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Climate Change has terrible impacts today, and youth coming of age face depressing prospects. However, they are stepping up to the challenge and could see the fruits of their efforts in a restored climate during their lifetime. Climate restoration requires extraordinary efforts of young people, who are already leading the charge. On this episode, Sustainability In Your Ear introduces another winner of the Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes, which recognizes each year a dozen youth for their innovation and action. The program considers kids between 8 and 18. In 2024, one of the remarkable individuals awarded $10,000 by the program is Varin Sikka, a 16-year-old innovator from California. Varin has invented AirCat, a groundbreaking Direct Air Capture (DAC) system designed to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere on a large scale. He's doing more than imagining the technology. Varin has a 3D-printed home version and is working with Siemens Energy after taking AirCat to the COP28 meeting in Dubai held in 2023.
Varin was motivated to develop the AirCat by the apocalyptic wildfires that brought red skies to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2020. On today's show, he shares how he came to be a 16-year-old inventor, the feelings his friends have about climate change, and the advice he would give youth who feel climate anxiety: Get involved. This year's awards will be announced in the fall. Fiction writer T.A. Barron created the prize and named the program after his mother to help inspire kids to make a positive difference in the world. You can learn more about the Gloria Barron Prize, and if you are between 8 and 18 years old, consider entering to be considered for the 2025 awards at https://barronprize.org/ Subscribe to Sustainability in Your Ear on iTunes and Apple Podcasts.Follow Sustainability in Your Ear on Spreaker, iHeartRadio, or YouTubeCheck out previous Earth911 interviews about carbon capture technologiesBest of Earth911 Podcast: Nikki Batchelor and Mike Leitch Share XPRIZE Carbon Removal ProgressEarth911 Podcast: Talking Carbon Capture Investments with Rick ParnellEarth911 Podcast: Talking Eco-Anxiety and Carbon Capture With the Foundation for Climate Restoration’s Dr. Erica DoddsEarth911 Podcast: Global Thermostat’s Graciela Chichilnisky on Distributed Carbon Capture EconomiesBest of Earth911 Podcast: Nikki Batchelor and Mike Leitch Share XPRIZE Carbon Removal ProgressBest of Earth911 Podcast: Author Peter Fiekowsky on Climate RestorationTalking Direct Air Capture of Atmospheric CO2 with Peter FiekowskyBest of Earth911 Podcast: How To Build a Just & Equitable Carbon Removal IndustryBest of Earth911 Podcast: Dr. Marcius Extavour on the $100M XPRIZE Circular Carbon Network Competition -
Meet Garik Himebaugh, the founder of Eco-Stylist.com, a site dedicated to promoting sustainable fashion choices. Garik's journey into the world of sustainable fashion began with a background in peace studies and an MBA, and he discovered social entrepreneurship as a grad student and launched Eco-Stylist in 2018. There, he helps consumers make informed, sustainable fashion choices with a directory of brands that meet his criteria for ethical production and environmental responsibility.encouraging individuals to "dress like you give a damn." He was kind enough to contribute a recent article on Earth911, How to Build the Sustainable Wardrobe of Your Dreams. He points to how the fast fashion crisis is burying some countries in the global south in synthetic trash that can take decades or centuries to breakdown into potentially toxic plastic byproducts. Garik joined the Sustainability In Your Ear conversation to discuss how to check the sustainability claims made by clothing companies, the power of reuse and upcycling as a way to reduce your personal environmental impact, and his favorite responsible fashion brands, including Adelante, Outerknown, Naadam, and Patagonia.
Fast fashion is a plague on the planet and your wallet. Fast fashion is responsible for approximately 10% of global carbon emissions and nearly 20% of wastewater production, according to the World Economic Forum. The World Resources Institute reports that producing just one cotton shirt uses approximately 713 gallons of water — that’s enough water to meet one person's drinking needs for over two years. But, hey, you get a $10 shirt instead. The fast fashion industry is so destructive that the U.S. Government Accounting Office wrote in December 2024 that the nation needs a coordinated effort to reduce textile waste and promote recycling. But we can dress for success and the planet. Garik explains that the brands he admires “take responsibility for their clothes” by making them with organic and sustainable materials, providing repairs and take-back programs, as well as delivering durable products that can be made to last. You can learn more about sustainable fashion and shop Garik's curated selection of clothing at https://Eco-Stylist.com.
Subscribe to Sustainability in Your Ear on iTunes and Apple Podcasts.Follow Sustainability in Your Ear on Spreaker, iHeartRadio, or YouTubeCheck out previous Earth911 interviews about sustainable fashion
Earth911 Podcast: EVRNU’s Stacy Flynn On Creating Circular Fiber For Sustainable FashionBest of Earth911 Podcast: The Apparel Impact Institute’s Kurt Kipka Maps the Path to Sustainable FashionEarth911 Podcast: tentree CEO Derrick Emsley on Sustainable Fashion & ReforestationBest of Earth911 Podcast: Keel Labs’ Tessa Gallagher Introduces Kelsun Kelp-Based TextilesBest of Earth911 Podcast: Mike Baker’s ReCORK Recycling Puts The Circular Into FootwearBest of Earth911 Podcast: Cotapaxi Partners With Customers & Suppliers To Achieve Sustainability -
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Practical progress toward a sustainable lifestyle, whether you are an individual or a business, will always be unique to your situation, but you can base your choices on lessons learned by others. Tune into a conversation with Sarah Currie-Halpern, Co-Founder of Think Zero LLC, a consultancy that helps businesses, institutions, and households reduce waste and embrace sustainable practices. With a focus on practical, actionable solutions, Sarah and her team work to make sustainability accessible to many clients. Sarah shares travel tips to keep in mind to reduce your impact on the ground in other cities and countries. Taking a water bottle, reusable utensils, and a coffee cup can eliminate the single-use stuff you’ll find at many hotels and resorts. Check out Ecohotels.com and the Global Sustainable Tourism Council’s guidance. You will discover insights that can pierce the veil of greenwashing by travel marketers with the information you find there.
Sarah draws on her waste management work in the office of the Mayor of New York to discuss the potential for applications of artificial intelligence (AI) to reduce the flow of materials to landfill. According to several studies, AI could consume up to 10% of electricity generated by the end of the decade. AI can be a powerful tool, but many companies focus on delivering trivial consumer convenience using the technology. Finding your next favorite social video or saving the effort involved in changing the channel on your TV are not worthwhile applications of technology that could be applied to, for example, developing fire suppression materials that are free of the toxins and heavy metals dumped in waves of red on cities in the Los Angeles basin amid this year’s wildfires. We can and will use AI to invent new, sustainable materials, sort reusable materials out of the waste stream, and much more. Still, we should not see every question humans pose, like “What’s on TV tonight?” handed to AI to resolve. If information is the new oil, we can use AI more judiciously than we did with petroleum during the Industrial Age. You can learn more about Sarah and her work at Think Zero at https://www.thinkzerollc.com/Subscribe to Sustainability in Your Ear on iTunes and Apple Podcasts.Follow Sustainability in Your Ear on Spreaker, iHeartRadio, or YouTube -
We celebrate a milestone episode of Sustainability In Your Ear, our 500th program since we launched in 2018, with an in-depth conversation with Paula Whyman, author of the captivating collection of essays, Bad Naturalist. It's a tale about her purchase and efforts to restore a couple hundred acres of meadowland in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia that had once been a farm and orchard. Paula's stories explore the complex interplay of identity, vulnerability, and the natural world with wit, depth, and an eye for natural detail. Paula's book reflects on the connection between our internal lives and the landscapes we inhabit—how nature becomes a mirror for our thoughts, decisions, and personal change. She explains how she learned about the land, the flora, and fauna in the meadow through conversations with scientists, conservation experts, and her neighbors.
Paula's decision to move to and take care of, in the sense that she is preserving and restoring, a plot of land represents a new option for people who, enabled by digital technology, can stay connected to the economy and earn a living while investing their time and energy in a new, local relationship with land and people. You can find Bad Naturalist on Amazon, at Powell's Books, or your local bookstore now. Sign up for her Bad Naturalist newsletter, which she describes as updates from a writer "stuck in bramble, stinking of bear poo," at https://paulawhyman.com. -
Start the new year with a dive into the world of biosolids—a potentially transformative way to turn sewage that traditionally is seen as waste into a valuable material for sustainable agriculture. With the appropriate precautions, humans can turn our ickiest stuff into inexpensive fertilizer for farms and homes. Humans have been using their excrement as fertilizers for millennia. At scale, biosolids-based fertilizer would be a big step toward comprehensive circular approaches to human waste. However, it is a plan with challenges related to the presence of PFAS, the forever chemicals attracting growing concern as they are found in everyone’s bodies only about 90 years after they were invented. Tune into a conversation with Chris Peot, the Director of Resource Recovery at Bloom, and April Thompson, Senior Director of the program operated by DC Water, the public utility responsible for providing drinking water and wastewater collection and treatment services in the nation’s Capitol. Chris is a pioneer in water utility and biosolids management, with decades of experience as a civil engineer. He led the development of Bloom, combining technology, science, and engineering to create a sustainable solution that changes how we think about resource recovery and green energy. April has been instrumental in shaping Bloom’s products and overcoming the challenges of marketing something often misunderstood as “icky” waste. They discuss the science, innovation, and market dynamics behind Bloom.
Bloom and DC Water’s path to being a self-sustaining, closed circular system that processes post-consumer wastewater to make fertilizer and capture heat to generate renewable energy should inspire cities nationwide. Chris and April explain that sewer systems are remarkable geothermal (Vancouver, B.C. powers part of the city using heat from its waste management systems) and materials resources that are often ignored despite being directly underfoot in every city and town. Looking past the ick-factor most of us associate with human waste and everything else we flush down the sink and toilet, to see it as a resource and energy flow can reorient our perspective. We need to think like nature does — if nature can be said to think as we do —to find ways to collect and use wasted materials and energy. Nothing in nature is wasted, but nature had billions of years to evolve species to fill every niche where life-supporting stuff was available, while humans have only decades to innovate processes and business models to prevent waste and the pollution it creates. You can learn more about Bloom fertilizers at https://bloomsoil.com/ -
The Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law contributed much-needed progress but has not completed the transition — only approximately 21% of total utility-scale electricity generation in the United States comes from renewables. According to the World Resources Institute 31 gigawatts of solar energy capacity was installed in the U.S. in 2023, up 55% compared to 2022. But now we are entering the second Trump era, facing an administration that, despite its hostility to renewables oversaw a 12% decrease in emissions during the first Trump Administration. Is renewable energy unstoppable? Tim Montague, a trusted advisor in the solar and energy storage industries, host of the Clean Power Hour podcast, and an advocate for clean energy innovation, says the transition is inevitable. Whether you have access to locally produced solar power, community solar programs, or the ability install photovoltaic panels on your home or business, the investment will pay off financially and environmentally. Twenty-four states have community solar regulations and 42 states have some form of net-metering legislation in place, though many receive low ratings from the Interstate Renewable Energy Council’s https://freeingthegrid.org/.
The green transition question is whether the United States will be a leader or a laggard, and if a laggard, how we will ultimately be competitive in a world where photos, not fossil fuels, drive the engines of industry and transportation? As Tim explains, U.S. scientists and engineers have invented most of the clean technologies in use but have not consistently turned them into commercial successes. Yet, Northern European countries and China are racing ahead with the transition — and China now leads the world in the export of electric vehicles. Economic and political leadership in the world are built on innovation, including the integration of natural climate restoration practices into the electric grid, industrial production, and foreign policy strategies if we want to emerge from the fossil fuels era as a leader. Tim’s Clean Power Hour podcast spotlights the people, technology, and policies reshaping the energy industry. Covering topics like distributed versus centralized solar systems, cutting-edge battery storage innovations, and the economic benefits of renewables, Tim plumbs the depths of the complex and rapidly evolving world of clean energy. You can hear the show, and check out the Brooklyn Solar episode that Tim suggests as a starting point for your listening, at https://www.cleanpowerhour.com/Subscribe to Sustainability in Your Ear on iTunes and Apple Podcasts.Follow Sustainability in Your Ear on Spreaker, iHeartRadio, or YouTube.Listen to related episodesEarth911 Podcast: Brevian Energy’s Rod Matthews on the Changing Economics of MicrogridsBest of Earth911 Podcast: The Strategic Energy Institute’s Tim Lieuwen on Accelerating US ElectrificationBest of Earth911 Podcast: Putting Solar Generation Everywhere With Ubiquitous Energy’s Veeral HardevBest of Earth911 Podcast: Amptricity CEO Damir Perge Introduces Solid-State Battery Storage for Home & BusinessBest of Earth911 Podcast: Guidehouse Insights’ Sam Abuelsamid Maps the Future of EV Battery InnovationBest Earth911 Podcast: Peter Glenn on Financing Your EV Life -
Food production is one of the most impactful forces shaping our environment, responsible for approximately a quarter of annual global carbon emissions, deforestation, and soil depletion, among other impacts. However, a new generation of food and snack companies is stepping up to change the narrative, working to make food production a force for regeneration, sustainability, and environmental stewardship. Tune into this discussion with Keith Bearden, CEO of Alter Eco Foods, a snack and chocolate maker on a mission to positively impact the planet's regenerative agriculture, climate-neutral products, and reduced waste. Founded with a vision to create delicious food that benefits people and the environment, Alter Eco has pioneered transitioning cacao farmers to regenerative practices, and it has achieved climate-neutral certification while innovating in more sustainable and compostable packaging. Dive into how Alter Eco works to make a difference and lead the way for the food industry.
Keith explains that consumers and influencers actively campaign for environmentally responsible foods, clothing, and products in every other category. And it is working, albeit never as fast as we might like, but the transition is underway. Retailers are stocking their shelves with more sustainable products and companies, at least the enlightened ones, are recognizing the benefits of transparency — not just with consumers but among companies in the same supply chain — which will ultimately lead to effective reductions in emissions across the economy. You can learn more about Alter Eco Foods, its chocolate, and granola products at https://www.alterecofoods.com/
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Being a consumer in an advanced economy—or any economy these days—is challenging because you cannot keep up with the ever-changing range of ingredients and materials in the products at the store. For example, thousands of new chemicals are registered annually. Still, many more compounds that could be harmful are introduced and used in manufacturing. These chemicals can harm our health and the environment. However, many tools for interrogating our world and the products we buy are emerging, offering insights into our lifestyles' health and environmental impact. Meet Stephen Fuller, Senior Criteria Manager at TCO Development, a globally recognized certification organization promoting sustainable practices for technology products based in Stockholm, Sweden. With over 350,000 chemicals in use today and only a tiny fraction of those subjected to risk assessment, TCO has developed disclosures of the chemicals used in information technology products. In 2015, the organization introduced an Accepted Substance List, a catalog of safer alternative chemicals vetted by organizations like GreenScreen and ChemFORWARD. TCO hopes to drive semiconductor, computer, phone, and TV manufacturers to adopt materials that meet rigorous environmental and social responsibility standards.
IT buyers in a market-based economy need valid, transparent sources of information to make informed buying decisions. Yet the complexity of, and constantly evolving technologies used in technology products makes keeping abreast of what is safe for humans and nature a constant challenge. TCO Development, GreenScreen, and ChemFORWARD have built a collaboration that helps enterprise IT buyers exert their desire to use safer alternatives to toxic chemicals, and those insights are filtering down to consumer electronics buyers. Stephen explains that TCO Development is still working to make the Accepted Substances List a standard for appliances like TVs, toasters, or microwaves so that everyone can join the call for safer electronics. Once TCO's product passport has become a widely accepted tool for understanding the chemicals in our technologies, buyers, not the producers, will be empowered to track what chemicals they are exposed to and advocate — through their spending and conversational influence—for the least harmful, least environmentally damaging practices. You can learn more about TCO Development and the Accepted Substances List at https://tcocertified.com/Subscribe to Sustainability In Your Ear on iTunesFollow Sustainability In Your Ear on Spreaker, iHeartRadio, or YouTube -
The sharing economy can be a platform for keeping products in circulation and out of landfills until they are no longer usable and must be recycled. If we can get more uses out of things we currently throw away, we can reduce the need to extract raw materials from the Earth. Meet a pioneer in sharing, Daan Weddenpohl, founder and CEO of Peerby, an innovative Dutch platform at the forefront of the sharing economy. Peerby connects people within neighborhoods and communities, enabling them to share items that would otherwise remain underused, such as household tools, appliances, and recreational equipment. Peerby promotes sustainable consumption by reducing the demand for new products and fosters social connections among community members. Daan launched Peerby with the belief that shared resources and connected communities could make a significant positive impact on the environment, economy, and society at large. Peerby has grown into a platform that addresses the local challenge that underlies global over-consumption and waste. We delve into Peerby’s service, the challenges and opportunities of the sharing economy, and Daan’s insights on the future of sustainable living and community-focused innovation.
Daan describes his goal for Peerby as making it a Netflix for stuff, and the question is whether the digital infrastructure can help make physical assets as widely available at low cost as Netflix has made movies and television shows. To do so, we must first virtualize the physical economy, and we’ve heard from organizations like GS1 and TCO that they are working to launch product passports that document where products are manufactured, how the raw materials are sourced, and the distribution networks that deliver them to the consumer. Once we document product lifecycles, it is possible to manage their use, reuse, and even recycle them when they become unusable to reduce the extraction of raw materials and the carbon impact of the things that support our lives. But it takes an essential first step, the choice by people in their homes and workplaces to make what they have last longer, to share items like a drill or a truck to minimize the surplus inventories of material goods that have come to define consumerism in the 21st Century. You can learn more about Peerby at https://www.peerby.com/ -
Sustainability In Your Ear welcomes back oceanographer and author John Englander, who last visited with us in February 2023. John is the author of two pivotal books on Sea Level Rise, High Tide on Main Street: Rising Sea Level and the Coming Coastal Crisis, which explores the science behind rising seas and its far-reaching impacts on society, and Moving to Higher Ground: Rising Sea Level and the Path Forward, which offers a comprehensive look at how individuals, businesses, and governments can adapt to this unavoidable reality. He recently gave a talk at the U.S. Naval Academy and shares the reaction he heard from admirals and strategists charged with protecting U.S. interests a sea. John delivered a stark warning about the accelerating rate of sea level rise, emphasizing the vulnerabilities of the Antarctic ice sheets—particularly the Thwaites Glacier, which also known as the "Doomsday Glacier." He warned that the collapse of the Thwaites alone could lead to significant sea level rise within the next few decades, with profound implications for global military operations, coastal infrastructure, and international security.
Sea level rise is the permanent change humans will live with for centuries, probably millennia, because the oceans have absorbed most of the heat trapped in the Earth’s atmosphere. Average sea surface temperatures have climbed by about 0.8 degrees Celsius, or 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit. The Arctic is warming four times faster, about 3 degrees Celsius since 1980, and that has raised sea levels by between 21 and 24 centimeters, or about nine inches, in the same period. John also shared recent warnings about the collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), which drives circulation of seawater globally. Until we lower emissions sufficiently to stop glacial melting, sea level will only rise more and ports, infrastructure, and entire economies will deal with the threat of disruption. Learn more about the organization he cofounded, the Rising Seas Institute, at https://risingseasinstitute.org/. It became a program of Nova Southeastern University on November 1, 2024. -
The climate crisis cannot be solved by one person, one organization, one company, or one government. A network of collaboration is being built, and nonprofits often serve as the connective tissue. Our guest today Brett Jenks, is the CEO of Rare.org, a global conservation and development organization dedicated to empowering communities in the world's most biologically diverse regions to sustainably manage their natural resources. Under Brett’s leadership, Rare has grown from a small nonprofit into a global leader in conservation, with a $30 million annual budget and active projects across 60 countries. Rare’s efforts span a variety of critical areas, including Fish Forever, the world’s largest coastal fishery recovery effort; Lands for Life, a climate-smart agriculture program; the groundbreaking Center for Behavior & the Environment, which merges behavioral science with conservation; and Climate Culture, a strategy designed to help the U.S. meet its Paris Agreement targets.
Beyond his leadership of Rare, Brett is also an innovator in the for-profit sector with the Meloy Fund, a blue economy investment vehicle that supports a growing portfolio of companies, including several focused on sustainable fisheries in Southeast Asia and EverForest, a video game that turns virtual actions into real-world tree planting. Brett shared seven ideas Americans can act on to change their environmental impact. You can learn more about Rare at https://rare.org/ and about the Meloy Fund at https://www.meloyfund.com/ -
The water crisis is one of the most pressing issues facing our planet, with climate change, population growth, and pollution threatening the availability of clean water worldwide. One company working to tackle this problem head-on is Spout Water. This California-based startup has developed an innovative solution, the Spout Monolith, a sleek kitchen device that produces pure drinking water from the moisture in the air. Spout founder and CEO Reuben Vollmer joins the conversation to explain how a personal challenge began his mission to solve water scarcity and quality issues. Reuben recently contributed an article to Earth911, mapping his journey into the world of water. It started with an unexpected letter his family received during a drought in 2010, warning that their olive farm's well could be restricted.
Water production and distribution needs a good swift kick in the form of a surprising alternative to how we've done it during the Industrial Era. The Spout Monolith may be one kick in our complaisance. We are surrounded by water in the atmosphere. A June 2022 study by the University of Reading in the United Kingdom found that total atmospheric water vapor is increasing by about 1% a decade due to warming climates. One percent may not sound like much, but the United States Geological Survey reports that the planet's atmosphere contains 12 trillion gallons of water, so one percent more water vapor represents 120 billion gallons. That one-percent increase in atmospheric water vapor per decade means that between 2010 and 2050, as much as 480 billion gallons of additional water vapor will migrate into the air, around half of today's annual human consumption of freshwater. You can learn more about the company and preorder a Monolith with a $100 discount using the code "MITCH911" at https://www.spoutwater.com/ -
The global food system is one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, responsible for about 25% of annual anthropomorphic CO2 emission, the unfortunate, planet-warming exhaust of our industrial society. But what if we could eat our way out of the climate crisis? Author Mark J. Easter joins the conversation to talk regenerative farming and his new book, The Blue Plate: A Food Lover’s Guide to Climate Chaos. He explores how we can change our diets to help restore the environment — he gets to the roots of the challenge, a failure of industrial farming. As an ecologist who has spent years studying the carbon footprint of food at Colorado State University, Mark connects the dots between what we eat, how it’s produced, and its impact on our planet.
In The Blue Plate, Mark plumbs the concept of regenerative agriculture and carbon farming—showing how these practices can not only reduce the carbon footprint of food but also actively restore ecosystems. From the smallest urban farm to sprawling agricultural lands, he argues that how we grow, process, and distribute food holds tremendous potential for climate solutions. For instance, he reports on the innovative use of cover crops and perennial grains like Kernza, a perennial grain, which has been shown to pull carbon from the atmosphere and store it in the soil—effectively turning farming into a climate-positive practice. Mark’s journey from greenhouse gas accounting to becoming an advocate for low-carbon meals is filled with fascinating insights into how the food system shapes the world we live in—and how, with the right approach, it can help reverse some of the damage done to the environment. You can find The Blue Plate: A Food Lover’s Guide to Climate Chaos at Amazon, Powell's Books, and your local bookseller. -
Consumers and grocers who want to verify the quality of the beef they sell are asking for increased supply chain transparency. Vivian Tai, Director of Innovation at GS1 US visited with Earth911 in February 2024 to introduce GS1's Digital Link advanced universal product code and returns to talk beef transparency with Jayson Berryhill, cofounder of Wholechain, who worked with GS1 to develop a new standard for cattle traceability using innovative blockchain technology. Wholechain Cattle Traceability is a system for verifying compliance with various standards, including animal welfare and feeding practices. Wholechain’s blockchain-based system ensures that information about the entire supply chain—such as where the cattle were raised, what they ate, and their treatment in life—can be tracked and authenticated.
We explore how their collaboration will provide you with more information and how Wholechain’s platform might be used to calculate environmental impacts, such as deforestation and methane emissions, while helping companies comply with regulations that shape the world’s food supply, like the Food & Drug Administration’s Food Safety Modernization Act Rule 204, which requires business to maintain records of food production, processing, and distribution to enable rapid identification of contamination sources during a foodborne illness outbreak. We’ll also discuss how Wholechain’s blockchain technology could expand beyond cattle to other industries, creating more transparent, sustainable, and circular global supply chains. You can learn more about Wholechain at https://wholechain.com/ and about GS1’s traditional rectangular bar codes and next-generation 2D QR code, GS1 Digital Link at https://www.gs1us.org/ -
David Katz, founder and CEO of Plastic Bank, returns to talk with Mitch Ratcliffe about the groundbreaking social enterprise's effort to transform plastic waste into economic opportunity. Plastic Bank has created a “global bottle deposit program" that partners with companies to incentivize the collection of ocean-bound plastic in vulnerable communities. Plastic Bank provides vital income while reducing plastic pollution, with over 3 billion plastic bottles already intercepted from entering our oceans.
Since David last visited with Earth911, there has been a lot of growth and, recently, Plastic Bank introduced a subscription program that small businesses can join to support better plastic collection.David explains that regeneration as a practice can provide prosperity for all. In the face of the systemic trainwreck threatening human, animal, and aquatic life on the planet, we need not just a recycling system but a functioning society built on shared values, not exclusion from the opportunity to earn, influence the direction of our communities, or the right to a healthy environment. You can learn more at https://plasticbank.com/ -
Meet David Steinman, an environmental activist, investigative journalist, and author who has worked to expose the dangers of chemical toxins in everyday life. Steinman's bestselling 1990 book, Diet for a Poisoned Planet, highlighted the hidden chemical dangers in our food. In his latest book, Raising Healthy Kids: Protecting Your Children from Hidden Chemical Toxins, examines how everyday products contribute to this health crisis and offers practical advice for parents to reduce their children’s exposure to these hidden dangers, creating a safer environment for the next generation. Cancer cases in people under 50 increased by 79% between 1990 and 2019, according to several studies and a research report published in Nature found that more than half of the cancers it studied, eight of 14 illness, were related to the digestive system. Highly processed foods and many apparently natural products that are sprayed with pesticides and herbicides not disclosed on labeling, are making us sick.
The rising incidence of childhood illnesses, including developmental and behavioral disorders, which experts increasingly link to environmental factors. For example, exposure to pesticides, particularly organophosphate (OP) pesticides, has been linked to an increase in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and reduced cognitive function in children. David's new book also explores the role of nature in the developing personality and as an antidote for some of the harms chemicals cause in childhood. David explains that parents can be diligent on a budget, so consider adding a water filter on your faucet and filtering the air in your home — inexpensive options available to almost all families — and choose organic produce at the grocery store. Most importantly, you can take action by taking kids outside, writing letters demanding better regulation of chemicals and becoming a citizen enforcer, calling out dangerous toxic products in your community. You can find Raising Healthy Kids: Protecting Your Children from Hidden Chemical Toxins on Amazon and at Powell’s Books. -
More than half the world's population—4.4 billion people—live in cities today. That number is expected to rise to 80% by 2050. Our guest, Nadina Galle, is a trailblazing ecological engineer and author of The Nature of Our Cities. She is an ecological engineer who studies the intersection of nature and technology in urban environments. Nadina developed the concept of an Internet of Nature (IoN) that uses tools like artificial intelligence, automation, and sensors to support and enhance ecosystems within cities. Nadina's book offers a transformative perspective on how urban spaces can be reimagined in the face of climate change and sprawling development. She shares the inspiring story of the Groene Loper project in Maastricht, Netherlands, where soil sensors were deployed to monitor tree health. The results were remarkable, with trees supported by this technology growing up to three times larger than those without it. This is a powerful example of how technology can not only protect trees but also transform urban spaces into healthier, greener environments.
From fire and the wheel to the reinforced concrete frames that define modern buildings, we are surrounded by technology. We tend to forget that technology emerged in response to nature — too often, we treated nature as the enemy, the chaos to be contained instead of recognizing that nature’s cycles and changes are the harmony we need to join to sustain society. The loss of any semblance of natural patterns, which ultimately leads to the depletion of the resources necessary for life, has inevitably led to the collapse of previous major civilizations. Modern society has more runway than previous societies because we have created a global economy, but that risks an even greater fall for our species when the ecological underpinnings of our prosperity collapse. The Nature of Our Cities is a powerful, straightforward, and emotionally resonant book to help you think through your role and choices in the restoration of nature. You can find it on Amazon or Powell's Books.Subscribe to Sustainability in Your Ear on iTunes and Apple Podcasts.Follow Sustainability in Your Ear on Spreaker, iHeartRadio, or YouTube. -
The global push for sustainability has reached a critical juncture, particularly in industries traditionally associated with high environmental impacts, such as chemical manufacturing and mining. These sectors, vital to the global economy, are also significant contributors to carbon emissions and environmental degradation. However, innovative approaches are beginning to transform how these industries operate, making sustainability not just an option but a driving force of innovation. On today's show, you'll meet and hear Tara Karimi, co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Cemvita. Tara and her brother, Moji, bring unique backgrounds -- Moji in petroleum engineering and she in biochemistry -- to the challenge of converting CO2 into the raw materials, known as feedstocks, for new chemicals, materials, and food products. They use of synthetic biology to turn a greenhouse gas into a useful resource. Cemvita’s breakthrough is just one of many CO2 capture and conversion strategies that could drastically reduce the carbon footprint of industries that are often criticized for their environmental impact.
Cemvita applies biomimicry, the science of learning how nature acts to produce the cornucopia of life-supporting materials. The idea emerged in the early 1980s and now, 40 years later, we’re seeing not just occasional biomimetic innovation but potentially industry-transforming changes in strategy and environmental impact. There's a long way to go before, as Tara explains, we reach a carbon neutral and still prosperous economy. Cemvita’s approach, which combines organic and inorganic chemistry with the insight to see biomimetic alternatives to heat-intensive chemical refineries by, for instance, seeing a depleted oil well as a natural bioreactor to make gold hyrdogen or replacing leaching ponds filled with toxic chemicals with enclosed, non-toxic processing columns, point to just two of the paths out of our planet-killing industrial models. You can learn more about Cemvita at https://www.cemvita.com.Subscribe to Sustainability in Your Ear on iTunes and Apple Podcasts.Follow Sustainability in Your Ear on Spreaker, iHeartRadio, or YouTube. -
Rachael Z. Miller is a leading voice in the fight against microfiber pollution, the plastic smog that trails our clothing like exhaust from a car. You might not see them, but our synthetic clothing sheds millions of tiny plastic fibers that make their way into our atmosphere, oceans, and rivers. It’s been less than a century since the introduction of synthetic textiles — nylon was the first about 90 years ago — but microfibers are already found everywhere on the planet, from the peaks of the Himalayas to the guts and bloodstreams of our bodies and those of mammals and marine life. As the founder of the Rozalia Project for a Clean Ocean, Rachael has dedicated herself to documenting and mitigating the impact of this invisible pollutant, including launching the Cora Ball, a laundry accessory that reduces the microfibers released during a wash.
Rachael’s work shines a light on how something as simple as washing our clothes can have far-reaching consequences for ecosystems and wildlife, as the story she shared in a recent Earth911 explains: Polar Bears and Penguins Aren’t Wearing Our Clothes But They Might Be Eating Them. She’s also a National Geographic Explorer who has visited the Arctic and Antarctic to study the spread of microfibers. We discuss Rachael’s pioneering efforts to raise awareness, her innovative solutions, and what we can all do to reduce microfiber pollution in our daily lives. Tune in for a conversation that could change how you think about your laundry routine. You can find out more about Rachael and her work at https://www.rozaliaproject.org/
Subscribe to Sustainability in Your Ear on iTunes and Apple Podcasts.Follow Sustainability in Your Ear on Spreaker, iHeartRadio, or YouTube. -
Meet Emily McGarvey, furniture maker and retailer Room & Board's first Director of Sustainability. The company, founded in 1980, recently became an employee-owned B Corporation. Room & Board has made significant efforts to reduce the environmental impact by engaging 12,000 U.S. craftspeople to make its furniture, achieving 95% sustainable wood sourcing, including using urban wood recovered for reuse in tables and chairs and making 51% of its packaging recyclable on the path to 100% targets in 2025.
The global furniture industry is expected to see $765 billion in sales this year, according to a Statista analysis, and $133 billion of that in the United States. Reducing the carbon emissions associated with home furnishings — from sourcing wood and materials near producers to shortening supply chains to minimize the need for shipping — can make more sustainable choices available to consumers. For example, the retail chain Ashley Furniture has the seventh largest ocean shipping carbon footprint among major brands because most of its manufacturing is based in Asia. You can learn more about Room & Board at https://www.roomandboard.com/
Correction: A reference to Room & Board's recyclable packaging progress needed to be corrected. Rather than having achieved 89% recyclable packaging, the company currently uses 51% recyclable material -- its goal is to reach 100% by 2025. - Mostrar mais
