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Global Warming

Inside The Private Empire of ExxonMobil

Submitted by sgl on Thu, 08/16/2012 - 9:14am
Steve Coll

Steve Coll is the author of Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power and former Managing Editor of The Washington Post. ExxonMobil's influence on climate change policies are just one themes Steve Coll talks about. He writes that ExxonMobil spends more money lobbying the U.S. Congress than any other corporation.
Source: Steve Coll: ExxonMobil and American Power

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Hey Californians, can you light your tap water on fire yet? And why is the state gov keeping fracking a secret?

Submitted by Tjadendevries on Thu, 07/12/2012 - 2:56pm

Fracking workshop, July 25, @ 7-9 p.m. California Environmental Protection Agency Headquarters, Byron Sher Auditorium

California, all fracked up?

by: RLMiller

Wed Jul 11, 2012 at 11:13:30 AM PDT

Fracking for natural gas is perceived as an issue east of the Rocky Mountains - Texas, North Dakota, and the Marcellus Shale. California runs on natural gas and hydropower. Fracking is happening in California, but it's a secret.

How Climate Change Impacts the Economy and Health

Submitted by sgl on Thu, 07/12/2012 - 12:47pm
Dan Ferber
Suzanne Jones
Merle Lefkoff
Douglas Ray
Larry Schweiger



Speakers talk about the likely effects of climate change on the world economy, environment, and health. They discuss possible scientific and governmental solutions.

Dan Ferber, Author, Changing Planet, Changing Health
Suzanne Jones, Co-Chairman Southern Rockies Conservation Alliance
Merle Lefkoff, President Ars Publica
Douglas Ray, Associate Director Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Larry Schweiger, President National Wildlife Federation
Source: Climate Change, The Economy, and Health

(More below the fold)

Everyday Products With Cancer Hazards

Submitted by sgl on Thu, 07/05/2012 - 2:42pm
Julia Brody
Ruthann Rudel
Lynn Goldman



A new study warns of unlabeled and potentially cancer-causing chemicals in many consumer products. Hear about some of the products scientists are the most concerned about. These scientists talk to Tom Ashbrook: Julia Brody, executive director of the Silent Spring Institute, which studies the link between environmental chemicals and our health, Ruthann Rudel, director of research at the Silent Spring Institute and Lynn Goldman, dean of the School of Public Health and Health Services at George Washington University.
Source: Household Cancer Hazards
Download or Play - Part 1
Download or Play - Part 2

More below the fold

Wild Weather

Submitted by sgl on Thu, 04/19/2012 - 10:11am

2011 has been marked by extreme weather. In the U.S. alone, a record dozen disasters caused more than $1 billion in damage. One area acutely threatened by climate change is food production, where decades of steady gains could be reversed.

Speakers are
Chris Field, Director, Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science
Dave Friedberg, Founder & CEO, The Climate Corporation
Karen O'Brien, Professor of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo
Michael Oppenheimer, Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs, Princeton
Greg Dalton is the moderator and Vice President of The Commonwealth Club of California and founder of Climate One
Source: Wild Weather

Dahlia Lithwick

An Analysis of the NDAA

What is in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 that President Obama recently signed into law accompanied by a signing statement? Dahlia Lithwick explains the bill’s contents. She is a contributing editor at Newsweek and a senior editor and legal correspondent at Slate, where she specialized in covering the U.S. Supreme Court and judicial issues.
Source: January 4 - The GOP Candidates and God's Plan; The Backlash Against Putin; An Analysis of What is in the NDAA

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End the 21st Century Crusades

Submitted by sgl on Thu, 04/05/2012 - 9:58am
Seymour Hersh

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist Seymour Hersh is interviewed by Steve Scher

Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Seymour Hersh is responsible for exposing many of the biggest stories in the 20th century, and he is still hard at work. Hersh alleged that senior officials were waging a crusade overseas, protecting Christianity from the Muslim.
Source: Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist Seymour Hersh

The natural gas business is booming, sometimes with deadly results. Host Bruce Gellerman sniffs out the cracks in the nearly two million miles of pipeline that run under our cities.
Source: Rampant City Gas Leaks

There are more than a third of a million miles of natural gas transmission pipelines in the U.S., and more to come. But sometimes they rupture, devastating homes and lives. Bruce Gellerman speaks with investigative blogger Frank Gallagher, editor of NaturalGasWatch.org, about the hazards of this vast system.
Source: The Explosive Growth of Natural Gas Networks



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Climate Solutions Forum: Actions and Challenges

SMUD Auditorium - 6201 S Street, Sacramento, CA
Monday, March 19, 2012
7:00 PM- 9:00 PM

Moderator:
Suzanne Phinney, D.Env.
LWVSC, Aspen Environmental Group

Trish Johnson
CA Air Resources Board, Climate Change Policy Section

Obadiah Bartholomy
SMUD, Climate Change Program

Erik de Kok
City of Sacramento, Climate Action Program

Questions & Answers

Science Friday: No joke - Zebra stripes are a fly repellant | DIY Gravity | Crushing the Myths of Climate Change Denialists

Submitted by Tjadendevries on Fri, 02/10/2012 - 5:13pm

Zebra Stripes: Fashion Statement or Fly Repellant?

    Why’d the zebra evolve its stripes? Perhaps because stripes seem to keep off horseflies, a new study suggests.

The Great Disruption

Submitted by sgl on Thu, 01/26/2012 - 10:53am
Tom Boden

Huge Increase In Global CO2 Emissions

Tom Boden tells Bruce Gellerman that the increase in carbon dioxide is larger than the worst-case scenario suggested by United Nations scientists.
Tom Boden is a Scientist and Science Team Leader at the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center
Source: Huge Increase In Global CO2 Emissions


Paul Gilding
Richard Heinberg

Think economic crisis meets the environmental crisis. Economic growth as we’ve known it is over says Paul Gilding and Richard Heinberg. Paul Gilding is a Professor at Cambridge University Program for Sustainability Leadership. Richard Heinberg is at the Post Carbon Institute and he is journalist and educator.
Source: The Great Disruption




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End Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining

Submitted by sgl on Thu, 10/13/2011 - 11:14am
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is Senior Attorney, Natural Resources Defense Council. Kennedy was in San Francisco to promote The Last Mountain, a new film that features his efforts to end mountaintop removal coal mining in West Virginia. Dirty fuels should be forced to cover their full costs, Kennedy says. Dirty fuels cannot compete without subsidies. Kennedy argues our democracy is broken, and the campaign finance system is a system of legalized bribery.
Source: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Senior Attorney, Natural Resources Defense Council



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An alternate history of the U.S.

Submitted by sgl on Thu, 09/01/2011 - 1:21pm
Thaddeus Russell

Cindy Sheehan's first guest is Thaddeus Russell, he's an historian, cultural critic, and author of "A Renegade History of the United States."



Congressman Dennis Kucinich

Cindy Sheehan's next guest is Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, and he discusses the U.S. military intervention in Libya. His biggest objection is that the entire power to make war is given by our Constitution to Congress not to the President. The founders and the Constitution clearly valued the importance of putting the war powers in the hands of the Congress.
Source: Double feature


Kevin Bales

Kevin Bales talks about slavery. He is an anti-slavery advocate and the president of Free the Slaves. He is also a Professor of Sociology at Roehampton University in London.

Source: Kevin Bales, Anti-Slavery Advocate


Governor Schwarzenegger

Does chemical pollution affect young male sexuality? Scientists continue to sound the alarm about some chemical exposures that may effect reproductive health and development.
Source: Hormone Disruptors Linked To Genital Changes and Sexual Preference

Climate Solutions: Do It Locally
Cities and states must carry the torch to cut carbon emissions and fight climate change. That's the message from Governor Schwarzenegger's third and final Governors' Global Climate Summit, at UC Davis. Reporter: Gretchen Weber
Source: Message from Climate Summit: Do It Yourself




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What Happened to Obama?

Submitted by billl on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 9:54am

A lengthy article, but worth the read. If you don't have time to read the whole article right now, at least read the final paragraph - "But the arc of history does not bend toward justice through capitulation cast as compromise."

What Happened to Obama?
By DREW WESTEN - NYTimes.com

Drew Westen is a professor of psychology at Emory University and the author of “The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation.”

Atlanta

IT was a blustery day in Washington on Jan. 20, 2009, as it often seems to be on the day of a presidential inauguration. As I stood with my 8-year-old daughter, watching the president deliver his inaugural address, I had a feeling of unease. It wasn’t just that the man who could be so eloquent had seemingly chosen not to be on this auspicious occasion, although that turned out to be a troubling harbinger of things to come. It was that there was a story the American people were waiting to hear — and needed to hear — but he didn’t tell it. And in the ensuing months he continued not to tell it, no matter how outrageous the slings and arrows his opponents threw at him.

The stories our leaders tell us matter, probably almost as much as the stories our parents tell us as children, because they orient us to what is, what could be, and what should be; to the worldviews they hold and to the values they hold sacred. Our brains evolved to “expect” stories with a particular structure, with protagonists and villains, a hill to be climbed or a battle to be fought. Our species existed for more than 100,000 years before the earliest signs of literacy, and another 5,000 years would pass before the majority of humans would know how to read and write.

King George III Won: Happy Fourth of July!

Submitted by billl on Thu, 06/30/2011 - 10:45am

King George III Won: Happy Fourth of July!
By David Swanson
http://warisacrime.org/node/58333

The Declaration of Independence is best remembered as a declaration of war, a war declared on the grounds that we wanted our own flag. The sheer stupidity and anachronism of the idea serves to discourage any thoughts about why Canada didn't need a bloody war, whether the U.S. war benefitted people outside the new aristocracy to whom power was transferred, what bothered Frederick Douglas so much about a day celebrating "independence," or what the Declaration of Independence actually said.

When you read the Declaration of Independence, it turns out to be an indictment of King George III for various abuses of power. And those abuses of power look fairly similar to abuses of power we happily permit U.S. presidents to engage in today, either as regards the people of this nation or the people of territories and nations that our military occupies today in a manner uncomfortably resembling Britain's rule over the 13 colonies.

Or perhaps I should say, a large portion of us take turns being happy or outraged depending on the political party with which the current president is identified.

The Elements Of A Successful Revolution

Submitted by sgl on Thu, 06/16/2011 - 3:10pm
Shadi Hamid
Simon Schama

Shadi Hamid and Simon Schama comment on what makes a revolution more likely to succeed - or fail.
Source: The Elements Of A Successful Revolution

Anand Gopal

Scott Horton Interviews Anand Gopal 

Independent journalist Anand Gopal discusses why counterinsurgency strategy works better in theory than in practice. He explains how the "denying al-Qaeda sanctuary" justification for U.S. military deployments ignores the real reasons the 9/11 attacks succeeded.

Eric Margolis

Scott Horton Interviews Eric Margolis

Eric Margolis discusses Egypt’s fake revolution. He comments on the criminal charges against former Pakistani president Musharraf and reminds us of the still unsolved mystery of who really killed Benazir Bhutto.

Lester Brown

How Close are we to the Edge

As food prices rise, and civil unrest builds throughout the Middle East, Lester Brown wonders if these two could be connected.

Music includes Earth Anthem, Subterranean Homesick Blues, In A World Gone Mad..., brother can you spare a dime, Diamonds & Rust, climate change, We'll Meet Again

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Living Through the Next Fifty Years

Submitted by sgl on Thu, 05/26/2011 - 11:35am
Mark Hertsgaard

Mark Hertsgaard talks with Terrence McNally. Mark Hertsgaard is a fellow of The Open Society Institute and The Nation's environment correspondent. He has covered climate change for twenty years and is the author of six books, including, most recently, HOT: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth. Terrence McNally is a journalist and radio host.
Source: Q&A: Mark Hertsgaard, Author
 

Wendell Berry
Paul Epstein

From Living on Earth, the Costs of Coal

If the true costs of the full lifecycle of coal were taken into account, this form of energy would be extremely expensive.

Extraction, processing, transportation and combustion of coal create large tolls on the environment and human health. We hear from poet and farmer Wendell Berry who slept in the Kentucky governor’s office to protest mountaintop removal. Host Bruce Gellerman also talks with Dr. Paul Epstein from Harvard University’s Medical School about his new study measuring the true costs of coal.
Source: Costs of Coal

Juan Cole

The Corruption Game

Juan Cole, a professor of history and director of the Center for South Asian Studies at the University of Michigan, talks about U.S. government backing of corrupt dictatorships around the world.
Source: The Corruption Game


Bill McKibben

Pressure Cooking

Bill McKibben discusses the U.S. government's apathetic attitude toward global warming and that this forces the public to lead the fight against global warming.
Source: Pressure Cooking

Music includes Earth Anthem, La Rosita, Janis Joplin Me And Bobby Mcgee, Love Peace, Requiem For A Dream, Sweet Sir Galahad, Don't Let Me Down, We'll Meet Again

Play Program or Download(below the fold)