Feeding Soil with Compost Tea and Soaking Up Oil with Hair

Sea Change West Coast Correspondent Alex Wise speaks with Roland Evans, CEO of Organic Bountea, which makes compost tea as a natural alternative to petroleum fertilizers, and Lisa Gautier, Executive Director of Matter of Trust, which collects hair from barbershops and salons and weaves it into mats to soak up petroleum oil spills.

Democratizing the SEC — to Address Sustainability

Sea Change Radio Host Bill Baue talks with Adam Kanzer of Domini Social Investments about the new SEC Investor Advisory Committee, on which he represents the socially responsible investing (SRI) community.  SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro established the committee as one of her first initiatives after taking the helm of the Commission in 2009.  In the NewsAnalysis, Sea Change Headlines Anchor Tania Haldar Hart discusses conservative backlash against the interpretive guidance the SEC recently issued on requirements for companies to disclose risks from climate change.

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NewsAnalysis: Dark Clouds Gather Over SEC Climate Regs?

In a January 27 vote – split three-to-two along party lines – SEC Commissioners approved interpretive guidance on rules requiring companies to disclose potential impacts of climate change on their bottom lines.  The move was prompted by a petition filed in September 2007 by Environmental Defense Fund – Finding the Ways That Work and Ceres.  The petition was backed by institutional investors with $1.5 trillion in assets, including treasurers from California, Florida, and New York, among others.

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Brewing Biofuel from E. Coli — and Fill Er Up with Yellow Grease

Bill Haywood

Robin Gold and Tofu Pup

Producing biofuel is kind of like brewing beer, a practice that’s been around since the Phoenicians and Egyptians first fermented things, according to Bill Haywood, CEO of the San Francisco-based company LS9.  He explains to Sea Change Radio West Coast Correspondent Alex Wise how his company uses E. Coli’s digestion capabilities (which have been around for billions of years) to convert sugar to biofuels and chemicals.  Next, Alex speaks with Robin Gold, co-founder of Dogpatch Biofuels, a filling station in San Francisco where drivers can gas up on “yellow grease,” or waste vegetable oil.

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Cool Industry for A Cooler Planet

In this fifth episode of our Back To The Future series, we look at how the mighty power of the Connecticut River fueled the birth of manufacturing in Massachusetts — and the country — not just in producing finished goods, like paper and textiles, but also in making the machinery that drove the mills. Continue reading Cool Industry for A Cooler Planet

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Fueling Cars on Used Veggie Oil, and Shipping Used Shoes to Africa

Moira DeNike

Alex Wise

Sea Change Radio West Coast Correspondent Alex Wise interviews Moira DeNike about fueling a 1985 Mercedes 300 Diesel on waste vegetable oil (or WVO).  Sea Change Co-Host Kelsey Flynn talks to Ric Sustache of Greasecar, which sells kits to convert diesel cars to run on WVO, as well as Laura Douglass, whose experience as a WVO car driver differs in interesting ways from Moira’s.  And Sea Change Host Bill Baue speaks with Michael Aronson about ReRun Sports Shoes, the company he co-founded to collect lightly used shoes and sell them in Guinea, Mali, Congo, Liberia, and Niger, Africa.

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Sustainable Schools: Education Goes Green

This edition of Sea Change Radio studies sustainable education.  Co-Host Bill Baue speaks with Sustainable Endowments Institute Executive Director Mark Orlowski about the College Sustainability Report Card.  Co-Host Kelsey Flynn then chats with Josh Stoffel, the new Sustainability Coordinator here at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, where we produce Sea Change Radio, and Monty Archbald, chair of the Green Campus Committee at Greenfield Community College.  And finally, Bill talks with Neil Drobny of the Fisher College of Business at Ohio State University.

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Back To The Future: Getting Around On Rails and Trails

Trolley in Western Massachusetts

In this edition of the Sea Change Radio series Back To The Future, Francesca Rheannon talks with historian Kerry Buckley about the heyday of the trolley system in Massachusetts; rail trail promoter Craig Della Penna talks about how rail trails came about and where they are going; and anthropologist Cathy Stanton talks about how we could reinvent the relationship between cars and other lower carbon means of transportation, like bikes and light rail. Continue reading Back To The Future: Getting Around On Rails and Trails

A Hybrid Model: Co-op and Nonprofits Launch Energy Efficiency Company

Sea Change Radio Radio Co-Hosts Bill Baue and Kelsey Flynn talk to Tom Rossmassler, CEO of Energia, an innovative new energy efficiency company founded by two nonprofits — Nuestras Raices and Nueva Esparanza – and Co-op Power, a consumer cooperative.  And Kelsey profiles the Roots Up Green Jobs program, run by Nuestras Raices and Co-op Power, which will train workers for Energia.
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Game-Changer: Shifting Culture from Consumerism to Sustainability

Sea Change Radio’s new Co-Host Kelsey Flynn and Bill Baue speak with Erik Assadourian and Gary Gardner, senior researchers at the Worldwatch Institute, about the new book, State of the World 2010: Transforming Cultures from Consumerism to Sustainability.

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