Sustainability Now! on KSQD.org

What if humanity could take a giant step forward towards a climate transformation? We are rebroadcasting Christine Barrington's October 12, interview with Dr. Delton Chen, Founder of the Global Carbon Reward along with Renegade Economist, Della Duncan, who together will headline at a November 2 event at the Resource Center for Non-Violence called Funding for the Future: New Ways to Value Life on o...

Farming is tough enough as it is, but when farmers face the loss of organic certification due to climate-related disasters and wildfires, what can they do? Join Host Ronnie Lipschutz in a discussion with Amber Schat and David Obermiller speak about their experience with such challenges and programs that address them. Amber Schat is a Wildfire Resilience Specialist with the Community Alliance...

Open Farm Tours is back and happening October 8th and 9th! Fifteen south county farms are participating and all are family owned, organic and sustainable. Join host Ronnie Lipschutz and his guests, Penny Ellis, Paul Towers and David Blume. They will talk about the current state of farming in Santa Cruz County and Open Farm Tours. Ellis is the founder and coordinator of Open Farms Tour and organize...

Join Host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Dr. Sharachchandra Lele who is coleader of an Expert Writing Group of natural scientists, social scientists and humanities scholars who have published a “Letter to Fellow Citizens of Earth ,” “an urgent call to our global neighbours, to acknowledge the climate crisis, make personal and collective commitments in line with differences in privileges...

In the Shadow of Climate Change: What can the Children Tell Us? with Filmmaker Eric Thiermann Join Host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with filmmaker and media producer Eric Thiermann . During his 40-year career, Thiermann has filmed, produced and directed hundreds of media projects in over 40 countries. These include " Art and the Prison Crisis ," "The Last Epidemic: Medical Consequences of...

Well, Well, Well! Clean Water for Everyone! with Chelsea Tu of Monterey Waterkeeper On Sustainability Now! Sunday, August 21st, 5-6 PM, on KSQD 90.7 FM and KSQD.org Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Chelsea Tu, the new executive director of a new local non-profit, Monterey Waterkeeper, which combines education, science-based policy advocacy and legal action to ensure that all comm...

How a Republican Grandfather Helped Legalize Abortion with Dr. Caroline Tracey On Sustainability Now! Sunday, August 7th, 5-6 PM, on KSQD 90.7 FM and KSQD.org These days, one’s political affiliation is often a clue to one’s position on abortion (and vice versa).  That was not always the case.  During the 1950s and into the 1970s, Republicans were often supporters of abortion as a form of...

Join host Ronnie Lipschutz in this Blast from the Past (originally broadcast on May 23, 2021) as he speaks with Dr. Suzanne Simard, Professor of Forestry and Conservation Sciences about the social life of trees.   Her 2021 book, Finding the Mother Tree--Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest , has just been published.  According to Simard, communication between trees happens not in th...

Have you procrastinated on planting a garden or been too busy?  Do you think it’s too late and you’ll have to wait until next year?  Not on the Central Coast!  Join Host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Renee Shepherd , founder of Renee’s Garden and seed entrepreneur extraordinaire.  Not only do we talk about what can be sown now to be ripe and ready late summer and fal...

Are elephants people, too?  Do they have rights?  A recent ruling by a New York state court said that “elephants may be intelligent and deserving of compassion” but that Happy, an elephant confined in the Bronx Zoo, is not a person.   A growing number of human people around the world disagree and argue that both animals and nature have rights . Listen to a Sustainability Now! conver...

Sustainability Now! co-host Brooke Wright speaks with Tahra Goraya , the new President & CEO of the tri-county Monterey Bay Economic Partnership (MBEP).  MBEP works on housing , broadband access, workforce development , renewable energy and climate policy , water conservation,  regional recycling, transportation and more. We will talk with Tahra about her journey into this role and a...

Science by the People! Biodiversity & Community Science with Rebecca Johnson & Alison Young, California Academy of Sciences On Sustainability Now! Sunday, May 15th, 5-6 PM on KSQD 90.7 FM and KSQD.org Join Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Rebecca Johnson and Alison Young , Co-Directors of the Center for Biodiversity and Community Science at the California Academy of Sciences . Comm...

In the Spring, Elephant Seals turn to love...and fighting... and feeding... and  laying around in the sun. We are just past the prime viewing season at Año Nuevo State Park, during which the two-ton male seals fight bloody battles, the females give birth to young conceived the prior year, the adults mate, and the weaner pups look cute. Join Sustainability Now! hosts Ronnie Lipschutz and Brook...

Electrify California! with Benjamin Eichert On Sustainability Now! Sunday, April 3rd, 5-6 PM on KSQD 90.7 FM and KSQD.org Hosts Brooke Wright and Ronnie Lipschutz speak with Benjamin Eichert, Director of   Let’s Green California —an initiative launched by the Romero Institute in Santa Cruz to create a California Green New Deal and get the core legislation passed into law by September 30, 2022...

A Spectre is Haunting Europe: Nuclear Winter with Dr. Alan Robock & Dr. Joshua Coupe On Sustainability Now! Sunday, March 20th, 5-6 PM on KSQD 90.7 FM and KSQD.org “A spectre is haunting Europe,” but this time it is not communism. Vladimir Putin has put Russia’s nuclear forces on “special combat readiness,” bringing back memories and fears for some of us, reminiscent of the darkest days of the...

What are Seabed Mineral Nodules and Who Wants Them? with Emily Jeffers, Center for Biological Diversity California Assembly Member Luz Rivas recently introduced a bill to ban mining of seabed nodules on 2,500 square miles of sea floor off the coast of California.  According to the San Francisco Chronicle , critics say such mining would “kill marine life, damage habitats and pollute surroundin...

Sustainability Now! Sunday, February 20th: From Food Waste to Soil at Hard Core Compost Join Ronnie Lipschutz for a trip to Hard Core Compost . My guests will be Kumi Maxson and Zav Hershfield, two members of the Hard Core Compost collective. Hard Core uses cargo bicycles to haul food scraps from home kitchens to their composting site on the Westside of Santa Cruz, next to the Homeless Garden Proj...

Join host Ronnie Lipschutz in a conversation with Josefina Lara Chavez, Farm-to-Market specialist and Senior Manager, Latinx Farmer Program for the Community Alliance for Family Farmers in Davis. Our focus will be on Latinx farmers in the Monterey Bay Region and their struggle to survive and thrive in the face of an agricultural system that takes little account of them.  Lara Chavez a fourth...

January 2022 is Solar Energy Month on Sustainability Now!  On Sunday, January 23rd, hosts Ronnie Lipschutz and Brooke Wright welcome Dr. Ahmad Faruqui , an energy economist who has been deeply involved in solar electricity issues in California. We talk about the pending decision by the California Public Utilities Commission to reduce compensation for rooftop solar electricity and to charge ho...

Join hosts Brooke Wright and Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Tim Goncharoff, who knows everything there is to know about waste management.  He has had a long and distinguished career in community service, locally and statewide, most recently as a Zero Waste Programs Manager at the County of Santa Cruz. He helped bring to fruition ordinances on composting, drugs and sharps, plastic ba...

Bees are in danger; what can we do? Tune into Sustainability Now! to hear a conversation with Eve Bratman, an Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at Franklin & Marshall College, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  Bratman is author of Governing the Rainforest: Sustainable Development Politics in the Amazon. She is currently writing a book entitled Pollen Nation: A journey into the polit...

Central California just experienced one of the three most intense storms since the 1950s, but was that prelude to feast or famine this coming water year?  No one knows, but planning for the worst-case scenario is the prudent thing to do. Join Sustainability Now! hosts Brooke Wright and Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Sierra Ryan, the recently appointed Water Resources Manager for the...

Join hosts Ronnie Lipschutz and Brooke Wright for a conversation with Fred Keeley, a well-known political person about town and across the Monterey Bay Region.  He has a long and distinguished career in community service. In the 1980s and 1990s, Keeley served two terms as County Supervisor and three in the State Assembly. Following that, he was Santa Cruz County treasurer for 10 years. Curren...

Have you ever wondered what is going on upstream when you cross the Highway 1 bridge over Elkhorn Slough?  Or why there are marshes on both sides of the highway?  Or where all the birds and kayakers come from? Join SN! hosts Ronnie Lipschutz and Brooke Wright for a conversation with Dr. Kerstin Wasson, Research Coordinator at the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve and adj...

Join hosts Ronnie Lipschutz and Brooke Wright for a conversation with Maya Elson, Executive Director of CoREnewal (formerly known as the Amazon MycoRenewal Project).  She is a founding member of the Radical Mycology network, she’s worked on various fungal cultivation and educational projects in Olympia, WA and the San Francisco Bay area. Maya is a teacher, naturalist, mycologist, organizer an...