Earthbeat Radio

The April 5th, 2000 Massey Energy coal mine explosion in Upper Big Branch, West Virginia, was the deadliest mining disaster in 40 years. Whistleblower Jack Spadaro speaks out against Massey Energy and US government officials who fired him for criticizing Massey’s failure to implement safeguards that could have prevented the discharge of toxic coal slurry–a spill at least 25 times larger than the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Spadero alleges that the same man who pushed him out under formerPresident George W. Bush in 2000 for investigating Massey wrongdoing is now playing a key role in the investigation of the Massey coal mine explosion in 2010.

Then, joining us after a recent trip to the Gulf of Mexico is David Helvarg, the author of ” Saved By the Sea: A Love Story with Fish” and founder and president of the marine conservation group Blue Frontier. Helvarg speaks about the effects of the BP oil spill on aquatic life and a promising stewardship initiative implemented by the Obama Administration to protect the oceans, coastlines, and Great Lakes.

Rob Hopkins, the co-founder of Transition Towns in the UK, speaks to host Daphne Wysham on the opportunities of peak oil. Transition Town Totnes (TTT), the original Transition Town, has served as a model for the 321 Transition Towns worldwide striving to sustain themselves in a world beyond oil.

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.

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.

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.

Adding insult to injury, residents all along the Gulf Coast are now having to gut their houses because they were rebuilt after Hurricanes Rita and Katrina with toxic drywall. The Chinese-made drywall releases gases so noxious it’s corroding pipes and electrical wiring. Jim Vallette of the Healthy Building Network’s Pharos Project joins us to explain how the drywall came to include toxic ash and other wastes left over from coal-fired power plants – and the connections between the German multi-national corporation Knauf and its manufacturing plants in China. The Health Building Network’s Pharos Project connects builders with sustainable materials.

The World Bank approved a loan that will create one of the world’s largest coal-fired power plants. The $3.75 billion dollar loan will result in a power plant that emits 23 million metric tons of carbon dioxide each year. Desmond D’Sa of the Environmental Alliance of South Africa talks about how this loan will perpetuate many of the conditions in place under apartheid.

A new film tracks the history and the legacy of Earth Day. Host Daphne Wysham speaks to filmmaker Robert Stone. The film will air on PBS’s program ‘American Experience’ on April 19th.

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

Image by DavidaLan via Flickr – all rights reserved.

President Obama joins in on the chorus of Drill, Baby, Drill. Joining us to discuss the decision is Tyson Slocum, the director of the energy program for the group Public Citizen – and on the telephone from Alaska is Caroline Cannon. Caroline is the president of the native village of Point Hope on Alaska’s North Slope. Their native hunting waters are directly affected by President Obama’s lifting of the offshore drilling ban.

For the first time, the federal Clean Air Act has been used to control carbon dioxide and other global warming pollutants. The new tailpipe rules for America’s cars require new vehicles to get 35-point-5 miles per gallon by the year 2016. But as our guest Vera Pardee explains, these new standards don’t go far enough. Pardee is a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity.

Then, a victory in the fight against mountaintop removal mining. JW Randolph, the legislative associate for the group Appalachian Voices joins us to discuss the EPA’s new water quality guidelines and what it means for mountaintop removal. The blog JW mentions is by Ken Ward and called Coal Tattoo.

Photo by Matthew Potochick courtesy of Flickr, all rights reserved.

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

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. Host Daphne Wysham speaks to Abrahm Lustgarten about the 60 stories he’s written about fracking for the non-profit investigative journalism group – ProPublica.

Larry Brilliant is the director of Google.org, the charitable arm of the massive Internet search company. He makes the case for an optimistic view of our fight against climate change in one of the very popular TED talks.

This year is the UN Year of Biodiversity, joining us to discuss the effects that climate change will have on biodiversity is John Fitzgerald, policy director of the Society for Conservation Biology, a professional society of not just biologists but of many different professionals from all over the world who study and practice conservation.

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.

Environmental activist Mike Roselle faces charges of trespassing, obstruction, contempt of court, and the defiance of a temporary restraining order – so all is going to plan for this Kentucky native. Mike is the author of the book Tree Spiker and the co-founder of several groups including Earth First!, the Ruckus Society and the Rainforest Action Network. He’s just been released from jail in West Virginia for his nonviolent work against mountaintop removal mining with Climate Ground Zero.

James Cameron’s 3-D blockbuster movie Avatar is on track to become one of the most watched movies around the world – and that’s allowed many to look at the movie as a way of illustrating the current struggles of indigenous peoples around the world. Sanho Tree of the Institute of Policy Studies and Clayton Thomas Muller, a member of the Cree Nation and the Indigenous Environmental Network, join the conversation. Muller joins us from Canada – where the battle over oil-rich tar sands on native lands mirrors the movie’s plot.

The discovery of methane being released in Siberia leaves many scientists concerned that we’ve entered a positive feedback loop of global warming. The National Science Foundation says the methane release is a result of climate change. Host Daphne Wysham gets to the core of the issue with University of Chicago climate scientist Dave Archer.

Image: Mike Roselle, Joe Hamsher, and Tom Smyth walk with purpose towards the Marfork Coal Company office. The three activists peacefully entered the office to deliver a citizen’s arrest warrant for Christopher Blanchard and Don Blankenship, the CEOs of Marfork and Massey, who are responsible for the destruction of Coal River Mountain and for numerous violations on their sites. Photo by Cheshire/Climate Ground Zero

Music from Tangled up in Bluegrass. Our theme music is Baladi by Tony Anka, Bellydance Superstars vol. 2.