Sustainability Now! from KSQD Radio

The southern sea otter is a keystone species in kelp forest communities, acting to increase the species diversity and providing ecosystem services. Despite federal protection since 1977, the southern sea otter population has struggled to recover and there are only an estimated 2,800 sea otters in California. Listen to a conversation with Dr. James Estes, […]

Sunday, February 21st: Host 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...

Join 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 [&#8...

Sunday, January 24th, 5-6 PM 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 […]

Hear Jeffrey Downing, Professor of Art at San Francisco State University and Artist-in-Residence at the Marin Museum of Contemporary Art talk about how his work connects culture and nature. Downing was featured in the San Francisco Chronicle a few weeks ago for his environmental sculpture in Richardson Bay, designed to mark today’s king tides, which […]

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. […]

Sustainability Now! Sunday, December 13th, 5-6 PM.  Host Ronnie Lipschutz speaks with 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 [&#823...

November 29, 5-6 PM: Join host Ronnie Lipschutz and Dave Blume of Blume Distillation for 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, […]

Sustainability Now!, November 1, 5-6 PM: 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. […]

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 […]

Radio 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 […]

Radio Show #28 (click on the link to access the podcast), 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...

Radio Show #28 (click on this link for podcast), September 20, 2020, Healthy Eating and Economic Justice in the Pajaro Valley. 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 securi...

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, […]

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 […]

Join host Ronnie Lipschutz and Dr. Rupa Basu, Chief of the Air and Climate Epidemiology Section at California Office on Environmental Health Hazards in the California Environmental Protection Agency and a lecturer in the UC Berkeley School of Public Health.  She is coauthor of a recently-published review article in JAMA Open Network about the effects […]

Radio show #23, July 12, 2020, with Len Beyea, addresses sustainable community planning in Santa Cruz and cities in general. Len writes that “The modern city has grown up during the era of the automobile, resulting in sprawling land use, paving over of up to 60% of urban space, loss of productive farm and range […]

  Radio Show #22: Host Ronnie Lipschutz speaks with Kalina Browne, a 2019-20 RAY Diversity Fellow at the Ocean Conservancy to learn about Climate Change on the California Coast and Black Lives Matter. She grew up on the Caribbean island of St Vincent and the Grenadines. She holds a B.S. in Environmental Geoscience from the […]

Radio Show #21, June 13, 2020, with Jo Chamberlain, Executive Director of the Coastside Land Trust in Half Moon Bay. Jo is a graduate of College Eight (aka, Rachel Carson College) at UC Santa Cruz and was provost’s assistant there for several years during the past decade.  She has served on several non-profit boards, including […]

Radio Show #20, May 31, 2020, with Rick Longinotti, a member of and spokesperson for the Campaign for Sustainable Transportation, a “group of volunteers dedicated to making Santa Cruz County a place where everyone in our diverse community can access their needs and activities in a way that is safe, affordable, convenient and sustainable for […]

Radio Show #19, May 17, 2020, with Dr. Ann Lopez, Founder and Director of the Center for Farmworker Families in Watsonville, California.  Lopez is emerita professor at San Jose City College, and holds degrees in biology and a PhD in Environmental Studies from UC Santa Cruz. The Center works with binational farmworkers and their families […]

Radio Show #18, May 3, 2020, with Valentin Lopez, Chair of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band of the Costanoan/Ohlone Indians and President of the Amah Mutsun Land Trust.  The Amah Mutsun are descendants of the more than 20 politically distinct indigenous peoples of the territories ranging from Año Nuevo to the greater Monterey Bay area. […]

Radio Show #17, April 19, 2020, with Rachel Kippen, Executive Director of O’Neill Sea Odyssey and a columnist for the Santa Cruz Sentinel. Rachel was previously Director of Programs at Save Our Shores. She has also worked as a marine science educator, a kayak guide and a whale tour naturalist. She holds two degrees in […]

Radio Show #17, April 19, 2020, with Rachel Kippen, Executive Director of O’Neill Sea Odyssey and a columnist for the Santa Cruz Sentinel. Rachel was previously Director of Programs at Save Our Shores. She has also worked as a marine science educator, a kayak guide and a whale tour naturalist. She holds two degrees in […]

Radio Show #16, April 5, 2020, with KSQD engineer Emily Donham, a 5th-year PhD candidate in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at UCSC.  Emily’s research focuses on how sea urchins, which graze on kelp forests, may be vulnerable to ocean acidication and global warming.  Emily is the producer of “Santa Cruz Naturalist,” which airs on Tuesdays […]