Sea Change Radio Sustainability Innovators

Do you have a drawer somewhere filled with old cellphones collecting dust? Wouldn’t it be great if there were a way to put those phones to good use? This week’s guest on Sea Change Radio, Topher White, is making a difference using those dormant phones. His organization, Rainforest Connection up-cycles defunct phones with solar charging technology and then places them strategically in rainforests all over the world to monitor human activity like poaching and deforestation.

While the earth probably won’t shake the next time you turn on your gas stovetop, keep in mind it comes at a cost. This week on Sea Change Radio, we re-visit a couple of discussions from our archives – first we hear from Ole Kaven, a geophysicist with the US Geological Survey, about the connection between gas exploration in Oklahoma and earthquakes. Next, we learn about the benefits of cooking with the sun from Julie Greene, the executive director of Solar Cookers International.

Plastic and prisons: two of America’s most toxic habits. Happily there are people working to create alternatives. This week on Sea Change Radio we learn about a new type of flexible compostable packaging, developed by Israeli entrepreneur, Daphna Nissenbaum, who hopes this new polymer will take a bite out of the enormous problem of plastic waste. Next, we speak to Zoe Loftus-Farren about her Earth Island Journal piece that exposes the multitude of environmental hazards created by the prison industrial complex and America’s unhealthy addiction to locking people up.

Our guest this week on Sea Change Radio, Gilbert Campbell, the Co-Founder of Volt Energy, is here to remind us that sustainable energy is good, not only for the earth, but also for business. Campbell's company, based in Washington, D.C., builds and operates solar projects, electric-vehicle charging stations, and offers energy storage solutions. We discuss how Volt Energy's business model works, why there are not nearly enough minority-owned businesses in the renewable energy space, and the challenges of interacting with a new Administration that is openly hostile to science and minorities.

Recently, in response to the 45th president’s shameful mishandling of the incidents in Charlottesville, Virgina, UC Berkeley Energy Professor Daniel Kammen resigned as a State Dept. Science Envoy. His resignation letter picked up national attention — in part because the first letter of each paragraph spelled out the word “IMPEACH.”