Resilient New Mexico Podcast

Judith Polich writes a climate change column for the Albuquerque Journal, and covers a wide variety of climate related topics. We talk to her about how to engage people in climate action, how readers respond to her articles, and of course the lightening round! 

Genesis Arizmendi is a speach language pathologist who talks with us about how environmental polution impacts border communities, especially children in those communities, as well as climate change and the global south. 

We talk with Melinda Morgan who has a long resume, including the current Director of the Sustainability Studies Program as well as the author of The End of Sustainability. We have a lot of fun and learn a lot discussing things including how communities can be resilient, what it means to move past sustainability, and how to define the Anthropocene. Please join us! 

We speak with Gabe Pacyniak about NM and greenhouse gas emissions, and how best NM can move towards a low emissions future. Gabe teaches climate change law and policy seminar at the UNM School of Law, and specializes in climate change mitigation policy. Prior to UNM, Gabe managed the climate change mitigation program at the Georgetown Climate Center.

Cliff Villa, a Professor of Law at the University of New Mexico School of Law, shares wisdom gathered from his extensive experience, including 22 years as an attorney for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. His clear stories and compassionate advice illuminates a variety of ways we can improve our communities and ourselves.

Heidi Honegger Rogers from the UNM Health Sciences Center is here to talk with us about health and how it is impacted by climate change, both in NM and nationally. She also has lots of great tips for preparing yourself for these impacts. You can find papers that her students have written listed here.

The Community Solar bill was passed in to law, but is this a good thing? Sandra and Peter discuss the amendments that happened to the bill prior to being passed, how those amendments impacted the bill, and give their take on if the final bill is better or worse than the original version.

Arté is one of the co-founders New Mexico based Youth United for Climate Crisis Action (YUCCA), and speaks with about why climate justice is a racial and human rights issue, and how ending environmental racism is a requirement to ending climate change.

Sue Barns joins us to discuss food waste, what it is, where it happens, and how to avoid it! We also have a good round of lightning questions, and find out the best way to store food long term.

We spoke to Mona Blaber, who is the Communication Director for the Rio Grande Chapter of the Sierra Club. New Mexico is in the middle of its annual legislative session, and we discussed specific bills, how the public can engage with their representatives, the Sierra Club's efforts on bills, and of course building a resilient New Mexico.

In this episode we discuss HB106, which would allow small groups or organizations to attach small scale solar instalations to the grid. This bill came up last year, but did not pass. We discuss why the bill did not pass last year, and our hope for why it might fair better this year.

We spoke with Dr. Carl White, an ecologist who spent his career studying NM. We cover topics about nutrient cycle, forest fires, droughts, flooding, and what individuals can do to help all of those!

In this episode we share a bit about our motivations, and what we will be covering in the upcoming episodes.