Earthworms

Humans are pumping CO2 (and other heat-trapping gases) into Earth's atmosphere, causing whopping changes to our climate, aka global warming.

Project DRAWDOWN says (and documents with data) that actions currently in use can, if combined and ramped up, literally draw down over-concentrations of these gases into Earth systems (like soil, trees, oceans) designed to contain them. And reverse global warming.

Chad Frischmann, VP and Research Director for Project DRAWDOWN, worked with multi-disciplinary professionals who have researched the potentials of measures ranging from increasing renewable energy generation to people eating plant-based diets to educating girls - and more. Erika Boeing, now based in St. Louis, is one of the DRAWDOWN Research Fellows and her company, Accelerate Wind, is developing technology to boost wind energy production.

The entire project is summarized in a 2017 book that immediately hit the New York Times Bestseller list.

A St. Louis talk on March 13 will spotlight four Missouri enterprises implementing measures defined by DRAWDOWN, including Ms. Boeing's work, and will describe the audience to Project DRAWDOWN.

With plenty of work needed, this project is seeding optimism in what world leaders and scientists call the moral issue of our time.

Music: Cadillac Desert, performed live at KDHX by William Tyler

THANKS to Anna Holland, engineering for Earthworms Related Earthworms Conversations: Dr. Peter Raven, St. Louis advisor to Papal Encyclical on Climate Change (June 2015)

For any Catholic parish, a Fish Fry cooks up fun and some revenue during the season of Lent. At Holy Redeemer in the St. Louis suburb of Webster Groves, a portion of that green potential is being invested in Green education-by-example, led by two Moms.

Jamie Hasemeier, Earthworms guest (pictured right, photo by Dave Leuking), came to "Holy" with strong personal environmental values. She wants to contribute in every way to a healthy world for her four children - and for her fellow humans everywhere. When Jamie teamed with fellow Mom Lisa Reed, who runs the church's annual Fish Fry, she worked through several cycles of Lent to cook sustainability into those events.

Students educate guests about low-waste eating as they direct diners to correctly recycle and compost. Results of these efforts included less than 2 bags of landfill trash from each of 2017's Fish Fry evenings - that each served over 750. Green efforts continue growing!

Features in the St. Louis Review, an archdiocesan publication, and the St. Louis Green Dining Alliance blog helped boost attendance in 2017, when these dinners went Compostable. Trays going into yellow Compost bins are not Styrofoam - they are plastics made from plants.

Other parishes are acting on the Holy Redeemer Green example, set by Mothers who love Earth - and act on their faith.

Music: Rearview, performed live at KDHX by Belle Star

THANKS to Anna Holland, Earthworms skillful, tasteful engineer

Related Earthworms Conversations: Laudato Si, understanding Care for Our Common Home, with Franciscan Sisters of Our Lady of Perpetual Help (January 2016)

Dr. Peter Raven, science advisor to Pope Francis' Climate Change encyclical (June 2015)

Illinois tourism writers call it a "best-kept secret." Visitors review it as a great place to camp, hike and learn some things. Director (and Earthworms guest) Michelle Berg Vogel says its a working farm and an environmental education place. And in March, a Fungus Farm!

McCully Heritage Project, located in Kampsville, IL, is a nature haven at the Illinois-Mississippi Rivers' confluence. Its 940 acres are mainly forested, with native trees and plenty of native wildlife. Native - and visiting - humans thrive there too.

On Saturday March 3, folks who fancy gardening can learn an Agroforestry skill: growing mushrooms on logs. Green oak logs, innoculated with mushroom spawn, sprout Shitakes, and softwood logs support the growth of Oyster mushrooms. Both delicious, nutritious - and easy to produce. Fun with fungus, anyone?

Music: Redwing, performed live at KDHX by Currykorn

THANKS to Jon Valley, engineering this Earthworms edition

Heading west from St. Louis on I-64, just over the Missouri River bridge, bluffs rise and land rolls. There is a golf course (hard to see) and a corporate campus area. With a St. Charles County zoning change, a high-density 350 luxury home development could soon alter 200 of these bluff acres.

Conservationist and landowner Dan Burkhardt, guest for this Earthworms edition, was surprised in December to learn that bluff property owned by the University of Missouri was in a sale process to a home developer. His Katy Land Trust was formed to prevent just this kind of move. Adjacent to the Busch and Weldon Spring Conservation Areas - land purchased and given into care of the Missouri Department of Conservation in the 1950s and 70s respectively - the forested Missouri Bluffs acreage in question is currently zoned Agricultural.

The outcome of a public hearing on February 21 by the St. Charles County Planning and Zoning Commission is key to a requested zoning change to Medium- and High-Density Residential, to accommodate the proposed development. The Katy Land Trust is leading opposition to this change. Public comments will be considered in person, and via email before 2-21-18.

Burkhardt and his wife Connie farm their acreage near Marthasville, in a corridor of natural features, German cultural heritage, a thriving regional arts movement and public recreation that is anchored by Katy Trail State Park, with a link to St. Louis in process from Great Rivers Greenway.

Tourism in this heart of Missouri's wine country increasingly returns investments in these resources to all Missourians - and our visitors. Opponents of an intensive luxury housing development here note that that investment will return to very few, and diminish public benefits.

This is an important point for public input. As Dan Burkhardt says, Asphalt is the Last Crop.

Music: Deep Gap, performed live at KDHX by Marisa Anderson

THANKS to Anna Holland, Earthworms engineer

EARTHWORMS is produced as a volunteer community service. Views expressed by volunteer host are her own, and not intended to represent KDHX St. Louis Independent Media or any other organization. Guest views, and the organizations they represent, are clearly presented in each interview, and in accompanying texts.

Plastic has overtaken our pantries, our shopping carts, our personal-care product cabinets - and our planet's waterways all the way to the oceans! Is there any hope for turning this plastic tide?

Jay Sinha and Chantal Plamondon, Canadian sustainable product entrepreneurs, offer their own experience to encourage fellow humans to break free plastic's hold on our lives. Their new book is Life Without Plastic - the Practical Step-by-Step Guide to Avoiding Plastic to Keep your Family and the Planet Healthy (Page Street Publishing, 2017).

Their book - and their online store, established in 2003 - packs facts about plastic pollution that Jay says is as pressing as Climate Change. But they are not polypropyl-whiners, by any stretch. Jay and Earthworms host Jean Ponzi pick through piles of plastic issues - with encouraging focus on options he and his family continue to test out, that can be useful to you.

What are the problems plastic is causing, for us and around our environment? What are alternatives to some of plastic's most pernicious influences in our lives?

Bring on the glass, wood, fabric and stainless steel! And PLEASE RECYCLE the plastics you do increasingly choose to use.

Music: Infernal Piano Plot, performed live at KDHX by The Claudettes

Thanks to Anna Holland, Earthworms Engineer

In the rural outskirts of St. Louis, in 1874, Greenwood Cemetery was formed to serve the African-American population growing here after the Civil War. This rolling, 32 acre site became this community's first non-sectarian commercial cemetery open to African Americans.

Until Greenwood closed to burials in 1993, more than 50,000 people were laid to rest here: Buffalo Soldiers and domestic workers, musicians and civil rights leaders, whole families both named and undocumented. This history, still being researched and written, remembers the persistence, hardships and gifts of black individuals' human lives - a remembrance now being restored.

Greenwood shares a fate with other cemeteries with no church or other stewarding relationships, that hold the folk of poor and marginalized people. Human neglect dumped trash on the property - and nature's forces took over. But friends arose to reclaim the history and natural grace of this place. Descendants of those interred and academic professionals formed Friends of Greenwood Cemetery in 1999. The site was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2004. With much more work to do, this circle of support is growing.

The Greenwood Cemetery Preservation Association brings this story to Earthworms. Guests are Shelley Morris and Rafael Morris, Secretary and President of the GCPA board; Becky McMahon of DJM Ecological Services; and Ann Eftimoff of World Wide Technology.

Music: Slide Blues, performed live at KDHX by Brian Curran.

THANKS to Anna Holland, audio engineering ace.

Related Earthworms Conversations: Green Burial (January 2017)

The ancient flow of love between Homo sapiens and Apis mellifera keeps food in our bellies, flowers blooming around us, and repairs the whacks we continue to take at nature's balance.

Maybe it's only a bit, one beekeeper, one hive at a time. Yet this relationship embodies the best of how our kind can interact with another species - in this case with a bug - to produce cascading benefits for whole biodiverse environments.

Eastern Missouri Beekeepers spreads this love, in an annual intensive workshop and cooperative-learning events year-round. The all-day Beekeeping Workshop, coming up February 10, brings nationally respected beekeeping experts to St. Louis to teach beginning and experienced beekeeping, alongside local pollinator advocates.

This Earthworms conversation draws on beekeeping savvy of Bob Sears, president of Eastern MO Beekeepers; Kate Smith, ardent beekeeper (3 years plus family heritage); and Becky Masterman, program manager for the University of Minnesota's acclaimed Bee Squad, who'll join EMBA members as workshop guest faculty.

Earthworms loves to talk Bees!

Music: Magic 9, performed live at KDHX by Infamous Stringdusters

THANKS to Anna Holland, engineering Earthworms bee-youtifully

Related Earthworms Conversations:Wild Bees and Native Plants with Heather Holm - March, 2017

Vanishing Bees: Science, Politics and Honeybee Health (Jan 2017)

Honeybee Democracy - Dr. Tom Seely is WILD About Bees (Feb 2016)

Suzanne Kelly was deep into Ph.D. work in women's studies in 2000 when her father died. Her grief and that experience with conventional memorial processes moved her to explore a new movement (ironic, given our age-old traditions) to send our bodies back to Earth. Literally.

Kelly's new book Greening Death - Reclaiming Burial Practices and Restoring Our Tie to Earth - is a scholarly treatment of natural burial. She covers the history of our resource-intensive, toxic and expensive funeral industry, and examines multi-cultural values about dealing with our dead bodies. From the Civil War era innovation of embalming to today's evolving partnership between land conservation and dust-to-dust advocates, her voice on this topic is factual and clear. She also speaks eloquently for our human needs to honor the passage out of life, and to reconnect with Earth.

Whether you are simply curious about these options or actively seeking Green Burial resources for end-of-life planning, this Earthworms conversation can be useful to you. Listen in peace!

THANKS to Anna Holland, engineering for Earthworms this week

Music: Butter II, performed live at KDHX by Ian Ethan Case

To date, 24 U.S. cities are using ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager - a sensible, user-friendly product of our federal taxes at work - to "benchmark" energy use as a first step to strategic investment in energy efficiency measures. St. Louis joined this progressive, prudent group in 2017 by passing an ordinance and signing on to the City Energy Project.

Use a common tracker to inform improvements that can cut costs? Make existing buildings more comfortable and healthier? Protect the environment by reducing carbon emissions? Good work, partners in the City of St. Louis for answering all these questions YES!

The significance of this work, even in its first months, was honored in November 2017 with an OLGA (Outstanding Local Government Award) for exemplary public-private collaboration, by the St. Louis region's East-West Gateway Council of Governments.

The work is straightforward, explains Earthworms guest Rajiv Ravulapati, CEP Technical Advisor for the City of St. Louis. CEP helps cities tailor energy efficiency programs and policies to local needs. In St. Louis, the CEP team assists building owners in implementing the City's benchmarking ordinance, which requires that public and private buildings over 50,000 sq ft must be Benchmarked by April 1, 2018, with the data reported to the City's Building Division. This requirement applies to over 900 buildings located in the City of St. Louis, including 16 City-owned buildings. A Concierge service assists building owners with the process, using an efficient online portal.

City Energy Project champions (shown above) accepting the OLGA award are Rajiv Ravulapati; City of St. Louis Sustainable Director Catherine Werner; US Green Building Council-Missouri Gateway Chapter Executive Director Emily Andrews; and St. Louis Alderman Jack Coatar, sponsor of the ordinance that passed with a unanimous vote!

Utility incentive and financing packages can support energy efficiency upgrades, based on CEP data. Options to expand this effort to work with smaller buildings, and across the St. Louis region, offer more potential benefits for local businesses and building owners.

THANKS to Anna Holland, energized engineer for Earthworms

Music: Balkan Twirl, performed live at KDHX by Sandy Weltman and the Carolbeth trio Related Earthworms Conversations: PACE Energy Financing (January 2017)

MO Energized Relationships Promote Energy Conservation (September 2016),

For a region of this planet blessed with so much WATER, you'd think we'd have darn diligent doggin' of water protection. And you would be RIGHT. Water quality advocates with the Missouri Coalition for the Environment are among our waters' ardent champions.

This week Earthworms talks with Brad Walker, MCE's Rivers Director, and Alicia Lloyd, Water Policy Coordinator (looking handsomely Glad in Plaid) for an update on water advocacy issues, needs, and some victories during 2017.

You'll hear about pro-Big Ag stacking of Missouri's Clean Water Commission (Bah!), collaborative strategies of the Lower Missouri River and Nicollet Island Coalitions (Yay!) - with more good river info on the MCE Blog.

Listener Quiz: can you name three dumb river "management" outcomes of the Pick-Sloan Act? There are plenty to choose from.

THANKS to Anna Holland, Earthworms ear-friendly engineer

Music: Cadillac Desert, performed live at KDHX by William Tyler

Related Earthworms Conversations:

• People's Pocket Guide to Environmental Action - July 2017
• Mississippi River Cities & Towns Initiative Infrastructure Proposal - April 2017
• Big Muddy MO with Greenway Network, MCE - February 2017