Cool Solutions: Stories of climate action from the bottom up

This year's Farm Bill will determine whether US agriculture cuts its greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030. Republicans want to divert $20 billion away from agricultural climate solutions. Farmers who've adopted these practices say they increase soil carbon and climate resilience. We hear stories from farmers about compost, cover crops, prescribed grazing, and more. Sustainable agriculture advocates Renata Brillinger of the California Climate and Agriculture Network and Erik Kamrath from the Union of Concerned Scientists advise us what to tell our Congresspeople. (It's simple). 

The David who fought Goliath had two sisters. This is the modern day story about two women taking on a giant. They started alone, standing up against a huge multinational petrochemical corporation, and won. Diane Wilson, a fisherwoman from Seadrift Texas, won the largest ever penalty in a citizen clean water lawsuit, defending her bay from plastic pollution. Sharon Lavigne of St James Parish, Louisiana, stopped the same company, Formosa Plastics, from building the largest petrochemical plant in the world in her small Black community.  

This is an updated story first broadcast in 2021 

When we fix what we have, we reduce emissions, and strengthen communities.  80% of the carbon pollution from our laptops, cell phones, and appliances is embodied carbon, emitted before we even open the box.  A return to repair means changing our culture and challenging corporate monopoly. We have stories about a repair cafe in Chicago and a coalition of Minnesota techies and farmers who overcame corporate lobbies to win passage of the nation's strongest Right to Repair law.  

Smartphone repairability scores

Right to Repair State bills

Find or Start a Repair Cafe

80% of the buildings that will be here in 2050 are already here, producing 30% of our greenhouse gas emissions. Uber sustainable new construction is cool, but the big carbon reductions will come from electrifying old buildings. Chicago plans to retrofit 80,000 homes in the next 7 years. A research collaboration between the city, community organizations, a utility, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory is working out a plan that will minimize emissions, maximize justice and lower peoples' energy bills. The results convinced me that, at least in Chicago, it's far better to eliminate fossil fuel heating in lots of homes than to spend the same amount of money completely decarbonizing a lesser number. We need to do it all eventually, but this is the way to make big change fast.

A pilot study replacing gas stoves with induction stoves in a public housing building in the South Bronx did the expected and decreased indoor air pollution. Two unexpected discoveries were the popularity of the induction stoves and that the building's old wiring could only deliver enough juice to replace stoves in a fraction of the apartments. Replacing all the gas stoves with induction stoves and the building's broken boiler with heat pumps will require an expensive electrical upgrade. To avoid those costs in the future, NYCHA used its  purchasing power to get manufacturers to build heat pumps which use less electricity, plug into 110 outlets and install easily in their buildings' windows.

Contributors: 

Story: Annie Carforo, Michelle Feliciano, Vlada Keniff, Mary Rivera, Angela Morales

Music: 

Scott Holmes, Kevin McLeod, Maarten Schellekins, Jason Shaw, and Jahzzar

"When I read in 2020 that Colorado ran a pilot program to give away just 13 e-bikes, I scoffed. What difference could that possibly make? Now I have to eat my bike helmet." - Wendy Ring, Cool Solutions Producer and Host. 

Turns out that mini-pilot laid the foundation for Denver's wildly successful e-bike program by proving that e-bikes cut car trips and emissions and that low income folks want to ride them. Denver's program became the model for a statewide program.  That "e" also stands for equity, as removing economic barriers to bikes builds pressure to address unsafe streets in low income neighborhoods.

 Guests: Christian Willis, Colorado Energy Office Rachel Hultin, Bicycle Colorado Frieda Mitchell & Darnell Robinson, Can Do CO participants Mike Salisbury Denver Office of Climate Action Sustainability and Resilience Ash Lovell, People for Bikes

With growing conflicts over solar development on farm land, dual use may provide middle ground and enough income to help small farmers keep farming. That's how Byron Kominek found himself putting a solar garden on one of his hay fields and hosting teams of agrivoltaic researchers.

Colorado farmers Byron Kominek and Liza McConnell and Jordan Macknick, head of agrivoltaic research at the National Renewable Energy Lab,  find some crops grow better and use less water with solar shade than in direct sun. 

Meet a retiree in rural OR and a group of millennials in WA who are spreading community owned solar projects across their states.  

We don't have to wait for utilities or for-profit solar developers to expand solar power in our communities and, if we do it right, we can keep the dollars local. Activists from a small town in OR and the mid sized city Olympia,WA are spreading their successful models for community owned solar.  

Community solar is commonly defined as a system where subscribers in one place get bill credits from a shared solar project somewhere else, but most community solar in the US benefits corporations more than communities.  

A group of young people in Olympia WA figured out how to work around the state's lack of virtual net metering and install community funded solar on non-profit and community buildings. 

A retired scientist in Talent, OR organized the first participant owned community solar project in his state. Both groups are now working statewide on projects with partners including tribes, high schools, fire departments, county governments, and irrigation districts. 

Mason Rolph, Dan Orzech, and Ray Sanchez Pescador talk about how they got started,  overcoming obstacles, and why we don't have to wait for utilities, big investors, or politicians to expand solar access in our communities.  

A small group of garment workers, tired of factory wage theft, organized and won passage of a law that makes fashion brands responsible for unpaid wages. Hourly pay went from a shameful $5 an hour to a minimum of $15 an hour. Now a similar bill is going to Congress.