The Butterfly Effect

This butterfly is excited to be speaking with Dr. James Downer.

Dr. Downer has 37 years of experience as a horticulture and plant pathology Advisor with the University of California Cooperative Extension in Ventura County. His research is focused on mulch, soil microbiology and disease suppression in mulched soils, diseases of shade trees, and cultural practices to maintain landscape plants.

Dr. Downer is an Adjunct professor at California Polytechnic University in Pomona.

He has a love of shade trees, Shinrin Yoku (forest bathing) tree work, woodworking, horses, gardening, horticulture, and the study of plants and their biology.

In this episode, you will hear about the forests in Chernobyl, his work studying the nuclear effect on them, Gama Radiation, Fukushima, and more.

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The great music is credited to Pixabay.

This butterfly is excited to be speaking with Sally Giblin.

Sally is an award-winning founder, podcast co-host, environmentalist, writer, speaker, and parent. Her purpose is to unleash the power of families to rewrite our climate story. Sally is the Co-Founder of Be The Future, which is creating children’s books and games about caring for our world that burst with humor, solutions, and hope - and a digital action hub that rewards families and schools for real-world action. She's also a Co-Host of the Hope. Act. Thrive. Podcast, which hosts bite-size conversations with leading climate thinkers, doers, and shakers from around the globe. Sally is also a Greenpeace Australia Pacific General Assembly Member, an Australian Parents for Climate Action spokesperson, and a Climate Reality Leader.

In this episode, you will hear about families and their potential in rewriting the climate story, what can parents do with their kids in regard to climate action, climate anxiety with children, Sally’s children’s book, and more.

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To support planting all over the world, please check out this link.

The great music is credited to Pixabay.

This butterfly is excited to be speaking with Branden Barber.

Branden is a lifelong environmentalist. Starting with a degree in Environmental Studies from UC Santa Cruz, he cut his teeth with Greenpeace International on the Rainbow Warrior. Then he ran the Victorian State Office for Greenpeace Australia. Over the last 25 years, he’s worked in both the social profit and for-profit sectors, from start-ups to S&P 500 companies to NGO’s, large and small.

In the last decade, Branden has been involved with various environmental organizations as staff or as a consultant, served on the Leadership Teams at both Rainforest Action Network and Amazon Watch, and has sat on several boards – always with a focus on the environment. Branden joined the Rainforest Rescue team in 2018. He is passionate about rainforests, ardently committed to the natural world, and brings a wealth and breadth of experience to Rainforest Rescue as the CEO.

In this episode, you will hear about his work, challenges in restoring a rainforest, the Daintree rainforest (the oldest rainforest in the world), and more.

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To support planting all over the world, please check out this link.

The great music is credited to Pixabay.

This butterfly is excited to be speaking with Natalie Lavery.

Natalie is an avid environmentalist, marketer, communicator, and writer,  with a passion for digital storytelling. She heads up marketing for Climate People, a ClimateTech recruitment agency.

With a background in grassroots environmental advocacy, she has seen first-hand the dire need for a swift and just transition away from a fossil-fuel-dominated economy.

In her current role at Climate People, she advocates for job seekers and helps encourages people from all fields to transition their careers to climate solutions in hopes of creating a brighter future for all.

In this episode, you will hear about what jobs are needed in the climate sector, statistics on the barriers to entering this space, meeting people where they are, and more.

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To support planting all over the world, please check out this link.

The great music is credited to Pixabay.

This butterfly is excited to be speaking with Abby Alvin.

Abby is a big lover of anything outdoors who loves hiking and photography! She went to school for Environmental Studies, Geology and Entrepreneurship.  When she graduated she was unable to find a job in the climate sector that would pay rent so she pursued 7 years in recruiting! Here we are, 10 years later, and she has been able to bring her skillset in recruiting and her passion for climate together as a Senior ClimateTech Account Manager and Sourcer at Climate People where their mission is simple: to get more top talent into climate jobs!

In this episode, you will hear about her journey in the climate sector, what it means to have a job in climate, her tips and advice on pursuing a career in climate tech, and more.

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To support planting all over the world, please check out this link.

The great music is credited to Pixabay.

This butterfly is excited to be speaking with Jeffrey H. Ryan.

Jeff is passionate about the outdoors and the conservation of public land, whose work has been cited in Forbes, USA Today, and other notable publications. He is the author of Appalachian Odyssey (2016), Blazing Ahead (2017), and a new book This Land Was Saved for You and Me: How Gifford Pinchot, Frederick Law Olmsted, and a Band of Foresters Rescued America's Public Lands that came out in September 2022 tells the story of how America’s public lands—our city parks, national forests, and wilderness areas—came into being can be traced to a few conservation pioneers and proteges who shaped policy and advocated for open spaces. Some, like Frederick Law Olmsted and Gifford Pinchot, are well known, while others have never been given their due.

Jeffrey Ryan covers the nearly century-long period between 1865 (when Olmsted contributed to the creation of Yosemite as a park and created its management plan) to the signing of the Wilderness Act of 1964. Olmsted influenced Pinchot, who became the first head of the National Forest Service. In turn, Pinchot hired the foresters who became the founders of The Wilderness Society and creators of the Wilderness Act itself. This history emphasizes the cast of characters —among them Theodore Roosevelt, Bob Marshall, Benton MacKaye, Aldo Leopold, and Howard Zahniser—and provides context for their decisions and the political and economic factors that contributed to the triumphs and pitfalls in the quest to protect public lands. In researching the book, Ryan traveled to the places where these crusaders lived, worked, and were inspired to take up the cause to make public lands accessible to all.

In this episode, you will hear about the history of American forests, what he learned about Olmsted, Pichot, Jeff’s hiking experience, and more.

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More about 1treellion & Jeff Ryan.

To support planting all over the world, please check out this link.

The great music is credited to Pixabay.

This butterfly is excited to be speaking with Tatsiana Zaretskaya.

Tatsiana is the founder of Laava Tech & Meliora, which develops technology to increase the efficiency of indoor farming.

Tatsiana is an MIT Innovator 35U35, and Forbes 30U30. She is passionate about cleantech technologies that make a difference and make sense.

In this episode, you will hear about her work, what got her to do it, her accomplishment, some about her family in Belarus, and more.

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To support planting all over the world, please check out this link.

The great music is credited to Pixabay.

This butterfly is excited to be speaking with Hardik Siroha.

Hardik is an Assistant Environmental Engineer at Haryana State Pollution Control Board - India. Where he formulates and implements action plans to reduce environmental pollution, curb the use of plastic, as well as work on technologies to reduce the water consumption of different industrial processes.

If one wishes to understand his work in State Pollution Control Board, think of an engineer, federal agent, and prosecutor rolled into one role.

In this episode, you will hear about the reasons for pollutants in India, what has been done to mitigate them, what we can do, and more.

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To support planting all over the world, please check out this link.

The great music is credited to Pixabay.

This butterfly is excited to be speaking with Niyanta Spelman.

Niyanta is the founder and CEO of Rainforest Partnership, an impact-driven international nonprofit that uses the power of community-centered collaboration to protect rainforests—critical components in the global climate crisis—in some of the most critical places on Earth for biodiversity and climate.

Founded in 2007, Rainforest Partnership works to solve the challenge of deforestation by centering the needs of those on the front lines of the rainforest—Indigenous peoples and local communities. The organization builds collaborative relationships with rainforest communities as a trusted partner, developing comprehensive, ground-up solutions and economic responses that create effective and long-lasting conservation outcomes. In 2021 alone, RP’s efforts led to the durable protection and restoration of 1.16 million acres of rainforest in Peru, Ecuador, and along the Peru-Brazil border.

Powered by a powerful and passionate global team that seamlessly blends a compensated team, volunteers, and partners, the organization achieves high-value outcomes for forests through its own work, but also by its thought leadership that enables others to advance their impact more effectively.

A native of Tanzania, Niyanta attended boarding school in India. She received a Bachelor of Arts in Biology from The University of Texas at Dallas and a Master of Public Affairs in Environmental Policy from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin. Prior to founding Rainforest Partnership in 2007, her career path included work at the first lobbying firm in London, leading a management consultancy, and working with Texas environmental agencies as part of a legislative agency. She chaired a chamber of commerce, served on the Austin Planning Commission, and served on the board of a US national health advocacy organization.

Niyanta serves as the Speaker of the newly formed Rainforest Collective, and she recently taught a class on Climate Change and Development at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. She has received numerous honors and awards and has been featured in international press outlets.

In this episode, you will hear about the tropical rainforest and its values, the indigenous people, biodiversity, and more.

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To support planting all over the world, please check out this link.

The great music is credited to Pixabay.

This butterfly is excited to be speaking with Job van Hooijdonk.

Job is co-founder of Regreener, an Amsterdam-based startup focusing on regreening the world. Before founding Regreener. He studied corporate law and worked as an M&A lawyer for an international law firm for several years. Being a millennial, he then started thinking about switching careers in order to be able to make an impact.

Looking at existing climate change fighting solutions, he noticed three things: (1) Most solutions were too complicated, (2) there was a major lack of transparency, and (3) almost all solutions were focused on the negative side of things. This finally resulted in the core values of Regreener: simplicity, transparency, and positivity. This means that Regreener is focused on simple solutions whilst focusing on providing its community with all the information about impact, finance, etc. and all is done in a positive way, meaning that the focus is on the green impact.

Regreener offers consumers and businesses the opportunity to plant trees, protect rainforests and offset carbon through carbon certificates. Furthermore, they are focusing on building check-out solutions for webshops, providing end customers with the opportunity to plant a tree.

In this episode you will hear about his work, transparency in “re-greening”, green projects, green in business, carbon credits, and more.

Some notes...

More about 1treellion, Job van Hooijdonk & ReGreener.

To support planting all over the world, please check out this link.

The great music is credited to Pixabay.