Sustainability Now! on KSQD.org
By Ronnie Lipschutz
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgOct 04, 2021
Being in the World with Bees (or, What is it to Be a Bee?) with Professor Eve Bratman
Bees are in danger; what can we do? Tune into a Sustainability Now! rebroadcast from 2021 to hear a conversation with Eve Bratman, an Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at Franklin & Marshall College, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Bratman is a political ecologist with interdisciplinary training utilizing social science to explore conservation and land use issues relating to sustainable development politics and policies. She is author of Governing the Rainforest: Sustainable Development Politics in the Amazon, and is finishing her book, called Bee Politics: Protecting Pollinators and the Local-to-Global Challenge of Sustainability, which uses bees as a prism for seeing broader social and ecological phenomena and is premised upon revealing the ways that human society fumblingly strives to protect and preserve their roles in our lives.
The Green Energy Resource Rush and the American West with Professor Dustin Mulvaney
Solar electricity is the fuel of the future. But can we go solar without damaging the environment? Solar farms in distant places need transmission lines to get their product to the market. Storage batteries, and especially electric vehicles, require lithium and the stuff must be mined somewhere. And all the while, its seems that the solar enterprise is being undermined by the struggle to control where solar panels can go and who can decide how little wholesale power will cost and how much you, the consumer, will pay.
Join host Ronnie Lipschutz as he welcomes back SJSU Environmental Studies Professor Dustin Mulvaney, who has been looking into the environmental consequences of solar farms, transmission lines and mining in California’s “Lithium Valley.”
The Climate Change Resilient Vegetable Garden With Kim Stoddart
All of us—well, many of us—are backyard gardeners. And it’s planting season. Backyard gardens are not immune from the impacts of violent and unpredictable weather or the longer-term effects of climate change. Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Kim Stoddart, editor of Amateur Gardening and author of The Climate Change Resilient Vegetable Garden—How to Grow Food in a Changing Climate. She lives and gardens in West Wales, where weather conditions are not always optimal. Kind of like California.
Can we square our need to consume with sustainability? with Dr. Jean Boucher, James Hutton Institute, Scotland
We live in a Consumer Society. Rising consumption is good, since it makes the economy grow. At the same time, we face a Climate Crisis. Rising consumption is bad, since it makes carbon emissions grow. People across the Global North believe we must reduce emissions but they are reluctant to reduce their consumption. What can we do? Some advocate ecological modernization by making our goods and services greener. Others argue that only shrinking the economy--"degrowth"--will do the trick. Maybe both are more mythic than technologically or politically feasible. Can we square the circle (or, maybe, circle the square?) and find a path to sustainability?
Join SN! host Ronnie Lipschutz for a thought-provoking conversation with Dr. Jean Boucher, about the promises and myths of sustainable consumption. Boucher is a senior Research Scientist and Macaulay Development Trust Fellow in Land Use and Societal Metabolism at the James Hutton Institute in Aberdeen, Scotland. His research ranges from people's attitudes about climate change and their carbon-intensive lifestyles to the demographic distribution of clean energy technologies, the socio-technical factors that influence cultural and institutional behavior, and macro-scale societal metabolics analyzing materials and energy flows through households and economic sectors.
The Elephant Seals are Back! with Dr. Theresa Keates
The elephant seals are back!
The elephant seals have made their annual trip back to the California Coast! During the winter months, Elephant Seals turn to love...and fighting... and feeding... and laying around in the sun and rain. This is the prime viewing season at Año Nuevo State Park and Point Reyes National Seashore, where you can watch the two-ton male seals fight bloody battles over the females, the females feeding their large and growing pups, and listen to the odd noises they produce (although they probably think humans make strange noises).
This is a rebroadcast of a 2022 interview with Dr. Theresa Keates, who holds a UCSC PhD in Ocean Sciences and is currently a Legislative Analyst with the California Energy Commission. Keates' dissertation research centered on deploying oceanographic tags on elephant seals, which offer both a source of valuable oceanographic data from remote regions as well as a unique platform to investigate these very large marine mammals.
California Against the Sea With Rosanna Xia of the LA Times
Climate change is transforming what scientists call the land-sea interface, with crumbling cliffs, falling structures, tidal and storm flooding and loud homeowners demanding government action. Should that interface be buttressed and built up to prevent further coastal erosion or is managed retreat a better strategy? Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Rosanna Xia (“Shaw”), an environmental reporter for the Los Angeles Times and a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2020. Xia has just published California Against the Sea—Visions for Our Vanishing Coastline. She has traveled the state’s 1,200-mile coastline and talked to experts, politicians and the public to see what is happening, what communities are doing and what we can expect for our coastal future.
The Path to an Energy Efficient, Electric Future, with Amory Lovins
Energy has been with us for a long time and, over the past 100 years, fossil fuels have been cheap and plentiful. Now we are going to have to pay the piper if we want to limit the future impacts of climate change. How could that happen. Tune in to hear Amory Lovins, cofounder of the Rocky Mountain Institute and long time energy policy analyst and advisor to many utilities, regulators and businesses. Almost 50 years ago, Lovins published a groundbreaking article in the journal, Foreign Affairs, entitled “Energy Strategy: The Road not Taken,” which recommended a renewable-based strategy over one based on oil, coal and nuclear power. Surely, but slowly, that vision is being realized, albeit in a much more complicated and conflicted fashion. Amory will talk about efficient energy use, integrative design, renewable supply (including grid integration), and long-term energy needs and paths to getting to an electrified future.
What's in Your Water? Nitrate Pollution on California's Central Coast, with Chelsea Tu of Monterey Waterkeeper
Monterey Waterkeeper is part of a coalition of organizations seeking to reduce nitrate pollution in the region’s groundwater. Nitrate contamination, the result of over-application of fertilizers, can cause the “blue baby syndrome” and various cancers in adults. The State Water Board recently issued rules that allow growers to continue over-application of nitrogen fertilizers without any deadlines for cleaning up contaminated water. In October 2023, rural Latino community and farmworker groups, environmental organizations, including Monterey Waterkeeper, and commercial and recreational fishing organizations filed suit to overturn the decision. Tune in to hear Chelsea Tu, Executive Director of Monterey Waterkeeper, talk about the problem, the situation and the solution
Firepower and Global Security: Past, Present and Future, with Professor Simon Dalby
According to Simon Dalby, Professor emeritus in the Balsillie School of International Affairs at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, Canada, global politics over the past 70 years has been driven by an overabundance of "firepower," both nuclear and carbon-based. The first was used by Great Power to threaten incineration of the world, by intention or accident, in the name of "national security." The second now threatens the future of life on Earth--human and nonhuman--but Great Powers (and the not-so-great) resolutely refuse to give them up in the name of "national security" and "lifestyle." In 2022, Dalby published Rethinking Environmental Security, an analysis of firepower past, present and future. Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a thought-provoking conversation with Simon Dalby about these two threats and what countries are not doing about it.
Will Small Modular Reactors Save the Nuclear Industry? with Prof. Allison Macfarlane, former chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Nuclear power is being touted as a way of providing clean energy, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and paving the way to a zero-emission future. There is talk of a “nuclear renaissance,” with small modular reactors (SMRs) replacing the gigawatt nuclear behemoths of the past, quickly and at much lower cost. But the United States’ experience with nuclear, now going back 70 years, turned out to be much more costly than predicted. The country’s one hundred or so operating reactors have generated prodigious quantities of highly radioactive spent fuel that is being stored in so-called swimming pools and caskets adjacent to the plants that produced it. Blame politics, if you will, but it remains waste. And only a month ago, a federally subsidized deal to build a cluster of six SMRs in Idaho collapsed, due to cost overruns and construction delays. So, is that renaissance real or just hope and hype?
To find out more, join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Professor Allison Macfarlane, Director of the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at The University of British Columbia. Dr. Macfarlane was chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission from 2012-2014. She holds a PhD in Geology from MIT, was a member of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, which addressed the 70-year old challenge of radioactive waste disposal, about which she continues to write.
Would the world beat a path to your door for a fully compostable plastic? with Raegen Kelly of Better for All
Long-time listeners to Sustainability Now! know that we periodically turn to a focus on plastic, whose production is predicted to skyrocket over the next few decades, as fossil fuel companies look for ways to sell their product. Plastics are not forever, although they last a long time in the environment and are piling up across the world’s lands and oceans. Even notionally “compostable” plastics require special handling if they are to be returned to their constituent components, and most of these plastics are not handled specially.
If you could make a better plastic—one that would decompose into biological carbon in your backyard compost pile—wouldn’t the world beat a path to your door? Maybe not. Join SN! host Ronnie Lipschutz and Raegan Kelly, Head of Product and Sustainability Lead at Better for All, for a conversation about composting plastics. Better for all is trying to widen use of PHBH, a biologically based plastic that breaks down with minimal treatment in your back yard. We are going to talk about why it is so difficult to get the manufacturers of plastic and plastic products to use PHBH and what Better for All is trying to do about that.
Replanting Burned over Sequoia Groves in the Sierras, with Dr. Christy Brigham, National Park Service, and Dr. Chad Hanson, John Muir Project
Sequoias are among the oldest living things on Earth, and most of the world’s sequoias are in Sequoia and King’s Canyon National Parks. Since 2020, according to the National Park Service, almost 20% of that iconic species have been destroyed by wildfires. The parks’ management is planning to repopulate the burned-over areas with thousands of sequoia seedings, in an effort to rebuild six groves. But not everyone supports this project: some ecologists argue that there are enough seedlings growing in those groves to provide the next generation of trees. Join host Ronnie Lipschutz to hear about the pros and cons from Dr. Christy Brigham, Chief of resources management and science at the two national parks and one of the architects of the plan, and from Dr. Chad Hanson, cofounder of the John Muir Project, who is a critic of the plan.
Photo credit: Gary Coronado, LA Times
The Life Beneath Our Feet, with Dr. Chelsea Carey, Point Blue Conservation Science
When you go out into the world and walk on the Earth, have you ever wondered what was beneath your feet? Animals and plants, of course, but mostly soil. Soil is a wonderful substance, an essential element in the riot of life that covers the planet’s continents. But soil is not without life of its own: a handful of fertile soil is home to more organisms in a than there are people on Earth. And these organisms are vital to plant and animal nutrition and growth. Join host Ronnie Lipschutz and Dr. Chelsea Carey, Director of Soil Research and Conservation at Point Blue Conservation Science for a fascinating conversation about the life beneath our feet.
“You’re going to have to change the priorities of your life if you love this planet” With Dr. Helen Caldicott
Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for this Blast from the Past with Dr. Helen Caldicott. According to Dr. Caldicott, the nuclear doomsday clock of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is set at 100 seconds to Midnight, but 20 seconds is closer to the mark. Dr. Caldicott has devoted the last forty-two years to an international campaign to educate the public about the medical hazards of the nuclear age and the necessary changes in human behavior to stop environmental destruction and nuclear catastrophe. She calls this “Global Preventive Medicine.” Caldicott is also the subject of “If You Love This Planet,” which won an Academy Award in 1982 for best documentary.
Hitman for the Kindness Club with Captain Paul Watson
For uncounted millennia, the creatures of the world’s ocean have been hunted, captured and killed by human beings. For most of that history, however, this was done for subsistence purposes. Only over the last few centuries, was the slaughter of whales, seals, otters, turtles, sharks and other marine species justified in the name of capitalism and industry. Beginning in the late 1960s, exposing and preventing this continued decimation became the mission of individuals and groups dedicated to direct action meant to disrupt those who continue to hunt, capture and kill.
Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with one of the best-known of these activists, Captain Paul Watson, who recently published his memoir Hitman for the Kindness Club—High Seas Escapades and Heroic Adventures of an Eco-Activist. Watson was a cofounder of Greenpeace, founder of Sea Shepherds and most recently established the eponymous Captain Paul Watson Foundation which “aims to educate and raise awareness about the illegal exploitation of oceanic ecosystems and marine species, while also establishing an international anti-poaching entity to enforce conservation laws and treaties.” Watson has commissioned and skippered numerous ships and campaigns, fought against the murder of marine species for more than half a century, has been on the forefront and frontline of direct action to protect the biodiversity of Earth’s marine environments.
Why are some people so up in arms about CEQA? with Professor Deborah Sivas, Stanford Law School
What do you know about CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act, passed in 1970 and signed into law by then-Governor Ronald Reagan? For more than 50 years, CEQA has been used to inform decisionmakers and the public about the potential environmental impacts of proposed projects but, in recent years, it has been applied in situations for which it was not designed, especially new housing development. In response, both Governor Newsom and the State Legislature are seeking to amend the law to prevent various activists and opponents from obstructing new housing. Not so fast, say the law’s supporters. They point to a recent report by the Rose Foundations that CEQA has had little, if any, impact on housing projects across the state. So, who is correct?
Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Professor Deborah Sivas of the Stanford Law School. She teaches environmental law, directs the environmental law clinic and has represented various environmental organizations in the courts. We will talk about CEQA and whether it is really standing in the way of more housing in California.
How Kinship Practices Could Foster New Relations between Humans and Nature, with Prof. Rosalind Warner
The Rights of Nature is one way to rethink the relationships between humans and Nature, but are there other ways to think about those connections? Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Dr. Rosalind Warner, professor of political science at Okanagan College in British Columbia and Research Fellow with the Earth System Governance Project. Warner is studying the role of kinship metaphors in Earth System Law, with kinship connoting more ethical relationships among humans, Nature and earth’s non-human inhabitants. Earth System Law is an emerging body of legal precepts, principles and practices that bring together ethics and law with the planet’s dynamic physical and biological cycles. Tune in to hear a new take on human-nature relations.
Does Nature have Rights? with Katie Surma of Inside Climate News
More than 50 years ago, Christopher Stone, a UCLA law professor, wrote a groundbreaking book Should Trees Have Standing? in which he argued for the right of trees to be represented in courts of law. Since then, the Rights of Nature movement has taken the world by storm; some countries have encoded such rights into their constitutions. But what does it mean to say that trees, rivers and animals have rights? Does the “rights of nature” make any practical sense? And who is pushing for such rights?
Join Sustainability Now! host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Katie Surma, a reporter at Inside Climate News. She has been covering the “rights of nature” beat at ICN since 2021 and has written extensively on the topic. Find out whether the trees and critters in your back yard and all around us are people, too.
Nature's Best Hope with Professor Douglas Tallamy A New Approach to Conservation that Starts in Your Yard
According to those who know, we are in the midst of the Sixth Great Extinction, this one brought on by the activities of human civilization that are resulting in a species extinction rate that is estimated to be between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than natural extinction rates. So far, efforts to protect endangered plants, animals and insects have proven inadequate to the challenge. What are we to do?
Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Professor Douglas Tallamy, who teaches in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware. He is the author of Nature’s Best Hope—a New Approach to conservation that Starts in Your Yard, published in 2019, and a just-published companion version for children, subtitled How You Can Save the World in Your Own Yard. Both books propose what some might consider a radical approach to protecting species through transformation of front and back yards into conservation zones.
When Public Works is Homeland Security, with Jackie McCloud
When is the safety, health and well-being of people a concern for homeland security? Jackie McCloud, Watsonville’s Environmental Sustainability Manager in Public Works, has been accepted into the Naval Postgraduate School’s MA program in Security Studies at their Center for Homeland Defense and Security in Monterey. According to McCloud, “People might see the words ‘Homeland Security’ and think that it doesn’t match with Public Works and climate change, but Public Works is homeland security adjacent in that we provide domestic security to residents. One of the greatest threats to our residents is climate change.” Join Sustainability Now! host Ronnie Lipschutz and Jackie McCloud to hear a whole new take on “Homeland Security.”
Can Green Manure Cover Crops End Drought in Africa? With Roland Bunch
Join Host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Roland Bunch, who has worked in agricultural development for more than half a century in more than 50 nations of Latin America, Africa and Asia. In 1982, he published the book, "Two Ears of Corn, A Guide to People-Centered Agricultural Improvement", which has since been published in ten languages and is an all-time best-seller in the field of agricultural development. Beginning in 1983, Bunch began investigating and disseminating the use of plants that fertilize the soil, now called “green manure/cover crops.” He has been honored for his work with nominations for the Global 500 Award, the End the Hunger Prize of the President of the United States, and the World Food Prize.
Innovation and Entrepreneurship at UC Santa Cruz, With Nada Miljkovic
We hear a lot these days about innovation, entrepreneurship and disruption of the status quo in pursuit of a better world. It sounds good but what does it really mean? And can it contribute to sustainability? Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with KSQD programmer Nada Miljkovic, Program Manager of UC Santa Cruz’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurial Development. We’ll be talking about these topics and Crown College’s innovation and entrepreneurship courses, which Nada has helped develop along with Crown Provost Manel Camps and others. What do students learn? What have they achieved?
Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future--Elizabeth Kolbert and Ezra Klein in Conversation
Listen to a conversation between Elizabeth Kolbert and Ezra Klein on May 21st, part of UC Santa Cruz’s annual Deep Read, about Kolbert's 2021 book, Under a White Sky. Kolbert is a writer, observer and commentator on the environment for The New Yorker and recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History. Ezra Klein is a New York Times columnist, host of The Ezra Klein Show podcast and a UC Santa Cruz alum.
You can watch the video of the entire event at: https://tinyurl.com/57czndz4.
Electrification of California & the Battle over Solar Farms in the Deserts with Professor Dustin Mulvaney
In the face of climate change, jurisdictions across the country and the world have set ambitious electrification goals that will rely heavily on solar, wind and other zero-carbon energy sources. California is no exception. Increasingly, the state’s power providers are buying low-cost electricity from vast solar farms across the seemingly uninhabited deserts of the American Southwest. But those spaces are not empty. Join Sustainability Now! host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Professor Dustin Mulvaney, of the Environmental Studies Department at San Jose State University. He has been studying the social and ecological impacts of large solar farms on the deserts and whether they can contribute to a “just energy transition.”
Listen to the "Battle for a Solar-Powered Future," with Professors Hilary Angelo and Dustin Mulvaney, on Alec Baldwin's "Here's the Thing."
Read Dustin's article, "The Battle Over Solar Power in California," in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, June 3, 2022.
The Ideal River: How control of nature shaped the international order, with Dr. Joanne Yao
Rivers have long been the object of poems, songs, novels, studies, fishers, swimmers, sewage, engineers, farmers and salmon. In California, rivers and the water in them are the focus of near-eternal political struggle. And, there is that old saying, attributed to Heraclitus, “one never steps into the same river twice.” Every river is different, yet there is some human drive to make every river the same: the ideal river.
Join SN! host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation about rivers with Dr. Joanne Yao, Senior Lecturer in the School of Politics and International Relations at Queen Mary University of London. Yao is the author of The Ideal River: How control of nature shaped the international order. Her book is about the Rhine, Danube and Congo Rivers. How they were reshaped and managed (or not) and the role they played in the imaginaries and emergence of the European imperialist order of the 19th century and in the shaping of nature around the world, before and since. Yao’s book has special relevance for California, where the struggle to make virtually all of our rivers ideal ones has been going on since the middle of the 1800s.
W(h)ither UCSC’s East Meadow? with Nadia Peralta and Bob Majzler
Many KSQD listeners may know that the UC Regents recently approved UCSC’s Student Housing West proposal, which includes
relocation of Family Student Housing to the iconic East Meadow, on the east side. Join Sustainability Now! host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Nadia Peralta and Bob Majzler of Protect East Meadow, which has been active at UCSC in opposing the Family Student Housing project on both financial and ecological grounds. Nadia is a full-time pre-med student and practicing clinical herbalist. Bob is a UCSC lecturer in Psychology with interests in social and environmental justice. Both are strongly committed to preserving open space on the UCSC campus.
Songs for Earth Day, with Dr. Peter Weiss, the Singing Scientist, and His Guitar
Join SN! host Ronnie Lipschutz and Dr. Peter Weiss, the Singing Scientist, in honor of Earth Day. Weiss is well-known in Santa Cruz as “The Singing Scientist” and he is leader of the Earth Rangers, which plays music that educates and uplifts people, especially children. Weiss and his colleagues started performing a decade ago to combat environmental illiteracy and connect with kids. They have released two albums, “Do What You Otter” and “One for the Sun.” Peter sings some of his songs and we’ll play others from the albums.
A Visit to the SC Museum of Natural History, with Marisa Gomez
SN! Host Ronnie Lipschutz welcomes Marisa Gomez, Community Education and Collaboration Manager at the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History. In that role, Marisa leads the Museum’s onsite school programs, coordinates group visits, orchestrates public programs, and specializes in immersing visitors in the culture and stewardship practices of the native people of Santa Cruz, the Amah Mutsun. She also is the voice of the Museum’s social media sites. We talk about the Museum's programs and offerings.
Firepower & Global Security: Past, Present and Future, with Professor Simon Dalby
According to Simon Dalby, Professor emeritus in the Balsillie School of International Affairs at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, Canada, global politics over the past 70 years has been driven by an overabundance of "firepower," both nuclear and carbon-based. The first was used by Great Power to threaten incineration of the world, by intention or accident, in the name of "national security." The second now threatens the future of life on Earth--human and nonhuman--but Great Powers (and the not-so-great) resolutely refuse to give them up in the name of "national security" and "lifestyle." In 2022, Dalby published Rethinking Environmental Security, an analysis of firepower past, present and future. Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a thought-provoking conversation with Simon Dalby about these two threats and what countries are not doing about it.
Previous shows are available at https://ksqd.org/sustainabilitynow/
Sustainability Now! is underwritten by the Sustainable Systems Research Foundation.
What’s a CAP? And what does it do? With Rachel Kippen
Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Rachel Kippen about city and county “climate action plans.” A CAP lays out a community’s roadmap for reducing greenhouse gas emissions over the coming decade, with input and review by community members and various “stakeholders.” How does a city or county go about developing a CAP, and is it an aspirational document or a plan for concrete action? And how effective are these plans in driving concrete emission reductions? Do CAPS matter?
Rachel is a coastal environmental advocate, writer, nonprofit professional, and artist with over 15 years’ experience in educational programming, communications, and advocacy. She writes “Our Ocean Backyard,” a twice monthly column in the Santa Cruz Sentinel and is advisor and consultant to a number of city and county municipal CAPs. We’ll be talking about how CAPS are developed and implemented, giving listeners insights into how government works and the roles that citizens can play, especially in the face of the climate change challenge.
“You’re going to have to change the priorities of your life if you love this planet” with Dr. Helen Caldicott
Join host Ronnie Lipschutz in welcoming Dr. Helen Caldicott to Sustainability Now!, live from Australia, to talk about the looming threat of nuclear war. According to Dr. Caldicott, the nuclear doomsday clock of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is set at 100 seconds to Midnight, but 20 seconds is closer to the mark. Dr. Caldicott has devoted the last forty-two years to an international campaign to educate the public about the medical hazards of the nuclear age and the necessary changes in human behavior to stop environmental destruction and nuclear catastrophe. She calls this “Global Preventive Medicine.” Caldicott is also the subject of “If You Love This Planet,” which won an Academy Award in 1982 for best documentary.
Transit Equity Week 2023 with Lani Faulkner, Michael Wool and Equity Transit
Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Lani Faulkner, Founder and Director of Equity Transit of Santa Cruz County and Michael Wool, a transit activist and senior at UCSC. We’ll be talking about Transit Equity Week 2023, which will run from January 30-February 4th, 2023. Transit Equity Day is a National Coalition movement event celebrated on Feb 4th, in honor of Rosa Parks’ Birthday and her pivotal role in combating racial segregation on public buses, trains, and trolleys. Transit Equity Week will bring awareness to the need for robust public transportation and safe streets in Santa Cruz County. Transit Equity advocates for a robust and affordable public transportation system, a clean environment, affordable housing, safe walkable streets, and opportunity access for work, school, and everyday life.
Trees are Shape Shifters--Italian Landscapes and Human Interventions in the Anthropocene
Have you ever wondered about the history of the landscapes around you, how they were shaped and by whom? UCSC Associate Professor of Anthropology Andrew Mathews has and he has studied landscape histories and their transformations in Italy. Now he has published his research in Trees are Shape Shifters--How Cultivation, Climate Change and Disaster Create Landscapes, a closely-documented study of trees and people in central Italy and "how they make sense of social and environmental change" around them. Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a widely-ranging conversation with Mathews about landscape histories, human action and ecological change in Italy, California and the rest of the world.
You can read about Mathew's work on his web site.
Report from the Climate Conference in Sharm El-Sheikh, with Professor Sander Chan and Andrew Deneault
The world’s climate is changing and it is changing more and more rapidly. What are we to do? In two weeks, at the 27th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt. This is the 30th such gathering since 1992 and there is not much to show for all that.
Join host Ronnie Schultz and his guests, Professor Sander Chan and Andrew Deneault who are in Sharm attending the conference. We’ll be talking about the conference, its history and its goals as well as the “groundswell of climate action” by international and national organizations, states, provinces, cities and individuals. The UN has documented 29,000 of these actions. Do they make any difference? What can you do?
If you are interested in following the conference, you can find reports from a number of sources at Earthweb.info.
Sustainability Now! is underwritten by the Sustainable Systems Research Foundation. and Environmental Innovations.
Funding for the Future! with Dr. Delton Chen and Renegade Economist Della Duncan
What if humanity could take a giant step forward towards a climate transformation? We are rebroadcasting Christine Barrington's October 12, interview with Dr. Delton Chen, Founder of the Global Carbon Reward along with Renegade Economist, Della Duncan, who together will headline at a November 2 event at the Resource Center for Non-Violence called Funding for the Future: New Ways to Value Life on our Planet.
The Global Carbon Reward is a bold policy proposal that seeks to leverage the power of the world’s central banks to institute a global monetary policy that rewards the mitigation of carbon. This policy would create a parallel economy powered by a Carbon Currency whose value is derived through increasing the health of the biosphere. Dr. Chen’s ideas were featured in Kim Stanley Robinson’s Ministry for the Future, and he is on a bi-coastal tour to raise awareness and engage interest in the policy. He will be presenting, along with Kim Stanley Robinson, at the Verge 22 Climate Tech Summit in San Jose at the end of October.
Della Duncan is a Co-Founder of the California Doughnut Economics Coalition and a Public Banking advocate. She works alongside others to shift the mindset around economics in order to tackle the 21st century’s grand challenge of meeting the needs of all people within the means of the planet. Della dynamically pursues this vision through teaching, organizing, and mentoring. She is a Senior Fellow at the London School of Economics International Inequalities Institute and since 2016 has produced and hosted the Upstream Podcast, which invites listeners to unlearn everything they thought they knew about economics and imagine what a better world could look like. She will address ideas around De-growth and the questioning of “Green Capitalism” as applied to the Global Carbon Reward.
Della’s 2-Part audio documentary is powerful journalism and full of provocative ideas well worth considering. Part 1: The Problem with Green Captitalism; Part 2: A Green Deal for the People
You can also listen to Christine's Talk of the Bay broadcast "Pricing Nature through the Global Carbon Reward: A Conversation with Dr. Delton Chen, Author Kim Stanley Robinson and Renegade Economist Kate Raworth."
Sustainability Now! is underwritten by the Sustainable Systems Research Foundation. and Environmental Innovations.
“Fire, Fire on the Mountain!” New Threats to Organic Farming in California
Farming is tough enough as it is, but when farmers face the loss of organic certification due to climate-related disasters and wildfires, what can they do? Join Host Ronnie Lipschutz in a discussion with Amber Schat and David Obermiller speak about their experience with such challenges and programs that address them. Amber Schat is a Wildfire Resilience Specialist with the Community Alliance with Family Farmers, a statewide non-profit that focuses on serving small family farms with ecological farming information and support. David Obermiller is a farmer with Unearthed Farm and Harvest Field Organic Farm in Fresno County which was impacted by wildfire on July 1st in 2022.
For more information about fire retardants, see "After Wildfires, What Happens to Crops Soaked in Fire Retardant?"
Sustainability Now! is underwritten by the Sustainable Systems Research Foundation. and Environmental Innovations.
Open Farm Tours is Back!
Open Farm Tours is back and happening October 8th and 9th! Fifteen south county farms are participating and all are family owned, organic and sustainable. Join host Ronnie Lipschutz and his guests, Penny Ellis, Paul Towers and David Blume. They will talk about the current state of farming in Santa Cruz County and Open Farm Tours. Ellis is the founder and coordinator of Open Farms Tour and organizes tours of Santa Cruz County farms and artisanal food purveyors. Towers is Executive Director of the Community Alliance with Family Farmers which advocates for state and national policies that create more resilient family farms, communities and ecosystems. Blume is CEO of Whiskey Hill Farms. You can find out more about Open Farms Tour at https://www.openfarmtours.com/.
Sustainability Now! is underwritten by the Sustainable Systems Research Foundation. and Environmental Innovations.
Letter to Fellow Citizens of Earth, with Dr. Sharachchandra Lele
Join Host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Dr. Sharachchandra Lele who is coleader of an Expert Writing Group of natural scientists, social scientists and humanities scholars who have published a “Letter to Fellow Citizens of Earth,” “an urgent call to our global neighbours, to acknowledge the climate crisis, make personal and collective commitments in line with differences in privileges and responsibilities and work toward transformative changes.” Dr. Lele is a Distinguished Fellow in Environmental Policy & Governance at the Centre for Environment & Development of the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment in Bangalore, India and an Adjunct Faculty Member in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science Education & Research (IISER) Pune. His research interests include conceptual issues in sustainable development and sustainability, and analyses of institutional, economic, ecological, and technological issues in forest, energy, and water resource management.
We'll be reaching beyond California on this show, so don’t miss it!
In the Shadow of Climate Change: What can the Children Tell Us?
Sustainability Now! is underwritten by the Sustainable Systems Research Foundation. and Environmental Innovations.
Well, Well, Well! Clean Water for Everyone!
Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Chelsea Tu, the new executive director of a new local non-profit, Monterey Waterkeeper, which combines education, science-based policy advocacy and legal action to ensure that all communities, including low-income communities of color, have safe, affordable drinking water and enjoy clean, swimmable and fishable waters. According to Tu, Monterey waterkeeper will be working to limit levels of contaminants in drinking water, mostly in well water that does not receive water treatment. Drink up!
Sustainability Now! is underwritten by the Sustainable Systems Research Foundation. and Environmental Innovations.
How a Republican Grandfather Helped Legalize Abortion
These days, one’s political affiliation is often a clue to one’s position on abortion (and vice versa). That was not always the case. During the 1950s and into the 1970s, Republicans were often supporters of abortion as a form of family planning—especially in developing countries, but in the United States, too. And they were allies of many environmentalists, who were worried about the so-called population explosion. Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Dr. Caroline Tracey (PhD in geography from UC Berkeley), whose June 18th essay in the San Francisco Chronicle recounted the historical relationship between Republicans, environmentalism and abortion. We’ll also talk about the Reverend Malthus, his essay on population and how it continues to infuse political discourse today, 225 years later.
You can find more of Tracey's writing at her website (https://cetracey.com/), SFMOMA's "Open Space" (https://openspace.sfmoma.org/author/carolinetracey/), and "Civil Eats" (https://civileats.com/2022/06/08/californias-sheepherders-center-overtime-battle/).
Sustainability Now! is underwritten by the Sustainable Systems Research Foundation. and Environmental Innovations.
Finding the Mother Tree with Professor Suzanne Simard, University of British Columbia (rebroadcast)
Join host Ronnie Lipschutz in this Blast from the Past (originally broadcast on May 23, 2021) as he speaks with Dr. Suzanne Simard, Professor of Forestry and Conservation Sciences about the social life of trees. Her 2021 book, Finding the Mother Tree--Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest, has just been published. According to Simard, communication between trees happens not in the air but deep below our feet in an incredibly dense, complex network of roots and chemical signals. ... “In a single forest, a mother tree may be connected to hundreds of other trees.”
Here is what Bookshop Santa Cruz wrote about Simard: “Suzanne Simard is a pioneer on the frontier of plant communication and intelligence; she’s been compared to Rachel Carson, hailed as a scientist who conveys complex, technical ideas in a way that is dazzling and profound…. Simard writes—in inspiring, illuminating, and accessible ways—how trees, living side by side for hundreds of years, have evolved, how they perceive one another, learn and adapt their behaviors, recognize neighbors, and remember the past; how they have agency about the future; elicit warnings and mount defenses, compete and cooperate with one another with sophistication, characteristics ascribed to human intelligence, traits that are the essence of civil societies—and at the center of it all, the Mother Trees: the mysterious, powerful forces that connect and sustain the others that surround them.”
You can learn more about Simard's work in "The Social Life of Forests," New York Times Magazine, Dec. 2, 2020, and at The Mother Tree Project. If you search for "Suzanne Simard" on You Tube, you will turn up a dozen videos, including a TED talk, about her work.
The articles referred to in the show are:
Lincoln Taiz, et al, "Plants Neither Possess nor Require Consciousness," Trends in Plant Science 24, #8 (August 2019): 677-87
Michael Pollan, "The Intelligent Plant," The New Yorker, December 23, 2013.
Sustainability Now! is underwritten by the Sustainable Systems Research Foundation and Environmental Innovations.
In Santa Cruz, July is Not too Late to Plant Seeds!
Have you procrastinated on planting a garden or been too busy? Do you think it’s too late and you’ll have to wait until next year? Not on the Central Coast! Join Host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Renee Shepherd, founder of Renee’s Garden and seed entrepreneur extraordinaire. Not only do we talk about what can be sown now to be ripe and ready late summer and fall harvesting, we’ll also cover topics such as heirloom, heritage and hybrid seeds and discuss where the seeds for your garden come from.
Sustainability Now! is underwritten by the Sustainable Systems Research Foundation and Environmental Innovations.
Some of My Best Friends are Elephants! with USF Professor Matthew Liebman
Are elephants people, too? Do they have rights? A recent ruling by a New York state court said that “elephants may be intelligent and deserving of compassion” but that Happy, an elephant confined in the Bronx Zoo, is not a person. A growing number of human people around the world disagree and argue that both animals and nature have rights. Listen to a Sustainability Now! conversation about the rights of animals and nature with Host Ronnie Lipschutz and Professor Matthew Liebman, Associate Professor and Chair of the Justice for Animals Program at the Law School at University of San Francisco University. We will talk about the history of “rights,” how they have been extended over time, and why animals and nature are deserving of the same consideration.
Sustainability Now! is underwritten by the Sustainable Systems Research Foundation. and Environmental Innovations.
Meet the Monterey Bay Economic Partnership, with Tahra Goraya
Sustainability Now! co-host Brooke Wright speaks with Tahra Goraya, the new President & CEO of the tri-county Monterey Bay Economic Partnership (MBEP). MBEP works on housing, broadband access, workforce development, renewable energy and climate policy, water conservation, regional recycling, transportation and more. We will talk with Tahra about her journey into this role and about what MBEP is and what it is getting done to address climate change and other environmental issues.
Fighting Fires with Fire with Dr. Sasha Berleman, Wildland Fire Scientist
Once again, California is dry, dry, dry and that probably means we are in for a wild wildfire season. Since the beginning of 2021, there have been 10,000 wildfires across the state, and those that know are predicting the worst for this year's fire season. So, what are we to do? Hear from Dr. Sasha Berleman, Wildland Fire Scientist. She is director of Fire Forward at Audubon Canyon Ranch in Stinson Beach. She is a CA State Certified Burn Boss, a Prescribed Fire Training Exchange (TREX) coach and leader, and a wildland firefighter with Fire Effects Monitoring, Squad Boss, Crew Boss, Firing Boss, and Incident Commander qualifications. In this show from June 2021, find out about the risk of wildfires and what we can do to reduce the threat.
This show was originally broadcast on June 21, 2021.
Watch these videos online:
Why These Californians Are Starting Fires On Purpose
Community-Based Burning: Caring for our Land Together
Andrew Selsky, "Amid clamor to increase prescribed burns, obstacles await," AP News, June 22, 2021.
Science by the People! Biodiversity and Community Science with Rebecca Johnson & Alison Young, California Academy of Sciences
Join Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Rebecca Johnson and Alison Young, Co-Directors of the Center for Biodiversity and Community Science at the California Academy of Sciences. Community science is a global movement through which scientists and non-scientists alike make observations, collect data, and help answer some of our planet's most pressing questions. It is research- and monitoring-driven and controlled by local communities, and characterized by place-based knowledge, social learning, collective action, and empowerment.
Let's Go Ride our Bikes!
Join Sustainability Now! hosts Brooke Wright and Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Ecology Action's Matt Miller about bicycles, Bike Month, e-bike rebates and local transportation policies and practices, more generally. Matt is a Senior Program Specialist at Ecology Action in Santa Cruz, where he focuses on urban transportation working collaboratively with local government, businesses, and NGOs, to help build physical and social infrastructure to move away from car centric planning and behavior. If you don't already bike but are thinking about getting out of your car, be sure to tune in!
Sustainability Now! is underwritten by the Sustainable Systems Research Foundation. and Environmental Innovations.
To be an Elephant Seal in the Spring! with Theresa Keates
In the Spring, Elephant Seals turn to love...and fighting... and feeding... and laying around in the sun. We are just past the prime viewing season at Año Nuevo State Park, during which the two-ton male seals fight bloody battles, the females give birth to young conceived the prior year, the adults mate, and the weaner pups look cute.
Join Sustainability Now! hosts Ronnie Lipschutz and Brooke Wright on Sunday, April 17th, for a discussion with Theresa Keates, a UCSC PhD student in Ocean Sciences, who studies elephant seals. Her research is centered around deploying oceanographic tags on elephant seals, which offers both a source of valuable oceanographic data from remote regions as well as a unique platform to investigate these very large marine mammals.
Previous broadcasts of Sustainability Now! are archived at KSQD.org and on Pocket Casts, Google Podcasts and Spotify.
Sustainability Now! is underwritten by the Sustainable Systems Research Foundation and Environmental Innovations.
Electrify California!
Hosts Brooke Wright and Ronnie Lipschutz speak with Benjamin Eichert, Director of Let’s Green California—an initiative launched by the Romero Institute in Santa Cruz to create a California Green New Deal and get the core legislation passed into law by September 30, 2022.
Let’s Green California has also created “Electrify CA!” based on a simple idea: make the switch from fossil fuel-based technologies to electric alternatives powered by clean energy, and ensure that low-income communities and working families both lead and benefit from this transition.
Previous broadcasts of Sustainability Now! are archived at KSQD.org and on Pocket Casts, Google Podcasts and Spotify.
Sustainability Now! is underwritten by the Sustainable Systems Research Foundation. and Environmental Innovations.