If You Love This Planet, Dr. Helen Caldicott

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James Carroll, columnist for the Boston Globe and former priest, is the author of Practicing Catholic, which Hans Kung calls “brilliantly written, passionate, and vivid.” Carroll is also the author of ten novels and five previous works of non-fiction, including the National Book Award-winning autobiography An American Requiem, and the New York Times bestselling Constantine’s Sword, also a documentary film. Carroll is Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence at Suffolk University in Boston. In this edifying interview with Dr. Caldicott he discusses war, peace and religion in the world today. At the top of the interview, Carroll tells Dr. Caldicott that she is “one of my great, long-time heroes.” Dr. Caldicott in turn praises Carroll for writing a column that tells the unflinching truth about the realities of our time. They then look at his background and how it influenced his writing. (more…)

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Oceanographer and the world’s leading expert on sea-level rise Dr. John Church talks with Dr. Caldicott about the urgent situation we are facing this century. Scientists predict ocean levels will rise by 1 meter (over 3 feet) by 2100, displacing up to 140 million people around the world. Dr. Church is a project leader at the Wealth from Oceans National Research Flagship and the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre (ACE CRC) of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Australia. In this program, Dr. Church explains how more frequent storms will create coastal flooding. He predicts that environmental refugees will be a major issue for the 21st Century. He also discusses the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, and how they are slowly melting as a direct result of human made climate change. As background, read a two-page report by Church, Sea-level rise and global climate change. And watch a two-minute talk by Church. (more…)

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In this episode of If You Love This Planet, Steven Starr talks about the continuing risk of accidental global nuclear war, how even a small number of nuclear explosions would cause irreparable harm to the climate, and the “20th Century mindset” behind the current debate about nuclear weapons. Starr is an Associate Member of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, a Senior Scientist with Physicians for Social Responsibility, and the Director of the Clinical Laboratory Science Program at the University of Missouri. Starr’s writings have been published by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and many reputable Web sites about nuclear weapons proliferation and environmental responsibility. Visit Starr’s Web site Nuclear Darkness, Global Climate Change and Nuclear Famine: The Deadly Consequences of Nuclear War. As background, read two articles by Starr, Eliminate Launch on Warning and High-alert nuclear weapons: the forgotten danger, both relevant to President Obama breaking his promise to take nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert. (more…)

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David Kraft is the director and co-founder of Nuclear Energy Information Service (NEIS), a safe-energy anti-nuclear group based in Chicago. Currently, Kraft and NEIS are opposing what they call the Nuclear Relapse (a.k.a. “nuclear renaissance”) and supporting the Carbon Free-Nuclear Free energy policy approach for the U.S. As background, read Kraft’s articles It’s the water, stupid! Nuclear power won’t work in global warming world and Beware putting too many energy eggs in the nuclear basket….

First, Kraft reports on the nuclear energy industry’s intensive efforts since 2001 to allow construction of a new generation of power plants in the U.S., and their moves to overturn moratoriums in place in many states against constructing more reactors unless the problem of nuclear waste is resolved. Kraft makes a good analogy of hypothetical skyscrapers built without restroom facilities to illustrate the dangerous absurdity of enabling the industry to generate more radioactive waste at more nuclear power facilities. (more…)