Author Archives: Ed Fallon

Marijuana: Legalize it!

Posted on by

During my 38 years as a politician and activist, I’ve frequently been out of step with mainstream opinion on controversial issues. One of those is cannabis. After meeting Carl Olsen in 1992 during my first legislative campaign, I agreed to help push legislation to legalize marijuana.

Carl’s my guest on the first segment of this week’s program — and a veritable encyclopedia of weed wisdom. Carl has spent his adult life pushing to decriminalize marijuana. He understands the ins and outs of federal and state drug policy better than anyone I know.

With Carl’s guidance, in 1993 I was one of ten House members — nine Democrats and one Republican — who introduced HF 404. That bill would have authorized the lawful possession of marijuana for therapeutic purposes. Not surprisingly, in the Republican-controlled Iowa House, it went nowhere. Continue Reading →

Charles: Why I’m a vegan. Ed: Why I’m not.

Posted on by

Are you tired of being hit up for money by politicians? Me too. Sure, a handful of candidates are worth supporting. But 3 or 4 times a week? That’s beyond asking for support. That’s groveling.

Once a year, you’ll get an appeal from me asking you to donate to the Fallon Forum. Our team works hard to analyze and expose important stories the Mainstream Media miss, and we hold politicians across the spectrum accountable.

So, I hope you’ll take a couple minutes to donate $25, $50, $100, or more if possible, either online or by check. We can’t do this without you and our small business and non-profit sponsors. Continue Reading →

Crossing the Divide

Posted on by

In 2017, Bold Iowa organized the Climate Justice Unity March. Thirty marchers walked 90 miles from Little Creek Camp in eastern Iowa to Des Moines, representing a mix of Native and non-Native allies united in opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). 

Unfortunately, on the first day of the march, we were met with severe opposition from local residents, who had been fed lies by a pro-pipeline group associated with DAPL. (Click here to watch the hateful  video the group circulated.) Cars buzzed us along the highway. We were repeatedly flipped off. When we arrived at our campsite in Deep River, we were greeted by a confederate flag. During the night, we heard what we thought were gun shots. Continue Reading →

Sailing for a nuclear free world

Posted on by

On this week’s program, Helen Jaccard of Veterans for Peace joins Charles and me to discuss a bold initiative elevating the urgency of nuclear disarmament.

I got my start working for a better world in 1984 out of deep concern over the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

The danger of nuclear war remains very real, yet it doesn’t register as a high priority for most people, publications, and politicians. That’s changed a bit recently, as Russia’s war against Ukraine continues to elevate the profile and risk of a nuclear confrontation.

Enter the Golden Rule — a powerful call-to-action organized by Veterans for Peace. The ship is currently sailing down the Mississippi River, with plans to continue an extensive voyage running through the end of 2023. Continue Reading →

Carbon offsets: Greenwashing on steroids

Posted on by

I’ll cut to the chase: Carbon offsets are a scam and the glowing language in corporate ads is mostly bunk. Comedian and news commentator John Oliver does a bang-up job analyzing and eviscerating offsets. It’s worth watching all 23 minutes of Oliver’s program (language alert to those sensitive to such things … sorry, Mom).

If you want a shorter but less colorful dig into carbon offsets, that’s the first topic Charles and I tackle on this week’s program.

I know, the idea sounds glorious. A corporation negates its carbon-spewing ways by planting trees or putting up windmills. Yet as Oliver points out, “study after study has indicated that most offsets on the market don’t reliably reduce emissions.”

It’s not just corporations engaged in this brand of greenwashing. Individuals can also assuage their climate guilt. Some airlines let you offset 1,000 miles of travel for a mere $2. You can also offset the carbon footprint of your pet: 50 cents per hamster, $6 per cat, and $10 per pet pig. If you think it’s getting kind of silly, then we agree. Continue Reading →

Schools, heat, climate org infighting, and food for the New Climate Era

Posted on by

Schools open amidst new challenges. Margaret Buckton, president of the Urban Education Network, joins me. Between school shootings, the residual impact of pandemic lockdowns, and Republican legislatures going nut job on K-12 schools, nearly 600,000 teachers have quit or retired across the US.

In Iowa, Senate President Jake Chapman kicked off the 2022 session by asserting that Iowa teachers had a “sinister agenda.” I guess you have to believe that to justify book bans, prevent teaching the history of racism, micromanage teachers’ work, and further degrade public education by shifting funds to private schools. Continue Reading →

Carbon sequestration done right

Posted on by

My guest is June Sekera. She’s a public policy scholar and researcher whose most recent work focuses on carbon sequestration, including the discovery that subsidies for “mechanical” carbon removal emit more CO2 than they remove.

If you follow my blog, talk show, and podcast, you’re no doubt aware that CO2 pipelines are in the “wrong” category of carbon sequestration. As June points out, “such projects claim they will reduce CO2 emissions by 90 percent when in reality they capture as little as seven percent. In many cases, they actually increase CO2 emissions because of the extra energy required to power the machinery that captures and compresses the CO2. In addition, most of the CO2 currently captured is used for enhanced oil recovery, thereby defeating the purpose.”

The truth is there’s not a high-tech carbon-capture scheme that works, including the “Orca” direct-air carbon-capture plant in Iceland. That costly initiative — much heralded by businesses and governments — is prohibitively expensive, could take decades to operate at scale, and ironically was delayed due to poor weather conditions.

Oh, and the world would need eight million “Orcas” to accomplish the necessary CO2 removal! Continue Reading →

The Nuclear Threat

Posted on by

I really hate talking about this, and I imagine you do, too. But let’s be adults. Humanity has a nuclear weapons problem that could wipe out everything — yes, everything! Americans were more woke (yeah, I said woke) about the nuclear threat back in the 1980s.

Real change was accomplished at that time, including a ban on nuclear testing, in large part because of the huge global, grassroots movement to end the nuclear arms race.

It was fear of nuclear war that compelled me to become politically active in 1984. I was farming my family’s ancestral land in Ireland that year. In between planting potatoes and making hay, I participated in protests organized by Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament against then-president Ronald Reagan’s unsuccessful proposal to station nuclear missiles in Ireland. Continue Reading →

Psychologist: It’s ok if disruptive climate activists aren’t popular

Posted on by

Margaret Klein Salamon and I worked together in 2015 before the Iowa Caucuses, organizing volunteers to bird-dog Democratic and Republican presidential candidates to raise the profile of climate change. Our campaign never employed civil disobedience, but a handful of us did get thrown out of a Trump rally sporting signs and chanting “MOBILIZE NOW.”

Margaret appeared in a recent NY Times story, “These Groups Want Disruptive Climate Protests. Oil Heirs Are Funding Them.” She’s a clinical psychologist, founded The Climate Mobilization, and wrote Facing the Climate Emergency: How to Transform Yourself with Climate Truth. She now directs the Climate Emergency Fund, which supports many climate organizations, some that employ civil disobedience.

Margaret contends that civil disobedience — or “disruption,” as it’s sometimes called — is necessary to shock people out of the delusion that what we’re experiencing with climate change is normal and acceptable. Continue Reading →

The Brainwashing of My Dad

Posted on by

I feel like a broken record (broken in several places, perhaps), but I’ll keep saying it: We’ll never restore democracy in the US until we break up corporate media conglomerates.

Worst of all is radio. The airwaves used to be public. Now they’re almost the exclusive domain of a handful of big players who present a thoroughly lopsided view of our country’s challenges.

I’m all for balance, for providing a forum for differing perspectives. But on commercial radio stations, that doesn’t happen anymore. It’s one-sided, Republican-good-Democrat-bad blather 24-7.

You’ll appreciate the first conversation on this week’s program. I talk with Jen Senko about her film, The Brainwashing of My Dad, and about her book by the same title. Continue Reading →