This week on Truth to Power, we bring you an important conversation about how our city can best respond locally to the global crisis of climate chaos. Forward Radio was the only media outlet to cover the 2023 Louisville Sustainability Summit - Livable Louisville: Addressing local climate risks through planning and design, that was held on Tuesday, Oct 17th, from 12:30 - 5:00pm at Louisville Visual Art, 1538 Lytle St. On today’s program, we listen back to a fantastic Panel entitled “Global Crisis, Local Response.” As the number of dangerous heat days, periods of drought, risk of flooding, and wildfires increase throughout the state, city leaders grapple with how to improve community resilience and quality of life. Our moderator and panelists identify Louisville-specific climate risks and key strategies for addressing these issues and to improve the livability of Louisville. Speakers include: - Moderator, Allison Smith is a Project Manager at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. She holds a Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Louisville where she studied aquatic ecology. Her dissertation investigated climate change effects on freshwater foodwebs including zooplankton and freshwater jellyfish in lakes and the Ohio River. After graduating, she took a post-doctoral research position at the Center for Environmental Policy and Management and worked on brownfields remediation, environmental justice, and housing policy. In October 2015, she joined Louisville Metro Government as the Brownfields Program Manager. In 2020, she became the Assistant Director of the Office of Advanced Planning and Sustainability where she oversaw all climate change and sustainability initiatives for the city. In 2022, she joined the National Renewable Energy Laboratory as a Project Manager where she provides technical assistance on energy transitions to states, local governments, and Tribes in the Accelerated Deployment and Decision Support Center. - Sumedha Rao is the Executive Director of the Mayor’s Office of Sustainability. She is committed to catalyzing robust, inclusive, and collaborative solutions for a greener Louisville! Sumedha has a background in urban sustainability, environmental policy, and green building in the United States and India. In 2022, Sumedha was named a Future Leader by the Aspen Institute, among 100 climate leaders in North America under the age of 30. Sumedha holds a master’s degree in Sustainability Science from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. - Brooke Pardue is the President & CEO of the Parks Alliance of Louisville, a nonprofit supporting more than 100 of our public parks and recreation centers, two-thirds of which are located in underserved neighborhoods. She believes public parks are powerful green infrastructure that strengthen communities, improve health and the environment, and spur economic revitalization. - Patrick Piuma is the Director of the Urban Design Studio at the University of Louisville Christina Lee Brown Envirome Institute. For more than 15 years he has been driven to improve the quality of place through the development of programs and projects that activate and pre-vitalize underutilized spaces. He has a particular focus on exploring ways to integrate nature into cities, understanding how the design and function of cities impacts health, and engaging the community with the goal to rebuilding the fragmented urban fabric of cities. Over the past seven years, Patrick has also worked as an urban designer for Hyphae Design Lab out of Oakland, California, YARD & Company out of Cincinnati, and the Louisville Downtown Partnership. Learn more at http://louisvillesustainabilitycouncil.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
