A changing Arctic re-arranges Earth. NOAA just issued their 2021 Arctic Report Card.  A lead editor is glaciologist Twila Moon.  Dr. Moon is Deputy Lead Scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center [NSIDC] at the University of Colorado.

Twila Moon: Arctic Report Card

Welcome back to a new season of Radio Ecoshock.  Alex covers two months of weather madness in 10 minutes. Then top scientists Kevin Trenberth and Dennis Hartmann explain La Nina, the ozone hole, and probable futures.

Weather Madness

Can crisis tip us into an ecologically sane civilization? UK Think tank report author Laurie Laybourn on a future where disasters ripple across the world. Then let’s get away – to Antarctica. Why did sea ice crash around that frozen continent? Increasing El Nino events may drive global sea levels higher.  Australian scientist Adriaan Purich shares big changes at the South Pole.

Avoiding the Doom Loop in the Age of Crisis (replay)

Timely tune from Radio Ecoshock.  Creative Commons - free to share for non-profit use.

Rotten At The Top (Song)

Two Tasmanian experts with strange and shocking discoveries on the new emerging Continent, down at the bottom of the world.  Dr. Edward Doddridge reports on impacts of abrupt Antarctic sea ice loss.  Dr. Matt King, Director at the Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science talks latest science - planetary-scale shifts in currents, glacier melt and sea level rise. Not reported on the news, but this changes everything.

Down at the Bottom of the World

Water loss on land adds to rising seas: global drying with gravity satellite expert Jay Famiglietti.  Is this planet actually a living cooperative? Explore with science journalist Ferris Jabr. Expect abrupt shifts in big systems, from ocean currents to ice - new science led by Sjoerd Terpstra.  Three interviews.

Global drying, Gaia & Abrupt Change


Why are so many experts and bloggers predicting more cold outbreaks as the planet warms?  Our UK scientist Edward Hanna explains.  What happened the last time Earth’s atmosphere carried so much carbon dioxide? Welcome to the Mid-Pliocene Warm Period.  With just 400 parts per million CO2 Earth went over 3 degrees C hotter.  Sea levels were at least 27 feet higher.  We get the inside scoop in new science led by New Zealand scientist Georgia Grant.  High science and deep time this week on Radio Ecoshock.

High Science - Deep Time

What the oil industry won't tell you: fossil fuel smog is killing almost 100,000 Americans a year. In the UK mortality estimates range from 29,000 to 43,000.  From UCL and University of Birmingham, Dr. Karn Vohra on the real cost of gas and oil in the USA.  Few of us could name the third biggest greenhouse gas.  The ins-and-outs of ozone and global warming with Professor Bill Collins from University of Reading.   Plus: the hot state of Pakistan with Adil Najam and a new climate song “Hot Nights”.

From Smog To Ozone Warming  what the oil industry won't tell you

Climate experts and meteorologists in Germany are freaking out.  Global warming accelerated significantly. News from The German Meteorological Society, the German Physical Society, and Potsdam Professor Stefan Rahmstorf. I’ll break down the latest including a horrific 3 degrees C of global warming by 2050.  Until now, the ocean absorbed about a third of carbon dioxide emissions.  Latest science finds “Unexpected decline in the ocean carbon sink under record-high sea surface temperatures in 2023”.  We talk with Lead Author Jens Daniel Müller in Zurich. Hot trouble this week on Radio Ecoshock.

Accelerated Warming - Experts Freak Out

Driving around? Are you dying to get there? Nobody will tell you - except investigative journalist, film-maker and author David Obst.  Hear it all as David talks about his new book “Saving Ourselves from Big Car”.   What suddenly kills dolphins and millions of fish at a time? Did you know toxic particles from coastal blooms float into city air?  Get the latest from one of THE global experts on algae blooms: Dr. Mark Wells from University of Maine.

Big Car, Red Tide

Is Earth a casino of chance where catastrophe decides the survivors? Dive in with this timely replay interview with climate extinction expert Dr. Peter Ward.  A new study finds 41,000 Americans die due to wildfire smoke.  That almost doubles by 2050, with economic losses greater than any other warming threat.  Details coming up. The new Global Tipping Points Report 2025 is just breaking.  We prepare with last year’s chat with Lead Author Dr. Tim Lenton, University of Exeter UK. 

Casino of Climate Change

From New Zealand and the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research, Dr. Kevin Trenberth talks ocean heating, new science and his provocative new article.  But first we run away to the past. Oregon State University Professor Peter Clark just published "Global mean sea level over the past 4.5 million years"  Can we find a rear-view mirror that helps predict our future?  

Events Closer Than They Appear

Here is how worried scientists are about tipping points: 160 scientists from 23 countries just released “The Global Tipping Points Report 2025”.  Planetary shifts already in motion.  Dr. Steven R. Smith, research Fellow at the Global Systems Institute on planetary-scale risks. Then provocative Swedish intellectual Professor Andreas Malm on his new book “The Long Heat”. Surprise, surprise: geoengineering will NOT save us from climate catastrophe.

Answers from the Edge: Tipping Madness

In the world of storms, there is before and after Melissa. Jamaica, insurance, hard times and lucky breaks this week on Radio Ecoshock. Hurricane Melissa with famous meteorologist John Morales in Miami and hurricane blogger Dr. Jeff Masters.   Plus a short clip from Kerry Emanuel on big storms recorded previously on Ecoshock.

Thousand Year Storms

Everybody pushing biofuels to save climate. Guest Cian Delaney from European NGO hub T&E finds these green alternatives could be worse than the fossil fuels they replace. With extreme wildfires, heatwaves, and hurricanes author and researcher Susannah Fisher on her new book “SINK OR SWIM: How the World Needs to Adapt to a Changing Climate”.  Hard choices this week on Radio Ecoshock.

The Dark

Cosmic dust reveals a hidden history of past sea-ice - does it predict a crash of Arctic Ocean life?  Stimulating new science with Dr. Frank Pavia, University of Washington.  Then "The normalization of (almost) everything" with computational cognitive scientist Rachit Dubey.

Cosmic Dust & Cognition


Could a rapid change in microbes unbalance world systems? Biologist Trond Kristiansen. From Montreal, scientist Scott Sugden reviews “Current and projected effects of climate change in cryosphere microbial ecosystems”.  From COP30 Brazil, permafrost thaw is NOW. Worrying news from scientists Gustaf Hugelius, Christina Schadel, and Fabian Seemann.  Breaking polar science from Radio Ecoshock.

Polar Change - Global Ripples

More extreme weather is coming.  Dr. Malte Stuecker’s team finds El Nino and La Nina get stronger - changing other big ocean systems in the North Atlantic and Indian Oceans.  Expect  weather whiplash - drought to floods in a predictable see-saw of disasters.  Over 50,000 Europeans died due to excess heat in 2023 and again in 2024.  Even wealthy countries can’t adapt. Dr. Christopher Callahan with latest on heat deaths in Europe. Hourly temperatures reveal a week less winter and over a week more heat stress in parts of America.  Distinguished Professor Sandra Yuter explains.  Three breaking-science interviews this week on Radio Ecoshock. 

Harsh Weather

Are we ending this civilization? Climate warnings from 8 top scientists in the UK Emergency Briefing.  First two new interviews: Prof. Brian Soden: phenomenal heat burst of 2023/24 NOT caused by change in ship pollution regs. Harvard’s Dr. Cheng He: "Escalated Heatwave Mortality Risk in Sub-Saharan Africa.”  We burn it.  They die. Harsh truth is a start.

Danger Zone

Scientists find a control knob for climate feedbacks in the Southern Ocean. Two experts with years of research and publications: Dr. Zach Kaufman at Scripps Institute in San Diego, and Professor Richard Williams, University of Liverpool. The Southern Ocean stores most heat and almost half the carbon we add to the atmosphere.  We would be cooked without it. 

No One Expects the Southern Ocean

Music has a hole in it.  The fires, killer heat, Arctic blasts they don’t make it. Global warming is not for popular music? Where are voices of ordinary folks suffering through the never-before-seen, calls for people power?  Here we go: 21 songs for this grave new world.

Green Music Special

With record extreme cold and heat - in December! - leading scientists finally admit: “The world lost the climate gamble.”  What comes after failure?  Hear the latest in a full-length talk by Professor James Dyke from the Global Systems Institute at the University of Exeter.  First, the best estimates of what to expect this year and next in the climate casino.

Lost the climate gamble!  Now what?

Questions for authority and ourselves. Music from Alex Smith, host of Radio Ecoshock

Why Should I?

Should we hope for a crisis as a way out? In-depth discussion with Eddie Yuen from Pacifica's "Against the Grain" radio show, on book "Catastrophism: The Apocalyptic Politics of Collapse and Rebirth." Radio Ecoshock 161019

Can We Count on Catastrophe?

Extreme rains will breach to unseen levels, says new science led by Dr. David Neelin from University of California.  Our cities and farms are not ready.  Nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen on his trip to Fukushima Japan, and the risks of Trump with the nuclear codes.  Radio Ecoshock 170201

A Hard Rain Gonna Fall

As the Trump saga unfolds, the mainstream media finally mentions "the deep state".  From his home in Bangladesh, we talk with long-time underground researcher and host of alternative radio's "Unwelcome Guests", Robin Upton.  Dr. David Carlson, the Director of the World Climate Research Programme will tell us how unpredictable our future has become.  Radio Ecoshock 170405 Image credit Matt Taylor.

The Deep State & Destabilized Climate

Two experts explain the unbalancing of the nuclear world & the drumbeat for war.  Hans Kristensen from the Nuclear Information Project about his warning in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.  Then Greg Mello from the Los Alamos Study Project explains why America seems to need a Russian enemy.   Radio Ecoshock 170524

Trump, nuclear bombs & rumors of war

In 2016, 5 climate activists shut down every pipeline carrying tar sands crude from Canada to the United States.  You hear Leonard Higgins, Emily Johnston, Ken Ward and Annette Klapstein in exclusive Radio Ecoshock interviews.

The Valve Turners

Are you tired of nightly news reporting horrible weather disasters and never mentioning climate?  You need a real meteorologist like Nick Humphrey.  Nick lives in the American heartland, Nebraska, just wrecked by floods.  We go from harsh new weather around the world to climate change and back.  Radio Ecoshock 190508

Harsh News from the Weatherman

Indie-journalist and author of "The End of Ice" covers the climate threats and how to cope - with host Alex Smith.  From the Arctic to the Amazon to middle America we globe-trot through the latest science and what it means for our common future.  Don't miss this.

Climate Shake-Out with Dahr Jamail

Radio Ecoshock is a weekly program broadcast on over 106 college & community radio stations in the U.S., Canada, UK, and Australia - by listener donations.  Podcast: http://www.ecoshock.org/podcasts
We cover the environment (lots on climate change), energy, and occasionally the big picture economy.  Lively radio for deadly times.

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