Earthworms

Psychologist Margaret Klein Salamon's life and work took a sharp turn six years ago when she turned own feelings of hopelessness and despair toward action. As a self-proclaimed Climate Warrior, she began leading others through TheClimateMobilization.org, a part of the climate emergency movement working alongside Sunrise, Climate Strike, Extinction Rebellion and other urgent-action groups.

Salamon's has written a self-help guide to direct more of us into the kind of all-in action she continues. She talks with Earthworms' Jean Ponzi about this new book, Facing the Climate Emergency: How to Transform Yourself with Climate Truth (New Society Publishers), and how the necessary urgent climate response is connected to the Covid-19 pandemic and now the global resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Music: Balkan Twirl, performed live at KDHX by Sandy Weltman and Carolbeth Trio THANKS to Andy Coco, Andy Heaslet, Jon Valley - Earthworms team of audio engineers

Related Earthworms Conversations:

Tosha Phonix: Organizing Food Justice, Growing Community (Oct 2019)

Climate Communications from Saint Louis Zoo (Sept 2019)

Leah Clyburn: Organizing to End Environmental Racism in STL (Oct 2019)

Corporations own a lot of land, from workplace campuses to the property under long-run power lines. Wildlife Habitat Council has worked with companies, worldwide and over 30 years, to prompt investment in biodiversity as a benefit to the bottom line.

Margaret O'Gorman, President of WHC, writes and talks about what makes this process work, for the companies and for Nature in her new book Strategic Corporate Conservation Planning, a Guide to Meaningful Engagement (Feb 2020, Island Press). This Earthworms conversation includes stories about collaborations like BEECH (pictured above), an environmental education center created and run by Bridgestone Tires in Warren County, TN.

In the US and 27 countries abroad, this work is moving "beyond regulation," proving that achievement of real conservation goals are and should be part of doing business.

Read: how WHC work is addressing US Sustainable Development Goals.

Thanks to Andy Heaslet, Andy Coco and Jon Valley for keeping Earthworms sounding strong!

Music: Aftershock, performed live at KDHX by Ian Ethan Case

Related Earthworms Conversations: Envision Charlotte NC with Amy Aussieker (March 2020)

Green America Campaigns for Solutions, with Beth Porter (Nov 2019

Cost, access, lack of info? The incentive program Grow Solar sunsets these barriers to investing in clean, renewable energy for residents of our St. Louis and Metro East communities.

Grow Solar pools regional buying power to secure significant discounts for residential installations. Offered here by the Missouri Botanical Garden and Midwest Renewable Energy Association, Grow Solar action starts with an informative Power Hour that will immediately advise attendees on feasibility and potential costs. Interest is strong, and growing. Brilliant!

Earthworms welcomes Grow Solar's Jenn DeRose and Kevin McKee to describe the program's process and benefits, for St. Louis area communities in Missouri and Illinois.

Music: Mister Sun performing live at KDHX.

THANKS to Andy Coco, Andy Heaslet and Jon Valley, the actual engineering team bringing you virtual Earthworms.

Related Earthworms Conversations:

Drawdown: Solutions to Reverse Global Warming (May 2018)

City Energy Project: Powering Efficiency in St. Louis Buildings (January 2018)

Ecologists know health is connected for all that lives. But most humans are not yet hip to this fact. One Health, both title and theme of a globally vital body of work makes this point for elephants, turtles, water, soil, etc. etc. etc. - and us.

Dr. Sharon Deem directs the Institute of Conservation Medicine for the Saint Louis Zoo. Her work with animals, here and abroad, gave rise to the research, understanding, philosophy and curriculum called One Health, a collaboration with Drs. Elizabeth Rayhel and Kelly E. Lane-deGraaf, who teach this material at Fontbonne University. One Health draws from many disciplines, shows a way toward many solutions to issues from human to planetary scale. This Earthworms conversation ranges around One Health implications for our species during this Big Time Out, from a place of deep appreciation for Nature's health commitments and safeguards - for all species, on this 50th Earth Day.

Don't miss hearing Sharon Deem's TEDx talk!

THANKS to Earthworms engineering team, Andy Coco, Andy Heaslet, Jon Valley.

Music: Main theme from Swan Lake, performed live for Earth Day and Earthworms by Stephen Blake, husband of Sharon Deem, from the shelter of their home.

Related Earthworms Conversations:

Richard Louv: Our Wild Calling (Dec 2019)

Relatives, Responsibility, Mindfulness with Dr. Daniel Wildcat (Oct 2018)

Bears! with biologist Laura Conlee (July 2018)

Learning Field Botany in Missouri's winter held little appeal for Dr. Kyra Krakos' classes at Maryville U. You just can't do your science easily. This was well before COVID-19 threw a curve into science and all human projects.

Workaround: Krakos merged her stratae of expertise with her students' digital-native prowess. She "grows" Virtual Reality prairie, glade and riparian outdoor classrooms. She set up systems so advanced students teach beginners the basics (like how pollination works), freeing herself to stay ahead of their voracious learning curves by collecting "skins" on her travels to house new VR explorations of the prairies and glades of Shaw Nature Reserve, to Ireland's glacial lakes and woodland Berns.

While Virtual rules almost everything for us humans right now, some on-site physical pleasures gnawingly persist. Maryville will soon host Virtual Goat Week, this year's edition of an ongoing Goat Lab study of invasive species removal methods, starring the super-chomping plant control power of Goats.

BIG THANKS to Earthworms engineering crew: Andy Coco, Andy Heaslet, Jon Valley.

Music: Mister Sun, performed live at KDHX by Hunter's Permit

Related Earthworms Conversations - Tech & Green Science

Global Mosquito Alert with Dr. Anne Bowser (Aug 2019)

Dr. Elaine Ingham: Soil Science Rocks Plant Health (Oct 2017)

Drawdown: Solutions to Reverse Global Warming (March 2018)

Earth Day launched 50 years ago. 2020 is cause for a global celebration, if not for some bits of lipid-coated protein commanding human awareness, planet-wide. In St. Louis, our Earth Day-365 leaders are rallying to help us celebrate, learn, and organize VIRTUALLY, at the safe and healthy Social Distance. Over NINE days of eco-logical events, folks here in the Earthworms region will celebrate, while staying apart and healthy. Green learning, music and much more for all, April 18-26!

Dr. Jess Watson and Bob Henkel of Earth Day-365 talk with Earthworms' Jean Ponzi about upcoming events, and how ALL of us can join this semi-centennial of Life On Earth connection.

Related Earthworms Conversations: Earth Day: history of a genius event with Dr. Adam Rome (May 2018)

Music: One Mint Julep, performed live at KDHX by Brian Curran Thanks to Andy Coco, Andy Heaslet, and Jon Valley Earthworms tag-team engineers.

We humans under stress, amazingly, recharge with a You-Can-Do. Especially when the DO gives us breaks from the stressors.

As our entire species copes at once with the impersonal power of non-living bits of protein to separate us in yet more ways, we are choosing to connect in unprecedented, healing ways. Healing for us, and for our super-stressed (by humans) planet.

ECO CHALLENGE is one of these connectors. Available via your preferred tech device for the entire month of April. Which includes the 50th Annual Earth Day, likely to be festival-free.

Lacy Cagle, Director of Learning for EcoChallenge.org, presents this motivating, multi-focus You-Can-Do. To WHOLE up our Earth relations and habits, while we are HOLED up, hopefully, in anti-viral best practice.

Thanks to Andy Coco and Andy Heaslet, engineering for Earthworms in our all-remote Social Distanced locales.

Stay Safe - Be Well!

Related Earthworms Conversations:

Making Green our Normal with Kathy Kuntz (Oct 2019)

Storytelling, Deep Listening: Antidotes to Toxic Public Discourse (July 2019)

Try Living Plastic Free! EcoChallenge from July 2019

Charlotte, North Carolina, a "city with the best of everything," is making Green a priority! Vision, leadership, and tracking replicable examples have become the norm thanks to efforts of Amy Aussieker and her organization, Envision Charlotte.

From mandating building energy efficiency (which benefits building owners and occupants) to innovating with Circular Economy principles this historic metro area is modeling 21st century sustainability in fiscally and socially beneficial action.

Amy Aussieker talked with Earthworms host Jean Ponzi in advance of her March 10 and 11 presentations to the US Green Building Council-Missouri Gateway Chapter and St. Louis Green Business Challenge. St. Louis is doing some of this too - how can we grow these efforts here? THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms Engineer

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

Related Earthworms Conversations: Green America: Campaigns for Solutions with Beth Porter (Nov 2019)

Making Green our Normal with Kathy Kuntz (Oct 2019)

Slow Money's Woody Tasch (July 2018) Anything else about economics? Slow Money

Bugs benefitting humans? Doug Tallamy's research and reason lays out an eco-logical banquet of ways insect life supports our own - and he calls on each one of us to return the favor, by growing native plants. Tallamy's message is passionate and practical - and clear enough for us ALL to take to heart.

Tallamy's first book, Bringing Nature Home (2007, Timber Press), has become the go-to best bet for inspiring lawn-lovers to switch allegiance to a truly lively (meaning largely NATIVE) personal landscape. His new book, Nature's Best Hope (Feb 2020, Timber Press), jumped onto The NY Times Bestseller List in less than a month. Read Washington Post short essay from 2-12-20

His first midwestern speaking gigs, in St. Louis on March 6-7, sold out in days. This Earthworms conversation is a great chance to hear THE BEST explainer of how we are part of Nature, and how our personal landscapes - from suburban yards to city balconies - CAN turn around catastrophic ecological decline, if we work together and Grow Natives NOW. We can grow what Tallamy encouragingly calls Homegrown National Park. Dig it!

Music: Big Piney Blues, performed live at KDHX by Brian Curran

THANKS to Sasha Hay and Jon Valley, engineers for Earthworms

Related Earthworms Conversations:

Nancy Lawson, The Humane Gardener (Feb 2019)

Native Plant Garden Tour: See, Grow, Love! (Aug 2017) - look for this tour again in 2020 - and find St. Louis Audubon's Bring Conservation Home program cited by Doug Tallamy in Nature's Best Hope as a program transforming local plant aesthetics.

Lawn Alternatives with Neil Diboll of Prairie Nursery (Aug 2017)

In the Company of Trees, Forest Bathing with Andrea Sarubbi Fareshteh Jan 2019)

Promoting growing and ethically gathering herbs, understanding these plants' healing properties, and appreciating Nature. These are the roots of learning and work of Tend & Flourish School of Botanicals.

Longtime organic farmer Crystal Moore Stevens and botanist Alex Queatham have joined friendly forces to teach others how to appreciate and use herbs. Their first (filled!) Herbal Apprenticeship class is working toward completion of study. Their programs at public venues bring their knowledgable love of herbaceous plants to an increasingly receptive audience.

As Crystal eloquently states, this work is Creating Cultivated Ecologies in the minds, hearts and practices of people exploring the potentials of herbs.

Music: Divertimento (k.131) - Kevin MacLeod from WA Mozart

THANKS to Sasha Hay and Jon Valley, our KDHX engineers

Related Earthworms Conversations: Grow, Create, Inspire with Crystal Moore Stevens (Oct 2016)

Fungus Farming at McCully Heritage Project (Feb 2018)

Kate Estwing Grows, Arranges, Loves . . . Slow Flowers (July 2018)

Labyrinth: Walking Sacred Ground with Robert Fishbone (Sept 2019)

A Cinematic Ode to Seed Savers (Nov 2016)