Climate Crisis Update 9-21-07: Radio Eco-Shock Interviews Richard Power on Why Global Warming, Not Terrorism, is the #1 Security Threat
By Richard Power
On a realistic scale of the top ten threats to humankind, global warming is #1, terrorism #5.
Of course, these rankings are not fixed, nor are the risks ranked independent of each other. Indeed, they interpenerate and impact each other in many ways.
For example, the issue of nuclear proliferation, at #2, bleeds into both global warming at #1 and terrorism at #4. There is a push for more nuclear energy because of the desperate need to diminish our carbon imprint, and the rush to acquire nuclear capabilities for both peaceful and aggressive reasons on the part of emerging regional powers increases the danger of WMD falling into the hands of terrorists.
But such a scale does offer us a framework to prioritize and develop our approach to mitigating and adapting to various risks, particularly those that interpenetrate.
Global warming and terrorism both constitute clear and present dangers; but their dangers are exacerbated by profound misunderstandings.
The threat of global warming intensifies every hour of every day because the psychological denial among business and government leaders is still so deep, and thus, the planetary climate has been allowed year after year to drift farther past the point of no return.
The threat of terrorism intensifies every hour of every day because its actual causes have been misdiagnosed, and because some leaders have found it to be a convenient foil for their own hidden geopolitical and domestic agendas.
There is a double-edged lie, i.e., terrorism is the greatest danger, and global warming is not that serious a problem. It is a bitter lie.
There is also a double-edged irony, i.e., much of what needs to be done to mitigate and adapt to global warming will, as a welcome by-product, eliminate much of the danger of terrorism.
There are also other ironies, bitter ones, wrapped inside:
The threat of terrorism is being used to change the world in a very bad way, while the antidote to the threat of global warming offers the opportunity to change the world in a very good.
The holistic cures for global warming (e.g., alternative energy resources, new economic models, etc.) eradicate some of the principle causes of terrorism (e.g., exploitation, extreme poverty, the struggle for hegemony over energy resources, etc.)
I discussed global warming as a national security threat, and related issues, in a recent interview with Alex Smith of Vancouver-based Radio Eco-Shock. (Eco-Shock is the "Net's largest green audio download site, and only 24 hour enviro radio station.") The interview airs today at 1:00 pm Pacific, but will be available on the Internet in perpetuity.
Here are some listening instructions:
To hear live in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, and the Islands, tune into CFRO 102.7 on the FM dial. Elsewhere in B.C., you can tune in by cable (check local listings).
To hear it live via satellite, tune into Star Choice Channel 845.
To hear it live over the World Wide Web: go to www.coopradio.org/listen.html.
You can download either the whole Radio Eco-Shock show, or just the interview.
For the whole show (1 hour, 56 MB), click here.
For this interview only (23 minutes, 22 MB), click here.
If you are using Internet Explorer, RIGHT CLICK on the link to download the mp3 file.
If you are using Firefox, you will get a choice to "Open" it (i.e., listen but don't download) or "Save" it (i.e., download it to your computer).
To read my follow-up Words of Power interview on alternate media, etc. with Radio Eco-Shock host Alex Smith, click here.
To sign the Live Earth Pledge, click here.
Want to wake people up to the US mainstream news media's complicity in misinforming the public on global warming and climate change? Click here for Media Matters' compilation of "Myths and Falsehoods about Global Warming".
Want to participate in the effort to mitigate the impact of global warming? Download "Ten Things You Can Do"
Want to join hundreds of thousands of people on the Stop Global Warming Virtual March, and become part of the movement to demand our leaders freeze and reduce carbon dioxide emissions now? Click here.
For a directory of Words of Power Climate Crisis Updates, click here.
Global Warming, Energy Security, Environmental Security, Alternate Energy, Sustainability, Green Power, Renewable Resources, Climate Change, Weather, Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth,Laurie David, Stop Global Warming!, Terrorism, Eco-Shock, Risks, Richard Power, Words of Power
