Tag Archives: africa

Gemma Bulos: Turning A Drop Into A Wave

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GemmaBulosIf you’re listening to this broadcast, the chances are you can get clean drinking water right from your kitchen sink. But much of the world’s population does not have that luxury. In rural sub-Saharan Africa, the World Health Organization estimates that only about half of the population has access to clean water, and only 23% have access to hygienic sanitation facilities. The burden of this problem falls disproportionately on women and girls who literally carry the water for their communities. Our guest this week on Sea Change Radio is Gemma Bulos, the Executive Director and co-founder of an organization that works to solve the problem by empowering women as technicians and community leaders who build and sustain water-access technology.  Bulos explains how the Global Women’s Water Initiative builds capacity, the connection between water access and girls’ education, and the story of how she arrived at this world-changing work.

Meera Subramanian: Resilient Lessons from Hurricane Sandy

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MeeraChrisCannonAs major weather-related calamities like Hurricane Sandy are teaching us, decisions around where buildings are built and trees are planted are important, especially as they relate to the encroaching coastline and other impacts of climate change. This week on Sea Change Radio, we hear from Meera Subramanian, a writer whose recent piece in Orion Magazine explores post-Sandy restoration efforts that draw upon engineering insights from a hundred years ago, and may reach far beyond the shores of Long Island and New Jersey.

Then, we re-visit host Alex Wise’s discussion with Chris Cannon of Empower Playgrounds, an innovative non-profit that provides equipment to West African villages that converts the energy of playing kids into electricity for their families.

Rhett Butler on the Palm Oil Industry (re-broadcast)

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RhettButlerpalmoilThe global expansion of the palm oil industry is one of the largest upheavals in modern agricultural history – and one that many Americans know nothing about. And yet palm oil is now everywhere in this country – in our food, our cosmetics and someday soon maybe even in our gas tanks.

This week on Sea Change Radio, we learn about the palm oil explosion over the past two decades from Rhett A. Butler, the founder of the popular environmental news website, Mongabay. Butler talks with host Alex Wise about the social, economic and environmental impact of this rapidly expanding crop in the tropical countries where it’s grown – and what measures are being taken to mitigate the damage that a monoculture like palm oil can inflict.

Global and Local Generations of Energy

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ChrisCannonAshKalra2How many of us have ever watched the boundless energy of little kids playing and thought, “if only you could capture that energy, you could light up a whole city!” Well, our first guest this week on Sea Change Radio, Chris Cannon, is doing just that – his nonprofit, Empower Playgrounds, taps the kinetic movement of children at play and converts it into usable power in electricity-deprived locales in the West African nation of Ghana.

In the second half of the show we move from the global to the local. Working in California’s third-largest city, and the tenth-largest city in the US, City Councilmember Ash Kalra expends a large portion of his energy ensuring clean air, water and transportation are available in San Jose and the surrounding area for generations to come.

Empowered By Light + California’s Lone Wolf

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MoiraHanesJoeDonnellyToday’s show starts off in Zambia. Worldwide, an estimated 1.5 billion people do not have access to electricity. In Zambia more than 80% of the population has no access to electricity according to the World Bank. It has been shown that providing access to power can be tremendously beneficial to people’s education, their health and their livelihood.

Our first guest on Sea Change Radio this week is Moira Hanes, who describes what her relatively small nonprofit, Empowered By Light, is doing to try to change this big problem, harnessing solar power in sun-drenched areas like sub-Saharan Africa.

Next, we come back to California where, after 80 years of extinction, a lone wolf has appeared in the Golden State. Author Joe Donnelly recounts the tale of California’s lone wolf who wandered in from Oregon and unwittingly raised a controversy between environmental groups who want to protect the possible resurgence of wolves in California, and ranchers and others who don’t.

Rhett Butler on the Palm Oil Industry

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RhettButlerpalmoilThe global expansion of the palm oil industry is one of the largest upheavals in modern agricultural history – and one that many Americans know nothing about. And yet palm oil is now everywhere in this country – in our food, our cosmetics and someday soon maybe even in our gas tanks.

This week on Sea Change Radio, we learn about the palm oil explosion over the past two decades from Rhett A. Butler, the founder of the popular environmental news website, Mongabay. Butler talks with host Alex Wise about the social, economic and environmental impact of this rapidly expanding crop in the tropical countries where it’s grown – and what measures are being taken to mitigate the damage that a monoculture like palm oil can inflict.

Stewards of Other People’s Money… and The Planet

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Socially responsible capitalism – is this an oxymoron? Not according to this week’s guest on Sea Change Radio. Graham Sinclair is a South African sustainable investment consultant and the President of the Africa Sustainable Investment Forum. Money managers like him attract conscientious investors, using the tools of capitalism to pressure corporations to be more socially responsible. Today, Sinclair talks about the past and future of sustainable investing, and what it means for corporations, investors and consumers. Host Alex Wise also discusses with Sinclair the particular importance of socially responsible investment strategies in developing countries.