CLIMATE ACTION SHOW - JULY 19TH 2021
PRODUCED BY Vivien Langford
MINISTRY FOR THE FUTURE
Episode 1 - HEATWAVES
(161) Gravitas: Canada heatwave: 1 Billion sea animals dead - YouTube
The Marine Heatwave washing up millions of clams, star fish and mussels dead on the beaches of Vancouver prompted me to call Alex Smith, the host of Radio Ecoshock. Then I called David Rovics about his new song "116degrees in Portland Town".
We discuss why the connection between our exported coal and gas and their exported oil and tar sands is not made front and centre in the present tragedy.
Their raw response illustrates the urgent question motivating KIm Stanley Robinson's novel: What will motivate us to take the necessary climate action?
We start with Mark Spencer reading an extract from the first chapter of Ministry for the Future. He takes us to India, where the combination of heat and humidity creates a tragedy, which leaves the hero traumatised. The political effect of millions of deaths prompts a change of government .
Lizzy Maddox reads part of the chapter where a pilot describes his seven months of aerosol spraying to create something like the effect of a Mt Pinatubo Volcanic eruption. This is speculative fiction, but in the current crisis we need to draw on the imagination as well as the science.
There are cameo appearances from Kim Stanley Robinson and Dr Liz Hanna. She explains why the combination of humidity and heat , the wet bulb effect, is such a killer.
If you like this format of science, fiction and on the ground reporting please let us know at Radio 3CR - 21 Smith St Fitzroy. Victoria Australia
GUESTS:
Alex Smith - 2021 Radio Ecoshock Show – RADIO ECOSHOCK
David Rovics - Download - New song: "116 Degrees" | Podbean
Mark Spencer - Publisher and Podcaster at Climactic Collective
Lizzy Maddox - Musician, teacher and climate warrior.
Dr Elizabeth Hanna - World expert on Heatwave impacts on Health Climate Media Centre | Dr Elizabeth (Liz) Hanna
Kim Stanley Robinson - (161) Kim Stanley Robinson on his book "The Ministry for the Future" - YouTube
The US is experiencing 'wet bulb' heat, which can be deadly even to healthy people (msn.com)
Marine Biologist Chris Harley “If we don’t like it we need to work harder to reduce emissions”
World ‘must step up preparations for extreme heat’ | Climate change | The Guardian
A doctor in Pakistan describes how it feels.
Referring to the heatwave in the north-west, President Biden said the US needed stronger infrastructure to prepare for extreme weather.
Katharine Hayhoe, a Canadian climate scientist at Texas Tech University, said human emissions had loaded the climate dice by making heatwaves earlier, longer and stronger. She cited studies and government reports showing Canada was warming twice as fast as the rest of the world and monthly higher temperatures were being broken three times more frequently than cold temperature records.
“I’ve worked with climate projections for 25 years so we knew this was coming: yet it’s still a shocker when you see these records falling in real life in a place you’re from,” she tweeted.
Climate Action Collective
