EcoTalk

Paul Hawken: Blessed Unrest

Paul Hawken talks about his most recent book Blessed Unrest : How the Largest Movement in the World Came in to Being and Why No One Saw it Coming.
Part 1  (11 min)  Part 2 (7 min)

The Fate of the Dead Sea

As the Dead Sea shrinks three feet per year, can Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian territories find common ground in these common waters to build a more lasting peace? Oregon State professor and author of Hydropolitics along the Jordan River: the impact of scarce water resources on the Arab-Israeli conflict Aaron Wolf offers his thoughts on the solutions, and the political will necessary to save the Dead Sea. LISTEN (11 min)

The Gentle Subversive: Rachel Carson, SIlent Spring, and the Rise of the Environmental Movement

Brad College Environmental Studies Chair Mark H. Lytle checks in to discuss his new book The Gentle Subversive: Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, and the Rise of the Environmental Movement: "[Carson] really believed that the right to endure gave us a right to know. She felt that unless the public had the facts necessary to make an informed decision, they were going to be unwitting victims." We take such citizen advocacy for granted today, but as multinational coporations and the chemical revolution created a brave new world of potential dangers to human beings, Carson was one of the first people to stick her neck out for all of us. LISTEN (12 min)

Julia Whitty & Mother Jones Magazine: "Gone"

The latest issue of Mother Jones Magazine features an incredible (and ominous) article by Julia Whitty on the astonishing loss of biodiversity that this Earth has endured in the last century, and the precipitous increase to come, if we don't change: "It's the interaction of lifeforms that make our planet habitable. If we subtract 50% of those lifeforms, we're going to have a serious time sustainaing life on this planet." Listen to this interview, read the article in Mother Jones, and check out Whitty's new book The Fragile Edge: Diving and Other Adventures in the South Pacific. LISTEN (11 min)


 

Kim McKay: True Green

Kim McKay co-founder and deputy chair-woman of Clean Up Australia talks about her new book True Green, 100 everyday ways you can contribute to a healthier planet.  LISTEN  (12 min)

Elizabeth Kolbert: Field Notes From A Catastrophe

Elizabeth Kolbert's vivid, intimate accounts of climate change through the eyes of people in the Netherlands, Iceland, and Alaska were initially published in the New Yorker Magazine and later compiled in the book Field Notes from a Catastrophe. Since "Field Notes" was first published, Kolbert has written a stunning piece on ocean acidification, and has profiled one-time boy wonder of the environmental movement Amory Lovins, now 49 years old and still the eternal optimist.
PART ONE (11 min) PART TWO (7 min)

Patrick Carman: "Atherton: the House of Power"

Bestselling author Patrick Carman joins Betsy to talk about the magical world depicted in his new novel for young adults "Atherton: the House of Power", and its not coincidental resemblance to the magical Earth we all live on: "This particular book takes place about a hundred years in the future..."
LISTEN (8 min)

SustainLane: How Green is Your City?

SustainLane Chief Strategy Officer Warren Karlenzig joins Betsy to talk about how SustainLane has ranked the 50 greenest cities in the nation in their attractive and handy new book How Green is Your City?  The top three cities are on the West Coast, but cities from Boston to Honolulu have  green habits and new efforts, from Farmer's Markets to Tap Water to Public Transportation, that they should be proud of and build upon: "Cities can learn from one other. They're using these rankings to compare their metrics, how they're performing in different areas on everything from green building to sustainability management."  LISTEN (7 min)

Marty Essen: Cool Creatures, Hot Planet

Marty Essen tells Betsy about the adventures to be found on our precious, joyous, and yes, hair-raising planet, chronicled in his new book Cool Creatures, Hot Planet :  "There are a lot of creatures out there that aren't warm and cuddly, that you might want to wipe off the map, but when you do that, you lose things for humans. For example..." LISTEN (8 min)

Chad Pregracke: From the Bottom Up

"A genuine American hero," according to RFK Jr., Chad Pregracke, the young man who has cleaned up our Mississippi River, returns to EcoTalk to relate his colorful, inspiring story as it is told in his new book From the Bottom Up: One Man's Crusade to Clean America's Rivers. Nobody dedicates their life to such humble stewardship of the planet if they are not optimistic and in posession of an archetypal Midwestern work ethic. LISTEN (12 min)

Senator John Kerry: This Moment on Earth

Senator John Kerry joins Betsy to assess the outlook at This Moment On Earth, which also happens to be the title of the book he has written with his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry. Convinced of the need for political leadership on conservation and energy issues long before they were fashionable (fashion never having been his interest or strong suit), Senator Kerry has put twenty years into building consensus within Congress, across party lines, and now with citizens across America: "What middle class family in America wouldn't love to get 150 miles per gallon?" Betsy credits him as being an inspiration on her road to becoming an active environmentalist, and wonders if this side of him deserved a higher profile in the 2004 election. PART ONE (11 min) PART TWO (7 min)

Riane Eisler: The Real Wealth of Nations

Author of the bestseller The Chalice and the Blade, Riane Eisler talks with Betsy about internalizing true quality of life factors (child-rearing, health of habitat, and other common-sense things) into a new Economics for the 21st Century, and the how fleeing the Holocaust and growing up in Havana instilled in her a lifelong commitment to the politics of caregiving, and in turn a commitment to deconstructing the limited use of current models, capitalist and socialist, that limit our ability to sustain ourselves. It's all in her new book, The Real Wealth of Nations. LISTEN (12 min)

Chip Heath: Made to Stick

We're getting better, but we still need to learn how best to market the product Earth. Chip Heath and his brother Dan have written Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, a book that surveys the whole spectrum of ideas that successfully lodged themselves in the collective imagination, from Kennedy's Moon Mission to Bill McKibben's notion of "Cradle to Cradle" Architecture, and finds out what made them stick: "We talk in these abstract ways that mean things to people inside the movement, but that don't necessarily mean things to outsiders." LISTEN (11 min)

Dan Imhoff & Food Fight

Watershed Media Director Dan Imhoff (and author of Paper or Plastic: Searching for Solutions to an Overpackaged World) joins Betsy to talk about his crucial (and quite colorful and handy) new book Food Fight: A Citizen's Guide to the Farm Bill. The US Farm Bill wields enormous leverage over our food and our health, and the extent to which we are informed of its contents is the extent to which we can avert a looming diabetes crisis among our children, and apply subsidies in a way that makes dietary and economic sense. Want to help the family farmer? The first thing you can do is stop assuming that the US Farm Bill is only relevant to the family farmer. LISTEN (9 min)

Liza Dalby: East Wind Melts the Ice

An authority on Japanese culture, Liza Dalby has written a memoir that delves into the deepest rhythms of East Asian thought and sensitivity towards nature's cycles. Structured according to the seasonal units of an ancient Chinese almanac, East Wind Melts the Ice is the perfect antidote to a world which has substituted 24-hour news cycles, fiscal quarters, and March Madness for the natural seasons which have sustained us for all time. LISTEN (12 min)

 

Bob Tarte & Fowl Weather

Bob Tarte tells Betsy all about the trials, tribulations, and simple pleasures of living amongst, <gulp>, nearly 40 animals, all catalogued in his new book Fowl Weather: How thirty-nine animals and one sock monkey took over my life. Warning: You might not want to try this at home. Or, at least consult your significant other before doing anything rash! LISTEN (8 min)

Tim Flannery: The Weathermakers

Mammologist, biologist, writer, and 2007 Australian of the Year Tim Flannery tells Betsy about water rationing in a draught-striken Australia, his book for all ages The Weathermakers, and how us Yanks can't afford to wait out Bush's term in office. PART ONE (7 min) PART TWO (12 min)

Challenging The Chip

Ted Smith of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition and author of Challenging the Chip comments on his recent trips to China and India to see firsthand the underbelly of, basically, a world of people like me typing on this computer and you reading on yours: E-waste, the fastest growing waste stream in the world, and toxic poison for some of the world's poorest. Ted says that at this point "we're losing the battle," and that the US needs "to join the international community at the treaty level," by ratifying the Basel Convention. That we contribute so much to the problem but are not among the 166 signatories of this humane global treaty is shameful, and needs immediate attention from our elected officials.
PART ONE (11 min)  PART TWO (7 min)

Harm de Blij: Why Geography Matters

As Michigan State Professor Harm de Blij tells Betsy in this fascinating interview, "Geography is the only science that combines analysis of natural environments in the context of human society." So why have Americans become so ignorant of Geography, just at the moment when the Earth and its problems are ever more inter-related? Professor de Blij's new book, Why Geography Matters: Three Challenges Facing America: Climate Change, the Rise of China, and Global Terrorism, answers, and guides us forward. LISTEN (12 min)

Marion Nestle: What to Eat

Renowned nutritionist Marion Nestle, author of Foods Politics and What to Eat tells Betsy why she eats organic, why our government cannot do anything to guide us nutritionally, why a healthy diet is not as complex as it is made out to be ("Eat less, and eat more fruits and vegetables!"), and why it's common sense for us omnivores to diversify our diets as much as possible.
PART ONE (11 min) PART TWO (7 min)

David Steinman: Safe Trip to Eden

The original Green Patriot David Steinman tells Betsy about watching Green Patriotism enter the mainstream, the often overlooked fact of petroleum in all of our plastic products, and his new book Safe Trip to Eden: 10 Steps to Save Planet Earth from the Global Warming Meltdown.
LISTEN (12 min)

Danny Seo: Simply Green

Danny Seo talks about his books, from Generation React to the Simply Green series.
LISTEN (12 min)

Jane Kirkland & Take A Walk Books

Jane Kirkland joins Betsy to reminisce about attending Al Gore's Climate Training Conference, and to tell the funny story of the accident that led to her writing an award-winning series of educational books designed to increase our children's exposure and consciousness of the outdoors. LISTEN (9 min)

Heather Flores & Food Not Lawns

Is gardening a political act? In a very thoughtful interview, Heather Flores, author of the new book  Food Not Lawns: How to Turn Your Yard into a Garden and your Neighborhood into a Community, makes the case that the garden is the key to re-cultivating our communities, our diets, and our urban spaces.
LISTEN (10 min)

Joseph Romm & the IPCC Report

Joseph Romm, former Assistant Secretary at the US Department of Energy under President Clinton and current Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress talks about last week's landmark IPCC report. Dr. Romm's new book is Hell and High Water: Global Warming—the Solution and the Politics
LISTEN (12 min) Read his blog

Erik Reece: Lost Mountain: A Year in the Vanishing Wilderness

In Lost Mountain: A Year in the Vanishing Wilderness, Erik Reece chronicled the year he spent witnessing the systematic decimation of a single mountain. He and Betsy chat about the price West Virginians have paid for being stereotyped and ignored by the rest of the US, the latest quixotic Bush energy statement ("There's nothing clean about clean coal"), and our national identity.
LISTEN (10 min)

Myra Goodman and Earthbound Farm

Earthbound Farm co-founder Myra Goodman tells Betsy about being Big and Organic, she and her husband's innocent business 'instincts', her new cookbook that takes advantage of the organic world we're all living in, and how, no matter what happened during the E.Coli scare, we should feel utterly safe eating Earthbound Farm products. LISTEN (10 min)

Sarah B. Pralle: Branching Out, Digging In

Syracuse University Professor of Political Science Sarah B. Pralle shares with Betsy her new book Branching Out, Digging In: Environmental Advocacy and Agenda Setting, which explores why some environmental issues succeed, and some don't. LISTEN (10 min)

Grave Matters Redux

Mark Harris, author of Grave Matters: A Journey through the Modern Funeral Industry to a Natural Way of Burial", comes back to finish his and Betsy enlightening conversation about returning to burials that honor our place in the earth's biological cycles. He also addresses recent allegations that cremations are connected to mercury pollution-- through dental fillings. LISTEN (8 min)

Melissa Holbrook Pierson: The Place You Love is Gone

Author Melissa Holbrook Pierson laments the disappearance of a magical place called "the woods" from our children's lives, and "the fetishization of personal property." Her book, new in paperback, is titled The Place You Love is Gone. LISTEN (8 min)

Bill McKibben: Step It Up 2007

Leading environmental thinker Bill McKibben calls in from Sundance and urges us all to get involved in Step It Up 2007, a call to every one of us to organize climate change rallies in our own communities (and in our own styles!) on April 14th. April Power will launch a Spring flowering of creative solutions and united optimism in the face of Climate Change. Bill also talks about his new book Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future due out in March.
PART 1 (11 min) PART 2 (7 min)

Catch Bill in the new film Everything's Cool, which had its premiere this week at the Sundance Film Festival.

 

Hazel Henderson: Ethical Markets: Growing The Green Economy

Renowned Economist, pan-Media Personality, and producer of the Ethical Markets TV show, Hazel Henderson is one of the most high-profile proponents of replacing the GDP with an economic indicator that measures the true health of our society. After all, what good is GDP growth if it includes the costs of cleaning up pollution or building prisons? Her new book is called Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy.
PART 1 (11 min) PART 2 (7 min)

Sherry Boschert: Plug-In Hybrids!

In Plug-In Hybrids: The Cars that Will Recharge America Sherry Boschert chronicles the coming together of Americans of all political stripes, from "left greenies" like herself to neoconservative hawks like James Woolsey, to call for 100mpg (100mpg!) Plug-In Hybrids as a solution to our environmental, energy, national security, and pocketbook problems. Let's do it! LISTEN (12 min)

How Everyday Products Make People Sick

Consuming products in an informed and vigilant way can produce substantial health benefits to you, your family, and your co-workers. But you've got to know your stuff! Paul D. Blanc, MD holds the Endowed Chair of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and his new book is titled How Everyday Products Make People Sick: Toxins at Home and in the Workplace. LISTEN (12 min)

Mark Harris and Grave Matters