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.
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.
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.
In the wake of the ongoing oil disaster along America’s Gulf Coast, what’s in store for the corporation at the core of the problem? Charlie Cray, the director of the Center for Corporate Policy and Phil Mattera, the director of the Corporate Research Project join host Daphne Wysham to discuss BP’s future.
Clear cutting and then burning American forests to create electricity is considered a ‘clean energy solution’ in both the House and Senate energy plans. Mary Booth, a researcher for the Environmental Working Group, discusses how this practice is set to dramatically increase in the coming years with coal-fired power plants looking to wood as their new fuel. Booth’s report is Clear Cut Disaster. Mary is also the founder of the Massachusetts Environmental Energy Alliance.
Ted Glick is facing up to three years in jail for unfurling a banner protesting climate change inaction in the U.S. Capitol. Ted, the policy director for the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, discusses his misdemeanor conviction that may result in him serving more jail time than any BP executive.
Hands Across the Sand is set to become one of the world’s largest demonstrations against the Gulf oil disaster and offshore oil drilling. Whit Jones joins us. Whit is the co-field director for Energy Action.
A lifelong shrimper and fisherwoman from the Gulf Coast details years of lax regulation and unsafe conditions forced upon fishermen by oil and chemical companies. Diane Wilson made headlines when she covered herself in oil in protest during the recent Senate hearings on the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. The Texas native is also a founder of CodePink. She spoke with Earthbeat host Daphne Wysham prior to her arrest on Capitol Hill.
Florida Senator Bill Nelson has stood up to calls to ‘Drill, Baby, Drill’ for decades. This longtime Democrat recently discussed the oil industry’s pressure on lawmakers during a recent appearance at a Congressional Quarterly weekly event in Washington.
Then, Daphne Wysham’s conversation with the author of Diet for a Small Planet, Frances Moore Lappe on her new project, Getting a Grip 2.
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.
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
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.
Thousands of gallons of oil continue to gush out of an uncapped oil well in the Gulf of Mexico as the companies responsible go to Washington to point fingers and place blame. BP blames Transocean. Transocean blames Haliburton. Haliburton blames BP.
Joining host Daphne Wysham in our Washington, DC studios to discuss the disaster and its effects both on the Gulf and in Washington is Nick Berning of Friends of the Earth, Bill Snape of the Center for Biological Diversity and David Helvarg, the president of the Blue Frontier Campaign.
Music in this week’s edition of the show is ‘One Life’ by New Orleans music legend Kermit Ruffins. 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.
"Earthbeat Radio does for environmental coverage on the airwaves what Grist Magazine does for the environment in the cyber world. Solid, deep, fascinating coverage, not the rushed Cliff Notes version you get buried in your newspaper. Earthbeat Radio provides the kind of reporting and interviews that keep a movement glued together. May it thrive."
John Passacantando - President of Our Next Economy, LLC
"In 2006, Earthbeat became our Friday 'luncheon listen' - it's been a great success."
John Cain - Station Manager KABF - 100,000 watts Little Rock, Arkansas
"Earthbeat is one of the best informed and most relevant programs to
focus on climate change. Wysham consistently zeroes in on critical (if sometimes under acknowledged) aspects of the climate
crisis. And unlike many other environmental programs, which tend to
ghettoize the climate issue, Earthbeat is the only program I know that
treats this enormous challenge with the thoughtfulness, honesty and
depth it deserves."
