Jonathan Schell: The Seventh Decade: The New Shape of Nuclear Danger (American Empire Project)

Regarding the START Treaty between the U.S. and Russia, Jonathan Schell recently told Democracy Now this: Well, it’s sort of garden-variety, moderate, sensible, minimal arms control. I think of it as arms control maintenance. It does basically two things that have been going on for the last 30 years or 40 years, really since Richard Nixon inaugurated arms control in 1972. And that is, it shaves the arsenals a little bit, a couple of hundred warheads, also reduces the number of delivery vehicles that are allowed. And maybe more important than that, it reintroduces inspections, which have lapsed with the lapse of the START treaty, the old START treaty. So this is what’s been going on for 40 years in arms control, and it pushes it along in a kind of minimal way. It’s a little bit like paying the mortgage on your house. You know, if you pay your mortgage, it’s not a big deal. But if you don’t, the consequences could be pretty dire. And that’s pretty much the way I look at this. [...] The best way to deal with that is to roll back the technology as a whole. And that’s really where Obama’s commitment to move to a world free of nuclear weapons comes in, because the very same steps that you would take to actually eliminate nuclear weapons are the very ones that you would take to keep that technology from spreading into other hands. In other words, you’d get it under control, you would actually liquidate it so it didn’t exist. That would be an important step. And then you—so you’d solve really the two problems with one stroke. See that full transcript here. You can also download the podcast of this Democracy Now show, here. See also: The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People.

The father of vertical farming from The Economist

Dickson Despommier, author of "The Vertical Farm", on the concept, what it might look like and the eco-cities of the future.

View the video here. The Economist also notes:

The idea is that skyscrapers filled with floor upon floor of orchards and fields, producing crops all year round, will sprout in cities across the world. As well as creating more farmable land out of thin air, this would slash the transport costs and carbon-dioxide emissions associated with moving food over long distances. It would also reduce the spoilage that inevitably occurs along the way, says Dickson Despommier, a professor of public and environmental health at Columbia University in New York who is widely regarded as the progenitor of vertical farming, and whose recently published book, “The Vertical Farm”, is a manifesto for the idea. According to the UN’s Population Division, by 2050 around 70% of the world’s population will be living in urban areas. So it just makes sense, he says, to move farms closer to where everyone will be living.

Read that full feature, at the Economist.com. See also: Public Produce: The New Urban Agriculture, Farms: Vertical Farming, 15 Living Walls, Vertical Gardens & Sky Farms

Charlie Rose's Thursday, October 21, 2010 Conversation with Robert Gottlieb - author of “Sarah: The Life of Sarah Bernhardt” -

CHARLIE ROSE: Robert Gottlieb is back. His publishing career spans
50 years. During that time has been editor in chief of Simon and Schuster,
Alfred A. Knopf, and "The New Yorker" magazine. He is, as you know, a
writer. His new book "Sarah -- the Life of Sarah Bernhardt" is the first
in Yale’s Jewish Lives series.

Bernhardt, also known as "The Divine Sarah," was once the most famous
actress in the world. I’m pleased to have Robert Gottlieb back at this
table. Welcome.

ROBERT GOTTLIEB: Charlie, thanks.

CHARLIE ROSE: What is this series about?

ROBERT GOTTLIEB: It is about Jewish lives, which is why it’s called
"Jewish Lives."

CHARLIE ROSE: But Yale initiated it?

ROBERT GOTTLIEB: Yes. A very benign person gave him a considerable
amount of money to launch this series and pay for it generously so that
they could hire sign on the writers it they wanted.

CHARLIE ROSE: And they signed on you to do this?

ROBERT GOTTLIEB: They did.

See: http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11255. See also: Food Justice (Food, Health, and the Environment), Reading Dance: A Gathering of Memoirs, Reportage, Criticism, Profiles, Interviews, and Some Uncategorizable Extras, George Balanchine: The Ballet Maker, Charlie Rose with Peter Whybrow; Robert Gottlieb; Terence Ward (March 18, 2005)

Charlie Rose's Tuesday, August 10, 2010 conversation with Eric Pooley

CHARLIE ROSE: We continue our series of summer conversations about
the challenges facing President Obama in an assessment of what he has been
done, has done and his administration has done. We want now to talk about
the environment and climate change.

Joining me is Eric Pooley, deputy editor of "Bloomberg Businessweek"
magazine. His new book is called "The Climate War -- True Believers, Power
Brokers, and the Fight to save the Earth." I am pleased to have him back
on this program. Welcome.

You can view the full show, episode, interview here. And you can read the full transcript here.

Sustainable economics, temperatures and cities from Portland Architecture: OHSU Receives $40 Million Gift by Brian Libby

Numerous national outlets have also taken note of a new book by Stan Cox called Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air-Conditioned World (and Finding New Ways to Get Through the Summer). In a Q&A with the National Post of Canada, Cox says air conditioning has shaped U.S. presidential politics, shifted populations, altered our sex lives and thickened our waistlines.

Cox is on to something. Between 1993 and 2005 our use of electricity [in the U.S.] for cooling residences and retail space doubled over that period and that, over that same period, more or less, we doubled our use of petroleum energy used in cooling automobiles. The mass migration that has occurred in America to Sun Belt states has been part of that phenomenon. One needs air conditioning in Las Vegas, I’d approximate, about 25 hours a day, 375 days a year. Phoenix slightly more still.

Cox isn’t suggesting we get rid of air conditioning altogether. “Focus on people cooling rather than building cooling,” he tells the Post. “An example would be going back to the single room air conditioner. Have it in one room of the house and if things get too bad, turn it on and cool the room. Rather than, imagine our current scenario, say, in the American Sunbelt, where a husband and wife get up in a 3,000 square foot air-conditioned house, get into two air-conditioned cars and commute to an office block that has been sitting there, getting cooled all night in preparation for the workday. Meanwhile, back home, that 24,000 cubic feet is being cooled with nobody in the house.”

Read the full post here.

The Uncomfortable Truths of our Air-Conditioned World from WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show by listenerservices@wnyc.org (WNYC, New York Public Radio)

Stan Cox, author of Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air-Conditioned World (and Finding New Ways to Get Through the Summer), and Michael Clendenin, Con Edison spokesman, talk about electricity use in the city during the hot summer months and alternatives to turning up your air conditioner.

Listen to the podcast here.

Charlie Rose's Monday, May 17, 2010 with Bill McKibben - Books - Bill McKibben, environmentalist and author has a new book called "Eaarth"

CHARLIE ROSE: Bill McKibben is here. Twenty years ago he wrote "The End of Nature," one
of the first books on global warming for a general audience. Since that
time, he argues the issue of climate change has become even more urgent.
His new book is called "Eaarth -- Making a Life on a tough new Planet." I
am pleased to have him back at this table. Welcome.

BILL MCKIBBEN: It’s very good to be here.

CHARLIE ROSE: So tell me where we are in terms of climate change at
this moment.

BILL MCKIBBEN: We learned today from NASA and others that January,
February, March, were the warmest January, February, March on record. NASA
said it’s now virtually certain this will be the hottest year we know
about.

What’s going on, the point of this strange title --

CHARLIE ROSE: Yes, look at this strange title.

BILL MCKIBBEN: "E" with two "a’s," you have to channel your inner
Schwarzenegger to pronounce it -- "Eaarth." The point is we’re already
living on a different planet. We’re all used to world we live in and
anything that’s going to change it in any significant way is hard.

B, because fossil fuel is the most profitable industry ever known to
man. And ExxonMobil made more money each of the last three years than any
company in the history of money. In our system that buys a lot of power to
delay, to deflect.

See: http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11016. See also: Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet, Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future, The End of Nature, American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau (Library of America)

Eli Kintisch: Hack the Planet from Forum Network | Book Tour Podcast Podcast

Eli Kintisch and Bethanne Patrick discuss Kintisch's new book, Hack the Planet: Science's Best Hope - or Worst Nightmare - for Averting Climate Catastrophe.

Listen to the podcast here.