How To Stop Climate Change

This is part two of our series on biochar. Today we're going to explore the biochar industry with Kathleen Draper. She is the chair of the International Biochar Initiative, the director of the Ithaka Institute for Carbon Intelligence and she's the owner of Finger Lakes Biochar. She's also co-authored three books on the subject.If you would like to support the show please click here.Music by Audio SnackSound design by Keaton ButlerPlease share the show with a friend.Support the show (http://patreon.com/howtostopclimatechange)

As we all know, climate change is happening. It's no longer some distant future doomsday that we can prevent, it's here. However, there are a LOT of things we can do to minimize the effects and possibly undo some of the damage. One of those things is called biochar. Is that a pokemon? Is it a cartoon supervillain? Actually, no. Biochar is similar to charcoal but it's not used as a fuel. It is produced by heating biomass with very little oxygen. By restricting the oxygen you prevent it from burning and turning to ash and you are left with a carbon-rich material with lots of uses. Biochar has the potential to mitigate the effects of climate change and greatly improve soil quality, all while reducing waste and producing energy as a byproduct.Support the show (http://patreon.com/howtostopclimatechange)

Adam Edelen is the founder of Edelen Renewables. He’s working to bring jobs and investment to coal country by building massive solar farms on reclaimed strip mines, and he’s working with coal companies and renewable energy developers to do it. We had a great conversation with him and he gave me a tour of his first coal-to-solar project in Martin County, Kentucky. This is an incredibly exciting development for Appalachia and a fantastic way to put reclaimed mines, out of work miners, and abandoned fossil fuel infrastructure to work building a new clean energy economy.LinksEpisode webpageEdelen RenewablesThe Poverty Tours (video)Lyndon Johnson Declares Unconditional War on Poverty (video)Harlan County, USA (video)Please share the show with a friend or give us a review! Thanks!If you would like to support the show please click here.Music by Audio SnackSound design by Keaton ButlerSupport the show (http://patreon.com/howtostopclimatechange)

Our guest today is Natascha Glanzer-Fuerst an Austrian zero-waste advocate and feminist who was a crew member with eXXpedition, an organization that leads all-female scientific voyages around the world dedicated to exploring the impact of plastic and toxic pollution in our oceans and working to solve the problem. You might have noticed the odd spelling of eXXpedition. The XX stands for the female double X chromosomes. Hundreds of women from diverse backgrounds and professions have sailed with eXXpedition since it was founded in 2014. So, why are the crews all female? Natascha explains that in the episode.LinksEpisode webpage at HowToStopClimateChange.comeXXpedition.comIf you would like to support the show please click here.Music by:Audio SnackTheme music is by JuicesSound design by Keaton Butler – keatonbutlerrecording at gmail.comPlease share the show with a friend.Support the show (http://patreon.com/howtostopclimatechange)

John Verdieck is the Director of International Climate Policy at The Nature Conservancy. Prior to joining The Nature Conservancy, John worked in the US State Department where he was a lead negotiator on the Paris Climate Accord. In the interview John shares what it was like to be in Paris in 2015 as the agreement was finally coming together after years of hard work, the excitement and implications for Biden’s pledge to rejoin the agreement and the ways that The Nature Conservancy is working to fight climate change.LinksEpisode web pageThe Nature ConservancyThe Paris AgreementIf you would like to support the show please click here.Music by:Audio SnackTheme music is by JuicesSound design by Keaton Butler – keatonbutlerrecording at gmail.comPlease share the show with a friend.Support the show (http://patreon.com/howtostopclimatechange)

Our guest today is Caitlin Bullock, EV Program Coordinator for Austin Energy. The city of Austin owns and operates Austin Energy, which means that dividends go to support city services that benefit Austinites instead of investors. It also means that Austin Energy can prioritize energy efficiency and green energy programs. We talked to Caitlin about Austin Energy’s efforts to promote EV ownership and build Austin’s charger infrastructure.LinksEpisode web pagePluginAustin.comAustin Energy’s EV Buyer’s GuideUnion of Concerned Scientists "How Clean is your Electric Vehicle" toolAustin Energy’s 2015 Community Climate PlanIf you would like to support the show please click here.Music by:Audio SnackTheme music is by JuicesSound design by Keaton Butler – keatonbutlerrecording at gmail.comPlease share the show with a friend.Support the show (http://patreon.com/howtostopclimatechange)

Some major oil companies have recently unveiled plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reinvent themselves in the face of climate change. Exxon has not announced any plan to deal with climate change but this week Bloomberg News reported on a leaked copy of Exxon’s 2018 investment plan and it calls for 17% more greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. We’ll take a look at Exxon’s dramatic plummet over the last few years and their big gamble on business as usual, come hell or high water (literally). AlsoU.S. wildfires: Climate change and forest managementClimate change sneaks into the debateBiden distances himself from the Green New DealIf you would like to support the show please click here.Music by:Audio SnackTheme music is by JuicesSound design by Keaton Butler – keatonbutlerrecording at gmail.comPlease share the show with a friend.Support the show (http://patreon.com/howtostopclimatechange)

Dominic Frongillo is the co-founder & executive director of Elected Officials to Protect America or EOPA. EOPA is nonpartisan, which is very unusual for a political network. It’s members are state and local elected officials from all over the U.S. who are committed to fighting the climate crisis and protecting America’s communities, public health and environment. When we think of politicians we often think that they are working for their big corporate donors, who are often fossil fuel companies. But members of EOPA are committed to protecting Americans from those destructive industries and preserving our climate and water resources.EOPA was born out of an earlier organization that Dominic co-founded. Elected Officials to Protect New York, that united nearly 1,000 local elected officials to fight high-volume hydro-fracking. They actually won that fight and got fracking banned in New York. But Dominic’s story doesn’t start there. His political career started when a mentor and friend on the town council in his small hometown of Caroline, New York asked him to run for council at the age of 21.LinksHow to Stop Climate Change episode pageElected Officials to Protect America (EOPA)Dominic Frongillo on LinkedInEOPA on LinkedInDominic Frongillo on TwitterEOPA on TwitterIf you would like to support the show please click here.Music by:Audio SnackThe BlueberriesTheme music is by JuicesSound design by Keaton Butler – keatonbutlerrecording at gmail.comPlease share the show with a friend.Support the show (http://patreon.com/howtostopclimatechange)

Margaret Klein Salamon, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist who founded The Climate Mobilization, a volunteer-powered organization that is working to initiate a WWII-scale mobilization to rapidly transform our economy to protect humanity and the living world. In that role, she has helped catalyze a burgeoning worldwide movement calling for governments at all levels to declare a climate emergency. Margaret is also the author of Facing the Climate Emergency: How to Transform Yourself with Climate Truth, an effort to help readers process the emotional, psychological elements of the climate crisis and rise to the challenge of our time.LinksThe Climate MobilizationFacing the Climate Emergency Episode webpageIf you would like to support the show please click here.Music for this episode was provided by Audio SnackTheme music is by JuicesSound design by Keaton ButlerPlease share the show with a friend.Support the show (http://patreon.com/howtostopclimatechange)

Today we are joined by Nicole Systrom, founder of Sutro Energy Group. Nicole partners with philanthropists, investors and entrepreneurs to accelerate high-impact climate and clean technology solutions. Nicole also serves with multiple organizations that focus on energy, education, philanthropy and innovation. We’ll be talking with Nicole about how she came to be so involved in these areas, the various sectors that can help with environmental sustainability and the need for an innovative green economy, driven by creativity and investment.LinksSutro Energy GroupNicole SystromEpisode webpage If you would like to support the show please click here.Music by:Avery ReidyKeaton ButlerTheme music is by JuicesSound design by Keaton Butler – keatonbutlerrecording at gmail.comPlease share the show with a friend.Support the show (http://patreon.com/howtostopclimatechange)

Dr. Annette Olson started her career as a field biologist studying the social behavior of the long-nosed mongoose on a remote island in West Africa. But a civil war in Sierra Leone brought an end to her mongoose studies and started her off on a 30-year career working for federal agencies and nonprofits in Washington, D.C. Now she is building Climate Steps, her own nonprofit organization with a mission to supply people with impactful personal, social, and political actions to fight climate change.It’s a great interview. We covered a lot of topics, including:Are they called mongeese or mongooses?Are individual climate actions worthwhile?The problems with some of the most commonly recommended climate actionsWhat climate steps have the biggest impact and how to find the right climate steps for youThe importance of discussing your climate actions with your friends and familyLinksEpisode webpageClimateSteps.orgIf you would like to support the show please click here.Music by:Avery ReidyKeaton ButlerGrace van't HofThe BlueberriesTheme music is by JuicesSound design by Keaton Butler – keatonbutlerrecording at gmail.comPlease share the show with a friendSupport the show (http://patreon.com/howtostopclimatechange)

Our guest today is Jay Siegel, co-host of Sustainability Defined, a podcast that takes on the rather intimidating goal of defining sustainability, one topic and one bad joke at a time. Each episode of Sustainability Defined explores an area of sustainability in great depth and then finishes up with an interview with an expert in that space. It’s such a good resource that it has made its way into the course curriculum at Duke, Penn State and other fine universities. When Jay isn’t podcasting he works as an urban infill real estate developer so he has first hand experience with a lot of the complicated sustainability issues around buildings and cities.Here are just a few of the topics that we discussed with Jay.How to build a sustainability career when it’s not yet part of your day jobUrban infill: can we reduce sprawl while minimizing the negative impacts of gentrification?The carbon footprint of buildings and citiesKanye’s Presidential bidWe’ll include a clip from Sustainability Defined at the end of this episode, so stick around.LinksSustainability DefinedEpisode webpageIf you would like to support the show please click here.Music by:Avery ReidyKeaton ButlerTheme music is by JuicesSound design by Keaton ButlerPlease share the show with a friend.Support the show (http://patreon.com/howtostopclimatechange)

Our guest today is Diego Saez Gil, founder and CEO of Pachama, a carbon offset and technology company that is harnessing satellite imagery and artificial intelligence to measure and monitor carbon capture in forests. Reducing the cost of measuring the amount of carbon stored in forests means that more of the money spent on carbon offsets can go to landowners. Improving the accuracy of those measurements means that people and companies who purchase carbon offsets are more confident that their money is being spent on effective carbon removal solutions.Episode LinksPachama.comPlease share the show with a friend.If you would like to support the show please click here.Podcast Audio ProductionKeaton Butler – keatonbutlerrecording@gmail.comMusic was provided by:Avery ReidyKeaton ButlerTheme music is by JuicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/howtostopclimatechange)

Our guest today is Shuli Goodman, founder and executive director of LF Energy, a new Linux Foundation project that supports open source innovation in the energy and electricity sectors.Shuli had the opportunity to work on an IT project with independent utilities in California where she learned how woefully inadequate their software systems were for the upcoming changes that would be required to green the grid."We are in unbelievable trouble, because these guys do not have the technology or the capacity to meet the future that's going to come running at us."She started looking for options for building a new digital infrastructure for the grid and came to the conclusion that the Linux Foundation was the only organization that could support such a vast collaborative project. Links:Shuli Goodman on LinkedInShuli Goodman on TwitterLF EnergyPlease share the show with a friend.If you would like to support the show financially please click here.Music by:Avery ReidyKeaton ButlerTheme music is by JuicesPodcast audio production by Keaton Butler – keatonbutlerrecording@gmail.comSupport the show (http://patreon.com/howtostopclimatechange)

Our guests today are Ty and Brock Benefiel, brothers and hosts of The Climate Pod podcast. Ty is co-founder and CEO of Hero Power, a company that allows electricity customers in Illinois to choose renewable energy over fossil fuel energy when they pay their utility bill. They plan to expand into 13 states. Brock is a journalist, podcaster, and Director of Marketing at Hero Power.Some states allow utility customers to choose who supplies their power. This means that the local utility is responsible for maintaining the grid and distributing the electricity to customers. They also do the billing. But other companies are allowed to supply the electricity and consumers can choose which company they want to provide that electricity. Hero Power is one of those suppliers but they’re a little different than most. They buy electricity on the market and resell it but they also buy renewable energy credits to offset every kilowatt of power that they sell. So, people that sign up with Hero Power are generating demand for renewable energy without paying a penny more than they would otherwise.LinksHero PowerThe Climate PodEpisode webpage:Climate Pod hosts Ty and Brock BenefielPlease share the show with a friend.If you would like to support the show please click here.Music by:Avery ReidyGerry LeonardKeaton ButlerTheme music is by JuicesAudio production by Keaton Butler – keatonbutlerrecording@gmail.comSupport the show (http://patreon.com/howtostopclimatechange)

Our guest today is Karly Matthews from the American Conservation Coalition, a nonprofit organization which educates and empowers conservatives to re-engage in environmental conversations by promoting a mix of free-market, pro-business, and limited-government environmentalism.LinksEpisode webpage: Young conservative climate activists | Karly Matthews, American Conservation CoalitionLearn more about the American Conservation CoalitionFollow Karly Matthews on TwitterIf you would like to support the show please click here.Please share the show with a friend.Podcast production by Keaton Butler – keatonbutlerrecording@gmail.comMusic by:Avery ReidyKeaton ButlerTheme music is by JuicesSupport the show (http://patreon.com/howtostopclimatechange)

Our guest today is RL Miller, a determined and outspoken political activist who founded Climate Hawks Vote, an organization that endorses and supports democratic candidates who are serious about developing effective climate policies. She has been a leading advocate for a presidential climate debate and getting Democratic candidates to pledge that they won’t take fossil fuel money, and she was just elected to the Democratic National Committee. RL is angry that DNC chair Tom Perez refused to stage a presidential climate debate and over his reversal of the DNC resolution that she pushed not to accept fossil fuel money. She is determined to fix those things and work to make the DNC more transparent and democratic and most importantly more devoted to fighting climate change.LinksClimate Hawks VoteEpisode webpage: RL Miller | Climate hawk in the DNCIf you would like to support the show please click here.Music by:Avery ReidyKeaton ButlerTheme music is by JuicesAudio production by Keaton Butler – keatonbutlerrecording@gmail.comPlease share the show with a friend.Support the show (http://patreon.com/howtostopclimatechange)

Our guest today is Tim Gordon, a marine biologist at the University of Exeter and the Australian institute of Marine Science. He studies climate change impacts on marine ecosystems, especially the Great Barrier reef. Coral reefs are surprisingly noisy but climate change may be starting to silence them. We’ll be talking with Tim about his research, which aims to understand more about the impacts of climate change on the natural soundscapes of marine ecosystems.LinksEpisode webpage:Climate change is silencing coral reefs | Tim GordonRead more about Tim Gordon’s work at University of ExeterWatch Tim Gordon on YouTubeTimothy Gordon at World Ocean Summit 2018Tim Gordon - United Kingdom - FameLab International Final 2019Sounds of the past give new hope for coral reef restorationIf you would like to support the show please click here.Music by:Avery ReidyKeaton ButlerTheme music is by JuicesAudio production by Keaton Butler – keatonbutlerrecording@gmail.comPlease share the show with a friend.Support the show (http://patreon.com/howtostopclimatechange)

Matt Russell joins us again for our second episode in a two part series about climate denial. This week we're focusing on Planet of the Humans, the new movie from Michael Moore, Jeff Gibbs and Ozzy Zehner. The filmmakers aren’t climate change deniers but they are very critical of renewable energy and a lot of the arguments that they bring up in the film are incorrect talking points and myths that climate change deniers used 10 years ago. Deniers are ecstatic to have an influential liberal documentary filmmaker like Michael Moore reviving these points. It provides them with a lot of ammunition that they can use as they work to slow the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Overall the film is a poorly-researched and often incorrect indictment of nearly every aspect of the green movement, from technologies to organizations to leaders. We’re not going to dive into every topic that is covered in the film. We’ll take a look at the questions it raises around the following:Solar energyWind energyElectric carsHydrogen fuel cell carsGreen businessPopulation growthConsumerismLinksEpisode webpage:Climate Change Denial pt. 2: Planet of the Humans vs. Renewable EnergyKetan Joshi’s analysis of Planet of the HumansIf you would like to support the show please click here.Music by:Avery ReidyKeaton ButlerTheme music is by JuicesAudio production by Keaton Butler – keatonbutlerrecording@gmail.comPlease share the show with a friend.Support the show (http://patreon.com/howtostopclimatechange)

Dear Climate DenierThis is the premiere of a new segment for the show called Dear Climate Denier. Our guest today is Matt Russell, an environmental consultant and a good friend of mine and he’ll join us each week to discuss one or two standard climate denial topics so you’ll be ready the next time you hear those talking points come up. And, most importantly we’ll talk about the best approach for talking to your nearest and dearest climate deniers. How can you stand your ground on climate change and offer up some facts without getting into a screaming match.The History of Climate Change DenialGoing forward Dear Climate Denier will be a quick little segment of the show but for this episode we’re going to do a deep dive on it. The best place to start is by taking a look at the history of climate science and climate change denial. We’ll also discuss some of our favorite examples of climate deniers going off the rails. Planet of the HumansMichael Moore released a new movie called Planet of the Humans on Earth Day this year. It attacks renewable energy, biomass, Bill McKibben and the environmental movement in general. It’s full of outdated information and unsupported conclusions. Unfortunately a lot of the points that the film makes are the exact same things that climate deniers were saying about renewable energy 10 years ago. We’ll talk about that a little bit today but we’ll go into depth on the movie in the next episode.LinksEpisode webpage: Climate Change Denial: Dear Climate DenierThe History of Climate Change DenialIf you would like to support the show please click here.Music by:Avery ReidyKeaton ButlerTheme music is by JuicesAudio production by Keaton Butler – keatonbutlerrecording@gmail.com Please share the show with a friend.Do you have a great idea for stopping climate change? We want to hear it.Click here to share your idea and it might be featured on the show. Support the show (http://patreon.com/howtostopclimatechange)

Samantha Richardson is the author of Ethical Profit: A Guide to Increasing Profit Using Sustainable Business Practices. She’s also the founder and CEO of Ethical Profit Accounting Agency, specializing in helping small businesses with a social or environmental mission get a handle on their finances so they can better understand their cash flow and finances. With this information, they are able to make smarter business choices to help fuel their growth.It was a fun conversation. Here are some of the topics that we covered with Samantha:Myths that persist around sustainable business like the idea that it’s too expensive to operate sustainablySmall and large steps that businesses can take to become more sustainable and all of the benefits that they can gain from doing so. What are B Corps and why is it that they can be even more profitable than businesses that are strictly focused on profitHow a focus on short term profit can cost a business more in the long run (for example the infamous Ford Pinto)How Samantha brought Quidditch to AustraliaPlease share the show with a friend.If you would like to support the show please click here.Do you have a great idea for stopping climate change? We want to hear it.Click here to share your idea and it might be featured on the show. Music by:Grace van't HofAvery ReidyKeaton ButlerTheme music is by JuicesAudio production by Keaton Butler – keatonbutlerrecording@gmail.comSupport the show (http://patreon.com/howtostopclimatechange)

“I believe the private sector and the scientific community has a bit more of a nimble opportunity here to change things more rapidly than what we keep looking at, you know, governments to do for us.” ~ Thomas M. Kostigen, author of Hacking Planet Earth: How Geoengineering Can Help Us Reimagine the FutureToday we’ll be speaking with Thomas M. Kostigen, a New York Times bestselling author and journalist and has written for such publications as National Geographic, Discover, The Wall Street Journal, and The Los Angeles Times. As a journalist, Kostigen has traveled across the world to report on everything from war zones to extreme weather. I could go on listing Thomas’s many accomplishments but I'll let them speak for themselves. Today we’ll be focusing primarily on his new book, Hacking Planet Earth: How Geoengineering Can Help Us Reimagine the Future. We’ll talk with him about things that frankly seem more fitting for a sc- fi novel than a climate change podcast, things like zapping clouds with lasers to make it rain and using nanoparticles to reflect the sun’s rays back into space.Thomas: Hacking Planet Earth really goes into my definition of geoengineering, which is how we can take better control of not only the climate but what the climate accelerates and is connected to. And that's pretty much everything in our lives. So our food systems, mobility systems, how we conduct urban planning and how we are going to even socialize and interact in the future. And given today’s circumstances, the unfortunate circumstances With COVID-19, we're getting a little taste of what invisible threats, just like climate change, can do to our everyday life. So within the pages of Hacking Planet Earth, I get into all sorts of technologies that can affect with a big “E” the climate today, not 10 years from now, or 20 years from now or 30 years from now but today. And these technologies range from different types of devices that can deflect the sun to taking carbon out of the atmosphere, to better enhancing our soil for agriculture, to all sorts of things that we have on the innovation front and mad, mad geniuses have gotten behind, we just need to bring to scale. And so the book is really a marriage or a call for a marriage between the investment and business community and the science community. Clearly the government and political forces that traditionally would be our societal benefactors and protect us from things like climate change or other public health issues such as COVID aren't there for us. So we need to take matters into our own hands and start to do what nature can no longer do for herself. And that is to manipulate the climate for the better for all of us.David: When I first heard about geoengineering, I thought it sounded...Click here for the full transcript.Music by:Avery ReidyKeaton ButlerTheme music is by JuicesAudio production by Keaton Butler – keatonbutlerrecording@gmail.com Please share the show with a friend.If you would like to support the show please click here.Do you have a great idea for stopping climate change? We want to hear it.Click here to share your idea and it might be featured on the show. Support the show (http://patreon.com/howtostopclimatechange)

“The good news is the opportunities to remove carbon from the atmosphere and store it in soils have a lot of side benefits, making the soil more resilient in the event of warming, increasing moisture in the soil, reducing pollution from farms into water systems. So let's go for it. It's crazy not to, not to do this!” ~Aldyen Donnelly, Co-Founder and Director of Carbon Economics at Nori.Aldyen Donnelly is a co-founder and the Director of Carbon Economics at Nori, a company whose goal is to “create a new way for anyone in the world to pay to remove excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.” She has 30 years of experience in environmental and carbon markets and developed the world's first major forward emission reduction credit purchase agreement to finance carbon sequestration in agricultural soils.Carbon Sequestration and Soil CarbonIn this episode we discuss the massive potential for storing carbon in the soil, what farmers can do to store more carbon in their fields and how buying Nori carbon removal tons can help farmers make the investments required to do that.Carbon Offsets and Carbon MarketsWe also talk about some of the problems that carbon offsets have had up to now, what we’ve learned from those experiments and how the Nori Carbon Removal Marketplace is addressing some of the past issues with streamlined software, more transparency and better verification.Please share the show with a friend.If you would like to support the show please click here.Do you have a great idea for stopping climate change? We want to hear it.Click here to share your idea and it might be featured on the show.Click here to read the full transcript.Music was provided by:Avery ReidyKeaton ButlerTheme music is by JuicesAudio production by Keaton Butler – keatonbutlerrecording@gmail.comSupport the show (http://patreon.com/howtostopclimatechange)

“I can't imagine anyone who would not think of this as a good thing, generating high quality and highly available energy from manure and replacing a commercially mined and processed fertilizer with recycled fertilizer. Everyone's gonna love that idea. So we need to shift some of that money from the traditional energy and nutrient sources over to the farmers.” ~ Steve Rowe, CEO, NewtrientSteve Rowe is the CEO of Newtrient, a company that helps farmers take the nutrients that are part of the agricultural cycle and use them in new ways. Newtrient's mission is to reduce the environmental footprint of dairy farming and make it economically viable to do so. Nothing is wasted in nature. Anytime an organism produces waste there is some other organism waiting in line to use it. Farmers have been harnessing that natural system to recycle manure since the birth of agriculture. It’s the world’s oldest circular economy. Now there are more ways than ever to recycle, reuse or upcycle components from manure. Things we talked about with Steve:Manure as a renewable, environmentally-friendly fertilizer.Renewable baseload energy from feeding manure into methane digestersEnvironmentally friendly fiber products from manureA circular economy for manure“We need to set up better economic signals between the urban and rural communities, which will, I believe re-knit the relationship between urban and rural the way it was, perhaps when I was a kid, when everybody knew a farmer or everyone was just one generation off the farm. Now people are very, very disconnected. We have many, many more foodies, but far fewer people who understand where food comes from.” ~ Steve Rowe Music was provided by:Avery ReidyKeaton ButlerTheme music is by JuicesAudio production by Keaton Butler – keatonbutlerrecording@gmail.com Please share the show with a friend.If you would like to support the show please click here.Do you have a great idea for stopping climate change? We want to hear it.Click here to share your idea and it might be featured on the show. Support the show (http://patreon.com/howtostopclimatechange)

“It is a win-win-win. It’s a win for the environment, it’s a win for women and it’s a win for mitigating against climate change.” ~ Dr. Betsy Beymer-Farris on seaweed farming in TanzaniaDr. Betsy Beymer-Farris is the Director of the Environmental and Sustainability Studies Program at the University of Kentucky. She’s been conducting research on the coast of Tanzania for over 20 years. She’s done studies on climate policy, seaweed farming, coastal conservation, aquaculture, gender and human rights. But when she first arrived she probably had no idea how big a part of her life Tanzania would become.“I first went to Tanzania when I was 20 years old and I had never been anywhere. So, I had been to Myrtle Beach basically. And I got on a plane and went to Tanzania and did a study abroad and it changed my life because I saw the world for the first time.” I was on the plane and I was so excited that I actually thought when we landed in Dar es Salaam, which is on the coast and nowhere near a national park, I thought I saw a giraffe because I was so excited. It was actually a pole.”Learning the local wisdomIn addition to all of that research she has spent time learning the language and building friendships with the people that live there. They have shared with her the knowledge that they have gained over generations of working with nature every day to survive. She is not just researching their environment and way of life. She’s working to protect it.Mafia Island Marine Park, TanzaniaMuch of Betsy’s research concerns the local population in and around the Mafia Island Marine Park on the coast of Tanzania. When the marine park was established all fishing was banned to preserve the incredible biodiversity that makes it one of the premier dive spots in the world. In fact the diving is so amazing that the park is home to the most expensive hotel in the world, just $10,000 per night. Obviously the marine ecosystem is more valuable as an ecotourism spot than a mere source of food. That seems like a good story for the environment.Good intentionsUnfortunately things are never that simple. Often we protect nature by fencing it off and kicking out the people that have lived there for thousands of years. When we do that we lose the wisdom and management practices that the local people have developed over generations of living within the natural system. In this episode Betsy shares some of the unintended consequences of creating policies to protect habitats without talking to the people that have been living there for generations. Learn more about Betsy Beymer-FarrisMusic was provided by:Avery ReidyThe BlueberriesKiki and the VettesPaige HugueletTheme music is by JuicesAudio production by Keaton Butler – keatonbutlerrecording@gmail.com Please share the show with a friend.If you would like to support the show please click here.Do you have a great idea for stopping climate change? We want to hear it.Click here to share your idea and it might be featured on the show. Support the show (http://patreon.com/howtostopclimatechange)

“This is an issue where politicians can reach across the aisle. You don’t have to be a bleeding heart liberal to feel good about renewable energy because it is more efficient and increasingly less expensive. ” ~ Amy Haddon, Vice President for Global Content and Cleantech Marketing for Schneider Electric Energy & Sustainability Services. Amy creates content to inform Schneider’s existing and potential clients on sustainability, renewable energy and other cleantech topics. But she also works with those clients to develop their own sustainability reports and communicate about their efforts. Many people have to focus on a very tight topic related to their own job. As a communicator and content creator, Amy gets to take a wide view across many areas of sustainability in multiple industries.Focusing on consumer choices is not effectiveWe discussed the danger of focusing on the environmental impact of our personal consumer choices. That can lead to small changes but it can also result in guilt and frustration which doesn’t help anyone. It can lead people to focus their energy on smaller objectives where they have more control, like eliminating their use of plastic straws. But that does nothing to stop the larger problem of climate change. Demanding action on climate change should be our focus"Climate change in particular should be the primary focus for any of us taking action on the environment, because ultimately if we don’t mitigate climate change the ramifications of those impacts will trump any other environmental problems that we might have. For the majority of us we don’t have a lot of choices around how we get our energy. We don’t have a lot of choices over our food systems. We don’t have a lot of choices over our transportation systems, so I think that making people feel guilty about their choices is a tactic that doesn’t ultimately work because we don’t understand the scale of the systems that we’re really working within and because ultimately and unfortunately, those small consumer choices that we can make, while important and certainly affirming in terms of at least we’re doing something, they’re a small drop in the overall bucket, whereas I think our activities, our energy, our resources, could and should be better spent to pull bigger levers, like politics and government regulations and other things that we really need to change those human systems and make the system itself more sustainable so that when we come to make a choice we can feel assured that the choice that we’re making, because it’s the choice that we have, is the right choice." ~ Amy HaddonPlease help us grow the showDo you have a friend that would enjoy this show. Please share it with them.If you would like to support the show please click here.How would you stop climate change?Do you have a great idea for stopping climate change? We want to hear it.Click here to share your idea and it might be featured on the show. Support the show (http://patreon.com/howtostopclimatechange)

“What is wasteful that we can harvest and use more efficiently?” ~ Bob Powell, CEO, Brightmark EnergyBob Powell spends a lot of his day thinking about waste. His company, Brightmark Energy, converts two very different types of waste into energy and other useful products. Converting manure to energy with methane digestersBrightmark Energy builds and operates methane digesters that convert manure and other organic waste into renewable natural gas and valuable natural fertilizer. Managing manure in this way prevents methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from escaping into the atmosphere and helps to keep nitrogen and phosphorus out of our waterways.Converting plastic waste back into diesel and other petroleum productsBrightmark Energy’s Plastics Renewal Technology can take a mixed stream of almost any type of plastic waste and convert it to low-sulfur diesel fuel, naptha and wax. They are nearing completion of their first large plastic renewal facility, located in Ashley, Indiana. When completed it will keep tons of plastic out of the landfill and provide products that would otherwise be produced from crude oil.Bob Powell's Clean Energy JourneyBob didn’t start his career in clean energy. He started out working with utilities and power producers to build or acquire coal, natural gas and nuclear power plants. He even did some work for oil and gas companies.Over time Bob became disenchanted with the environmental damage that the fossil fuel industry was causing. He jumped over to the clean energy industry by starting his own solar company in 2009. In 2015 he became CEO of Brightmark Energy and switched his focus to converting waste-to-energy. In this episode you’ll learn about some exciting ways that we can convert waste into energy and reduce the demand for fossil fuel.Please help us grow the showDo you have a friend that would enjoy this show. Please share it with them.If you would like to support the show please click here.How would you stop climate change?Do you have a great idea for stopping climate change? We want to hear it.Click here to share your idea and it might be featured on the show. Support the show (http://patreon.com/howtostopclimatechange)

“I had this thought in my head… what if I didn’t apply for any jobs and hiked on the Appalachian trail.“ ~ Mary MarshallOur guest today is Mary Marshall, program manager at Solar Energy International (SEI). SEI is a non-profit training facility for people looking to get into the design and installation of solar energy systems. Mary specifically manages a program called Solar Forward, which is a technical consulting program geared toward kick-starting solar markets in rural communities.During college Mary was intent on a career in television news. She studied hard and landed several impressive internships. She was well on her way. But something didn’t feel right.Find out more about Solar Energy International at https://www.solarenergy.org.If you would like to share an idea for fighting climate change go to howtostopclimatechange.com and record a short message. We'll select one idea to share in each episode.If you like the show please give us a good review. If you like it so much that you want to support the show please go to howtostopclimatechange.com/support/. You can make a one time donation or become regular sponsor. Any amount helps.Support the show (http://patreon.com/howtostopclimatechange)

We don’t have time for doom, gloom, denial or hope. Let’s get to work. How To Stop Climate Change is a show about people who work every day to fix this massive problem that we’ve created. There are so many ways to react to the climate crisis; disbelief, anger, apathy, worry. Most of us just assume that there isn’t much we can do. But some people find a way to contribute to the solution and get to work. Maybe they’ve dedicated their career to the fight. Maybe they dedicate some of their free time. We’ll hear their stories and we’ll also take a look at what actions make a difference and what things aren’t worth worrying about. What's your favorite idea for stopping climate change? Share it with us and we might feature it on the show. Go to HowToStopClimateChange.com and record your idea.How To Stop Climate Change is produced by David Butler and Keaton Butler.Contact us or support the show at HowToStopClimateChange.comSupport the show (http://patreon.com/howtostopclimatechange)