Sustainability
Go green with the latest in sustainability news.
Rewilding Earth
A highlight from Rewilding Earth Podcast Episode 78: Iowa Rewilding and Big River Connectivity With Mark Edwards
"I'm still Just in the throes realizing how wild it is where i live and yet where i live is the most biologically altered state north america. We've converted roughly ninety eight percent of the state for ume needs farming mostly roads highways and cultural kind of things like that. And so. I feel like i've been really lucky. I have a numerous france that i still maintain visiting one. Those main couvert island and so for example. And so i get to go to these places still. But i really like teasing him in particular like wait. You left i with this front on it. We don't figure out here where we're gonna figure it out. I mean he wanted to go over. There was something left a lot of friends in that but it became clear to me. I go visit those places like going to wilderness areas. But really the wildness is about more my relationship to my place wherever i am and so i've really come to love. I will bear very deeply and lake. I love it a lot. Because of what's been done to in a very short amount of time and yet i see potential there that i don see other places and i think that's really how i got into the reviled and so here. I am with the re wilding nut connecting with the people. I know and so i met roger. Ross give for this process and we kind of formed a partnership and Ross is extremely important in my life at that time because he's very challenged to me. We both agreed on. We were following rewinding We at read most all the same odd. We read most all the same books in southern deep understanding the language of each other but we came from past history a whole different way as was a local agricultural a business And here's mine trying to work with all the different environmental organizations trying to learn every plant species all that kind of level and between the two of us. I challenge each other tremendously and that's I think would really Catchers be wild Wild ethic that we're trying to do. We're both trying to learn how to be wilder and what rewinding me. And it's changed me tremendously. I just keep reading and reading a read most of this stuff before. How do i apply that to my own thing about. I don't have to wilderness anymore. I used to go a lot and well supposed to grow up. I still love places. I still find that interesting. But i have never been a wilder place in one sense of the word than i am where i live now on. I and i'm surrounded by corn beans. Two thirds of the statements covered into animal species. It's absolutely frightening how that green curtain and what's frightening is how people look at it and see that as a agreeing healthy thing on the national level what was being addressed was wilderness series or what we have stuff that's left. Where can we
Environment: NPR
Trees Could Be a Mental, Physical and Climate Change Antidote
"Is well known. The trees help counter climate change by soaking up carbon dioxide. Now there is a growing body of research to point to many ways of dose of trees can improve our mental and physical health. Here's martha bebinger member station. W. b. you are on how and why the tiny sapling robin williams planted thirty years ago towers above her boston home. I raise this tree when i raised my children and look at this look at that. She says there's something about being near this tree. It makes everybody a little bit happy around here when you're looking for strength you can't do better than looking at a tree and there's evidence williams may will be gleaning any number of direct or associated health benefits a longer life. Bitter birth outcomes lower stress levels lower risk of heart disease. Dr howard lumpkin. Is it the university of washington school of public health. Lower risk of diabetes reduced symptoms of adhd proximity to trees is associated with a ridiculously broad range of health benefits. I wish we had pills. That were this good for health. A few countries notably japan and south korea have invested in a practice known as forest bathing which is spending time among trees as a preventive health measure but prescribing time in nature is still pretty far outside mainstream medicine in the. Us from can says that. Maybe because there's a lot we don't know what doses needed. Do you need to walk. Among trees is sufficient just to look at the trees from outside your window. Do you need big trees or do small trees do the trick we you know. We're not able to tease the forest from the trees. Peter james at harvard medical school aims to answer a lot of those questions. He's merging health data captured by phones. Real time surveys about wellbeing and mood and street. View mapping data to dig into. What's exactly within view. Is it trees. Is it flowers and how those things are related to help behaviors and health outcomes.
Environment: NPR
Pittsburgh Wants You to See Constellations
"When astronomer diane turn shack move to pittsburgh in nineteen eighty-one she noticed. Something big was missing from the night sky. When i grew up in new england you could just walk outside and look up and see the milky way. But when i arrived in pittsburgh the sky had started to decline in quality. Still she says at the time her students at carnegie mellon university were very familiar with the milky way they knew about stars and constellations. That is not the case anymore forty years later. I have to explain what the milky way is and describe what it looks like in a show pictures and they think those pictures are fake. Because of light pollution major constellations can be totally invisible in cities. The pittsburgh city council is now trying to do something about it with the help of scientists like turn check. It passed a dark sky. Ordinance last week to reduce light pollution. This city is going to replace streetlights with warm tone. Led lights and they're also going to install shields so that late doesn't travel up what we're trying to do is cut out the light at the blue end of the spectrum because blue light scatters more easily than red light in the atmosphere rate. That's why the sky is blue. So blue light scatters everywhere. It doesn't stay where your lighting and to measure progress. She has some help in the higher ups in august. The astronauts on the international space station took some pictures of pittsburgh for on a clear night. And that's the before shot. The astronauts are gonna continue to take pictures of pittsburgh so we will have during pictures and after pictures. Terzic believes that as the sky's get darker more people will look up. In wonder that means more people more children will be able to see it and the benefits of being connected to half of our universe. I can't overstate that. It's a spiritual thing to feeling of connection with the universe she's hopeful it will peak young people's interest in the stars above and encourage them to pursue subjects such as
Think: Sustainability
The Not so Digital Workforce
"You may think of the digital workforce as zoom meetings and shed google docs but this trend encompasses a wide range of industries and types of work. This labor refers to a really wide suite of different types of work quite often The moment is being used to refer to digital knowledge. Work so any works. That's that can be undertaken through computers. I virtually remotely roth than having to be in a specific geographical location. That's david vissel. David is a human geography at the university of melbourne and he researches the changing relationship between people and place. There's a wide spectrum of other types of works that could equally be referred to as digital works so the economy in in cities. So things like uber and delivery and all of those new types of services that we're seeing springing up in in our cities that are absolutely reliance on networks of connected mobile phones and algorithms that drive that drive both the workers and consumers so even sectors threats we traditionally associate with being very different and very not digital say things like mining for example are increasingly using. Ai and different types of autonomous developments. So yes a labor certainly a massive consideration through across a lot of different sectors of the moment and it's very variable bull people participating in the digital workforce than ever before this rapid change is something. That's come out of necessity with the emergence of the pandemic but as david explains this influx of flexible and digital workers has an impact on the way how cities function well hit potentially involves all of us in terms of the effects that it has so even if you don't work at all and no doubt you purchase things and you use different online services so even consumers are using dish labor.
Breaking Green Ceilings
Fighting for Food Sovereignty in Kenya and Uganda.
"Thank you susan. Leonida for being on the breaking green ceilings podcast. Today we want to talk about the implications of free trade agreements. On african women specially from food sovereignty perspective. But i will start with our standard introductory question here on the podcast. Which is what role has nature played in your life and i can start with the anita or interest wondering for that first. The iba the videos descends to nature because he document shower penalties or by the social food at of a economic committee's report i'm raised from finding community and finding for so we actually directed me when we're producing Another thing i'd like to talk for example when you're relaxing use nature of that alexa eastern To league or whatever he thought we offer meaningless. Nfl but so you're connecting with a natural acid and of course that aspects appreciation mitch Your ruin susan lesser very interesting question but just to say that we alive because later is alive and if we look after it looks to us just the same and i think in the last two years we have seen exactly what nature can do when they tell you that you need one hundred million to get about for sitting as a boxy jam when mitch as playing to you realize the narrative changes as what we are we are leaving it and it's accommodating us. I don't know if we're being kind too for that's another story but
Environment: NPR
A 20-Year Megadrought Threatens Hydropower in the West
"A twenty year. Mega drought in the west is threatening hydropower. For millions of people so the federal government is taking emergency action it sending water from other reservoirs to lake powell to help. Keep the power turbines. They're spinning. here's michael. Elizabeth sack is from colorado public radio at elk creek marina. People wait in line to back their trailers into the water to pull their boats out. And some like walter. Slut cough are frustrated. Resumes legua up and down many times. But we're not happy with it this year. Of course because we're all getting kicked out early and we pay for slips for the season. Blue mesa is colorado's largest reservoir. It's already less than thirty percent full. And now it's being forced to sacrifice more water to send to lake powell eric. Logan is head of operations at elk. Creek marina he had to shut down six weeks early because of the low water levels. It's a big hit for us for sure. There's a bunch of employees. That doctor would be employed into october and suddenly they're out looking for employment in middle of august. The deepening drought in the west has dealt a double blow to blue mesa this summer with climate change there's less snowpack and warmer temperatures increase. Evaporation so less water is making it into the colorado river and reservoirs like blue mesa and now the federal government is taking water from this lake into other reservoirs. If we were full it wouldn't be that big deal but since we're already so low and we're barely hanging on by our fingertips on trying to stay open. You take eight feet of water and suddenly we got shut the doors and move everything out to deeper water and there's nothing we can do about it. Lake powell on the utah. Arizona border hit its lowest level on record earlier this summer. Logan worries the reservoir will need even more water from blue mesa. If the drought doesn't improve the question is are they going to release whatever we get. That would become a very big problem for everyone around here. Blue may sat and the other reservoirs were built in the nineteen sixties for times of drought. It's a bank of water that the states can tap when they need. It says john macleod. A water lawyer in colorado. The water always goes to lake. Powell and this release is part of the plan. And it's using the reservoirs for one of their intended purposes
Environment: NPR
White House Climate Advisor Says Despite Recent Disasters, Don't Lose Hope
"Deadly flooding wildfires heat waves and droughts these have been the headlines all summer in the us with similar disasters around the world to visiting new jersey earlier this week to survey the damage from hurricane ida president biden said we're at an inflection point every part of the country is getting hit by stream weather and We're now living in real what the country is gonna look like and if we don't do so we can't turn it back very much but we can prevent it from getting worse. Abidin administration is pushing bills. Which would be the most sweeping climate change policies ever enacted in the us. But right now. They're still facing major hurdles in congress here to talk about this with us is president biden's national climate advisor gina mccarthy. We'll come back to all things considered thank scott. I know you often talk about the fact that you are optimistic. And even more optimistic than you've been before about enacting the climate policies. But it's been a really frightening summer and a lot of people see these disasters and they wonder. Is it just too late to prevent the worst of climate change. Why is that view wrong. Because a lot of people haven't first of all having these disasters happen and be experienced personally by one out of three people in the united states. Which is what's happened over the past just few months. It's not the way. I really wanted people to get familiar with climate and get active. It certainly would have liked action earlier but this is a tremendous opportunity. We have and. I don't want people to give up hope and i'll tell you why i'm not giving up. Hope number one. I think the president is on target in what he's asking congress to support. I think we'll get it over the finish line but also i want people to understand that we have opportunities with already existing solutions on climate. That will get us where we need to go and get us on. The trajectory to net zero i- job is to deliver the solutions. That's what this package that. The president has been negotiating in pushing his all about
Climate Cast
What's Stopping Weed Growers From Going Greener?
"So i've read. It takes the equivalent greenhouse gas emissions of tank of gas in your car. To produce an ounce of cannabis that seems surprisingly high. Is that accurate. Yes that is accurate in to be clear. It's a high energy efficient car not one of your trucks. That's gonna run a lot of gas. It's a pretty. We're looking at somewhere around forty miles a gallon. So i'm guessing electricity for the grow lights. is a big factor there. What else causes all those emissions. When you produce cannabis so cannabis is predominantly grown indoors. And you mentioned the grow lights create huge amount of energy consumption but what happens in addition to the lights is that these lights are really hot and so then you have to bring in a c. You have to bring in a lot of other systems that also take electricity to keep the climate perfect for growing cannabis. So this number jumped out at me. When i started reading about this cannabis. The industry's footprint. Already accounts for more than one percent of us electricity consumption and ten percent in massachusetts. How is the industry addressing those emissions. The problem right now is that no one's really thinking about this terms of how do we reduce the energy consumption. Some states are passing some laws massachusetts. For example is requiring growers to use led lights which does reduce the energy consumption. But a lot of states. Don't have these rules and the federal government overall just isn't talking about this.
Green Beauty Conversations
Should Beauty Retailers Boycott Unsustainable Brands?
"So i think first of all. Can you tell us a little bit about pretty well. Bt and about what you do. And then i really wanna get stuck into the sustainability story with you. Sure so yeah. Pretty what beauty at multibrand conscious beauty and wellness marketplace that. I launched a little over two years ago based here in new york city but we are global or getting there we shipped to canada into the uk as well as throughout the us and we launched. We launched with twelve brands. Now we have a little over thirty ranging in skin care. Makeup haircare bath and body products his products. A whole lot of it all. So yeah. i'm really excited about you. Know what i'm building and just sort of where it's going and i'm really excited about a lot of the brands. I just started taking on. Of course you know. The brands carry including one of your graduates. Lawrence buys so ya. Eric clayton fulsome so obviously in a clean piece is very important but so is sustainability. So can you tell me a little bit about first of all. Wise sustainability is one of your core pillars of what you're trying to achieve with that. Well i think it really just kind of goes back to the whole concept and understanding that without sustainability practices in place. We may not have a place for our future. Children and grandchildren to be able to live and be able to thrive so way thinking about how improve our lives in more circular way in eliminate overharvesting. Waste is something that i'm very very passionate about and so of course because this is something that's very passionate about you know in my personal life it's gonna bleed over into my business because my business was born out of my own need and necessity to define beauty products that spoke to my ideals and standards for clean 'em sustainability so. Yeah it's very important that something that we speak quite a bit about what. i'm betting. the brands pretty won't even something that's sort of a continuous conversation. How not only myself. But also the brands themselves can continue to improve in. Push the envelope in that conversation lowered so that they can continue their mission of
Think: Sustainability
Art and Climate Fatigue
"My name's zoe set a kiss ski. And i'm a senior electra. At the school of design at ut and a lot of my research is around how we can visually communicate ecological issues like climate change and biodiversity loss in a way that engages people in mexican think about action that they can take and ways that we could adapt to live differently for a more sustainable future. So what is comet fatigue. And why don't we feel it. Yeah climate fatigue and eko anxiety. This lots of tomes for these things And it's it's very real. I mean i feel a sense of grief and anxiety often in the research that i do But i think what's really important is starting to accept and engage with those feelings and not hide behind them feeling the feelings it seems straightforward but when we're experiencing such lodge ecological shifts at a rapid right. Zoe explains that. We must reckon with the inevitable. Greif of that experience in order to create change. One of the. I guess the the incredible moments for me. We call it a disorienting dilemma was. When i'd been overseas i was on a research trip overseas in november twenty nine and so i actually missed the start of the those horrific bushfires that blackened seve knee and i arrived at after a month of being away and as the plane flew into sydney. I just saw the red sun that you could barely see through. And i felt broken because i was homesick. Can i was ready to come home. But i flew into a home that i no longer recognized. There's a term for the switches. Solis style and it's a feeling of homesickness for a place that you a still with eaton
AP News Radio
Solar Energy Could Power 40% of US Electricity by 2035
"A new federal report says solar energy could provide as much as forty percent of the nation's electricity in fifteen years but it would require billions of dollars in federal investment the energy department says the US installed a record fifteen gigawatts of solar generating capacity last year it shifts toward renewable dominant power grid to address the threat of climate change solar now represents just over three percent of the electrical supply but energy secretary Jennifer grant Holmes says solar could produce enough to power all homes in the U. S. by twenty thirty five to do that however the department's renewable energy laboratory says the country would need to quadruple its annual solar capacity installing thirty gigawatts per year between now and twenty twenty five double the current rate and sixty gigawatts double again over the following five years Ben Thomas Washington
Green Connections Radio - Insights on Innovation, Sustainability, Clean Energy, Leadership, Entrepreneurship, and Careers w Top Leaders, Women
Infrastructure, Jobs and Climate Change
"So i wanna start with your giving us an overview of the infrastructure. Plan as you understand it you know what do you what do you see is specifically in it. And what do you think the priorities are. Well thanks so much john. And it's a pretty comprehensive plan. And i think the general theme to keep in mind for your viewers is. This is very much a jobs plan. But there's no question in the minds of anyone who's read or in the administration that the belief behind the plan is that it at the same it deals with really four interwoven challenges that the administration is facing and of course the first is the post pandemic reality. The second is the economic downturn. The third is the climate crisis and the fourth is inequality and racial equity and the disproportionate environmental harm and other harms had replaced on low income communities and communities of color. No not putting those in any kind of priority. They're all of the utmost important but the general theme is that the road to economic recovery is through climate action and so it isn't infrastructure. A jobs plan. But there's no question that it very very intentionally addresses the climate crisis in a number of ways and know that the bite administration signaled his plans. He's been remarkably consistent with messages of last summer. If you saw the the biden clean energy biden plan he had a whole blueprint around clean energy and environmental justice and he has come through with flying colors in this plan. You know first and foremost it really is a building up of the clean energy sector the job-generating clean energy sector and the lesson from two thousand nine. As you all know now from the stimulus that then vice president biden worked on it. It just was simply not enough. Finding it wasn't enough finding it wasn't enough where the energy sector so this is gonna largely come through in the form of an array of renewable energy tax credits various forms and which are wildly popular and successful Those are really important. We'll certainly get the support of the business and there's something called a direct pay provisions that is important to renewable energy developers for those who may not have the adequate tax equity to benefit from a tax incentive. That's built into the into the whole thing at this point. I want to say that. There's something called justice. Forty which is outlined from the very beginning. President biden made it clear that forty percent of the benefits of his investments would go to underserved frontline disadvantaged communities
AP News Radio
Environmental Groups Call for Postponement of Climate Talks
"A coalition of environmental groups this call for this year's climate summit to be postponed arguing that too little has been done to ensure the safety of participants amid the continuing threat from Clevedon team the climate action network which includes more than fifteen hundred organizations in one hundred fifty countries says is a risk that many government delegates civil society campaigners and journalists from developing countries may be unable to attend because of travel restrictions the UN climate conference cop twenty six is scheduled for early November in Scotland however the British government has quickly rejected calls for postponement saying a recent scientific report shows the urgency for the leaders to tackle the issue without further delay I'm Charles Taylor that's my
Climate Connections
A Young Activist Is Working to Shut Down Oil Drilling Across Los Angeles
"Niamey. Cobo was nine years old. When she started experiencing headaches nosebleeds asthma attacks and other ailments. i suffered a lot healthwise. Her symptoms coincided with a major increase in activity at an oil well across the street from her home in south central. La oil drilling uses toxic chemicals. That can be hazardous to human health. When breathed other people in cobos neighborhood were complaining of similar symptoms so the community launched a campaign to stop. What she says is a dire and preventable health hazard. We don't need to rely on fossil fuels anymore. There's no needs to be drooling where we're living in twenty thirteen. After three years of community pressure and growing scrutiny from public officials the oil companies shut down the site near cobos home indefinitely. Now cobos twenty. And she's helping push for a citywide phase out of all oil drilling. There's so many people and so many wells that are in our area. Nearly six hundred thousand people in los angeles county live within a quarter mile of an act of oil or gas well so kobo shares her story as she fights for a future in which all los angeles residents can breathe clean
Environment: NPR
Cities Build Splash Pads to Cool off Residents
"With just a bit more than four thousand residents carro is the biggest city in tuscaloosa county. About one hundred miles north of detroit. There's a growing danger from heatwaves in the patchwork of rural communities like this one all across michigan in the state's largest local health department heat related pediatric emergency room visits. Have almost in just the last couple of years. Carro is landlocked surrounded by farms to the north and woods to the south. But today city manager matt lane is ready to get drenched. If you hear blood-curdling screams of just a freezing water touching my skin. That's not it's fine. Lean has traded in his shirt and tie for a swimsuit to try out. The city's new splash pad. He takes a deep breath and steps into the cold spray on a day. When the temperature is pushing ninety degrees he's headed for an oversized bucket about four feet tall. And almost as wide diameter perched on a tower of pipes and bound lane asks the kids playing here where to stand lane says this new public water feature is a way for kids to get out their energy on hot days. Shelly volmer says it's working. She's here with her daughter. And i can't get him to leave. They don't wanna go splash pads like this are popping up in some surprising places in small cities across the northern us. Burlington north dakota rothschild wisconsin and sars l. Minnesota have all recently installed splash pads that perfect summer to have our first year. Lashed has been really hot. Has we that at ninety quite a few days this year nikki sweeter organizes community engagement for sars l. She says those once ray or ninety degree days are more common now than she remembers in an odd twist. It's actually been so hot and dry this summer. That the new splash pad has had to
PODSHIP EARTH
Interview With Saumya Roy, Author of 'Castaway Mountain'
"Journalist for many years. I used to write about financial inclusion among many other topics into ten. I left to start my own nonprofit. That was the time. The economy was booming. There was a lot of consumer loans available for different things. And yet if you didn't live in the right address if you want very wealthy all of those financial services suddenly not available to you like how redlining works. They would literally hang up on you. If you said you lived in slam or you lived here or you were even of the wrong religion etc and so i started a small nonprofit in two thousand ten to work on micro-finance thousand contini began getting with because from this garbage mountain where i had never been and will do truly with their hands. Pick up this waste and sorted the and recently traders plastic traders metal class streeters etc and so worried that what kind of businesses this loans are going to go back if we listen to you and they would make. It seem like this was a place of great opportunity like you know. This is an employer. That's never going to out of work. Do you think we have to reduce will. Never run out of work. So i said okay. Well show me what you do. I guess my join us dick. I began going the chew house. Show me on sorting. you know. Little shed on the you work so we began walking up the garbage mountains on. I guess that's where this dark fascination with what they do began
Environment: NPR
Amanda Little Asks, What Is the Future of Our Food?
"We have a growing global population. We have growing demand for meat. We also have decreasing arable land. We have increasingly brittle an antiquated food supply chains and all of this is combined with these increasing climate pressures and there has to be a new approach. This is journalist. Amanda little and like a lot of us. She's trying to make ethical food choices for herself. I live in nashville tennessee. Land of barbecues. I am a shark and charmed waters and has been very hard for me to remove meat from my diet. And that's just one reason. Why amanda wrote a book called the fate of food. It's an investigation into what needs to happen to prevent future food emergencies. The international panel on climate change has said that by mid century the world may reach a threshold of global warming beyond which current agricultural practices will no longer support large human civilizations. And i've committed to memory it's at actual quote from a twenty fourteen. Ipc report because it's just such a staggering statement. When you put it like this. Amanda like part of me is like oh my gosh. It's enough to want to turn off the radio and cry. But i don't want people to do that because you know you've spent all these years traveling and talking to people who are trying to fix it yeah. This is a deeply troubling story. How do you feed the world. This is a question that has propelled and troubled civilization for the better part of thirteen thousand years right. And you have one side saying let's go back to the way things were industrial farming screwed. Everything up you know we. We need to d- infant our food supply and go back to sort of pre industrial agriculture.
Bay Curious
Why Doesn't California Build Big Dams Any More?
"Been talking about how most of our water comes from a system of dams and reservoirs set up to capture the states precipitation so one logical solution here is more dams right. Not so fast says jay lund a professor of civil and environmental engineering at uc davis story. I tell people is if you were the first engineer in california and you were going to build the first reservoir where would you put it. You had put it the cheapest place that gives you the most water. Where would you put the reservoir the next best place. We've done this fifteen hundred times. What do we have left. Expensive places that don't give you much water. He says with fifteen hundred dams in the state all the good damn spots are taken heck. Even a lot of the bad spots are taken but that doesn't mean that there aren't smart things we can do with our reservoirs as david romero takes it from here with four big ideas so the first big idea has to do with managing those fifteen hundred reservoirs differently. I learned how lake mendocino along the russian river. That's where i met. Nick mala savage in the middle of the mostly dry lake bed. He helps manage the lake for the us army corps of engineers in two thousand nineteen. The water was about forty feet over our heads. He says lake mendocino could go dry by the end of the summer mar lake levels here at lake. Mendocino are the lowest they've ever been for this time in the year even though this lake is nearly dry it's on the leading edge of science around reservoir management in the past. Water was let out of the reservoir whether or not storms were in the forecast. They wanted to make room for more water. They expected would come but because of climate change. Those storms are becoming less frequent malice. Savage is helping pilot a new approach at lake. Mendocino conserve wait until a major rainstorm is coming and then let water out of the reservoir. It's called forecast informed reservoir operations. We can sit on this water. We can continue to watch the forecast and then you see that big boomer of a storm conham then you can make the decision. Hey the sun's still shining. We need to put water into the river. Generate that airspace for the next storm. And we're good
The Interchange
The Climate Workhorse: Extremely Cheap, Clean Electricity
"Sheldon welcome. Thanks for having me excited to have you here. How long have you been in the clean power business. Would you say I started in the power business in the Right around the turn of the millennium and at that point we we all thought that gas power was clean power. Calpine who i worked for for a long time was Was re powering. America with a clean natural gas realistically have been in the clean power business since about two thousand and sixty thousand seven when i got out of business school and You know helped start and build a recurrent energy So long longtime long longer than most that. That's that's good all right so fifteen or so years in we now define as clean power at another six or seven years if you wanna define Natural gas power as well. So let's start with then where we are today given your long historical trajectory here like i. Would you characterize the state of clean. Power today chaotic. I think. I think it's it's it's it's it's an industry that everybody expects explosive growth from And everybody kind of knows that it's inevitable in the end But but in the near term you know i would characterize it as being marred by sort of fits and starts you know of not wanting to get into policy or anything but but trade issues and supply chain. You know there's there's so many It like every industry has has just been through the wringer in the last couple of years right not not so much all bad but just the volatility So it seems like every day you're responding to some other crisis in the business and so while the general trend is kind of up into the right and there is enormous growth opportunity. You know for for for everybody in the sector it. I keep joking the team. There must be easier ways to make money and save the world. It's it's it's it's definitely harder to save the world and make money then you then you think it is or then then it sounds like a be.
Environment: NPR
Power Grids Feel the Pressure of Intense Storms
"Hurricane ida crumpled a major transmission tower. That survived katrina sixteen years ago building infrastructure. That strong enough is hard when the target keeps moving because storms are getting stronger energy consultant alison silverstein says utilities and their regulators can take planning cues from murphy's law. We need to assume that everything possible that could go wrong is going to go wrong. Simultaneously and murphy is always gonna win. President biden's climate plan includes a much bigger role for electricity electric cars. For example cutting carbon footprint says easier with electricity from emission free sources like wind solar and nuclear. But even those have to stand up to extreme weather putting wires underground may seem obvious but engineering professor destiny. Knock at carnegie mellon university says that won't always work in hurricane country where you might have under grounded. The lines to protect them from wind putting them underground makes them more susceptible to flooding knock. Says it's never just one thing that's going to keep the lights. On energy experts. We interviewed agree on a few basic ideas though. They say the grid should be more decentralized so the whole thing doesn't shut down at once. More generation out in communities such as solar power would accomplish that but new orleans utility energy has resisted calls for just that to the frustration of local activists at mit engineering professors. Or up. a mean says not all the fixes are technical. He says power companies also need to become more agile and do more when responding to storms the fact that some utilities are not able to sort of respond immediately is also another kind of failure which is perhaps as drastic as the infrastructure. Failures is assuming outages will happen. Amin says utilities should focus more on dispatching generators even before a storm to make sure important facilities and vulnerable populations get electricity restored as soon as possible. All this cost money that usually ends up in utility bills. Congress is working on major funding through infrastructure bills. That could address some of these issues. There also focused on president. Biden's climate goals including zeroing out greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector by twenty thirty five.
Environment: NPR
A Dutch Group May Have a Way to Cut Carbon Emissions
"Un estimates that twenty percent of global carbon emissions come from residential buildings. A dutch organization thinks it might have found a way to drastically cut that number. Here's villa marks at the hague of all. The niche on tuna have lived in the same apartment in the dutch capital for the past four decades. Last year. they're building gonna makeover with triple glazed windows and a new insulated facade entail every everybody and the whole house is now warm yorker says with much lower energy costs. Almost six thousand other dutch homes have been through a similar retrofit devised by the nonprofit group. Energy sprung or energy leap. They end objective should be buying a retrofit as easy as buying a new kitchen. In ron boehner helped found energy sprung in two thousand ten and it's worked with banks regulators engineers and entrepreneurs to develop the best retrofit approach for homes worldwide. Eighty percent of the buildings that will be here in twenty fifty at least in europe have already been built and they were not built to standard that had in mind that we had to eliminate carbon emissions. And so unless we do that. Too all the buildings. We're never going to get the. I wouldn't say never but not within the timeframe that we got left. We don't have two hundred years to phase out carbon during the small dutch china limited votes. That prefabricated facades that can simply be hooked onto outside of existing old homes improving the energy efficiency eighty percent the undershirts woman from the facade manufacturer. Rc panels explains they use lasers to measure a building's dimensions. The size taylor. Doors and windows added to the panels in the factory exactly set course if he does. The door just doesn't open. The units shipped in a complex of three hundred apartments could be wrapped up in a matter of hours. Another element of an enemy sprung. Retrofit is how these homes a heated a separate dutch firm called factories zero bills a single module with heat pumps electric boilers and solar panels. All computer controlled
Noon Report with Rick Van Cise
Paris Shrinks Speed Limit to Protect Climate
"Paris has been dropped now to 19 miles an hour. They're hoping it's going to reduce noise and fight climate change. Here on the show that easy, The traffic is still going, but it's now being limited to 19 MPH, and that's the case across the city, citing climate change, road safety and noise reduction. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced this measure back in July, but she is now being accused of widening the gap between the wealthier city center and Parisian suburbs. The city's website says 59% of Parisians say they are in favor of this measure. As
Environment: NPR
U.S. Ramps up Wild Horse Roundups in Drought-Stricken West
"Throughout this hour we've been following how the rain and wind from hurricane ida is punishing the southeast. But we can't forget that all this is happening. While the west is experiencing severe drought and that drought is not just affecting humans. Wild horses are dying. Due to a lack of water the federal government is trying to save them by rounding them up and adopting them out across the country but as nevada. Public radio's nate heggie reports. It might not be the solution. It appears to be black helicopter. Swoops past a group of wild horses running across western. Utah's high desert. It's mid morning already on. The helicopter is trying to herd them into a corral. Lisa read is watching the action while sitting on a blanket under an umbrella. The helicopter works like a sheepdog. It works the horses from side to side guiding them to the direction that he wants them to go read is with bureau of land management. Right now. her agency is in the middle of a huge emergency campaign to get roughly six thousand. Wild horses like these out of the desert and into private stables or pastures across the country. That's because the drought in the west is so severe this summer. That it's killing horses. People wanna say let mother nature take. Its course but boy. That's the stuff. Nightmares are made of reed remembers reading reports about a small group of wild horses who died from dehydration during the west last severe drought two decades ago. There was one full. That was still alive and It was nursing off of a dead mom. That's heartbreaking wild horses rounded up. Today are faring better not by much at a nearby row. Some of the mayor's look got you can see their ribs and their hipbones and that is definitely a direct impact from the drought unlike other desert critters such as bighorn sheep or mule. Deer the federal government. Can't just let wild horses die off. They're protected under a fifty year old. Federal law it mandates. A set number of healthy horses living on healthy range lands. But lately the beale has argued that there are too many wild horses on those range lands. That's creating unhealthy conditions and the drought is just making things worse so the rounding them up and adopting them