Summary: The cultural taboo against talking about global warming - George Marshall. Report on world fires and global smoke July 2014. Review of movie "Snowpiercer" by Gerri Williams. New song: Time of Trials by Alex Smith. In just a few minutes, we're going to talk about the unspeakable. Why do humans shy away from talking about climate change. In the work place, at family dinners, all around, we instinctively sense the unfolding tragedy of global warming isn't a welcome topic of conversation. Lifetime environmental activist and human rights campaigner George Marshall will join us from Wales in the UK. His new book is titled "Don't Even Think About It - Why Our Brains Are Wired To Ignore Climate Change." That's going to be a fascinating ride, from the Texas Tea Party to why we lie to ourselves. Don't miss it. But first, I know Radio Ecoshock is one place we CAN talk about climate change. There is huge news coming from fires in the United States, Canada, and Russia. Fires so many and so large this spring and summer of 2014 may be the largest fire season ever. They create their own local weather systems, and have rapidly become a chain-reaction of carbon that could trigger changes to world weather we've barely imagined. Listen to/download this Radio Ecoshock show in CD Quality or Lo-Fi Or listen/download right now on Soundcloud ROOF OF THE WORLD ON FIRE Right about now, in the middle of July 2014, much of the Northern Hemisphere is covered with a blanket of smoke. It's smoky in the valley outside my door, from the forest fires in British Columbia and Eastern Washington State. The runaway fire in Washington is the largest ever in that State's history. We are rapidly approaching the age of superfires, where humans have no hope of controlling them. There's been a smoke haze over Edmonton and western Canada from all the fires further north. In fact, those smoke particles have blown 5,000 miles further east, reaching the Great Lakes and cities like Toronto. It's not just Canada. Over at the Weather Underground, Jeff Masters and his crew have posted a video showing a blackened haze pouring from numerous fires in hot, drought-striken western states all the way to the Great lakes, into Ohio. According to a NASA map released July 18th, the smoke has even reached Maryland, West Virginia, and Tennessee. All this is a danger to people's health, especially to the millions of new cases of asthma springing up across America, and around the world. Last week there was even a thick black arm of smoke running up to the Arctic, to Hudson's Bay and Baffin Island. It's starting to reach Greenland. That isn't the worst of it. More gigantic fires are racing uncontrolled across the Canadian Tundra in the Yukon. These are beasts that reach from the tree tops to the deep peat below the soil surface. These are the most powerful fires seen in decades in the North. The smoke clouds look like volcanoes have erupted. Thirty one new fires popped up a single day, with at least 2500 fires this year, and almost 3 million acres burned so far. Canadian authorities report the area burning is six times greater than the 25 year average. The dean of Canadian wildfire experts is Dr. Mike Flannigan, a professor of Wildland Fire in the University of Alberta’s renewable resources department. I've recorded and played you his talk at the American Academy for the Advancement of Science conference in Vancouver in 2012, and broadcast it April 18th of that year. I've interviewed him directly for this program. Then, and now to the media, he emphasizes, quote: “What we are seeing in the Northwest Territories this year is an indicator of what to expect with climate change.” “Expect more fires, larger fires, more intense fires.” Some of those fires are so hot they sterilize the ground. In some places, Flannigan says, the slow-growing Boreal forest may not return, especially after multiple burns. In just a minute, I'm going to explain why this growing trend to a burning sub-Arctic, and especia
