Remember that edgy “out there” episode of Its Hot in Here where talented artists sang live tunes from the Tony Award winning musical Urinetown, while talented scientists talked to us about research on “peecycling” (or the recovery on nutrients from urine for use in agricultural fertilization?) Along the way we considered infrastructure (including urinals!) in our greenways and parks, and how more art and science can be showcased in our public spaces.
Well, they’re back. For the dead of winter spring break in our studios we welcomed the talent behind the Penny Seats Theatre Company’s recent cabaret style show Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris. Fresh from their sold out, critically acclaimed performances at the downtown pub Connor O Neill’s, we head from guests including cast members Lauren London and Roy Sexton, show director Laura Sagolla, and musical director Richard Alder.
Jacques Brel is a famous Belgian singer-songwriter who wrote his songs in French during the 1960s. Through his art he became extremely well-known in France, to the degree that the French recognize Brel the way Americans know Bob Dylan or Joni Mitchell. The show, originally produced in 1968 off broadway, is a revue of Jacques Brel’s music and explores the universal emotions of love, loss, fear, obsession, and hope. Brel’s work is laden with pathos, yet also lighthearted. Continue reading Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris: Feelings that Connect Us All→
This week’s broadcast debuts a new partnership between IHIH and Michigan Sustainability Cases (MSC), a new case-based learning platform which integrates podcasts into sustainability curriculum. Hosts Katie Browne and Andrea Kraus first speak with Laure Katz of Conservation International about her role managing the transition of the Bird’s Head Seascape, from donor-supported to fully financially self-sustaining — in four short years. Suffice to say the demands of such a challenge live little time for sleep.
We are then joined in studio by Peter Pellitier, a student of both coral and soil, who conducted research in Papua New Guinea and the Coral Triangle a year ago. Peter speaks to the importance of protecting marine biodiversity, as a foundation of livelihoods and buffer against climate change, and the difficulty of sustaining homegrown conservation initiative. Continue reading Financing Biodiversity Conservation: The Case of the Bird’s Head Seascape→
In this first episode of our three part series called “Please, Drink Sustainably,” our guests Kris Spaulding, co-founder of Brewery Vivant, and Brian Tennis, owner and operator of the Michigan Hop Alliance taught hosts Harry Rice, Becca Baylor, Ed Waisanen, and Alex Truelove all about the sustainability innovations in beer production happening right here in the mitten.
Join us on It’s Hot in Here this week to hear about GIS (Geographic Information System) applications in the Environmental Field — Mark Yoders from Quantum Spatial Inc. shared with us details on a variety of GIS projects involving the environment and David Betcher shared specifics on his work with the Great Lakes Communication. We also discussed different GIS technologies, including 3D LiDAR and photogrammetric point clouds, as well as thermal and infrared imagery. All these technologies have revolutionized the ease and precision of large-scale environmental assessments and monitoring, but still rely on field data for verification and expertise across fields to interpret.
Growing Hope, an Ypsilanti-based nonprofit, helps people improve their lives and communities through gardening and healthy food access. Using a strengths-based approach, the Growing Hope team works to build peoples’ capacity to use community and school gardens as vehicles for positive social, economic, environmental and neighborhood change. They advocate for healthy food, manage an urban farmers’ market, and train youth and adults to make positive investments in their future.
Consumption is necessary for survival but also produces negative consequences for human health, society, and the environment. Research across domains (addiction, obesity, debt, consumer behavior, material waste, hoarding) finds overlapping biological and psychological bases for consumption-related phenomena, suggesting the benefits of an interdisciplinary approach. Our guests Scott Rick and Stephanie Preston joined us in the studio right before the holidays to unpack these themes of societal consumption.
Scott Rick is an Assistant Professor in Marketing at the University of Michigan, with a Ph.D. in Behavioral Decision Research from Carnegie Mellon. He has written papers with such provocative themes as “Fatal (Fiscal) Attraction; Spendthrifts and Tightwads in Marriage.”
Stephanie Preston is an Assistant Professor in Psychology at the University of Michigan, with a focus on cognition and cognitive neuroscience. Her laboratory uses an interdisciplinary approach to study the interface between emotion and decision making. They work to determine the proximate (what the brain and body are doing) and ultimate (why they exist, how they evolved) bases of the complex behaviors.
Co-hosts Rebecca Hardin and Kat Superfisky take us through another great hour of environmental radio — with some smashing tunes from Madonna to Erykah Badu!
Global economic meltdown got you down? Then listen in and let David Klingenberger CFO (Chief Fermentation Officer) of Ann Arbor’s own The Brinery stimulate your inner economy.
After an exxxtraspecial call-in from from America’s Next Top Political Pundit (and hopefully IHIH’s newest political correspondent) Colin Warren, we crunch on turnips, groove on some veggie-themed jams and talk fermentation, local produce, and local business with David — a man who loves pickles even more than we do.
Is all this talk of flavorful, crunchy, organic, local pickled vegetables making your mouth water? Then be sure to check out The Brinery @ the Ann Arbor Farmer’s Market Wednesdays and Saturdays. Your guts will thank you.
This just in: the Detroit Incinerator is officially shut down and the Beehive Collective is soon coming to town!
Tune into It’s Hot in Here, Monday from 12–1 on 88.3 WCBN-FM-Ann Arbor, or wcbn.org/listen.html for our “Great Lakes, Green Jobs: Environmental Justice, Clean Energy, Activism” edition.
Michelle Martinez, SNRE Alum and Cool Cities Project Staff Organizer with the Sierra Club will join us live in the studio to talk clean, green jobs in the Great Lakes Region. Diana Nucera from the Allied Media Project and Ahmina Maxey form the East Michigan Environmental Action Council will joins us on the phone to chat about the Beehive Collective and the recently closed Detroit Incinerator.
Listen closely and you may even score a free pair of tickets to a hot concert near you,
Mitchell. The show, originally produced in 1968 off broadway, is a revue of Jacques Brel’s music and explores the universal emotions of love, loss, fear, obsession, and hope. Brel’s work is laden with pathos, yet also lighthearted. Continue reading Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris: Feelings that Connect Us All 
