If You Love This Planet, Dr. Helen Caldicott

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This week, we feature a repeat of Dr. Caldicott’s October 20, 2008 interview with Helen Thomas, the respected journalist who served for 57 years as a correspondent and later, as White House bureau chief for United Press International. In 2000, Helen Thomas became a columnist at the Hearst News Service, until her retirement in June 2010 in the wake of her comments about the Israeli/Palestinian situation. Read Ralph Nader’s June 16 article A Deep Regard for People’s Right to Know: The Scourging of Helen Thomas. Thomas wrote four books including Watchdogs of Democracy?: The Waning Washington Press Corps and How It Has Failed the Public. In 2007, she laid the blame on President Bush for launching the Iraq War as his “war of choice” and lamented that the “gutless-wonder Congress doesn’t have the courage to do what it needs to do” to end the war. The last quarter of the show is an excerpt of Dr. Caldicott’s October 2008 presentation to Canadian medical professionals about nuclear power and the effects of global warming. She recommends reading the downloadable report Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free, A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy (2007).

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This week, Dr. Caldicott interviews Australian Natalie Wasley, coordinator of the Beyond Nuclear Initiative based at the Arid Lands Environment Center in the Northern Territory of Australia. Wasley has travelled extensively over the last 10 years, meeting with communities in Australia and overseas who have been impacted by every stage of the nuclear chain, from uranium exploration and mining through to nuclear weapons. The current focus of the Beyond Nuclear Initiative project is working with Aboriginal Traditional Owners who are opposed to the Australian federal government plan to force a radioactive waste dump on their traditional country. (more…)

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Dr. Caldicott chats with Dr. Reese Halter, a conservation biologist at California Lutheran University in Los Angeles. Known as Dr. Reese, he is also an author, syndicated science writer, and TV nature documentary host. In the late 1980s, Dr. Reese founded Global Forest Science, an international forest research foundation comprised of over 165 scientists engaged in forest science research and conservation. His most recent book is The Incomparable Honeybee and the Economics of Pollination. In addition,
Dr. Reese wrote Wild Weather: The Truth Behind Global Warming and two children’s books. As background for this episode, read
Dr. Reese’s February 18 article Honeybees are modern-day canaries in the coal mines and his July 13 article Plight of dwindling honeybees.

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In this episode of If You Love This Planet, Dr. Caldicott talks to Donna Mulhearn, an Australian former journalist and political advisor who journeyed to Baghdad in March 2003 as part of the “human shield” movement prior to the start of the 2003 Iraqi War. She returned later to Australia as an humanitarian aid worker to set up a shelter for homeless children and families. Mulhearn is now an independent writer and speaker on non-violence, spirituality and politics. Her memoir of her experiences in Iraq, Ordinary Courage: My Journey to Baghdad as a Human Shield, was published by Murdoch Books in 2010. As background, read Mulhearn’s 2003 piece, Human Shield: Reflections on Iraq.