The Interior Department decides this summer whether or not it will allow uranium mining near the Grand Canyon. Joining host Daphne Wysham to discuss the pre-Fukushima boom in uranium mining by foreign companies is Lauren Pagel, the policy director of EarthWorks. To express your opinion on the mining for uranium in and around the Grand Canyon, click here.

A ‘honking big global Earth summit’ is coming our way next year, that’s according to Jim Thomas of the ETC Group. Jim says bankers and corporations are already jockeying for position at the upcoming UN Rio+20 Summit. His recent commentary can be found at Grist.org. But also preparing are activists like India’s Vandana Shiva. We’ll hear part of Vandana’s comments on Rio+20 at a UN conference earlier this month. The video from the UN Conference is available.

DuPont is taken to task for potential toxic liabilities that endanger millions of Americans, we’ll get the details from Rick Hind, the legislative director for Greenpeace.

Music in this edition of the show is ‘Lightning over Sonora’ and ‘Procession of the Jaguar’ by Native American musician Robert Tree Cody. Our theme music is “Baladi” by Tony Anka, Bellydance Superstars vol. 2.

Image of an abandoned uranium mine in Utah by wonder_al via Flickr.

Corporations are using the panic and disorientation of budget crises to crush unions and environmental protections, that’s according to Shock Doctrine author Naomi Klein. In a conversation with host Daphne Wysham, Klein tells us how those in Wisconsin and other places are pushing back to catch corporate tax dodgers.

US Uncut actions are occurring across America.

The federal government must pass a budget within days – or all government services will screech to a halt. But Republicans in the US House passed a budget bill that strips the EPA of its power. Anna Aurilio, the DC director of Environment America, says the shortfalls could be filled by stopping the ‘free pass’ oil companies get on deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. They’re not paying $5 billion dollars a year on these oil leases.

Climate activist Tim DeChristopher faces federal felony charges for interrupting a federal auction of oil and gas leases – an auction held in the last few days of the Bush Administration in 2008. We’ll hear from Tim – ‘bidder number 70′ – who managed to ‘win’ a number of the leases before the auction was halted. Interview courtesy of Solve Climate.

Then, Mark Hertsgaard takes on ‘climate cranks’ in his new book Hot and with Earthbeat host Daphne Wysham on The Real News Network.

Music for this edition of Earthbeat includes Bucky Halker’s songs, Union Fights the Battle of Freedom, and Democratic Blues.

Image used courtesy USUncut.

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Documents have come to light that show that Canadian diplomats have been working in DC to try to kill or limit laws that enact clean fuels standards that would restrict the sale of oil from dirty Canadian tar sands flowing into the US. The diplomats quietly asked companies like Exxon Mobil and BP to help them crush clean energy reforms. Joining us in our Washington, DC studios is Danielle Droitsch, the US Policy Director for the environmental think-tank Pembina who discusses the disturbing attempts by these diplomats to “debunk” the toxic effects of tar sands exploration on First Nations peoples.

And, in what’s been called a major breakthrough – over 400 companies around the world have agreed to start using climate-friendly refrigeration techniques. Amy Larkin, Greenpeace’s Solutions Director, helped to put together the agreement that will cut the amount of climate-killing HFCs released into our atmosphere.

Then we hear from representatives who joined nearly 200 nations gathered in Cancun, Mexico this week for the next round of United Nations-sponsored climate negotiations. Joining host Daphne Wysham from the meeting are Ann Peterman, the executive director of the Global Justice Ecology Project to discuss the UN plans for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) and its effects on indigenous peoples. Janet Redman of the Institute for Policy Studies and Kristen Hite, an attorney for the Climate Change Program at the Center for International Environmental Law also join us to discuss climate finance and REDD.

A recent lawsuit filed on behalf of Ecuador essentially sues the oil company BP on behalf of Mother Nature for the disaster that occurred this summer along America’s Gulf Coast. Nnimmo Bassey of the Friends of the Earth International joins us from Cancun to discuss the meeting the intent of the lawsuit.

Image by Oxfam, used under a Creative Commons license via Flickr.

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The Washington, DC Green Festival brought together hundreds of activists, artists, craftspeople and families. Today on Earthbeat we bring you three of the most compelling speakers from the event.

The Reverend Lennox Yearwood is the director of the Hip Hop Caucus. He rallied the crowd around what he calls the “lunch counter moment” of our lifetimes: acting on climate change for the sake of future generations.

Bolivian Ambassador to the UN, Pablo Solon Romero, spoke about why the agenda that emerged from the Peoples’ Summit on Climate Change in Cochabamba, Bolivia is critical of “market mechanisms” such as carbon trading, and warned people to be wary of “greenwashing” and other claims of climate action that are insufficient to stave off the climate crisis.

Then we hear from Venezuelan Presidential Climate Change Envoy Claudia Salerno Caldera, and why she spoke out against the so-called “Copenhagen Accord,” and what she calls the “elephant in the room” of climate negotiations: capitalism.

Our theme music is Baladi by Tony Anka, Bellydance Superstars vol. 2.

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It’s the final countdown to the midterm elections and already it’s been one for the record books. A record amount of corporate money is flooding into races around the country through secret organizations that hide their donors. Tyson Slocum of Public Citizen joins host Daphne Wysham to discuss the vast sums of corporate money that’s pushing this election season.

A look at how California voters’ decision on Prop 23 could undermine California’s climate change law – it’s a Proposition almost solely supported by three out-of-state oil companies.  Gabe Wisniewski, a climate campaigner with Greenpeace from their San Francisco office, joins the discussion with Danny Kennedy, the founder of the solar energy company Sungevity.

Then, we’ll shine as much light as possible on all the dark corners of this election season – from the US Chamber of Commerce, to the children’s publisher Scholastic with Pete Altman of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

To take action against Scholastic’s union with the Chamber of Commerce – go HERE!

Our theme music is Baladi by Tony Anka, Bellydance Superstars vol. 2.

If you’d like to hear this edition of Earthbeat – please send us an e-mail

NASA scientist James Hansen speaks about his arrest at the White House during a protest against mountaintop removal coal mining. Hansen was one of over 100 activists arrested during the non-violent civil disobedience event – Appalachia Rising. Joining the conversation is demonstration organizer, Maria Gunnoe, of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition and a native of Boone County, West Virginia.

Hansen put forward an idea of Equal Protection of the Laws at the Appalachia Rising event. The Million Letter March mentioned by James Hansen is the ‘write’ way to stop climate change.

Record breaking amounts of money is pouring into the midterm elections – tracking the contributions from the oil and gas is Dave Levinthal, the editor of the blog Open Secrets and the spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics.

An innovative program in New England is keeping small, family fishing companies afloat in the face of big corporate interests. Niaz Dorry, the director of the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance joins us to discuss the rise of ‘factory fishing’ and how her organization is fighting back.

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Fracking for natural gas can cause flames to shoot out of water faucets and pollute groundwater with unknown chemicals – and yet the EPA has little authority to regulate this process used by the natural gas industry in 38 states. In this rebroadcast edition of Earthbeat, Host Daphne Wysham speaks to Abrahm Lustgarten about the 60 stories he’s written about fracking for the non-profit investigative journalism group – ProPublica.

Then, a discussion on how the rest of the world is leaping forward on a clean energy future with Lester Brown. Lester is the president of the Earth Policy Institute and the author of an editorial in the Washington Post and the book, Plan B 4.0 Mobilizing to Save Civilization.

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Our theme music is Baladi by Tony Anka, Bellydance Superstars vol. 2.

The People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth was a three-day conference that took place in Cochabamba, Bolivia and focused on giving a voice to indigenous people, environmental justice activists and others locked out of the United Nations’ previous Copenhagen Climate Conference.

Host Daphne Wysham’s reporting from Bolivia includes a conversation with Beverly Keene, the international coordinator of Jubilee South, a network of organizations that work on debt and development.

Plus, a discussion of how the world’s governments are giving cash and carbon credits for ending illegal activity – gas flaring – under the UN ‘clean development mechanism.’ Wysham speaks to Nnimmo Bassey, Nigeria’s executive director of Environmental Right Action / Friends of the Earth about these open air flames burning off natural gas and his impressions of the Bolivia conference.

Clayton Thomas Muller is a longstanding champion for environmental justice. He’s a member of the Cree Nation in Canada and he heads the Indigenous Environmental Network’s project on Tar Sands project. We hear from Clayton at one of the town hall-style meetings he’s been holding across Canada about his experience at the UN climate meeting in Copenhagen.

Our theme music is Baladi by Tony Anka, Bellydance Superstars vol. 2.

Image of dancers getting ready to go on stage at Univalle, Tiquipaya – by Daphne Wysham all rights reserved.

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Earthbeat Host and IPS Fellow Daphne Wysham conducted a special one-hour interview with Dr. James Hansen, NASA’s top climate scientist, as an Earth Day 40th anniversary special.

In the interview, Dr. Hansen discusses the role of nuclear power in the climate crisis, the need for alternatives to cap and trade as a solution to climate change, and the possibilities that Earth will become like Venus due to fossil fuel consumption.

A video of the interview is available. Our theme music is Baladi by Tony Anka, Bellydance Superstars vol. 2.

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Host Mike Tidwell reviews the highlights of seven years of hosting Earthbeat. Including a conversation with famed film critic Roger Ebert on the significance of Al Gore’s movie, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ – a conversation with a merchant sailor who stood on the deck of the first commercial ship ever to sail through the Northwest Passage – and frequent guest Joe Romm on how warmer waters will lead to more frequent and intense hurricanes. Mike Tidwell will continue his work on climate at the Chesapeake Climate Action Network.

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