When in Vermont, Watch Where You Throw Your Apple Core
Cool Solutions: Stories of climate action from the bottom up
Release Date: 11/11/2021
The Battle for a Climate Friendly Farm Bill
Cool Solutions: Stories of climate action from the bottom up
This year's Farm Bill will determine whether US agriculture cuts its greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030. Republicans want to divert $20 billion away from agricultural climate solutions. Farmers who've adopted these practices say they increase soil carbon and climate resilience. We hear stories from farmers about compost, cover crops, prescribed grazing, and more. Sustainable agriculture advocates Renata Brillinger of the California Climate and Agriculture Network and Erik Kamrath from the Union of Concerned Scientists advise us what to tell our Congresspeople. (It's simple).
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This Is My Home: Women whup petrochemical giant
Cool Solutions: Stories of climate action from the bottom up
The David who fought Goliath had two sisters. This is the modern day story about two women taking on a giant. They started alone, standing up against a huge multinational petrochemical corporation, and won. Diane Wilson, a fisherwoman from Seadrift Texas, won the largest ever penalty in a citizen clean water lawsuit, defending her bay from plastic pollution. Sharon Lavigne of St James Parish, Louisiana, stopped the same company, Formosa Plastics, from building the largest petrochemical plant in the world in her small Black community. This is an updated story first broadcast in...
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Reviving Repair
Cool Solutions: Stories of climate action from the bottom up
When we fix what we have, we reduce emissions, and strengthen communities. 80% of the carbon pollution from our laptops, cell phones, and appliances is embodied carbon, emitted before we even open the box. A return to repair means changing our culture and challenging corporate monopoly. We have stories about a repair cafe in Chicago and a coalition of Minnesota techies and farmers who overcame corporate lobbies to win passage of the nation's strongest Right to Repair law.
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Decarbonizing Based on Need, not LEED
Cool Solutions: Stories of climate action from the bottom up
80% of the buildings that will be here in 2050 are already here, producing 30% of our greenhouse gas emissions. Uber sustainable new construction is cool, but the big carbon reductions will come from electrifying old buildings. Chicago plans to retrofit 80,000 homes in the next 7 years. A research collaboration between the city, community organizations, a utility, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory is working out a plan that will minimize emissions, maximize justice and lower peoples' energy bills. The results convinced me that, at least in Chicago, it's far better to eliminate...
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Out of Gas, In with Justice
Cool Solutions: Stories of climate action from the bottom up
A pilot study replacing gas stoves with induction stoves in a public housing building in the South Bronx did the expected and decreased indoor air pollution. Two unexpected discoveries were the popularity of the induction stoves and that the building's old wiring could only deliver enough juice to replace stoves in a fraction of the apartments. Replacing all the gas stoves with induction stoves and the building's broken boiler with heat pumps will require an expensive electrical upgrade. To avoid those costs in the future, NYCHA used its purchasing power to get manufacturers to build...
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An E-bike Loaves and Fishes Tale: From 13 bikes to 13,000
Cool Solutions: Stories of climate action from the bottom up
"When I read in 2020 that Colorado ran a pilot program to give away just 13 e-bikes, I scoffed. What difference could that possibly make? Now I have to eat my bike helmet." - Wendy Ring, Cool Solutions Producer and Host. Turns out that mini-pilot laid the foundation for Denver's wildly successful e-bike program by proving that e-bikes cut car trips and emissions and that low income folks want to ride them. Denver's program became the model for a statewide program. That "e" also stands for equity, as removing economic barriers to bikes builds pressure to address unsafe streets in...
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Throwing Shade: Some crops thrive under solar panels
Cool Solutions: Stories of climate action from the bottom up
With growing conflicts over solar development on farm land, dual use may provide middle ground and enough income to help small farmers keep farming. That's how Byron Kominek found himself putting a solar garden on one of his hay fields and hosting teams of agrivoltaic researchers. Colorado farmers Byron Kominek and Liza McConnell and Jordan Macknick, head of agrivoltaic research at the National Renewable Energy Lab, find some crops grow better and use less water with solar shade than in direct sun.
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Community Owned Solar
Cool Solutions: Stories of climate action from the bottom up
Meet a retiree in rural OR and a group of millennials in WA who are spreading community owned solar projects across their states.
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A Garment Worker Victory: Slowing Fast Fashion, Part 2
Cool Solutions: Stories of climate action from the bottom up
A small group of garment workers, tired of factory wage theft, organized and won passage of a law that makes fashion brands responsible for unpaid wages. Hourly pay went from a shameful $5 an hour to a minimum of $15 an hour. Now a similar bill is going to Congress.
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It's Getting Hot, Let's Wear Less Clothes: Slowing Fast Fashion, Part 1
Cool Solutions: Stories of climate action from the bottom up
Part One of a mini-series exploring potential pathways to a sustainable garment industry. We explore some routes to slow fashion: restoring regional wool production in Pennsylvania, curbside pickup of used clothes in Massachusetts, second hand clothes, and raising garment worker wages
info_outlineIn Vermont it's now illegal to throw your apple core in the trash. Vermont's Universal Recycling Law aka "the landfill ban" went into effect last year. It cuts landfill methane by diverting food to feed the hungry and the soil, as well as banning other recyclables.
How did they do that? How is it going? What does it matter where that apple decomposes? A soil scientist, 2 farmer-composters, the head of Vermont's Food Cycle Coalition and the guy in charge at the state will tell you.
Storytellers:
Tom Gilbert-organic farmer, Black Dirt Farm
Josh Kelly-Chief of Materials Management for Vermont's Department of Environmental Conservation
Chuck Wooster, organic farmer, Sunrise Farm
Sintana Vergara- Assistant Professor Environmental Engineering, Humboldt State University
Natasha Duarte- Food Cycle Coalition, Composting Association of Vermont