bardi began his Oil Drum article with an important point: climatologists, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, assume we will fill the sky infinitely with carbon, as though the supplies will not run out. However, as we learned from Jeff Rubin's talk, and all the development of alternative ways to get oil, plus gas fracking - there seems to be more than enough carbon to wreck the atmosphere before supplies run out.

And the implications of climate damage are so severe, in our interview Ugo Bardi concludes climate change is the most pressing challenge of this century. Humans have lived for most centuries without fossil fuels he points out. We could do so again, perhaps with a much smaller population. But humans might not survive a radical shift in the climate very well.

It's a thoughtful interview from a thoughtful man and scholar. You may also want to check out his "Limits to Growth Revisited" book, the first update to that 1970's report written for The Club of Rome.

Find Ugo Bardi's blog "Cassandra's Legacy" here.

THANKS TO A LISTENER

I would like to thank Radio Ecoshock listener Barath Raghavan for suggesting this topic, and sending his helpful links. Find Barath's article on "Climate Change Vs. Peak Oil" here.

If you have suggestions for guests or topics, you can always write me, Alex Smith, at this address:

radio //at// ecoshock.org

FUKUSHIMA: TRUTH AND CONSEQUENCES

http://bit.ly/tEreAe Japan announces a fake "cold shutdown" & a new study says 14,000 Americans died of radiation from the Fukushima nuclear accident.

COLD SHUTDOWN AT FUKUSHIMA - THE BIG LIE

In his infamous 1925 book "Mein Kamptf" Adolf Hitler coined the term "the big lie". This lie, he said, should be so "colossal" that no once could believe anyone quote "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously."

This is Alex Smith. I am sorry to report the government of Japan, the Prime Minister of Japan, has resorted to the big lie, trying to cover up the on-going nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Number 1 nuclear power plant.

On December 16th, Prime Minister Noda announced all reactors at Fukushima had reached the safe and stable state of "cold shutdown". The accident is over, he said, and carry no further signficant danger to the public of Japan or the world.

We'll talk to nuclear industry expert Arnie Gundersen about this lie, and the truth of Fukushima.

I'll also interview Janette Sherman, co-author of a peer reviewed paper suggesting 14,000 Americans died due to the wave of radiation that swept over North America in March and April of 2011, after four massive explosions at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi site. That is an idea so shocking, we want to deny it immediately. Radio Ecoshock will investigate. Scroll down for that big story, which you won't see in any mainstream media.

You'll also hear a short clip from Japanese activist Kazuhiko Kobayashi, translated from his tour in Germany in October.

Kobayashi reveals the secret power structure of Japan, an explanation of how a government with a the sad history of nuclear bombing, could lie now about this horrible nuclear accident, costing still more lives in Japan.

The same infernal hidden Troika of power keeps nuclear power going in North America and Europe.

So much to hear, to absorb, to know deeply.

Here is the big lie, as carried on NHK English language TV from Japan.

"Japan's Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda says the crippled reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant have been successfully brought to a state of cold shutdown.

The state is a target in the second phase of a timetable established by the government and the Tokyo Electric Power Company to bring the plant under control.

At a meeting of the government nuclear disaster task force on Friday, Noda declared that the reactors are now stable and that the second phase is complete.

He said radiation levels at the periphery of the plant site will remain low if another accident occurs."

In this Radio Ecoshock program I interview Arnie Gundersen, a long-time nuclear industry executive, who left the field after blowing the whistle on unsafe reactors. We talk about what "cold shutdown" means, and whether that applies to Fukushima.

MORE EXPLOSIONS AT FUKUSHIMA?

I also ask Arnie whether there is still a possibility of another explosion at Fukushima Daiichi. Gundersen explains the operator, TEPCO, must constantly pump nitrogen into the reactors, because there is a bubble of hydrogen at the top. The nitrogen is to keep out oxygen, which could lead to another massive explosion, and
more serious radiation. If that system fails, another reactor, or three reactors, could blow up again.

Gundersen has done calculations on the remaining mass of fuel, now called "corium" because it is a mixture of metals, mostly around 100 tons of hot uranium, but also all the metals used in the fuel rod containers and other inner parts of the reactor, which melted down together.

A serious question: could one of these three reactors experience a "China Syndrome"? That is where molten fuel melts through the last of the containment concrete, burning down to the water table below, and then suffers a massive radioactive steam explosion. Arnie calculates that a China Syndrome is unlikely now at Fukushima. There just isn't enough heat piled in the right way to burn all the way out, so long as water is circulated around it. Listen to the interview for his full explanation, and watch this video.

[Radio Ecoshock Arnie Gundersen interview - 22 minutes, audio only]

You have been listening to Arnie Gundersen, the nuclear industry executive who has become an expert witness and public voice on nuclear power safety. Find his videos at Fairewinds.com. Be sure and support their important work.

FUKUSHIMA: LIES UPON LIES

As you have heard, to use the term "cold shutdown" for the triple melt-down at Fukushima Daiichi required a series of sub-lies. According to a report of the Japanese announcement by Tim Hornyak at CNET, TEPCO said "cold shutdown," meant, quoting Hornyak, "the reactors can be safely kept cool and that radiation exposure is limited to 1 millisievert per year at the site's boundary."

One millisievert per year at the Fukushima site boundary! The radiation leaking out into the sky and the sea is many, many times that right now, and every day. You have just heard Arnie Gundersen describing the on-going radiation leaks into the air, around Fukushima, and blown by the wind over Japan, and over the Pacific.

RADIATION LEAKS TO THE SEA "ZERO" JAPANESE AGENCY CLAIMS

During a real state of "cold shutdown" there should be no radioactive leaks into the sea either. Japan needs another big lie to make that possible. As our favorite Fukushima blogger at ex-skf.blogspot.com writes:

[the Japanese newspaper] "Tokyo Shinbun reports that NISA has decided to basically "nullify" the leaks of contaminated water from Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant in the past, and declare that there will be no leak in the future either, even if there is actually a leak or deliberate discharge. Why? Because NISA says so.

From Tokyo Shinbun [(via Asyura, so that the link doesn't disappear;][December 16, 2011] 12/16/2011):
[quote]
'NISA considers the amount of contaminated water into the ocean to be zero

There have been several leaks of water contaminated with radioactive materials from Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant. Tokyo Shinbun has found out through own investigation that the Nuclear and Industrial Safety

Agency under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has treated the amount of the leaks as "zero" from a legal [or regulatory] point of view, because it was a "state of emergency". The Agency has said it will treat the future leaks and deliberate discharges into the ocean the same way. The national government is scheduled to declare a "cold shutdown state" on December 16, but we are suspicious of the government's position that seems to ignore the suppression of the radioactive materials released from the plant, which is one of the important conditions [of the cold shutdown "state"].

Just the leak found April 2nd, 2011, from Reactor Number 2 at Fukushima released, quoting Tokyo Shinbun again"

"4,700 terabecquerels (according to TEPCO's estimate), already more than 20,000 times as much as the maximum amount allowed.

Both domestic and foreign research institutions have disputed TEPCO's estimate as 'too low'.

On December 4, the water that contained 26 billion becquerels of radioactive strontium was found leaking into the ocean from the apparatus that evaporates and condenses the treated water.

Furthermore, the storage tanks that are set up inside the compound are expected to become full in the first half of the next year. The water in these storage tanks also contains radioactive strontium. TEPCO is contemplating the discharge of the water into the ocean after further decontaminating it, but facing the protest from the fisheries associations the company has said it will postpone the discharge for now."

End quote from Tokyo Shinbun newspaper, as translated by the blogger ex-skf.

According to the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shinbun "462 trillion becquerels of radioactive strontium have leaked to the Pacific Ocean since the March."


So Fukushima is still leaking tons of highly radioactive water into the Pacific, even in December 2011, and plans more intentional dumping into the ocean, but declares their emissions to be "zero" due to the technicality of declaring it "a state of emergency".

It is hard to imagine a bigger lie.

The government has no gauges to measure the escaped and melted nuclear fuel, dripping somewhere below the reactor. They don't know where it is, and cannot approach it with anything to find out.

WHY THE BIG LIE?

Lies piled upon lies. Why? The goverment announced a time-table shortly after the accident. Within 9 months they would reach a state of cold-shutdown. It is nine months, so it must be so.

Even the timid Japanese press isn't buying this latest announcement. For example the Asahi Shinbun newspaper ran a series of articles with titles like "Few believe assertion that Fukushima crisis is over" (December 17th). That article reveals some of the real reasons for saying Fukushima is over: the economy.

Quote: "A total of 44 nations and regions have restricted the imports of Japanese agricultural products and in the extreme case of Kuwait, all food products from every prefecture in Japan has been banned for import.

The negative publicity has also led to a sharp drop in the number of foreign tourists to Japan. In November, there were about 552,000 visitors, a decrease of 13.1 percent compared with November 2010."

Local mayors, in cities and towns still evacuated, expressed severe doubts about the government's announcement of "cold shutdown". Even Fukushima Governor Yuhei Sato said ""The accident has not been brought under control..."

The German press Deutche Welle roasted the "cold shutdown" announcement, saying the reactors are "far from cold".

U.S. AND IAEA SUPPORT THE "COLD SHUTDOWN" ANNOUNCEMENT

But the nuclear power structure in Japan has important allies. US Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Nides was in Japan for the announcement. Nides said the U.S. is happy to hear about the "cold shut down" and congratulated Japan. Nides is part of an American business delegation seeking new contracts for decontamination.

Of course, America doesn't like to officially discuss the weaknesses of the U.S. design for the Mark I General Electric reactors which blew up at Fukushima. Or the military personel exposed, and still exposed in Japanese bases, to radiation from this on-going disaster.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the NRC, also blessed the cold shutdown announcement.

Likewise, Yukiya Amano of the International Atomic Energy Agency congratulated Japan on reaching cold shutdown. The IEA's Director General Amano was previously a Japanese bureaucrat in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

THE TRIANGLE OF JAPANESE POWER

And that brings us to this snapshot of Japanese power from a business consultant turned nuclear critic named Kazuhiko Kobayashi. Kobayashi is fluent in German, and just went on a speaking tour for the anti-nuclear activist group The Association of Citizens' Environmental Protection, the OTP.

He also wrote an empassioned letter for the Foundation Ethics & Economics, as they awarded the International ethecon Black Planet Award 2011. That Black Planet award went to Tsunehisa Katsumata, Masataka Shimizu, Toshio Nishizawa, and other responsible executives and the major shareholders of the energy Tokyo Electric Power Company, TEPCO.

His talk was titled ""German nuclear phase-out has given the world hope!" Find links to the video and audio below.

A German friend of Radio Ecoshock writes:

"In a recent speech at protests against the Gronau uranium enrichment facility, Japanese Germanist Kazuhiko Kobayashi spoke about his country traditionally being run by a sort of unofficial troika of influential state officials, prominent politicians and corporate managers. [There is] an organised fluctuation between the three groups to ensure connections, whose particular interests have hampered the disaster relief efforts time and again."

Keep in mind, Germany is attempting to lead the world out of nuclear power, with some back-sliding by politicians. Their struggle should be known by all the world, but that is another story.

Right now, we will hear Kazuhiko speaking to German activists, translated into English by our friend of Radio Ecoshock.

Kazuhiko Kobayashi:

"In our country, a case of high-ranking government officials is playing an enormous role.

Once it's members went through certain universities, and passed the [unknown word], they are on a free ride to certain positions and departments. And once they are there, their power is so enormous that they can do virtually everything without any inspection. So our government officials can take it all.

Once they retire, they are being put in executive posts in big corporations. They enjoy their time as Directors.

And during those five to ten years they act as agents of plutocrats' corporate interests to the same government Ministries where they had been working before.

Now their successors are in their old positions and listen exactly what their former bosses are saying, because they know if they do what they are being told by the corporations, once they retire they will get the same fantastic posts. In their last decade they can make just as much money as in their entire career.

Nevertheless this pays off for the corporations, because it allows them to control the government and gives them a free ride. So this relationship is mutual.

Of course the career politicians join in as well, since they are being bribed by the corporations, as in many other countries. But in our country, the influence of the government of these officials is enormous.

Over a hundred years, since the end of the Samurai era, these three groups have been establishing this Troika. Time and again, together they represent political and economic power, for which they are ready to sacrifice everything. And to which the life of we the people does not matter.

This is the sad truth, and it became quite obvious in Fukushima."

That was Kazuhiko Kobayashi, translated from the German speech.

Find the audio of the full 42 minute Kobayashi speech (38.8 MB) in Gronau (10/20/2011) (in German) here.

A You tube video of his presentation, again in German, is here.

RADIO ECOSHOCK PART TWO

WERE 14,000 AMERICANS KILLED BY FALLOUT FROM FUKUSHIMA?

I want to investigate the stunning new study claiming 14,000 Americans have already died from radiation floating over from the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan.

Two long-time American anti-nuclear activists, with decades of experience in the field, uncovered unsettling information even in the sparse announcements published by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the Centers for Disease Control, the CDC.

Joseph J. Mangano, is the Executive Director of the Radiation and Public Health Project at radiation.org, co-founded by Dr. Ernest Sternglass. Mangano has published scholarly articles and books like "Low Level Radiation and Immune System Disorders: An Atomic Era Legacy", and "Radioactive Baby Teeth: The Cancer Link."

On December 19th, Joseph Mangano, with co-author Janette Sherman, issued a press release about their newest medical article titled "14,000 U.S. Deaths Tied to Fukushima Reactor Disaster Fallout".

This caused a storm of criticism and alarm.

I heard about Janette Sherman a couple of years ago, as a seasoned doctor and medical researcher. She was part of a study of thousands of baby teeth. The teeth showed higher levels of radioactive Strontium-90 in children within 40 miles of any nuclear power plant. Sherman, as we will hear, was also the English editor of a large collection of papers on the impacts of the Chernobyl nuclear power accident in the Ukraine.

Joseph Mangano and Janette Sherman published their peer-reviewed study in the December 2011th edition of the International Journal of Health Services.

Let's talk with Janette Sherman.


[Sherman interview]

Our guest has been toxicologist and internist Janette Sherman. She is adjunct professor, at Western Michigan University, and contributing editor of "Chernobyl - Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment" published by the New York Academy of Sciences in 2009. Download or read that huge report, consisting of translations from articles and reports from the Ukraine, Russia, and Eastern Europe, here.

Janette is also the author of the book "Chemical Exposure and Disease and Life's Delicate Balance - Causes and Prevention of Breast Cancer." Find out more here.


CAN THIS REALLY BE TRUE?

Did an extra 14,000 Americans die from Fukushima?

The sub-title of the December 19th Press release reads "Impact Seen As Roughly Comparable to Radiation-Related Deaths After Chernobyl; Infants Are Hardest Hit, With Continuing Research Showing Even Higher Possible Death Count."

This takes us into one of the most controversial areas of nuclear affairs. What is the safe level of radiation?

Study after study shows there is no safe level of radiation. More details below.

FUKUSHIMA FALLOUT MEASURED ACROSS THE U.S. (and Canada)

Reading further from the RPHP press release:

"Just six days after the disastrous meltdowns struck four reactors at Fukushima on March 11, scientists detected the plume of toxic fallout had arrived over American shores. Subsequent measurements by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found levels of radiation in air, water, and milk hundreds of times above normal across the U.S. The highest detected levels of Iodine-131 in precipitation in the U.S. were as follows (normal is about 2 picocuries I-131 per liter of water): Boise, ID (390); Kansas City (200); Salt Lake City (190); Jacksonville, FL (150); Olympia, WA (125); and Boston, MA (92)."

So there is no doubt elevated levels of radioation was measured by the American goverment all across the country, but especially on the West Coast.

Radio Ecoshock ran an interview in the Spring of 2011 with a Canadian scientist, Dr. Krzyztof Starosta at Simon Fraser University, who also measured elevated levels of radioactivity on Canada's West Coast. Hear that interview in this Radio Ecoshock program "Fear and Loathing in Fukushima" (1 hour 14 MB)

The RPHP press release says, quote:

"The CDC issues weekly reports on numbers of deaths for 122 U.S. cities with a population over 100,000, or about 25-30 percent of the U.S. In the 14 weeks after Fukushima fallout arrived in the U.S. (March 20 to June 25), deaths reported to the CDC rose 4.46 percent from the same period in 2010, compared to just 2.34 percent in the 14 weeks prior. Estimated excess deaths during this period for the entire U.S. is about 14,000."

The government reports an unusual rise in deaths, without any explanation. We know radiation hit North America, and can be harmful, especially to infants in the uterus, and up to one year of age. Janette Sherman says adults with compromised immune systems, perhaps after cancer treatment for example, are also vulnerable to more radiation as generated by Fukushima.

You can find the full journal article as a free .pdf file here.

The Radiation and Public Health Project also posted a 42 minute audio press conference with journalists. I note that no major news sources attended. Not Associated Press or Reuters. One journalist asked if there could be multiple causes beyond Fukushima for these excess deaths, and Joseph Mangano agreed there could be other causes as well. He called for more research.

THREE CASES WHERE LOW LEVE RADIATION RISKS WERE DENIED AND THEN ADMITTED

Mangano answered another doubt, with this explanation of three cases where low-level radiation impacts were denied, but then finally admitted by the government or the courts.

[Transcript by Alex Smith from Press Tele-Conference for journalists December 19th, 2011]

"This is Joseph Mangano... Any statement, such as the one you just mentioned, i.e. the levels of radiation exposure are too low to cause harm, are in conflict with the agreement of expert scientists.

I'll refer you to a report, a blue ribbon panel called BEIR 7, Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation. They have produced seven reports over the years. And in their most recent one, 2005, they agreed that based on hundreds and hundreds of scientific articles, that even at low doses, there is risk to humans.

And I'll follow that by giving three examples of historically, where there were assumptions that low doses were not harmful to people only to have that belief overturned.

Number one is the practice of giving pregnant women abdominal x-rays. Which doctors did not to harm people, but simply for diagnostic purposes, to see, you know, how big the baby was and where the position was.

The first article that this raised childhood cancer risk to the fetus took place in the late 1950's. It was met by a huge wave of opposition by obstetricians, by radiologists, by the nuclear industry. More articles came out about that. And finally, in the late 1970's this practice was discontinued.

The second example was the fallout from atomic bomb tests in Nevada in the 1950's and 60's. For years years government officials declared no harm, until 1997, when the National Cancer Institute put out a report
estimating that up to 212,000 Americans developed thyroid cancer alone from the Iodine in bomb fallout.

The third one is the case of workers in nuclear weapons plants, which again for years the government measured their doses and declared that they were below 'safe and permissible limits'. In the year 2000 the
Energy Department put out a report stating that, it was based on dozens of articles, the workers were in fact susceptible to a variety of cancers. And now there is a program to compensate former workers with cancer.

In summary, there is a basic dynamic here which starts with an assumption of low doses being harmless - only to find out that after study, in fact the opposite is true.

So I think we must maintain an open mind here when studying Fukushima."

Find a .pdf of the BEIR 7 report here.

The Wiki article on ionizing radiation says this:

"The linear dose-response model suggests that any increase in dose, no matter how small, results in an incremental increase in risk. The linear no-threshold model (LNT) hypothesis is accepted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the EPA and its validity has been reaffirmed by a National Academy of Sciences Committee (see the BEIR VII report, summarized in [8]). Under this model, about 1% of a population would develop cancer in their lifetime as a result of ionizing radiation from background levels of natural and man-made sources."

That does support what Mangano and Sherman are saying.

"MAY" HAVE KILLED 14,000 AMERICANS....

And here is a key statement by Joseph Mangano in that press tele-conference, namely that 14,000 MAY have been killed due to Fukushima, but the researchers cannot prove that actually happened.

[Transcript]

"Correction, we haven't said that Fukushima DID in fact cause these excess cancers, but MAY have caused. I want to make that quite clear. It's really a call, a clarion call, for more extensive research."

MY OPINION ON THIS STUDY

Given that doubt, I find the headline for the study press release misleading. We don't know Fukushima fallout caused 14,000 American deaths.

But the thrust of the study seems valid. A big impact of fallout over a large population is possible. It happened during atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons, and again after Chernobyl. The American government has made no effort to find out why more people died after Fukushima.

If they have an alternative cause, let's hear it.

We also see how very weak government death reporting is. Thousands could die of radiation poisoning, or other causes, and we might never know it.

It seems biologically reasonable to me that many people in fragile states, whether infants or adults with medical problems, died following the blast of Fukushima radiation hitting North America, and Europe for that matter. When critics keep citing weak external radiation, you know they are dodging the real risk of ingesting
long-lived radioactive particles through food and water.

I would also expect more cancers to develop in the population during the coming decades, due to exposure to radioactive particles from the Fukushima nuclear accident. That is just common medical knowledge, as we learned from the Chernobyl accident as well.

Because increased radioactivity stays with us for generations, even hundreds of years, and because it can alter genes for all subsequent generations, I feel nuclear power is far too dangerous for human use.

DID YOU SEE THIS ALL-STAR CONCERT FOR SAFE NUCLEAR-FREE ENERGY LAST SUMMER?

Fukushima teaches us to seek cleaner energy options.

Here is another message for Americans, and everyone still living in the shadows of nuclear disaster.

The setting was a concert at the Shoreline amphitheatre in Mountain View CA, on August 7, 2011. On stage Crosby, Stills & Nash, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Jason Mraz, The Doobie Brothers, Tom Morello, John Hall and many more.

Watch clips from this classic concert for clean non-nuclear energy on You tube here (42 minutes with all-star cast).

Listen for Eileen Miyoko Smith on stage. She is a Japanese activist who fought against using deadly plutonium as a fuel called MOX at the Fukushima reactors. Now she worries California reactors on quake fault lines, like Diablo Canyon and San Onofre could go the same way. They should be shut down.

And you also hear one of the original Americans fighting dangerous nuclear power, Harvey Wasserman. He started in New England in the early 19070's. Wasserman's latest book is "SOLARTOPIA: Our Green-Powered Earth, AD 2030", introduced by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and with the song "Solartopia" by Pete Seeger. Watch and listen to that Pete Seeger "Solartopia" song on You tube here.

Long-time folkie turned rocker Bonnie Rait was one of the MC's at the Musicians for Safe Energy concert.

I'm your host, Alex Smith for Radio Ecoshock.

Thank you for listening, and for caring about your world.

GREEN MUSIC FESTIVAL

http://bit.ly/rOp3k3 Welcome to our annual best of green music show. You'll hear the songs of activism, despair, and love of Mother Earth.

So much "blah blah blah" in the media. All those words fill our brain, and miss our hearts.

That is where the musicians step in, to move us along. I'm Alex Smith.

This year we've added three songs for broken economy. You'll hear two new songs for the Occupy Movement.

PLAYLIST WITH LINKS TO THE ARTISTS

We kick off with "Change Change" by the Canadian group Thistle, starring Debra Lee Halinda.

"Change Change" Thistle 2:43

More Thistle music on CD Baby.

Next up, some Frackin Good music from Australia, "My Water's On Fire Tonight" with David Holmes and Dean Bekker, from the album "Wholelottafracking Going On"

"My Water's On Fire Tonight" David Holmes & Dean Bekker 2:32

For those tired of the city, here is the Canadian hit group Mother Mother with "Dirty Town."

"Dirty Town" Mother Mother 2:28

Web site.

You are listening to the Radio Ecoshock green music special - eco activist songs from around the world.

From Germany, here is Michael Montecrossa with his Fukushima song, "Talkin End Game"

"Fukushima Song Talkin End Game" Michael Montecrossa 3:51

You tube video.

Michael's web site.

American singer-songwriter Neko Case is best known in the Canadian group "The New Pornographers" Here Neko solos with "Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth"

"Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth" Neko Case 2:10

Let's dive back down under. We'll start with Australia's Combat Wombat from a benefit album to stop the destructive Lake Cowal gold mine proposed by Barrick. This song is called

"Alternative Energy" Combat Wombat (from the album "Water More Precious Than Gold").

The album isn't online any longer, but you can hear more tracks from it in this April 27th 2006 "Podcasting Nimbin" show.

From New Zealand, with a Polynesia flavor, here is the group Te Vaka, with the song "Our Ocean" written for Greenpeace New Zealand.

"Our Ocean" Te Vaka

Their web site is cool.


You are tuned to the Radio Ecoshock Green Music festival.

This is the Seattle Band, Million Dollar Nile with their song "Don't Kilowatt".

"Don't Kilowatt" Million Dollar Nile 4:10

Before we get to our set of new Occupy songs, let's remember what this Earth is all about.

We start with "Hallowed Be Thy Ground" by Casey Neill

You tube video of that song here (audio not as good as studio version).

That is followed by "Earth" by Imogen Heap, ....

Here is a You tube video about Imogen's film "Love the Earth"

And here is her web site.

Then: "Where We Going to Go" by Ellis Music Productions.

Watch it on You tube here. Written and sung by David Todds, who allows reproduction for non-profit use.

SONGS FOR A BROKEN ECONOMY

It's time to Occupy ourselves with the economic banking rip-off. In music of course, with Radio Ecoshock.

Whether you are talking consumer excess, the banking crash, or the fast-track to wrecking the environment, you can't beat this song:

"Run Away Train" by Texas singer/songwriter Eliza Gilkyson.

There are lots of You tube live versions of this song, but none beat the studio version in this program. Visit Eliza's web site for the latest.

"Runaway Train" Eliza Gilkyson 4:11

I was also struck by the Texas bravery of Gilkyson's 2008 song "Man of God" deep in George Bush country. (Not included in this show).

One of the suprise hits of the Occupy movement comes from Hawaii. Singer Makana was the official music for the APEC Summit leaders dinner. He sang "We Are the Many" - over and over for the surprised dignitaries of the 1 percent.

Makana "We Are The Many" 5:23

You tube video here.

His web site.

I first heard this David Rovics "Occupy Wall Street" song from an Iphone at the protests in New York City. David went into the studio, to make this one for the world.

"Occupy Wall Street (We're Going to Stay Right Here)" David Rovics 6:07

Official "Occupy Walls Street" song video here.

More about David Rovics at his web site.

In the hour-long non-stop version (and podcast) we hear one more quick one from David Rovics...

"When The Oil Runs Dry" David Rovics 2:03

We'll wrap up this Radio Ecoshock music special with our number one downloaded green tune. It's "Power from Above" by New England folkie Dan Berggren.

"Power From Above" Dan Berggren 2:49

Download the whole song here.

To book Dan for a performance, or just find out more, go here.

Sorry I didn't have time for this great song, "Good Planets Are Hard to Find" by American folk singer Steve Forbert.


You can always send your green music suggestions to: radio //at// ecoshock.org

I'm Alex smith. Thanks for listening. And have a good holiday.

CLIMATE DOWN IN DURBAN

http://bit.ly/tFbPAQ United Nations agreement fails to protect climate. Indian analyst prefers failure to empty climate agreement at COP17 Durban Dec 2011. James Hansen at AGU San Francisco Dec 6. Durban wrap up with Janet Redman of IPS. Australian Prof. Michael Raupach on burst of new carbon & changing world. Radio Ecoshock 111214 1 hour.

Diplomats from all over the world are returning home after a hard-won agreement in Durban, South Africa.

They agreed to do nothing to save our climate from disaster.

Our governments will talk until 2015, and then maybe do something serious about greenhouse gas emissions in 2020. By then, as Radio Ecoshock listeners know, we will be committed to at least 3 and a half degrees Centigrade hotter world in 2100, than our ancestors knew in 1750. It will only get hotter after that.

In this Radio Ecoshock special, we hear four reports.

From India, journalist, author and political analyst Praful Bidwai tells Stephen Leahy of IPS a failure in Durban would be better than what we got. We go outside the spin of Western media.

Then to San Francisco, to hear NASA's Dr. James Hansen at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. He describes our unique and dangerous path.

Back to South Africa, where Janet Redman has survived the gruelling Durban conference sessions, to give us the wrap up. What did and didn't happen, along with the American role.

We finish up with an interview with Dr. Michael Raupach from Australia's National Science Agency. He's part of the Global Carbon Project which just published the bad news about our "monstrous" increase in emissions.

New science, predictions of doom, and a world in paralysis - it's another Radio Ecoshock show.

THE VIEW AT THE DURBAN CLIMATE CONFERENCE - FROM INDIA

At the Durban COP-17 Climate conference, India was blamed for not going along with the game. We're going to hear from Praful Bidwai, the author of "The Politics of Climate Change and The Global Crisis" and a well-known Indian commentator. Praful was interviewed by Stephen Leahy of the Independent Press Service on Friday December 9th. The meeting was not over, but everything in the interview stands.

Praful agrees the Indian economy is growing fast - but all the profits are going to the upper 10 or 15 percent of the population. While 500 million people still don't have electricity, India can hardly be counted as a "developed" country.

Bidwai also talks about the bullying, and outright bribery of countries at these climate conferences. Small Island states, who may disappear with rising seas, are told to agree to offers from large polluters, or risk getting nothing at all. Other countries are threatened by the risk of withholding loans or investments.

The European Union wanted a legally binding treaty. They offered to extend the Kyoto Protocol, and meet their commitments within that. Russia and the United States didn't want to extend the Protocol. Canada came to the conference threatening to withdraw first, because Canada has no intention of meeting those emission reductions. Production from the Tar Sands comes first, and Canada is already at least 25% over what it promised in Kyoto.

The United States never ratified Kyoto, despite it's promotion by Al Gore.

India objected to being legally bound to reduce emissions, even before it produced electricity for its citizens. Why should they do without, while the West continues to reap the benefits, and waste even more?

In the end, as we hear from Janet Redman, the Durban conference agreed on something called an extention of Kyoto, but without any legally binding reductions until at least 2020.

Every other commitment was likewise hollowed out, becoming many steps backwards, says Praful Bidwai. Payments into the $100 billion a year climate adaptation fund are uncertain, and not coming any time soon. The whole idea of the West taking responsibility for climate change (due to long-term emissions) - or reducing quickly to allow developing countries their share of the atmosphere - all that is out the window. Bidwai says this is worse than Copenhagen, it should have been voted down. Failure would have been preferable.

Don't miss this insightful interview by Stephen Leahy, of the Independent Press Service (IPS).

Stephen Leahy immediately sent this interview to Radio Ecoshock. Stephen is one of the few all-out environmental journalists left anywhere. He needs your support to keep covering the world. I'm asking you to make a donation of any amount, at stephenleahy.net

Our Radio Ecoshock coverage of the Durban climate conference continues with a long-distance call to Africa. We talk with Janet Redman. She knows the ropes of international negotiations, the activist scene, and politics back home in Washington.

BUT FIRST, JAMES HANSEN AT THE AGU

Dr. James Hansen, from the Goddard Space Center at NASA, is possibly America's top climate scientist. He was certainly the first to warn Congress, back in 1988, that global warming threatened the world.

Hansen's papers are widely cited as ground-breaking research. His latest book "Storms of My Grandchildren" is popular.

As the Durban climate conference was meeting, on the other side of the world, in San Francisco, the American Geophysical Union was holding its annual conference. Some of the most important climate science of the year is presented and reported.

We only have time to give you a brief excerpt from an hour long press briefing on December 6th, 2011. It was a panel discussion between three of the leading lights. I'm going to focus on a few clips from NASA's Dr. James Hansen, plus a bit from Eelco Rohling, Professor of Ocean and Climate Change, Southampton University, U.K.

Watch the full 1 hour press briefing, which also includes Ken Caldeira, here.

Note all the other AGU 2011 videos that show up on the You tube page. And visit the AGU site.

The presentation is called "Paleoclimate Record Points Toward Potential Rapid Climate Changes".

Find a related NASA press release here.

It begins:

"In recent research, Hansen and co-author Makiko Sato, also of Goddard Institute for Space Studies, compared the climate of today, the Holocene, with previous similar 'interglacial' epochs – periods when polar ice caps existed but the world was not dominated by glaciers. In studying cores drilled from both ice sheets and deep ocean sediments, Hansen found that global mean temperatures during the Eemian period, which began about 130,000 years ago and lasted about 15,000 years, were less than 1 degree Celsius warmer than today. If temperatures were to rise 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial times, global mean temperature would far exceed that of the Eemian, when sea level was four to six meters higher than today, Hansen said.

'The paleoclimate record reveals a more sensitive climate than thought, even as of a few years ago. Limiting human-caused warming to 2 degrees is not sufficient,' Hansen said. 'It would be a prescription for disaster.'"

Find Briefing Materials

Related feature article by Hansen and Sato

JANET REDMAN OF INSTITUTE FOR POLICY STUDIES REPORTS FROM DURBAN

Reporting from South Africa, our guest is Janet Redman. She is Co-director of the Sustainable Energy & Economy Network, at the Institute for Policy Studies, in Washington D.C. Janet attended the 17th Conference of the Parties, known as COP-17. That United Nations climate conference wrapped up a day and a half late, in the wee hours of December 11th, 2011.

I'm not able to summarize everything in this detailed interview.

Janet expresses her disappointment with a "hollowed out" agreement. Nothing is binding, all is voluntary and unmonitored. Essentially, from now until 2020, it is a free-for-all where every country can emit as much as it wants.

The result for the climate will be a disaster. On our current course, with emissions rising by 3 to 6% every year, there is no way to avoid at least 3.5 degrees C global mean temperature rise by 2100, and it could go to 5 or 6 degrees. That will ruin the Earth for humans and most species.

Janet explains the role of the United States, and how American actions in Durban are tailored to the electoral cycle. America is not taking on its responsibility for being the biggest single cause of climate change. A combination of bullying and evasion replace that.

We talk about Canada, and the unusual role of China. China is now the world's largest emitter, although still far down the list of per capita consumption.

China is also a leader in renewable energy, partly due to government policies supporting it. But American labor unions, and the U.S. government, are taking legal action against China - because it supports renewable energy!

China is also the de facto head of the G-77 countries, and is expected to speak for the developing world, against the major Western powers and Japan, if needed.

At one point, China offered to take on binding reduction agreements, if the U.S would do the same. But the U.S. refused. Redman says other countries are very aware that President Obama is not the climate or environmental leader voters expected. She doesn't think he will even mention climate in his campaign next year. Janet thinks Americans will have to take personal action, and organize on other levels, since the federal government is either bought out or politically paralyzed, or both.

There is a lot more in this interview. If you want to know what really happened in Durban, give it a listen.

Find out more about the Institute for Policy Studies here.

My thanks to Daphne Wysham of Earthbeat Radio for helping arrange this interview.

AN ESTEEMED AUSTRALIAN CLIMATE SCIENTIST ON CARBON EMISSIONS

Now on to Australia, to get the latest on climate science and our ever-rising greenhouse gas emissions.

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is Australia's national science agency. Our guest Dr. Michael Raupach is a Research Scientist with CSIRO's Marine and Atmospheric Research Division.

Dr Raupach's achievements include:
CSIRO Fellow, 2010
Fellow, American Geophysical Union, 2010
Fellow, Australian Academy of Science, 2009

Back in 2006, Dr Raupach warned the amount of carbon dioxide produced by humans was on the rise. We've just seen that confirmed with another huge increase in 2010. For all the conferences, studies and reports, when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions, we're just going backwards.

Michael also participated in research showing the "sinks" that help trap our carbon emissions are weakening. When we look at carbon respositories, like the soil, forests, and especially the ocean, science suggests these are taking up 20% less carbon than in 1970.

Find out more here. (with audio podcast 6 min)

That's a huge concern, since at least half of the greenhouse gases produced by humans have been hidden away in these sinks. If they take up less, we get more staying in the atmosphere, and if we want to survive, we have to burn much less than we thought.

We hear about the recently released report showing humans have managed to raise greenhouse gas emissions an astonishing 5.9 percent in 2010. All during the 2000's, greenhouse gas emissions were increasing around 3% every year, except 2009. In 2009, the economic downturn meant a lower increase.

But by 2010, and again this year we think, despite economic concerns, greenhouse gas emissions are roaring out of our tail-pipes, power plants, gas wells, and agriculture, to name a few.

All this is tracked by the ...

GLOBAL CARBON PROJECT


Quoting from Wikipedia: "The Global Carbon Project (GCP) was established in 2001. The organisation seeks to quantify global carbon emissions and their causes.

The main object of the group has been to fully understand the carbon cycle. The project has brought together emissions experts and economists to tackle the problem of rising concentrations of greenhouse gases.

The Global Carbon Project works collaboratively with the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, the World Climate Programme, the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change and Diversitas, under the Earth System Science Partnership.

In late 2006 researchers from the project claimed that carbon dioxide emissions had dramatically increased to a rate of 3.2% annually from 2000. At the time, the chair of the group Dr Mike Raupach stated that 'This is a very worrying sign. It indicates that recent efforts to reduce emissions have had virtually no impact on emissions growth and that effective caps are urgently needed,'...

Their projections have indicated that we can expect greenhouse gas emissions to occur according to the IPCC's worst-case scenario, as CO2 emissions reach 500ppm in the 21 st century."

Find the main Global Carbon Project web site here.

Actually, Dr. Raupach told me about the 2010 increase in our interview, but asked me to wait for the paper publication this past week, before broadcasting our chat.

It was a rare opportunity to talk with one of Australia's preeminent climate scientists, especially when it comes to the carbon cycle. In a future show, I'll ask Dr. Raupach about using changes in agriculture to lower carbon, by putting it into the soil.

This week we learned about that carbon cycle, and our emissions.

I asked Michael Raupach about the priorities for climate research in Australia. Then I learned more about North America and Europe as well.

It seems "the sub-tropical ridge" of high pressure is dropping southward toward the Poles. The same ridge in northern latitutes is moving northward toward the Pole. The result is a massive change in weather patterns.

For Australia, and for the southern United States, this change means less rainfall, drought, and fires. Australia has seen plenty of all three, just like Texas and Oklahoma in 2011. Parts of the country are drying out, and may not recover.

Raupach says it is easy to predict a long term warming trend due to increasing carbon in the atmosphere. There will be more brush fires in the countryside, and more heat deaths in the cities, he says.

Here is the difficult subject that needs much more search, Raupach tells me: the impact of greenhouse gases on precipitation. Just as James Hansen told us at the AGU in San Francisco, our models are not yet good at predicting changes in rainfall. We can't say for sure which extreme rainfall events are aided by climate change.

Knowing the impact on rainfall, and therefore on agriculture, is critical for Australia and the world.

ENJOY LIFE WHILE YOU CAN

There you go. A full serving of science, doom and the human circus.

We don't have time to cover the simultaneous economic collapse. In his latest radio show and podcast, Max Keiser explains why Britain opted out of the European Union economic recovery plan - to keep the City of London as a world base for bankster piracy.

Download "The Truth About Markets" #1228 December 10, 2011 here. (1 hour)

Your new word for the week is "re-hypothication". Look it up, and find the link to a key article in the blog Zero Hedge which explains how money is magically expanded until it bursts.

This article is a bit hard going at the start, I found, but keep slogging along and you begin to get the drift of the game going on in London, and incidentally how Canadian banks are playing there...

A MODEST PROPOSAL

The politicians at Durban showed they are not willing to act to save the climate. Maybe a fast deep economic crash is our only hope of maintaining a livable climate for ourselves and our grandchildren.

With that happy thought, I thank you for listening. Download Radio Ecoshock programs free from our web site, ecoshock.org. You can find my blog and videos there as well.

I'm Alex Smith, saying "Remember, these are the good old days."

Enjoy your holidays.