"A genuine American hero," according to RFK Jr., Chad Pregracke, the young man who has cleaned up our Mississippi River, returns to EcoTalk to relate his colorful, inspiring story as it is told in his new book From the Bottom Up: One Man’s Crusade to Clean America’s Rivers. Nobody dedicates their life to such humble stewardship of the planet if they are not optimistic and in posession of an archetypal Midwestern work ethic. LISTEN (12 min)
Eco-Activist, Permaculture proponent, and publisher of Primal Instincts Magazine, Michael Sunanda tells Betsy what he’s pieced together about the mysterious disappearance of bee colonies in 25 states and three countries in Europe. With Bees pollinating flowers and fruit trees, the highly visible role they play in our ecosystem is undoubted. Are pesticides to blame for these ghost hives? Are organic bee farms similarly effected? LISTEN (8 min)
Journalist, author of "Boiling Point", and helmsman of the always up-to-date The Heat is Online website, Ross Gelbspan here offers his wide-ranging thoughts on the second part of the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report released last Friday: "Things that were considered off the charts and unthinkable six or seven years ago are now becoming conventional wisdom." Betsy sizes up the wisdom of her local gym.
PART ONE (11 min) PART TWO (7 min)
Longtime co-habitator of both the music and sustainability worlds, Peter Shapiro tells Betsy how more than the music’s message, the sustainable methods by which the Green Apple Music Fest is being organized will help entrench eco-friendly habits in concert promoters, venue owners, and you, that fan who’s rockin’ out in the fifth row. LISTEN (9 min)
Senator John Kerry joins Betsy to assess the outlook at This Moment On Earth, which also happens to be the title of the book he has written with his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry. Convinced of the need for political leadership on conservation and energy issues long before they were fashionable (fashion never having been his interest or strong suit), Senator Kerry has put twenty years into building consensus within Congress, across party lines, and now with citizens across America: "What middle class family in America wouldn’t love to get 150 miles per gallon?" Betsy credits him as being an inspiration on her road to becoming an active environmentalist, and wonders if this side of him deserved a higher profile in the 2004 election. PART ONE (11 min) PART TWO (7 min)
Hey pinewood derby veterans: Can you build an affordable, attractive, and super-efficient car? If you can, Mark Goodstein and the Automotive X Prize will pay you 10 million bucks, and in doing so will spur innovation quickly, through competition. LISTEN (10 min)
Picture: Aptera
Treehugger Correspondent Simran Sethi
brings us students who are taking cooking grease from the fryer to the fuel tank, the EPA from denial to the unavoidably obvious, and a Spanish island gunning for 100% renewable power. LISTEN (10 min)
Greenpeace Climate Change expert Chris Miller comments both on the paradigm-shifting Supreme Court decision in Mass. v. EPA, as well as the forthcoming second part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report "The devil is in the details on global warming. The report released this week will be those details. It will reference everything from the plight of the polar bear, to impacts to Greenland ice sheets, extreme weather, hurricanes in the Atlantic, draught situations in the Midwest…" LISTEN (11 min)
Never do a story about Maple Syrup on an empty stomach. Betsy contemplates "pancakes with no syrup", as maple sugar maker Arthur Berndt tells of climate change as it can currently be observed in Vermont, home to one of our sweetest natural resources: "The trees are clearly stressed. We would have fewer days that are suitable for maple syrup production." LISTEN (7 min)
Author of the bestseller The Chalice and the Blade, Riane Eisler talks with Betsy about internalizing true quality of life factors (child-rearing, health of habitat, and other common-sense things) into a new Economics for the 21st Century, and the how fleeing the Holocaust and growing up in Havana instilled in her a lifelong commitment to the politics of caregiving, and in turn a commitment to deconstructing the limited use of current models, capitalist and socialist, that limit our ability to sustain ourselves. It’s all in her new book, The Real Wealth of Nations. LISTEN (12 min)