Shows
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgCull of the Wild: Killing in the Name of Conservation, with Hugh Warwick (rerun)Do you remember the Northern Spotted Owl, icon of the old-growth Redwood Wars of the 1990s? Well, the Northern Spotted Owl is, once again, under threat. This time, however, the threat comes from another species of owl, the Barred Owl, a larger and more aggressive bird native to the United States, whose range has been expanding westward as a result of development and climate change.The U.S. Fish & Wildlife has devised a plan to protect the Northern Spotted Owl: shoot Barred Owls. Scientists, conservationists and the public are torn: should humans intervene to pre...2025-07-0757 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgThe Return of Wolves to California with Amaroq Weiss, Center for Biological DiversityGray wolves were once ubiquitous across California but the state’s last surviving individual was killed in 1924. In 2011, the first documented wolf since 1924 was observed crossing into California from Oregon. Today, there are at least 7 gray wolf packs in California with some 50 individuals. That’s not so many but 3 counties are worried about wolf attacks on livestock and people and are asking for permission from the state to allow more aggressive hazing, including shooting wolves with beanbags and rubber bullets. Is this really necessary? To learn more about gray wolves in California, join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Amar...2025-05-2655 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgFood Apartheid and Food Hubs A Visit with Saba Grocers and co-founder Lina GhanemFood insecurity and food apartheid are a common challenge in many low-income and minority neighborhoods across the United States. Big supermarket companies avoid those areas because stores are unprofitable and small stores find that they make the most money on junk foods, sodas and liquor. Saba Grocers is an Oakland-based organization, founded in 2019, that works with those small stores to enable them to sell fresh produce sourced from minority farmers across the region. Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Lina Ghanem, director and co-founder of the Saba Grocers Initiative in Oakland.Here is...2025-05-1751 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgThe Living Green Myth: The Promise and Limits of Lifestyle Environmentalism with Dr. Michael ManiatesMany listeners are probably familiar with the tags found in hotel bathrooms that read: “Save Our Planet,” followed by instructions about reusing and replacing towels, and concluding “Thank you for helping us converse the Earth’s vital resources.” Reusing towels might help conserve the hotel’s financial resources but does that make any difference for the Planet? Such “lifestyle environmentalism” is widespread, providing a sense of doing something in a world in which collective action is so difficult. In two weeks, join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Dr. Michael Maniates, for a conversation about his forthcoming book, The Living-Green My...2025-05-1252 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgAre Tariffs Good for the Environment? Bad? Or What? With Ronnie Lipschutz and Christine BarringtonTariffs are in the air and on the news. Tariffs are up and down. Tariffs are in and out. Who knows where they might go and what they might do. But what do tariffs mean for sustainability and the environment? Will they help or hurt? Do they matter either way? Tune into Sustainability Now! to hear Christine Barrington and Ronnie Lipschutz discuss tariffs and what they might mean for the environment and the planet. Lipschutz is neither an economist or an expert on the design or history of tariffs but has had many opportunities to study and write about taxe...2025-04-2852 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgAre Tariffs Good for the Environment? Bad? Or What? With Ronnie Lipschutz and Christine BarringtonTariffs are in the air and on the news. Tariffs are up and down. Tariffs are in and out. Who knows where they might go and what they might do. But what do tariffs mean for sustainability and the environment? Will they help or hurt? Do they matter either way? Tune into Sustainability Now! to hear Christine Barrington and Ronnie Lipschutz discuss tariffs and what they might mean for the environment and the planet. Lipschutz is neither an economist or an expert on the design or history of tariffs but has had many opportunities to study and write about taxe...2025-04-2752 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgTitans of Industrial Agriculture With Professor Jennifer Clapp, University of WaterlooBig agriculture is Big! And it appears to be getting Bigger, as the leading companies in four critical sectors—equipment, seeds, fertilizers and chemicals—consolidate in order to dominate their markets and the farmers who buy their products. Join Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Dr. Jennifer Clapp, who has just published Titans of Industrial Agriculture—How a Few Giant Corporations Came to Dominate the Farm Sector and Why It Matters. Clapp is Canada Research Chair in Global Food Security and Sustainability at the University of Waterloo in Ontario and a member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainab...2025-04-1453 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgGetting Back to the (Alan Chadwick) Garden, with Orin Martin, Master Gardener, Horticulturalist and TeacherUCSC’s Agroecology Farm is known around the world for innovation, training and inspiration. But before there was a Farm, there was a Garden: the Alan Chadwick Garden, launched in 1967 on a steep, rocky clay hill side. It is still there today, although very few people know of its existence. Join host Ronnie Lipschutz in a conversation with Orin Martin, who has managed the Chadwick Garden since 1977 and where he is widely admired for his skills as a master orchardist, horticulturalist, and teacher. Tune in to hear about Orin’s role at the Chadwick Garden, as well as its origins...2025-04-0154 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgAs long as grass grows: The indigenous fight for environmental justiceRadio Show, #29, October 4, 2020. Host Ronnie Lipschutz and guest Dina Gilio-Whitaker talk about indigenous environmental justice, environmental philosophy and the restoration of balance between humans and nature. Gilio-Whitaker is a member of the Colville Confederated Tribes in the Pacific Northwest, a lecturer in American Indian Studies at California State University, San Marcos and Policy Director and Researcher at the Center for World Indigenous Studies. She is author of As long as grass grows: The indigenous fight for environmental justice, from colonization to Standing Rock (Beacon Press, 2019) and co-author, with Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, of "All the Real Indians Died Off": And 20 Other...2025-04-0157 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgGive Me Land, Lots of Land in the Santa Clara Valley with Andrea Mackenzie of the Santa Clara Valley Open Space AuthorityHost Ronnie Lipschutz speaks with Andrea Mackenzie, General Manager of the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority. For more than 25 years, Ms. Mackenzie has worked in the fields of land use planning, conservation planning, public policy, and finance for open space and agricultural land preservation agencies at county, regional, state, and national levels. The Open Space Authority works to protect and steward the region’s natural capital, open spaces, water resources, natural areas, and working lands to support healthy lands, resilient communities, and strong economies.Sustainability Now! is underwritten by the Sustainable Systems Research Foundation.2025-04-0153 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgSustainability & Politics after Annus Horriblis 2020, with Kim Stanley RobinsonSustainability Now! August 23, 2020. Host Ronnie Lipschutz and his guest Kim Stanley Robinson engage in a wide-ranging conversation about sustainability, politics, 2020 and after, and how we might prepare for the future. Robinson is a science fiction author, California futurist and environmental optimist of the will. His recent work, such as New York 2140 (2017) has addressed environmental and climate issues. His forthcoming book, The Ministry for the Future, which imagines a new, global organization that advocates for the world’s future generations and protects all living creatures, present and future.(Photo by Stephan Martiniere, https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/arts/kim-stanley-robinson-coming-to-phoenix-art-museum-sept-20-9702004)2025-04-0151 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgAn SN! Revisit with Dr. Rupa Basu. Climate Change and Public HealthPlanetary heating and climate change are in the news more and more, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has just issued a very pessimistic report on humanity’s and the world’s prospects. In a revisit of a show from 2020, Host Ronnie Lipschutz and Guest Dr. Rupa Basu talk about about climate change and public health. Dr. Basu is Chief of the Air and Climate Epidemiology Section at California Office on Environmental Health Hazards and a lecturer in the UC Berkeley School of Public Health. She is coauthor of a review article in JAMA Open Network about the effec...2025-04-0156 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgLet'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 th...2025-04-0149 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgLet the Salmon Swim Freely--The Klamath Dam Removal project with Brook ThompsonUntil very recently, salmon and other fish attempting to spawn in Northern California’s Klamath River found a number of dams in their way. Over the past several years, in the largest project of its kind to date, those dams have been removed. Now, the watershed is being restored to let the salmon swim upriver and allow other plants and animals to return. Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Brook Thompson, a member of the Yurok tribe, restoration engineer, PhD candidate in Environmental Studies at UC Santa Cruz, and author of I Love Salmon and Lampreys, an ill...2025-03-3153 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgFire, Fire at Moss Landing--Why the batteries burned and what that meansOn January 16th, 2025, a fire broke out at the Vistra plant in Moss Landing, California burning for two days and scattering heavy metals and other toxic materials across the plant’s surroundings, including Elkhorn Slough. What happened there and why did the batteries burn? What are the impacts of the fire and on the future of renewable energy?Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for three conversations about the batteries and the fire, with Ric O’Connell, executive director of GridLab, who will explain what the batteries are doing there, Dr. Ivano Aiello, Professor of Geological Oceanography at San Jose S...2025-03-1754 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgAmerican Environmentalism, Then and Now (1965-2025) With Mark DowieMark Dowie describes himself as “Cowhand, guitarist, investigative historian, poet” and journalist. He’s probably best known as cofounder, editor and staff writer forMother Jones, but during his more than 50-year career, over his he’s also written for many other magazines, newspapers and publications, written eight books and received no less than 19 journalism awards. In 1995, Dowie publishedLosing ground: American environmentalism at the close of the twentieth century. Thirty years later—and 70-odd years since the beginning of that movement, join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Dowie about the U.S. environmental movement, then and now.2025-02-1750 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgLife and Death Decision-making through Algorithms, with Professor David Rehkopf and Derek Ouyang, Stanford UniversityOver the past few years, we’ve heard a lot about artificial intelligence and the algorithms that support public policy, decision making and resource allocations. By processing reams of presumably neutral data, the algorithms are supposed to produce unbiased results. But we’ve also heard concerns about the algorithms themselves: what unrecognized assumptions go into their construction and how they can produce different outcomes depending on programmer choices about the data that goes into them.
Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Professor David Rehkopf of the Department of Epidemiology & Population Health at the Stanford University School...2025-02-0353 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgFrom the Ground Up: The Women Revolutionizing Regenerative Agriculture with Stephanie AndersonWhat is regenerative agriculture? Who is practicing regenerative agriculture? And what are its prospects? In two weeks, join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Stephanie Anderson, author of From the Ground Up: The Women Revolutionizing Regenerative Agriculture, which explores how women are leading the movement to transform the U.S. agricultural system and inspiring hope in the face of environmental and social challenges.2025-01-2053 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgWill the U.S. Environment Survive Trump 2.0? With Dr. Andrew Rosenberg, University of New Hampshire On January 20, 2025, Donald Trump will be inaugurated as President of the United States for his second term. There is considerable trepidation in the environmental policy and activism sectors across the country and, indeed, the world. Trump’s appointees are committed to deregulation across the board, especially where the environment is concerned, to gutting funding for renewable energy and rescinding the Inflation Reduction Act and increasing fossil fuel production and consumption.
What his Administration might want to do and what it will be able to do are two very different questions. Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a discussion on th...2025-01-0253 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgA Just Transition for All: Workers and Communities for a Carbon-Free Future with Dr. J. Mijin ChaTo avert the worst impacts of climate change, a transition away from fossil fuels is necessary. However, what this transition looks like and what would make a transition “just,” remain open questions. What workers are missing from “green” economy discussions? What role do workers play in the fight for a future without fossil fuels? How can workers and communities ensure the transition is “just”?
Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with UCSC Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies J. Mijin Cha, whose new book, A Just Transition for All: Workers and Communities for a Carbon-Free Future, will be published...2024-11-2552 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgWhat Does the Chicken Know? And other Animal Stories with Sy MontgomeryFrequent listeners to Sustainability Now! know that, from time to time, interviews focus on animals, mostly from the perspective of animal rights and whether animals are people, too. Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Sy Montgomery, adventurer, naturalist and author, who has been engaging with and writing about animals since the 1980s. She asks questions like “what do chickens know? Does an octopus have a soul? And is it really “turtles all the way down?” She is the author of 38 nonfiction books for adults and children and has garnered numerous awards for them. Her 2023 book, Of Time and Turt...2024-11-0754 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgDisabled Ecologies--Lessons from a Wounded Desert, with Professor Sunaura Taylor, UC BerkeleyJoin Host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Dr. Sunaura Taylor, Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at the University of California, Berkeley. Taylor is also an artist, writer, activist and mother, who has just published Disable Ecologies—Lessons from a Wounded Desert. Her first book, Beasts of Burden: Animal and Disability Liberation, which received the 2018 American Book Award. Along with academic journals, Taylor has written for a range of popular media outlets. Her artworks have been exhibited at venues such as the CUE Art Foundation and the Smithsonian Institution and is part of the...2024-10-2853 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgCan Protection of Forests, Farms & Waters be Reconciled with Economic Development? with Larry Selzer of The Conservation FundA longstanding debate in the environmental and conservation movements is whether protection of natural resources can be reconciled with their economic development? Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation about this question with Larry Selzer, President and CEO of The Conservation Fund, a Virgina-based nonprofit that buys land for conservation and promotes sustainable economic development. TCF works with public agencies to acquire land and hold it until the agencies are ready to purchase it back. And the organization focuses on protecting working forests and farms, which provide clean air, clean water, and jobs for rural communities.2024-10-1454 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgDust to Dust or Earth to Earth? Composting as an Alternative after Death with Katrina Spade of RecomposeWhat happens to your corporeal body, if and when it is buried in the earth? According to Genesis in the Hebrew Torah, we come from dust and to dust we return. The original text, however, uses the word עָפָ֣ר ("apar"), which means “earth.” Most burials in the United States seek to protect the body from returning to the earth through containment, while cremation produces greenhouse gases and leaves behind heavy metals. Are there other ways to go? Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Katrina Spade, founder and CEO of Recompose, a Seattle-based green funeral home that composts human bodies, turning...2024-09-3053 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgHow should we speak with children about climate change? with Dr. Elizabeth Bagley of Project DrawdownHow should we speak with children about climate change? Should young children be taught about climate change, and how? During the Cold War, the existential threat of nuclear holocaust was always present but there was, at least, a chance that the missiles would not be launched. Climate change is also an existential threat but it is already
happening. Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a thoughtful conversation with Dr. Elizabeth Bagley, managing director of Project Drawdown, who has written and spoken about these questions. She holds joint Ph.D.s in environment &
resources and educational psychology from the University of Wisc...2024-09-1653 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgProtect San Benito County!San Benito County is one of the unsung jewels of the Central California Coast. Most people know of San Juan Bautista and the Pinnacles, but there is much, much more. Two mountain ranges, broad valleys, rangelands, farmlands and biodiversity. But the Highway 101 corridor, which runs through a corner of the county, provides access to Silicon Valley and the SF Bay and people are moving south in search of cheaper housing. Malls and sprawls are not far behind. Now, a local movement is seeking to limit development with an initiative to require a public vote if agricultural, rural or range land...2024-09-0254 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgIs it Curtains for Glaciers? Slowing Down Polar Melting, with Professor John Moore, University of LaplandAs the Earth gets warmer, the world’s glaciers get smaller. Land-based glaciers in the Earth’s polar regions hold enormous quantities of water and, as they melt, the runoff is raising sea levels and disrupting ocean systems, such as the Gulf Stream. The obvious solution is for us to drastically reduce global greenhouse gas emissions but, even if we were to do that, the Earth would continue to warm and the glaciers would continue to melt. Is there anything we could do to slow the melt?
There are a growing number of proposals to intervene in Earth’s...2024-08-1953 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgLet’s go Fishin’! with Melissa Mahoney of the Monterey Bay Fisheries Trust The Monterey Bay is the crown jewel of the Central California Coast. For well over a century, the Bay has been exploited for a myriad of purposes; today, it needs protection and conservation. This is especially the case with its fish and fisheries, which provide a vital source of food but are vulnerable to tastes and markets. Join Sustainability now! host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Melissa Mahoney, Executive Director of the Monterey Bay Fisheries Trust, which seeks to ensure sustainable fisheries, resilient communities and a healthy Bay and ocean.2024-08-0553 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.org"What's in Those Plastics, Anyway?" with Professor Susannah Scott of UC Santa BarbaraThe world is awash in plastic. According to a study published in 2020, total production of plastics since 1950 is now over 10 billion tons, with more than half of that simply discarded. And the production of plastics will only increase in the future. There is a lot of oil and natural gas in the world and, if and when we wean ourselves from fossil fuels, oil and chemical companies will be looking for other places to use their stocks.
So far, only about one billion tons of plastic have been recycled—that is, put into the recycling chain. What exact...2024-07-0856 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgBast from the Past! Nature's Best Hope with Professor Douglas Tallamy A New Approach to Conservation that Starts in Your YardAccording 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...2024-06-2451 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgReading and Interpreting Your Electricity Bill--A Talmudic ExegesisYou probably receive an electricity bill every month from your local utility and, after complaining about it, dutifully pay it. But do you ever stop to read your electricity bill? If you are a customer of PG&E and, maybe, a local community choice aggregator, you receive 6 pages of unintelligible, closely-spaced text, numbers, graphs and acronyms. As Groucho Marx might have said, “This is so simple, a PhD could read it. Run out and find me a PhD!”
Join host Ronnie Lipschutz and Kevin Bell on Sustainability Now! when we offer “A Talmudic Exegesis: Reading an...2024-06-1053 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgDo We Dominate Nature because We Fear Death? with Professor James Rowe, University of VictoriaWhy do humans dominate nature and why have they done so? Is it because of God told Adam and Eve to “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth”? Is it because capitalism sees the world in terms of scarcity and commodification and must find monetary value in everything? Some psychologists and philosophers have proposed that we seek to overcome our fear of death by controlling that nature to which we mus...2024-05-2751 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgWhat do students eat? Salads! with staff and students from Esperanza Community Farms and Pajaro Valley High SchoolStudents eat. But what do they eat? And where does that food come from? Both the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the California Department of Food and Agriculture are trying to help small farms sell more of their organic produce to public schools, shortening the supply chain between farms and consumers and encouraging students to eat more salads and other healthy foods. Join host Ronnie Lipschutz and guests Mireya Gomez-Contreras and Alma Leonor-Sanchez from Esperanza Community Farms in Watsonville, along with Pajaro Valley High students Mark Mendoza Luengas and Julio Gonzales, to hear about Esperanza’s farm to cafete...2024-04-2952 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgThe Green Energy Resource Rush and the American West with Professor Dustin MulvaneySolar 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 Envi...2024-04-0156 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgThe Climate Change Resilient Vegetable Garden With Kim StoddartAll 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.2024-03-1855 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgCan we square our need to consume with sustainability? with Dr. Jean Boucher, James Hutton Institute, ScotlandWe 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...2024-03-0451 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgCalifornia Against the Sea With Rosanna Xia of the LA TimesClimate 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...2024-02-0554 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgFirepower and Global Security: Past, Present and Future, with Professor Simon DalbyAccording 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 ana...2023-12-2558 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgWill Small Modular Reactors Save the Nuclear Industry? with Prof. Allison Macfarlane, former chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory CommissionNuclear 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 pla...2023-12-1153 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgWould the world beat a path to your door for a fully compostable plastic? with Raegen Kelly of Better for AllLong-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...2023-11-2748 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgReplanting Burned over Sequoia Groves in the Sierras, with Dr. Christy Brigham, National Park Service, and Dr. Chad Hanson, John Muir ProjectSequoias 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...2023-11-0949 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgThe Life Beneath Our Feet, with Dr. Chelsea Carey, Point Blue Conservation ScienceWhen 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 Con...2023-10-3053 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.org“You’re going to have to change the priorities of your life if you love this planet” With Dr. Helen CaldicottJoin 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 Academ...2023-10-1647 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgHitman for the Kindness Club with Captain Paul WatsonFor 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 conve...2023-10-0256 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgWhy are some people so up in arms about CEQA? with Professor Deborah Sivas, Stanford Law SchoolWhat 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 rec...2023-09-1753 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgHow Kinship Practices Could Foster New Relations between Humans and Nature, with Prof. Rosalind WarnerThe 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...2023-08-2146 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgDoes Nature have Rights? with Katie Surma of Inside Climate NewsMore 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...2023-08-0754 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgWhen Public Works is Homeland Security, with Jackie McCloudWhen 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...2023-07-1051 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgCan Green Manure Cover Crops End Drought in Africa? With Roland BunchJoin 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...2023-06-2650 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgInnovation and Entrepreneurship at UC Santa Cruz, With Nada MiljkovicWe 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?2023-06-1253 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgElectrification of California & the Battle over Solar Farms in the Deserts with Professor Dustin MulvaneyIn 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 th...2023-05-1559 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgThe Ideal River: How control of nature shaped the international order, with Dr. Joanne YaoRivers 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 Lond...2023-05-0243 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgW(h)ither UCSC’s East Meadow? with Nadia Peralta and Bob MajzlerMany 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 strong...2023-04-1751 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgSongs for Earth Day, with Dr. Peter Weiss, the Singing Scientist, and His GuitarJoin 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.
2023-04-0355 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgA Visit to the SC Museum of Natural History, with Marisa GomezSN! 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.2023-03-2050 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgFirepower & Global Security: Past, Present and Future, with Professor Simon DalbyAccording 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 ana...2023-02-2058 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgWhat’s a CAP? And what does it do? With Rachel KippenJoin 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 pr...2023-02-0654 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.org“You’re going to have to change the priorities of your life if you love this planet” with Dr. Helen CaldicottJoin 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...2023-01-1445 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgTransit Equity Week 2023 with Lani Faulkner, Michael Wool and Equity TransitJoin 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...2022-12-1252 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgTrees are Shape Shifters--Italian Landscapes and Human Interventions in the AnthropoceneHave 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...2022-11-2852 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.org“Fire, Fire on the Mountain!” New Threats to Organic Farming in CaliforniaFarming 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 i...2022-10-1755 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgOpen 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...2022-10-0551 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgLetter to Fellow Citizens of Earth, with Dr. Sharachchandra LeleJoin 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 Fa...2022-09-2058 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgIn the Shadow of Climate Change: What can the Children Tell Us?In the Shadow of Climate Change: What can the Children Tell Us?
with Filmmaker Eric Thiermann
Join Host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with filmmaker and media producer Eric Thiermann. During his 40-year career, Thiermann has filmed, produced and directed hundreds of media projects in over 40 countries. These include "Art and the Prison Crisis," "The Last Epidemic: Medical Consequences of Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear War," "In the Nuclear Shadow: What Can the Children Tell Us?" nominated for an Academy Award in 1984, and "Women for America," which received the Academy Award for best short documentary film...2022-09-0556 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgWell, Well, Well! Clean Water for Everyone!Well, Well, Well! Clean Water for Everyone!
with Chelsea Tu of Monterey Waterkeeper
On Sustainability Now! Sunday, August 21st, 5-6 PM, on KSQD 90.7 FM and KSQD.org
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...2022-08-2249 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgHow a Republican Grandfather Helped Legalize AbortionHow a Republican Grandfather Helped Legalize Abortion with Dr. Caroline Tracey
On Sustainability Now! Sunday, August 7th, 5-6 PM, on KSQD 90.7 FM and KSQD.org
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 Ronn...2022-08-0951 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgFinding 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 S...2022-07-2754 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgIn 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...2022-07-1143 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgSome of My Best Friends are Elephants! with USF Professor Matthew LiebmanAre 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 Francisc...2022-06-2754 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgScience by the People! Biodiversity and Community Science with Rebecca Johnson & Alison Young, California Academy of SciencesScience by the People! Biodiversity & Community Science
with Rebecca Johnson & Alison Young, California Academy of Sciences
On Sustainability Now! Sunday, May 15th, 5-6 PM
on KSQD 90.7 FM and KSQD.org
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...2022-05-1752 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgTo be an Elephant Seal in the Spring! with Theresa KeatesIn 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 tag...2022-04-2254 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgElectrify California!Electrify California! with Benjamin Eichert
On Sustainability Now! Sunday, April 3rd, 5-6 PM
on KSQD 90.7 FM and KSQD.org
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...2022-04-0357 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgWhat are Seabed Mineral Nodules and Who Wants Them?What are Seabed Mineral Nodules and Who Wants Them?
with Emily Jeffers, Center for Biological Diversity
California Assembly Member Luz Rivas recently introduced a bill to ban mining of seabed nodules on 2,500 square miles of sea floor off the coast of California. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, critics say such mining would “kill marine life, damage habitats and pollute surrounding areas, and ultimately could have a negative impact on fishing and tourism, which together contribute more than $20 billion annually to the state’s economy.” Proponents argue that seabed mining could provide access to many metals...2022-03-071h 02
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgFrom Food Waste to Soil at Hard Core CompostSustainability Now! Sunday, February 20th: From Food Waste to Soil at Hard Core Compost
Join Ronnie Lipschutz for a trip to Hard Core Compost. My guests will be Kumi Maxson and Zav Hershfield, two members of the Hard Core Compost collective. Hard Core uses cargo bicycles to haul food scraps from home kitchens to their composting site on the Westside of Santa Cruz, next to the Homeless Garden Project. We’ll be touring their site, talking about organic waste management in Santa Cruz and what is Hard Core’s role in composting food scraps locally, especially as the...2022-02-2153 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgLatinx Farmers’ Survival in the U.S. Agricultural System, with Josefina Lara ChavezJoin host Ronnie Lipschutz in a conversation with Josefina Lara Chavez, Farm-to-Market specialist and Senior Manager, Latinx Farmer Program for the Community Alliance for Family Farmers in Davis. Our focus will be on Latinx farmers in the Monterey Bay Region and their struggle to survive and thrive in the face of an agricultural system that takes little account of them. Lara Chavez a fourth generation family farmer and is currently working at getting her farm and food hub in Hollister, Lara Organics, off the ground.
Previous broadcasts of Sustainability Now! are archived at KSQD.org and on P...2022-02-0753 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgSolar Panels and Solar Panics, with Dr. Ahmad FaruquiJanuary 2022 is Solar Energy Month on Sustainability Now! On Sunday, January 23rd, hosts Ronnie Lipschutz and Brooke Wright welcome Dr. Ahmad Faruqui, an energy economist who has been deeply involved in solar electricity issues in California. We talk about the pending decision by the California Public Utilities Commission to reduce compensation for rooftop solar electricity and to charge households for access to the state’s electricity grid.
You can learn about the proposed decision at: https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/nemrevisit
Dr. Faruqui's comments on the proposed decision are at: http://ahmadfaruqui.blogspot.com/2022/01/my-comments-on-cpucs-proposed-decision.htm...2022-01-2451 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgFoodware Beware! with Tim GoncharoffJoin hosts Brooke Wright and Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Tim Goncharoff, who knows everything there is to know about waste management. He has had a long and distinguished career in community service, locally and statewide, most recently as a Zero Waste Programs Manager at the County of Santa Cruz. He helped bring to fruition ordinances on composting, drugs and sharps, plastic bags, polystyrene foam and e-waste. We talk about waste management, plastics, recycling and composting and especially the new state ordinances on the handling of compostable foodware and organic and food wastes.
Previous broadcasts of S...2021-12-1355 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgW(h)ither Water? with Sierra Ryan, County Water Resources ManagerCentral California just experienced one of the three most intense storms since the 1950s, but was that prelude to feast or famine this coming water year? No one knows, but planning for the worst-case scenario is the prudent thing to do. Join Sustainability Now! hosts Brooke Wright and Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Sierra Ryan, the recently appointed Water Resources Manager for the Santa Cruz County Department of Environmental Health. Ryan coordinates water resource management activities among the other county departments and works closely with other local, state, and federal water supply and resource management agencies in the Co...2021-11-1554 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgOil and Water Don’t Mix! with Fred KeeleyJoin hosts Ronnie Lipschutz and Brooke Wright for a conversation with Fred Keeley, a well-known political person about town and across the Monterey Bay Region. He has a long and distinguished career in community service. In the 1980s and 1990s, Keeley served two terms as County Supervisor and three in the State Assembly. Following that, he was Santa Cruz County treasurer for 10 years. Currently he is working with the County of Santa Cruz to assess park, recreation and cultural services needs and is leading an effort to establish a county open space district. Keeley also teaches undergraduate political science a...2021-11-0159 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgWhat’s slough? I don’t know, what’s slough with you? with Dr. Kerstin Wasson, Elkhorn SloughHave you ever wondered what is going on upstream when you cross the Highway 1 bridge over Elkhorn Slough? Or why there are marshes on both sides of the highway? Or where all the birds and kayakers come from?
Join SN! hosts Ronnie Lipschutz and Brooke Wright for a conversation with Dr. Kerstin Wasson, Research Coordinator at the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve and adjunct professor at UCSC. Dr. Wasson conducts research on a range of topics focused on the impacts of human activities on estuarine ecosystems, such as Elkhorn Slough. She develops and tests restoration strategies to...2021-10-2356 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgThere's Fungus Among Us--Mycopermaculture, Mycomimicry, and Mycopsychology, with Maya Elson of CoRenewalJoin hosts Ronnie Lipschutz and Brooke Wright for a conversation with Maya Elson, Executive Director of CoREnewal (formerly known as the Amazon MycoRenewal Project). She is a founding member of the Radical Mycology network, she’s worked on various fungal cultivation and educational projects in Olympia, WA and the San Francisco Bay area. Maya is a teacher, naturalist, mycologist, organizer and lover of the wild, dedicated to enacting effective and just solutions to environmental and social crises by working in collaboration with fungi. CoRenewal is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing education and research in ecosystem restoration, health and hea...2021-10-0452 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgThe Sustainable Systems Research Foundation: Who are those guys?Sustainability Now! is underwritten by the Sustainable Systems Research Foundation. But what is SSRF? Join host Ronnie Lipschutz and new co-host Brooke Wright in a discussion of two SSRF projects in development. The Watsonville Basic Income Pilot Project will take revenues from sale of solar electricity to a local business and distribute to selected farmworker households as basic income stipends. The Sustainable Urban Food Initiative will bring the benefits of agricultural technology and farm management techniques to small farms and gardens in the Monterey Bay Region. Both projects are examples of the kinds of local development pursued by SSRF.2021-09-2156 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgClean Energy Now! with Shaina Nanavati of Reclaim Our PowerJoin host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Shaina Nanavati, a research organizer for the Reclaim Our Power Utility Justice Campaign and staff member of the Local Clean Energy Alliance. Reclaim Our Power is an statewide initiative mobilizing a broad coalition of utility ratepayers, social justice advocates, and allies to develop an equitable, sustainable, decentralized restructuring of California’s energy system. Tune in to learn about this transformative project and what it will require to succeed.
Sustainability Now! is underwritten by the Sustainable Systems Research Foundation.2021-09-0653 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgAn SN! Revisit: Can Solar Energy provide a basic income for everyone on earth? A conversation with Robert StaytonIn this SN! Revisit from 2019, host Ronnie Lipschutz welcomes Robert Stayton, physicist and author of Solar Dividends: How Solar Energy Can Generate a Basic Income for Everyone on Earth. We’ll discuss the math, physics, economics and politics of his idea and proposal, and whether his utopian vision can be made real by the end of the 21st century.2021-09-0657 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgThat’s the Last Straw! with Jackie Nuñez, founder of The Last Plastic StrawPlastic is ubiquitous: it rains down on us, it fouls land, streams and oceans, it even turns up in our bodies. And the big oil companies are looking to plastic to keep up profits when fossil fuels are finally banned. What are we to do?
SN! host Ronnie Lipschutz speaks with guest Jackie Nuñez, founder of The Last Plastic Straw and Advocacy Manager of the Plastic Pollution Coalition. The Last Plastic Straw is a project of the Plastic Pollution Coalition, a global alliance of more than 1,200 organizations, businesses, and thought leaders in 75 countries that seeks to sh...2021-07-2655 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgFinding the Mother Tree with Professor Suzanne Simard, University of British ColumbiaJoin host Ronnie Lipschutz as he speaks with Dr. Suzanne Simard, Professor of Forestry and Conservation Sciences about the social life of trees. Her new 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 o...2021-05-2752 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.org“Are we the cows of the future?” The digital management of nature and humans with Professor Esther Leslie, Birkbeck University, LondonJoin host Ronnie Lipschutz and Dr. Esther Leslie, Professor of Political Aesthetics at Birkbeck University in London. “Political Aesthetics highlights the complex and ambiguous connections of aesthetics with social, cultural and political experiences in contemporary societies.” This past January, Leslie published an entry in “The Stone,” a New York Times column on philosophy. There, she asked “Are we the cows of the future?” to be manipulated and managed like livestock. Among other topics, we talk about contemporary utopian visions of nature, digital surveillance and the relationship of humans to nature.
You can find links to Dr. Leslie's publications he...2021-05-1756 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgWhat’s that bug up to, anyway? Insect socioecology in urban gardens, with Azucena LucateroGosh, I never realized there was a social ecology in my backyard!”
Find out just what those bugs are up to in your garden, as host Ronnie Lipschutz welcomes Azucena Lucatero, a third-year PhD student in Dr. Stacy Philpott's lab at UC Santa Cruz. Lucatero studies the socio-ecology of urban gardens in the California central coast with special interests in biological pest control, community and population ecology, landscape ecology, and food justice. The ladybugs are already home!
You can find information & publications about "BUGS" (Biodiversity in Urban Gardens) at https://www.urbangardenecology.com/. This includes the B...2021-05-0353 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgEnvironmental Literacy for K-12 Students, with Amity Sandage, Santa Cruz County Office of EducationHost Ronnie Lipschutz speaks with Amity Sandage, environmental literacy coordinator for Santa Cruz County Office of Education. Sandage leads a countywide effort to build environmental literacy by increasing student access to outdoor learning. She also supports teachers in using local environmental connections to increase relevance of core classes and to create opportunities for civic and environmental action. You can learn more about the state's environmental literacy goals in "A Blueprint For Environmental Literacy: Educating Every California Student In, About, and For the Environment" (2016).
Previous broadcasts of Sustainability Now! are archived here, on KSQD.org and on Pocket C...2021-02-2457 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgReconnecting with Nature through Ecospirtuality: A Conversation with Dr. Michelle MerrillJoin host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with anthropologist Dr. Michelle Merrill, whose teaching and counseling experience led her to establish Novasutras, an egalitarian spiritual movement with scientific sensibilities. Novasutras responds to the need for spiritual community centered on the biggest challenge humanity currently faces: how do we help people through the transition from an “Industrial Growth Society” to an “environmentally sustainable, socially just and spiritually fulfilling human presence on the planet“?
You can hear previous broadcasts of Sustainability Now! here on Anchor, at KSQD.org and on Pocket Casts, Google Podcasts and Spotify.
Sustainability Now! is...2021-02-0856 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgW(h)ither California & the Nation? A Conversation with State Senator John LairdRadio Show #37, January 24, 2021: Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with newly-elected California State Senator John Laird, to talk about energy, resources, environment and politics, in the state and the country, and his hopes and dreams for the State Senate. Laird’s political career began in 1981, on the Santa Cruz City Council, and included stints in the State Assembly and Jerry Brown’s second administration as Secretary of Natural Resources. He has just begun his term in office and represents Senate District 17, which includes Santa Cruz and San Luis Obispo Counties in their entirety, as well as portions of Monterey and...2021-01-2553 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgAre we Becoming “Plastic People of the Universe” Or, What does “biodegradable” really mean?Radio Show #35, December 27, 2020: As you may have read in a number of places, not only is the ocean full of plastic, we are literally living in an ocean of plastic microparticles falling from the sky. Before you know it, we will all be “Plastic People of the Universe.”
On this show, Sustainability Now! addresses this and related topics. Ronnie Lipschutz and Kevin Bell, co-founder and co-director of the Sustainable Systems Research Foundation in Santa Cruz, discuss the biodegradability of plastics and which ones don’t really break down. Along with a raft of SSRF volunteers and interns, Bell has been...2020-12-2857 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgEnvironmental Justice through Building Green, Healthy and Sustainable CommunitiesRadio Show #34: Sunday, December 13th, 5-6 PM Join Host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Darryl Molina Sarmiento, Executive Director for Communities for a Better Environment, a 40-year-old environmental justice organization with offices in both Southern and Northern California. The mission of CBE is to build people’s power in California’s communities of color and low-income communities to achieve environmental health and justice by preventing and reducing pollution and building green, healthy and sustainable communities and environments. CBE provides residents in heavily polluted urban communities in California with organizing skills, leadership training and legal, scientific and technical assistance, so that they ca...2020-12-1458 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgSustainability Now! Permaculture and Regenerative Agriculture on a Small FarmRadio Show #33: Host Ronnie Lipschutz and Dave Blume of Blume Distillation do a walking interview and tour of Whiskey Hill Farm, its permaculture and regenerative agriculture practices and technological innovations connecting alcohol distillation and organic agriculture. Whiskey Hill Farm is a 14-acre organic farm on Calabasas Road near Watsonville that employs poly-cropping, permaculture techniques in six large greenhouses to create “food forests” of multi-layered polyculture. Dave is CEO and Director of Research and Development at Blume Distillation and Whiskey Hill Farm. He is author of the critically acclaimed book Alcohol Can be a Gas! and has been engaged in one sort of far...2020-12-0155 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgElectric Vehicles on the Road and in Our FutureRadio Show #32. In September 2020, California Governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order requiring that by 2035 all new cars and passenger trucks sold in the state will have to be zero-emission vehicles, producing no greenhouse gases. While there are various types of zero-emission power plants in existence and on design boards, most of these will probably be electric vehicles, or EVs. This goes along with a parallel push to electrify the state by 2045. Getting from here to there will be no easy task.
Host Ronnie Lipschutz speaks with Beverly DesChaux, President of the Electric Auto Association of CA C...2020-11-1659 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgForests and species after wildfires & climate changeRadio Show #31. Host Ronnie Lipschutz speaks with Dr. Joseph Stewart, a conservation biologist with special interests in biogeography, prediction, demography, ecophysiology, and climate change. He received his PhD in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology from UCSC in 2018 and is now a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy. He works with the US Forest Service and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection on forest regeneration after wildfires and the impacts of climate change on biodiversity and species migration. You can find more about his work at http://stewartecology.org/ and https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=5fMCYtEAAA...2020-11-0258 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgClean Water as a Human RightRadio Show #30, October 18, 2020. Did you know that Section 106.3 of the California Water Code states that “every human being has the right to safe, clean, affordable, and accessible water adequate for human consumption, cooking, and sanitary purposes.” Host Ronnie Lipschutz talks with Mayra Hernandez, a community organizer at the Community Water Center in Watsonville, about safe water and the human right to it. The Community Water Center works towards realizing the Human Right to Water for all communities in California through education, organizing, and advocacy. The Center has offices in Visalia, Sacramento and Watsonville.2020-10-2057 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgHealthy Eating and Economic Justice in the Pajaro ValleyRadio Show #28, September 20, 2020. Host Ronnie Lipschutz welcomes his guests, Mireya Gomez-Contreras and Ana Rasmussen, codirectors of Esperanza Community Farms. Esperanza Community Farms is a system-changing, sustainable community agriculture project focused entirely and directly on increasing food security and good health among low-income families from under-resourced communities in the Pajaro Valley. ECF cultivates fresh, pesticide-free, culturally preferred vegetables and fruit varieties, then deliver bi-weekly boxes of produce directly to members’ homes via a subsidized Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. You can find out more about Esperanza Community Farms at: https://esperanzacommunityfarms.org/ and more about sustainable urban agriculture at https://sustainablesyst...2020-09-211h 00
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgAccessory Dwelling Units in Our BackyardsSustainability Now! Show #27, September 6, 2020, Accessory Dwelling Units in Our Backyards: Host Ronnie Lipschutz and his guest, Santa Cruz architect Mark Primack, talk about how we might address the California housing crisis through construction of accessory dwelling units. Primack has lived and worked in Santa Cruz since the late 1970s, served on the City Council, written Divisible Cities: Acting Local in a Transient World and writes a regular column on local matters for The Santa Cruz Sentinel (for example, here and here). Additional resources on ADUs are available at SSRF's "ADU Resources" page.2020-09-0759 min
Sustainability Now! on KSQD.orgEnvironmental Art in Public SpacesSustainability Now! #24, July 26, 2020. Environmental Art in Built & Natural Landscapes, with Marisha Farnsworth. “Environmental artists seek to investigate our human relationship with the environment through embedding their artistic practice within it” (“The Art Story”). Learn about the practice of environmental art on Sustainability Now! in this conversation between host Ronnie Lipschutz and environmental artist Marisha Farnsworth. She is an Oakland-based artist, whose large-scale public space interventions explore future ecosystems, infrastructural utopias and the social and ecological implications of materiality in the built environment. Her work has been exhibited at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the Venice Biennale and is in the...2020-07-2657 min