EcoJustice Radio

On this show we feature the late writer and activist Mike Davis, labeled an “urban historian,” who further took on geography, politics, economics, sociology and literature. His focus was the dislocation and separation brought on by capitalist society: people from land, work from ownership, individuals from each other, all in the service of profit. And he showed how this dislocation resulted in climate, environmental, and social disasters. His solution was communities connecting together and to the land. Mike Davis was a true intellectual visionary, who was down to get into the streets and walk his talk.

I met Mike Davis as a graduate student when he taught at UCLA in the School of Architecture and Urban Planning. At the time, he was writing his incendiary and prophetic shadowing of the social and environmental calamities that the city of Los Angeles, and our world at large, continues to face.

We begin with an introduction of Mike Davis and will come back to a question and answer by Vijay Prashad, an Indian Marxist historian and commentator. This is from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst History Department Feinberg Lecture Series from 2020.

We also feature a lecture by Mike Davis about his book Planet of Slums, which investigates the increasing inequality of the urban world. According to the U.N., more than one billion people now live in extreme poverty in mega-cities facing environmental and social collapse from perpetual and worsening climate disruptions. Mike Davis explores the meaning and the future of this radically unequal and unstable urban world. The lecture comes from a talk given at Rhodes College in Memphis, TN, in 2015.

For a reading of an excerpt of Mike Davis' 'City of Quartz', and other benefits, become an EcoJustice Radio patron at https://www.patreon.com/posts/excerpt-of-city-81328874

Mike Davis, [https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/news/5214-the-works-of-mike-davis] who passed away in 2022, was a writer, political activist, urban theorist, and historian based in Southern California. Once a meat cutter and a truck driver, he was Professor Emeritus at University of California, Riverside, a Macarthur Fellow, and the author of more than 20 books. He is best known for his investigations of power and social class in works such as City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles (1990) and Late Victorian Holocausts (2001).

Jack Eidt is an urban planner, environmental journalist, and climate organizer, as well as award-winning fiction writer. In addition to his work with SoCal 350 and EcoJustice Radio, he is Founder and Publisher of WilderUtopia [https://wilderutopia.com/], a website dedicated to the question of Earth sustainability, finding society-level solutions to environmental, community, economic, transportation and energy needs.

UMass Amherst Feinberg Series with Mike Davis and Vijay Prashad 2020: https://youtu.be/64IUWAhU6Ew

Rhodes College Lecture 2015: https://youtu.be/VUqlANApPgQ

Podcast Website: http://ecojusticeradio.org/

Podcast Blog: https://www.wilderutopia.com/category/ecojustice-radio/

Support the Podcast: Patreon https://www.patreon.com/ecojusticeradio

PayPal https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=LBGXTRM292TFC&source=url

Executive Producer and Intro: Jack Eidt

Engineer and Original Music: Blake Quake Beats

Episode 171

Photo credit: Annie Wells, LA Times

In the coming decades, at least thirteen million coastal U.S. residents will have to pack their bags and move from their homes, rising sea levels and superstorms put lives at risk and cause billions of dollars in damages. In the popular tourist town of Charleston, South Carolina, climate denial, widespread gentrification, over development, and racial issues compound. The city, like so many other coastal regions across the world, has no workable plan to relocate its most vulnerable populations away from the path of harm.

Harvard Law Professor and Author Susan Crawford tells the story of a city that has played a central role in this country's painful racial history since the early 1800s and now, as the waters rise, the city stands at the intersection of climate and race. In her book, 'Charleston: Race, Water, and the Coming Storm' [https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Charleston/Susan-Crawford/9781639363575 ], Susan Crawford puts out a well-researched call for climate adaptation and mitigation, guided by Black community leaders whom she documents with in-depth narratives.

Some say a sea wall is the answer, others find the suggestion to be an expensive undertaking that falls short of impending climate predictions. So what would it mean to uproot an entire town due rising sea levels and flooding neighborhoods?

In this show we discuss the issues Charleston and other similar cities face and how long term planning and respectful engagement and treatment of local communities of color can result in necessary solutions.

BUY THE BOOK: https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1639363572?tag=simonsayscom

For an extended interview and other benefits, become an EcoJustice Radio patron at https://www.patreon.com/posts/author-susan-on-80990896

Susan Crawford is the John A. Reilly Clinical Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and author of ‘Charleston: Race, Water, and the Coming Storm’ [https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Charleston/Susan-Crawford/9781639363575 ]. She previously was Obama’s special assistant to the president for science, technology, and innovation policy and co-led the FCC transition team between his and the Bush administrations. Earlier in her career, Crawford was a partner at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering. As an academic, she teaches courses about climate adaptation and public leadership. Crawford is the author of several books, including Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age and Fiber: The Coming Tech Revolution and Why America Might Miss It.

Jessica Aldridge, Co-Host and Producer of EcoJustice Radio, is an environmental educator, community organizer, and 15-year waste industry leader. She is a co-founder of SoCal 350, organizer for ReusableLA, and founded Adventures in Waste. She is a former professor of Recycling and Resource Management at Santa Monica College, and an award recipient of the international 2021 Women in Sustainability Leadership and the 2016 inaugural Waste360, 40 Under 40.

More Info/Resources:

Coastal Flood Resilience Project: https://www.cfrp.info/

Podcast Website: http://ecojusticeradio.org/

Podcast Blog: https://www.wilderutopia.com/category/ecojustice-radio/

Support the Podcast: Patreon https://www.patreon.com/ecojusticeradio

PayPal https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=LBGXTRM292TFC&source=url

Executive Producer: Jack Eidt

Host and Producer: Jessica Aldridge

Engineer and Original Music: Blake Quake Beats

Episode 170

Photo credit: Susan Crawford

Biodynamics emerged through the work and passions of Austrian philosopher and scientist Dr. Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925). It began with his infamous lectures in 1924 which inspired farmers to a new yet ancient way of integrating scientific understanding with a recognition of spirit in nature. Stewart Lundy, Education and Media Manager of the Josephine Porter Institute for Applied Bio-Dynamics [http://www.jpibiodynamics.org], joins us to discuss Steiner’s legacy in the advancement and growth of restorative and regenerative biodynamic agriculture.

Rudolf Steiner was an architect, social reformer, and esotericist, who also founded the Anthroposophical spiritual-scientific movement. Following World War I, Steiner was engaged in the Waldorf education movement which now has over 1,000 schools on six continents, biodynamic agriculture, and anthroposophical medicine.

Stewart Lundy notes the principles and practices of biodynamics are alive and well, thriving in thousands of gardens, farms, vineyards, ranches, and orchards. Biodynamics is accessible to anyone and its wisdom and guiding principles can be applied wherever food is grown, by thoughtfully adapting to scale, landscape, climate, and culture. Akin to the views of Indigenous peoples worldwide, biodynamics reminds us that science and the spiritual aspects of Nature are not mutually exclusive, but rather part of a holistic cosmological view.

For an extended interview and other benefits, become an EcoJustice Radio patron at https://www.patreon.com/posts/stewart-lundy-on-80656577

Stewart Lundy is a biodynamic farmer in Virginia [http://www.perennialroots.com] where he raises cattle and sheep and runs a small market garden with his wife Natalie. Together they have been farming since 2010. He consults with regenerative growers around the world. The Josephine Porter Institute {http://www.jpibiodynamics.org] is a national producer and distributor of biodynamic preparations – the enlivening forces that work dynamically within the soil, compost, and plants to ultimately provide us with healthier foods, healthier bodies, and a healthier planet.

Carry Kim, Co-Host of EcoJustice Radio. An advocate for ecosystem restoration, indigenous lifeways, and a new humanity born of connection and compassion, she is a long-time volunteer for SoCal350, member of Ecosystem Restoration Camps, and a co-founder of the Soil Sponge Collective, a grassroots community organization dedicated to big and small scale regeneration of Mother Earth.

MORE INFO

https://www.perennialroots.com/media

Podcast Website: http://ecojusticeradio.org/

Podcast Blog: https://www.wilderutopia.com/category/ecojustice-radio/

Support the Podcast: Patreon https://www.patreon.com/ecojusticeradio

PayPal https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=LBGXTRM292TFC&source=url

Executive Producer and Intro: Jack Eidt

Hosted by Carry Kim

Engineer and Original Music: Blake Quake Beats

Episode 169

Photo credit: Stewart Lundy

Multiple banks have pledged to clean up their fossil fuel funding with net-zero carbon commitments, but they continue business-as-usual, pushing for profit by championing destructive projects responsible for driving climate chaos.

The 2022 annual report, Banking on Climate Chaos [http://www.bankingonclimatechaos.org], revealed that fossil fuel financing from the worlds 60 largest banks has reached nearly $4.6 trillion in the six years since the adoption of the Paris Climate Agreement, with $742 billion in 2021 alone.

On this show recorded in 2022, we delve into the Banking on Climate Chaos report with Ruth Breech from Rainforest Action Network [https://www.ran.org/], one of the organizations that authored the report. She discusses how these findings underscore the need for banks to immediately implement policies that end their financing for fossil fuel expansion. Moreover we highlight some of these projects causing climate chaos and the worldwide movement of communities coming together to demand that the financial sector get out of the oil and gas business altogether.

We also feature special reports from Producer Jack Eidt on Liquified natural Gas expansions on the Louisiana Gulf Coast and the recently approved Willow drilling project on Alaska's North Slope.

Listen to the extended version of the show: https://www.patreon.com/posts/banking-on-chaos-66503029

Ruth Breech is Senior Campaigner, of Rainforest Action Networks Climate and Energy team. She is responsible for organizing corporate accountability campaigns on financial institutions, supporting front line communities impacted by fossil fuels and climate change, partnering with Indigenous leaders and working with grassroots networks across the country to Defund Climate Chaos.

Ruth brings 20 years of on-the-ground-work with environmental justice frontline communities. She is the recipient of the 2009 Healthy School Heroes Award for her leadership in relocating an elementary school in Ohio away from a plastics plant and its cancer causing emissions. She serves on the board of Crude Accountability International & Earth Guardians.

Jessica Aldridge, Co-Host and Producer of EcoJustice Radio, is an environmental educator, community organizer, and 15-year waste industry leader. She is a co-founder of SoCal 350, organizer for ReusableLA, and founded Adventures in Waste. She is a former professor of Recycling and Resource Management at Santa Monica College, and an award recipient of the international 2021 Women in Sustainability Leadership and the 2016 inaugural Waste360, 40 Under 40.

Podcast Website: http://ecojusticeradio.org/

Podcast Blog: https://wilderutopia.com/ecojustice-radio/banking-on-climate-chaos-the-fossil-fuel-finance-report/

Support the Podcast: Patreon https://www.patreon.com/ecojusticeradio

PayPal https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=LBGXTRM292TFC&source=url

Executive Producer: Jack Eidt

Host and Producer: Jessica Aldridge

Engineer and Original Music: Blake Quake Beats

Solar. Wind. Renewable energy. The Biden administration issued a plan that envisions the US generating 45% of its electricity from solar panels by 2050.

Climate change, justice, and equity are increasingly on the hearts and minds of millions of people globally as we continue to witness imbalance upon the planet; the manifestations are glaringly obvious. Forbes magazine noted the world will likely quadruple the number of solar panels in the world over the next decade. But despite public wishes for clean green, equitable & safe renewable energy, there are caveats and dark sides to all of it.

Conventional solar comes with liabilities around: safety, hazardous heavy metal waste & a lack of circularity around recycling, ecosystem disruption and devastation, as well as solar panels being discarded in landfills where they could potentially leach. The Harvard Business Review created statistical models that predict solar panels “might produce 50 times more waste in just four years than anticipated by the International Renewable Energy Agency.” And while the cost of solar panels has decreased, due to the dominance of Chinese production, the cost of producing reliable grid electricity with solar panels has risen, since panels are weather-dependent. But these critiques belong to conventional solar.

Enter CHERP Solar Works [http://www.cherpsolar.org] with new designs on solar, both on how it is deployed AND manufactured. CHERP, using a nonprofit model, aims to deliver on the promise of solar as a safe, renewable energy by empowering and uplifting local communities and making solar accessible in underserved communities. Megan Anderson joins us to tell how CHERP intends to address environmental justice and economic inequity by manufacturing solar where we live.

For an extended interview and other benefits, become an EcoJustice Radio patron at https://www.patreon.com/posts/on-locally-grown-80046078

Megan Anderson, Vice President of Admin & Workforce Development Program Manager for CHERP Solar Works, has been working in nonprofits since she was 16 -- starting at her public library. She has a background in mathematics, theology, and psychology. CHERP has created a replicable, non-profit, solar panel assembly factory that is uniting physicists, economists, City Hall, local businesses, and hundreds of local volunteers, to bring back middle-class manufacturing jobs and cut green-house gasses on a massive scale.

Carry Kim, Co-Host of EcoJustice Radio. An advocate for ecosystem restoration, indigenous lifeways, and a new humanity born of connection and compassion, she is a long-time volunteer for SoCal350, member of Ecosystem Restoration Camps, and a co-founder of the Soil Sponge Collective, a grassroots community organization dedicated to big and small scale regeneration of Mother Earth.

MORE INFO

National Story of Hope Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efqurolf-e0&t=6s

CHERP Overview Presentation: https://youtu.be/5_q9zmHaLIk?list=PLjTJXw1eoh_yeMBRxGPdvcRScdMHcTxND

Pomona Factory Tour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocECiCHiJQc

CHERP Talking Points: https://www.cherpsolar.org/_files/ugd/a5b4d7_746325cd370d4f8b900924046d2c7a3c.pdf

IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics Paper on the Technology: https://www.cherpsolar.org/_files/ugd/a5b4d7_6669bf0617d74ed48d20662e9a4eaef2.pdf

Podcast Website: http://ecojusticeradio.org/

Podcast Blog: https://www.wilderutopia.com/category/ecojustice-radio/

Support the Podcast: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=LBGXTRM292TFC&source=url

Executive Producer: Jack Eidt

Hosted by Carry Kim

Intro By: Jessica Aldridge

Engineer and Original Music: Blake Quake Beats

Episode 168

We’ve been ​“saving the planet” for decades and environmental crises just continue to compound. All this Tesla driving, green-roofed corporate headquarters, and carbon trading seems to accomplish little to nothing — all while low-income communities of color continue to suffer the worst consequences.

Jenny Price is an ardent advocate for increasing public environmental access, activism, and effectiveness in solving the myriad of challenges we face. She joined us in 2022 to talk about her latest book, 'Stop Saving the Planet, An Environmentalist Manifesto' [https://www.jennyjjprice.net/stop-saving-the-planet]. Its message is that environmental advocates must do better. She suggests a plan with 39 steps to get to cleaning up the toxic messes and rolling back climate change.

Buy the Book: https://www.jennyjjprice.net/stop-saving-the-planet#

Jenny Price is a writer and public artist, and a Research Fellow at the Sam Fox School at Washington University-St. Louis. She tells stories about the environment and public space, and deploys a wide variety of public arts and humanities formats to do so. Her writings include Stop Saving the Planet: An Environmentalist Manifesto (2021); Flight Maps: Adventures with Nature in Modern America; “Thirteen Ways of Seeing Nature in L.A.” and other essays; op-eds in the NY Times and LA Times; and her not-quite advice column “Green Me Up JJ.”

She has created, co-created, and sometimes stumbled into public art projects to work for environmental justice, as well as to de-privatize essential public spaces. She has co-founded the LA Urban Rangers collective, led tours of the concrete LA River, designed the alternative Nature Trail in Laumeier Sculpture Park, co-launched the "What Are You Doing?! (stop saving the planet!)” video series, and co-created the popular Our Malibu Beaches mobile phone app.

Jessica Aldridge, Co-Host and Producer of EcoJustice Radio, is an environmental educator, community organizer, and 15-year waste industry leader. She is a co-founder of SoCal 350, organizer for ReusableLA, and founded Adventures in Waste. She is a former professor of Recycling and Resource Management at Santa Monica College, and an award recipient of the international 2021 Women in Sustainability Leadership and the 2016 inaugural Waste360, 40 Under 40.

Podcast Website: http://ecojusticeradio.org/

Podcast Blog: https://wilderutopia.com/ecojustice-radio/stop-saving-the-planet-an-environmentalist-manifesto-ep-125/

Support the Podcast: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=LBGXTRM292TFC&source=url

Hosted by Jessica Aldridge

Engineer and Original Music: Blake Quake Beats

Executive Producer: Jack Eidt

Episode 125

Photo credit: Igor Heifetz

The fashion industry contributes to roughly 10% of all global carbon emissions (releasing 1.2 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere every year). It is also the world’s second worst offender in terms of water and plastic pollution, seeing that the majority of our clothes are made from plastic and contribute to microplastic pollution.

In this show, our guest Dr. Joanne Brasch, Special Projects Manager for California Product Stewardship Council, walks us through the current state of disposal, shares what prime solutions must exist, and how their organization and others are pushing on policies and legislation that will hold manufacturers accountable, create transparent industry practices, and address social and environmental justice concerns.

It is estimated that 100 billion garments are produced each year, while 92 million tons end up in landfills. That is the equivalent of one trash truck full of clothes being dumped into the landfill every second. In 7 years, it is expected that the 92 million discarded tons will increase upwards of 148 million tons according to Fashion Revolution. In the United States, wasted clothing and textiles make up almost 8% of all landfill waste.

Many times, textile waste isn’t recycled due a complex web of issues from mixed material types to lack of sorting and processing infrastructure.

Undesirable clothing donated to thrift stores or dropped off in parking lot collection bins could very well be disguised as second hand clothing that is exported to and dumped on other countries, such as Ghana, Kenya, Chile and more. A recent documentary revealed that 300m items of junk plastic clothing from around the world are dumped in Kenya every year.

So what needs to happen to turn the tide on the textile dilemma?

LISTEN TO THE EXTENDED INTERVIEW: https://www.patreon.com/posts/joanne-brasch-of-79723489

Dr. Joanne Brasch holds a PhD in Textile Economics and Environmental Analysis from the University of California, Davis, where she also received a Master’s degree in Textile Science and a Bachelor’s degree in International Agricultural Development. She currently works as Special Project Manager at the California Product Stewardship Council (CPSC) [https://www.calpsc.org/textilestewardship] and has worked for its national spinoff, the National Stewardship Action Council (NSAC). Dr. Brasch is appointed by the state agency CalRecycle to two advisory committees for carpet and mattress recycling where she serves as the chair on both. She made Waste360’s 2021 “40 under 40” awardees list.

Jessica Aldridge, Co-Host and Producer of EcoJustice Radio, is an environmental educator, community organizer, and 15-year waste industry leader. She is a co-founder of SoCal 350, organizer for ReusableLA, and founded Adventures in Waste. She is a former professor of Recycling and Resource Management at Santa Monica College, and an award recipient of the international 2021 Women in Sustainability Leadership and the 2016 inaugural Waste360, 40 Under 40.

More Info/Resources:

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB707

Related Shows:

Circular Fashion: Designing for Equity & Environment

https://wilderutopia.com/ecojustice-radio/circular-fashion-designing-for-equity-environment/

The Steep Environmental and Social Costs of the Fashion Industry

https://wilderutopia.com/ecojustice-radio/the-steep-environmental-and-social-costs-of-the-fashion-industry/

Podcast Website: http://ecojusticeradio.org/

Podcast Blog: https://www.wilderutopia.com/category/ecojustice-radio/

Support the Podcast: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=LBGXTRM292TFC&source=url

Guest: Dr. Joanne Brasch

Executive Producer: Jack Eidt

Host and Producer: Jessica Aldridge

Engineer and Original Music: Blake Quake Beats

Episode 167

Land Back, the movement to return the stolen lands of the USA, also known as Turtle Island, to the original Indigenous peoples who inextricably belong to them, has been accelerating for some time now. Indigenous peoples have "lost" roughly 99% of the lands they once inhabited, according to a 2021 data set published in Science. 42% of tribes in historical records have no recognized land base today.

Radical imagination is required to forge a new, and also perhaps ancient way out of the injustices and destruction inherent in settler colonialism. As our guest Dr. Cutcha Risling Baldy [http://cutcharislingbaldy.com], Associate Professor and Department Chair of Native American Studies at Cal Poly Humboldt, reminds us, decolonization IS land back. Knowing we live on occupied lands, what are we compelled to actually do or change? What is our personal responsibility to the Indigenous peoples and lands where we have "settled?" The time is ripe for actions over tokenism and superficial gestures.

Dr. Cutcha Risling Baldy is the Co-Director of the Cal Poly Humboldt Native American Studies Food Sovereignty Lab & Traditional Ecological Knowledges Institute. Her book: We Are Dancing For You: Native Feminisms and the Revitalization of Women's Coming-of-Age Ceremonies received “Best First Book in Native American and Indigenous Studies,” at the 2019 Native American Indigenous Studies Association Conference. She is also the volunteer Executive Director of the Native Women's Collective [http://www.nativewomenscollective.org/], a nonprofit organization that supports the continued revitalization of Native American arts and culture. She is Hupa, Karuk, and Yurok and is enrolled in the Hoopa Valley Tribe.

Carry Kim, Co-Host of EcoJustice Radio. An advocate for ecosystem restoration, indigenous lifeways, and a new humanity born of connection and compassion, she is a long-time volunteer for SoCal350, member of Ecosystem Restoration Camps, and a co-founder of the Soil Sponge Collective, a grassroots community organization dedicated to big and small scale regeneration of Mother Earth.

For an extended interview and other benefits, become an EcoJustice Radio patron at https://www.patreon.com/posts/cutcha-risling-79318587

MORE INFO

“Tending Nature: Indigenous Land Stewardship.” KCET documentary film series. https://www.kcet.org/shows/tending-nature/special/indigenous-land-stewardship

Episode 19: Decolonizing Water Part I Water Talk Podcast https://www.watertalkpodcast.com/episodes/episode-19

”Reviving Relationships with Our Foodways: A History of Indigenous Food Sovereignty in California and Beyond" by Dr. Cutcha Risling Baldy and Dr. Kaitlin Reed (co-directors of the FSL). https://cooperationhumboldt.com/food-guide-2021/

Podcast Website: http://ecojusticeradio.org/

Podcast Blog: https://www.wilderutopia.com/category/ecojustice-radio/

Support the Podcast: https://www.patreon.com/ecojusticeradio

Executive Producer: Jack Eidt

Hosted by Carry Kim

Intro By: Jessica Aldridge

Engineer and Original Music: Blake Quake Beats

Episode 166

Is a 100% clean, renewable energy future by the year 2050 possible? Our guest, Stanford Professor Mark Z. Jacobson proposes that the most efficient and socially and environmentally just way is to replace fossil fuels through a combined implementation of Wind, Water, and Solar energy solutions.

Are these solutions perfect? No. However, when compared to other so-called energy solutions like nuclear, biofuel, biomass, waste to energy, and hydrogen (just to name a few) these three (Wind, Water-Geothermal, Solar) show significant promise. As our guest explains, real solutions must always be BOTH clean and renewable, rapidly deployable, low cost, and carry with them very few side effects.

In this interview, Professor Jacobson responds to his detractors and also debunks some myths, while getting at the solutions. What about the intermittency of wind and solar? Is there enough battery storage? Are wind turbines dangerous to wildlife? What is the real cost of battery mining and disposal? Why don't small nuclear reactors make the cut and how are they dangerous even to global security? How do the proposed costs-benefits of these solutions pencil out when compared to other options and the fossil fuel industry?

In his latest book, No Miracles Needed, How Today's Technology Can Save Our Climate and Clean Our Air, Professor Mark Z. Jacobson [https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/] lays out a clear framework based on peer reviewed studies, and he does so in a way that is easy to understand. Professor Jacobson has developed computer models and roadmaps that illustrate how countries, states, cities, and towns can transition to 100% renewable energy for all their energy needs. He is a man with a clean energy plan, one with a stable and efficient grid that would provide reliable electricity at lower cost while creating new jobs.

Mark Z. Jacobson is Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University, and Director of their Atmosphere/Energy Program.

Jessica Aldridge, Co-Host and Producer of EcoJustice Radio, is an environmental educator, community organizer, and 15-year waste industry leader. She is a co-founder of SoCal 350, organizer for ReusableLA, and founded Adventures in Waste. She is a former professor of Recycling and Resource Management at Santa Monica College, and an award recipient of the international 2021 Women in Sustainability Leadership and the 2016 inaugural Waste360, 40 Under 40.

More Info/Resources:

Public course on 100% renewables: Clean, renewable energy & storage for a sustainable future: https://online.stanford.edu/courses/xeiet100-clean-renewable-energy-storage-sustainable-future

New book: "No Miracles Needed": https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/WWSNoMN/NoMiracles.html

Stanford Solutions Project infographic map https://sites.google.com/stanford.edu/wws-roadmaps/home

Related Shows:

Podcast Website: http://ecojusticeradio.org/

Podcast Blog: https://www.wilderutopia.com/category/ecojustice-radio/

Support the Podcast: https://www.patreon.com/ecojusticeradio

Guest: Mark Z. Jacobson

Executive Producer: Jack Eidt

Host and Producer: Jessica Aldridge

Engineer and Original Music: Blake Quake Beats

Episode 165

Sacred Sueños Reforestation Project: Off-Grid and Off-Road in the Andes

A simple life. Many of us dream of this. Especially those living separated from the natural rhythms of nature in favor of endless technological conveniences and gadgetry. We are bombarded by a daily onslaught of unnatural sights, sounds, smells, and superfluous information. The fascination with what Henry David Thoreau wrote about his living experiment in simplicity on Walden Pond continues for those perhaps disheartened by the ways of the modern world. But what does it take to actually live a simple life…as Nature?

Yves Zehnder tells how he ended up off-grid, off-road and offline in a quest to do just that: live simply — to be a conscious contributor, rather than an extractive consumer, a homesteader with a far smaller than average footprint. He co-founded Sacred Sueños [https://sacredsuenos.wordpress.com/] in 2004, a mountain regeneration project, close to Vilcabamba in the Andes mountains of southern Ecuador.

He recounts his journey to create a home defined by: regeneration, biodiversity, and an abundant, thriving ecosystem. Through permaculture, analog forestry practices, restoring soil fertility, natural building, appropriate technologies, regenerative design and agriculture systems, animal integration, agro-ecology & intentional community. Becoming one with and adapted to Nature by being as Nature, is a life-transforming journey, you just may wish to undertake yourself.

Yves Zehnder is Steward of the Sacred Sueños Reserve, and Amateur of all trades at the Sierra y Cielo homestead [https://sierraycielo.org/]. He follows a philosophy integrating regenerative design in all aspects of life. He loves creating edible forests and gardens, and raising animals, using ecological mimicry to increase biodiversity and productivity. He still lives on the mountain, raising a young family, and taking his first steps towards ecology inspired consulting and education.

Carry Kim, Co-Host of EcoJustice Radio. An advocate for ecosystem restoration, indigenous lifeways, and a new humanity born of connection and compassion, she is a long-time volunteer for SoCal350, member of Ecosystem Restoration Camps, and a co-founder of the Soil Sponge Collective, a grassroots community organization dedicated to big and small scale regeneration of Mother Earth.

For an extended interview and other benefits, become an EcoJustice Radio patron at https://www.patreon.com/posts/yves-zehnder-on-78646489

Podcast Website: http://ecojusticeradio.org/

Podcast Blog: https://www.wilderutopia.com/category/ecojustice-radio/

Support the Podcast: https://www.patreon.com/ecojusticeradio

Executive Producer: Jack Eidt

Hosted by Carry Kim

Intro By: Jessica Aldridge

Engineer and Original Music: Blake Quake Beats

Episode 164

Photo credit: Sierra Y Cielo