Sustainability Now! from KSQD Radio

Do We Dominate Nature because We Fear Death? With Professor James Rowe, University of Victoria   Why 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 […]

Is Solar Energy a Commons Belonging to Everyone or Private Property only for the Well-off? with Professor Kathryn Milun of the Solar Commons Project at the University of Minnesota   The light and energy from the sun falls on us all, humans, animals and plants.  That light is what sustains life on Earth.  But that […]

 What do students eat? Salads! with staff and students from Esperanza Community Farms and Pajaro Valley High School Sustainability Now!  Sunday, April 28th, 5-6 PM on KSQD Students 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 […]

  Being in the World with Bees (or, What is it to Be a Bee?)  with Professor Eve Bratman   on Sustainability Now!  Sunday, April 14th 5-6 PM on KSQD Bees are in danger; what can we do? Tune into a Sustainability Now! rebroadcast from 2021 to hear a conversation with Eve Bratman, an Associate […]

The Green Energy Resource Rush & the American West With Professor Dustin Mulvaney Solar 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 […]

The Climate Change Resilient Vegetable Garden With Kim Stoddart   on Sustainability Now! Sunday, March 17th, 2024, 5-6 PM KSQD 90.7 FM, KSQT 89.7 FM, K207FE(FX) 89.5 FM  and KSQD.org All 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 […]

Can we square our need to consume with sustainability? with Dr. Jean Boucher, James Hutton Institute, Aberdeen, Scotland On Sustainability Now! Sunday, March 3rd, 5-6 PM We 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, […]

Theresa Tagging an Elephant Seal (NMFS permit 19108) The Elephant Seals are Back! with Dr. Theresa Keates   On Sustainability Now! Sunday, February 18th, 5-6 PM The elephant seals are back! The elephant seals have made their annual trip back to the California Coast!  During the winter months, Elephant Seals turn to love…and fighting… and […]

California Against the Sea With Rosanna Xia of the LA Times On Sustainability Now!  Sunday, February 4th, 2024, 5-6 PM Climate 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 […]

The Path to an Energy Efficient, Electric Future with Amory Lovins on Sustainability Now! Sunday, January 21st, 2024, 5-6 PM Energy has been with us for a long time and, over the past 100 years, fossil fuels have been cheap and plentiful.  Now we are going to have to pay the piper if we want […]

What is in Your Water? Nitrate Pollution on the California Central Coast with Chelsea Tu of Monterey Waterkeeper Sustainability now! Sunday, January 7th, 2024, 5-6 PM Monterey Waterkeeper is part of a coalition of organizations seeking to reduce nitrate pollution in the region’s groundwater. Nitrate contamination, the result of over-application of fertilizers, can cause the […]

Firepower & Global Security: Past, Present and Future, with Professor Simon Dalby On Sustainability Now! December 24th, 5-6 PM on KSQD 90.7 FM and KSQD.org streaming on the internet According 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 […]

Will Small Modular Reactors Save Nuclear Power? with Prof. Allison Macfarlane, former chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Nuclear 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) […]

Would the world beat a path to your door for a fully compostable plastic? with Raegen Kelly of Better for All on Sustainability Now!  Sunday, November 26th, 5-6 PM Long-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, […]

Replanting Burned over Sequoia Groves in the Sierras Sustainability Now! Sunday, November 12th, 5-6 PM Sequoias 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 […]

The Life Beneath Our Feet with Dr. Chelsea Carey, Point Blue Conservation Science On Sustainability Now! Sunday, October 29th, 5-6 PM When 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, […]

“You’re going to have to change the priorities of your life if you love this planet” With Dr. Helen Caldicott   Blast from the Past! On Sustainability Now! Sunday, October 15th, 5-6 PM Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for this Blast from the Past with Dr. Helen Caldicott.  According to Dr. Caldicott, the nuclear doomsday clock […]

Hitman for the Kindness Club with Captain Paul Watson   For 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 […]

Why are some people so up in arms about CEQA? with Professor Deborah Sivas, Stanford Law School   What 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 […]

Have 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 […]

How Kinship Practices Could Foster New Relations between Humans and Nature, with Prof. Rosalind Warner of the Earth Systems Governance Project The 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. […]

Does Nature have Rights? with Katie Surma of Inside Climate News More 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 […]

When Public Works is Homeland Security, with Jackie McCloud When 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.  […]

Can Green Manure Cover Crops End Drought in Africa? With Roland Bunch Join 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, […]

Innovation and Entrepreneurship at UC Santa Cruz, With Nada Miljkovic   We 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 […]