If You Love This Planet, Dr. Helen Caldicott

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This week, If You Love This Planet plays the last in a series saluting popular programs from 2008 and 2009, before we launch a whole new season of shows next week. Here is Dr. Caldicott’s July 6, 2009 interview with Dave Sweeney, one of the key voices in Australia educating people about the environmental and public health dangers of uranium mining. Sweeney works with the Australian Conservation Foundation, a 40-year-old organization that liases with the community, business and government to protect and sustain the Australian environment. In this interview with Dr Caldicott, Sweeney talks about the plans that are underway for a massive expansion of the uranium industry in Australia, and the push to build the first Australian nuclear power plants. The show starts off by examining the history of uranium mining in Australia, and the lack of remediation for the toxins that are released in processing uranium. Sweeney talks about Aboriginal myths and wisdom, their claims on the land used to mine uranium, and how Aboriginal homes have become missile and rocket testing ranges. Read Aboriginal cancer doubles near uranium mine.

Promoters of uranium mining, Sweeney notes, are saying that Australia could become the “Saudi Arabia of the Nuclear Age.” Sweeney works with activist groups to teach Australians that uranium mining is far more dangerous than extracting any other mineral. He and
Dr. Caldicott delve deeply into the lack of concern by media and politicians about the horrific health and environmental consequences of such a deadly material, which is used to make “the worst weapons in the world.” Sweeney says there is much “institutional denial” and a “sanitized view” about uranium as well as nuclear power.

The program looks at the proposal to build the world’s largest mine, Roxby Downs, to mine uranium and triple exports. Several groups have been working to block this dam and the destruction it would create, including the Australian Conservation Foundation, Roxstop, and Friends of the Earth Australia. Dr. Caldicott mentions the enormous electricity usage and CO2 emissions such a mine would necessitate. Subsequent to the recording of this show, Australia approved the nation’s fourth uranium mine, a decision supported by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Read the July 15 article Garrett approves new uranium mine and the July 14 article Rudd defends uranium mine decision, both of which quote Dr. Caldicott. A proposed open-pit mine at Roxby Downs would greatly increase Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. Read the January 20, 2010 opinion piece All of our efforts to reduce emissions will be undone by just one company. There is enormous potential to use only green and renewable energy in Australia, with the country’s vast solar, wind, geothermal and other reserves. Read Australia: the Saudi Arabia of solar? Yet today, Australia is still locked into a “quarry economy.” Australia is a major coal exporter, and coal and uranium profits are enormous.

Dr. Caldicott asks Sweeney about the railway line built between Adelaide and Darwin to transport uranium from the south to the north coast of Australia. She has him outline the purpose of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), which former president George W. Bush strongly supported. Read more about the hazards of GNEP here. Sweeney describes the Australian Nuclear-Free Alliance, and explains how Australia could become nuclear-free like New Zealand. In closing, Dr. Caldicott says that “either money will determine the fate of the Earth, or morality.” Tune in to realize just how critical uranium mining is in perpetuating the nuclear dangers that continue to haunt the planet.

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If You Love This Planet continues to replay some of our most popular programs from 2008 and 2009, as well as offering some new episodes. In mid-March
2010, we will start a whole new season of programs. Here is
Dr. Caldicott’s September 7, 2009 interview with Carole Gallagher, author of American Ground Zero: the Secret Nuclear War (MIT Press, 1993). Gallagher’s book documents the effects of nuclear testing in Nevada on those living downwind, the test site workers themselves, and atomic veterans who were exposed to the bombs at very close range. The U.S. government program to expose soldiers to the bomb was an experiment to see what a man could withstand emotionally and physically on the “nuclear battlefield,” should a full-scale nuclear war occur, or during more limited nuclear exchanges. After living in Utah for seven years to work on the book, Gallagher returned to New York in 1990 because she was being harassed by locals, even receiving death threats. Gallagher is also a successful artist/photographer, and has exhibited in museums and galleries nationally and internationally. In 1983, Gallagher began documenting the effects of nuclear testing in Nevada on Utahans, and on U.S. veterans made to walk over Ground Zero shortly after each bomb was exploded. Dr. Caldicott says she was “flabbergasted” to read the shocking personal stories and see the accompanying photos in American Ground Zero, and urges all listeners to buy the book.

Gallagher and Dr. Caldicott look at the enormous amount of radiation released by each of the above-ground Nevada bomb tests, the sense of guilt or lack thereof on the part of bomb scientists such as Robert Oppenheimer, the Pacific Ocean bomb tests and how the bombs compared in size to those exploded in Nevada, the sort of nuclear weapons now stockpiled by the U.S. and Russia, the huge number of people in the American West who were exposed to bomb-test radiation, and how far east in the U.S. the bomb fallout was blown. They also explore the Mormon culture and how it dealt with what the U.S. government told residents about bomb test effects, case histories of bomb test victims, many of whom were children when the bombs were detonated, and how physicians turned their backs on studying the health effects of radiation on sick patients. Dr. Caldicott has strong words for her colleagues who treated patients contaminated by the Nevada weapons tests.

Gallagher refers to a National Cancer Institute study map of U.S. fallout exposure. Dr. Caldicott and Gallagher ponder the global extent of cancer cases and deaths stemming from nuclear radiation. Dr. Caldicott mentions
Prof. John Gofman’s book, Poisoned Power: The Case Against Nuclear Power Plants Before and After Three Mile Island, which helped her understand how radiation damages the human body. The book can be read on-line. Gallagher refers to Richard Miller’s map of U.S. areas affected by nuclear test clouds. Gallagher says that the nuclear scientists knew about the effects of the bombs on downwinders. The program also examines the terrible plight of U.S. military personnel forced to take part in the Nevada tests, as well as the foreigners who were brought in to take part in terrible experiments. In discussing the psychology of the weapons scientists and warmakers, Dr. Caldicott mentions a book she is reading, The Sociopath Next Door. Dr. Caldicott refers to scientist Karl Morgan, the father of health physics who denounced nuclear weapons, and she talks about the new generation of health physicists who cover up the medical effects of radiation.

Dr. Caldicott praises Gallagher for her work to reveal the nuclear bomb devastation in the U.S., and mentions whistleblower Karen Silkwood, who tried to expose the safety lapses at a plutonium factory. Read The Killing of Karen Silkwood (Cornell University Press). In closing, Dr. Caldicott again urges listeners to buy and read every page of American Ground Zero to understand more about the Nuclear Age. The book is a powerful complement to the Emmy Award-winning documentary White Light Black Rain, available on DVD, about the effects of nuclear weapons and radiation on Japanese atomic bomb survivors. For more information on downwinders, watch the short documentary, Forgotten Victims: The Story of Utah’s Downwinders. Read the book They Never Knew: The Victims of Atomic Testing, an excerpt of which can be read here. And see the article Did Utah Kill John Wayne? about the fate of the cast and crew of a 1953 Hollywood movie filmed in a highly radiated part of Utah downwind of a nuclear test explosion in Nevada. To see the destruction of an urban landscape from use of one atomic bomb, check out Hiroshima: The Lost Photographs (scroll down and click on “Play Slideshow”.) For more about the originators of the atomic bomb, read the book Brotherhood of the Bomb. And for more about nuclear contamination, read Uranium Contamination Haunts Navajo Country and Plan to Pay Sick Nuclear Workers Unfairly Rejects Many, Doctor Says.

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First up on this week’s program is a lecture
Dr. Caldicott gave in Berkeley, California in June 2009, primarily focused on the need to ban nuclear weapons. She raises the central role played by the University of California in the production of U.S. nuclear warheads, the enormous theft of U.S. tax money to fund weapons and killing, the psychology associated with military might and abuse of power, and the urgent need for America’s scientific minds to be redirected from death toward saving the earth
and meeting human needs. She touches on the U.S. military’s first-strike policy, nuclear winter, and the psychic numbing that people use to block out the continuing danger of a global nuclear holocaust. She also describes in detail the medical effects of nuclear war, including the little-known effects of fire damage, and emphasizes how such a catastrophic event could happen by accident or design at any time.

Later in the speech, Dr. Caldicott addresses global warming and deforestation, which is intricately linked with climate change. She explains the ramifications of the use of depleted uranium (DU) munitions by the U.S military, including the enormous increase in cancer incidence and birth defects in Iraq from the use of DU. The interview with Dai Williams later in the program gives more insight into the horrific health effects of DU weapons. Near the conclusion of her talk, Dr. Caldicott offers solutions to the nuclear and environmental problems she described, including implementation of the green-energy strategies in the report Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free: A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy. Listen to Dr. Caldicott’s interview with Carbon-Free author, engineer Dr. Arjun Makhijani. She also recommends the audience read her book If You Love This Planet (WW Norton 2009), which covers all major environmental problems in great depth and provides ample solutions plus an appendix full of resources.

For more information on some of the topics in Dr. Caldicott’s lecture, listen to Dr. Caldicott’s interviews with nuclear-war fire-damage expert Lynn Eden, and with nuclear-winter researcher Prof. Alan Robock. Read the articles How Did an Idealistic President Become a Champion of Nuclear Power and By Default, Weapons Proliferation?, ‘Peace Prize’ President Submits Largest War Budget Ever, and Obama and the Works of Death. Hear Dr. Caldicott’s conversation with nuclear-war expert and former missile launch officer Bruce Blair, Ph.D. Listen to Dr. Caldicott’s interview with military spending experts Ellen Augustine and Barry Hermanson. Also hear Dr. Caldicott’s dialogues with Prof. Hugh Gusterson about the psychology of mindset of nuclear weapons designers and with global warming specialist Dr. James Hansen. Visit the Web pages of Tri Valley CARES and the Western States Legal Foundation which monitor U.S. nuclear weapons labs and campaign to ban nuclear weapons. Also check out the work of Beyond Nuclear, Women’s Action for New Directions (WAND), Physicians for Social Responsibility, Global Zero and Abolition 2000, all of which are committed to nuclear disarmament.

The last third of this episode (starting at 42:59) is an interview Dr. Caldicott conducted with Dai Williams, a British psychologist, occupational health expert and peace activist who has done extensive research on the cumulative effects of radioactive toxins, and the use of depleted uranium weapons by the U.S. military. This interview was part of Pacifica Radio’s The New Nuclear Danger series (2005) hosted by
Dr. Caldicott. Williams explains how he first heard about the toxicity of depleted uranium weapons from environmental epidemiologist Rosalie Bertell, PhD, GNSH. Dr. Caldicott provides some background on the U.S. military’s use of depleted uranium (DU) by reading from her book The New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bush’s Military-Industrial Complex (2004). Williams talks about the military’s willingness to win battles using radioactive materials while they simultaneously cover up the health effects of DU. Dr. Caldicott analogizes how the Pentagon won’t talk about nuclear winter, though they concur this phenomenon would occur after a global nuclear war. Williams mentions a book by psychologist Irving Janus (Victims of Groupthink: A psychological study of foreign-policy decisions and fiascoes, 1972). He then describes in detail how DU weapons hit their targets, and provides some shocking information about how NATO covered up its use of DU in the Balkans region. He describes the various radioactive weapons the U.S. has used since 1991. William says he is concerned that there will be an increasing number of U.S. veterans from the 2003 Iraq War and their families who will suffer devastating health effects from soldiers’ exposure to DU (his concerns have been amply validated in the four+ years since this interview first aired). Dr. Caldicott says she is eager for more verification about the extent of depleted uranium use.

For more information on DU, visit the websites of WISE Uranium Project and the Depleted Uranium Project. See the report Depleted Uranium: Scientific Basis for Assessing Risk. Watch the documentaries Gulf War Syndrome: Killing Our Own and Poison Dust on-line. Read the 2009 article Legacy of War: Iraq Littered With High Levels of Nuclear and Dioxin Contamination, Study Finds: Greater rates of cancer and birth defects - Depleted uranium among poisons implicated as well as earlier articles Gulf War II Syndrome? Military Equipment and “Pneumonia”, Gulf War Syndrome, Depleted Uranium and the Dangers of Low-Level Radiation, Iraqi cancers, birth defects blamed on U.S. depleted uranium, and Army shells pose cancer risk in Iraq: Depleted uranium causing high radioactivity levels. Read Gulf War I veteran Charles Sheehan-Miles’s novel Prayer at Rumayla: A Novel of the Gulf War. To see innumerable photos of the terrible birth defects caused by DU exposure, search on Google.com for “depleted uranium” and click Images. See the March 4, 2010 news articles Docs Blame U.S. Weapons for Fallujah Birth Defects and Disturbing story of Fallujah’s birth defects.

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If You Love This Planet continues to replay some of our most popular programs through February 2010, as well as offering some new episodes. In March 2010, If You Love This Planet will start a whole new season of programs. Here is Dr. Caldicott’s August 31, 2009 interview with Rhett Butler, founder of Mongabay.com, an environmental science news web with a focus on tropical forests, now celebrating 10 years on-line. Butler is also co-founder of Tropical Conservation Science, an academic journal that aims to provide opportunities for scientists in developing countries to publish their research in their native languages. He has written for BBC News, Washington Monthly, Trends in Conservation Ecology and other publications. In this program, he describes to Dr. Caldicott the threats currently facing the world’s rainforests, which play a key role in reducing global warming. See the February 21, 2010 Los Angeles Times articles Saving the Amazon may be the most cost-effective way to cut greenhouse gas emissions and Companies fund projects to preserve Amazon rain forest. To read several rainforest news items from the six months since this episode first aired, see the Rainforest News page of Mongabay.com. These news archives cover developments in rainforest conservation and destruction, and in saving native peoples and rainforest wildlife.

At the start of the interview, Butler speaks about how his childhood exposure to nature and world travel inspired his passion to preserve rainforests. As he and Dr. Caldicott begin to look at rainforests, they first look at the current situation for forests and animals in Madagascar, where 80% of the country’s native plants and animals, such as lemurs, are found nowhere else. Lemurs are now threatened by the new trade in lemur bush meat. Read Bushmeat trade threatens Madagascar’s rare lemurs.

The show then examines logging in Australia, Indonesia and elsewhere. Butler mentions the new initiative, REDD (Reducing Emissions for Deforestation and Degradation), a plan for governments to be paid for keeping forests standing which has already had some successes. See the new Seed magazine article Forests for the Trees: Five experts discuss paying countries to keep forests intact, what role carbon markets should play, and how to protect the people whose lives depend on trees. For more on REDD, read Are we on the brink of saving rainforests? and Investing in conservation could save global economy trillions of dollars annually. They then discuss the notion of carbon offsetting to reduce greenhouse gases, a solution Dr. Caldicott considers worthless.

Dr. Caldicott reads from one of Butler’s articles, Brazil’s Plan to Save the Amazon Rainforest, in which he elucidates how global deforestation is a greater source of greenhouse emissions than cars, trucks, and airplanes. The Amazon rainforest, located in several South American countries, regulates global and regional climate, and as Butler notes, cutting down rainforest in Brazil negatively affects ranching in Texas. Read UN URGENT: End Deforestation, Conserve World’s Forests. They next explore the fate of native peoples in rainforests around the world, some of whom are manipulated by logging companies in terrible ways. Dr. Caldicott relates her experience visiting the Brazilian rainforest, where she encounteried indigenous tribes. This journey is described more fully in her book If You Love This Planet, a new edition of which is published this month. For more on forests and native peoples, read REDD may harm forest people, alleges report and Carbon conservation schemes will fail without forest people. Also see Adaptation Of Forests And People To Climate Change – A Global Assessment Report.

Butler enumerates which industries have been chopping down the Amazon rainforest, including cattle ranching, soy farming and gold mining. He says the 2009 Greenpeace report, Slaughtering the Amazon, which fingered major corporations which destroy the rainforest, has had a major positive impact. Many companies have drastically altered their behavior in the wake of the report. Read Shoe Brands Get Tough on Leather Suppliers to Save Amazon Rainforest. Butler speaks about the Peruvian rainforest, where over 30,000 indigenous Peruvians stood up earlier this year against energy companies that want to exploit the rainforest. Butler says that 70% of the Peruvian Amazon rainforest has been allocated for oil and gas exploration. Chevron has been sued for its practices in the Ecuadoran rainforest. For more background, visit the website of the Amazon Defense Coalition and read Mongabay articles Oil Extraction: The Impact of Oil Production in the Rainforest, Chevron expects to lose $27B suit but will refuse to pay damages and Oil development may destroy richest part of the Amazon rainforest. Also read Butler’s September 3, article Amazon tribes have long fought bloody battles against big oil in Ecuador. See the September 6 news article Chevron Awaits Verdict in Environmental Damage Case.

Brazil, Butler says, is making some good progress toward preserving its rainforest, with Brazilian leaders committing to raise significant money to save the forest. There has been concern that the government would continue to side with loggers and cattle ranchers, as stated in a June article at the time Slaughtering the Amazon was released, The Amazon is Dying: The Brazilian government is legalizing deforestation and western superbrands are benefiting from it. This needs to stop now.

Butler and Dr. Caldicott look further at the escalation of global warming that would occur if the Amazon rainforest is destroyed. She describes the relationship between burning trees and rising global temperatures. Butler is asked about soy companies’ role in rainforest destruction, and he points to another significant Greenpeace report, Eating up the Amazon, which came out in 2006 and helped force soy companies to change their practices. Dr. Caldicott brings up the topic of palm oil, and they look at the enormous growth in palm oil production from palms grown in areas cleared of rainforest. They examine which companies and which products are using palm oil, and how palm oil is used to produce biodiesel fuel for China. Butler notes that over 10 million hectares of palm oil farms have been planted in the rainforest. Read Is oil palm the next emerging threat to the Amazon? See the September 11 Friends of the Earth press release Environmentalists Welcome World Bank President’s Halt to Palm Oil Investments. Also read the September 2009 Mongabay article Palm oil paradox: a leading threat to orangutans and a key source of jobs in Sumatra, in which Butler interviews three experts on palm oil and saving orangutans.

Near the close of the program, Butler emphasizes the importance of compensating countries to save forests, which are often devalued when they remain living entities. He says that “smart people” are also working on building awareness that intact forests will retain more of the world’s water supply in the future, when water scarcity is expected to increase substantially. Dr. Caldicott in her closing remarks underlines the importance of rainforests, and all trees, in abating global warming, and says the rainforest issue is really about “the fate of the Earth.” Listen to this program and keep abreast of rainforest news on Mongabay.com and the Rainforest Action Network Web site to get the full picture. Also visit the Web page of The Prince’s Rainforest Project.

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If You Love This Planet continues to replay some of our most popular programs through February 2010, as well as offering some new episodes. In March 2010, If You Love This Planet will start a whole new season of programs. Here is Dr. Caldicott’s August 25, 2008 interview with Lily Tomlin, one of America’s most loved writers, comediennes and actresses. Tomlin talks with her long-time friend Dr. Caldicott about the political climate in the U.S. and her sense of desperation about the direction the U.S. administration was taking under then-President George W. Bush. Most of the conversation is still relevant as President Obama continues many of his predecessor’s foreign and domestic policies. Tomlin reminisces about her experiences in the peace movement after meeting Dr. Caldicott, and describes her childhood and early creative influences in Detroit, Michigan. Tomlin is one of the featured commentators / bloggers on The Women on the Web, “A New Way for Women to Talk Culture, Politics & Gossip.”

Relevant to this discussion with Ms. Tomlin are Chris Hedges’s 2009 article Liberals Are Useless and his 2010 article The Pictures of War You Aren’t Supposed to See. Also check out Amy Goodman’s February 5 interview with authors Robert McChesney and John Nichols on their book “The Death and Life of American Journalism.” Read the articles ‘Peace Prize’ President Submits Largest War Budget Ever; Wars Sending US into Ruin; Don’t Call It a ‘Defense’ Budget; Legacy of War: Iraq Littered With High Levels of Nuclear and Dioxin Contamination, Study Finds; Remember the Illegal Destruction of Iraq?; Pentagon to Increase Stock of High-Altitude Drones; Violence Against Women Is a Global Struggle; Fox Most Trusted News Channel in US, Poll Shows; Apocalypse Fatigue: Losing the Public on Climate Change; Seniors Wait on Care, Grow Sicker as Copays Rise; and US Households Struggle to Afford Food: Survey. And see Dr. Caldicott’s February 2, 2010 article How Did an Idealistic President Become a Champion of Nuclear Power and By Default, Weapons Proliferation?

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Photo Credit: Department of Energy (courtesy Natural Resources Defense Council)

If You Love This Planet continues to replay some of our most popular programs through February 2010, as well as offering some new episodes. In March 2010, If You Love This Planet will start a whole new season of programs. Here is Dr. Caldicott’s September 29, 2008 interview with respected anthropologist, author and lecturer Professor Hugh Gusterson from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in which they delve into the psychology of nuclear weapons scientists and designers. Drawing on his extensive field research at U.S. weapons laboratories Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos, Prof. Gusterson discusses with Dr. Caldicott the moral and emotional approach of the weapons designers; the terminology used among the scientists which is not only thick with metaphors of birth and fertility, but also denies death (weapons victims would be “carbonized,” not incinerated); and the present recruitment by the Department of Energy of anthropologists to be involved in counterinsurgency. His books include Nuclear Rites: A Weapons Laboratory at the End of the Cold War, People of the Bomb: Portraits of America’s Nuclear Complex and Why America’s Top Pundits are Wrong.

Prof. Gusterson and Dr. Caldicott also cover the hypocrisy and veiled racism of the U.S. government and attendant media in demonizing other countries which want to build atomic bombs, while the U.S. retains an enormous arsenal of bombs and continues to make more. They also consider why traditionally right-wing voices such as Henry Kissinger and George Schultz, and four former British foreign or defense secretaries, now want to abolish nuclear weapons. Prof. Gusterson cites many encouraging successes on the road toward global nuclear disarmament, to discredit the idea that “the nuclear genie can never be put back in the bottle”. Read Prof. Gusterson’s columns on the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists page. For updated information on what the U.S. nuclear weapons labs are up to, visit the Web sites of Tri-Valley CAREs and Western States Legal Foundation. See the February 1, 2010 Tri-Valley CAREs press release, Administration Budget Plan Contradicts Obama Pledge. Read Dr. Caldicott’s February 2, 2010 article in The Huffington Post about President Obama’s increased spending for nuclear weapons, despite his earlier disarmament pledges, and his enthusiastic support for nuclear power.

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In this program, Dr. Caldicott interviews pre-eminent eco-feminist scholar, physicist and ecologist Vandana Shiva. Ph.D. on the political, economic and environmental impacts of India’s Green Revolution, and present-day global corporate agriculture models. Dr. Shiva was awarded the Right Livelihood Award in 1993. Books she has written include Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply, Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis, and other books. As members of the International Scientific Advisory Committee to Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero, Dr. Caldicott and Dr. Shiva attended a conference in July, 2009 gathering the world’s leading environmental and economic thinkers to advise the Spanish government on sustainable ecological practices. This conversation was recorded in Madrid, Spain. As background, read the January 6, 2010 article Activist: Farmer Suicides in India Linked to Debt, Globalization which quotes Dr. Shiva.

Dr. Caldicott starts the interview by praising Dr. Shiva for her stance against corporations like Monsanto which are patenting and genetically modifying seeds and preventing farmers in India from planting traditional crops.
Dr. Shiva describes the beginnings of her activism in 1984 when parts of India saw violence in opposition to chemical companies forcing local farmers to use toxic pesticides and fertilizers. She debunks myths about the “Green Revolution” which she says has had a markedly destructive effect on farmers and food safety, and refers to the Bhopal gas explosion in India which has killed over 33,000 people since 1984. She mentions her book The Violence of the Green Revolution. Read Dr. Shiva’s 1991 article, The Green Revolution in the Punjab, which is extracted from this book.

Dr. Caldicott and Dr. Shiva look at how war production in World War II laid the basis for pesticide companies. They address the rise in genetically modified organizations (GMOs) and the reduction of biodiversity into monocultures. Dr. Shiva talks about the propaganda that use of chemicals to grow crops will generate more food, when in fact the reverse is true. She points to the groundbreaking research in the field of organic, chemical-free farming by Sir Albert Howard, who wrote the book The Agricultural Testament [read it here]. The interview also examines the topic of food miles – the enormous carbon footprint of most food that is now shipped great distances – and how land is being “grabbed” all over the world to grow food and export it, and how increasing urbanization is encroaching on traditional agriculture. Listen to Dr. Caldicott’s September 14, 2009 interview with land-grab expert Alexandra Spieldoch of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. See the articles Eating local means figuring out your “food miles” and Do Food Miles Matter? Reducing Meat & Dairy Consumption May Be Even More Important.

Dr. Caldicott asks how Indian farmers were made to use products from chemical and pesticide companies on their land. Dr. Shiva provides background starting with the 1960s, and points to the role of the U.S. corporations and foundations in promoting agrichemicals during the Green Revolution. She says the same players are now patenting seeds and creating genetically-engineered foods. She describes the World Trade Organization (WTO) and how its rules totally favor large corporations and punish small farmers. Dr. Shiva’s organization Navdanya focuses on keeping ancient and non GMO-seeds in farmer’s hands. Dr. Caldicott asks Dr. Shiva about non-toxic methods of fertilization used in India, and Dr. Shiva explains various natural fertilizers that renew soil fertility and achieve pest control.
The conversation moves to “terminator” seeds created by companies like Monsanto, and Dr. Shiva explains in depth the two kinds of man-made seeds that are non-renewable, both of which represent what she calls “an assault on life” and “biowarfare.” Dr. Caldicott asks which companies are profiting from this technology, and Dr. Shiva names the major players such as Monsanto, which produces 90% of the genetically engineered seeds. She says the WTO only exists to enable corporations to increase their profits and their market share. Dr. Shiva says the same corporations taking over rights to seeds and altering seeds are the ones working to change food safety laws. She explains the toxicity of bacillus thuringiensis (BT) used in rice, cotton and other crops, and how it destroys the soil. Read her 2009 article A plate full of toxins and her 1998 article Who Is Afraid Of Biosafety? And see the February 2, 2010 article Wide and vociferous protests against this genetically modified Bt brinjal.

At one point, Dr. Caldicott mentions her book If You Love This Planet (2009) which looks at the problem of pesticides in the chapter on toxic pollution. Dr. Caldicott asks about bees, and Dr. Shiva comments on the role of GMOs in colony collapse disorder. Dr. Shiva says the role of BT cotton, pesticides and GMOs in the decline of honeybees has not been studied much. She explains how pesticide manufacturers aim to sell more chemicals, not reduce the use of chemicals in agriculture. Dr. Caldicott then shifts the discussion to biofuels. Dr. Shiva says big corporations are moving into biofuels despite their negative impact on climate change, and corn that should be a food source is used by cars. She says that the race to grow crops for biofuels is also a race to grab land for big agribusiness around the world. Read the article One Quarter of US Grain Crops Fed to Cars - Not People, New Figures Show. Dr. Shiva notes the enormous number of farmer suicides in India in the last decade. Read the January 6, 2010 CNN article Vandana Shiva: Farmer Suicides in India Linked to Debt, Globalization. In the conclusion of the program, Dr. Shiva reviews solutions to the problems presented earlier in the program, solutions which involve returning food sovereignty to local communities and away from polluting corporations. Dr. Caldicott asks about the peak oil problem, and how agriculture will be impacted when the world runs out of oil. Dr. Shiva provides a hopeful model of a sustainable food system that would be able to withstand the lack of petroleum, and emphasizes how important it will be (and how satisfying) for many more people to grow their own food. Listen to
Dr. Caldicott’s October 6, 2008 interview with peak-oil expert Richard Heinberg.

For more information on some of the topics addressed in this episode, visit the website of Dr. Shiva’s organization Navdanya: Research Foundation for Science,Technology and Ecology. Read the article EU Farmers Face Genetic Contamination of Seeds. Watch the 2008 French documentary (with English translation) The World According to Monsanto. Listen to the two-part program about the rise of corporate power in the 20th Century, Alex Carey: Corporations and Propaganda. Visit the Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology page of the Organic Consumers Association Web site. Also read about the International Forum on Globalization. See the Greenpeace page, Say No to Genetic Engineering. Read the 2009 Greenpeace report Agriculture at a Crossroads: Food for Survival. Read the Earth Island Journal article The Plight of the Honeybee. Read about How to Start a Community Seed Bank and Creating a backyard vegetable garden. Also check out the 9-minute video Eat the Suburbs: Gardening for the End of the Oil Age.

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If You Love This Planet continues to replay some of our most popular programs through February 2010, as well as offering some new episodes. In March 2010, If You Love This Planet will start a whole new season of programs. Here is Dr. Caldicott’s
July 28, 2008 interview with
Dr. Alan Robock, a Professor II at the Department of Environmental Sciences at Rutgers University.
Dr. Robock is a meteorologist who has studied the effects of nuclear winter since the 1980s. Most recently, he has examined the climatic effects of regional nuclear conflicts and the effects of global warming.

In this program, Dr. Robock talks with Dr. Caldicott about how a full-scale nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia, which each have 10,000 nuclear weapons, could trigger nuclear winter, while detonating even one-third of their collective arsenals would cause catastrophic climate change. A nuclear war between India and Pakistan would wreak major havoc with global temperatures and agriculture. For more information, see the Climatic Consequences of Nuclear Conflict page on Dr. Robock’s website, which includes a May 2009 PowerPoint presentation and several earlier articles, reports and movies based on his nuclear winter research. Read the January 19, 2010 Tree Hugger article, Nuclear Winter: Now Easier to Trigger than Ever (In Short: We’d be F#%^ed) which references
Dr. Robock’s work studying nuclear winter. Also see the 2008 Tree Hugger article Regional Nuclear War Could Create the Mother of all Ozone Holes about the study by University of Colorado at Boulder scientists Brian Toon and Michael Mills, Massive Global Ozone Loss Predicted Following A Regional Nuclear Conflict. The show ends with a brief excerpt of a lecture Dr Caldicott gave at an early childhood conference in 2007.

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If You Love This Planet continues to replay some of our most popular programs through February 2010, as well as offering some new episodes. In March 2010, If You Love This Planet will start a whole new season of programs. Here is Dr. Caldicott’s May 11, 2009 interview with Maude Barlow, a Canadian author and activist on water issues, along with a clip of a speech
Dr. Caldicott gave on nuclear radiation. Holding seven honorary doctorates, Barlow is the national chairperson of The Council of Canadians, a progressive citizens’ advocacy organization with members and chapters across Canada. In October 2008, she was named Senior Advisor on Water Issues by the President of the 63rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly, Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann. Barlow founded the Blue Planet Project “to protect the world’s fresh water from the growing threats of trade and privatization”. She is the author of 16 books including her latest title Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water as well as Blue Gold: The Battle Against Corporate Theft of the World’s Water. In 2005, she won the Right Livelihood Award (the alternative Nobel Prize).

In this interview, Barlow discusses with Dr. Caldicott the water crisis and mismanagement occurring in different parts of the world, particularly the fights in both the Third World and the First World against the privatization of water by large corporations. Barlow’s activism is focused on establishing the right to water as a basic human right in all societies, which she says all nation-states and the United Nations should mandate. Read the January 8, 2010 CNN article quoting Barlow with an accompanying three-minute video clip of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., ‘Water justice’ advocate: Don’t privatize. The full transcript of a 15-minute January 7, 2010 CNN program on water, in which Barlow was interviewed by Christiane Amanpour, can be read here. Barlow spoke in March 2009 at the Fifth World Water Forum, the proceedings of which can be accessed here. Read Blue Planet’s Preliminary Submission to the United Nations Human Rights Council RE: Decision 2/104: Human Rights and Access to Water. Also see A UN Convention on the Right to Water: An Idea Whose Time Has Come.

Barlow explains how the world is running out of fresh water, and how we are creating deserts in many parts of the world because of the way we exploit the land and waste and pollute the water. She underlines that two billion people live in water-stressed areas. The poor do not have access to safe water, and Barlow describes how every 8 seconds, a child dies of a water-borne disease. Dirty water kills more children annually than AIDS and accidents combined. Groups like Global Water are working to create safe water supplies and sanitation in the developing world. For more on the big picture around water, see the reports World Water Development Report: Water in a Changing World and Climate Change and Water. Also read the article River systems worldwide are losing water due to global warming.

Dr. Caldicott asks Barlow to comment on global warming and overpopulation, before they move on to talk about the enormous impact of water privatization. Dr. Caldicott says she is “shocked to my back teeth” that corporations would move into countries, buy the water supplies and then expect people to buy the water back. Barlow talks about the brutal battles around the world against companies such as the French transnational Suez Environment, which tried to privatize Argentina’s water, and how citizens have been victorious in some of these fights to protect their access to water. The U.S. firm Bechtel attempted to privatize the water in Bolivia as outlined in Bechtel vs. Bolivia: The People Win An International Trade Battle. Also see the report Bechtel’s Dry Run: Iraqis Suffer Water Crisis about how profit is the only motive Bechtel has for controlling Iraq’s water. In the U.S., Atlanta abandoned water privatization as described in No Silver Bullet: Water Privatization in Atlanta, Georgia – a Cautionary Tale. The World Bank, as well as Kofi Annan of the United Nations, to their discredit, have advocated water privatization.

For more background, see Public Citizen’s Water for All Campaign Web site and their pages Water Privatization Overview and ABCs of Water Privatization. Also see the report Water Privatization Fiascos: Broken Promises and Social Turmoil and read the article Is the Water Privatization Trend Ending? Water privatization also results in job loss. Read the May 20, 2009 press release, New Food & Water Watch Study Reveals Privatized Water Systems Result in Job Losses and read the study here. Barlow and Dr. Caldicott mention bottled water. Making the disposable bottles, and transporting them, requires a great deal of energy (which contributes to global warming). Their production also generates toxic waste. Discarded bottles may become part of ocean plastic gyres. Barlow says that several municipalities in Canada are banning bottled water. As discussed on last week’s interview with biologist Maricel Maffini, many plastic water bottles contain potent hormone disruptors and carcinogens. See Dr. Peter Gleick’s blog about water issues, including entries on potential water wars, the amount of plastic bottles we use, conserving water, water to grow beef, etc. Dr. Gleick is the president of the Pacific Institute, which focuses much attention on water and sustainability.

Rainwater collection, Dr. Caldicott and Barlow agree, is an essential component of water conservation. HarvestH2O.com, “The online rainwater harvesting community,” is devoted to education around this issue. See the May 7, 2009 article Harvesting the Rain: An Old Idea Takes on New Life. Rainwater may contain some pollutants but not pharmaceuticals. See the 2008 article Drugs found in drinking water. Barlow notes that some societies, such as rural India, are following centuries-old traditions of water conservation and should serve as role models for the more industrialized world which sees water as an unlimited resource. Since the 1950’s, Barlow says, the human population has increased three-fold, but our water use has increased seven-fold. As societies become more “sophisticated” and industrialized, and emulate the consumer-driven culture of the U.S., they use much more water. The water crisis today also involves the world’s oceans, and Barlow recommends the recent book, Sea Sick, by Alanna Mitchell. She says we must stop thinking of the oceans as a giant waste dump. Barlow explains in depth why desalination is mostly a bad idea, and why more energy-saving and sustainable practices should be put into place to conserve water.

Barlow lays down the five principles of water use and conservation that must be implemented around the world. All the solutions to the water crisis must follow these guidelines. She quotes Martin Luther King Jr. who said that “legislation may not change the heart but it will restrain the heartless.” Read the June 3, 2009 article Another Water World Is Possible: Managing World Water which links to Barlow’s 10 recommended foundations for a well-managed water commons. Read the new report written by Barlow, Our Water Commons, Towards a New Freshwater Narrative. Providing inspiration, Barlow explains how we can restore ecoystems, and actually bring back rain and fresh water. She and Dr. Caldicott agree on the importance of trees in mitigating climate change. How we handle the water crisis, Barlow says, is crucial in dealing with global warming. She says “we must put water and nature in the center. Everything we have and are is from nature, and if we destroy nature, we destroy ourselves.”

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The last third of today’s episode is an excerpt from a lecture given by
Dr. Caldicott in April 2009 at Middlebury College, Vermont, in which she talks about the medical effects of nuclear radiation. In explaining the looming threat posed by nuclear power plants such as Vermont Yankee, she says that most politicians are scientifically illiterate. They do not comprehend the effects of radiation or the causes of global warming. For example, many elected officials think increasing CO2 from the present 387 parts per million (which many scientists says is already beyong the tipping point toward catastrophic climate change) to 550 PPM is acceptable, but in reality such an increase would surely doom the planet. The group Safe Power Vermont wants to shut down Vermont Yankee. In 2007, one of the plant’s cooling towers, supported by rotting wood, collapsed, and water that should be cooling the reactor core spewed out of the broken plant (see photo by anonymous photographer below). Read the May 14, 2009 news article, Residents Forceful: Shut Yankee Nuclear Plant Down.

Dr. Caldicott teaches the audience what would happen if Vermont Yankee, near the Massachusetts border, or the Indian Point reactor, 30 miles from New York City, were to melt down, inducing widespread pandemonium, radiation sickness, and death. She mentions a 2004 report, Chernobyl on the Hudson? The Health And Economic Impacts Of A Terrorist Attack At The Indian Point Nuclear Plant, essential reading about a hypothetical meltdown. If the San Onofre plant, north of San Diego, were to melt down, the same dire effects would engulf much of Southern California. As indicated by this aerial photo, San Onofre could easily be flooded and damaged by the projected 30-foot sea level rise from global warming which could spell disaster for all coastal nuclear plants. A meltdown at any of the 100-odd U.S. nuclear reactors could impact millions of people. This speech also reveals what happened to the 600,000 soldiers who were brought in to clean up after the Chernobyl accident, and Dr. Caldicott explains what percentage of Europe is still radioactive, as suggested by this map showing cesium distribution. See How Chernobyl Could Happen Here about the danger of a U.S. plant accident. She gives examples of how a terrorist or other saboteur could easily melt down a nuclear power plant. And plutonium can be stolen from the plants to make nuclear weapons - read about how a New Generation of Nuclear Power Stations ‘Risk Terrorist Anarchy’. Dr. Caldicott makes it clear how atomic energy plants are really “nuclear bombs” in our midst as they could be intentionally melted down to kill hundreds of thousands of people, “cancer factories” because of the cancers caused by both routine radiation releases and accidents, and “bomb factories” since the material processed in the plants is used to make nuclear weapons.

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In part one of this week’s program, Dr. Caldicott plays a still-timely interview she conducted in 2005 with strategic analyst Daniel Ellsberg, of Pentagon Papers fame, as part of Pacifica Radio’s The New Nuclear Danger Series hosted by
Dr. Caldicott. Ellsberg is a former consultant to the U.S. Defense Department and the White House where in the late 1950’s and 1960’s he was an expert on nuclear-war planning and crisis decision-making. In 2006, he won the Right Livelihood Award. His outspoken activism in the Vietnam era is the subject of the new documentary The Most Dangerous Man in America, now showing in theaters worldwide and available in DVD. Read the
February 5, 2010 article Ellsberg Documentary Attracts Wide Audience. Ellsberg is the author of Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers and other books. In their conversation, Dr. Caldicott and Ellsberg comprehensively discuss the dangerous problems of command and control of nuclear weapons, including the first-use policy which the U.S. maintained under then-president George W. Bush and still retains under current president Obama. They express their fears about the George W. Bush administration’s threatened use of nuclear weapons on Iraq in 2003. Dr. Caldicott explains why the world came very close to nuclear war in 1995. Ellsberg calls the continuing hair-trigger alert status of U.S. and Russian weapons “inexcusable.” Consider signing the Physicians for Social Responsibility petition to urge President Obama to de-alert nuclear weapons.

They examine the U.S. missile defense system and how it is perceived by Russia and China, and the pivotal 1986 Reykjavik Summit between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, which could have resulted in a treaty mandating total nuclear disarmament before the negotiations were derailed by Richard Perle. They delve into the psychology and attitudes of George W. Bush while he was still president, what he represented to the frightened American people post-9/11, and the lack of wisdom in allowing one person to control the fate of the earth with nuclear weapons. Dr. Caldicott and Ellsberg also ponder how to mobilize Americans to understand that the nuclear-war threat has not abated after the ostensible end of the Cold War. As explored in Dr. Caldicott’s recently-aired interview with Dr. Bruce Blair, U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons remain on hair-trigger alert and the U.S. president has only moments to decide whether or not to “press the button” in response to a perceived nuclear attack. Read Ellsberg’s August 26, 2009 article Hiroshima Day: America Has Been Asleep at the Wheel for 64 Years. Dr. Caldicott mentions the media-oriented think tank she created in 2003, the Nuclear Policy Research Institute (NPRI). NPRI is now Beyond Nuclear, whose focus is educating the public to demand the elimination of both nuclear weapons and nuclear power. Listen to Dr. Caldicott’s recent interview with Linda Gunter of Beyond Nuclear. Ellsberg recounts his experiences on right-wing TV chat shows which consistently lack antiwar voices to contradict the hawks who are allowed to dominate the discourse. He mentions how then-defense-secretary Donald Rumsfeld was selecting nuclear targets in Iraq before the 2003 bombing and invasion.

For more with Ellsberg, watch the 30-minute interview he did in November 2009, Daniel Ellsberg Speaks With Matthew Hoh on Afghanistan. For more background on the topics in this interview, read Dr. Caldicott’s 2004 book The New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bush’s Military-Industrial Complex, which outlines the U.S. military’s long-range plans regarding nuclear weapons and the power of the Pentagon and nuclear weapons manufacturers. Most of these plans, and all the major nuclear weapons makers and their relentless lobbyists, are still in place under President Obama, who has not blocked the continued expansion of the U.S. military budget. The U.S. military is very reluctant to abolish its nuclear “deterrent.” See the January 4, 2010 Los Angeles Times article Obama’s nuclear-free vision mired in debate: Pentagon officials have pushed back against the president’s goals to shrink the U.S. stockpile and reduce the role of such weapons in foreign policy, sources say. Once nuclear weapons are marked for disarmament, it make take more than a decade before they are removed. Read U.S. warhead disposal in 15-year backlog.

In the second half of this week’s program, we hear an interview Dr. Caldicott just completed with Professor A.R. Ravishankara, director of the Chemical Sciences Division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado and an Assistant Professor in the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department of the University of Colorado. His work focuses on the chemistry of the Earth’s atmosphere, ozone depletion, climate change and air quality. Prof. Ravishankara has won the American Chemical Society’s Award for Creative Advances in Environmental Science and Technology and the Presidential Rank Award for exceptional contributions to understanding atmospheric chemistry.

Dr. Caldicott and Prof. Ravishankara examine the state of the ozone layer and the chemistry of Earth’s atmosphere as it relates to climate change. As background on Prof. Ravishankara’s most recent findings, read the 2009 articles Laughing gas is biggest threat to ozone layer and New Culprit Seen in Ozone Depletion. Dr. Caldicott asks Prof. Ravishankara to outline the role of banned chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in depleting the ozone layer, and how ozone is formed. He explains the science of CFCs - formerly used in refrigeration, hairspray, foam insulation, and other applications - in ozone destruction. CFCs were banned by the Montreal Protocol in 1989. Prof. Ravishankara also talks about how CFCs are potent global warming gases, and how “banks” of CFCs, produced long ago, could still be emitted from old refrigerators, foam, etc. to destroy the ozone layer if not properly captured and destroyed first.

Dr. Caldicott asks Prof. Ravishankara to differentiate hydrochloroflouro-carbons (HCFCs) gases from CFCs. HCFCs are now used in place of CFCs, but they have their own problems. Read the article CFC Substitutes Fix Ozone Hole, But Speed Up Global Warming and about the study Epidemic of liver disease caused by hydrochlorofluorocarbons used as ozone-sparing substitutes of chlorofluorocarbons. They next turn to nitrous oxide (N2O). He elucidates how industrial use of N2O in agriculture and sewage treatment has greatly increased the natural concentrations of this gas in the lower and upper atmosphere. Prof. Ravishankara outlines how continued use of N2O will sabotage efforts to restore the ozone layer. Prof. Ravishankara talks about how N2O is a significant contributor to climate change (responsible for 6% of greenhouse gas emissions), another reason it should be banned. Read an abstract of Prof. Ravishankara’s nitrous oxide study, Nitrous Oxide (N2O): The Dominant Ozone-Depleting Substance Emitted in the 21st Century and the related article Nitrous oxide fingered as monster ozone slayer.

Dr. Caldicott and Prof. Ravishankara next look at methyl bromide, a pesticide that was banned because of its effect on the ozone layer. Read the 2005 Mother Jones article U.S. farmers ignore international treaty on methyl bromide and the November 13, 2009 Mother Jones article Obama’s Pesticide-Pushing Nominee. Also see An EPA-approved pesticide is worse than the one it’s replacing and California mulls controversial alternative to methyl bromide; some scientists protest, saying chemical is too toxic and the report Examining the evidence on pesticide exposure and birth defects in farmworkers. Dr. Caldicott steers the discussion to nitrogen trifluoride (NF3), used to make flat-screen computer monitors and other commodities. Prof. Ravishankara explains the danger of NF3 in contributing to climate change, but he says that NF3 is not an ozone-depleting chemical. Read The missing greenhouse gas: Growth of the electronics industry will boost emissions of a ‘hidden’ — but extremely potent — greenhouse gas and The Greenhouse Gas That Nobody Knew.

Dr. Caldicott asks about the ozone-depleting gas CFC-114, which though technically banned, can still be used by the U.S. Department of Energy at the uranium enrichment plant at Paducah, Kentucky. Dr. Caldicott talks about the tremendous number of documented leaks from this plant. She notes that 93% of the CFC gases still being emitted come from this plant. Prof. Ravishankara illuminates how CFC-14 not only damages the ozone layer but is also a significant greenhouse gas. Read Uranium Plants Harm Ozone Layer: Kentucky, Ohio Facilities Top List of Polluters. For more on the ozone layer, read Dr. Caldicott’s newly revised book If You Love This Planet which has a lengthy chapter on the ozone layer. See the websites of NOAA’s Stratospheric Ozone page, the United Nations Environment Program’s Ozone Secretariat and The Ozone Hole. Read the
November 11, 2009 article Climate Action Under Ozone Treaty on Hold for Copenhagen Deal. Also check out the December 2009 articles Antarctica may heat up dramatically as ozone hole repairs, warn scientists and Healing the hole in the ozone layer could heat Antarctica. Also see the September 2009 article The size of the hole in the ozone layer and the January 4, 2010 article Why mountains are bad for the ozone layer, a piece originally published in Geophysical Research Letters.