Sustainability In Your Ear

What would the world look like if we could turn post-consumer waste, including food scraps, paper, packaging and other materials into a bio-based plastic? Tato Bigio, cofounder and CEO of Tel Aviv-based UBQ Materials, which makes a low-carbon bioplastic using the waste headed for landfills. It's UBQ material can be used to make rigid plastic components for buildings, shipping palettes, and even fo...

Director Joe Gantz's new film, The Race to Save the World, captures the energy and personal emotional challenges faced by people to take direct action as part of the climate protest movement. It follows the stories of protesters who blocked oil trains and oil drilling equipment in Washington state; Michael Foster, the activist who shut down the Keystone pipeline in North Dakota; Aji Piper, a young...

Earth911 talks with oceanographer John Englander, author of the new book Moving to Higher Ground: Rising Sea Level and the Path Forward. His 2014 TED Talk provides stark examples of close relationship between CO2, climate temperature and coastlines -- Florida was half the size it is now during the last warm period in Earth's history and twice the size it is today during the last Ice Age. In his ne...

Author Kathy Freston joins Earth911 to talk about her new book with co-author Gene Stone, 72 Reasons to Be Vegan: Why Plant-Based. Why Now. The book explains the benefits of plant-based eating and exposes the unhealthy, often gross truth about our inhumane industrial meat and dairy complex. Freston explains the health and environmental impacts of the meat and dairy industry in detail in the book a...

Omvits is a four-year-old British nutritional supplements company with a deep commitment to sustainability. Earth911 talks with Shameek Upadhya, a cofounder of the company about why they focused on making vegan vitamins, including an algae-produced Omega-3 oil supplement and vegan Vitamin D, and delivering it in the most sustainable packaging possible. Omega-3 oils are difficult to get in a vegan...

On World Water Day, we talk water recycling with Stephen Katz, Market Development Manager at SUEZ Water Technologies & Solutions. The company, which built the Suez Canal in the 1860s is a leader in water recycling, particularly in industrial settings but also, increasingly, to augment local drinking water supplies. More than 2.7 billion people around the world experience water scarcity each year a...

Danny O'Malley, founder and CEO of plant-based meat alternative company Before the Butcher joins Earth911's Mitch Ratcliffe to talk about transforming the carbon footprint of  human food systems. The company's UNCUT and Mainstream branded vegan, gluten- and GMO-free soy-based meat alternatives to beef, chicken and pork in a variety of forms -- patties, chunks, tips and ground for use in recipes, a...

The energy crises of the 1970s have continued to shape U.S. energy and climate policy ever since, and historian Jay Hakes was part of the story. Earth911 talks with the author of Energy Crises: Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Hard Choices in the 1970s about how Presidents Nixon and Carter responded to the oil embargoes and Middle East conflicts that led to long gas lines and a focus on keeping oil prices...

Earth911 talks with Jennifer Maynard, CEO and cofounder of Nutrition For Longevity, a healthy and environmentally-friendly meal plan subscription service for vegan and pescatarian eaters. Most of the food is grown using regenerative farming techniques in New Jersey. Jennifer contributed an article to Earth911 last week, Zombie Soil: The Harmful Result of Industrial Farming, and we began with a con...

Carbon capture technology is a keystone investment in restoring the climate to pre-industrial CO2 levels. Earth911 talks with Rick Parnell, CEO of the Foundation for Climate Restoration about his recent Newsweek and Washington Post op-eds calling for investments in the technology and setting a price for carbon. He and his co-authors, Kathleen Rogers of EarthDay.org and Sir David King of the Center...

Earth911 talks with Tessa Wardley, author of a handy new guide to reducing your environmental impact, The Eco Hero Handbook: Simple Solutions to Tackle Eco-Anxiety. Young and older people are increasingly battling a paralyzing fear for the future, known as eco-anxiety, but they don't have to feel trapped. Taking the time to do research about the carbon footprint of your daily activities to make si...

Every region has its unique sustainable living challenges. Earth911 talks with Dorie Morales, publisher of Green Living Magazine based in Scottsdale, Arizona. The desert region last year broke records last year with 16 days and nights when the temperature stayed above 90F degrees. The region already sees 175 days a year of daily highs above 90F degree days. Morales shares how residents struggle to...

Waste at restaurants and grocery stores contributes to society's overall food waste problem. Josh Goodman started PourMyBeer in 2012 to make beer and beverage dispensing a self-service experience. Now, the company helps serve beer, wine and soft drinks to customers at Whole Foods, Dave & Buster's, Caesars Entertainment locations and military bases in 24 countries. It also won an investment from Co...

As shopping from home grows, packaging waste is piling up. Loop offers an alternative, a delivery service for food and home goods that picks up used product packaging, cleans and the reuses it to eliminate trash. Earth911 talks with Heather Crawford, global vice president of marketing and e-commerce at Loop, about the company's expansion into Canada. Loop now offers service in the U.S., U.K. and F...

Environmental doom hangs over the youngest generations, who need a clear path to climate recovery to regain their optimism. Earth911 talks with Dr. Erica Dodds, chief operating officer of the Foundation for Climate Restoration, a young expert in climate anxiety and international development working to raise awareness about direct air carbon capture technologies. Her organization believes that aggr...

As more people look to move out of cities, a new, environmentally-friendly communities may be their next home. Earth911 talks with Scott Austin, a cofounder of the Olivette Riverside Community and Farm, a 346-acre planned "agrihood" along the French Broad River near Asheville, N.C. His team built "a community in which our interactions with water, nature, food, community and lifelong learning are s...

Earth911 talks with Hannah Bacon, a 27-year-old woman who decided to start a seven-month journey across the U.S. to raise awareness about climate change. She will walk from California to Virginia, and we caught up to her in New Mexico after two months on the road. Hannah was inspired by David Wallace-Wells’ book, "The Uninhabited Earth," while flying cross-country. She realized her non-essential t...

Join another Earth911 conversation about the critical divides in U.S. politics and climate policy with Kevin Wilhelm of Sustainable Business Consulting and Danielle Butcher, Chief Operating Officer, Executive Vice President of the young-conservative organization, the American Conservation Coalition. We discuss the differences in the right- and left-leaning climate policy debate, the role of genera...

Earth911 talks with Dr. William Ripple, Distinguished Professor of Ecology at Oregon State University and director of the Alliance of World Scientists, who is the lead author of a call for action in response to the catastrophic climate damage the world experience during 2020 in Scientific American. Pointing to record global temperatures, a historically long hurricane season that caused more than $...

Making home energy use improvements can be challenging without information about how the furnace, appliances, refrigerators, and other electronics around the house consume power. The Sense Energy Monitor brings all that data, and information about your utility, solar, and comparable home energy use to your smartphone to help you reduce your carbon footprint and electric bill. Earth911 talks to Sen...

Cyanobacteria algal blooms are a growing problem worldwide. As humans use more fertilizer and the climate warms, freshwater lakes are more likely to be overwhelmed by these essential but deadly bacteria. Earth911 talks with Eyal Harel, CEO of Berlin-based BlueGreen Water Technologies Ltd about the causes and adverse impacts of blue-green algal blooms. Cyanobacteria produce oxygen during the day, b...

Environment and Earth Sciences at Victoria University, Wellington New Zealand, joins Earth911 to discuss the prospects for coastal flooding due to climate change. He shares troubling but important insights into how much seas have already risen since the 1800s -- about one foot -- and the potential for up to two feet more flooding in the coming century. He also reports the UNIPCC will acknowledge t...

Catherine Brahic, the environment editor at The Economist, joins Earth911's Mitch Ratcliffe to discuss her November 16, 2020, editorial, "The world could turn a corner on climate change." She explains the United Nations' upcoming COP26 meeting, when world leaders will renew and update their climate change commitments, was postponed to Fall 2021. Brahic shares her assessments of climate progress to...

Earth911 talks with Paul Bloom, vice president of Sustainable Materials at Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), about the food and plant-based maker’s sustainability goals and changes to how they make food and plant-based products. He shares with Earth911’s Mitch Ratcliffe how ADM has invested to create sustainable alternatives to synthetic and petroleum-based materials. Bloom leads the company’s efforts...

Todd Myers, Director of the Center for the Environment at the conservative Washington Policy Center joins Kevin Wilhelm, CEO of Sustainable Business Consulting, and Earth911's Mitch Ratcliffe to discuss the common planks of a renewable energy policy shared by both sides of the political divide. Myers in the author of Eco-Fads: How the Rise of Trendy Environmentalism Is Harming the Environment, as...