2025 Archives
Our guest on this program was Osprey Orielle Lake. She is the Founder and Executive Director of Women’s Earth & Climate Action Network, International (The acronym is WECAN). She works nationally and internationally with grassroots, frontline, Indigenous and business leaders, policy-makers, and scientists to promote climate justice, resilient communities, and a just transition to a clean energy future. She spoke with us about how extractive technologies, linked with capitalism and colonialism, have led to a world in crisis. Her work has explored how indigenous values and origin stories as well as women's roles and values point the way to a more sustainable planet. As former English profs and were especially interested in her discussion of how languages, in general, and English, in particular, affect how we see the world and may limit our vision. Finally, she told us about WECAN, and its work toward divestment and fossil fuel extraction, women regeneration of forests, advocacy at the Conference of Parties (COP), and an upcoming conference of the Women's Assembly for Climate Justice. Learn more at https://www.wecaninternational.org/
Listen to this inspiring (and inspiriting) interview: click below.
Listen to this inspiring (and inspiriting) interview: click below.
Our guest was David Gessner, who is Chair of the Creative Writing department at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. His has written The Book of Flaco: The World's Most Famous Bird, published by Blair/Carolina Wren Press. Flaco was a Eurasian Eagle-Owl who was freed from his cage at the Central Park Zoo by persons unknown. For a year he lived in and about Central Park in New York City. David's book followed his journeys and discussed some of the controversies surrounding him: whether he should have been trapped and returned to the zoo, whether public attention was a good or bad thing, and the cause(s) of his death. The book also has "Rachel-Carson-esque" implications for urban birds and beyond. Listen to the program; click below.
POWER
with Richard Heinberg
Eco Extra
with Richard Heinberg
Eco Extra
Tonight’s program was a replay of an interview we did a couple of years ago with Richard Heinberg about his book: Power: Limits and Prospects for Human Survival. The book identifies four key elements supporting human power: tool making ability, language, social complexity, and the ability to harness energy sources ― most significantly, fossil fuels. Have we, he asks, become so powerful that we risk extinction?
Listen to the program; click below.
Listen to the program; click below.
WHERE DOES CHICO GROW FROM HERE?
with Eric Nilssen, Jacque Chase, and Susan Tchudi
Eco 783 February 18, 2025
with Eric Nilssen, Jacque Chase, and Susan Tchudi
Eco 783 February 18, 2025
In this program, Susan Tchudi was on the other side of the interview table tonight, and she joined two other guests in discussing a forum “How Does Chico Grow from Here.” Eric Nilsson serves on the Butte Environmental Council Board. He is a member of Smart Growth Advocates and has been participating in Chico's Ad Hoc Committee for Housing and Urban Development. Jacquelyn Chase is a retired professor of Geography and Planning (now Geography and Environmental Studies) at Chico State. She has a Ph.D. in Urban Planning, and has been studying the place of wildfire in our built environment since 2004. And Susan Tchudi, Cohost of Ecotopia, is on the Board of the Butte Environmental Council and is one of the founding members of Smart Growth Advocates. In addition to the forum, they discussed their views of healthy directions for Chico to grow in the future, with particular emphasis on urban infill rather than sprawl. They critiqued the proceedings of the Chico Growth and Community Development Committee and suggested ways in which they'd like to see that committee act as it prepares recommendations for the Chico City Council.
Listen to the program. Click below.
Listen to the program. Click below.
In this episode we interviewed Barbara Vlamis, Executive Director of AquAlliance: "Defending Northern California Waters." She reviewed the mission and history of the organization, as well as its track record of winning environmental lawsuits. Barbara told us about a current lawsuit against the Colusa Irrigation District and its plans, which, under the guise of water savings, would actually lead to ground subsidence, wells going dry, and the transfer of northstate waters to the ever-thirsty south. We also discussed other lawsuits pending against Sustainable Groundwater Management Act Agencies and against the developers of the Valley's Edge project in Chico. She further described her organization's stances on the Single Tunnel Project and Sites Reservoir. This was an especially informative interview. Learn more about and donate to AqaAlliance at aqualliance.net. Listen to the program: Click Below.
THE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA REGIONAL LAND TRUST
with Cynthia Perrine
Eco 780 28 January 2025
with Cynthia Perrine
Eco 780 28 January 2025
Our guest on this program was Cynthia Perrine, who is the Executive Director of the Northern California Regional Land Trust. Cynthia’s hometown is Chico, and she’s spent the past three decades working throughout California and Nevada as a field biologist and program director for state and federal agencies, non-profits, and academic institutions. In addition to her academic and work experience in applied ecology, she holds an MBA from Southern New Hampshire University, is a Certified Non-profit Professional (CNP) with Non-profit Leadership Alliance, and a Certified Wildlife Biologist (CWB) with The Wildlife Society.
Website: The Northern California Regional Land Trust was founded in 1990 by a coalition of Butte County residents concerned about the pace at which the North State was growing up around wild places. Originally named the Parks and Preserves Foundation, the organization functioned as a local, grassroots land trust that promoted cooperative preservation and enhancement of scenic open space and significant habitat resources in Butte County.
She told us about the Trust's amazing record of preserving land and how they go about discovering eligible land and working with landowners to put that land into a permanent easement, thus protecting it from development and environmental damage.
Learn more at www.landconservation.org
Listen to the program: Click below.
Website: The Northern California Regional Land Trust was founded in 1990 by a coalition of Butte County residents concerned about the pace at which the North State was growing up around wild places. Originally named the Parks and Preserves Foundation, the organization functioned as a local, grassroots land trust that promoted cooperative preservation and enhancement of scenic open space and significant habitat resources in Butte County.
She told us about the Trust's amazing record of preserving land and how they go about discovering eligible land and working with landowners to put that land into a permanent easement, thus protecting it from development and environmental damage.
Learn more at www.landconservation.org
Listen to the program: Click below.
WATERS OF THE UNITED STATES
with Roy Gardner
Eco 779 21 January 2025
with Roy Gardner
Eco 779 21 January 2025
Our guest on this program was Roy Gardner, author of a new book from Island Press titled Waters of the United States, with an intriguing subtitle, POTUS, SCOTUS, WOTUS and the Politics of a National Resource. The acronyms refer to the President of the United States, the Supreme Court of the US, and the Waters of the United States. In this excellent interview, Roy helped us understand more deeply the waters of the US and the rules, regulations, and laws that govern them--a deeply complex set of legal restrictions and protections that help to keep our water safe, but also lead to many lawsuits and much legal wrangling. Roy is Professor of Law and Director of the Institute for Biodiversity Law and Policy at Stetson University College of Law in Florida, where, he likes to take students on swamp walks in the Western Everglades. His research and scholarship focus on wetland legal and policy issues. He has lectured in Africa, Asia, Europe, and North and South America. He has longstanding interest in wetlands including work with the Ramsar Convention, an international wetlands treaty. There is much more in the book than we could cover in the interview, and we recommend that listeners get a copy to learn more.
Listen to the program, click below..
Listen to the program, click below..
SNOW GOOSE FESTIVAL
with Jared Geiser and Trish Reilly
Eco 778 14 January 2025
with Jared Geiser and Trish Reilly
Eco 778 14 January 2025
The Snow Goose Festival is celebrated each year in January, when the geese flock to wetlands by the thousands. Jared Geiser and Trish Reilly told us all about the 2025 festival, with field trips, workshops, exhibits, and more. Jared is a longtime environmental advocate and the director of AltaCal Audubon. Trish is a retired nurse educator and a birder since the 1970s. Shes been volunteering with the Snow Goose Festival for many years and is the field trip coordinator.
Listen to the program; click below..
Listen to the program; click below..
MULTISOLVING
with Elizabeth Sawin
Eco 777 January 7, 2025
with Elizabeth Sawin
Eco 777 January 7, 2025
Our guest was Elizabeth Sawin, author of a fascinating new book from Island Press; it’s called Multisolving: Creating Systems Change in a Fractured World. She has a PhD in Biology from MIT and has a long career in working on sustainability and related issues. In 2010 she cofounded the think tank Climate Interactive to create tools for grappling with the complexity of the climate system. And in 2021 she founded the Multisolving Institute to develop tools tailored for “multisolving,” which involves thinking and acting systematically on multiple issues and problems. She provided examples of multisolving at work in communities around the world and outlined its principal "ingredients": stocks (of goods, resources, human capital), flows (which result in changes of the stocks, and reinforcement loops (which help people understand and evaluate the success of their work.
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She introduced us to FLOWER, an online program that guides people through the multisolving process. Learn more at https://www.multisolving.org/www.multisolving.org/
Listen to the program: Click below. |
Happy New Year 2025
Eco 776 December 31, 2024
Eco 776 December 31, 2024
We ushered out 2024 and welcomed 2025 with a program devoted to promising environmental news as well as resolutions for the coming year. Topics covered included electricity generation and storage, projects to save endangered species, restoration and recovery of land and sea, and declarations giving both people and animals legal standing in battles over the environment. We closed with speculation and optimism on the nagging question, "Do small scale efforts make a difference?"
Listen to the program. Click below.
Listen to the program. Click below.