Blog Archive

Monday, October 31, 2005

The Amazing Coincidence Enviro Show!

Our November One post-Halloween show will feature the incredible weather records being broken, such as the smallest ice pack, greatest intensity hurricane ever recorded, drought in the Amazon, fastest thawing of the so-called "perma-frost" (used to be frozen but now it will be called "perma-thaw" instead), well you get the idea. All these amazing coincidences are really interesting, but of course they don't prove a damn thing! How about some verbiage about the amazing coincidence that we have the worst president in history while all this is happening!!

We'll be covering the Enemies of the Earth's proposed roll-backs in environmental review standards for new oil and gas extraction so we can speed up the destruction of the planet even more! And, not to forget, the amazing coincidence of lowering pollution standards so that we can have more gruesome environmental and health impacts FOR EVERYONE!!

AND, we'll be bringing up the post-Halloween, very scary concept of the "tipping point" or turning point in the climate when change starts accelerating because of re-enforcing feedback. Yes, dear listeners: what goes around comes around! [are there enough exclamation points here?]

As always, we'll have our Bulletin Board full of things that go bump up against The Machine in the night, such as:

* Tuesday November 1 & 8
HADLEY HEARINGS ON WAL-MART & LOWE'S
November 1, 7:30pm, Hadley Town Hall, 100 Middle St (intersection of
Rts 9 & 47). LoweÂ’s Planning Board hearing (same development team as
Wal-Mart).
November 8, 7pm, Hadley Town Hall. Conservation Commission Notice of
Intent hearing for Wal-Mart Supercenter wetlands impacts.
Wal-Mart is planning to build a Supercenter in Hadley. The
212,000-square-foot store would be the largest single building in town
history and the third Supercenter in Massachusetts. Supercenters usually
include a grocery store, gas station, garden center, and other features. It
would be part of an expansion that includes more movie theaters and another
100,000-sq-ft building. Site plans available at Town Hall, 100 Middle St,
during normal business hours, or see www.HadleyNeighbors.org. Hadley
Neighbors for Sensible Development is fighting sprawl. It's likely that only
Hadley folk will be allowed to speak at hearings, but a big public showing
is nonetheless important. Info: mailto:info@hadleyneighbors.org.
A coalition of groups is working to change and challenge Wal-Mart.
Check out Western Mass Wal-Mart Voices at http://wmass.walmartvoices.com/.


* Saturday November 5
STOP SPRAWL-MART RALLY
11am, Town Common, Rts 116 & 9, Amherst [OK, so it's not in the night]. Campaign to stop a new Wal-Mart "Supercenter" from being built on Rt. 9 wetlands and farmland. Celebrate community and send a message that a Wal-Mart Supercenter is
antithetical to the quality of life in the Pioneer Valley. Info: 549-1193,
mailto:goldman@stopsprawlmart.org, or 746-5374,
mailto:loomis@stopsprawlmart.org; www.StopSprawlMart.org.
A coalition of groups is working to change and challenge Wal-Mart.
Check out Western Mass Wal-Mart Voices at http://wmass.walmartvoices.com/.


* The Social Justice and Food Sovereignty tour will stop in Amherst on Sunday, November 13, 7pm at Food for Thought Books at 106 N. Pleasant Street, Amherst and earlier in the day at Arise for Social Justice, 94 Rifle Street, Springfield. The tour includes Selfa Sandoval, a Guatemalan worker sharing her experiences organizing banana workers in the economic and armed violence of Guatemala; members of the Beehive Design Collective bringing their internationally acclaimed art presentation depicting a cogent analysis of global justice; Stephen Bartlett of Agricultural Missions who will translate and talk about food security from a global perspective, a local Valley farmer will talk about food security from a local perspective, and Palmer Legare will talk about regional and international aspects of the movement to close the School Of the Americas. In 2002 Legare spent three months in Ft. Devens Prison Camp in Ayer, Massachusetts after a nonviolent demonstration against the SOA.

The event will be free, accessible and open to all. We will collect donations to support the tour and the work to close the School Of the Americas. The tour is sponsored by Agricultural Missions, Inc, Oxfam America, the Hunger Program of the Presbyterian Church USA, and numerous other national and state organizations. For more information, contact Palmer Legare at 802-426-3783 or palmerlegare@yahoo.com

ALSO:

* GROCERY STORES SAY THEY ARE WARNING CUSTOMERS
ABOUT MERCURY - HELP US PUT THEM TO THE TEST!
An action alert from OCEANA (http://www.oceana.org/)

* The Jumpstart Ford Campaign has declared this November 12th a "National Day of Intervention" at Ford dealerships. Most dealers are independently-owned businesses. Many are already feeling the pressure of selling gas-guzzlers in the age of the hybrid. Grassroots activists will be at over 100 of locations around the US and Canada to call on dealerships to join us in pressuring Ford to make an ecological U-turn and come to its senses. Go to: http://www.jumpstartford.com

* The U.S. Senate could soon take up a bill that would cripple the Endangered Species Act - putting nearly 1,300 species at risk of extinction. Grizzly bears, grey wolves and bald eagles are part of America's natural heritage, and it's our responsibility to make sure they are here for generations.

That's why Environmental Defense is launching an Emergency Campaign to Save the ESA. The first step is to tell your senators to protect endangered species and our natural heritage.
Go to: http://actionnetwork.org/campaign/esa_senate/iis65br25w8xtk?

Thursday, October 13, 2005

The Enviro Show Halloween Special

You can count of Dracula being on the show along with such ecological horrors as The Gray Goo, The Bird Flu, and an unhealthy dose of monstrous sprawl. Also, we have the...um..honor? of an exclusive interview with...are you ready? Satan! Yess! The little devil is up to no good with his friends in DC, as usual, so tune us in Tuesday night for the low-down (waayyyy down). So, here’s what it looks like:

>[music: "Born as Ghosts" Rage against the Machine]
"Good EVE-en-ning!"
>Intro w/a nod to threatened species like….vampires!
>The Gray Goo – Singularity raises its ugly head and scares the bejesus out of all of us
>The Revenge of the Birds! – how the Asian Bird Flu will spoil your day
>Halloween horrors for other species – The Endangered Species Act takes a hit, but the bears get some revenge
>Interview with The Evil One….no, not Dick Cheney
>[music: "It’s the End of the world as we know it" REM]
>Monstrous Sprawl headed toward the Valley – RUN FOR IT! – interview with our favorite Sprawlbusters
>Bulletin Board – not very scary
>The Weather – very scary lately
>[music: "Space Invader" The Pretenders]


Now, it's time for The Invisible Enviro Show Halloween Special!

This is the part of the show you won't hear (ok, so it's silent, not invisible) this Tuesday night 'cuz there's no time to fit all we have to scare you with into one measly hour. Sooooooo, on with the show!
Remember a few weeks back when Antidote Radio had that looooong rockin' interview with Diane Wilson, the "Unreasonable Woman" from Texas? Remember our last show when Glen talked about the plastic oceans? Well, last week Wilson's "favorite" Lone Star plastic plant went....how shall we say? skyhigh?. That sucker blew up. Plastic everywhere! Yuck!
Not scary enough for you? How about the year 2005 being HOT AS HELL! It didn't seem that way here in the Northeast, but NASA's Goddard Space cadets say the whole picture is not so cool. Brrrrr! More soon.

Monday, October 10, 2005

The Big Not-so-Easy

If you caught our show last week you're probably just recovering from all that toxicity (no?), but folks down in the Gulf states may be dealing with the toxic aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita for years. Now, we're getting reports of the not-so-friendly natural results of all that moisture down in the steamy Bayou country: mold build-up.



Here's the blurb from Grist:

The Mold Song and Dance
EPA failing to inform or protect folks returning to post-Katrina mess

The U.S. EPA has the authority to assess and manage environmental disasters, but activists and even some EPA staffers allege that so far agency testing of water, air, and soil in the Gulf Coast has been insufficient, and its health warnings too weak, to adequately protect returning residents. EPA should be more actively preventing people from coming home, say critics, but is instead delaying and under-publicizing test results. People are entering the post-Katrina miasma of toxics, mold, and sewage under-informed and ill-equipped -- like folks from Meraux, La., who've been allowed to return to homes that were inundated with petroleum when a nearby storage tank burst, gushing an estimated 800,000 gallons of oil. In responding to Katrina, the EPA has been "understaffed" and "overwhelmed," says Oliver Houck, who runs the environment program at the Tulane University Law School. Some liken the current situation to the agency's performance after the 9/11 attacks, when it assured thousands -- falsely, it turned out -- that it was safe to return to homes and workplaces near Ground Zero.


straight to the source: Salon.com, Katharine Mieszkowski and Mark Benjamin, 06 Oct 2005

Sunday, October 02, 2005

The October 4th Enviro Show: "The Bummer Show"

*musical relief with Dave Lipman...and the show hasn't even started!

* Jean’s back! It’s a special edition “The Enviro Bummer Show!” From the macro to the micro: your world is poison! Yuck!! From the toxic soup of storm ravaged, chemically/corporately assaulted New Orleans to baby’s own embryonic superfund site.

* The Weather Report (We're putting it up at the top 'cuz the weather rules)

* Bulletin Board:

>>Northampton Committee Peace and Justice Film Series, 7:00 p.m.,at the Media Education Foundation, 60 Masonic Street in Northampton, side door. This is the Old Fire Station; Woodstar Cafe is in the front of the building. The venue is accessible.
* Oct. 7 The Doctor, the Depleted Uranium, and the Dying Children
A team of DU experts visit contaminated Iraqi battlefields and civilian areas, as well as a Basra cancer ward.
* Oct. 21 The Forest for the Trees
The story of EarthFirst! activist Judi Bari, who was framed by the FBI for an attack that nearly killed her.

>>Thursday, Oct. 6, Radiation Health Risks, Downwinders in the Nuclear Age! At 6:30 PM, Dr. Ernest Sternglass speaks at All Soul’s Church, 399 Main Street at Hope and Main, across from the Greenfield Courthouse and Public Library. Sternglass will show many transparencies on the incidence of breast cancers, cancer deaths, autism, etc. A room will be available for children’s activities, including making ‘tooth fairies’. Discussion follows on how to prevent the dangerous increase in risks proposed at the Vernon reactor.

>>Wednesday, Oct. 19, 7pm at the Holyoke High School auditorium, 500 Beech Street, Holyoke there will be a forum on sewer issues. Folks will be raising a stink about the proposed privatization of the Holyoke sewer system.


* The Moyers’ report and a study in plastic (It's the bummer part, very toxic)

The links:
Plastic Oceans:

http://nederland.seashepherd.org/essays/ocean_realm_aut01.html

http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Ocean/Moore-Trashed-PacificNov03.htm




Bill Moyers:
http://www.pbs.org/tradesecrets/problem/bodyburden.html


* Musical relief..thank Goddess [The Baby Island” Jefferson Starship]

* Body Burden.....Glen’s burden!

The links:


EWG Body Burden 1 (adults):

http://www.ewg.org/reports/bodyburden/


EWG Body Burden 2 (new borns):

http://www.ewg.org/reports/bodyburden2/execsumm.php


You Are A Toxic Waste Dump:

http://www.unknownnews.net/031229toxic.html




* Interview w/Tina Clarke of Cleanwater Action: Hey, don't be so bummed,You CAN do something!

* More Musical relief [ some mystery music maestro ]

* E-Valley-uation (Vermont Yankee ticking away in YOUR backyard!)

* The Ultimate segway! the Voice of Antidote Radio joins us before moving over to her show. Fasten that seatbelt dear listener.