Tom Becker hosts today's Christmas Eve episode. We hear about the Chinese labor movement, the hypocrisy of Obama's mourning at Newtown, the Portland Solidarity Network, and the limits of consumer culture.

Tom Becker reads George Monbiot's essay, republished on Alternet, about the insanity of waste hidden in consumerism and the political barriers to questioning it. Monbiot considers how so many trinkets, disposable goods, planned and perceived obsolesence, are forced upon us and the planet through growth-driven economics and a vision of prosperity.

Portland preservationist Ray Allen has written a book about the many bridges of the Oregon Coast Highway. The coast has been a travel route for thousands of years, but it wasn't until the 1930's that a government-sponsored project to build five major bridges was completed, linking North and South, and changing the local economy forever. One man, engineer/architect Conde McCullough, was primarily responsible for the success of the project. Ray Allen talks about the beauty of McCullough's concrete arch bridges, and the challenge of building in remote, rugged locations. He enables us to compare this accomplishment with contemporary challenges such as the Columbia Crossing on Interstate 5.

This December the Department of Environmental Quality will hold three hearings in Oregon where the public may comment on Ambre Energy’s proposed Morrow Pacific Coal Export Project.

Under the proposed system, coal would be strip-mined from Montana and Wyoming, and brought by train to Boardman, Oregon.

Close to a thousand activists opposing coal exports turned out at a public hearing in Spokane yesterday to voice concerns to the Army Corps of Engineers.