Climate Radio is proud to host a new series of weekly radio shows produced for Resonance FM by climate change activists Ben Stewart and Joss Garman. The programme discusses environmental current affairs with guests from politics, civil society and the media. Ben Stewart is the media director of Greenpeace UK and one of the six activists famously acquitted after damaging Kingsnorth coal power station in a landmark court case whose defence was described by The New York Times as “one of the ideas that changed the world.” Joss Garman was one of the founders of the climate action group, Plane Stupid, and is now a climate campaigner for Greenpeace. He was listed by The Guardian as “one of the fifty people who could save the planet.” Each programme lasts 30 minutes.
“This week Joss Garman and guest presenter Graham Thompson discuss recent direct actions in Aberdeen and London.
“Joss speaks to Dan Glass and Tilly Gifford of the Climate 9, a group of activists currently on trial in Scotland for an action taken at Aberdeen airport. The group closed down the taxi way in order to reduce the total number of emissions from flights that day. Their decision to cease their protest was controversially based on a false police report that they were endangering the life of a new born awaiting air transfer.
“Also on this week is James Marriot of Platform London. James discusses his part in the recent protest at the Tate Britain calling for an end to BP’s sponsorship of the arts. Marroitt discusses how corporations like BP use sponsorship packages in order to obtain “social license to operate” or in other words, to distract the public from the environmentally detrimental activities that drive their profits.”
“TodayDeep Fried Planet premieres on Resonance FM. Presented by long time environmental activists Ben Stewart and Joss Garman, this is the first in a weekly series of discussions about current environmental affairs.
“Stewart and Garman discuss the BP oil spill – “America’s worst environmental disaster in history” with Joseph Romm and Duncan Exley. Romm is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for American Progress, Assistant Secretary of state for Energy in the Clinton Administration and once described by Time magazine as the web’s most influential climate blogger. Exley is Director of FairPensions, an organization that lobbies to promote ethical pensions investment in the UK.
“As BP’s share price tumbles, should your pension fund be disinvesting in fossil fuels altogether as they increasingly turn into potential liabilities? How will the BP spill effects Obama’s attempts at clean energy reform, and how might it impact the power of the Republican Tea Party movement?”
A new crowd-funded film is on its way, following the direct action protests of Camp for Climate Action, Plane Stupid and Climate Rush throughout 2009. But it needs your cash to get it off the ground. Read on…
BP? Haliburton? Transocean? The corrupt Mineral Management Service? Interior Secretary Ken Salazar? President Obama himself?
This piece was published by The Ecologist on 17 May 2010.
On 20 April BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded. 11 workers were killed in the blast. According to the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), the resultant oil spill is now the largest in US history – larger even than the infamous Exxon Valdez disaster. From BP’s original estimate of 1,000 barrels per day, experts now estimate that the rate could be nearer 70,000 barrels per day threatening the lives of many species – including many already endangered – in an area of rich biodiversity in the fragile Mississippi River Delta ecosystem.
Arthur Girling has been in Bolivia for Climate Radio and his report for ResonanceFM, is now available.
“When Bolivian President Evo Morales announced the summit two weeks after the UN meeting in Copenhagen, it could have been easily dismissed as an attention-grabbing stunt. Bolivia was one of the most vocal opponents of the ‘Copenhagen Accord’, the non-binding document that emerged on the last day of talks in 2009.
“But Morales got the timing right. After the cynicism and recriminations of the failed summit, civil society, climate campaigners and governments see hope in his positive message of rights and justice.
“Arthur Girling travelled to Cochabamba to learn about new political proposals from some of the world’s poorest countries. 48 minutes of political debate, music and talk of revolution from ‘the city of eternal spring’.”
Update: As of 11 May 2010 a new version of this programme has been uploaded, with some additional clean-up and post-production work by Arthur.
According to the final conference press release, over 31,000 people from more than 140 countries attended including representatives from 48 national governments.
Arthur Girling has been in Bolivia for Climate Radio and his report for ResonanceFM, “The Bolivian Climate Revolution” is now available below. You might also be interested to check out the coverage on Democracy Now! and OneClimate.net plus Naomi Klein‘s comment piece in The Guardian.
