Earthbeat Radio

 

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An April US Supreme Court Case reviewed the Center for Food Safety’s groundbreaking legal challenge banning the sale and planting of Monsanto’s genetically altered alfalfa. The case mirrors a fierce battle over genetically altered eggplants that is underway in India.

Earthbeat host Daphne Wysham speaks to the Center’s founder, Andrew Kimbrell and international director Debbie Barker.

A report shows how the second richest man in New York is quietly funding climate deniers. We speak to Kert Davies of Greenpeace USA about how David Koch is pouring millions into climate denial campaigns.

Then, ‘Creation Care’ – we speak to Reverend Mitch Hescox, the head of the Evangelical Environmental Network.

BP says it’s attached a new cap on its oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. Plumes of oil have covered thousands of square miles of ocean waters and shoreline, leaving Gulf Coast communities reeling from the impact.

BP has squared off against the press, threatening photographers and other journalists with felonies if they come within 65 feet of their cleanup operations. Nevertheless, pictures of the despoiled ocean, oil-coated birds, turtles and marine mammals are making it into the public domain. Joining Earthbeat Host Daphne Wysham in the studio to discuss the the BP oil disaster are the Reverend Lennox Yearwood, the president and CEO of the HipHop Caucus. Joining the conversation after returning from a recent trip to the Gulf is Allison Fisher, Energy Organizer with the group Public Citizen.

Then, how the US Government tested nuclear weapons on the people living in the Marshall Islands. Bob Alvarez, a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, testified recently before Congress on how the government is now considering cutting off support for the roughly 62,000 affected islanders.

Then, Thinking Outside the Bomb, how native Americans continue to be affected by nuclear weapons testing in the American West.

Image is a nuclear bomb test in the Pacific.

From the EPA to the Department of the Interior to the President himself – a review how the Obama Administration is handling the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

Host Daphne Wysham speaks to Kieran Suckling, the executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity.

Then, an update on the UN climate negotiations in Bonn, Germany with Rachel Smolker, the co-director of BioFuel Watch and Janet Redman, the co-director of the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network and a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies.

And a presentation by author Michael Klare on the follies of our relentless pursuit of extreme energy. Klare’s latest book is Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet.

Jim Thomas of the ETC Group discusses what’s behind Exxon pouring millions of dollars into the world’s first synthetic life form, a algae named ‘Synthia.’

Then, crude oil and the toxic chemicals BP is using to disperse the oil is now killing wildlife all along America’s Gulf Coast. Joining host Daphne Wysham to discuss the connections between these toxic chemicals and cancer is Sam Epstein. Doctor Epstein is a professor of Environmental and Occupational Medicine at the University of Illinois School of Public Health and the chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition.

The President’s Cancer Panel warns that childhood cancer is increasing for unexplained reasons in its latest annual report.

Haitian farmers decide to set fire to bags of Monsanto seeds rather than plant the pesticide-laden hybrids. Beverly Bell of the Institute for Policy Studies details her Huffington Post article on how giant agribusiness corporations are using the rebuilding effort from the Haitian earthquake as an opportunity to exploit Haitian farmers and cause further food shortages.

Image of a plane distributing chemical dispersants in the Gulf of Mexico

Oil is now washing up all along the Gulf Coast as a result of the disaster of an open, gushing BP oil well in the Gulf of Mexico.

Joining host Daphne Wysham with a first hand account of the ongoing disaster is Bob Deans, the director of federal communications for the Natural Resources Defense Council. Joining the conversation with a view on what’s occurring on Capitol Hill and the Obama Administration’s plans to continue offshore oil drilling is Kyle Ash, the senior legislative representative for Greenpeace.

Investigative reporter Mark Schapiro joins us to discuss his investigation on how forests in Brazil are becoming a commodity on the worldwide ‘carbon market.’ Mark is a senior correspondent for the Center for Investigative Reporting – and his series on the carbon market is for Frontline World.

Carbon Nation is a new feature film about the current revolution of entrepreneurs across America who are focusing on clean, renewable energy. We speak to filmmaker Peter Byck about his documentary in which some of these ‘climate pioneers’ don’t even believe that climate change is occurring. Or as one of Byck’s subjects puts it, “even if you’re a greedy bastard and you just want cheap power, you’d still do these things.”

Music in this week’s edition of the show is by Sanjay Mishra with special guest Jerry Garcia, the album is Blue Incantation. Our theme music is Baladi by Tony Anka, Bellydance Superstars vol. 2.

Image: A Brown Pelican is cleaned at the Fort Jackson Wildlife Rehabilitation Center after it became coated with oil from the disastrous Gulf oil spill

Here is a live feed of the oil spill

Even conservative estimates say that about 5 million gallons of oil have gushed out of an open undersea oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, and there’s no plan to stop the major sources of oil from leaking.

The oil well rupture came after BP’s offshore oil rig exploded weeks ago, killing 11 workers. Now, even as that disaster continues nearly unabated, Shell Oil is pushing forward with plans to drill off the coast of Alaska.

Joining host Daphne Wysham to discuss offshore drilling – and moves in the Senate to support even more drilling – is Jackie Savitz. the senior campaign director for Oceana’s Pollution campaigns.

Then a discussion about the economics of protecting the environment with Nobel Laureate in Economics – Elinor Ostrom. Ostrom was the first woman to win the prize, we spoke to her about her work on focusing on the ‘commons’ from the studios of Indiana University.

Music in this week’s edition of the show is ‘My Meditation” by Sanjay Mishra with special guest Jerry Garcia, the album is Blue Incantation. Our theme music is Baladi by Tony Anka, Bellydance Superstars vol. 2.

Photo: NASA satellite image of the massive plume of oil off the Gulf Coast.

An oil disaster in the Gulf Coast as an offshore British Petroleum Drilling Platforms explodes – and oil gushes into the ocean.

Host Daphne Wysham speaks to Casi Callaway, the Mobile Baykeeper in Alabama about the environmental concerns of the oil disaster. Tyson Slocum, the energy director of the group Public Citizen, joins to to review BP’s long history of ignoring safety concerns and fighting government fines. And former oil broker and industry critic Chuck Hamel gives us an insider’s view of BP’s corporate culture – including the company’s encouraging workers to falsify safety statements. Hamel is on the board of POGO – the Project on Government Oversight.

Then, readings by acclaimed indigenous poet Allison Hedge Coke. Her books “Off-Season City Pipe” and “Dog Road Woman” involve autobiographical poems drawing on Allison’s background as a Native American, a tobacco sharecropper and factory worker. She’s won the 1998 American Book Award and has been nominated for two of the prestigious American literary prizes – the Pushcart Prizes.

Music in this week’s edition of the show is St. James Infirmary by New Orleans music legend Kermit Ruffins. Our theme music is Baladi by Tony Anka, Bellydance Superstars vol. 2.

Image by Greg Palast, all rights reserved.

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.