Who knew there was a desert in the San Joaquin Valley inhabited by the “valley dragon,” aka, the “blunt-nosed leopard lizard.”  The lizards have disappeared from 85% of their historical range as a result of  agriculture, rural and urban development and pesticides, and are now threatened in what remains of the San Joaquin Desert.  The Fresno Chaffee Zoo is raising leopard lizards and releasing them back into the wild, equipped with radio telemetry backpacks.  Join host Ronnie Lipschutz on Sunday, August 31st for a conversation about the desert and the lizards, with guests Dr. Rory Telemeco, Research Director at the Fresno Chaffee Zoo, and Dr. Michael Westphal, from the Bureau of Land Management.

The world is awash in plastic. According to a study published in 2020, total production of plastics since 1950 is now over 10 billion tons, with more than half of that simply discarded.  And the production of plastics will only increase in the future.  There is a lot of oil and natural gas in the world and, if and when we wean ourselves from fossil fuels, oil and chemical companies will be looking for other places to use their stocks.

So far, only about one billion tons of plastic have been recycled—that is, put into the recycling chain.  What exactly has happened to that material is less clear.  Different types of plastic require different post-consumer processing to turn them back into pellets of raw material.  Most factories are set up to use only particular types of plastic and it is still cheaper to buy virgin pellets than recycled ones.  Are compostable plastics the solution?  What is a compostable plastic?  What is it made from?  How is it broken down?  Are there plastics that will simply decompose into constituent molecules by weathering and micro-organisms?  Questions, questions.  Are there answers?

Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a chemistry and economics lesson from Dr. Susannah Scott, Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering and occupant of the Duncan and Suzanne Mellichamp Chair in Sustainable Catalytic Processing at the University of California Santa Barbara. Here I quote from a UCSB website: "Her research interests include the design of heterogeneous catalysts with well-defined active sites for the efficient conversion of conventional and new feedstocks, as well as environmental catalysts to promote air and water quality."

As the recent deadly floods in Central Texas remind us, Nature bats last.  There seem to be a growing number of severe weather-related disasters that kill many people and lay waste to towns and communities.  But what happens after the floods, as communities make plans to repair the damages?  Why does rebuilding often become the trigger of intense and extended political and social struggle, sometimes lasting many years?  Dr. Ken Conca, Emeritus Professor of Environment, Development and Health at American University in Washington, DC, decided to follow the planning process in a flood-prone town in which he lived. He has just published After the Floods--The Search for Resilience in Ellicott City (Oxford University Press) a study that offers a blow-by-blow account of these struggles and elucidates his explanation for why the arise and persist, long after the water has vanished.

Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Dr. Conca about his book and his broader conclusions about community planning for inclement weather and climate change, especially “after the floods.”

Oregon laws

The United States has indicated that it will begin to explore commercial mining of mineral nodules on the international seabed, in violation of the UN Conference on the Law of the Sea and the International Seabed Authority. These nodules contain a variety of minerals used in cell phones, electric cars and other high-tech devices and could reduce U.S. reliance on questionable sources of rare earth and other metals. Opponents counter that the ecological damage imposed by such mining would far outweigh any benefits.

But there is another argument for letting sleeping nodules lie: deep-sea mining is a multi-billion-dollar solution to problems that do not exist.  Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a discussion with Professors D.G. Webster of Dartmouth College and Susan Park, from the University of Sydney.  They, along with several colleagues, recently published “The false promise of deep-sea mining,” a critique of the proposal focused on terrestrial mineral availability, limited social benefits and supply chain economics.

Do you remember the Northern Spotted Owl, icon of the old-growth Redwood Wars of the 1990s?  Well, the Northern Spotted Owl is, once again, under threat.  This time, however, the threat comes from another species of owl, the Barred Owl, a larger and more aggressive bird native to the United States, whose range has been expanding westward as a result of development and climate change.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife has devised a plan to protect the Northern Spotted Owl: shoot Barred Owls.  Scientists, conservationists and the public are torn: should humans intervene to prevent animal extinctions by competitors and invasive species if they threaten the survival of endemic ones, or should we let nature take its course?  And since humans have intervened in nature for thousands of years, everyday and everywhere, what is the right thing to do?  How can we decide?

Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a rerun of a 2024 conversation with Hugh Warwick, spokesperson for the British Hedgehog Preservation Society, who has been looking into this dilemma around the world. He has just published Cull of the Wild: Killing in the Name of Conservation.  Warwick is a frequent speaker on wildlife conservation in public talks and on British radio and TV. He also runs courses on hedgehog conservation.

Warwick with hedgehog photo © Zoe Broughton

Carbon is a boon and a bane.  It is at the core of all life on Earth, past and present.  In the atmosphere, carbon is what keeps the Earth’s temperature at tolerable levels.  Yet, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are rising, raising global temperatures and disrupting climate and weather.  California’s cap and trade system is one approach to controlling carbon emissions.  But what is it? How does it work?  And are there other ways to achieve the same objectives?  Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation about cap and trade and how the resources it generates could be put to better use, with Dr. Barbara Haya, director of UC Berkeley’s Carbon Trading Project, and Stephen Lezak, a Visiting Fellow at BCTP.

Everyone is angry with California’s private utilities.  Rates keep rising, the utilities lack accountability and they are running roughshod over small-scale renewable energy.  Why make your customers so mad? Is that anger justified? And what are the utilities planning for the future?  Join SN! host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Loretta Lynch. Lynch was President of the California Public Utilities Commission from 2000 through 2002 and continued as a CPUC Commissioner until January 2005.  Since then, she has been a strident advocate for the protection of ratepayers and against corruption in the utility industry, a role in which she continues today.

Gray wolves were once ubiquitous across California but the state’s last surviving individual was killed in 1924.  In 2011, the first documented wolf since 1924 was observed crossing into California from Oregon.  Today, there are at least 7 gray wolf packs in California with some 50 individuals.  That’s not so many but 3 counties are worried about wolf attacks on livestock and people and are asking for permission from the state to allow more aggressive hazing, including shooting wolves with beanbags and rubber bullets.  Is this really necessary?  To learn more about gray wolves in California, join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Amaroq Weiss, Senior Wolf Advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity

Food insecurity and food apartheid are a common challenge in many low-income and minority neighborhoods across the United States.  Big supermarket companies avoid those areas because stores are unprofitable and small stores find that they make the most money on junk foods, sodas and liquor.  Saba Grocers is an Oakland-based organization, founded in 2019, that works with those small stores to enable them to sell fresh produce sourced from minority farmers across the region.  Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Lina Ghanem, director and co-founder of the Saba Grocers Initiative in Oakland.

Here is another podcast of interest from Michael Olson

Staff of Life is a locally-owned grocery store competing for consumer dollars in a market dominated by corporate giants.  And so we ask:

How does a local grocery store survive in a marketplace of corporate giants? 

The Food Chain Radio Show - Podcast with Michael Olson hosts Gary Bascou, Co-Founder of Staff of Life Natural Foods for a conversation about how a locally-owned grocery store can survive 56 years to be among the last to stand in a market dominated by corporate grocery giants.

Topics include the culture that gave rise to “natural” and “organic” food markets; how those foods gave rise to Staff of Life Natural Foods Market; and how Staff of Life survives 56 years of competition with corporate food giants.

Show Recording:  Staff of Life: Local Grocer V. Corporate Giants

Radio:  www.santacruzvoice.com 

Host:  www.metrofarm.com

Sponsor:  TimeShare Media