Category Archives: Earth Minute

by | 2012-07-11 · 15:00

Earth Minute: Extreme Weather, Climate Change, and Taking Action

Global Justice Ecology Project teams up with the Sojourner Truth show every Tuesday for an Earth Minute and every Thursday for an Earth Segment interview with front line activists from around the world.

This week’s Earth minute focuses on the extreme weather that has been taking its toll on the US and asks what we can do about it.

To listen to or download the show, click on the link below:

Earth Minute, July 10, 2012

The text from this week’s Earth Minute is below:

Increasing numbers of people across the US experienced the impacts of extreme weather last week–from the immense wildfires devouring Colorado, to the heatwave that broke 4000 records across the country, to the wild and freakish derecho storms that left millions without electricity.

The National Weather Service is warning that dryness and drought will continue to increase both in extent and intensity across much of the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys, the Corn Belt region, the middle and lower Mississippi Valley, and much of the Great Plains.

These impacts were predicted by climate scientists.  That they are now real should be enough to shove our collective consciousness into high gear to find real and just solutions to the climate crisis.

That there will be a great shift in the way humans live on this planet is not in question.  The question is, will we be proactive in developing a new way to live in harmony with the earth, or will we do nothing, and hope that our children can survive on a decimated planet?

For the Earth Minute and the Sojourner Truth show, this is Anne Petermann from Global Justice Ecology Project.

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by | 2012-07-05 · 14:00

Earth Minute: Paraguay coup endangers Gran Chaco forest

Global Justice Ecology Project teams up with the Sojourner Truth show every Tuesday for an Earth Minute and every Thursday for an Earth Segment interview with front line activists from around the world.

This week’s Earth minute focuses on the coup in Paraguay and its impacts on the great forest of the Gran Chaco ecosystem, including the Ayoreo People, some of whom represent the last uncontacted tribes in the Americas.

To listen to or download the show, click on the link below:

Earth Minute 3 July 2012

To view Orin Langelle’s photo essay of the Ayoreo in the Gran Chaco, click here

The text from this week’s Earth Minute is below:

Two weeks ago in Paraguay, elected left-wing President Fernando Lugo was ousted through a “Parliamentary coup.”

The UK Guardian likened the upheaval to the removal of President Manuel Zelaya from Honduras. “A progressive but imperfect leftwing leader ousted by rightwing forces determined to halt policies that threaten their business interests.

As always, the underlying politics revolve around land.  In this case, Paraguay’s Gran Chaco–a vast expanse of grasslands, forests and cactus that borders Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia. Home to some of the last uncontacted tribes in the Americas, the great forest of the Gran Chaco is being rapidly eaten away by the expansion of beef cattle ranches–with ten percent of the forest lost in the last 5 years.

These forests are home to the indigenous Ayoreo people, who, after decades of oppression, have been trying to recover both their culture and land rights.  Now, like Indigenous Peoples worldwide, the Ayoreo and their lands are threatened by the insatiable appetites of the global market.

For the Earth Minute and the Sojourner Truth show, this is Anne Petermann from Global Justice Ecology Project.

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by | 2012-06-27 · 14:44

Audio: Earth Minute – corporations try to advance the green (greed) economy in Rio

Global Justice Ecology Project partners with Margaret Prescod and the Sojourner Truth show for weekly Earth Minutes and weekly Earth Segment interviews.

To listen to or download this week’s Earth Minute on KPFK’s Sojourner Truth show, click on Earth Minute 27 June 2012.

Text from this week’s Earth Minute:

Last week, government leaders convened in Rio de Janeiro for the UN’s Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development.  One of the goals: develop a Green Economy built on so-called “green growth” basically–a greenwashed version of the same Greed Economy that has trashed communities and ecosystems to enhance the profits of a very few.  In response, social movements, Indigenous Peoples, organizations and Southern countries stood fast in Rio to oppose this Greenwash Economy.
Continue reading →

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by | 2012-04-05 · 14:30

This Week’s Earth Minute: EU’s Renewable Energy Target is Destroying Forests & Worsening Climate Change

Global Justice Ecology Project partners with Margaret Prescod’s Sojourner Truth show on KPFK–Pacifica Los Angeles radio show for a weekly Earth Minute on Tuesdays and a weekly 12 minute Environment Segment every Thursday.

Go to the link below and scroll to minute 44:12 to listen to this week’s Earth Minute:

April 3, 2012 Earth Minute

Text from this week’s Earth Minute:

The European Union’s goal of providing 20% of their energy from renewable sources is coming under attack from environmentalists because of the heavy reliance on energy from burning trees.

On 29 March, a call challenging this goal was launched at the European Parliament.  It stated, “We’re paying people to cut their forests down in the name of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, yet we are actually increasing them.”

Because it is mistakenly considered ‘carbon neutral’, wood-based electricity is given numerous government subsidies in the EU, the US and elsewhere.

There is a significant gap in time, however, from when carbon is released from cutting, transporting and burning a tree–to when the carbon is re-stored by a new tree that has grown to the same size.  This carbon gap lasts for decades.

The “carbon neutral” label of wood-based energy is ironically creating intense pressure to cut and burn forests in the US and globally for energy production, threatening massive deforestation at the same time that scientists are emphasizing the crucial role forests play in stabilizing the climate.

For the Earth Minute and the Sojourner Truth show, this is Anne Petermann from Global Justice Ecology Project.

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Filed under Bioenergy / Agrofuels, Climate Change, Earth Minute, Energy, False Solutions to Climate Change, Posts from Anne Petermann

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by | 2012-03-28 · 09:00

This Week’s Earth Minute: Earthquakes and Tsunamis = Climate Change

Global Justice Ecology Project partners with Margaret Prescod’s Sojourner Truth show on KPFK–Pacifica Los Angeles radio show for a weekly Earth Minute on Tuesdays and a weekly 12 minute Environment Segment every Thursday.

Go to the link below and scroll to minute 40:58 to listen to this week’s Earth Minute:

March 27, 2012 Earth Minute

Text from this week’s Earth Minute:

Earth Minute 3/27/12

On Sunday night, central Chile was violently shaken by a 7.1 magnitude earthquake–its second in two years.  In April 2011, Japan experienced a nuclear disaster following a severe earthquake and resulting tsunami.  In January 2010, Haiti was devastated by an earthquake, and in April 2010, Iceland’s volcano erupted, disrupting air travel across the Atlantic.

Are these events related?  According to a recent article in the UK Guardian, they were likely the result of climate change–in particular, the rising of sea levels.

As the polar ice caps melt, and the ice sheets on Greenland and Iceland vanish into the ocean, sea levels rise.  The enoromous weight from all of that added water causes the Earth’s crust to shift and bend.  This in turn sets off seismic shocks–including earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions–particularly along coastal areas.

As naturalist John Muir pointed out, “Whenever we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”

For the Earth Minute and the Sojourner Truth show, this is Anne Petermann from Global Justice Ecology Project.

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by | 2012-03-21 · 13:30

Last Week’s Earth Minute: Indigenous Blockade of the Tar Sands–in Colorado

Global Justice Ecology Project partners with Margaret Prescod’s Sojourner Truth show on KPFK–Pacifica Los Angeles radio show for a weekly Earth Minute on Tuesdays and a weekly 12 minute Environment Segment every Thursday.

Go to the link below and scroll to minute 30:04 to listen to this week’s Earth Minute:

KPFK Earth Minute Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Text from this week’s Earth Minute:

On March 10th, Members of the Stop Suncor and Tar Sands Coalition, including the American Indian Movement and other groups, occupied the site of a Suncor Energy oil spill on the shore of Colorado’s Sand Creek.

Suncor Energy boasts of being the first corporation to begin extracting the tar sands in Athabasca, leading to the deforestation of thousands of square miles of Boreal forest and the destruction of First Nations cultures. Suncor produces more than 90,000 barrels of oil per day at its refinery in Commerce City, Colorado.

Tessa McLean of the American Indian Movement said, “the oil that’s being spilled here came from Athabasca, a First Nations community. My people up are suffering there because of the oil we’re refining here.”

Deanna Meyer of Deep Green Resistance Colorado added, “Suncor has so poisoned this land that oil is bubbling up through numerous burst sub-surface pipelines.  Benzene levels in this water—that fish, ducks, geese, beavers and other beings depend on—are 100 times the safety limit.”

While the spill was first reported last November 27th, it is believed to have begun in February 2011.

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by | · 12:18

This Week’s Earth Minute: Chevron Executives Charged Over Oil Spill in Brazil

Global Justice Ecology Project partners with Margaret Prescod’s Sojourner Truth show on KPFK–Pacifica Los Angeles radio show for a weekly Earth Minute on Tuesdays and a weekly 12 minute Environment Segment every Thursday.

Go to the link below and scroll to minute 38:42 to listen to this week’s Earth Minute:

KPFK Earth Minute Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Text from this week’s Earth Minute:

On March 10th, Members of the Stop Suncor and Tar Sands Coalition, including the American Indian Movement and other groups, occupied the site of a Suncor Energy oil spill on the shore of Colorado’s Sand Creek.

Suncor Energy boasts of being the first corporation to begin extracting the tar sands in Athabasca, leading to the deforestation of thousands of square miles of Boreal forest and the destruction of First Nations cultures. Suncor produces more than 90,000 barrels of oil per day at its refinery in Commerce City, Colorado.

Tessa McLean of the American Indian Movement said, “the oil that’s being spilled here came from Athabasca, a First Nations community. My people up are suffering there because of the oil we’re refining here.”

Deanna Meyer of Deep Green Resistance Colorado added, “Suncor has so poisoned this land that oil is bubbling up through numerous burst sub-surface pipelines.  Benzene levels in this water—that fish, ducks, geese, beavers and other beings depend on—are 100 times the safety limit.”

While the spill was first reported last November 27th, it is believed to have begun in February 2011.

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Filed under Climate Change, Earth Minute, Energy, Oil, Pollution, Posts from Anne Petermann, Water

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by | 2012-02-01 · 15:00

KPFK Earth Minute: Occupy in 2012 and Indigenous Response to the Occupy Movement

This week’s Earth Minute addresses the Occupy Movement mobilization in Oakland, California last weekend, as well as a gathering of Indigenous leaders in Toronto on January 23rd in which the meaning of the word “occupy” to Indigenous People was discussed.

To listen to the Earth Minute, go to the link below and scroll to minute 40:07

Earth Minute 1/31/12

Global Justice Ecology Project partners with Margaret Prescod’s Sojourner Truth show on KPFK–Pacifica Los Angeles radio show for a weekly Earth Minute on Tuesdays and a weekly 12 minute Environment Segment every Thursday.

Text from this week’sEarth Minute:

Earth Minute for Tuesday, January 31, 2012

This past weekend, Occupy Oakland rose up to take over a vacant building and transform it into a new community center.  They were met with brutal police repression.  Four hundred people were arrested.

One week ago, in Toronto, Indigenous leaders came together for an event called “Occupy Talks: Indigenous Perspectives on the Occupy Movement.”  During this event they acknowledged the crucial role this movement is filling.  But they also questioned use of the word “occupy” in its name; pointing out that for indigenous Peoples fighting the occupation of their homelands, Occupy implies injustice.

Tom Goldtooth of Indigenous Environmental Network explained that economic injustice is perpetuated by the same system that is marginalizing and oppressing Indigenous Peoples; and that far from being broken, this system is functioning exactly as it was intended.  Understanding this allows us to build a movement that will fundamentally change this deadly system of inequality into one that serves not just all people, but all living things.

For the Earth Minute and the Sojourner Truth show, this is Anne Petermann, from Global Justice Ecology Project.

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