Confronting Climate Change

The urgency of the climate crisis has compelled writers such as Bill McKibben and Antonia Juhasz to cross the line into advocacy. Bill McKibben says that “75% of Americans know that climate change is real and want something done about it.”

Bill McKibben

Bill McKibben is an American environmentalist, author, and journalist who has written extensively on the impact of global warming. Bill is a founder of the grassroots climate campaign 350.org, which has coordinated 15,000 rallies in 189 countries since 2009.

In late summer 2006, Bill helped lead a five-day walk across Vermont to demand action on global warming. Beginning in January 2007 he founded stepitup07.org to demand that Congress enact curbs on carbon emissions that would cut global warming pollution 80 percent by 2050. With six college students, Bill organized 1,400 global warming demonstrations across all 50 states of America on April 14, 2007.

Antonia Juhasz is an American oil and energy analyst, author, journalist and activist. Juhasz founded the Energy Program at Global Exchange, a San Francisco-based human rights non-profit organization, and directed the program from July 2009 to July 2011. Peace Action named Juhasz to the Women Peacemakers Honor Roll, “For women who have made a unique and lasting contribution to work for peace and justice in the world" in July 30, 2007. Juhasz has taught at the New College of California in the Activism and Social Change Masters Program and as a guest lecturer on U.S. Foreign Policy at the McMaster University Labour Studies Program in a unique educational program with the Canadian Automobile Workers Union. Greg Dalton is the moderator.

 

Bill McKibben, Antonia Juhasz & Greg Dalton

Source: Climate One: Warrior Writers

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Music includes David Rovics - Here At The End Of The World, Tom Paxton - Lyndon Johnson Told The Nation, Capitol Steps - Pope Being, Redgum - I Was Only 19, The Producers Soundtrack - Springtime for Hitler, George H.W. Bush - Commencement of Iraq Bombing, David Rovics - Operation Iraqi Liberation, Graham Nash - Chicago, The Beatles - Piggies, U2 - Peace On Earth (Tribute to Heros), Odetta - Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child, Willie Nelson - September Song, Matrix Theme

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Back To Full Employment

Robert Pollin argues that the U.S. government should be aiming for full employment (less than 4 percent unemployment), a policy goal which he says was abandoned in the 1970s because of inflation.

Economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff authored an influential paper on government debt and economic growth was widely cited by policymakers and commentators to justify painful austerity policies. The economists who corrected their errors were three members of the UMass-Amherst economics department: graduate student Thomas Herndon and professors Michael Ash and Robert Pollin.

Fred Moseley

Robert Pollin is a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and founding co-director of its Political Economy Research Institute (PERI). Robert was the economic spokesperson in Jerry Brown's 1992 campaign for President of the United States.

Robert is introduced by Fred Moseley who is a leading expert on Marxian economic theory.
Source: C-Span:Book Discussion on Back to Full Employment

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Music includes We Are The Many - Makana, Curtis Mayfield - We Got to Have Peace, Jimmy Carter, Roy Zimmerman - Vote Republican, Crosby Stills Nash and Young - Carry On, Dave Lippman - Evil Of Access, Huey Long, Gil Scott-Heron - The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, Joan Baez - Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream, Monty Python - Almost the Truth, David Bowie- Space Oddity Original Video, Latin Section - Mambo Rage

The Global Meltdown and The Big Picture

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, right, and Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Christiana Figueres, left, talk during a meeting with the Ghana Bamboo Bike initiative, at the UN Climate Conference in Warsaw, Poland, Nov. 20, 2013. (AP Photo/Alik Keplicz)

“I have news for everybody, no, there is never going to be one agreement that solves climate [change]” says Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. In a conversation with Greg Dalton, Figueres discusses the challenges facing international climate change negotiations. But there is hope, she says, “we are moving towards a tipping point, a technological and economical tipping point...that will allow us to move into a completely different future.”

Christiana Figueres

Ms. Figueres was appointed Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2010, and in 2013 was reappointed for a second three year term. With a long and distinguished career in climate change negotiations, Christiana was a member of the Costa Rican climate change negotiating team 1995- 2009, a member of the Executive Board of the Clean Development Mechanism, and a Vice President of the UNFCCC Bureau.

Christiana Figueres and Greg Dalton

Christiana initiated her life of public service as Minister Counselor at the Embassy of Costa Rica in Bonn, Germany in 1982. Moving to the USA, Christiana was Director of Renewable Energy in the Americas (REIA) and in 1995 founded the non-profit Center for Sustainable Development of the Americas (CSDA) which she directed for eight years. Christiana designed and helped to establish national climate change programs in Guatemala, Panama, Colombia, Argentina, Ecuador, Honduras, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic, becoming a prime promoter of Latin America's active participation in the Climate Change Convention. Christiana served as high level advisor to both governments and private companies. Christiana has a Masters Degree in Anthropology from the London School of Economics, and a certificate in Organizational Development from Georgetown University. She speaks Spanish, English and German.

Christiana Figueres was born in San José, Costa Rica. Her father, José Figueres Ferrer, was President of Costa Rica three times. José Figueres Ferrer was the leader of the 1948 Revolution and is considered the founder of modern democracy in Costa Rica. He abolished the army in 1948 and established a broad system of checks and balances that are at the root of Costa Rica’s stable development to this day. He was responsible for enabled women and illiterates to vote, nationalised banks, outlawed the Communist Party, guaranteed public education for all, gave citizenship to black immigrants' children, established civil service to eliminate the spoils system in government.

Christiana’s mother, Karen Olsen Beck, served as Costa Rican Ambassador to Israel in 1982 and was elected to the Legislative Assembly for the 1990–1994 period. The couple had four children. Christiana’s older brother José Figueres Olsen, was also President of Costa Rica (1994–1998), and is credited with having initiated the country onto a path of sustainable development which continues to this day.
Source: Climate One, Global Meltdown: Christiana Figueres

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Music includes Pink - Dear Mr. President, Peter Yarrow - Have You Been to Jail for Justice, What Have You Done, In The Dark, Playing for Change - A Music Revolution, Brian Wilson - Gone Gone Gone, Matisyahu - One Day (New Album Version), Capitol Steps - Shoe Bomb, Network(Movie) - Death of Democracy, Judith - Fools rule the world, Janis Joplin - Mercedes Benz, Graham Nash - Chicago, Michael Jackson - Man In The Mirror, Peacesong - Sudden Sound, Stevie Wonder - We Can Work It Out, John Williams - Star Wars Battle Theme

Creating False Memories

"The most horrifying idea is that what we believe with all our hearts is not necessarily the truth." ~ Loftus.

In an experiment carried out by Elizabeth Loftus, she was able to convince a quarter of her participants they were once lost in a shopping mall as a child.

In another experiment half of the participants were tricked into believing they had taken a hot air balloon ride as a child, simply by showing them doctored photograph as "evidence".

Elizabeth Loftus

Elizabeth F. Loftus is an American cognitive psychologist and expert on human memory. Elizabeth is the greatest psychologist that you've never heard of. Elizabeth is best known for her ground-breaking work on the creation and nature of false memories, including recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse. Elizabeth is interviewed by Carol Tavris.
Source: Inside the Psychologist Studio with Elizabeth Loftus

Carol Tavris

Andrew Bacevich

Andrew Bacevich talks about the Iraq War to Scott Horton

Andrew suggests that the U.S. should evaluate the unnecessary war in Iraq. Can the U.S. learn from its mistakes? Andrew also talks about Obama’s continuation of Bush’s preventive war doctrine. Andrew Bacevich is professor of international relations at Boston University.
Source: The Scott Horton Show: 4/3/13 Andrew Bacevich

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Music includes Neil Young - Lets Impeach The President, Roy Zimmerman - Vote Republican 2.0, Nelson Mandela, Tom Lehrer - My Home Town, Pete Seeger - Waist Deep in the Big Muddy, The Beatles - While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Barbara Jordan, Stephen Longfellow Fiske - Earth Anthem, Gandhi Address the People of India, Pink Floyd - Us And Them, Clark Gable - Puttin' On The Ritz, Malcolm X, Johnny Cash - Without Love, George Carlin - Euphemisms, Crosby Stills Nash and Young - Blackbird, Dizzy Gillespie and His All Star Quintet - Salt Peanuts