James Speth, Dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and author of Red Sky at Morning, America and the Crisis of the Global Evironment (2004),
joined us in studio to talk about global warming and his call for action in a
recent letter to the Editor of the NY Times.
LISTEN (part 1: 11 min)
LISTEN (part 2: 7 min)
NASA’s Chief Climate Scientist, Jim Hansen,
turned down more than 100 requests for interviews this week in the wake
of a front page New York Times article about administration efforts to
curb his candor in speaking publicly about imminent dangers of global
warming. He chose EcoTalk to share thoughts on what’s behind
attempts to muzzle him and why we must take action now.
Listen (part 1 = 9 min)
Listen (part 2 = 3 min)
MUSIC
CREDIT: ALL music on EcoTalk #82 is from M.U.S.E. Musicians United to
Sustain the Environment, a nonprofit organization using the creativity
of music to make a pragmatic environmental impact.
Michael Hanemann, Professor at UC Berkeley discusses an important
new report "Managing greenhouse gas emissions in California" that underlines the economic advantages of climate action.
Listen (5 min)
The hot new eco-trend, Carbon sequestration – how you can
offset your emissions – will be discussed with Jason Smith, CEO of driveneutral.org and Craig Coulter, Partnership Director of carbonfund.org. Listen (11 min)
Before 2005 becomes just another bad memory we’ll do a quick rewind and name the Top Five Environmental Stories Of The Year with David Roberts, Assistant Editor for our favorite green news website, Grist magazine.
Listen (10 min)
Then on to some better news with Amy Warren, of the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency – she’ll tell us about a model anti-idling program getting revved up in the Seattle area. Idling tidbits to keep in mind:
On average, a single vehicle dropping
off and picking up kids at one school puts three pounds of pollution
into the air per month.
Vehicle idling consumes 1/2 to 1 gallon of fuel per hour. Put another way, idling = ZERO mpg. It is more efficient to turn off and restart your car than it is to idle for more than 30 seconds.
Asthma is the most common chronic
illness in children and the cause of most school absences. Children’s
asthma symptoms increase as a result of car exhaust.
Also contributing to this segment is EcoTalk’s co-producer Shana Weber talking about commercial truck idling, the new laws in place and new technology that makes it easier to turn those big engines off at night and still stay comfortable in the cab.
Listen (7 min)
Our second half will focus on films with a green tint…first, The End of Suburbia with Julian Darley, founder and director of the Post-Carbon Institute –
this DVD is playing at house parties across America and driving
housewives to abandon their SUVs en masse (we wish).
Listen (11 min)
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The second film in
the EcoTalk spotlight is Syriana. NRDC‘s Daniel Hinerfeld critique this geo-political thriller, starring George Clooney. It is a project of Participants production, a different type of producer. The movie is also an opportunity to participate in the Oil Change campaign to reduce our dependance on oil, inspired by the film and organized by NRDC and the Sierra Club.
Listen (7 min)
LISTEN to the whole show (37 min)