KWMR Post Carbon Radio

In this show, we have three segments for you, looking at climate change, the environment and social justice at the national, state and local levels. We will start with a report from Washington on ways to work social justice into clean energy programs. Then we’ll visit with members of West Marin Standing Together to talk about an exciting artistic community event they are planning, and finally a brief update on environmental legislation in California. We talk to Basav Sen, Climate Policy Director at Institute of Policy Studies in Washington DC. His work focuses on climate solutions at the national, state, and local level that address racial, economic, gender and other forms of inequality. He is author of a report focusing on Renewable Energy Portfolios. Given Trump’s pull out of the Paris Climate Accord, innovative state and local actions will be critical if we are to achieve a just transition to a sustainable economy.

The Art of Vitality programs at the Commonweal Garden in Bolinas weave self-healing concepts and practices with experiential learning about food as medicine, mind-body medicine, and body-ecological permaculture. Dr. Anna O’Malley and James Stark will guide you on a path of discovery through creative work, personal and inter-personal reflection, deep nature connection, integrative medicine conversation, cooking demonstrations, and fire circle ritual. You will be oriented to healthy ecological systems on all levels: cellular, whole-body, interpersonal, and community.

Depressed about the U.S. pulling out of the Paris climate deal? Here is some encouraging news. California cities and now Sacramento are continuing to lead the way in clean energy, no matter what the Trump administration does. Woody Hastings of the Climate Protection Campaign of Sonoma will update us on clean energy, the “energy democracy” movement in the state, and how you can plug in to help.

We speak with Kumi Naidoo, former director of Greenpeace International who is now helping promote Africans Rising! Africans Rising is a new pan-Africanist movement launching this May 25th, African Liberation Day. From the first point of its founding charter, the Kilimanjaro Declaration, Africans Rising focuses on Africa's environment and natural resources in the context of justice and liberation. What can we learn from this effort for our own struggles for climate and environmental justice in the U.S.?

The Patterning Instinct (Prometheus Books | Foreword by Fritjof Capra) is a global history investigating the different ways cultures have patterned meaning into the cosmos. From early hunter-gatherer societies to ancient Egypt to Taoist sages to the founders of Christianity and the trail-blazers of the Scientific Revolution, author Jeremy Lent reveals how various worldviews arose and shaped the course of history. He shows how values like ownership and patriarchy emerged with agriculture, and traces the rise of the European mindset of “conquering nature” as the underpinning of today’s global civilization. Lent argues that our current global environmental crisis is not an inevitable result of human nature, but is culturally driven: a product of particular mental patterns that could conceivably be reshaped. He suggests that a transformation of our dominant worldview is required to redirect our society toward a more hopeful future. Even if we can somehow avert climate catastrophe, new existential crises will inevitably arise unless our civilization fundamentally changes its core values. We can only make this change by understanding the source of these values, and the ways in which they impact our future.

Lynn Woolsey shares her uniquely well-informed perspective about the state of the nation, strategies for our community response to President Trump and her thoughts about how she would respond if she were still in Congress. – From 1993 to 2013, for 20 years, Lynn was our Congresswoman in Marin and most of Sonoma County advocating for Progressive causes and speaking out against the War in Iraq. Since retiring she served as the national President of Americans for Democratic Action, is a member of the National Commmittee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare Advisory Committee and is a member of Reformers Caucus of Issue One, which is the largest bipartisan group of former members of Congress and governors ever assembled to take money out of politics, which she considers key to saving our democracy. This is to highlight only small fraction of her laudable career and continuing activities. Lynn is in conversation with Mark Dowie – who lives on the edge of Tomales Bay near Inverness . Mark is a former editor at Mother Jones magazine, is an investigative reporter, an award-winning journalist and author. Some of his books include: Losing Ground: American Environmentalism at the Close of the Twentieth Century, American Foundations: An Investigative History, Conservation Refugees: The Hundred-Year Conflict between Global Conservation and Native Peoples

We interview Nick Buxton, co-editor of ‘The Secure and the Dispossessed: How the Military and Corporations are Shaping a Climate-Changed World’, and will discuss the themes of his new book. Buxton is a communications consultant, activist and researcher based at the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. Join us on Post-Carbon Radio Monday at 1 pm for an informed dive into the points of convergence and conflict between two of the most important issues of our time. With the Trump administration denying climate change and de-fanging the EPA, what is the US military thinking - and planning to do? Can their power and influence help the climate movement succeed? Who will be protected, who will be neglected, who will suffer, and who will pay, if the military get their way? What about the intelligence agencies? What are the consequences of viewing climate change through the lens of national security? Is there a better way?

Norman Solomon addresses West Marin Standing Together on April 8, 2017 at the Dance Palace. Norman is a journalist, media critic, antiwar activist and former U.S. Congressional candidate. He was elected as a pledged Bernie Sanders delegate to the 2016 Democratic National Convention. Norman just returned from New York where he’s had meetings and interviews on current aspects of what Martin Luther King called "the madness of militarism” - a relevant subject currently, given Trump’s attack on Syria the other day.

Panelists: Drew Dellinger, Winona LaDuke, Melissa Nelson. Moderator: John Hausdoerffer. We are the links between our ancestors and our descendants. What can we learn from our ancestors and their relationship to the land that would inspire us to benefit the environment and the generations that follow us? Future stories, those told about us by our descendants, depend in large part on our actions today. How will our children and grandchildren survive in the world we leave them? What will be our legacy to the land we call home?

A discussion about the role of war and the military in causing global warming. How much does the U.S. military contribute to climate change? What happened to the old anti-war movement? Can we afford a 10% increase in the military budget? Do we need it? How does the issue of the military's role in climate change fit into a broader social change agenda, including local movements of resistance? Our guests are Janet Weil, long-time Bay Area anti-war activist and former Code Pink staffer. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Janet is also a co-founder of the SF 99% Coalition. And Cecile Pineda, activist and author most recently of Apology to a Whale, Words to Mend a World. Her writing has received numerous awards and citations. Her archive is held by the Stanford University Special collections library. Her website is cecilepineda.com. Joanna Macy writes of her work: "Cecile Pineda has the nerve to ask the one simple question...that could save us: What has happened to our mind that we are killing our world?"

Winona LaDuke is an internationally renowned Native American Indian activism and advocate for environmental, women's, and children's rights. She is founder and Campaign Director of the White Earth Land Recovery Project, preservation-based land acquisition, environmental advocacy, and cultural organization, and founder and co-chair of the Indigenous Women's Network.

As one of northern California’s most exceptional literary gatherings, the Geography of Hope Conference brings together leading writers and activists to the coastal village of Point Reyes Station for a three-day feast of readings, discussions, and activities to inspire and deepen an understanding of the relationships between people and place. We interview presenters, Lauret Savoy and Wendy Johnson, and Steve Costa, co-founder of Black Mountain Circle, a co-sponsor of Geography of Hope. Tracing memory threads Lauret Savoy’s life and work: unearthing what is buried, remembering what is fragmented, shattered, eroded. A woman of African American, Euro-American, and Native American heritage, she weaves together stories we tell of the American land’s origins and the stories we tell of ourselves in this land. Her latest book, Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape, won the 2016 American Book Award. It was also a finalist for the PEN America Open Book Award among other honors. Lauret is a professor of environmental studies and geology at Mount Holyoke College, a photographer, and pilot. Wendy Johnson leads meditation retreats nationwide as an ordained lay dharma teacher in the traditions of Vietnamese teacher Thich Nhat Hanh and the San Francisco Zen Center. She co-founded the Organic Farm and Garden Program at Green Gulch Farm Zen Center in Marin County, which inspired her book Gardening at the Dragon’s Gate. Since 2009, she has served as a founding instructor and mentor at College of Marin’s Indian Valley Educational Organic Farm and Garden. As native people here in West Marin and throughout the world have taught us, we can best care for the land by knowing its history, by cherishing its stories, and by actively working to protect it. The Conference hopes to stimulate conversations honoring ancestral connections to this and other landscapes—whether Native American, European, African, Asian, Latino, or elsewhere—that will lead to dialogues between generations and cultures to help us reconnect to place and restore balance to Mother Earth. “This is a time of unprecedented threats to clean water and air, national parks and forests, and to productive farmland,” conference founder Steve Costa says. “Clearly in the coming months and years, we will be called upon again and again to act to protect our fragile ecology. We will be called upon to decide what kind of ancestors we will become.”

David Morris, a part-time local resident of Point Reyes Station, and long-time activist who co-founded the Institute for Local Self-Reliance in 1974, then gave a short overview of “the big picture.” He observed that we were seeing an unprecedented centralization of power and the monopolization of the media in the Trump administration, where the President is governing as a CEO. He warned that the merging of corporate and political realms is dominated by the corporate goal of increasing earnings. This is the definition of fascism. He also pointed out the ominous trend toward privatization of the public sector and the pre-emption of the state by the federal and the city by the states through conditions attached to vital funding.

We talk to Sharon Weil about her new book, ChangeAbility: how artists, activists, and awakeners navigate change, which is so very relevant in these times in which we have a regressive President and his administration, whose intentions are to take us backwards eradicating all the progressive gains we’ve made over the years for economic and social justice, and protecting the environment, and our Mother Earth from climate chaos. Claire Hope Cummings is an award winning author, broadcast journalist, and environmental lawyer. Her stories are about connecting people, place and plants and respect for the ancient wisdom of traditional land based cultures. She is author of Uncertain Peril: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Seeds. She is a member of a group called Wise Words that is searching deeper in these turbulent times, and HOW we do community. Kerry Nelson, author of One Small Difference: Step Into Action for a Better World. This is an eight week workbook for people who want to change the world and serve in the world. It's for those who think about volunteering but never make the call; for activists looking for a group of like-minded citizens; for parents overwhelmed by the climate crisis and seeking ways to respond; for recent graduates seeking meaningful work in their communities. This workbook helps guide people who have good intentions into first steps into action.

KWMR Epicenter featuring Charles Nichol, immigration attorney, who talks about Protecting Immigrant Rights in the light of Trump’s deportation policies and the ICE raids. Eleanore Despina of the Immigrant Protection Committee of the local group resisting Trump is also on the show.

President Trump recent actions maybe overwhelming, but they have also inspired a tsunami of activism. Starting here in West Marin and Sonoma counties, how do we coordinate our work with national efforts to first thwart, and then overcome existential threat to our planet, the Constitution, and our daily lives? Hear from local activists capturing this wave of activist energy and strategic thinking to help us direct our efforts to the maximum effect in both the short and long-term. And finally, Norman Soloman will cover the national perspective.

We have a conversation with Norman Solomon and Dennis Cunningham on what they see happening now that Donald Trump is President, and how we can take back our democracy. Is it possible to reform the Democratic Party? What are different kinds of organizing, and what to advocate? - Protest, vigil, direct action, lobbying, issue campaigns, or electoral politics. Playing offense? Or just defense? Where should our organizing focus be: local, regional, state, national, or international? And why? And a run down and wrap-up events over the weekend. Groups in communities all over the country are coming together to protect their communities and resist the Trump Agenda to repeal ObamaCare, to deport Mexicans, start a Muslim registry, roll back environmental, labor, and financial regulations. We talk about a new local group forming to protect the West Marin community.

Our previous Post Carbon Radio show on Nov. 28, 2016, we talked about Emerging New Technologies: Synthetic Biology & Gene Drives - Should We Be Concerned? We now have the ability to alter the code of life creating new and novel forms of life not found in the natural world. These new discoveries give us unprecedented power over the natural world but raise troubling ethical issues. On this show, we focus on genetically modified trees. Our guests are: *Anne Petermann, Executive Director of Global Justice Ecology Project. Anne is also the Coordinator of the Campaign to STOP GE Trees. She has been involved in movements for forest protection and Indigenous rights since 1991, and the international and national climate justice movements since 2004. *Claire Hope Cummings is an environmental journalist specializing in stories about the environmental, health, and political implications of how we eat. For six years she produced and hosted on KPFA, a popular weekly public radio show on food and farming in Northern California. She regularly reports on agriculture and the environment for public television in San Francisco. Claire also writes for periodicals, webzines, and news services. She is author of Uncertain Peril: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Seeds. Both Anne and Claire were featured in Synthetic Forests: the Dangers of Genetically Engineered Trees, a video documentary on the risks of irresponsibly introducing genetically engineered trees into the environment. http://asilentforest.info/ *Mark Dowie, West Marin author and journalist in the studio. He is a former publisher and editor of Mother Jones magazine. His recent works include Conservation Refugees: The Hundred-Year Conflict Between Global Conservation and Native Peoples and American Foundations: An Investigative History. He has written and published over 200 investigative magazine articles and has won 19 journalism awards including four National Magazine Awards. Mark retired recently from The University of California Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism where he taught science and environmental reporting and foreign correspondence.

We interview Helen Cane, who is a 21 year-old senior at Barnard College, a private women’s liberal arts college affiliated with Columbia University in New York City. She is here in Point Reyes Station during the holiday season visiting her mom, Sarah Cane and aunt, Pamela Wright. Helen is a co-founder of the fossil fuel divestment campaign at Barnard College, called Divest Barnard, an effective year-long student campaign to convince Barnard’s administration and Board of Trustees to consider divesting its endowment from fossil fuel companies. She was instrumental in the research and writing of the 60-page Presidential Task Force on Divestment report to enable the Committee on Investments and, subsequently, the Board of Trustees, to make an informed decision about whether to seek divestment from companies that extract, process, distribute, and sell fossil fuels. Over the course of nine months, the Task Force weighed the financial and fiduciary responsibilities of the Board to grow the value of Barnard’s endowment and the moral and ethical issues surrounding Barnard’s responsibility to do its part to address the climate change issue. Our other guest is Will Parrish. A quote from a CounterPunch article by Cal Winslow: “Will Parrish is a young journalist in Mendocino County. He’s a rare type in his field these days. He is fearless, he takes on the hard targets, the biggest ones he can find, and he writes with passion and commitment. If we still have muck-rakers, literary crusaders in the best sense, he’s one.” In October, Will wrote an article in the North Bay Bohemian about SPO Partners in Mill Valley and other Bay Area financial institutions that are invested in the Dakota Access Pipeline

On Defending Our Environment & Protecting Our Progress on Climate Change. Recorded on December 19, 2016 at San Rafael High School. - Congressman Jared Huffman, 2nd District of California - Bruce Riordan, Climate Readiness Institute - Michael Wall, Natural Resources Defense Council -Drew Caputo, Earthjustice Attorney