If You Love This Planet, Dr. Helen Caldicott

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Donna Mulhearn

This week, Dr. Helen Caldicott speaks with Sydney-based peace activist Donna Mulhearn, an author, former journalist and political adviser. She was a human shield in the war in Iraq in 2003 and later returned to Iraq as a humanitarian aid worker. Mulhearn was part of an international team of volunteers that established a small NGO “Our Home - Iraq’ which set up a shelter for street kids in Baghdad, a center for traumatized children and provided emergency aid to displaced families. During this time she witnessed the massacre of Fallujah in April 2004, survived constant bombing, being kidnapped by fighters, and being shot at by American soldiers. In 2004- 2005, Mulhearn spent four months in the West Bank of Palestine as a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement. During these years she continually wrote reports and reflections called pilgrim notes, which were distributed widely around Australia and the world. Listen to Dr. Caldicott’s June 2010 interview with Mulhearn.

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Kathy Kelly

This week’s guest is Kathy Kelly of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, an organization which has steadily researched consequences of drone attacks, night raids and aerial bombings in Afghanistan. Risking imprisonment, they frequently protest U.S. government plans to continue U.S. military presence in Afghanistan until 2024 and beyond. Drawing from recent experiences living for a month at a time in Afghanistan, Kelly frequently speaks and writes about perspectives of Afghan Peace Volunteers. They have told her and her companions their thoughts about prospects for their future in relation to NATO and the U.S. 21st Century military. Kelly previously lived alongside ordinary Iraqis whenever she and other Voices activists traveled there to break the U.S./UN economic sanctions against Iraq. They remained in Iraq throughout the Shock and Awe bombing in 2003 and during the initial months of U.S. occupation.

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David Freeman

Dr. Caldicott’s guest this week is David Freeman, a senior advisor with Friends of the Earth’s nuclear campaign. Freeman has more than four decades of experience directing federal, regional and local energy policies. He was appointed chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority by President Jimmy Carter in 1977, where he stopped the construction of eight large nuclear power plants and pioneered a massive energy conservation program. Subsequently, Freeman served for two decades as general manager of several large public power agencies including the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the New York Power Authority and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District. He is a renowned expert on clean energy, efficiency and the risks of nuclear power.

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Norberg-Hodge

This week’s special guest on If You Love This Planet is Helena Norberg-Hodge, the founder and director of the International Society for Ecology and Culture, a non-profit organization whose mission is to promote systemic solutions to today’s social and environmental crises. Norberg-Hodge is a pioneer of the ‘new economy’ movement, and has been promoting an economics of personal, social and ecological well-being for more than 30 years. Trained in linguistics, she has given public lectures in seven languages, and has appeared on broadcast, print, and online media worldwide, including MSNBC, The London Times, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Guardian. Her groundbreaking work in Ladakh, or ‘Little Tibet’, earned her the Right Livelihood Award, or ‘Alternative Nobel Prize’ and her book, Ancient Futures, along with a film of the same title, has been translated into more than 40 languages. For more resources relevant to this interview, visit theeconomicsofhappiness.org.