2008 Archives
The Seaweed Rebellion: Saving the Earth by Saving the Oceans
Perhaps we should call it Watershed Earth. We’re made of water, totally dependent on it, yet it in turn depends on us to play our part in a good way. Mother Ocean is the primary regulator of Watershed Earth. But the marine news is heartbreaking. Ocean defenders Michael Stocker, Anne Rowley and David Helvarg illuminate both the peril of noise and plastics pollution and the promise they see in the Seaweed Rebellion to save Mother Ocean, and ourselves.
Radio Series 8: Episode 1308
Becoming Fully Human: the Covenant of the Original Instructions
The Original Instructions represent the ancient empirical wisdom of Traditional Ecological Knowledge earned over generations and millennia by people living closely with the land and each other. They also comprise disarmingly simple counsel: be thankful, enjoy life and attend to the inner pollution that results in outer pollution. Indigenous leaders Winona LaDuke, John Trudell and Evon Peter voice these ancient instructions, which hold the keys to our survival as a species in the historic transition to a truly sustainable world.
Radio Series 8: Episode 1208
Like what you're hearing?
Buy the full season now on DVD.The Golden Rule: Restoring the Earth by Restoring Human Dignity
Could Western civilization’s oldest ethical instructions of the Golden Rule hold acute relevance to our planetary environmental crisis? Could restoring respect for human beings be the key to restoring the health of the planet? Author Paul Hawken has been tracking the rapid proliferation of nonprofit, non-governmental organizations around the world. It boils down to this: Taking care of nature means taking care of people, and taking care of people means taking care of nature.
Radio Series 8: Episode 1108
Jaguars, Goats and Acequias: Cultivating the Landscape of a Wild Earth
Do you think of the wilderness as something far away? Not in the age of climate change and human population growth. The real wilderness is always underfoot—the complex systems underlying life on Earth that we barely understand. It’s our inheritance, our guardianship to understand traditional and indigenous knowledge of Earth as a vast, cultivated landscape. Land managers such as Miguel Santistevan, Lani Malmberg and Peter Warshall celebrate the fact that we are all gardeners. They reveal brilliant innovations and ancient wisdom for how to get good at it.
Radio Series 8: Episode 1008
Toxic Trespassing: The Inside Story of the Love Canal Uprising
Few people know how a hostage-taking incident transformed a shy housewife from the working-class community near Niagara Falls into one of the founding mothers of the environmental justice movement. Spark-plug community organizer Lois Gibbs traces the electrifying arc that led from sick children to an international rallying cry for human rights. Because, says Gibbs, "It is just not right morally or ethically that somebody with a corporate interest, with a dollar interest, is making a decision each and every day in this country about who lives and who dies."
Radio Series 8: Episode 0908
Green-Collar Jobs: Laboring into the Next Economy
Labor leader César Chavez helped ban DDT. Truckers are helping address appalling asthma rates at the filthy port of Los Angeles. And inner-city clergy, not suburbanites, led the latest victory against the big-box Wal Mart stores sprawling over community open space. Unlikely allies? Environmental justice and labor leaders Manuel Pastor, Maria Elena Durazo and Rev. Alexia Salvatierra show us that in a truly sustainable economy, everybody is an environmentalist—and a healthy environment depends on economic justice.
Radio Series 8: Episode 0808
Beyond the Bar Code: The Local Food Revolution
Because industrial agriculture is the single most destructive human activity against the environment, what we put on our collective plate and how we grow our food are going to be among the most decisive factors impacting the fate of the Earth and public health. Few journalists have done more than Michael Pollan to serve up food for thought about our diet and food systems. He reports on the burgeoning worldwide growth of local food economies and a true Green Revolution.
2008 Radio Series: Episode 0708
Taking Back the Country From the Nation: Finding the Light in the Shadows
“We know what’s wrong,” says the iconic Jungian psychotherapist and author James Hillman, “but do we know that knowing what’s wrong is some of what’s wrong?” Has “analysis paralysis” sapped our energy and determination to transform a failing world? Can we cut through the tangle to actually act to make a positive difference? Can we turn our vices into virtues? Though Hillman’s approach may sound paradoxical, his destination is the deeper understanding that leads to real transformation—and to transformative action.
Radio Series 8: Episode 0608
Digital Democracy: The Cyberworld of Citizen Activism
Garbage in, garbage out, as the early computer innovators remarked about information. A vital free press is the single most important feedback loop in a democracy. New media including especially the Internet have challenged the supremacy of corporate media concentration and junk news. A brave new wave of activists such as Brad Friedman, John Stauber and Joan Blades are using digital media to restore the democratic lifeblood of a people’s media. They’re giving voice to the voiceless, checking and balancing corruption, and providing liberty and access for all.
Radio Series 8: Episode 0508
Justice or Just Us: Environmental Justice as a Universal Human Right
The current industrial system generates 94 percent waste. It all lands somewhere, often ultimately in our bodies. A society that wastes its resources also wastes its people. Why are low-income communities and communities of color the perennial human sacrifice zones? Courageous environmental justice advocates Clayton Thomas-Müller, Shawna Larson and Maryanne Hitt are successfully rejecting this new form of toxic colonization from Alaska to Appalachia. They tell us we all have a right to clean air, water and land—the right to a healthy environment.
Radio Series 8: Episode 0408
User login
Syndicate