Summary: SUMMARY: What America believes about global warming, with Edward Maibach of George Mason U. Alex Smith on global threats with John Betz, KOPN radio. New climate song from 70's hit-maker Bunny Sigler. Welcome to the holiday edition of Radio Ecoshock where we celebrate the right to speak freely about the dangers posed by our own civilization. We start with a look at who believes we are changing the climate and who doesn't. Then a sample of an interview I did, about Radio Ecoshock and the state of the world, on KOPN radio in the central American state of Missouri. I'll top that off with a surprising new climate change song from an old hit-maker. As always, there's no time to waste. Download or listen to this program in CD Quality or Lo-Fi Or Listen/download on Soundcloud right now! OUR CLIMATE SITUATION IS SERIOUS! Just a couple of quick notes on hot news in climate change. No doubt you've heard the sobering fact that May 2014 was the hottest month of May ever recorded, since we learned how to capture temperature information in the 1800's. Where are all cranks telling us the ice age is coming, or the Earth hasn't warmed, or a cold winter in New York means global warming has stopped? It's getting to the point we should all keep a list of the thought-leaders who denied climate science, who helped sooth the masses into inaction, until it was too late. Will we erect a wall of shame for them, or forget them as fools gone by? I remember reading several years ago, in Joe Romm's blog called Climate Progress, how most of the extra heat we create was being absorbed by the oceans. About 90% of the heating has gone into the seas. Now in 2014 the gigantic thermal mass of the world's oceans, far larger than the area of land on this planet, has gone up on average about 1 degree compared to the recent period between 1979 to 2000. That's greater than the rise of global average air temperatures. It's worst in the Arctic, exactly where we least want to see extra heat. We read in the blog of former Radio Ecoshock guest Robert Scribbler, quote: "For encircling the Arctic from the West Coast of Greenland, to Iceland, to Svalbard, to the Barents and Kara Seas, to the Chukchi and on to the Beaufort we see surface water temperatures ranging from 2.25 to 4 C or more above average. And just west of Svalbard, we have water temperatures ranging in a zone exceeding a terrifying 8 C above average. When a sea surface temperature departure of 0.5 to 1 C above average is considered significant, these values represent extremes that are far outside what was once considered normal." That is where the sea ice is heading into a possible further record retreat, where the Greenland glaciers are being melted at the edges, and where billions of tons of super-heating methane lies waiting on shallow sea beds, ready to melt into the atmosphere. As I speak, more extreme rainfall events have struck in North America, and they will continue to flash by in the news around the world for the rest of our lives. The warmer atmosphere is overloaded with extra moisture, extra energy, and a burden of industrial particulates. It's a recipe for getting a month's worth of rain in a day, or an hour. These are serious times. I'll be watching all this over the summer, plotting the new season of Radio Ecoshock, considering how to report what has never been seen before. And how to spark the action we need to stop troubled times from becoming a long period of catastrophe. If you have suggestions for what I should cover, sources we all need to know about - feel free to write me. The address is radio //at//ecoshock.org. You may not get a reply, as I will supposedly be on holidays for a few weeks, but I will read all emails and appreciate your input. Well, scratch that a bit. There are so many serious developments on climate science, and social responses, that I'm compelled to delay my holiday and do at least one more new program. Next week I'll be covering horrible news, that it will not be safe f
