It's Hot in Here

This week’s It’s Hot in Here segment delves  into the state of dams across our country’s river systems.  We are joined on this expedition by Dr. Paul Moore, who brought members of his research team  up from Bowling Green State University to shore up our knowledge before their teaching and fieldwork at the UM Biostation this summer.

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This week’s episode features three University of Michigan music students discussing their spring compositions and performances. Rachel Epperly, a composition undergraduate, begins the show with a piece of hers called “Time Arrives.” Donia Jarrar spoke to us about her recent composition work, Seamstress. And Taya König-Tarasevich, pictured, spoke about the three flutes she’ll play in her Masters Recital.

After the live broadcast, we were able to record Taya playing another piece from her repertoire. As a bonus, you can listen to that here:

Our hosts managed to sneak past the wild animals to preview Ann Arbor’s infamous cannabis legalization rally / public party, Hash Bash.

Erin Dunne, from Students for Sensible Drug Policy, joined Andrew Bull and Alex Truelove for this conversation.

Did you know that insects form part of the traditional diet of an estimated 2 billion people on the planet? And that even those of us who actively avoid all contact with bugs can’t avoid ingesting a pound or two of flies, maggots, and other bugs without knowing it every year? Insects aren’t the future of food–they’re very much part of our present reality!

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This week we turned our gaze to Detroit with the help of guest-hosts Jack Hyland, a U of M a student of art and design, and Shan Sutherland, a Masters of Architecture student at the Taubman College of Architecture and Planning.  Shan has worked on a number of architecture projects in Hamtramck and Detroit and we kicked off the show by grilling him about Power House Productions, an organization that has built a number of community installations by cannibalizing materials from abandon structures; including Squash house, a “sculptural sports arena and greenhouse.” Shan also told us about Afterhouse, a “semi subterranean passive geothermal greenhouse,” built on the foundation of an abandoned house.

Shan then moved from the hot seat to the host seat with the arrival of Jeff Pituch, a member of the board for the Michigan Urban Farming Initiative (MUFI), which focuses on sustainable agriculture in Detroit’s North End.

We were interested to hear from Jeff how MUFI is able to operate as a 100% volunteer organization with no large-scale funding.  It turns out that small targeted grants and a knack for winning Facebook liking competitions (their Facebook group has more likes than ours), make up the majority of their funding.  We discussed the challenges and opportunities that arise when operating entirely with volunteers.  We also discussed their challenges remaining in place in an area undergoing “redevelopment.”

This week we listened to some great Detroit music, including The Dramatics, whose message “Whatcha See is Whatcha Get” describes IHIH perfectly (as long as change the word see to hear)…

Remember that edgy “out there” episode of Its Hot in Here where talented artists sang live tunes from the Tony Award winning musical Urinetown, while talented scientists talked to us about  research  on “peecycling” (or the recovery on nutrients from urine for use in agricultural fertilization?)  Along the way we considered infrastructure (including urinals!) in our greenways and parks, and how more art and science can be showcased in our public spaces.

Well,  they’re back. For the dead of winter spring break in our studios we welcomed the talent behind the  Penny Seats Theatre Company’s recent cabaret style show  Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris.  Fresh from their sold out, critically acclaimed performances at the downtown pub Connor O Neill’s, we head from guests including cast members Lauren London and Roy Sexton, show director Laura Sagolla, and musical director Richard Alder.

Jacques Brel is a famous Belgian singer-songwriter who wrote his songs in French during the 1960s. Through his art he became extremely well-known in France, to the degree that the French recognize Brel the way Americans know Bob Dylan or Joni Mitchell. The show, originally produced in 1968 off broadway, is a revue of Jacques Brel’s music and explores the universal emotions of love, loss, fear, obsession, and hope. Brel’s work is laden with pathos, yet also lighthearted. (more…)

This week on It’s Hot in Here, hosts Amanda Kaminsky, Neal McKenna, and Brendan Wu discuss China-Africa relations with Dr. Omolade Adunbi, an Assistant Professor in the University of Michigan’s Department of Afroamerican and African Studies. Amanda, Neal and Brendan are all students in Dr. Adunbi’s new winter course, When China Comes to Town: Environment and the Politics of Development (AAS 458). The course covers Chinese foreign development policy in Africa and across the Global South.

Our show features a conversation about the social and environmental implications of Chinese infrastructural investment across the African continent. We begin by discussing Dr. Adunbi’s research on wealth distribution in the Niger Delta, which he investigates extensively in his new book Oil Wealth and Insurgency in Nigeria. Our conversation focuses on urban reconstruction in Lagos and Chinese investment in a new project called the Lekki Free Trade Zone. Next, we examine the cultural dynamics of South Africa’s longstanding Chinese communities, drawing from a lecture given by Dr. Yoon Jung Park in New York in 2012 (watch the full lecture here). Finally, we explore the economic and environmental implications of China’s rising middle class through the eyes of Amanda, Neal, and Brendan, each of whom spent several years living in China. For more information on China-Africa relations, including podcasts and the latest news stories, check out The China Africa Project.

The show features music from artists who have embraced global cultural exchange, including Beijing-based Mongolian rock band Hanggai, Nigerian singer Stephen Uwechue who has become a pop sensation in China, and dub/reggae group Laohei from the southwestern Chinese province of Yunnan. (more…)

In this episode, we spoke with movers and shakers in Southeast Michigan’s local food and land conservation scene.  With the 8th Annual Homegrown Local Food Summit recently behind us, we discussed its growth over the years, and its developing importance to the community.  Lindsey Scelera shared with us some of this year’s food victories as well as the victories that have come about in years past, including current Ann Arbor staples like Mark’s Carts.  Keith Soster tells us more about U-M’s goals for locally sourced food and what they’re doing to get there, as well as how students can get involved.

We also learned about the importance of preserving Michigan farmland and helping our threatened farmers with succession and business planning to hand their farms off to the next generation of food growers, instead of losing them to development. Legacy Land Conservancy is just beginning a program called FarmNext to accomplish just that.

Join Keith Soster, Director of Student Engagement for UM Dining Services, Robin Burke, Land Protection Manager at Legacy Land Conservancy, Lindsey Scalera, MI Farm to Institution Campaign Manager from the Ecology Center, Nathan Wells, Master’s Candidate and food warrior at SNRE, and your hosts, Andrea Kraus and Alex Truelove for the love of food.

This week’s show wraps up a series of events at the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources & Environment featuring Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer, author, teacher, and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. A prominent voice in botany and restoration practices, Dr. Kimmerer is the author of the books Braiding Sweetgrass and Gathering Moss. As the focus of our show this week, Braiding Sweetgrass informed our conversations about the interweaving of the traditional knowledges of science, ecology, and the teaching of plants.

Dr. Kimmerer beautifully articulates the importance of recognizing multiple knowledge sources and discusses the privileges and challenges of collaborations between different ways of knowing. The dialogue addresses how we might work towards environmental restoration: grieving the destruction of beloved land, respecting one another, and getting our hands in the earth to move toward healing and restoring our relationship with the land. Dr. Kimmerer reads an excerpt from her book, explaining the principles of reciprocity and the responsibility of language to promote that message. (more…)

This week we took a break from the exciting-but-heavy subject matter that has occupied the It’s Hot in Here crew as of late, in order to mull-over the legacy of Captain Planet–perhaps the most recognizable environmentally-themed character of the 21st century, the product of a children’s television show no less!

Although the show ceased production in the mid-90s, our blue-skinned, green-haired hero still pops-up at Halloween parties and climate rallies to this day.  What should we make of Captain Planet’s legacy?  Is the show just a cheesy relic from the heyday of Saturday morning cartoons or can it also offer us a meaningful glimpse of popular environmentalism’s past and present?

To this end, we sat down with three environmental thinkers to ponder clips from the show: (more…)