If You Love This Planet, Dr. Helen Caldicott

Listen Now Download the show by right-clicking the link.

Australian eucalyptus forest

In this episode of If You Love This Planet, Dr. Caldicott speaks with two guests, Frank Rich, author and New York Times columnist; and Australian politician and environmental activist, Senator Bob Brown.

Frank Rich’s latest book is titled The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth From 9/11 to Katrina, published by Penguin Press in 2006. Dr. Caldicott introduces him as one of the few mainstream media writers in the U.S. who were willing to challenge George W. Bush’s policies from the beginning. In this interview, Rich reflects on the tumultuous eight years of Bush, whose administration manipulated the public through its clever and “theatrical” use of the major media. The 2003 Iraq War, which may have killed 1,000,000 civilians, is the most egregious example of how the media colluded to support the Bush White House.

Dr. Caldicott asks Rich about the influence of the Project for the New American Century (founded in 1997), whose members include Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. [In 2000, the Project released Rebuilding America’s Defenses, a document which calls for the U.S. to dominate the world militarily and which included Iraq in an “axis of evil” while calling for “regime change” in that country. In describing how the U.S. might achieve military omnipotence, the blueprint states that such a "process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor."] Rich also comments on the major problems that need to be addressed by the Obama administration.

Senator Bob Brown of Tasmania is the current leader of the Australian Greens, the country’s third largest political party. Brown, a medical doctor like Dr. Caldicott, has been warning about the effects of global warming for years. He explores with Dr. Caldicott the damaging practices still underway such as forest logging, and how we can turn our global environmental habits around for the sake of a safe future. Australia is a major coal producer, and coal is a leading source of greenhouse gases. Australia also provides timber for the paper industry (in Japan and elsewhere), and this program addresses the critical role of trees in abating global warming worldwide. Brown and
Dr. Caldicott also discuss plastic (Brown says that there are on average 40,000 pieces of plastic per square mile on earth) and how imperative it is to elect environmentally conscious politicians.

Listen Now Download the show by right-clicking the link.

Bob Herbert. Photo: The New York Times

Bob Herbert is an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times, writing twice-weekly about politics, urban affairs and social trends. In this interview with
Dr. Caldicott, Herbert discusses the changing political landscape in the United States, and postulates about the direction the new administration will take under President Obama. Herbert is an author, university lecturer and award-winning journalist who has been reporting on American politics and society since the 1970’s. His book Promises Betrayed: Waking Up from the American Dream was published by Times Books in 2005.

Topics covered include the rise of Obama from relative obscurity,
Dr. Caldicott and Herbert’s shared concern about Obama’s stated intention to double the military presence in Afghanistan; the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; U.S. relations with Iran; Hillary Clinton and her role in the State Department; the greed of health insurance and drug companies, who have impeded national health care in the U.S., where 50 million people have no health coverage; Herbert’s contention that the Obama administration will not cut Pentagon funding; and Herbert’s concern that the social safety net in the U.S. might be further shredded in the future by conservatives who use the economy as an excuse for cutbacks.

Listen Now Download the show by right-clicking the link.

Mother Theresa's Home for the Dying in Calcutta. Photo: mariancatechist.com

Colette Livermore, M.D., joined Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity, a religious organization within the Catholic Church, at the age of eighteen. After serving for eleven years, Livermore left the order, and obtained her medical degree from the University of Queensland. She is currently a general practitioner living in Australia. Her memoir, Hope Endures, was just published, and has been described as a “compelling chronicle of idealistic determination, rigid discipline, and shattering disillusionment.”

In this interview with Dr. Caldicott, Dr. Livermore talks about her experiences working with Mother Teresa, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, and the events that eventually led her to leave the order and take her life in a different direction. Along her journey, before she became a doctor, Dr. Livermore worked with Aborigines in Australia, with the people of East Timor, in a “garbage mountain” slum in Manila, and at Mother Theresa’s Home for the Dying in Calcutta. Those in the First World, Dr. Caldicott notes, do not appreciate how the Third World is often forced to live, in extreme poverty, sick with curable diseases, malnourished and facing starvation.

Dr. Livermore relates many challenging experiences in her training as a nun, working in the sometimes “medieval” world of Mother Theresa, which made her question the expectation of blind obedience and other extreme Catholic dogma that Mother Theresa, who was born in 1910, believed in. She believes that Mother Theresa was a good person with strong integrity who loved the poor, but that she was following the wrong map. Dr. Livermore’s instincts as a Good Samaritan were often thwarted by the order, and she was left to question her inner convictions. Her story about fighting to save a sick little boy is particularly enlightening.

In her concern about the harsh beliefs she encountered in the order, Dr. Livermore paraphrases Nobel Prize-winning physicist Professor Steven Weinberg, who stated that “Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion”.

Dr. Livermore and Dr. Caldicott question whether a belief system that the poor are meant to suffer is a healthy perspective. Dr. Livermore learned that what is most important is obeying her own principles.

David T. Suzuki, Ph.D, co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation, is an award-winning geneticist, environmentalist and broadcaster. He has hosted the Canadian television show, The Nature of Things, which airs in 50 countries, since 1979. He is well known in Canada and Australia, but not in the United States.

Dr. Suzuki has received consistently high acclaim for his 30 years of award-winning work in broadcasting, explaining the complexities of science in a compelling, easily understood way. In this fascinating interview with Dr. Caldicott, he talks about the relationship between human beings and planet earth, and urges policy makers and members of society to become more scientifically literate so we can make informed decisions and leave a safer and healthier environment to future generations.

Dr. Suzuki and Dr. Caldicott cover many topics, including the preposterous plans to build four nuclear reactors on an earthquake fault in Canada to extract tar-sand oil as a source of energy for California; the mental barriers which prevent leaders and the public from taking action on global warming (skeptics said Denmark could get only 2% of its energy from wind, but they are now up to 19.7% and on the road to 50%); deforestation and the urgent need to preserve all old-growth forests to reduce global warming; and the many exciting breakthroughs and new technologies that more forward-thinking countries like Germany are introducing to become sustainable. Science, Dr. Suzuki stresses, is the most powerful force affecting our future.

Dr. Suzuki relates how corporate think tanks began to proselytize the public to worship at the altar of consumption in the middle of the 20th Century, which has led to a notion that the world has infinite resources. To survive, humanity must use its unique gift of foresight and planning for the future for saving the planet, not more growth, development and consumption.

He recommends listeners watch a speech on environmentalism given by his daughter, Severn Suzuki, in 1992, when she was 12, which is available on YouTube.

Listen Now Download the show by right-clicking the link.