Today on Earthbeat -- Robbing Peter -- to pay Paul. Insurance companies in the United States use one hand to deny policies to Americans living on the East Coast -- while using the other hand to invest billions of dollars in coal-fired power plants and other polluting industries.

In this encore edition of Earthbeat, host Mike Tidwell discusses the surprisingly fascinating business of insurance and climate change with Joel Gordes of Environmental Energy Solutions. Joel follows the industry from his offices near the insurance capital of the world - Hartford, Connecticut.

Florida is often called a 'worst case scenario come true' when it comes to insurance. Randy Diamond reports on insurance and writes the blog 'Gotcha Covered' for Florida's Palm Beach Post. Amy Bach is the co-founder of a consumer rights group in California - United Policyholders.

And then we hear from the insurance industry itself. David Snyder is a lawyer for the lobbying group, the American Insurance Association. Joining him is Andrew Logan, the director of insurance programs for Ceres, a coalition of investors and environmental groups that encourage environmentally sound business decisions.

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Music for this edition of Earthbeat is by Groove Armada's Back To Mine remix of Barry White's "Playing Your Game Baby" and "I Should've Known Better" by Mica Paris.

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

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Watching the world warm. We'll speak to the President of the Worldwatch Institute - Christopher Flavin - a leading voice on the need to build a low-carbon economy. We're bringing details from Worldwatch's landmark 2009 report The State of the World.

Included speakers are Dr. Janet Sawin, a senior researcher with the Worldwatch Institute, Malini Mehra, the founder of the Centre for Social Markets in India, Yingling Liu, the China Program Manager at Worldwatch, Bill Hare lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's mitigation component, Dr. Thomas Lovejoy, the Biodiversity Chair of the Heinz Center and Dr. Sara Scherr, the President and CEO of Ecoagricultural Partners.

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Today on Earthbeat - The politician who really coined the phrase "Drill baby Drill" becomes head Republican and the Senate slips nuclear power provisions into the stimulus package. Host Mike Tidwell discusses the latest climate news with Joe Romm, the author of Climate Progress.

Then, we hear Al Gore's testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on climate change.

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

Today on Earthbeat - Pushing back on plans to build new coal-fired power plants in Virginia. Legislators need to promote new clean energy instead of old, dirty coal.

Mike Tidwell hosts this special DC-Local edition of Earthbeat with guests Lauren Glickman of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network and 2009 candidate for governor of Virginia - Brian Moran.

To contact:

Senator Dick Saslaw (Majority Leader and Chair of Commerce and Labor Committee) please call 804-698-7535, Email: VASenate35@aol.com

Senator Charles Colgan (President pro tempore and on Committee) please call 804-698-7529 Email: district29@senate.virginia.gov

President Obama sharply reverses the Bush administration's policies on transportation emissions - and appoints an international climate negotiator. Meanwhile, scientists say that even if all carbon dioxide emissions stop today - global warming will continue for a thousand years. Joining host Daphne Wysham discusses Obama's new policies on climate change is David Bookbinder, Senior Attorney with the Sierra Club, Tony Massaro, Vice President of Legal Affairs for the League of Conservation Voters and with the California perspective, Danielle Fugere, West Coast Regional Program Director for the Friends of the Earth.

Then we discuss two possible techno-fixes for global warming - seeding the ocean with iron filings and biochar. Discussing ocean seeding is Jim Thomas a researcher with the ETC Group in Montreal, Canada. ETC is dedicated to the conservation and sustainable advancement of cultural and ecological diversity and human rights. Joining him is Paul Epstein, the associate director for the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School. Discussing biochar is Rachel Smolker with the Global Forest Coalition and, the leading scientific voice on the possibilities of biochar, Johannes Lehmann, Professor of soil fertility management at Cornell University.

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

Two million people gathered on the National Mall to see President Barack Obama take his oath of office. Countless millions saw the event live on television and the internet. In his inaugural speech, President Obama directly challenged the American people to join forces and fight climate change.

Today on Earthbeat we review the President's ideas on climate change - in his own words. Host Mike Tidwell guides us through statements made by President Obama, by President-elect Obama and even candidate Obama.

We're reviewing these campaign promises on Earthbeat because, in the coming months, we'll be addressing Obama's renewable energy campaign promises one by one - tracking them as they move from ideas, to legislation, to laws.

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Our current world-wide economic crisis is the worst since the Great Depression. The government's solution is to pour billions of taxpayer dollars into banks and businesses. But a growing number of economists say the fundamentals of our economy are false - and now is the time for a major overhaul of our capitalistic system.

Earthbeat host Daphne Wysham speaks to David Korten on the idea of getting rid of Wall Street entirely - and rebuilding a new, green economy. Korten is the author of the upcoming book Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth. David is the co-founder of the Positive Futures Network, which publishes YES! Magazine. His previous work includes the books, "When Corporations Rule the World," and "The Great Turning."

Then we turn to President-Elect Barack Obama's economic stimulus package - and how to ensure that it supports truly green industries. Corry Westbrook, the legislative director for the National Wildlife Federation joins the discussion with Kate McMahon, the Energy and Transportation Policy Campaigner for the Friends of the Earth.

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A devastating environmental disaster occurred in Tennessee when - three days before Christmas, a dam burst and millions of gallons of toxic fly ash slurry knocked houses off their foundations - poisoned water systems - and covered 300 million acres of land. In sheer volume alone - this disaster is more than 48 times worse than the Exxon Valdez spill.

Host Mike Tidwell speaks to Donna Marie Lisenby the Upper Watauga Riverkeeper, a program of the group Appalachian Voices, in Boone, North Carolina - as well as Glenn Hurowitz - the media director of Greenpeace USA and is the author of the book Fear and Courage in the Democratic Party.

Mike talks about the planning for a massive demonstration against coal here in the nation's capital with Ted Glick, the national coordinator of the US Climate Emergency Council. And then we sit down with Alice McKeown, of the Worldwatch Institute to speak about how utility companies LIE when it comes to America's energy needs.

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Image copyright J. Miles Carey/Knoxville News Sentinel, via Associated Press

The global economic collapse has shown the folly of letting Wall Street traders run the world. The result is a wake-up call to those who believed that climate change could be fixed by carbon credits in the global market. The alternative is a carbon tax. Earthbeat host Daphne Wysham speaks to Charles Komanoff of the Carbon Tax Center.

Then, a debate at the National Press Club in Washington, DC between two environmental leaders on the merits and problems of relying on nuclear power to fight global warming. Patrick Moore is the co-chair of the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, he debated Arjun Makhijani, the president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research.

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Fighting coal power with commercials. A new effort seeks to bring some Reality to the idea of clean coal. Host Mike Tidwell speaks to Rob Perks, the director for advocacy programs at the Natural Resources Defense Council about both the Reality campaign and the Clean Coal Carolers - that's right, singing lumps of coal harmonizing about the benefits of the dirtiest form of energy.

Francesca Grifo is the director of the Scientific Integrity Program of the Union of Concerned Scientists - a program that didn't even have to exist before the Bush Administration. Grifo joins us to discuss the program's "Top 10 New Year's Resolutions' for the upcoming Obama Administration.

Education and action are the goals of the National Teach-In on Global Warming. The Teach-In is directed by Eban Goodstein, who's also an economics professor at the Lewis and Clark College in Oregon. And Earthbeat host Mike Tidwell discusses the benefits of a carbon cap and dividend plan.

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At the crucial UN climate meetings in Poland, an atmosphere of bitterness and entrenchment afflicted the talks. Karen Orenstein is the international finance campaigner for the Friends of the Earth. Holmes Hummel is a policy specialist with the Energy Resources Group at the University of California-Berkeley. Yiorgos Vassalos is a researcher with the Corporate Europe Observatory.

Then we get a behind-the-scenes look at how one environmental group identifies its priorities for the coming year. Johnathan Lash, the president of the World Resources Institute discusses WRI's views for 2009.

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We are in - right now - the hottest decade in at least the last two thousand years. This year has been one for the record books for carbon dioxide, gas prices, wildfires, melting glaciers and, ironically, polar tourism. 2008 is on track to be warmer than the entire decade of the 1990s.

Host Mike Tidwell discusses the year in review with Andrew Revkin, reporter for the New York Times and author of the Times' environment blog - Dot Earth and with Joe Romm, the author of the blog Climate Progress and a senior fellow at The Center for American Progress.

Then we dive even deeper into the automaker's bailout with Matt Pawa, the lead lawyer representing the Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Defense and the Sierra Club in their defense of states enacting strict auto emission standards.

Then we get a first-hand account of what it was like to stand on the desk of the very first commercial ship to sail through the ice-free Northwest Passage. Waguih Rayes is general manager of the Arctic division of the shipping company - Group Desgagnes.

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Image used courtesy of Waguih Rayes, all rights reserved.

How the big changes in Congress will affect climate change. In the House, a progressive California Congressman won an unusually public battle over a Detroit legislator for key committee spot. In the Senate, a coal-fired relic
steps down after more than 50 years of controlling the Senate's purse strings.

Host Daphne Wysham discusses what these moves mean for climate legislation with Brent Blackwelder, the president of Friends of the Earth; Dave Hamilton, the director of the Global Warming and Energy Program at the Sierra Club; and Sandy Schubert, the director of Government Affairs for the Environmental Working Group.

Brazil unveiled a plan that could protect acres of the Amazon rainforest at the UN climate negotiations in Poland. Joining us in our studios is Trevor Stevenson, the executive co-director of the Amazon Alliance - and with reports from Poland - Jake Schmidt, the international climate policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council and Janet Redman of the Sustinable Energy and Economy Network at the Institute for Policy Studies.

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Could the economic bailouts that seem to pour endlessly out of Washington become clean, green stimulus for our nation's economy? Host Mike Tidwell discusses how these economic stimulus packages could put us on a path to fight global warming with Betsy Taylor, the founder of 1Sky and Heidi Garrett Peltier, an economist with the Political Economy Research Institute and a co-author of Green Recovery.

K.C. Golden, the policy director for Climate Solutions, discusses his recent editorial on the bailout of America's big three automakers. Then we get a view from a different type of climate spectator, Bill O'Toole is the prognosticator for the J. Gruber's Hagers-Town Town and Country Almanack.

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Al Gore's ambitious energy goal for America may now become national policy. In this encore edition of Earthbeat, we review Gore's plan for the United States to produce all of its electricity from carbon-free, renewable energy sources within 10 years.

Joining host Daphne Wysham to discuss the economic and political feasibility of the plan is Congressman Jay Inslee, the Democratic Representative for the 1st District of Washington, State. Inslee is also the co-author of Apollo's Fire: Igniting America's Clean Energy Economy. Joining the conversation is S. David Freeman, he has over 30 years of experience in Washington's energy politics, and he's the author of Winning Our Energy Independence: An Energy Insider Shows How.

A new green economy won't just fight global warming -- it'll be a rising tide that lifts all boats. That's according to Van Jones, the founder of Green for All. It's a theme backed by hard data in the recent report, A Climate of Change. Author Nia Robinson, discusses exactly how to make these connections. Nia is the director of the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative.

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