Jen Rapp of Patagonia tells Betsy about recycling both Patagonia and (because they won’t do it) their competitors’ clothes, and the numerous examples of how, since day one, Patagonia has put their money where their mouth is. For example, do you know of any other company that pays their employees full salary and benefits for two months while they work at environmental nonprofits? LISTEN (12 min)
Treehugger Correspondent Simran Sethi brings us an ode to a melting North Pole, last week’s skeptic-slaying IPCC report, evidence of a climate science-suppressing US government, and Natural Capitalism–opining Hunter Lovins. LISTEN (8 min)
An antidote to sometimes wonkish energy books, Lisa Margonelli‘s Oil on the Brain takes the reader from Margonelli’s local gas station to an Iranian oil platform in a refreshing up-close and personal style. Here she sits down with Betsy to highlight some of her most revealing journeys. LISTEN (10 min)
Is gardening a political act? In a very thoughtful interview, Heather Flores, author of the new book Food Not Lawns: How to Turn Your Yard into a Garden and your Neighborhood into a Community, makes the case that the garden is the key to re-cultivating our communities, our diets, and our urban spaces.
LISTEN (10 min)
Environmental and Real Estate Consultant Charles Lockwood shares with Betsy both the broad trends and nuanced particulars of the Green Building movement, and the influential municipalities across the United States that are the early-adopters of what will become the future of construction. LISTEN (12 min)
Joseph Romm, former Assistant Secretary at the US Department of Energy under President Clinton and current Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress talks about last week’s landmark IPCC report. Dr. Romm’s new book is Hell and High Water: Global Warming—the Solution and the Politics
LISTEN (12 min) Read his blog
Can we convert from an economy based on coal to a new energy future? New research out of Washington State says "Absolutely". Patti Glick, Senior Global Warming Specialist with the National Wildlife Federation, gives Betsy the rundown on this notably optimistic report. LISTEN (8 min)
Will Steger has journeyed by dogsled to the North Pole, Greenland and Antarctica. He has witnessed Global Warming firsthand from the top of the world, and for his next trip he’s taking us all to see it, and to meet the Inuit people whose way of life is irrevocably changing. It is all part of Steger’s Global Warming 101— through his blog, webcasts, and photos we all can learn about climate change as it is currently happening. So bundle up and hop on the sled.
PART ONE (11 min) PART TWO (7 min)
In Lost Mountain: A Year in the Vanishing Wilderness, Erik Reece chronicled the year he spent witnessing the systematic decimation of a single mountain. He and Betsy chat about the price West Virginians have paid for being stereotyped and ignored by the rest of the US, the latest quixotic Bush energy statement ("There’s nothing clean about clean coal"), and our national identity.
LISTEN (10 min)
Earthbound Farm co-founder Myra Goodman tells Betsy about being Big and Organic, she and her husband’s innocent business ‘instincts’, her new cookbook that takes advantage of the organic world we’re all living in, and how, no matter what happened during the E.Coli scare, we should feel utterly safe eating Earthbound Farm products. LISTEN (10 min)