Renowned political analyst Kevin Phillips argues successive
administrations have imperiled the US economy by a combination of
shortsighted policies and a trend against regulation. These include
unparalleled credit card debts, the expansion of financial industries
such as hedge funds, ballooning national debts, and deliberately
altering statistics like inflation and unemployment to mask the
accurate picture.
Spurred by a viewer's question about gas prices, Michael Moore talks about the breadth of the problem of peak oil: petroleum is not just a fuel, but a feedstock for most of the material bases for our life.
Host Jon Steinman speaks with Rebecca Kneen of Crannóg Ales -
Canada's only Certified Organic farmhouse microbrewery. Kneen published a
manual on small-scale organic hop growing and she is extremely excited at
the attention the manual has received since the global hops shortage hit
home. We also learn more on the philosophies of biodynamic agriculture and
the important presence of microorganisms in a post-carbon world.
Chinese cities are experiencing explosive growth - much in the form of "superblocks" -- roughly 1km2 residential developments that can have anything from 2,000 to 10,000 units of housing in them --which are being built at a rate of 10-15 per day. This film is a case study of a proposed "ecoblock", which would be self-sufficient in water and energy.
The Reality Report's Jason Bradford speaks with University of Oregon law professor Mary Wood, who explains how the government, acting as trustee of the atmospheric
commons, is obligated to deal realistically with climate change science.
Is raising children in suburbia a form of child
abuse? What happens to developing people when public space is the berm
between the Wal-Mart and the K-Mart? When school looks like a maximum
security "facility"? When parents are chauffeurs? James Howard Kunstler
addresses these topics and speaks of his own experiences growing up in
the suburbs of Long Island and in Manhattan.
James Howard Kunstler is one of the most vocal
critics of modern urban planning. So it's only fair that in this show
Jim fields some questions from the professional planning community.
First off, the planners want to know how Jim answers to critics who
challenge him on his lack of professional credentials in the planning
and architecture fields. Next, a planning professor wants to know: what
is the most important thing that cities can do to most improve the
quality of the built environment? This show is the result of a special
collaboration between The KunstlerCast and Planetizen, the online
network for professional planners.
This week on Crop To Cuisine, we check out a local restaurant making it a point to utilize locally grown and raised ingredients. We also speak with Roxanne Christenson, the President of the Institute for Innovation in Local Farming in Philadelphia. And Kipp Nash joins us in the studio to talk about his experiences with SPIN Farming in Boulder, Colorado. To find out more, go to www.croptocuisine.org
A listener from Flagstaff, Ariz. wants to know what fate awaits his town in the post oil future. The verdict from Jim? At least it's not Phoenix, but most of Flagstaff looks like the service road around Newark Airport. The caller also asks about the new Honda hydrogen fuel cell car, which reminds Jim to bash so-called environmentalist Amory Lovins' fantasy to keep the motoring scene going at all costs. With transcript.
The Reality Report interviews
Sharon Astyk— writer,
teacher and subsistence farmer, and the author of two forthcoming books on Peak
Oil and Climate Change — Depletion and Abundance: Life on the New Home Front
(Fall ‘08) and A Nation of Farmers (And Cooks)
(Spring ‘09), the latter co-authored with Aaron Newton. On this show, we discuss
low energy methods for home food preservation and storage.
