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Sustainability Now! on KSQD.org: Daily Summaries Delivered
by KSQD 90.7 FM in Santa Cruz & KSQD.org
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- 1 weeks ago53 min
Is that Teflon in your food and water? Good for eggs, maybe, but probably not for you! with Dr. Faith Kibuye, Penn State University
Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances—commonly known as PFASs and "forever chemicals"—have become ubiquitous in the environment and are being found almost everywhere in soil, water, plants and bodies. The Trump Administration has lowered drinking water standards for PFASs presence but that does not mean the stuff has gotten safer. You might know PFASs in the form of Teflon which, for many years, are applied to non-stick cookware so those eggs slide off the pan. But if you overheat that pan, the Teflon might also slide off. PFASs slide off of many other things, as well. The environmental and health impacts of PFASs are almost totally unknown, although they are beginning to look pretty bad. Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Dr. Faith Kibuye, a Water Resources Extension Specialist in the Department of Ecosystem Science and Management and the Institute of Energy and the Environment at the Pennsylvania State University. Kibuye specializes in environmental engineering, focusing on water quality, aquatic chemistry, cyanobacterial blooms, and contaminants like pharmaceuticals and PFASs, and their fate, transport and transformation.
- 3 weeks ago52 min
Microplastics: invisible, insidious, and...fixable with Dr. Myra Finkelstein and Dr. Steven Mentor
We’ve heard a lot about the problem of microplastics pollution. Just how bad is it? What are its causes? What are microplastics doing to us and the world? Is anything being done to stem the accelerating production and consumption of plastics that end up in our water, our air, in animals, and in human bodies? Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation about microplastics with Dr. Myra Finkelstein, Adjunct Professor in the Microbiology and Environmental Toxicology Department at UC Santa Cruz and Dr. Steven Mentor a Santa Cruz climate activist and long-time environmentalist. Finklestein has been examining the health effects of plastic ingestion on seabirds to better understand the consequences for marine wildlife and human health. Mentor discusses law and campaigns in California to regulate microplastics and what can be done to turn the tide of plastic packaging and consumption. You can learn more about the topic from Food and Water Watch, the Netflix film "The Plastic Detox" and the Interstate Technology & Regulatory Council.
- Apr 12, 202645 min
"We think they'll kill someone" indigenous resistance in Oaxaca, Mexico, with Anjan Sundaram, The Stringer Foundation
Indigenous peoples around the world are under threat, especially from massive development projects engineered by governments and corporations, which promise to destroy the lands, forests and waters on which those peoples depend. In an article that appeared in a recent issue of The New York Review of Books, “We Think They'll Kill Someone” journalist Anjan Sundaram reported on one such project in the Southern Mexico Oaxacan town of San Blas Atempa, where a new factory will wipe out a communally owned forest. Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Sundaram. He is an Indian author, war reporter, academic, television presenter and founder of The Stringer Foundation. He is the author of three memoirs of journalism, Stringer, Bad News and Breakup. His forthcoming book, Double Exposure: Two Reporters in the Climate War, is scheduled for publication this coming fall.
- Mar 29, 202652 min
Transformative Climate Communities in California With Nancy Faulstitch and Eloy Ortiz, Regeneración Pajaro Valley
The State of California has created a program called “Transformative Climate Communities,” focused on making low-income, urban areas more resilient, efficient and responsive to housing, energy and climate challenges. What does this mean on the ground? Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Nancy Faulstitch, Executive Director and Eloy Ortiz, Special Projects Manager at Regeneración Pajaro Valley which, along with Monterey County, received a TCC planning grant in 2021. They have been leaders in this effort and will talk about the planning process and what happens next. Regeneración is a Pajaro Valley non-profit that builds bridges between residents and climate practitioners in local cities, counties, and at the state level.
- Mar 15, 202654 min
The Past and Future of Sustainable Communities with Peter Calthorpe, Architect & Urban Designer
The world’s cities are big and getting bigger. By 2050, 80% of the world’s people will live in cities. Can cities be made sustainable? Who is thinking about this? Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Peter Calthorpe, architect and urban designer with HDR, a global company specializing in architecture, engineering, environmental and construction services. Over the past 45 years, Calthorpe has been a primary advocate for sustainable communities, the New Urbanism and transit-oriented development. His most recent publications are "Ending Global Sprawl: Urban Standards for Sustainable and Resilient Development" for the World Bank and “Grand Boulevards and the AB2011 Revolution: Reinventing the Strip to Solve California’s Housing Crisis.”
- Mar 1, 202653 min
Biologists Unite! The Rise and Fall of Ecosystem Services with Professor Daniel Suarez, Middlebury College
Over the past several decades, there has been a concerted effort by biologists, economists and others to put a value on nature’s services: what would it cost, for example, to provide clean water the way nature does? Oxygen, photosynthesis, soil? Early estimates were around $30 trillion per year; arguably, today they are much higher, over $100 trillion. But getting from hypothetical calculations to actual incorporation into real work policy and development projects is no easy task. Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Daniel Chiu Suarez, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at Middlebury College in Vermont. He has just published Biologists Unite! The Rise and Fall of Ecosystem Services, an account of why three decades of academic, activist and policy efforts have failed to incorporate ecosystems services into global economic accounting and action.
- Feb 15, 202654 min
The Water Remembers—My Indigenous Family’s Fight to Save a River and a Way of Life with Amy Bowers Cordalis Ridges to Riffles Indigenous Conservation Group
The removal of four dams from the Klamath River in Northern California is rapidly becoming one of the great recent success stories in conservation and restoration. The riverbank habitat is returning to its former condition and salmon have been spotted swimming upriver past the sites where the dams once blocked their passage. Along with this comes the restoration of the indigenous peoples’ way of life, heavily dependent on those fish. Join Host Ronnie for an update on the Klamath in a conversation with Amy Bowers Cordalis, who has just published The Water Remembers—My Indigenous Family’s Fight to Save a River and a Way of Life. She is a mother, fisherwoman, attorney, executive director of Ridges to Riffles, and member of the Yurok Nation and its former general counsel. (Photo by Brontë Wittpenn, San Francisco Chronicle)
- Feb 1, 20261h 0m
Secret Sounds of Ponds and Other Animal Music with Professor David Rothenberg, NJ Institute of Technology
Who knew that ponds make music? To the eye and ears, they seem silent and tranquil—except at night when, maybe, choruses of frogs serenade listeners. But ponds are much noisier than that: you have to be very quiet and have the right equipment to really hear what’s going on. And there is a lot going on: both the critters and the plants speak out. Indeed, nature is full of sounds, many of them musical and, quite possible, the forerunners of human music. Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Dr. David Rothenberg, scholar, author, musician and composer and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Music at the New Jersey Institute of Technology whose focus is on animal sounds as music. We talk about his most recent book, Secret Sounds of Ponds, for which Rothenberg tossed a microphone into ponds and heard “an entirely new world, a realm of the unexpected and stirring rhythms and tones of some of the smallest and loudest creatures on Earth.”
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About Sustainability Now! on KSQD.org
Are you concerned about the Earth's future? Are you interested in what is being done in Northern California and the world to address environmental issues? Do you want to act? Then tune in every other Sunday to Sustainability Now! on KSQD.org. SN!! was launched on KSQD in 2019 by Ronnie Lipschutz. The show features interviews with activists, scholars, scientists, authors, philosophers, and others on a range of topics and issues that address the relationships among humans and nature, including life, death, taxes, biodiversity, energy, electricity, climate change, nuclear matters, animal rights, environmental activism, books, articles and many others. If you have a question, we have a podcast for you! SN! is broadcast on KSQD every two weeks, on Sundays, from 5-6 PM. Archives for shows beginning in 2019 are here and other podcast sites.Sustainability Now! is underwritten by the Sustainable Systems Research Foundation in Santa Cruz, California.
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