December 29 - A Blueprint For Cutting CO2 Emissions; A "Kayaktivist" Blocking A Shell Rig; A Report on the UN Climate Deal

Full Program

Part 1

Today we look into the issues of climate change that all developed countries except the United States recognize as a clear and present danger that has to be addresses before global warming causes irreversible damage to the planet.  We will begin with a broadcast of Background Briefing from March the 31^st of this year in which we begin with President Obama’s blueprint for cutting greenhouse gas emissions by nearly a third over the next decade and speak with Janet Redman, the Director of the Climate Policy Program at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington D.C.  She joined us to discuss Obama’s proposals that will be on the table at the UN climate negotiations in Paris in December for U.S. action on climate change which many environmentalists already consider inadequate and which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell considers unattainable and illegal. 

Part 2

We now go to a program broadcast on July the 29^th of this year in which I spoke with Daphne Wysham, the director of the Climate and Energy Program at the Center for Sustainable Economy who was at the Cathedral Park boat ramp in North Portland watching Greenpeace activists dangle from the St. Johns Bridge across the Willamette River who, along with “kayactvists” in kayaks, were blocking the passage of an icebreaker Shell oil plans to send to the Arctic to help it drill for oil under the Arctic Sea. We discussed why these activists are risking their lives in taking this stand to say “Shell No!” 

Part 3

We now go to a program broadcast on December the 13^th and begin with an analysis of the U.N. climate deal which 195 nations just agreed to in Paris, and speak with Robert Stavins who is just back from Paris. He is a Professor and the Director of the Environmental Economics Program at the Harvard Kennedy School and a lead author of three reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We assessed the likelihood of greenhouse gas reduction targets being met to keep the earth’s warming below 2 degrees Celsius and discuss complaints by critics that the deal does not go far enough.