Green Majority Radio

The Panama Papers scandal is all over the news, but what are the implications for the environment, and possibly more importantly why does no one seem surprised and what does that say about our society? We also discuss the first CEO jailed for actions taken as a CEO in the USA, Donald Blankenship former head of Massey Energy and the recent third-term election for Brad Wall's government in Saskatchewan. In the final section, we talk about renewable energy opportunities in Canada compared to the supposedly irresistable opportunities of continuing to invest in oil. Supposedly some pipeline might bring 130 or so jobs! Guess what... there's 70,000 potential jobs in Alberta for solar jobs alone in the next 25 years. The bonus show, hosted by Sabina Hyseni and Brenna Owen discuss Trudeau's comments about how supposedly oil and climate change don't conflict, and Catherine McKenna's comments about how NOT investing in oil threatens national unity. We call bullshit, you should listen to why. This is just a brief! Pl

Dr. James Hansen, formerly of the NASA Space Goddard Institute and current author for open-access journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics released a bombshell report about some updated calculations regarding how long we have to bring carbon emissions under control, and the intensity of and speed of which we will experience the repercussions. The main focus of the show is to talk about the intersection of veganism and climate activism. Over the last couple years, there has been a surge in folks calling themselves 'climate vegans', which should be a great thing (and can be) but unfortunately has led to almost as much 'bad blood' between the vegans and climate activists as it has created cooperation and positive change. In the last few shows, Stefan and Daryn made a few throw-away comments about this issue that were understandably misunderstood because we didn't explain why we felt that way, and what our position on veganism and the intersection with climate issues actually is. This is just a brief! Please c

We discuss some Canadian news items with some direct correlation to the 2016 Federal Budget including more amazing work by Mike De Souza and the National Observer looking into the dysfunction of the National Energy Board with regards to energy projects in Canada. In the second section, the long lost and sorely missed Kevin Farmer jumps in to the mix, and Stefan Hostetter both take Emmay Mah's lead discussing the just announced 2016 Federal Canadian Budget. In the final live section, Kevin Farmer (one of the original co-hosts, since retired for new listeners) takes control and gives one of his trademark, funny, poignant and razor sharp rants... mostly poking holes in Justin Trudeau's new oil filled climate policy. In the bonus show, Sabina is off this week so Stefan steps in to host. We decided at the last min that we'd said more or less everything we wanted to say (that was important) about the other news and the budget, so we take a slight pause in our regular programming to discuss some of the other very

Emmay Mah and Brenna Owen start the show off with a discussion of the weeks top news items focusing particularly on the ongoing new(ish) relationship between the USA and Canada on climate and resources issues. In the middle section, Stefan Hostetter and Daryn Caister draw a narrative from a choice selection of other news to have a discussion about the relationship between Corporations, Shareholders, Governments and you with relation to cultural practices, who has power and why, and the rampant double standards that exist in our current system. In the bonus show, Sabina Hyseni leads un in an interesting discussion about how should we go about putting limits on our impact on the environment through the lens of a recent study on pollinator deaths as a result of neonicotinoid chemicals primarily used in farming as a pesticide. We can't possibly have NO impact (no species does or can) but seeing is our ability to affect other species and natural systems is so big, how do we go about deciding where those limits s

We start the show with a recap from Stefan Hostetter of the Globe Conference on Corporate Sustainability. During the end of the first section, and the majority of the second we then talk about the other side of the privilege and power spectrum the struggles and racism against Indigenous Peoples the world over that most often pay the heaviest price for the spoils of first world wealth... whether they live in this countries or not. In the final section, we interview Matthew Klippenstein about the state of plug-in electric vehicles in Canada. Where are we, where are we going, and should this be something we support as an environmental movement? This is just a brief! Please check the website here for full show notes: https://greenmajoritymedia.wordpress.com/2016/03/11/first-nation-second-class-494/ We are 100% member supported and need your help! Please check out our Patreon page to learn more: www.patreon.com/greenmajority

We start the show this week with a quick review lead by Emmay Mah of the Vancourver Declaration of Clean Growth and Climate Change released yesturday (March 3rd). In the second section, Daryn taken on the nonsense of fake-business success, and real cartoon villain wannabe: Kevin O'Leary for his non-information attacks on Cap + Trade and Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne for low-information voters. In the final section of the live show, new volunteer and correspondent Clark Barr talks to us about his mission to live a year without plastic. What does that mean, how hard it really is, and if plastics so bad what are we supposed to do about it? For the Bonus Show, hosted by Sabina Hyseni we talk about the increased economic opportunities and consequent rush to commercialize the Arctic as vast areas of usually in-traversable ice melts back due to climate change. This is just a brief! Please check the website here for full show notes: https://greenmajoritymedia.wordpress.com/2016/03/04/politics-with-courage-and-li

The headlines we featured include a combination of awesome renewable energy projects beginning to take hold around the world, and the legal nonsense that's being abused by the US government to try to quash them. Chinese company trying to sue Canada over opposition to several resource projects that China has a steak in on Canadian soil, and the implications for FIPA and TPP trade deals of what this could mean in the future. David Grey-Donald brings us a report he's compiled (soon to be released) about the line 9 pipeline. Matt Currie from Stop C51 TO joins us for an update on the status of bill C51 (aka the police state bill) from Harper that the new liberal government promised to amend... to little apparent result. This is just a brief! Please check the website here for full show notes: https://greenmajoritymedia.wordpress.com/2016/02/26/updates-on-line-9-pipeline-and-bill-c51-492/ We are 100% member supported and need your help! Please check out our Patreon page to learn more: www.patreon.com/greenmajo

Rich Penney, a volunteer with Zeitgeist Toronto joins us this week to talk about some of the most dangerous implications of runaway climate change. We felt it was important to circle back to this somewhat basic climate science because the face of denial has gone from Harper style 'it's not real/lets act like it's not' to Trudeau's 'it's real and we should do something, just not nearly as much as the science requires'. Just because someone says they accept climate change, doesn't mean that actually understand it nor does it mean they have any intention of actually doing what's required to stop it. In the second section, Stefan and Daryn move the conversation south to the US primaries, the Supreme Court challenge to Obama's Climate Plan and then days later the death of notoriously conservative Supreme Court Judge Antonin Scalia... with less than a year to a presidential race and the implications for not just the USA but potentially a zero-sum win/loss scenario on climate change. In the final section of the li

We are honored this week to host a group of talented young environmentalists from Holy Cross Catholic School, the winners of a school contest to make claymation animation videos about Ontario Endangered Species. Jann, Eden, Victoria, Ruel and Jason join the show to talk about their winning animations and the endangered species they learned about, and are introduced by their teacher Liane Paixao. In the middle section, Stefan takes point and makes the best case he can FOR the TPP, which leads us to talk about our responses to the best case scenario for it to take it down. There's lots of reasons to be skeptical the TPP is in our interest, and now you have a few more. Finally we take some time to talk about Nuclear subsidies as voted for by #vote4thenews as well as a bit about a terrible op-ed by Rex Murphy about Alberta's oil woes, which continues into the bonus show. This is just a brief! Please check the website here for full show notes: https://greenmajoritymedia.wordpress.com/2016/02/12/wont-someone-lis

Lauren Brown joins us from LEAF (Local Enhancement and Appreciation of Forests) to talk about the organization and a new program they are offering to increase the amount of women in the forestry sector. Currently females makes up only 10% of the sector, and they'd like to change that! Our main guest this week is Gus Van Harten, associate professor at Osgoode Hall Law School and author of Investment Treaty Arbitration and Public Law. Gus walks us through just some of the may reasons that the TPP 'trade' deal that Canada just signed and it looking to ratify is a terrible deal for Canadians, and furthermore democracy in general everywhere. The final section of the show, and the entire bonus show is dedicated to our crack cast of host taking our own experience and examples of why you should be loudly opposed to the TPP. Let your local MP or MPP know right now, TPP is not good for Canada. This is just a brief! Please check the website here for full show notes: https://greenmajoritymedia.wordpress.com/2016/02/05

The team discusses new Canadian pipeline/environmental review announcements by the federal government. The good, bad and ugly. In the middle of the show, we respond to Rick Mercer (Famous Canadian Pundit/Comedian) regarding his recent video promoting Energy East and deriding Montreal for saying no to it. Finally we talk about solutions. Now that we are starting to have the difficult conversations we need to have, what do activists that were focused on getting people to pay attention to the issue do now? Propose solutions :) and we do just that. This is just a brief! Please check the website here for full show notes: https://greenmajoritymedia.wordpress.com/2016/01/29/488-7-reasons-rick-mercer-got-energyeast-wrong/ We are 100% member supported and need your help! Please check out our Patreon page to learn more: www.patreon.com/greenmajority

Cat Zavis, Executive Director of Spiritual Progressives, a group of multi-faith and no faith individuals that are doing more than just wishing for a world based on hope and mutual respect but in fact planning how to get there. Cat outlines the Global Marshal Plan on how to remake the world, as well as commenting further on the relationship between spirituality and activism. Stefan and Daryn dissect a listener email we received from a 'non-typical right winger' on their complaints with us being happy Keystone XL was cancelled. We answered it but couldn't resist having some fun at the same time. In the final section, Emmay and Brenna outline some top news! Also meet another new volunteer Deirdre in the after-show. This is just a brief! Please check the website here for full show notes: https://greenmajoritymedia.wordpress.com/2016/01/22/487-the-big-lie-of-leftright-politics/ We are 100% member supported and need your help! Please check out our Patreon page to learn more: www.patreon.com/greenmajority

Renoback is a sales and trade platform for making use of the literal tons of perfectly good building materials that get thrown into the dump each year simply because previously there was nothing else to do with it. Emmay Mah and Stefan Hostetter help discuss some big courtroom news in Canada this week as a series of important decisions came down with potentially huge implications for all sorts of oil infrastructure projects in Canada. This is just a brief! Please check the website here for full show notes: https://greenmajoritymedia.wordpress.com/2016/01/15/486-the-climate-goes-to-court/ We are 100% member supported and need your help! Please check out our Patreon page to learn more: www.patreon.com/greenmajority

Jeff Mann is an artist from the US now living in southern Ontario who works with junked car parts into art pieces, primarily masks. We also talk about TransCanada's filed suit against the US government for killing the Keystone XL pipeline. Stefan Hostetter also gets on soapbox about 'planning to win' and a cool idea for a way to revolutionize micro-technology like cell-phones to be less of a scourge on the planet. This is just a brief! Please check the website here for full show notes: https://greenmajoritymedia.wordpress.com/2016/01/08/485-reclaiming-sovereignty/ We are 100% member supported and need your help! Please check out our Patreon page to learn more: www.patreon.com/greenmajority

New volunteer Emmay Mah hosts the show today and leads our veteran commenters Stefan Hostetter and Kevin Farmer in an analysis of what happened in 2015 in the eco-space and what we can and should be looking forward to in 2016. The landscape has changed with regards to climate change, global trade agreements and the amount of cooperation at the global level. Is it enough? Are the changes in place sufficient? Just how hopeful is it smart to be at this point? What is left to be done? Emmay et al discusses this on this weeks show. *The show file has been updated and is now complete. This is a brief! Please check the website here for full show notes: https://greenmajoritymedia.wordpress.com/2016/01/02/484-new-years-revolutions/ We are 100% member supported and need your help! Please check out our Patreon page to learn more: www.patreon.com/greenmajority

We review a bunch of general top 2015 news items (not just environmental stories) and have a general discussion about conclusions we can draw about where the world is going. This review show is a very relaxed conversation about our world in 2015 and what we should be looking for in 2016. A really fun, relaxed show we enjoyed making and hope you enjoy listening! This is a brief! Please check the website here for full show notes: https://greenmajoritymedia.wordpress.com/2015/12/25/483-2015-in-review/ We are 100% member supported and need your help! Please check out our Patreon page to learn more: www.patreon.com/greenmajority

Kevin and Stefan talk to Andrew Mitrovica, a journalist from iPolitics.ca as well as 23 years experience in the mainstream media in Canada including the CBC’s fifth estate, CTV’s W5, CTV National News — where he was the network’s chief investigative producer — the Walrus magazine and the Globe and Mail, where he was a member of the newspaper’s investigative unit. Andrew has won numerous national and international awards for his investigative work. Kevin and Andrew discuss the disconnect between the relative threat and coverage in the mainstream media between 'terror' and climate change. More people are killed by sharks than by terrorists each year, and climate change threatens to end human civilization and yet the coverage in the media is almost perfectly reversed from the actual danger. Why? Kevin and Andrew explore... Also, Stefan and Kevin discuss the idea and role of 'hope' in social movements, with specific reference to the COP21 agreement that was just signed into not-law. This is a brief! Please ch

Kevin Caners from the Elephant Podcast joins us live from Paris at COP21 for the final few hours of negotiation. The hosts do a revisit of the supposed 'controversy' of Canadian eco-groups 'selling out' to join forces with big oil. This is a brief! Please check the website here for full show notes: https://greenmajoritymedia.wordpress.com/2015/12/11/481-alberta-confidential/ We are 100% member supported and need your help! Please check out our Patreon page to learn more: www.patreon.com/greenmajority

We start with David Berliner from CoPower.me talking about a new way to get involved in the renewable energy market space in January. CoPower groups and simplifies investments in renewable energy, and efficiency upgrades all over the world into simple and easy to understand investment portfolio options so you could be providing startup capital to a geothermal plant half way around the world! We also talk more about COP21, and the 'secret deal' as it's been initially reported between Alberta's premier, several large environment groups, Pembina and the heads of a select group of oil executives. This is a brief! For full listings and more info about this episode with links etc visit: https://greenmajoritymedia.wordpress.com/2015/12/04/480-citizen-copower/ Please consider supporting us! - We are 100% Patreon member funded: www.patreon.com/greenmajority

Sam Gill is the CEO of ETindex (Environment Tracker) which helps investors avoid carbon risks in their portfolios, based out of the UK. Sam talks to us about the overall market trends of carbon and carbon reporting, reductions strategies as well as his thoughts about the impact for people and markets from the upcoming COP21 meetings in Paris. This is a brief! For full listings and more info about this episode with links etc visit: https://greenmajoritymedia.wordpress.com/2015/11/27/479-canada-goes-to-paris/ Please consider supporting us! - We are 100% Patreon member funded: www.patreon.com/greenmajority