Reality Report

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.

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.

On this episode of The Reality Report, Jason Bradford talks to James Howard Kunstler, long-time critic of suburbia, and author of The Long Emergency and more recently, World Made by Hand. In the form of a novel set in the future in upstate New York, World Made by Hand explores the potential consequences of the converging crisis of financial meltdown, resource wars, peak oil and climate change.

How many farmers will it take to feed America as oil and natural gas supplies decline? Sharon Astyk is head farmer at a CSA in central New York, currently working on a pair of books with New Society Publishers titled “Depletion and Abundance: The New Home Front, Families and the Coming Crisis” and “A Nation of Farmers.” Sharon also frequently writes essays that appear on her website and elsewhere, check out http://casaubonsbook.blogspot.com/

The discourse has been heating up around biofuel for well over a year now. The classic food versus fuel debate has been engaged recently by the United Nations, while scientists, climate change experts, and farmers begin to question the scale and logistics of biofuel replacement of the current liquid fuel demand. In this article, Energy Farm Development Specialist Christoffer Hansen and Post Carbon Fellow Dr. Jason Bradford make the case for the electric tractor.

Kumar Plocher of Yokayo Biofuels and Chris Hansen of the Post Carbon Institute's Local Energy Farms discuss production of local biofuels—what are the options for crops, land, processing and distribution?

In this edition of the Reality Report, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory staff scientist David Fridley discusses "The Myths of Biofuels" - specifically liquid biofuels geared towards transportation.

The Reality Report hosts Greg Pahl, prolific author of five books on sustainable living and renewable energy. This show discusses his most recent book, “The Citizen Powered Energy Handbook: Community Solutions to a Global Crisis.” Greg explains how community based renewable energy projects are key to local economic revival and security and encourages listeners to learn more by going to www.postcarbon.org.

Nate Hagens discusses the cognitive, social and psychological factors that make it difficult for societies to agree, even when all the facts are open and transparent.

What are the common misconceptions about energy supplies? Nate Hagens is a former Wall Street investments manager and has an MBA from University of Chicago. He is completing his doctoral studies at the University of Vermont’s Gund Institute for Ecological Economics. Nate is also a contributor for The Oil Drum, an online source for news, analysis and discussions about energy and our future.