This week, green business guru Joel Makower encourages us to envision success in creating a clean, sustainable economy that averts climate catastrophe and improves our environment, communities, and lives. And shareholder activist John Harrington urges banks bailed out with Troubled Asset Relief Program funding to make sure they stabilize US economic security.
[amazon-product align=”right”]1900322412[/amazon-product]While some view the negative impacts of economics and environment as separate, Herve Kempf sees financial inequality and environmental destruction as inextricably linked. The author of [amazon-product text=”How the Rich Are Destroying the Earth” type=”text”]1900322412[/amazon-product], Kempf explains how the wealthy of the world are living unsustainable lifestyles, and everyone else is trashing the earth too trying to keep up with the rich Joneses. The solution? Move away from materialism and growth.
Bloomberg Columnist Jonathan Weil, the first journalist to expose Enron’s cooked books in 2001, recently criticized President-Elect Barack Obama’s appointments to the Transition Economic Advisory Board, pointing out that almost half hail from companies that fried their financial statements or fueled the market meltdown — or both. CWR Co-hosts Bill Baue and Francesca Rheannon chat with Weil about his critique.
The Democratic party has shied away from linking clean energy, the economy, and the environment since Jimmy Carter’s 1977 Energy Policy. But the political winds are changing. At Tuesday evening’s Democratic National Convention, almost all of the speakers hit on the theme of green collar jobs. Nancy Floyd of Nth Power noted that there are 2.4 million green collar jobs worldwide — but less than 10 percent are in US. Presumptive Democrat candidate Barack Obama’s platform calls for more than doubling that number to 5 million green collar jobs in the US alone. And he’s framing it as a win-win-win to get us off foreign oil, stop global warming, and create tons of green jobs in the US. This week, we feature the second part of our conversation with Bracken Hendricks, co-author with Congressman Jay Inslee of Apollo’s Fire, and co-founder of the Apollo Alliance. The discussion focuses on the political will required to build a green economy.
Richard HeinbergCWR co-hosts Bill Baue and Francesca Rheannon speak with peak oil expert Richard Heinberg, senior fellow at the Post Carbon Institute and author of The Party’s Over, Powerdown, The Oil Depletion Protocol, and, most recently, Peak Everything. CWR caught up with Heinberg during his northeast speaking tour, where he is addressing local officials in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts where Corporate Watchdog Radio originates. In the absence of federal leadership addressing climate change and peak oil, Heinberg has turned his attention to creating resilient communities, and he proposes 10 steps to create local disaster response plans to prepare for peak oil as well as environmental and economic collapse. While the data Heinberg presents paints a dire picture, he also advocates for hope and optimism as a strategic response to existing and impending crises.
CWR co-hosts Francesca Rheannon and Bill Baue speak with Daniel Lerch, author of Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty and manager of the Post Carbon Cities project of the Post Carbon Institute. Lerch discusses the overlap as well as the distinctions between peak oil and climate change. He also responds to the question of how the policy void at the federal government level in the US is driving action at the municipal and state level to address climate change and peak oil.
The show also features CWR’s new headlines segment:
–Nanotech is Exposed in Grocery Store Aisles;
–The Vatican says greenhouse gas emissions and genetically modified organisms are “Modern Sins”;
–A new study says the Clean Energy Market will Hit $254 Billion by 2017.
Joel MakowerCWR co-hosts Bill Baue and Francesca Rheannon talk with GreenBiz.com founder and executive editor Joel Makower about the first annual report on The State of Green Business, which GreenBiz.com released today on January 30, 2008. The report identifies the top ten green business news stories of 2007, and also introduces the GreenBiz Index, a collection of 20 indicators ranking the progress of green business practice as “swimming,” “treading,” or “sinking.”
Green jobs are all the talk nowadays, which has predictably led to healthy debate. On today’s Sea Change Radio, Co-Host Francesca Rheannon talks with GreenBiz Senior Writer Marc Gunther about his controversial article, “The Phony Green Jobs Debate.” Bob Pollin of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, author of a report criticized by Gunther, responds. To end the show, Rhennon speaks with David Johnson about Transition Towns.
