Forward Radio podcasts

Observations on the 2023 Ky Governor's race, local Ford strike, and shrinking cell phone usage in downtown Louisville.

On this week’s Sustainability Now!, your host, Justin Mog, grabs his gavel for a conversation about Earthjustice, with Sharmeen Morrison, a Senior Associate Attorney with Earthjustice’s Biodiversity Defense Program, and Thomas Cmar, a senior attorney for Earthjustice’s Clean Energy Program. Earthjustice is the premier nonprofit public interest environmental law organization. They wield the power of law and the strength of partnership to protect people’s health, to preserve magnificent places and wildlife, to advance clean energy, and to combat climate change. Learn more at https://earthjustice.org

The Biodiversity Defense Program engages in national litigation to confront the major drivers of biodiversity loss, including habitat destruction and over-exploitation of wildlife. Sharmeen Morrison has worked on matters to protect Florida manatees, Mexican gray wolves, and golden-cheeked warblers of Texas Hill Country, among other species. Prior to joining Biodiversity Defense, she was a member of Earthjustice’s Northeast Regional Office, where she worked to protect public health from toxic chemicals in consumer products and contaminants in drinking water and participated in regional advocacy to promote a shift from fossil fuels to clean energy sources. Sharmeen received her J.D. from NYU School of Law, where she was a Root-Tilden-Kern public-interest scholar and served as Diversity and Membership Editor on the NYU Law Review. She received her B.A. in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley.

Thomas Cmar is a senior attorney for the Clean Energy Program, and is based in Cincinnati. Thomas first joined Earthjustice in 2012 after working for six years as an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, where he specialized in energy and water issues. Thomas was deputy managing attorney of the Earthjustice Coal Program from 2018 to 2021. In 2021, Thomas moved back home to Ohio and spent a year working in private practice before rejoining Earthjustice in 2022. Thomas has also worked as an adjunct lecturer in the Environmental Policy & Culture Program at Northwestern Univ., as an attorney with the International Labor Rights Fund in D.C., and as a law clerk for U.S. Magistrate Judge Debra Freeman of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. He is a 2004 graduate of Harvard Law School and has a B.A. in Politics & Philosophy from the Univ. of Pittsburgh.

Learn more:

- Earthjustice's work at the PSC and on LG&E’s proposals:

https://www.lpm.org/news/2023-08-31/fossil-fuels-failed-kentucky-utility-customers-during-winter-blackouts

- Learn more about subsidies to cryptocurrency mining operations:

https://earthjustice.org/feature/cryptocurrency-mining-kentucky

- In August, the Commission rejected a proposed contract for a massive new facility in eastern KY:

https://earthjustice.org/press/2023/kentucky-rejects-controversial-subsidies-for-cryptomining-company

- But then, in Sept., this happened:

https://earthjustice.org/press/2023/kentucky-utility-regulators-move-to-protect-kentucky-power-customers-from-footing-the-bill-for-a-cryptomining-company

- How the biodiversity crisis impacts all of us: https://earthjustice.org/experts/timothy-preso/how-the-biodiversity-crisis-impacts-all-of-us

- Great Salt Lake case: https://earthjustice.org/press/2023/lawsuit-targets-state-of-utah-for-failing-to-protect-the-great-salt-lake

- Golden-cheeked warbler fight: https://earthjustice.org/article/meet-the-texas-bird-that-is-a-bulwark-for-biodiversity

As always, our feature is followed by your community action calendar for the week, so get your calendars out and get ready to take action for sustainability NOW!

Sustainability Now! is hosted by Dr. Justin Mog and airs on Forward Radio, 106.5fm, WFMP-LP Louisville, every Monday at 6pm and Tuesdays at 12am and 10am. http://forwardradio.org

The music in this podcast is courtesy of Appalatin and is used by permission. http://appalatin.com

This week we bring you a vital community conversation about affordable and sustainable housing held on October 17th during the 2023 Louisville Sustainability Summit on Livable Louisville: Addressing local climate risks through planning and design.

Across the country Americans are facing the effects of a changing climate with increased extreme weather events like hurricanes, tornadoes, and heat waves causing poor air quality, dangerous forest fires, and flooding. Recent studies predict Kentucky’s risk of extreme heat, drought, wildfires, and inland floods will increase significantly. At the 2023 Louisville Sustainability Council Summit, we explored the risks and stressors our region is facing and how our buildings and cities can adapt to this new normal and address the problems. Learn more at http://louisvillesustainabilitycouncil.org/summit

Today we'll listen back to the panel discussion on Housing for a Changed Climate. The impact of climate change affects all Louisvillians. Panelists discussed the need for and benefits of healthy, sustainable, and affordable housing. You'll learn about local and federal financial incentives, design strategies, and development approaches necessary to deliver healthy housing equitably while adding value to our city.

The speakers include:

Moderator, Cassia Herron is a leader in Kentucky’s local food movement and as a community organizer, urban planner, writer, community development consultant and social justice warrior has extensive experience working to improve urban and rural communities in Kentucky. Through the lens of racial justice, equity and community wealth creation, Herron spends her time holding accountable public sector officials, challenging philanthropic and private investors and inspiring her fellow citizens to envision and create a new economy in Kentucky based on cooperation and equity. She co-founded the Louisville Association for Community Economics and has led the Kentuckians for the Commonwealth to advance the state’s democracy and transition its energy economy. She is a graduate of UofL with a Masters of Urban Planning from the University of Michigan.

Marilyn S. Harris is the Director of the Office of Housing and Community Development at Louisville Metro. She has previously served as the Director of Develop Louisville, and the Director of the Office of Housing. Marilyn is National Development Council Certified, and a Housing Development Finance Professional. She holds a B.S. in Sociology, and a Masters of Social Administration from Bellarmine.

Ben Eilerman, is the Director of Real Estate Development for Over-the-Rhine Community Housing where he leads affordable housing development projects from initial concept, through funding, construction and occupancy, furthering the mission of the organization to “develop and manage resident-centered affordable housing to build inclusive community and benefit low-income residents”. Ben also brings professional experience as a LEED certified, licensed architect, having practiced in the Cincinnati region for over 10 years.

Tiffany Broyles Yost is GBBN’s Director of Sustainability and Resilience, providing strategic leadership for sustainable design across the firm’s portfolio of projects and spearheading initiatives related to resilience and well-being, including the GBBN Sustainability Action Network. Her work includes sustainable design on projects from international supertall mixed-use to existing building renovations in 20+ countries. Tiffany is focused on creating low-carbon, healthy spaces at GBBN and advancing a circular economy regionally. She practiced architecture, worked as a sustainability consultant, and developed education for the green building industry, for over 15 years in New York City before returning to the Midwest.

K.A. Owens interviews Professor Dismas Masolo. Professor Masolo explains how Africa views the United States. Recorded Friday January 26, 2018, 2PM.

You can find Katrina Monroe on IG @katrinamonroeauthor or on her website https://katrinamonroe.com/

For show notes for any episode, go to our website at www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. We are also on Instagram @perksofbeingabookloverpod loverpod and on FB Perks of Being a Book Lover.

If you would like to contact us, go to our website and click the Contact button.

I happened upon the audiobook Graveyard of Lost Children by Katrina Monroe on Libby and was riveted by how the horror novel explored the postpartum period while also bringing in supernatural elements. It totally sucked me back into the early weeks after delivering my first child and left me with that same sense of shellshock, and I thought, “OF COURSE having a baby is a horror story.”

We reached out to Katrina to see if she would be interested in chatting with us, and we’re so glad she was. We talk with her about Graveyard of Lost Children and her first novel They Drown Our Daughters and about why motherhood and the mother-daughter relationship are perfect topics to write about because they are steeped in fear and confusion, and inspire terror at times.

Books Mentioned in this Episode:

1- The Woman in Black by Susan Hill

2- They Drown our Daughters by Katrina Monroe

3- Graveyard of Lost Children by Katrina Monroe

4- Goosebumps series by RL Stine

5- The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan

6- Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw

7- The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw

8- The Changeling by Victor Lavalle

9- The Electric Woman by Tessa Fontaine

10- Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann

11- Under an Outlaw Moon by Dietrich Kalteis

12-Just Another Missing Person by Gillian McAllister

13- Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister

14- A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

5 Star Read Recommended by Fellow Book Lover Jen @bookedupgirl - Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

Movies/Shows mentioned--

1- The Woman in Black (2012)

2- The Fall of the House of Usher (Netflix - 2023)

3- Midnight Mass (Netflix - 2021)

4- The Haunting of Hill House (Netflix - 2018)

5- Goosebumps TV series (1995)

6- Goosebumps (Netflix - 2023)

7- The Changeling (Apple + - 2023)

8- Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)

9- A Monster Calls (2016)

Mark McKinley is a longtime advocate of a Single Payer Health Care system and the producer of Single Payer Radio. Single Payer Radio is an hour-long program that also airs on WFMP radio.

On October 16, 2023, The League of Women Voters Louisville KY hosted a Democracy in Action panel on Voting System Security, Voter Access, Voting Rights and Open Primaries. Participants were: (1) Mary Ellen Allen, Co-Director of the Jefferson County Clerk Election Center; (2) Erran Huber, Dir. of Communications, Media and Public Relations for the Jefferson County Clerk's Office; (3) Neville Blakemore, former candidate in the Democratic Primary for Jefferson County Clerk and concerned citizen; (4) Raymond Burse, first V.P. of the Louisville NAACP; and (5) Laura Weinstein, Board member of the League of Women Voters, Kentucky.

Forward Radio was well represented at the 2023 Grassroots Radio Conference in Charleston, WV Oct. 20-22 (https://www.2023grassrootsradioconference.com/) On this week's Access Hour, we begin the roll-out of some of the highlights from the conference, this week featuring the keynote address given by Amy Goodman on the morning of October 21st.

Amy Goodman co-founded Democracy Now! as an alternative to what she and others perceived as an insular and ineffective mainstream press that was beholden to corporate sponsors. Goodman anchors the Democracy Now! daily one-hour broadcast and is also the program’s executive producer. Under her leadership, the show became the fastest growing independent news source in the United States, boasting syndication on more than 750 radio and television stations by the first decade of the 21st century.

Goodman’s investigative journalism in East Timor and Nigeria earned her the 2008 Right Livelihood Award, an award often referred to as an alternative Nobel Prize, marking the first time a journalist had been so honored. In 2016 her coverage of protests against construction of a pipeline in North Dakota led to a criminal trespass charge, after state prosecutors claimed that she “was not acting as a journalist.” The trespass charge was soon dropped, but Goodman then was accused of rioting. The case was dismissed by a judge.​ She coauthored the best-selling books The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media That Love Them (2004); Static: Government Liars, Media Cheerleaders, and the People Who Fight Back (2006); Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times (2008); and Democracy Now!: Twenty Years Covering the Movements Changing America (2016).

On this week’s Sustainability Now!, your host, Justin Mog, is honored to be in conversation with a true fighter for environmental justice! Cheryl Johnson is Executive Director for People for Community Recovery in Chicago. She was featured in "Help This Garden Grow,” a new six-part audio docuseries from Respair Production & Media, People for Community Recovery, and Elevate that tells the story of Cheryl’s mother, Hazel Johnson, who was a visionary of the environmental justice movement and a resident of the Altgeld Gardens community on the far South Side of Chicago. Hazel founded People for Community Recovery, a 40 year-old organization that fights to address the toxic industrial pollution that has been killing the members of her community.

Over the course of the multigenerational multi-part documentary, hosts Damon Williams and Daniel Kisslinger talk with organizers, policy-makers, historians, and community members about how PCR emerged and led, the legacy of Ms. Johnson's work, and how this marginalized Chicago pocket built the lineage of today's vibrant, impactful, and necessary modern environmental justice movement. Listen to the audio docuseries at https://www.respairmedia.com/help-this-garden-grow

Learn more and support the struggle at http://peopleforcommunityrecovery.org

As always, our feature is followed by your community action calendar for the week, so get your calendars out and get ready to take action for sustainability NOW!

Sustainability Now! is hosted by Dr. Justin Mog and airs on Forward Radio, 106.5fm, WFMP-LP Louisville, every Monday at 6pm and repeats Tuesdays at 12am and 10am. Find us at http://forwardradio.org

The music in this podcast is courtesy of the local band Appalatin and is used by permission. Explore their delightful music at http://appalatin.com

Patty and Brian discuss research on the concept of "creepiness."