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Branko Marcetic: Six Months After Russia’s Ukraine Invasion, There’s Signs a Negotiated End to the War is Possible; Christopher Vials: After 18 Months, Biden Finally Responds to Trump and GOP Threat to Democracy; Rob Ritchie: Alaska’s First-Time Use of Ranked Choice Voting Demonstrates a Sound Option for Electoral Reform; Bob Nixon: This Week’s Under-reported News Summary.

In May of this year, a white supremacist killed ten people in Buffalo, New York. He made clear that he wanted to kill Black people, because he believes there is a plot, run by Jews, to “replace” white people with Black and brown people. News media had an opportunity then to deeply interrogate the obvious spurs for the horrific act, including of course the media outlets and pundits and politicians who repeatedly invoke this white replacement idea, but it didn’t really happen. [Part of this episode is repeated from 5-20-2022.]

Diablo Canyon was scheduled to close by 2025 Governor Gavin Newsom got a bill approved in California’s assembly and senate (SB-846), that changed state law so the operator of Diablo Canyon, Pacific Gas and Electric, (PG&E) can receive at least $1.4 billion of taxpayer and ratepayer money to keep the compromised Diablo Canyon nuclear reactors operating. Even before construction at Diablo Canyon began in the 1960s local and national organizations campaigned to prevent the plant from being built on the California coast line on top of several earthquake faults and in a tsunami zone. Placed half way between two major cities, Los Angeles and San Francisco, a reactor vessel explosion (a class 9 nuclear accident) ...

About 24% of the US population resides in the West, a region already profoundly affected by climate change. In 2021 nearly 95% of the American West was characterized by drought conditions, and anyone who lives on this side of the country knows that wildfires and rolling blackouts are now the norm rather than the exception. This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak with Los Angeles Times energy reporter, Sammy Roth, about this energy-hungry region. We get an in-depth look at a big wind power project in Wyoming, examine the increasing water needs of one of California’s agricultural regions, and get a glimpse into the latest LA Times energy-related project, Repowering the West.

We are getting a lot of information about the funding of election candidates now that the Primary Election season is winding down and financial reports are filed. Because of the urgency of this election unprecedented amounts of money are being poured into the primary process, Much of it dark money that comes with a cost. One of the major sources of candidate money is the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) which is pouring huge amounts of funding into candidates based on only one issue: total support of Israel. It is supporting, among others, proven Insurrectionists, white supremacist, MAGA members…if they are willing to pledge allegiance to Israel.

What is behind the weird extreme weather of 2022? Let’s dive into the big system in the Pacific Ocean that drives so much weather in the Americas, Europe, and beyond. TV weather casters point to La Nina, or to El Nino. But scientists call it ENSO. That includes another pattern change called “the Southern Oscillation”. Here to explain is one of the world’s top climate scientists, Dr. Kevin Trenberth. He is a Distinguished Scholar at NCAR, the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research and IPCC report leader. We will be working from Trenberth’s new book “The Changing Flow of Energy Through the Climate System”. This is the first of a three part in-depth interview with Dr. Trenberth, exclusively for Radio Ecoshock. ...

This week on Talk World Radio, we’re talking about cancer clusters in heavily polluted neighborhoods in the United States, and an upcoming protest on September 29th at the EPA in Washington D.C. Our guest, Susan Wind, became an environmental advocate after her daughter Taylor was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2017. Through her investigative skill set, she exposed a thyroid cancer cluster in her town along with a dirty secret: builders, contractors, and landscapers used Duke Energy’s coal ash (instead of soil) as structural fill in communities throughout Lake Norman, NC. ... While the health department, the state, the politicians, and the US EPA tried to dismiss the issues, Susan Wind continued to build alliances and connections with advocates from all over the country to address the broken system that fails people’s health.

... Republican House and Senate candidates are removing references to Trump from their websites. Trumpworld and GOP operatives are said to be talking about how to deploy Trump this fall, because he wants to get out there on the trail, but Republicans are nervous about this for the obvious reasons: Mounting evidence continues to suggest that he has violated the Presidential Records Act and obstructed justice, and while Republican voters are mostly sticking by him, independents are jumping ship (only 27 percent want him to run in 2024, a disastrous number). … And let’s not forget—the House January 6 committee is ramping up again. What new holy-crap information might it have up its sleeve? In other words, Trump is sure to remain at the center of the news cycle through November, in ways that aren’t likely to make him or his party of enablers look good. …