Preservation Videos

11/19/2009: Fort Myers Historic Preservation Commission, November 19, 2009

Welcome to Radio Ecoshock. This week's program is about schizophrenia: the state of hoping the system will crash before it kills the planet, while counting on all the usual creature comforts of home, jobs, and a well-stocked supermarket. Yes, I know the Western world is hanging in suspension. We're waiting for the shopping to resume, for the economy to rebound, for the good life to return. Most politicians and the mainstream press promise that it will all go back to the normal process of chewing up and spitting out the last of the planet's goodness. Meanwhile we go to movies like 2012, slurping up scenes of the destruction of everything. Part of our secret selves hopes it all goes down in flames, or floods. Even while we worry about our children having a decent life. You see how it goes? I know you are worried about the economy. Maybe even your own job or home is at risk. Despite the propaganda, we'd be crazy not to worry about it. I've been told the general formula for every speech and radio program goes as follows: we paint the grim picture, but always, always end on a positive note. Give humans solutions, or they'll just go numb and do nothing. Sorry. This week we violate the rules. Lately Radio Ecoshock has run a series about greening our cities. A couple of listeners have written back, saying cities can never be sustainable, as Derrick Jensen says. Have I fallen into the camp of false good cheer? We'll start out with one of the most promising solutions I've heard about lately - a dream of new economics coming from a British government advisor, Professor Tim Jackson. He's got a new book out "Prosperity Without Growth". Then we'll head into more pessimistic territory with Dave Cohen, an analyst for ASPO, the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas. Having written the American Empire is now obviously in decline, Cohen asks "Now What?" We talk more about the economic crisis, Wall Street bull (and bears) - and the energy crisis. Along with James Howard Kuntsler, and our recent guest Richard Heinberg, Cohen says normal consumption is never coming back. We might as well prepare ourselves for very hard times. We'll trash smug Canadians a bit, since real estate north of the border is just as stupidly over-leveraged as the American market. Then we'll notice Australia melting in the heat, while they push even more coal. A big Canadian company has just bought into the dirty Aussie coal market. Aren't we proud? In the end, I wonder, is hope just getting in the way of dealing with the limits of reality? This show is peppered with audio clips, including shorties from Max Keiser, Jeff Buckley's song "The Sky Is A Landfill", Bob Holman's "We Are the Dinosaur", and of course ending with the show title "Dinosaurs Will Die" from NOFX. We open with "Times Is Hard" by Loudon Wainwright III. READ MORE

Curator Joshua Siegel talks about the MoMA preservation festival

I tossed this recording of "Greening Portland" into a small line at the bottom of last week's Radio Ecoshock blog, thinking maybe a few people would be interested. To my shock, over 400 people downloaded it within two days! I didn't know that many people read my humble show notes... Thanks for being here. I'll go into a description of this week's program and speakers, followed by a bigger question about the role of cities in solving climate change, now that we see big governments too paralyzed, or too corrupt, to act. We'll role through the latest Scientific American article, James Howard Kunstler's theory, Derrick Jensen's despair, and a glance at the ideas of Dr. Bill Rees. Maybe cities are the leaders, the only meaningful level of government? What makes the city of Portland so desirable as a place to live? It's walkable, a national leader in bicycle commuting, and a green model in many respects. Yet this West Coast allure also drives unique problems for Portland. Sure the economic crash brought high unemployment, as everywhere else. But Portland has become a refuge city, a place where people come seeking jobs and a comfortable social culture. That's raised unemployment and problems like homelessness. As other West Coast cities like Vancouver and San Francisco know too well, perceived success breeds it's own challenges. To give you ideas for your own city, we're going to hear a brief from Portland's Green Mayor Sam Adams. But in a sign of the times, Adams cedes the stage to the two women who are leading the city's sustainability drive, Susan Anderson and Erin Flynn. Susan Anderson is the Director of the City of Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. Erin Flynn is Urban Development Director for Portland. She's also the driving force behind Portland's new Five-year Economic Development Strategy. Mayor Sam Adams was elected in May 2008 with a good majority, after four years on Portland City Council. In addition to his outstanding green credentials, Adams "is the first openly gay mayor of a top U.S. city" (according to Wikipedia). All this recorded by Alex Smith of Radio Ecoshock, at the Gaining Ground Resilient Cities conference in Vancouver, Canada, on October 20th, 2009. Download this presentation from the Cities page at ecoshock.org. At the end, we'll also hear a clip from Sarah Severn of the Nike corporation, which has headquarters in Portland. Did you know the "air" in Nike running shoes was actually a terrible global warming gas? (Sulfur hexafloride). We'll hear how Nike fixed that, and their other efforts toward sustainable energy. That same morning, Sarah Severn of Nike, the shoe maker, outlined their efforts to green the corporation. She covered such things as water usage, toxics in their materials and manufacturing, and this brief on Nike and climate change. You can download Sarah Severn's full 26 minute presentation from the Cities page at ecoshock.org. (26 min, 6 MB here) Sarah has been the Global Director of Nike's Environmental Action Team (NEAT), a department of Nike's Corporate Responsibility division. She's also on the Board of Directors of the non-profit group "Focus the Nation" ("Community and the Road to Copenhagen") The introduction is by Rob Abbott, the corporate greening consultant, and author of the upcoming book "Conscious Endeavors: Business, Society and the Journey to Sustainability" Find out more about the conference at gaininggroundsummit.com. CAN CITIES SAVE THE CLIMATE? READ MORE Oh, and by the way, we just added our 18th station to broadcast Radio Ecoshock. It's WRFA_LP 107.9 FM in Jamestown, in Western New York State. Another is coming, in Whitehorse, in Canada's Yukon. Please write, email or call your local radio station requesting Radio Ecoshock. It's free, and ad-free, all for the cause of a better climate. Alex. Thanks.

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When time spent with others becomes unimportant and traditions ignored, when historical parks become a business and our environment destroyed, part of our humanity is lost forever. Mrs Burton's Tea room in The Heritage Park San Diego will be absorbed by the Hacienda Hotel-Quality Inn and become a memory of the past.

Join celebrities and Prince Charles save the rainforests with the Prince's Rainforest Project, The Senate released a tougher version of the climate bill, and Typhoon Ketsana ripped through the Philippines raising concerns at Bangkok climate talks.

This Video by Sam Olly shows the situation and some of the state of the Chapel.

BlazerCast for August 11, 2009: UAB Professor Pamela King tells the story of one of Birmingham's oldest neighborhoods through historic preservation. Become a fan of BlazerCast on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/BlazerCast/20770581932 Follow us on Twitter here: http://twitter.com/uabnews

The Kokua Hawai’i Foundation was founded by Jack Johnson and his wife Kim, who wanted to share the importance of caring for the planet with Hawaii's youth.

With over 250 active hot springs, amongst them Old Faithful, Yellowstone National Park is home to some of nature's most amazing wildlife and rare geological phenomenon. Yellowstone was the first National Park in the United States, and to this day rem