On this show, Solstice Celebration Story: Nutcracker and the Shape Shifter. Co-host and Producer Jack Eidt, in his role as a Literary Fiction writer, reads an excerpt of his short story based on The Nutcracker, a two-act ballet, with an 1892 score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The ballet libretto was adapted from E.T.A. Hoffmann’s 1816 story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. Here we present Jack’s own pro-peace-environmental re-imagining of that story, called The Nutcracker and the Shape Shifter...
Dec 18, 2023•1 hr 2 min
Wherever land meets sea, global warming is wreaking havoc. As the ocean absorbs heat generated by the burning of fossil fuels and its attendant climate breakdown, its waters swell into overwhelming tides and city-engulfing storms. Glaciers melt, Pacific Islands shrink, Indonesians flee their seaside capital, and North Carolina’s beaches disappear with each passing supercharged hurricane. On this show, we talk with Environmental Reporter from the Los Angeles Times, Rosanna Xia, as she delves into...
Dec 11, 2023•1 hr 8 min
Nature is not fixed, but ever changing. Some of the world’s best known deserts were once fertile grasslands and forests, including the Sahara, the Mojave, the Kalahari, and Gobi deserts. Is it accurate to think of deserts as permanent? Ecosystem succession shows us that Nature can evolve from rock to forest as well as reverse itself back to dust or a barren state. According to National Geographic, drylands account for more than 40 percent of the world's terrestrial surface area. Human-caused des...
Dec 04, 2023•1 hr 2 min
Well, we all know we have a problem with waste, trash, single-use plastics, wrappers, plastic bags. Plastic has become ubiquitous in our daily lives thanks to its convenience and artificially low prices. But it comes with many costs, upstream and downstream, so to speak. Fossil fuels fracked and pipelined to produce it, petrochemical facilities polluting communities, ecosystems, and the climate. Millions of tons of plastic waste are dumped every year, much of which makes its way into the oceans,...
Nov 27, 2023•1 hr
Native people inhabited the Connecticut River Valley of western Massachusetts for more than 10,000 years. It is the homeland of many First People, all related to one another. They are called the Sokoki, Pocumtuck, Nonotuck, Woronoco, and Agawam. Many other tribes visited and still visit this Native homeland. Among them are the Abenaki, Nipmuck, Wampanoag, Narragansett, Mohegan, Pequot, Mohican, and Mohawk. These tribes are recognized today by states or the federal government as sovereign nations...
Nov 20, 2023•58 min
Humanity has a primordial connection to water. For Indigenous peoples, such as the Māori, Water is an Ancestor, a living entity to be communed with, revered and treated with sacred reciprocity. We owe our lives to the oceans, rivers, lakes and streams of the world. And although marine ecosystems have often been viewed and studied through the abstract lens of economics or science, today, traditional Indigenous knowledge and cultural relationships with marine life and water in all its forms, are a...
Nov 13, 2023•1 hr 3 min
The Right to Repair our electronics and other materials sounds like a no brainer. But historically manufacturers have said otherwise and fought, with millions of dollars, to stop legislation that allows consumers access to the resources to repair items like cell phones, toasters, and even tractor trucks. On this show Right to Repair takes center stage with guests Liv Butler, Policy Associate for Californians Against Waste [http://www.cawrecycles.org] and Elizabeth Chamberlain, Director of Sustai...
Nov 06, 2023•1 hr 2 min
Many of us who are settlers now living on Turtle Island or anywhere in the world where colonization has taken place, recognize that ours is a time of truth and reconciliation. Forced assimilation and boarding schools established by the Indian Civilization Act of 1819 deliberately suppressed the use of Indigenous language and culture. We are haunted by histories where government policies, colonizers, missionaries, and the like, aimed to eradicate Indigenous peoples and their way of life, rather t...
Oct 30, 2023•58 min
Breathing clean air and drinking clean water are fundamental rights. However, these have been denied to many low-income communities and communities of color, who often live next to massive industrial facilities that pollute the air and water. Our guest from an encore presentation from early in 2023 is Dr. Mustafa Santiago Ali {https://www.mustafasantiagoali.com/] former EPA official and now Executive Vice President at the National Wildlife Federation and Founder and CEO of Revitalization Strateg...
Oct 23, 2023•58 min
Most would agree it is a farmer’s right to save, replant, share, breed, and sell seed. This fundamental right is rapidly eroding globally as multinational seed companies push for the worldwide expansion of restrictive seed laws, patents, and intellectual property rights. Multinationals–like Monsanto/Bayer, DuPont, and Syngenta--account for about half of all commercial food crop seed sales (also the singular largest producers of pesticides and herbicides) and continue to consolidate control. Howe...
Oct 16, 2023•58 min
Margaret Elysia Garcia, author and poet published by El Martillo Press, has spent a couple of decades living in Greenville, a Gold Rush-era Northern California town, that no longer exists as it did in 2021. That’s because it was devoured by the Dixie Fire, one of the largest blazes in California history. Margaret began writing her poetry collection “Burn Scars” while waiting at traffic stops driving from her mother's house to her former hometown. She grappled with the destructive aftermath that ...
Oct 09, 2023•1 hr 1 min
In the bestselling book, Drawdown, edited by Paul Hawken, enumerates solutions to our climate crisis in great detail. Of these, composting remains a top priority as it can reduce carbon emissions, as well as improve soil health and fertility, reduce air pollution, restore connection among communities and to Mother Nature. Composting is an essential way we can assist in the restoration and balancing of the hydrological cycle, improve water retention of soil, prevent erosion, and reduce runoff. Wh...
Oct 02, 2023•1 hr 5 min
On this show, we discuss how we can revolutionize architecture and landscape design by emulating Nature’s genius. Our guest, Ecological Architect Carl Welty [https://carlweltyarchitects.com/], paints a picture of ancient cities oriented to the sun’s movements, capturing its energy without machines. Modern city design often ignores the natural context, the flow of water, sensitive ecological habitats, in favor of geometric patterns – with problematic implications for the complex web of nature’s c...
Sep 25, 2023•1 hr 2 min
On this show, we discuss ancestral foodways and the continuance as well as the reclaiming of authentic, Indigenous cuisine. Indigenous peoples often remind us: we are still here. Their lifeways and food creation have not "left," but are still present through the fierce devotion and commitment of intergenerational knowledge keepers. Food is a way of knowing, a cultural identity and a way to be connected to a community. The Indigenous Food Sovereignty Movement and the increasing prominence of Indi...
Sep 18, 2023•1 hr 3 min
Freedom to Roam in Nature is an essential human right. For guest Chad Brown [http://www.Chadocreative.com], mother nature played a significant role in his healing from the war trauma he experienced as a navy service member. In his desire to activate healing through nature, art, and sport, he founded two non profits, Soul River Inc. and Love is King and explores storytelling through his photography and documentary filmmaking. Soul River Inc. [https://soulriverinc.org/about/] focuses on forging st...
Sep 11, 2023•1 hr 4 min
How should we respond to – or better yet, cope with the extreme climate weirding and environmental collapse we keep seeing and reading about everywhere? In lieu of an immobilizing depression we must look to what is ALSO happening out there - the conservation and environmental justice success stories. Movements and advocacy that we frankly try to cover on this show every week, although we plead guilty to sharing some of the gloom and doom. But what about the communities banding together to heal t...
Sep 04, 2023•1 hr 4 min
The fossil fuel industry has been promoting hydrogen as a reliable, low carbon, next-generation fuel to power cars, heat homes, and generate electricity. However, currently 99% of the annual supply of hydrogen comes from fracked methane gas. So will switching to hydrogen only lock us into continued fossil fuel use and additional investments in fossil fuel infrastructure? Proponents argue that when hydrogen is made using renewable power it can cut climate-warming industrial carbon pollution from ...
Aug 28, 2023•57 min
Regeneration is a common theme these days. But does it go far enough? What of the Spirit, bio-cosmology, connection to the land, to our good hearts, and our original ancestral ways? Indigenous Regenerative Intelligence points to this reunification of that which has become separated through colonization, an extractive economy and a reductionist, industrial mindset, focused on production, self-interest and consumerism. Native cosmology connects us to the land and focuses our energy; by embodying i...
Aug 21, 2023•1 hr 5 min
Ahupua’a. The ancient Hawaiian system that honors the interconnectedness of the land, waters, clouds and all living things. The system is inherently based in sacred reciprocity, sustainability, collaboration with and responsibility to others: to the lands, waters, and life itself, thriving from the mountains to the sea. The destruction of the Lahaina Fire is an example where the connections between people and the land had become broken and out of balance to the detriment of all. Within the Ahupu...
Aug 14, 2023•1 hr 2 min
Is a 100% clean, renewable energy future by the year 2050 possible? Our guest, Stanford Professor Mark Z. Jacobson proposes that the most efficient and socially and environmentally just way is to replace fossil fuels through a combined implementation of Wind, Water, and Solar energy solutions. Are these solutions perfect? No. However, when compared to other so-called energy solutions like nuclear, biofuel, biomass, waste to energy, and hydrogen (just to name a few) these three (Wind, Water-Geoth...
Aug 07, 2023•1 hr 5 min
Humans are eating more seafood than can ever be replenished, a vital source of protein for 3.3 billion people. There are many different ways to feed people while conserving our marine ecosystems without overfishing and industrial fish farming. Unfortunately, the US government and multinational corporations are pushing offshore industrial fish farming as a way to keep people eating their salmon and shrimp. In fact the US government is fast tracking industrial fish farms in federal waters, in unde...
Jul 31, 2023•1 hr
According to the USDA, wheat ranks third after corn and soybeans with regard to its acreage, production, and farm receipts and is grown on roughly 37 million acres. Since its peak in 1981, wheat is now declining in acreage, down some 45 million acres which is perhaps the good news. Typically 1,000 acres in size, the average wheat farm is highly industrialized; as of 2020, some 150 different pesticides and herbicides were commonly sprayed on winter and spring wheat. Given the industrial scale of ...
Jul 25, 2023•1 hr 7 min
The upcoming documentary ‘Feeding Tomorrow’ explores the intersection between the food we eat, our personal and community health, and protection and regeneration of ecosystems. In today’s interview, Oliver English, Co-Founder & CEO of Common Table Creative [http://www.commontablecreative.com] and Filmmaker, Chef, and Food Advocate, shares the stories of visionary leaders in agriculture, healthcare, and education working to build a more just food system in their local communities - giving ris...
Jul 17, 2023•1 hr 3 min
As momentum continues to grow around the Land Back movement and Indigenous stewardship worldwide, the value of hearing from Elders who have long studied Indigenous traditions and lifeways, whether adopted or of their heritage, is a growing imperative. Their lived wisdom is essential, a gift and treasure for future generations, and continues the cycle of dynamic, intergenerational learning in the traditional way — the way of direct, felt experience and deep listening. This is an encore presentati...
Jul 12, 2023•1 hr 3 min
There is a movement among the business community and their political representatives to remove the regulatory barriers that they argue impede infrastructure projects and vastly inflate their costs. The Debt Ceiling Bill passed to avert a financial crisis earlier this year included a suite of permitting reforms that supposedly would make it easier to green-light clean energy and infrastructure projects, so badly needed to confront the climate crisis. But are the environmental regulations at fault...
Jul 03, 2023•1 hr 2 min
Dr. Scott Coffin joined us in this encore presentation from 2022. As a toxicologist and Research Scientist at California State Water Resources Control Board, he speaks about how microplastics are entering our environment, how to assess risk and implement precautionary solutions. Microplastics, small, micro-sized plastic fragments are showing up in our water sources, rain, drinking water, and beverages like beer. It is in food, salt, and seafood. Moreover, it has recently been found in human brea...
Jun 26, 2023•59 min
Green Building. Organic Architecture. Regenerative Design. These concepts have come to prominence recognizing the built environment as one of the largest contributors of carbon dioxide emissions, using toxic materials that can damage human health as well as pollute the environment. Following Nature's design process, our guest this week has developed an organic approach to design with an eye toward innovative buildings that embody ecological & social responsibility. Organic architecture, coin...
Jun 19, 2023•1 hr 5 min
We have long been hearing about various threats to bees and other pollinators, including Colony Collapse Disorder, new pathogens and bee pests, environmental and nutritional stressors, and pesticides such as neonicotinoids. Impacts to Queen Bees and their genetics are also a concern. According to the non-profit organization, HoneyLove, cities are apparently the last refuge for the Honeybee. HoneyLove [http://honeylove.org] is dedicated to urban beekeeping, educational outreach, and advocating fo...
Jun 12, 2023•1 hr 2 min
For years, Monsanto declared that their product Roundup, the world's most widely used weed killer, was safe. But in 2015, scientific studies concluded that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, is probably carcinogenic. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Monsanto disagreed with the findings, as scientists worked to understand the link between glyphosate and cancer. Dr. Chadi Nabhan's book, Toxic Exposure [https://chadinabhan.com/mybooks/], tells the true story of his role as a...
Jun 05, 2023•1 hr 5 min
Leadership: what does it mean to lead in our times? Perhaps our times are requesting that we all express leadership in our own unique ways and forms. Etymology of the word leadership reveals root words that mean to go and also to guide. We might perceive leadership as going somewhere together with others, with being the important preposition. Because many of us have become jaded by modern leadership, influenced by patriarchy, tyranny, hierarchy and racial, social or gender inequalities. Nina Sim...
May 30, 2023•1 hr 7 min
