EcoJustice Radio

Dr. Scott Coffin joined us in this encore presentation from 2022. As a toxicologist and Research Scientist at California State Water Resources Control Board, he speaks about how microplastics are entering our environment, how to assess risk and implement precautionary solutions. Microplastics, small, micro-sized plastic fragments are showing up in our water sources, rain, drinking water, and bever...

Green Building. Organic Architecture. Regenerative Design. These concepts have come to prominence recognizing the built environment as one of the largest contributors of carbon dioxide emissions, using toxic materials that can damage human health as well as pollute the environment. Following Nature's design process, our guest this week has developed an organic approach to design with an eye toward...

We have long been hearing about various threats to bees and other pollinators, including Colony Collapse Disorder, new pathogens and bee pests, environmental and nutritional stressors, and pesticides such as neonicotinoids. Impacts to Queen Bees and their genetics are also a concern. According to the non-profit organization, HoneyLove, cities are apparently the last refuge for the Honeybee. HoneyL...

For years, Monsanto declared that their product Roundup, the world's most widely used weed killer, was safe. But in 2015, scientific studies concluded that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, is probably carcinogenic. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Monsanto disagreed with the findings, as scientists worked to understand the link between glyphosate and cancer. Dr. Chadi Nab...

Leadership: what does it mean to lead in our times? Perhaps our times are requesting that we all express leadership in our own unique ways and forms. Etymology of the word leadership reveals root words that mean to go and also to guide. We might perceive leadership as going somewhere together with others, with being the important preposition. Because many of us have become jaded by modern leadersh...

Breathing clean air and drinking clean water are fundamental rights. However, these rights have been denied to many low-income communities and communities of color, who often live next to massive industrial facilities that pollute the air and water. Our guest is Dr. Mustafa Santiago Ali [https://www.mustafasantiagoali.com/] former EPA official and now Executive Vice President at the National Wildl...

While we continue to hear of and experience the perils of global heating and climate disruption, some of us fundamentally understand that the ecosystem is not broken. Rather it is human connection to Nature that is in dire need of a correction. Or better stated, a re-connection. According to the World’s Soil Resources Report from the UN of the top 10 threats to soil, soil erosion ranks number one,...

The transition from a fossil-fuel economy to a clean-energy economy is going to require the United States to build a lot of solar, wind, geothermal, energy storage and transmission and distribution systems as soon as possible. We also must consider the infrastructure necessary for building resilience and adaptation to climate change, such as sea walls, flood protection systems, and water storage s...

Water security. Water quality. Access to water. The threat of water privatization. Our relationship to water and how we value it. Ours is a future where the preciousness of water is being tested. Every drop counts. Will humanity act as if water is a gift rather than as an entitlement, a “right” or an exclusive commodity to profit from? Our guest this week, Boris Ochoa-Tocachi, CEO and Senior Hydro...

Greenhouse gases from fossil fuels, such as carbon dioxide and methane, are warming the planet. This warming is then setting in motion ice and permafrost melting, release of more greenhouse gases, more heat and storms – these are feedback loops, which then feed upon themselves, as well as interact with each other and spiral further out of control. In this show, we sat down in 2022 with Susan Gray,...

According to the LA City Sanitation District, a staggering 4,000 tons of food waste is generated in Los Angeles County on a daily basis. This food includes “dinner” scraps as well as spoiled fruit and vegetables from grocery stores and restaurants. Recently, the program Organics LA & SB1383 now requires Los Angeles residents compost their food scraps in order to reduce our mountain of organic wast...

As house prices escalate, the concept of living in smaller homes has gone viral. Whether fixed to land or portable, the tiny house movement has swept across the US. Yet, what is the day-to-day reality of living the downsized life? Our guests this week, Lindsay Wood - The Tiny Home Lady [https://www.thetinyhomelady.com/] - and Teresa Bradley from Tiny Green Adventures [https://www.youtube.com/@tiny...

On this show we feature the late writer and activist Mike Davis, labeled an “urban historian,” who further took on geography, politics, economics, sociology and literature. His focus was the dislocation and separation brought on by capitalist society: people from land, work from ownership, individuals from each other, all in the service of profit. And he showed how this dislocation resulted in cli...

In the coming decades, at least thirteen million coastal U.S. residents will have to pack their bags and move from their homes, rising sea levels and superstorms put lives at risk and cause billions of dollars in damages. In the popular tourist town of Charleston, South Carolina, climate denial, widespread gentrification, over development, and racial issues compound. The city, like so many other c...

Biodynamics emerged through the work and passions of Austrian philosopher and scientist Dr. Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925). It began with his infamous lectures in 1924 which inspired farmers to a new yet ancient way of integrating scientific understanding with a recognition of spirit in nature. Stewart Lundy, Education and Media Manager of the Josephine Porter Institute for Applied Bio-Dynamics [http:...

Multiple banks have pledged to clean up their fossil fuel funding with net-zero carbon commitments, but they continue business-as-usual, pushing for profit by championing destructive projects responsible for driving climate chaos. The 2022 annual report, Banking on Climate Chaos [http://www.bankingonclimatechaos.org], revealed that fossil fuel financing from the worlds 60 largest banks has reached...

Solar. Wind. Renewable energy. The Biden administration issued a plan that envisions the US generating 45% of its electricity from solar panels by 2050. Climate change, justice, and equity are increasingly on the hearts and minds of millions of people globally as we continue to witness imbalance upon the planet; the manifestations are glaringly obvious. Forbes magazine noted the world will likely...

We’ve been ​“saving the planet” for decades and environmental crises just continue to compound. All this Tesla driving, green-roofed corporate headquarters, and carbon trading seems to accomplish little to nothing — all while low-income communities of color continue to suffer the worst consequences. Jenny Price is an ardent advocate for increasing public environmental access, activism, and effecti...

The fashion industry contributes to roughly 10% of all global carbon emissions (releasing 1.2 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere every year). It is also the world’s second worst offender in terms of water and plastic pollution, seeing that the majority of our clothes are made from plastic and contribute to microplastic pollution. In this show, our guest Dr. Joanne Brasch, Speci...

Land Back, the movement to return the stolen lands of the USA, also known as Turtle Island, to the original Indigenous peoples who inextricably belong to them, has been accelerating for some time now. Indigenous peoples have "lost" roughly 99% of the lands they once inhabited, according to a 2021 data set published in Science. 42% of tribes in historical records have no recognized land base today....

Is a 100% clean, renewable energy future by the year 2050 possible? Our guest, Stanford Professor Mark Z. Jacobson proposes that the most efficient and socially and environmentally just way is to replace fossil fuels through a combined implementation of Wind, Water, and Solar energy solutions. Are these solutions perfect? No. However, when compared to other so-called energy solutions like nuclear,...

Sacred Sueños Reforestation Project: Off-Grid and Off-Road in the Andes A simple life. Many of us dream of this. Especially those living separated from the natural rhythms of nature in favor of endless technological conveniences and gadgetry. We are bombarded by a daily onslaught of unnatural sights, sounds, smells, and superfluous information. The fascination with what Henry David Thoreau wrote a...

From the late 1800s to the early decades of the 1900s, African Americans started to occupy and steward recreational sites and public spaces throughout the United States, and thus challenged racial hierarchies while expressing Black identity on the social landscape. In her book, ‘Living The California Dream: African American Leisure Sites During The Jim Crow Era’, our guest historian Alison Rose Je...

Glyphosate is one of the most common ingredients in herbicides, and the main ingredient in Bayer/Monsanto's infamous weedkiller: Round Up. The latter is one of the worlds most widely used herbicides with various applications including: weed control in agriculture, vegetation control, as a crop desiccant, in consumer home gardens and lawns, and in massive aerial spraying to control illegal crops. I...

Fueled by influencers, celebrities, and a wellness community, white sage has become a hot commodity from body products to the infamous smudging sticks of bundled dry leaves. However, most people are unaware that most white sage is poached from the wild and sold on the black market. White sage, also known as salvia apiana, only grows naturally from Southern California to Baja Mexico where it is sto...