Bunny McDiarmid, Executive Director, Greenpeace International, joins Thom. Earlier today President Barack Obama created the Atlantic Ocean's first United States marine monument - called the Northeast Cannons and Seamounts Marine national Monument. President Obama made the announcement at an ocean conservation meeting earlier today - shortly after he issued a proclamation protecting an area of ocean off the coast of Cape Cod with a total area roughly equal to the size of Connecticut. The move comes after a week of disturbing news about the world's oceans. One recent report from the International Union for Conservation of Nature shows that the oceans have absorbed much of the energy that's been added to Earth's atmosphere as a result of burning fossil fuels into the atmosphere. Another recent study published in "Global Biogeochemical Cycles" shows how all of the CO2 that we've dumped into the atmosphere is causing the oceans to acidify - which is having profound negative impacts on deep-sea shell-forming organisms like sea urchins and snails. And another study from Stanford University showed that larger marine animals are going extinct faster than smaller animals - marking "a pattern that is unprecedented in the history of life on Earth, and one that is likely driven by human fishing." How urgent are these threats to our oceans - and what type of efforts will it take to avoid an oceanic mass extinction event? And what will it take to go even further - to repair our ocean's ecosystems?

For more information on the stories we've covered visit our websites at thomhartmann.com - freespeech.org - and RT.com. You can also watch tonight's show on Hulu - at Hulu.com/THE BIG PICTURE and over at The Big Picture YouTube page. And - be sure to check us out on Facebook and Twitter!

James Risen, Pay Any Price: Greed, Power and Endless War joins Thom Hartmann. 13 years after 9/11 - the War on Terror has turned into a massive moneymaking scheme for America's oligarchs. How did this happen - and what can we do to change it?

Steven Druker, Alliance For Bio-Integrity/Altered Genes, Twisted Truth: How the Venture to Genetically Engineer Our Food Has Subverted Science, Corrupted Government, and Systematically Deceived the Public. Even though supporters of genetically engineered food say it's perfectly safe - decades of scientific research says otherwise.So why doesn't the Food and Drug Administration ban it once and for all?

For more information on the stories we've covered visit our websites at thomhartmann.com - freespeech.org - and RT.com. You can also watch tonight's show on Hulu - at Hulu.com/THE BIG PICTURE and over at The Big Picture YouTube page. And - be sure to check us out on Facebook and Twitter!

Founder and producer of the Latino activist site, Cuentame.org (a Brave New Foundation Campaign), Axel Caballero joins me for our first half hour for Conversations with Great Minds. We'll discuss his mission on bringing awareness to Latino issues, to the unholy alliance between the prison industrial complex, the Republican Party, OWS, ALEC, and Herman Cain's immigrant "electric fence" so-called joke!

For tonight's Conversations with Great Minds - I'm joined by award-winning author Jeff Sharlet. His career in journalism, academia and publishing has distinguished him as a prolific voice on faith and spirituality in the United States. In 2000, Sharlet teamed up with novelist Peter Manseau to create KillingTheBuddha.com - which has since become an award-winning online literary magazine about religion and spirituality - and led to a year-long road trip across the United States where Sharlet investigated the various forms religion takes in this country. He has spoken at universities across the country, contributed to the country's leading magazines and newspapers - including Mother Jones, The Nation, The New Republic, The New Statesman, The Washington Post, Salon, and the Columbia Journalism Review - and is a familiar presence on MSNBC, NPR, CNN, BBC and the The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. His newest book - "Sweet Heaven When I Die" explores the spiritual landscape of the United States and profiles religious radicals, realists and escapists who straddle that undefined border between belief and skepticism.

Thom Hartmann sits down with nuclear energy specialist Robert Alvarez for Conversations with Great Minds. In light of the largest radiation detection at the Daiichi plant in Japan - Should we have a nuclear renaissance or a clean renewable energy renaissance?

Who was Fannie Lou Hamer and what was her contribution to the black rights movement?

The granddaughter of enslaved laborer, how did she rise to prominence in the Civil Rights movements?

Dr. Keisha N. Blain joined Thom to talk about Fannie Lou Hamer