EcoJustice Radio

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...

For over two thousand years we have overlooked the scientific and cultural impact of human feeling. USC neuroscientist Dr. Antonio Damasio argues feelings and emotions are what make up human intelligence, consciousness, and the capacity for cultural creation. Thus when we look to engineering and policy solutions to our ecological collapse based on computational brainpower and artificial intelligen...

The fossil fuel industry has been promoting hydrogen as a reliable, low carbon, next-generation fuel to power cars, heat homes, and generate electricity. However, currently 99% of the annual supply of hydrogen comes from fracked methane gas. So will switching to hydrogen only lock us into continued fossil fuel use and additional investments in fossil fuel infrastructure? Proponents argue that when...

Devil's urine. That's what Dupont employees called PFAS. These toxic, human made forever chemicals are now in the blood of almost every human on the planet. They are found in drinking water around the world, even Antarctica. And they are used in a broad range of consumer products, like non-stick cookware, stain-resistant clothing, waterproof items, dental floss, and even medical masks. These are o...

The proliferation of suburban sprawl, built where wildlife live and thrive, threatens the safety and genetic diversity of wild animals and plant species. Migrating wildlife of all shapes and sizes must contend with humans driving on the 4.8 million miles of roads in the US, facing the danger of colliding with vehicles. Aside from driving less, one strategy to mitigate these accidents has gained bi...

In 1830 the U.S. government implemented the Indian Removal Act, which led to the infamous Trail of Tears (1837-39), the removal or forced relocation of the Cherokee Nation. Thus, roughly 15,000 Cherokees were removed from their homes in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee and other states under both U.S. military force and state militias. Despite these acts of genocide and the resulting cr...

What would it take to transform a 100 year old house sitting near oil fields into the most sustainable clean energy zero-emissions house? That was the challenge our guest, architect Avideh Haghighi, took up with her personal project she named ZeroHouz [http://www.zerohouz.com]. We discuss the dangers of gas appliances inside homes and why people should consider replacing - and how to replace - the...

The UN has classified at least 40% of the Earth’s land as degraded. That figure is estimated to be somewhere between 1 billion, even up to 6 billion hectares of degraded land. Much if not most of this degradation can be attributed to human activity, particularly that of modern agriculture, its impacts & methodologies. Land degradation affects the physical health of all life, biodiversity, the nutr...

The Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Texas face a petrochemical and fracked gas export boom. Super-heat-charged hurricanes strike almost every year. As a result, Black, Indigenous, People of Color, and Low-Income Communities, face an interrelated number of issues including environmental justice; voting suppression; and access to housing, healthcare, clean water, energy, and safe fresh produce, just to...

Native people inhabited the Connecticut River Valley of western Massachusetts for more than 10,000 years. It is the homeland of many First People, all related to one another. They are called the Sokoki, Pocumtuck, Nonotuck, Woronoco, and Agawam. Many other tribes visited and still visit this Native homeland. Among them are the Abenaki, Nipmuck, Wampanoag, Narragansett, Mohegan, Pequot, Mohican, an...

Microplastics, small, micro sized plastic fragments are showing up in our water sources, rain, drinking water, and beverages like beer. It is in food, salt, and seafood. Moreover, it has recently been found in human breast milk, placentas, human lungs, and blood. One report indicated that blue whales are consuming 10 million pieces of microplastic particles a day. As plastic fragments, it continue...

The Earth’s water cycle, carbon cycle, and nutrient cycle depend on a healthy soil sponge, which is created and maintained by the ongoing work of other species. By restoring and nurturing the soil sponge, humanity has a unique opportunity to unify and come into balance with all life, particularly the world’s essential workers: Plants, fungi, bacteria, worms, insects, and other often unseen undergr...

Just as we analyze the impacts of our food and energy use, equally important is understanding from where our clothes originate, their environmental and social impacts, and how to dispose of them in an environmentally responsible manner. According to a 2017 Ellen MacArthur Foundation report, every second on this planet, the equivalent of a garbage truck full of clothing and textiles is landfilled o...

Some 12,000 years ago, our ancestors in the Fertile Crescent turned from being hunter-gatherers to farming. Today, agriculture consumes one-third of global land use and food production creates roughly15% of global greenhouse gas emissions. We have become dependent upon farming; and how we choose to farm now, will surely determine the future of humanity. By increasing biodiversity through using cov...

The poetry of Matt Sedillo [https://www.mattsedillo.com/] -- a fearless, challenging and at times even confrontational blend of humor, history and political theory -- is at times a shot in the arm of pure revolutionary adrenaline. It also is a sobering call for the fundamental restructuring of society in the interest of people not profits. Passionate, analytical, humorous and above all sincere, Ma...