The two hand-shaped maps of the Upper and Lower Peninsulas of Michigan cup the hydrological corridor that links Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. The whip-sawed waters of this passageway contain some of the mightiest currents in the Great Lakes, which intermittently thrash around a volume of water ten-times that which flows over Niagara Falls. The powerful Straits of Mackinac reach a 3.5-mile distance at their widest width and a 295-foot range at their deepest depth.
Editor’s note: We faced some technical difficulties with this recording, but the sound will level out after 1:07. Thanks in advance for your patience.
Ann Arbor and its 72 sister municipalities form the Huron River Watershed, meaning that every drop of water that falls in these locations makes its way back to the river one way or another. We share this water not only with our families, friends and neighbors, but also with our governments, businesses, and manufacturers. In sharing a common resource like water—the essence of life—it makes sense to have a rule book that outlines permissible and non-negotiable actions as well as provisions to guide the course of action in the event of foul play. Michigan water quality standards fill this niche. However, as regular hosts Aurora Aparicio, Bella Isaacs, and Heena Singh learned this week from guest expert Laura Rubin, our rule book does not always keep pace with the discoveries of contemporary science.
Many Americans hear the word “economics” and quite literally start to talk business: bulls and bears, stocks and bonds, revenues and profits—you know the drill. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, though, economics is “a social science concerned chiefly with description and analysis of the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.” For Dr. Sam Stolper, this meaning rings especially true when it comes to distribution. Sam is an assistant professor at the University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS), where he researches and lectures on the intersecting issues of economics and environmental justice, particularly as they apply to how the impacts of energy use and production are distributed. Continue reading Justice, Economics, and the Environment Walk into a Bar… A Conversation with Dr. Sam Stolper→
Catherine Garton is not only a microbiology, applied statistics, and energy science & policy buff. She’s also the founder of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) chapter at the University of Michigan. The student group is part of a larger nonpartisan grassroots organization that aims to “build the political will for a livable world” by advocating for climate change solutions. Specifically, they support the implementation of a Carbon Fee and Dividend policy. Garton, a sophomore, founded the campus chapter only recently, but the umbrella organization has been active for over a decade and oversees 1,300+ chapters internationally. This week, co-hosts Logan and Heena talked with Catherine Garton and Lena Swirczek, another CCL student activist who is also involved in the University of Michigan’s Sustainable Living Experience, a sustainability-focused community at Oxford Houses on campus. Continue reading Young, Strong Voices from the Citizens’ Climate Lobby→
Returning champions Meg, Logan, and Aurora discuss local ballot initiatives across the U.S. including carbon emissions fees in Washington, proactive water pollution prevention in Montana, fish protections in Alaska, a Floridian combo bill that intertwines vaping and off-shore drilling, and more! As an added bonus, the crew unveils their Halloween costumes for this year—and Aurora’s is quite chilling.
Also, Logan conducts his first interview with Chris Bowman, a graduate student at Michigan. Check out more details below:
Over the summer, Chris Bowman served as an intern for the Rocky Mountain Institute, a prestigious Colorado-based nonprofit that brands itself as a ‘think-and-do’ tank. There, he got plugged-into distribution grid work with solar energy cooperatives, of which there are just under 1,000 in the U.S. Specifically, Bowman focused his efforts on expanding and hastening the transition to renewable energy via market forces.
This fall, Bowman is back at Michigan continuing his graduate education as a proud, “Erber.” The Erb Institute is a dual-degree program through which students earn an MBA from the Ross School of Business as well as a master’s from the School for Environment and Sustainability over the course of three years. Bowman joined the program to gain a deeper understanding of the business, economics, and politics that set the stage for renewable energy markets to perform successfully. He speaks with fervor regarding the broadening transition to photovoltaics and renewables as our host Logan investigates a wide spectrum of topics, from front-of-the-meter generation to greater moral imperatives.
This week’s episode hosted by Andrea Krauss and Alex Truelove features UM Professor Joe Arvai and special guest PaulSlovic, President of Decision Research and Professor of Psychology at the University of Oregon. Paul has dedicated his career to studying human risk perception and how it applies to our decision-making. From the studio to our favorite lunch spot nearly next door, we discuss pressing environmental and social challenges and why the social construction and emotional response to human suffering and risk matters as much as scientific assessment. Our dialogue equally considers the the perspectives and responsibilities of policy-makers, market actors, and citizen consumers. Enjoy!
This week, in honor of Martin Luther King Day, “It’s Hot in Here” brings you in-depth discussion of the state of diversity in the environmental movement and the University of Michigan. We kicked off the show with a brief review of the findings of the recently released report, “The State of Diversity in Environmental Organizations: Mainstream NGOs, Foundations, and Government Agencies,” spearheaded by Dr. Dorceta Taylor (SNRE) and the Green 2.0 Working Group.
Guests Beatriz Canas and Samantha Shattuck talk us through the implications of the report’s conclusion that, despite increasing racial diversity in the US, minorities remain underrepresented across the spectrum of environmental organizations. As a result, diversity tends to decrease as responsibility increases, with the “Green Insiders Club” remaining overwhelmingly white. Continue reading Diversity Matters: The State of the Environmental Movement→
Today’s show, the second in a three part climate change series, discusses climate justice in cities from Detroit to Paris, site of the upcoming United Nations Conference of Parties on Climate Change. In other news, the studio may just never have been this hot before; we were tempted to pour our water over our heads. Continue reading City Limits to Climate Change: Climate Justice from neighborhoods to negotiations→
This show brings lively conversation on the challenges of climate change planning, both in Ethiopia and across the diverse governance landscapes of East and North Africa. Tied with the Gala case study on climate adaptation in Ethiopia this podcast explores the complexity of crafting effective and equitable adaptation policy. Specifically, we ask how national adaptation plans are made? By and for whom? What are the decision-making criteria? And what could these criteria fail to account for? Bringing together legal, economic, anthropological, and environmental expertise, we take adaptation policy as the starting point for broad-ranging dialogue on climate change impacts, social conflict across ethno-linguistic groups, and national planning as a tool that can either address or worsen marginalization.
The theme of this week’s show is Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Green Tribal Economies. Hosts Brittany Anstead, Andrea Kraus, Rebecca Baylor and Pearl Zeng were joined by Jannan Cornstalk with the LTBB Natural Resource Comission and Barb Barton from The Gathering Society.
