Renewable Revolution

MUST HEAR PODCAST AT RADIO ECOSHOCK!
Agelbert NOTE: The first half of the program (CAROLYN BAKER – THE AMERICAN SHADOW) is rather depressing. I am a Christian and all Christians are branded as deniers living in La La Land. Anyone that has seen what I post knows I am not denying the threat of Catastrophic climate change. I think a REAL Christian understands that our situation is because of humanity's sinful lack of responsibility for not being good stewards of the environment. The "Christians" in the USA that pretend God is going to "take care of it" are PSEUDO-Christians. That is, they are NOT Christians; they are hyper-nationalist clueless morons that worship a flag instead of the Lord Jesus Christ. And, yeah, most of the "Christian" churches in the USA are exactly like that. But I won't change my label because right wing fascists have co-opted it for profit over biosphere propaganda purposes. Carolyn Baker is right when she quoted George Carlin that "America is an Oil company with an Army". But I wish she would not cast Christianity in such a negative light. 

The second half of the podcast with Naomi Oreskes is far more informative. 

She makes it clear that the claim by so many scientists, and many other, otherwise objective people  , that emotion is "irrational" is exactly backwards. 

Scientists framing scientific studies in statistical terms and refusing to use stark and strong terms like "dire threat" or "Existential threat" is the norm because using words like "bad" is supposed to be "irrational". 

Neuroscience has now proven that framing a threat in dry, unemotional terms is actually a DISSERVICE to the scientific method because it results in less awareness of the threat by those communicated with.

Emotion is actually sine qua non for rational argument, the exact opposite of what the "common wisdom" of the scientific community normally sticks to like a religion.

Consequently, the scientific community has FAILED to convince the leaders of the nations of the world to objectively weigh the threat in terms of the catastrophic damage that is unavoidable when governments support the polluters instead of stopping the polluters from polluting.

THE IRRATIONAL FEAR scientists have of being labelled "emotional" people "crying wolf" has contributed to increasing the probability of our extinction due to lack of timely action to stop and reverse runaway Global Greenhouse Warming.

It's TIME for scientists to become RATIONAL about there responsibility to show a LOT of emotion    on any issue that warrants it.

Not doing so is IRRATIONAL behavior, not "prudent, measured, dry, reasonable, scientific, etc." as we, who have any science background, were taught.

This flawed method is exactly what the polluters  have used against the dissemination of the reality of our plight due to the burning of fossil fuels.


In our second interview, scientist and author Naomi Oreskes takes us into the future when Trump wins and we all do nothing about climate change. She calls it the track to extinction.

Oreskes is a leading American earth scientist in her own right. She’s also a historian of science. Currently Naomi  is Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, at Harvard University.

http://www.ecoshock.org/2017/06/the-american-shadow.html

You can learn more about Naomi here in her Wikipedia entry. One of her most cited papers is the 2004 “The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change” published in the journal Science.

Oreskes is the author of the seminal book “Merchants of Doubt” shows how industry hires scientists to create doubt in the public mind about well-understood dangers.

This strategy was crafted for the tobacco industry (and worked for almost 40 years) – but then applied by the chemical industry for many toxins, including DDT. It was further adapted by energy and electricity companies to throw doubt on global warming science.

In 2010, I interviewed Dr. Oreskes.  You can download the interview here or listen to it, below.


In 2014, Oreskes brought out her new book “The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future”. The book description is:

“The year is 2393, and the world is almost unrecognizable. Clear warnings of climate catastrophe went ignored for decades, leading to soaring temperatures, rising sea levels, widespread drought and—finally—the disaster now known as the Great Collapse of 2093, when the disintegration of the West Antarctica Ice Sheet led to mass migration and a complete reshuffling of the global order. Writing from the Second People’s Republic of China on the 300th anniversary of the Great Collapse, a senior scholar presents a gripping and deeply disturbing account of how the children of the Enlightenment—the political and economic elites of the so-called advanced industrial societies—failed to act, and so brought about the collapse of Western civilization.”

It’s all science-based fiction. Climate change is shown as it ramps up, while humans continue in denial, as we do now. A top scientist makes it real.

Listening to this interview by Francesca Rheannon, Oreskes seemed to perfectly capture our present, just as Donald Trump announced the United States would pull out of the Paris climate agreement. I couldn’t say it better.

TRUMP’S PULL-OUT FROM THE PARIS CLIMATE AGREEMENT

The authors of the Paris agreement cleverly realized that democracies can change course with any election. So the agreement contains a clause that allows a country to exit, but only four years after filing to leave. That means the United States will technically be part of the agreement, right up to the 2020 general election.

It’s still possible a new President could repair the damage. Or is it? We don’t know if other countries will want to bail out of the Paris accord, following Trump’s lead. So far, the opposite is happening. Nicaragua, which didn’t sign because they didn’t think the agreement went far enough, is now saying they will join. And as you know, almost a hundred America Mayors and Governors have announced they will continue to act to help America reach it’s emission reduction goals. Will Trump’s action stimulate faster reductions? We’ll see.

THE WRITER’S VOICE

On the Pacifica Radio Network, Francesca Rheannon produces the series “Writer’s voice”. On Pacifica, I found this about Francesca:

“Francesca Rheannon is an independent radio producer and show host. She is producer and co-host of Writer’s Voice, a talk show about writing, writers and their works, that has been on the air since 2004. She also is a freelance broadcast news reporter, who has produced features for public radio stations, Sprouts on Pacifica, and The Homelessness Marathon. She lives in South Hadley, MA.”

Find all her great programs at writersvoice.net.

We are out of time. If you can afford to help this radio show keep going, donations of any amount are always welcome. Radio stations do not pay me for this program. Your donations help me provide Radio Ecoshock free to everyone, all over the world.

I’m Alex Smith. Thank you for listening to Radio Ecoshock.

http://www.ecoshock.org/2017/06/the-american-shadow.html