Cool Solutions

In Vermont it's now illegal to throw your apple core in the trash. Vermont's Universal Recycling Law aka "the landfill ban" went into effect last year. It cuts landfill methane by diverting food to feed the hungry and the soil, as well as banning other recyclables. 

How did they do that? How is it going?  What does it matter where that apple decomposes?  A soil scientist, 2 farmer-composters, the head of Vermont's Food Cycle Coalition  and the guy in charge at the state will tell you. 

Storytellers:
Tom Gilbert-organic farmer, Black Dirt Farm

Josh Kelly-Chief of Materials Management for Vermont's Department of Environmental Conservation

Chuck Wooster, organic farmer, Sunrise Farm

Sintana Vergara- Assistant Professor Environmental Engineering, Humboldt State University

Natasha Duarte- Food Cycle Coalition, Composting Association of Vermont
 

An innovative community energy center, cities with natural gas bans, and a crusading HVAC contractor are all on a mission to electrify our homes.  To be zero carbon by 2050,  we have to start now and retrofit millions of buildings each year.

There's a movement to close accounts at big Wall Street banks and move money to smaller banks with better values.

Most folks don't want to get down and nerdy about climate solutions, but what if we could make it fun? Co host Wendy Ring decides to make a game. She talks with a climate scientist, a professional game designer and a mechanical engineer who are each designing other climate games, to get previews and explore  how games could mobilize players into action. Co host Brian Curtis joins a group playing Wendy's game and hilarity ensues. 

Sliding scale electric car shares and rising numbers of used EVs are making them more accessible. A startup is answering the question: How good is that used EV battery? 

Slow Streets barricades triggered trauma in Black East Oakland. Activists get city to address dangerous intersections instead.

Brytanee Brown, Marquita Price, Warren Logan 

Personal stories from 3 activists fighting to preserve slow and car free streets in San Francisco. A little known federal manual is keeping streets car-centric while pedestrians and cyclists die in record numbers.  While activists battle for improvements block by block, Pete Buttigieg has a chance to rewrite the whole book and spur nationwide transformation.  So far, he's going with the Trump version. Find out what you can do. 

Storytellers: 

Activists Matt Brezina, Peter Belden, and Olivia Gamboa;  Mike McGinn of America Walks, and Meredith Glaser of the Urban Cycling Institute 

3 stories about the power of community to raise and multiply funding for climate action.  A town taxes itself for free transit. Communities crowdfund for composting (and more).  A Green Bank spurs 400 MW of solar.  

Meet the women defending their Texas and Louisiana communities from petrochemical pollution; in the courtroom, on the water, and in the streets.