Summary: Scientists and officials are not telling the public the awful truth: we are hurtling toward catastrophic climate change. A review, summary and critique of an earth-breaking speech by Prof. Kevin Anderson, Deputy Director of the Tyndall Centre in Britain. Speaking to the Cabot Institute in Bristol November 6th, Anderson told the sold-out crowd our future is not possible. Radio Ecoshock 121114 1 hour. Professor Kevin Anderson Are the climate deniers right? Are some scientists colluding with government to hide the truth about climate change? "Yes", according to top British scientist Kevin Anderson - but not the scandal you've heard about. Top scientists and government reports won't tell you we are heading toward catastrophic climate change. Emissions are skidding out of control, leading us to a world six degrees Centigrade hotter on average, much faster than anyone thought possible. Why doesn't the public know? Why are world conferences still talking about staying below 2 degrees, as though that is possible? In a devastating speech at the University of Bristol Tuesday November 6th, 2012, Professor Kevin Anderson accused too many climate scientists of keeping quiet about the unrealistic assessments put out by governments, and our awful odds of reaching global warming far above the proposed 2 degree safe point. In fact, says Anderson, we are almost guaranteed to reach 4 degrees of warming, as early as 2050, and may soar far beyond that - beyond the point which agriculture, the ecosystem, and industrial civilization can survive. All this comes from one of the world's top climate scientists, plugged in to the latest research and numbers. Kevin Anderson is from the UK's premier climate modeling institution, the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, and the University of Manchester. He delivered the speech "Real Clothes for the Emperor, Facing the Challenges of Climate Change" at the Cabot Institute of the University of Bristol in Britain. His estimates are backed up by recent reports from the International Energy Agency, and now the global accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. I also quote from Joe Romm's blog at thinkprogress.org, and a comment by Lewis Cleverdon from Wales, in the Transition blog at transitionculture.org. I'm Alex Smith for Radio Ecoshock. In this program, I'm going to play selections from Kevin Anderson's latest speech, accompanied by some explanation and references to other sources. Anderson speaks very quickly, assuming a highly informed European audience, and includes some technical data and reports unknown to most of us. So we're going to work through this together. MUSIC BY SUVARNA All music on this program is by Suvarna, with her co-conspirator Ravi, and guest Egyptian percussionist Hossam Ramzy. The album is "Energia" on Etherean Records. Suvarna, a world music maker, has another couple of albums with White Swan Records. We end this Radio Ecoshock show with a special single she sent to Radio Ecoshock. It's dead on. The song is "Atmosphere's Lament". Suvarna's home page. HELP RADIO ECOSHOCK KEEP GOING! For the first time in seven years, I have to ask for your help. I've always paid the whole cost of Radio Ecoshock. Now my income has gone down, while production and distribution costs are going up. You can help this radio program keep going by clicking on the donate button on our web site at ecoshock.org - or on the blog at ecoshock.info - look on the upper right hand side of this page for the "Donate" button. My thanks to listeners who made that donation last week. Radio Ecoshock is the second biggest environment show anywhere. We run the world's largest free green audio download site. Won’t you become part of the program? FREE DOWNLOADS FOR YOU (PLEASE SHARE THESE LINKS WIDELY!) THE RADIO ECOSHOCK PROGRAM WITH ANALYSIS This week's show on Kevin Anderson in CD Quality (56 MB). Or try the faster downloading, lower quality Lo-Fi version (best to share on social media...) NEW! TRANSCRIPT OF KEVIN ANDERSO
