Cool Solutions

Future hot streets will fry more than eggs and solutions won't come on their own. Los Angeles is using its streets as laboratories to test out new cool pavements. 

1500 electric school buses in Virginia will power the grid when parked, in the first US commercial application of vehicle to grid technology.

In the face of rising temperatures and heavier rain, citizens wielding pry bars and thermometers turn parking lots into rain gardens and change city building standards to favor green space over asphalt.  

The lower income east side of Portland is the hottest part of town. Citizen action is making it cooler. 

Part 1.  We follow DePave Portland on one of their projects as they pry up asphalt and install a rain garden on 122nd Street.

Part 2.  Citizens using an urban heat mapping tool developed at Portland State University gather data which led cooler building standards in East Portland.

Two men treat their fear of climate change by sharing it with their entire cities.  They got their towns of Hoboken and Gainesville to declare a climate emergency. We hear the stories of their journeys from anxiety to activism, and explore the psychology of climate apathy and the limits of asking nicely.  

For the 3 out of 4 Americans who can't put solar panels on their roofs, community solar gardens are a way to save money now and be part of building our clean energy future.

When Minnesota enacted policy to promote solar gardens, it became the national leader, unleashing 600 megawatts of community solar development, but obstacles persist in parts of the state where those policies don't apply.

We compare what it takes to create a solar garden in both regions and ensure low income access, by looking at two programs: solar cooperatives in rural southern MN, and solar gardens on the Leech Lake Reservation, the first  in the country to integrate community solar with low income energy assistance.  

The solar cooperative movement began with two teenagers going door to door in their neighborhood in Washington DC. Their work grew into a national organization helping neighbors around the country go solar together, and building a grassroots movement for clean energy for all.

Solar United Neighbors works alongside community organizations, providing the technical expertise to simplify solar for property owners and the political savvy to overcome obstacles. 

The League of Women Voters is SUN's main collaborator in Florida, where the two groups together have organized more than 50 solar cooperatives around the state. 

We talk with Anya Schoolman, Director of Solar United Neighbors, Mary Dipboye of the Florida League of Women Voters, and Warren Clark of the St Johns County Solar Cooperative. 

Vermont's ultra rural Northeast Kingdom and small towns in Sonoma County California find that fare free is the way to go. It's filling bus seats; connecting residents to jobs, healthcare, education, shopping, and social opportunities; and even enticing drivers out of their cars. 

You don't have to be an extrovert to do something big for the planet.  Food Rescue US is a smartphone app developed by a pastor and a programmer that harnesses our collective good intentions to solve the difficult problem of food waste.

The app connects businesses and farms with food to donate,  agencies feeding the hungry, and volunteers into efficient community networks that direct edible food away from landfills and into people's bellies.

This reduces landfill methane, a potent short lived climate pollutant and prime target for rapid climate action, while bringing disparate parts of the community together. 

We talk with co founder Kevin Mullins about the spiritual aspects of food rescue, learn about the digital nuts and bolts from computer programmer Jim Reeseman and hear first hand accounts of food rescue missions organized by the app and the reactions of donors, recipients, and volunteers.

Health researchers are planting 8000 trees in Louisville, one of the fastest warming cities in the US, in an effort to discover why trees appear to prevent heart disease. 

We talk with members of the research team from the University of Louisville, the City of Louisville's urban forester, the Nature Conservancy, and Louisville Grows, a local group which plant some of the trees. 

Our own preconceptions of who is "on our side" and the mistaken idea that we are alone may be one of the biggest obstacles to climate action. That's the big takeaway from this story about how neighbors, longshoremen, small businesspeople, tribes and environmentalists in Washington State got together and stopped a massive oil by rail terminal.

Linda Garcia is a passionate activist who just wouldn't stop reaching out, and that brought a bunch of unlikely folks together. They found common ground at the intersection of climate action, workers' rights, environmental justice, and local self determination and won a 5 year battle to stop the biggest oil by rail terminal in N America. They also became friends. 

Guests: Don and Alona Steinke Sierra Club,  Linda Garcia of the Fruit Valley Neighborhood Association,  Cager Clabough ILWU,  Don Orange and Eric LaBrant Port of Vancouver Commissioners.