According to Simon Dalby, Professor emeritus in the Balsillie School of International Affairs at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, Canada, global politics over the past 70 years has been driven by an overabundance of "firepower," both nuclear and carbon-based.  The first was used by Great Power to threaten incineration of the world, by intention or accident, in the name of "national security."  The second now threatens the future of life on Earth--human and nonhuman--but Great Powers...

Nuclear power is being touted as a way of providing clean energy, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and paving the way to a zero-emission future. There is talk of a “nuclear renaissance,” with small modular reactors (SMRs) replacing the gigawatt nuclear behemoths of the past, quickly and at much lower cost.  But the United States’ experience with nuclear, now going back 70 years, turned out to be much more costly than predicted.  The country’s one hundred or so operating reactors have...

Long-time listeners to Sustainability Now! know that we periodically turn to a focus on plastic, whose production is predicted to skyrocket over the next few decades, as fossil fuel companies look for ways to sell their product.  Plastics are not forever, although they last a long time in the environment and are piling up across the world’s lands and oceans.  Even notionally “compostable” plastics require special handling if they are to be returned to their constituent components, and most of...

Sequoias are among the oldest living things on Earth, and most of the world’s sequoias are in Sequoia and King’s Canyon National Parks. Since 2020, according to the National Park Service, almost 20% of that iconic species have been destroyed by wildfires.  The parks’ management is planning to repopulate the burned-over areas with thousands of sequoia seedings, in an effort to rebuild six groves.  But not everyone supports this project: some ecologists argue that there are enough seedlings...

When you go out into the world and walk on the Earth, have you ever wondered what was beneath your feet?  Animals and plants, of course, but mostly soil.  Soil is a wonderful substance, an essential element in the riot of life that covers the planet’s continents.  But soil is not without life of its own: a handful of fertile soil is home to more organisms in a than there are people on Earth.  And these organisms are vital to plant and animal nutrition and growth.  Join host Ronnie Lipschutz...

Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for this Blast from the Past with Dr. Helen Caldicott.  According to Dr. Caldicott, the nuclear doomsday clock of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is set at 100 seconds to Midnight, but 20 seconds is closer to the mark. Dr. Caldicott has devoted the last forty-two years to an international campaign to educate the public about the medical hazards of the nuclear age and the necessary changes in human behavior to stop environmental destruction and nuclear...

For uncounted millennia, the creatures of the world’s ocean have been hunted, captured and killed by human beings.  For most of that history, however, this was done for subsistence purposes.  Only over the last few centuries, was the slaughter of whales, seals, otters, turtles, sharks and other marine species justified in the name of capitalism and industry.  Beginning in the late 1960s, exposing and preventing this continued decimation became the mission of individuals and groups dedicated...

What do you know about CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act, passed in 1970 and signed into law by then-Governor Ronald Reagan? For more than 50 years, CEQA has been used to inform decisionmakers and the public about the potential environmental impacts of proposed projects but, in recent years, it has been applied in situations for which it was not designed, especially new housing development.  In response, both Governor Newsom and the State Legislature are seeking to amend the law...

The Rights of Nature is one way to rethink the relationships between humans and Nature, but are there other ways to think about those connections? Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Dr. Rosalind Warner, professor of political science at Okanagan College in British Columbia and Research Fellow with the Earth System Governance Project.  Warner is studying the role of kinship metaphors in Earth System Law, with kinship connoting more ethical relationships among humans, Nature and...

More than 50 years ago, Christopher Stone, a UCLA law professor, wrote a groundbreaking book Should Trees Have Standing? in which he argued for the right of trees to be represented in courts of law.  Since then, the Rights of Nature movement has taken the world by storm; some countries have encoded such rights into their constitutions.  But what does it mean to say that trees, rivers and animals have rights? Does the “rights of nature” make any practical sense? And who is pushing for such...

When is the safety, health and well-being of people a concern for homeland security? Jackie McCloud, Watsonville’s Environmental Sustainability Manager in Public Works, has been accepted into the Naval Postgraduate School’s MA program in Security Studies at their Center for Homeland Defense and Security in Monterey.  According to McCloud, “People might see the words ‘Homeland Security’ and think that it doesn’t match with Public Works and climate change, but Public Works is homeland security...

Join Host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Roland Bunch, who has worked in agricultural development for more than half a century in more than 50 nations of Latin America, Africa and Asia. In 1982, he published the book, "Two Ears of Corn, A Guide to People-Centered Agricultural Improvement", which has since been published in ten languages and is an all-time best-seller in the field of agricultural development.  Beginning in 1983, Bunch began investigating and disseminating the use of...

We hear a lot these days about innovation, entrepreneurship and disruption of the status quo in pursuit of a better world.  It sounds good but what does it really mean? And can it contribute to sustainability? Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with KSQD programmer Nada Miljkovic, Program Manager of UC Santa Cruz’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurial Development. We’ll be talking about these topics and Crown College’s innovation and entrepreneurship courses, which Nada has...

Listen to a conversation between Elizabeth Kolbert and Ezra Klein on May 21st, part of UC Santa Cruz’s annual Deep Read, about  Kolbert's 2021 book, Under a White Sky. Kolbert is a writer, observer and commentator on the environment for The New Yorker and recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History. Ezra Klein is a New York Times columnist, host of The Ezra Klein Show podcast and a UC Santa Cruz alum. You can watch the video of the entire event at:...

In the face of climate change, jurisdictions across the country and the world have set ambitious electrification goals that will rely heavily on solar, wind and other zero-carbon energy sources.  California is no exception.  Increasingly, the state’s power providers are buying low-cost electricity from vast solar farms across the seemingly uninhabited deserts of the American Southwest.  But those spaces are not empty. Join Sustainability Now! host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with...

Rivers have long been the object of poems, songs, novels, studies, fishers, swimmers, sewage, engineers, farmers and salmon.  In California, rivers and the water in them are the focus of near-eternal political struggle.  And, there is that old saying, attributed to Heraclitus, “one never steps into the same river twice.”  Every river is different, yet there is some human drive to make every river the same: the ideal river. Join SN! host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation about rivers with...

Many KSQD listeners may know that the UC Regents recently approved UCSC’s Student Housing West proposal, which includes relocation of Family Student Housing to the iconic East Meadow, on the east side.  Join Sustainability Now! host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Nadia Peralta and Bob Majzler of Protect East Meadow, which has been active at UCSC in opposing the Family Student Housing project on both financial and ecological grounds.  Nadia is a full-time pre-med student and...

Join SN! host Ronnie Lipschutz and Dr. Peter Weiss, the Singing Scientist, in honor of Earth Day. Weiss is well-known in Santa Cruz as “The Singing Scientist” and he is leader of the Earth Rangers, which plays music that educates and uplifts people, especially children. Weiss and his colleagues started performing a decade ago to combat environmental illiteracy and connect with kids. They have released two albums, “Do What You Otter” and “One for the Sun.” Peter sings some of his songs and...

SN! Host Ronnie Lipschutz welcomes Marisa Gomez, Community Education and Collaboration Manager at the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History.  In that role, Marisa leads the Museum’s onsite school programs, coordinates group visits, orchestrates public programs, and specializes in immersing visitors in the culture and stewardship practices of the native people of Santa Cruz, the Amah Mutsun.  She also is the voice of the Museum’s social media sites.  We talk about the Museum's programs and...

According to Simon Dalby, Professor emeritus in the Balsillie School of International Affairs at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, Canada, global politics over the past 70 years has been driven by an overabundance of "firepower," both nuclear and carbon-based.  The first was used by Great Power to threaten incineration of the world, by intention or accident, in the name of "national security."  The second now threatens the future of life on Earth--human and nonhuman--but Great Powers...

Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Rachel Kippen about city and county “climate action plans.”  A CAP lays out a community’s roadmap for reducing greenhouse gas emissions over the coming decade, with input and review by community members and various “stakeholders.” How does a city or county go about developing a CAP, and is it an aspirational document or a plan for concrete action? And how effective are these plans in driving concrete emission reductions?  Do CAPS...

Join host Ronnie Lipschutz in welcoming Dr. Helen Caldicott to Sustainability Now!, live from Australia, to talk about the looming threat of nuclear war. According to Dr. Caldicott, the nuclear doomsday clock of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is set at 100 seconds to Midnight, but 20 seconds is closer to the mark. Dr. Caldicott has devoted the last forty-two years to an international campaign to educate the public about the medical hazards of the nuclear age and the necessary changes...

Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Lani Faulkner, Founder and Director of Equity Transit of Santa Cruz County and Michael Wool, a transit activist and senior at UCSC.  We’ll be talking about Transit Equity Week 2023, which will run from January 30-February 4th, 2023. Transit Equity Day is a National Coalition movement event celebrated on Feb 4th, in honor of Rosa Parks’ Birthday and her pivotal role in combating racial segregation on public buses, trains, and trolleys. ...

Have you ever wondered about the history of the landscapes around you, how they were shaped and by whom?  UCSC Associate Professor of Anthropology Andrew Mathews has and he has studied landscape histories and their transformations in Italy.  Now he has published his research in Trees are Shape Shifters--How Cultivation, Climate Change and Disaster Create Landscapes, a closely-documented study of trees and people in central Italy and "how they make sense of social and environmental change"...

The world’s climate is changing and it is changing more and more rapidly.  What are we to do?  In two weeks, at the 27th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt.  This is the 30th such gathering since 1992 and there is not much to show for all that. Join host Ronnie Schultz and his guests, Professor Sander Chan and Andrew Deneault who are in Sharm attending the conference. We’ll be talking about  the conference, its history and...