This week on Sea Change Radio we dig into the archives to first speak with author and Bloomberg Opinion columnist Adam Minter about the world of autonomous vehicles. We examine the impact autonomous vehicles might have on rural America, look at an appealing test program in a sparsely populated area of Minnesota, and explore how the elimination of drivers might assist those who cannot – or should not – be driving. Then, we hear from automotive journalist, Jim Motavalli to discuss the puzzling decision by General Motors to shelve the Chevy Bolt, get some recommendations on new EV automakers and models, and talk about America’s ongoing fascination with big old gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs.

If you were a kid in the 1970s, you undoubtedly were at least a little terrified of going into the ocean – a fear placed squarely in your subconscious by the Jaws movies. But, according to the International Shark Attack File, there are only around 72 unprovoked shark attacks around the world per year, a relatively small amount given the many sleepless nights and swimming phobias arising from a fear of sharks. The far scarier reality is that the much-demonized shark has long been under attack itself from its greatest predator: us. Humans kill well over 100 million sharks in any given year. This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak with Mongabay reporter, Philip Jacobson, to learn about the illegal shark-finning practices of one Chinese-based fishing company, why he believes this practice is far from unique, and what efforts are being taken to save this important apex predator.

00:02 Narrator – This is Sea Change Radio covering the shift to sustainability. I’m Alex Wise.

00:22 Philip Jacobson (PJ) – You know one of the policies that are put in place to combat shark finning. It’s not necessarily banning the trade, but you tell boats, OK, you can’t just keep the fin and throw the body away you have to keep the whole shark.

00:37 Alex Wise (AW) – If you were a kid in the 1970s, you undoubtedly were at least a little terrified of going into the ocean – a fear placed squarely in your subconscious by the Jaws movies. But, according to the International Shark Attack File, there are only around 72 unprovoked shark attacks around the world per year, a relatively small amount given the many sleepless nights and swimming phobias arising from a fear of sharks. The far scarier reality is that the much-demonized shark has long been under attack itself from its greatest predator: us. Humans kill well over 100 million sharks in any given year. This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak with Mongabay reporter, Philip Jacobson, to learn about the illegal shark-finning practices of one Chinese-based fishing company, why he believes this practice is far from unique, and what efforts are being taken to save this important apex predator.

01:48 Alex Wise (AW) – I’m joined now on Sea Change Radio by Philip Jacobson. He is a journalist for Mongabay and he’s based in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Phil, welcome to Sea Change Radio.

01:57 Philip Jacobson (PJ) – Hi Alex, thanks for having me on the show, it’s great to be here.

02:00 AW – Well, it’s a pleasure to have you been reading your work? You’ve done a lot of investigative work into the shark finning practice that is running rampant across the Asian seafood marketplace. First, why don’t you explain why sharks are being hunted and why the sharkfin has become this, almost an outlier in how we process seafood. This is not like just catching tuna. It seems very wasteful and a dangerous precedent.

02:33 PJ – Sure, so shark fins are eaten as part of shark fin soup, which is a delicacy in parts of Asia, especially East Asia. It’s been a pretty big industry for the past several decades, especially as China’s middle class kind of exploded grew a lot in 80s nineties, 2000s, and that created a lot of new demand for shark fins. Soup used to be served at weddings. Plot and official functions in China. So there’s been some effort to kind of crack down on it in recent years by the Chinese government. They’ve banned it at official government functions, for example. Just because you know of the trouble that sharks are in from a conservation perspective, many shark populations going extinct because of the demands, especially for their fins. Nowadays, sharks are being hunted more and more for their meat, which is also eaten, but I guess that’s another story – I published recently with Manga Bay focused on a shark finning operation that was taking place across the fleet of a a major tuna fishing company, a Chinese company.

03:51 AW – Yes, and I I wanted to ask you about that because in the in the piece you ...

Did you know that India accounts for about one-third of the world's one billion head of cattle? Last week on Sea Change Radio, we spoke to the head of Rumin8, a startup that's working to reduce methane emissions from cattle. This week, we take a more academic approach to the cow burp problem - our guest is Dr. Joseph McFadden, a professor of cattle biology at Cornell University. We learn more about the science of enteric fermentation in ruminants, examine the various technological solutions aiming to reduce these methane emissions, and discuss the hurdles that the feed additive industry faces, and why they are particularly challenging in countries like India.

00:02 Narrator - This is Sea Change Radio, covering the shift to sustainability. I'm Alex Wise.

00:32 Joseph McFadden (JM) - We just need to have more investment, more investment in scientific research, to answer the tough questions when it comes to these feed additives, there's going to be a lot of high demand for various clinical trials to improve their efficacy and safety. And I see that improving, but I don't think we're anywhere where we need to be with the current funding climate - it's going to have to improve.

00:55 Narrator - Did you know that India accounts for about one-third of the world's one billion head of cattle? Last week on Sea Change Radio, we spoke to the head of Rumin8, a startup that's working to reduce methane emissions from cattle. This week, we take a more academic approach to the cow burp problem - our guest is Dr. Joseph McFadden, a professor of cattle biology at Cornell University. We learn more about the science of enteric fermentation in ruminants, examine the various technological solutions aiming to reduce these methane emissions, and discuss the hurdles that the feed additive industry faces, and why they are particularly challenging in countries like India.

01:56 Alex Wise (AW) - I'm joined now on Sea Change Radio by Doctor Joseph McFadden. He is a professor of dairy cattle biology at Cornell University. Joe, welcome to Sea Change Radio.

02:06 Joseph McFadden (JM) - Thanks for the invitation to talk.

02:08 Alex Wise (AW)  - For the last decade or so, we've heard a lot about the dangers of methane emissions from cattle, and there's people like yourself who are studying this phenomenon. Are some of the technological breakthroughs that have made you hopeful that we're going to be able to mitigate some of these methane emissions moving?

02:29 JM - So you know, there's a lot of interest right now in developing different technologies that can reduce enteric methane emissions. You know what I find particularly interesting is that these technologies have some efficacy already proven, meaning that depending on the type of perhaps feed additive that's being fed to cows. We might be able to see reductions anywhere from 10:00, but maybe 80%. Unfortunately, you know we're a little bit early in the research process to really determine if any of these sort of technologies are real solutions, right? And so, as a scientific community, we're trying to sort of take a step back for a moment and really make sure that our perspective is holistic. And in that we not only have effective solutions that reduce methane emissions from livestock, but also that these solutions are safe, safe for the animal, and it doesn't really modify meat or milk composition. So it's still safe for human consumption. And we also want to make sure that any potential technology is profitable for the farmer in order to ensure its adoption.

03:36 AW - I asked for some of the solutions first, but why don't you give us kind of a a broader scope of the problems that we're trying to solve?

03:44 JM - So you know, methane emissions represents about it's a high priority in terms of research, simply because agriculture contributes a large percentage of methane emissions from human derived activities. And, you know, one,

When we think about greenhouse gas emissions, automobiles, airplanes, and power plants usually figure more prominently than livestock. The methane produced by cow belching, however, is one of the biggest sources of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. Fortunately, there are some innovations on the horizon that are promising to help reduce the damage of these gassy cows. This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak to David Messina, the Managing Director of Rumin8, an Australian-based startup that is hoping to transform the cattle industry. The company's main product is a lab-grown feed additive that is designed to significantly reduce methane emissions in ruminants like cattle and sheep. We discuss the problem that Rumin8 is trying to solve, talk about the company's business strategy and hurdles it faces, and take a look at the competitive landscape in the growing feed additive space.

00:02 Narrator - This is Sea Change Radio, covering the shift to sustainability. I'm Alex Wise.

00:19 David Messina (DM) - But I think it'll become standardized. You know, if we achieve and the industry achieves what we want, then it'll become just a standard. It'll be a negative for products that aren't being produced in a climate friendly way within 5 to 10 years.

00:35 Narrator - When we think about greenhouse gas emissions, automobiles, airplanes, and power plants usually figure more prominently than livestock. The methane produced by cow belching, however, is one of the biggest sources of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. Fortunately, there are some innovations on the horizon that are promising to help reduce the damage of these gassy cows. This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak to David Messina, the Managing Director of Rumin8, an Australian-based startup that is hoping to transform the cattle industry. The company's main product is a lab-grown feed additive that is designed to significantly reduce methane emissions in ruminants like cattle and sheep. We discuss the problem that Rumin8 is trying to solve, talk about the company's business strategy and hurdles it faces, and take a look at the competitive landscape in the growing feed additive space.

01:46 Alex Wise (AW) - I'm joined now on Sea Change Radio by David Messina. He is the managing director of Rumin8. David, welcome to Sea Change Radio.

01:54 David Messina (DM) - Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here.

01:57 Alex Wise (AW) - So explain for our listeners the problem Rumin8 is trying to solve what is your technology and how are you trying to change the world.

02:06 David Messina (DM) - We're going after one of the biggest problems in climate at the moment, and that is methane emissions from cattle. It accounts just for that one single issue from 1.2 billion cows, about 4% of total greenhouse gas emissions. We have products that reduce those emissions by a fairly complex process that happens in the stomach or in the rumen of the animal, and we're seeing some really exciting results.

02:35 AW - So we've heard a lot about seaweed being the kind of this new silver bullet that can reduce methane emissions through a cow's burps being reduced by this additive, but I've also read that growing this amount of seaweed might not be scalable, so ruminate is trying to solve that problem by doing it chemically is.

02:56 DM - Correct, yes, it is the exact same bio active that is found in the seaweed. We actually take that product, we manufacture it and we stabilize it in our laboratory and then we produce a product in a in a pharmaceutical manufacturing process. So instead of having to grow the organic product. All the seaweed we're actually able to manufacture and stabilize our product, which means like any factory, you can scale it up very quickly and the faster you can scale it and the easier it is to scale, the cheaper the product is.

03:32 AW - And I realize you're in in testing, but what kind of percentage are we talking about as an additive in ter...

The new generation of veggie burgers do taste more like meat than their sawdust-leaning predecessors. And most agree that plant-based meat alternatives are a step in the right direction, considering the hefty impact that cattle have on the environment. But the Impossible Burgers and Beyond Meats of the world come with their own not-so-insignificant carbon challenges. This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak with environmental reporter Nithin Coca about his research for Vox.com on the impact of these popular plant-based meats on agricultural supply chains around the globe. We talk about the rapid growth of the market sector, take a look at how it affects the coconut oil and cacao butter industries, and, while we are at it, get a snapshot of lab grown meats, as well.

00:02 Narrator - This is Sea Change Radio, covering the shift to sustainability. I'm Alex Wise.

00:18 Nithin Coca (NC) - There's a reason it was included in the European Union's recent deforestation regulations. One of the six commodities included in that is cacao, because of the deforestation risk presented.

00:30 Narrator - The new generation of veggie burgers do taste more like meat than their sawdust-leaning predecessors. And most agree that plant-based meat alternatives are a step in the right direction, considering the hefty impact that cattle have on the environment. But the Impossible Burgers and Beyond Meats of the world come with their own not-so-insignificant carbon challenges. This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak with environmental reporter Nithin Coca about his research for Vox.com on the impact of these popular plant-based meats on agricultural supply chains around the globe. We talk about the rapid growth of the market sector, take a look at how it affects the coconut oil and cacao butter industries, and, while we are at it, get a snapshot of lab grown meats, as well.

01:49 Alex Wise (AW) - I'm joined now on Sea Change Radio by Nithin Coca. He's a freelance environmental journalist based in Japan. Nithin, welcome back to Sea Change Radio.

01:58 Nithin Coca (NC)  - It's great to be here again.

01:59 Alex Wise (AW)  - So you just submitted a piece for vox.com entitled plant burgers are way better for the planet than beef. But these two ingredients threaten tropical ecosystems, so I wanted to dive into these two ingredients in a deeper way. You really uncover the problems that go into coconut and cacao. Why don't you start at the beginning in terms of these veggie burgers, these plant-based meats and how the industry has evolved over the last few years?

02:32 NC - Happy to. So I remember when I first heard about plant based meat, I think it was at an event like five or six years ago and there was like a big marketing push by these companies, Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat, to come to these environmental and journalism conferences and kind of push this as a more sustainable alternative to normal agriculture. And it was, I think, when I was in in 2019, I was doing several reporting on coconut in Southeast Asia, looking at kind of issues that farmers are facing. And my editor at the publication at the time asked me to, like, look into what are the key companies that are using coconut oil? And I came across the fact that there are key ingredient in both beyond and Impossible Burgers and I thought that was super interesting because they're basically shifting to sourcing an ingredient that only grows in the tropics and only grows in regions where there's high levels of biodiversity and forests and I was concerned, like if plant based meat grows to the scale they want to because, you know, look at the projections, they want to expand by 10 to 20 times in just five or ten years. To rapidly displaced animal meat and hopefully and transform our food system to one that they argue is more sustainable. If that's the case, there's going to be a lot more coconut oil. And, as is covered later cacao butter is an ingredient in Beyond products.

In the 1990s, I recall my grandfather remarking upon the new ubiquity of plastic water bottles, "When did everybody get so thirsty all of a sudden?" Indeed, plastic bottles have been proliferating at an exponential rate since the 1970s - the US alone is responsible for tens of billions of single-use plastic bottle waste every year. This week on Sea Change Radio, we take a look at the bottled water industry through the eyes of a relatively small but innovative player in the space. CEO and co-founder of FloWater, Rich "Raz" Razgaitis, joins us to tell us about his company's product, its mission to help curb America's seemingly bottomless thirst for single-use plastic bottles, and the ways the bottled water industry is similar to Big Tobacco.

00:02 Narrator - This is Sea Change Radio covering the shift to sustainability. I'm Alex Wise.

00:20 Rich Razgaitis (RR) - The solution is create a product so that bottled water is not a necessity in 99% of the cases, and that's what we're focused on is building a new platform and a new way of water that eliminates the need for single use packaged water.

00:36 Narrator - In the 1990s, I recall my grandfather remarking upon the new ubiquity of plastic water bottles, "When did everybody get so thirsty all of a sudden?" Indeed, plastic bottles have been proliferating at an exponential rate since the 1970s - the US alone is responsible for tens of billions of single-use plastic bottle waste every year. This week on Sea Change Radio, we take a look at the bottled water industry through the eyes of a relatively small but innovative player in the space. CEO and co-founder of FloWater, Rich "Raz" Razgaitis, joins us to tell us about his company's product, its mission to help curb America's seemingly bottomless thirst for single-use plastic bottles, and the ways the bottled water industry is similar to Big Tobacco.

01:43 Alex Wise (AW) - I'm joined now on Sea Change Radio by Rich “Raz” Razgaitis. He is the CEO and Co-founder of FloWater. Raz, welcome to Sea Change Radio.

01:52 Rich Razgaitis (RR) - Thanks so much. Great to be here, Alex. Appreciate you having me on the show.

01:55 Alex Wise (AW) - So FloWater is a pretty cool idea. Tell us what the company makes, how FloWater Works, and what your company's mission.

02:04 Rich Razgaitis (RR) - So FloWater is a company that's fundamentally focused on changing the way that we think of water and specifically drinking water. And that basically is everything from how water is treated, transported and consumed. So if you look at the big problem that we see in the market that we're solving for single use plastic water bottles. The reason that people are using single use plastic water bottles and I'm sure we'll talk about some of the stats and the impact of that later. But the reason that people are using them is primarily because they don't like what's coming out of their tap water and we don't have a problem in the US called if I could only find a faucet, we have a problem called. I really don't like what's coming out of the faucet or I don't trust it. And So what FloWater is is a solution to that. And what we're doing is we're building a set of water products that tap into, no pun intended, but you will end up being amazed at how many water puns there are by the end of this podcast that we, we kind of take for granted and don't realize, but what FloWater does is taps into any available water line and takes regular tap water and turns it into the world's best tasting, best drinking, best hydrating water kind of on demand like a beer tap in a way, but with water through this very powerful purification system. So we build these FloWater devices right now, we've got FloWater refill stations that. Out in primarily the B2B sector. And then we also have other products that are FloWater, faucet filters and someday FloWater countertop units, both of which will be or are available for the consumer home. So kind of in essence,

For some time now, ecologists and environmentalists have been promoting life-cycle analyses - calculations of the environmental impact of a product, from the sourcing of materials all the way through to its disposal. While this is still a valid expenditure of effort, our guest today on Sea Change Radio argues that we may need to re-focus more narrowly on the carbon generated at the front-end of an article's life: its production, transportation, delivery, and installation. He asserts that these "upfront carbon" emissions are the more urgent and immediate concerns, and we simply don't have time to focus on the rest of the product's life. This week we welcome back to the show author, environmental journalist, and design expert Lloyd Alter, to discuss his upcoming book, The Story of Upfront Carbon. We learn about the birth of the term, discuss why it's a useful lens for making consumer decisions, and go down a carbon emissions rabbit hole on products like iPhones, electric vehicles, and e-bikes.

00:02 Narrator - This is Sea Change Radio covering the shift to sustainability. I'm Alex Wise.

00:20 Lloyd Alter (LA) - How much is enough? How much do you need to be happy? So put all of this together and I come back to the three words which the whole book is about, which is “use less stuff.”

00:33 Narrator - For some time now, ecologists and environmentalists have been promoting life-cycle analyses - calculations of the environmental impact of a product, from the sourcing of materials all the way through to its disposal. While this is still a valid expenditure of effort, our guest today on Sea Change Radio argues that we may need to re-focus more narrowly on the carbon generated at the front-end of an article's life: its production, transportation, delivery, and installation. He asserts that these "upfront carbon" emissions are the more urgent and immediate concerns, and we simply don't have time to focus on the rest of the product's life. This week we welcome back to the show author, environmental journalist, and design expert Lloyd Alter, to discuss his upcoming book, The Story of Upfront Carbon. We learn about the birth of the term, discuss why it's a useful lens for making consumer decisions, and go down a carbon emissions rabbit hole on products like iPhones, electric vehicles, and e-bikes.

01:51 Alex Wise (AW) - I'm joined now on Sea Change Radio by Lloyd Alter. Lloyd is a lecturer in sustainable design at Toronto Metropolitan University and runs a successful Substack called Carbon Upfront and he's an author and his latest book is called “The Story of Upfront Carbon.” Lloyd, welcome to Sea Change Radio.

02:12 Lloyd Alter (LA) - I'm happy to be here.

02:14 Alex Wise (AW) - So you came up with upfront carbon as a term. It replaced a much less clear term, embodied carbon. Why don't you first explain why this language is important, and then we'll dive into what it means.

02:33 Lloyd Alter (LA) - Well, 20 years ago what they used to talk about was embodied energy which was the energy it took to make something and that kind of made sense, you know, that's the energy that went into it. And when we got worried about carbon rather than energy because we know it's carbon dioxide that's causing the climate change, people started using the term embodied carbon. But it makes no sense. If you look up the dictionary definition of embodied, it means  the carbon isn't in it, the carbon is in the atmosphere. It's not embodied at all. It's the opposite of it. So I was sitting around in a Twitter conversation with an architect from Australia and another one from New Zealand, and we started, you know, the New Zealand architect started saying it should be vomited carbon or spit out carbon or something like that. Then George in Australia said, well, what about up front? And I said up front, carbon that's much better. And I wrote about it and that's basically how it came about. And it's now accepted and used almost everywhere in th...

The novelist David Foster Wallace once said, “Good fiction’s job is to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak with author Chuck Collins about his debut novel which centers on Big Oil and climate change. We talk about how he has channeled a life of privilege into a quest to raise awareness about wealth inequality, discuss what it was like to co-author with Bill Gates, Sr. a book advocating for taxing the rich, and explore the unique manner in which fiction reveals truth.

00:02 Narrator - This is Sea Change Radio covering the shift to sustainability. I'm Alex Wise.

00:31 Chuck Collins (CC) - You know, I do think we need images, we need visions of what it begins to look like to get our act together.

00:42 Narrator - The novelist David Foster Wallace once said, “Good fiction’s job is to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak with author Chuck Collins about his debut novel which centers on Big Oil and climate change. We talk about how he has channeled a life of privilege into a quest to raise awareness about wealth inequality, discuss what it was like to co-author with Bill Gates, Sr. a book advocating for taxing the rich, and explore the unique manner in which fiction reveals truth.

01:23 Alex Wise (AW) - I'm joined now on Sea Change Radio by Chuck Collins. Chuck is the director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies, where he co-edits inequality.org, and he's also an author and his debut novel is entitled “Altar to an Erupting Sun.” Chuck, welcome to Sea Change Radio.

01:45 Chuck Collins (CC) - Great to be here. Thanks for having me.

01:48 Alex Wise (AW) - Why don't you first tell us what motivated you to take a break from a lot of these more real-world issues? You're a prolific writer in the non-fiction world and you cover a lot of inequality issues. What inspired you to dip your toe into the fiction waters here with “Altar to an Erupting Sun?”

 

02:12 Chuck Collins (CC) - I have written a number of other books and I look back on some of the earlier ones and I sort of feel bad about what I inflicted upon my readers because they're they're kind of boring and what I enjoy reading and what I often delve into his story, whether it's good nonfiction, narrative or fiction I found fiction is kind of an entry point, a gateway into a topic, and so in this case I was interested in exploring sort of how is it we face this impossible news of sort of the ecological crisis we're living through, and how does a community face it? And what's a vision for how we might turn the corner toward survivability. And that that seemed to lend itself to fiction. So, and I just had this story and some characters kind of knocking on my inner door. So I felt a desire to write it as a as a fictional story which gave me a lot of freedom to envision the possibilities for the future.

03:14 Alex Wise (AW) - So you have an interesting back story and they always say that you're supposed to write what you know, and this seems to have an autobiographical bent to it “Altar to an Erupting Sun.” Why don't you give us a little bit of the back story of Chuck Collins?

03:31 CC - Well, you're right. You can only really write what you know. And I have drawn on my life experiences. But there's quite a bit I sort of had to research and develop that that I didn't live through, but that the experience of my main character, Rae Kelleher, was one of being formed. By social movements that she was part of, she also grew up in the Midwest. I grew up in the West, she grew up working class. I grew up privileged, but that, that's a difference. But she was very early on, involved in the clamshell lines, which was a movement to try to keep a nuclear power plant from being built in New England. She was involved in going to Central America in the 1980s, like a lot of thousands of people,

An unusual by-product of the global pandemic was that a lot more people ended up becoming gardeners - one study estimated that over 18 million Americans discovered gardening while spending more time at home. This week on Sea Change Radio, we revisit our 2020 discussion with author and sustainability expert Paul Wheaton about his book, Building A Better World In Your Backyard. Wheaton provides us with some innovative ideas on gardening and permaculture while outlining the many benefits of Hugelkultur techniques. We also look at some home efficiency solutions, including warming up our bodies rather than the air in our homes, and the advantages of using a rocket mass heater.

00:02 Narrator - This is Sea Change Radio covering the shift to sustainability.

00:15 Paul Wheaton (PW) - If you've got an amazing chef, they will find the weeds to be more valuable than your garden plants. And so a chef with a potato and carrots and corn and whatever else is in your regular garden, it seems like they could only go so far with that. But you give them those weeds and you will have something far more amazing to eat.

00:43 Narrator - An unusual by-product of the global pandemic was that a lot more people ended up becoming gardeners - one study estimated that over 18 million Americans discovered gardening while spending more time at home. This week on Sea Change Radio, we revisit our 2020 discussion with author and sustainability expert Paul Wheaton about his book, Building A Better World In Your Backyard. Wheaton provides us with some innovative ideas on gardening and permaculture while outlining the many benefits of Hugelkultur techniques. We also look at some home efficiency solutions, including warming up our bodies rather than the air in our homes, and the advantages of using a rocket mass heater.

01:47 Alex Wise (AW) - I'm joined now on Sea Change Radio by Paul Wheaton. He's an author and a permaculture expert, and his new book is called Building a Better World in Your Backyard - Instead of Being Angry at Bad Guys.” Paul, welcome to Sea Change Radio.

02:01 Paul Wheaton (PW) - Alex, thanks for having me.

02:03 Alex Wise (AW) - Well, this is a pleasure. You are informally known as the Duke of Permaculture. You and your co-author Sean Klassen-Koop have penned a book about maximizing your little space to make a better world. So the opening quote you use in the book is from Frank Zappa – “without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.” So what kind of progress do you hope to achieve with this book?

02:32 Paul Wheaton (PW) - I hope that I can solve most of the world's biggest problems and so by deviating from the norm. Of course, as Frank put it so well, I kind of feel like it's a long list of things and and a lot of my frustration, which led to writing. The book came from watching An Inconvenient Truth more than a decade ago, and then Al Gore got to the end of the movie. I mean, he starts the movie off by saying, “ohh man, we're in trouble. Here's the problem.” And at the end of the movie, it's like, “here's what you can do, you know, check your tire pressure, buy this light bulb, things of that nature.” And I kind of felt like that stuff is really, really weak. Then later out came another book by Derek Jensen - “Fifty Ways to Stay in Denial as the World Burns,” and he said if all of the United States, if everybody in America did all the things that Al Gore suggested in his book, it would cut 22% off of our collective carbon footprint and at the same time. We gain our footprint, our collective carbon footprint grows 2% each year. So in 11 years, it would be a wash. That really bothered me also and of course Derrick Jensen goes off in a completely different direction. But those two pieces combined made me feel like we need a better list of recipes we need something that's going to make it so that if people want to make a change at home that it makes 10-20 times more change than that simple recipe book.

When you visit the World Wildlife Fund's list of critically endangered species, the first animals named are large, beloved mammals like the African Forest Elephant and the Eastern Lowland Gorilla. While these majestic creatures tug at our heartstrings, there are also a lot of smaller, more unsung organisms that are in grave risk of extinction, like the lowly freshwater mussel. This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak to environmental writer, John Platt, the editor of The Revelator to talk about some of the less glamorous animals that have recently been declared extinct or are on the brink of extinction. First, we take a deep dive into the plight of the ivory-billed woodpecker, a regal swamp-dwelling bird whose demise may or may not have been premature. Then we discuss why Hawaii is referred to by some naturalists as the extinction capital of the world, and look at the ethical quandaries presented by the emerging field of resurrection biology, also known as de-extinction.

00:02 Narrator - This is Sea Change Radio covering the shift to sustainability. I'm Alex Wise.

00:18 John Platt (JP) - The domino effect happens all the time throughout the ecosystem and that's why we're facing major declines right now because it's just a bit of attrition as one thing falls, another falls right behind it.

00:32 Narrator - When you visit the World Wildlife Fund's list of critically endangered species, the first animals named are large, beloved mammals like the African Forest Elephant and the Eastern Lowland Gorilla. While these majestic creatures tug at our heartstrings, there are also a lot of smaller, more unsung organisms that are in grave risk of extinction, like the lowly freshwater mussel. This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak to environmental writer, John Platt, the editor of The Revelator to talk about some of the less glamorous animals that have recently been declared extinct or are on the brink of extinction. First, we take a deep dive into the plight of the ivory-billed woodpecker, a regal swamp-dwelling bird whose demise may or may not have been premature. Then we discuss why Hawaii is referred to by some naturalists as the extinction capital of the world, and look at the ethical quandaries presented by the emerging field of resurrection biology, also known as de-extinction.

01:50 Alex Wise (AW) - I'm joined now on Sea Change Radio by John Platt. John is the editor of the Revelator. John, welcome to Sea Change Radio.

01:57 John Platt (JP) - Glad to be here.

02:00 AW - So for folks who didn't hear our first interview on Sea Change Radio, why don't you explain the mission of your work at the Revelator, chronicling extinction events and wildlife in general?

02:14 John Platt (JP) - Sure, the Revelator is an independent, editorially independent news and commentary site. We're published by the Center for Biological Diversity, and we cover a lot of the things you'd expect from an environmental site, endangered species, climate change, environmental justice. We try to tell stories that aren't being told in other places and try to give bigger context and get a bigger picture story. Not a little news story about a study that's going to come and go in five seconds, but stuff that's going to have a long life and stuff that's going to influence people who are very educated and aware of environmental issues, who are very passionate about it and active in it, people who are activists, scientists, legislators, people who can use the information we publish to make a difference.

02:59 Alex Wise (AW) - And it's not as sexy as the people who cover a specific endangered species going off into the most remote parts of the world to do the real legwork into trying to track these animals. But I think equally important is the work that you do which is trying to be like a central database for all of these species that are on the brink of extinction or extinct, but also carving narratives and trying to tell a story about each indivi...